Autumn Follows Summer

"If I should mention, as a matter of course, that autumn follows summer, that does not mean that I am all for getting a ladder and pulling the leaves off the trees". - John Wyndham, The Kraken Wakes

This blog, 2005 :

As the Native Brit population declines, and natives become the minority in more and more areas, politics will almost inevitably become split on ethnic lines. The demographics are still pointing all one way, the Tories are unlikely to win this year and less likely to make major changes if and when they do ever win.

So in 20 years or so there'll be a nativist British party, representing a substantial proportion, if not a majority, of the native English. The only question is what the name of that party will be.

It may not be the BNP. It may be Veritas, or UKIP, or English Nationalist. It may even be the Tories, but it's unlikely. By the time they wake up to the fact that, with 80% of ethnic minorities voting Labour, natives being the minority in the major cities, and inward migration unchecked, they may never recapture urban seats, they may have been fatally compromised in the eyes of native voters.

The Times, today :

About 70 people are packed into a back room of the Golden Lion pub, with not a skinhead or pair of Doc Martens in sight and more tweeds than T-shirts. They are male and female, young and old, working class and middle class, ex-Labour and ex-Tory, several of them Daily Telegraph readers. They are mostly solid Yorkshire folk who have watched immigrants transform areas in which they grew up and believe — rightly or wrongly — that their way of life is under threat. They are bewildered more than hate-filled. They are fearful more than fear-inspiring, and feel gagged by political correctness. They do not come from sink estates. They are stakeholders, people with something to lose. "We’re being overwhelmed," laments a retired Latin teacher. "I've nothing against other races. It's just that they keep flooding into the country to breaking point," says a lorry driver. "We can't invite the whole world to live in England," says a former merchant marine officer. Few will give their names.

Untermensch

He urged people to turn their backs on racists in communities and at the ballot box and showed his contempt for the British National Party by saying they should be treated as "less than human".

Trevor Phillips is chairman of the Commission of Equality and less than Human Rights.

Ruling Class Hypocrisy

In the Indie, one public school ex-editor (Piers Morgan) skewers a public school current editor (the Grauniad's Alan Rusbridger). God, what a bunch of hypocrites they are at the Graun ! Do any of them send their kids to the local comp ?

PM: What's your current salary?

AR: It's, er, about £350,000.

PM: What bonus did you receive last year?

AR: About £170,000, which was a way of addressing my pension.

PM: That means that you earned £520,000 last year alone. That's more than the editor of The Sun by a long way.

AR: I'll talk to you off the record about this, but not on the record.

PM: Why? In The Guardian, you never stop banging on about fat cats. Do you think that your readers would be pleased to hear that you earned £520,000 last year? Are you worth it?

AR: That's for others to say.

PM: Wouldn't it be more Guardian-like, more socialist, to take a bit less and spread the pot around a bit? We have this quaint idea that you guys are into that "all men are equal" nonsense, but you're not really, are you? You seem a lot more "equal" than others on your paper.

AR: Er... [silence].

PM: Do you ever get awkward moments when your bonus gets published? Do you wince and think, "Oh dear, Polly Toynbee's not going to like this one."

AR: Er... [silence].

PM: Or is Polly raking in so much herself that she wouldn't mind?

AR: Er... [silence].

PM: Are you embarrassed by it?

AR: No. I didn't ask for the money. And I do declare it, too.

PM: But if you earned £520,000 last year, then that must make you a multimillionaire.

AR: You say I'm a millionaire?

PM: You must be - unless you're giving it all away to charity...

AR: Er...

PM: What's your house worth?

AR: I don't want to talk about these aspects of my life.

PM: You think it's all private?

AR: I do really, yes.

PM: Did you think that about Peter Mandelson's house? I mean, you broke that story.

AR: I, er... it was a story about an elected politician.

PM: And you're not as accountable. You just reserve the right to expose his private life.

AR: We all make distinctions about this kind of thing. The line between private and public is a fine one, and you've taken up most of the interview with it.

PM: Well, only because you seem so embarrassed and confused about it.

AR: I'm not embarrassed about it. But nor do I feel I have to talk about it.

PM: Do you like money?

AR: I remember JK Galbraith saying to me once: "I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better." You can have an easier life if you have money.

PM: I heard you bought a grand piano for £50,000.

AR: £30,000 - the most extravagant thing I've ever bought ...


PM: Any other cars?

AR: A company Volvo estate.

PM: A big gas-guzzler.

AR: Yes.

PM: Bit of a culture clash with your G-Wiz, then?

AR: Let me think about that. The problem is that I also have a big dog, and it doesn't fit into the G-Wiz.

PM: I'm sure the environment will understand. Any others?

AR: My wife has a Corsa.

PM: Quite an expansive...

AR: Fleet...

PM: Yes, fleet.

AR: But I've got children as well.

PM: They're privately educated?

AR: Er... [pause].

PM: Is that a valid question?

AR: I don't... think so... no.

PM: And you went to Cranleigh, a top public school.

AR: I did, yes.

PM: Do you feel uncomfortable answering that question?

AR: It falls into the category of something I don't feel embarrassed about, but you get on to a slippery slope about what else you talk about, don't you?

PM: It's not really about your private life though, is it? It's just a fact. And I assume by your reluctance to answer the question that they are privately educated.

AR: [Pause] Again, I am trying to make a distinction between...

PM: You often run stories about Labour politicians sending their kids to private schools, and you are quite censorious about it. Are you worried that it makes you look a hypocrite again?

AR: No. I think there are boundaries. It goes back to this question of whether editors are public figures or not.

PM: And you don't think they are?

AR: Well, again, I've tried to draw a distinction between making my journalism accountable, but I have never tried to go around talking about my private life and therefore making myself into a public figure.

Great stuff. As Harry Phibbs says at the SAU blog, Morgan may also be a hypocrite - but at leat he's honest about it.

Churchill On Demography

"There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies" - radio broadcast, 1943.

"You must have four children. One for Mother, one for Father, one for Accidents, one for Increase".

She's Back

'Twas eighteen months ago that AL Kennedy announced to a stunned world that her next novel would be "a historical novel set in World War II but it will reflect the other war. It would have been about Iraq even if it had nothing to with war".

Well if 'Day' is about Iraq, both Guardian (Ursula le Guin, no less) and Indie reviewers seem to have missed it. Maybe she changed her mind.

Her Observer book-plug interview is another of those bleak, self-deprecating jobbies in which she specialises and which make you think she really ought to find some chap into hillwalking, move to a small Borders town, go to church on Sundays and have a couple of weans before it's too late for her. Maybe she just needs someone to love like the rest of us.

Still mad as a fish though. The revamped website features a host of links to lefty 'Bush conspiracy' sites, some no longer in business like 911dossier.co.uk ('Auto Insurance Quotes, Ringtones'), the overwhelming majority American. What's wrong with good old British paranoia ? Strangely, for someone who rails against capitalism, she thinks the idea that artists should pay less tax is 'sensible'.

And she's really gorn and done it now (hat-tip - Norm).

"When I look at the UK, it reminds me of the Nazi era. Blair is a deranged war criminal, and I have little hope that Brown is any better.

"And again, we are stigmatising one individual religious group, this time it is the Muslims. A section of our society is being marked out as criminals. That makes me angry."

After various politicians and Muslim and Jewish writers described her views as 'a lot of rubbish', 'absurd, repulsive and dangerous', 'childish, silly and over the top' and 'a bit extreme, to say the least' Ms Kennedy came back with a cracking one-liner.

"Did I say these things? I think I probably did but in the context of a much longer conversation. And I am not in any way comparing the situation to the Shoah. Of course there are no gas chambers or concentration camps. What we have right now, is not the way the Jews were being treated in 1940 or 1941, but maybe where they were around 1936."

If her stand-up comedy can match this she should be on TV.


UPDATE - Edinburgh blogger Rosie Bell isn't too impressed with the 1936 comparison either. Hard but fair methinks.

Your great pal Al
Is a stupid gal
Reason's enemy.
The Guardian prints
Her words of mince
A waste of any tree.
Her frothing rants,
Are total pants,
Count how many flee
From the loony dribbles
And paranoid scribbles
Of A L Kennedy.

Here We Go ...

Following the Virginia Tech massacre, Gerard Baker (for whose opinions I've usually got a lot of time) in the Times :

In Virginia, scene of yesterday’s shootings, they passed a law a few years ago that did indeed restrict gun purchases – to a maximum of one per week. In the neighbouring District of Columbia, on the other hand, the law bans the possession of all guns.

Unfortunate choice, that. The District of Columbia has one of the highest murder rates in the whole of the US. How so ? As the San Francisco lawyer and criminologist Don Kates writes :

The difficulty of enforcement crucially undercuts the violence-reductive potential of gun laws. Unfortunately, an almost perfect inverse correlation exists between those who are affected by gun laws, particularly bans, and those whom enforcement should affect. Those easiest to disarm are the responsible and law abiding citizens whose guns represent no meaningful social problem. Irresponsible and criminal owners, whose gun possession creates or exacerbates so many social ills, are the ones most difficult to disarm.

This applies in spades to the UK, where a total handgun ban has been accompanied by year-on-year increases in handgun crime.

States in the US where so-called concealed carry is allowed have seen falls in crime, as criminals take into account the possibility that their potential victims may be armed.

In Florida, which first introduced "shall-issue" concealed carry laws, crimes committed against residents dropped markedly upon the general issuance of concealed-carry licenses, which had the unintended consequence of putting tourists in Florida driving marked rental cars at risk from criminals (since tourists may be readily presumed unarmed.) Florida responded by enacting laws prohibiting the obvious marking of rental cars.


Perhaps if any law-abiding VT students had been allowed to carry their own weapons on campus the killer would not have been able to slaughter them in such numbers. But a Virginia Bill (House Bill 1572) allowing students the right to carry handguns on campus was recently defeated - prompting Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker to make the unfortunate declaration :

"I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

Last June, VT's governing board approved a violence prevention policy reiterating its ban on students or employees carrying guns and prohibiting visitors from bringing them into campus facilities.

Unfortunately the 'violence prevention policy' doesn't seem to have taken into account the possibility that someone intent on breaking the murder statutes may not be too worried about a college ban. The killer didn't obey the college rules. Those who died did.

Do These ...

... look like the sort of people to put fear into the criminal classes ?


Judge John Samuels and Judy McKnight of the National Association of Probation Officers.

Plenty more pictures at the NAPO blog, where you can see Frances Crook of the Howard League for the Abolition of Punishment quaffing the taxpayer-funded Zinfandel at a bash to celebrate 55 years of honest endeavour followed by 45 years of protecting the interests of the criminal rather than those of the law-abiding. I wonder how many advocates of victims rights were invited ?

Second Amendment

One for Mr Free Market methinks ...



Safety lessons with a Colt .357. It's not loaded or the ear defenders would be on.




Fearsome beastie ... a Mossberg 300 12 gauge. When loaded with 00 buckshot you grip firmly - and still move back a foot with the recoil.



(Of course this sort of thing could never be allowed in a civilised country like Britain.)

American Catholic Churches

El Christo Rey, Grand Canyon




The Mission, San Luis Obispo

The Silent Service

The Iran hostages crisis was the only UK story which registered on US television or in newpapers. The decision to allow the sale of the stories got a poor press - when the LA Times and SF Examiner are aghast you wonder what Fox News will say. A lot of the US coverage focused on how they could have been captured in the beginning, a subject EU Referendum won't let go of.

Mick Hartley isn't impressed with the abuse being handed out to the "frightened fifteen", on the not unreasonable grounds that those handing out the stick haven't walked in their shoes. But it's impossible not to compare the hostages behaviour with that documented in a thousand WW2 tales. Whatever happened to name, rank, number and the stiff upper lip ? As the Dumb One says, take a look at the hostages and tell me we don’t have a Navy that 'looks like modern Britain'.

Iran has done us over neatly, humiliating our armed forces in the eyes of the world and making further attacks more likely - while the First Sea Lord tells us they are 'not an enemy'. We've then added to the humiliation with the decision to allow the hostages to sell their stories.

British sailors and Marines were previously kidnapped a few years ago by Iran - and our response was non-existent. Mark Steyn's Telegraph piece from 2004 strikes a puzzled note.

The curious thing is the lion that didn't roar. Tony Blair has views on everything and is usually happy to expound on them at length - if you'd just arrived from Planet Zongo and were plunked down at a joint Blair/Bush press conference on Iraq or Afghanistan or most of the rest of the world, you'd be forgiven for coming away with the impression that the Prime Minister's doing 90 per cent of the heavy lifting and the President's just there for emergency back-up. Yet, on an act of war and/or piracy perpetrated directly against British forces, Mister Chatty is mum.

Likewise, Jack Straw. The Foreign Secretary goes to Teheran the way other Labour grandees go to Tuscany. He's got a Rolodex full of A-list imams. When in the Islamic Republic, he does that "peace be upon him" thing whenever he mentions the Prophet Mohammed, just to show he's cool with Islam, not like certain arrogant redneck cowboys we could mention. And where did all the ayatollah outreach get him? "We have diplomatic relations with Iran, we work hard on those relationships and sometimes the relationships are complicated," he twittered, "but I'm in no doubt that our policy of engagement with the Government of Iran... is the best approach."

Even odder has been the acquiescence of the press. If pictures had been unearthed of some over-zealous Guantanamo guards doing to our plucky young West Midlands jihadi what the Iranian government did on TV to those Royal Marines, two thirds of Fleet Street (including many of my Spectator and Telegraph colleagues) would be frothing non-stop.

Instead, they seem to have accepted the British spin that there's been no breach of the Geneva Conventions because the Marines and sailors weren't official prisoners of war, just freelance kidnap victims you can have what sport you wish with.

Why didn't Bush think of that one?

We're seeing here the Blair phenomenon noted by Libby Purves in the early days of his premiership.

She was discussing Blair with "a friend, a retired military man of mild and amiable disposition", who told her "you see, the trouble with Tony Blair is that he's terribly good when it isn't his problem". The more Libby pondered this, the truer it seemed. She thought of his support for GWB after Sept 11, his Labour Conference speech when he abolished world poverty, saved Africa, built the New Jerusalem and caused the lion to lie down with the lamb, the graceful way he dealt with Prescott's pugilism - when the problem wasn't his he was assured and competent. She thought then of the fuel protests and his dealings with Sinn Fein/IRA over decommissioning, concluding that the only time he dithers is exactly when he shouldn't - when the buck stops on his desk.

UPDATE - Rod Dreher has a thoughtful post.

What does the apparent fact that so many today look upon traditional notions of honor as quaint customs from the past say about our collective moral imagination? The relative ease with which those soldiers violated the taboo against participating in propaganda broadcasts of the enemy -- and the decision of the Royal Navy to ignore the violation -- strikes me as a "canary in the coal mine" moment.

UPDATE2 - Max Hastings writes of "a world we have lost - of unreasoning, lifelong devotion, of love for an institution above self. If you don't have that, it is only a matter of time before you don't have a navy." I'm reminded of the comment of the WW2 Admiral Cunningham, when told of the risks attending the further evacuation of British and New Zealand troops from Crete in the face of German air superiority. As Churchill wrote, to abandon the Army went against all the Navy's traditions. Cunningham's reply was :

"It takes the Navy three years to build a new ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue."

Snaps

Jetlagged and awake - after all, it's just after 6 pm on the West Coast. But also too tired to blog much, so a couple of holiday snaps.


Greenland from 4 miles up - glaciers and peaks on a beautiful sunny morning. The plane flew across the centre of Greenland (the interior icecap is completely flat - very dull), over pack ice to Baffin Island and even passed over Queen Elizabeth Land before coming southwest over the Northern Territory to the Rockies.


Guns and Lace - purveyors of firearms and undergarments to the good men and women of Placer County, California.

Greetings

From San Luis Obispo, after a blessed fortnight with no UK news at all, though I gather the Iran 'hostages' have been released.

Too many holiday highlights to bore you with - the bear I found raiding the bins at Lake Tahoe and my first look at Yosemite rank pretty high - but for the kids I think the opportunity to blast at targets with a Colt Python .357 and a Mossberg 500 pistol-grip shotgun ('that is mental' was my eldest's verdict) were at the top.

Much though I love it here, I look forward to finding out from Dumb Jon, the Philosopher, Norm, Harry, Scott and co what's been going on back in Blighty. God and Air France willing, normal blogging will resume this weekend.

So that's where the money's gone ...

Pub Philosopher with one of the more important posts I've read in a long while. I've been watching house prices rise for 15 years or more,waiting for the crash which hasn't happened. I look at the average cost of a semi and wonder how anyone on average wages can afford it. Who keeps buying ?

We've been reading about vast city bonuses for a long time now. Each year directors of large companies get 15%-odd salary increases while shopfloor Joe gets 3%. Don't get me started on the share options.

My late mother's house was bought by an investor. So was my late father's.

Before the second world war, even middle-class people, for the most part, lived in rented property. Home ownership was only for the wealthy. In many European countries, it is still unusual for people to buy houses until they are in their late thirties. Might the rise in home ownership since the 1950s be thrown into reverse? And what will be the social impact of wannabe house buyers being forced into the rental market?


You really must read the whole thing.

Blogging will be light for the next two weeks. If I have time I'll post from Mexifornia.

Here We Go, Here We Go, Here We Go

Remember the last Guardianista line on EU immigration ? After the 'only 13,000' figure turned out to be over half a million, the next line was 'they're only coming over for a few years to earn some money, then they'll go back'.

It was my impression that while some (like the philosophy student I gave a lift to last summer) were here for the quick buck (and nowt wrong with that), many are in for the long haul. We've got the first wee Poles at the primary. We're printing the Mass service sheets in Polish as well as English. I'm seeing a lot of bumps and pushchairs in Poundland.

The BBC has been told the influx of eastern Europeans to the UK has led to a massive rise in pregnancies and abortion requests in some areas.

Health professionals warn that some antenatal services are stretched to breaking point.

More than 500,000 eastern Europeans have migrated to the UK following the accession of eight new member states to the EU in 2004.

The impact on services appears to be far greater outside major cities.

Doctors say the new arrivals are largely young, fit and fertile: the number of pregnant women has doubled; one in four women asking for an abortion is eastern European.

This is particularly informative.

Lisa Cunningham, manager of the BPAS in Luton, said her centre dealt with 663 abortions last year.

"We have noticed an increase with the Eastern European clients.

"Some women have said to me that they would want to continue with the pregnancy, but they haven't been in this country for very long, and they are not entitled to the benefits.

"If they were entitled to that then they would continue with the pregnancy. It's sad that that is a big factor."

Tragically "there is no basic state help - even child benefit - for unemployed migrant workers from these countries until they've worked in the UK for at least a year."

The BBC have discovered a whole new job the locals don't want to do - that of the "unemployed migrant worker". Apparently with more state aid it could be a vibrant sector of the economy.

When the Europeans overran North America and 'marginalised' the indigenous peoples, they repented (admittedly very late) and established reservations into which no non-native can go without the tribe's permission. How that fits with discrimination law I don't know - just another example of the one-way ratchet I guess. Anyway, we're hoping to pay 75 bucks each next week to tread upon the half-million or so acres of Hualapai land and see their snazzy new Skywalk.

In the comments to this post Guardian Apostate said :

"... underneath many people are unhappy with what's developing. Without any seeming alternative they just quietly leave. I know many people of Afro-Caribbean descent, many of whom I like a lot, but sadly, on balance, I've come to the conclusion I'd rather live in a more English setting. It's not just British culture that's affected. The days of the blues parties and sound system clashes are pretty much over. It's just too dangerous. I'm not overly taken by Indian culture either. I have 4, living in a tiny one bedroom flat above me, and I appear to have absolutely zero in common with them. They talk in their own language amongst themselves and mostly listen to Indian music and radio. My culture is slowly falling away in so many subtle ways. It is't only immigration Labour has got wrong. For me, in some ways quite worse, is the state of Education. That seemed to be the tipping point for most of my friends with families who've left."

I don't think he's a racist. He doesn't hate people of other cultures or races. Like most people in the world, certainly like most immigrants to Britain, he just wants to live among his own.

I know America's a much bigger country - but do you think they could put a bit aside for the English ? Shropshire would be nice.

British Understatement

... has moved to Zimbabwe.

"I do not think that even the most enthusiastic anti-colonial and anti-imperialist advocates would agree in 2007 that the 1st revolution of Zimbabwe has produced a positive outcome that is in line with the expectations of all those Africans who have made the sacrifices to eradicate the artificial man made colonial distortions."

Slavery Days II

I can't find it in my heart to blame the BBC overmuch for their coverage of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Given that the government and Church of England, rather than celebrating the fact that Britain was the first nation in history to make a serious (and successful) attempt at abolition, chose an orgy of breast-beating and apology, how could the BBC resist following suit ? It fits with the narrative they were taught in sociology, English and politics classes - how could they not go with the flow ?

Julian Worricker presented his Radio Five show today from Ghana, while actor Kwame Kwei-Armah (ne Ian Roberts in Hillingdon - like Muhammad Ali, he rejected his 'slave name') was in Liverpool.

I think it's fair to say that neither Worricker nor Kwei-Armah are immersed in the history.

When an interviewee asked why slave traders had gone to Africa rather than Russia for their slaves, Worricker was unable to reply that slave traders HAD gone there, that black and Russian slaves worked in Italy as far back as 1300, nor was he aware of probably the most famous Ukranian slave.

Worricker then passed control to Kwei-Armah in Liverpool, whose interview (41 minutes in) with the historian Anthony Beevor is a small classic, as Beevor resolutely failed to play to the script and insisted on pointing out that the British were only one of many slaving nations. Beevor mentioned the Arab slave trade, at which Kwei-Armah asked him why he was talking about Arab rather than Western slavery. Was he in denial ?

Kwei-Armah – "What forms of slavery took away their names ?"
Anthony Beevor – "Well in terms of the Arab slave trade they did worse than this. Recent research suggests that 90% of the males died from castration."
K-A - "I did not ask you that. I asked about the names."
AB – "Well yes. All slaves had their names taken away, back to Roman times."
K-A – "Oh."

(Thanks to Recovering Liberal)

Free Scratchcards

A scratchcard fell out of the Sunday Times - "Win £1 million", and surprise - when the kids scratched it, it turned out to be a 'Gold Winner'. As 90% of the scratchcards that fall out of the paper are.

A long but hopefully educational debate ensued, with a few googles for 'Purely Creative scratchcard scam' or similar. Surprise again - they had been fined by ICSTIS, the toothless premium phone number regulator.

It's a dirty business - give me a good honest shoplifter any day. The phones to claim a 'prize' cost £9. Only prizewinners will phone, as the scratchcards are free. So the prizes - such as they are - read the message boards or google to find out - are paid for by the phone calls. You don't need an economics degree to work out that to make a profit they're not going to be giving much away. I imagine the people who fall for this are either a) young and gullible b) elderly and trusting.

The economics aren't too bad. Let's say the prize is worth £2, the calls cost £9 - £7 a throw. Send out half a million of these, 20,000 mugs ring in (no idea what the response is BTW) - that's 140K. An ICSTIS fine of £2k isn't exactly going to make a hole in that.

Purely Creative are apparently owned by DM plc, who are quoted on the AIM market. They're based in Lancaster, which rang a bell. A company called Monstermob used to be based there, also not unknown to the ICSTIS regulator. I seem to recall the then owner, some sharp young guy, being presented with a Young Businessman award by the local Tory MP. Gullibility isn't confined to teenagers and OAPs.

I took a look at the current board of Monstermob. Blimey - they certainly live up to their name. Santiago Jack ? Where's Frisco Valdez, One-Eye Martinez and Valparaiso Pete ?


UPDATE - just when you think things can't get any lower - some entrepreneurial types have had the bright idea of selling the 'prizes' on ebay ! A £9 investment sells for £100 !

This guy only got £19 back. Look at this for an honest sales pitch.

I have just won a holiday for 1 to Spain on a scratch card. Having already booked my holiday I reluctantly let this one to slip for a bargain price.

You will receive a scratch card with already obtained claim code (cost me £9 to phone 0906 to confirm the prize), so the only thing you will need to do is to fill in your details and send it to the travel agent, Purely Creative, which is a reputable company so there won’t be any worries there. If you have any questions about the holiday you can call Purely creative on 08700 500 755 (9am-5pm Monday to Friday).)

Doesn't Take Long, Does It ?

My son's come back from cricket practice :

"Have you heard that Pakistan have given up cricket ? They're entering for the bobsleigh."

Blogging Losing Appeal ?

I think the death of blogging is greatly exaggerated, but then I would say that. The children are much more into bebo/myspace/facebook, but that's a socialising tool.

According to research by a firm of US technology analysts, the blogging phenomenon may have peaked last October, when 100,000 new blogs were being created every day. As well as personal diaries these included corporate, professional, celebrity and other specialist blogs.

Yet the Gartner research firm also concluded that the trend would level off in 2007, with perhaps 100m people still blogging worldwide. Other analysts predict that number will fall to 30m.

"A lot of people have been in and out of [blogging]", said Daryl Plummer of Gartner. "Everyone thinks they have something to say until they’re put on stage and asked to say it."

Some of us seem to only have one thing to say, but they keep on saying it.

This tells its own little story about crime in the heart of our capital city.

The midnight launch of the PlayStation 3 at the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street, London, will go ahead despite police concerns. Another retailer, GAME, abandoned plans for a similar event after police said young gamers may risk being mugged.

"Progression Has Ceased"

"Eddieareader" in the comments to this Martin Kettle boilerplate. Don't agree with it all, but I get his general point.

Labour has lost its way now for over a generation, certainly since the 1960s. It has become a party to promote the interests of homosexuals, the public sector unions (from where it now derives its funding) and ethnic minorities - giving its metropolitan elite a cosy feeling of being liberal whilst not actually having to live with the consequences.

I come from a mining family. Both my grandfathers were miners, one had his back broken down the pit. My family were virtual slaves a century after the official ones were freed. The 1926 General Strike ran through our (rented) house like a wide river. My mother had a brother born the second week of the strike with no food (literally) in the house. The (old) Labour Party provided food parcels so that they didn't starve. My dad lost his big toe nail after diving for coal from sunken barges and catching his foot in one. I was the first in my family (like Neil Kinnock) to go to university. My mother always voted Labour until Mrs Thatcher.

I was a died in the wool Labour on entering university (always proud that I share a birthday with Thomas Paine and nearly with the execution of Charles II). Seeking out the Socialist Society I soon found it full of the sons and daughters of the middle-class, in 1970 not many working class kids made university especially those from comprehensives! I soon found that my accent set me apart. It was obvious to me as a 19 year old that these socialists, and I guess a good many went on to be something in the movement, had nothing to offer me accept a diferent face to the same exploitation I could expect from the Tories. That changed my life.

Labour got lost in debating societies rather than failitating the ambitions of working-class people. That is why Margaret Thatcher was so effective. Labour simply had no answer to what Margaret Thatcher offered and still don't.
Mrs Thatcher got a great deal wrong (education, the EU) due to her prejudices but she knew people want to improve their lot.

Tony Blair managed Labour well to pursue his own fantasy. It was just a pity that he had the intellectually deficient Brown alongside. Brown has wrecked pension schemes, raised taxes on the low-paid (increasingly after this week's Budget) and wasted the money on an ineptly managed public-sector. Blair could have insisted on reform first and spending (Brown has even spun spending as investment) second. Brown is so dim that he doesn't even understand what drives effective management. His only trick is to pull in Harvard professors to advise on productivity and have a photo opportunity.
The NHS needs to be dismantled and replaced with an insurance-based system as in France.

Their reaction to out-Tory the Tories means wasting billions on Trident, a slavish attitude towards the City, a willingness to tax low-earners but not high-earners and schools that can teach anything as long as an exam is passed.

Whereas the Tories are very mindful of their base (privilege) Labour has ignored the white working class it came from. Stephen Byers, whose constituents have homes (the major source of inherited wealth) worth on average just over £100,000, being interested in the abolition of inheritance tax is one example. The way Labour dismantled the immigration controls on spouses from the sub-continent and has refused to outlaw arranged marriages is another.

When I was planning for university at the end of the sixties it seemed a natural progression that I was doing better and would do better still than my parents. As my son prepares to do the same during the noughties (how apt) I cannot see him doing the same. Progression has ceased.