Underclass News - Hebden Bridge

Who says they're not integrating in the West Riding ? Mr Patel seems to understand the native culture pretty well. Hebden Bridge has changed in the 30-odd years since it was the heartland of Northern hippiedom.

A judge has jailed the Hebden Bridge parents of a six-week-old baby who suffered "inexplicable, deplorable and indefensible" cruelty while on social services' at-risk register. Rizwan Patel and Alliah Bradshaw pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing at Bradford Crown Court to failing to get medical attention when their daughter suffered fractured legs and later contracted meningitis, leaving her with "catastrophic" health problems.

Patel, 27, also pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm after admitting shaking the baby so hard "in a fit of temper" he broke nine of her ribs and her collar bone. Patel was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail, while drug addict Bradshaw, 29, was jailed for three years.

The court heard the baby, known only as Baby H for legal reasons, was placed on the Child Protection Register after Bradshaw, a drug addict, had two children in her care taken from her for neglect and ill-treatment.

Bradshaw. A fine Northern name. From 'memsahib' to 'white meat' in three generations. Pretty impressive.

Just went to vote ...

... and they were queueing out of the door of the polling station, in a rural village. Admittedly they'd put the table too close to the door. About 15 people in the queue and more arriving in the car park every minute. I think there must always be a rush around 9pm - either that or people are more motivated than everyone says.

Two Massacres

Twenty years after the massacres in the Chinese capital (which have been effectively erased from the national consciousness there. Someone showed the famous picture of the demonstrator in front of the tanks to Beijing university students last year. They'd never seen it and didn't know what it was), let us hope for a less bloody massacre today, with Gordon the lone figure bravely standing in the path of the outraged British people.

If God wills, Gordon could be gone by next Tuesday, although the Tories think he's their best asset and would want him to carry on right up to a General Election. But I trust the men in gray shell suits will persuade him of the need to step down, following what I fervently hope will be unspeakably awful election results.

Use your vote to show these people what you think of them (but don't actually cover the ballot-paper with faeces if you want your vote to count). And if you're in London, Vote Worstall !

Is This Legal ?

Equality South West is reminding people not to vote for the British National Party in the June 4 elections, like you need reminding… right?

Paul Dunn, chief executive of Equality South West, told the PRSD: “It wasn’t long ago that BNP leader Nick Griffin said he wanted the South West to be a multicultural-free-zone.

“That’s a shocking statement and reveals the party’s true colours. When you also take into account their opposition to mixed-race relationships and homosexuality, their stated desire to stop all immigration and their scapegoating of Muslims and migrant workers, you get the polar opposite of all that Equality South West holds dear.

“We believe in an inclusive, diverse and tolerant society, we believe that different religions and nationalities add richness to all our lives, not just in economic terms, but in cultural terms too.

“Most importantly, we believe that everyone is equal, which is why I strongly urge people not to use their vote for a party that seeks to divide people on grounds of their religion, sexuality or race.”

Isn't Equality South West 100% tax-funded (assuming the Big Lottery Fund to be a tax on stupidity) ?

As I said a while back :

All over the country there are 'funding streams' washing about. Most start at the Home Office and EU, and meander through swamps of bureaucracy before ending up in some sociology grad's budget.

But is a tax-funded organisation allowed to run a partisan campaign at election times ? Anyone know ?

The Need for Diversity ...

Mrs Andrew Marr on Gordon Brown's most pressing issue - the shortage of women in his cabinet.

"Tony Blair never had a "women" problem. They liked him. From Tessa Jowell, who famously said that she would throw herself under a bus for him, to Ruth Kelly, Hazel Blears and Bev Hughes, the women were loyal to Blair."

And Blair was a smooth, lying snake-oil salesman, personally attractive and charismatic, brilliantly competent at talking the talk of politics and disastrously incompetent at walking the walk of effective policy. Hmm. This is an argument for more women in the Cabinet ? Strange, how potent cheap rhetoric can be. I remember Clinton's last Labour Party conference appearance - not a dry seat in the house and you could have bottled the oestrogen in the air. The Labouristas loved him - a guy whose most lasting legacy will be a hefty cut in US welfare rolls.

Mussolini didn't have a woman problem either - he used to pleasure women journalists who'd come for an interview without even taking his boots off. Maybe Ms Ashley should head for Rome to do a piece on Berlusconi ?

I digress. The comments struck me :

RapidEddie :

if we take a look at the present and recent cabinet:

David Miliband - Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Jacqui Smith - Hertford College, Oxford.

Peter Mandelson - St Catherine's College, Oxford.

John Hutton - Magdalen College, Oxford.

Geoff Hoon - Jesus College, Cambridge.

Ed Balls - Keble College, Oxford.

Ed Miliband - Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

James Purnell - Balliol College, Oxford.

Shaun Woodward - Jesus College, Cambridge.

Andrew Burnham - Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

Yvette Cooper - Balliol College, Oxford.

Paul Murphy - Oriel College, Oxford.

You'd think that such a high proportion of top positions being filled by alumni from just two universities might not have escaped the eagle-eyed attentions of the gender-balance-noting Jackie Ashley (St Anne's College, Oxford), or her colleagues Polly Toynbee (St Anne's College, Oxford) and Madeleine Bunting (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge).

Chesney01 :

Singly perhaps it doesnt matter what their backgrounds are but put together the lack of world experience is frightening. I am sure that if I carried on adding names then the experience profile would not widen significantly. It would merely add ex public sector employees and lawyers.
I am sure that the lack of knowledge of the real world is a major factor in why the Labour Part is so out of touch and why the government is in the mess it is in. It is no wonder that Labour campaign on peripherial issues of gay rights and foxhunting and have lost the working class they claim to represent.
:
David Miliband - Corpus Christi College, Oxford. No profession outside politics.
Jacqui Smith - Hertford College, Oxford. Short time as a teacher
Peter Mandelson - St Catherine's College, Oxford. Short time in tv being groomed by the BBC for politics.
John Hutton - Magdalen College, Oxford. Lecturer (Law)
Geoff Hoon - Jesus College, Cambridge. Lecturer (Law)
Ed Balls - Keble College, Oxford. Writer/Journo
Ed Miliband - Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Short time in tv as journo
James Purnell - Balliol College, Oxford. No profession outside politics
Shaun Woodward - Jesus College, Cambridge. Short time in tv as journo
Andrew Burnham - Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Trade Union
Yvette Cooper - Balliol College, Oxford. No profession outside politics
Paul Murphy - Oriel College, Oxford. No profession outside politics

RapidEddie :

AllyF said:

Haven't exactly been sticking up for the Graun of late, so feel obliged to point out Kettle, White, Monbiot, Freedman, Younge for starters.

Ally, I stand corrected.

I was of course forgetting Martin Kettle (Balliol College, Oxford), George Monbiot (Brasenose College, Oxford), Jonathan Freedland (Wadham College, Oxford) and Michael White (University College London. Oh, the shame). Younge? Who he?

But are these brave chaps just token sausage-swingers amongst Catherine Bennett (Hertford College, Oxford), Allegra Stratton (Emmanuel College, Cambridge), Zoe Williams (Lincoln College, Oxford), Tanya Gold (Merton College, Oxford), Marina Hyde (Christ Church, Oxford), Bidisha Bandyopadhyay (St Edmund Hall, Oxford) and Melanie Phillips (St Anne's College, Oxford)?

"Ah!" but I hear you cry. "What about Sam Leith (Magdalen College, Oxford), Peter Preston (St John's College, Oxford), Andrew Rawnsley (Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge), Simon Jenkins (St John's College, Oxford), Alexander Chancellor (Trinity Hall, Cambridge) and not forgetting the leader of the pack, Alan Rusbridger (Magdalene College, Cambridge)?"

In the light of such overwhelming evidence, I should have to concede that The Guardian is in fact gender neutral and representative of the widest possible cross-section of British society.

In An Ideal World ...

Neither academic papers nor conferences titled 'Beyond ... ' or 'Towards ...' would exist. What does 'beyond' actually mean here, apart from implying (falsely in this case) some notion of progression ? What about 'different from' ?

BEYOND CITIZENSHIP: FEMINISM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF BELONGING
An international, interdisciplinary conference
30 June - 2 July 2010
Birkbeck, University of London

Confirmed Speakers
- Sara Ahmed
- Davina Cooper
- Antke Engel
- Katherine Gibson
- Julie Graham (a.k.a J.K. Gibson-Graham)
- Rebecca Gomperts
- Ranjana Khanna
- Gail Lewis
- Lynne Segal
- Margrit Shildrick
- Birte Siim
- Gloria Wekker
- Anna Yeatman

I haven't got time to do the Googling, but I would be amazed if any of these people are NOT funded by the taxpayer in whatever country. I see that as well as Dave Public, the Nowegian government is putting some of those oil revenues to good use by supporting this event. There's a doctoral thesis to be written, if not a whole research arm of a think-tank, in tracking the tax revenues diverted towards the cultural Left.

The language of citizenship has, in recent years, been mobilized by feminists to articulate a wide range of claims and demands.

And the language of English has beem mobilised by feminists likewise, but for a whole lot longer. Nothing wrong with that, mind.

The notions of economic, political, social, cultural, sexual/ bodily, and intimate citizenship, for example, have all been developed and explored in terms of their normative potential and their actual realization.

Zzzz ....

In Europe, in particular, there has been a strong steer from research funders and policy makers towards research agendas which address the question of citizenship in the context of increasingly diverse and multicultural societies.

Aka 'they're crapping themselves about the future' - hence conferences on 'the future of Britishness', Gordo wrapping himself in the Union Jack, and worry about/attempts to rebuild the notion of Britishness.

I must say it's going to be entertaining to watch the feminist response to the cultural challenge of an 'increasingly diverse and multicultural society'. This theme will run and run. I hope the proceedings will be reported.





UPDATE - I'm amazed. It may be that two out of the 13 speakers are not tax funded, although it's hard to be sure :

- Sara Ahmed - Professor of Race and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths. Tax-funded.
- Davina Cooper - Professor of Law and Political Theory, Kent. Tax-funded.
- Antke Engel - Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, Institute for Queer Theory. Possibly privately-funded via a foundation. I can't find the ICI's accounts.
- Katherine Gibson - Australian National University. Tax-funded.
- Julie Graham (a.k.a J.K. Gibson-Graham) - Professor of Geography, Amhurst. Mass. Tax-funded, although there may be some endowment money, it being America.
- Rebecca Gomperts, abortion promoter and doctor of medicine. Funding unclear, can't find the accounts, but probably not tax-funded.
- Ranjana Khanna, Women's Studies, Duke. If the financial reports are to be believed, only 28% tax-funded. God Bless America.
- Gail Lewis - sociology, OU. Tax-funded.
- Lynne Segal - Gender Studies, Birkbeck. Tax-funded.
- Margrit Shildrick - Gender Studies, Queens Belfast. Tax-funded.
- Birte Siim - Social Sciences, Aarlborg, DK. Tax-funded.
- Gloria Wekker, Gender Studies, Utrecht. Link not work or child-friendly. Tax-funded.
- Anna Yeatman, Citizenship and Public Policy, Western Australia. Tax-funded.

"The Empty Cans And Plastic Bags ...

... are most beautiful to be seen
Near by Dundee and the bonnie Magdalen Green"




A pity. The town that produced Scotland's two greatest writers - William McGonagall and Al Kennedy - has lost its civic pride.

They Sound Optimistic

I suppose it's got to be worth getting the vote out when you look at the potential rewards :

Leading Muslim Scholars, coming from diverse backgrounds and schools of thoughts, have urged British Muslims to "vote in the European elections, as xenophobic, extremist right wing parties have a very real chance of gaining national prominence by winning a seat in the European Parliament," in a statement that was issued on May 28.

Busy ...

And I'd hoped to write a long 'where we are now' post on the UK political landscape, too.

Fortunately the Pub Philosopher has written it :

... whatever the Telegraph's agenda, you can't agitate people if they are not already aggrieved about something. If there was widespread respect for our political class, there would not have been anywhere near the level of sustained public anger we have seen over the past few weeks. That many of these expense claims are trivial and that many of us have also bent the rules on our expense claims is beside the point because this collective outrage has much deeper roots.

For many years now, people have been feeling increasingly frustrated and powerless. As usual, working class people were the first to feel it as immigration changed the urban landscape, put pressure on local services and led to increased competition for work. More recently, rural areas have found themselves subjected to the same pressures. Then middle-class people began to feel threatened too as their incomes were left behind by those of the super-rich. Their children could no longer afford to live in the areas in which they grew up and higher education, once almost a right, was priced beyond many people's reach.

As TUC leader Brendan Barber explained last week:

Middle-income Britain did not share in the largesse of the boom years. One study shows that real hourly wage rates for median earners grew by only 0.1% a year between 2002 and 2007.

A sense of anger was growing too about the state of public services. Even when they had been sold off, few benefits seemed to come to consumers ...

All the while, people were assured that all this was part of the dynamism that was re-shaping Britain into a global economy and bringing us unparalleled prosperity. Ministers boasted that Britain was the most open economy in the world. Immigrants, it was argued, created jobs and helped the economy to grow. PFI deals and privatisation brought market disciplines to public services and made them more efficient. The rise of the super-rich was good for us as they spent money and it trickled down into the economy. Sure, there were some temporary downsides but the increased prosperity brought by our globalised economy would sort it all out in the end. Public services would improve, immigrants' taxes would pay for the increased demands on healthcare, transport and school places, the booming economy would create more jobs and debt-laden graduates would easily be able to pay off their student loans as the demand for their skills rose.

It still sounded unconvincing to many of us but the soothing voices of politicians and journalists dampened down the feelings of suppressed rage.

Then the dam burst.

Read the whole thing.

Elsewhere a few links I've not had time to blog on :

White Riot in Luton - nasty. While I approve of demonstrating against anti-British bigots, I do not approve of beating up innocent people, be they respectable fast-food vendors of the wrong ethnicity in Luton or respectable fathers of the wrong religion in Coleraine - a disgusting crime.

What was notable - and uncomfortable - was the Daily Mail "recommended comments".

"Good for you. It is about time people fought back ..." rated 2256 - i.e. 2,256 more people rated it up than rated it down.

"The government should know they can only push people so far before they fight back" - rated 2160.

"Finally--let it spread now to the rest of UK" rated 2080.

"This is only the start, it had to happen" - rated 2007.

I've not seen such high ratings on any comments there before.





Fake English colleges - another gaping immigration loophole, if loopholes can gape.

A Home Office investigation is under way today into a Pakistani gang alleged to have pocketed millions of pounds enrolling hundreds of men from the militant heartland of al-Qaida into bogus UK colleges.

One of the young businessmen thought to have helped mastermind the scam, Mir Ahmad, was arrested yesterday, according to a report on Times Online. A subsequent report on the site says he is also alleged to be linked to two murders in Pakistan.

Hundreds of men paid at least £1,000 to the gang to be admitted into sham colleges, it is alleged. Some paid £2,500 for fake diplomas, attendance records and degrees.

This allowed the students to extend their stay in Britain and enabled the fraudsters to make almost £2m in less than two years.

Many of the students are from the North West Frontier province of Pakistan, the heartland of al-Qaida.

Eight of the terror suspects arrested last month in Manchester and Liverpool attended one college, which has three small classrooms and three teachers for 1,797 students.

The Times, which handed a dossier on the bogus colleges and the gang behind them to the Home Office, said another college claimed to have 150 students, but secretly enrolled 1,178 and offered places to an extra 1,575 — the majority of whom were from Pakistan.

A vicious attack in Vienna leads to rioting across the Punjab.

Most of the violence was in or around Jalandhar, which is a stronghold of the Dera Sach Khand, a Sikh sect made up mainly of Untouchables, or Dalits, from the lowest level of the Hindu caste system.

A leader of the sect was killed and another preacher wounded yesterday when higher caste Sikhs wielding knives and a gun attacked the two at a Sikh temple that they were visiting in Vienna, according to Austrian police.

Guru Sant Rama Nand, 57, died in the night after an emergency operation. Guru Sant Niranjan Dass, 68, was in a stable condition, police said. Both had suffered bullet wounds.

At least 15 other people were wounded, including four of the attackers, who were eventually overpowered by worshippers, police said.

Witnesses said that the attackers were fundamentalist Jat Sikhs — traditionally the land-owning farmers in the northern state of Punjab — who accused one or both of the preachers of being disrespectful of the Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism’s Holy Book.

Sikhism does not officially recognise caste and was founded partly to rebel against the system but the concept remains deeply rooted in Indian society, even among Sikhs, Christians and Muslims. The system divides society into hundreds of groups and sub-groups which for many Indians continue to define where one lives, who one marries, what job one does and many other things.

The Dera Sach Khand also differs from mainstream Sikhism on several religious issues, including worshipping living gurus such as Sant Rama Nand, which is considered blasphemous by most Sikhs.

At least some of the attackers were Austrian residents who had asked for asylum, prosecutors said. About 2,800 Sikhs were living in Austria in 2001, according to the last census.

Spot The Difference

Iain Dale notes the BNP-flavoured nuLab leaflet being dished out in the North West, and asks :

When you first looked at this leaflet, which party did you think it was for? It's no surprise that this is Labour's Euro election leaflet for the North West of England - the region which is most likely to return a BNP MEP. Wonder who this leaflet is aimed at, then?

Well, it's not just the North West of England - I was up visiting family in Bromsgrove (West Midlands Euro-constituency) and they had the same one there. I imagine that's also a BNP target seat.

They also had this leaflet :



And this one :



It's the Battle of the Spitfires !

If the BNP change nothing else, they're changing Labour Party iconography. I told you it would be entertaining to watch El Gordo wrapping himself in the Union Jack.

*Sigh*

Our rulers seem to have decided that the parliamentary expenses brouhaha is so bad that it can only be put to rest by implementing whatever policies they already wanted to implement.

The ideal solution would be an Irish-style single transferable vote system in which voters elect the person, not the party. But even alternative vote plus – as first advocated by Roy Jenkins in 1998 and now backed by Alan Johnson – would ensure most MPs have a personal constituency link with their voters, as already occurs in Germany and Scotland. Labour made a promise more than a decade ago to hold a referendum on the Jenkins proposals. If the government won't call a general election, let us have this referendum in early September, as the culmination of 100 days of reform.

Together, over the next 100 days, we could achieve nothing less than the total reinvention of British politics.

That Nick Clegg really is a chancer, isn't he ? If there's one thing that the expenses scandal DOESN'T show, it's the need for electoral reform - which might be needed for other reasons, but not for this one.

Indeed the strength of constituency feeling is one of the reasons why, for example, the lovely Julie Kirkbride is feeling the heat at present in Bromsgrove. Electorally, I think she may be able to hang on in there - although the Lib Dims might put up a battle, but every new story leaves Cameron looking less like Mr Decisive and more like Mr Wobbly.

She fights on though - she fights to win.

Like millions of women I am a mother who works. Like millions of other working mothers I have put in place networks to ensure that my child enjoys security and consistency while I work demanding hours and do the best job I can...

But a wider issue gives me great concern. What effect will stories like mine have on mothers who aspire to be MPs? We want Parliament to be more representative and that includes women with school-age children.

Just before this story broke, I spoke to a woman journalist thinking of entering Parliament. Her main concern was the effect it would have on her children. I assured her it was possible to combine an MP's life with being a good mother, as long as she organised her support structure well.

That must continue to be the case - or Parliament risks taking a step backwards.

So it's all about Jimmy being able to go to sleep in his own little room again, is it ? Worth a try I suppose. And Mr Cameron wants to maintain a bit of diversity in the ranks. If she was a bloke her feet would not have touched the ground. Her husband's didn't.




Elsewhere, as has been written on mass immigration:

... where would you like to go ? To Scotland or Wales, with their strong Nationalist parties ? To Ulster, where Sinn Fein/IRA are still killing people because their forebears were immigrants four hundred years ago ? Or to a country whose national flag should really be emblazoned with the word 'Sorry !'. No choice, really, is it ?


Sir Andrew Green was saying pretty much the same thing five years back.


Now it's finally filtering down to Parliament. Immigration is overwhelmingly - and disproportionately - to England :

Scotland's perception of itself as an increasingly multi-ethnic and diverse country will be challenged today by official figures that show almost all of the net international immigration to Britain since 1991 has gone to England.

Between 1991 and the 2007 a net 2.14million migrants came to England. But in Scotland for the same period net foreign migration was a paltry 105,000.

In effect, the statistics mean that England absorbed 20 times more international migrants than Scotland even though the population is only 10 times larger. England also took 11 times more migrants than Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined, even though its population is only 5 times larger than these three parts of the UK put together.

Apologies ...

For the light blogging - working my wee socks off at present. No energy left for blogging.

This is lovely, though - and I generally prefer the lady herself to any imitators. Dutch band Ygdrassil doing more than justice to Sandy Denny's 1971 'North Star Grassman and the Ravens'. Chief warbler and mike-waver Linde Nijland is playing the Barbican July 18 as part of Joe Boyd's Witchseason weekend. It's sold out, but she's also doing something on the Barbican freestage at 5pm that evening.

Thursday Night Is Music Night

Brought forward from Friday as I'm too tired to think about politics.

Via my son again - this Ben Harper chap sounds awfully like Wyclef Jean. I think I'll have to tell my son about unhealthy reggae if he's listening to lyrics like this.

Herb the gift from the earth,
And what's from the earth is of the greatest worth.
So before you knock it try it first,
Oh, you'll see it's a blessing and not a curse.

Well, yes - up to a point. What's from the earth isn't always of the greatest worth. The same sentiments that Gregory Isaacs expressed 20 years earlier. I think, like so many reggae singers, they're both channeling Genesis 1:29.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

"To you it shall be for meat" doesn't IMHO translate as 'get it down your neck 24/7'. Let moderation in all things be your key to life. "The Road of Excess Leads to the Palace of Wisdom" was one of Blake's Proverbs of Hell. A quick look at this 'In Memoriam' page - or this one - should give pause for thought.

Hawthorn Blossoms From The Curate's Hedge

Woe, woe and thrice woe. A couple of weeks ago I praised George Osborne for his suggestion that maybe 'too big to fail' institutions were 'too big to exist'.

Creating larger institutions could encourage more risk because they were "too big to fail", he added. It would be a "bitter irony" if the sector became "even riskier", he said.

But I was pessimistic that anything would actually happen :

"doubtless the reason nothing will be done (and I'd be so pleased to be proved wrong) is that the banks will 'need to be large enough to compete internationally' or similar. In which case we'll be back where we were, only more so .."

Now Osborne's not changed his tune, but here's that expert severance negotiator Lord Myners :

British banks must be allowed to remain large enough to compete on the international stage, Treasury minister Lord Myners said today drawing a line between the Labour government and more draconian plans from the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, for a sharp reduction in the size of banks to cut risks to the taxpayer if they fail. Myners said a review of the financial services sector by a group of City grandees argued that more effective regulation of the banking sector was the key to reducing risk and maintaining London's position as a major financial centre. Myners also argued innovation would be encouraged, despite concerns that a legacy of complex financial instruments were in large part to blame for helping create the credit crisis.

Hmmm. "A review of the financial services sector by a group of City grandees." I imagine the same sort of review is going on in the States. The finance industry has effectively captured our government.




A blog devoted to the green-ness or otherwise of "green" light bulbs - Greener Lights ?

A blog devoted to history, in particular the post-WW2 British occupation of Germany - How It Really Was.

Separate lives - Sathnam Sanghera on living in Brixton.

The Sri Lankan civil war is fast approaching a bloody conclusion as far as conventional war is concerned, although I imagine we may well see an IRA-style campaign continuing. The response of the Sri Lankan government is likely to be a good deal more 'robust' than that of Britain to Sinn Fein/PIRA. That's not necessarily a commendation. Look at what happens to journalists there, let alone terrorist front parties.

I don't know enough about Sri Lanka to take a view on who the good guys are, or if it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. But it's remarkable how little outrage the decision to keep journalists away from the fighting has caused.

Let's hope we don't see any unfortunate incidents like this in the UK. I'm sure feelings are running high.

Mr George Galloway MP

On May 8th I published a post ('Dirty Dogs') on various senior Labour figures and their expenses, which linked to a Telegraph report showing, inter alia, claims about the 'value for money' of various Members of Parliament - calculated by comparing their expenses with the number of times they voted in the house. These have since been removed from the Telegraph site but were quoted on the blog in the concluding paragraphs . One of them was Mr George Galloway.

A response was received the same afternoon. Laban's not been checking his mail :

Re your comments about George Galloway MP

My attention has just been drawn to your blog http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/2009/05/dirty-dogs.html which is not only inaccurate but grossly defamatory.

You have regurgitated some nonsense that appeared in the Sunday Telegraph, with no thought as to the absurdity of their methodolgy about what does or does not constitute value in an MP, but with every intent of smearing Mr Galloway.

1) You make no distinction between the expenses an MP might receive in their pocket - second home allowance, "John Lewis list" and travel costs, which in George's case add up to zero - and those monies that pay for staff and the maintenance of a constituency office. Also, please note that none of Mr Galloway's staff members are related to him. Therefore George has made no personal or familial gains from Parliamentary expenses.

2) Mr Galloway stands for complete openness and public accountability in relation to Parliamentary expenses, as a matter of principle. This was the paragraph that appeared in his constituency report in 2008 which was distributed throughout Bethnal Green & Bow last autumn:

"You have every right to know where public money is being spent and whether it is spent properly. That's why I have voted for complete openness in MPs' expenses and allowances. I opposed the House of Commons when they resisted moves under the Freedom of Information Act to disclose MPs' "additional costs allowance" expenses. I told the authorities to exclude me from their attempts to keep the breakdown of these expenses secret, and I published my details myself. The amount I claim on what the media call the "John Lewis list" is zero, nothing. Nor do I claim any travel expenses from Parliament or the taxpayer. As for staff - I employ five people (three women and two men), their pay subsidised by me. They are divided between constituency and Parliamentary work. Not one of them is in any way related to me."

3) The methodology you use to assess an MP's value is absurd. You omit the following:

a) Enquiries raised on behalf of Mr Galloway's constituents to Tower Hamlets council, which often amount to more than the combined total enquiries from the all the local councillors and the other borough MP, to various government departments and other bodies. George Galloway has written literally thousands of letters over the last four years on behalf of his constituents and in at least two cases more than 20 letters trying to get justice for his constituents.

b) Regular communication with the Borough Commander and other senior managers in Tower Hamlets police - plus meetings with the same.

c) Letters to Tower Hamlets PCT and NHS plus meetings.

d) Letters to immigration ministers and the Home Office.

e) Maintaining a weekly drop in surgery (a greater service than most MPs). The number of constituents seen at each drop in session averages at more than 25, and the number of cases dealt with each week normally exceeds 50.

f) Meetings in the constituency and elsewhere raising issues of constituents' concern.

g) Regular meetings throughout the constituency - including throughout the summer months.

h) Time spent in Parliament attending to MP's business that is not actually on the floor of the House eg personal letters to Ministers, initiating and signing EDMs, responding to constituents

i) The quality of interventions and content of speeches made on the floor of the House .

j) Press releases and MP's letters to local and national press & media about issues of local and national concern.

.

I could go on, but I think, by now, the inaccuracy and and defamatory nature of your comments must be apparent to you.

This is the statement that was sent to Ben Leach of the Sunday Telegraph:

"A spokesperson for George Galloway said: "'Sunday Telegraph doesn't rate George Galloway' is down there with dog bites man for news. We do find it odd, however, that the paper seems to consider that the public gets value for money from the backbench poodles with pagers who pipe up for any god awful policy so as to keep in with their party whips. But you'd be hard pressed to find many people who think that an MP who has blindly backed the government on votes which are a foregone conclusion is 'value for money'. The Sunday Telegraph is to be congratulated for concocting a formula that generates the precise opposite of what it was supposed to measure. With such acumen, the paper might want to consider a sideline in investment banking." "

Mr Galloway insists that you issue an accurate statement and retract your grossly defamatory remarks as a matter of urgency. Failure to do so will mean that Mr Galloway will be forced to take appropriate legal action.

I look forward to your timely response.

Yours sincerely

Caroline Conway

Office of George Galloway MP

Well, of course, my response isn't very timely - which is why I got another letter last week.

The Telegraph have removed the 'value' calcs - and all mention of Mr Galloway - from their story, and it can be said that there is some force in the argument that counting the number of times an MP troops through the Lobby to vote is a pretty blunt instrument when it comes to measuring value. As a comment by one of his staff at Socialist Unity put it :

The calculation took no account of the fact that most votes in the House of Commons are a complete waste of time because the outcome is already determined and the choice is between a rotten Labour motion and a rotten Tory one. It ignored just about everything that is relevant to whether an MP was any good or not.

Incidentally, there has been a huge rise in the number of parliamentary questions being put down by MPs over the last couple of years. The reason is not that MPs have suddenly discovered the virtues of this parliamentary device. Answers are still slow to come and almost invariably evasive. It is rather that the more you put down the better you do on Theyworkforyou and rubbish like the Telegraph best and worst value tests. Grandstanding no less and definitely not a sign of an MPs necessarily giving better value for money.

I have no reason to doubt that GG is an assiduous constituency MP, and I accept that my claims of Mr Galloway being 'interested in money' and that 'it's what he does' could not be supported by the evidence presented.

I therefore withdraw them and apologise for them, as I also withdraw, and apologise for, any claim that either Clare Short MP or Derek Conway MP are 'looting the taxpayer' - claims based on similar value-for-money calculations.

Do As You Likeys

A group of travellers wrecked a multi-million pound police helicopter which was being used to spy on their site. The gang used axes to smash the £5million aircraft, after they leapt over a 4ft wall surrounding Surrey Police force’s helipad at Fairoaks airport, near Woking in Surrey.

After threatening staff working in the operations room, they set about wrecking the helicopter, smashing six of its windows and causing tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage. The incident happened at 10pm yesterday after weeks of aerial surveillance on the travellers’ site, where detectives believe stolen goods have been hidden.

Officers were getting ready to raid the site after collecting evidence they had filmed from the air. A police source said last night: 'The gipsies were furious because they kept getting buzzed by the helicopter. But no one expected this level of violence. Before a raid is conducted we will observe the criminals from the air. That way we get an idea what we are likely to find, identify suspects and locate entrances and exits. Maybe we got too low.'

I'm sure the report is basically kosher, but I wonder how they knew they were travellers ?

I keep reading in the Guardian that violence solves nothing. But it seems pretty effective for some groups. The police round our way are leery enough of them as it is. Incidents like this (and this) will only reinforce the feeling that they're not to be messed with.

Here's a report on a 'domestic' in Wales :

Nineteen people were arrested after reports of a huge brawl at a Mid Wales gipsy site. Dozens of police officers attended after “violent disorder” broke out. Neighbours reported seeing a gang of men pile out of several vehicles and run on to the site at Withy Beds, on the outskirts of Welshpool, at about 2pm yesterday. Dyfed-Powys Police said 19 travellers from Welshpool and Oxfordshire were arrested for violent disorder and officers remained at the scene overnight, but had left by 8.30am today.

What ? A £20,000 4x4 full of red diesel ? I'm shocked.

Another Liberal Myth Bites The Dust

Laban, 2004.

"Yes, Victorian Values. They covered their piano legs !"

Jonathan Calder channels clinical psychologist Professor Strange :

"The truth – and I am indebted to Matthew Sweet’s 2001 book Inventing the Victorians for what follows – is that the Victorians did not cover the legs of their pianos at all, unless it was to keep off the dust or children’s boot.

The idea that anyone would worry about the eroticism of furniture first surfaced in Captain Marryat’s A Diary in America, published in 1839. He reported that the word ‘leg’ was not used in polite society across the Atlantic, and that when he visited a ladies’ seminary his guide informed him that the mistress of the establishment, in order to demonstrate her ‘care to preserve in their utmost purity the ideas of the young ladies under her charge had dressed all these four limbs in modest little trousers, with frills at the bottom of them!’

No doubt the guide was making fun of Marryat’s credulity, but the story soon caught on in nineteenth century Britain. How those Victorians enjoyed poking fun at the straitlaced Americans! Nothing so absurd would ever be seen over here.

Somehow the story remained in circulation, and when the publication of Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians made it fashionable to scoff it was recycled to make fun of the people who had originally found it so funny."

Mr Calder seems a thoughtful chap :

Just as the Bloomsbury lens distorts our picture of the Victorians, so the Swinging 60s have given us a false view of the 1950s. But they want to close the College Library and there are macaroons for tea, so that story will have to wait for another day.

The Swinging Sixties only happened in the 1970s. Look at the Kop or the World Cup Final crowd to see how swinging they were back then. Most people wore ties to the match.

It's The Demography, Stupid (Again)

Telegraph :

James Carville, the man who masterminded Bill Clinton's first election victory, has predicted the Democratic Party will dominate American politics for the next four decades due to "seismic shifts" in demographic voting patterns...

"There have been long periods where one party generally has the upper hand. You never win every election – the Democrats won't win every election – but for 40 years the underlying dynamics in demographics stay with them," he told the Daily Telegraph.

From 1896 to 1932 there was just one Democratic president and from 1932 to 1968 just one moderate Republican, Eisenhower. Since 1968 the Republicans have generally held sway, exploiting the backlash to the liberal society.

But in the first decades of the 21st century, young voters have swung heavily to the Democrats, a crucial advantage given that voting behaviour in the US is generally set when people are in their 20s.

Hispanics and blacks are growing as a percentage of the population, while white men and Christians, who have voted heavily Republican for the past 40 years, are declining.

"It's the kind of seismic shift we have never seen before," he said.

As an unashamedly partisan Democrat, Carville rejoices in Republican misfortune, but also claims that none of his high-powered Republican friends – Congressmen, pollsters and columnists – disagree with his hypothesis.

FWIW, I don't disagree with the demographics either. The question is what the impact will be.

We already know that, as in the UK, on current trends US whites (in the UK, Native Brits - to distinguish them from the equally melanin-challenged Eastern Europeans) will become a minority. By 2042 Hispanics (who 'traditionally' vote Democrat) will be 30% of the popuation.

All parties change, but the Democratic Party may have to change more than most to accommodate its voters. It may not be the Democratic Party that Carville wants. Given that the idea of integration, of the melting pot, is no longer fashionable, it's likely to be a lot more like a Mexican political party than it used to be.

But wait ! I hear you say (or not) - what about the demographic differential between the Godly and the unGodly ? Republicans have more kids than Democrats, don't they ?

Yes they do. And white UK liberals have few children. But the scale of mass immigration in both countries is enough to wipe out the differentials. Not enough Labour voters having kids ? Import some more.

Unless you're hung up on political labels what's really important is the change to the parties over time, not what they're called. A Cameron Tory government would be far less socially conservative than Attlee's 1945 Labour Party, for example. My prediction FWIW is that US politics will be more like Mexican politics in thirty years, while UK politics will be more like the politics of the Indian subcontinent. There's also the probability in the UK that the tensions between the 70s types who now constitute our ruling elite, with their talk of 'retarded homophobes', and their pious and fecund Muslim voters, will lead to a split and the formation of a new party or parties.

"Traditionally Labour has been the party of immigrants, but a point will be reached at which they (Labour) are not needed any more and with a cry of 'so long and thanks for all the outreach workers' the Muslim vote will depart. The divorce will be messy."

Squander Two on Cameron

"I don't even care why Cameron has said what he's said and done what he's done in the last couple of days. He's right, and he's doing what's right. Sure, you've got to worry about how consistently a man with no principles can be right, but this thing's big enough for the rest not to matter so much. And it's also big enough to significantly shape the behaviour of the party. Overnight, the Tories have become the most principled party, and clearly not because they wanted to, but because they've been forced into it by Cameron. Well, OK, then. I'll take him as Prime Minister."

Discuss.

"In a somer sesun, whon softe was the sonne"

Former Guantanamera inmate and not-a-terrorist Moazzam Begg channels the spirit of Piers Plowman :

A former Guantanamo Bay inmate said that the thought of walking the Worcestershire countryside had helped him cope during his imprisonment.

Moazzam Begg told an audience in Malvern that visiting the Malvern Hills with his family was something he wanted to do when he was finally released.

Moazzam Begg was speaking at a talk at Malvern Baptist Church organised by the Malvern branch of Amnesty International.

Hmm. How romantic. The useful idiot equivalent of 'Hello, Denver, you're a great audience and we love you". Isn't Malvern where these people (formerly the Royal Signals and Radar Research Establishment, sold off to the Yanks by NuLab at a giveaway price) do their work ? Maybe he'll be off to Cheltenham next.

Talking of useful idiots :

The Malvern branch of Amnesty meet regularly on the first Thursday of every month at 7.30pm at Abbey Road Baptist Church and anyone who wants to get involved is welcome.