Croydon II

Remember the good old days (last year I think it was) when gangs of African and Jamaican heritage like DSN and SMN were the ruffest kids in Croydon and points north.

Things seem to have got more diverse since then :

Gangs of violent men from Sri Lanka are "constantly tooled up" and "ready to go", according to police.There have been a number of violent clashes involving groups of Tamil men in Croydon and other parts of south London in recent years. They culminated in the murder of 28-year-old Prabaskaran Kannan in Tooting last year. He was chased by a group of four men from Croydon who stabbed and slashed their terrified victim 31 times outside a fried chicken takeaway shop.

The chief investigator in the case which became known as the "Chicken Cottage murder" said Croydon's Tamil gangs were causing concern among officers. Detective Sergeant Mick Snowdon spoke out about the problems surrounding Tamil gangs after five men were convicted of Mr Kannan's murder at the Old Bailey. The court was told Mr Kannan was heard shouting "It wasn't me, it wasn't me" shortly before he was brutally set upon and killed. On Monday this week homeless Vabeesan Sivarajah, 22, Aziz Miah, 20, of Sumner Road, Croydon, Asif Kumbay, 20, of Grasmere Road, Purley, and Kirush Nathankumar, 18, of Purley Way, Croydon, were all convicted of murder by an Old Bailey jury. They all denied the charges. The four were also convicted of causing grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm to two gang members who were with Mr Kannan that night. Another defendant, Mayuran Srivinayagam of Greyhound Terrace, Streatham, was cleared of murder and manslaughter but found guilty of assault. Earlier in the trial a sixth gang member, Mahitharn Ratnasingham, of Lesley Grove, Croydon, was cleared of murder and manslaughter. He admitted assault. The men are due to be sentenced on July 7.

After the men were convicted Det Sgt Snowdon told the Croydon Guardian: "They the gangs are very violent. They are constantly tooled up and ready to go. It is almost like the level of violence is ad hoc. Whatever happens for them happens, and it depends on what weapons they have around." A businessman who runs a shop in Croydon said Sri Lankan Tamil gangs controlled most of the crime and had the town centre on "lockdown." Police have always in the past denied there was a problem with the gangs in Croydon, but have now admitted there was a specialist officer dealing with Tamil gang activity in the borough.

The comments are fascinating. It sounds as if a lot of Tamil gang activity is devoted to funding the LTTE, the Ceylonese terrorist group who are the pioneers and chief exponents of suicide bombing. We don't just get some decent (nay, excellent) tea and some interesting food - we get the quarrels, hatreds and crimes of the subcontinent too.

Irish Republic 1, United States of Europe 0

Reminds me of 27th March, 1941 (pdf file). As Churchill put it :

Here at this moment I have great news for you and the whole country. Early this morning the Yugoslav nation found its soul. A revolution has taken place in Belgrade, and the Ministers who but yesterday signed away the honour and freedom of the country are reported to be under arrest. This patriotic movement arises from the wrath of a valiant and warlike race at the betrayal of their country by the weakest of their rulers and the foul intriguers of the Axis Powers.

Now that's being a little unfair to the Irish Government - although I see absolutely nothing to suggest that they'd have acted any differently to the other governments were it not for the existence of the Irish Constitution.

The Supreme Court has ruled that any EU treaty that substantially alters the character of the Union must be approved by a constitutional amendment.

and

Any part of the constitution may be amended but only by referendum.

The EU constitution was turned down by the French and the Dutch - so it was renamed a treaty and pushed through their legislatures. Blair promised a referendum on the treaty, saw what had happened across the Channel and broke his word - a decision upheld by his successor.

"we must be far clearer in speaking up for the common ground upon which we stand - the shared British values of liberty, civic duty and fairness to all"

Where's the liberty ? Just about to be banged up without charge for six weeks, that's where. Where's Gordon Brown's civic duty? Where's the fairness ?

While I'm terribly pleased, proud of the Irish and ashamed for my own Government's cowardly refusal to consult the British people, I think we should remember what followed the Yugoslav revolution. Still, let us take what comfort we may. There's a drop of Paddy left in the kitchen cupboard. Sláinte!

"And we drank a health to old Ireland, and Paddy's green shamrock shore"

A wee post ...

At Biased BBC.


Apologies for the light blogging. Quite apart from the long hours and a weekend spent laying concrete, Laban's been spending his time on the computer investigating his family tree - the most efficient way to waste time on a computer since Microsoft put Solitaire on Windows 3.0.

Four or five years back, when the 1901 Census was released, I'd paid to download the relevant pages showing my Welsh grandparents as small children (my father being a foreigner, I haven't attempted his side). When the Welsh aunts were up a week or two back, we looked at them and spent a few hours going through family history and legends, trying to remember the maiden names of various grandmothers and aunts - and I found myself using what spare time I had consulting Carmarthenshire marriage records and searching census indexes.

Unaided I got my mother's father's side back to around 1790 - then a reply to a posting to a website took it back to the 1740s. Beyond that it's time to start writing to local historians and visiting churches and the County Record Office. Doing my maternal grandmothers line now - only back to 1850 or thereabouts so plenty of work left. And a nice chap with a subscription to a genealogy site has mailed me my grandfathers WWI medal cards.

This evening I determined to post when I got home. If blogging is left too late the mental energy is lacking. And if you're too tired to blog, then why not spend another hour trying to determine if the James Roberts on the 1881 census in Lampeter is the same as David James Roberts who appears as a child in Loughor in 1861 ? The ages and birthplaces match - or did David James die, and James was somewhere else in 1861 ?

I tell you, the hours just fly by.


Laban recommends :

GENUKI - loads of links once you've found a particular area to search in. Depending on the area, you may find links to searchable census indexes from 1841 to 1901. Mostly free.

FreeBMD - Free, searchable indexes to UK births, marriages and deaths. A great site.

Familysearch - the Mormons site. For religious reasons, they need to know the names of everyone who's ever lived if they are to be saved on the Day of Judgement. Hence they have an awful lot of data. Free 1881 census search and family tree software, too - although I'm using GeneWeb.

Ancestry - the commercial big daddy. For £80 a year, access to a lot - including all UK census info - the full info, not indexes. But useful free stuff, too.

Moron Shall Speak Unto Moron

The BBC gets more educational by the day :

"The scheme follows the psychological principle of rewarding good behaviour" announced the newsreader on Radio Four's 6 pm news last night. She was explaining to the poor ignorant masses the sound science behind the new scheme to pay smackheads not to take drugs.

Drug users are to be offered vouchers for things such as gym membership and to pay utility bills to encourage them to comply with treatment programmes.

The National Treatment Agency in England is piloting the incentive scheme at 15 sites starting this week.

It will be the first time incentives have been used in such a way.

The first time, eh ? That's not what Mark Easton was reporting last year (when the incentives - wait for it - were vouchers or drugs), but no matter. Nor does it matter that the anonymous BBC editor seems to be rehashing the NTA press release.

The point is that the BBC's message just doesn't seem to be getting through. Let's take the reactions of a typical household - the Tall family of Weatherbury in Dorset, gathered round the tea table.

"The scheme follows the psychological principle of rewarding good behaviour"

All : "No it doesn't ! It rewards STOPPING bad behaviour !"

Middle : "Where's the reward for OUR good behaviour ?"

Youngest : "Dad ! Why don't you do heroin for a while, then stop ?"

Alas, despite the BBC's best efforts to share the insights granted to our betters, the Great British Public remain mired in ignorance.

Light Blogging ...

... alas. When there's so much to blog about. I'll just mention in passing that anyone looking to use the latest idiocy by the assorted bleeding hearts who make up Britain's four Children's Commissioners against Nu Lab should think again. For once I agree with Tony McNumpty about something when he describes the ideas of the English one as 'nonsense'.

The same applies to the last UN report on British children, used foolishly by some Tories as a stick to beat the Government with.

It serves the Government right, though. They appoint anti-prison pointy-heads like Anne Owers to inspect prisons then wonder why her reports are a litany of complaints. They do the same with the idiotic (or sinister) concept of the 'Children's Commissioner' then wonder why they get slapped around.

We're failing the kids alright. We could improve things by trying to create more two-parent families for starters - and stop subsidising bastardy. There are so many things. But we're not failing by banging too many bad boys up. We almost certainly don't lock enough up.

Comment Is Difficult

Here's a handy hint. If you need a cubic metre or more of concrete laid, don't mix it yourself. Even if you've got a concrete mixer. Took me from 10am to 11pm. Order a mixer load - it's well worth it in saved time !

Over at the Stroppers people were getting all lathered up about George Galloway's failure to support abortion on demand. Laban just had to add four penn'orth on the usual subject. Anyone know how many Irish came over to the mainland in the nineteenth century ? The comparison is quite an interesting one. Too many kids, strange religion, terrorist outrages - the Irish ticked all the same boxes ...

Be fair. Galloway's core constituency are very un-keen on abortion (I'm suprised there's not been an NHS campaign to encourage greater take-up of the State's termination services among the Muslim community).

And that's where the votes are. The 'revolutionary left', for want of a better word, don't reproduce much - and, not by coincidence, haven't come near to Parliamentary representation in the last 50 years - until GG, supported by the most rapidly growing demographic since perhaps the Irish in the nineteenth century, stepped up to the plate.

The Irish Catholics had an impact on Labour politics which lasted more than a century (and working class Catholic Labour MPs like the Mahon brothers were at the forefront of opposition to Roy Jenkins' abortion reforms). The cultural influences were also great - and although most Catholics have integrated, they still have more kids then the native English.

But when the Irish arrived, with their families of five, six or more, they were arriving into a society which also had a high birthrate. The immigrants from East and West Pakistan arrived in a country where the birthrate was collapsing as the Pill and the cultural revolution took hold. Their demographic, political and cultural impact will be at least as great as that of the Catholic Irish, and IMHO probably much greater.

GG, for all he is an opportunistic bum, is not a stupid man. He knows which side of his chapati has ghee on it.

How many divisions has the Pope ? asked Stalin. GG might well ask how many voters - and future voters - the SWP has.

The Coming Patriarchy

I've written before about the fact that those who say they care about women's equality aren't raising any daughters, let alone sons, and that Europe will be a much more religious place at the end of this century than it was at the beginning.

Via Merk Steyn, this essay by Philip Longman - The Return of Patriarchy. Read the whole thing.

Throughout the broad sweep of human history, there are many examples of people, or classes of people, who chose to avoid the costs of parenthood. Indeed, falling fertility is a recurring tendency of human civilization. Why then did humans not become extinct long ago? The short answer is patriarchy.

Patriarchy does not simply mean that men rule. Indeed, it is a particular value system that not only requires men to marry but to marry a woman of proper station. It competes with many other male visions of the good life, and for that reason alone is prone to come in cycles. Yet before it degenerates, it is a cultural regime that serves to keep birthrates high among the affluent, while also maximizing parents' investments in their children. No advanced civilization has yet learned how to endure without it.

Through a process of cultural evolution, societies that adopted this particular social system -- which involves far more than simple male domination -- maximized their population and therefore their power, whereas those that didn't were either overrun or absorbed. This cycle in human history may be obnoxious to the enlightened, but it is set to make a comeback.

"It competes with many other male visions of the good life" - not just male visions, either. I know more than a few couples, now in their fifties, still toned and honed from the gym and swimming, leading a good life - the million-pound house, the boat, skiing three or four times a year - and no children. Lucky nephews and nieces, that's all I can say - unless the Cats Protection League gets the lot.

The long-term financing of social security schemes, private pension plans, and healthcare systems has little to do with people living longer. Gains in life expectancy at older ages have actually been quite modest, and the rate of improvement in the United States has diminished for each of the last three decades. Instead, the falling ratio of workers to retirees is overwhelmingly caused by workers who were never born. As governments raise taxes on a dwindling working-age population to cover the growing burdens of supporting the elderly, young couples may conclude they are even less able to afford children than their parents were, thereby setting off a new cycle of population aging and decline.

Yup. As I've noted before, the stinky rich and the tax-funded poor can sprog away as much as they like. It's Mr and Mrs Average who've found that 2.4 kids doesn't go with a mother who needs to work full time to pay the bills.

the percentage of women born in the late 1930s who remained childless was near 10 percent. By comparison, nearly 20 percent of women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having had children. The greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society, whose members are drawn disproportionately from the feminist and countercultural movements of the 1960s and 70s, will leave no genetic legacy. Nor will their emotional or psychological influence on the next generation compare with that of their parents.

While I'm continually bemoaning the malign influence of Sixties culture on our children, the point is that the influence, while real, was almost wholly negative - destructive of the existing culture. We aren't bringing up a race of young hippie Aquarians, if the assault, knife crime and mental illness stats tell us anything at all.

Nearly a quarter of the children of baby boomers descend from the mere 11 percent of baby boomer women who had four or more children. These circumstances are leading to the emergence of a new society whose members will disproportionately be descended from parents who rejected the social tendencies that once made childlessness and small families the norm. These values include an adherence to traditional, patriarchal religion, and a strong identification with one's own folk or nation. This dynamic helps explain, for example, the gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism. Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry.

Excellent news for a father of four. But in the UK context, "parents who rejected the social tendencies that once made childlessness and small families the norm" will increasingly mean Muslim parents. Remember these stats.

white 1.8
Afro-Caribbean 1.8
Indian 2.3
Pakistani 4.0
Bangladeshi 4.7

(I noted from the coverage of the murder of poor Abdo Sa’eed al-Selwi in Liverpool that he had either 11 or 12 children - the papers didn't agree.)

In almost all the hunter-gatherer societies that survived long enough to be studied by anthropologists, such as the Eskimos and Tasmanian Bushmen, one finds customs that in one way or another discouraged population growth. In various combinations, these have included late marriage, genital mutilation, abortion, and infanticide. Some early hunter-gatherer societies may have also limited population growth by giving women high-status positions. Allowing at least some number of females to take on roles such as priestess, sorcerer, oracle, artist, and even warrior would have provided meaningful alternatives to motherhood and thereby reduced overall fertility to within sustainable limits.

During the eons before agriculture emerged, there was little or no military reason to promote high fertility. War and conquests could bring little advantage to society. There were no granaries to raid, no livestock to steal, no use for slaves except rape. But with the coming of the Neolithic agricultural revolution, starting about 11,000 years ago, everything changed. The domestication of plants and animals led to vastly increased food supplies. Surplus food allowed cities to emerge, and freed more people to work on projects such as building pyramids and developing a written language to record history. But the most fateful change rendered by the agricultural revolution was the way it turned population into power. Because of the relative abundance of food, more and more societies discovered that the greatest demographic threat to their survival was no longer overpopulation, but underpopulation.

Interesting - this is almost a parallel to - and explanation for - the otherwise ahistorical feminist/hippie theory that we were much more matriarchal until a few thousand years back. "And we've got to get ourselves back to the Garden" as One-Child Joni sang.

Patriarchal societies come in many varieties and evolve through different stages. What they have in common are customs and attitudes that collectively serve to maximize fertility and parental investment in the next generation. Of these, among the most important is the stigmatization of "illegitimate" children. One measure of the degree to which patriarchy has diminished in advanced societies is the growing acceptance of out-of-wedlock births, which have now become the norm in Scandinavian countries, for example.

Under patriarchy, "bastards" and single mothers cannot be tolerated because they undermine male investment in the next generation. Illegitimate children do not take their fathers' name, and so their fathers, even if known, tend not to take any responsibility for them. By contrast, "legitimate" children become a source of either honor or shame to their fathers and the family line. The notion that legitimate children belong to their fathers' family, and not to their mothers', which has no basis in biology, gives many men powerful emotional reasons to want children, and to want their children to succeed in passing on their legacy. Patriarchy also leads men to keep having children until they produce at least one son.

Another key to patriarchy's evolutionary advantage is the way it penalizes women who do not marry and have children. Just decades ago in the English-speaking world, such women were referred to, even by their own mothers, as spinsters or old maids, to be pitied for their barrenness or condemned for their selfishness. Patriarchy made the incentive of taking a husband and becoming a full-time mother very high because it offered women few desirable alternatives ...

Under patriarchy, maternal investment in children also increases. As feminist economist Nancy Folbre has observed, "Patriarchal control over women tends to increase their specialization in reproductive labor, with important consequences for both the quantity and the quality of their investments in the next generation." Those consequences arguably include: more children receiving more attention from their mothers, who, having few other ways of finding meaning in their lives, become more skilled at keeping their children safe and healthy. Without implying any endorsement for the strategy, one must observe that a society that presents women with essentially three options -- be a nun, be a prostitute, or marry a man and bear children -- has stumbled upon a highly effective way to reduce the risk of demographic decline.

Another Laban theme - the normalisation of bastardy. However, far from not being encouraged, the production of bastards is one of the most heavily taxpayer-subsidised industries in the UK - and contrary to received libertarian economic theory, production has increased something like eight-fold in the last 40 years, making bastards a real British success story. I'm not sure Prof Longman has taken this into account - but on the other hand, underclass males are the storm-troopers of patriarchy (parental advisory) in their relationships with the tender sex. In Robert Whelan's words :

"We have created the classic conditions for the emergence of a warrior class: separation of economic activity from family maintenance; children reared apart from fathers; wealth subject to predation; and male status determined by combat and sexual conquest."

I digress.

Often, all that sustains the patriarchal family is the idea that its members are upholding the honor of a long and noble line. Yet, once a society grows cosmopolitan, fast-paced, and filled with new ideas, new peoples, and new luxuries, this sense of honor and connection to one's ancestors begins to fade, and with it, any sense of the necessity of reproduction. "When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard 'having children' as a question of pro's and con's," Oswald Spengler, the German historian and philosopher, once observed, "the great turning point has come."

Yet that turning point does not necessarily mean the death of a civilization, only its transformation. Eventually, for example, the sterile, secular, noble families of imperial Rome died off, and with them, their ancestors' idea of Rome. But what was once the Roman Empire remained populated. Only the composition of the population changed. Nearly by default, it became composed of new, highly patriarchal family units, hostile to the secular world and enjoined by faith either to go forth and multiply or join a monastery. With these changes came a feudal Europe, but not the end of Europe, nor the end of Western Civilization.

This is where the whole thing gets a bit too optimistic.

In Europe today, for example, how many children different people have, and under what circumstances, correlates strongly with their beliefs on a wide range of political and cultural attitudes. For instance, do you distrust the army? Then, according to polling data assembled by demographers Ronny Lesthaeghe and Johan Surkyn, you are less likely to be married and have kids-or ever to get married and have kids-than those who say they have no objection to the military. Or again, do you find soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia acceptable? Do you seldom, if ever, attend church? For whatever reason, people answering affirmatively to such questions are far more likely to live alone, or in childless, cohabitating unions, than those who answer negatively.

The great difference in fertility rates between secular individualists and religious or cultural conservatives augurs a vast, demographically driven change in modern societies. Consider the demographics of France, for example. Among French women born in the early 1960s, less than a third have three or more children. But this distinct minority of French women (most of them presumably practicing Catholics and Muslims) produced more than 50 percent of all children born to their generation, in large measure because so many of their contemporaries had one child or none at all.

Many childless, middle-aged people may regret the life choices that are leading to the extinction of their family lines, and yet they have no sons or daughters with whom to share their newfound wisdom. The plurality of citizens who have only one child may be able to invest lavishly in that child's education, but a single child will only replace one parent, not both. Meanwhile, the descendants of parents who have three or more children will be hugely overrepresented in subsequent generations, and so will the values and ideas that led their parents to have large families.

Yes.. but .. in Europe lets say you have the nice liberal Guardianista/feminists and those good-timers who can't be fagged with the whole children thing - no kids, the religious natives and the native underclass - 3 kids - and the religious incomers - 4 kids. Given that natives are in the UK currently nearly 90% of the population (but less than 77% of the children), the die-off of the childless baby boomers is going to leave a different landscape, in which (IMHO) the religious incomers will make a far more cohesive group, and probably a larger one, than the religious natives.

Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society. To be sure, some members of the rising generation may reject their parents' values, as always happens. But when they look around for fellow secularists and counterculturalists with whom to make common cause, they will find that most of their wouldbe fellow travelers were quite literally never born.

I agree. I'm just not sure that the "narrow and culturally conservative segment of society" will be crusty Laban-style Christians.

The rollback of the welfare state forced by population aging and decline will give these elements an additional survival advantage, and therefore spur even higher fertility. As governments hand back functions they once appropriated from the family, notably support in old age, people will find that they need more children to insure their golden years, and they will seek to bind their children to them through inculcating traditional religious values akin to the Bible's injunction to honor thy mother and father.

Societies that are today the most secular and the most generous with their underfunded welfare states will be the most prone to religious revivals and a rebirth of the patriarchal family.

That's the rub. How will people who've paid taxes all their lives respond when they're told that the old social contract has been torn up ? But I still see that people with a living tradition of family self-help are likely to cope better with such a scenario than those who've been conditioned to wait for 'someone' to 'do something'. The Lord does indeed help those who help themselves.

As not seen on the BBC ....

The Beeb lovingly treasures every Bushism.

You won't find Justin Webb salivating over Barack Obama's Memorial Day opening line :

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honours its unbroken line of fallen heroes - and I see many of them in the audience here today ..."

Looks as if he really does reach out to communities with little history of political involvement.

New Stink-bomb Horror ?

BBC

Prosecutor Peter Wright QC said Mr Ali had been planning to "reek carnage" in the skies on the orders of al-Qaeda.

A Few Fox Cubs In The Curate's Coppice

Education, Education, Penetration

Two teenage boys have been arrested by police investigating allegations that a fellow pupil was repeatedly raped at their school in Birmingham, it emerged today. The 14 and 15-year-olds were quizzed by police earlier this month after the sex assault allegations came to light.

The alleged attacks on a 15-year-old girl are understood to have happened at the city school between January and April this year. However, officers were only called in recently when the youngster reported the matter to police. Detectives from Rose Road police station detained the boys on May 13. They were questioned and later released on police bail pending further inquiries. The alleged victim and the two boys all go to the same school in central Birmingham.

More transgressive types who aren't so transgressive after all :

Desperate to flaunt their "bravery" with their controversial depictions of Jews suffering in concentration camps and highly sexualised images of children, the artists Jake and Dinos Chapman have admitted to Mandrake that there is one subject area that remains off-limits.

Jake says they would not be prepared to touch Islam.

"It’s a very difficult and sensitive issue and we wouldn’t see it in our remit," he said at the private view of If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be at the White Cube gallery.

Ban Bandanas

Four Birmingham teenagers who police claimed were part of a notorious gang have been banned from wearing bandanas in the colours of the city's Slash Crew. They were given two year ASBOs after the gang carried out a string of robberies on school-children across the city and attacked bystanders at Star City in a six-month reign of terror.

Micah Bailey, 17, of Porchester Drive, Newtown, Neon Stewart, 16, of Hawkesyard Road, Erdington and Remaine Dixon, 15, of Bennetts Street, Lozells, appeared at Birmingham Magistrates' Court yesterday. They were told they couldn't wear a mask or other garment that held "street currency". District Judge Neil Davison, also ordered them, along with the absent Anthony Harris, 17, of Wheeler Street, Newtown, not to meet in public or commit further anti-social behaviour acts.

At a hearing in January, PC Gary Ellis said: "It is believed they are part of the B19 Slash gang, which is a sub-section of the Slash Crew - a large organisation supported by groups of gangs that also associate themselves with the notorious Johnson Crew."

Dewsbury MP Shahid Malik's libel case against the local Dewsbury Press has been dropped after a jury failed to agree in the first trial.




The Guardian's Larry Elliott was in prophetic mood on October 1, 2007 :

"Go for that early election, Gordon, this is as good as the economy is going to get"

Talking of which , a lot of people seem to be recommending this book - David Craig's "Squandered". Just the thing for Tax Freedom Day, which falls today.




It was in Private Eye first, Guido's commenters have added a few names - the Guardianista ruling elite :

Editor Alan Rusbridger (Cranleigh); political editor Patrick Wintour (Westminster); leader writer Madeleine Bunting (Queen Mary's, Yorkshire); policy editor Jonathan Freedland (University College School); columnist Polly Toynbee (Badminton), sent the kids to Westminster; executive editor Ian Katz (University College School); security affairs editor Richard Norton Taylor (King's School, Canterbury); arts editor-in-chief Clare Margetson (Marlborough College); literary editor Clare Armitstead (Bedales); public services editor David Brindle (Bablake); city editor Julia Finch (King's High, Warwick).; environment editor John Vidal (St Bees); fashion editor Jess Cartner-Morley (City of london School for Girls); G3 editor Janine Gibson (Walthamstow Hall); northern editor Martin Wainwright (Shreswbury); and industrial editor David Gow (St Peter's, York), Seumas Milne (Winchester College), the Observer's Andrew Rawnsley - Rugby School and Cambridge University, columnist Zoe Williams (Godolphin and Latymer).

Who killed Amar Aslam ? I wonder if the villains will turn out be related to this crowd ? The old Heavy Woollen District really does seem a rough place :

The 42-year-old woman, who has asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: "I was driving through the centre of Heckmondwike and I saw a gang of about 15 to 20 youths chasing a man. Suddenly he jumped into my car and said 'drive', but as he did I took my foot off the clutch and stalled. It's a diesel so it takes a while to get it started again, but then the youths came and surrounded the car. They threw bricks through the front and back windscreens and side windows, started kicking it and tore both of the wing mirrors off. I was scared. I didn't know anything about what had happened to provoke this and I thought, 'what have I done, I've just pulled up at the lights'!"

She said the group came from the direction of Firth Park towards the Northgate traffic lights. The woman was on her way to collect her son from Ravensthorpe when the incident happened at about 8pm on Monday May 5. Mechanics said the six-and-a-half year old red Saxo was not economically viable to repair.

The woman, who lives in Heckmondwike, said: "I thought the gang were going to beat the guy up and I'd never want to see anyone get hurt, so I'm glad that didn't happen. But he's fine and I've been left without a car and am £350 down."

New BNP shock horror. Is there no end to their evil ?

“I am very concerned about the spate of anti-semitic graffiti in the Hackney area,” Abbott told the Jewish News on Tuesday. “This is very threatening and disturbing for the whole community. Sadly we’ve recently seen a member of the BNP elected onto the Greater London Assembly. This proves the need to fight back against racism and anti-semitism.”

The anti-semitic graffiti in question ?

“Jihad to Israel” was among the messages left on walls, paving stones, phone boxes and dustbin lids in a spate of attacks last week. The Community Security Trust believes there were at least 20 separate incidents, including eight reported in Stamford Hill, home to a large community of Orthodox Jews. Graffiti was also reported in Clapton Common, Bethnal Green, Walthamstow and Forest Gate.

The Italian experience of immigration and crime :

Italy’s statistics agency, ISTAT, fanned the fires of anti-immigrant feeling yesterday by releasing numbers showing that immigrants are responsible for more than a third of the murders committed last year.

ISTAT said foreigners had committed 70 per cent of all petty theft, 39 per cent of the sexual offences and 36 per cent of the murders.

The damning figures confirmed the opinion of almost half the country that immigrants are “dishonest”. However, ISTAT also noted that many of the crimes committed by foreigners were against other foreigners.

And a British one :

Cambridgeshire police has paid for 50 of its staff to attend language schools because dealing with foreign suspects takes up to three times longer than dealing with British cases. The trend is further evidence of mounting pressure placed on the police by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants since the European Union expanded four years ago.

Last month Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, was told by senior officers that the bill for police translators alone had soared from £14m to £24m from 2004-6.

Julie Spence, chief constable of Cambridgeshire, warned last week that the arrival of hundreds of thousands of eastern Europeans in the county, mainly for agricultural work, had left her own force underresourced and could spark “civil unrest” as the economic slowdown bites.

Arresting and processing a British suspect takes four to five hours. “With a foreign national you may have to bring in an interpreter and have documents translated – that clogs everything up,” Spence said. “As a result, it can take an officer the whole shift plus overtime to get it done. That means you don’t have your policemen out on the streets doing what they were four years ago.”

More BNP outrages - falling onto a neigbour's knife in an act of unprovoked suicide. I've got no idea what the history was between the victim and the killer, and whether the deceased, Keith Brown, subjected Mr Khan to years of abuse or not. But given the political climate of the last ten or more years, and the vilification of the BNP to the point where BBC comedians can joke about shooting them or duffing them up, Mr Khan's solicitor would have been a saint not to have used the 'racist abuse' defence, just as female poisoners use the 'domestic abuse' defence. And it worked for both parties - Mr Khan got manslaughter and our lady poisoner, a former NHS cook, walked free.




The mighty Yazza once again invokes the blessed shade of the late Mary Whitehouse :

Progressives are expected, indeed required, to deride and detest the old crone, and I duly do so here. But I also sense a weakening of the old certainty that we were absolutely right and that she was a wholly malevolent force. The new film, Filth, is, according to Robertson, "an amusing reminder of that age when 'you've got to admit Mrs Whitehouse is right about some things' briefly entered the language."

Have I got news for him. In liberal circles today, that same sentiment is expressed, and without embarrassment. Julie Walters, who plays Mrs W in the drama, is one of the self-doubters: "I think we should have understood her better. She did have a point ... much as I support freedom of expression, I believe children should be protected from things they are not emotionally equipped to deal with. And it was Mary Whitehouse who first campaigned against child pornography."

No one is more intolerant of dissent than the prophets of free speech. Whitehouse dared to take them on and, even though I find many of her views utterly objectionable, she was right to do so and right too to warn of the chaos and bedlam to come.

Yazza, the Daily Mail is your destiny. Don't fight it .. you know you want to ...

Ross at Unenlightened Commentary has an amusing piece on the Yazztastic one.


Via the Speccie, this wonderful Times of India piece on papers and politics :

In the UK, for instance, Conservatives read the Daily Telegraph, which is tailor-made for them, news, editorials and all. The Guardian, on the other hand, is far to the left of not just the Tories but also of New Labour, the paper's constituency seemingly that of the 'Londonistan' of mullahs and minarets. The Guardian used to be called the Manchester Guardian; today it might well be called, by fans and foes alike, the Madrassa Guardian.

Remember all those uninsured drivers in Bradford ?

The BD8 area, which covers Girlington, Manningham and Lower Grange, is the second worst in West Yorkshire, with 42.7 per cent of vehicles uninsured.

I remember thinking how many CCTV cameras there are in Bradford (the killers of PC Sharon Beshenivsky were being tracked within minutes of her shooting) and that therefore someone must have taken a decision not to go after uninsured drivers, doubtless for reasons of "community cohesion".

Alas when Rita Turner was born in the 1920s how could she have known that such decisions would kill her ?

Banned driver Imran Khan was at the wheel of a Vauxhall Astra when it hit 79-year-old grandmother Rita Turner, from Idle, on Drewton Road between Westgate and Manningham Lane, at 2.40pm on May 23 last year.

Mrs Turner, a grandmother and mother of two sons, died at the scene from her injuries and the usually busy road between Westgate and Manningham Lane was cordoned off for several hours. Police launched a hunt for the car, using footage from Bradford's "ring of steel" CCTV system, and appealed for witnesses to help them in their search.

The vehicle was eventually found in Manningham and subjected to forensic testing. It had suffered extensive damage to the windscreen and front end.

Khan, 21, who was uninsured, failed to stop at the scene of the collision and, at an earlier hearing, he and a co-accused admitted a charge of perverting the course of justice by concealing the Astra and throwing away the keys.

And finally ... one of those little stories which just don't seem to make the BBC.

A teenager has been charged with attempted murder following a disturbance in which another 17-year-old boy received head injuries in Rochdale.

Police were called to Denehurst Park in Greave after reports of a disturbance involving two groups of youths at about 9pm on Friday 23 May.

Police believe a group of about 12 white youths were attacked by a group of seven or eight Asian youths.

During the disturbance, a 17-year-old white boy was assaulted and sustained head injuries resulting in bleeding on the brain that required emergency surgery. He was taken to Hope Hospital where his condition is currently described as comfortable.

Extra patrols were placed in the Greave area over the bank holiday weekend to provide extra reassurance to residents (i.e. to prevent reprisal and counter-reprisal - LT).

A 17-year-old boy from Rochdale was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and subsequently charged. He appeared before Rochdale magistrates today (Wednesday) , where he was remanded in custody until next Wednesday (4 June).

The arrest and subsequent charge was the result of detailed information provided by witnesses and inquiries are on-going.

Another Innocent Woman Jailed

Poor Joanne Hussey - a tragic victim of Brown's insistence that the English pay their care-home fees, while the Scots have theirs subsidised by general taxation.

A young woman who battered her grandmother to death with a spade has been found guilty of murder. Joanne Hussey had admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. But a jury at Leeds Crown Court took just over an hour to decide the 33-year-old had murdered Annie Garbutt at her Mirfield home last May.A police chief said later that greed had sparked Hussey into killing her 76-year-old grandmother. Worried that her gran’s money might be spent on nursing care, she repeatedly struck Annie Garbutt as she slept.

The two-week trial heard that Hussey, from Yeadon, had a history of violence, once stabbing a former partner. She had been worried about the financial implications of Mrs Garbutt going into a nursing home. Mrs Garbutt, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, was said to have had considerable savings.

If Mrs Garbutt had been fortunate enough to live in Scotland, she'd be alive today. I blame Gordon Brown.

Oops !

Sunny's having a pop at Bishop Nazir Ali and the massed ranks of Christian fundamentalists like, er, Melanie Phillips.

I’m writing a longer article on how crap Nazir Ali’s article in Standpoint is, but there’s no surprise that the usual suspects on the right are getting a hard-on over it. The thing is, Nazir Ali’s point was actually made by Melanie Phillips ages ago and it was taken apart then. After all, it wasn’t long when she asked in all seriousness: “How long will it be before Christianity becomes illegal in Britain?”

A good question ...

A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham.
The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year. Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have launched legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming the officer infringed their right to profess their religion.

Mr Abraham said: "I couldn't believe this was happening in Britain. The Bishop of Rochester was criticised by the Church of England recently when he said there were no-go areas in Britain but he was right; there are certainly no-go areas for Christians who want to share the gospel." Last night, Christian campaigners described the officer's behaviour as "deeply alarming".

The preachers, both ministers in Birmingham, were handing out leaflets on Alum Rock Road in February when they started talking to four Asian youths. A police community support officer (PCSO) interrupted the conversation and began questioning the ministers about their beliefs. They said when the officer realised they were American, although both have lived in Britain for many years, he launched a tirade against President Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Cunningham said: "I told him that this had nothing to do with the gospel we were preaching but he became very aggressive. He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

The preacher refused to give the PCSO his address because he felt the officer's manner was "threatening and intimidating". The ministers claim he also advised them not to return to the area. As he walked away, the PCSO said: "You have been warned. If you come back here and get beaten up, well you have been warned".

West Midlands Police, who refused to apologise, said the incident had been "fully investigated" and the officer would be given training in understanding hate crime and communication.

Not that I think Christianity will be made illegal. It'll still be OK to "be" a Christian - as long as you don't "live" like one.


(see also this)

Church of England showing traces of Christianity shock

From last week's editorial in the Church of England newspaper :

If recent reports of trends in religious observance prove to be correct, then in some 30 years the mosque will be able to claim that, religiously speaking, the UK is an Islamic nation, and therefore needs a share in any religious establishment to reflect this. The progress of conservative Islam in the UK has been amazing, and it has come at a time of prolonged decline in church attendance that seems likely to continue.

This progress has been enthusiastically assisted by this government in particular with its hard-line multi-cultural dogma and willingness to concede to virtually every demand made by Muslims.

At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departs national and local. A Muslim Home Office adviser, for example, was responsible for Baroness Scotland’s aborting of the legislation against honour killings, arguing that informal methods would be better. In the police we hear of girls under police protection having the addresses of their safe houses disclosed to their parents by Muslim officers who think they are doing their religious duty.

While men-only gentlemen’s clubs are now being dubbed unlawful, we hear of municipal swimming baths encouraging ‘Muslim women only’ sessions and in Dewsbury Hospitals staff waste time by turning beds to face Mecca five times a day — a Monty Pythonesque scenario of lunacy, but astonishingly true. Prisons are replete with imams who are keen to inculcate conservative Islam in any inmates who are deemed to be culturally ‘Muslim’: the Prison service in effect treats such prisoners as a cultural block to be preached to by imams at will. Would the Prison service send all those with ‘C of E’ on their papers to confirmation classes with the chaplain?! We could go on.

The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates. Charles Taylor’s new and classic work on the Secular Age charts the rise of the secular mindset and what he calls the ‘excarnation’ of Christianity as it is levered out of state policy and structures. Christianity is now regarded as bad news, the liberal elite’s attack developed in the 1960s took root in the educationalist empire, and to some extent even in areas of the church.

Today the Christian story is fading from public imagination, while Islam grows apace.

I've been saying for ages that nature abhors a spiritual or cultural vacuum.

The decline of Christian values is destroying Britishness and has created a "moral vacuum" which radical Islam is filling, one of the Church of England's leading bishops has warned. The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, claimed the "social and sexual" revolution of the 1960s had led to a steep decline in the influence of Christianity over society which church leaders had failed to resist. He said that in its place, Britain had become gripped by the doctrine of "endless self-indulgence" which had led to the destruction of family life, rising levels of drug abuse and drunkenness and mindless violence on the streets.

The bishop warns that the modern politicians' catchphrases of respect and tolerance will not be strong enough to prevent this collapse of traditional virtues, and said radical Islam is now moving in to fill the void created by the decline of Christianity.

His claims, in an article published in the new political magazine Standpoint, come just days after he accused the Church of England of failing in its duty to convert British Muslims to Christianity.

Dr Nazir-Ali claims in the new article that Britain, previously a "rabble of mutually hostile tribes", would never have become a global empire without the arrival of Christianity. But he said the Church's influence began to wane during the 1960s, and quotes an academic who blames the loss of "faith and piety among women" for the steep decline in Christian worship. He says Marxist students encouraged a "social and sexual revolution" to which liberal theologians and Church leaders "all but capitulated". "It is this situation that has created the moral and spiritual vacuum in which we now find ourselves. While the Christian consensus was dissolved, nothing else, except perhaps endless self-indulgence, was put in its place."

Yup. The cultural revolution did a great job on the old culture, but forgot to replace it with a new one.

The bishop, who faced death threats earlier this year when he said some parts of Britain had become "no-go areas" for non-Muslims, said Marxism has been exposed as a nonsense but went on: "We are now confronted by another equally serious ideology, that of radical Islamism, which also claims to be comprehensive in scope." Asking what weapons are available to fight this new "ideological battle", the bishop said the values trumpeted by modern politicians such as "respect, tolerance and good behaviour" are "hardly adequate for the task before us".

You've got it. No-one's going to the barricades for "tolerance".

"The consequences of the loss of this discourse are there for all to see: the destruction of the family because of the alleged parity of different forms of life together; the loss of a father figure, especially for boys, because the role of fathers is deemed otiose; the abuse of substances (including alcohol); the loss of respect for the human person leading to horrendous and mindless attacks on people."

The bishop added that Christian hospitality has been replaced by the "newfangled and insecurely founded" doctrine of multiculturalism, which has led to immigrants creating "segregated communities and parallel lives".

He said many values respected by society, such as the dignity of human life, equality and freedom, are based on Christian ones. But he warned that without their Christian backbone they cannot exist for ever, and that new belief systems may be based on different values.

"Radical Islamism, for example, will emphasise the solidarity of the umma (worldwide community of the Muslim faithful) against the freedom of the individual. Instead of the Christian virtues of humility, service and sacrifice, there may be honour, piety and the importance of 'saving face'."

In an implicit criticism of the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent claim that the adoption of some parts of Islamic law is unavoidable, Dr Nazir-Ali said: "Recognising its jurisdiction in terms of public law is fraught with difficulties precisely because it arises from a different set of assumptions from the tradition of law here." He said that the Church of England must retain its importance in public life even if it does not remain privileged as the established church.

"It is necessary to understand where we have come from, to guide us to where we are going, and to bring us back when we wander too far from the path of national destiny."

It's funny how immigrants like the good Bishop, his colleague John Sentamu and Joel Edwards seem to have a better handle on what's happening than native Churchmen.

Parliament of Whores

Plans to eliminate Eurosceptics as an organised opposition within the European Parliament are expected to be agreed by a majority of MEPs this summer. They will vote to change the rules governing the political groupings formed by MEPs, which can be eligible for lavish funding. Current rules allow 20 MEPs from a fifth of the EU's member states to form a grouping, giving them a say in the parliament's administration and power structure. Under the changes, the threshold would become 30 MEPs from one quarter of the EU's member states.

Richard Corbett, a British Labour MEP, is leading the campaign to cut the number of groups in the Parliament next year.

The move would dissolve the pan-European Eurosceptic "Independence and Democracy" grouping, which includes the UK Independence Party. The result would be that the largest and pro-EU groups would tighten their grip on the parliament's political agenda. "It would prevent single-issue politicians from being given undue support from the public purse," said Mr Corbett. His proposals would also give the president of the parliament sweeping powers to approve or reject parliamentary questions.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UKIP, said that the move went hand in hand with the denial of popular votes on the new EU Treaty. "Welcome to your future. This shows an EU mindset that is arrogant, anti-democratic and frankly scary," he said.

The Liberal Democrats, Greens, the far Left, Eurosceptics and other groupings have vowed to oppose the plans during a vote scheduled for July 9. But the proposals are expected to be passed with the backing of the parliament's centre-Left and Right groupings, which account for 64 per cent of MEPs, including British Conservative and Labour members.

The taxpayer money saved from the clutches of the Eurosceptics will then be available to fund more stuff like this :

Lipdub Europe United par les Jeunes Européens - France
by JeunesEuropeensFrance

To think our young men died in the hundreds of thousands for these people. I think a quote from A.G. MacDonnell's "England Their England" is in order. Our hero is in a country pub in the late Twenties :

"That war didn't do any of us any any good" said Mr Stillaway. "Nothing's been the same since."
"Yes, and what did we gain by it ?" asked Mr Young.
"Nothing" said Mr Davis.

Donald made a halting remark about Belgium and national honour and treaties, which the semicircle listened to attentively. Then Mr Stillaway, the impartial voter, replied :
"But can you tell me,sir, what national honour does for me ? I've worked on the land all my life, and the least I've ever earned is four-and-six a week and the most is twenty-nine shillings. It isn't a fortune, either of them. In 1914 a man comes down to the green here, and he makes a speech about just that national honour that you've been talking about. Mind you,sir, in 1914 the nation and all its honour was giving me twenty-two shillings a week and I was working seventy-eight hours a week for it. But I had to give three sons and eight grandsons to fight for the national honour. And three were killed and two lost legs. And what good did that do to them or to me or Mr Davis here or Mr Darley ? Cost of living is higher. Beer is more expensive and so is tobacco. And my grandsons, the ones that weren't killed, can't get work. And all that for what you call national honour."

"That's right." "Mr Stillaway's hit it." "That's as true as I'm sitting here." came as muttered applause.

Ancient Darley raised his venerable head once more.

"We fought on the wrong side," he whispered strongly. "Those Frenchies were never any use to us. My father saw the beacons on the downs of Sussex when Boney was on the other side. The Germans never did us any harm. It's all they Frenchies."

"Ah ! Thats right," echoed every antique voice in the parlour.

Muslims Fear Backlash Part 39287

Following the latest comedy caper of the New Wave of British Jihad (© Laban Tall 2007), the BBC have terrible news :

Police have appealed to ethnic communities to work together following a bomb blast in Exeter. The Devon Racial Equality Council has said some local Muslims have reported instances of racial harassment.

Police said while there was no specific evidence of an increase in actual incidents, they were aware of emerging tensions in local communities.

Can't say the BBC don't get the big stories. The good news is that the police don't think there was any connection between the explosion and 'any one religion'.

Ch Supt Jim Webster said some local communities were "naturally concerned" and felt they were "under the spotlight. Additional patrols have been put on the streets of Plymouth to reassure local residents.

Mr Webster, who has been meeting MPs, councillors and community leaders to discuss the situation, said the investigation into the Exeter explosion in Exeter would be a "long inquiry". He added: "Terrorism isn't the product of any one religion or community - it is a crime."

It sure is a crime, Super. Although in this case not a very serious one. Your crimes against truth may be more serious for your nation than a poorly assembled weedkiller cocktail could ever be. Although most Muslims aren't terrorist (this chap - another slightly loopy convert - seems to have been shopped by a Muslim), there can be no doubt that in the UK, the vast majority of terrorist activity is alas motivated by the name of Islam. As the latest Europol terror survey (pdf - and is an EU publication) says :

The UK reported a 30 percent increase in arrested suspects. Although no affiliation could be assigned, UK authorities estimate that, out of the 203 persons arrested in 2007, the vast majority were in relation to Islamist terrorism.

(The EU police survey divides terrorists into the following categories - Islamist/separatist/Left Wing/Right Wing/Single Issue (e.g. animal rights). In terms of arrests, the Basque separatists, with 500+ arrests, keep the police busiest, although this is concentrated in just two countries - France and Spain. The Brit police don't categorise, but if we assume 75% as "the vast majority", the UK turns out to be the primary focus of Islamist terror in Europe, as measured by arrests.)

Doubtless our heroic police politico is following guidance from above. Our rulers are afraid. They are afraid. Fear is a very poor foundation for negotiation or action - especially in a situation where your strength is failing and your opponent's strength is increasing. If they cannot look the truth in the face now, for fear of 'the community', demographically heavy with fighting-age males, what will they not overlook when that community has doubled in size, only a few years from now ?

In the shorter term, the good news is that the NWOBJ seems to be keeping up the comedy competence of its illustrious predecessors :

A prisoner has pleaded guilty to making threats to blow up one of Europe's largest shopping centres with three limousines packed with explosives. Saeed Ghafoor, 33, of Southampton, made the threat to a prison officer while at HMP Haverigg in Cumbria on 7 February.

The former English teacher appeared via video-link at the Old Bailey charged with threatening to cause criminal damage at Bluewater in Kent. The court was told Ghafoor thought the shopping centre was in Exeter.

(For other BBC backlash fears, see here and here.)

Redditch ...

I was visiting the sick yesterday, and revisiting old haunts- up the M5 to Bromsgrove and along the old main road (now replaced by a hideous dual carriageway) through Finstall to Redditch, over the canal at Tardebigge. The Alexandra Hospital is where my mother was subject to unpleasant nursing care - not by all her nurses but a significant minority of the night shift - in her final months.

Parking's now £2.50 a throw - bad news if you're a pensioner visiting twice a day. It was about 80p five years back. The English NHS may not be able to afford drugs, but there's a new automated ticketing and barrier system for parking.

"Of course we don't pay at home" said my Welsh aunts.

On the way back I called in at Redditch's giant B&Q, built on the former site of a battery factory. There was a new construction on the roundabout. I wonder where the idea of naming the road after the founder of Pakistan came from ?



"Looks like a mosque" thought I. And it is. I don't know whether the application for lottery funding was successful, but it still needs a bit of money to make it look like this :



Well blow me down. The old place has certainly changed a lot since the early 60s. Prior to the building of the New Town it was a little market town, dominated by its church, and famed for its carnival - an annual childhood treat.

Which brings me, by a roundabout route, to this :

Prison officers at one of Britain's maximum security jails are losing control to Muslim gangs, according to a confidential report obtained by The Observer. An internal review of Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire warns that staff believe a 'serious incident is imminent' as several wings become dominated by Muslim prisoners.

The report, written by the Prison Service's Directorate of High Security, says there is an 'ongoing theme of fear and instability' among staff at Whitemoor, where just under a third of the 500 prisoners are Muslim.

It claims: 'There was much talk around the establishment about "the Muslims". Some staff perceived the situation at Whitemoor had resulted in Muslim prisoners becoming more of a gang than a religious group. The sheer numbers, coupled with a lack of awareness among staff, appeared to be engendering fear and handing control to the prisoners.' The situation has become so acute that white prisoners are routinely warned about the Muslim gangs by staff on arrival.

Now what we're seeing here isn't some great Islamic conspiracy. It's just what happens when a self-confident, expanding culture meets a cultural vacuum. Most prisons are already run by the forbearance of the prisoners. The addition of a strong bond between some of the prisoners simply ups that pressure and gives them extra clout.

Did I say a cultural vacuum ? Can a vacuum cringe ?

The report says that apprehension about Muslim prisoners has potentially damaging consequences and is in danger of 'leading to hostility and Islamophobia'.

You have to smile at that point. Apparently the problem is not the gangs, but the potential reaction of the evil natives. We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

"a useful tool of cultural dismantlement"

Dalrymple on mass immigration, multicult, and the differences between the Muslims of France and the UK. France has its national myth, which the 68ers were unable (indeed they mostly did not wish) to destroy. In the UK, by contrast, the deconstruction of Britishness has been triumphantly successful :

Muslims in France also are much less distinguishable from the rest of the population by their mode of dress than is the case with their counterparts in Britain. In the Muslim areas in France, you may notice something different about the people, but you do not think, as increasingly you do in Britain, that the population of the North-West Frontier has moved en masse to the inner cities or suburbs. And this greater cultural assimilation is true notwithstanding the fact that Muslim areas in France, unlike those in Britain, are as physically separate from many of the towns and cities as the black townships were from the white cities of South Africa. There is another major difference between the Muslim areas of France and Britain, however: this time, to Britain’s advantage. The relative ease of starting a business in Britain by comparison with heavily regulated France means that small businesses dominate Britain’s Muslim neighborhoods, whereas there are none in the banlieues of France—unless you count open drug dealing as a business.

Yet the UK's liberal economics, while detested by the left, have enabled immigrants to succeed economically :

In France, the children of Muslim immigrants may not be as alienated from mainstream culture as are those in Britain; but the inflexibility of the French labor market results in a long-term unemployment that embitters them. In Britain, by contrast, relative economic success has not led to cultural integration: so you have riots in France and terrorism in Britain.

while remaining culturally separate :

The British notion that economic opportunity without a shared culture will result in a flourishing society is whistling in the wind; while the French idea that it is enough to teach Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity while obstructing the possibility of real economic advancement is asking for trouble.

Of course, the separation may not matter if not integration, but colonisation, is the outcome :

Migration figures for the country as a whole—emigration and immigration—suggest that its population is undergoing swift replacement. Many of the newcomers are from Pakistan, India, and Africa; others are from Eastern Europe and China. If present trends continue, experts predict, in 20 years’ time, between a quarter and a third of the British population will have been born outside it, and at least a fifth of the native population will have emigrated. Britain has always had immigrants—from the French Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to Germans fleeing Prussian repression, from Jews escaping czarist oppression to Italian prisoners of war who stayed on after World War II—and absorbed them. But never so many, or so quickly.

Which brings me to this, from Birmingham :

More than £40 million is to be spent on ensuring a "brighter future" for Birmingham's growing population of children and young adults.

The city is looking to provide greater investment in support for children at an early age and in preventative work to reduce the number of young people getting into trouble or developing more complex needs later on.

The initiative which goes before councillors on the cabinet procurement committee on Wednesday, aims to transform services for young people and families across the city.

The proposal to invest £41.7 million in redesigning children's services follows the approval of a Brighter Futures strategy earlier this year, developed by all agencies working with children in the city.

Outcomes were agreed around the areas of physical health, behaviour, emotional health, social skills, numeracy and literacy, and preparation for adulthood.

Coun Lawrence added: "If we can get these things right then our youngsters will achieve high standards in school which will prepare them for adult life.

"We have agreed on the most important aims for our children, such as being happy, intelligent, healthy, sociable and skilled for employment.

"The idea is to invest heavily now in order to reduce demand for services later."

Ah yes - the Danegeld theory of crime again. Spend enough money on them, and they won't be criminals. And the idea that you can improve levels of happiness or intelligence by spending cash on social workers ... remember, Brum is not Labour-controlled - it's a Con-Lib Dem coalition. But it's this bit - remember Birmingham is Britain's second city :

This is in anticipation of future pressures resulting from Birmingham's population already being the youngest of any major European city.

Already some 37 per cent of the city's population is under 25 and the average age is continuing to fall. The number of under 19 year olds is expected to reach almost 300,000 within the next decade.

Coun Les Lawrence, cabinet member for children, young people and families, said: "We want Birmingham to be the best place for children to grow up in. That means thinking ahead and not being afraid of some radical changes."

37% under 25 ! There really will be no need for integration at this rate, any more than a modern arrival in Australia needs to integrate to Aboriginal culture.

Great News for Cameron

Senior Labour figures have rallied around Gordon Brown following the party's crushing defeat in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election.

The agony will be long drawn. I listened to Brown on the radio yesterday. He simply hasn't got what it takes. It's tragic, but given what he's done I have to repress the urge to feel sorry for him.

It is always a bad sign when your opponents regard your leader as their greatest propaganda weapon.

Soggy Trimmings From The Curate's Hedge

(Thank heaven I got the grass done yesterday ...) .. a few snippets from Brum this wet Sunday morning.

Yet more allegations of postal vote fraud.

The West Midlands Police economic crime unit is in the middle of a bitter postal vote fraud row between Liberal Democrat and Labour rivals in the Aston ward. The row surrounds allegations of intimidation of voters, candidates handling ballot papers and impersonation of voters in the hotly contested Aston ward.

The Liberal Democrat Cabinet member Coun Ayoub Khan successfully defended his seat with a 352 vote majority. In a tit-for-tat row both sides are hurling accusations of vote rigging and smear campaigns and each has referred cases to police. There is a history of controversy in Aston going back to the 2004 election when two Labour councillors were sacked for their part in the fraud.

You come to Britain from Somalia to claim asylum. You discover that the Government will give you millions of pounds to look after other asylum seekers. But even in Eden there was a serpent.

A Birmingham charity which is the biggest in the country for providing housing to asylum seekers is facing closure after losing Government contracts worth £11 million in the wake of a fraud inquiry. Astonbrook Housing Association based on Moseley Road, Highgate, is being investigated by police following allegations of misuse of public funds. The Charity Commission - a watchdog that regulates UK charities - put the association under the interim management of Birmingham accountants Baker Tilly last year. On Wednesday, 15 people were dismissed by the accountancy firm which also terminated Astonbrook’s lucrative five-year contract with the Home Office this week, effectively cutting off its income.

Last night the Astonbrook - most of whose 150 staff are Somalian - hit back claiming it had been victimised by the Charity Commission because it was a black-run charity.

Always a useful card, the old racism claim (inter alia, white working class Brummies feel that "the availability of social housing now favours new immigrants, especially Somalis, at the expense of people who were born and brought up in the UK"). Mind, I have more sympathy for their other complaint.

It also accused Baker Tilly of siphoning off £1 million in fees while overseeing its destruction and stressed no charges had been brought despite a year-long investigation.

Saeed Omar, director of Astonbrook, said: "It is the biggest charity to be run by black and ethnic minorities. We have been discriminated against. We feel the Charity Commission took our charity and gave it to someone who sucked out our money.

"They sucked out our money without doing anything. Baker Tilly ran the company for a year. Their duty was to look after the charity and preserve it until new trustees were appointed. They have destroyed the charity and nobody will speak about the £1 million they have taken".

It's a well-known phenomenon, the receiver who makes more money from the company than the creditors get. Only a million in fees ? Frankly, I stand amazed at their moderation.

“The police have become an extension of the government.”

Harriet Sergeant on law and disorder.

Violent crime carried out by children and teenagers, for example, has increased by one-third over three years. At the trial of the five teenagers accused of her husband’s murder, Helen Newlove described how police failed to do anything about local gangs despite numerous complaints from residents.

The police are clear why this is happening. Rather than concentrating on persistent and violent youth offenders, they are busy creating crime to government orders. Minor crime, a retired inspector explained, is going on all the time. Police merely “pluck something out of the air”, searching the pockets of a student for cannabis, for example, in order to detect a crime and so fulfil targets. Another officer said: “We are bringing more and more people to justice - but they are the wrong people.”

Targets also miss the point of what the public want. The Home Office judges each police force by how many crimes it detects and clears up. The public want something different. They do not want crimes happening in the first place. They believe, like Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the Metropolitan police, that “the test of police efficiency” is “the absence of crime and disorder”. It is not “the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them”.

I would be interested to know the figures for under-18s convicted of homicide each decade from say, the 1950s to the Noughties. I would guess that it's risen at a much higher rate than the general homicide rate.

I can't understand it. It must be because of Labour's punitive policies, banging up so many poor misunderstood youth when they could be spending the money on social workers. At least that's the view of former social work professor Rod 'The Master' Morgan, as expressed on the Today programme (RealAudio, 11'52" in) and the anti-punishment crusaders at the taxpayer funded Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.

Yet vast streams of dosh are targeted at poor urban yoof.

Thousands of Birmingham teenagers are set to benefit from a £6.38 million cash package for a wide range of activities from car building to sports facilities. The cash, delivered over the next three years, is aimed at increasing things for teenagers to do in a bid to keep boredom at bay and cut problems with anti-social behaviour.

The Youth Opportunity and Youth Capital funds will pay for one-off activities such as trips to museums or activity holidays.It will also fund projects such as anti-bullying schemes and car maintenance courses and even sports equipment and minibuses.

This extends a scheme which was launched in April 2006 and has already funded a total of 1,110 youth projects. Teenagers themselves are being involved in the crucial decisions, such as how and on what to spend the money.

City cabinet member for children, young people and families Coun Les Lawrence said: "The young people of Birmingham have benefited in many ways from the introduction of the Youth Opportunities and Youth Capital Funds. The huge number of supported projects and improvements that have been made to the city’s youth provision are enhancing the lives of young people, while tackling fears of anti-social behaviour."

That'll stop them committing crime ! I don't know about you, but it strikes me that doing things for kids out of fear is always going to be self-defeating. Good deeds are good - but not when motivated by what the youth might do unless ...

The initiative received full support from the city cabinet.

And this, remember, is not a Labour council. Don't expect criminal justice miracles from an incoming Tory administration just as wedded to the Danegeld theory of youth crime as any criminology lecturer.

Not that any of them believe it themselves, in their heart of hearts. After all, if it's lack of "things to do" that causes youth crime, how come only inna-city kids get the moolah ? There's a damn sight less to do out in the sticks. Ah, but they're not poor, say the liberals. Oh yes they are.

Perhaps (whisper it) there might be other factors at work :

More than 30% of the men in our prisons are from care homes, yet only 0.6% of our children have ever been in care.

Stand by for increased council tax bills. Not only are there all those non-contributory, final salary, index-linked pensions to pay for, but the bill for the Male-Female Social Engineering Act is due.

City council bosses could be landed with thousands of employment tribunal cases from staff facing salary cuts under the controversial new pay and grading system. City unions are drawing up legal claims on behalf of those members who have lost money as a result of the Single Status pay deal introduced last month.

Up to five thousand of the council's 40,000 staff have suffered pay cuts under the new contracts designed to comply with equal pay regulations. The tribunal cases are based on unfair dismissal as the unions claim old contracts were ended without consultation and new ones imposed.

Caroline Johnson, branch secretary for Unison, said: "We are preparing legal cases on behalf of those losing out." Meanwhile talks over the controversial pay and grading deal are "inching in the right direction", according to union chiefs. The council has now agreed to discuss the thorny issue of pay progession, increasing salaries with time served, which had previously not been up for negotiation.

This follows the remarkable employment tribunal rulings, since confirmed by the courts, that it's not just sufficient to pay all your carpenters the same, be they male or female, and likewise for your lollipop people. If one set of people get higher wages - lets say carpenters - and are mostly male, while another in equivalent jobs, who are mostly female, get less - then you've got sex discrimination which must be addressed.

So who decides what are 'equivalent jobs' ? Once it was done by a thing called 'the market' - if you couldn't get enough carpenters you increased wages until you filled the posts. Admittedly in council Direct Labour organisations (DLOs) this became institutionally corrupt, some people got more money than ever they'd get from a private employer, and you had to 'know someone' to get a job. Apparently a tribunal or council committee will now decide whether a cook is the same as a plumber.

This led to lots of well-paid ("male") jobs being deemed to be "equivalent" to lots of lower-paid "female" jobs. It would have cost the councils a fortune to implement and the council tax increases would be enormous - so they cut the male wages !