Freed Early

You could run an entire blog on 'freed early' stories, even though the BBC search engine doesn't pick half of them up. These stories are just from the last day.

The well-known ones :

"Hanson had been let out of jail only a few months earlier, having been released halfway through a 12-year sentence for attempted murder.
An official risk assessment had calculated his chances of re-offending were 91% yet his case was managed at the lowest risk level.

White was out on bail at the time of the robbery awaiting a court appearance for heroin and cocaine charges, for which he was later sentenced to three years.

He had also tested positive for cocaine, cannabis and morphine in the month before Mr Monckton's killing and had a series of convictions for drug offences."

And lesser-known ones :

"Just days after being released from prison, Mark Turner, 26, of no fixed abode, used a knife and bottle to kill Luke Rees-Pulley. He caused 80 separate injuries the fatal one being a stab wound to the neck.

He has a string of convictions for violence committed when drunk or on drugs, including possession of an offensive weapon, assaulting a police constable and affray.

An anonymous friend of Mr Rees-Pulley, who attended the hearing, said the judicial system had let his friend down.

He said: "Hearing the catalogue of the defendant's previous offences, many of which were assaults on the police and paramedics, and incarcerations he had already served, it was clear the judicial system had already failed Luke and his family even before today's hearing."


"The court heard that Lynch committed the crime two months after he was freed early from a seven-and-a-half year sentence for robbery and serious assault in 2000."

Linda Smith

Another left-wing BBC comic, but I liked her downbeat, deadpan wit, even down to the flat, Sarf Landon tones. When smacking at the usual lefty targets she managed to strike a human, empathetic note - something that Jeremy Hardy, Mark Steel and co. always avoided.

48. From the generation which didn't have kids. No one will inherit her humour or intelligence.

From the generation that was taught the hymns and prayers, but didn't pass them on. President of the British Humanist Association, a non-believer in God or an afterlife.

Well, as Stevenson said, she "knows the long and short on it now".



UPDATE - We are all sinners - I'm terribly tempted to go to the New Humanist comments and add words to the effect that Satan has ordered a couple of tons of extra Coalite and a carbon-fibre reinforced toasting fork, but that I will be praying for her soul. You know, just to cheer them up.

I will resist the temptation, and pray for her tonight.


Tributes at Assistant and Normblog.

Spot The Difference

Between the BBC report and the Thames Valley Police report of a distressing crime.

The crime is depressing - the liberal self-censorship even more so.

Yazza - "Rich Businessmen for Bin Laden ?"

I do love Yazza (who now has a richly-deserved, full, three-item page in the Indie - today featuring a fetching photograph of the late Queen of Hearts), but she does walk a fine line. I understand what she's saying alright, but does she appreciate how it comes across ?

"This week, I have been at three events where the majority of people in the audience were educated, sharp Muslims, some exceedingly rich and good friends with key politicians and Prince Charles. Guantanamo Bay and Iraq are topics that now madden even these establishmentarians.

One gentleman took my elbow, shuffled me to a discreet corner and whispered 'I have been here for 40 years, dined with royalty. Today, if I was young, I would go straight to Bin Laden. Mr Blair is a war criminal. Don't put my name down, but tell him we detest him'".

Yazza is making a point about how we need to change our foreign policy and how many people it's upsetting. Seemingly unconsciously, she's also saying that unless we do, people who have been here for years, who have grown wealthy and lead a lifestyle more privileged than any most Brits have known - that those people will support those who would like to kill us by the thousands, the tens of thousands, if possible by the millions. Which is all of a piece with the motif running like a bass and cello theme under so many news reports and op-ed articles.

"They're lovely, peaceful people. And if you upset them, they'll riot. Or worse."


Blair has no intention of doing anything about the chain migration which, along with natural fecundity and a severe shortage of lesbian feminists, will have tripled the Muslim population of places like Bradford in thirty years.


The liberal elite's attitude to Islam reminds me of Churchill's comment about Prince Paul of Serbia, whose nation had deeply offended Hitler by the (anti-German) coup of early 1941, but who feared to provoke Germany by mobilising their armed forces.

Prince Paul's attitude, Churchill wrote, "is that of an unfortunate man in a cage with a tiger - hoping not to provoke him, while steadily dinner time approaches".

Cartoon Inflation

One minute the cartoons are worse than the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks.

George Al Ahweh : This incident is worse than the 11 September attacks in the US and the 7/7 incidents in London. Therefore, today it is the right of Muslims to express their anger and to defend their right and faith.

Imran Khan, hours later : “I don’t think the message has got through that for us it’s far more painful than perhaps even the Holocaust for the Jews. Any caricature or any ridicule or any humiliation of the holy prophet is far more painful for the Muslims.”

Drinking From Home seems to be right on the button at present - a must read.

It's Out !

Baroness Kennedy's report - "People Like Me Have Been In Power For 40 Years - What's Wrong With Democracy ?" - is now available.

In the words of the psychiatrist at Fawlty Towers - "there's enough material here for a whole conference !"

Alas reality trumps satire again.

Baby Baby Baby

There's a 'creative tension' between last weekend's 'baby shortage' headlines and this week's 'gender pay gap' stories. They don't seem to have grasped yet that you can have pay "equality" (i.e. equality of outcome) - if you don't bother with reproduction. You can have one 'equal' generation. Just one.

To sone extent, that's what we've seen. The birthrate has fallen (helped by 6m abortions). The very-poor (state-funded underclass) can have lots of babies, so can the wealthy. It's not just Ms Career - it's Mr and Mrs Average Income who aren't sprogging. The ordinary Brit. We see a squeeze on mid-20s motherhood caused by two relatively recent phenomenona - the overhang of student debt and the fact that you're competing for houses with dual-income families.

Were there no immigration the population would be falling - not a bad thing in this overcrowded island. You'd see a growing underclass - and a growing 'superclass' of the privately educated children of the rich. Not good for social cohesion - but that's EXACTLY what we're seeing with the Native Brits. The number of fee-paying school places has increased enormously since comprehensives went.

So far, so not good. Chuck immigration into the mix. No baby problem there. Indeed, after the 7/7 bombings, commentators worried about the low levels of 'workforce participation' by women from the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities. In one sense, it shows that said commentators haven't got a clue. They're right that it's an indication that the community aren't bought into 21st century Brit culture. They're wrong about women not working. These women ARE working, of course. They're raising kids.

Strange

Last year's Wales game at Murrayfield was like a home match for the invading Welsh - courtesy of the SRU. The pre-match entertainment not only featured the pipes and drums, but a male voice choir, who took over for the 15 minutes before the teams came out. So we all sang that beautiful hymn 'Delilah'.

Great fun, but I'd have preferred the pipes. I like to be in Scotland when I'm in Scotland - give me the cliches please (excepting the neds and the junkies). No wonder the Scots were massacred.

What a contrast with the England game. The pitch appeared to be in the possession of a couple of schiltrons left over from Haildon Hill, and England ran on in the gloom between flaming torches held by wild, plaid-clad figures.

Ir certainly didn't do them any good. Perhaps England supporters next year should dress as longbowmen.

Pension Crisis Solved

Remember how improved medical care means we're all going to live longer, bankrupting the pensions funds and forcing us to retire later ?

Doctors have the answer :

It is not always in the best interests of the elderly, the frail and the severely disabled to be resuscitated, experts said yesterday, in a challenge to present NHS guidelines.

All hospitals and care homes are required to provide resuscitation unless a decision is made to the contrary.

"Heart attack ? Hmmm ... he looks a bit frail to me ... Dave ? What do you think ?"

"Definitely a frail ... besides, he must be pushing 60. Skip it.

OK - but you can tell his wife"

I remember Susan coming home from work one day at the local hospital. An ambulance heading up the motorway diverted there when the patient arrested, and she worked on him for an hour but couldn't restart him. Kind of put my job into perspective.

Given the low chance of success, it may be that institutions should not offer resuscitation at all, they suggest. Resources saved could be better used in improving the quality of care.

I'm in a bad temper anyway, and this news doesn't improve it. Susan is away nursing her 86 year old mother, who has a nasty chest infection. Her mother also worked as a nurse.

I keep hearing from what passes for the left how the way we treat our weakest and most vulnerable is a measure of our civilisation. But the old, weak, sick or unborn aren't apparently the people they mean.

Silly me. As commentators as diverse as Johann Hari and Cardinal Murphy O'Connor point out, the most vulnerable people are criminals.

"Christians" Awake - Well, Sort Of

On Monday I noted that the 'progressive' Christian sites, Thinking Anglicans and Ekklesia, didn't seem to have noticed the massacre of Christians in Northern Nigeria.

Ekklesia majored on the big stories such as 'Bin Laden is part of God's family, says Bishop', or 'Archbishop to visit home of London bombers' (he was actually visiting Beeston, in which case I've also visited their home).

Late Monday Ekklesia had a new, worrying story - "Warnings of anti-Muslim violence by Christians in Nigeria". Not only that, but the warning came from Peter Akinola. Christians being killed is one thing - not really worth reporting - after all, aren't we supposed to follow Christ's example ? But this ...

In a statement, the controversial Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola, known to many across the world for his outspoken statements about homosexuality said; "May we at this stage remind our Muslim brothers that they do not have the monopoly of violence in this nation".

"CAN may no longer be able to contain our restive youths should this ugly trend continue," said Akinola, who heads CAN.

The hideous danger posed by Christians getting cross at the slaughter of their co-religionists, evidenced in the world-wide Christian terror campaigns of recent years, is obviously of major importance.

The UK thinktank Ekklesia, is amongst those who have recently drawn attention to, and warned about the violence associated with some types of Christianity.

In a book, Consuming Passion, Ekklesia's directors Jonathan Bartley and Simon Barrow, raised questions about how some conservative church teaching about the death of Jesus could be linked to the approval of violence.

By Wednesday, "Christians" in the South had begun "revenge" attacks on entirely innocent Muslims. In contrast to the unreported deaths of Christians, this was big news - espacially as it was obviously Peter Akinola's doing.

"Christians kill Muslims following warning by Nigerian Archbishop"

Ekklesia could have mentioned that the religious divide in Nigeria is, as in Northern Ireland, primarily a tribal divide - in this case between the Christian Ibo and the Muslim Hausa.

Christians are again being killed in the North. But don't expect Ekklesia to be on the case unless they can find a way to advance their own agenda.

"Mr Akinola is also known for his opposition to allowing gays to be priests in the Anglican church."

By yesterday the site was back to business as usual.

"Archbishop compares Bush to Ugandan dictator"



Over at Thinking Anglicans, you could almost hear the chinking of teacups and the murmur of polite conversation last week. Women bishops, disinvesting in Caterpillar, Archbishop addreses WCC ... zzz ...

Suddenly in Friday, when the killings of Christians were nearly a week old, Shock, horror !

The coverage is, as always, thorough (better than Ekklesia's) and even-handed. For example, they link to the whole of Peter Akinola's statement.


But you can't help wondering. If Muslims weren't being killed, would the 50-80 Christian deaths in the North last weekend have been reported at all ?

Lighter Than Light

But isn't the snow nice ?

(there's a wee post at Biased BBC)

Links Update

So you'll find they're all over the place like a madwoman's faeces. They'll be duplicated here, wrong there .. but after a 12-hour day I'm too tired to finish updating them.

Take a look at Drinking From Home, another blog after my own shrivelled heart. Blogging will be light due to work-type thingies.

I'm pleased to see the Oatens are trying to get back together. I wish his marriage well and his politics ill.

"Mrs O, how can you take your husband back ?"

"Ah well, **** happens"

Everyday Stories Of Underclass Folk

Her local councillor described her as 'a loving and caring mother'. Not quite loving and caring enough not to OD while in charge of her child. Her three year old son lived for several weeks with his dead mother, surviving on food in the larder.

A happy ending though.

The council is also introducing a new support service for drug-using mothers. Isn't that lovely ? How caring can you get ?




Manwhile, in the Land of Bastards ...

"Chloe was a battered and neglected child. They failed to take her to baby clinics, would not sterilise her bottles and would not communicate with professionals. Chloe was a normal healthy baby who needed care and nurture. Sadly this was not forthcoming."

The court was told that in the weeks before her death, Chloe was admitted to hospital with bruising, underweight and in obvious distress. Doctors were extremely concerned by Chloe's physical state and by her parents' lack of co-operation, Mr Murphy said.

"Chloe was discharged but readmitted to hospital weeks later with breathing difficulties," he added.

She was admitted to the Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend, on 2 April, 2003 with injuries including a fractured skull and breaks to all her limbs. She died nine days later.

Who killed her ?

"All the injuries could have been inflicted in one single incident. The prosecution cannot say who that could have been. It may have been a third party."

The cat ? The fairies ?

Another happy ending.

"Sending you to prison would be completely wrong."

You'd Have To Have A Heart Of Stone Not To Laugh

Health and Safety meeting cut short as the entire meeting falls through the floor !

The meeting began at about 1000 GMT on Tuesday with the 21 safety officers sitting around a large wooden conference table.

Staff in the ground floor office underneath noticed the ceiling moving and ran out of the room seconds before it collapsed.

Reality Trumps Satire Again

"A government minister is due to make a speech setting out plans to give greater powers to local communities"

"Hand more power to people and communities"

Bwuuuaaa-ha-ha-ha ! You kill me !

In other news - local hospitals to close, local police stations to close, local magistrates courts to close, local pubs to close, local shops to close, police forces to be amalgamated, local councils to be abolished, detention without trial, compulsory ID, Magna Carta to be torn up, habeas corpus 'out-dated', free speech 'greatly overrated', elections to be scrapped.

No Children - Again

‘Why are you living in the West? Why don’t you go and live in Saudi Arabia?’ says Apprentice star Saira Khan.

Isn't that the kind of thing that gets you arrested for racially aggravated insulting behaviour ?

“I can say these things because of who I am,” she says. “Coming from me it can’t be seen as racist.”

Oh, of course. But I digress. I'll pass, too, on an education system that considers it proper to invite a speaker to school to undermine the culture of the home ("She tells them her life story and explains it is not necessarily their job to please their parents or to agree to an arranged marriage").

The point is that Saira, as Yazza points out, has no kids ("It must drive her family mad" - I do love Yazza). She is 35. She may be as integrated a Brit as ever sat in the smoke-free Dog and Duck, but she's not rearing a dynasty of integrated Brits.

Meanwhile, in Bradford there's no worry about a shortage of kids.

"Following initial migration and settlement in the 1960’s, Bradford has, over the last three decades, established a significant Pakistani population: in 1981 this community numbered 34,116 persons, in 1991, 38,059 persons and it is estimated that in the year 2011 this population will number 104,000 persons or approximately a quarter of the city’s population."

"Fifty per cent of this Pakistani population are under 18 years old."

More Racist Murder ?

Adloyada reports on the kidnap, torture and murder of a young Jewish man in Paris by a gang from the notorious Paris suburbs.

There are echoes of the death of 15 year old Kriss Donald in Glasgow, who was held and tortured overnight before being stripped, stabbed and set ablaze. The Pakistani street gang who kidnapped him had been driving around looking for a white person to attack.

Ilam Halini was imprisoned and tortured for THREE WEEKS before being dumped, dying, near a train station last Monday. The kidnappers used an attractive woman, who asked him out on a date, as bait. This wasn't, as Kriss Donald's death may have been, a spur of the moment operation. This was planned and deliberate.

The French State prosecutor says they may have attempted six or seven other kidnappings.

Hat tip - Stephen Pollard - whose Blunkett biog I'm currently reading.

Religion of Peace part 726 and Anglican responses

"Nigeria cartoon protests kill 16" say the BBC. Gosh, those cartoon protests sure are dangerous. We certainly don't want that sort of thing here. Any details ?

Christian leader Joseph Hayab told Reuters agency that most of those who died had been Christians.

"They went on the rampage, burning shops and churches of the Christians. The protesters killed the others. Some were even killed in the churches."

Doubtless the Church of England will be apologising shortly for ever converting them in its imperialist former fashion.

The story doesn't make the Ekklesia news page, nor Sinking Anglicans, a site whch claims to "Blog from a liberal Anglican perspective covering news, events and documents that affect church people". Obviously being killed doesn't affect you enough.

Thinking Anglicans has pages of stories about Nigeria - all on the subject of the saintly Archbishop Akinola, who takes his inspiration and authority from Scripture rather than from the Guardian and is therefore a Bad Thing.

Ekklesia likewise has 64 stories on Nigeria, the vast majority being about the hideous persecution (by the Anglican Church) of gay Anglicans, with the rest about Nigeria's debt. I did spot this sombre story though.

"In the worst single incident so far, at least 48 people were murdered, many during an early morning prayer service on February 24.

Armed Muslims invaded the service, ordered the congregation to lie face down and proceeded ‘to machete and axe them to death in their house of worship’ according to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). The victims included women and children."

The weekend's news was pretty sombre too.

"They think they have won the debate. They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.

The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.

It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."


No, it's not a precedent - Northern Ireland was a precedent, the Scarman report on the Brixton riots was a precedent, the response to animal rights terrorists is a precedent. The only organised violence a UK Government will, or can, stand up to is violence by those it can feel good about opposing - which would boil down in practice to the poor old native English.

See the Pub Philosopher for more, to whom I'm also grateful for this picture from the Pakistan cartoon protests. Could be a fake I suppose :

Role Model

Live football on BBC - the post-match interview.

"Well, Micah Richards, you must be elated to have equalised in injury time"

"F*** it"

"They're fairly lenient now"

Fortress Britain : or how the 'gay marriage' laws make illegal immigration legal.


A further five firms were visited by an undercover female reporter who claimed that she wished to “marry” her lesbian Ukrainian girlfriend.

In the meetings she admitted she had a boyfriend and that her “lesbian” lover was simply a friend who wanted a British passport. Three solicitors said there was no requirement to prove a sexual relationship.

A fourth solicitor, Irene Anin of Welbeck Anin Solicitors in Camberwell, south London, said, “It shouldn’t be a problem, you just say you’re girlfriends. As for what goes on behind closed doors, [that] has got nothing to do with anybody.”

The reporter was told she would need to provide letters, photographs and other evidence of a “relationship”. Anin added: “They [the Home Office] will be happy with that. I think they’re fairly lenient now.”

Only one firm of solicitors out of five told her where to go.


Also in the Sunday Times :

“What we’re seeing in the East End of London is ghettoisation . . . The kids lead lives with one foot in the airport. They don’t want to belong. They don’t want to become part of the British story.”

And Patricia Morgan on how marriage was 'de-privileged'.

"So what? The consensus of government, the main political parties, academia, children’s charities and public bodies has for long been that nothing should be said, let alone done, about the implications of changing family structure, unless it be to cheer it all on. We must welcome and support “diverse” and “vibrant” new “family forms”. The way we live now is by “participating in a web of relationships”, or revolving-door partnerships and haphazard reproduction.

Raise any doubts and you will be sanctimoniously told how families come “in all shapes and sizes”. What will be waved is an example of the fantastic lone parent rearing high-achieving children to offset the multitude of well-run studies that have for long been telling how children born or adopted and raised in an intact marriage are — on average — more apt to avoid criminal and psychiatric trouble, achieve more educationally, become gainfully employed and, in turn, successfully raise the next generation. "