One of the pleasures of a holiday away is the time to read, and despite a return trip to Old Trafford I found time to get through most of Denis Healey's 'The Time Of My Life' and all of John Prebble's 'The High Girders'.
I'd read Prebble's Scots history primer The Lion In The North, and The Highland Clearances, but had no idea he'd been writing so long - The High Girders was published in 1956, and it's about the collapse of this bridge. Which inspired the Bard of Dundee to pen this - started the day after the disaster, when the news became public in Dundee, and finished the following day.
The bridge collapsed at about 7.20 pm, one hundred and twenty five years ago today.
"On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time."
Prebble's book describes the storm that night, when people could not stand up out of doors, the retired admiral in his house overlooking the bridge, fearful for it, reading his storm books and watching the barometer, the young people sitting in the dark with the curtains open to watch the train cross the bridge and the dawning realisation that it has disappeared half way across.
For me the hero of that night is the locomotive superintendent, Roberts, at the Dundee end of the bridge. The train has not arrived, although he knows it went onto the bridge. Contact has been lost with the box at the far end of the bridge. Realising that something is very wrong, he and the stationmaster set out on their hands and knees, in darkness and a force 10 gale, across a two mile bridge to find out what has happened. One turns back, but Roberts crawls on alone in the dark, feeling his way, until his arms touch space and he finds the thousand yard gap where the bridge had been.
The bridge's designer, Thomas Bouch, was blamed for the collapse by the public enquiry, and died of a broken heart within a year, although there is still debate as to the exact cause of the disaster. Bouch had been due to design the proposed Forth Bridge but was hastily replaced.
The remaining girders were reused when the new Tay Bridge was constructed. The remains of the old bridge can be seen today alongside the new one. The railway engine was also salvaged and worked on land for another thirty years, much loved by her crews and affectionately knon as 'The Diver'.
If you're in the land o'cakes, there's currently a commemorative exhibition in Dundee.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Friday, December 24, 2004
The Indigenous People Of Britain
Are quite well described in this BBC item on the end of the United Nations "Decade For Indigenous People".
"Their land has been taken away, their sustainable use of land dismissed, and their cultures have been denigrated"
"There is a sense of hopelessness about the ability to control our own destiny that leads to social ills so common in indigenous communities, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence"
"They get disconnected from their communities and the environment and many eventually get completely detached from their own indigenous identity"
Indeed. And anyone who isn't detatched is a Nazi.
Merry Christmas ! Blogging will be light to non-existent as I shuttle between London, Old Trafford (treat for the kids, not for me - give me the Victoria Ground any day) and Swansea. Back on New Year's Eve.
"Their land has been taken away, their sustainable use of land dismissed, and their cultures have been denigrated"
"There is a sense of hopelessness about the ability to control our own destiny that leads to social ills so common in indigenous communities, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence"
"They get disconnected from their communities and the environment and many eventually get completely detached from their own indigenous identity"
Indeed. And anyone who isn't detatched is a Nazi.
Merry Christmas ! Blogging will be light to non-existent as I shuttle between London, Old Trafford (treat for the kids, not for me - give me the Victoria Ground any day) and Swansea. Back on New Year's Eve.
Murderers Against Capital Punishment
TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS - Gunmen riddled a Honduran bus with bullets, killing 23 passengers and wounding 16 others in what they called a protest against plans to reintroduce the death penalty.
A police spokesman, Deputy Commissioner Wilmer Torres, the gunmen left a note saying they represented a revolutionary group that opposes plans to reintroduce the death penalty for serious crimes in the country.
The message also threatened politicians who have spoken out against organized crime, including President Maduro.
I imagine Sinn Fein/IRA are against the death penalty too.
A police spokesman, Deputy Commissioner Wilmer Torres, the gunmen left a note saying they represented a revolutionary group that opposes plans to reintroduce the death penalty for serious crimes in the country.
The message also threatened politicians who have spoken out against organized crime, including President Maduro.
I imagine Sinn Fein/IRA are against the death penalty too.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
The Welsh Are Bastards
On current demographic trends, this statement will be true in another thirty years or so.
In 2003, Wales became the first constituent country of the United Kingdom where more than half of births (50.3 per cent) were outside marriage. Northern Ireland had the lowest proportion of births outside marriage (34.4 per cent), while in the United Kingdom as a whole 41.5 per cent of births were outside marriage.
The area of England with the lowest bastardy rate ? Swinging London (34.5%), where the large Asian and African (though not Caribbean) immigrant communities frown on illegitimacy. And the highest rate in England ? The hideously white North-East at 53.5%.
The graph on page 73 shows illegitimacy, after falling in the late 60s and early 70s (probably due to the advent of the contraceptive pill) rocketing in the Thatcher years, doubling between about 1983-1988. By the mid-1980s the working class were increasingly fragmenting, the underclass was burgeoning, and the song which reflected the traditional working class view of bastardy ceased to be heard on the football terraces of England.
Who's your father
Who's your father
Who's your father referee?
You ain't got one
You ain't lost one
You're a bastard, referee
In 2003, Wales became the first constituent country of the United Kingdom where more than half of births (50.3 per cent) were outside marriage. Northern Ireland had the lowest proportion of births outside marriage (34.4 per cent), while in the United Kingdom as a whole 41.5 per cent of births were outside marriage.
The area of England with the lowest bastardy rate ? Swinging London (34.5%), where the large Asian and African (though not Caribbean) immigrant communities frown on illegitimacy. And the highest rate in England ? The hideously white North-East at 53.5%.
The graph on page 73 shows illegitimacy, after falling in the late 60s and early 70s (probably due to the advent of the contraceptive pill) rocketing in the Thatcher years, doubling between about 1983-1988. By the mid-1980s the working class were increasingly fragmenting, the underclass was burgeoning, and the song which reflected the traditional working class view of bastardy ceased to be heard on the football terraces of England.
Who's your father
Who's your father
Who's your father referee?
You ain't got one
You ain't lost one
You're a bastard, referee
The Writing On The Wall
"30somethings lead a baby boom" trumpeted the Times last week, in an upbeat piece celebrating a 4.3% rise in the number of babies born in England and Wales in 2003. At last, a change in the profile of our ageing population ! Maybe we won't have to work till we drop to pay all those index-linked public sector pensions.
But the really important information was half way down the item.
The figures, published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics, show that the proportion of older mothers would be even higher if not for growing numbers of births to immigrants, who tend to start their families much younger. Births to mothers born outside the UK accounted for nearly a fifth of all births in 2003, more than 50 per cent higher than the proportion ten years earlier. The increase was due entirely to a rise in births among immigrant women aged under 35.
The full ONS report is here.
Think about it. In England, one baby in 5 (19.2%) born last year was born to a mother who was not herself born in the United Kingdom. When you consider the number of second and third-generation immigrants (from whatever country) living here, forecasts that the Native Brits will be a minority by the end of the century start to look conservative.
In London, according to the Independent newspaper, 43% of all school children are non-white (note - it's not skin colour but culture which is important - so immigration from Albania, for example, is probably more problematic than immigration from India, a country with which we have many shared cultural links). Given recent large-scale immigration from Eastern Europe, Native British schoolchildren are almost certainly already a minority in London schools.
47.3% of 2003 births in London were to mothers born outside the UK (p74). The NUT will soon have a new minority to worry about.
Way back in the early Eighties when Mrs Thatcher talked about being 'swamped by people of a different culture', she was attacked on the grounds that the number of immigrants was a tiny percentage of the UK population. Nowadays the tone has changed from 'we're a tiny minority' to 'there are a lot of us, so you'd better take us into account'. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to say - I merely illustrate how the terms of the debate have changed.
There is a politically honourable (though IMHO practically idiotic) position on immigration - namely that any attempt to restrict it is inherently racist, and that anyone who can afford the fare is entitled to live here. For those who take this view, the numbers are irrelevant, although strangely the same rules don't seem to apply, for example, to Jews living in the West Bank.
This may be the view of Her Majesty's Government. But if so they're remarkably shy about articulating it.
Others continue to worry at the numbers. There's a real split on the left between the 'figures are overstated' response (which implies that were they true or understated there WOULD be something to worry about) and the 'it doesn't matter what the figures are' response.
David Aaronovitch criticises the "melange of questionable statistics, assertions dressed as facts and straightforward scapegoating cranked out by Migration Watch UK and its main scribbler, Anthony Browne", and attacks the 'lies, damned lies' of the anti-immigration lobby. Yet when you read the pieces, he doesn't actually rebut anything, presenting the arguments of Migrationwatch as if they are self-evidently incorrect.
In this context an internal Government email is revealing.
"Can we stop saying that Migrationwatch forecasts are wrong . . . Migrationwatch assumptions are often below the Government Actuary's Department high migration variant."
Which brings me onto our old friends the BNP, and the stir created by a recent Searchlight article.
The vast majority of BNP candidates will be in Labour constituencies, an indication of where the fascists’ support is beginning to emerge and solidify. Searchlight has long argued that traditional Conservative voters have been the first to switch to the BNP in local elections, largely as a means to keep Labour out or as an anti-Asian protest, but this vote is soft and returns to the Conservative Party or goes elsewhere in national elections. The BNP support among traditional Labour voters is firmer and is an indication that sections of the working class are breaking with their traditional loyalties. These voters tend to be less embarrassed by the overt racism of the BNP while finding its anti-capitalist rhetoric appealing. It is also clear that many BNP voters, especially the young, have never voted for another party in their lives or have not done so for many years.
I have argued before that New Labour, and the UK left in general, having given up on Clause Four, is implementing the agenda of the 1970s student union, the politics of race, gender, sexuality - none of which have great appeal for the remnants of the British working class.
The coming change in the makeup of the English population is unprecedented. As the Observer said, "It would be the first time in history that a major indigenous population has voluntarily become a minority, rather than through war, famine or disease." I feel that though we may be able to avoid war, famine and disease, the chances of British politics splitting on racial lines are very high, with perhaps Fiji as a model for the future. The only real question is at what percentage level of non-Native Brit population the change to racial politics will occur. Given the large birthrate differentials between immigrants and Native Brits, it's quite possible that it will occur well beyond the point at which political action will be able to prevent minority status occurring. After all, 20% of the new voters in 2021, and half the new voters in London, will have mothers born abroad, and nothing can change that.
So arresting BNP members, Guardian exposes, BBC undercover documentaries, forced multiculturalism in schools are in the long term ineffective. Unless some kind of leftist police state comes into being.
Interesting times for my children. Where's that New Zealand Consulate phone number again ?
But the really important information was half way down the item.
The figures, published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics, show that the proportion of older mothers would be even higher if not for growing numbers of births to immigrants, who tend to start their families much younger. Births to mothers born outside the UK accounted for nearly a fifth of all births in 2003, more than 50 per cent higher than the proportion ten years earlier. The increase was due entirely to a rise in births among immigrant women aged under 35.
The full ONS report is here.
Think about it. In England, one baby in 5 (19.2%) born last year was born to a mother who was not herself born in the United Kingdom. When you consider the number of second and third-generation immigrants (from whatever country) living here, forecasts that the Native Brits will be a minority by the end of the century start to look conservative.
In London, according to the Independent newspaper, 43% of all school children are non-white (note - it's not skin colour but culture which is important - so immigration from Albania, for example, is probably more problematic than immigration from India, a country with which we have many shared cultural links). Given recent large-scale immigration from Eastern Europe, Native British schoolchildren are almost certainly already a minority in London schools.
47.3% of 2003 births in London were to mothers born outside the UK (p74). The NUT will soon have a new minority to worry about.
Way back in the early Eighties when Mrs Thatcher talked about being 'swamped by people of a different culture', she was attacked on the grounds that the number of immigrants was a tiny percentage of the UK population. Nowadays the tone has changed from 'we're a tiny minority' to 'there are a lot of us, so you'd better take us into account'. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to say - I merely illustrate how the terms of the debate have changed.
There is a politically honourable (though IMHO practically idiotic) position on immigration - namely that any attempt to restrict it is inherently racist, and that anyone who can afford the fare is entitled to live here. For those who take this view, the numbers are irrelevant, although strangely the same rules don't seem to apply, for example, to Jews living in the West Bank.
This may be the view of Her Majesty's Government. But if so they're remarkably shy about articulating it.
Others continue to worry at the numbers. There's a real split on the left between the 'figures are overstated' response (which implies that were they true or understated there WOULD be something to worry about) and the 'it doesn't matter what the figures are' response.
David Aaronovitch criticises the "melange of questionable statistics, assertions dressed as facts and straightforward scapegoating cranked out by Migration Watch UK and its main scribbler, Anthony Browne", and attacks the 'lies, damned lies' of the anti-immigration lobby. Yet when you read the pieces, he doesn't actually rebut anything, presenting the arguments of Migrationwatch as if they are self-evidently incorrect.
In this context an internal Government email is revealing.
"Can we stop saying that Migrationwatch forecasts are wrong . . . Migrationwatch assumptions are often below the Government Actuary's Department high migration variant."
Which brings me onto our old friends the BNP, and the stir created by a recent Searchlight article.
The vast majority of BNP candidates will be in Labour constituencies, an indication of where the fascists’ support is beginning to emerge and solidify. Searchlight has long argued that traditional Conservative voters have been the first to switch to the BNP in local elections, largely as a means to keep Labour out or as an anti-Asian protest, but this vote is soft and returns to the Conservative Party or goes elsewhere in national elections. The BNP support among traditional Labour voters is firmer and is an indication that sections of the working class are breaking with their traditional loyalties. These voters tend to be less embarrassed by the overt racism of the BNP while finding its anti-capitalist rhetoric appealing. It is also clear that many BNP voters, especially the young, have never voted for another party in their lives or have not done so for many years.
I have argued before that New Labour, and the UK left in general, having given up on Clause Four, is implementing the agenda of the 1970s student union, the politics of race, gender, sexuality - none of which have great appeal for the remnants of the British working class.
The coming change in the makeup of the English population is unprecedented. As the Observer said, "It would be the first time in history that a major indigenous population has voluntarily become a minority, rather than through war, famine or disease." I feel that though we may be able to avoid war, famine and disease, the chances of British politics splitting on racial lines are very high, with perhaps Fiji as a model for the future. The only real question is at what percentage level of non-Native Brit population the change to racial politics will occur. Given the large birthrate differentials between immigrants and Native Brits, it's quite possible that it will occur well beyond the point at which political action will be able to prevent minority status occurring. After all, 20% of the new voters in 2021, and half the new voters in London, will have mothers born abroad, and nothing can change that.
So arresting BNP members, Guardian exposes, BBC undercover documentaries, forced multiculturalism in schools are in the long term ineffective. Unless some kind of leftist police state comes into being.
Interesting times for my children. Where's that New Zealand Consulate phone number again ?
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
New Blogs In Heaven Tonight
Well on my blogroll, anyway, in no particular order ...
Militant Moderate - who, along with three quarters of the blogging world, isn't impressed with the Tory stand (or lack of) on ID cards.
Mugged By Reality - does exactly what it says on the tin. Good stuff if you don't mind a fair sprinkling of clubbing/party reminiscence. Which I don't. Mind you, as an old man I'd say this was well out of order. But confession purges the soul and after repentance comes salvation ...
What's That Smell ? - I think the word for this is eclectic.
And After Grog Blog - some witty stuff here. I think Norman Geras would appreciate a post which begins:
"I wonder how often Martin Flanagan saw Robert Louis Stevenson bounding in from the Kirkstall Lane End."
Lastly - it's not a new blog, but for all round coverage of the Scottish Regiments disaster and a lot of other things, Cabarfeadh is your one-stop blogging shop. Lots of good stuff, not all on military matters.
More parochially, among the casualties of Hoon's Howler are the Glorious Glosters, the regiment of this man.
Militant Moderate - who, along with three quarters of the blogging world, isn't impressed with the Tory stand (or lack of) on ID cards.
Mugged By Reality - does exactly what it says on the tin. Good stuff if you don't mind a fair sprinkling of clubbing/party reminiscence. Which I don't. Mind you, as an old man I'd say this was well out of order. But confession purges the soul and after repentance comes salvation ...
What's That Smell ? - I think the word for this is eclectic.
And After Grog Blog - some witty stuff here. I think Norman Geras would appreciate a post which begins:
"I wonder how often Martin Flanagan saw Robert Louis Stevenson bounding in from the Kirkstall Lane End."
Lastly - it's not a new blog, but for all round coverage of the Scottish Regiments disaster and a lot of other things, Cabarfeadh is your one-stop blogging shop. Lots of good stuff, not all on military matters.
More parochially, among the casualties of Hoon's Howler are the Glorious Glosters, the regiment of this man.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Three Great Posts
Difficult to find the time for major posts, what with wrapping, shopping and the odd party - but what need when you can sit back and see people saying just the things you'd want to say, given time, knowledge and writing ability.
Tim Worstall brilliantly takes apart the caring Dutch, who now deliberately kill 4-5,000 old or sick people in their hospitals each year, quite apart from the babies. From 'post-natal abortion', through the killing of the old, to the UK where you must provide ramps for the disabled but can kill a baby for a cleft palate, he hits every target.
Euthanasia has been practised for 10 years in the Netherlands, the first country in the world to legalise the practice, and now accounts for 4-5,000 deaths a year, 3.5% of the national death rate.
Huh? This ever so rare proceedure, one to be used only in extremis, in the most difficult cases, now means that for the poor benighted Dutch they have a 1 in 30 chance of being murdered in their sick beds? This is an advance in civilisation in exactly what manner? With these numbers would you want to be placed in an old people’s ward in that country? It is of course absolute proof that there is no validity to the slippery slope argument, no, none at all.
The practice is severely circumscribed and tightly regulated.
I believe this is known as gallows humour.
Melanie Phillips takes apart the Law Lords judgement on the Belmarsh 'detainees' (who are of course free to leave the UK at any time), focusing particularly on the bizarre theory that the law cannot discriminate between UK and foreign nationals - I believe we still have, for example, residence and immigration laws which (in theory at any rate) explicitly discriminate, and on Lord Hoffman's apparent ability, in his own eyes at least, to judge terrorist threats better than the elected Home Secretary.
And I urge anyone with an interest in the UK Criminal Justice system to read Norman Dennis at the Civitas blog, currently posting up a storm on Blunkett, the myth of "falling crime", and the claim that Jack Straw had left the Home Office "in a mess".
In the first eleven months of 2004, the year of Mr Blunkett's departure, with December's figure of about 2,500 still to be added in, there have been 33,673 personal-property robberies in London--with December included, not fewer than 36,000 for the full year.
Thus Mr Blunkett has not succeeded in getting the figures back even to the 35,709 personal-property robberies of 2000. Mr Blunkett was all the further, of course, from getting back to the figure with which Mr Straw began, the 27,000 of 1997, which included business robberies as well.
Robberies of personal property in London is a good figure to take. The Home Office is directly responsible for London's policing. There's been no significant change in how it robbery is defined. The category of "robberies" has hardly affected by changes in recording practices by the police. The British Crime Survey has too few cases of robbery for it to be of much use, so the Home Office uses the police figures. The figures are right up to date, so officials and ministers cannot claim that things have (unprovably) improved since the figures were collected
For all these reasons, the usual slipping and sliding between one set of figures and another is not possible here.
On the assumption that the December 2004 figure will be very low at 2,500, robberies in London would have fallen from 48,000 in 2001 to 36,000 in 2004.
But as late as 1990 there weren't as many as 36,000 robberies in the whole of England and Wales!
Taking the generous and hopeful estimate I suggested above--that the figure for London for December 2004 might be only 2,500--as late as 1961 there weren't as many as 2,500 robberies a year in the whole of England and Wales.
In the year David Blunkett became Home Secretary, 2001, there were 5,900 robberies in Lambeth alone. The national figure for robberies did not exceed 5,900 until 1969.
It is scarcely an occasion for popular celebration when the figure for Lambeth alone in the first 11 months of this year is 2,419. For this is more than the national figure of robberies for the full twelve months of 1961, 2,349, just before the cultural revolution began to shower its blessings upon us.
No the wonder people "fear" that crime is growing. People would have had to be extremely stupid not to come to fear crime. The stupid thing is to say that the fear of crime is "as much the problem" as crime itself.
Tim Worstall brilliantly takes apart the caring Dutch, who now deliberately kill 4-5,000 old or sick people in their hospitals each year, quite apart from the babies. From 'post-natal abortion', through the killing of the old, to the UK where you must provide ramps for the disabled but can kill a baby for a cleft palate, he hits every target.
Euthanasia has been practised for 10 years in the Netherlands, the first country in the world to legalise the practice, and now accounts for 4-5,000 deaths a year, 3.5% of the national death rate.
Huh? This ever so rare proceedure, one to be used only in extremis, in the most difficult cases, now means that for the poor benighted Dutch they have a 1 in 30 chance of being murdered in their sick beds? This is an advance in civilisation in exactly what manner? With these numbers would you want to be placed in an old people’s ward in that country? It is of course absolute proof that there is no validity to the slippery slope argument, no, none at all.
The practice is severely circumscribed and tightly regulated.
I believe this is known as gallows humour.
Melanie Phillips takes apart the Law Lords judgement on the Belmarsh 'detainees' (who are of course free to leave the UK at any time), focusing particularly on the bizarre theory that the law cannot discriminate between UK and foreign nationals - I believe we still have, for example, residence and immigration laws which (in theory at any rate) explicitly discriminate, and on Lord Hoffman's apparent ability, in his own eyes at least, to judge terrorist threats better than the elected Home Secretary.
And I urge anyone with an interest in the UK Criminal Justice system to read Norman Dennis at the Civitas blog, currently posting up a storm on Blunkett, the myth of "falling crime", and the claim that Jack Straw had left the Home Office "in a mess".
In the first eleven months of 2004, the year of Mr Blunkett's departure, with December's figure of about 2,500 still to be added in, there have been 33,673 personal-property robberies in London--with December included, not fewer than 36,000 for the full year.
Thus Mr Blunkett has not succeeded in getting the figures back even to the 35,709 personal-property robberies of 2000. Mr Blunkett was all the further, of course, from getting back to the figure with which Mr Straw began, the 27,000 of 1997, which included business robberies as well.
Robberies of personal property in London is a good figure to take. The Home Office is directly responsible for London's policing. There's been no significant change in how it robbery is defined. The category of "robberies" has hardly affected by changes in recording practices by the police. The British Crime Survey has too few cases of robbery for it to be of much use, so the Home Office uses the police figures. The figures are right up to date, so officials and ministers cannot claim that things have (unprovably) improved since the figures were collected
For all these reasons, the usual slipping and sliding between one set of figures and another is not possible here.
On the assumption that the December 2004 figure will be very low at 2,500, robberies in London would have fallen from 48,000 in 2001 to 36,000 in 2004.
But as late as 1990 there weren't as many as 36,000 robberies in the whole of England and Wales!
Taking the generous and hopeful estimate I suggested above--that the figure for London for December 2004 might be only 2,500--as late as 1961 there weren't as many as 2,500 robberies a year in the whole of England and Wales.
In the year David Blunkett became Home Secretary, 2001, there were 5,900 robberies in Lambeth alone. The national figure for robberies did not exceed 5,900 until 1969.
It is scarcely an occasion for popular celebration when the figure for Lambeth alone in the first 11 months of this year is 2,419. For this is more than the national figure of robberies for the full twelve months of 1961, 2,349, just before the cultural revolution began to shower its blessings upon us.
No the wonder people "fear" that crime is growing. People would have had to be extremely stupid not to come to fear crime. The stupid thing is to say that the fear of crime is "as much the problem" as crime itself.
Don't Smack Them, Drug Them - Part II
Scotland is the part of Britain which is closest to one of the two dreams of the children's liberation lobby - the removal of a parent's right to discipline their own child.
By happy chance it also has increasing misbehaviour in schools - and a tenfold rise in Ritalin prescriptions to children in the last seven years.
Children are no longer badly behaved - now they 'suffer' from "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which causes (my italics) hyperactivity in children."
The other dream of the children's liberation lobby ? Well, children should have all the rights of adults. Work it out for yourself. Hint - there may be a motive involved. The children's liberation lobby (NCH, Barnados, NSPCC, who support policies which would horrify their founders, such as the lowering of the age of consent for homosexual acts to 16 and the abolition of Section 28) are also the people who are most excercised by internet child pornography. Projection, anyone ?
By happy chance it also has increasing misbehaviour in schools - and a tenfold rise in Ritalin prescriptions to children in the last seven years.
Children are no longer badly behaved - now they 'suffer' from "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which causes (my italics) hyperactivity in children."
The other dream of the children's liberation lobby ? Well, children should have all the rights of adults. Work it out for yourself. Hint - there may be a motive involved. The children's liberation lobby (NCH, Barnados, NSPCC, who support policies which would horrify their founders, such as the lowering of the age of consent for homosexual acts to 16 and the abolition of Section 28) are also the people who are most excercised by internet child pornography. Projection, anyone ?
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Two Plays
One play produces protests which get no publicity and the play goes ahead.
The other produces violent protests which get lots of publicity, and the play is stopped.
Violence seems in this case to work quite well. It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out. Will we see Harold Pinter and co lining up to defend free expression against the 'religious right' ? Will the Guardian and U75 talkboards resound with condemnation of the protesters ? Don't hold your breath.
I'm presuming that no-one in Birmingham is planning to dramatise this story in the near future.
The other produces violent protests which get lots of publicity, and the play is stopped.
Violence seems in this case to work quite well. It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out. Will we see Harold Pinter and co lining up to defend free expression against the 'religious right' ? Will the Guardian and U75 talkboards resound with condemnation of the protesters ? Don't hold your breath.
I'm presuming that no-one in Birmingham is planning to dramatise this story in the near future.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
BBC Bias - A Random Selection
Short of blogging time - a few notes made in December 2001, when I was posting to the Evening Standard boards.
20/12/2001
Have the BBC learned anything from the last 3 months ?
Not if its recent coverage is anything to go by. A couple of nights ago BBC2 featured a documentary by Bonnie Greer, who started by saying what a patriot she was (she left the US for Britain some years ago) before trawling her immediate family (who to a man or woman thought 'the chickens were coming home to roost') then various Chicagoans for their views. She nodded wisely when people said 'what goes round, comes round', but those who, like the solemn 10 year old boy, said 'these people should be put to death' were pointed out as examples of US 'insularity' and lack of empathy with the Muslim world.
The whole program gave the air of having been put together in that time (it seems so long ago now) when the 'liberal' left was preparing for a global wave of anti-Americanism to be unleashed by the military blunderings of the cowboy in the White House. Markets were crashing, dire predictions were being made of 'another Vietnam', and America was being told to try and work out just why the whole world hated it.
And tonight on Radio 4 news the coverage of Yemen seems to have gone straight back to early October in its defeatism - just substitute 'Yemen' for 'Afghanistan' and rebroadcast. Some polytechnic lecturer was wheeled out to explain why Yemen was so much trickier than Afghanistan for any kind of intervention. Apparently the Yemenis are 'xenophobic' and 'resent foreign armed forces'. And the Brits left 'with their tails between their legs' in 1967. But that's just what they said about the Afghans. And in 1967 I'm pretty sure more than one survivor got back, unlike 1842 when we lost 12,000 (admittedly 9,000 of those were civilians, victims of 'collateral' killing by Robert Fisk's mates).
St George's Day, 2001
Billy Bragg is chosen by 'The World Tonight' as their (sole) guest to discuss 'Englishness'.
March 2002
The Long View - Was Drake a Terrorist ? With Tariq Ali.
Drake equated with Osama Bin Laden.
13/3/2002
'Dumbing Down of BBC' discussion on 'P.M.'. Two guests chosen - Tariq Ali and Bob Holman (the Holy Fool of Easterhouse).
14/03/2002 - World At One
Ann Sloman, BBC political head, discussing the Appeal Court decision against the BBC (re pro-life alliance election broadcast censorship) "There is no liberal elite".
28/5/02 – James Naughtie on R4 “Today” (discussing a Ms Amos' imprisonment for not sending her children to school)
“Her daughters say, surprisingly, (my italics) that prison works ..”
(Interviewing Estelle Morris, Education minister) “We know there are too many women in prison who shouldn’t be there (no response from EM) ... are you saying that prison works ?”
Ms Morris “Yes ...”
19/6/02 – John Humphrys interviewing Ivan Massow on ‘On The Ropes’
H - “are you still a Labour Party member ?”
Massow – “I’m really not sure – I may still be paying the fees .... do you pay by direct debit ?”
Humphrys (seemingly flustered) – “I – I can’t answer that one”
October 2002
BBC R4 Social Affairs correspondent Rita Chakrabati describes the late Baroness Young as ‘a campaigner for so-called ‘family values’’.
Why is Stephen Lawrence always described on R4 news bulletins as “the black teenager Stephen Lawrence”, when Philip Lawrence is not described as ‘the white headmaster’ and Damilola Taylor is not ‘the black schoolboy’ ?
BBC news does not present news as such, but rather events are selectively used to illustrate an ongoing global morality play where the heroes and villains are well known.
Nationalist rioters in N.I. were reported as ‘venting their anger’ after the release of the jailed paratrooper Stephen Clegg ...
Classic example is the reporting of the Indonesian riots preceding the fall of the Suharto regime in May 1998. Those burning cars and buildings in Jakarta were described in bulletins as ‘protesters’ and ‘demonstrators’, and one R4 bulletin described ‘demonstrators’ burning and looting, observing that ‘Chinese areas were particularly targeted’. A remarkably restrained description of racist mob violence, and one which it is impossible to imagine the BBC using if the rioters were, say, white Britons. As reports over the next few days pointed to continuous anti-Chinese violence including mass rape, the tone of reporting changed and the ‘demonstrators’ became ‘rioters’ – which of course they had been from the start.
20/12/2001
Have the BBC learned anything from the last 3 months ?
Not if its recent coverage is anything to go by. A couple of nights ago BBC2 featured a documentary by Bonnie Greer, who started by saying what a patriot she was (she left the US for Britain some years ago) before trawling her immediate family (who to a man or woman thought 'the chickens were coming home to roost') then various Chicagoans for their views. She nodded wisely when people said 'what goes round, comes round', but those who, like the solemn 10 year old boy, said 'these people should be put to death' were pointed out as examples of US 'insularity' and lack of empathy with the Muslim world.
The whole program gave the air of having been put together in that time (it seems so long ago now) when the 'liberal' left was preparing for a global wave of anti-Americanism to be unleashed by the military blunderings of the cowboy in the White House. Markets were crashing, dire predictions were being made of 'another Vietnam', and America was being told to try and work out just why the whole world hated it.
And tonight on Radio 4 news the coverage of Yemen seems to have gone straight back to early October in its defeatism - just substitute 'Yemen' for 'Afghanistan' and rebroadcast. Some polytechnic lecturer was wheeled out to explain why Yemen was so much trickier than Afghanistan for any kind of intervention. Apparently the Yemenis are 'xenophobic' and 'resent foreign armed forces'. And the Brits left 'with their tails between their legs' in 1967. But that's just what they said about the Afghans. And in 1967 I'm pretty sure more than one survivor got back, unlike 1842 when we lost 12,000 (admittedly 9,000 of those were civilians, victims of 'collateral' killing by Robert Fisk's mates).
St George's Day, 2001
Billy Bragg is chosen by 'The World Tonight' as their (sole) guest to discuss 'Englishness'.
March 2002
The Long View - Was Drake a Terrorist ? With Tariq Ali.
Drake equated with Osama Bin Laden.
13/3/2002
'Dumbing Down of BBC' discussion on 'P.M.'. Two guests chosen - Tariq Ali and Bob Holman (the Holy Fool of Easterhouse).
14/03/2002 - World At One
Ann Sloman, BBC political head, discussing the Appeal Court decision against the BBC (re pro-life alliance election broadcast censorship) "There is no liberal elite".
28/5/02 – James Naughtie on R4 “Today” (discussing a Ms Amos' imprisonment for not sending her children to school)
“Her daughters say, surprisingly, (my italics) that prison works ..”
(Interviewing Estelle Morris, Education minister) “We know there are too many women in prison who shouldn’t be there (no response from EM) ... are you saying that prison works ?”
Ms Morris “Yes ...”
19/6/02 – John Humphrys interviewing Ivan Massow on ‘On The Ropes’
H - “are you still a Labour Party member ?”
Massow – “I’m really not sure – I may still be paying the fees .... do you pay by direct debit ?”
Humphrys (seemingly flustered) – “I – I can’t answer that one”
October 2002
BBC R4 Social Affairs correspondent Rita Chakrabati describes the late Baroness Young as ‘a campaigner for so-called ‘family values’’.
Why is Stephen Lawrence always described on R4 news bulletins as “the black teenager Stephen Lawrence”, when Philip Lawrence is not described as ‘the white headmaster’ and Damilola Taylor is not ‘the black schoolboy’ ?
BBC news does not present news as such, but rather events are selectively used to illustrate an ongoing global morality play where the heroes and villains are well known.
Nationalist rioters in N.I. were reported as ‘venting their anger’ after the release of the jailed paratrooper Stephen Clegg ...
Classic example is the reporting of the Indonesian riots preceding the fall of the Suharto regime in May 1998. Those burning cars and buildings in Jakarta were described in bulletins as ‘protesters’ and ‘demonstrators’, and one R4 bulletin described ‘demonstrators’ burning and looting, observing that ‘Chinese areas were particularly targeted’. A remarkably restrained description of racist mob violence, and one which it is impossible to imagine the BBC using if the rioters were, say, white Britons. As reports over the next few days pointed to continuous anti-Chinese violence including mass rape, the tone of reporting changed and the ‘demonstrators’ became ‘rioters’ – which of course they had been from the start.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Scott Petersen Verdict - Liberal Larry Speaks
Laci Peterson's death was tragic, but let's be realistic. We can all feign shock and horror over the thought of a mangled fetus being picked at by crabs on the beach, but it doesn't change the fact that if abortion were safe, legal, and mandatory, Laci Petersen would be alive today.
I liked the comment from the National Organisation of Women, which should be a big poster on every ante-natal clinic wall.
"... despite all the joy that pregnancy can bring to a relationship, expectant mothers aren't necessarily spared the danger of being slain."
I liked the comment from the National Organisation of Women, which should be a big poster on every ante-natal clinic wall.
"... despite all the joy that pregnancy can bring to a relationship, expectant mothers aren't necessarily spared the danger of being slain."
An Early Christmas Gift
It's a while since I've visited the Civitas blog, and I'm delighted to see that Norman Dennis, author of (among many other things) Families Without Fatherhood (available free at the site) and The Invention of Permanent Poverty, is blogging and commenting on the Blunkett brouhaha.
He's that rare kind of modern socialist who believes, as I do, that morality and personal conduct is important in politics. Frank Field is another. The IWCA might also be said to fall into this category.
Anyone who talks about morality is automatically (these days) put in a box marked 'the Right', but I believe morality is politically pretty neutral.
A non-moral Left gives you people who can explain (or support, or commit) killing, stealing, or even mass murder as an inevitable consequence of 'oppression'. A non-moral capitalist Right gives you Berry Birch and Noble, Alan Duncan or Mr Cohen's ways with the Courts pension fund.
"Howard Cohen, a former director of Courts, transferred £3.9m out of the company's pension fund and into a personal scheme just eight months before the furniture retailer collapsed into administration, the Sunday Times reports today. The Courts pension fund has a deficit of at least £14m".
He's that rare kind of modern socialist who believes, as I do, that morality and personal conduct is important in politics. Frank Field is another. The IWCA might also be said to fall into this category.
Anyone who talks about morality is automatically (these days) put in a box marked 'the Right', but I believe morality is politically pretty neutral.
A non-moral Left gives you people who can explain (or support, or commit) killing, stealing, or even mass murder as an inevitable consequence of 'oppression'. A non-moral capitalist Right gives you Berry Birch and Noble, Alan Duncan or Mr Cohen's ways with the Courts pension fund.
"Howard Cohen, a former director of Courts, transferred £3.9m out of the company's pension fund and into a personal scheme just eight months before the furniture retailer collapsed into administration, the Sunday Times reports today. The Courts pension fund has a deficit of at least £14m".
Fathers 4 Justice
Seem to have a new recruit.
"The words "my baby son", "holding my son", and "love for my little boy" were prominent as he spoke of the emotional turmoil he has been through."
Though I'm no fan of the man who accelerated mass immigration and blinked, like his predecessor, when it came to the necessary task of building new prisons (finding he then he had to start letting the burglars out), it's impossible not to feel for him as a human being.
"What sort of human being, what sort of politician do people want? [Someone] who would actually put their career, put their public persona before actually doing what a decent human being would want to do?"
Well, up to a point. I imagine Mr Blunketts grandparents, or the founders of Labour, or the socialists who toiled by day at the furnaces and rolling mills and built the Sheffield Labour movement, the educational associations, the libraries, clubs and discussion groups once such a vital part of working-class culture, would not consider an affair with a woman only a few months into her marriage a decent thing to do. You'd have found eighty years ago that people weren't speaking to you.
In the modern Labour movement not aborting the child puts you on the moral high ground.
"The words "my baby son", "holding my son", and "love for my little boy" were prominent as he spoke of the emotional turmoil he has been through."
Though I'm no fan of the man who accelerated mass immigration and blinked, like his predecessor, when it came to the necessary task of building new prisons (finding he then he had to start letting the burglars out), it's impossible not to feel for him as a human being.
"What sort of human being, what sort of politician do people want? [Someone] who would actually put their career, put their public persona before actually doing what a decent human being would want to do?"
Well, up to a point. I imagine Mr Blunketts grandparents, or the founders of Labour, or the socialists who toiled by day at the furnaces and rolling mills and built the Sheffield Labour movement, the educational associations, the libraries, clubs and discussion groups once such a vital part of working-class culture, would not consider an affair with a woman only a few months into her marriage a decent thing to do. You'd have found eighty years ago that people weren't speaking to you.
In the modern Labour movement not aborting the child puts you on the moral high ground.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
"Politics In Germany Are Not As They Are Over Here..."
There you do not leave office to go into opposition. You do not leave the Front Bench to sit below the gangway. You may well leave your high office at a quarter of an hour's notice to drive to the police station, and you may be conducted thereafter very rapidly to an even graver ordeal.
Winston Churchill, House of Commons, July 13 1934.
It could never have happened here, of course.
Winston Churchill, House of Commons, July 13 1934.
It could never have happened here, of course.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Monday, December 13, 2004
School Discipline - Governors Strike Back
OK, so the little darlings are hospitalising and raping teachers. But when a 10 year old in Ashton-under-Lyne dismantled a pencil sharpener and used the blade to slash the neck of a classmate, school governors took decisive action.
The child was suspended for two whole days.
And pencil sharpeners have been banned from the school.
The child was suspended for two whole days.
And pencil sharpeners have been banned from the school.
Nationalising Children
Stuart Wavell in the Sunday Times reports on the annual Sure Start conference, chaired by Polly 'the nanny state is the good state' Toynbee.
He quotes Patricia Morgan
.. there is no doubt that a 1960s agenda is in play. “There is a feminist drive to get every woman in the workforce full-time and get equal outcomes between men and women, irrespective of what people want.”
She goes one stage further than Kirby by suggesting that the government’s policies are consistent with the eradication of marriage. “Women must be self-sufficient, with a huge subsidy, independent of men. Attention is given to the parent-child relationship rather than the relationship between the adults. The belief is that you can have what is called ‘peripatetic partnering’, where people move in and out of partnerships but the parental relationship stays the same and the children are largely reared by the state.”
I think that's correct, but Jill Kirby of the Centre For Policy Studies makes an important point.
Kirby believes that the government’s underlying concern is with getting dependent lone parents back to work and letting the state raise their children. Its assertion that everyone needs parenting help is aimed at catching these problem families, Kirby maintains.
I put this point to Hodge, quoting the words of Stephen Ladyman, the under-secretary for community, who told the conference how important it was to identify excluded families and “drag them in and make them feel included”.
The anti-family movement, whose most prominent representatives are three wealthy upper-middle class women, Jowell, Harman (bad luck, Harriet, you nearly got him jailed) and Hodge, see in Britain's underclass the perfect recruits for state rearing. After all, many underclass parents don't 'raise' their children in any meaningful sense anyway - so no one will object if the State takes on the task.
As Polly says "As for the moral panickers, if they want to avoid future generations of scary youth, they should urge higher taxes to pay the state to become the best possible nanny to all babies."
Everybody's happy. Chav parents get the child benefits and the free accommodation without even having to pretend to raise their offspring, the State and the social-workers get lots of tinies to try out their theories on. And Joe Public gets to pay for the whole thing.
He quotes Patricia Morgan
.. there is no doubt that a 1960s agenda is in play. “There is a feminist drive to get every woman in the workforce full-time and get equal outcomes between men and women, irrespective of what people want.”
She goes one stage further than Kirby by suggesting that the government’s policies are consistent with the eradication of marriage. “Women must be self-sufficient, with a huge subsidy, independent of men. Attention is given to the parent-child relationship rather than the relationship between the adults. The belief is that you can have what is called ‘peripatetic partnering’, where people move in and out of partnerships but the parental relationship stays the same and the children are largely reared by the state.”
I think that's correct, but Jill Kirby of the Centre For Policy Studies makes an important point.
Kirby believes that the government’s underlying concern is with getting dependent lone parents back to work and letting the state raise their children. Its assertion that everyone needs parenting help is aimed at catching these problem families, Kirby maintains.
I put this point to Hodge, quoting the words of Stephen Ladyman, the under-secretary for community, who told the conference how important it was to identify excluded families and “drag them in and make them feel included”.
The anti-family movement, whose most prominent representatives are three wealthy upper-middle class women, Jowell, Harman (bad luck, Harriet, you nearly got him jailed) and Hodge, see in Britain's underclass the perfect recruits for state rearing. After all, many underclass parents don't 'raise' their children in any meaningful sense anyway - so no one will object if the State takes on the task.
As Polly says "As for the moral panickers, if they want to avoid future generations of scary youth, they should urge higher taxes to pay the state to become the best possible nanny to all babies."
Everybody's happy. Chav parents get the child benefits and the free accommodation without even having to pretend to raise their offspring, the State and the social-workers get lots of tinies to try out their theories on. And Joe Public gets to pay for the whole thing.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
School Discipline Part 47
A week or so back we had the eight-year old hospitalising his head teacher. Now this.
We obviously need more of this.
We obviously need more of this.
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