Category Archives: liberal bigotry

The Archers – An everyday story of age shall not wither them and implausible plot-lines simple folk

Robert Henderson

Age in Ambridge is a remarkably flexible quality.  Take Lillian Bellamy.  The character has a 40 year-old son whom she bore to her second husband when she was in her late twenties.  In real life years she would be pushing 70 and  be reduced by the depredations of age to at least a moderately sedate life and quite probably a distinctly slow one.

Not so in the Archers.  In Ambridge being in one’s eighth  decade  is no bar to conducting  sexual encounters  in a way which would be  deeply embarrassing in  a teenager.  Lillian has an affair with Paul, the half-brother of her partner, property developer cockney wide boy  Matt Crawford. This involves innumerable lovers’ tiffs, making up and some heroically unconvincing sex played out against some distinctly disturbing sound effects.

When Paul conveniently dies, Matt Crawford, takes Lillian off to Istanbul. There he becomes involved with a Russian who claims to be a property developer. After a quarrel, Lillian leaves for home while  Matt goes off to St Petersburg with the Russian. There the   supposedly hardnosed businessman hands over virtually all his capital to the Russian as an investment in a large property development. The Russian later claims he has passed the money to another Russian  who has made off with it leaving Matt broke.     Crawford, whose  age is never explicitly given but who presumably is in the same  approximate  age group as Lillian, implausibly proceeds to beat up  the young Russian who  lost or embezzled his money .

Around  the same time  as Matt is heading for Russia, Brenda Tucker, having broken up with Tom Archer, leaves  Amside, the property company in Ambridge run by Matt and Lillian. Matt persuades her to come to St Petersburg to act as his PA while he is making the property deal  which turns out to be bogus.  She has barely set foot in the place when she  finds herself the boyfriend of a billionaire Russian oligarch, Dmitri. He , remarkably for a Russian oligarch,  is young and devastatingly good looking and could have his pick of any woman he wanted. Despite this he   apparently falls head-over-heels for Brenda , who  can’t be a day under thirty and has a terminally irritating perpetually whining personality.

The story at the moment has Matt and Brenda back in London with Matt shacked up in a cheap hotel and Brenda staying in a flat owned by Dmitri. Matt is still trying to track down his money.   The Russian  who supposedly has his money has been found murdered. What next? Ambridge’s first murder as either Matt kills someone or is murdered himself?

But implausibility does not have to be such high octane stuff in Archerland .  In Ambridge age can be ignored in any number of circumstances. Joe Grundy is well into his nineties yet continues to drive his pony and trap, garden, scheme and drink copiously. Peggy Archer, approaching her nineties,  is still sticking her nose into other people’s business with the same  vigour she displayed thirty years ago; octogenarian Jill Archer still indefatigably races around organising all and sundry;  men in their sixties such as Eddie Grundy,  Neil Carter and Mike Tucker are still performing the type of heavy manual work which would be demanding of  someone in their twenties; Jennifer Aldridge, nearer 70 than sixty is hands-on  bringing  up a young  boy  (the bastard son of her husband Brian)  while  Brian,  who is older than her, is still taking his turn in the lambing shed and on the tractor and combine harvester in between arranging high pressure business deals revolving around agri-business.

As those of us at the more senior end of the age spectrum can vouch for the fact that drinking heavily becomes less and less of  a viable proposition as one moves into old age. Not so in Ambridge. It is not only Joe Grundy amongst Ambridge’s senior citizens who indulges in regular drinking bouts without any seemingly ill effects.  Lillian is an alcoholic, smokes likes a chimney,  seventy-odd years old , but despite this is running a business, engaging in passionate affairs. Generally she is represented as being as fit as a flea.   One might also ask where the poorer Ambridge characters manage to fund their drinking.

Along with their remarkable physical capacities goes  a seemingly perpetual state of sexual attraction. The women of Ambridge whether teenagers  or in receipt of their old age pensions are perpetually concerned with their looks (a grand irony in view of the control of the series having been in the hands of crazed feminists for yonks) and spend immense amounts of airtime worrying about their “relationships”  as though they were in the first flush of youth.    Strangely, again because of the crazed feminists, while there are male homosexual relationships in the Archers there has been no girl-on-girl action.

Ambridge  is truly a remarkable place, resembling one of those remote Bactrian or South American  parts where there are reputedly vigorous 150-year-olds.

The trouble with England

I wrote The trouble with England in 1993. It provided the basis for Is it in the blood? which was published by Wisden Cricket Monthly in 1995. The article is towards the bottom of this blog post –  http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/is-it-in-the-blood-peter-oborne-and-the-question-of-englishness/

The general thrust of the article holds true, although the details of players and performances would be different if I was writing the article today.

The foreign invasion of English professional team sport applies to all our major team games, most notably cricket and football but also rugby union and rugby league. The invasion has been massive and,  in the case of football’s Premier League, has reduced the number of English players to a small minority of the total number of players.

It is just sport I hear you says? Far from it because the  question of foreigners in English sport goes far beyond the activities themselves.   Games such as cricket and football are accelerated microcosms of what English society will become if mass immigration is not stopped.

Apart from the  dilution of English representation in our national  games,  our national sports teams act as propaganda vehicles for the multiculturalists. It is also true that individual sports such as athletics can and are used to proselytise for the benefits of one worldism.

To ask what constitutes an English  national sporting team is a proxy for asking what constitutes English nationality.

Robert Henderson 22 August 2013 

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The trouble with England

In May 1991 I argued in Wisden Cricket Monthly that the primary reasons for England’s increasingly poor performances were the selection of sides containing players who lacked an instinctive commitment to England (or Britain for the pedantically inclined) and the employment in county cricket of Official Overseas Players and many cricketers of foreign
parentage or upbringing – let us call the latter Interlopers. A further two years of ever increasing, and I believe unparalleled – because England is losing to even the weakest
cricketing nations – humiliation prompts me to return to the subject.

Recently there have been some public murmurings about the appropriateness of playing men without unequivocal ties to this country. However, the matter is still not being discussed honestly because of that bugbear of modern English society, fear of being called a racist. A Test Match Special discussion on the first morning of the Manchester Test neatly illustrates the problem. Doubts were expressed about white Interlopers such as Smith and Caddick (who both, incidentally, have two British parents), but not a word was
uttered against the playing of men of colour, for example, Devon Malcolm and Gladstone Small, who similarly came to England in their late adolescence, but without any ties of
parentage or culture.

Derek Pringle  writing in the Daily Telegraph of 21st June perhaps came the nearest of any regular commentator to acknowledging the general problem when he wrote “…there
will be people claiming that playing for one’s country is surely motivation enough. Perhaps it still is, but with a team whose individual origins are as diverse as a vat of Heinz baked beans, unquestioning patriotism cannot be taken for granted.” He then provided a good example of the negative public mindset of the English professional cricketing world for, having crossed the Rubicon of admitting that players’ origins might be at least partly responsible for England’s failure, he did not draw the obvious conclusion that, if this is so, England would be better off with eleven unequivocally English players even if they were no more talented than the Interlopers, even perhaps, if they were less talented, for team spirit and the will to win is an immense part of Test cricket. Instead, he tacitly accepted that nothing can be done to change the composition of the England eleven and restricted himself to a few banalities about bowlers bowling more imaginatively and talent at the county level being ”focused and encouraged” as the means of improving England’s cricketing circumstances.

If commentators are reluctant to publicly question the England qualifications of coloured players who came to this country in their late adolescence or early manhood, they dismiss the question as irrelevant when it comes to those who were either born here or arrived at an early age. The party line is that a man’s qualification for a Test side should be determined by where he learnt his cricket. This is something of a nonsense because it takes no account of players who spent their childhoods in several countries. Nor is it satisfactory for those players who were brought up in one country, but clearly think of themselves as belonging to a different culture. This last point is of crucial importance because it strikes directly at the purpose of a national side.

Qualifications based on legal definitions of nationality, birth or residence are practically irrelevant in the context of national sporting teams, for the instinctive emotional commitment and sense of oneness, which are an essential part of a successful national side, cannot be gained so mechanically. And that is often true even where a conscious decision to emigrate has been made by a player’s parents. A sense of national place is demonstrably not simply derived from living in a country – as Wellington said to those who insisted on calling him an Irishman, ‘Just because a man is born in a stable it does not make him a
horse.’

The natural criterion for Test selection, apart from cricketing talent, is surely the sense a man has that he is naturally part of a nation, for if national sides do not embody the nation what distinguishes them from any collection of disparate individuals? What is it that gives a man such a sense of place and a natural loyalty? There are, I think, three things which determine this sentiment: parental culture/national loyalty, physical race and the nature of the society into which the immigrant moves. Their relationship is not simple and, as with all human behaviour, one may speak only of tendencies rather than absolutes. Nonetheless, these tendencies are pronounced enough to allow general statements to be made.

Where an immigrant physically resembles the numerically dominant population, the likelihood is that his children will fully assume the culture and develop a natural loyalty
to their birthplace. Hence, the children of white immigrants to Australia and New Zealand will most probably think of themselves as Australian or New Zealanders. However, even in
such a situation, the child’s full acceptance of his birthplace community will probably depend on whether his parents remain in their adopted country. If the parents return to their native land, their children, even if they have reached adulthood, often decide to follow and adopt the native national loyalty of their parents. Where a child’s parents (and hence the child) are abroad for reasons of business or public service, the child will almost always
adopt the parent’s native culture and nationality as their own.

Where the immigrant is not of the same physical type as the physically dominant national group, his children will normally attach themselves to the group within the country which most closely resembles the parents in physical type and culture. Where a large immigrant population from one cultural/racial source exists in a country, for example, Jamaicans in England, the children of such immigrants will make particularly strenuous efforts to retain a separate identity, a task made easier by their physical difference from the dominant group. Where a child is the issue of a mixed race marriage he will tend to identify with his
coloured parent, although this tendency may be mitigated if the father is a member of the racially dominant national group.

Using the criteria detailed above, there should be little doubt about the instinctive loyalty of the children of white immigrants to England, because such people will normally be fully accepted, and feel themselves to be fully accepted, by English society, in short, to be English. Moreover, the number of white immigrants to England is comparatively small. This gives them less opportunity to form ghettos and more incentive to integrate fully. (Perhaps the nearest to a culturally self-contained white immigrant group in England are the Greek Cypriots.) In any case the children of white immigrants from places other than the old Dominions have made little, if any, impact on county cricket, so the question of the commitment of the children of white immigrants who do not share what might be broadly described as Anglo-Saxon culture, is academic at the moment. The position is rather different with the children of coloured immigrants to England. The point is powerfully demonstrated by Nasser Hussain.

In an interview with Rob Steen published in the Daily Telegraph (11/8/89) he said ‘If anyone asks about my nationality, I’m proud to say ‘Indian’, but I’ve never given any thought to playing for India. In cricketing terms I’m English.’ Mr Hussain has an English mother. He has lived in this country since he was six. He attended an English public school and an English university. Of all the England qualified players with black or Asian blood currently playing county cricket, he might be thought to have had the best chance of a full integration into English life. Yet here we have him saying that he is proud to describe himself as Indian. I do not criticise Mr Hussain or any other player of foreign ancestry for feeling this way. It is an entirely natural thing to wish to retain one’s racial/cultural identity. Moreover, the energetic public promotion of “multiculturalism” in England has actively encouraged such expressions of independence. However, with such an attitude, and whatever his professional pride as a cricketer, it is difficult to believe that Mr Hussain has any sense of wanting to play above himself simply because he is playing for England. From what, after all, could such a feeling derive? If Mr Hussain has such a lack of sentimental regard for the country which nurtured him, how much less reason have those without even one English parent or any of his educational advantages to feel a deep, unquestioning commitment to England. Norman Tebbit’s cricket test is as pertinent for players as it is
for spectators.

It is even possible that part of a coloured England qualified player rejoices in seeing England humiliated, perhaps subconsciously, because of post imperial myths of oppression and exploitation. An article in the August 1991 edition of WCM entitled ‘England’s  Caribbean Heritage’ by Clayton Goodwin, a white English journalist with particularly
pronounced Caribbean sympathies,lends credence to such a view. Mr Goodwin argues that children born in this country of West Indian parents do not feel part of English society
and, consequently, tend to identify only with sporting heroes who share their own physical race – significantly, no white or Asian sporting figure supported by this group is mentioned
in the article, although many negroes are. A few quotes will give the flavour:-

“Naturally those West Indians who came as immigrants have a nostalgic respect for their
‘home’ region – longing for the lost ‘good old days’ is not solely the white man’s preserve. Their children, humiliated and made to feel inferior in every aspect of their day-to-day life, will relish the chance of using the success of others sharing the same physical attribute [blackness] for which they are downgraded to show, however vicariously, that they do have worth.”

“You can’t blame the put-upon black people of Britain for feeling similar justifiable pride when Viv Richards and his team, who in other circumstances might be regarded as ‘second class citizens’ like themselves, have put one over their detractors.”

“The youth of Peckham, Brixton, Pitsmoor and the Broadwater Farm would want any of Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Michael Watson or Herol Graham, black Britons who have grown up among them and shared their social experience, to beat the Jamaican middleweight boxer Malcolm MaCallum if the opportunity should arise.”

“The ethnic majority [the white population] are not aware of how isolated and shut out from the national cricket game the black population is made to feel. That is not solely to question why Surrey have included only one regular black player, Monte Lynch…” [In fact, England qualified players of West Indian parentage are well represented in County cricket having more than 6% of places on County staffs, a percentage well above their share of the national population].

Having, I think, accurately described the generally resentful and separatist mentality of the West Indian descended population in England – doubters should cast their minds back
to the riots of the eighties, take a stroll around Brixton, Deptford, Hackney, Moss Side, St Pauls et al and think of Haringey cricket college which I believe never had a member who was not a negro – Mr Goodwin goes on to claim that ”…surely nobody would doubt that the players [England caps of West Indian ancestry] are proud to represent England.”
Exactly why he is so confident of their pride is unclear. There would seem to be no obvious reason why players such as DeFreitas and Lewis should not share the mentality he ascribes to the general West Indian derived population. At the very least, it is difficult to see how playing for England could be anything more than a means of  personal advancement and achievement for players of West Indian ancestry. Of what else could they logically be proud if, as Mr Goodwin claims, they feel excluded from and humiliated by English society?

The obverse of the commitment coin is the effect the Interlopers have on the unequivocally English players and consequently on team spirit. One’s common experience of mixed groups makes it immensely difficult to accept that a changing room comprised of say six Englishmen, two WestIndians, two Southern Africans and a New Zealander are going to develop the same camaraderie as eleven unequivocal Englishmen.

The problem for the England selectors is perhaps that of England as a nation. For thirty years or more those with authority in education, assisted by politicians and those in the mass media have conspired, in the sociological sense of creating a climate of opinion, to produce a public ideology designed to remove any sense of pride or sense of place in
the hearts of those who are unequivocally English. It has not been entirely successful, but it has had a profound effect on the national self-confidence of many Englishmen. Indeed,
perhaps even some of the unequivocally English players lack a sufficient sense of pride in playing for England. (All the more reason to ensure that the team is unequivocally English
so that the majority can infect any fainthearts with their pride.)
In summary, the essence of my case is that for a man to feel the pull of ‘cricketing patriotism’ he must be so imbued with a sense of cultural belonging, that it is second nature
to go beyond the call of duty, to give that little bit extra. All the England players whom I would describe as foreigners, may well be trying at a conscious level, but is that desire
to succeed instinctive, a matter of biology? There lies the heart of the matter.

It is not only the possible lack of commitment and the effect on team spirit which should raise English eyebrows. Even on pure cricketing grounds the selection of most of the Interlopers is dubious. As can be seen from the table [insert table one somewhere within the text] the record of most of those who have played for England since 1969 has been mediocre. Only Robin Smith and Tony Greig have produced figures which put them in the front rank of Test players. Of the rest, Allan Lamb has achieved an average competence. Interestingly, all three players have two British parents. Indeed, the performance of the white Interlopers has been generally superior to that of the coloured which is further circumstantial evidence that physical race and/or parental culture does have an effect on performance at Test level.

The Interlopers’ overall career records mirror their Test records being generally mediocre, with white players performing decidedly better than coloured. Their respective global career records are:

batting average bowling average

White          37.70                  29.06

Coloured     25.92                  31.36

Remarkably, despite mediocre performances, many of these players have continued to hold England places for long periods, a tolerance rarely extended to unequivocally English
players, even established ones. There are plenty of English batsmen outside the Test team who would, in all probability, have exceeded Hick’s Test record given his opportunities, for example,  John and Hugh Morris, Bailey, Moxon, Fordham, Benson, Taylor, Darren Bicknell, Thorpe and Curtis.
Then there is the mysterious case of DeFreitas, Malcolm and Lewis who have taken most of the pace bowling places in England sides since 1989. Are we to believe that any three from Martin Bicknell, who has particular cause for complaint, Mallender, Newport, Millns, Igglesden, Cork, Ilott, Munton, and Watkin would not have been able to at least match their collectively abysmal record of 221 wickets at 37.24 in 77 Tests?

Christopher Martin-Jenkins perhaps expressed the feelings of many Englishmen when, after Neil Williams’ selection in 1990, he complained on a Radio 2 Sportsdesk that the England selectors “Seemed to have a fixation with West Indian born fast bowlers”. However, as this season has shown, it might be truer to say that the selectors have a fixation with any England qualified bowler who is not unequivocally English. Caddick’s case is, I think, particularly illuminating of the selectors’ mentality.

His record in his one full season was no more than averagely good and poorer than that of a number of unequivocally English bowlers. Yet he was immediately selected for the ‘A’ Team, rushed into the England side at the first opportunity and retained after taking only one wicket in his first two Tests. Readers might like to contrast this with the cases of
Watkin and Mallender who took five and ten wickets respectively in their first two Test Matches and were promptly dropped.

Without being privy to the selection process, one cannot do more than guess at why Interlopers should be so often preferred, but several possible explanations present
themselves. The first is that the selectors have what might be described as the slave mentality. By this I mean they believe, again perhaps subconsciously, that someone from
their own community cannot be the equal of members of other communities. The second is that the selectors have a desire to seem to be fair to all men regardless of origin and overcompensate by selecting players who are not unequivocally English at every opportunity. (As I write the news has just been released of Keith Fletcher’s wish to take
Van Troost on the next England ‘A’ tour). The third, which only applies to coloured players, is that the selectors are scared of selecting teams which do not contain some coloured
men because of people like Mr Goodwin who complain about lack of coloured representation – think, also, of the insidious pressure being placed on Yorkshire to play a
Yorkshire born Asian effectively regardless of merit – and having once selected such players, are reluctant to drop them for the same reason.

I believe these three considerations also work at county level, together with another, the idea that quick success should be gained without regard to any ill effects this may have on the national side. (During the Trent Bridge Test Neville Oliver told an illuminating story
of county clubs which have written to Australian state sides asking for details of players with an England birth qualification).

The extent to which the Interlopers have infiltrated the English first class game is probably not realised by most cricket followers. According to the 1993 Playfair Annual there are 416 contracted players on county staffs. Of these no fewer than 63 are Interlopers, the majority (42) having black or Asian ancestry.  Add the 18 Overseas Players to the Interlopers to produce a total of 81 and a fifth of county places are taken by players who either cannot play for England or whose commitment is doubtful. In fact, the case is
worse than that because Overseas Players have an almost guaranteed place in their sides and 30 (50%) of the Interlopers are capped players – a good guide to first eleven inclusion – as opposed to 130 (40%) of the English players. Hence approximately 50 (25%) of the 198 first team places are generally taken by the disqualified and the dubiously committed. The effect is most pronounced in pace bowling.

There are thirty six new ball places in county sides. Twelve are normally taken by official Overseas Players. Add Mortenson, Van Troost, Lefebrve and Curran, who enjoy the anomalous status of being qualified to play in county cricket but not for England, and the total of new ball places for England qualified bowlers is reduced to about twenty. However, some of these are taken by players who are never going to come under serious consideration, for example Cooper, Radford and Connor. The pool of current England qualified bowlers, even including Interlopers, who frequently take the new ball and who merit serious consideration for selection, probably comes down to the following fifteen: Cork, Foster, Ilott, Watkin, Igglesden, Taylor, Mallender, Bicknell, Newport, Jarvis, Malcolm, McCague, DeFreitas, Lewis, Caddick. Five of these are Interlopers, three of whom have already been given extensive opportunities and been found wanting. It is small wonder that the selectors have problems with selecting a first rate pace attack from such a restricted field.

The position with batting is healthier – I will stick my neck out and say that there are at least two young players – Ali Brown (a stupendously talented player) and John Crawley – who will be recognised as great by the end of their careers. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the unequivocally English batsman gets far more opportunity than his bowling counterpart because of (1) the preponderance of bowlers amongst the Overseas players and Interlopers and (2) the greater number of top order batting places – say the first four – compared with opening bowling opportunities. Spin bowling and wicketkeeping have not been significantly affected by Overseas Players and Interlopers, although the
practice of employing fast bowlers as Overseas Players may well have contributed to the emphasis on pace in the past fifteen years.

The question of England’s cricketing strength is not simply a parochial matter, for the finances of other Test playing countries benefit hugely from tours of England. If England
continues to fail consistently, or even succeeds with a side which is not felt to represent England by the unequivocally English, eventually Test attendances in this country will
fail from want of pride or identification. The same will probably happen when England tour abroad. Then all will be impoverished, some countries perhaps to the point at which
they cannot continue to play Test cricket – I think particularly of the West Indies – Moreover, although other nations may enjoy beating England now, continual winning will
soon dull their pallets. Then, I suspect, they will realise that a successful England is not merely financially desirable, but an important psychological feeding block around which they all enjoy mustering.

In the nature of things, it cannot be proved conclusively that England is failing primarily because of selection policies, at national and county level, which unduly favour the employment of Interlopers and Overseas Players.  Conversely, it cannot be conclusively disproved. But the balance of probability, as our legal friends say, is overwhelmingly in that direction. England’s performance has declined steadily since the relaxation of qualification rules in 1969. Perhaps most significantly, England’s fortunes have waned most dramatically since the mid eighties, by which time most of the pre-1969 vintage of English players had retired and since when more and more Interlopers have entered the game. To argue, as some still do, that the employment of great foreign players has raised the standard of the English game is demonstrable nonsense. It is also noteworthy that while England have been employing Interlopers, the rest of the Test playing world has retained, in practice, strict
national selection policies. In the case of the West Indies, they have even ceased to select white and Asian players, since when they have become the most powerful cricketing
nation. (This is almost certainly a deliberate policy. Viv Richards, I seem to recall, has proudly described the Windies as ‘An African side’.) Interestingly, in the old West Indian sides one has the nearest analogy to the present England Team, full of racial tension and inter country rivalry and so often unsuccessful when on paper they had a strong team.

That is the problem described. What can be done to improve matters? Official Overseas Players should be excluded completely, preferably immediately. This could be done by the
TCCB meeting the existing contractual financial obligations. This would not only have the beneficial effect of freeing many new ball bowling places for England bowlers, but would remove a damaging psychological effect. At the county level the Overseas Player has occupied the place of the League Pro. This trait has been particularly pronounced in the case of pace bowlers. The result has been that young English players have not learnt to take responsibility and without doing that the transition to Test cricket becomes doubly difficult. Negatively, England would benefit because Overseas Players would be denied opportunities to take responsibility and gain knowledge of English conditions.

The position regarding Interlopers is undeniably difficult. Nonetheless, I think a combination of rules, restraint and common sense can produce a workable solution. I suggest that any white player raised abroad with a birth and/or parental qualification for England should only be accepted as England qualified if his parents have not formally emigrated or, if they have, the person has been continually resident in Britain for ten years. If it is legally possible, such a player would be expected to take British nationality and renounce his original nationality. White players without at least one British parent and a British upbringing should be absolutely excluded.

Because of legal restraints, it is currently impossible to formally refuse cricketing registration to British and other EEC nationals on grounds of race or origin. However, the
counties could exercise a self-denying ordinance and refuse to employ other EEC nationals such as the Dutch and Danish. As for those born in Britain of black  and Asian parentage, I
would simply suggest that county clubs and the England selectors think carefully about employing such players in view of their generally poor performance in the past. They might, in particular, care to think of the inordinate number of county opportunities given to graduates of Haringey Cricket College (for example, to Ricardo Williams, Carlos
Remy, Steve Bastien) and the staggeringly poor return which has resulted from such an investment. (Only Alleyne and Piper command regular county places). Coloured immigrants without a British upbringing should be absolutely excluded. Both England and county selectors would benefit from understanding one of the fundamentals of moral philosophy: the fact that something is legal does not necessarily mean it is morally right.

The counties should reflect on the fact that Derbyshire has the lowest membership and the highest number of Interlopers and ask themselves whether the two facts are related. Members need to identify with their players, perhaps to an even greater extent than England supporters. What must a Derby member feel when he sees his average team comprised of three West Indians, an Australian, a South African, a Dane and five
Englishmen?

Perhaps the most fundamental argument against playing men of doubtful commitment remains to be made. Let us suppose that an England eleven comprised largely, or even entirely, of Interlopers was supremely successful. What would be the point? If national sides are to have any meaning they must represent nations in fact as well as name. That is their raison d’etre. A respectable case can be made against the idea of national sporting representation. None can be made for ersatz national sides. Let us hope that we never see a Dutchman opening the bowling for England.

Ashes news – “Australia’s experiment with their Asian immigrant population will be shelved.”

I sent this letter to the Daily Telegraph on 13 August:

Sir, 

 Scyld Berry’s piece on the fourth Test Ashes win  (Those scars will last until winter – 13th August) ) included this in my paper copy: 
“Usman Khawaja will be roasted for the limp defensive prod that he aimed at Swann when Australia were 147 for one. He could well be replaced in the Oval Test by Phil Hughes and Australia’s experiment with their Asian immigrant population will be shelved.”  
 
It has transmogrified into this on the Telegraph Website:
“Usman Khawaja will be roasted for the limp defensive prod that he aimed at Swann when Australia were 147 for one. He could well be replaced in the Oval Test by Phil Hughes. “
    
Why the change?
Yours sincerely,
Robert Henderson

Margaret Thatcher: the most useful of idiots is dead

Note: Undoubtedly a gigantic political personality, but that is disastrous if the politics and understanding of what she was doing are missing. One of her favourite claims was that she had been “badly advised”.  Just what you don’t want as PM.  What is needed is someone who understands the consequences of what they are doing. RH 

Margaret Thatcher: the most useful of idiots

Robert Henderson
With his mixture of vaulting intellectual ambition and howling mediocrity of mind, Lenin is the MaGonagal of philosophers. (Connoisseurs of intellectual incompetence and pretension should browse through Lenin’s ‘Materialism and Empririo-Criticism’ for an especial treat). Nonetheless, like Hitler, the man possessed a certain low animal cunning and a complete absence of moral restraint, which qualities permitted him to make a few acute psychological and sociological observations. Amongst these is the concept of the useful idiot.
For Lenin this was the role to be played primarily by simpleminded bourgeois dupes who unwittingly aided the movement towards the proletarian revolution, a revolution utterly antipathetic to the ideals and aspiration of the simpleminded bourgeois dupes. But the concept is of general political utility. The useful idiot is any person who acts in a way which unwittingly promotes political interests which are opposed to his own political ideals.
The best of all useful idiots are those in positions of the greatest political advantage, both because they have power and their propensity to be deluded by their egos into believing that they are utterly beyond manipulation or mistaken in their policies. They also display a serious want of understanding of the probable consequences of their actions.
It was this combination of circumstances and mentality which made Margaret Thatcher so potent a useful idiot in the liberal internationalist cause. As I wrote that last sentence, I saw rising up before me the opposing hordes of her admirers and haters, singularly united in a ghastly embrace of disbelief. Was she not the Iron Lady, the Hammer of the Left, the destroyer of union power, the slayer of the socialist dragon? Did she not speak of turning back the tide of immigrants? Was she not the rock from which the European Leviathan rebounded? Did she not ensure that Britain was respected in the world as she had not been since Suez? Was she not a mover and shaker in the nationalist cause?
In her own rhetorical world Mrs T was all of these things, a veritable Gloriana who enchanted some and banally persuaded many more, but in practical achievement she was none of them. This discrepancy between fact and fancy made her an extraordinarily potent tool for the soldiers of the ascendant ideology of the post-war period, the sordid bigotry that is liberal internationalism.
The hard truth is that she allowed the primary British political corruptions of the post war period – immigration, multiculturalism, “progressive” education, the social work circus, internationalism, the attachment to Europe – to not merely continue but grow vastly in scope during her period in power.
A harsh judgement? Well, at the end of her premiership what did Britain have to show for her vaunted patriotism, her wish to maintain Britain’s independence, her desire to drive back the state, her promise to end mass immigration? Precious little is the answer.
Her enthusiastic promotion of the Single European Act, which she ruthlessly drove through Parliament, allowed the Eurofederalists to greatly advance their cause under the guise of acting to produce a single market; her “triumph” in reducing our subsidy to Europe left us paying several billion a year to our European competitors whilst France paid next to nothing; our fishermen were sold down the river; farmers placed in the absurd position of not being allowed to produce even enough milk for British requirements; actual (as opposed to official) immigration increased; that monument to liberal bigotry, the Race Relations Act was untouched, the educational vandals were not only allowed to sabotage every serious attempt to overturn the progressive disaster, but were granted a great triumph in the ending of ‘O’ levels, a liberal bigot success amplified by the contemptible bleating of successive education secretaries that “rising examination success means rising standards”; foreign aid continued to be paid as an unforced Dangeld extracted from an unwilling electorate; major and strategically important industries either ceased to be serious competitors or ended in foreign hands; the armed forces were cut suicidally; the cost of the Welfare State and local government rose massively whilst the service provided both declined and Ulster was sold down the river with the Anglo Irish Agreement. Most generally damaging, she promoted internationalism through her fanatic pursuit of free trade.
At all points Britain was weakened as a nation. Such were the fruits of more than a decade of Thatcherism. Even those things which are most emblematic of her – privatisation, the sale of council houses and the subjection of the unions – have had effects which are contrary to those intended. Privatisation merely accelerated the loss of control which free trade engendered. We may as customers celebrate the liberation of British Telecom and BA, but is it such a wonderful thing to have no major car producer or shipbuilder? The trouble with the privatisation of major industries, which may be greatly reduced, go out of business or be taken over by foreign buyers, is that it ignores strategic and social welfare questions. Ditto free trade generally. Both assume that the world, or at least the parts which contain our major trading partners , will remain peaceful, stable and well disposed towards Britain for ever, an absurd assumption.
Margaret Thatcher also engaged in behaviour which led to a corruption of public life which undermined and continues to undermine her intended ends. Politicians should always think of what precedent they are setting when they act for bad precedents will be invariably seized upon by later governments. She consistently failed to address this concern. Take her attitude to privatisation and the unions. In the former case she displayed a contempt for ownership: in the latter she engaged in authoritarian actions which were simply inappropriate to a democracy. Such legally and politically cavalier behaviour has undoubtedly influenced Blair and New Labour, vide the contempt with which parliament is now treated, constitutional change wrought and incessant restrictions on liberty enacted.
There is a profound ethical question connected to privatisation which was never properly answered by Tories: what right does the state have to dispose by sale of assets which are held in trust on behalf of the general public and whose existence has been in large part guaranteed by taxpayer’s money? This is a question which should be as readily asked by a conservative as by a socialist for it touches upon a central point of democratic political morality, the custodianship of public property. The same ends – the diminution of the state and the freeing of the public from seemingly perpetual losses – could have been achieved by an equitable distribution of shares free of charge to the general public. This would have had, from a Thatcherite standpoint, the additional benefit of greatly increasing share ownership. By selling that which the government did not meaningfully own, she engaged in behaviour which if it had been engaged in by any private individual or company would have been described as fraud or theft.
The breaking of union power was overdone. As someone who is old enough to remember the Wilson, Heath and Callaghan years, I have no illusion of exactly how awful the unions were when they had real power. But her means of breaking their abusive ways, particularly during the miners’ strike, were simply inappropriate in a supposed democracy. Passing laws restricting picketing and making unions liable for material losses suffered when they broke the rules were one thing: the using of the police in an unambiguously authoritarian manner in circumstances of dubious legality such as the blanket prevention of free movement of miners, quite another.
The Falklands War displays another side of her weakness in matching actions to rhetoric. Admirable as the military action was, the terrible truth is that the war need never have been fought if the government had taken their intelligence reports seriously and retained a naval presence in the area. The lesson went unlearnt, for within a few years of the recovery of the Falklands, her government massively reduced defence expenditure.
But what of her clients, the Liberal Ascendency? Would they not be dismayed by much of what she did? Well, by the time Margaret Thatcher came to power liberals had really lost whatever interest they had ever had in state ownership or the genuine improvement of the worker’s lot. What they really cared about was promoting their internationalist vision and doctrine of spurious natural rights. They had new clients; the vast numbers of coloured immigrants and their children, women, homosexuals, the disabled. In short, all those who were dysfunctional, or could be made to feel dysfunctional, in terms of British society. They had new areas of power and distinction, social work, education, the civil service ,the mass media to which they added, after securing the ideological high ground, the ancient delights of politics.
Although the liberal left distrusted and hated Margaret Thatcher (and did not understand at the time how effective her commitment to free trade was in promoting internationalism), they nonetheless had the belief throughout her time in office that Britain’s involvement in the EU and the Liberal Ascendency’s control of education, the media, the civil service and bodies such as the Commission for Racial Equality would thwart those of her plans which were most dangerous and obnoxious to the liberal.
Margaret Thatcher greatly added to this wall of opposition by her choice of ministers. Think of her major cabinet appointments. She ensured that the Foreign Office remained in the hands of men (Howe and Hurd) who were both ardent Europhiles and willing tools of the FO Quisling culture, the Chancellorship was entrusted to first Howe and then Lawson who was also firmly committed to Europe. The Home Office sat in the laps of the social liberals Whitelaw, Hurd and Baker, Education was given to Baker and Clarke. Those appointments alone ensured that little would be done to attack the things which liberals held sacred, for they were men who broadly shared the liberal values and who were opposed to Thatcherite policies other than those on the economy, which of course was the one Thatcherite policy guaranteed to assist liberal internationalism. By the end, she was so weak that she was unable to prevent the effective sacking of a favourite cabinet minister, Nicholas Ridley, by the German Chancellor.
The constant cry of Margaret Thatcher after she left office is that she did not understand the consequences of her acts. Of course she does not put it in that way, but that is what it amounts to. She blames Brussels and the Foreign Office for the unwelcome consequences of the Single European Act. She readily admits that this minister or that in her government proved unreliable or treacherous, but does not conclude that her judgement in choosing them was at fault. She blames the Foreign Office for the Falklands War. But nowhere does she acknowledge her fault.
In her heart of hearts, has the second longest serving and most ideological prime minister in modern British history ever comprehended, however imperfectly, that she was a prime mover in the Liberal Internationalist cause? I doubt it, because self deception is at the heart of what makes a useful idiot.

The Stephen Lawrence killing: Are we in for more legally rickety convictions?

Robert Henderson

It is reported that  Gary Dobson, one of the two men convicted of the murder of  the black teenager Stephen Lawrence,  has dropped his appeal against conviction (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2293994/Gary-Dobson-drops-fight-appeal-conviction-Stephen-Lawrence-murder.html#ixzz2Nhn1xdoO).  However, the dropping of the appeal does not necessarily mean Dobson has admitted the crime.  It is unclear from media reports including the Daily Mail report (see url above) whether he has simply dropped the appeal or has  made a confession. If it is the latter, this raises the possibility that he may turn Queen’s evidence in an attempt by the state to prosecute others for the crime.

It is worth noting that the man convicted with Dobson, David Norris,  has not withdrawn his appeal. This could be a pointer to Dobson simply having dropped his appeal.  Why would Dobson simply drop an appeal if he was innocent? Mental and emotional exhaustion, perhaps, but it could also be because he has been advised that the appeal if unsuccessful could extend his  stay in prison because of the latitude given to the Parole Board over the release or otherwise of life sentence prisoners. This latter consideration could also have a role to play if Dobson has admitted to the crime.

If Dobson  has admitted to the murder why would he do so now when he had denied it for some twenty years,  including at the trial which convicted him in 2011?  (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/stephen-lawrence-gary-dobson-david-norris-and-a-political-trial/).  Almost certainly it would be in the hope that  his judge-recommended minimum sentence (the tariff) of 15 years and 2 months (as he has a life sentence it could be much longer) would be reduced or even that he will get out when the recommended minimum sentence has been served. Indeed,  Dobson would have  good reason to believe that as things stand he will not be released after the minimum sentence has been served,  because when the sentences were handed down there was a good deal of media and political frothing about the length of the minimum sentences handed down to Dobson and his fellow defendant  David Norris,  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8994957/Stephen-Lawrence-murder-Attorney-General-to-review-sentences.html),  despite the fact  that they were aged  17 and 16 at the time of the killing and were consequently sentenced as juveniles (http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_-_mandatory_life_sentences_in_murder_cases/#an07).

There is also another reason.  The English parole system no longer requires as a matter of course an admission of guilt before someone with a life sentence is granted parole : ”It is encouraging that the typology has been embraced by the prison service and the parole board for prisoners maintaining innocence while serving indeterminate sentences (where the prisoner has no release date and does not get out until a parole board decides he or she is no longer a risk to the public). Previously, such prisoners were treated as “deniers” with no account taken of the various reasons for maintaining innocence, nor the fact that some may actually be innocent.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/08/innocence-network). However, this is a recent development and only those deemed to have a strong  chance of being innocent are likely to  escape the innocent prisoner’s dilemma of choosing between admitting guilt or not being released when the minimum sentence has been served. Bearing in mind the general atmosphere surrounding the Lawrence case,  it is improbable that Dobson  would have had any real chance of being released  when his minimum sentence was  served if he had not confessed.

If Dobson has admitted the murder and is willing to appear as a witness for the Crown in the prosecution of others he claims were also responsible, it is  far from clear  what weight his evidence could be given.  To begin with there would be the problem that he is a proven liar. In addition he would be vulnerable to questioning about  vested interests in making the admission and of giving evidence  (leniency in the application of his life sentence and possibly the gaining of  privileges within prison).

Then there is the nature of the evidence he could provide. Unless he could do something  dramatic such as reveal where the murder weapon was kept and that  weapon could be found and be shown to have contained the DNA of Lawrence and the DNA or prints of others,  presumably all  Dobson could offer would be his testimony of having been engaged in the murder with others who he has now identified.  Then it would simply be his word – the word of a proven liar – against the word of  others.   That would surely not meet the Crown Prosecution Tests of a better than 50% chance of conviction before they proceed with a prosecution.

Even if a prosecution did go ahead simply with Dobson’s testimony as evidence, there would be grave pitfalls for the prosecution over and above Dobson’s record of lying, assuming that any admission he made was genuine.  The killing took place twenty years ago.  Consequently, there would be every chance that defence lawyers would be able to throw considerable doubt upon anything Dobson said in evidence simply by confusing him under cross examination by catching him out on contradictions, wrong dates and so on.  If Dobson’s admission was not genuine, but just made to try to obtain leniency from the Parole Board the position would become next to impossible for the prosecution because the it is rare indeed to find anyone who can produce and maintain  a coherent and consistent story if it is untrue.  (Inconsistency can be misleading because a too consistent story is suspicious in itself because it suggests fabrication and coaching. However, juries will not generally realise this. All they will see is the contradictions in evidence).

Would all this mean that no one would be convicted simply on Dobson’s testimony? Sadly, no. The trial of Dobson and Norris was severely flawed both because it was impossible for the two defendants to get a fair trial because of the intensive political and media hate campaign directed at the pair for 18 years and because of the feeble new forensic evidence which was the justification for the trial. The full details of that trial can be found at http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/stephen-lawrence-gary-dobson-david-norris-and-a-political-trial/.  Because of the politicisation of this case  it is not unreasonable to suspect a prosecution on Dobson’s evidence alone would be made and convictions gained from a jury simply because of the background to the case. Let us hope that is not the case.

 

Emma West trial scheduled for the fifth time

Robert Henderson

A fifth, yes that’s fifth,  date for the start of Emma West’s trial on criminal charges arising from her complaint about  mass immigration and its effects made on a Croydon tram  in November 2011 has been set  for  9th April (http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/New-date-trial-alleged-Croydon-tram-racist-Emma/story-18324751-detail/story.html#ixzz2NP2WTqtB). Assuming it actually takes place it will have taken over sixteen  months  since being charged with racially aggravated public order offences. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state/).

Justice delayed is justice denied. The delay here is unconscionable because her comments on the tram were recorded by a fellow passenger and the only points at issue are (1) whether the recording has been doctored; (2) whether what was said or happened before the recording began have relevance to the context of the remarks, for example, was there any provocation offered to Miss West; (3) whether the remarks were racist or fair comment and (4) the condition of Miss West at the time.  None of this should take such an age to determine.

The  delay is plausibly not down to any practical or legal reason,  but the fact that Miss West has done something very unusual by maintaining a plea of Not Guilty throughout her ordeal, despite being imprisoned for two weeks in the nearest there is to a Category A prison in England for women HMP Bronzefield after being refused bail on the bogus grounds that it was “for her own safety” and having the threat of her child being taken away hanging over her.

The powers-that-be cannot be doing with  people designated as having committed politically correct crimes not coming quietly by pleading guilty and making a Maoist-style public confession of fault . That is especially the case where the accusation is one of racism.  Emma West represents real danger to the authorities because a not guilty plea raises the possibility of that being discussed  in public which the politically correct most dread: the policy of mass immigration of the UK, overtly and covertly practised by ever government since the war, and its effects.  The ridiculous delay has been in all probability simply a cynical ploy to wear Miss West down and get her to plead guilty.

During the time since the original charges, Miss West has been further charged with assaulting two police officers at her home. These charges were due to be heard in a magistrates court  on 3rd March but have been delayed until after her trial on the  racial harassment charges.  Presuming she did not attack them with a deadly weapon or seriously harm them – something suggested by the cases being dealt with in a magistrates court – is it really in the public interest to prosecute her considering the stress she has been placed under by the oppressive action of the state in charging her for what is an illegitimate crime in a free society, her imprisonment, the threat of taking her child away and great the delay?  If this alleged assault merely consisted of, say, Miss West pushing the officers, or resisting when she was  physically held by the officers, a prosecution would be wholly unreasonable in the circumstances.

The authorities may simply have decided they can no longer string things out and have to bring the case to trial or drop the charges.  However things could be rather more sinister.  The delaying of the assault charges could be used as a carrot to get her to plead guilty (you plead guilty and we will drop the charges) or,  if she is found not guilty of the racial harassment charges, a means of punishing her by convicting her of assault which could be a lever for the social services to take her son into care.

If the case is delayed again it will be impossible to offer any plausible  explanation but deliberate interference with justice by those with power and influence.

The Archers: an everyday story of feminist career women folk

Robert Henderson

In their delightfully naïve and blundering  way the crazed feminists who control the Archers made Alice Carter, the daughter of Brian Aldridge (who is  the richest man in Ambridge), an engineer. Feminist message: women can be engineers just like men.  Wildly improbable as that was, they then had her scratching around for an engineering job for ages before she found one close to home.  This job was portrayed as boring, frustrating and completely unworthy of Alice’s engineering talents from the word go.

Despite this undistinguished and very meagre work background,  Alice is  suddenly “head-hunted” by a company from abroad. She decides to go to an interview in Canada with a view to moving to that country. The fact that she is newly married to Chris Carter who has recently acquired his own farrier’s business with the aid of a huge bank loan is presented as inconsequential. What matters to the Archers’  creators  is that she is a career woman who needs to pursue her career and to hell with any other consideration, such as what is her husband going to do?

Alice arranges the interview in Canada whilst swearing blind to her husband that she is not looking for a job abroad.  When  Chris learns she is going  and is allowed to make some complaint about her selfishness (the only Archers character allowed to do so unambiguously) , Alice sweeps aside his objections by  saying he can come to Canada as well.  Outrageously (in  feminist eyes) Chris points out that he wants to live in Ambridge and,  even if he didn’t, it would be next to impossible to sell the farrier’s business at a price to clear his loan. All to  no avail as Alice heads to the land of the Maple Leaf. Feminist message: a woman’s career is more important than anything.

Being a regular male character is a risky business in the Archers. If they are not going gaga like Jack Woolley, they are plummeting to their death from a roof (Nigel Pargetter) or topping themselves with a shotgun like the gamekeeper Greg Turner.  No sooner is Alice on her way  to Canada  than Chris is felled by a horse kicking him and  he presently lies unconscious on a ventilator in hospital.  Will he be Ambridge’s first quadriplegic requiring Alice to be his life-long nurse, will he remain in a permanent vegetative state visited for years by Alice who cannot leave Ambridge to get the job she wants   or will he have the decency to die thus allowing Alice to head for Mountie country unencumbered by a man to pursue her career?

But it has not all been extreme feminist fantasy in recent months. There are  signs that the ultimate politically correct wet dream  which could be conceived for Ambridge is about to made soap opera flesh. The latest ethnic minority addition to Ambridge is Iftikar Shah. He has become the maths tutor for Freddie Pargetter and has rapidly advanced  to a sort of step father in waiting figure.  Iftikar has long intimate talks with him and with his mother, Elizabeth Pargetter, the widow of the unfortunate Nigel,  who was suddenly deemed too posh for the Archers and was  so ruthlessly dispatched.    Iftikar is appearing in this role ever more frequently and  has accompanied Elizabeth and the Pargetter children (Freddie and Lily) on their first group outing.  It is a sound bet that the we are heading for another multiracial coupling in the Archer family  with Elizabeth and Iftikar getting spliced before the year is out to the sound of church bells …er…the cry of the Muezzin. Iftikar being a Muslim would of course require Elizabeth to convert to Islam.  Elizabeth is still just of childbearing age so we could of course expect the odd Mohammed and Fatima to come along in due course.  The marriage would give not merely another multiracial tinge to the Archers but would mean that the de facto lord of the manor would be a Muslim.

But it has not all been about romance amongst the young and middle aged. Lillian Bellamy (who is  nearing 70 in the context of the series) and the ineffably wet Paul have been keeping the flag flying for geriatric sex . This they have done by behaving like teenagers in their first passion, with acting of an ineptitude startling even for the Archers.  The only glimmer of hope is that Paul may turn out to be a nutter and suddenly go on a murderous rampage.  There are signs  that this may be the case  as he  has a suppressed childlike impatience under the Uriah Heap façade. The pc message is of course the anti-age discrimination one of sex is for the old as well as the young.

The BBC wound up the Archer’s message board on 28th February. Could it be that they realised that the ever increasing amount of  pc tosh they are  offering would  result in an unceasing and ever growing avalanche of ridicule and complaint?

PC World: Playing a little game with the politically correct

Robert Henderson

I have recently had an interesting experience in  a university chat room.  As might be expected in these pc times, the contributors are overwhelmingly “right on”, positively dripping with mantras about the joy of diversity and the blissful wonders of internationalism and multiculturalism, especially as this affects  the university..

When the  conversation turned to food served at the university over the past 50 years, a number of non-pc comments unexpectedly appeared.  I decided to play a game with the politically correct to demonstrate how oppressive the political correctness has become. Here are a couple of the exchanges I had :

  “the reverse was equally felt when you went in a kitchen to find a chinese student had boiled their noodles in the kettle, and/or the kitchen reeked of chinese food”

  RH Dearie me, that’s the sort of critical comment about ethnic minorities which can get a criminal record these days….RH ‘

and this

 ” Internationalisation is taken very seriously here – not just for the fees – but to create a genuine global community that “caters” (as far is possible) for all….  ”

How wondrously pc…. But from the same person…

“It is a common sight for thirty (we’ll, it looks like thirty!) Chinese to squeeze into one kitchen to boil rice together…”

RH Hmmmmmm…RH’

Such offerings had two effects:  they reeled in both those who purport to be politically correct but have made distinctly non-pc comments (you could almost smell their fear) and those who are willing to point at the non-pc culprits and shout the modern equivalent of “heretic!”  The finger-pointing and denials are still rattling happily along.  Most astonishing, many of the chatroom participants are vehemently denying  my charge that they are politically correct, including the person who wrote ” Internationalisation is taken very seriously here – not just for the fees – but to create a genuine global community that “caters” (as far is possible) for all….  ”  . It is a very, very  strange world we are living in.

The comments I reproduced above might be thought harmless enough  and in a sane world they would be.  But in the mad world we live in they could easily come to the notice of employers and  state authorities and be deemed racist.

Take first  this “the reverse was equally felt when you went in a kitchen to find a chinese student had boiled their noodles in the kettle, and/or the kitchen reeked of chinese food“.  Imagine a white working-class family living in, for example,  east London in a tower block where they were the only white family with the rest of the block drawn from those whose ancestry lies in the Indian sub-continent . (This is a very  plausible scenario today).  Imagine further  that they complained about the smell of curry being regularly cooked.  Would anyone want to put money on that complaint not being judged deeply racist by politicians, police, the CPS and the media with a strong likelihood of the white family being evicted and criminal charges being brought against one or both of the parents?

Then there is “It is a common sight for thirty (we’ll, it looks like thirty!) Chinese to squeeze into one kitchen to boil rice together…” This  comment could easily be interpreted by the university authorities and the state agencies to be racist because  whatever its author’s   intentions it could be seen as a way of saying “My, aren’t they different from us” or even  “We are being swamped by them”.  It is not utterly fanciful to imagine the writer  losing his job, being labelled a racist which would prevent future employment in his chosen field and being the subject of a police investigation if someone complained about his words   to the university authorities and the police.

If readers  think  that those scenarios are unrealistic I suggest they  reflect on the recent case of Conservative MP Tim Loughton’s treatment by the police  for calling a man ‘unkempt’.

Tim Loughton, the ex-Children’s Minister, was interviewed under caution by detectives for 90 minutes last August after he sent a strongly-worded email to Kieran Francis rejecting his complaints about a local council.

Police also interviewed the MP’s staff and trawled through his correspondence before the Crown Prosecution Service finally decided last month that the case should be dropped without any charges being brought, the Mail on Sunday reported.

Mr Loughton spoke today of his “huge relief” that his ordeal was over but said he would be demanding an explanation from the Chief Constable of Sussex Police.

The Tory MP, who said he had no idea of Mr Francis’s traveller background, added: “This has knocked my confidence in the police and made me wonder whether there are certain elements for whom political correctness has become too much of a driving force.

“Because of the merest hint of something to do with racism and the sensitivities about travellers, the police go into overdrive.”

Police launched the investigation after Mr Francis complained about an email in which Mr Loughton said a council official’s description of him as “unkempt” was “eminently accurate”.

Mr Francis said he was disappointed the investigation had been dropped, telling the Mail on Sunday: “What he called me was racist and disrespectful. My mother was from a Romany family and my Member of Parliament basically called me dirty.”

Sussex Police said in a statement: “An allegation of malicious communication was reported to Sussex Police, and was fully investigated in the same way it would be for any member of the public.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/9905488/Police-investigate-Conservative-MP-Tim-Loughton-for-calling-man-unkempt.html ).

The man called unkempt was a gipsy. This was deemed racist despite the fact that Loughton did not know the person was from gypsy stock and had merely agreed with a description of the man given by someone else.  But even if he had known the man was a gypsy so what? It would not change the fact that the man was unkempt if he was unkempt.  Yet the police were willing to spend six months on the investigation. If that can happen to an MP it could happen to anyone.

The primary problem for those living in a totalitarian state is that no matter how hard they try to stay on message, no matter how hard they try to show their loyalty to the ruling power they can never be safe.  This is a constant theme of those caught up in the years of Stalin’s purges.  In 1984 Orwell described the problem neatly with the minor characters Parsons and Syme. Parsons is a dull, stupidly  slavish follower of the party with two ghastly children who  belong to the Spies and Youth League. Parsons  ends up  arrested  because his daughter claims  he shouted in his sleep  “Down with Big Brother”.  When he arrested he is still babbling pathetically about how his daughter’s  informing against him shows how he  “brought her up proper”.

Syme is a different kettle of fish. He is a genuine intellectual who is involved with the development of Newspeak.  He is deeply committed to the Party at both the emotional and intellectual level. But intellectuals are a  problem for any totalitarian state  because they are in love with ideas and who knows where their thoughts will take them.   On day Syme does not turn up for work at the Ministry of Truth.  He is never seen again. No one at the Ministry mention his disappearance or ever refer to him again.

Orwell’s  message is simple: no one can be safe. It does not matter whether you are stupid or intelligent,  eager to tow the party line or rebellious, the outcome is likely to be just the same.

I conducted the exercise not to gratuitously to frighten  those in the chatroom, but simply to illustrate the state we now live in. It is a totalitarian state, a soft form of totalitarianism but totalitarianism nonetheless – at present.  We have not reached the stage where people are tortured  and murdered or vanish anonymously  into labour camps,  but those who breach its rules regugaly suffer loss of  employment,  denial of employment, vilification by the media and politicians and, increasingly,  investigation by the police and prosecution.  Recently, prison has begun to be  used quite freely.  Those “soft” totalitarian measures will become more and more severe as time passes  because that is the way with such things.

This situation has arisen for one reason and one reason only: people have not protested.  That is always why authoritarian regimes survive.  Free expression is the disinfectant of elite misbehaviour.  It was very illuminating (and depressing) that not one person in the chatroom posted to say how disturbed they were by  Tim Loughton’s treatment.

How would most people fare if  they were arrested for  alleged racism? The odds are that if you were arrested for alleged racism (or any other pc “crime”)  you would simply collapse, plead guilty and make a Maoist confession of guilt.  That is so  because almost every case which comes to public has those outcomes.

When faced with the forces of the state (at least in a place like the UK where the idea of the rule of law still has a strong cultural and institutional hold)  it always pays to go on the attack , because the worst thing that can happen is that you cause those with power to  think you are frightened. If that happens they will simply ride all over you. Plead not guilty and make  it clear that your defence will be that of free expression and against the censorship practised by the politically correct elite.  In all probability that will get the charges dropped because the powers that be really do not want their authoritarian behaviour challenged in open court. Even if you are convicted you will have lost nothing important because in the past year or  so those who have pleaded guilty and offered the Maoist apology have still  been jailed.  Moreover, if you plead guilty you will be certain of carrying  the millstone of a conviction for racial incitement or something similar for the rest of your life. That will affect your  employability and travel to many parts of the world.  If you plead not guilty you always have a sporting chance of avoiding that fate.

BBC Anglophobe anti-white propaganda: The liberty of Norton Folgate

Robert Henderson

The Saturday play on Radio 4 The liberty of Norton Folgate  (9 February)  was an unashamed piece of racism, the racism being directed at the native English. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qgr4f).

The play was set in the East End of London. Norton Folgate is a street connecting Bishopsgate with Shoreditch High Street.  The  playwright Mark Davies Markham hung the play on the skeleton of the British pop group Madness’  album of the same name.

Madness wrote their album after a building which the locals prized was in danger of being demolished.  This was eventually prevented after it was discovered that Norton Folgate was a liberty, an archaic free status which put it outside the jurisdiction of the local authority.   Hence the title The liberty of Norton Folgate.

The Madness album concentrated on the racial and ethnic diversity of the area both past and present. Davies Markham took this general theme and made it his with knobs on.  In the play the building threatened with demolition becomes the Union café, its proprietors Asian and the wicked developer who wants to demolish the building is (natch) white and English.  Davies Markham’s  intention are clear from a blog he wrote for the BBC:

“The Union café is threatened to be demolished. The livelihood of Bangladeshi owners, Gazi and Sitara, is under threat. They fear for the identity of the community. This family make a stand for preserving British culture. The right for all their customers to a full English breakfast.  “ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcmusic/posts/The-Liberty-of-Norton-Folgate-A-drama)

You get the idea: the Asians are the true Britons: the English are not.

The Asian characters are constantly promoted positively (with the subtext that they are the real British patriots now) while the white  English characters (interestingly there was no non-white character represented as English) with the exception of Jess,  the white daughter of Ralph Burke, the evil property developer and leader of the New England Party,  were caricatures of what the liberal left fondly but mistakenly imagine are the only English people who resist immigration and its effects, namely, Neo-Nazis.  Jess is in a relationship with an Asian (natch) and just to put a cherry on the cake of Asian good, English bad scenario,  the wife of Ralph ran away with an Asian.

This was a deliberate denigration of theEnglish. It  was also unabashed politically correct, pro-immigrant propaganda. How does  all this  fit with the BBC legal requirement to attempt balance and remain within the law of  incitement to racial hatred?  You tell me.

When shall we see  BBC productions which honestly address the plight of the native English population,   especially that of the working class, a plight which engineered by the white liberal elites through their encouragement  and permitting of mass immigration? How about a topical drama which takes as its subject the Muslim gangs roaming places such as the area in which Norton Folgate was set with the intent to intimidate and assault non-Muslims? Now that would be realistic.

Emma West, immigration and the Liberal totalitarian state

Emma West of New Addington, London has been arrested and placed in “protective custody” following the publication on YouTube of  a two minute 25 sec  recording labelled by the YouTube poster as “Racist British Woman on the Tram goes CRAZY at Everyone ! (Must watch!)”  You can find the recording at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8IlOBKaeTI.

Here is a partial transcript of  what was said during the recording published in  the Daily Mail  : ‘What has this country come to? A load of black people and a load of ****ing Polish. A load of ****ing, yeah… you’re all ****ing… do you know what I mean?

‘You ain’t English. No, you ain’t English either. You ain’t English. None of you’s ****ing English. Get back to your own ****ing… do you know what sort out your own countries, don’t come and do mine.

‘It’s nothing now. Britain is nothing now. Britain is **** all. My Britain is **** all.

‘Yeah its fine. I have got a little kid here. Have respect? I have a little boy here. **** you. I dare you, I ****ing dare you.

‘Don’t watch my language. Go back to where you come from, go back to ****ing Nicaragua or where ever you come from. Just ****ing go back.

‘I work, I work, I work, this is my British country until we let you lot come over.

‘So what. It is my British country, you ain’t British. Are you British? You ain’t ****ing British. **** off.

‘You ain’t British, you’re black. Where do you come from?

‘No, someone’s got to talk up for these lot. Look the whole ****ing tram, look at them. Who is black and who is white.

‘There is all black and ****ing burnt people.’

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067557/Youre-British-youre-black-Woman-charged-racially-aggravated-harassment-vile-rant-aboard-tram.html#ixzz1fBE50Xkd)

Her delivery gives her words an articulacy which is not apparent from a transcript.  As you listen to her try not to be  distracted by  the copious swearing because the woman is a white working class Londoner,  or at least part of  what Jerome K Jerome called “greater Cockneydom”,  and the effing and blinding goes with the territory.  She is also speaking  in a very stressful situation and allowance has to be made for that.

She does not come across as  thick.   The  fact that  she has worked as a dental receptionist  suggests that she is at least reasonably bright.  She is also respectably dressed and there is nothing in her appearance to mark her out as being  mentally ill or on the margins of society. Her son  (aged between two and three I would judge)  is smartly dressed and generally  looks well cared for. (Contrary to some press reports, the child looks  unfazed throughout ).   I can see no sign that she was significantly drunk or under the influence of drugs.

The teasing question is why someone like her would  take such a chance,  both from the view of what the police might do in oh so  politically  Britain and the risk to her and her young son of saying such things in a carriage filled with ethnic minorities and white immigrants.  We do not know what happened just before the recording begins. It could be that she was somehow provoked by being in a dispute with someone.  But her  first words in the recording are “’What has this country come to? A load of black people and a load of ****ing Polish” and throughout the recording she seems to be addressing the general point of mass immigration and its consequences rather than having a particular quarrel with one person on the tram.  Perhaps she started sounding off generally  after a specific occurrence, for example,  someone ethnic brushing against her or perhaps  someone foreign making a disparaging remark about Britain or England. It could even have been simply being in an enclosed environment and hearing nothing but foreign voices in her ears.

But if it was any of those things it would only give us the trigger for her behaviour. There would still be the question of why Miss West would express such views.  I suggest it was simply desperation.    She lives her life constantly bombarded by the multicultural propaganda and unlike the white liberal; elite probably encounters circumstances every day in which she finds herself  in the ethnic minority in her own country.   She will feel that her country has been invaded,  whilst at the same time being denied any opportunity to protest  or have any mainstream politician put her point of view.  That type of drip, drip pressure on the most vital thing to any human being – the ethnic nature of your society – can build a rage within a person like no other.

Since the posting of the video on YouTube other recordings of white women on public transport  expressing similar views have appeared, for example,  http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3969559/More-rail-racist-videos-emerge-online.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News.   Miss West is far from being alone.  Interestingly, there are also regular incidents of supposedly politically correct white liberals  being crudely racist (http://www.minorityperspective.co.uk/2011/05/30/black-tv-presenter-called-a-nigger-at-the-baftas/).  It is also a fact that white liberals have an uncanny ability to arrange their lives so that they live in very white, and in England, very English worlds, my favourite example of this being the English folk singer Billy Bragg who is wondrously right-on and lives in  Dorset, arguably the whitest county in England.  The truth is that white liberals are not only  aware of the effects of mass immigration on the white working class, but have inside them exactly the same primal feelings about ethnicity and the invasion of territory that those who openly rail against the effects of mass immigration.

There is a great deal of suppressed anger  amongst native Britons of all classes  about the profound act of treason which is mass immigration.  The liberal elite have suppressed dissent   to the extent that most people have developed the mentality normally associated with  totalitarian states, namely, a belief not that certain  views are morally wrong but, rather,  that  they are not to be spoken because they are dangerous for anyone might be a potential police  informer.  But the resentment is still there and growing.  It will become an unstoppable political energy  if a mainstream political party has the courage to release it by offering the electorate an end to mass immigration and the removal of all the apparatus created by the state which places ethnic and racial minorities in a privileged position and the native population under the ideological hammer.

The retention of Miss West  in “protective” custody  is positively sinister, as is the suggestion Miss West  is mentally ill.   It is reminiscent of the Soviet Union and Communist China still. Both  are indicative of  the fear the British elite have of the truth about immigration being told.  They fear this because  it would  both dismantle the world which they have built (and which has often enough provided them with a very decent income) and the fact that the finger of blame for the treason would be pointed at them.

That the white liberal’s position is purely political and self-serving rather than principled can be seen by the tolerance they extend to racial and ethnic minorities, especially blacks, when they make  nakedly racist comments about whites.  The black Labour MP Diane Abbott was allowed to remain within the Labour Party despite complaining in 1996 about the employment of “Blonde, blue-eyed Finish nurses” instead of black West Indian ones (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20066) , while the great black liberal totem is the unreservedly racist Muhammad Ali (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/muhammad-ali-and-the-white-liberals/).  All the white liberal does is defend those of whom they approve.

Her   son  will have been taken into care if there is no relative to look after him. It will be interesting to see  if he is, in effect,  removed from his mother  on the grounds that she holds “racist views”.