Right But Wrong

Some of my favourite bloggers are those I disagree with. Third Avenue is always a pleasure to read, as, surprisingly for an SWP person, is Meaders at Dead Men Left.

Dafydd is a well-read, civilised sort of chap, who thinks you can take away the cultural underpinnings (chiefly liberty and Christianity) from Western society without it crumbling.

Meaders is one of those infuriating types. Like the journalist Nick Davies ('Dark Heart' etc), he can see clearly what's wrong - then jump straight to the wrong conclusion. Social mobility dropping ? Life expectancy decreasing ? Nothing to do with the abolition of grammar schools, cultural factors, a welfare-funded underclass. It's down to the Blairite neo-liberal agenda, apparently.

He's picked up an interesting quote by Lib-Dem Vincent Cable.

It's because of the politics of identity that I can't see the Conservative Party reverting back to the role it had in the Fifties, Sixties and even under Margaret Thatcher as a broad church appealing to people on the middle ground. I cannot see that happening any more. There will have to be realignment.

"I can see a world where there is an authentic party of the nationalist right, an authentic socialist party and several in the centre."

I think he's right about the nationalist party - the question is just which party that will be.

But I see no reason why 'the politics of identity' shouldn't also include a party of the religious Right. Like Respect.

Can this story be real ?

Via the Englishman, news of an arrest for alleged homophobic abuse - of a horse.

The Beautiful Game

Despite our initial cynicism, the boys and I have been glued to Women's Euro 2005.

If only Yankey could cross as well as she skips past defenders. That Smith can match Keane for a studs-up tackle any day. And the nation's favourite Karen Carney has good feet - her little through pass before her winner on Saturday was a delight.

The Dumb One doesn't seem to share this feeling. To put it mildly.

What ?

Plans to ban the manufacture, import and sale of most kinds of replica guns have been outlined by the government.

The measures are included in the Violent Crime Reduction Bill.

The bill proposes an increase in the age limit for buying knives from 16 to 18, and search powers for head teachers who suspect they are being carried.

Binge drinking-related disorder will also be addressed, with proposed plans such as suspending alcohol sales in bars that persistently sell to minors.

The proposals are part of the government's attempts to restore "respect" in communities, town centres, and schools, which it says is among its top priorities.

Knives remain the weapon most commonly used in violent incidents, prompting the minimum age at which they can be bought to be raised from 16 to 18.

This government gets more and more difficult to parody. But we can see another iron law of liberalism in action. When faced with an increase in crime, rather than rigourously enforcing the (in most cases perfectly adequate) existing laws, the government prefers to enact new ones. If they impinge upon the law-abiding ? Omelette, eggs and so on.

They could cut violent crime with exemplary sentences, murder by the death penalty or by making "life" imprisonment, in practice about 12 years, live up to its name.

But no. The government has long since given up trying to reduce the propensity to commit crime. Instead it relies on reducing the opportunity. And we all become a little less free.

I don't want to live in a world where people have the desire to commit crime but not the opportunity (not that I think this hopeless bunch are actually capable of reducing the opportunity. These laws are unlikely to have any practical effect - but if my son wants that blank-firing Walther we'd better get it quickly.). Give me a world of free people. We had that once.

Light Blogging ...

again, alas. If you want what Third Avenue calls 'bile-filled rhetoric' - and there's no better sort - then Dumb Jon is your only man. Pub Philosopher is also recommended.

Jon notes the arrest of two police officers in London who shot a man carrying a chair-leg in a bag (they'd been told it was a shotgun). We can all feel safer that such dangerous men are off the streets - particularly when we think that their protesting collegaues may be replaced by Army marksmen.

New group blogs The Sharpener and Once More are up - I'll get them on the sidebar in God's good time.

I've just listened to an hour of the Today programme, which is obsessed (RealAudio) this morning with the Blair/Bush relationship. In the BBC world, it's a bit like George and Lennie in Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men.

George W. Bush is Lennie, simple-minded but physically powerful - Tony Blair is George, his concerned friend who tries to keep Lennie from using his strength wrongly. It all ends badly in the book, but in real life who knows ? Maybe the simple Toxic Texan can be led down the paths of righteousness by our gloriously nuanced, sophisticated leader - Gordon Brown.

And finally - Edinburgh is going to be a riot. It's likely that there'll be enough people on the streets to provide the necessary cover/distraction for the Womble types to be able to trash many a capitalist entity. As David Farrer reports, they are just waking up to this fact in Auld Reekie.


To add fuel to the flames, Geldof has now called for an armada of small boats to carry thousands of illegal immigrants (or Frenchmen - whichever is most offensive) to the UK. The good news is that the world's busiest shipping lanes should see to a fair number of them. It's going to be Slapton Sands all over again. If anyone takes any notice, that is - yachties are (generally) sensible people.

Cat-Blogging, Rat-Blogging

Apologies for light posting. The evenings are also light, and the garage needs a complete reorg. When I've got the Cat 5 cable installed I'll be networked out there ... also a couple of other preoccupations lately.

Our house and garden has always had a lot of wildlife - sometimes too much. Bats live in the loft, jackdaws in one chimney. The tumbledryer vent can't be used until the wrens have all hatched. We didn't block all the scaffolding holes on the (externally completed) extension - now blue tits have taken up residence.

When we found rats in the loft five years back we got a perfect black cat - affectionate, beautifully behaved in the house and a ruthless hunter of all vermin. She had one litter and we kept a boy - a hefty tabby. To watch them hunt as a team was an education, although she would occasionally bring in living victims ('I just saw a rabbit by the bookcase').

She disappeared without trace last November - no body. Fox ? Vivisection lab ? Dunno. Her son, never quite as clever as his mum, was hit by a car in February.

We'd also got hens in the interim. Never any problems with rodents - the cats saw to that. But now they were gone and word went round fast.

At this time of year we wouldn't feed the cats at all. They lived on fresh young rabbit. Now look at our garden.





Worse, the hen-run is surrounded by tunnels - dug by rats. When I shut them up at dusk last week I disturbed a big brute - nearly a foot long.

So Thursday night found my eldest son and I lurking by the hen-house, armed with the trusty BSA Meteor .22 and a somewhat underpowered Gat. Sure enough, the rat emerged from the hedge and headed for the house. Missed !

He dived under the hen-house. I moved the house and my son winged him with the Gat - a good shot considering what an inaccurate weapon it is. With hindsight a cricket bat might have been a more sure weapon. I killed it with the .22. Never shot a living creature before, but I'll make an exception for rats. By the following morning the crows and magpies had disposed of it. But he's got mates who tried to eat their way into the hen's food-store (big plastic bin) the other night. I might have to get a better air-pistol for my son.

We now have a new kitten - too small to take on anything yet. Part-Burmese, part something else. Call me a cynic, but I think he looks a bit too chocolate-box to be an effective hunter-killer. We shall see.

Nemesis ?

New US Outrage

"American jailers at the Guantanamo prison for foreign terrorism suspects splashed a Koran with urine, kicked and stepped on the Islamic holy book and soaked it with water, the U.S. military said on Friday."

Really, that kind of art is so old hat.

Don't those idiots in Guantanamera know the Turner shortlist has already been chosen ?

An Altamont For The Me Generation ?

300,000 people on the streets of Edinburgh at Hogmanay were considered too dangerous. After crushes the limits were reduced to 150,000 and the streets cordoned off.

Now a group of millionaires domiciled in places like Paris and the Caribbean have called for a million people to come to Edinburgh in July for G8 protests. They have called for children to 'bunk off school' to attend (Scottish children will already be on holiday). No word yet on whether their own children will bunk off that Swiss finishing school or French lycee.

Mixed reaction at the BBC.

"It might cause major disruption but who cares?"

"People are going to be crushed to death."

"The protest is for the dignity of human lives and is a gargantuan cause. I believe that Edinburgh should embrace the protest. Over and above this, there should be protests all over Scotland and the UK to show the solidarity of the human race in a such a worthy cause."

"1,000,000 people will simply not fit into the heart of Edinburgh, people are going to die."

"I'm amazed by the number of negative comments."

Negative at Booker Rising.

"Big white men and self-appointed mouthpieces from up high come down to paternalistically save the 'lowly' African, like a bad Tarzan movie. Hmm...."

The Policeman dusts down the riot gear but relishees all that lovely overtime.

"Most officers were looking forward to sitting in a carrier for a couple of weeks not picking up any paperwork until “Sir Bob” decided to open his mouth.

I suspect that any hope of a quiet life has now gone and it will be all hands to the riot shields, much to the disappointment of English officers. "

Roma vs Africans

Difficult one. Accusations of violence against travellers in the UK are usually considered evidence of bigoted stereotyping by the complainant.

But what if the alleged victims are African ?

Tensions between North Africans and Romas have increased after another man of North African descent was beaten to death last week, allegedly by Romas.

On Saturday, more than 3,500 people demonstrated in a tense atmosphere in memory of Mohamed Bey Bachir, who was killed on 22 May.

French police say eight were injured in Sunday night's violence following the latest killing, which left shops smashed and about 50 cars damaged or burnt out.


Hst-tip - Irene Adler.

It's Hay Time ...

The Guardian Hay-on-Wye Witterary Festival is with us once more. My post from last year still stands.

The Today programme has been plugging the Festival (RealAudio) quite shamelessly. As the BBC site says "James Naughtie visits the Hay-on-Wye's 19th book festival (sic)"

On Saturday James (or 'Jim') Naughtie appeared at the Festival, interviewing Rory Bremner and chairing a lecture by Thomas Friedman of the NYT. The same day John Humphrys talked about the English Language. On Sunday Naughtie hosted a late night debate on our relationship with the US.

So why not get paid twice and interview one of your fellow authors for the Today programme (RealAudio) while you're there ? About the racist English, of course, a subject to which the famously unbiased Naughtie can bring his traditional balance.

Also on the bill - Andrew Marr and Feargal Keane. Oh, and Greg Dyke. These people live in a closed world.

This Seems A Bit Off ...

Imagine an IRA bomb killing Protestants in Ulster. The Loyalist response ? To attack and burn down a McDonalds, killing all its (Ulster-born) staff.

The ostensible reason ? American ambivalence over republicanism and IRA violence.

Seems unlikely. Yet in Karachi six Kentucky Fried Chicken employees are dead - in reaction to a suicide bomb attack by Sunnis on a Shia mosque.

Shi'ite mobs often target symbols of U.S. influence after sectarian attacks as they accuse the government of failing to act to prevent religious violence.

The attack on the KFC outlet came just minutes after attack on the Karachi mosque.

Mobs of angry Shi'ite youths also attacked a hospital, two petrol stations and burned more than a dozen vehicles.

Weird. After all, Americans DID send money to the IRA, and politicians like Edward Kennedy WERE equivocal about IRA violence. As far as I know, the American Government and people could be said to be strongly against Sunni suicide bombers.

Temper, Temper !

Paul Anderson at Gauche seems a bit miffed at the lack of 'left' comment on yesterday's French NON.

" ... there's sweet FA from the Brit blogosphere ... I condemn you all unreservedly as completely, totally and utterly hopeless ... where the hell are you? What do you think?"

The poor things don't know what to think, Paul, that's the problem. It is confusing though - the French left still seem to have a sense of national identity, of French exceptionalism. They seem to want to preserve their culture. How on earth can an English lefty empathise with that ?

The French worry about Polish plumbers taking their jobs - the English worry that there are still one or two white newsreaders.

You'll just have to make do with a post from a born again Poujadiste, ex-Labour Party and Militant, ex-NUR shop steward.

You'd Have To Have A Heart Of Stone Not To Laugh

At one of the factories, the Tat Shing Rubber Manufacturing Company in Shenzen, employees were working a seven-day week for less than the minimum wage, with no annual leave, no right to freedom of association, and poor health and safety provisions, one report said.

At the Fuzhou Xing Chun Trade Company, workers were being paid below the minimum wage and having pay deducted for disciplinary reasons, the other report said.


The product? Make Poverty History wristbands.

Stupidity On An Industrial Scale

To think this guy was a Labour Cabinet Minister. Roy Hattersley in the Guardian on the Williams sisters. Keir Hardie is currently rotating at 11,500 rpm.

In the interests of balance (and sanity), Barry Beelzebub on the same subject.

That Didn't Take Long, Did It ?

Last week I blogged on the latest bright wheeze of the pro-criminal lobby - giving prisoners free Internet access. In the post I noted the "total media dominance (particularly in the BBC - where Guardian Man reigns supreme) of the pro-criminal view".

And right on cue, here's this week's Learning Curve on Radio Four.

Libby Purves is joined by Steve Taylor, Director of the Forum on Prisoner Education and one of the authors of the report; Per Thrane, a Danish Prison Educator who has pioneered a similar scheme in Denmark, and Barry Sheerman MP, veteran parliamentary education expert and Chair of the Select Committee on Education and Skills, whose major report six weeks ago also recommended more internet access.

Three people who want prisoners to have Internet access.

The BBC. Diversity of everything. Except ideas.

Vive la France !

Eh bien !

Sacre nom d'une pipe !

Liberte, egalite, perversite ! (Not work/child friendly).

Dieu protege la France !

Tomorrow's 'Independent' Today

IT'S ALL OUR FAULT

Lemba is just six years old, and lives in the poverty-stricken Bunia region of the war-torn Congo.

She has the hideous deformity of a cleft palate.

Because of this, she is shunned by her neighbours as bewitched. She will never marry. Uniquely among her thirteen brothers and sisters, she has not been raped by the UN peacekeeping troops stationed in the area. Even notoriously unfussy aid workers have not offered her money or food to sleep with them.

In prosperous Britain, Lemba's story would have had a happier ending. A scan would have picked up the cleft palate. Then Lemba would have been ethically terminated. And the government would have kept the reason for termination secret, in case any prejudiced interest group or God-botherer complained.

Twenty years ago, there was a scanner in the local hospital. There were more than 400 nurses and doctors with termination skills in the Congo. But the East German factory that produced the scanners is now a Volkswagen plant, and no spares are available. The scanner is rusting and unused. There are now only three practising abortionists in the whole country. The others have taken their marketable skills abroad, to the West. More than 150 Congolese nurses now staff UK termination clinics.

So poor Lemba is condemned to live on, sustained only by the love of her family and teachers at the local mission school. Her story could - and should - have been very different.

Of the 180,000 unwanted British foetuses terminated last year, nearly 70,000 were terminated by doctors and nurses from overseas. But behind this cheerful statistic lies the hidden suffering of millions like Lemba.

And it's all our fault.

Once Upon A Time ...

Back in the 1960s, there was a State grammar school called Bromsgrove County High School. It took around one third of the children of the area.

It was run on traditional lines by E.J.S. "Ernie" Kyte, a tall, patrician disciplinarian (and ex-Bomber Command Squadron Leader - a fact of which we children were totally unaware) who wore a gown and mortarboard in Assembly. All the teachers wore academic gowns. So did the prefects. It was an offence for a boy to be seen in the street without his school cap on - until the dizzy heights of the Sixth, when a different tie, college-style scarf and lack of cap proclaimed maturity. Blazers, an overcoat (school mac) for winter. Straw boaters in summer for girls.

All this flummery was, as we all know, meaningless. Why should a uniform make the teaching any better ? Isn't it just a strange coincidence that you can pretty much exactly correlate a school's results inversely with the number of boys wearing their shirts outside their trousers ?

The education was good. After two years pupils were split into Science and Arts forms. Latin was taught to every pupil for the first two years. Latin and Greek were mainstream subjects for Arts students, the big three of Physics, Chemistry and Biology for Science. Most of the Sixth would head for University, some to teacher training, two or three to Oxbridge.

The school had a swimming pool and a huge acreage of playing field - ten or more pitches.

Discipline problems were rare - nearly always related to individual teachers. Even nice kids can sense weakness and children are merciless. (So are other teachers. I can still remember my maths master, the late lamented 'Phil' Davis, rolling his eyes as the hysterical shouting of another teacher at her class came through the wall. She retired soon after on health grounds.) The ultimate sanction of the cane still existed but was rarely applied. The thought of the letter home and the long, dreaded wait outside the Head's study were deterrent enough.

The school went comprehensive in 1970, while I was still there, but my cohort had come up under the old regime and weren't affected. It changed name to North Bromsgrove High School.

Even thirty-plus years back you'd get a few rebels - the kids whose shirts were deliberately not tucked in, tie cut off short or left off - kids who either made an effort to subvert the uniform or who just didn't give a flying one.

If you watch the kids coming out now, the percentage wearing the uniform correctly is about the same as the number of rebels thirty years ago - a few per cent.

More than half of the playing fields were sold off for executive-detached style homes as the native Brummies moved south. The swimming pool was derelict last time I looked.

The school was put into special measures as failing last year and the governors sacked. The headmaster, would you believe it, has been given a job at the local education authority - to share worst practice among other schools ?

By what I'm sure is another strange coincidence, the local public school now takes twice as many pupils as it did back then.



I write all this because my old school, like hundreds of others in special measures, didn't become the main headline on Radio Four news last night.



This school did. I wonder why ? At least, following my mail, they've removed most of the mails claiming incorrectly that Unity Academy is controlled by Peter Vardy.

Of course the reason the BBC, like the rest of the left, loves this story is that the Academies are outside the control of the education establishment. Can't have that, can we. Any number of LEA-controlled comprehensives can fail and the BBC/Guardian won't give a monkeys. But let's make this one headline news, shall we ?

I have little time for the public school educated Charles Clarke, who as Education Secretary worked hard to deny working-class kids the sort of education he got.

But anyone interested in the Academy debate should thank the anonymous adviser who wrote this for him.

Equality Under The Law ...

In 1976 a chap called Robert Relf (you can find his story via Google) was imprisoned under race relations legislation for offering his house for sale 'to an English family only'. I remember this well because the National Front demonstrated in his support outside Stafford Jail, and I counter-demonstrated against them.

I wrote to the Commission For Racial Equality a week ago about this. No word yet other than a formal acknowledgement.



The estate agents handling the sale are Engall Castle and Millichap.

Richard Littlejohn Leaves The Sun ....

... for the Daily Mail. Amd a nation mourns.

Who can possibly replace this anti-establishment rebel at the Sun ?

There can surely be only one candidate. How many other journalists make the mighty Littlejohn look like the voice of moderation ?

His underground cult is growing apace. Surely it's time for nationwide exposure.

Step forward, Barry Beelzebub.