Times
Telegraph obituary
BBC tributes 1
BBC tributes 2
He died 35 years to the day after Llanelli's 9-3 victory over the All Blacks.
How Naive Are These Magistrates?
15 hours ago
Friday, November 02, 2007
Ray Gravell 1951-2007
Times
Telegraph obituary
BBC tributes 1
BBC tributes 2
He died 35 years to the day after Llanelli's 9-3 victory over the All Blacks.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
More Canaries In The Coal Mine
If you think about it, it was always likely that some of the pointy heads who would have been exploring Buddhism, Krishna, circle dancing or Goddess cults a few years back would turn to the hottest new religion on the block.
Via Another Green World, meet the Green-Green Alliance.
"Anne Gray is an academic researcher in social policy. She has been politically active for many years in the peace movement, solidarity with Palestine, the European Social Forum movement, and in the Campaign against Criminalising Communities, which works to oppose the abuses of civil liberties associated with the anti-terrorism laws. She is also active in the Green Party. Brought up as a Quaker, she practised no religion for many years but then turned to Islam in the last year"
"Mark Barrett originally trained in law but now works as a tour guide for an educational travel company. He has a strong interest in the relationship between art and politics. His main areas of concern are the question of constitution, community land rights and how to establish a democratic model of globalisation. He is an active member of People in Common which works to end government restrictions on protest within the vicinity of Parliament while exploring possibilities for a new constitutional model. Originally brought to religious life via Buddhism and Quakerism, Mark has also been much inspired by the poet Rumi. He is now exploring orthodox Islam and is particularly interested in the concept of ijtihad and its contemporary relevance."
Via Another Green World, meet the Green-Green Alliance.
"Anne Gray is an academic researcher in social policy. She has been politically active for many years in the peace movement, solidarity with Palestine, the European Social Forum movement, and in the Campaign against Criminalising Communities, which works to oppose the abuses of civil liberties associated with the anti-terrorism laws. She is also active in the Green Party. Brought up as a Quaker, she practised no religion for many years but then turned to Islam in the last year"
"Mark Barrett originally trained in law but now works as a tour guide for an educational travel company. He has a strong interest in the relationship between art and politics. His main areas of concern are the question of constitution, community land rights and how to establish a democratic model of globalisation. He is an active member of People in Common which works to end government restrictions on protest within the vicinity of Parliament while exploring possibilities for a new constitutional model. Originally brought to religious life via Buddhism and Quakerism, Mark has also been much inspired by the poet Rumi. He is now exploring orthodox Islam and is particularly interested in the concept of ijtihad and its contemporary relevance."
Foreign Offenders Can Stay Here
Gordon Brown, Labour Party Conference 2007 :
But let me be clear any newcomer to Britain who is caught selling drugs or using guns will be thrown out. No-one who sells drugs to our children or uses guns has the right to stay in our country.
However, if you're a murderer or a sex offender, no worries.
"A victim of a serial sex attacker is "appalled" that he will not be deported in order to protect his human rights. An Asylum and Immigration Tribunal upheld a ruling which blocked moves by the Home Office to deport the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons. Mr Justice Hodge said the 20-year-old should stay in the UK as he came here from Sierra Leone, aged six, and had virtually no family in West Africa. "I am appalled by the decision," she said. "How is it right that somebody who has offended so seriously against defenceless women is allowed to remain in this country?
Her attacker had admitted indecently assaulting 11 women in the past five years. He is being allowed to stay in the UK after his release under article eight of the Human Rights Act, which gives a person a right to a family life."
The judge, Henry Hodge, is the husband of Labour's Margaret Hodge.
But let me be clear any newcomer to Britain who is caught selling drugs or using guns will be thrown out. No-one who sells drugs to our children or uses guns has the right to stay in our country.
However, if you're a murderer or a sex offender, no worries.
"A victim of a serial sex attacker is "appalled" that he will not be deported in order to protect his human rights. An Asylum and Immigration Tribunal upheld a ruling which blocked moves by the Home Office to deport the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons. Mr Justice Hodge said the 20-year-old should stay in the UK as he came here from Sierra Leone, aged six, and had virtually no family in West Africa. "I am appalled by the decision," she said. "How is it right that somebody who has offended so seriously against defenceless women is allowed to remain in this country?
Her attacker had admitted indecently assaulting 11 women in the past five years. He is being allowed to stay in the UK after his release under article eight of the Human Rights Act, which gives a person a right to a family life."
The judge, Henry Hodge, is the husband of Labour's Margaret Hodge.
Huzzah !
Tectonic plates a-shifting as the Guardian gives space to Spiked's Jenni Russell, to the effect that "the gulf between the political rhetoric and people's experience of immigration has grown too big to be ignored".
What's impressive is the number of lefties who seem to be losing patience with NuLab - and who are openly spouting heresy.
"No matter how hard the neoliberal and culturally leftist guardians of the new order try to spin it, British people do not want their country to be one huge voluntary labour camp where migrant workers set up for a while, repatriate their cash and keep the neoliberal treadmill functioning. Mass migration does not benefit them other than with keeeping prices lower but that only ties in with the consumer habits that people have and not with the maintenance of a nation state that is meant to put its people first."
"I have been involved in the anti fascist movement in East London for over thirty years and without any shadow of a doubt immigration and the massive demographic changes that our society has witnessed in a very short space of time have put the BNP in the position of possibly getting two and maybe three seats on the London Assembly next May, it is not racist or pandering to the far right to say that...
The Somali community in Whitechapel and Stepney in Tower Hamlets was established a century ago, has one of the highest unemployment rates of any group in the country, is totally isolated from the communities around them and practises, amongst other things, female genital mutilation. More young girls are mutilated in the E1 postal district than anywhere outside Africa. We are talking two communities of immigrants, one with values very similar to those of the community they have joined and one who could be living on another planet.
The immigration debate is about a lot of things, not just numbers. There are several schools of thought on the matter. One, espoused by the loony left of the SWP and the black nationalist clique funded by Ken Livingstone, is that there should be "open borders" and that any form of control is inherently racist. Mind you the black nats also claim that all white people are racist as well as demanding the right to go back to their ancestral homes in Africa. I always tell them there will be plenty of room as with open borders the entire population will be in Europe!
The other extreme is that of Nick Griffin and the BNP who yearn for an England that never existed, where a homogeneous population was at ease with itself, each person content with their place in society and while class differences existed the concept of race and nation bound everyone together. A bit like John Major with his old maids bicycling to early morning communion and all of the railway companies in their prewar livery, er, yeh, ok.
Yes we need immigration, my father was an immigrant as were my mothers parents and there was hostility towards the Irish, but it wasn't too long before no one could tell us from the native population. I have Bangladeshi friends whose children were born here but whose command of English is so poor that the only jobs open are stacking shelves in a supermarket. They are a part of a very closed community which in three and now four generations has failed to become part of wider British society.
Take the Poles off the building sites of London and the construction industry would come to a standstill, the positions however could not be filled by Africans, Asians or the massively unemployed Somalis,they have neither the skills nor the motivation otherwise there would be no jobs for eastern Europeans.
As always, extremes are rarely the answer to anything, the solution is somewhere in the middle. If there are skill shortages then they need to be filled with skilled people who should be allowed in be they bricklayers or brain surgeons. A friend of mine, like me a retired bricky, runs a training scheme for unemployed young men in outer East London. He has to take a certain number of youths who are getting unemployment benefit and finds that the local white and african carribean youths turn up when they feel like it so they don't lose their dole money. He could fill his courses ten times over with Poles, Bulgarians, Rumanians etc who genuinely want to learn a skill. Work it out, someone has to do the job.
Yes it is time for a debate because immigration is fast becoming the one issue which will propel the racist right from the sidelines to centre stage"
"But the elephant in the room here is inequality. The Labour government (and the Graun) is committed to reducing it. But the refusal to restrict immigration has made that policy impossible to achieve. Actually inequality has got worse under Labour, because wages at the low end haven't risen as fast as those at the top. Even Polly Toynbee admits that nowadays. Put this together with yesterdays incredible revelation that over half new jobs since 1997 have gone to foreigners and you suddenly see that a historic opportunity has been lost: a decade's worth of growth could have brought about a step change in British society, getting the long-term unemployed off benefits and into work, and raising the wages of the lowest paid so that Britain became a fairer and better place.
In fact, if this were the record of a Tory government you would say, "Oh well, class politics as usual". That this is a Labour government just beggars belief - incompetence, stupidity and complacency in just about equal measure.
Let's be honest about this. Immigration benefits the bien-pensant middle-class like me and most other Graun readers, because it keeps down the cost of the services we access in retail, restaurants, domestic help and so on. It also provides us with a hey-we're-not-racist shot of feel-good as we take the foaming latte from the smiling migrant worker. But it makes housing more expensive, puts pressure on the green belt, clogs up the infrastructure, wrecks community cohesion and above all has helped to build an illusion of prosperity for which we have mortgaged the future and for which we will pay in spades."
"we have abandoned a large group of our fellow citizens to lives of parasitism and dependency. Ironically, they are the mouldering remnants of the very group that the caring, sharing British left used to be most concerned about: the British working class. Sadly, their lives no longer seem to be of any great interest to many on the left, whose support for them seems these days to be restricted to throwing more benefits in their direction whilst doing precisely nothing about the culture of enfeeblement and dependency that has smothered these communities."
"Our politicians have been happy to emphasise the benefits of immigration, the growth in GDP, lower prices, and so on, but they have failed to plan for the potential problems. Indeed, for a long time they deneied that there were problems, and have been in denial about the true numbers.
To concentrate solely on economic benefits of immigration has also meant that politicians have ignored more ephemeral concerns about quality of life, a decline in common values, uncertainty and so on. These issues cannot be dimissed (indeed they are the sort of reasons for which many middle class Brits move to farmhouse in the Dordorgne...). "
"The central point in this debate for me is that the well-off classes are gaining all the benefits of mass immigration - cheap food, cheap wage costs, cheap nannies and cleaners - without paying any of the social costs."
"Socialists in this country (and that includes the Labour Party) never forgave the white working class for voting Thatcher in the eighties. This is pay back time. We are all just a bit shocked at how malicious the Left have been in grinding them into the dirt."
"Nevertheless people can't pretend that this level of immigration is not problematic. Its also very easy for those who have middle-class jobs where you need a degree and need to speak perfect english to say that people shouldn't moan but try being a london based builder or plumber and see what its like for them. I recently got a leaflet through my door advertising the fact that a particular plumbing company only employed polish plumbers which I took to mean that any english plumber would be inferior which found offensive. I kick myself that I threw it away rather than report them for employment discrimination.
Even being half black I can see where some on the right are coming from. London is almost unrecognisble from how it was in 1997 and the rate of change is so fast that I feel slightly scared because I wonder what it will be like in another 10 years. "
What's impressive is the number of lefties who seem to be losing patience with NuLab - and who are openly spouting heresy.
"No matter how hard the neoliberal and culturally leftist guardians of the new order try to spin it, British people do not want their country to be one huge voluntary labour camp where migrant workers set up for a while, repatriate their cash and keep the neoliberal treadmill functioning. Mass migration does not benefit them other than with keeeping prices lower but that only ties in with the consumer habits that people have and not with the maintenance of a nation state that is meant to put its people first."
"I have been involved in the anti fascist movement in East London for over thirty years and without any shadow of a doubt immigration and the massive demographic changes that our society has witnessed in a very short space of time have put the BNP in the position of possibly getting two and maybe three seats on the London Assembly next May, it is not racist or pandering to the far right to say that...
The Somali community in Whitechapel and Stepney in Tower Hamlets was established a century ago, has one of the highest unemployment rates of any group in the country, is totally isolated from the communities around them and practises, amongst other things, female genital mutilation. More young girls are mutilated in the E1 postal district than anywhere outside Africa. We are talking two communities of immigrants, one with values very similar to those of the community they have joined and one who could be living on another planet.
The immigration debate is about a lot of things, not just numbers. There are several schools of thought on the matter. One, espoused by the loony left of the SWP and the black nationalist clique funded by Ken Livingstone, is that there should be "open borders" and that any form of control is inherently racist. Mind you the black nats also claim that all white people are racist as well as demanding the right to go back to their ancestral homes in Africa. I always tell them there will be plenty of room as with open borders the entire population will be in Europe!
The other extreme is that of Nick Griffin and the BNP who yearn for an England that never existed, where a homogeneous population was at ease with itself, each person content with their place in society and while class differences existed the concept of race and nation bound everyone together. A bit like John Major with his old maids bicycling to early morning communion and all of the railway companies in their prewar livery, er, yeh, ok.
Yes we need immigration, my father was an immigrant as were my mothers parents and there was hostility towards the Irish, but it wasn't too long before no one could tell us from the native population. I have Bangladeshi friends whose children were born here but whose command of English is so poor that the only jobs open are stacking shelves in a supermarket. They are a part of a very closed community which in three and now four generations has failed to become part of wider British society.
Take the Poles off the building sites of London and the construction industry would come to a standstill, the positions however could not be filled by Africans, Asians or the massively unemployed Somalis,they have neither the skills nor the motivation otherwise there would be no jobs for eastern Europeans.
As always, extremes are rarely the answer to anything, the solution is somewhere in the middle. If there are skill shortages then they need to be filled with skilled people who should be allowed in be they bricklayers or brain surgeons. A friend of mine, like me a retired bricky, runs a training scheme for unemployed young men in outer East London. He has to take a certain number of youths who are getting unemployment benefit and finds that the local white and african carribean youths turn up when they feel like it so they don't lose their dole money. He could fill his courses ten times over with Poles, Bulgarians, Rumanians etc who genuinely want to learn a skill. Work it out, someone has to do the job.
Yes it is time for a debate because immigration is fast becoming the one issue which will propel the racist right from the sidelines to centre stage"
"But the elephant in the room here is inequality. The Labour government (and the Graun) is committed to reducing it. But the refusal to restrict immigration has made that policy impossible to achieve. Actually inequality has got worse under Labour, because wages at the low end haven't risen as fast as those at the top. Even Polly Toynbee admits that nowadays. Put this together with yesterdays incredible revelation that over half new jobs since 1997 have gone to foreigners and you suddenly see that a historic opportunity has been lost: a decade's worth of growth could have brought about a step change in British society, getting the long-term unemployed off benefits and into work, and raising the wages of the lowest paid so that Britain became a fairer and better place.
In fact, if this were the record of a Tory government you would say, "Oh well, class politics as usual". That this is a Labour government just beggars belief - incompetence, stupidity and complacency in just about equal measure.
Let's be honest about this. Immigration benefits the bien-pensant middle-class like me and most other Graun readers, because it keeps down the cost of the services we access in retail, restaurants, domestic help and so on. It also provides us with a hey-we're-not-racist shot of feel-good as we take the foaming latte from the smiling migrant worker. But it makes housing more expensive, puts pressure on the green belt, clogs up the infrastructure, wrecks community cohesion and above all has helped to build an illusion of prosperity for which we have mortgaged the future and for which we will pay in spades."
"we have abandoned a large group of our fellow citizens to lives of parasitism and dependency. Ironically, they are the mouldering remnants of the very group that the caring, sharing British left used to be most concerned about: the British working class. Sadly, their lives no longer seem to be of any great interest to many on the left, whose support for them seems these days to be restricted to throwing more benefits in their direction whilst doing precisely nothing about the culture of enfeeblement and dependency that has smothered these communities."
"Our politicians have been happy to emphasise the benefits of immigration, the growth in GDP, lower prices, and so on, but they have failed to plan for the potential problems. Indeed, for a long time they deneied that there were problems, and have been in denial about the true numbers.
To concentrate solely on economic benefits of immigration has also meant that politicians have ignored more ephemeral concerns about quality of life, a decline in common values, uncertainty and so on. These issues cannot be dimissed (indeed they are the sort of reasons for which many middle class Brits move to farmhouse in the Dordorgne...). "
"The central point in this debate for me is that the well-off classes are gaining all the benefits of mass immigration - cheap food, cheap wage costs, cheap nannies and cleaners - without paying any of the social costs."
"Socialists in this country (and that includes the Labour Party) never forgave the white working class for voting Thatcher in the eighties. This is pay back time. We are all just a bit shocked at how malicious the Left have been in grinding them into the dirt."
"Nevertheless people can't pretend that this level of immigration is not problematic. Its also very easy for those who have middle-class jobs where you need a degree and need to speak perfect english to say that people shouldn't moan but try being a london based builder or plumber and see what its like for them. I recently got a leaflet through my door advertising the fact that a particular plumbing company only employed polish plumbers which I took to mean that any english plumber would be inferior which found offensive. I kick myself that I threw it away rather than report them for employment discrimination.
Even being half black I can see where some on the right are coming from. London is almost unrecognisble from how it was in 1997 and the rate of change is so fast that I feel slightly scared because I wonder what it will be like in another 10 years. "
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Polly Toynbee - "Calls for abortion up to full term"
Apparently (if the CiF comments are to be believed), in a BBC News 24 "Head 2 Head" (sorry) debate with the Tory MP Michael Gove, Poll Pot called for abortion to be available up to the full nine months.
Anybody got the video ?
Anybody got the video ?
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Respect - La Lotta Continua
At Harry's Place coverage continues of the acrimonious divorce between the faction with the votes (Galloway and his British Muslim contituency) and the faction with the organisation (SWP). I see the SWP have the membership lists and computer passwords.
The Guardian and BBC have given minimal coverage to this. I guess at the Graun they're circling the wagons to avoid giving joy and comfort to people like me.
The Guardian and BBC have given minimal coverage to this. I guess at the Graun they're circling the wagons to avoid giving joy and comfort to people like me.
The Way We (All) Were
Neil Lyndon on the suburban revolutionaries.
What became of them ?
Why am I not terribly surprised, any more that I'm shocked that Julie "extermination" Etchingham started out at the BBC.
Interesting Times interview with the actor and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, ne Ian Roberts.
As the clock in the Queens’ College cloisters struck 12, we raised our glasses and toasted “to the revolution”. Then began a rowdy and energetic rendition of the Internationale, booming out at first over the waters of the River Cam but feebly petering out when it came to the second verse which – like the national anthem – none of us was quite sure how to continue.After we had climbed down from the parapet of the Silver Street bridge, we 12 or 13 Cambridge undergraduates – all men, I am fairly sure – gathered again in some nearby college rooms where we earnestly agreed that our first revolutionary commitment from that moment would be to learn all the words of the Internationale so we would not disgrace ourselves in the company of other comrades when we went on demonstrations. None of us, I believe, ever bent our brows to that stern task. That would tally with the general approach that most of us took towards our studies.
It was October 25, 1967, the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution.
What became of them ?
I am still friends with a few and have followed the careers of others, such as Simon Hoggart, The Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer and radio presenter.
A couple, including Peter Cole (once News Review editor at this paper) have become eminent professors. Gwynn Pritchard – our firebrand leader in black leather bomber jacket and black beret just like Che Guevara – joined the BBC and rose to become head of Welsh broadcasting.
Why am I not terribly surprised, any more that I'm shocked that Julie "extermination" Etchingham started out at the BBC.
Mr Cameron said: “Let me outline the action that a Conservative government would take. As we have seen, some of the increase in population size results from natural change – birth rates, death rates. Here our policy should be obvious . . . ”
At this point Ms Etchingham was heard to say “extermination”.
Sky News apologised after the gaffe and said that Ms Etchingham’s comment was regrettable.
Interesting Times interview with the actor and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, ne Ian Roberts.
In Statement of Regret these issues come to life as a debate between a father and his sons, and between older and younger members of the Institute of Black Policy Research, about which issues a black NGO should be airing. Reparations for slavery? Or domestic violence and low educational standards in the black community? The old-school campaigners want a united front against white oppression. But, as the new generation argues, “self-flagellating liberalism is dead . . . the money is in self-criticism”.
Is this how Kwei-Armah sees the state of racial politics? “Absolutely.” As a reaction against political correctness, he says, and specifically after the 7/7 London bombings, “society, and that includes black people, started to think: ‘We’re bored of whingeing blacks. It’s time they looked at their own problems. The time is past for blaming the white man.’ ” He pauses. “There are elements of truth in that, but it is certainly not the whole truth.” ... KweiArmah also believes that his own cultural group is in decline. “Within five years, when we discuss black Britain, it will no longer be the Windrush generation, it will no longer be pork-pie hats or young Rastafarians. It will be new African migrant stories. Because demographically, the African-Caribbean is shrinking and the West African community is growing. And that will create tensions.”
Domestic Violence Lies
Take a look at this government website.
Although domestic violence is chronically under reported, research estimates that it:
- accounts for 16% of all violent crime (Source: Crime in England and Wales 04/05 report)
- has more repeat victims than any other crime (on average there will have been 35 assaults before a victim calls the police)
- costs in excess of £23bn a year
- claims the lives of two women each week and 30 men per year
- is the largest cause of morbidity worldwide in women aged 19-44, greater than war, cancer or motor vehicle accidents
- will affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in their lifetime
I'll help you out on the stats - the claim comes from a council of europe study which no one seems able to verify, the headline figure of which has been picked up and used by a shower of cash-hunry NGOs. The adoption of it by the home Office was at the insistance of Fiona McTaggert - this is the same nut who says all prostitution is child abuse, and all men who visit prostitutes are rapists.But please, don't trust me - go find verification of that figure. I wait with antici......pation.
(Various commenters disagree ..)Right, those figures.
Go check it out - I've done this several times before, clearly people don't believe me, so I won't cut n paste, go look it up for yourself.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D8986.xls
More women in that age group die of accidental drug overdoses than are murdered in TOTAL,let alone by their partners. Vastly more die in car accidents. HUGELY more die of cancer - malignant neoplasms of many kinds in that file.
Now, this is in the uk with our health service and a pretty healthy population - what do you think the comparable figures might be in Africa?
That "greatest cause of death" cobblers is a plain LIE.
It is not TRUE
It is demonstrably FALSE
I repeat, don't believe me - go look at the stats, download the excel file. Make a pie chart from it. Print it out and put it on a hat.
Daft claim. Scratch your head, then ask yourself why the Home Office has such a bold and patently false claim on its website.Monday, October 29, 2007
"This is their land first and they've come to take it back"
Face Right on the ongoing trouble in LA, where demographic change is being accelerated as Latino gangs are drive out black Angelenos.
Just imagine if the Latino gangs were white. We'd hear all about it in the UK, via the BBC and Guardian. LaShawn Barber notes the non-response of the usual suspects.
"As I’ve said time and time again on this blog, raising a ruckus over hispanic-on-black and black-on-black violence is not lucrative to the professional civil rights establishment, not soul-satisfying to blacks who see white racism in every corner, and not sexy enough for jaded liberal journalists to bother covering.
Those fools are too busy fixating on white-on-black violence, or even the mere suggestion of white-on-black violence, as relatively rare as it is. Where are the Jacksons, Sharptons, and so-called black community leaders? "
Just imagine if the Latino gangs were white. We'd hear all about it in the UK, via the BBC and Guardian. LaShawn Barber notes the non-response of the usual suspects.
"As I’ve said time and time again on this blog, raising a ruckus over hispanic-on-black and black-on-black violence is not lucrative to the professional civil rights establishment, not soul-satisfying to blacks who see white racism in every corner, and not sexy enough for jaded liberal journalists to bother covering.
Those fools are too busy fixating on white-on-black violence, or even the mere suggestion of white-on-black violence, as relatively rare as it is. Where are the Jacksons, Sharptons, and so-called black community leaders? "
Accentuate The Negative ...
The BBC mangle history yet again.
The Vatican has beatified 498 Roman Catholics executed during the Spanish Civil War, in the largest ceremony of its kind ever held. Most of the victims - nearly all of whom were clergy - were killed at the outset of the war in 1936, by militias fighting for the Republican government.
So far, so factual
The move has been criticised by some because it recognises victims from only one side of the brutal conflict ... The Roman Catholic Church was closely linked with the right-wing forces of General Francisco Franco, who won the war in 1939 and went on to impose nearly four decades of dictatorship. Many people think that by honouring the victims from only one side of the Civil War, the Roman Catholic Church is dividing Spaniards, says the BBC's Danny Wood in Madrid.
I see. Why don't the Vatican remember the monks and priests shot by the Nationalists, eh ? We're into classic BBC country here, with the use of "many people think" and "criticised by some". Those damn anonymous people !
The 498 victims included two bishops, 24 priests, 462 monks and nuns, three church staff and seven lay people. They were among an estimated 7,000 clergy killed by left-wing Republican forces between 1931 and 1939.
Hold on. 7,000 dead ? Left-wing republican forces were killing clergy from 1931 ? The Civil War started in 1936 ! And the BBC's position is that "the Roman Catholic Church was closely linked with the right-wing forces of General Francisco Franco" ? Given the anti-clericalist culture of the Spanish Left, including a penchant for shooting priests, they didn't really have too much choice in a war, did they ? Not something the BBC wants us to recognise, though.
And note the little box on the right of the graphics version.
"Nationalists also had support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while Republicans were backed by Soviet Union." We get to know about the political systems of Germany (Nazi) and Italy (Fascist). Alas, the political system of the Soviet Union will forever be a mystery to BBC readers.
(For those of us brought up on Orwell and Hemingway it's something of a rude awakening to read about the Left's response to the opening of the Civil War - namely the wholesale rounding up and execution without trial of anyone suspected of right-wing views, sympathies or family connections. The historian Stanley Payne described the atrocities as beginning "with the murder of some of the rebels as they attempted to surrender after their revolt had failed in several of the key cities. From there it broadened out to wholesale arrests, and sometimes wholesale executions, of people associated with right-wing groups or the Catholic church. In general, this was not an irrepressible outpouring of hatred by the man in the street for his "oppressors," as it has sometimes been painted, but a semi-organized activity carried out by sections of nearly all the leftist groups ... particularly during the first six months, each Red terror group operated on its own in a frequently irrational fashion, murdering innocent people and letting some of the more dangerous go free. Moreover, one of the main targets of the Red terror was the clergy, most of whom were not engaged in overt opposition.")
Biretta-tip - Martin Kelly.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Badajoz
When I was writing about Lucknow, I contrasted the slaughter of British (and Indian Christian) women and children by the rebels with the conduct of the British troops.
"... no prisoners were to be made, as we had no one to guard them, and care was to be taken that no women or children were injured. To this the men answered at once, by 'No fear, Sir'. The officers now pledged their honours on their swords to abide by these orders and the men then promised to follow their example."
I tried to think of when British troops last deliberately slaughtered innocent women and children, and could only think of Cromwell's men slaughtering the female camp-followers at Naseby. Even the Bolton Massacre seems to have been of the males of the town. Before that you'd be going back to the Harrying of the North or the St Brice's Day Massacre.
I'd forgotten Badajoz in 1812. The Spanish city was held by French occupation troops - but after taking massive casualties as they scaled the walls, the surviving soldiers found the drink then ran amok in the town for three days before order was restored. Several officers who tried to intervene were shot.
"Men, women and children were shot in the streets for no other apparent reason than pastime; every species of outrage was publicly committed in the houses, churches and streets, and in a manner so brutal that a faithful recital would be too indecent and too shocking for humanity. Not the slightest shadow of order or discipline was maintained; the officers durst not interfere. The infuriated soldiery resembled rather a pack of hell-hounds vomited up from the infernal regions for the extirpation of mankind than what they were twelve short hours previously - a well-organised, brave, disciplined and obedient British army, and burning only with impatience for what is called glory."
Thus the young British subaltern Robert Blakeney.
Captain Harry Smith :
"Now comes a scene of horror I would willingly bury in oblivion. The atrocities committed by our soldiers on the poor innocent and defenceless inhabitants of the city, no words suffice to depict. Civilized man, when let loose and the bonds of morality relaxed, is a far greater beast than the savage, more refined in his cruelty, more fiend-like in every act; and oh, too truly did our heretofore noble soldiers disgrace themselves, though the officers exerted themselves to the utmost to repress it, many who had escaped the enemy being wounded in their merciful attempts!"
And the Spanish citizens of Badajoz were our allies ! You can see why it still rankles.
Buried in an unmarked ditch at the foot of the fortified walls of Badajoz lie the remains of thousands of British soldiers. They died during the Duke of Wellington's campaign, with Spanish and Portuguese help, to drive Napoleon's forces back into France.
But the absence of a memorial marking their sacrifice is no accident. "It does not seem such a good idea to erect a memorial for a horde of devils and savages that raped women and profaned our churches," said one townsman, Juan Maria Cervera. Mr Cervera is part of a group of locals that has mounted fierce opposition to successive petitions to honour the British dead.
It all turned out rather well for Captain Smith, though :
"We observed two ladies coming from the city, who made directly towards us; they seemed both young, and when they came near, the elder of the two threw back her mantilla to address us, showing a remarkably handsome figure, with fine features; but her sallow, sun-burnt, and careworn, though still youthful, countenance showed that in her 'the time for tender thoughts and soft endearments had fled away and gone.'
"She at once addressed us in that confident, heroic manner so characteristic of the high-bred Spanish maiden, told us who they were–the last of an ancient and honourable house–and referred to an officer high in rank in our army, who had been quartered there in the days of her prosperity, for the truth of her tale.
"Her husband, she said, was a Spanish officer in a distant part of the kingdom; he might, or he might not, still be living. But yesterday she and this her young sister were able to live in affluence and in a handsome house; to-day they knew not where to lay their heads, where to get a change of raiment or a morsel of bread. Her house, she said, was a wreck; and, to show the indignities to which they had been subjected, she pointed to where the blood was still trickling down their necks, caused by the wrenching of their ear-rings through the flesh by the hands of worse than savages, who would not take the trouble to unclasp them!
"For herself, she said, she cared not; but for the agitated and almost unconscious maiden by her side, whom she had but lately received over from the hands of her conventual instructresses, she was in despair, and knew not what to do; and that, in the rapine and ruin which was at that moment desolating the city, she saw no security for her but the seemingly indelicate one she had adopted–of coming to the camp and throwing themselves upon the protection of any British officer who would afford it; and so great, she said, was her faith in our national character, that she knew the appeal would not be made in vain, nor the confidence abused. Nor was it made in vain! Nor could it be abused, for she stood by the side of an angel! A being more transcendingly lovely I had never before seen–one more amiable I have never yet known!
"Fourteen summers had not yet passed over her youthful countenance, which was of a delicate freshness–more English than Spanish; her face, though not perhaps rigidly beautiful, was nevertheless so remarkably handsome, and so irresistibly attractive, surmounting a figure cast in nature's fairest mould, that to look at her was to love her; and I did love her, but I never told my love, and in the mean time another and a more impudent fellow stepped in and won her! But yet I was happy, for in him she found such a one as her loveliness and her misfortunes claimed–a man of honour, and a husband in every way worthy of her!"
Just fourteen she might have been, but the "impudent fellow", 22-year old Captain Smith, married her, became General Sir Harry Smith, and Lady Juana Maria de los Delores de Leon Smith gave her name to the South African town, the scene of another famous siege nearly a century later.
"... no prisoners were to be made, as we had no one to guard them, and care was to be taken that no women or children were injured. To this the men answered at once, by 'No fear, Sir'. The officers now pledged their honours on their swords to abide by these orders and the men then promised to follow their example."
I tried to think of when British troops last deliberately slaughtered innocent women and children, and could only think of Cromwell's men slaughtering the female camp-followers at Naseby. Even the Bolton Massacre seems to have been of the males of the town. Before that you'd be going back to the Harrying of the North or the St Brice's Day Massacre.
I'd forgotten Badajoz in 1812. The Spanish city was held by French occupation troops - but after taking massive casualties as they scaled the walls, the surviving soldiers found the drink then ran amok in the town for three days before order was restored. Several officers who tried to intervene were shot.
"Men, women and children were shot in the streets for no other apparent reason than pastime; every species of outrage was publicly committed in the houses, churches and streets, and in a manner so brutal that a faithful recital would be too indecent and too shocking for humanity. Not the slightest shadow of order or discipline was maintained; the officers durst not interfere. The infuriated soldiery resembled rather a pack of hell-hounds vomited up from the infernal regions for the extirpation of mankind than what they were twelve short hours previously - a well-organised, brave, disciplined and obedient British army, and burning only with impatience for what is called glory."
Thus the young British subaltern Robert Blakeney.
Captain Harry Smith :
"Now comes a scene of horror I would willingly bury in oblivion. The atrocities committed by our soldiers on the poor innocent and defenceless inhabitants of the city, no words suffice to depict. Civilized man, when let loose and the bonds of morality relaxed, is a far greater beast than the savage, more refined in his cruelty, more fiend-like in every act; and oh, too truly did our heretofore noble soldiers disgrace themselves, though the officers exerted themselves to the utmost to repress it, many who had escaped the enemy being wounded in their merciful attempts!"
And the Spanish citizens of Badajoz were our allies ! You can see why it still rankles.
Buried in an unmarked ditch at the foot of the fortified walls of Badajoz lie the remains of thousands of British soldiers. They died during the Duke of Wellington's campaign, with Spanish and Portuguese help, to drive Napoleon's forces back into France.
But the absence of a memorial marking their sacrifice is no accident. "It does not seem such a good idea to erect a memorial for a horde of devils and savages that raped women and profaned our churches," said one townsman, Juan Maria Cervera. Mr Cervera is part of a group of locals that has mounted fierce opposition to successive petitions to honour the British dead.
It all turned out rather well for Captain Smith, though :
"We observed two ladies coming from the city, who made directly towards us; they seemed both young, and when they came near, the elder of the two threw back her mantilla to address us, showing a remarkably handsome figure, with fine features; but her sallow, sun-burnt, and careworn, though still youthful, countenance showed that in her 'the time for tender thoughts and soft endearments had fled away and gone.'
"She at once addressed us in that confident, heroic manner so characteristic of the high-bred Spanish maiden, told us who they were–the last of an ancient and honourable house–and referred to an officer high in rank in our army, who had been quartered there in the days of her prosperity, for the truth of her tale.
"Her husband, she said, was a Spanish officer in a distant part of the kingdom; he might, or he might not, still be living. But yesterday she and this her young sister were able to live in affluence and in a handsome house; to-day they knew not where to lay their heads, where to get a change of raiment or a morsel of bread. Her house, she said, was a wreck; and, to show the indignities to which they had been subjected, she pointed to where the blood was still trickling down their necks, caused by the wrenching of their ear-rings through the flesh by the hands of worse than savages, who would not take the trouble to unclasp them!
"For herself, she said, she cared not; but for the agitated and almost unconscious maiden by her side, whom she had but lately received over from the hands of her conventual instructresses, she was in despair, and knew not what to do; and that, in the rapine and ruin which was at that moment desolating the city, she saw no security for her but the seemingly indelicate one she had adopted–of coming to the camp and throwing themselves upon the protection of any British officer who would afford it; and so great, she said, was her faith in our national character, that she knew the appeal would not be made in vain, nor the confidence abused. Nor was it made in vain! Nor could it be abused, for she stood by the side of an angel! A being more transcendingly lovely I had never before seen–one more amiable I have never yet known!
"Fourteen summers had not yet passed over her youthful countenance, which was of a delicate freshness–more English than Spanish; her face, though not perhaps rigidly beautiful, was nevertheless so remarkably handsome, and so irresistibly attractive, surmounting a figure cast in nature's fairest mould, that to look at her was to love her; and I did love her, but I never told my love, and in the mean time another and a more impudent fellow stepped in and won her! But yet I was happy, for in him she found such a one as her loveliness and her misfortunes claimed–a man of honour, and a husband in every way worthy of her!"
Just fourteen she might have been, but the "impudent fellow", 22-year old Captain Smith, married her, became General Sir Harry Smith, and Lady Juana Maria de los Delores de Leon Smith gave her name to the South African town, the scene of another famous siege nearly a century later.
Unrepentant
Remember the anti-Christian Gay Police advert ?
It stated: "In the last 12 months, the GPA has recorded a 74% increase in homophobic incidents, where the sole or primary motivating factor was the religious belief of the perpetrator."
It was slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority as breaching their guidelines on decency, truthfulness and substantiation (i.e. the "evidence" mysteriously failed to materialise when the ASA (presumably) asked for it).
You'd think this would be an unsavoury episode the GPA would want to forget all about.
Not so.
I know nowt about l'affaire Follett, but a quick Google gave me this BBC report.
Father Neil Follett, vicar of St Paul's, Knightsbridge, is in hiding on police advice after finding himself the victim of a hate campaign.
Police are investigating allegations of blackmail and intimidation after Fr Follett told the parochial church council he was gay.
Blackmail and intimidation, eh ? In hiding on police advice ? The Register had more.
The Reverend Neil Follett, 50, struck up a friendship with a German academic over the Internet. This resulted in the German visiting him at his Victorian vicarage in London's exclusive Knightsbridge district. But the relationship soured, according to today's Times newspaper, after the two bickered over an alleged credit-card bill. The academic decided to play his trump card, and threatened to reveal the Rev's sexuality secret to the tabloids.
Follet, who has three kids and is separated from his wife, revealed details of the blackmail to churchwardens and members of the parochial church council and told them he was gay, before doing a bunk on police advice. The scandal came just days after churchwarden Captain Ian Powe - who commanded HMS Yarmouth during the 'Cod War' - was arrested for alleged anti-gay harassment against Follet. Captain Powe, who has denied any wrongdoing, is out on bail.
Captain Powe was at the time 67 years old, chair of the Standards Committee of his local council and chair of the British Gas Consumers council. Also arrested was Maggie Quaile, a 63 year old member of the congregation.
The human heart is a difficult thing to fathom. But do these sound like the kind of people who'd put you in fear of your life ? The police obviously thought so.
As so often, it was difficult to find out what became of the police investigation. This hard to read text feed was the only information I could find.
The Metropolitan police could face a £30,000 legal bill over the "distressing" treatment of two church wardens by a gay officer investigating threats against a gay vicar. Captain Ian Powe,67, and Maggie Quaile,63, of St Paul's parish in Knightsbridge have received an apology from the police. Powe and Quaile were arrested by Detective Sergean Paul Cahill, who has since been promoted to inspector, in June last year when the vicar, the Rev Neill Follett, claimed he was being blackmailed by his former gay lover. After a "vindictive and homophobic" fax was received by one of Rev Follett's friends, Powe and Quaile were arrested and held at Belgravia police station for six hours. They were released without charge. The case has never been resolved. DS Cahill is chairman of the Lesbian and Gay Police Association. His decision, however, to arrest the church wardens who were happy to help with police enquiries, is now in question. A letter from Detective Chief Superintendent Shaun Swyer, Commander of Professional Standards Internal Investigations to Capt Powe reads: 'It is my view that your arrest was disproportionate and heavy-handed. I wish to apologise for your distress'. Capt Power is now attempting to recoup his £30,000 legal bill. Cahill told the Mail on Sunday that he "treated this investigation with no bias". Rev Neill Follett has since retired.
Captain Powe wasn't too chuffed by his arrest.
"I used to have an expression that worse things happen at sea," Powe said earlier this week. "I'm not using it any more." At St Paul's, Powe is seen as the second victim in the case. "I don't think he'll be saying much at the moment," said one parish insider. "Not after what he has been through."
This unfortunate episode may have upset the good Captain, but it hasn't done DS Cahill any harm. He was promoted to Inspector and made MBE in 2003.
There's a danger that relationship between the LGCM and the police may come to be seen as appearing to consist of the LGCM encouraging police harrassment of the "wrong sort" of Christians - then applauding it whan it occurs. Here's another snippet of Mr Kirker's gracious acceptance speech.
He went on to say that it was in this context that the work that Deputy Chief Constable (DCC) Mike Cunningham of Lancashire Police was doing on behalf of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) was so important. He said that, “Your recommendation that religious views should be expressed “in an appropriate fashion” and “does not confer a right to express those beliefs … in a manner that amounts to discrimination against others” will, I hope help bring to an end the acceptability of religiously expressed homophobia across the whole police service.
Ah yes - Lancashire Police.
A Christian couple from Lancashire have been awarded £10,000 in an out-of-court settlement after they were questioned by police about their moral beliefs. Helen and Joe Roberts, from Fleetwood, complained about taxpayers' money being used for leaflets about gay rights and called homosexuality "immoral".
Wyre Borough Council informed Lancashire Constabulary. Officers then quizzed the couple for over an hour. The council and police said they had now apologised to the Roberts. They also said policies had been revised to protect all parties.
(We all pay for the GPA through our taxes, as we pay for similar organisations representing black and female officers. Alas, representatives of the Straight Police Association could not be contacted.)
UPDATE - Me no understand. The disgusting murder of David Morley got the full "homophobia" treatment, including Rasputin blaming Christians. Fortunately the murderers turned out not to be "homophobes", just a bunch of young Londoners out for a good evening.
Yet there's been nothing about the murder of Anthony Hoare.
It stated: "In the last 12 months, the GPA has recorded a 74% increase in homophobic incidents, where the sole or primary motivating factor was the religious belief of the perpetrator."
It was slapped down by the Advertising Standards Authority as breaching their guidelines on decency, truthfulness and substantiation (i.e. the "evidence" mysteriously failed to materialise when the ASA (presumably) asked for it).
You'd think this would be an unsavoury episode the GPA would want to forget all about.
Not so.
Gay Christians have been presented with an award for their work in combating homophobia.
The award was given to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) following their support for a controversial advert which appeared in the Independent newspaper, challenging faith-based homophobia ...
He went on to praise Richard Kirker for the support that he and members of the LGCM had offered the GPA in response to the campaign organised by some Evangelical and Fundamentalist groups who had opposed the contents of the GPA advertisement. Rev Kirker at the time had described the advertisement as “courageous and wholly justifiable in exposing the scourge of religiously motivated homophobia”. He had also made contact with the Home Office, the Metropolitan Police and the Advertising Standards Agency, defending the actions of the GPA. As a result of the response to the GPA advertisement, in February 2007 LGCM hosted the very first national conference on Faith, Homophobia and Human Rights which was supported by 50 other organisations.
In fairness, Ekklesia (the Guardian at prayer) may be putting their own special emphasis on the advert. There are other reasons for the award.Introducing the award Kevin Boyle a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Gay Police Association (GPA) said that Richard Kirker, chief executive of the LGCM, had first come to his attention in June 2000 when he was involved in a police investigation into homophobic attacks against the Rev Follett, the Vicar of Knightsbridge.
At the time the investigation attracted huge media interest. Kevin stated that whilst many in the church had condemned the victim because of his sexual orientation, Richard Kirker had gone on record to urge the Bishop of London not to tolerate the homophobic witch-hunt. Richard Kirker had also supported the police investigation and had supported the Rev Follett throughout the protracted enquiry.
I know nowt about l'affaire Follett, but a quick Google gave me this BBC report.
Father Neil Follett, vicar of St Paul's, Knightsbridge, is in hiding on police advice after finding himself the victim of a hate campaign.
Police are investigating allegations of blackmail and intimidation after Fr Follett told the parochial church council he was gay.
Blackmail and intimidation, eh ? In hiding on police advice ? The Register had more.
The Reverend Neil Follett, 50, struck up a friendship with a German academic over the Internet. This resulted in the German visiting him at his Victorian vicarage in London's exclusive Knightsbridge district. But the relationship soured, according to today's Times newspaper, after the two bickered over an alleged credit-card bill. The academic decided to play his trump card, and threatened to reveal the Rev's sexuality secret to the tabloids.
Follet, who has three kids and is separated from his wife, revealed details of the blackmail to churchwardens and members of the parochial church council and told them he was gay, before doing a bunk on police advice. The scandal came just days after churchwarden Captain Ian Powe - who commanded HMS Yarmouth during the 'Cod War' - was arrested for alleged anti-gay harassment against Follet. Captain Powe, who has denied any wrongdoing, is out on bail.
Captain Powe was at the time 67 years old, chair of the Standards Committee of his local council and chair of the British Gas Consumers council. Also arrested was Maggie Quaile, a 63 year old member of the congregation.
The human heart is a difficult thing to fathom. But do these sound like the kind of people who'd put you in fear of your life ? The police obviously thought so.
As so often, it was difficult to find out what became of the police investigation. This hard to read text feed was the only information I could find.
The Metropolitan police could face a £30,000 legal bill over the "distressing" treatment of two church wardens by a gay officer investigating threats against a gay vicar. Captain Ian Powe,67, and Maggie Quaile,63, of St Paul's parish in Knightsbridge have received an apology from the police. Powe and Quaile were arrested by Detective Sergean Paul Cahill, who has since been promoted to inspector, in June last year when the vicar, the Rev Neill Follett, claimed he was being blackmailed by his former gay lover. After a "vindictive and homophobic" fax was received by one of Rev Follett's friends, Powe and Quaile were arrested and held at Belgravia police station for six hours. They were released without charge. The case has never been resolved. DS Cahill is chairman of the Lesbian and Gay Police Association. His decision, however, to arrest the church wardens who were happy to help with police enquiries, is now in question. A letter from Detective Chief Superintendent Shaun Swyer, Commander of Professional Standards Internal Investigations to Capt Powe reads: 'It is my view that your arrest was disproportionate and heavy-handed. I wish to apologise for your distress'. Capt Power is now attempting to recoup his £30,000 legal bill. Cahill told the Mail on Sunday that he "treated this investigation with no bias". Rev Neill Follett has since retired.
Captain Powe wasn't too chuffed by his arrest.
"I used to have an expression that worse things happen at sea," Powe said earlier this week. "I'm not using it any more." At St Paul's, Powe is seen as the second victim in the case. "I don't think he'll be saying much at the moment," said one parish insider. "Not after what he has been through."
This unfortunate episode may have upset the good Captain, but it hasn't done DS Cahill any harm. He was promoted to Inspector and made MBE in 2003.
There's a danger that relationship between the LGCM and the police may come to be seen as appearing to consist of the LGCM encouraging police harrassment of the "wrong sort" of Christians - then applauding it whan it occurs. Here's another snippet of Mr Kirker's gracious acceptance speech.
He went on to say that it was in this context that the work that Deputy Chief Constable (DCC) Mike Cunningham of Lancashire Police was doing on behalf of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) was so important. He said that, “Your recommendation that religious views should be expressed “in an appropriate fashion” and “does not confer a right to express those beliefs … in a manner that amounts to discrimination against others” will, I hope help bring to an end the acceptability of religiously expressed homophobia across the whole police service.
Ah yes - Lancashire Police.
A Christian couple from Lancashire have been awarded £10,000 in an out-of-court settlement after they were questioned by police about their moral beliefs. Helen and Joe Roberts, from Fleetwood, complained about taxpayers' money being used for leaflets about gay rights and called homosexuality "immoral".
Wyre Borough Council informed Lancashire Constabulary. Officers then quizzed the couple for over an hour. The council and police said they had now apologised to the Roberts. They also said policies had been revised to protect all parties.
(We all pay for the GPA through our taxes, as we pay for similar organisations representing black and female officers. Alas, representatives of the Straight Police Association could not be contacted.)
UPDATE - Me no understand. The disgusting murder of David Morley got the full "homophobia" treatment, including Rasputin blaming Christians. Fortunately the murderers turned out not to be "homophobes", just a bunch of young Londoners out for a good evening.
Yet there's been nothing about the murder of Anthony Hoare.
Friday, October 26, 2007
We Are All Civilised Now
There's a wonderful quote in Peter Hitchens' book The Abolition of Britain about the late Woy Jenkins, architect of what he "rightly preferred to call the civilised society rather than the permissive society", to the effect that "Roy Jenkins was already marshalling his tanks on a five-hundred mile front". With his help, the criminal justice system moved from retribution to understanding (and the crime rate went up 1,000 %), abortion was legalised (200,000 a year - over 6 million since 1967), the death penalty abolished (murders tripled despite huge medical advances in trauma treatment) and homosexuality was legalised (and 11-year olds are now removed from foster-parents who aren't cool about uphill gardening).
We are so much more civilised now :
Miss Lakinski - who suffered a life of bullying - had collapsed on her doorstep as she returned home from visiting a friend. But instead of helping her, Anthony Anderson called her a "smackhead" and a drunk before kicking her feet and emptying a bowl of water on her head.
Teesside Crown Court heard that he then covered her in shaving foam, and urinated on her as a friend filmed the act on a mobile phone.
Anderson pleaded guilty to outraging public decency on July 26 when he appeared at Hartlepool Magistrates' Court last month.
So far so bad. This is what gets me :
The 27-year-old was watched by a laughing crowd as he carried out a series of humiliating attacks on the 50-year-old in Hartlepool. A court heard today that one of his friends filmed the incident on a mobile phone while one shouted: "This is YouTube material."
There have always been scumbags. There probably always will be, although I find it hard to imagine such an act in any other time before the cultural revolution. What's really telling is that he had an approving audience.
Here's another tale from our civilised land :
A mother who murdered her disabled daughter and killed herself by setting fire to the car they were in had been tormented by youths who mocked her child’s severe learning difficulties.
Fiona Ann Pilkington, 38, had repeatedly told Leicestershire police that a gang of children had embarked on a campaign of terror against her daughter, Francesca Hardwick, 18.
Neighbours told yesterday how children had taunted the disabled woman shouting “disabled bitch” and other obscenities as she stood at her window. On other occasions they would hurl stones and eggs at the windows and bang on the front door of the home Ms Pilkington shared with her daughter and son, Anthony, 16.
The women’s remains were discovered burnt beyond recognition after Ms Pilkington apparently doused the car with petrol and set it alight. It was discovered in a lay-by in Earl Shilton, Leicestershire, on Tuesday night.
Again, tormenting the 'different' is something boys have always done. Here's Frances Roper describing an Edwardian childhood with a Downs syndrome brother :
Poor little Ben was, as usual, the problem. The boys soon realized that he was not normal, and quite unable to take care of himself, and they would shout after him and pelt him with lumps of mud and sometimes stones, if he went down to the village by himself. As soon as Mother found out about this, he was never allowed out alone, and naturally the duty of keeping a constant eye on him devolved upon me. I was sent down to the village every day on some errand or other, and always had to take Ben with me. On one occasion he insisted on dragging a little trolley cart behind him, and this the village boys found irresistible. There was a long stretch of road between the end of the village and. the cluster of cottages round our house, and as soon as we left the village we were surrounded by a crowd of boys. They kept rushing up and dropping stones into Ben’s little cart, till it became so heavy that the poor little fellow could not pull it, and was on the verge of tears. Several times I tipped the stones out and turned indignantly upon our tormentors, but I was only one small girl trying to protect a tiny helpless boy, and my protests only drew forth more jeers and tormenting. Eventually I picked up the little cart and carried it under my arm. Thus foiled of their fun, the boys proceeded to slash my legs with their top-whips, and continued in this pleasant amusement till we were nearly within sight of home. By this time I was trembling all over with fright and fury, though fury certainly predominated, and I dashed in to Mother and showed the crimson wheals all over my legs.
But we're in the Edwardian age, whan all adults had authority over all children.
For once Father and Mother were thoroughly roused. Father asked me if I should be able to recognise the boys, and on my assurance that I should, he clapped on his hat, seized my hand, and we raced off down the hill to the village. The group of boys were playing with their tops, and I pointed them out to Father. Dropping my hand Father burst upon the group with unintelligible howls and yells, whirling his arms round and round like windmills. After one horrified glance the boys shot over a low wall and fled down the adjoining field with Father in hot pursuit. He did not lay hands on any of them though he could easily have done so, contented himself with giving tongue to a series of terrifying snarls and growls without a single spoken word, which struck the most abject terror into the hearts of my tormentors. One of them tripped and fell flat at Father’s feet, and lay there howling, while Father took a flying leap over him in his headlong stampede. I climbed on the wall and bounced up and down clapping and cheering, nearly hysterical with excitement and delight. Having chased his quarry out of sight Father returned, breathless with running and yelling, and completely helpless with laughter ...
That party of boys never again showed any lack of respect to Ben or me, and caps were sheepishly touched whenever we met.
Not so for poor Fiona Ann Pilkington. In our age boys are still boys - with the pack instinct to run down the wounded - only there's nothing you can do - and nothing anyone else will do :
Leicester police said yesterday that they were treating the incident as murder and suicide, adding that detectives would now reinvestigate a series of complaints about antisocial behaviour in the family’s neighbourhood. The Times has learnt that the women’s deaths came only three weeks after the mother last contacted police to complain that her family’s lives were being made a misery.
Ann Jones, who lived opposite Ms Pilkington, said that the single parent had simply “had enough” of being harassed by local youths. “If the police had done their job she would have been here today,” Mrs Jones, 55, said. The family lived in Bardon Road, Barwell, an area, neighbours said, that was plagued with children wreaking havoc on the streets at night. Other neighbours told how the gangs of children would hang around, making the family virtual prisoners.
There's another factor of course - extended adolescence. I imagine poor Ms Pilkington's tormentors were a bit older than Ben's.
There's a sixteen year old boy who's lost a mother and a sister. How in God's name must that child be feeling tonight ?
UPDATE/correction - Francesca's brother is now being looked after by his father.
We are so much more civilised now :
Miss Lakinski - who suffered a life of bullying - had collapsed on her doorstep as she returned home from visiting a friend. But instead of helping her, Anthony Anderson called her a "smackhead" and a drunk before kicking her feet and emptying a bowl of water on her head.
Teesside Crown Court heard that he then covered her in shaving foam, and urinated on her as a friend filmed the act on a mobile phone.
Anderson pleaded guilty to outraging public decency on July 26 when he appeared at Hartlepool Magistrates' Court last month.
So far so bad. This is what gets me :
The 27-year-old was watched by a laughing crowd as he carried out a series of humiliating attacks on the 50-year-old in Hartlepool. A court heard today that one of his friends filmed the incident on a mobile phone while one shouted: "This is YouTube material."
There have always been scumbags. There probably always will be, although I find it hard to imagine such an act in any other time before the cultural revolution. What's really telling is that he had an approving audience.
Here's another tale from our civilised land :
A mother who murdered her disabled daughter and killed herself by setting fire to the car they were in had been tormented by youths who mocked her child’s severe learning difficulties.
Fiona Ann Pilkington, 38, had repeatedly told Leicestershire police that a gang of children had embarked on a campaign of terror against her daughter, Francesca Hardwick, 18.
Neighbours told yesterday how children had taunted the disabled woman shouting “disabled bitch” and other obscenities as she stood at her window. On other occasions they would hurl stones and eggs at the windows and bang on the front door of the home Ms Pilkington shared with her daughter and son, Anthony, 16.
The women’s remains were discovered burnt beyond recognition after Ms Pilkington apparently doused the car with petrol and set it alight. It was discovered in a lay-by in Earl Shilton, Leicestershire, on Tuesday night.
Again, tormenting the 'different' is something boys have always done. Here's Frances Roper describing an Edwardian childhood with a Downs syndrome brother :
Poor little Ben was, as usual, the problem. The boys soon realized that he was not normal, and quite unable to take care of himself, and they would shout after him and pelt him with lumps of mud and sometimes stones, if he went down to the village by himself. As soon as Mother found out about this, he was never allowed out alone, and naturally the duty of keeping a constant eye on him devolved upon me. I was sent down to the village every day on some errand or other, and always had to take Ben with me. On one occasion he insisted on dragging a little trolley cart behind him, and this the village boys found irresistible. There was a long stretch of road between the end of the village and. the cluster of cottages round our house, and as soon as we left the village we were surrounded by a crowd of boys. They kept rushing up and dropping stones into Ben’s little cart, till it became so heavy that the poor little fellow could not pull it, and was on the verge of tears. Several times I tipped the stones out and turned indignantly upon our tormentors, but I was only one small girl trying to protect a tiny helpless boy, and my protests only drew forth more jeers and tormenting. Eventually I picked up the little cart and carried it under my arm. Thus foiled of their fun, the boys proceeded to slash my legs with their top-whips, and continued in this pleasant amusement till we were nearly within sight of home. By this time I was trembling all over with fright and fury, though fury certainly predominated, and I dashed in to Mother and showed the crimson wheals all over my legs.
But we're in the Edwardian age, whan all adults had authority over all children.
For once Father and Mother were thoroughly roused. Father asked me if I should be able to recognise the boys, and on my assurance that I should, he clapped on his hat, seized my hand, and we raced off down the hill to the village. The group of boys were playing with their tops, and I pointed them out to Father. Dropping my hand Father burst upon the group with unintelligible howls and yells, whirling his arms round and round like windmills. After one horrified glance the boys shot over a low wall and fled down the adjoining field with Father in hot pursuit. He did not lay hands on any of them though he could easily have done so, contented himself with giving tongue to a series of terrifying snarls and growls without a single spoken word, which struck the most abject terror into the hearts of my tormentors. One of them tripped and fell flat at Father’s feet, and lay there howling, while Father took a flying leap over him in his headlong stampede. I climbed on the wall and bounced up and down clapping and cheering, nearly hysterical with excitement and delight. Having chased his quarry out of sight Father returned, breathless with running and yelling, and completely helpless with laughter ...
That party of boys never again showed any lack of respect to Ben or me, and caps were sheepishly touched whenever we met.
Not so for poor Fiona Ann Pilkington. In our age boys are still boys - with the pack instinct to run down the wounded - only there's nothing you can do - and nothing anyone else will do :
Leicester police said yesterday that they were treating the incident as murder and suicide, adding that detectives would now reinvestigate a series of complaints about antisocial behaviour in the family’s neighbourhood. The Times has learnt that the women’s deaths came only three weeks after the mother last contacted police to complain that her family’s lives were being made a misery.
Ann Jones, who lived opposite Ms Pilkington, said that the single parent had simply “had enough” of being harassed by local youths. “If the police had done their job she would have been here today,” Mrs Jones, 55, said. The family lived in Bardon Road, Barwell, an area, neighbours said, that was plagued with children wreaking havoc on the streets at night. Other neighbours told how the gangs of children would hang around, making the family virtual prisoners.
There's another factor of course - extended adolescence. I imagine poor Ms Pilkington's tormentors were a bit older than Ben's.
There's a sixteen year old boy who's lost a mother and a sister. How in God's name must that child be feeling tonight ?
UPDATE/correction - Francesca's brother is now being looked after by his father.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Suffering For One's Art
I feel very sorry for his mum and dad, but really -
A graffiti artist described as 'brilliant' was killed by a midnight express train as he daubed a wall next to the tracks on the East Coast main line to London, an inquest heard today (Oct-24). Paul Stevens, the 29-year-old son of a rail worker, was killed at Bethnal Green railway station in East London after being struck head on by the Southend-to-Liverpool Street train. He was daubing the wall on the railway viaduct in Three Colts Lane about midnight on March 20.
Call me old fashioned, but at 29 one really shouldn't be painting other people's property at midnight, having drink taken, while standing on a railway line. But I guess one of the great achievements of the cultural revolution is to have extended adolescence, which used to be pretty much complete by 20, up into the thirties and beyond.
A graffiti artist described as 'brilliant' was killed by a midnight express train as he daubed a wall next to the tracks on the East Coast main line to London, an inquest heard today (Oct-24). Paul Stevens, the 29-year-old son of a rail worker, was killed at Bethnal Green railway station in East London after being struck head on by the Southend-to-Liverpool Street train. He was daubing the wall on the railway viaduct in Three Colts Lane about midnight on March 20.
Call me old fashioned, but at 29 one really shouldn't be painting other people's property at midnight, having drink taken, while standing on a railway line. But I guess one of the great achievements of the cultural revolution is to have extended adolescence, which used to be pretty much complete by 20, up into the thirties and beyond.
White Racists
Guardianista Yvonne Roberts in the East End :
Now, Linda's mum, Katie, lives on the ground floor of a council block of flats. Linda will tell you that Katie is the only white person on the floor. "It's not colour - it's that nobody bothers with each other much."
Of course, there are examples of multiracial estates pulling together as one but that's not Linda's experience. Linda also says that while she isn't "allowed" to voice her concerns - what she calls "the other lot" can "get away with liberties" by wielding the weapon of political correctness.
Linda's friend, Angie, gives what she says is a not untypical example. She was trying to park her car - an Asian teenager tried to cut in, when she objected, he called her "a ******* racist". "They do it all the time. I don't want to be seen as a racist so what can I say?"
I think the answer is : "Not a lot".
Now, Linda's mum, Katie, lives on the ground floor of a council block of flats. Linda will tell you that Katie is the only white person on the floor. "It's not colour - it's that nobody bothers with each other much."
Of course, there are examples of multiracial estates pulling together as one but that's not Linda's experience. Linda also says that while she isn't "allowed" to voice her concerns - what she calls "the other lot" can "get away with liberties" by wielding the weapon of political correctness.
Linda's friend, Angie, gives what she says is a not untypical example. She was trying to park her car - an Asian teenager tried to cut in, when she objected, he called her "a ******* racist". "They do it all the time. I don't want to be seen as a racist so what can I say?"
I think the answer is : "Not a lot".
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
What A Pity ...
That no video of the late great Mrs Mills is to be found on Youtube.
Gladys Mills (1918- 1978), better known as Mrs Mills, was a pianist who was popular in the 1960s and released many records.
She shot to fame during the same period as her stable-mates The Beatles, with whom she shared space at Abbey Road Studios (as mentioned in the Beatles Anthology DVD bonus materials). After previously working as the superintendent of the typing pool in the Paymaster General's office in London in December 1961, she would become a household name by the end of January 1962, having been spotted by a talent scout at a Woodford Golf Club dance near her home in Loughton, Essex.
By the sound she was a major influence on this lot :
Gladys Mills (1918- 1978), better known as Mrs Mills, was a pianist who was popular in the 1960s and released many records.
She shot to fame during the same period as her stable-mates The Beatles, with whom she shared space at Abbey Road Studios (as mentioned in the Beatles Anthology DVD bonus materials). After previously working as the superintendent of the typing pool in the Paymaster General's office in London in December 1961, she would become a household name by the end of January 1962, having been spotted by a talent scout at a Woodford Golf Club dance near her home in Loughton, Essex.
By the sound she was a major influence on this lot :
Our Culture
Sunday morning, and Radio 5's Rachel Burden is interviewing kids at Farnham rugby club, Jonny Wilkinson's old team.
"So unlike your parents, you're all clear-headed this morning"
I love the casual assumption that every English adult with an interest in rugby was drunk on Saturday. No wonder most Muslims listen to their own-language stations or watch satellite.
"Are you passionate about what you do ?" - this to some poor 12-year old. For God's sake, woman, you're not interviewing a potential Housing Support Officer at Camden Council. Radio Five seems to have an inexhaustable supply of middle class idiot presenters.
"So unlike your parents, you're all clear-headed this morning"
I love the casual assumption that every English adult with an interest in rugby was drunk on Saturday. No wonder most Muslims listen to their own-language stations or watch satellite.
"Are you passionate about what you do ?" - this to some poor 12-year old. For God's sake, woman, you're not interviewing a potential Housing Support Officer at Camden Council. Radio Five seems to have an inexhaustable supply of middle class idiot presenters.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
"When They Are All Gone"
I was pointing out today that some of the fall in crime like burglary is because there are fewer easy victims, as a more trusting generation, brought up in harder times but with greater 'social cohesion', pass on.
The last generation who were trusting and didn't lock their doors have mostly died, removing one set of easy victims.
Similarly a GP friend who moved from the urban Midlands to the Yorkshire fells says that the "old boys" are really reluctant to bother the doctor - they've got to be really ill before they come in. Different culture.
Reynolds says it :
I've known elderly patients who have fallen over at night, then not pressed the button until gone 8am. They 'didn't want to bother us'.
It's a generation that is getting smaller and not being replaced, this self-sufficiency and the desire not to be a burden on others. The feeling that spending the night on the floor isn't an 'emergency'.
I'll miss them when they are all gone.
The last generation who were trusting and didn't lock their doors have mostly died, removing one set of easy victims.
Similarly a GP friend who moved from the urban Midlands to the Yorkshire fells says that the "old boys" are really reluctant to bother the doctor - they've got to be really ill before they come in. Different culture.
Reynolds says it :
I've known elderly patients who have fallen over at night, then not pressed the button until gone 8am. They 'didn't want to bother us'.
It's a generation that is getting smaller and not being replaced, this self-sufficiency and the desire not to be a burden on others. The feeling that spending the night on the floor isn't an 'emergency'.
I'll miss them when they are all gone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
