The Guardianista and Islam

This is not the kind of thing you'd get at a Catholic primary. I'm presuming the assailants were from the same community, as if any of the "youths with sticks" had been natives, the Islamophobic outrage would have been all over the media (UPDATE - Laban appears to be completely wrong - and the media silence is a mystery to him, unless the terms of trade have changed and they're more worried about reprisals than they used to be. Rather detracts from the first half of the post, doesn't it ? The school is not so far from the Holme Wood estate, which was certainly hideously white twenty year back. Don't know if it's changed).

A fresh appeal for information has been made about a disturbance at a Muslim school in Bradford, during which ten people were injured.

Police were called to the Darul Uloom Dawatul Imaan School in Harry Street at 7pm on Friday, March 7, after an altercation between 30 youths, aged between 11 and 19, some of them carrying sticks. One person suffered a broken arm while others received cuts and bruises. Eight people have been arrested and bailed pending further inquiries.

Anyone with information, in particular who saw a group of youths running along Tong Street near its junction with Wakefield Road or who has found a stick abandoned in their yard or garden, are asked to contact Detective Inspector Noel Devine, of Bradford South CID on 0845 6060606.

Friday night would be the Muslim equivalent of Sunday School - I well remember the cheerful kids in white outside the Woodhead Road madrassa as I strolled down to the pub. Were that at a Christian school, the Guardian and Indie would make hay, Labour MPs would be asking questions in Select Committee, the Today programme would report from outside the school.

What's ominous - and what speaks volumes - is the lack of interest (there's a long history of incidents where violence has been used in battles for control of mosques - and Sikh gurdwaras, too). Look at the media silence over the amazing goings-on at Birmingham Central Mosque. If the Guardian really believed in a multicultural society, why wouldn't they want to know why such things happened - the dynamics of whatever power struggles were taking place, the principal actors and their support bases ?

Why the lack of interest ? Is it that for them the enemy is 'white' Christianity, because it's the traditional religion of Britain ? Is it that they think that reporting such stories will 'fuel racism', so they don't report them ?

I imagine, too, that if Dave Bloggs from the Guardian turned up at the school for an interview, his reception would be cool if not hostile. A few complaints of 'Islamophobia' would be enough to put a fair frost on a career, methinks - and it would permanently close any public-sector opportunites (journalists who don't make it big often end up handling media relations in some council, NHS trust or quango). Is there fear there ?

Or are they just not interested ? I hate to say it, but I wonder if that's it ? White liberals are happy enough - delighted even - to stand with their Muslim brothers against the hideous white racists, but is actually finding out about their lives and opinions just too uncomfortable ? As I've pointed out before, the average Ibrahim in the mosque and the average Guardianista are 180% apart on social issues. If Muslims were white, British Christians - or to put it another way, if white British Christians behaved as Muslims do, Guardianistas would not only be their deadly enemies - they would declare themselves as such and be proud of it. Easier for them just to turn in the opposite direction and scan the horizon for racists.

A year or so back I'd just returned from the States. By this time Americans were well aware that Iraq hadn't turned out as planned and that "mission accomplished" was one of the President's sayings that would go down in history for all the wrong reasons. Yet everywhere I went I saw "Support Our Troops" signs and bumper stickers, barns painted with the flag, injunctions to pray for the fighting men and women, yellow ribbons. I only saw one anti-war sign in 2,500 miles of driving - in Carmel, one of the richest and most liberal towns in California - didn't even see any in San Francisco. So you can imagine how surprised and pleased I was on my return to find one of the concrete pillars in Swindon town centre, by the guy with the mobile phone stand, covered in yellow ribbons and messages. How nice, I thought - they've remembered the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.



I went over to read some of them. They, and the ribbons, were for Madeleine McCann.

I walked the shopping centre, observing my countrymen and women, dressed by Adidas and Von Dutch, richly endowed with facial ironmongery. A walk through Swindon at lunchtime is enough to make anyone who loves England thoughtful. Maybe the chav population was particularly large that day, but there seemed only one person with any (non-threatening) presence - an aged Muslim in spotless white and with more dignity in his bearing than the rest of the street put together. I remember thinking 'who would you rather have for a neighbour - this guy or these people ?'.

This was perhaps a romantic view. While I can be pretty confident that Mr Ahmed wouldn't break into my property, threaten me for his amusement or hold noisy parties into the early hours, whether there would necessarily be that "duty of care" that the best neighbours have for each other is moot. It's possible that the question 'who is my neighbour ?' would be answered differently by a non-Christian - I'm not sure the kuffr qualify. Nonetheless, during the Bradford riots there were reports of young Muslim men standing guard outside the houses of their elderly white neighbours. There were others less well-inclined.

Still, I admire pious Muslims. I admire their faith, their cohesion (the way they'll circle the wagons when under attack - while Christian leaders sell out their flocks every day), their devotion. Read something like this touching piece and you'll see faith in action - religion bringing about real, personal change. Above all I admire their humility, held in common with most religious people - their certain knowledge that "we" are not all there is, that man is imperfect, is not perfectible, and that only through God can we even hope to consistently travel in that general direction. The native British had that humility once, when they were Christians.

In the post-Christian, post-British era, for most of us our life, our physical existence, is all we've got - so in time of trial we are alone, atomised, with our pain, our fear. Lose life and all is lost.

The paradox is that the acceptance by a culture that personal physical existence is not everything, manifested as a willingness to die - no, that's too strong - an acceptance that there are things worth dying for - has historically often been accompanied by secular power and success. In such a culture even defeat can become a potent weapon - if the victims can be portrayed as martyrs. To some extent this process was evened up by the fact that pretty much ALL cultures accepted that physical existence wasn't everything, and other factors also came into play.

We're entering a new phase of world history - one where some of the richest and most well-armed societies on the planet have decided, based on sixty years of peace and scientific development, that the old verities no longer hold and that the Gods of the Copybook Headings can be safely ignored. At the same time, they have invited into their societies people from the world they have left behind, to whom their revelation is anathema, and who retain the spiritual power that the rich societies appeared to have abandoned for good.

It'll certainly be interesting, from a historical perspective, to see how it all pans out. But the history of this period will be written by the winners.





UPDATE - that doesn't mean that the 'God-shaped hole' doesn't still exist in post-Christian Britain. The theme of an original Eden, lost through sinful Man's eating of the fruits of the tree of scientific knowledge and soon to meet judgment for that sin, is as strong as ever.

A fault line

Dr Alan Carling of Bradford Uni is an old leftie with an interest in globalisation and identity (he's also a Bradford City supporter so he can't be all bad).

But he doesn't seem to be an optimist :

Bradford has slipped into a political vacuum where debate on community cohesion is stifled, allowing "fascism and Islamism" to thrive, according to academic Dr Alan Carling.

He says the city is in danger of becoming "a patchwork quilt of rival ethnic fiefdoms" that makes it a "fault line" in the clash between cultures.

The former chairman of the Bradford University Programme for a Peaceful City group said politicians, charities and academics who remained silent risked helping extremist groups split the city.

But he said if the divisions were confronted now, Bradford could become a worldwide example on how two cultures could coexist.

Dr Carling, writing in the March edition of the Urban Spaces journal, said: "In the post-9/11 world, Bradford looks like one of the fault lines in a supposed global confrontation between 'Islam' and 'the West'.

"The scale and nature of the challenges faced by the district make it one of the key places in Britain, and possibly in Europe, in which the relationships between populations of Muslim and non-Muslim background in the West are likely to be worked out in the future, either for good or for ill."

He said "white flight" from Bradford's inner-city wards showed clear evidence of an increase in segregation in the city since 1991. Statistical analysis shows that about 75 per cent of Muslims would now need to move to white neighbourhoods to get an equal distribution of ethnic communities in each.

While 20.5 per cent of residents in the city were Muslim in 2001, the Bradford Health Academy predicts that figure will rise to 28 per cent by 2011. A recent study by Leeds University suggests the proportion of minorities will reach 38.2 per cent by 2030, including 31.9 per cent from south Asia.

"It would be astonishing if a cultural shift of this potential magnitude were to take place without some friction and challenges of adjustment," said Dr Carling.

He believes the dominance of Pakistani Muslims in the city has meant that instead of its becoming a multicultural community, as in London where no minority dominates, Bradford has become bi-cultural.

Because of the Pakistani population's desire to create "ethnic colonies", he said, the best Bradford could hope for in the long term was accommodation rather than integration.

But he said the "unpalatable truth" was that up to 18,000 citizens of Bradford had voted for the BNP – they "have chosen over the last few years to step across the line that has defined the boundary of reputable politics ever since the defeat of the Nazis 60 years ago".

Likewise, the popularity of jihadi Islamic groups in the city was further promoting polarisation.

"The presence of these authoritarian groups carry especial dangers in places like Bradford," Dr Carling said. "Their messages are likely to find some resonance within existing attitudes and social conditions. In addition, there is a particular danger these two political currents will feed off each other."

Hmm. It just goes to show that even a good left-liberal will see what's in front of his eyes, given enough time. Notice his take on 'ethnic colonies' is pretty close to the 'colonisation' thesis of the 2001 Race Relations Review. And his 'white flight' thesis directly contradicts his former colleague Dr Steven Ludicrous 'Ludi' Simpson. What with him and Marie Macey, the right-on Uni is getting all realist.

I can't find the Urban Spaces journal anywhere though. Anyone got a copy ?



UPDATE - the "Parade of Celebration", timed for St George's Day and designed as a show of unity for all Bradfordians and routed through Girlington and Manningham, scene of the 2001 riots, has been cancelled at short notice for 'health and safety' reasons. Not quite cancelled, to be fair - they can celebrate on 1st July if they wish.

Councillor Qasim Khan (Lib Dem, Manningham) said the original intention of the parade was to mark St George's Day and bring the Manningham and Girlington communities together after the 2001 riots. He said "It was basically to cover the areas which had been affected by the riots. It was all about bringing communities together," he said. "All the schools had prepared flags and will be obviously upset to hear the news. About 2,000 schoolchildren were due to take part plus members of the general public. There could have been five or 10,000 people."

Coun Khan said senior police officers had now objected on safety grounds and had proposed an alternative route which had been rejected by many of those taking part causing it to be cancelled. A West Yorkshire Police spokesman admitted the neighbourhood policing team had been involved in the "early stages" of planning the parade but denied it was a police event. She said: "A member of the Neighbourhood Policing Team was involved in the early stages of planning a Parade of Celebration. This is being dealt with by a group of community members, and is not a police event. Routes were offered to allow a smaller St George's Day Parade to go ahead, but these were rejected by the group of organisers, who are seeking a more substantial parade to celebrate community cohesion in a post-riot Bradford. The parade has not been cancelled but has been postponed."

Hmm. It looks as if St George is being co-opted to serve an agenda he might have raised an eyebrow at, but I have no real problem with that. The more little Muslim kids brandishing the red cross shield of England, the better. I wonder why the police and council knocked it on the head ?

UPDATE2 - I believe this is the sort of thing that Ann Cryer gets justifiably cross about.

Beverley Lunt Is Back

Remember Judge Beverley Lunt - famed among the commentariat of Lancashire for her willingness to give the poor benighted career criminal just one more chance, though it may be chance 150 ?

She's at it again, garnering predictable responses.

"THIS LUNT WANTS LOCKING UP!!!SHE MUST BE SIMPLE"

"it is lucky he was not smoking in a pub.....he really would have been in trouble then"

"I just hope that one day soon this idiot of a judge comes home from work and finds that her house has been ransacked, all her drawers rifled through and her jewellry and all other valuables taken along with any sentimental items that she has ..."

"As soon as i saw the headline i started to look for 'Lunt the ****' as being the judge."

I thought trying to bribe witnesses to change their evidence was a jail offence. It strikes at the roots of justice and should be one of the most heavily punished of all crimes.

Ms Lunt doesn't agree.

"Mad Judge Lunt strikes again..."

Your (Alleged) Vote Frauds Tonight

The two-knocked-into-one terrace with 24 bedrooms and 27 registered voters.

A would-be MP is being investigated by police after it emerged 27 people are registered to vote at his house. And officers are also probing claims a prospective councillor has five people registered at his home who are also listed at other properties in the same town. Both Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Mohammed Afzal Anwar and Labour Pendle Council candidate Mohammed Tariq have insisted they have done nothing wrong.

Police launched their investigation after separate allegations were made to Pendle Council and Lancashire Constabulary by the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties in Pendle.

Mr Anwar said there was nothing untoward about the number of voters living at his terraced home which is 214 to 216 Manchester Road, Nelson, and consists of two houses knocked into one. He said that 27 people were registered to vote at the property, but that not all were resident in this country at any one time. Mr Anwar said no postal or proxy votes would be requested for the property. He said that he had discussed the situation with election officials at Pendle Council.

Mr Anwar said: "There are different people who are living in different parts of the properties. There are certain people who go abroad from time to time. One or two are students who have been in Poland for example. And other people are going (abroad) and coming back. There will be no postal or proxy votes issued from this address."

His election agent, Coun Tony Greaves, said the property was inhabited by Mr Anwar, his father, three brothers, their respective families and "contains 24 bedrooms."

Only two people registered at the addresses, who were currently resident in Pakistan, were not entitled to vote, said Coun Greaves. Labour party officials asked Pendle police to launch a probe amid claims that not all residents living there should be entitled to vote.

The claims followed Liberal Democrat allegations over Labour candidate Mohammed Tariq, who is standing in Whitefield ward in next month's Pendle Council elections.
He is accused of having five people registered at his Portland Street home who are also registered at other properties elsewhere in Nelson. Pendle Labour group leader Mohammed Iqbal is Mr Tariq's election agent and said the prospective councillor had done nothing wrong. He said: "I have looked into Lord Greaves's allegations concerning Mr Tariq. They seem to centre round two members of our candidate's family." Police confirmed that they were investigating allegations of electoral fraud in Pendle.

Brenton Wood

In my post on doo-wop I mentioned the great love Chicanos seem to have for that fine genre. Here's a bit more.

I'd never heard of Brenton Wood, who had a couple of hits in the Sixties and is still performing, but this is just great soul singing.



Here's some modern Chicano rap. I'm not sure Lil' Tweety's persona is always as decent as he makes out on this one - a doowop oldie remade into a tribute to woman, child and hard-working, God-fearing lover-man. Respectable rap for a family chap.

Edward Lorenz

Father of chaos theory, died yesterday in Massachusetts after an ant trod on a twig in Perry Barr, Birmingham.

Those Damn Right-Wingers With Their Lousy Statistics

Always a bit scary, picking a scrap on stats - especially with only A-level maths and no statistics. One doesn't want to question someone's grasp of maths only to discover that it's one's own grasp that's shaky.

But the figures look OK to me and we're not talking deviations or any of that Chris Dillow stuff, so here goes. Doubtless the commentariat will pick up on any errors so let's jump off that 32-foot board :



Sunny is (again) an angry man :

This is an example of how right-wing papers feed us all b******* on immigration. The Telegraph today says:

More than one crime in five in London is now committed by a foreign national, raising fresh fears over the impact of immigration. Around a third of all sex offences and a half of all frauds in the capital are carried out by non-British citizens.

You need to read a bit slower, old boy. The Telegraph piece to which you refer came out in September 2007.

What's the problem, anyway ?

Except that, as Ministry of Truth points out:

So, for violent crimes, the top twenty list above weigh in with a total of 3812 offences, while the Met’s rolling 12 month figures give a total of 172,734 violent offences from March 07 to March 08 (down 5.3% on the previous years. As we’re only dealing a half year’s figures (and ignoring seasonal variations for ease) that gives us 86,387 violent offences of which these top twenty account for under 5%. So its not 1 in 5, its about 1 in 20.

Of course, this doesn’t include crimes committed by foreign national which aren’t solved, but if the Telegraph can compare apples and oranges to make its point, then so can I to show that their figures are a crock of ****.

Sex Offences? Full year is 8766, so a half year is 4383 and our top twenty weighs in with 263, and we have a figure of 6% and not a third as the Telegraph claims.

A crock of ****. Yeah, sounds about right. I think I’m going to complain to the PCC about this one.

"Sir ! Sir ! He's cheating, sir !"



Even though I'm politically a fair way away from him, I like Unity's blog. When he's good, he's very very good. And he's usually good. But ...

You see, he's taking these figures :



which are for SOLVED* crimes ("according to Metropolitan Police figures for solved crimes" says the Telegraph) in a six-month period - and comparing them with these figures - which are the Met's rolling totals for ALL crime in a one-year period. He's factoring down the Met numbers by 50% because they're for a full year, but he's ignoring the fact that only a small proportion of the Met numbers are solved crimes - which is what we should be comparing against.

And, tragically, he's labelling it "Lack of Basic Numeracy Skills", pointing out that "the Daily Telegraph needs a refresher course in statistics", that their stats are "a crock of poo", and calling the whole post Telegraph Can't Do Stats.

It's not a nice job. But somebody's got to do it. Let's do some statfiskics - like fisking, only with numbers.

Unity :

So, for violent crimes, the top twenty list above weigh in with a total of 3812 offences, while the Met’s rolling 12 month figures give a total of 172,734 violent offences from March 07 to March 08 (down 5.3% on the previous years. As we’re only dealing a half year’s figures (and ignoring seasonal variations for ease) that gives us 86,387 violent offences of which these top twenty account for under 5%. So its not 1 in 5, its about 1 in 20.

So the Telegraph are completely wrong ! At this point Unity does attempt some kind of exculpation for the crimes he's committing.

Of course, this doesn’t include crimes committed by foreign national which aren’t solved, but if the Telegraph can compare apples and oranges to make its point, then so can I to show that their figures are a crock of ****.

So my stats may be pants, but so are theirs, so I win ! That's probably an acceptable debating technique on a CiF comment box, but not on a post where you're flaying others for not being able to do sums. Unfortunately, he's wrong. As we shall see, the Telegraph appear to be comparing solved crimes by foreigners with all solved crimes - apples with apples. Unity is comparing solved crimes by foreigners with all crimes, solved and unsolved. Apples with lemons.

There's more :

Ah, look, this is the data for ’solved crimes’ not all crime, i.e. that committed and reported but not solved, so immediately these figures are questionable. It could be that foreign nationals are committing lots of crimes, or it could be simply that the Met is particularly good at solving crimes committed by foreign nationals, which could mean that these crimes get extra resources or that there’s just a smaller pool of potential criminals to target and that their nationality narrows the field down even further.

He's right. All these things are factors to be taken into account. Why doesn't he then ?

I think it unlikely that the police are "particularly good at solving crimes committed by foreign nationals" or that in London "there’s just a smaller pool of potential criminals to target and that their nationality narrows the field down even further". For the first I'd surmise that it's harder to solve crimes committed by foreign nationals, if only because there's likely to be less police intelligence on newcomers. Given the scale of immigration into London, where more than half of all births are to foreign-born mothers, I doubt very much that the 'small pool' holds much water either, and as for the nationality - well, how many people report that their house has been burgled by a Lithuanian ? My educated guess is that if x% of solved crimes are committed by foreign nationals, then approximately x% of all crimes will have been committed by foreign nationals.

What I think is likely is that some crimes will have a higher clear-up rate then others. Burglary, for example, is likely to have a lower "solved" rate than sexual offences, where a fair proportion of perpetrators will be known to the victim. If we knew these "solved" rates by type of crime, we could put the Telegraph and Met figures together and cook with both burners.

Alas, Unity doesn't know and the Telegraph piece doesn't say. But a quick Google DOES give an overall "solved" rate for the Met. Tony McNumpty released the figures when no one was looking, just before New Year.

Police authorities in England fared worse in the ranking than the majority of Welsh forces, with London’s Metropolitan Police being ranked the worst performer, solving just 21% of crimes – less than half of those cleared by North Wales Police.

At this point I'm going to take a huge risk and assume that Unity can add up. Let's look at his figures above again in the light of a 21% solved rate, accepting the distortions that we'll get because of different clear-up rates for different types of crime.

So, for violent crimes, the top twenty list above weigh in with a total of 3812 offences, while the Met’s rolling 12 month figures give a total of 172,734 violent offences from March 07 to March 08 (down 5.3% on the previous years. As we’re only dealing a half year’s figures (and ignoring seasonal variations for ease) and a 21% solved rate, that gives us (172,734 * 0.5 * 0.21) = 18,137 solved violent offences of which these top twenty account for over 21%. So it's not Unity's "about 1 in 20", it's 1 in 5 and the Telegraph is correct.

That was fun. Let's do it again, shall we ? Unity :

Sex Offences? Full year is 8766, so a half year is 4383 and our top twenty weighs in with 263, and we have a figure of 6% and not a third as the Telegraph claims.

And with that little 21% factor :

Sex Offences? Full year is 8766, so a half year of solved crimes is (4383 * 0.21) = 920 and our top twenty weighs in with 263, and we have a figure of 29% and not 6% as Unity claims.

Encore une fois !

Theft and handling is a little tricker - the Met gives figures for burglary and robbery but doesn’t mention handling, while the Telegraph’s copy leads on fraud, which isn’t mentioned at all in either their table or the Met’s stats. Still, we get, from our top twenty table, 3637 solved crimes while burglaries alone run to 93,894 a year, so that’s 46947 for the half year and a figure of just under 8%, which will almost certainly fall once handling offences are factored in on top.

21% ?

Still, we get, from our top twenty table, 3637 solved crimes by foreigners while burglaries alone run to 93,894 a year, so that’s (46947 * 0.21) = 9859 solved crimes for the half year and a figure of just under 37%, which will almost certainly fall once handling offences are factored in on top. Unity reckons 8%.

Management summary - Telegraph right, Unity wrong.

I hope Sunny appreciates the favour I've done him, flagging this up before he posts a CiF piece on the subject.

UPDATE - Unity in this comment seems to imply that you can't make a meaningful extrapolation from solved crimes to unsolved ones. I think you can, unless foreign criminals are uniquely prone to get caught, a proposition for which he offers no theory, let alone proof.

There is of course one crime with a very high "solved" rate - homicide. When asked for perpetrators by nationality under a Freedom of Information request, only 25 out of 43 England and Wales forces responded, covering half the homicides (I wonder who the refuseniks were ?). That showed 20% of killers as foreign nationals.

Oh, and across England and Wales, over 11,000 of the 81,000 prison population are foreigners. That's getting on for 14%.




(* “solved” - among other, better things (like convictions), the process by which some smackhead is persuaded to have another 626 offences taken into consideration in exchange for a nice steer from the police when giving evidence in the magistrates court. Our smackhead gets a lesser sentence, police “detection rates” improve and everyone’s happy except the people being burgled. If this is an inaccurate/unfair description of the process, could those police/magistrates who read the blog put me right in the comments ?)

Laban is Lazy

Polly Toynbee bemoans the effects of the sexual revolution which she was such an enthusiastic participant in. Laban sticks his four penn'orth in, rehashing his usual themes.

Read And Ponder

A Debate that Actually Matters: Peter Collier (via Mick Hartley).

"For all their differences, the participants in this debate believe that the world is intelligible, that wrong choices bring catastrophe, and that the West may be in peril."

I like to think that most people can agree on one and two, but three ?

The word “courage,” like the term “Islamofascism,” set Buruma off. He shot back at Bruckner (and Berman, too, was struck by this), asking where have we heard such talk before: “The need to defend Europe against alien threats; the fatigued, self-doubting, weak-kneed intellectuals . . .”

The allusion, of course, was to the intellectuals who became excited by the rise of fascism in the 1930s and made themselves its fellow travelers and outriders. But it was possible to hear in Buruma’s words a parallel echo from that time—this one coming from a different part of the intellectual class that reacted to the threat of their lifetime by blinking: how, as part of their failure of nerve, they derided the indiscreet candor of those who raised warning flags; and how the peace they thought they had secured in their own time turned out to be anything but.

Interesting Times ...

I don't know what it says about the writers or about us, but the comments seem always more interesting than the op-ed - The Hon Jackie Ashley forgets about trousers to damn Gordon Brown with faint praise, and the Telegraph commentariat respond to Nigel 'Enoch Was Right' Hastilow, pledging as one man to vote BNP.

Sone Unpleasant Overflow From The Curate's Septic Tank

Journalist Eleanor Mills enjoys a day out in London :

At half-term I was on a bus with my five-year-old daughter. She had wanted to see Buckingham Palace, so we saluted the Queen and walked back up The Mall to get a bus home from Trafalgar Square. The bus was packed, around us were a friendly posse of young people of all races, bantering, cracking jokes, smiling. I felt happy - when the capital’s mad melting pot works, it’s great.

Suddenly there was a kerfuffle among the packed-in bodies by the doors. From the shouts, it seemed that a middle-aged white guy had stepped on a young black man’s foot. The bus stopped and as the doors opened, the young guy started punching the older man in the head. He wrestled him off the bus, kicked him to the ground and left him there. Calmly he got back on the bus.

Silence fell. My daughter looked at me anxiously. I hugged her and whispered not to worry, but when I looked up I inadvertently caught the thug’s eye. “What you f****** looking at?” he yelled. I cast my eyes down quickly, glad that there were many bodies rammed in between me and him. No one moved, said or did anything. We all tried, desperately, to mind our own business. The bus continued on. About three stops later he got off. The chatter resumed as if nothing had happened.

You can see how people like Richard Whelan get stabbed to death on buses while everyone looks the other way.

One murder in five is committed by foreign nationals :

Out of 461 people convicted of or charged with homicide in the 12 months up to April last year, 96 were foreign citizens - from 28 different countries (there are more homicides than this, but only 25 out of 43 forces supplied figures - LT).

The findings again highlight Britain's failure to deport foreign criminals, a focus of government attention since the blunder that led to the sacking of Charles Clarke as home secretary in 2006.

Recent murderers have included foreigners who had been convicted of robbery and assault but were allowed to remain in Britain after serving their sentences.

Police chiefs seized on the 2006/7 figures - the last year for which full data are available - to warn that immigration was having a "significant impact" on Britain, and putting forces under rising strain. The information also provides evidence that foreign criminal networks have built up extensive UK operations.

Scotland Yard said half of the organised crime gangs in London were "ethnic" - bound by a common language or homeland. The most common nationalities for foreign killers were Pakistani, Indian and Jamaican.

Foreigners were also more likely to become victims. According to the figures, 15 per cent of those who died were from overseas, even though foreigners account for only six per cent of the British population. In many cases, both victim and killer were from the same immigrant community.

I can't understand it. David Aaronovitch has said that "there is no greater propensity among immigrants towards crime, prostitution and anti-social behaviour than among the population at large". Who am I to believe, Aaro or those lyin' police statisticians ?

Scottish Labour's Wendy Alexander was a loony campus leftie shock horror. I'm surprised the Tories haven't sent enterprising researchers round our major universities to go through back issues of the student papers before now - yet more the records of who proposed what resolution at the student's union. I think they'd find a large number of rattling skeletons.



After Harry's Place cut links and stopped answering emails David T was dismissive of those bloggers who are :

"running around like Dad's Army's Private Frazer intoning: "We're doomed, doomed!"

Yet somehow doubts creep in :

When I arrived at the pool, I was told that we could not swim in it until 10.45. The reason is that it was being used for "Muslim Male Swimming". This is apparently so, every Sunday morning. I couldn't quite believe that a swimming pool was really institutionalising both gender AND religious segregation. I asked to speak to the Duty Manager. She told me that, really, Muslim Male Swimming was being laid on at peak time. No, it wasn't just Male Swimming, that happened mostly to be used by Muslim men. There was separate gender segregated swimming that was not religious specific, but on other days. And, apparently, this is a policy insisted on by Hackney Council, which sets the policy for all Hackney pools.

Lastly I posted the other day on the reaction of Swindon Muslims to the conviction of more than a dozen young men for the Wroughton Hammer Attack on a defenceless schoolboy. The victim's parents have now had their say, and I will add that to the same post.

Unfortunate, That

She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people.

Is Brown Doomed ?

Martin Kettle and Matthew Parris think so.

Blair's timing in leaving was brilliant, as ever. The economic good times for capital, a product of the credit boom, cheap Chinese goods and low cost-inflation (partly thanks to mass immigration), seem to be over. He stepped off the deck just as the rising water was at a comfortable level.

If only his political genius could have been used in a good cause ! Think what he could have done if, say, he'd been Prime Minister for ten years !

As ever, the great glory is reading the comments by demoralised Labour supporters. If one's country is going to be ruined, one may as well extract such sour amusement as offers itself.

Anti-Piracy Measures - Then And Now

Eighteenth century :

You say this cruise is bungled. Ah! by gum, if you could understand how bad it's bungled, you would see! We're that near the gibbet that my neck's stiff with thinking on it. You've seen 'em, maybe, hanged in chains, birds about 'em, seamen p'inting 'em out as as they go down with the tide. 'Who's that?' says one. That! Why, that's John Silver. I knowed him well,' says another. And you can hear the chains a-jangle as you go about and reach for the other buoy ...

Twenty-first century :

The Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the Foreign Office not to detain pirates because doing so may breach their human rights.

Warships patrolling pirate-infested waters, such as those off Somalia, have been warned that there is also a risk that captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain.
The Foreign Office has advised that pirates sent back to Somalia could have their human rights breached because, under Islamic law, they face beheading for murder or having a hand chopped off for theft.

In 2005 there were almost 40 attacks by pirates and 16 vessels were hijacked and held for ransom. Employing high-tech weaponry, they kill, steal and hold ships’ crews to ransom. This year alone pirates killed three people near the Philippines.

Britain is part of a coalition force that patrols piracy stricken areas and the guidance has troubled navy officers who believe they should have more freedom to intervene.

The guidance was sharply criticised by Julian Brazier MP, the Conservative shipping spokesman, who said: “These people commit horrendous offences. The solution is not to turn a blind eye but to turn them over to the local authorities. The convention on human rights quite rightly doesn’t cover the high seas. It’s a pathetic indictment of what our legal system has come to.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “There are issues about human rights and what might happen in these circumstances. The main thing is to ensure any incident is resolved peacefully.”

The guidance is the latest blow to the robust image of the navy. Last year 15 of its sailors were taken prisoner by the Iranians and publicly humiliated.

In the 19th century, British warships largely eradicated piracy when they policed the oceans. The death penalty for piracy on the high seas remained on the statute books until 1998. Modern piracy ranges from maritime mugging to stealing from merchant ships with the crew held at gunpoint.

(via the Dumb One)

"a very unfortunate incident these boys got caught up in"

Wittshire Gazette

One OF Swindon's Asian community leaders has said that the youths convicted of attacking Henry Webster were good boys who got caught up in a bad situation. The families of most of the teenagers live in the Broadgreen area and attend the Jamia Mosque in Broad Street. Azim Khan, chairman of the Thamesdown Islamic Association, which runs the mosque said he did not think race played a part in the attack, but blamed teenagers getting caught up in gang culture.

"All of the families come to the mosque," said Mr Khan.

"Their families are all devastated that they could get caught up in something like this. They are really upset and don't understand how this happened. Our job now as a community is to make sure it doesn't happen again. They're not bad kids whatsoever. Their families are normal families, they wouldn't harm anybody, they are working families. But at the end of the day kids are kids. I don't think this incident was about those children being Asian, I think it is about children in general not having respect for authorities. When you look at the papers you see stories about kids in gangs up and down the country. There isn't much for them to do. They get together and get into trouble. We always advise the children to be part of the community. Make a name for yourself by being hardworking and a benefit to the community. But there are always exceptions, one or two who get into trouble, but 99 per cent are good. Everyone now is making sure they keep an eye on their children and that they are not hanging around together outside school and sports clubs and things.

In court Wasif Khan said he had been scared to tell the truth because of pressure from the Asian community. He said he gave no comment in his police interview because Amjad Qazi's father was an imam at the mosque.

Mr Khan confirmed Qazi's father had been an imam until two years ago.

"I knew Amjad quite well," he said. "He's a nice boy. I don't understand how he went along with what happened. These children had no intention to take these steps. He was just very unfortunate that they somehow got to go and do this. They all said they had not intention whatsoever to do this sort of thing. It was just bad luck that they got caught up in this unfortunate incident. What they have been saying to me is it is just an unfortunate situation they became a part of. It was just bad luck''.

Mr Khan said despite a large number of Asian youngsters being convicted of taking part in the attack it had not caused any racial tensions.

"I haven't heard anything that makes me think it is dividing the community. The trial is not really something people have been talking about. This was an argument between schoolboys that went wrong. Wrong to the extreme. But this wasn't about race. I believe in living in this country and by the laws of this country. If somebody does wrong then they should be dealt with by the courts and justice system. I don't think people will judge the Asian community by the outcome of this case. Swindon has a very good integrated community. You don't come across any racists. During the police operation they have been very good to keep the community with them to solve any problems. Just after the attack happened there was some talk about it being racially motivated, but I haven't seen any evidence of that and the police don't think it was.

"The BNP have had a few things to say about it, but everyone else seems to have realised it was just a very unfortunate incident these boys got caught up in."

9:16am Wednesday 9th April 2008

So several carloads of Asian people drive from Swindon to horrifically injure a white schoolboy - and the good news is that there aren't many racists in Swindon ! Not white ones anyway.

UPDATE - Henry Webster's mother responds :

THE mother of a 15-year-old boy left with brain damage by an Asian gang is blaming multi-culturalism for the way ethnic minorities get away with violent bullying in schools.

Liz Webster, 43, from Swindon, whose son Henry nearly died in the attack, believes a “culture of timidity” among teachers is stopping them clamping down on ethnic minority bullies because they fear accusations of racism. She also accuses teachers of failing to recognise that ethnic minorities can exhibit racism against whites.

Her son, who was a pupil at Ridgeway comprehensive, near Swindon, was set upon by a 16-strong Asian gang, smashed on the skull by repeated blows from a claw hammer and left for dead. Last week 13 of the gang were convicted of charges relating to the attack.

Before the assault little action appears to have been taken against the gang, despite incidents of persistent aggressive be-haviour. In the immediate aftermath of the assault, neither the school’s headmaster, Steven Colledge, nor any of its 90 teachers visited the Webster family or even sent a get-well card.

After the court verdict last week Webster said: “We are devastated by what has happened and extremely upset and angry not only about the school’s failure to protect Henry, but about their attitude afterwards.”

Webster said she was anxious that teachers should learn how to manage racial integration successfully but added: “If they had once said they were sorry, or asked how he was, it would have made all the difference. It is as if they want to sweep us and everything to do with us, under the carpet. Whatever was going on, Henry had absolutely nothing to do with it. He seems to have been picked on just because he is big and has ginger hair.”

Police had been called to a similar incident involving members of the same gang eight months earlier. A white pupil was left with a broken jaw, but there was no prosecution.

“Everyone seems to think that racism starts with white people,” Webster said. “They can’t seem to get their heads round the fact that racism can come from the other side. I now know a lot more about the disciplinary problems with some of the Asian boys. If they had been white, I think they would have been kicked out.”

One of the defendants claimed there were repeated rumours of racist bullying by whites against Asians at the school. There is no evidence of any build-up of tension, however, before the attack on Henry, in January 2007. It was sparked by a confrontation in a corridor between him and a 14-year-old Asian boy, which led to a challenge to a one-on-one fight after class on the school tennis courts.

When Henry, who had no record of disciplinary problems, arrived at the courts he found three carloads of older teenagers armed with a variety of weapons. They had been summoned by 59 mobile phone calls made in the space of little more than an hour. One caller told them one of the “ gora [whites], a big fat ginger kid, wanted a fight”.

The diminutive 14-year-old boy pointed out Webster to the gang. Webster was cornered, punched and, as he turned to try to escape, knocked down and hit with the hammer. Even after onlookers had heard the crack of his skull fracturing, the other gang members continued to kick and punch him.

In front of at least 250 school-children, the gang yelled: “That’s what you call Paki-bashing,” while punching the air.

During the attack, the schoolboy’s skull was fractured in three places by the hammer. A section about 2in across was smashed into the front of his skull, tearing the lining of his brain.

Wasif Khan, 18, who wielded the hammer on Webster, has been convicted of grievous bodily harm, as have Amjad Qazi, 19, Nazrul Amin, 19, and four schoolboys. On Tuesday the final members of the gang, who styled themselves the Broadgreen Mas-sif after the area of Swindon where they lived, were found guilty of conspiracy for their part in the attack. All 13 will be sentenced later this month.

Nobody has been able to explain adequately the background to the assault. There have been unproven rumours that Asians have been victims of racial bullying in the school. Staff at Ridgeway comprehensive, a foundation school with 1,400 pupils, in the village of Wroughton outside Swindon, last week refused to discuss the issues. A spokesman said there might still be civil litigation.

The Websters are likely to claim £1m compensation for Henry’s injuries, which include permanent brain damage.

Nor has the school explained its treatment of the Webster family after the attack. The headmaster told a governors’ inquiry that gestures such as sending cards or flowers were “not in his nature”. Questioned about an incident in which a pupil had come to school wrapped in a Pakistani flag, he told them it was no different from a Welsh governor wearing a Welsh flag or a daffodil.

Colledge said this weekend: “Henry did come into the school for two lunchtimes a week for a number of weeks after [the attack]. We did our best to facilitate that. Work was provided but there were problems with Henry doing it and there was home tuition provided through the local authority.”

Teachers also declined to get involved when the Websters requested extra vigilance for their younger son, Joe, 12, who was anxious to continue at the Ridgeway with his friends. The younger boy was surrounded by a threatening gang of Bengali-speaking Asians a few weeks after the attack.

Webster believes the school is guilty of discrimination: “After the earlier scuffles the day Henry was attacked, it was Henry who was asked to report to the deputy head, not any of the Asian boys, yet somehow it is racist for me to question why my son was treated differently from them.”

The police have been reluctant to accept any racial element. “We took 797 statements, we have 3,000 pages of documents and there is nothing to indicate racist language or taunts were used in any of the exchanges,” said Detective Sergeant Mark Wilkinson of Wiltshire police, who led the investigation.

Nevertheless, Wilkinson concedes Khan was a “wannabe militant”. He had been involved in two previous violent incidents, though never charged, and carried on his mobile phone a screensaver of the collapse of New York’s twin towers.

The Websters’ solicitor, Mark McGhee, said: “There was a history to all of this which went back two years before the attack on Henry. These boys’ disciplinary records had been appalling and nothing had been done about them. Had the school behaved properly, this attack would never have happened.”

I think the Latin phrase is 'res ipsa loquitur'.

"Foreign nationals now account for almost half of all drink-drive arrests in the city"

The city being Peterborough.

Within minutes two Lithuanians are brought in after police find them allegedly carrying CS spray canisters in their car.

Then an Egyptian arrives. He has been arrested at a factory. He pretends he's a Palestinian in the vain hope to avoid deportation. Officers have seen it all before and deal with him patiently.

The Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Julie Spence recently made headlines when she spoke out about the huge strain mass migration is placing on existing police resources.

This is a city where you can find interpreters earning more than the Chief Constable. One translator dealing with Latvian and Lithuanian prisoners picked-up £150,000 last year - the tab settled by tax payers. Thorpe Wood police station alone spent £500,000 on interpreters last year. Insp Chip Walker tells me: "The problem with different nationalities, for people who don't have English as a first language, is that it slows everything down - while we've got people here we need to get hold of interpreters by telephone or face to face."

In 2003 12% of people arrested in Peterborough were foreign nationals, the force said. Three years later that figure had risen to 20%. Foreign nationals now account for almost half of all drink-drive arrests in the city.

I decide to conduct my own research at Peterborough Magistrates' Court. Of the 95 cases listed on a daily court list, 75 of them involve migrants.

Can't They Find Some Backbone From Somewhere ?

"Women dominate Spanish cabinet"

I Didn't Say He Was All Bad

BBC

Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe has called Prime Minister Gordon Brown "a little tiny dot on this world".

I Have A Vision of The Future, Chum

Regular readers will know Charles Murray, American sociologist of the UK underclass - indeed the guy who discovered it back in the 1980s, when in 1989 he wrote The Emerging British Underclass for the Sunday Times. He followed it up with "Underclass +10" ten years later.

Murray also wrote on prisons and was an early advocate of the "Prison Works" policy. But he's put these two strands together and come up with a bleak dystopia, one not terribly far away from those of leftish anti-prison campaigners.

It's a simple thesis, and, as with the underclass, he expects British experience to follow American. The key point, although he does not put it that way, is that the will to stigmatise and condemn bastardy and the single mother (which he sees as the root cause) while also removing child-related benefits, is simply not there. It isn't there in (relatively) God-fearing America, so there's no chance in secular Britain. The underclass will continue to exist and won't get any smaller.

At the same time, Britain will continue to discover what America has discovered - that prison works. The prison population will continue to grow. In America this has been accompanied by the gentrification of the inner cities, and the movement of the underclass poor to "decrepit neighbourhoods on the periphery that need not be on the travel route of the rest of us".

Neighbourhood schooling effectively means that the right postcode shields your kids from underclass kids (some idiots on the left talk about 'the poor' as if most parents give a damn about how much money a kid's got. Some of the nicest kids at my children's school are from poor homes - there are also some little sods from underclass homes which are poor. Can you tell the difference ? All the parents and kids can).

If these American trends, already apparent here, continue, "in 15 years, perhaps less, the underclass/Neet will no longer be a political issue in Britain and urban life for most of you will be more pleasant than it is now. The price will have been a great deal of money spent on prisons and, in effect, the writing-off of a portion of the population as unfit for civil society.

In the United States I have called this the coming of custodial democracy — literally custodial for criminals, figuratively custodial for the neighbourhoods we seal away from the rest of us. Custodial democracy is probably headed your way. "

I can see a few objections to this. The sixties and seventies radicals have a good deal more power in the UK than they ever achieved in the US. As we see with Labour's attempts to bash the middle classes over school admissions, keeping your children away from their underclass peers will be a lot tougher in Britain, unless you have enough money. Similarly it's less likely that the underclass will become geographically isolated, as long as councils hold the keys to planning permissions.

There's always the chance of a religious revival, of some latter-day Wesley who will condemn bastardy and restore stigma. Do you see anyone in the Church of England or Catholic Church who fits the bill ? As Peter Hitchens put it :

Much of the problem lies in the consciences of individuals and will not be fixed until and unless a new John Wesley appears, who can find some way of remoralising a population that is at least as demoralised as it was in the 18th century. (One rather alarming possibility is that such a figure will appear, and he will be a Muslim, which should concentrate our minds).

Enough. Here's the whole essay, pinched from this Father's Rights site. Please note that the title is a wry acknowledgement of the trend, not a prescription for action. Murray does not find it an appealing scenario, but it's the way he sees things going.

The Advantages of Social Apartheid

Underclass is an ugly word, and we live in an age that abhors ugly words, so it is good to hear that the Blair government has devised a cheerier label: Neet, an acronym for “not in education, employment or training”.

Once a government has given a problem a name it must develop effective new strategies for dealing with it. That too is in train, The Sunday Times told us last week, replete with urgent cabinet meetings, study groups roaming about the country and even a “Neet target” to reduce the Neet population by 20% by 2010.

You may use whatever euphemism the government adopts, but it’s still the underclass. Its numbers are not going to be reduced by 20% by 2010. Its numbers will increase. The good news is that the rate of increase will probably begin to slow in a few years and in another decade or two Britain will have learnt to manage the problem — meaning you will have learnt how to keep the underclass from getting underfoot, even though its numbers are undiminished.

When The Sunday Times first asked me to look at the British underclass in 1989, the American underclass was about 15 to 20 years ahead of Britain’s. You were tracking the American experience with remarkable fidelity then and you are still tracking it.

From the beginning I have used the simple-minded assumption that Britain 16 years on would look like America did when I was writing, and that’s more or less the way things have worked out. Nothing about the underclass is rocket science. It’s all basic, the kind of thing our grandparents took for granted. It just has to be rephrased to accommodate today’s delicate sensibilities.

Our grandparents thought bastardy was a problem to be avoided at any cost. Today’s translation: children who grow up without being nurtured by two biological parents are at risk. Poverty isn’t the problem. Inadequate educational opportunities aren’t the problem. Social exclusion isn’t the problem.

Throughout history, societies around the world have been poor, with inadequate educational opportunities and with socially excluded people. Those same societies have been remarkably successful at ensuring that almost all children came into the world with two biological parents committed to their care. That’s the difference between societies with small underclasses (for every society has had an underclass) and with large ones.

Children today usually still have a mother with them. The problem is the growing number of children who have no father and who live in areas where hardly anyone has a father. Girls without fathers tend to be emotionally damaged.

Among other things, they tend to search for father substitutes among young males, which in turn increases the likelihood of repeating their mother’s experience. Boys without fathers tend to grow up unsocialised. They tend to have poor impulse control, to be sexual predators, to be unable to get up at the same time every morning and go to a job. They tend to disappear shortly after the baby is born. These are not the complaints of a conservative lamenting the lost good old days. They are social science findings that are as robust and unambiguous as social science findings get.

I use the word “tend” because none of these outcomes is carved in stone for any particular child. But we can’t deny a problem exists because some children of single women do well. Of course, there are many exceptions but the statistical tendencies are pronounced, and tendencies produce a large and problematic underclass.

Our grandparents thought you couldn’t “do” with a youngster who wasn’t brought up right. Today’s translation: social programmes for intervening with children at risk have consistently meagre results. This finding has even longer shelves of analysis than the literature on the children of single parents.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Americans tried everything: pre-school socialisation programmes, enrichment programmes in elementary schools, programmes that provided guaranteed jobs for young people without skills, ones that provided on-the-job training, programmes that sent young people without skills to residential centres for extended skills training and psychological preparation for the world of work, programmes to prevent school dropout, and so on. These are just the efforts aimed at individuals. I won’t even try to list the varieties of programmes that went under the heading of “community development”. They were also the most notorious failures.

We know the programmes didn’t work because all of them were accompanied by evaluations. I was a programme evaluator from 1968 to 1981. The most eminent of America’s experts on programme evaluation — a liberal sociologist named Peter Rossi — distilled this vast experience into what he called the Iron Law of Evaluation: “The expected value of any net impact assessment of any large-scale social programme is zero.” The Iron Law has not been overturned by subsequent experience.

I should add a corollary to it, however: “The initial media accounts of social programmes that ultimately fail are always positive.” Every training programme for young men or parenting programme for young women can produce a heart-warming success story for the evening news. None produces long-term group results that survive scrutiny.

None of this experience crosses the Atlantic. When the Blair government began its ambitious job-training programmes, I wondered whether anyone within the bowels of the appropriate ministries said: “You know, the Americans tried lots of these things years ago. I wonder how they worked?” But apparently nobody did or nobody listened. Now the government seems ready to admit that the results of the training programmes have been dismal. But as it sets off on the next round of bright ideas, I still don’t hear anyone saying: “You know, the Americans tried those programmes too . . .”

The bottom line for this accumulation of experience in America is that it is impossible to make up for parenting deficits through outside interventions. I realise this is still an intellectually unacceptable thing to say in Britain. It used to be intellectually unacceptable in the United States as well. No longer. We’ve been there, done that.

Our grandparents’ most basic taken-for-granted understanding, which today’s intellectual and political elites find it hardest to accept, is this: make it easier to behave irresponsibly and more people will behave irresponsibly. The welfare state makes it easier for men to impregnate women without taking responsibility for them, easier for women to raise a baby without the help of a man and easier for men and women to get by without working. There is no changing that situation without reintroducing penalties for irresponsible behaviour.

This is the sticking point for every political figure in Britain, Labour or Tory. Frank Field has been miles ahead of other politicians in recognising the growing problem of the underclass and in speaking out, but last week even he was saying: “Surely we can say that the traditional family unit is the best way to nurture children without making it a campaign to beat up single mums.” With respect: you cannot. If you want to reduce the number of single mums you have to be ready to say that to bring a child into the world without a father committed to its care is wrong.

The government need not sponsor publicity campaigns to beat up single mums. Put the cost of irresponsible behaviour back where it belongs — on the man and the woman, their families and their community — and the recognition that the behaviour is wrong will revive instantly, along with powerful social pressures to make sure it happens as seldom as possible.

Some of those pressures will be positive, celebrating marriage as a uniquely valuable institution and bestowing social approval on the bride and groom. Some of those pressures will be negative, consisting of various forms of stigma. This is good. Stigma is one of society’s most efficient methods for controlling destructive behaviour.

How can the government realise this desirable state of affairs? By ending all government programmes that subsidise having babies. But this moves us into the realm of solutions that haven’t a prayer of becoming reality. They haven’t in the United States, where the total package of benefits for single mothers has not been diminished despite the hoopla about welfare reform, and there is no reason to think Britain will act any differently in the foreseeable future.

Now for the good news, if you want to call it that. You don’t need to reduce the underclass to reduce the problems the underclass creates for the rest of us. As evidence, I point to a dog that no longer barks. The underclass, the most important domestic policy issue of the 1980s, is no longer even a topic of conversation in the United States.

The American underclass isn’t any smaller. The three indicators of an underclass — the proportion of children born to single women, criminality among young men and young men who have dropped out of the labour force — have all grown or remained steady during the past 15 years. The underclass is no longer an issue because we successfully put it out of sight and out of mind.

Consider the presence of the underclass in American cities. Fifteen or 20 years ago, the homeless, panhandlers and street hustlers were everywhere. Today they are virtually gone in most cities (San Francisco remains the exception). Graffiti used to be everywhere in American cities. Today it is rare in the better parts of town. You have no idea how depressing graffiti is until you’ve lived without it and then encounter it again, as you do in cities throughout Europe.

The social segregation of the underclass has been nearly perfected. We have not learnt how to compensate for the parenting deficits that cripple the lives of children of the underclass, but we have learnt how to avoid dealing with the consequences.

American children of the middle and upper classes no longer go to school with the children of the underclass. For a number of years, progressive American educators managed to dilute the old principle that a school drew only from a restricted geographic area. That principle has been reinstated so parents can be sure that if they move to the right neighbourhood their children won’t have large numbers of disruptive, foul-mouthed, sexually precocious and sometimes violent classmates. Middle and upper-class parents who remain within large cities commonly send their children to private schools.

Increased geographic segregation of the underclass has facilitated social segregation. In many large cities, urban renovation has reclaimed deteriorating downtown areas for glitzy shops and gleaming offices. Gentrification has retrieved much of the urban housing stock that had fallen into disrepair. The “inner city” is seldom literally located in the inner city but in decrepit neighbourhoods on the periphery that need not be on the travel route of the rest of us.

Most importantly, America has dealt with its crime problem. The crime rate has dropped by about one-third since the early 1990s. It has dropped even more in the better parts of town. People walk the streets of New York and Chicago without taking the precautions they used to take. Triple-locked doors and bars on the windows are not as necessary as they used to be. People feel safer and are safer.

We didn’t solve the crime problem by learning how to get tough on the causes of crime nor by rehabilitating criminals. We just took them off the streets. As of 2005, more than 2m Americans are incarcerated. That number is inefficiently large — it includes many minor drug offenders — but it responds to the question “Does prison work?”.

If you are willing to pay the price — a price that would amount to a British prison population of roughly 250,000 if your sentencing followed the American model — you can reduce crime dramatically.

All of these are policies that the British political establishment may come to accept in another decade or so. If London were to get a mayor who decided to take the homeless off the streets, scrub away the graffiti and adopt a zero-tolerance policing policy, I suspect he would find the same surge in popularity that Rudy Giuliani experienced in New York.

British parents are increasingly vocal about their dissatisfaction with schools, and especially with their spinelessness in dealing with disruptive children. In every area of life that the underclass affects, the public mood is shifting towards support of the American solution. Politicians who covet votes will come around eventually.

Hence my prediction that in 15 years, perhaps less, the underclass/Neet will no longer be a political issue in Britain and urban life for most of you will be more pleasant than it is now. The price will have been a great deal of money spent on prisons and, in effect, the writing-off of a portion of the population as unfit for civil society.

In the United States I have called this the coming of custodial democracy — literally custodial for criminals, figuratively custodial for the neighbourhoods we seal away from the rest of us. Custodial democracy is probably headed your way.

It is not a happy solution. On the contrary, it means abandoning a central tenet of a free society — that everyone can exercise equal responsibility for his or her own life. But Britain, like the United States and western Europe, is locked into a welfare state that by its nature generates large numbers of feckless people. If we are unwilling to prevent an underclass by giving responsibility for behaviour back to individuals, their families, and communities, custodial democracy is the only option left.

Charles Murray is best known for Losing Ground, his 1984 book about welfare reform, and for The Bell Curve of 1994

More Historic Feasts of the Church

Remember Refugee Sunday ?


"Shrive me now, Lord Bishop, I must away to Mass. Wit ye not 'tis Refugee Sunday ?"


via (where else ?) Ekklesia.

Autism Sunday

Churches of all denominations across Britain and Ireland are being urged to mark Autism Sunday and the International Day of Prayer for Autism and Asperger's Syndrome on Sunday 10 February 2008.


Education Sunday

Back To Church Sunday

Peace Sunday

Evolution Sunday

Not For Sale Sunday

National Youth Sunday

Politics Sunday

Animal Welfare Sunday

Homelessness Sunday and Poverty Action Sunday

Prisoners' Sunday

Racial Justice Sunday