"They'll kill me, you know"

Saro-Wiwa’s tribe, the Ogoni, numbers about half-a-million people living in an area of four-hundred square miles in the delta of the River Niger. Unfortunately for them, their land of forests and creeks was discovered in the 1950s to be oil-bearing. According to Saro-Wiwa, the oil companies —principally Shell—have extracted $30 billion worth of oil from Ogoniland in the last thirty years, in the process degrading the soil, polluting the water, and causing the Ogonis to live under the eternal light of gas flares. And the Nigerian federal government to which Shell paid enormous royalties has spent none of them on Ogoniland, which remains without proper roads, schools, clinics, or facilities of any kind. Instead, the royalties have lined private pockets and built an extravagantly luxurious new capital at Abuja.

“The rascals, the rascals!,” Saro-Wiwa exclaimed, and shook the room again with his laughter. Rascal is a word that is generally used with a degree of affection, so what Saro-Wiwa said next was all the more shocking. “They’ll kill me, you know. They’ll kill me.”

He was right, too. Dalrymple on the Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Bob White 1924-2010

“He was the eternally correct and reserved Air Force pilot. He didn’t drink. He exercised like a college athlete in training. He was religious. He was an usher in the Roman Catholic chapel of the base and never, but never, missed Mass. He was slender, black-haired, handsome, intelligent — even cultivated, if the truth were known. And he was terribly serious. He was not a beer-call fighter jock.” - Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff.



Bob White, the 5th American in space but the first in the world to get up there in a winged craft - and more importantly, to fly it back down through the atmosphere and land on a runway, has died aged 85. He was also the first pilot to exceed Mach 4, Mach 5 and Mach 6.

Telegraph


NYT :

Robert Michael White was born in New York City on July 6, 1924, and entered military service in 1942. He flew more than 50 fighter missions during World War II before he was shot down over Germany in February 1945 and taken prisoner.

After leaving military service in December 1945, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from New York University. Re-called during the Korean War, he served with a fighter squadron based in Japan, and in the mid-1950s he was assigned to Edwards.

Returning to combat in the Vietnam War, he flew 70 missions over North Vietnam and received the Air Force Cross, the service’s highest award for valor after the Medal of Honor, for leading an August 1967 attack on an important railway and highway bridge in the Hanoi area. He retired from military service in 1981 as a major general.

Al Hallonquist's tribute site with good links :

As Allavie rolls the B-52 onto the heading of 222 degrees, at the launch speed of 0.82 Mach, I start the first-stage ignition. Think of this as a pilot light on a gas stove; there is no real power yet because it’s "idling." Joe Walker calls the countdown: "Four…three…two…one…LAUNCH!"

I flick the "Drop" toggle switch. The X-15 falls away and I shove the throttle forward. The acceleration is tremendous, and as I pitch up in a 40-degree climb, the G-forces build. X-15 pilot Bill Dana was fond of saying that because of the 4 Gs against the chest endured during powered flight, the X-15 is the only aircraft in which he was glad when the engine quit.

The plan called for an 80-second burn to reach 282,000 feet and Mach 5.15. But this engine performed very well, and by topping off the LOX, I was able to burn the engine for an extra two seconds, which allowed me to accelerate to Mach 5.45 and peak at 314,750 feet, becoming the first person to fly an aircraft above 300,000 feet and also the first pilot to fly a winged vehicle into space.

The X-15 now starts to decelerate... at this (airless - LT) altitude my standard controls are ineffective, so the aircraft is now using jets of hydrogen peroxide to control yaw, pitch, and roll, keeping the nose on the proper heading.

When re-entry begins, the "eyeballs out" negative G forces start to build. I place my helmet against the reverse headrest, which allows my helmet to settle forward slightly and stay in place as the aircraft decelerates and the pressures on my body increase. Without this headrest, the negative G forces would push my head so far forward I could lose sight of the control panel.

The X-15 soon encounters enough atmosphere to regain the use of the aerodynamic control surfaces. Coming out almost directly over Edwards Air Force Base, we are still at Mach 3-plus and around 75,000 feet, much faster and higher than previous X-15 flights. Overflying the landing site, I make one circle and roll out on heading, having lost enough altitude to be right on target for the lakebed runway. The Gs are so great that after the flight I find a huge patch of burst capillaries all over my right shoulder and chest .

Men Without Religion

I can't share the horror of so many secular liberals that - gosh - Muslims associated with religious organisations like the Islamic Forum for Europe are joining the Labour Party and bringing their religion with them.

I think the secularist crowd might be urinating into a Force 10 here. Used to the increasing marginalisation of Christianity in the political sphere over the last 50 years, they haven't realised that the past isn't necessarily a guide to the future.

60 years back the Labour Party, it was often said, owed more to Methodism than Marxism. And the Christian culture of those days was reflected in the law of the land. Most shops were shut by law on Sunday, the Biblical injunction not to spare the rod was implemented in the (single-sex) schools, sex education was non-existent, abortion and homosexual practice illegal. It was shocking for an unmarried couple to sleep together and a disgrace to have a baby out of wedlock. Divorcées would not be considered for the honours list or the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. Violent young criminals were birched, older ones were flogged, and murderers were hanged. Two years' National Service was compulsory for 18-year-olds. Small children sat in rows in the classroom and were caned if they misbehaved. This was Britain under the oft-feted Attlee Government of 1945-51.

The long march of the secular left through the institutions is now pretty much complete. By 2000, in a Telegraph interview, Ken Livingstone could say :

"I think there is a romanticised view that Trimdon Working Men's Club in the Prime Minister's constituency - solid working-class, patriotic - is the backbone of the Labour Party. They overlook the fact that a lot of Labour voters in the teeming cities are irreverent and radical. Labour succeeds when it brings together that respectable working class with what I call the radical urban perverts... I'm not going to talk about it (homosexuality) now, either. The point is that, 20 years ago, it was a damaging accusation: now it's almost an essential accessory for Cabinet membership!"

That was before 9/11. A couple of years later Ken was inviting Yusef Al-Qaradawi to London. No radical urban pervert he.

Do I digress ? The point is that secular Britain is the exception, not the historical norm. Nature abhors a spiritual vacuum.

We have once more, in London and many other of our major cities, large numbers of relatively young people with strong religious faith. Muslim immigrants and their descendants in the UK have a far lower incidence of births out of wedlock and sexually transmitted disease than other groups in the UK - in fact Swinging London as was is now the place where the highest proportion of babies are born to married parents. London is becoming a Godly place again, after a 40-year interregnum.

To imagine that this faith will not impact upon political life is the acme of gullibility. Why should hundreds of thousands of voters not express their faith at the ballot box ? And why should their faith not impact the Labour Party as that of the Methodists did ?

(These developments are distressing to me, even while I applaud some of their results. Because decreasing bastardy and increasing fertility in London are not the result of the native British changing their behaviour for the better, but statistical evidence of their replacement by other - in some respects better-behaved - people.)

Quote of the Day

In many senses, this will be a good election to lose. The ravine twixt government expenditure and income is so wide, and the push needed to close the gap so strenuous and painful, that both major parties have decided to leave the kiddies believing in Santa's little Lapland workshop, with its busy elves.

Why make them unhappy at their tender age ?


Martin Wolf in the FT.

The government bears substantial responsibility for the vulnerability of the economy and public finances and is, even now, relying on optimistic assumptions. It is not providing the fiscal insurance needed against worse outcomes. It is obvious why the government has made that choice: it does not want to frighten the horses. But the horses – the British electorate – are deluded. Since the economy is substantially smaller than expected, the size of the state has to follow. The question is how and when...

Letting the electorate into the know is – most politicians agree – not what politics is about. In such a crisis, that is more than a pity; it is a disgrace.

The Unluckiest Man In Europe ?

I blogged many a year back on an unfortunate chap in London who kept being accused of rape by different women, none of whom knew each other, and acquitted - five times over many years. One day he was accused and convicted (at which point his two previous rape convictions were revealed). Perhaps it turned out he'd been fortunate after all, given the five acquittals.

There's an Italian living in the charming small Dorset town of Charminster (or he was until recently - this Austrian report says he's not to be found) who moved there via Bournemouth from Potenza, Italy after being the last person to see sixteen year old Elisa Claps, who disappeared without trace in 1993 after meeting him in Holy Trinity Church. There was no forensic evidence against him but according to this most detailed site he served two years for perjury, not satisfying an investigating court with his evidence.

Nine years later two young children returned from school to their Bournemouth home to find their mother brutally murdered - a murder with a couple of odd features. As ill luck would have it, our Italian, Danilo Restivo, lived just opposite. He was arrested and questioned by the police several times but no evidence against him could be found.

In 2007 some ill-intentioned fellow posted him a couple of cartridges from Italy.

Now the desiccated body of poor Elisa Claps has been found - in the roof of the church where she was last seen. God rest her soul - and Heather Barnett's, too.

The whole thing's most odd. Surely the church was searched when she went missing ?

Meanwhile, the discovery of Elisa's body has thrown up more speculation

The discovery was made only on Wednesday despite renovation work taking place on the church twice since her disappearance, prompting claims that her body may have been moved since she was killed.

Not only that, but according to the same Austrian report ...

A local newspaper has also printed claims that Elisa was killed by a priest who worked in the Most Holy Trinity Church at the time she vanished, and died two years ago.

"It's impossible Father Mimì Sabia didn't know anything about what had happened in his church. The truth is that he got Elisa pregnant and killed her," La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reported an unnamed local source as saying.

Another local priest, Father Marcello Cozzi, said: "There was an atmosphere of a conspiracy of silence in those years. I think someone wanted to help the killer evade capture."

Well, that would certainly help explain why she ended up in the roof, but what of our perjuring Dorsetshire Italian ? The police seem to think that the same person killed both people. I can't see a fornicating Italian priest heading to Bournemouth to eliminate a total stranger somehow, even after all the other recent Church revelations.

Most puzzling. Let us hope the forensic people can bring aid and comfort.

"There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies"

The Japanese, admittedly a tad late, get natalist :

Several sectors of the Japanese economy are tipped to benefit from the Y2.2 trillion programme, through which families will receive payments of Y13,000 (£97) every month for each child if the new Government is able to push its much-vaunted programme through parliament.

Payments will rise to Y23,000 a month in the second year of the scheme as part of the Government’s effort to demonstrate that the State will permanently be on the side of families and childrearing.

The past two decades have witnessed relentless declines in the Japanese birth rate, prompting a range of demographic concerns, from a lack of elderly care provision to long-term fiscal catastrophe.

At getting on for £175 per month per child, presumably tax-free, it appears to this father of four, taxed as a single person, to be a pretty good deal. The previous deal was Y10,000 per child, increased from 5,000 for the first two and 10,000 for subsequent kids in 2007. So for four children you're talking an increase in 3 years from Y30,000 to Y92,000 - tripled, and at current exchange rates nearly £700 a month.

By contrast, the UK Child Benefit rate is £20 pw for the first, and £13.20 for subsequent - about £250 a month for four. I'm sure there are various tax credits in addition for those who can navigate them, but they're a fairly recent innovation. And of course, for non-earners, there are all those various welfare state goodies - free housing, council tax etc.

You have to wonder if such a policy will work for Japan, and whether one could work over here.



Of course a much less generous policy has worked already for some UK communities.

While most graduate girlies might not fancy a council flat and £100 a week, the assorted benefit package is quite enough to keep the Williams sisters or a Karen Matthews in their accustomed lifestyle.

And imagine thirty or forty years back, when early arrivals in Bradford or the Isle of Dogs brought the news back to Mirpur and Bangladesh that the UK taxpayer would pay you to have babies - the locals probably thought the deal too good to be true. When all the other goodies - free health care and education, money even if you didn't work - were added in, no wonder V.S. Naipaul's manpower export experts were busy.



I think it unlikely that our rulers will introduce such policies any time soon. Japan are doing it for a reason - they have minimal immigration and want more Japanese babies, not babies per se.

In the UK, we don't need to do that sort of thing. The current incentives are quite sufficient if you just want babies, as we reached the point of inflection back in 2001. Then it was that the increasing number of births to immigrant mothers started to more than compensate for the shortage of births among clever grads or ordinary Janes. Now we're on a roll - or somebody is :

The equivalent of more than 2,000 new primary schools will be needed within the next eight years to cope with a massive increase in pupil numbers, figures suggest. Places need to be found for almost 550,000 extra pupils by 2018, it was disclosed. The projected rise is believed to be down to a sharp increase in birthrates combined with an influx of immigrants in some areas...

Last year, MPs said that the extra pressure on primary places was a "direct result of mass immigration" into the UK. The Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration said the number of births to foreign mothers increased by 64 per cent in the last eight years. At the same time, birthrates among UK families increased by only six per cent. It accused the Government of being "in denial about the consequences of their losing control of our borders".

The quote which opens this post is apparently 1943 Churchill (I've never found a proper reference - anyone got one ?).

"There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies"

In 1943 we knew who Churchill was talking about. For which community now will it be 'a fine investment' ?




UPDATE - Sho(t)gun weddings :

Everything, from the generously elasticated rental dress to the special anteroom for napping, is part of the “Double Happy” service — once a niche market for pregnant brides, but one that now represents nearly a third of the hugely lucrative Japanese wedding industry.

The shift reflects changing attitudes in Japan. The historic taboo of pregnancy outside marriage was largely abandoned during the 1990s but a strong tradition of being married by the time of the birth remained.

By 2004 the national average of ten months between marriage and the birth of a first child had fallen to six.

Equally important, social commentators say, is the psychological effect of Japan’s bigger demographic problem. For 28 consecutive years, the country’s population of children under the age of 15 has fallen to a new low. For the parents of young women, that relentless decline has had a profound effect — in a country where fewer and fewer women are choosing to have children, a daughter’s pregnancy and the prospect of grandchildren is hugely welcome.

Byers Plays The Dallaglio Defence

When former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio aired various sex'n'drug topics to a pretty lady who turned out to be a News of the World journalist, his response when the solids struck the fan was to claim that there was no truth in what he'd told her - he was just bragging to impress.

Dallaglio does not dispute the comments attributed to him, but claims he was lying in an attempt to impress people he thought were offering him a big-money sponsorship deal, but subsequently turned out to be journalists.

While not exactly a strategy which covers anyone in glory or improves the reputation (although it throws an interesting sidelight on business morality that he had no worries about making the remarks to a potential sponsor), it at least keeps the most serious career consequences away.



It looks as if former Minister Stephen Byers is taking the same option :

Mr Byers, the former trade and industry minister who is standing down as an MP at the election, told an investigative reporter that he had secured secret deals with ministers, could get confidential information from Number 10 and was able to help firms involved in price fixing get around the law.

He also suggested bringing clients to meet former Prime Minister Tony Blair, the investigators allege.

According to the investigators, Mr Byers, who stood down as a minister in 2002, claimed to have put pressure on the relevant minister to change policies on behalf of rail and bus operator National Express and, on a separate occasion, on behalf of supermarket giant Tesco.

The next day Mr Byers retracted his claims, saying he had "never lobbied ministers on behalf of commercial interests" and had exaggerated his influence.

Mr Byers also told the undercover reporter that - after contact from supermarket giant Tesco - he spoke to business secretary Lord Mandelson about the proposed food labelling regulation who "got it delayed and then got it amended".

Lord Mandelson said he had "no recollection" of talking to Mr Byers about the issue.

A Tesco spokesman said: "We did not speak to Mr Byers on food labelling, regulation or indeed any other issue. These claims are completely fictitious and Mr Byers has acknowledged this to us."

Better to be thought a liar than a crook, I suppose. And Tesco would say that, wouldn't they ?

NWOBJ Update

I pointed out last year the contrast between the social isolation of adherents to the New Wave of British Nazism (NWOBN - © Laban Tall 2008) as compared with those of the New Wave of British Jihad (NWOBJ - © Laban Tall 2007) :

"... there's really very little practical equivalence between the "incomer" terrorist and his native equivalent, other than incompetence (a tribute to Brit science education). Indeed, the only jihadis who seem to fit the "weirdo loner" profile of yer average native pyrotechnician seem to be converts like poor lost Nicky Reilly.

The differences, on the other hand, are significant. The main one being that unlike the native wannabes, 95% of wannabe jihadis are not sad loners. They have comrades, sometimes support networks, lots of ideological support even from those who aren't going to set any bombs anywhere. Quite a few of them have reasonably successful lives. There's a big Islamist sea for them to swim in. If 10% of UK Muslims - nearly twice the percentage that voted for the BNP in the Euro elections and got lefties in such a tizz - are prepared to tell an interviewer that they wouldn't tell the police if they suspected that a fellow-Muslim was a terrorist (another 10% either didn't know, were 50/50 or wouldn't say) that's a lorra lorra potential support."

Rachel Cooke in the NS reviews Episode 2 of the BBC's 'Generation Jihad' documentary and mentions Episode 1 :

In the first programme of the series (8 February), Taylor went north, to West Yorkshire, to talk to two men who, thanks to their fondness for gore tapes and al-Qaeda's nonsensical dribblings, had fallen foul of Britain's anti-terrorism laws. I'm not qualified to say whether they should indeed have served prison sentences for their activities. But they were loathsome: ignorant, boastful, utterly lacking in imagination or - and here's the irony, given their belief in the umma - any kind of empathy...

Episode 1 - Pt1, 2, 3, 4 (proselytising in Peckham), 5 and 6. Some nice shots of Halifax, Savile Park and the road to Sowerby Bridge in 1 and 2.

The case of our old friend Hamaad Munshi, aka 'Britain's Youngest Terrorist' and grandson of a leading imam, features. But I missed the convictions of the two men here, Rizwan Ditta and Bilal Mohammed, who got four years and three years for distributing jihadi videos and possessing suicide vest instructions. Mohammed and Ditta were released after half their sentences, but you wouldn't say from the long interviews they gave the BBC that they were exactly penitent.

To be fair to them, the terror laws are somewhat debateable - as I've said before, I'm a little - more than a little - concerned about the legislation under which you can be charged with possessing items "likely to be of use for terrorism" - a category so vague and wide-reaching as to render pretty much the entire UK population liable to arrest. A road map ? A Stanley knife ? Every arable farmer with a bag of ammonium nitrate is a potential mass-murderer. Perhaps they should be taken into preventive custody.

In Mohammed's case, suicide vest instructions are pretty damning. One could potentially have explosives or firearms out of enthusiasm for shooting or making bangs, or even (see Robert Cottage) for alleged self-defence, but it's difficult to argue that blowing yourself up is a hobby.

As for Ditta, cheering on our enemies is reprehensible, and he deserves to be publicly horsewhipped, but is it criminal ? When our Yankee colonists ('Provincials') revolted 200 years back, they had some UK supporters, but we didn't bang them up. Sir Gilbert Eliot :

"The parricide joy of some in the losses of their country makes me mad. They don't disguise it. A patriotic Duke told me some weeks ago that some ships had been lost off the coast of North America in a storm. He said a thousand British sailors were drowned — not one escaped — with joy sparkling in his eyes all the time... In the House of Commons it is not unusual to speak of the Provincials as 'our army'. This is not general, however ..."

While Sir Gilbert was mad with rage, he didn't want the Yankee fans imprisoned.

Be that as it may, recall that this somewhat rambling post opened with the thesis that unlike the NWOBN, the NWOBJ aren't socially isolated. Well, our two boys aren't exactly being shunned by their fellow-Muslims in Halifax. Back to Rachel Cooke's review :

I thought back to the first part of the series, to the two cocky young men in their nylon tracksuits and flashy trainers, newly released from prison. Taylor asked them how their communities had welcomed them back. Cue wide smiles all round. The food, the presents! The money, the visitors! No one thought that they were terrorists, or anything like terrorists. It was more a case of: "Hail the conquering heroes!"

I think we have a problem on our hands.

UPDATE - not much social isolation here either:

Radical Muslim gangs are imposing a form of sharia law inside some of Britain's prisons, a BBC investigation has found. Non-Muslim inmates at the high-security Long Lartin jail have been forced by the gangs to stop playing "Western" music and take down pictures of women from their cells, according to one former prison officer there. Prisoners at the jail, although allowed to cook their own food, are not allowed to prepare pork for fear of offending the Muslim inmates, the officer said.

The officer, speaking to Radio Five Live's Donal Macintyre show, told how younger prisoners were targeted for forced conversion to Islam by the gangs. "They went along because they were intimidated. They genuinely weren't of the Muslim faith," she said. "I knew one lad quite well, who was approached by the radical Muslims and he changed. He was being controlled and bossed around and he wasn't even allowed to look at me or speak to me. "He just seemed very frightened all the time. He used to be forced to pray at certain times and he was even forced to grow a long beard even though he didn't want to."

One Catholic prisoner who refused to convert was seriously assaulted after being repeatedly threatened by the gang, the officer said. "He said every so often they would come to his cell and hold the Koran up through the small window in the cell door and start running their fingers along their throats," she said.

The officer's testimony is consistent with findings by the official prison watchdog, the chief inspector of prisons. In a report last year, the inspector, Anne Owers, quoted a number of prisoners at Long Lartin about the increasing dominance of Muslim gangs in the jail.

Long Lartin was, said one, "turning into an American-style jail, [where] if you are not in a gang, you're in trouble. People are converting to Islam for protection."

or here :

The Muslim prison population in England and Wales has sharply increased in recent years. The BBC's Ushma Mistry hears from former inmates and prison officers who claim gangs of Muslim prisoners are an increasingly powerful force.

"Muslims run it. Muslims run the prisons and there's nothing the screws can do about it. For a Muslim you'd say it's good but for a non-Muslim, it's very, very bad," a former inmate called Jay says.

Friday Night Love

From a more innocent age of black music - rock steady heaven :



A lot of reggae from that era has a slightly Western feel - the drums and guitar chugging along like a wagon and horses.

'Ring of Gold' is nice too.

Lets stay with geriatric reggae.

"Men without religion
Just can't keep in a righteous man position"

How true that is.



Finally ... something right up to date - banjos. A bunch of publicans, but none the worse for it. Via my son :

"Green Thieves Were My Delight"

The pair found that those in their study who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not. Later, in an honour system in which participants were asked to take money from an envelope to pay themselves their spoils, the greens were six times more likely to steal than the conventionals.

File this finding along with the news that liberals are more racist than conservatives.

And Another One ...

Lefty (but no party line-toer he) blogger and toilet-mouthed iconoclast John Band, like Ben Elton, has 'done a Darcy' and moved to Oz.

"Mineral wealth, newly-elected centre-left government, and no bloody ice. And about as far as you can get from George bloody Osborne… "

And, as I noted in the Elton post, a place that's a lot less diverse than the UK, especially his old stamping ground of London.

Mr B, whatever else he may be, is an intelligent, competent chap. I wonder who we'll import to replace him ?

I used to chaff him somewhat for not having children, on the grounds that only parents should be able to vote on matters affecting children (i.e. most things). The poor chap's now running on one cylinder after a series of unfortunate events, but he mustn't think that centre-left Aussie Premier Kevin Rudd is going to let him off sprogging :

I was at a function where Kevin Rudd was giving the keynote address. He talked about the ''crisis'' of Australia's ageing population and the various economic challenges we will face as a result.

Arguments were made about superannuation and the strain on healthcare. But there was a deeper message: young people (women in particular) are failing in their civic duty to reproduce. Apparently, gen Y is to blame for the inverted population pyramid.

There were hundreds of people in the room but only a handful under 30. As one of the under 30-crowd, I shuffled nervously, hoping no one would recognise me - and my empty womb - as the deeply unpatriotic and traitorous felons that we are.

After Rudd came off stage, he spoke to me and the few other under-30s (we had congregated for strength in numbers). He extended his points about the problems with the ageing population and the financial problems gen Y will incur when the baby boomers become pensioners.

At that point one of my friends introduced me, dropping in that I am completing a PhD. At this, Rudd rolled his eyes and in a terse voice lacking any sense of irony remarked that is the "excuse" that "all" young women are using nowadays to avoid starting families. Since then I've come up with numerous one-line retorts, but in the moment I just froze in shock.

Hah ! Kevin Rudd seems more switched on to the demographic implications of failure to reproduce than any UK Labour MP. Mr Band's duty stands plainly before him.

Normblog Profile - The Gift That Keeps On Giving...

Writer Lucy Coats :

What do you consider the most important personal quality? > Tolerance.

Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own? > No.

Other conflicted people - Alis Hawkins, Elizabeth Baines, Antonia Bance.

Why don't any men fall into this particular heffalump trap ?

Imagine ...

That the UK kept the government and social policies it has had for the last 50 years, but had never had an Industrial Revolution in the beginning. Wouldn't it look a bit like Kerala without the beaches?

Kerala defies all stereotypes of a "socially backward" Indian state - swathes of people living in abject poverty, men outnumbering women because of female foeticide, internecine caste politics.

Many of its social indicators are on par with the developed world and it has the highest human development index in India. It also has the highest literacy rate (more than 90%) and life expectancy in India, lowest infant mortality, lowest school drop-out rate, and a fairly prosperous countryside.

That's not all.

In contrast to India's more prosperous states, like Punjab and Haryana, Kerala can boast a very healthy gender ratio - women outnumber men here. Life expectancy for women is also higher than for men, as in most developed countries. Thanks to a matrilineal society, women, by and large, are more empowered than in most places in India.

Super. And this is thanks to ?

All this happened because of the region's early trading connections with the West - the Portuguese arrived here in the 15th Century, followed by the Dutch and then the British - and a long history of social reforms initiated by the missionaries and the kings of two princely states that were later integrated to create Kerala.

And thanks to pioneering land reforms initiated by a Communist government in the late 1950s, the levels of rural poverty here are the lowest in India. Decent state-funded health care and education even made it the best welfare state in India.

I'm not sure why the West should have had such a beneficial impact here as compared with the rest of India, where they were also involved in trading.

Yet, today, Kerala is a straggler economy almost entirely dependent on tourism and remittances sent back by two million of its people who live and work abroad, mostly in the Gulf. Joblessness is rife due to the lack of a robust manufacturing base - more than 15% in urban areas, three times the national average. More people here are taking their lives than anywhere else in India. Alcoholism is a dire social problem - the state has India's highest per capita alcohol consumption. People migrate because there are no jobs at home.

Kerala's biggest advantage - high literacy - has become a strange liability: the vast majority of educated unemployed have to go elsewhere for work.

Economists find this paradoxical given the fact that Kerala has met most of the UN's millennium development goals.

Hmm. It does sound like the UK - or maybe the UK in another 40 years, when the last manufacturing has gone.

Some commentators say the problem stems from the fact that Kerala is an over-politicised and "over-extended state". The argument goes that radical unions, bolstered by successive communist governments, have acted as "pressure groups advancing particular vested interests". In the process, the general prosperity of the state has been neglected.

Hmm. An over-extended state where the unions* act as vested interests to keep the state over-extended, at the expense of general prosperity ? The parallels with the UK get closer ...

"trade unions and political parties are acting merely as pressure groups either to defend the status quo or to extract the maximum possible share of a cake that is not increasing in size"

The parallels aren't exact though. Kerala isn't (as far as I know) importing millions of less-educated people of differing cultures to compensate for the educated Keralans who leave, building up ethnic resentments when integration does not take place. Perhaps they've taken a look at Assam and West Bengal.


(via Steve Sailer, whose view is "if you want to turn your country into Sweden, it's best to get fairly rich first")

* I think unions are a good - indeed a vital - thing in private industry, when they protect workers from employers trying to drive wages down. Alas UK unions support the employers in this.

Busy Doing Nothing

Marvel at the CV of the new Children's Commissioner, 'Maggie' Atkinson.

Two salient points

a) after writing her "personal summary" she must have gone up a couple of hat sizes. Humility not a key skill (but aromatherapy is).

b) she hasn't had a proper job since May 31, 1989 - more than 20 years ago.

The Labour Revolution

(idea by Martin Kelly, lousy graphic by Laban)

"No English Workers Have Been Involved In Making These Asda Sausages"

British workers have been turned away from jobs in a local factory – for not speaking Polish. Cooked meat manufacturer Forza AW effectively barred anyone but Poles for applying for jobs on its production line in East Anglia by insisting all staff speak the language fluently. The company claimed it was necessary as all health and safety training was conducted in Polish.

But Forza – a major supplier of Asda supermarkets – was last night accused of anti-British discrimination because of the adverts.

Forza’s advert was sent out via email by East Anglia-based employment agency OSR Recruitment earlier this month.

Headed ‘Immediate factory work available!!!!’ it continued: ‘If you are available or have any friends available, work is starting tomorrow for induction training.

‘Ongoing factory work (meat production) for 4-5 months, shifts are 7am-5pm or 9am-7pm.

‘Transport provided. Applicants must speak Polish. Please call asap!!!!!!’

The advert was signed Katrina Massingham, the company’s ‘industrial team leader’ and it was dispatched to hundreds of potential applicants on the firm’s books.

But wait ! It might just be all an unfortunate error !

A reporter listened in as the 31-year-old man called OSR to ask about the jobs last Tuesday. The first question he was asked was: ‘Are you Polish?’ When he said no, but could speak the language ‘a little’, he was told: ‘Actually, you have to be fluent because the health and safety training is all done in Polish.’ By Friday, however, after The Mail on Sunday rang again several times and got the same response, the company appeared to have second thoughts about the wisdom of the advert.

An OSR employee gave a different version to a Polish-speaking reporter saying: ‘Actually, you don’t have to be Polish, but it helps.’

When another reporter posed as an English applicant, Ms Massingham told him that all the jobs had been filled but that the language requirement was ‘not too important now’.

She added: ‘For some reason the training was in Polish but we’re trying to get them to change it, because it’s a bit silly, really’.

Yesterday, Mr Max Hilliard claimed the advert’s wording was a mistake and due to a ‘breakdown in communications’ between his firm and OSR Recruitment. He said he was unaware of the ‘Must speak Polish’ clause until The Mail on Sunday alerted him to it.

‘In normal circumstances, this ad would have been vetted and the error removed,’ said the 51-year-old, who is Forza’s chief executive and principal shareholder, owning 60 per cent of the company.

‘We employ many English workers as well as Poles and Lithuanians, though I can’t give you exact figures ..."

Phew. Almost thought for a moment there was something to be worried about.

New Children's Commissioner Is Childless

Maggie Atkinson

Born in Barnsley, Dr Atkinson studied at Cambridge University.

She taught English and drama for 10 years before moving into a national training and advisory role on the national curriculum in the late 1980's.

She became director of children's services in Gateshead in 2003.

She was president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services until March 2008, and is currently chair of the National Expert Group on the Children's Workforce and national chair for the new Centre of Excellence in Outcomes.

She is married with two adult stepchildren.

Ms Atkinson has just replaced the unlamented Al Aynsley Green as Children's Commissar for England. Appointed apparently as a non-campaigner by Ed Balls (who must have one of the most annoying voices in politics, btw), she's opened up in fine style by announcing that the Bulger killers shouldn't have been prosecuted :

“The age of criminal responsibility in this country is ten — that’s too low, it should certainly be moved up to 12. In some European countries it’s 14. People may be offenders but they are also children. Even the most hardened of youngsters who have committed some very difficult crimes are not beyond being frightened.”

I like that 'difficult'. Seems to have been all too easy for Thompson and Venables (among others).

“What they did was exceptionally unpleasant and the fact that a little boy ended up dead is not something that the nation can easily forget."

"Ended up" ? Any human agency involved in that, or was it an act of God ? "Exceptionally unpleasant" ? I'd use that phrase to describe something like a 10-year old defecating in the school book cupboard (which somebody did do at my primary school - the teacher burst into tears), not abduction, torture, sexual assault and murder.

It is wrong, Dr Atkinson insists, to describe a child as evil. “None of us is born a good person or an evil person. The backgrounds from which we come, and whether we are nurtured and secure, will shape our character. The adults who role-model for us — or don’t — will change who we become, for better or worse. I’m far more a believer in nurture than nature.”

They're depraved on account of they're deprived !

Now that's true up to a point - most of the disastrous kids come from disaster homes. But (alas) lots of kids are brought up by their lone mothers, and some of those lone mothers are alcoholic, and some of those lone mothers' kids run wild - yet not all of them kill toddlers. Robert Thompson and Jon Venables shared their upbringing with brothers and sisters, and they've managed not to abduct and kill any little ones. Why did Robert and Jon ?

Ms Atkinson, as a believer in the Blank Slate, is a follower of the Utopian Vision - otherwise she'd never have got the job.

By strange chance, a week or so before another childless leftie blogger of a certain age had bemoaned the evil tabloids and their punitive agenda, agreeing with the sentiment :

"Whatever Venables has done he will still need our support."

Prompting Laban to respond :

Shorter Leftie Blogger : “If it wasn’t for those nasty tabloids, no one would ever hate people who abduct and kill toddlers for fun”.

I think we can cut this more simply. The people who feel visceral loathing for Thompson and Venables are called ‘parents’, and every one of them has

a) experienced that awful hole in the stomach when your little one goes missing in the shopping centre – and it happens so easily! – and you find them after seconds or minutes of panic, but that sick feeling is not ever forgotten …
b) seen a shot or video of a little figure tottering through the mall, trustingly holding the hand of the boy who will torture and kill him.

The people who don’t feel that are called ‘non-parents’.

Our game, our rules. In an ideal world only parents would be allowed to vote on any issues affecting children.

We lost our youngest once at Knutsford Services northbound on a dark Friday night. Not a good place to lose a small child. Running from one cashier to another :

"Have you seen a little girl - she's three - in a pink dress ?"

You never forget the feeling even though I can't, thank God, reproduce it in my head. It's too physical. It's a feeling Maggie Atkinson will never know - which is why, in a sane world, her views on child killers would carry slightly less authority than Jon Venables' mother's views - or any mother's views.

Target Culture

When you set service targets and reward managers for hitting those targets, you create an incentive to fiddle the stats.

In some areas - say call centre response times, where x% of calls must be answered within y seconds, it's difficult (though not impossible- you can just drop a call to pick up another one, or you can be more innovative) to fiddle the stats unless you've got a bent IT guy.

In other settings you can be more creative. The NHS is renowned for its achievements in this area.

So, you think the staff and managers might be bending the stats ? Why not bring in an outside firm to test the systems anonymously? That's what Royal Mail did.

People sometimes say there's no initiative and invention in middle management at a large corporation. I wouldn't say that myself.

The unnamed source told Postcomm that several Royal Mail staff had found a way of cheating the supposedly independent system of checking mail delivery times, which was carried out by an external market research company... By intercepting the "test" letters, postal workers were able to hijack the performance assessment by making sure they were prioritised and delivered bang on time, giving an artificially high figure for the number of letters and parcels arriving on time.

Managers would note down the name and address on the envelopes, and in some cases illegally open the mail to find addresses of other volunteer panellists. The addresses would then be entered into computer spreadsheets, listed by postcode area. In sorting and delivery offices, panellists were known as “key customers” and given top priority to ensure their post was delivered in time, to hit the performance targets. In some cases individual pillar boxes were also earmarked to make sure they were emptied as late as possible, to ensure the panellists did not miss the last post.

In the Motherwell delivery office a notice pinned to the wall told staff to bring any mail addressed to two particular people to the attention of the delivery manager's office. One of the addressees was a panellist. Postal workers also learnt to look out for "suspicious" mail. In some cases postmen realised they were delivering "test" mail when they delivered driving licences to people who did not have cars.

Postcomm found that Royal Mail delivery office managers were “accustomed to looking for (test mail) and showing other colleagues how to identify items of test mail”. In some cases, managers photocopied panellists’ mail and sent the copies to other managers. One manager from Scotland is even thought to have travelled to Manchester to brief his colleagues on how they could get involved in the scam.

I imagine the fact that the monitoring was by outsiders also stimulated group cohesion and company loyalty (sort of) in the Royal Mail chaps - and I bet they were chaps. It could almost become a game, outwitting them.


Just shows what can happen when you get the incentives right ;-)


No steering group needing reports and minutes, no sponsoring senior director, no project plans and milestones, no internal auditing, no box-ticking to show how actions are aligned with the latest version of the corporate culture - just spontaneous, organic co-operation at all levels and the required outcomes are achieved. Almost like the Marxist vision of how industry would run itself in an ideal Socialist society. Fantastic.

Friday Night Music (Time Lapse Edition)

I think this one speaks for itself.



(the inspiration, if that's the word, is here)

Plus Ca (Spare) Change ...

Harold Wilson's 1967 Labour Government. Sterling crisis followed by devaluation. Jamaican musicians (a young Bob Marley, no less) comment.

"This devaluation (pound get a blow)
Will cause an eruption (pound get a blow)" :

Fellow-Jamaicans the Bleechers went as far as suggesting that "Pound Paper" should be replaced by dollars and cents. Rank treason IYAM. I always wondered why Lee Perry hadn't got a knighthood.


By 1976 Labour were back in power under Jim Callaghan, and there was another sterling crisis. Once more there was comment from down yard way, via the late Vivian 'Yabby You' Jackson.

By the next sterling crisis in 1992, the Tories' Black Wednesday, Jamaicans had lost interest in UK events. The Mother Country had become the Mother****** Country and West Indian musicians no longer titled themselves Sir, Lord , Count or Duke.

So we're unlikely to get much comment on current sterling woes.

Never mind. In the finest tradition of the Green movement, Laban has recycled Yabby You's 1977 tribute to the collapsing pound.

"Did you read it in the news today ?
The pound has fallen down"