Undercover Black Man ...

Interesting, eclectic blog, a bit reminiscent of a transatlantic Clive Davis. Alas I can't remember which blogger led me to it. When the blogroll gets fixed it'll be by Booker Rising and Co.

Two posts here - debating rap music with posters from white nationalist site American Renaissance, and on the right to bear arms.

While we're on "black culture" and "white culture", the evidence presented to the Home Affairs Select Committee is a right riveting read, if somewhat depressing at times. It certainly isn't going to reverse the flight from London of every English family with kids who can afford it.

"This is a mental health issue. I think our community is going stark raving bonkers and I think the children are expressing it."

"The price of firearms at street level has gone down. You can actually now put your hands on one for £30–£50. There is also a mechanism of lending firearms. I think that is really a big issue."

"The growing levels of unemployment and educational failure amongst Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims in this country indicates that they have an Afro-Caribbean type future ahead of them if government does not intercede to prevent the growing levels of alienation and descent into criminality that we are now witnessing in the Muslim
community."

"The Caribbean children commit a lot of street robberies and they will hang more with more of the other communities. The African communities have recently come in ...the Africans — I find in Peckham we have the largest number — they are fairly new and they have come in with different issues. Some of them have been boy soldiers, some have been in war torn countries, so they have a completely different attitude to socialising. They are brought over and they are put into a school... the Africans have a different mindset. They also are thinking about what is happening in their own country. For example if they are from Sudan, they are dealing with issues of war, or their families at home, if they have families at home—those are the two differences — but you will see a much larger increase of crime within the African community, we are starting to have to deal with it right now, as they settle into the country much more."

So the Afro-Caribbean community are mentally ill, guns are cheap, and just you wait till the Muslims and Africans get going. Hmmm.

Potted guide to the issues as seen by the witnesses :

Family disaster zones/ absent fathers - everyone except Lee Jasper
Rap music/street culture - everyone except Lee Jasper and the various DJs
White racism, lack of black history lessons - Lee Jasper, both the Reverends, Ken Barnes, Gus John.
Sixties liberals and benefit culture - Shaun Bailey
Asians are affected too - Sukhvinder Stubbs

There was a tension between "we're just like you - please treat us as you'd wish to be treated" and "we're not at all like you".

Decima Francis : "We have to parent our children because we are black and we know how to, and that power has been taken away from us. We have to get it back. Our children are large, boisterous and very, very different from yours and we need to now bring
them back. We think differently, we behave differently, we are from different cultures and different history and we have to have the responsibility of looking after our children and we must have it back, but first the men have to work."

A couple of witnesses (Decima Francis, Neil Solo) seemed to be under the illusion that smacking your kids for misbehaviour (something with which they were, if not supportive, certainly sympathetic) was something totally alien to Native Brits. I suppose they only come into contact with white Guardianistas.

We Call Our Indoctrination Education

2006 Citizenship Studies GCSE paper.

The United Kingdom Government takes equal opportunity very seriously and has set up special agencies to promote people’s rights. The Commission for Racial Equality provides advice on racial matters while the Equal Opportunities Commission promotes equal opportunities for men and women. More recently, the Disability Rights Commission started work to promote the rights of disabled people.
In spite of this, discrimination sometimes takes place. This is where one person is treated differently simply because of their gender, religion, race, ethnic group or disability. If you have been the victim of unfair discrimination, you can get help from your Citizens Advice Bureau, Law Centre or trade union. They will be able to advise you what to do. You can use civil law to object to unfair discrimination.
All of us have responsibility for treating people fairly whatever their race, sex or disability. We can also make it clear to others that unfair discrimination is unacceptable. Some people have formed pressure groups to campaign for changes in the law and support victims of unfair discrimination. Groups representing disabled people, such as the Disabled Parents’ Network, have been very successful in doing this over the last 10 years.

This looks like standard Guardian stuff to me - I'm not at all sure how this will promote social cohesion. Interestingly there's one area of discrimination law which the paper slides past - that of discrimination against homosexuals. Perhaps they decided class discussions in places like the new forced-integration Burnley schools would be too divisive. After all, if one community thinks they should have their heads kicked while the other thinks they should be thrown off tall buildings - well, that kind of disagreement can escalate.

A Titan Passes ...

We shall not look upon his like again ...

Absent Fathers Day

OK, so Home Affairs Select Committee chair John Denham is an idiot.

"Committee chairman John Denham said there was no evidence young black people committed more crime than other groups."

(I think he's an idiot, anyway- but in fairness, he's following in the train of researcher Marian Fitzgerald, who seems to think that self-reported surveys - asking young people how many crimes they commit - is a more accurate measure of criminality than the conviction statistics. Apparently by this measure, when asked by the comedians at the Youth Justice Board, 37% of black schoolchildren admitted to committing a crime as against 26% of whites and 20% of Asians. In another survey by the Home Office, black respondents were significantly LESS likely than whites to say they had offended. I've written to her to ask if that's really how one measures criminal activity or if I've got the wrong end of the stick. The stats, the report, and the evidence - fascinating stuff - are all here - and the website has a disgusting feature by means of which right-clicking, as well as left, automatically loads the pdf.)

But at least some commentators are wondering if there could be a connection between the dire shortage of daddies in black communities and high crime rates.

Figures cited by the committee indicate that 59 per cent of black Caribbean children and 54 per cent of mixed race youngsters are looked after by a lone parent. In the white British population, the figure is 22 per cent.

The Rev Nims Obunge, an evangelical pastor in north London, said that ''an acknowledged breakdown in the social fabric of many black families is most typically exemplified by the lack of a strong father figure in the home".

Well, yes. Take a look at this tragic City Journal piece - the Father's Day card marketed to black children with no fathers.

for My Mother ON FATHER’S DAY

You hear a lot of talk
these days about
children growing up
without a father—
without this
and without that.

You hardly ever hear
About the mothers who,
In spite of everything,
Raise their children to be strong,
To believe in God, to work hard
To make their lives worthwhile . . .




That’s the story
I’d like to tell
Because that’s
How you raised me.
In spite of it all,

it’s our story . . .
I made it because of you.
Have a wonderful day.

As Heather MacDonald says, "Hallmark provides a darn good barometer of social breakdown — transformed, with all the cheerful non-judgmentalism of capitalism, into a business opportunity".


I did wonder if John Denham's own domestic arrangements have anything to do with his reluctance to call a spade a bloody shovel when it comes to fatherhood or lack thereof.

There's a graphic on the BBC website :



If his wikipedia entry is correct, his eldest children fall under "lone parent" and his youngest under "cohabiting couple". His website skates neatly over this fact by mentioning his three children but not their two different mothers.

More Dhimmitude ...

I read this Iowahawk piece and thought it was well over the top - a crude caricature of white liberal grovelling to Islam.

Then I read the original, by Time Out Editor-at-large Michael Hodges. Blimey.

(via Tim Blair)


UPDATE - Michael Hodges, the man the BBC call when they want to know about moobies, was the proud (jointly with one Rebecca Taylor) recipient of a Commission For Racial Equality RIMA ("Race in the Media") award for 2006, alongside the massed ranks of BBC and Guardian staffers. I wonder when he came round to thinking that the burqua might be a good idea ?

The entire world and his three wives have blogged this piece. Just a few samples :

"Tell me this is a joke"

"Michael Hodges of Time Out London is definitely a glass half full kind of guy"

Now, it appears to me that Hodges is writing in all seriousness, in which case we are dealing with a psychologically and morally sick cretin on a par with Madeleine Bunting. On the other hand, the article is so extreme that we could be witnessing the emergence of the greatest satirist since Swift.

"you really do have to read this to believe it"

Time Out readers seem a little stunned too.

Apparently ...

The BBC are biased.

Hmmm

I'm not generally in favour of foreign nationals coming over here and gaining benefits by deception.

But you have to have a grudging respect for the sheer brass neck of Syrian airline pilot Fadi Sbano.

(via Nogbad)

Blog constitutes "a racially-aggravated breach of the peace"

Anyone actually seen this guy's blog ?

A supermarket worker who set up a website mocking minority groups has been told he could be jailed. Economics graduate Andrew Love, 22, "blogged to shock" on the site and invited staff at the Falkirk Morrisons branch where he worked to view it. Love directed his insults at groups including black and disabled people, Muslims and homosexuals.

Hmmm.

"Except Wild Wales"

Continued light posting alas. But I couldn't resist taking a pop at Michael White's remarkable Guardian piece, a sympathetic look at the Cornish who find themselves being swamped by what he calls "an influx of outsiders".

Of course I'm sympathetic too. But the hypocrisy is breathtaking.

"With an influx of outsiders buying up property, national sentiment has grown in Cornwall - and the alleged terrorist threats are hardly surprising."

Funny. There's been an "influx of outsiders" in the rest of England too. Surely you should be calling upon the Cornish to "ignore myths, stick to facts" - as you called upon the people of Barking and their MP to do recently. And aren't the threateners bigoted, racist neo-Nazis ?

The facts are surely that Cornwall is immeasurably enriched by the influx, which has improved restaurants no end and is keeping the Cornish economy vibrant. Anyway, Cornwall has always been a county of immigrants - this is nothing new. And there's no such thing as the Cornish people anyway. Recent historical research has shown that people from the Home Counties were living in Cornwall as far back as the first century AD, therefore any number of people from Camberley can move there now.



The immigrants into Cornwall are of course wealthy and not-so-wealthy refugees from multicultural England, fleeing West. Its a historical irony that one of the by-products of mass immigration into England should be something that the Anglo-Saxon invaders of AD 500 failed to achieve - the cultural destruction of the Celtic fastnesses of North Wales (today's Wales) and West Wales (today's Cornwall).

In the 6th century, when the Anglo-Saxons were everywhere driving back or slaughtering the natives, the bard Taliesin wrote :

Their Lord they shall praise,
Their language they shall keep,
Their land they shall lose -
Except wild Wales.

I invite readers to take a look at the following recent reports on the housing market :

"The “West-East tilt” now rivals the North-South divide as the defining character in the country’s booming housing market."



From the Sunday Times property supplement of April 9th 2006.

"Wales is the new Cornwall"

(and compare the house price data with the graphic in this post)

UPDATE - Guardianista John Harris says 'we shouldn't be surprised'. After all, "a lot of what I'm talking about has to do with identity, language, culture and history, which everybody is imbued with down here".

Identity, culture and history are OK for the 'fierce nationalists' of Cornwall - as long as directed against 'metropolitan types'. Not so for the reactionaries of the Five Towns.

Do As You Likeys

By now, the other boys had found poles and sticks to beat us with. They were surrounding us, and nonchalant young men were standing by watching. The pacing steed had been replaced by a manic squad bike that was running circles around me and Jessamy. While I was fending off Jonathan, Jessamy was protecting the awning that the boys were pulling down. In despair she turned to a man who had stuck his head out of a neighbouring caravan.

"What can I do to stop these children tormenting us?" she asked

"Pack up and go", he said.

Ever wondered what would happen if someone from the straight world pulled their caravan up on a traveller site ? I've lived in the country long enough to be frankly amazed that anyone would try it. Nowt as queer as folk.

Travellers, as we all know, are very poor people and subject to the most dreadful discrimination.

Goodbye

The kids are young, and Darcey Bussell is emigrating to Australia, the land of her fathers.

I think Martin Kettle's in love.

Just in front of me in a Covent Garden rehearsal studio, Darcey Bussell is sitting on the floor removing one of her ballet shoes. It is impossible not to be transfixed ... Watching Bussell up close in the rehearsal studio offers instant confirmation that the qualities that have made her special are still in full working order. The trademarks are all there - the line of her long legs, the amazing fluidity of her movement, the supple shape of her hand gestures, the distinctive way she holds her head, and the general impression, though she is 38 and a mother of two, of youthful purity. And as home-counties colonels and pubescent Darcey-wannabes all agree, she is also very, very pretty.

Home-counties colonels ? Are there any ? I think this is what they call 'projection'.

Still, never mind, eh, Martin. Darcey and her daughters will soon be replaced.

When I moved

To 'new blogger' a load of links (i.e. pretty much all the reciprocal ones) fell off the template. Alas they have to be put back one at a time. Apologies - hopefully this weekend I'll get it sorted.

Any Blogger Gurus ?

Who can tell me why the 'labels' feature is so poor ?

I've got around 46 demography posts as of now. If you click on the label, you get about 6 returned. Is this a well-known 'feature' ?

Fertility Up Again

Been busy. The builders have more or less finished - just a couple of skirting boards left. Lots of work at work. Lots of work at home.

But you couldn't expect me to ignore this story, could you ?

The fertility rate has hit its highest level since 1980 as more women in their late 30s and 40s have babies, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics data revealed women are having 1.87 children on average - up from 1.8 in 2005. The fertility rate in England and Wales has been rising since the all-time low in 2001 of 1.63 following an almost continuous fall since the late 1980s. But experts predicted it was unlikely to keep rising.

The upturn has been largely driven by increasing birth rates among older women. The highest percentage increase for any age group was for women from 35 to 39 which rose by 7% in a year. Fertility rates have also doubled for women aged 40 and over in the last 20 years.

Professor Danny Dorling, an expert in human geography at Sheffield University, said the changes in recent years were being driven by the change in university admissions during the 1980s. "In that period many more women started to go to university which meant that they ended up delaying having children. I believe the fall that we have seen was due to this group and what is happening now is that these women are now having children but at a later age than they once did."

Danny Dorling seems to be a bit of a Steven 'Ludi' Simpson - tame left wing academic who can put the correct spin on the news.

The full stats (Excel) are here.

The BBC fail to pass on the ONS briefing reported in the Guardian.

The figures suggest that older mothers and migrant families are increasingly making up for younger British-born women choosing to have fewer babies. Keith Spicer, the ONS statistician behind the figures, said: "It's the largest numbers of live births since 1993 and fertility is at its highest in 26 years. The story really is the older mother and the country of the mother's birth."

The Telegraph also seems to think immigration's got something to do with the boom.

I imagine these figures will show another jump next year. There are a lot of Polish girls carrying bumps around Lidl and Poundland. What we're presumably seeing is a point of inflexion, where the rising graph of babies born annually to first, second and third generation immigrants at last compensates for the falling graph of native fertility - helped of course by those 186,000 abortions per year. The personal sure is political.


Last year the proportion of babies born to overseas mothers was 21%. The year before 20%. Before that 19%. This year more than 22%.

These figures are of course totally unconnected to this story.

Mohammed could soon become the most popular boy’s name in the country, as more and more Muslim parents choose to name their sons after the Islamic Prophet. When all the different spellings of the name are added up, the name was second only to Jack in last year’s registration of boys’ births... Offically the name did not appear in the list of top ten boys’ names published by the Office of National Statistics, because the total number of registrations is split into 16 different spelling variations. But when added together the name has eclipsed Thomas, which now lies in third place at 5,921 registrations, and Joshua, which lies in fourth with 5,808 registrations.

The frequency of the name increased by 12 per cent between 2005 and 2006. If it were to increase at the same rate, while the number of registrations of Jacks stayed the same, it will be the most popular boy’s name in the UK in 2008. The name entered the top 30 in 2000.

Demographic experts say high fertility rates among Muslims compared to the British population as a whole are driving the increase ... Although Muslims only account for about three per cent of the UK’s population, or about 1.8 million people, their birth rate is about three times higher than the national average, say demographers.

I'm not sure how that 1.8 million matches with Keith Ajegbo's "British Lessons for English Children" report, written in 2006.

"It is estimated that in ten years time, 15% of the workforce will be Muslim."

(Over at the Guardian Ed Husain (yes, that one) plays the "only 3% of the population" for all it's worth. Given the accuracy of government immigration figures, about 3p). I wouldn't think there were many little Mohammeds or Ayeshas among the 186,416 babies "terminated" in 2006.

Edgware Road ...

... "a man aged about 30-years-old, described as Arabic in appearance, 6ft tall, with short black hair and wearing a three-quarter length dark leather jacket, approached the victim from behind and pushed her head to one side. He then slashed her across the neck with a sharp instrument"

The victim was 12 years old, German and on holiday with her parents. I wonder if the attacker thought she was Israeli ?

If this guy ...

is Swiss Re's Head of Life, what's their chief mortality investigator like ?

Trailer Trash

It must be ten or more years ago that people started noticing how many Hollywood villains were English. As PC advanced, the writers and casters were simply running out of villains. For years white South Africans were about the only people on the planet it was acceptable to hate - so when the Rainbow Nation took off in the early Nineties the culture really started scraping the barrel. Why not the English ? So Anthony Hopkins and Steven Berkoff made pots of dosh playing the roles which an earlier Hollywood gave to Gert Frobe and Boris Karloff.

On Today this morning, children's thriller writer Anthony Horowitz (11 minutes in, RealAudio), on choosing a villain :

"... it's getting harder and harder ... the Alex Ryder books are meant to be set in the real world ... when you're trying to do an up to date, modern villain there are so many pressure groups - and there is I think a greater sense of fear, of offending the wrong people, even of breaking the law now, so for example a Muslim villain - to go straight in to the deep end - I think it would be impossible now for me to produce a Muslim villain - and indeed the bad guy in Stormbreaker, the first of the Alex Ryder books, was a Lebanese buinessman - by the time we made the film last year he had strangely morphed into Californian trailer trash ... "

"Because Hollywood didn't want to take the risk"

"Absolute fear now of offending the wrong party"

Poor (in every sense) whites are about the only group left on the planet with no-one sticking up for them.

Tory Policy Development Scoop

Snafu has exclusive coverage of the decision-making process at the heart of Team Cameron.

Oh dear

As "everybody knows", all this 'stranger danger' paranoia hides the fact that most murder of children takes place in the family. And the vast majority of killers are dads. Just look at all those cases of fathers wiping out their whole family.

This is all so self-evidently true that Zoe Williams wrote a Guardian column about it last November.

"Of the 99 under-16s killed in the UK between 2002 and 2003, more than half were killed by a parent and maternal killings accounted for only 5% of that total. The spectre of fathers killing their children is not one that is conjured up to spook people, then, nor is it blown out of proportion because each individual narrative is so wrenching, arresting and memorable; it is not exaggerated by vengeful single-mother feminists as a critique on the authenticity of fatherly feelings. It is a phenomenon that happens - often."

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

It would appear that it's been blown out of proportion, by feminists like Zoe Williams - perhaps because of the arresting, wrenching and memorable narratives.

Give the Guardian credit for not pulling the piece. It's there in all its glory, with the following correction at the top.

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Monday November 13 2006

In the article below we said that more than half of under-16-year-olds killed in the UK between 2002 and 2003 were killed by a parent and maternal killings accounted for only 5% of that total. In fact, Home Office figures for England and Wales show that killings of children by a natural parent are committed in roughly equal proportions by mothers (47%) and fathers (53%).



(Ms Williams also seems to have discounted the 186,416 kids topped by their mum in 2006. Figures from Caitlin Moran. It may be that she (ZW) took the NSPCC definition of a "father" - any male who's shacked up with mum. A child is most at risk in the setting of single mother and mum with serial live-in boyfriends.)

"Yer Mum killed yer baby brother !"

"having had two children, I had an early abortion when I found out that I was pregnant with a third, and had not – contrary to what I was "expected" to feel – experienced any indecision, guilt or trauma."

I wonder if Caitlin Moran's kids are at school yet ?

(on the other hand her surviving offspring will probably go to the kind of school where "yer mum" taunts are less common)


UPDATE - a correspondent points out her classic "Abortion: why it’s the ultimate motherly act". Got to be up there with "I wouldn't hit you if I didn't care about you".