Brilliant

The new recruiting campaign by the Royal Marines has to be one of the best examples of subliminal 'guerilla marketing' ever.

For a tiny budget, you get shed-loads of publicity which has a double payoff.

First, you only attract recruits who aren't fazed by the thought of being encouraged by an officer (dressed as a schoolgirl) to get drunk and naked round a campfire. While bareknuckle fighting each other. Until an NCO in a surgical gown and mask kicks you unconscious. That should halve the dropout rate by ensuring the fainthearts don't apply.

The second payoff - well, would you want to fight against a bunch of people who do this to wind down and relax ?

Educashun News ...

The people who don't want poor kids to get a decent education (Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, NUT, SHA) like to tell us that the fee-paying (i.e. selective) schools get the best results because they cream off the brightest kids.

Not so. Many bright kids have parents who can't afford selective fees, currently artound the £7.5k pa mark.

Professor Jesson’s findings came from research that tracked the progress of the brightest 5 per cent of pupils between 1999 and 2004, based on scores in national curriculum tests of English, mathematics and science at age 11 in primary schools. He was given access to the data by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES).

Professor Jesson said that it was a myth that the brightest children attended private schools.

In fact, of the 37,500 children in the top 5 per cent, 30,000 went on to state secondaries and 7,500 were educated privately. By the age 16, all 7,500 in fee-paying schools had achieved at least five GCSE grades A* or A. But only 20,000 of the original cohort in state schools reached this standard.

The professor said that 13,000 students in state schools achieved three A grades at A level. In independent schools, the number was 7,600.

Now that last statistic is really scary. Of the 5% of brightest 11 year olds, only two thirds get their 5 GCSE A grades in the state sector, compared to all the publicans.

But by 18, assuming that all the 3-A students are our top 5%, only 40% of the clever-clogs can hit this gold standard at state schools. 100% strike gold at public school - AND they drag another 100 up to the mark who are presumably from outside the top 5%.

At the educational coalface, Shuggy is feeling the strain as Christmas approaches.

"I've often thought we need to get away from this idea that teaching is a job for life. I've only been doing it for eight years, I'm already half-insane, half-alcoholic as a result - as no doubt this blog clearly demonstrates - and frankly I'm absolutely sick to death of it already."

He thinks us armchair teachers should get out there and give it a pop.

Perhaps Melanie Phillips could be persuaded to take a few classes on a part time basis. Or Chris Woodhead to show us how it's done - provided he can be persuaded not to shag any more pupils, that is. Or Peter Hitchens, as long as he promises not to hurt anyone (he'll have to be kept away from the scissor drawer, I reckon).

Shuggy, you may understand Chris Woodhead, but you've not understood Hitchens. Neither he nor I would want to teach in a state school UNLESS you could hurt the pupils.

Not all of them, you understand - or even a majority. But pour encourager les autres.

Rasputin - May Contain More Traces of Christianity

Imagine my surprise when the BBC Sunday programme (Realaudio) told me this morning how the Archbishop of Canterbury was in Pakistan, raising with political and religious leaders his concerns about the oppression of Christians in that country.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has said that Christian minorities in Pakistan and other Muslim countries were often not provided justice and it was a matter of concern.

Well strike a light, thought I. I'll not forget the good he does, any more than I'll forget the bad. I'll do a little post on this.


I might have known that wouldn't be all.

The Crusades were a serious betrayal of Christian beliefs, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said yesterday.

Speaking 900 years after Christian warriors sacked Jerusalem, the Archbishop said that any attempt to revive the crusading ideal today would not garner much support among Christians.

His comments, made in Pakistan, appeared to be an attempt to reassure Muslims that the Churches are anxious to avert confrontation between the West and Islamic states.

In the past he has warned western leaders, particularly President Bush, against using sensitive religious language such as the term "crusade" to justify the war against Iraq.

That's right, Rasputin. The Muslim conquest by fire and sword of the historic Christian regions of Anatolia and North Africa ? Let's not talk abou that, shall we ? An attempt to partially reverse those conquests ? God, aren't we awful !

Meanwhile in Wales ....

In a sermon to mark International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women, Dr Barry Morgan said Christians had "often used the Bible" against women.

It's certainly heavy enough - but it would be blasphemous so to use the good book. An erring wife or child should be lovingly chastised with this weighty tome.

More Murderous Medics

I know hospitals are dangerous places but this is getting ridiculous.

During her operation, Mrs McPhee lost 36 pints of blood and while she lay dying nearby, Walker posed for a photograph with a liver sample.

Walker was found guilty of serious professional misconduct in November 2001 after a series of botched operations that left four women dead and others maimed.

The GMC was told before it considered his case, 16 anaesthetists had refused to work with him.

Makes this chap seem like quite a decent sort, always ready to do a patient a favour - in exchange for a little favour returned.

What The Labour Party Think Of England

When I first saw this I thought it was a hoax, but there really does seem to be a Terry White in the Communications Unit of the Labour Party.

Dear Correspondent,

Thank you for your email.

Neither the Labour Party nor the Labour Government are pursuing the policy towards England or the English that you claim.

England, as opposed to Britain, has an unfortunate history around the world and within the British Isles and please do not say that it is all past.

It is a fact that the right and extreme right in Britain cloak themselves in the English flag, the cross of St.George and claim to be the true representatives of the English.

Wherever there is hooligan behaviour, usually linked to extreme right-wing political groups e.g. at football matches here and abroad, it is the flag of St.George that is displayed and that, I would imagine, is the reason why the MP referred to this type of 'Englishness' as a threat to democracy.


Regards,

Terry White
Communications Unit
The Labour Party

We know this is how they really feel about England, but I'm surprised they're so upfront about it.

Of course, England does have an unfortunate history. Just as democracy has many defects and drawbacks.

English history has the same relationship to the histories of other countries as democracy does to all other systems of govenment. It's the worst history - apart from the histories of all other major nations. Or, as Peter Hitchens put it "Britain is the only virgin in a continent of rape victims".

Gareth at the CEP hits the nail on the head.

As I mentioned previously, the failure of the UK Government to build a civic national identity for England, whilst actively building civic identities for Scotland and Wales, contributes to Englishness being exhibited in moments of tribalism and xenophobia.

Rather than addressing the problem the Government are actually the cause of the problem. The longer they stick their collective heads in the sand, ignoring English identity, the more culpable they are in the appropriation of English nationalism as a vehicle for the 'far-right'.

I have a feeling that in years to come this email may hang round the neck of the Labour Party is a dead albatross stylee. I hope Michael Howard is raising this with Mr Blair at next Wednesday's PMQ.

It would be "a useful contribution to moving the debate forward" if all concerned individuals faxed their MP, asking them if they agree with this view of England.




UPDATE - the more I read that mail, the more I wonder what he's on about.

"England, as opposed to Britain, has an unfortunate history around the world and within the British Isles and please do not say that it is all past."

Uh ? Around the world, England and Britain have been synonymous for the last 400 years. Hitler and Co routinely talked of the struggle against 'England'. And 19th century Scots and Irish adventurers were proud to bear the name 'Englishman' all over the world.

Within the British Isles ? Does this mean we need to apologise for Edward I and Cromwell ? If not, can you tell us what it does mean ?

Best

We were at a non-league match this afternoon, and there was a minute's silence before kick-off.

You might not have heard a pin drop, but you could hear the nearby traffic. Someone coughed about fifty yards away. Otherwise, not a sound from 800 people. Everyone in the stands was on their feet.

The silence seemed to go on for more than a minute. A church clock a quarter of a mile away struck three. Still silence.

Then the referee blew and the whole ground burst into applause.



Meanwhile, at Maine Road, those lovable scallies ...

My Country Is Cwmbwrla Square ...

My countrymen - Cwmbwrla's poor.

Some snaps from the Laban Tall family album.



"There is no real history of great involvement in education in working class homes" - Barry Sheerman MP, in Parliament on 22nd November 2005.





"Poverty Causes Crime"




"Ask any woman ... from those pre-60s liberation times and they all have stories to tell about sex and terror for themselves or friends." - Polly Toynbee

"He Was Going To Die Anyway"

And a very good argument for murder it is, too. After all, we are all going to die sooner or later.

There do seem to be a lot of (allegedly in this case) murderous GPs popping up all over the place.

The BBC - Still Institutionally Racist

The BBC must be feeling sensitive about criticism of the remarkable contrast between their coverage of murders where the perpetrators are white and those where the perpetrators are black or Asian.

Alright, so the murder, and trial of the killers of Christopher Yates received no national news coverage. just one local BBC story before the verdict, while the ongoing trial of the Anthony Walker accused is the subject of daily national news updates.

But someone's conscience must be pricking a bit. The BBC News website has decided to take a detailed look at the case. The conclusion ? The killers were acting like white people.

"Three young men get very drunk, shout racist abuse, assault a waiter in a curry house and get involved in a series of brawls, climaxing with an attack on a innocent man who crosses their path.

It sounds like an all too familiar night of violence of the type which blights many city centres in Britain.

Except that the victim, 30-year-old graduate Christopher Yates, was white."

How very odd. For the BBC is a stronghold of what Marian Fitzgerald calls "the Seventies model of racist behaviour, which meant all racism involved the white community" - so how can non-whites be racist ?

The BBC analysis appears to be that these chaps have gone native, with the inevitable unhappy results.

"Maqsood, Bashir and Zulfiqar eschewed their parents' religion and culture - although they paid lip service to it - and chose instead to imitate their white English peers with binge drinking, sex and consumerism."

One mustn't be too critical. It's progress that the piece even appears at all. The BBC have a mental narrative in which half the globe is still pink and England is covered with 'No dogs, blacks or Irish' signs. Strangely, it's they who are having difficulty coming to terms with a multracial, multicultural society. If anyone there ever looks at the Home Office figures (table 3.6) which show that in inter-racial murders white people are much more likely to be victim than perpetrator, they probably put it down to poverty or the legacy of colonialism.

It's not deliberate - it's rooted in their culture. It's "unwtting and unconscious" as someone once said.

What Labour Think Of The British Working Class

Barry Sheerman MP, Chair of the Commons Education Committee, questioning Tony Blair yesterday.

"There's no history of involvement in education in working class homes".

Not after 1970, perhaps - which seems to be as far as Mr Sheerman's memory stretches. I wonder how many poor parents since then have despaired of the school their bright child is stuck in. How patronising and ignorant can you get. Cretin.

Vulnerable Young People

It was only last week that a self-appointed 'independent commission' was telling us how bad prison is for poor young people - 'young' meaning anyone under 23.

How right they are. A correspondent tells me of the tragic tale of one Ben Redfearn-Edwards. A punitive, neanderthal judge sent him to a young offenders institution for two whole years - just because of a little attempted armed robbery. Haven't we all done things we regret when we're young ?

So when, a few days after being released (on licence of course), he attempted a little mild sexual assault on a woman walking her dog - well, what's a boy to do if he doesn't want to be identified ?

It was claimed Ben Redfern-Edwards, 21, was desperate to stop beautician Jacqueline Ross, 44, identifying him after he pounced on her, possibly to sexually assault her.

His initial attack on a canal towpath in Disley, Cheshire, was foiled when Mrs Ross's terrier bit him.

But he then allegedly battered her with a brick because he "dreaded" going back behind bars.

You can't but feel for him in his dilemma. What a senseless waste of a young life. Such a nice boy, too.

Redfern-Edwards laughed and made an offensive gesture to the victim's family including her husband Michael Ross.

Mr Justice Pitchford warned Redfern-Edwards he would receive a statutory life sentence (NOTE - could be as much as five years in practice - LT).

He told the jury that one of Mrs Ross's two young sons started school on September 5 and said he "wanted his mum".

As the defendant was taken down, he spat in the direction of Mrs Ross's family.




Another correspondent mentions a poor young thing who committed her first crime when she was only 20. How wrong it would have been to lock her up so young.



Sadly, she didn't seem to grow out of the habit as she got older.

I Don't Understand ...

When the Government make the occasional feeble gesture in the direction of defending the public from criminals, defending our borders from economic migrants, or our nation from terrorist attack, a host of lawyers and interest groups spring to the defence of said criminals/asylum seekers/terrorists.

"Political justice !" they cry. "Separation of powers !" "An independent judiciary !"

Another day, another initiative overturned in the courts, to applause from Amnesty, Liberty, the BBC, Guardian, Indie and all right-thinking people. The idea that a politician can influence the length of a prison sentence has been discredited in the very wonderful European Court. A Home Secretary setting the tariff for an Islamic terrorist ? Leave that to the judges, mate.

Only one exception. When the politicians are letting murderers out.

The Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland provided for large numbers of terrorist killers to be released long before the terms to which they ere sentenced expired. Peter Hain is about to let various murderers who are on the run return to Ulster - in a deal which involves them turning up in court on the understanding that they won't be punished.

Strange. I haven't heard a peep from Mike Mansfield, Gareth Peirce, Helena Kennedy or Clive Stafford-Smith. No Guardian editorials on interference with the justice system, no Indie front pages claiming that Blair is usurping judges' powers. You'd have thought they'd have been straight down the courts demanding a judicial review, insisting that the law was to be applied by judges not politicians. How very odd.

Q. - Why Don't The Swiss Want To Join The EU ?

A. - they're worried that Turkey might join too.

Reclamation

On one hand, Billy Bragg and his mates are 'reclaimimng the Cross of St George' from White Van Man and his pit bull terrier.

On the other, it looks like two can play the 'Reclaim George' game. Although there seems to be some doubt that the great man actually said it.

(via what appears to be the first BNP blogger)

Don't Lock Him Up - He's Only 22 !

One of the pleasures of BBC-watching is observing the way some special interest group is promoted as 'independent'. Provided that special interest group has a liberal left agenda, of course.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the field of criminal justice, where pro-criminal organisations like the Howard League and Prison Reform Trust must have a car and driver on standby 24/7, so many studio guests and Today programme interviewees do they supply.

This report was publicised on Today (RealAudio) and national radio news. Sunday's Radio 5 Julian Worricker report discussed it. Worricker lined up an array of 'criminal justice professionals' including Master-lookalike Rod Morgan, the seventies throwback ostensibly in charge of 'Youth Justice'', and the Howard League's Frances Crook, who must by now be able to find her way to a BBC studio blindfold. One other guest brought a jarring note to the liberal consensus - a lady from Glasgow whose daughter had been murdered by one of Mt Worricker's 'Convict Kids'.

The BBC report says :

The independent Commission on Young Adults and the Criminal Justice System was set up in the summer of 2004 by the Barrow Cadbury Trust.

A range of people involved in the criminal justice system, including doctors, lawyers and criminologists, were invited to give evidence.

As the excellent New Labour Unplugged reveals, the 'independent Commission' has no official standing, and is about as independent as a BNP branch meeting. It consists of a number of people, all of whom but one appear to be funded by the taxpayer. Hangers and floggers need not apply. I quote :

The membership of the preposterously entitled Commission on Young Adults and the Criminal Justice System says everything you need to know about its conclusions. And like similar reports from other bodies who handpick the experts they want to give the answers they want, its membership also highlights how an elite of dubious university departments, political charities, so-called not for profit organisations, human rights lawyers, think tanks and public sector bossyboots provides an intellectual underpinning for New Labour - courtesy of government grants and contracts which border on the corrupt.

As NLU points out, these people, arguing that 22 year old 'youngsters' need 'help to grow into adulthood', are the sort usually to be found campaigning for votes at 16.

The conclusions of the 'Independent Commission' ?

Using prison sentences is counterproductive and magistrates should avoid imposing custodial sentences until the age of 23, the report said.

It also argued that young offenders under the age of 23 should not be required to disclose their criminal convictions to potential employers.

That's a good idea. Then these vulnerable kids could avoid jail. And this poor 23 year old, kept out of prison as part of our oh-so-successful community punishment regime, could be convicted of abusing a child and still get work in a school, were he a few months younger.

"A convicted criminal given work at a primary school as part of a court community service punishment went on to sexually abuse a child, police say.
Ian Missing worked as an odd-job man at the un-named school after being convicted of common assault.

The 23-year-old, of Chelmsford, Essex, had previously been accused of sexually abusing a child but not prosecuted."

Coal Prices

Me no understand doctor.

Domestic coal prices are about £140 a metric tonne and anthracite at about £165 - unless my coal merchant is robbing us blind. If you buy it in plastic bags on special offer you might get £150 a tonne.

According to the DTI, top quality steam coal in 2004 was a maximum of £37 a tonne.

Prices for internationally traded steam coal imported into North West Europe was around £20/tonne in 2002, but have risen strongly since then and reached an average of £37/tonne in 2004. Between 2003 and 2004, international imported steam coal prices increased by 49 per cent on £ sterling basis. Prices received by UK producers for sales to generators have been in the range £26/tonne to £28/tonne over the period 2002-04.

OK, so the generators are buying the stuff a million tonnes at a time. But that's still a hefty discount for quantity.

They dig excellent steam coal out of the ground at Tower Colliery, the last deep mine in Wales, about 90 miles from my place. £150-plus would be the domestic price.

A 3.5 ton tipper Transit costs about £300 for a week's hire - say £500 with the diesel, excess miles, VAT and a washdown for the vehicle afterwards. Given seventeen(ish) Gloucestershire folk needing a tonne each, what pithead price would you have to get to make a profit and undercut the £150 price ? One return trip a day, 3.5 dropoffs, 17.5 tonnes at £120 a tonne - that's £2100 worth of sales. Pay yourself £500 (this is a cash business), your costs are £1,000 plus the price of the coal, which would be £62 a tonne - still over 50% above the bulk price.

I rang Tower Colliery a few years back and asked if I could take a truck over there. No, they said - all their domestic sales were handled by a local reseller in Hirwaun. I rang them - £150 a tonne.

Either my on-the-fly cowboy no-tax-or-insurance business plan is useless - or somebody's making money out of UK coal.

Dalai Lama ...

Is back in Scotland. Let's hope Johann Hari gets another interview.

We take some quick photographs, and, as he poses, I try to ask him to elaborate on his comments criticising the massive inequalities of wealth in the West. "Yes, it is wrong," he says as he smiles. "Why do the rich need so much? We each only have one stomach. Well, not you," he says, looking at my belly. "You appear to have two."

I see that Johann is a fan of Chris Dillow, who has just been Normed, revealing a love of Hank Williams and Gray's Elegy, but a dislike of public schoolboys.

Chris Dillow went to a State grammar and was obviously well educated there, but I think bashing publicans is, while great fun, otherwise pointless. In huge areas of Britain (i.e. those with comprehensive education) they will soon be the only educated people to be found.

Bradford Robbery And Murder

Poor girl. And her poor children.

Sharon Beshendsky, 38, a mother of three children and two stepchildren, was killed on her youngest son's fourth birthday. (The BBC have since changed 'son' to daughter').

Two probationers together ? Couldn't they have had some brawny Tyke with them ? Morley Street is only a stone's throw from Bradford police HQ.

I didn't know travel agents had much cash on them - I'm pretty sure Lunn Poly wouldn't be much of a target. It was after a Bradford travel agency robbery that the heroic Tasawar Hussain was killed.

Hawala ? Just a thought - but even then that wouldn't necessarily imply cash on the premises. It's a wonderful system, based on trust - which you don't find a lot of in UK retail finance. A comprehensive guide here - and that doesn't imply it's all about laundering money. Lots of things can be put to good or bad uses.

UPDATE - the Mirror reports :

"Businessmen claim there could have been thousands of pounds in the shop which offers a service transferring cash to friends and relatives in Pakistan."

And Tasawar Hussein's killers had robbed a Lumb Lane travel agency of £40,000 in cash.

Hmmm....

In the US, like the UK, sex offenders have to register with the police. But in the Land Of The Free their locations aren't kept hidden from the public.

4,400 registered sex offenders were evacuated from the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.

But only 92 have been re-registered.

In other news, three evacuees have been charged with murdering an elderly church worker who offered them work. Nice people.

Good News From Academia

"Racial integration increasing, study shows", said the Guardian.

UK 'growing more racially integrated'

Well, integration must be a positive thing, surely ? So it's good news at last, after the depressing series of riots in British cities over the last five years - and there's more.

The study also says that immigration is not the reason for increased numbers of non-white Britons over the past decade, and that "white flight" from inner cities is another myth.

So all those deluded commentators are worrying about nothing, then ?

Well, not exactly. The study, by Dr Steve Simpson of Manchester University, takes as a measure of integration the number of electoral wards with an ethnic minority population of 10% or above. I'm not sure this measure of integration is quite what most people would mean by the word. They'd consider it implied some sense of shared values, of 'cultural signifiers' held in common. Physical proximity rather than cultural commonality isn't necessarily a recipe for a happy society, as the 1947 Punjab, 1990s Bosnia or 2005 Lozells attest. The Guardian report itself notes that Birmingham now has 27 'integrated' wards out of 39, an increase of exactly 50% in ten years.

Stripped of it's 'integration' spin, Dr Simpson is showing us the simple fact that an increasing proportion of the English population is non-Native, a trend that shows no signs of abating.

What about the claim that the increased ethnic minority population is nothing to do with immigration ?

"The common myth is that the growth of the ethnic minority population is due to immigration. That's not true - it is more due to the growth of [ethnic minority] people born in Britain."

Ethnic minority populations are younger and have fewer elderly people than white communities. The number of Asian and black people is increasing because fewer die from old age and they have more women of childbearing age relative to white people.

I see. And rain is caused by little drops of water falling from the sky - it's got nothing to do with those grey fluffy things that block the sun.

You could just about stretch his 'point' - if you argue that the descendants of immigrants (not immigrants themselves) have a high birthrate. Otherwise, where are all those women of childbearing age coming from ?

But of course it's not even true by that measure. A professional demographer like Dr Simpson must be aware of the ONS figures (p75) showing that nearly one in five of all babies born in England has a mother who herself was not born in the UK ?

You'd almost think Dr Simpson was making the facts fit some pre-conceived agenda - but surely not - the man's an academic who will look dispassionately at the facts. Does this (I forgive him the apostrophes, painful though they are) read like the work of a man with a political axe to grind ?

Certainly on current demographic trends we can look forward to many more such cheery reports in the Guardian.





PS - in my post of last December I opined that Fiji might be, not exactly a model - more a warning of our political future.

I wonder if Mark Steyn read it ?