"They live in a politically parallel world where everyone they know believes the same as they do."
The left has such people too, but they are marginal. With no news channels to promote them or Congressmen prepared to advocate for them, their views rarely reach the mainstream.No news channels ? To be fair, he's talking about the US, where that might be the case (apart from the New York Times, Washington Post and the ill-fated Air America) - but he must be aware that in the UK the Guardian, Indie and BBC ensure that a Polly Toynbee could have a 30-year career and never hear a dissenting voice - at least until the Guardian introduced comments and a tsunami of criticism was unleashed.
A man who murdered his 85-year-old neighbour in a "merciless" attack in her home has been jailed for life. Robert Tozer pleaded guilty at Hull Crown Court to killing Joan Charlton in West Parade, Hull, in June. The judge recommended Tozer, 20, spend at least 22 years in jail before being considered for parole.
Humberside Police had described the attack on Mrs Charlton, in which every bone in her face was broken, as "sustained and brutal".
He repeatedly assaulted her with a bottle in the living room before searching upstairs for cash. Tozer came back downstairs to discover the injured pensioner trying to reach the phone in the hall to call for help and launched a merciless attack. He stamped on her head, cut the phone line, deactivated the fire alarm and tried to set fire to her body despite knowing she was still alive.
Tozer, who was sentenced to life for Mrs Charlton's murder at Hull Crown Court yesterday, had been released from prison early after serving five months of a 15- month sentence for assault, one of two previous convictions for violence.
Around 60 people were understood to have been involved in the two connected incidents outside Swansea City Mosque on St Helen's Road and Sin City nightclub on Friday night.
Police, who arrested two men, said they did not believe it was a racially-orientated crime.
"his alleged relationship with chart-topper Duffy". Hmm. Tall, powerfully built, strong-featured - have they ever actually been seen together in the same room ?Former Miss Wales Claire Evans told a Sunday newspaper that she was devastated when the British Lion dumped her for the singer.
Miss Evans, aged 26, had been with the Ospreys' scrum half for eight months before the break-up.
Photo : Maggie Jones.There's a video here. But the BBC have merely reported on the Apple. The point is to save it.
The owners of a landmark snack bar in Swansea Bay, which dates back to the 1930s, say its future is uncertain after a car crashed in to it. The 'Big Apple' has welcomed visitors to the Mumbles' Bracelet Bay for generations, selling gifts and food from the concrete kiosk.
But it has been left extensively damaged after being hit by a Ford Fiesta car on Monday. Its owners say engineers are still assessing whether it can be repaired. The apple kiosk was originally built as a stunt to promote a drink at sites across Wales and England. It is thought to be one of the last of its kind still in use.
But the owners, operators of the Mumbles Pier, say they are now waiting to see if the apple can be repaired. "It has basically demolished the whole front half of it," said John Bollom, the manager director of the pier company, Ameco. "We can't work out how to put it right at the moment - the construction of it was very unusual. It would appear that it was made in some sort of big mould with concrete and steel poured in to it. It's a very substantial structure and repairing it is not going to be easy at all."
South Wales Police said a 21-year-old man is being investigated for possible driving offences in relation to the incident.
The SIOE and EDL people haven’t sprang up as a direct result of terrorism, otherwise they’d have started in July 2005. They’ve become more prominent recently because the rhetoric around Muslims taking over, the “demographic problem of Muslims”, the growing number of mosques etc has become fever-pitch, especially in the mainstream media. The kind of people who now daily scream about how many kids have Muslim names or how their babies are swelling in numbers are to blame for this hysteria.
- Islam is the second religion in the UK with about 2.5 million Muslims
- The Muslim population of the UK has grown 30-fold since the beginning of the 1980s
- the name Mohammed is the second most common name in England and Wales and by far the most popular name in both London and the West Midlands.
Judge Anthony Goldstaub QC sentenced Stuart Wood for seven years for the attack, then told him: 'You have turned to Islam and this promises well for your future, particularly as you are now an adherent of a religion which respects women and self-discipline.'
The judge added that Stuart Wood, who had previous convictions for indecent assault on underage girls and for violence, had shown no remorse and still protested his innocence about the attack in August last year in Colchester, Essex. He added that Wood had achieved the humiliation he intended on his victim.
Wood, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm. He was jailed for seven years for rape, nine months for ABH and three months for common assault, making a total of eight years. He will be on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.
When melancholy Autumn comes to Wembley
And electric trains are lighted after tea
The poplars near the stadium are trembly
With their tap and tap and whispering to me,
Like the sound of little breakers
Spreading out along the surf-line
When the estuary's filling
With the sea.
Then Harrow-on-the-Hill's a rocky island
And Harrow churchyard full of sailor's graves
And the constant click and kissing of the trolley buses hissing
Is the level of the Wealdstone turned to waves
And the rumble of the railway
Is the thunder of the rollers
As they gather for the plunging
Into caves
There's a storm cloud to the westward over Kenton,
There's a line of harbour lights at Perivale,
Is it rounding rough Pentire in a flood of sunset fire
The little fleet of trawlers under sail?
Can those boats be only roof tops
As they stream along the skyline
In a race for port and Padstow
With the gale?
The worry is that an unthinking media, steeped in churnalism, is going to end up being complicit in branding a blameless Lib Dem MP a racist for years to come simply for committing the heinous crime of doing a better job.Everyone blamed 'Tory racism' when the Tories selected John Taylor (a black guy) as Cheltenham candidate - a relatively safe seat - and he was beaten by the Lib Dem. I've never worked out why that in itself made the Tories racist - their voters maybe, but not necessarily the party. The disappointed candidate was given a peerage - and I may be being unfair to him, but the only time I've heard of him since is when he's wheeled out by the BBC to opine on the exact degree of racism in the Tory party that week. With friends like that ...
'No Tooting race problem' despite two mosque attacks.
Tooting Muslims advised to walk in groups to prayers during Ramadan.
"On reading of the young British Muslims who were found guilty of conspiring to murder countless hapless civilians as they crossed the Atlantic in commercial airplanes, I was struck by the similarities with what they intended to do and the way NATO is behaving in Afghanistan".
"The age when women had babies on everyone’s terms but theirs is dying"Her "isn't it great that the Prime Minister is mentally ill ?" post romped home in the "With Friends Like These" stakes earlier today. She then repeats it at Liberal Conspiracy. I'm not sure they've got the hang of this 'cultural hegemony' thing.
The writer is a Sunni Muslim - he's referring to the Ashura processions and the practice of mataam. Poor Ekram Haque was a Shia Muslim.
"Well done those black boys ! That's one less shia rawaafid beating his chest on the streets of tooting on december the 17th this year ."
The UK may have to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 90% by 2050 so the aviation sector can continue to grow. That is the warning from the government's official climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
It would mean even bigger cuts than the 80% drop on 1990 levels already planned for households and industry in Britain.
It may mean a decade, or more, in the wilderness, with only a fragment of a local party to sustain them; with no real media interest and without the money to run research groups, campaigns or conferences.And if the philosophy of Jon Cruddas is any guide, there are no new ideas to sustain them, just the same old Guardianista/Helena Kennedy platitudes :
We no longer live in communities in which people share the same customs and culture. But the ideal of community with its ethics of reciprocity and solidarity remains as powerful as ever- especially at moments of crisis. We seek a mutual respect that grants self esteem, and creates a sense of belonging.We'd all love a sense of community alright. Well spotted, Jon. But that's just what we haven't got. And who brought that about, Mr Cruddas ?
One problem is the Grim Reaper. The decent old boys and blue-rinsers (aka frightful racist bigots if you're on the left) are slowly being winnowed away to join their forebears. Along with good Old Labour, the Tory representatives of British culture as it was before the 60s revolution are leaving us.David Cameron's charm offensive has failed to attract new members to the Tories – or keep hold of tens of thousands of people who were already in the party when he arrived. Local Conservative parties have lost almost a quarter of their rank-and-file members since Mr Cameron took over in late 2005.
Although the Tories have enjoyed a huge opinion-poll lead for several months, they have not been able to translate the surge in popularity into an increase in membership on the scale experienced by Labour during Tony Blair's early years in charge. The total membership in more than 200 constituency associations – barely a third of the overall number – who provided relevant figures to the elections watchdog fell from 185,000 to 145,000 between December 2005 and December 2008. The constituencies experiencing falls include "safe" seats, the bases of shadow Cabinet members and target seats that must be taken if the Tories are to win the next general election. In Mr Blair's first year as Labour leader, his party's membership rose by over 100,000 to 320,000.
Outside its upper echelons, the parliamentary Labour Party has never been shorter of talent – and that is before the departure of 100 or more retiring MPs and goodness knows how many others who will lose their seats at the general election. Labour MPs’ morale is by all accounts still at rock bottom after the expenses scandal. At the grass roots, Labour is in a terrible state, its membership dwindling and disillusioned and its local government representation weaker than for 30 years. The trade unions are worse led and shorter of cash and activists than at any time in living memory. There is little sign of intelligent life among the left-leaning think-tanks ...
What’s worrying today is that the never-say-die spirit is so notable by its absence. At every level, Labour seems tired, resigned and confused, and there’s no new generation of activists waiting in the wings.
A third of teenage girls suffer sexual abuse in a relationship and a quarter experience violence at the hands of their boyfriends, a survey suggests.
Nearly 90% of 1,400 girls aged 13 to 17 had been in intimate relationships, the NSPCC and University of Bristol found.
Of these, one in six said they had been pressured into sexual intercourse ...
"That's not the promise that you gave to me
When first you lay on my breast,
You could make me believe with your lying tongue
That the sun rose in the west."
"If you gotta go, go now
Or else you got to stay all night"
"Yesterday has just departed,
And tomorrow hasn't started,
All that really matters is right now"
"I didn't tell you no lies, girl
So don't just sit there and cry, girl"
An exodus of high-skilled immigrants leaving Britain should have us more worried than the current debate allows, a thinktank has claimed. Research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests the number of 're-migrants' - those who come to work in Britain but return to their country of origin soon afterwards - is set to remain on the increase for several years to come.
In the year to September 2008 the number of non-British nationals leaving the country rose by 30 per cent... It recommends that, as well as attracting these higher-skilled workers to come to Britain, ministers should consider doing more to dissuade them from returning home.
They came over here, stabbed the Poles the locals just didn't want to stab, and now they're off home !
A judge has issued police with a European Arrest Warrant in their hunt for a second man who has fled the country to avoid being jailed for an horrific knife attack in Bradford. Remigiusz Klata, 26, of Seaton Street, Barkerend, Bradford, was due to be sentenced yesterday. But the court was told he was believed to have fled bail to his native Poland having already admitted his part in the unprovoked attack on fellow countryman Artur Wojtowicz.
Mr Wojtowicz suffered multiple stab wounds to his shoulder and hand and was also struck by a bottle in a two-hour orgy of violence at his home in Newforth Grove, Bowling, Bradford, on February 17, 2007. After he had been stabbed with a kitchen knife, Mr Wojtowicz was urinated on by his attackers in a final act of indignity.
Rafal Kamil Krajewski, 31, then of Manningham Lane, Bradford, and Grzegorz Holubowicz, 29, of Parsonage Road, Tyersal, Bradford, were jailed for a total of 16 years at Bradford Crown Court last month. Sentencing went ahead in the absence of Krajewski, who is also on the run – again believed to be somewhere in Poland, after he skipped court bail last Christmas. Once caught he faces nine years in prison. At yesterday’s hearing, the court was told that absent accomplice Klata had previously pleaded guilty to attacking Mr Wojtowicz.
Recorder Jonathan Sandiford adjourned sentencing to the first available date after November 1 to give police more time to try to recapture Klata, as well as the missing Krajewski.
This story is another in the Reality 1, Satire 0 genre. Julie Bindel's not going to like it one bit.
The refusal to move a pre-operative transsexual prisoner from a men's jail to a women's prison is a violation of her human rights, says the High Court. Deputy Judge David Elvin QC quashed Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision to keep the 27-year-old, who cannot be identified, in a male prison.
Referred to as "A", she is serving a life sentence for manslaughter and attempted rape, committed when a man.
London taxi drivers are planning to demonstrate against a paranoid schizophrenic killer being allowed to study to become a black-cab driver.Just don't query the fare !
The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, strangled his wife in 2000 and was jailed indefinitely for manslaughter in 2001.
Now when Labour supporters talk about 'working class' or 'working people' - they are most often referring to NON-working people - the underclass - unemployed and unemployable despite the boom years.News :
Or, washing the golden stat from the mud - 60% of "social housing" tenants don't pay any rent. 60% !
“It means they’ll save about £109 million on housing benefit,” said Mr Orr. “But against a spend of almost £16 billion a year this is marginal. For the 40% of tenants who pay their own rents the average saving would be about £1.36 a week. But, the majority of tenants we’ve spoken to would rather keep their services and see new homes built than have reduced rents."
The Orange Lodge will have to pay thousands of pounds in costs under secret plans being drawn up by police and council chiefs, if traditional parades continue.
The Scotsman can reveal that the Lodge will be warned that unless it contributes a share of the estimated annual £1.5 million policing bill, a new law restricting the number of marches could be invoked. The threat signals a tougher approach to the parades, especially in Glasgow, where city bosses have run out of patience after discovering that the city now hosts 250 parades every year – more than Belfast and Londonderry combined.
Glasgow city chiefs say financial penalties would also apply to Irish Republican marches which are increasing in number. Other councils, such as West Lothian and West Dunbartonshire, are understood to be observing developments and plan to introduce their own charges if the plan is invoked.
The natural horror felt at (insert appalling crime here) should not blind us to the fact that (crime is actually falling/it is all Thatcher's fault/such crimes have always been with us).
If we surrender to (the tabloid agenda/the Daily Mail hysteria/knee-jerk populism/the politics of the soundbite) and take the easy option of (jailing more of our young people/bringing back the birch/bringing back hanging/walling off the cities then bombing them/demonising our young people) we run the very real risk of (actually achieving something/alienating a generation/an invasion of killer bees).
There is only one answer. An enormous increase in the funding of (Sure Start schemes/outreach workers/emotional intelligence mentors/youth projects/anti-racist 5-a-day smoking cessation co-ordinators).
Police who were called to the incident in Gaythorne Road, West Bowling, yesterday found three men with stab wounds – three other people, including a woman, have now been arrested on suspicion of murder. The injured, a 17-year-old, 22-year-old and 24-year-old, all from Bradford were taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary. Surgeons battled to save the 22-year-old but he died shortly before 3am today... Initial reports from bystanders suggest there had been fighting for about 20 minutes between rival black and Asian gangs.There's been a trial, verdict and sentence :
Just another knife murder - nothing to see here ...A teenager who murdered a man in a revenge attack has been branded a remorseless killer and locked up for at least 12 years. A judge yesterday told Guyan Guthrie, 18, he had shown no regret over the death of Rashid Elahi. “You are not in the least bit concerned about what happened,” Mr Justice Griffith Williams said. He ordered Guthrie, 17 at the time of the murder, to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. He will not be able to apply for parole for 12 years.
Guthrie, of Canterbury Avenue, Bradford, was convicted by a jury at Bradford Crown Court on Monday of murdering Mr Elahi, 21, of Ryan Street, West Bowling, Bradford, on July 25 last year. He was also found guilty of wounding Tajambal Salim, of West Bowling, with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm. Anasta Decosta, 26, also of Canterbury Avenue, was jailed for 15 months for unlawfully wounding Shahid Iqbal. All three victims were attacked in daylight in Gaythorne Road, West Bowling. The judge said Guthrie and Decosta were armed with knives for a revenge mission after Guthrie was attacked near Newby School.
If that court report is correct, wasn't that a racist attack ?Guthrie, looking for a lone Asian to attack, stabbed Mr Salim in the back, inflicting a life-threatening wound.
Guthrie then went for Mr Elahi, who was posing no threat. He stabbed him downwards with such force that the knife cut through two bones and went into his lung.
Abdinasir Hassan, 21, from Southwark, started a fight in an internet cafe in June last year but he was overpowered by a group of Algerian men. He took revenge by fatally stabbing Algerian waiter Hamouda Bessaad, 34, in the back in Old Kent Road. Mr Bessaad was not involved in the earlier fight.
Mr Bessaad was walking home from work when Hassan ran up to him from behind and stabbed him in the back "with such force that the blade snapped off".
Was he stabbed for looking Algerian ?
"The defendant must have thought that he was one of that earlier group of Algerian men," Mr Denison said.
Ah yes. They all look the same, don't they ? Mr Denison is prosecuting, not defending. You'd rather hope the prosecution would like to find out what actually happened, instead of pasting his suppositions onto the defendant.
