Ballet Awful

Ever wonder about the glamorous life of a student dancer ? Admittedly the Twin Cities may not be the Royal Ballet School, but there's no need for this, from the ironically titled Laura's Fun Journal.

"I'm really sick of all this waiting crap. I'm tired of sitting at parties, waiting to go home. I'm tired of waiting for mail to come. I'm tired of waiting for people to return calls. I'm tired of waiting for people who said they were coming right over. For hours. I'm tired of waiting for people to call. I'm so tired. Of all of it .... My life is wasting away ......And there's nothing I can do."

I hope she's not waiting for mail about her blog. There's no address on it.

(original concept by Peter Briffa)

"Even the Guardian ...."

Listening to Radio 4's "The Message" this afternoon, hosted by uber-liberal Jenni Murray.

First part was another example of what appears to be a liberal campaign to make newspapers report asylum and immigration in the approved PC fashion rather than the robust manner beloved of the Sun and Express. Jenni tut-tutted about the demonisation of immigrants as only one who upped sticks from Wandsworth to the (hideously white) Peak District can do.

" ... as journalists at the Daily Express consider whether to complain to the PCC about the papers coverage of asylum seekers, we ask how far can we go in expressing opinions, free from "censorship" or "political correctness" before free speech becomes hate speech?"

The correct answer of course being 'not very far at all".

But it was an aside in the second item, about media coverage of the Democratic primaries, which amused me. Jenni and her guest were bemoaning the fact that no-one actually asks about policies when they compare the Democratic candidates.

"Even the Guardian ran a story comparing their hairstyles the other day ..." said Jenni.

Now I've searched the Grauniad site and I can't find the article. But no matter.

"Even the Guardian ....". Says it all - about the BBC and about its culture.

Free The Care Homes 100 !

I have commented before about the industrial-scale child abuse perpetrated by social workers in children's homes. I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it.

But it is probable that many, perhaps a majority, of the 'carers' jailed in the last few years as the result of police 'trawling' operations are, like Anver Sheikh, innocent. These people are not only in prison, but as convicted child molesters occupy the lowest, most despised niche in prison society - the 'nonce'. They are perpetually in danger of attack by other inmates and usually have to be segregated for their own safety. Many are elderly men with previously blameless records

The state, contrary to Polly Toynbee's belief, is not normally the best possible nanny to children - quite the opposite. The child in state care who then gets good A-levels, sails through university and works productively is a rarity. More common is the child with tattoos, a criminal record, low academic achivement and drug or alcohol problems. Sad but true.

Twenty years after leaving care, large numbers of children will have become the kind of adult known in judgemental days as 'low-life'. As Richard Webster writes :

"They are almost always adults, many of them with long criminal records. In a number of cases they make their allegations in prison or while facing serious criminal charges. It is here that the real dangers of police trawling operations become apparent - or ought to become apparent.

If police officers interview hundreds of damaged young people with long records of deception and dishonesty, with the aim of gathering allegations of abuse against those who once cared for them, it would be surprising if they did not succeed in provoking a large number of false allegations - particularly when it is known that such allegations can result in thousands of pounds being paid out by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. "

Richard Webster has updates on Anver Sheikh, links to the organisation Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers, and background on the issues. Read - and make others aware of this scandal.

Guardian of Law And Order

It's now open season on Lord Hutton, who failed to tell the 'left' what it wanted to hear. But the Guardian gets lower than the gutter in choosing a writer to take a shot at him. More the depth of a shallow grave.

In 1990 an IRA volunteer and suspected informer called Sandy Lynch was rescued by police while undergoing interrogation by IRA internal security (aka the 'nutting squad') in a house in Lenadoon, West Belfast. According to his court testimony, Fred Scappatici told him he'd better talk, or he'd 'be able to talk to me the way he wanted, hung upside down in a cattle shed. He said it didn't matter about me screaming because no-one would be able to hear'. He was resigning himself to a slow and terrible death when police burst in and arrested everyone in the house.

Among those present and arrested was Danny Morrison (known within the IRA as the 'Lord Chief Justice' for his power of life and death over informers), Sinn Fein's publicity director.

The man the Guardian thinks suitable to judge issues of the 'contradictions, the lies and the evasiveness' of government evidence.

The Guardian has inadvertantly raised one point in Hutton's favour. Morrison may just possibly be biased against Hutton, who sentenced him to eight years in jail for conspiracy to murder, IRA membership and kidnapping. My respect for Lord Hutton has doubled. Pity the sentence didn't.

(Info from Toby Harnden's Bandit Country, about the IRA in South Armagh)

Blair vs BBC II

Is this as good an outcome as you can get ? The Beeb get a shoeing AND Blair loses yet more credibility ?

Not that BBC culture will change one iota. They don't think they've done anything wrong. They don't think they're biased. After all, all their friends think the same way as they do.

It's also been a week in which the stories of the top-up fees vote and the cancelled Cambridge research centre reveal that a Government with a majority of 160-odd doesn't actually seem able to govern.

What a wasted six years. What an opportunity missed. I had such high hopes on May 1, 1997. But when Frank Field went the project stopped. Blair recoiled from the (tax-funded) vested interests who want to keep the benefit dependency culture alive. In doing so he missed the chance of changing millions of lives for the better, and condemned yet more of the poorest people to the sort of fear and misery that drives some to suicide.

Now I wonder - what exactly are Labour for ? And all the answers are bad ones.

Gilligone

Well, they hired him so that the Today programme could set the news agenda. By that yardstick he should be due for a fat bonus, though there is the minor issue of collateral damage to his chairman and chief exec ...

Greg Dyke - don't set up as a fortune-teller. On January 5 it was 'there are no fall guys, and we'll only accept criticism we agree with'. Today the Shepherd's Bush skies are thick with falling guys.

At such a time magnanimity rather than gloating is in order. Tee hee.

UPDATE - Last Night's BBC News has a wonderful diary of Jan 28, following BBC news from the early expectation - 'This report may lead the government to consider the wisdom of blazing a trail first and then looking back on the wreckage'

through the dawning realisation that the BBC, not Blair, would be where the wreckage was - 'We have just heard Lord Hutton say Andrew Gilligan's allegation that the government knew the 45 minute claim in its dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "unfounded". It is not good news and you can not rule out the possibility of BBC resignations'

and on to the realisation of the full horror - 'Gavin Hewitt reports: "The BBC has never suffered criticism like today. Lord Hutton attacked its editorial values, its management, and its journalism". Hewitt says that the BBC's managers never anticipated this'.

A Left And A Right, Babylon On The Ground

Now I know why the BBC gave such coverage to the anti-war protesters.

They're the same people ! I listened on R5 as hundreds of BBC employees, selflessly giving up an afternoon's tax-funded pay (or else I want my refund), gathered outside offices in London, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow, Londonderry, Manchester and Cardiff to protest Greg Dyke's resignation. Lots of (mostly female) chanting - add a few whistles and you could have been in Parliament Square on May Day. These people are still at university. The same chants too ...

Middle class female vocal - "What do we want ?"
"Greg Dyke !"
"When do we want him"
"Now !".

I'm sure I heard 'One, two three, four, we don't want your racist war' in the background when Peter Allen on R5 was talking to staff outside Broadcasting House. Maybe I dreamed it.

And the scenes of hysteria when Mr Hubris, after his interview with that nasty Ms Nemesis, left the building - you'd have thought John Pilger or Michael Moore was there ....

I liked this report ....

"The exclusive party will include the 'Hutton VIP room', which will blast out the Hutton report, mixed into dance music. MPs are expected to re-create Andrew Gilligans now infamous radio report, backed by conga music, whilst dancing hand in hand through the corridors of power."

State Funded Terror

The people for whom Jenny Tonge feels such empathy killed another bus-load of people today. The bomber was a Palestinian policeman, whose wages are funded by the EU.

Currently EU Fraud Officers are investigating the PA budget, according to this report. Given the EUs inability to spot fraud within its own borders, I don't hold out much hope for them on the West Bank. Good liberal EU commissioner Chris Patten denies any wrongdoing has taken place.

Stephen Bloomberg, a British born Israeli, is currently suing the EU after Palestinian police shot up his car, leaving him paralysed and killing his wife.

I hope he wins, but what a thought. We pay taxes to support Arafat's gunmen, then we pay again to support compensation for his victims. Could you make it up ?

Woman Sour

Listening to 'Jenni' Murray discussing anti-social behaviour with a spokesman from the Children's Society. This organisation, believe it or not, was once the Church of England Children's Society. Now they hold sincerely the belief that no child should ever be punished for anything - up to and including the Bulger killers, who should not have been locked up for the abduction, sexual torture and beating to death of a toddler. But they adopt a gradualist approach - the last campaign was against any children being held in secure accommodation (which includes prison where secure council units are unavailable), with a particular focus on Section 130. The people who support the campaign are the usual depressing pro-criminal suspects (Baroness Stern doesn't want adults locked up, never mind children), the childrens liberation movement (NSPCC, Barnados, National Children's Bureau) and assorted liberal bishops. Plus Paul Marsden.

Naturally the CS spokesman was against ASBOs - they were 'too punitive'. Always the criminal, never the victim.

Jenni was sympathetic. Of course, this doyenne of BBC PC had the money to leave Wandsworth for the Peak District when the children reached secondary age, a place where ASBOs are few and far between. So much easier to be a liberal on crime when it doesn't come back at you.

PS - Dalrymple wrote a while back 'beware of contracted first names'. This is a Seventies phenomenon which mostly affects women, though 'Jon's' and 'Miki's' are not unknown. It was hip and liberated for Jennifer to become Jenni, Nicola to Nikki, Susan to Suzi, Debbi, Traci and so on. Really hip girls dropped another letter - so we had Jeni, Niki and Debi. It's as sure a way of dating someone as the name Doris or Elsie once was. Anyone with such a contracted name is likely to be in the 45-55 range.

As one generation dies, its names, usually hopelessly unfashionable with young parents, return after lying fallow for a few years. Names like Ivy, Phoebe, Olive are starting to return. Strange to think a time will come when Wayne, Gary and Darren will be associated with old men.

Tony Sewell

One of my heroes, was the interviewee on Feargal Keane's R4 programme yesterday (RealAudio). I wish they'd just put up a transcript, but for those of you with broadband it's well worth a listen.

Blair vs BBC

Like Leeds v Arsenal, you want both sides to lose. But Melanie Phillips has some wise words on the Beeb,

"What's happened at the BBC is a bit like what's happened in our schools and universities -- a pervasive corruption of the culture and the erosion of its founding values. I don't want to destroy public service broadcasting any more than I want to destroy our schools and universities. But how can one change the culture and restore it to its founding values? How does one cleanse the Augean stables?

..... the criticism made elsewhere that it is wrong for the governors simultaneously to be defenders of the BBC and its regulators -- although correct -- opens up the possibility of putting the BBC under the control of the meddlesome, bureaucratic monstrosity that is Ofcom, which would destroy it."

and on the Tories opportunism over Kelly and Hutton.

" ... by deciding that Blair was the villain of the piece, the Tories were effectively siding with the BBC, when it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that the BBC was entirely in the wrong, that its position was utterly indefensible -- and that in the long run, it is the BBC, not the Labour party, that is actually the Tory party's biggest enemy because of the role it plays week in, week out in subverting the values of this country and the nature of truth itself.

But the Tories simply would not listen ..... because they were transfixed by the mantra of 'Blair the liar' which they have elevated to their main plank of opposition. Now they have been well and truly caught out on the wrong side. The roar of derision from the Labour benches that greeted Howard's feeble and glancing nod towards Hutton's demolition of the BBC was well deserved."

UPDATE - Norman Geras isn't too impressed with the Blessed Michael either. Nor is Stephen Pollard. Still, as Greg Dyke would doubtless say, we all make mistakes.

UPDATE 2 - DumbJon isn't too happy either.

"Howard's position was so blatantly opportunistic and cynical that it achieved the almost impossible: it made Blair look principled."

"Just when we were getting ready to enjoy the Beeb catching a full load of consequences, up pops Howard to stand shoulder to shoulder with the self-same people who are normally employed trying to convince the public that he eats babies. Absolutely brilliant."

I wonder if anyone thinks Howard did well or rightly. Out in the big wide world Dyke, Gilligan and co are getting the kicks, but in this corner of the blogosphere there's only one villain. A week is a long time in blog politics.

And I Thought My Blog ....

Covered a limited range of subjects. What does this blogger do in his spare time ?

PC Plod

Remember Richard Brunstrom ? The North Wales Police chief who called a press conference after a pensioner complained about a speeding fine ?

He's in the news again - because a deputy Mayor is suing him for failing to cut Scally-related crime in Anglesey.

And for more sinister reasons - the letter sent to a woman after remarks she made at a public meeting in Llandudno, called to debate the effect of Brundstroms anti-speeding measures on business in the town.

"Mrs Elphick told Arrive Alive project manager Inspector Alan Hughes she appreciated the kind of work the police had to do in places such as Caia Park, Wrexham, scene of last summer's riots.

"But I would beg you not to put the rest of us in the same category as the people you had to deal with in Caia Park.

"The majority of people in here are upright, upstanding, good, honest citizens and I know there are one or two like that in Caia Park," she said.

On the video she continues: "But I have to say if you only left Caia Park six months ago you could stand the danger of judging us all by the same. We are not hooligans and we are not fast drivers.""

After the meeting she was sent a letter warning her that her speech had 'serious racial undertones. In the event of further inflammatory conduct you can be assured of a swift police response'.

The mighty Littlejohn has more.

The Evils of Multiculturalism

I bet neither the BNP nor Enoch Powell foresaw this.

Just A Few Votes ...

Blair survives, thanks to the votes of Scottish MPs. But it's all a little bit more damage ... better to hang on as long as possible, creating a greater fall.

The state of Labour is that of the mine-shaft in Zola's Germinal, after the anarchist Souvarine has attacked it. Planking is holed, water is spraying into the shaft from a dozen places, steel supports are held by only a couple of rusting screws. Behind the planking sands and water are moving. But for the moment it holds, and at pit-bottom things just seem a bit leakier than usual.

Hypocaust Memorial Day

Today, when for some reason the Government wants us all to contemplate Roman central heating systems. Yet when I rang the people at Chedworth about running a school trip there, they don't open till March !

The Government supports some strange initiatives - last year we had Balsamic Awareness Week. My friend Tim who knows about these things tells me it's a kind of herb vinegar from Modena, much favoured by Islington types for sprinkling on their organic scoff with rocket and tarragon. How typical of New Labour - what's wrong with decent working class British vinegar like Sarson's, brewed in Stourport since 1798 ?


Holocaust Memorial Day

In 2001, Education Secretary David Blunkett sent an information pack on the Shoah to every head teacher in Britain. It's an interesting document, with two basic themes. The first is that racism is a slippery slope - object to asylum seekers one day, and soon you'll be packing those cattle-trucks full of unfortunates. "Such events could happen anywhere at any time unless we ensure that our society is vigilant is opposing racism, sexism and other forms of bigotry". Continuous parallels are drawn between modern asylum-seekers and 1930s German Jewry.

"Research Britain's response to victims of Nazism throughout the 1930s.
Could the British Government have done more?
Provide examples of refugees who have come to Britain in the last 10 years.
How do we know about them and how are they treated here?"

I presume the correct answer to the last question is 'vilified by the tabloid press, especially the Mail' rather than 'given housing, heating, clothing, water, education, TV and phone'.

The second theme is that diversity and tolerance are so precious that there are some things which we should not tolerate. Like people with the wrong, 'intolerant' views.

"No one can legislate against a person holding intolerant views and in a democracy, where freedom of speech is a fundamental right, we cannot prevent people from expressing opinions that are prejudiced or even discriminatory. However .........antisemitism, racism and other prejudices are not neutral concepts, but harmful, anti-social ideas based on a desire to demean others, to harm them and even to wipe them off the face of the earth. Such prejudices are not in keeping with democratic values..... Independent, critical thought and moral values do not, even in a democracy, emerge of themselves but need to be nurtured through dealing justly with individuals at every level of society."

"If the lessons of the Holocaust are to be learnt, the suffering that is still caused by the perpetuation of negative stereotypes and 'acceptable' prejudice must be addressed."

In order to save free speech we had to destroy it.

I love that bit about independent thought not emerging of itself but needing to be nurtured.

Very independent. And how do you nurture it ?

"The promotion of democracy is a matter of education, not propaganda. A sense of justice and respect for human rights can be developed by educating young people to become independent critical thinkers, not susceptible to crude propaganda nor to cynical manipulation by politicians or demagogues. Societies ... racism ..... democratic ideals of social inclusion .... MacPherson Report ... Stephen Lawrence ..... institutional racism ... in our society".

The answer seems to be "Call your propaganda education".


Perhaps the government could save some money next year. Just hand out a small sheet - 'Two Facts About The Holocaust You might Not Have Realised".

#1 - Killing People Is Bad
#2 - The Germans Did It

And older children can read The Last Of The Just, Andre Schwarz Bart's epic of the Just Men.

It Continues ....

"Doing something to assist .... may seem difficult. But if we are not prepared to stand up to those who persecute others, then a situation can easily get out of control." DFES Holocaust pack, 2001.

It already has.

Five million in the UK since 1967.

Foetus ? Baby ?



The British Medical Association's 'Ethics Adviser' now wants post-natal abortions.

"Every Child A Wanted Child, Every Mother A Willing Mother" - the smiling, reasonable face of death. Great slogan - much better than 'Kill Unwanted Children' with its relentlessly downbeat, negative message.

How about "Every Jew A Wanted Jew, Every Neighbour A Willing Neighbour ?" for Hamas rebranding ? I'm sure Jenny Tonge would understand.

Toynbee's Children #1

(An occasional series on people who do bad things because the State isn't spending enough money)

Need admission to mental hospital, but they keep throwing you out for dealing on the ward ? Why not push a stranger under a train ?

"Christophe Duclos was left slumped on the tracks with a severed left arm and broken bones after he was sent flying into the path of a fast-moving Underground train during rush hour. A Frenchman who had worked in Britain for six years, he died in hospital three days later. "

As Polly has pointed out, "Depression is largely curable with drugs and therapy, but only a quarter of people get treatment. Mental illness causes half of Britain's disability, but claims just 12% of resources."

And the Guardian shows where its priorities lie with the headline "Tube killer wanted to go into care ". The poor killer was just another victim of society.

Suicide Bombers - The Professionals Arrive

Those Iraqi suicide bombers had better watch out.

Some guys are arriving in Kuwait who are capable of showing them up for the pathetic amateurs they are.

Five people here, a couple of policemen there. Call those suicide attacks ?

The Japanese Air Force could take out aircraft carriers.

Dealing With Burglars - Guardian Style

Well, obviously you mustn't do anything to upset them, says expert Professor David Canter, but the Guardian's Prisons Correspondent has even more practical advice.

Just barricade yourself in the bedroom (shame about the kids down the hallway), and most important of all, always leave something valuable for them to steal.

"I would leave a relatively valuable, portable item near entry points. Addicts often look no further than the next fix, so there's a better than even chance they will gratefully accept this speedy answer to their problem".

It's at such times that I wonder if Tony Martin was sent by God to a nation unworthy of him. Listen again to the good professor.

"I run workshops with bank and building society employees and I ask them why they might feel the need to adopt a heroic role. Some people feel angry or insulted that they can't protect themselves, colleagues or family against a burglar. The question you really need to ask yourself is, do you want to be a dead hero for your loved ones?"

30's leftie pin-up La Pasionara addressed this question.

"It is better to be the widows of heroes than the wives of cowards!"

If only David Canter had been around in 1936 to put her right. And what a moral pygmy is today's Guardianista compared to his counterpart of 70 years ago.

She had a couple more relevant quotes :

"It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees".

"No Pasaran !"