Men At Work

The Aluminium Wire and Cable Company, Jersey Marine, Swansea, in (I think) the 1960s.

Amazingly, we still manufacture both aluminium metal and aluminium wire in the UK. Just don't get me started on Anglesey Aluminium.

Prime Ministers Questions 27 April 2004

Youtube disabled this for copyright reasons, presumably the copyright of the Vengaboys rather than Hansard. It now seems to have been freed up. Created rather a long time ago, the patrician chap asking Blair about murder and mutilation is High Tory Peter Tapsell.

Most Stupid CiF Post Ever ?

Zoe Williams makes a stunning comeback with If sex with HIV is a crime, so is swimming with verrucas.

Or going into work with a cold, sitting in a doctors surgery with flu, etc. You have to wonder if the Guardian's doing what the old Daily Sport used to do - knowingly publishing ridiculous stuff to pull in the punters. Seems to work, too.

"Geoff was the epitome of the London man"

So sayeth Met Inspector Richard Beadle of the killing of 90 year old war veteran Geoffrey Bacon in Camberwell.

Geoffrey certainly epitomised one class of Londoner - the murdered elderly native.

The moment I saw the headline, I was reminded of a piece I blogged about six years back, which appeared in the now-defunct online magazine Right Now. It was about the killing of elderly white people by young black men in South London, and while I disagreed with the author's thesis that the Stephen Lawrence killing and the Brixton nail bomb were some kind of unconscious, inchoate 'resistance movement', he wrote it as he saw it - and it wasn't outside my old primary school that people were being killed.

The link and site has long gone - but the magic of the Wayback Machine has brought J F Cronin's 'The Forgotten Victims' back to life - the victims being Constance Brown, 72, of Streatham, Elizabeth Pinhom, 96, of Herne Hill, Thomas Kidd, 61, of Tulse Hill, Ted Howell, 75, of Lewisham, Leslie Watkinson, 66, of Peckham, and Frank Dempsey, 56, of Clapham.

"I wouldn’t like to be an old person living in Bethnal Green" said musician Jah Wobble when he moved to leafy Cheshire. For Bethnal Green, read 'most of London outside the leafy south west postcodes'.



(UPDATE - at the opposite end of the age spectrum, while she's not a native, the treatment Michele Kirsch's kids received on a Stoke Newington estate is also relevant. The truism that racism isn't only restricted to white people is one that Guardianistas are happy to accept in theory. It's just giving chapter and verse they're uncomfortable with.)

The Land That Stein Forgot

St Columb Major - the most un-touristy town in North Cornwall. Susan and I spent a pleasant morning pottering round the rainy and slightly run-down streets. Lovely church, nice locals, interesting buildings and a couple of excellent butchers.

By contrast, Padstow was a disappointment - a nice but not terribly picturesque harbour, one Spar, a lot of expensive places to eat and a lot of expensive clothes shops. Rick Stein obviously loves the place - but he's killing the thing he loves. His empire is now expanding towards St Merryn and Constantine Bay - I confess to having given him my beer money at the Cornish Arms.

























Memorial to the Cornish wrestler James Polkinghorne. The town was also the birthplace of John Nichols Thom, self-proclaimed Messiah who led a small detachment of Kentish farm labourers to defeat in the 1838 Battle of Bossenden Wood, having promised them invulnerability to bullets in the style of the late Pierre Mulele.



















Above - not much rocket or sun-dried tomato to be seen on Broad Street, St Columb Major.

Maybe Padstow's just a bit more upmarket than last year's Perranporth, but Cornwall seems more hideously white than ever. The beaches at Constantine and Porthcothan rang with RP accents (Constantine has a beach stall which does six kinds of coffee but no tea) as little Barnaby and Saffron splashed about in their wetsuits. The English upper middles still seem to be sprogging, I'm pleased to say. And everywhere we went builders were busy catering for those seeking to escape the "frantic lifestyle". If 'Wales is the new Cornwall' then Cornwall is still the old Cornwall.

Gone ..

Cornwall - see you next week

Yazza - Keeping On Digging ...

Interesting. Yasmin Alibhai Brown is someone who blames half the ills of the world on white men, but the political's not personal. Like YAB herself, Yazza's sister also married out - a Taff social worker, no less.

I'm a big Yazza fan - even with her anti-white nonsense, she talks from the heart - and it's basically a good heart despite the stupid, even vile things she occasionally comes out with. But you shouldn't talk from the heart, in print, about your family.

"My only sister was widowed last month. She is 11 years older than me. My father, who loved her best, had sent her over to England in the Fifties."

Yazza ! No ! That is too much information !

"Her grown-up daughter ... stopped speaking to me two months ago, for reasons not explained."

I'm not totally surprised. But is this revelation going to improve things ?

"My grieving niece puts down the phone and was enraged when I wrote a sober and frank letter to her partner."

Aiiee !

"I lost my only brother too this February. He too was uncommunicative, always furious with me for writing openly about the family."

Not nice. I can see why Yazza's upset. But brother still sounds like a sensible chap.

Yazza is Yazza and she ain't gonna change - nor would we wish her to. But she doesn't half make a rod for her own back. A couple more pieces like this and none of her relatives will be talking to her - yea, even unto the tenth generation.

My father cut me off from when I was 15 to the day he died. Only my mother was different, open and emotionally honest... (I) wonder what my sister would write if only she could. She can't. I can. It may have been the saving of me but it has left me alone, condemned to separation, like many others who will not stay silent nor consent to the deliberate use of silence, even in this age of emotional austerity.

This age of emotional austerity ? She must be talking about some far-away country of which we know little. We haven't been emotionally continent since about, well, about the time Yazza arrived in the UK.

I don't know why the Big Brother producers/exploiters never thought about Yazza as an inmate. She'd have been a natural, and it would have made great television for those who like that sort of thing. Imagine all those confrontations, confessions, confidences and repentances as her fellows confronted their race, their gender, their sexuality.

I wouldn't have watched. But, as Jimi Hendrix said about Radio One, I love her just the same.

Media 101

He moves to the left.

"On Economy, Voters Move to the Left in Hong Kong"

But they lurch to the right.

"EU Voters Lurch to the Right"

Cameron - New Diplomatic Offensive

South Asia

28 July 2010 Last updated at 18:57

Cameron - 'Oi, **** - whose ******** side are you on ?'

British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned Pakistan not to have any relationship with groups of "r**heads" that "want to blow up our bloody Tube trains".

"We should be very, very clear with those ***** in Islamabad that we want to see them pull their fingers out", Mr Cameron told reporters after a speech in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. His remarks were greeted with warm applause by his Indian audience.

"Whose side are these P**** on, anyway ?"

Earlier, in Turkey, he had addressed the Palestinian issue, calling for 'those sodding front-wheelers to give Hamas a break'. His remarks were greeted with warm applause by his Turkish audience.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, who is travelling with the prime minister, sought to further clarify Mr Cameron's remarks.

"He wasn't accusing anybody of double dealing, or criticising Israel" Mr Hague said."He was just giving his audience what they wanted to hear. In this he is following the tradition of other great British statesmen, such as Mr Blair."

Tomorrow David Cameron returns to Britain and domestic politics. In a speech to Carlisle Chamber of Commerce on devolution, he is expected to call for reduced central government funding to"those sponging, drunken Jocks". Later in the evening he will address the Welsh Assembly on "the Saxon Serpent", and point out to a delegation from Sinn Fein that "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity".

• Candid Cameron ruffles diplomatic feathers 28 JULY 2010, POLITICS
• Cameron pitch to Indian business 27 JULY 2010, POLITICS
• Cameron denies immigration rift 28 JULY 2010, POLITICS
• Can Cameron win friends in India? 27 JULY 2010, POLITICS
• Should Britain forge closer ties with India? 28 JULY 2010, UK

"Payback Time"

David Cameron has arrived in India for a visit he hopes will inject new energy into Anglo-Indian relations and help build trade links between the nations. The prime minister, on his first visit to Asia since taking office, is being accompanied by several senior Cabinet colleagues and UK business leaders.

The government regards India as a vital regional and economic partner in the drive to boost exports and investment.

If India's a 'partner', why are we giving her foreign aid, especially when she has a space program and nuclear weapons ?

Mr Cameron travelled from Turkey where he pledged to help its EU entry bid.

Ah, yes. Doubtless driven by that grass-roots Tory pressure for a few million Turks to come to the UK.

Cameron can talk of partnership as much as he likes. Indian businessmen aren't stupid.

"Recently there was speculation that Anil Ambani, one of the richest men in India, might buy Liverpool football club. There was much debate on Indian television of the merits of owing a Premier League club. One participant suggested it was payback time to the British for the East India Company. The presenter cut in sharply, saying: "We paid them back a long time ago. I thought the Indians owned most of the British businesses worth having. We don't need to buy a football club to demonstrate that."

The rest of the panel roared with laughter.."

As Churchill put it in a slightly different context : "It makes one flush to read the comments which were made behind the scenes about our country and its representatives."

Shouldn't The Label Be Covered With Blood?

(On the other hand, the nightmare of the last 50 years has pretty much been off the radar of the UK consumer. Maybe the name summons up dappled sunlight through a leafy tropical canopy to the average Brit - just not to this one).

Strike One For The Revolutionary Communist Group

Once upon a time an asylum seeker arrived in the UK from Nigeria with her son, and had her application turned down. Her story was that her husband, chairman of 'a local youth organisation', and daughter had disappeared, and her house had been burned down twice, because of his political views. "The Home Office disbelieved them, advised them to try ‘other parts of Nigeria’ and locked them up at Oakington Detention Centre."

There must be a gap in the story - and she seems to have been a good networker, because she was soon making useful contacts with the asylum industry in Manchester. At a (tax-funded - by the AHRC) performance of a play about asylum (by members of the tax-funded University of Manchester department of Applied Theatre) she met a 25-year old American student :

"I sent a letter to the Home Office on her behalf, urging them to let her and her son stay in the UK in safety."

The main backers of her campaign, however, seem to have been a bunch calling themselves the Revolutionary Communist Group, a smallish spin-off from the old International Socialists most noted for their picketing of Jewish-owned shops.

Now the Revolutionary Communist Group are perfectly entitled to call for the abolition of all immigration controls, and to that end support any and every asylum seeker. After all, their political forebears, Revolutionary Communists of various stripes, slaughtered tens of millions of people in their pursuit of a fairer society. Compared to that, building the New Jerusalem by moving half the population of Africa and the Middle East to the UK seems positively benign.

But what sticks in the craw is when the (then-Guardian owned) Manchester Evening News and the BBC describe such people as 'campaigners' without even mentioning the extreme-left agenda driving the 'campaign'.

Eucharia said: "A lot of my family members have been killed. I do no want to die or lose my son. I want to live here with my son where I will be free from fear."

Campaigners supporting Eucharia and Timeyi held a day of action on Market Street in Manchester city centre and earlier this month staged a campaign meeting at St George's Church, Abbey Hey, to rally local support.

You can see from this link the power of support from St George's, Abbey Hey. It's closed and up for sale.

The good news was that, 900 letters, from how many people is not known, and 2,250 signatures (ditto) later, the Government relented :

Under all this pressure, driven by Eucharia’s determination to fight for her and her son’s life and their right to stay in Britain, the Home Office have given in and granted them indefinite leave to remain. Without this campaign, Eucharia and Timeyi would have been deported long ago, facing the same fate as the 18,280 asylum seekers deported last year.

Throughout, Eucharia and Manchester RCG insisted that the campaign should be political, emphasising the link between racism in Britain and British imperialist exploitation abroad such as in Nigeria.

Can't say the RCG are exactly hiding their agenda, can you ?

And there it may have ended. Ms Jakpa, whose husband and daughter apparently disappeared in Nigeria, gave birth to another child in the UK, and was pregnant with yet another, when she decided to go for a drive.

A woman saved from deportation by a high-profile campaign has been jailed for ten months after killing a child while driving without a licence. Four-year-old Caitlan Fitzhugh, of Coronation Street, Openshaw, was walking hand-in-hand on the pavement with her mum Stacey Strutt when she was hit by a Ford Transit van which mounted the kerb. The van careered into the youngster after being hit by a Ford Focus driven by heavily pregnant Eucharia Jakpa, who had no licence.

Not that a little dead child can remove the aura of saintliness, mind :

Andrew Nuttall, defending, said Mrs Jakpa felt ‘real and heartfelt remorse’, but had originally struggled ‘getting to grips’ with the fact she had taken a life. He admitted she had ‘behaved badly’ by seeking to blame the other driver. But he maintained that the ‘committed Christian’ had understanding of the ‘enormous pain’ felt by Caitlan’s family, since her husband and daughter had been killed in Nigeria.

I don't understand. If she's a 'committed Christian', where have the other child and the pregnancy come from, given that her husband is no longer to be found ? And why did she lie and try to blame the other driver ? Maybe she's not quite as committed as all that - or maybe Andrew Nuttall is just doing for her what Holbein attempted to do for Anne of Cleves.

And most of all, why has she kept schtum about the other people in the car, who ran off at the scene ?

Jakpa was only a provisional licence holder at the time of the crash and police say she has never provided details for her supervising driver. Two passengers who were in the car at the time ran off after the collision and have never been traced.

Sgt Jeff Hollick, from Greater Manchester Police, said: "Stacey may eventually recover from the physical injuries she suffered but there is no doubt the emotional scars left by the loss of her daughter will remain. Jakpa has never revealed to us whether she had a full licence holder guiding her and nor have the two passengers come forward of their own accord to explain their role, so Jakpa carries the full consequences of that collision on her shoulders."

Just an idea. The two who ran off couldn't have been the long-lost husband and daughter, could they ?

Cognitive Dissonance Alert

Manchester Evening News :

Officers have received 23 calls from concerned parents since the first incident was reported less than a fortnight ago. The abduction bids have all taken place in Stockport. Most of the remaining calls were to report men acting suspiciously – such as driving slowly down streets where children were playing.

I could have sworn that driving slowly in streets where children are playing is what you're supposed to do.

Friday Night Music

With this audio quality (from a 20 year old cassette), no wonder they call him Scratch.




Somewhat more melodic but very very sad - I've only just found out that 80's lovers rock queen Jean Adebambo killed herself last year. What a great pity. Gorgeous music, gorgeous voice.

A Diversity Tax ?

This blog, way back.

One of my hobby-horses is the question of culture. For some reason UK liberals believe (or claim to) that, no matter whence you hail, the moment you set foot on UK soil the mystic properties of Old Albion (or Cymru or Alba or Erin) flow up through your shoes and make you just like the natives - in terms of your propensity to evil. But in the case of your propensity to good, all the good bits of your culture magically stay, enriching the poor natives by the power of diversity.

My car insurance, which includes a 20 year old and an 18 year old, has gone up by about 25% this year.

The cost of car insurance has grown at its fastest rate, in large part due to a rise in fraudulent claims, according to data released today.

Cases of insurance fraud have been on the rise since the recession began. Figures to be published by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) later this week are expected to show that these are still on the rise. As it is, the ABI puts the total cost to the industry of undetected general insurance claims fraud at £2bn per year. This adds around £40 a year to the insurance premiums paid by all policyholders.

The most common and costly form of general insurance claims fraud is "opportunistic retail fraud". This is where individuals exaggerate or inflate genuine claims to increase the value of a payout.

But there has also been a big rise in organised fraud, where criminal gangs work to systematically defraud insurers. The most common way of doing this is via a "cash for crash" scam, where criminals stage accidents, typically at roundabouts, by slamming their brakes on suddenly causing the car behind to crash into them. The fraudsters then claim for the cost of repair or replacement of their vehicle on the innocent driver's insurance. At a high court case in February, an organised ring of "cash for crash" insurance fraudsters was ordered to pay its victims almost £400,000 after seven insurers joined together and successfully sued the fraud ring.

The Insurance Fraud Bureau estimated in 2008 (pdf) that "Such payouts are potentially costing the average policy holder an extra 5 percent on their premium every year."

I wonder if it's gone up since then ?

I've been looking at "cash for crash" since 2006.

The "cash for crash" number one hotspot was Blackburn, where there have been 1,710 incidents over the last seven years, according to figures from the recently-formed Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB).

The next worst locations were Bradford (1,669 incidents), Birmingham (1,510), Oldham (1,034), Bolton (986) and Manchester (979). The scam was first spotted in North West of England but had now spread to London and the South East, said the IFB.

In May 2010 Direct Line released the Top Ten cfc hotspots by physical location :

1. Centenary Way, Trafford Park, Manchester
2. Haslingden roundabout, Junction 5, M65
3. Scotland Road roundabout, Junction 13, M65
4. Gannow Top roundabout, Cavalry Way, Burnley
5. Eden Point roundabout, A34, Stockport
6. Denham roundabout, M40
7. Jarman Park, A414, Hemel Hempstead
8. Parkway Uxbridge Road A312 / A4020
9. Port Way / Strand Road junction , Preston
10. Junction 24 roundabout, M25

Still heavily biased towards Preston/Blackburn/Burnley. I see Southall, Slough (Denham - or is that an unwarranted assumption and it's people from Gerrards Cross ?) and Luton in the mix, too.

I trust when our rulers calculate "the enormous economic benefits of immigration" (pdf) that such factors are being taken into account.

Being able to count on a basic standard of honesty is a great economic good - because it means there's no requirement for a huge compliance overhead (to be fair, honesty among the Native Brits has also declined rapidly over the last 50 years, if the crime figures are anything to go by). The same applies even more in voting, and in spades when it comes to the administration of justice :

A Crown Prosecutor and barrister has admitted dropping cases for cash.
I am not one who is easily shocked, but this is something that I would have found incredible at first sight. This man has betrayed so much that our society values that I can only expect the judge to hand down the most severe sentence when the time comes.

None so blind as those that will not see, eh ?

Journolist - a Real Liberal Conspiracy

via Ed West at the Telegraph, this story :

In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign.

The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public – to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists.

And they didn't like it - so did something about it.

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — call them racists.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian [my emphasis] also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

Calling a political opponent a racist ? Hmm, worth a try. Not been done before.

"Discourse that serves the people". Very Soviet. But as Andrew Breitbart puts it : 'the reporters at Pravda weren't such insufferable ******* !"

A Dodgy Decision

Here.

According to the complaint filed by the woman, the two met in a Jerusalem street in 2008 and had sex that day. When she discovered he was not Jewish, but an Arab, she went to the police. Kashur was arrested and charged with rape and indecent assault, but the charges were later replaced by a different charge of "rape by deception".

Hmm. I thought it was a truism that a young man will say pretty much anything to get a woman into bed.

The inventive and resourceful Syrian Fadi Sbano was acquitted of rape by a UK court for a lot more than that. Not sure he'd have got that verdict in Israel.

UPDATE

In the verdict, deputy president of the Jerusalem district court Tzvi Segal, along with fellow judges Moshe Drori and Yoram Noam, wrote that although this wasn't "a classical rape by force," and the sex was consensual, the consent itself was obtained through deception and under false pretenses. "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated," the judges wrote.

I see. They'd been together for months before he had his wicked way ?

According to the indictment, Kashur met the complainant in September 2008 in downtown Jerusalem.. the couple then went to a nearby building and had sex, after which Kashur left the building without waiting for the woman to get dressed.

Hmm. Not a gentleman, then. But didn't exactly take a lot of persuasion, did she ?

"The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price - the sanctity of their bodies and souls," Segal wrote.

Hmm.

Noah Fence

At the beginning of the meeting, David Cameron said "this is a national issue of the highest importance; it has both demographic and humanitarian aspects. In effect, we are the only western country that lacks a clear immigration policy. Today, we will start the discussion in order to correct this."

The prime minister added that the new law, drafted by Minister of Justice Ken Clarke, "should conform to our national interests, first and foremost providing security and ensuring the British and democratic character of the country."

"Illegal immigrants are endangering Britain's existence," he said. "The south of England has fallen under siege."

Foreign Minister William Hague and Home Secretary Theresa May discussed the possibility of sending some of the thousands of illegal African immigrants in London to African and European countries that are willing to accept them. Hague said he is talking to his European counterparts, but that it is unlikely that such a plan will succeed.

Gosh ... can this be real ?

The government held a special session this morning on various issues connected with illegal immigration.

What ... where am I ? Oh no ! It was all a dream !



"The government held a special session this morning on various issues connected with illegal immigration. Disappointment, directed mainly at Defense Minister Ehud Barak, was expressed at the fact that construction of the fence between Egypt and Israel would begin only in November.

The purpose of the fence is to block African infiltrators making their way into Israel via the Sinai Desert. Public Security Minister Yitzchak Aharonovitch says there are some 150,000 illegal infiltrators, only 16 percent of whom are registered and known to the authorities."



Good fences make good neighbours, said Robert Frost's neigbour, and India seems to agree. They finished their fence across Kashmir ages ago.

The barrier itself consists of double-row of fencing and concertina wire eight to twelve feet (2.4–3.7 m) in height, and is electrified and connected to a network of motion sensors, thermal imaging devices and alarms in stretches where power supply is available. The small stretch of land between the rows of fencing is mined.

The Bangladesh barrier is proceeding apace :

The barrier is just under three meters high with the aim to stop infiltration of terrorists, prevent smuggling, and to prevent large scale illegal immigration from Bangladesh into neighbouring states. Under the former government of Khaleda Zia and the Islamic extremist Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh troops clashed with the Indian Border Security Force in an attempt to prevent fencing. Some indigenous Assamese fear that they, as a people, will be reduced to a minority if unabated infiltration continues.

Poor Assamese. Imagine how English people would feel if that happened to them.

"We Don't Need No Piece of Paper From The City Hall"

Raoul Moate's brother (by a different father) speaks. Nature, nurture, or what ? He's a tax officer with a Masters degree.

The brothers had different fathers, but neither was told who they were. Raoul made it very clear ('I haven't got a Dad' - LT), in his last stand in Rothbury, that this was something he cared a great deal about, and, even though Angus understands that the 70s were different, that there was far more stigma about babies born out of wedlock, his fury at the situation arrives almost on the same breath.

"I feel very strongly that a child has a right to know who his father is. I don't think a selfish woman has a right to have a baby as her own plaything. I think there are massive indications there for somebody's identity in adult life. We weren't given the opportunity, for what I believe to be very selfish reasons." He has since discovered who his own father is, though he has no intention of contacting him; apparently, after all the publicity, someone has turned up claiming to be Raoul's. "I think it's a crying shame he's only turned up now Raoul's dead. It's a bit late in the day."

On Nature vs Nurture, I'm a more-or-less rather than either/or type, as in so many other things. In Steven Pinker's the Blank Slate, he posits a rough guide to how your kids will turn out, given 3 approximately* equal factors - with (I think) upbringing being the least of the three - depressing information for well-meaning daddy :

a) natural inheritance (genes)
b) upbringing
c) post-adolescence peer group

If the third be true, it may be that yet another Sixties liberal myth (albeit one still being pumped out by our educators) is exploded - although there is a difference between childhood and adolescence, maybe being kept away from the rough boys then makes you less likely to hang with them later. Many times I've listened to or read of some successful figure describing his childhood and taking an affectionate but condescending pop at parents who wouldn't let them hang out with the rough boys down the road. Maybe that parental decision is why they're on Desert Island Discs.

When the academic Moat brother was doing politics at Nottingham, the other had discovered the society of the gym and its steroid subculture.

I don't think Raoul's background (more here) fits by any means the classic underclass scenario. But, as study after study shows, fatherless children, even after controlling for the lower income of single parents, do worse on pretty much every measure of human achievement.

As A.H. Halsey puts it in his foreword to "Families Without Fatherhood":

“The children of parents who do not follow the traditional norm (i.e. taking on personal, active and long-term responsibility for the social upbringing of the children they generate) are thereby disadvantaged in many major aspects of their chances of living a successful life. On the evidence available such children tend to die earlier, to have more mental illness, to do less well at school, to exist at a lower level of nutrition, comfort and conviviality, to suffer more unemployment, to be more prone to deviance and crime, and finally to repeat the cycle of unstable parenting from which they themselves have suffered.”

There's nothing we can do about it, though. As Sunny so perceptively pointed out a month or so back, people who have children and don't get married wouldn't be any more likely to stay together if they DID marry each other. His conclusion is that people who don't marry are just the kind of people with low commitment to the relationship, who are more likely to split (aka desert the kids), married or not !




* I think those three factors stand provided the upbringing is not 'extreme' - in which bets may be off. Obviously an infancy or childhood of torture or abuse will have a hefty effect - as will, say, being brought up in a closed religious community, or selected for the Janissaries (in both these instances your peer-group gets chosen for you as well, securing two out of three factors).

French Rioting Season Commences

"Youths" were (relatively) quiet in France last summer, although seasonal traditions such as the New Year car-burnings are still well-supported.

Every summer, like King Arthur's men at the feast of Pentecost, the youths await a sign - some strange portent or happening after the schools break up which means that the car-burning season may commence. That sign has now been given :

Karim Boudouda, 27, was one of two men believed to have held up a casino, escaping with more than 20,000 euros (£17,000). He was killed in a shoot-out with police following the robbery. Violence flared after his memorial service. Mr Boudouda, 27, had three previous convictions for armed robbery. The other suspect escaped and is still on the run.

And the season commences :

The incident begun in the early hours of Saturday morning when rampaging youths stoned a tramway and attacked it with baseball bats and iron bars. The gangs then set cars on fire and opened fire against officers. The officers returned fire.

Shooting at the police is fast becoming as integral a part of the season as a flambéed Renault :

Four young men found guilty of shooting at the police during riots on the outskirts of Paris in 2007 were jailed for between three and 15 years early Sunday. Defence lawyers denounced the sentences as “extremely harsh” and claimed that political considerations had influenced the cases.