Fron The Irish Left - Dail member Michael D. Higgins ('the leader of undergraduate, anti-American politics in the Irish parliament') has attacked a Steyn column in the Irish Times.
"Higgins' spluttering incoherence ("homophobia"?), his utter inability to address Steyn's arguments, and his thinly veiled call for censorship, shows the intellectual poverty of the Irish left. It's very amusing really, watching the innocent, poorly-read, Irish Times reading lefties try to deal with a full-on neo-con like Steyn. It is obvious they never even heard of Steyn before he dropped like a bomb into the complacent, insular waters of their Irish Times. They have probably never even heard of most of these writers either. To 1960s lefties like Higgins, the neo-conservatives are from another planet. The Irish left don't read them and don't understand them. They only read their own - which is why their opinions are so narrow and insular."
His open letter to Richard Dawkins is good too, although I disagree with him about religion, and think he (Humphrys) has an idealistic, almost religious faith in democracy.
Steyn on Michael Howard in today's Telegraph.
If I had to pick the single most revolting remark from this bogus Reichsfuror (Prince Harry's Nazi fancy dress), it would be this: "I think it might be appropriate for him to tell us himself just how contrite he now is."
That's Michael Howard, the leader of the supposed Conservative Party. What's conservative about demanding people submit to public self-abasement? Wasn't it the Commies who used to insist you recant on TV and then disappear into re-education camp? A conservative party ought to be a refuge from the sanctimonious nannytollahs of the age. But, from his shabby Kerryesque opportunism on the war down, Mr Howard has no discernible coherent political philosophy - except for his all-pervasive authoritarianism, into which his repellent call for a display of princely contrition fits all too neatly.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
The Envy Of The World
The culture of death seems well entrenched in the NHS. Forgive a layman for thinking that people with 'swallowing problems' needed food and water through a tube. Apparently starving to death is the correct treatment.
Charlotte Wyatt is still (currently) alive though, despite the best efforts of Portsmouth NHS Trust. But soon we will be as civilised as the Dutch.
Charlotte Wyatt is still (currently) alive though, despite the best efforts of Portsmouth NHS Trust. But soon we will be as civilised as the Dutch.
Monday, January 17, 2005
Wow
Every so often you find a new writer and wonder how on earth you've not seen any of his/her stuff before. I could follow the links for days before I exhausted the riches of Irishman Mark Humphrys' site - some of the best stuff I've read. Not so much a blog as a mixture of comment and links.
Two terrific resources are The Mind Of The Left, in which among other targets he skewers the left racism which cares more for victims of white oppression than of black, and The Irish Left ("Sinn Fein - Ireland's nationalist socialist party"), most of which applies just as much to the 'British' left.
Great stuff. More on this site later. To the sidebar under 'Links' near Thomas Sowell and David Warren.
Two terrific resources are The Mind Of The Left, in which among other targets he skewers the left racism which cares more for victims of white oppression than of black, and The Irish Left ("Sinn Fein - Ireland's nationalist socialist party"), most of which applies just as much to the 'British' left.
Great stuff. More on this site later. To the sidebar under 'Links' near Thomas Sowell and David Warren.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Two Americans, an Estonian, and an Englishman
Welcome to the good ship U.S.S. Neverdock, and to Oklahoman blogger Chris Greenfeather of Right Wing & Right Minded. Not sure if he's actually from Muskogee, though.
As part of my policy of return linking, welcome to what I've called the Big Estonian Blog - though it's more of a big list of resources. Those I can understand are pretty good, but I confess to not having a clue as to what the whole thing's about. If anyone can speak Estonian and tell me what the rest means, please do.
Rural southern England seems awash with bloggers - Mr Free Market and the Englishman are already as close as two men can be without having to sign one of Mr Livingstone's civic unions. New blogger Gorse Fox seems to hail from West Sussex - how long before he's bumping into Blognor Regis, I wonder ? I've added the Fox to the English section.
As part of my policy of return linking, welcome to what I've called the Big Estonian Blog - though it's more of a big list of resources. Those I can understand are pretty good, but I confess to not having a clue as to what the whole thing's about. If anyone can speak Estonian and tell me what the rest means, please do.
Rural southern England seems awash with bloggers - Mr Free Market and the Englishman are already as close as two men can be without having to sign one of Mr Livingstone's civic unions. New blogger Gorse Fox seems to hail from West Sussex - how long before he's bumping into Blognor Regis, I wonder ? I've added the Fox to the English section.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Sieg Heil !
Never in the field of human conflict has so much nonsense been talked by so many about wearing Nazi uniform. Dressing up is a great Britsh tradition, and dressing in Nazi uniform a more recent one. The late Spike Milligan seldom wore anything else during his 'Q' period. I didn't find it funny, but he obviously did.
Many's the time Susan and I would hie down to Bumbleweeds in Cheltenham for our uniforms before re-enacting "The Night Porter", although Susan wished I wouldn't insist on always playing the Charlotte Rampling role.
Most of the people leading the attack are the usual suspects - Indie, Guardian, Mirror, Sun (though generally of the Right, the Sun is anti-monarchy, Murdoch having failed to get any kind of honour for his services to dumbing down. He seems to resent it).
A few who should know better are also joining in. It's like Diana's death all over again, with calls for 'remorse' to be shown.
Listen to the idiot (Realaudio) who wrote to the BBC complaining that the episode showed how out of touch Harry was. I'd say the opposite. He didn't have to order the uniform from Stormfront Supplies, he got it at the local fancy dress shop. "It must be assumed that fancy-dress parties at which people wear Nazi uniforms are common in middle England", as the Guardian says in this fatuous piece. Not just Middle England - every fancy dress shop in the land stocks them. Were there no demand, you wouldn't be able to hire them.
One of the best Dad's Army episodes features the platoon dressed as Nazi soldiers for an exercise. Sergeant Wilson and Private Pike get the officers uniforms as Captain Mainwaring is too fat for them.
Wilson (adjusting collar), "I must say, these uniforms are very smart - they really do something for one".
Pike gets too much into character, hustling 'his' platoon along with cries of 'Raus !'.
The idiot also mentions that his grandparents fought in the war. Yes, but not singlehanded. So did other people's parents and grandparents - like Prince Harry, strangely enough. Our parents and grandparents fought for a land where a free-born Briton could dress up exactly as they wish.
(A digression - in my dissolute days we once held a Bad Taste Party. Most of us simply wore dodgy clothes. I was surprised to see a feisty, charismatic leading light of the Women's Group at the local university, wearing a ripped dress and with what appeared to be red paint on the inside of her thighs. "You said it was a bad taste party", she said. Even twenty years on I'm not sure I can write down what she'd come as.)
Once again Michael Howard leaps in on the wrong side of the argument. While I admire his political bravery as the best Home Secretary of the 20th century, he has a habit these days of hitting the nail squarely on the thumb. Reminds me of Neil Kinnock, of whom I used to remark that if Mrs Thatcher had announced a policy of shooting all first-born children, up would pop Neil to announce that it was, scandalously, proposed to use American bullets, depriving British munitions workers of their livelihood. He never could get to the nub of an issue, and too many times Michael Howard is doing the same thing.
Many's the time Susan and I would hie down to Bumbleweeds in Cheltenham for our uniforms before re-enacting "The Night Porter", although Susan wished I wouldn't insist on always playing the Charlotte Rampling role.
Most of the people leading the attack are the usual suspects - Indie, Guardian, Mirror, Sun (though generally of the Right, the Sun is anti-monarchy, Murdoch having failed to get any kind of honour for his services to dumbing down. He seems to resent it).
A few who should know better are also joining in. It's like Diana's death all over again, with calls for 'remorse' to be shown.
Listen to the idiot (Realaudio) who wrote to the BBC complaining that the episode showed how out of touch Harry was. I'd say the opposite. He didn't have to order the uniform from Stormfront Supplies, he got it at the local fancy dress shop. "It must be assumed that fancy-dress parties at which people wear Nazi uniforms are common in middle England", as the Guardian says in this fatuous piece. Not just Middle England - every fancy dress shop in the land stocks them. Were there no demand, you wouldn't be able to hire them.
One of the best Dad's Army episodes features the platoon dressed as Nazi soldiers for an exercise. Sergeant Wilson and Private Pike get the officers uniforms as Captain Mainwaring is too fat for them.
Wilson (adjusting collar), "I must say, these uniforms are very smart - they really do something for one".
Pike gets too much into character, hustling 'his' platoon along with cries of 'Raus !'.
The idiot also mentions that his grandparents fought in the war. Yes, but not singlehanded. So did other people's parents and grandparents - like Prince Harry, strangely enough. Our parents and grandparents fought for a land where a free-born Briton could dress up exactly as they wish.
(A digression - in my dissolute days we once held a Bad Taste Party. Most of us simply wore dodgy clothes. I was surprised to see a feisty, charismatic leading light of the Women's Group at the local university, wearing a ripped dress and with what appeared to be red paint on the inside of her thighs. "You said it was a bad taste party", she said. Even twenty years on I'm not sure I can write down what she'd come as.)
Once again Michael Howard leaps in on the wrong side of the argument. While I admire his political bravery as the best Home Secretary of the 20th century, he has a habit these days of hitting the nail squarely on the thumb. Reminds me of Neil Kinnock, of whom I used to remark that if Mrs Thatcher had announced a policy of shooting all first-born children, up would pop Neil to announce that it was, scandalously, proposed to use American bullets, depriving British munitions workers of their livelihood. He never could get to the nub of an issue, and too many times Michael Howard is doing the same thing.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
More Women In Prison
In the words of Mrs Tony Blair, there are too many women in prison.
Ms Booth pointed to the rapid rise in the female prison population, up 115% between 1993 and 2000, compared with a rise of 42% among men. "That is a hell of an increase," she said.
Isn't that just progress towards equality ? I keep hearing that the over-representation of black people in prison is a function of our racist criminal justice system, and that only when the proportion of prisoners is even between ethnic groups will equality be achieved.
If this is so, why should women be grossly under-represented ? At 52% of the population, surely they should make up 52% of prisoners ?
The great Dalrymple has a tale of one such pioneer for equality, a young murderess who seems to have had a better experience of prison than the late Sarah Campbell.
She said that prison had done her much good; it was the first place in which she had ever felt truly settled. She was going to classes to improve her English and math. She had been treated well and fairly, and felt much better both physically and mentally. I checked with the staff: she was noted for her politeness and pleasant manner. This was just as I had found her.
Although she was distressed when, at my prompting, she recounted her life to me, she never attempted in the slightest degree to insinuate that her experiences were responsible for or explained her crime (although she was still only 18, they were surely far more than any person should ever have to experience). She said, “It’s terrible that it had to come to this for me to take my own life seriously.” She meant it, if anyone ever meant anything; and hers were not the words of someone with a serious personality disorder but on the contrary of someone with a surprisingly robust and decent character.
Back in the liberal world, Youth Justice Board Chair Ellie Roy has complained that children who breach ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) are being jailed. I must confess I thought that was the whole point of the ASBO - that breaching it meant prison.
Ms Roy conceded Asbos had given relief from antisocial behaviour, but said the "naming and shaming" of young offenders "caused real problems" for some families.
Whereas not imprisoning them causes real problems for the innocent neighbouring families. But we know which side Ms Roy is on.
"Once you give a dog a bad name it becomes more difficult to rehabilitate," she said.
Good to see youth justice in the charge of such a hard-headed realist. Can you guess what Ellie Roy used to do for a living ?
Ms Booth pointed to the rapid rise in the female prison population, up 115% between 1993 and 2000, compared with a rise of 42% among men. "That is a hell of an increase," she said.
Isn't that just progress towards equality ? I keep hearing that the over-representation of black people in prison is a function of our racist criminal justice system, and that only when the proportion of prisoners is even between ethnic groups will equality be achieved.
If this is so, why should women be grossly under-represented ? At 52% of the population, surely they should make up 52% of prisoners ?
The great Dalrymple has a tale of one such pioneer for equality, a young murderess who seems to have had a better experience of prison than the late Sarah Campbell.
She said that prison had done her much good; it was the first place in which she had ever felt truly settled. She was going to classes to improve her English and math. She had been treated well and fairly, and felt much better both physically and mentally. I checked with the staff: she was noted for her politeness and pleasant manner. This was just as I had found her.
Although she was distressed when, at my prompting, she recounted her life to me, she never attempted in the slightest degree to insinuate that her experiences were responsible for or explained her crime (although she was still only 18, they were surely far more than any person should ever have to experience). She said, “It’s terrible that it had to come to this for me to take my own life seriously.” She meant it, if anyone ever meant anything; and hers were not the words of someone with a serious personality disorder but on the contrary of someone with a surprisingly robust and decent character.
Back in the liberal world, Youth Justice Board Chair Ellie Roy has complained that children who breach ASBOs (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders) are being jailed. I must confess I thought that was the whole point of the ASBO - that breaching it meant prison.
Ms Roy conceded Asbos had given relief from antisocial behaviour, but said the "naming and shaming" of young offenders "caused real problems" for some families.
Whereas not imprisoning them causes real problems for the innocent neighbouring families. But we know which side Ms Roy is on.
"Once you give a dog a bad name it becomes more difficult to rehabilitate," she said.
Good to see youth justice in the charge of such a hard-headed realist. Can you guess what Ellie Roy used to do for a living ?
"They are not inherently bad people."
Here's what would have happened had Sally Geeson's alleged killer committed suicide after being caught.
Heroin addict Sarah Campbell and a nasty piece of work called Kim Woolley were convicted of the manslaughter of a retired doctor, Amrit Bhandari, who collapsed after being harassed for drug money in Chester. When he refused, Woolley started shouting that he had raped her. Dr Bhandari collapsed with a heart attack, at which point they stole his wallet and credit cards - while he was dying. Not inherently bad people.
Does jailing women eally work ? asks the BBC. Well, it keeps a few disgusting people off the streets.
Why did my daughter die ? asks Sarah Campbell's mother.
It sounds as if she died because she was afraid of reprisals from Woolley, against whom she'd testified. According to this report "she was worried about reprisals from her co-accused in the manslaughter trial - who she was to testify against".
Woolley was given four and a half years in January 2003, so she'll be back on the streets in a couple of months.
From previous reports into youth jails such as Feltham, it sounds as if a very large number of prison suicides are the result of bullying and harassment by other inmates. Perhaps the picture of an undifferentiated mass of poor vulnerable thieves and killers isn't quite the case. It sounds very much as if they're divided into the bullies and the bullied - a very good reason not to be sent to prison. I'm sure I wouldn't last five minutes.
In Bush's Gulag, too, prisoners are far more at risk from each other than from sadistic guards. Listen to Feargal Keane this week on Radio 4.
As a gay black man, Roderick Johnson feared what might happen to him when he was incarcerated in one of the toughest prisons in Texas. But he did not imagine that he would be sold for sex between prison gangs for as little as a few dollars.
Roderick Johnson tells Fergal Keane about one of the silent scandals of U.S. prison life: the sexual exploitation of young men by other inmates with the full knowlege of prison staff. He is currently suing the prison authorities for failing to protect him.
Last year President George Bush wrote into law the "Prison Rape Elimination" bill in Roderick Johnson's name.
The Howard League et al want to solve the problem of prison suicides by letting all the bad people out. I'm all for policies to prevent prisoners bullying each other - not because they are poor victims but because many of them are bad people from whom weaker inmates need protection.
In the meanwhile, as the Manhattan City Journal reports, New York has discovered the ideal way to reduce the prison population - institute zero tolerance of petty crime and send more people to prison. After a few years the message penetrates and crime starts to fall. In time the prison population falls too - because there's less crime.
"For years, the Left has warned that tougher sentencing would create a syndrome of “mass incarceration” and the creation of a “prison-industrial complex.” But as the New York experience shows, the crackdown has worked on more than one level. Good policing and tough sentencing have pushed New York to a tipping point, deterring some potential malefactors from crime. Now, if crime goes down and stays down, the prison population should keep dropping as well."
Heroin addict Sarah Campbell and a nasty piece of work called Kim Woolley were convicted of the manslaughter of a retired doctor, Amrit Bhandari, who collapsed after being harassed for drug money in Chester. When he refused, Woolley started shouting that he had raped her. Dr Bhandari collapsed with a heart attack, at which point they stole his wallet and credit cards - while he was dying. Not inherently bad people.
Does jailing women eally work ? asks the BBC. Well, it keeps a few disgusting people off the streets.
Why did my daughter die ? asks Sarah Campbell's mother.
It sounds as if she died because she was afraid of reprisals from Woolley, against whom she'd testified. According to this report "she was worried about reprisals from her co-accused in the manslaughter trial - who she was to testify against".
Woolley was given four and a half years in January 2003, so she'll be back on the streets in a couple of months.
From previous reports into youth jails such as Feltham, it sounds as if a very large number of prison suicides are the result of bullying and harassment by other inmates. Perhaps the picture of an undifferentiated mass of poor vulnerable thieves and killers isn't quite the case. It sounds very much as if they're divided into the bullies and the bullied - a very good reason not to be sent to prison. I'm sure I wouldn't last five minutes.
In Bush's Gulag, too, prisoners are far more at risk from each other than from sadistic guards. Listen to Feargal Keane this week on Radio 4.
As a gay black man, Roderick Johnson feared what might happen to him when he was incarcerated in one of the toughest prisons in Texas. But he did not imagine that he would be sold for sex between prison gangs for as little as a few dollars.
Roderick Johnson tells Fergal Keane about one of the silent scandals of U.S. prison life: the sexual exploitation of young men by other inmates with the full knowlege of prison staff. He is currently suing the prison authorities for failing to protect him.
Last year President George Bush wrote into law the "Prison Rape Elimination" bill in Roderick Johnson's name.
The Howard League et al want to solve the problem of prison suicides by letting all the bad people out. I'm all for policies to prevent prisoners bullying each other - not because they are poor victims but because many of them are bad people from whom weaker inmates need protection.
In the meanwhile, as the Manhattan City Journal reports, New York has discovered the ideal way to reduce the prison population - institute zero tolerance of petty crime and send more people to prison. After a few years the message penetrates and crime starts to fall. In time the prison population falls too - because there's less crime.
"For years, the Left has warned that tougher sentencing would create a syndrome of “mass incarceration” and the creation of a “prison-industrial complex.” But as the New York experience shows, the crackdown has worked on more than one level. Good policing and tough sentencing have pushed New York to a tipping point, deterring some potential malefactors from crime. Now, if crime goes down and stays down, the prison population should keep dropping as well."
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Phew !
The suspected killer of student Sally Geeson has killed himself. Police were looking for him. A sort of justice appears to have been done.
Had he been arrested and held on remand before his suicide, he'd immediately have become a poster boy for those who attack "the moral bankruptcy of Blair's prisons policy", another tragic victim like Harold Shipman. Worse, for like the late Fred West, he had not been convicted of the crime. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
According to Home Office figures (p72) approximately 40 suicides a year are of the chief suspects in homicide cases.
Had he been arrested and held on remand before his suicide, he'd immediately have become a poster boy for those who attack "the moral bankruptcy of Blair's prisons policy", another tragic victim like Harold Shipman. Worse, for like the late Fred West, he had not been convicted of the crime. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
According to Home Office figures (p72) approximately 40 suicides a year are of the chief suspects in homicide cases.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Just Like South Africa
It's always been a problem for the UK Left that Britain hasn't actually got an unpleasant, preferably fascist or racist, recent history to scare people with. You can't say - "If the Daily Mail had their way, it would be like Britain under Anthony Eden !".
We have Mosley (yes, I know the Daily Mail once wrote something nice about him), Cable Street and what else ? Kristallnacht or the Wannsee conference they ain't.
So we have to import our demons from elsewhere and adapt for home consumption. The Shoah is always a good standby - as the Department of Education says "Such events could happen anywhere at any time unless we ensure that our society is vigilant is opposing racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry". Continuous parallels are drawn, for example, between modern asylum-seekers and 1930s German Jewry.
The Ku Klux Klan are another useful standby. I'd like to see all our outdoor Church services end with a fiery cross - it's a wonderful image. But 30 years of BBC documentaries have indelibly associated the fiery cross with a far-away people of whom we know nothing other than that they're not very nice. Only north of the Border does some small memory persist of the cross which summoned the clan to war.
In its time even Pinochet's Chile was used. Peter Hitchens wrote in "The Abolition Of Britain" that 'when he ran schools in his home city of Sheffield, Mr Blunkett abolished uniform - in defiance of a ballot he himself organised - and corporal punishment. In a barely coherent defence of the uniform decision, he seemed to link the idea of school blazers with repressive and reactionary forms of government such as apartheid south Africa and Pinochet's Chile. Many years later, as a consumer of schooling rather than a council leader, he would vote for the introdution of uniforms at his own son's school.'
South Africa is back, following the decision of Greater Manchester Police to ban the word 'township', previously used to describe the sub-divisions. What was wrong with the word sub-division ?
The author of the memo, Chief Insp Jeff McMahon, said the term had "clear connotations" with South Africa's old apartheid regime and outlined the ban in a newsletter to his officers on December 17.
It said: "The term township has been deemed unsuitable for use by the force. There are clear connotations with this term and (the) apartheid regime of South Africa and the discriminatory treatment of black Africans."
His statement continues: "With immediate effect this term will no longer be used. The new term is `partnership'."
It adds: "Thus, in all written and verbal communication this should be substituted where the term township would currently be used. The term partnership suggests the notion of working together to fight crime and protect people."
Inspector McMahon has grasped the essentials of PC policing - form is everything and content unimportant. I do like "partnership suggests the notion of working together to fight crime and protect people".
"Notion" is about right - I'm reminded of Churchill's remarks when WWII officials wanted to set up 'Communal Feeding Centres'. "Why not call them British Restaurants ?" said WSC, "Everyone associates the word restaurant with a good meal, and they may as well have the name if they cannot have anything else".
As you can imagine the locals are well chuffed.
Of course there is one way in which the UK is very like the South Africa of thirty years gone - the guilty white liberal's mania for racial classification. If you have children at a State primary or secondary school, they will have been classified, sometimes via a form sent to parents, sometimes (at secondary level) by asking the children to self-classify (in the process making them ethnically aware in a way they might not otherwise have been), often at primary level by the head teacher's fiat. My children have never been asked so presumably the head takes a look and decides.
Each school's PANDA report (a report on the school by the local authority and not available to parents) contains a page like this one.
PS - according to Gene Expression, nineteenth-century Tory Prime Minister Lord Liverpool would have been classified as coloured under the apartheid laws.
We have Mosley (yes, I know the Daily Mail once wrote something nice about him), Cable Street and what else ? Kristallnacht or the Wannsee conference they ain't.
So we have to import our demons from elsewhere and adapt for home consumption. The Shoah is always a good standby - as the Department of Education says "Such events could happen anywhere at any time unless we ensure that our society is vigilant is opposing racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry". Continuous parallels are drawn, for example, between modern asylum-seekers and 1930s German Jewry.
The Ku Klux Klan are another useful standby. I'd like to see all our outdoor Church services end with a fiery cross - it's a wonderful image. But 30 years of BBC documentaries have indelibly associated the fiery cross with a far-away people of whom we know nothing other than that they're not very nice. Only north of the Border does some small memory persist of the cross which summoned the clan to war.
In its time even Pinochet's Chile was used. Peter Hitchens wrote in "The Abolition Of Britain" that 'when he ran schools in his home city of Sheffield, Mr Blunkett abolished uniform - in defiance of a ballot he himself organised - and corporal punishment. In a barely coherent defence of the uniform decision, he seemed to link the idea of school blazers with repressive and reactionary forms of government such as apartheid south Africa and Pinochet's Chile. Many years later, as a consumer of schooling rather than a council leader, he would vote for the introdution of uniforms at his own son's school.'
South Africa is back, following the decision of Greater Manchester Police to ban the word 'township', previously used to describe the sub-divisions. What was wrong with the word sub-division ?
The author of the memo, Chief Insp Jeff McMahon, said the term had "clear connotations" with South Africa's old apartheid regime and outlined the ban in a newsletter to his officers on December 17.
It said: "The term township has been deemed unsuitable for use by the force. There are clear connotations with this term and (the) apartheid regime of South Africa and the discriminatory treatment of black Africans."
His statement continues: "With immediate effect this term will no longer be used. The new term is `partnership'."
It adds: "Thus, in all written and verbal communication this should be substituted where the term township would currently be used. The term partnership suggests the notion of working together to fight crime and protect people."
Inspector McMahon has grasped the essentials of PC policing - form is everything and content unimportant. I do like "partnership suggests the notion of working together to fight crime and protect people".
"Notion" is about right - I'm reminded of Churchill's remarks when WWII officials wanted to set up 'Communal Feeding Centres'. "Why not call them British Restaurants ?" said WSC, "Everyone associates the word restaurant with a good meal, and they may as well have the name if they cannot have anything else".
As you can imagine the locals are well chuffed.
Of course there is one way in which the UK is very like the South Africa of thirty years gone - the guilty white liberal's mania for racial classification. If you have children at a State primary or secondary school, they will have been classified, sometimes via a form sent to parents, sometimes (at secondary level) by asking the children to self-classify (in the process making them ethnically aware in a way they might not otherwise have been), often at primary level by the head teacher's fiat. My children have never been asked so presumably the head takes a look and decides.
Each school's PANDA report (a report on the school by the local authority and not available to parents) contains a page like this one.
PS - according to Gene Expression, nineteenth-century Tory Prime Minister Lord Liverpool would have been classified as coloured under the apartheid laws.
For once ...
I can wholeheartedly recommend Johann Hari's piece on the torture and murder of Iraqi communist and trade unionist Hadi Salih.
Scotsman report :
Hadi Salih, a 56-year-old labour rights advocate and official of Iraq’s Communist Party, affectionately known by friends as Abu Furat, was found strangled to death with a steel wire in his home, his face beaten to a pulp, his hands bound behind his back.
His personal files, containing the names and addresses of colleagues in both the party and the labour federation he led were also stolen, his humble home ransacked.
With its signs of politically motivated brutality and torture, the scene resembled the interrogation rooms of deposed president Saddam Hussein’s security forces, officials said.
"The people who did this are very clearly members of the Ba’ath Party from the former regime," said Mohammad Jassem al-Abad, a leader of the Communist Party, which is participating in the forthcoming parliamentary elections that insurgents violently oppose.
"The way they killed him makes it very clear they’re the ones who did this," he said. "It is their methods. His assassination wasn’t random."
Hari raises no new issues - but his points need to be made over and again.
"The IFTU has reported a pattern of attacks on trade union offices and trade union members. The murder of Salih bears all the hallmarks of Saddam's Mukhabarat - the Baathist KGB. Whatever you thought about the justice of the recent war in Iraq - and there were plenty of good reasons to oppose it - the only decent path now is to stand with a majority of Iraqis against the murderers of Salih and dozens of other Iraqi trade unionists.
Yet - I can't believe I'm saying this - a significant portion of the left is not standing with them. John Pilger - who says he has "seldom felt as safe in any country" as when he visited Saddam's Iraq - now openly supports the resistance on the grounds that "we can't afford to be choosy". The Stop the War Coalition passed a resolution recently saying the resistance should use "any means necessary" - which prompted Mick Rix, a decent trade unionist, to resign from the STWC on the grounds that this clearly constituted support for the murder of civilians. George Galloway has attacked the IFTU as "quislings" and described the tearful descriptions of one of their members of life under Saddam as "a party trick".
A few months ago, Subdhi al-Mashadani, a representative of the IFTU, came to speak at the European Social Forum in London. This is a really important gathering of left-wing campaign groups who fight on issues nobody else in the political spectrum stands up for: defending refugees, opposing the sale of weapons to tyrants, ending the international drug patenting rules that are killing hundreds of thousands of Africans, and much more. So you would expect the international left to welcome him and hear him politely.
But he was an Iraqi who didn't restrict his comments to the need for occupation troops to leave once a democratic election has been held. He also insisted on talking about the nature of the Sunni "resistance" - one of the most reactionary political forces anywhere on earth, consisting of homicidal misogynists, homophobes and supporters of Sharia law. The audience at the Social Forum booed and hissed him so loudly that he had to leave the stage."
Speaking as a homicidal misogynist and homophobe, as well as a former NUR shop steward, the left in the West is a sad remnant of what it was, say, sixty years ago. But people like Harry Barnes and Mick Rix are still keeping that righteous flame cupped between their palms. They must feel awful cold and lonely, though, with only Johann, Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen and Peter Tatchell standing by them.
Scotsman report :
Hadi Salih, a 56-year-old labour rights advocate and official of Iraq’s Communist Party, affectionately known by friends as Abu Furat, was found strangled to death with a steel wire in his home, his face beaten to a pulp, his hands bound behind his back.
His personal files, containing the names and addresses of colleagues in both the party and the labour federation he led were also stolen, his humble home ransacked.
With its signs of politically motivated brutality and torture, the scene resembled the interrogation rooms of deposed president Saddam Hussein’s security forces, officials said.
"The people who did this are very clearly members of the Ba’ath Party from the former regime," said Mohammad Jassem al-Abad, a leader of the Communist Party, which is participating in the forthcoming parliamentary elections that insurgents violently oppose.
"The way they killed him makes it very clear they’re the ones who did this," he said. "It is their methods. His assassination wasn’t random."
Hari raises no new issues - but his points need to be made over and again.
"The IFTU has reported a pattern of attacks on trade union offices and trade union members. The murder of Salih bears all the hallmarks of Saddam's Mukhabarat - the Baathist KGB. Whatever you thought about the justice of the recent war in Iraq - and there were plenty of good reasons to oppose it - the only decent path now is to stand with a majority of Iraqis against the murderers of Salih and dozens of other Iraqi trade unionists.
Yet - I can't believe I'm saying this - a significant portion of the left is not standing with them. John Pilger - who says he has "seldom felt as safe in any country" as when he visited Saddam's Iraq - now openly supports the resistance on the grounds that "we can't afford to be choosy". The Stop the War Coalition passed a resolution recently saying the resistance should use "any means necessary" - which prompted Mick Rix, a decent trade unionist, to resign from the STWC on the grounds that this clearly constituted support for the murder of civilians. George Galloway has attacked the IFTU as "quislings" and described the tearful descriptions of one of their members of life under Saddam as "a party trick".
A few months ago, Subdhi al-Mashadani, a representative of the IFTU, came to speak at the European Social Forum in London. This is a really important gathering of left-wing campaign groups who fight on issues nobody else in the political spectrum stands up for: defending refugees, opposing the sale of weapons to tyrants, ending the international drug patenting rules that are killing hundreds of thousands of Africans, and much more. So you would expect the international left to welcome him and hear him politely.
But he was an Iraqi who didn't restrict his comments to the need for occupation troops to leave once a democratic election has been held. He also insisted on talking about the nature of the Sunni "resistance" - one of the most reactionary political forces anywhere on earth, consisting of homicidal misogynists, homophobes and supporters of Sharia law. The audience at the Social Forum booed and hissed him so loudly that he had to leave the stage."
Speaking as a homicidal misogynist and homophobe, as well as a former NUR shop steward, the left in the West is a sad remnant of what it was, say, sixty years ago. But people like Harry Barnes and Mick Rix are still keeping that righteous flame cupped between their palms. They must feel awful cold and lonely, though, with only Johann, Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen and Peter Tatchell standing by them.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
Another Doctor Writes
I can't afford a subscription to the British Medical Jornal, so what a good thing that the Magna Mater Melanie keeps tabs on it. Last time she took issue with an item - not to mention the comments posted to it - this time she loves it. She seems to have found a Glasgow GP who's a Theodore Dalrymple clone. The link is pay-for, so via Melanie here's a sample.
'If you're male and of the underclass in inner city Britain then watch out, because your life may well be poor, violent, and short. You will leave school at 15 with no qualifications. This in itself doesn't matter, because the real barrier is your complete lack of any life skills or social skills. You will be incapable of living independently and won't even have the basic ability to clean, cook, or pay bills. You will never understand how social systems work, and the height of achievement will be to get on "the sick"... Your lack of understanding and communications skills means that even when minor problems arise you resort to what you know: aggression and violence. You may have a girlfriend, but when the baby comes along it's all too apparent that you have no parenting skills and can't cope. Your frustration is expressed through taking drugs and beating the only person who actually loved you. You never see her or your daughter again, but her brothers give you a beating just for good measure... The years roll by, and you continue to steal, take drugs, and carry and use a blade. One Saturday night a younger version of you, aged 16, sticks a blade in your chest over an argument about football, the passion that is your only acceptable emotional outlet. One hour later the doctors walk away, having split your chest open but to no avail. "Just another dead ned," they all think. Thank Christ, anyway, because even though you're only 27, in all likelihood you would have strung yourself up in the next few weeks. Your attacker gets 10 years and a ride on the merry-go-round that you've just left. Nobody cares. This scenario is played out 24 hours a day, 365 days a year across the United Kingdom.'
Once again there's plenty of moonbattery on display among the medical comments. The response from Paul S Mcloughlin, of Ottawa Health Research Institute, makes me assume he's the subject of the research.
And I wonder if 'Sol Ridgeback' isn't extracting the urine. I hope he's not serious but it's possible.
"This hurtful and inaccurate article .... these poor, uneducated and villanous males all of whom are victims of modern greed and neglect by society .... the charisma and strength of soul displayed by such poor 'boys' that have been forced to reside in youth housing schemes ... drug addictions and violence merely go hand in hand when youthful cries for help are ignored time and time again."
Here are a few typical Glaswegian victims of modern greed and neglect by society :
And this is how they display their charisma and strength of soul.
While we're on the urban angst track, Harry recommends this blog. Full of delicately limned sketches of Hackney life.
'If you're male and of the underclass in inner city Britain then watch out, because your life may well be poor, violent, and short. You will leave school at 15 with no qualifications. This in itself doesn't matter, because the real barrier is your complete lack of any life skills or social skills. You will be incapable of living independently and won't even have the basic ability to clean, cook, or pay bills. You will never understand how social systems work, and the height of achievement will be to get on "the sick"... Your lack of understanding and communications skills means that even when minor problems arise you resort to what you know: aggression and violence. You may have a girlfriend, but when the baby comes along it's all too apparent that you have no parenting skills and can't cope. Your frustration is expressed through taking drugs and beating the only person who actually loved you. You never see her or your daughter again, but her brothers give you a beating just for good measure... The years roll by, and you continue to steal, take drugs, and carry and use a blade. One Saturday night a younger version of you, aged 16, sticks a blade in your chest over an argument about football, the passion that is your only acceptable emotional outlet. One hour later the doctors walk away, having split your chest open but to no avail. "Just another dead ned," they all think. Thank Christ, anyway, because even though you're only 27, in all likelihood you would have strung yourself up in the next few weeks. Your attacker gets 10 years and a ride on the merry-go-round that you've just left. Nobody cares. This scenario is played out 24 hours a day, 365 days a year across the United Kingdom.'
Once again there's plenty of moonbattery on display among the medical comments. The response from Paul S Mcloughlin, of Ottawa Health Research Institute, makes me assume he's the subject of the research.
And I wonder if 'Sol Ridgeback' isn't extracting the urine. I hope he's not serious but it's possible.
"This hurtful and inaccurate article .... these poor, uneducated and villanous males all of whom are victims of modern greed and neglect by society .... the charisma and strength of soul displayed by such poor 'boys' that have been forced to reside in youth housing schemes ... drug addictions and violence merely go hand in hand when youthful cries for help are ignored time and time again."
Here are a few typical Glaswegian victims of modern greed and neglect by society :
And this is how they display their charisma and strength of soul.
While we're on the urban angst track, Harry recommends this blog. Full of delicately limned sketches of Hackney life.
United Queendom
Via the Times, the publicly funded Visit Britain organisation proudly presents "Welcome To Gay Britain".
A bit difficult to parody anything which opens with "Welcome to the United Queendom of Great Britain" and asks "isn't it time you came out...to Britain !"
All entertaining stuff, if you can square the Governments health promotions with a site which tells you how easy it is to pull strangers. London is "catching the eye of a local as you cruise down Old Compton Street and holding his hand four hours later as you sit on a bench by the Thames."
Well holding something, anyway. I'm a little more concerned that taxpayers money is used to promote the following message.
“We also have equal age-of-consent laws (set at 16), partnership laws and even legal-commitment ceremonies in some of our major cities. As for marriage, it’ll just be a matter of time!”
A bit difficult to parody anything which opens with "Welcome to the United Queendom of Great Britain" and asks "isn't it time you came out...to Britain !"
All entertaining stuff, if you can square the Governments health promotions with a site which tells you how easy it is to pull strangers. London is "catching the eye of a local as you cruise down Old Compton Street and holding his hand four hours later as you sit on a bench by the Thames."
Well holding something, anyway. I'm a little more concerned that taxpayers money is used to promote the following message.
“We also have equal age-of-consent laws (set at 16), partnership laws and even legal-commitment ceremonies in some of our major cities. As for marriage, it’ll just be a matter of time!”
Friday, January 07, 2005
BBC Stealth Edits - The Baby Vanishes
When an unfortunate underclass woman, heavily pregnant, was stabbed to death in Hull, BBC Online had a tragic story.
"Murdered woman's babies also died" - was the headline on an item which began "Twin babies of a pregnant woman who was stabbed to death in a Hull street both died in the attack, police said."
Babies ? What ? Hang on a minute - isn't it the Vera Drake opening today ? It's only a foetus, after all - an 'insentient blob' (© J. Hari 2004). Better change that headline.
21 hours later the headline reads "Extra time to quiz stab suspect". The babies have disappeared from the first paragraph as well.
Polly is on top form with her Vera Drake piece. . How about 'no woman ever wanted an abortion ?'. That's right, Polly - just like no man ever wanted to fill the car up with petrol.
But Ms Stevenson's sad fate illustrates Polly's point. "Whenever abortion is hard to get, thousands of desperate pregnant women end up dead".
And remember - organisations like Life offer 'pro-life propaganda'. Whereas the fictional Vera Drake is, according to Polly 'excellent social history' about the 'bad old days'. After all, "Ask any woman ... from those pre-60s liberation times and they all have stories to tell about sex and terror for themselves or friends."
The older members of my family can talk about little else.
"Murdered woman's babies also died" - was the headline on an item which began "Twin babies of a pregnant woman who was stabbed to death in a Hull street both died in the attack, police said."
Babies ? What ? Hang on a minute - isn't it the Vera Drake opening today ? It's only a foetus, after all - an 'insentient blob' (© J. Hari 2004). Better change that headline.
21 hours later the headline reads "Extra time to quiz stab suspect". The babies have disappeared from the first paragraph as well.
Polly is on top form with her Vera Drake piece. . How about 'no woman ever wanted an abortion ?'. That's right, Polly - just like no man ever wanted to fill the car up with petrol.
But Ms Stevenson's sad fate illustrates Polly's point. "Whenever abortion is hard to get, thousands of desperate pregnant women end up dead".
And remember - organisations like Life offer 'pro-life propaganda'. Whereas the fictional Vera Drake is, according to Polly 'excellent social history' about the 'bad old days'. After all, "Ask any woman ... from those pre-60s liberation times and they all have stories to tell about sex and terror for themselves or friends."
The older members of my family can talk about little else.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Another For The Sidebar ...
Third Avenue - another Englishman in New York. Seems a civilised sort of chap. And apropos of nothing at all (other than the NY setting), a totally gratuitous link to the Susquehanna hat company sketch.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Lake District Walkers - Hideously White
Woe unto any publicly funded body whose customers are mainly white, middle-class and middle-aged.
The Lake District is facing mass resignations by its volunteer rangers over a decision to scrap free guided walks in the national park because they do not attract enough people from ethnic minority communities.
Ranger-led walks are among 900 Lake District events planned for 2005-06 that are to be dropped because they appeal mostly to “white, middle-class, middle-aged people”.
It's true. "Visibly ethnic" minorities are like hen's teeth in Caldbeck or Cockermouth, although in summer Far Sawrey is besieged by Japanese lovers of Mrs Heelis. You will find the occasional black girl or young Asian professional walking the fells, but hoodies and gold teeth are pretty rare.
We were at Threlkeld sheepdog trials this summer (they were all found guilty) and - though it seems almost incredible in 21st century Britain - I'm sorry to have to report that there were very few black and Asian farmers present. There were however a few women farmers, one or two tweed-skirted, flat-shoed, mannish ladies with dogs, and a number of people with apparent disabilities - well, the beer tent had been open for several hours.
If this precedent is followed it could be farewell to most State subsidy of the Arts. Good riddance Covent Garden, get lost Glyndebourne, adieu Alhambra, ciao CBSO, push off Proms.
Above: not much melanin in evidence at Birmingham Royal Ballet.
The Royal Ballet was pretty pale last time I looked, too. And as for the arts and literature festivals - well, all the black faces at Cheltenham are on the lecture podium. Hasta la vista, Hay on Wye !
The Lake District is facing mass resignations by its volunteer rangers over a decision to scrap free guided walks in the national park because they do not attract enough people from ethnic minority communities.
Ranger-led walks are among 900 Lake District events planned for 2005-06 that are to be dropped because they appeal mostly to “white, middle-class, middle-aged people”.
It's true. "Visibly ethnic" minorities are like hen's teeth in Caldbeck or Cockermouth, although in summer Far Sawrey is besieged by Japanese lovers of Mrs Heelis. You will find the occasional black girl or young Asian professional walking the fells, but hoodies and gold teeth are pretty rare.
We were at Threlkeld sheepdog trials this summer (they were all found guilty) and - though it seems almost incredible in 21st century Britain - I'm sorry to have to report that there were very few black and Asian farmers present. There were however a few women farmers, one or two tweed-skirted, flat-shoed, mannish ladies with dogs, and a number of people with apparent disabilities - well, the beer tent had been open for several hours.
If this precedent is followed it could be farewell to most State subsidy of the Arts. Good riddance Covent Garden, get lost Glyndebourne, adieu Alhambra, ciao CBSO, push off Proms.
Above: not much melanin in evidence at Birmingham Royal Ballet.
The Royal Ballet was pretty pale last time I looked, too. And as for the arts and literature festivals - well, all the black faces at Cheltenham are on the lecture podium. Hasta la vista, Hay on Wye !
Monday, January 03, 2005
Cultures and Crimes - the Guardian strikes back
The new book on British policing, Cultures and Crimes by Norman Dennis and George Erdos, is dismantled in the Guardian.
"Leading experts on law and order have dismissed a claim that Britain has one of the highest crime rates in the developed world, caused by a decline in faith and moral values. "
Well, up to a point. We only get two comments - one from a Professor Mike Hough, director of Criminal Policy Research at King's College, London, who said: 'This is nonsense. Academics mostly agree that crime in the UK rose in the early 1990s, peaked around 1995 and has been falling ever since.'
Nothing like knocking over a straw man - Dennis' work is concerned with trends in crime from the 1950s to today. In any event, as Dennis responds, the only crimes which have fallen in the 1990s are those which the victim can do something about - burglary and car crime.
And an ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) spokesman called the book 'simplistic'. Nothing like a detailed rebuttal. Norman Dennis calls this approach 'contentless criticism'.
The Home Office have also chipped in, with the remarkable statement that "the risk of being a victim of crime is at its lowest since records began."
"Leading experts on law and order have dismissed a claim that Britain has one of the highest crime rates in the developed world, caused by a decline in faith and moral values. "
Well, up to a point. We only get two comments - one from a Professor Mike Hough, director of Criminal Policy Research at King's College, London, who said: 'This is nonsense. Academics mostly agree that crime in the UK rose in the early 1990s, peaked around 1995 and has been falling ever since.'
Nothing like knocking over a straw man - Dennis' work is concerned with trends in crime from the 1950s to today. In any event, as Dennis responds, the only crimes which have fallen in the 1990s are those which the victim can do something about - burglary and car crime.
And an ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) spokesman called the book 'simplistic'. Nothing like a detailed rebuttal. Norman Dennis calls this approach 'contentless criticism'.
The Home Office have also chipped in, with the remarkable statement that "the risk of being a victim of crime is at its lowest since records began."
Friday, December 31, 2004
Season's Greetings
AL Kennedy's Christmas message, in which the old and much-loved themes of the traditional Guardian Christmas (Iraq, depleted uranium, Christians, TV, excessive consumption) are recycled in true sustainable style.
As much a part of Christmas as the Queen's traditional appeal to the evil Native Brits to abandon their childish fears of our multicultural Nirvana, although I notice her speech to the troops was singularly short on appeals to reach out to unfamiliar cultures.
As much a part of Christmas as the Queen's traditional appeal to the evil Native Brits to abandon their childish fears of our multicultural Nirvana, although I notice her speech to the troops was singularly short on appeals to reach out to unfamiliar cultures.
It's All Our Fault (Again)
I wondered how long it would be. A few days ago I heard the first letter from a Radio Four listener suggesting that the UK was dragging its feet over aid 'despite spending billions on an illegal war'. Then a Radio Five news report in which unnamed persons were 'criticising George Bush' for sidelining the UN, and suggesting that he cared not for the poor and afflicted.
The Indian Ocean disaster is a heaven sent opportunity for liberal breast-beating into which can be shoehorned the correct views on globalisation, George Bush, Iraq, whatever. Try Jeremy Seabrook in (where else) the Guardian, who manages to cover imperialism (holidays to you), Iraq, globalisation and asylum seekers in a few short paragraphs.
"when we distinguish between "locals" who have died and westerners, "locals" all too easily becomes a euphemism for what were once referred to as natives. Whatever tourism's merits, it risks reinforcing the imperial sensibility."
"while the tsunami death toll rises in anonymous thousands, in Iraq disdainful American authorities don't do body counts."
Of course the Guardian has a different, non-imperialist view of dead Asians. If white people kill them the Guardian will give max publicity. Otherwise forget it. Congo is the locus classicus - maybe five million deaths, but an absulute sod to blame on Whitey.
Which is why I've read little about Aceh in the last few years, where tens of thousands died in the wave but the news was slow to emerge - as journalists, diplomats and NGOs have been barred from the area for years due to a separatist revolt which got minimal coverage. I wonder how many have died in the revolt ?
The script has an interesting subtext, too - that these poor people are completely incapable of helping themselves and are utterly dependent on the Great White Gods coming across the sea - a kind of latterday Cargo Cult mentality projected onto the inhabitants of Indonesia and Sri Lanka by BBC correspondents who on a conscious level would reject racist stereotyping as something that only the Evil Right do. The victims are interviewed as if they're chavs complaining that the windowframes have needed painting for six years but the council haven't done it yet.
I'd recommend the reports of a Radio 5 reporter called (I think) Julie Ashmole.
"The promised aid hasn't arrived yet - how do you feel about that ?"
The interviewee failed to rise to the bait. He seemed to have other things on his mind.
I'm trying to find a source for the BBC story of a few days ago that the ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) summit a year or two back rejected a proposed early warning system, such as exists for the Atlantic and Pacific, on grounds of cost and the low risk of such an event. I'm presuming it's true, in which case this can perhaps be seen with hindsight as a mistake.
Watch for more breast-beating in the days ahead.
None of the above, of course, absolves us of the obligation to stump up. Hilary Benn has shown the way, announcing that of the Government's annual £400 billion tax take, no less than £15 million, or 0.00375% of Government revenue, has been earmarked for the disaster. An example to us all. For a take-home pay of £20,000 pa it works out pro-rata'd at 75p.
The Government needs the other £399.985 billion for vital health initiatives like this one.
The Indian Ocean disaster is a heaven sent opportunity for liberal breast-beating into which can be shoehorned the correct views on globalisation, George Bush, Iraq, whatever. Try Jeremy Seabrook in (where else) the Guardian, who manages to cover imperialism (holidays to you), Iraq, globalisation and asylum seekers in a few short paragraphs.
"when we distinguish between "locals" who have died and westerners, "locals" all too easily becomes a euphemism for what were once referred to as natives. Whatever tourism's merits, it risks reinforcing the imperial sensibility."
"while the tsunami death toll rises in anonymous thousands, in Iraq disdainful American authorities don't do body counts."
Of course the Guardian has a different, non-imperialist view of dead Asians. If white people kill them the Guardian will give max publicity. Otherwise forget it. Congo is the locus classicus - maybe five million deaths, but an absulute sod to blame on Whitey.
Which is why I've read little about Aceh in the last few years, where tens of thousands died in the wave but the news was slow to emerge - as journalists, diplomats and NGOs have been barred from the area for years due to a separatist revolt which got minimal coverage. I wonder how many have died in the revolt ?
The script has an interesting subtext, too - that these poor people are completely incapable of helping themselves and are utterly dependent on the Great White Gods coming across the sea - a kind of latterday Cargo Cult mentality projected onto the inhabitants of Indonesia and Sri Lanka by BBC correspondents who on a conscious level would reject racist stereotyping as something that only the Evil Right do. The victims are interviewed as if they're chavs complaining that the windowframes have needed painting for six years but the council haven't done it yet.
I'd recommend the reports of a Radio 5 reporter called (I think) Julie Ashmole.
"The promised aid hasn't arrived yet - how do you feel about that ?"
The interviewee failed to rise to the bait. He seemed to have other things on his mind.
I'm trying to find a source for the BBC story of a few days ago that the ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) summit a year or two back rejected a proposed early warning system, such as exists for the Atlantic and Pacific, on grounds of cost and the low risk of such an event. I'm presuming it's true, in which case this can perhaps be seen with hindsight as a mistake.
Watch for more breast-beating in the days ahead.
None of the above, of course, absolves us of the obligation to stump up. Hilary Benn has shown the way, announcing that of the Government's annual £400 billion tax take, no less than £15 million, or 0.00375% of Government revenue, has been earmarked for the disaster. An example to us all. For a take-home pay of £20,000 pa it works out pro-rata'd at 75p.
The Government needs the other £399.985 billion for vital health initiatives like this one.
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