Anyone Remember ?

I could have sworn that a couple of years back there was a shooting incident at Queen's Park Rangers ground, Loftus Road when members of the then board were shot at - I think at half-time during a game, although I may be wrong. Unless it was another club, but I think it was QPR.

Anyone else remember ? Can't find owt on the web. Links ? Comments are open.

Burnley Schools II

I posted a while back that two out of the five new schools created in Burnley's giant social engineering project (see this post) were in special measures.

I was wrong, actually - Hameldon is in special measures and Unity College is on 'notice to improve' - usually a precursor.

They've now been joined by Shuttleworth College. Two and a half out of five.

Burnley College, a sixth-form and higher education establishment, is also in the news for all the wrong reasons - the death of Mohammed Shafiq, stabbed and beaten by presumed 'students' when he intervened in a fight between his son and another youth. His son had been attacked before.

Let Zarah tell it :

Well this is what i belive happend,
Mr Mohammed Shafiq's Son was getting bullied...
and they was going to have a fight...
in the park...
So his son rang his dad...
and his dad rang the police...
the police didnt take interest...
and then Mr Mohammed Shafiq...
went to the park with some people...
and his son and a lad was fighting...
no one was stopping the fight ...
so Mr Mohammed Shafiq tried to pull them appart...
but then one of the other lads friend's went and stabbed him and hit him with a metal bar...
someone outside the park rang the police...
and the police came took him to hospital in Blackburn...
sadly he didnt make it...
and the person that stabbed him ranaway police are after him...
but the other lads police have got them....
So Sad to hear it.....
I hate thease Criminals....
His family must be devastated,
i would,
it really touched my heart,
ill admit it i even started crying,
felt like someone really close to me...
someone else should have also helped and pulled them apart....
none of this would have happend...
the people who was just stood there..
are so dumb....
If i was there i would have done something even if i would have to take my own life...
I pray for him and his family...
Mr Mohammed Shafiq wasnt the type of person that would have gone and started fighting i belive....
He will be very missed and remembered...
he was a happy man...
but why did this have to happen?
all we can do now is pray for him and his family and that Allah be with them and he goes to jana and the criminals get badly punished
Think about it he is not going to come back now so we cant do much more..
so that is what i will do....
i hope other people will aswell...
Thats all i would like too say....

Public Servants

According to the Times, Leee Jasper was paid £120,000 pa - and paid £90 pw rent for his four-bedroomed 'social housing' in Clapham.

"In the Beginning ... back in 1955 ..."

"In 1955, being the perfect wife meant dinner on the table, a pretty ribbon in your hair and a sympathetic ear for tales of your husband's very important day".

Who say ? Why, the Good Wife's Guide, of course - one of the key documents of the dark days of the 1950s, perfectly demonstrating the subservience that modern woman has escaped.

"Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking.

Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.

Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair and, if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.

Minimise all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.

Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift, too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.Don't ask him about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

And finally, a good wife always knows her place."

As the Yorkshire Post's Sarah Freeman says :

"The 1955 guide, an unforgiving blueprint of how to look after the man of the house, achieved almost legendary status when it was published"

And Maxine Soghmanian, organiser of the Ideal Home Show (and the provider of the 'comparison survey' which lazy journos cut'n'pasted), said :

"It's amazing to see how much we have changed since the 1955 Good Wife's Guide was written."

Well, yes.

And we have changed ... not very much - given that the Good Wife's Guide was knocked up around 1990.


UPDATE - Sam Tarran reports that the Good Wife's Guide is being used now, in his state school's English AS level course, as an illustration of attitudes to women in the 1950s.

The "Big Man" Steps Down

Some called him a saviour, a man sent by God to succour his people and defend them from a murderous and merciless enemy. Others called him a bigoted rabble-rouser and declared that his fiery oratory gave rise to bloody deeds on the streets.

But love him or loathe him - and there were plenty who did one or the other - he bestrode the political scene of his native land like some Titan of elder days. Whatever you thought, he was not a man you could ignore.

Yes, Lee Jasper has resigned.


Mr Gilligan's homework has been richly rewarded. Standard editor Veronica Wadley will be cracking open the Lidl Prosecco tonight.

His approach has been that of a chess player, planning several steps ahead and trying to anticipate the responses of the Mayor to the Evening Standard's stories. So after spending more than four weeks investigating a network of 11 companies and organisations, linked to Livingstone's race adviser Lee Jasper, that were in receipt of around £2.5m in public money but allegedly did little for it, Gilligan deliberately held back large amounts of material from his initial report.

"One of the most important things in this is to plan for the counterattack, because this is an extremely damaging story to Livingstone. We knew he would say it was all lies and there would be the inevitable dash of Lord Hutton thrown in. We held quite a lot of our evidence back. He's not a cautious politician, and we knew he would shoot his mouth off straight away. And then we rolled out more of our other evidence. He fell right into the trap in an absolutely amazing way."

The Mayor responded to the Standard's accusations by quoting Hutton's comment that "I have considerable doubt as to how reliable Gilligan's evidence really is" and insinuating that the stories were politically motivated and racist.

Apparently Boris gave him a job on the Speccie when his credit was low following the Hutton Report. He's certainly grateful.

So, whither Lee Jasper ? At Harry's Place they're saying he'll be back the day after Ken wins - if he wins.

He's been around a long time - I first heard him on a Five Live phone-in - one of those "how racist are we ?" discussions - when he was apparently a social worker from Bradford. There's some interesting background on the various three-men-and-a-fax anti-racist organisations with which he's been involved, as well as the politics and personalities, in this pdf - Black Politics and the web of Joined-Up Governance.

Lee's USP was for years, like Arthur Lisch, the "riot-on-the-street-unless" approach. And he seemed to be able to deliver - even when being paid £500 a day (in 1995 - you can see how the Lawrence report a few years later was kicking at an open door) to lecture the Met on diversity, he found time to make a "hardline speech which inflamed the crowd" preceding the 1995 Brixon riots.

Ken Livingstone stopped his radical mouth with taxpayer gold - and to be fair, Lee delivered on his side of the bargain. Black Britain, unlike brown Britain, has been remarkably riot-free in the last dozen years (there is a debate as to whether, post-Scarman, the police just left the criminals to get on with it, but that's too big a subject for this post). You could just imagine Lee outside a police station after the Menezes shootings, but he's been quiet as a mouse. And the Met's Trident operation IS actually reducing gun deaths - admittedly stabbings are up, but the once customary background anti-police chorus from black "community leaders" is absent nowadays. Some people would say he was cheap at the price.

If Ken falls at the last, and Lee decides that it's time to put the radical tam back on, he'll find a different scene. The Afro-Caribbean population is pretty static (this doc suggests that Afro-Caribbeans were 0.9% of the youth population but had 2.7% of the abortions among that age group) while the Asian population is growing. Power relations on the streets are changing - in the 1980s Birmingham riots Asian shopkeepers died, but in their 2005 counterpart the only fatalities were black. Nonetheless there is potential for trouble - particularly in North and South London.

We shall see. One other possibility is joining the lovely Karen in forming some kind of UK counterpart to Jesse Jackson's US shakedown operations. After all, what Jesse does isn't so far away from what we've seen over here.

"Youths"

Those mysterious French youths are at it again.

As this french lefty site reports :

"... youths vandalised a bakery in a northerly Île de la France region centred on Paris and subsequently attacked the police who responded with lead bullets and molatov cocktails ..."

Tragically it wasn't the police responding with lead bullets, it was the "youth" attacking the police with "lead bullets" - shotguns to be exact.

I must remember this useful line - it's better then the traditional "it's awful, but ..."

The violence should indeed be denounced, but the sentiment... not at all.

Is it possible that this site is a comedy site ? Probably just bad English, but what can you make of :

"Both Successive Socialist and right wing governments have neglected this problem of social deprivation and should be lauded for their behaviour."

Woooahhh !

Lufthansa Airbus with 130 passengers in high crosswinds at Hamburg on the weekend.



Gleaned from the Youtube comments : There are two runways, 05/23 and 15/33 at Hamburg at 90% to each other - one has ILS and the other doesn't. The control tower only offered the ILS runway 23. After the near-miss the plane landed safely into the wind on the other runway.

The planespotters comments translated :

Ohhh, this nearly went wrong!
-You know what I believe? ..they'll stop those landings here soon (i.e. on this runway - LT).
- I think so too.
-Have you seen that? I think the wing touched the bottom.
- Looked like..

A Few Daffodils From The Curate's Garden

Remember the famous 'one woman in four a victim of domestic violence' stat, oft-quoted but never sourced ?

Apparently in the States one female student in four is a victim of rape.




Famous children's author Jacqueline Wilson (Laban's take is here) takes liberal hypocrisy into hyperspace.

Children's author Dame Jacqueline Wilson has expressed concern that youngsters are growing up too quickly. "I think children act like adults at an alarmingly early age," said the Tracy Beaker creator.

And Ms Wilson's contribution to this happy situation ?


"Nearly all the children in my books want to wear make-up and dye their hair and pierce their ears. Most of my fictional teenagers want to stay out as late as possible and drink alcohol".

I'm reading a Victorian teenager's book at the moment - the 1835 edition of Mary Martha Sherwood's "The History of Susan Gray". Just a slight contrast.

What's also remarkable about the children's fiction of the past is the standard of English a child's expected to read at. As a bored seven-year old I can remember struggling with my uncle's childhood copy of R.M. Ballantyne's 'The Coral Island', with its fascinating (to a seven year old) descriptions of cannibalism. Looking at it the other day I was astonished at how dense the text was, how convoluted the sentences. Many teenagers would find it hard going now. Yet it was written for children and was highly successful.




The "National" health service continues to get less national - though perhaps more nationalist - by the day.

Patients, staff and visitors will be able to park for free at almost every NHS hospital in Wales by the end of 2011.



And while I don't agree with everything in the post, there's a truth here which applies on both sides of the Atlantic :

The last Depression we endured took place in a country with enviable natural resources, a large and growing industrial capacity, and blessed with a population familiar with discipline, thrift, and the deferral of gratification. The next depression, Kunstler predicts, “will play out against the background of a society that has p****d away its oil endowment, bulldozed its factories, arbitraged its productive labor, destroyed both family farms and the commercial infrastructure of main street, and trained its population to become overfed diabetic TV zombie `consumers’ of other peoples’ productivity, paid for by `money’ they haven’t earned.”


The ongoing California unpleasantness between black and Latino (see this post) is in City Journal - in other words the realities are close to becoming known in the mainstream, rather than solely being the subject of bloggers like Face Right.

"The Rainbow Coalition Evaporates"

Steve Hall

I've mentioned this guy before (I don't think the picture's of him) as an interesting CiF contributor (and rising media star - I heard him on 'The Long View' last year) posting as "questionnaire". Background - I think *stereotype* a hippy musician from working class background who found he could talk to the rough boys without them beating him up - and he's been doing it ever since */stereotype*. He's an academic criminologist who thinks that rising crime isn't a function of the number of copies of the Daily Mail sold, doesn't believe in the "moral panic" theory - what's not to like, you say ?

So we're both agreed that the UK is going to hell in a handcart. As he puts it "what we see now is a politico-culturally disestablished residue consisting of a majority of thoroughly decent people trying to stop their world collapsing entirely and watching too many of their younger generation turn to crime and drugs.".

Trouble is he thinks it's all been arranged by those nasty capitalists. Laban returns to the charge :

Oh no ! Questionnaire's back in the ring blaming it all on some capitalist conspiracy !

"The British working class's project of political and mythological unity, begun in the mid-19th century"

Well, where to start. No "project" was "begun" in the mid-19th century. It's just that the communications, for the first time in history, existed which ENABLED a critical mass of the working class to become aware of themselves as a class in solidarity with their fellows in other parts of the country. Before mid-19c trades unionism or other working class activism was of necessity localised - prior attempts at national organisation like the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union had failed. The same communications that enabled people to get regular news, or to get up to town for the Great Exhibition, produced both a more cohesive, informed and opinionated public and a more cohesive and informed workers movement.

Question thinks that something's been organised since the 60s - that "capitalism" had a project to destroy the British working class - and that Felix Dennis, for example, was more than just someone who wanted to get rich and get laid.

I think Occam's razor is useful here.

Most of the losses (which are real and which we both mourn) - "this sense of collective identity, history, a meaning system, a comprehensible ethical system (symbolic order), a function, a role, a sense of self-respect" of the British working classes can be explained by the collapse in Christian belief and observance from the top (and starting there) to the bottom of UK society. The culture of Attlee's Britain is gone.

In the questionnaire thesis the disappearance of the existing culture seems, if of any consequence at all, only important in terms of its side-effects - that comprehensible ethical system. Both Marx and Engels agreed on the importance of Christianity to the relative peace and order of 19thC Britain - but Questionnaire's thesis requires some "project" - to explain something that can already be explained without it.

Two questions, questionnaire. Only 20 years before the 60s started and 'liberal-consumer-capitalism' took off, Harold Nicolson was noting in his war diaries the remarkable patriotism of British capitalists, and saying that they would rather go down in ruin with their countrymen than do a deal with Hitler. Yet by your thesis 20 years later they were plotting to destroy their countrymen to make more money. What changed in the ensuing 20 years ?

Secondly. You think it's some capitalist project. I think it's down to culture - to the collapse of the old, vaguely patriotic, vaguely Christian, commonsensical culture that shines brightest from the writings of ordinary working people, not from any elite, in the 19th and 20th centuries.

You are paid by the capitalist state to sit in a university department and write about crime - and good stuff to read it is too. But you also in your writings make no secret about your 'it's capitalism wot done it' thesis - which is apparently the cause of all the woes you and I deplore.

Yet the paychecks come in, and the index-linked pension, funded by the working men and women of the UK, is safe. You get asked by the State broadcaster to appear on Radio Four.

I on the other hand think it's all down to culture. I'm self employed. Because I sometimes do work for the Government and have to sign the Official Secrets Act, and because I have a large family to support, I feel, rightly or wrongly, that I have to blog anonymously.

If these capitalists are so clever, and you've sussed them, how come you're still in a job ?

I'll let you know what he says.

Earth Angel

The original classic doo-wop.




Taken pretty straight by Death Cab For Cutie, whoever they may be. The guy (Ben Gibbard) can sing.




Murdered horribly by Blink 182. I wouldn't click 'play' if I were you, but at least it's short.




50 cent takes a 'crack' at it - probably le mot juste.




And back to the High School roots once more. Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, LA. Lead vocal Alex Lee cranks up the teen angst in fine style.




(BTW, I hadn't realised how big doo-wop was with Chicanos - Latino immigrants to the US. Type in 'rola' or 'cruisin oldie' into Youtube to uncover a cornucopia of forgotten doo-wop. As featured in this movie - Boulevard Nights.

Wroughton Verdicts - Trial 1

Seven Asian teenagers have been convicted of brutally battering a schoolboy to the brink of death with a claw hammer, it can be revealed today. Henry Webster, 16, from Wiltshire, was left fighting for life after being repeatedly hit with the DIY tool in scenes compared to a Quentin Tarantino film.

Four teenagers - 18-year-old Wasif Khan, 19-year-old Amjad Qazi and two boys aged 15 and 16 who cannot be named - were found guilty of carrying out the attack by a jury on February 14. Nazrul Amin, 19, and two other youngsters aged 15 and 16 admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm before proceedings began at Bristol Crown Court.

The convictions can be made public today after Judge Carol Hagen agreed to lift reporting restrictions she had implemented when the jury returned its verdict.

Henry, who attended Ridgeway School in Wroughton, Wiltshire, suffered three skull fractures during the violence. One caused him a brain injury and required surgery.

A jury of five women and seven men had been told how a gang of Asian males, from Swindon, travelled to Wroughton for the fight after being summoned by a friend in a sequence of phone calls and text messages. The court had been told how the fight "blew out of nothing" after Henry ran into a group of Asian boys in a corridor at his school. After a brief argument, he was asked to meet one of the 15-year-old defendants at the school tennis courts later that day.

Describing the incident that unfolded on the tennis courts that day in January last year, James Patrick, prosecuting, said: "For those there, it made a sickening sight, the sort of which you would expect to see in a Quentin Tarantino film - certainly not at a school in a village in Wiltshire." The jury was told how Henry, a 6ft 2in rugby player with bright red hair, was targeted because he "stood out". A message recorded from a phone call between a witness and one of the suspects, on the day of the fight, said: "There's a big fat ginger kid who wants a fight at the school."

The Asian group arrived at the school and were heard screaming near the tennis courts, the court heard. Mr Patrick added: "It was to be a fair fight, a one-on-one - or so Henry thought. But he had not reckoned on the fact it was not to be one-on-one. As he came into the playground he was attacked by a group. He was knocked to the ground, he was kicked, punched and repeatedly hit over the head with a hammer."

In a video interview filmed six days after the attack, Henry told police that the group had ambushed him. He said: "I heard screams, then I was punched in the back of my head. I was curled up on the floor but they repeatedly kept hitting me. Then I felt the hammer hit the back of my head." He added: "I know it was a hammer because if it was a punch, your vision does not change. As I got hit, my vision turned to stars - it all separated, what I could see, because it was so powerful."

Witnesses to the assault saw his attackers run off, punching the air and shouting: "We've done it." After the attack, teachers were alerted and ambulances arrived at the scene within minutes. Henry stayed conscious throughout the ordeal. He told the court he was still suffering from the life-threatening injuries sustained in the attack. Henry said: "The hammer had gone through my head, through my skull and into the fluid in my brain. I have been told I will never recover because the brain cells will not reform."

Khan and Qazi, the two eldest defendants, blamed each other for the attack during more than four weeks' evidence. Khan had claimed that he was under pressure from his local Asian community not to name the teenager responsible. Referring to the two teenagers who pleaded guilty before the trial, Mr Patrick said they had kicked Henry as he lay on the ground. Khan was remanded in custody. The other three were granted bail pending sentence.

Hmmm. Bail pending sentence. Somehow I don't think we're looking at double-figure sentences here.

Henry's mum is not too chuffed with the school. From the comments on the local papers at the time of the attack it appeared there had been trouble from the gang calling itself "Asian Invasion" for some time.

After the restrictions were lifted, Henry's mother Liz Webster, made a statement on behalf of the family on the steps of Bristol Crown Court. Joined by partner Roger Durnford and Det Sgt Mark Wilkinson, she said Ridgeway School should have been a safe, secure environment.

She said: "This attack was not an isolated incident, it was a culmination of events. This hideous crime which has touched and affected so many young lives was wholly avoidable. That school has at no time made any efforts to assist us and my son's life and future prospects have been devastated. No parent should have to endure the heartache of their child being subjected to such horrifying violence while at school - in what should be an entirely safe and secure environment. And no child should have to experience any of the utter terror and pain my son suffered on what should have been an ordinary day in the protective surroundings of school."

Ms Webster paid tribute to her son for his "amazing strength". She said: "On January 11 last year a gang strutted into the Ridgeway School and almost killed my 15-year-old son by repeatedly striking his head with a hammer. The events of that day propelled us into a terrifying and traumatic world and our lives have now been changed forever. It has been an incredibly challenging year especially for our wonderful son, Henry, who has inspired us all with his amazing strength and courage. Since his birth, Henry has always been a very sweet-natured, sensitive, kind, generous, thoughtful boy - a real gentle giant."

Ms Webster thanked the police, witnesses and psychiatric staff who have helped them through the ordeal. She said: "We have to take this opportunity to convey our thanks to those who have extended their help and support, in particular all the witnesses and their families - who have also become victims of this horrific incident. The police, Det Sgt Wilkinson and his team, have been a wealth of support and professionalism. The ambulance service who acted so promptly and, of course, the medical team at Frenchay Hospital to whom Henry ultimately owes his life. Last but not least, we'd like to mention Professor Gordon Turnbull, psychiatrist. We could not have survived this dreadful ordeal without Gordon's intervention. He has been our family's salvation."

Det Sgt Wilkinson said: "I would like to reassure the community that this was an extremely rare crime and that Swindon is a very safe place in which to live, work and visit."

Steve Colledge, headteacher at Ridgeway School, a self-governing foundation establishment, was not available for comment.

There's a surprise. There's a separate trial of his other assailants continuing.

Whose Side Is Matt Drudge On ?

Alongside his Prince Harry story, Drudge had proudly highlighted the verdict from the veteran Left-winger Jon Snow of Channel 4 News: "I never thought I'd find myself saying thank God for Drudge."

It's rarely I'm tempted to emulate Mr. E or the Devil, but that cretin Drudge ... the SAS ought to take him on a 'fact-finding mission' to Helmand - and leave him there.

I Forgot About This

When the Jelly-Bellied Flag-Flapper took up his office, lefty Labour think-tank Progress ("diverse and inclusive" - as you can see) thought it would be a good wheeze to ask the online community to lay out their suggestions for Gordon's first 100 days.

I'm pleased to see that my contribution's still there.

Wind Turbines Gone Wild

Aarhus in Denmark, via the Telegraph blog. Apparently the brakes failed. I'd not considered it, but it's pretty obvious that something that size would break up under free rotation in a strong wind.

Time To Change Internet Providers

More than ten million customers of the UK's three largest ISPs will have their browsing habits sold to a company with roots in the murky world of spyware.

The deal has sparked fears over privacy, but today Phorm, the firm behind the new advertising system, strongly rejected such concerns.

BT, Virgin Media, and Carphone Warehouse have agreed to feed data on their subscribers' web activities to Phorm. Data will be fed into the Open Internet Exchange, Phorm's advertising network, where advertisers will pay to target interest groups. Frequent visits to the BBC's Top Gear site might result in being served up more car ads, for example.

Phorm is run by Kent Ertegrul, a serial entrepreneur whose past ventures include selling joyrides on Russian fighter jets. Previously, his most notable foray online was as the founder of PeopleOnPage, an ad network that operated earlier in the decade and which was blacklisted as spyware by the likes of Symantec and F-Secure.

Security firm F-Secure describes PeopleOnPage's software here.

It says: "The spyware collects a user's browsing habits and system information and sends it back to the ContextPlus servers. Targeted pop-up advertisements are displayed while browsing the web.

"Each installation is given a unique ID, which is sent to the ContextPlus server to request a pop-up advertisement." ContextPlus was the rootkit that PeopleOnPage used to harvest data and hide its presence.

The similarities between this business model and that which will be kicked off by Phorm in the coming months are striking.

Earthquake Blogging

Over at Unenlightened Commentary, Ross was blogging the quake at just gone one.

Techie Traumas

I was up til two last night, tweaking a small Microsoft Access application I was prototyping to show to some end-users this morning for their feedback.

<"techie twaddle">I'd built an initial screen with a subform linked to a big union query - 11 unions in fact - which would give the user a snapshot of the project status with all the key statistics on it. Worked perfectly on my Access 2000 setup. But when you open the beast in Access 2002 as used at the client site, something dreadful happens to the query and you show the users a nice blank subform. The query itself seems to be totally trashed and you can't open it in design mode any more. Bad news, because you've lost all your SQL. The fix seems to be to write another (non-union) query which uses the union query as a view, and link the form to the non-union query. You have to rewrite all the SQL first, of course. <"/techie twaddle">

Fired it up, it was bust, a ten o'clock meeting, and I would be demonstrating (to three people who'd driven 80 miles to see it) a broken application that I wouldn't have time to find a fix for before they arrived.

Initial feedback was that it would be nice if the screen wasn't blank.

There were other screens which did work, and while the visitors were checking out the screenprints and writing their comments and suggestions, I was frantically finding a fix - which happily materialised in time for me to show them a kosher front-end.

Not the most stress-free walkthrough I've ever done. I'm somewhat tired. Need a drink.



Or three.




UPDATE - A bad day for me at the office is like yesterday's. A bad day for Susan, a nurse, is working for an hour in the back of an ambulance on someone who's arrested - and not being able to bring them back. Or visiting and talking with a thirtysomething mother of three young children, whose cancer has just been diagnosed as terminal. I need to remind myself of that occasionally. Working in IT isn't exactly Helmand province !

A Few Snowdrops By The Curate's Brook

"No political party can govern if they upset the Asian vote"

Britain, which is seeking to overhaul its immigration policy, cannot afford to upset the Asian community because of its increasing electoral clout, says the chairperson of the Indo-British Friendship Society. "No political party can govern if they upset the Asian vote," India-born Rami Ranger, who also heads the Sun Group of Industries, told IANS.

Ranger, who visited India earlier this month as part of a delegation accompanying British Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, was commenting on the controversial set of proposals that could mark the most comprehensive revision of British immigration rules in 45 years.

"We can elect 40 to 50 members of parliament from several inner cities... They cannot afford to go wrong," said Ranger, 60, who migrated to Britain in 1971 and today steers a business empire that exports products and services to 40 countries.

That does tend to presume a two-party system. See my piece on the Tory Choice.




The New Wave of British Jihad gets an unlikely recruit - one Malcolm Hodges, who was a bit miffed when he failed his accountancy exams :

"In November 2006 he sent identical letters to dozens of mosques around the UK claiming that he was a follower of Osama bin Laden, the court heard. He told them: "Brothers, you are right to kill the infidels but you are making a mistake to try to attack planes and other targets."

Hodges said the "infidels" were expecting such places to be attacked and they should turn their attentions elsewhere. Instead they should focus their "jihad" on four organisations connected to "the corrupt and Western society which are abhorrent to true believers, which the infidels, in their arrogance, will not expect to be attacked".

These were The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants.

He wrote: "Brothers, striking at these targets will be striking at the infidels where it hurts most and each of these targets was formed and is led by the Queen of England. These targets are also full of swine and apes as they are crammed full of Jews, so striking against these targets is a strike against Israel and will take us closer to wiping Israel from the map."

Most murders in London last year were committed by foreigners :

Most murders in London this year were committed by foreigners, according to Scotland Yard figures obtained by The Times.

Of 47 killings between April and September where the nationality of the accused is known, 26 of the suspects — 55 per cent — are not Britons. In 19 cases the killer is believed to be British. In a further 23 cases the nationality of the killer has not been determined. At least 23 of the victims were foreign, including Somali, Brazilian, Irish and Vietnamese citizens. The killings over the six months are under investigation by Scotland Yard’s Homicide Command and are subject to change as more cases are solved. But the raw data represents a stark illustration of the problems facing forces nationwide as communities change rapidly because of large-scale immigration.

The accused in the London sample hail from all corners of the world: Peru, China, Albania, Romania, Lithuania, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

"we liberal baby-boomers"

David Goodhart examines the entrails of Jacqui Smith's citizenship proposals.


Last week's green paper on immigration and citizenship used a rhetoric that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, talked about 'earned citizenship' and restricting certain welfare benefits to those who have achieved full citizenship, after at least six years 'on probation'. This is the same government that has overseen the biggest-ever migration into Britain and has been more positive about minority rights, multiculturalism and an 'open Britain' than any in our history. Grasping this apparent conflict requires an understanding of the learning curve of the liberal, baby-boom generation.

While Mr Goodhart's analysis of what my university generation believed is spot-on, the key word here is 'rhetoric'. I think the changes are driven by their private polls and focus groups rather than anything else.

Interesting paradox. I think we're still (just about) at the stage where the problem is 'us' - i.e. the white liberals in power. It's their idiotic, guilt-driven responses to the various challenges to the just-existing, despised Brit culture which is the problem. They still have the power to do something about that, but one day they won't and power will either be fragmented or have passed elsewhere.

And that's exactly the way the white liberals in power think about 'us' - us being the refuseniks, the unbelievers in the Great Society, the racist lumpen Little Englanders harking back to a golden age that never existed. WE are the problem as far as they're concerned (I'm using the Royal 'we' here - as the son of a Welshwoman and an immigrant who spoke with a strong foreign accent til the day he died my status is obscure). If only those idiots weren't around what a paradise this land would be !

But they are - although millions have left. And large numbers of them were once natural, almost tribal Labour supporters whose identification is loosening fast. Ms Smith's initiative is aimed squarely at them. After all, large numbers of them are just poor souls who believe what they read in the Daily Mail. It's a problem of perception. They need - what's the word ? reassurance.

And if words are what's needed, we couldn't have a better government to provide them.

"Affordable Family Formation"

Steve Sailer on house affordability, family values and voting patterns. In the UK it's always Mr and Mrs Average who get squeezed on the kids front. The wealthy and the tax-funded underclass can have as many as they like, but a couple on average wages pretty much have to keep two incomes coming in to pay the mortgage. And it is the devil's own job raising kids in any quantity when you're both working full time, quite apart from the question of whether a mother who spends more waking hours at work than with her children can be said to be 'raising' them at all.

Neither Jane Austen nor Benjamin Franklin, however, would have found the question of what drives the Red-Blue divide so baffling. Unlike today’s intellectuals, they both thought intensely about the web linking wealth, property, marriage, and children. They would not have been surprised that a state’s voting proclivities are now dominated by the relative presence or absence of affordable family formation.

First-time readers of Pride and Prejudice frequently remark that Austen’s romance novels are, by American standards, not terribly romantic. She possessed a hard-headed understanding of how in traditional English society, wedlock was a luxury that some would never be able to afford, an assumption that often shocks us in our more sentimental 21st century ...

... GOP “family values” resound more in states where people can more afford to have families. In parts of the country where “Families can be easily supported, more Persons marry, and earlier in Life.” And where it is economical to buy a house with a yard in a neighborhood with a decent public (i.e. state - LT) school, you will generally find more conservatives. It’s a stereotype that marriage, mortgage, and kids make people more conservative, but, like most stereotypes, it’s reasonably true. You’ll find fewer Republicans in places where family formation is expensive. Where fewer people can form families, Republican candidates making speeches about family values just sound irrelevant or irritating.

The arrow of causality points in both directions. Some family-oriented people move to more affordable states in order to marry and have children, while people uninterested in marriage and children move in the opposite direction to enjoy adult lifestyles. This population swapping just makes the electorate more divided by geography rather than tipping the national balance toward one party.

Still, for the many Americans whose innate inclinations fall somewhere in the middle, the cost of forming a family in their current state affects how likely they are to start down the path toward married-with-children conservatism and therefore, cumulatively, which party will eventually prevail nationally.

Imagine a young couple considering marriage who live in the San Francisco Bay Area. He makes $60,000 and she makes $40,000 annually. If he could find a job that pays $50,000 in northern Texas, where costs are only half as high, she could stay home and raise the children. But if they can’t bear to leave California, with its inspiring scenery and lovely weather, she will have to keep working. And if she has to work, are children really such a good idea? And if they aren’t going to have children, why get married at all? And if they aren’t married, are they going to appreciate the nagging of socially conservative politicians?

Read the whole thing. UK house prices are such that there's nowhere any more where Joe Average can find "a house with a yard in a neighborhood with a decent state school".