Category Archives: liberal bigotry

The complete Joy of Diversity columns

Note: These are the complete Joy of Diversity columns published in Right Now! Magazine between January 2005 and December 2006. Sadly, the magazine has now ceased publication.

The columns provide snapshots of the truly mad world which political correctness has created. Robert Henderson

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‘In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Reform, in London, Mr Blunkett defended the historically high levels of immigration under Labour, which had “enriched every aspect of British life”.’ Daily Telegraph, July 8, 2004

January 2005

Welcome to the new column. It will certainly be diverse, jam-packed with the exciting doings of all those elements in society our liberal bigot friends tell us are such a positive and essential part of NuBritain. Does that mean this will be a column to cheer the hearts of such diversity-drooling gentry as David Blunkett? Happily no, for it will contain all those facets of diversity which go strangely unmentioned by those who are forever telling us how grateful we should be for the consequences of the mass post-war immigration. It is in short, a column to have Outraged of Islington reaching for his AppleMac keyboard and the Guardian letters page email address.

Now what was it our Home secretary said? Ah, yes, that immigrants have “…enriched very aspect of British life” Mmmm… now let me see; high immigrant crime, high immigrant unemployment, high immigrant benefit dependency, increased Race Relations Industry, the passing of oppressive laws to silence and disadvantage the native white population, the colonisation of parts of the country until they are no longer culturally part of Britain…. yep, we really have been “enriched”.

Let us have a closer look at the parts of our society which this column will cast a regular eye over. Take crime. Ethnic minorities enrich the lives of the boring old law-abiding, hard-working, native white population with a quite disproportionately large contribution to murder, rape, mugging and fraud (think BCCI, think Asil Nadir, think Robert Maxwell). So enriching are the black population in this sphere that approximately 15 per cent of the male British prison population is black, despite the fact that blacks comprise only two or three per cent of the population according to the last census.

Obviously that is ol’ whitey discriminating against them when it comes to prosecutions. Well, obvious to the liberal bigot mind and their client “ethnics” who have climbed on the victimhood bandwagon. To anyone with knowledge of our courts, the not-so-small matter of persuading a jury might seem to be a pretty good guarantee that the vast majority of guilty verdicts resulting in jail are correct.

Not wanting to seem stick-in-the-muds in the crime stakes, Asians are rapidly coming up on the rails, especially on the criminal gang front. Take the case of the Glasgow teenager, Kris Donald. At the age of 15 Kris was kidnapped by an Asian gang and then tortured to death. The trial of those accused started this week. Not heard much about it? Unsurprising as the mainstream media has been remarkably coy in reporting it. Compare and contrast with the Stephen Lawrence circus which rolls ever onward.

Then there is the disproportionate large immigrant take up of welfare, both in legitimate benefits and fraudulent ones. Strange how the group which are always being extolled as putting more into the British economy than they take out should be so much more dependent on the taxpayer than the native population.

From the point of view of ethnic minorities, benefit fraud is best considered as an additional income to compensate them for the ills, often imagined, suffered by their ancestors at some distant date at the hands of “honkey”. Nigerians are especially enriching in this area, but other ethnics do their bit especially in employments such the London Rag Trade where “working and drawing” is the norm.

Those unsatisfied with the “benefit supplement income” can enter the “Employment Tribunal Racial Prejudice Lottery”. In practice, only non-whites can normally enter the lottery, although in theory it is open to all. The game is entered by a black or Asian shouting “Racism” whenever they encounter any criticism, failure to be promoted, the sack for incompetence or even a failure to get a job. The “wins” are satisfying large, sometimes running to more than half a million pounds. And it costs absolutely nothing to enter.

The white liberaln who misrule us and obsessively extol the virtues of diversity have a curious lack of trust in the general population sharing their view. To this end they have enriched our society by passing laws such as the Race Relations Act to intimidate the native population into keeping quiet about their incomprehensible (to the liberal bigot mind) lack of enthusiasm for the way Britain is being diversified.

These laws are bolstered by the “anti-racist” (in reality anti-white racist) mentality which dominates public life and includes politics, public service, education and, most importantly, the media. The long-term growth of the mentality was greatly amplified by the Macpherson Report into the black teenager Stephen Lawrence’s death. Since then, there has developed a positively Maoist culture of public admission of fault by senior public servants. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner started the ball rolling immediately after the report was published by accepting the idea of “institutionalised racism”, a strange concept whereby individuals behaved in racist ways despite not being individually racist. Since his splendidly pc example, all other police forces, the NHS, the fire service and the prison service have made their public confessions.

Strangely, those who profess the greatest liking for diversity show a very marked tendency for living in very white worlds. Take the BBC broadcaster Adrian Chiles. Last year he looked at his wedding photos and found, much to his display, not a single black, brown or yellow face amongst the 100-odd guests. Yet Mr Chiles assures us that he is absolutely delighted with all the diversity he sees about him. We must of course take him at his word, hoping only that he actually encounters some diversity in the future.

But of course the greatest joy of all is that we are now experiencing the highest level of immigration ever, otherwise known as conquest by other means. As Mr Blunkett has said “there is no natural limit to immigration” all diversity fans may rest easy in their beds.

Sadly for those stick-in-the-muds who just don’t want to be enriched, they can expect ever more joy in the future, with more murders, muggings, rape, benefit fraud and de facto privileges for “ethnics”, all wrapped up in the double standards of politicians and the media.

March 2005

Diversity buffs have been positively bloated with enrichment in the past few months. Indeed, there has been so much of it that even the most enthusiastic liberal bigot could scarcely complain.

They were not deprived even on Christmas Day, when the Queen in her Christmas message (which is her own choice of words not the Government’s) told her subjects “there is so much to be gained by reaching out to others – diversity is a strength, not a threat” (Daily Telegraph 26 12 2004), a ringing slogan to go with “Freedom is slavery, war is peace and ignorance is strength”, the Party’s prime slogans in 1984.

The Queen of course lives in a very white, very English world. Isn’t it strange how what is supposedly so desirable – diversity – is studiously avoided by those who claim that a racially and culturally mixed society is the best of all possible worlds in which to live? Abraham Lincoln used to challenge pro-slavers who claimed slavery was good for slaves with the unanswerable “What is this good thing that no man wants for himself?” The same challenge is tailor-made for the white purveyors of the joys of diversity.

The national media and politicians have been up to their censoring tricks. In June 2004 a 15-year-old white schoolboy in Glasgow, Kris Donald, was abducted by Asians who bundled him into a car and drove off at high speed. The abduction was witnessed by a friend of Kris’ who was with him at the time and whose abduction was also attempted. Kris’ body was later found bearing the marks of a terrible beating and active torture, including setting him alight whilst still alive. During the trial in November it was ruled that the killing was racially motivated.

The actual killing was more horrific and calculated than the murder of Stephen Lawrence, yet the murder and trial were minimally reported in the British media. Only one conviction for murder was obtained at the trial (of an Asian Muslim). The Home Office put its shoulder to the pc wheel and refused to apply for the extradition of three further suspects who fled to Pakistan. (http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=846582004).

The “religion of Peace and mercy” has been showing its appreciation for Britain in other ways. In December, Albanians Taulant Merdanaj and Elidon Bergu were jailed for 18 years and nine years for trafficking women for exploitation (Daily Telegraph 24 12 2005), while Manzoor Hussain was jailed for ten years for raping and indecently assaulting a girl aged 13 at the mosque where he worked (Metro 23 12 2004). With all this Muslim “joy” about, Labour minister Mike O’Brien showed where his priorities lay by writing in The Muslim Weekly “Ask yourself what will Michael Howard do for British Muslims. Will his policy aim to help to Promote Palestine? Will he promote legislation to protect you from religious hatred and discrimination?” (Daily Telegraph 7 1 2005). Some might think a British minister would be better employed thinking about protecting native Britons from Muslims.

Speaking of which, our past and present Home Secretaries has been attending to our liberties in their usual conscientious fashion. Thwarted by the Lords in his attempt to introduce a Religious Hatred Act a year or two ago, David Blunkett, in between playing Blind man’s up-the-duff, decided to have another go. His successor, Charles Clarke, has promised to force the measure through. Watch this space for developments. Not wishing to be left out of the multicultural fun, violent and persistent demonstrations by hundreds of Sikhs in Birmingham managed to close a play, Behzi, by young female Sikh playwright, Gupreet Kaur Bhatti (Daily Telegraph 20 12 2004). The forced closure of the play, which deals with immoral goings including a rape and murder set in a Sikh Temple, was greeted with a near complete silence from all parts of the British political mainstream.

Remember the bad old evil days fifty years ago when there were hardly any blacks and Asians in Britain? What a fool’s paradise we lived in then with no racial conflict, where free expression was taken as read and there were no ethnic fifth columns actively hostile to this country.

To understand just how lucky we are to be living today, we should heed Yasmin Alibhai Brown. In a recent Evening Standard column Brown Alibi (as I prefer to think of her) declared of racism amongst children “… most British children have changed profoundly, particularly those lucky enough to live in mixed cities like London” (Evening Standard 5 1 2005). I can’t help wondering if “lucky” is the word which would come first to the lips of most of those living in the midst of all this diversity.

But it has not been all torture, murder, child-rape, people trafficking, censorship by violence and threats and active encouragement to ethnic separatism by the Government. The CRE is always busy attempting to reduce the morale and operational efficiency of the police. They will be cheered by a letter from an unnamed retired Met police officer in the Standard recently who wrote:” The atmosphere on the issue of racism and discrimination had become so suffocating that I was afraid to open my mouth. Senior officers were denied promotion if they rocked the boat” (London Evening Standard 16 12 2004). What goes for the police goes for any public body these days, namely, a poisonous atmosphere, vast amounts of time wasted on multicultural awareness training and monitoring and a regular diet of industrial tribunal lottery cases.

How goes the  conquest by other means? For those whose palate is jaded by reams of Home Office statistics showing a positive army of foreigners descending on Britain by the day, a tasty novelty. The Office for National Statistics has just announced that Mohammed, in its various forms, has entered the top ten boys names in Britain (Daily Telegraph 6 1 2005).

Here’s a potent thought to end with. The Canadian columnist Mark Steyn recently defined multiculturalism as “a suicide cult conceived by Western elites not to celebrate all cultures, but to deny their own”. (Daily Telegraph 11 1 2005).

May 2005

In the past two months there has been the usual rich diet of individual ethnic mayhem to choose from – a gang rape here, a murder there – but the big general issues have loomed especially large and I’ll look at them this time around.

Let’s begin with immigration aka conquest by other means. The surreptitious elite-sponsored colonisation of our country has been going on for more than half a century, but rarely has the treason of it all been seen quite so nakedly as it has been recently, as the numbers rise inexorably and the politicians’ lies swell accordingly.

Driven by the pending general election, both NuLabour and Tory have been “getting tough on immigration”, talking boldly of quotas and points systems for skilled staff, whilst coyly failing to mention that our membership of the EU means that no significant control can be exercised because some 400 million legal EU residents have the right to live and work in Britain. And, boy, are they coming! Following the recent EU enlargement, NuLabour claimed that approximately 13,000 would come when the barriers went down. In fact, 133,000 registered under the Workers Registration Scheme in the first 8 months (D Tel 23 2 2005). God, but not NuLabour, knows how many have not bothered to register.

The sham of the “hard talking” was excruciatingly demonstrated by Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary. Only days after Blair had promised strict controls under an Australian-style points system, Clarke told Labour activists: ” We want more migration, more people coming to study and work. We want more people coming to look for refuge”. (Metro 15 2 2005). The real choice for voters is simple: NuLabour offer unlimited and actively encouraged mass immigration; the Tories offer barely limited mass immigration.

Race realism amongst the liberal elite is growing apace. The egregious and fantastical “war on terror” constantly pumped by Blair and senior police officers, and the growing belligerence of separatist sentiment amongst certain ethnic minorities, has resulted in a significant shift in what is permitted by the pc gentry. What was gross racism to the liberal bigot mind a year or two back, now passes without comment. Consider the novelist A N Wilson writing after the Court of Appeal judgement that the Muslim schoolgirl Shabina Begum was wrongly denied the religious garb of her choice by her school. Under the headline “I’m ashamed to say it – those headscarves give me the creeps” Wilson wrote:”…the sight of these ‘extremist’ Muslim women, often swathed totally,gives me the creeps every time I see it. I feel that something alien tomy way of life has been allowed to sneak in. These feelings are based entirely on ignorance, but they are there” (Evening Standard 4 3 2005). Talk about having your liberal bigot cake and eating it by both letting out his real thoughts and masochistically thrashing himself for having such thoughts.

The CRE in the shape of the ineffable Trevor Phillips has been keeping its end up as per usual in the institutionalised racism stakes. Trevor’s latest wheeze has been to suggest that black boys should be educated in all black, all male classes because black boys continue to do horrendously badly academically, even compared to black girls. The real primary reason is simple: the substantially inferior IQ distribution of black boys, which is inferior even to that of black girls. Not, of course, that this has been mentioned by any media commentator on Phillips’ suggestion. But even here race realism has raised its head. Take Allison Pearson writing in the Evening Standard about black academic underachievement: ” In the past black leaders have been …oddly reluctant to discuss the way black parents fail teachers by giving them boys to educate who are hostile and undisciplined. More than half of Afro-Caribbean boys are brought up by single mothers…after the age of six a boy needs a bloke around.” (ES 9 3 2005)

The CRE has also given birth to a report on race training in the Met Police by a former DPP, Sir David Calvert Smith QC who writes:”There is a real potential for ‘backlash’, particularly amongst white officers, and race equality training remains far more ‘politicised’ and sensitive than the delivery of other types of training.” (D Tel 9 3 2005)

But the report has also admitted defeat on the absurd targets for ethnic recruitment set in the wake of the Macpherson circus. These insisted that all police forces reached a certain level of “ethnicity” regardless of the population of their areas. Police forces such as those in almost all-white Cumberland and Cornwall were left scratching their heads. Now, police forces are merely required to recruit ethnics in accordance with their proportion in the local population. Diversity fans will be heartened, however, by the fact that being a British citizen is no longer a requirement for recruitment to the police and as a consequence the Met Police now has officers from 37 nationalities (Evening Standard 18 2 2005).

All the talk about the need for special treatment for Blacks and Asians has raised what might be called the “Apartheid problem”. Under the title “Who is black? Don’t ask a policemen” Sean Thomas recounted his experiences (Sunday Telegraph 13 3 2005) when he asked various bodies in the race-relations game what exactly constituted being black.

The Runnymede Trust refused to give an answer. The CRE claimed at first it was self-declaration but had no answer when asked what would happen if “someone declares themselves to be black, but is actually a Welsh-speaking redhead from Anglesey?” The Metropolitan police began by saying it might go by such indicators as skin colour or hair type, but eventually retreated behind the bureaucratic barricades with “we go by what the Home Office tells us”. State sponsored race classification anyone?

July 2005

Such has been the sheer volume and inventive variety of black criminality in the past two months – a touch of cannibalism here, a tad of conspiracy to murder a child “witch” there – I was sorely tempted to make this column a “Black Violence Issue” to set against the “Black History Years, Months, Weeks, Days” to which we are so regularly treated. But the rare event of a general election having just occurred, I shall reluctantly leave the “Black Violence Issue” for another not-too-distant day.

The British political system has long been looked on as a model of incorruptibility. No longer. Why? Well, it is ostensibly because the Blair Government has introduced postal voting on demand with no meaningful safeguards. But postal voting is really a symptom rather than a cause of the disease. A lax system would not matter if it was used only by those with a tradition of honest voting, which is what the native British have in their political DNA. Alas, because of the sixty-year long act of treason which is mass immigration we no longer have the luxury of a homogeneous population.

Widespread postal fraud was first indubitably proved during the last local elections. These resulted, most exceptionally, in challenges being made to council ward results in Birmingham. The election commissioner who heard the challenges, Richard Mawrey QC, found for the challengers and memorably described the evidence of electoral fraud was such that it “would disgrace a banana republic.” (Daily Telegraph 4 May 2005).

All those responsible for the Birmingham fraud cases were (1) Asian, (2) Muslim and (3) Labour supporters. Complaints of widespread fraud were made during the general election and many police forces are reputedly investigating complaints – the Daily Telegraph reported 17 forces doing so on 9 May 2005. Place your bets now on the ethnic background of those who are being investigated.

There was an hilariously non-pc general election constituency battle in Bethnal Green, east London, between two of the most pc politicians in the country. The seat was held by the Labour MP Oona King. This lady scores remarkably high on the pc scale, being black, female and Jewish. Short of coming out as a lesbian and developing a fashionable disability, she could not be more a la mode in these liberal bigot times. Alas, as a faithful Blairite and pantingly eager supporter of the war, she was persona non grata with the mainly Bangladeshi Muslims who have colonised the area over the past 25 years and who now form around half of the electorate in the constituency.

King was faced by frantically right-on George “friend of Iraq” Galloway, a man who once greeted Saddam Hussein with the stirring words: “Sir, I salute your courage, strength and indefatigability” (Evening Standard 7 April 2005). Galloway, a one-time Labour MP expelled by the Party a year or so back, considers the Iraq invasion to be a war crime and consequently went down a treat with Muslim voters. Standing for the risibly named Respect Party (Yo, man!) he won, overturning a Labour majority of more than 10,000. Muslim bloc vote anyone?

During the campaign Galloway was asked how he felt about standing against one of the only two black women MPs in the Commons. Heroically George answered “Oona King voted to kill a lot of women in the last few years…Many had darker skins than her.”

If Galloway showed himself a devotee of racial grading by skin colour, so did King. It was a case of send the right election pamphlet to the right ethnic group. She issued one leaflet to wards within the constituency which were overwhelmingly Muslim extolling all she had done for Muslims in the past Parliament. She issued another leaflet to white dominated wards with the references to Muslims removed (Evening Standard 26 4 2005).

For one group of voters the election was literally a waste of time. Worse, it was sinful. For the Muslim Saviour Sect, voting is the sure way to hellfire. The Sect engaged in the most strenuous canvassing of politicians, including most deliciously George Galloway and Oona King. George “friend of Islam” Galloway was taken prisoner, denounced as “a false prophet” and jovially warned that a gallows was being erected to hang him. (Evening Standard 20 4 2005). Gratifying indeed for a politician to discover in such a personal way the esteem in which he is held by the ethnic group he has championed so long and hard.

Oona King, alas, had to content herself with having her tyres slashed, her car pelted with eggs and abuse (including “Yid”) shouted at her.

Another great election rib-tickler was the claim that the Tories were “getting tough on immigration”, a claim which is a self-evident nonsense while Britain remains a member of the EU (350 million EU residents have the right to settle here.)

Worse, as the son of an immigrant and a member of an “ethnic minority”, Howard presented NuLabour and their liberal bigot friends in the media with an open goal into which they kept kicking him with cries of “racist!” and “hypocrite” . That was to be expected. They were joined by unnamed “senior conservatives” and the odd big Tory donor such as Michael Spencer (Evening Standard 9 5 2005), all of whom claimed that immigration had been overplayed. After the election, John Bercow, a Tory MP who was once a shadow frontbencher, decided to speed-up a Tory handcart already hurtling towards Hell by declaring that Howard’s focus on immigration was “at best obsessive and at worst repellent” (Daily Telegraph 13 5 2005). Sadly, in the present state of the Tory party, that also was to be expected.

September 2005

Four bombs, more than 50 dead and 700 injured – welcome to Londonistan on the 7 July 2005!

After the bombings the French newspaper Le Figaro described London as “the European fiefdom of European Muslim fundamentalism”(8 July 2005).

It is indeed. Foreign governments, especially France, have been complaining for years that the European HQ for Islamic fundamentalism is London while our Quisling elite – quislings in the service of internationalism – publicly insisted that those complained of were all jolly good Muslim chaps and chappesses who wouldn’t hurt a fly, whilst privately desperately hoping that Britain would be protected from Islamic terrorist attacks by its status as the prime “safe house” in the developed world for Muslims who have the temerity to take the tenets of Islam at face value, ie, kill all unbelievers who resist and conquer the entire world to place it under the black banner of Islam.

The failure of Blair is clear but no government has clean hands. The one-time Tory cabinet minister David Mellor writing in the Evening Standard on 11 July told of his inability when Michael Howard was Home Secretary to get Howard to promise to monitor foreign alleged Muslim terrorists in Britain. Mellor ended with “But for years now, successive Home Secretaries have downplayed the overwhelming evidence that today’s militants are dangerous. Not only have we allowed the mad mullahs to stay and spew out their hatred; we have paid them social security. We have lost control of our borders.”

One of those benefiting from this lax policy is Hani al-Siba’i of the London-based al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies. He celebrated our hospitality after the bombing with “The term civilians does not exist in Islamic law….People are either Dar Al-Harb [the non-Islamic world, the world of conflict] or not….If al-Qaida indeed carried out the act, it is a great victory for it…It rubbed the noses of the world’s eight most powerful countries in the mud.”(World Net Daily 12 7 2005).

The shameful tacit agreement between Muslim fanatics and successive British governments – “You let us live here and we’ll not attack Britain” – was upset by the recklessness of that perpetual adolescent Tony Blair, whose mindless support for Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq acted as the immediate primer for the bombings. But behind Blair’s inexcusable criminal error lies a greater and more fundamental fault: the permitting of the mass immigration of unassimilatable peoples since 1945 which has driven alien wedges into our once homogenous and settled society. The present equation is beautifully simple: no Muslims in Britain = no homegrown Muslim terrorists.

After the bomb blasts the purveyors of multiculturalism at first clung desperately to the idea that the bombers were foreign. Most excitingly for liberal bigots, the Metro (11 July 2005) reported that unnamed British intelligence officials “are investigating the possibility that a gang of white mercenaries was hired by al-Qaeda to carry out the attacks”. When faced with the fact that three of the four bombers were British born and raised Asians – the fourth was a Jamaican born Briton – the liberal bigot community evinced shock, collectively saying “Who would have thought it?” Just about everyone other than a liberal bigot is the answer.

The bombings engendered a truly horrific outbreak of competitive political correctness. Just as the more bonkers and egotistical mediaeval clerics boasted that they were “the most humble and miserable of all”, a motley gallery of senior coppers, the media and above all politicians vied with one another to be “the most politically correct of all”. The watchword was “Don’t, just don’t… mention the religion”.

Assistant Deputy Commissioner Brian Paddick of the Metropolitan Police took first prize for officially burying his head in the ethnic sand. At a press conference on the same day as the bombings he told the world the words “Islamic and terrorist don’t go together”, (Daily Telegraph 9 7 2005).

Close behind the Met came the BBC with their decision to excise the word terrorist from their website because it was just too, too upsetting Muslims (Daily Telegraph 12/7/2005). Just to make sure no one got the “wrong” idea about the bombings, the BBC also cancelled the 9 July broadcast of the Radio 4 drama serial Greenmantle, a John Buchan book of 1917 which deals with a German-Islamic plot during the Great War.

The prime concern for politicians was to insist hysterically variously that the bombers and their ilk were “not true Muslims”, “only a tiny minority of Muslims” and “99% of Muslims are law-abiding, hard-working chaps, as British as they come”. I suggest they disabuse themselves of this fantasy by (1) referring to the Guardian opinion poll of 15 March 2004 which reported that 13 per cent of British Muslims supported terror attacks on the US – the same percentage said they might become a suicide bomber if they lived in Palestine, and (2) by reflecting on the many extremist Muslim web sites which are avidly used by British-based Muslims.

Even for the “tiny minority” liberal bigot understanding was at hand. The bombers were “obviously” not to blame. They were either the victims of other (interestingly always non-British) men who had brainwashed them or responding to the institutionally racist society (in the liberal bigot’s mind) which is Britain.

On the other side of the story, Muslims filled the airwaves with the absurd claim that the attacks had nothing to do with Islam and were contrary to the Koran, despite the Koranic verses which invite attacks on non-Muslims such as that of Sura (chapter) entitled Repentance: “Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal vigorously with them. Hell is their home,” while Muslims who personally knew the bombers insisted that they were all splendid fellows full of charitable impulses who would not have hurt a fly, claims which had curious echoes of the myth of the Kray Twins in the East End (Ronnie and Reggie? Diamond geezers. Loved their mum. Couldn’t do enough for you).

Gradually a voice or two of elite dissent was heard. The Daily Telegraph leader of 14 July insisted that Britain must “…resist the idea that British citizens owe a greater allegiance to the global ambitions of a religious sect…”, while Tory MP Boris Johnson writing in the Daily Telegraph on the same day identified the problem thus: “The disaster is that we no longer make any real demands of loyalty upon those who are immigrants or the children of immigrants….many Britons have absolutely no sense of allegiance to this country or its institutions.” All true enough. But fear not, ol’ whitey is to blame. Who is primarily at fault in Johnsons’ eyes? Why, damn me, if it isn’t the one British politician of the past 50 years who has told the truth about immigration, Enoch Powell. According to Johnson “the problem was not so much his catastrophic 1968 tirade [The so-called Rivers of blood speech], but the way he made it impossible for any serious politician to discuss the consequences of immigration. In the wake of Powell’s racist foray, no one had the guts to talk about Britishness…” So there you have it, Enoch Powell is responsible for the mess we are in because he didn’t realise that our entire political class both then and since would utterly lack courage.

Powell’s 1968 speech was not racist or intemperate (it was forthright, no more). Here is its opening passage: ‘The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. In seeking to do so, it encounters obstacles which are deeply rooted in human nature. One is that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. By the same token, they attract little attention in comparison with current troubles, which are both indisputable and pressing: whence the besetting temptation of all politics to concern itself with the immediate present at the expense of the future. Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: “If only,” they love to think, “if only people wouldn’t talk about it, it probably wouldn’t happen.”’

Well, no politician after Powell would talk honestly about mass immigration. And the problem is growing. Blair swore blind during the last general election campaign that he had absolutely no idea of how many people were in the country illegally. (Less than two months later the Home Office has come up with an estimate of those in the country illegally of 370,000-570,000.)

Every mainstream British politician is terrified by the bombings. But their greatest fear is not the physical damage, horrific as it was. Rather, our politicos fear they are about to lose control. They know that they and their predecessors over the past 60 years have engaged in an act of the most fundamental treason by forcing mass immigration onto the British people. They have only been able to do this by their monopoly of the state’s power and in collusion with a mass media long dominated by those who share their liberal internationalist outlook. By these means the native population’s dissent has been stifled and censored.

What our elite cannot pretend is that the present situation could not have been foreseen. Powell’s 1968 speech contains a series of remarkably accurate predictions about the consequences of immigration for the native population, not least what we now call “anti-racism” and political correctness. Powell placed too little emphasis on ethnic solidarity, but the only important development he did not foresee was the rise of Islam as a revolutionary force. The passage which perhaps best shows Powell’s prescience is this:

“But while, to the immigrant, entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country. They found their wives unable to obtain hospital beds in childbirth, their children unable to obtain school places, their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted. They now learn that a one way privilege is to be established by act of parliament [the 1968 Race Relations Act] ; a law which cannot, and is not intended, to operate to protect them or redress their grievances is to be enacted to give the stranger, the disgruntled and the agent-provocateur the power to pillory them for their private actions. “

All the focus is currently on Muslims, but any large ethnic group in any society which either will not or cannot integrate to the extent of being indistinguishable from the native population potentially offers a similar threat. The behaviour of British Sikhs in 2004 in closing down a play of which they disapproved shows the dangers. The frightening truth is that our elite have created an army of fifth columns since 1945.

November 2005

For decades the liberal bigot line has been that everyone in UK possessed of a black and brown face or an “ethnic identity” was every bit as loyal and committed to Britain and its constituent countries as the native white population. Any suggestion to the contrary brought heroic outbreaks of liberal bigot posturing as they solemnly told us that an Asian woman from the subcontinent, who could not speak English and lived entirely within her ethnic group knowing nothing of English culture, was just as English as the Englishwoman born and raised in England whose whole being was impregnated with English culture.

This shrieking nonsense was holed below the waterline by the bombers of July. The liberal bigot response has been to engage in the futile task of trying to square the circle of the ghettoised society which is modern Britain with a belated recognition that a society can only have cohesion if there is a shared national identity.

My favourite amongst the cascade of resulting intellectual incoherence comes from a report by Vince Cable for the “Think Tank” Demos (http://www.politics.co.uk/domesticpolicy/demos-abandon-multiculturalism ). This sternly said that Britain must toss aside multiculturalism and – wait for it – replace it with a “multiple identity”, consisting of a recognition that people in Britain belong to different “communities” based on race, ethnicity, and religion.

I have turned this concept upside down, placed it back to front, laid it flat on the floor and it still looks like multiculturalism to me. And what is to bind this disparate population? Well, it is “a strong commitment to the rights of the individual and law and order”, in short the liberal bigot fantasy of a “rational” non-tribal society made flesh.

Close behind Cable, and scoring considerably higher on the guffaw scale, comes the ineffable Trevor Phillips. Through CRE research, Trevor has discovered (shock horror) that “most white people do not have a non – white friend, while young Asian and black people have almost exclusively Asian or black friends” (Sunday Times 18 9 2005). Damn me, who would have thought it! Anyone living in the country apart from the strange ethereally silly creatures of the CRE.

The truth of Trevor’s words was illustrated in the Sunday Telegraph (31 July) where Sir Max Hastings wrung his hands over never having had a Muslim (and precious few blacks and Asians of any kind) to his dinner table. He assured his readers that he really must have such people around his dinner table in the future.

Of course, the Muslims (and other ethnics) that Hastings may invite to his dinner parties will be of the educated, middleclass Westernised kind. Sadly, he will never know the joy of living in an area where he is in the racial minority, of sending his children to a school where they are the only white child in the class and the head boasts “We have 133 languages spoken here”, of having his wife and children routinely intimidated by gangs of ethnic youths or caught in the gun crossfire of ethnic gangsters. He will never live in a council Tower block where his family are the only white tenants or find the only local shops have all become Halal.

These, of course, are the conditions which have been forced on the white working class by people such as Sir Max who have supported mass immigration and extolled the joys of diversity.

One of the 7 July bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan could have put Trevor and the liberal bigot fraternity generally right about the desirability of multi-ethnic mixing and nation building. A videotape message he left behind was broadcast by Al-Jazeera and included the words “Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people and your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters” (Daily Telegraph 2 9 2005).

Anyone following the London bombings from the British media might be forgiven for imagining that London is an overwhelmingly non-white city and that the victims were predominantly non-white. In fact, the large majority of victims were white and British – from the details provided by the Daily Telegraph (22 7 2005), the dead divide into 30 white British, 5 white foreign, 3 from Turkey or the near East, 3 Mongoloid Asians, 5 subcontinental Asians and 4 blacks.

This media distortion of racial reality is routine. Crowds for England football and Rugby games are solidly white. Crowds for England Test matches are the same unless England are playing an Asian side. The London crowds which gathered for the Rugby World Cup winners and the Ashes victors were overwhelmingly white. Ditto the London crowds following the death of Diana and the funeral of the Queen mother. Despite the objective whiteness of the crowds, they are mysteriously transmogrified into multicultural events by the media.

One of the great entertainments of the summer was watching mediafolk desperately pretending that the Ashes cricket series had gripped “people of all races and beliefs”. C4 were so desperate at the Oval Test that they were reduced to showing a single black face in the flats overlooking the ground. The crowds were so uniformly white that I started a “Spot the black or Asian face in the crowd” competition on the Web. Sadly for the liberal bigot community it went un-won.

Talking of the Ashes crowds, Yasmin Alibhai Brown decided that the English fervour over their Ashes win was the worst kind of nationalism (Daily Telegraph 13 9 2005). Indeed, the games were so mono-racial it is a wonder that Brown Alibi and the likes of Trevor Phillips did not claim that they were illegal because the sides, the commentary teams and the crowds were all “hideously white”.

Occasionally race realism even infiltrates the BBC, albeit unintentionally. A white Geordie convert to Islam, Ibrahim Hewitt, let the cat out of the bag when he was interviewed on the Radio 5 Simon Mayo programme (23 8 2005). Hewitt runs a private Islamic school in Leicester, the city in Britain with the largest ethnic content to its population. Questioned on one of the BBC’s favourite fantasies – Leicester as a beacon of multicultural harmony – Hewitt replied “Leicester is not a multicultural city but a city of multi-ghettos.”

January 2006

Liberal bigot hearts were all of a flutter in October as yet another (sigh) race riot…er… festival of diversity erupted in Birmingham. But this was a festival of diversity with a difference: it was blacks fighting Asians. Cue the blackest liberal bigot dismay, because ONLY WHITES ARE RACIST. What on earth were they to do? Simple: deny reality and blame it on ol’ whitey.

Truly heroic attempts were made by the media and our politicos to pretend that it was not a “race riot”. Rather, we were told, it was the natural outcome of the poverty in which ol’ whitey wickedly keeps blacks and Asians. Most inconveniently from the liberal bigot standpoint this explanation ignored one glaring fact: there are vastly more poor whites in Britain than poor blacks and Asians and the poor whites do not riot.

Alas, quite disgracefully, the blacks and Asians in the area would not play with the liberal bigot propaganda ball. Instead they told a story built around black and Asian stereotypes now legally forbidden to white lips: thieving, idle blacks and money grabbing Asians.

As the days went by more honest reporting appeared which made it clear that the area was waiting to racially explode because blacks are resentful that most of the retail businesses in the area, particularly the shops stocking black-centred products, had all been taken over by, guess who, Asians. Idi Amin, thou should be living at this hour.

Blacks claimed that the immediate cause of the riot was the gang-rape of a 14-year-old black girl by a mob of Asians after she was caught shoplifting in an Asian shop. (Blacks complaining about gang-rape eh? Excuse me while I stop laughing.) The girl was never identified and (chortle) it was claimed she could not make a complaint because she is a failed asylum seeker who feared deportation (you couldn’t make it up). The local police and immigration authorities cringed dutifully and said the putative rapee could come forward without worrying about her immigrant status, but all to no avail. Whether she actually existed is a very moot point.

Inter-ethnic minority violence is actually common in Britain, Regular gang battles take place between variously blacks, Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in places as disparate as Bethnal Green and Slough. Not that one would know this from our mainstream media which has long been most conscientiously censoring the race of those who misbehave, unless, of course, the culprits are white.

Diverting as it was, Birmingham proved to be a mere sparkler in the ethnic firework box compared to the very large banger which went off in France a few weeks later. Muslim rioters made merry first in Paris and then in cities and towns throughout France, gaily burning everything in sight provided it belonged to ol’ whitey . As I write this, the Gallic festival of joy has been running for nearly three weeks, curfews have been declared and one third of the French riot police, the CRS, have been garrisoned in the most excitingly diverse areas (Daily Telegraph 14 11 2005).

Diversity fans will not be surprised that Britain now has a black Archbishop of York, because since Blair took office blacks and Asians have been pushed into positions of public influence in numbers out of all proportion to their representation in the population. The very lucky winner in this pc lottery is John Sentamu, a Ugandan. I say very lucky because the chances of any priest becoming Archbishop of York are vanishingly small and the chances of one of the very few black bishops being promoted on merit to the second most powerful position in the Church of England next to non-existent, there being so many white English bishops as candidates. The answer of course is that such appointments are acts of patronage rather than appointments strictly on merit.

Sentamu is routinely described as “an outspoken critic of racism” (e.g. Daily Telegraph 9 10 2005). The white liberals who roost in the upper reaches of the Church are doubtless waiting for him to accuse the C of E of being “institutionally racist”, to which accusation they will doubtless respond with hysterical squeals of masochistic delight.

At least the prison service is one public institution which need not worry about lacking diversity. Around 10,000 out of a UK prison population of 85,000 are foreigners and no less than 160 nationalities are represented – Jamaica proudly heads the list with 2039 inmates (Daily Telegraph 26 10 2005). To these may be added the 15 per cent or so of the prison population who are British born blacks while a growing number of British born Asians are readily taking to a life of crime.

A study commissioned by the Commission for Racial Equality into “Britishness” showed with unforgiving clarity the commitment and loyalty of all those “British” and “English” blacks and Asians we are always hearing about from our elite. The most telling passages are:

“In England, white English participants identified themselves as English first and British second, while ethnic minority participants perceived themselves as British. None identified as English, which they saw as meaning exclusively white people.”

“Britishness was associated with great historical and political achievements, but only amongst white participants (whether from England, Scotland or Wales), not those from ethnic minority backgrounds” (http://www.cre.gov.uk/downloads/what_is_britishness.pdf). In short, blacks and Asians actively reject Englishness and have no interest or conception of what is encompassed by British history and traditions.

Unreason formally entered the English legal system when the High Court overturned a Home Office decision to refuse to extensively consider the asylum claim of a Nigerian woman called Ebun Ajbaje. (Daily Telegraph 27 10 2005). The grounds for Ms Ajbaje’s claim? Why, if she goes back to Nigeria she is stone-cold certain that her relatives will use black magic against her. The Home Office quite scandalously decided such a claim was “bound to fail” and summarily refused it using the new “fast track” asylum method. Let us hope they’ll know better next time.

March 2006

Lest we forget. Just to make sure we infidels had got the message of 7/7, i.e., Muslims will not be satisfied until the black flag of Islam flies over Downing Street, the leader of the bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan spoke from the grave in a valedictory video thoughtfully provided by al Qaeda: “[Muslim leaders in Britain] seem to think that their responsibility lies with the Kafiris [unbelievers] instead of Allah so they tell us ludicrous things like we must obey the law of the land. How on earth did we conquer lands in the past if we were to obey this law?” (Evening Standard 16 11 2005.)

The benefits of diversity crop up in the most unexpected quarters. Anne Cryer, the Labour MP for Keighley recently published a report on recessive gene disorders created by inbreeding amongst British Pakistanis. Around 30 per cent of the UK recessive gene birth defect total comes from Pakistanis who account for 3.4% of UK births, unsurprising as the Daily Telegraph (16 11 2005). reported “It is estimated that 55% of British Pakistanis are married to their first cousins…in Bradford, more than three quarters of all Pakistani marriages are believed to be between first cousins”. Ms Cryer, in whom race realism is engaged in a mortal struggle with political correctness, bravely concluded that “They [Asians] must look outside the family for husbands and wives for their young people.” One can only marvel that she has not had a visit from the police.

The journalist Jonathan Freedland let us all into a secret: “The only true ghettos in Britain are white: like Berwick-on-Tweed with a 99.6 per cent white population, or Barnsley 99.1 per cent white, or the Prime Minister’s beloved Sedgefield, 99.3. These areas are not merely “sleepwalking to segregation”: they’re already there.” (Evening Standard 17 11 2005). So there you have it, to the liberal bigot mind for an area of Britain to remain what it has always been, i.e., white, is forming a ghetto. Truly surreal.

Doubtless in time liberal bigot demands will come for immigration to Britain to be restricted to non-whites until “Britain resembles the world” and the native population is in the small minority. Come to think of it, it may not even be necessary for such demands because the conquest of Britain by immigration continues apace. The think-tank Migrationwatch has collated figures issued by the Office of National Statistics. These show that 124,000 out of 640,000 births in England an Wales in 2004 were to foreign born mothers, roughly one in five. (Daily Telegraph 5 1 2006). Of the rest, a significant proportion will have been to native born blacks and Asians.

Multiculturalists may rest easy in their beds that mass immigration will continue for the foreseeable future. The NuTory leader, David Cameron, launched his leadership by announcing that immigration is “very good for Britain” (Daily Telegraph 19 12 2006). The three major British parties now have the same official immigration policy, i.e., a commitment to the most fundamental form of treason there is, the wilful colonisation of one’s own country by mass immigration.

Shameron has generally been competing very strongly in the pc stakes. Our quisling politicians love nothing more than pretending that taxpayers’ money is their own while they claim moral kudos as they use it for their own vanity projects. Shameron’s present vanity project is “Make poverty history”. Britain, he says, is simply not doing enough, despite the fact that currently the taxpayer is bilked to the tune of £4 billion a year for “Aid”, a figure which will rise to £6 billion pa by 2008 – that is £100 for each man, woman and child in the country .

Media double standards were forthrightly on show with the murders of Anthony Walker (black) and Chris Yates (white). Walker was killed by two white youths. The murder was immediately labelled racist by the police and treated as such by the court which gave heavier sentences as a consequence. The evidence for it being racially motivated were reports by witnesses of racial comments being made before the attack. Vast amounts of media coverage of both the trial and of the family was given.

Yates was killed by an Asian gang. Witnesses heard the gang boasting that they had killed a white man and saying “that will teach an Englishman to interfere in Paki business” (Evening Standard 23 11 2005). Clearly it was racially motivated. Despite this the case got minimal coverage before and during the trial. The judge bizarrely decided the attackers were not racially motivated – and consequently gave out much lighter sentences – because after they had killed Yates, the gang non-fatally attacked and abused a black and an Asian. This is a howling non sequitur, for it does not follow that because two out of three attacks were not racist the other was not racist. How interesting that the judge by implication assumed that Asians do not harbour racist feelings towards blacks or to Asians of an ethnicity other than their own.

But not all members of the liberal left are irredeemably thick or dishonest. Anthony Browne, for long a lone leftist voice raised against mass immigration, launched an attack on political correctness in a Civitas publication The retreat of reason: Political correctness and the corruption of public debate in modern Britain. He sees pc as “a heresy of liberalism” (p.2) in which “a reliance on reason has been replaced with a reliance on the emotional appeal of an argument” (p.6) to produce a “dictatorship of [putative] virtue” which drives out all contrary opinion.

Spot on. Political correctness is literally a totalitarian creed, for it both enters every aspect of life – anything can be presented in terms of multiculturalism or sexual equality – and allows only one “right” opinion on anything.

June 2006

Local elections in May meant that our politicians thoughts turned temporarily to the electors. Modern politicos always find this a distasteful task but this time they were unreservedly appalled at what they saw. A YouGov poll (21 4 2006) Daily Telegraph) showed that seven per cent of voters were willing to vote BNP while twenty four per cent had considered doing so.

Faced with white voters turning in despair from the multiculturalist monolith that is the British political mainstream, all the major parties flew into a panic. They even reached for (part) of the truth. The employment Minister Margaret Hodge, who is the MP for Barking, found the light of realism suddenly shining into her mind: “They [the white voters] can’t get a [council] home for their children, they see black and ethnic people moving in and are angry… When I knock on doors I say to people ‘are you tempted to vote BNP?’ and many, many, many – eight out of ten of the white families – say ‘yes’”. (Sunday Telegraph 16 4 2006).

Contrariwise, the Tories refused to let reality impinge on their minds. David Shameron was on particularly fine NuTory form during the local elections. Determined not to be outdone in the multiculturalist stakes, he resolutely put political correctness before party and nation with his truly grisly “I hope nobody votes BNP. I would rather people voted for any other party.” (Daily Telegraph 24 4 2006).

In the event the BNP with only 13 candidates took 11 council seats in the Barking and Dagenham wards and ended the local elections with 44 seats nationwide. Hodge was blamed by the local Labour Party for providing the BNP with “the oxygen of publicity” (Daily Telegraph 5 5 2006), a tacit acknowledgement of how any party outside the British mainstream is viewed by our political elite, i.e., they have no business existing.

The liberal bigot fraternity were shaken but only allowed reality into their heads only so far. They acknowledged the social problems and resentments of the white working class, but refused to see that these were symptoms not the disease itself, namely, mass immigration aka invasion and colonisation.

Blairite hack Rachel Sylvester wrote “Voting for the BNP is about rage rather than race” (Daily Telegraph 18 4 2006), black Labour MP Dianne Abbot was certain that race in the context of housing was “a red herring” (Evening Standard 18 4 2006), while Frank Field, the Labour MP once given the task of “thinking the unthinkable” about social policy by Blair, was absolutely certain that “This is not about race, immigration and bogus asylum seekers” Daily Telegraph 204 2006.

The grotesque scale of our ongoing immigration and the absolute lack of any meaningful controls, was officially revealed by Graham Roberts of the Nationality and Immigration Directorate (part of the Home Office). Mr Roberts is in charge of “Enforcement and Removals” (chortle). He told the Commons home affairs select committee that the Directorate had no estimate of people in Britain illegally, no figure for the number of failed asylum seekers who had not been removed and could not even say how many people had been told by his office to leave the country. (Daily Telegraph 17 5 2006).

The shape of English things to come if nothing is done to stop the literally mad level of current immigration can be seen from the composition of primary schools. In 1996 11 pc of children in English primary schools were from ethnic minorities: in 2005 18.7 pc were (Daily Telegraph 28 April 2006). If this rate of increase continues more than 50% of children in English primary schools will be from ethnic minorities by 2226 and in all probability the English will be a minority in their own land before 2050.

Even non-white immigrants are beginning to see the light. George Alagiah the Sri Lankan BBC Newsreader concluded “Some of today’s immigrants aren’t interested in making Britain their home. They see it as a place they can live – but their real ties remain with their homelands.”Sunday Telegraph 23 4 2006.

Just so. Criminality is high on their list of lucrative activities to pursue whilst here. In April the Home Office was forced to admit that since Labour took office in 1997, 1023 foreign criminals convicted of crimes serious enough to warrant a prison sentence have been released at the end of their sentences without being considered for deportation – many were cases where the judge had recommended they be deported at the time of their sentence. These included murderers and rapists. The Home Secretary Charles Clarke was forced to resign and, even after weeks of frenzied activity in an attempt to round up the released prisoners, the new Home Secretary John Reid had to admit that 446 could not be traced (Daily Telegraph 16 5 2006).

The nastiest ethnic crime to hit the front pages involved a couple of first generation immigrants. It was the trial of those found guilty of the rape, torture by burning, beating and murder of the white 16-year-old Mary Ann Leneghan and the rape, torture, beating and attempted murder of her 18-year-old white friend who was the main witness at the trial (the girl was not named during the trial for legal reasons). The gang consisted of five blacks and an Albanian immigrant (29 4 2006 Daily Telegraph). One of the blacks, Rashid Musa, was an immigrant who had been allowed to stay in Britain after being jailed for rape and burglary (Daily Telegraph 26 4 2006). Strangely, there was no suggestion from the police, the court or the media that this was a racist attack.

Quite shockingly, the police so forgot themselves on one occasion that they classified the petrol bombing of Asian shops by a black man as racist (Reuters 30 4 2006). Dearie me, have the long years of indoctrinating Her Majesty’s finest with multiculturalism been for naught? They haven’t even learnt the most basic rule of political correctness: ONLY WHITES ARE RACIST.

August 2006

“We’ve done work here which shows that people, frankly, when there aren’t other pressures, like to live within a comfort zone which is defined by racial sameness. People feel happier if they are with people who are like themselves…” Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) chairman Trevor Phillips on the BBC programme The Happiness Factor .

Out of the mouths of babes and race relations functionaries. Of course this is not an honest admission that heterogeneous societies are a bad idea: note the “like to live in a comfort zone” implying that this is weak and self-indulgent behaviour. For people such as Phillips, the admission of what every human being knows in his heart of hearts – that people prefer their own – is merely an acknowledgement of how things are not how they will always be. Faced with the unfortunate facts of human nature the answer for the liberal bigot is always “more education is needed”. The fact that “more education” has never succeeded in changing human nature is simply evidence for the liberal bigot that “even more education is needed.”

But let us not look a gift horse in the mouth. Apart from being an hilarious Peter Simple character made flesh, our Trevor also has a genius for letting the racial cat unintentionally out of the bag. During a speech in which he peddled the routine multiculturalist line that racial tensions were being stoked by the “far right” and that more race riots could be expected, the CRE chairman suddenly let slip “Everyone thinks it’s going to be in the northern towns but it could be anywhere.” (Metro 26 5 2006). So there you have it, according to the CRE chairman the whole of the country has become a racial tinderbox.

Some white liberal bigots have got the wind up sufficiently to drop any pretence at multiculturalist waffle. Take the novelist A N Wilson: “We can see that, quite literally, Europe is being invaded before our eyes… There is only one policy which will work, the cruel Spanish one of repatriation…While the politicians of three generations have failed all of us by fearing to be labelled racist, they have allowed the effective dismantling and destruction of our civilisation…” (Evening Standard 19 5 2006).

Of course, as with the followers of all ideologies, some liberal bigots have been left behind and are still forlornly spouting the classic multiculturalist line. In early May Telegraph hack Alice Thomson ventured the opinion (3 5 2006) that if Britain followed America’s recent lead and had a day’s strike by immigrants “You would have to be living in a yurt and eating nettle soup in the middle of the country not to be affected. From the moment you woke up and tried to turn on the radio and television you would realise something was wrong. Most cab drivers taking presenters into studios are immigrants.” Some cruel souls might think broadcasting studios bereft of liberal bigot presenters would be something of a plus.

The reality is that if such a strike took place the large majority of native Britons would notice very little was happening because most parts of the country still do not have large immigrant populations and the jobs which the multiculturalists are always telling us cannot be filled with indigenous workers are, strangely, filled by just these people in most of the country.

The start of the football World Cup brought forth the usual forest of St George’s flags and the now traditional crowd of Anglophobe Celts and quisling members of the English elite equipped with their jolly cries of “English racism” at the first public sign of English national sentiment. The starting gun for the Anglophobe charge was fired by headmistress Karen Healy of Birches Head High School in Stoke who first banned the flag from her school and then belatedly accepted it after a flood of criticism swept over her. The worst World Cup related Anglophobe incident occurred in Scotland where seven-year-old Hugo Clapshaw was punched on the head in an Edinburgh park for the “crime” of wearing an England shirt (Daily Telegraph 22 6 2006).

The police went off on a jolly jaunt in June when they raided a house in Forest Gate in London after receiving a tip off that its occupants were making a chemical bomb hidden in a jacket for a suicide bomber to use. The house was raided, two brothers, Abul Koyair and Abul Kahar, were taken into custody, one of them after being shot in the shoulder by the police. The house was taken apart. Nothing was found… except œ30,000 in cash (16 6 2006). Splendidly thrifty fellows these Muslims.

The two brothers were released without charge. The police swore blind that their informant was considered reliable and hinted the chemical bomb might have been moved. The public as usual were left in the dark.

Whether or not the informant was generally reliable and did or did not give the information believing it to be true is sadly beside the point. The dangerous truth is that MI5 and Special Branch do not have, and cannot have, the resources to deal with a British Muslim fifth column numbering several million.

In the wildly improbable event that Britain runs short of home-grown terrorists our quisling elite (quislings in the service of liberal internationalism) have made certain more can come from abroad. The Man charged with reviewing Britain’s border security, Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, has concluded that our border controls are paper thin because of a woeful lack of staff: “This kind of manpower weakness is no discouragement to terrorists….This is still a cause of complaint by Special Branch officers. The adequacy of staffing at HM Customs and Excise at ports of entry of all kinds is an important matter.” (Daily Telegraph 20 6 2006).

October 2006

Elites only have one settled principle – to do anything necessary to maintain their power and privilege. A splendid example of the principle in action is the growing race realist talk amongst our liberal bigot ruling class. Note I say talk, for our elite have not yet moved from rhetoric to action, nor will they do so if they think they can get away with rhetoric alone. Nonetheless, the rhetorical shift has been dramatic, a fact maverick leftie Rod Liddle neatly nailed in the Sunday Times (27 8 2006) with his article “How right wing the left sounds after its moment of racial truth”.

Ruth Kelly, the female impersonator who rejoices in the Orwellian title of Communities Secretary, caught the new mood, viz: “We have moved from a period of near uniform consensus on the value of multiculturalism to one where we can encourage that debate by questioning whether it is encouraging separateness… We must not be censored by political correctness.” (Daily Telegraph 24-25 8 2006). Dontcha love the “We must not be censored by political correctness” from a member of a government which has done more than any other to enshrine it as the secular state religion? Even better is the shrieking lie that “We have moved from a period of uniform consensus on the value of multiculturalism…” The only near uniform consensus on multiculturalism has been the overwhelming feeling amongst native white Britons that it is a hated instrument of the elite designed to suppress their interests and culture whilst promoting those of the immigrant minorities.

Ms Kelly is now all for integration. Sadly, there is little good news on that front, but I can bring her one heartening story courtesy of Johann Hari of the Evening Standard. He reported, with a shed-load of liberal bigot angst, that large numbers of black and Asian women are shock horror! devoted to skin-lightening products. When asked why, the little minxs failed miserably to follow the standard pc script and replied “I just feel better”, “I feel more confident” and “I get more men checking me out” (Evening Standard 28 7 2006).

The latest chapter in the sordid act of treason which is post-war mass immigration was opened with the Government’s admission that around 600,000 immigrants from the new EU states have arrived since 2004. This splendidly robust figure compares with the measly pre-EU enlargement Home Office estimate of 13,000.

Race realism is even extending to the economic effects of immigration. Having sworn blind that it did not place undue pressure on our infrastructure or reduce the job opportunities and lower the wages available to native Britons, politicos are now singing a different tune. The ex-Tory Cabinet minister Peter Lilley writing in the Sunday Telegraph (27 8 2006) admitted that immigrants increased overall GDP but reduced GDP per capita and described claims that Britain is generally short of labour as “nonsense”, correctly attributing labour shortages to poor pay, shortages which vanished when pay was raised, as has happened in the case of nurses.

Boston (pop 50,000) in Lincolnshire knows all about EU immigration. This town was the lucky recipient of the artistic endeavours of an American Jordan Baseman who made a video about an anonymous woman who is one of 5,000 Portuguese immigrants who have descended on Boston in recent years. The woman, who is not seen but is simply heard off camera, whines about the hostility of the native population who she gaily describes as “ignorant people who are jealous of the fact that I have a job and they don’t”. (Daily Telegraph 19 08 2006). How outrageous of the good folk of Boston to be angered by a foreign influx amounting to 10% of their population which takes jobs from locals.

But it isn’t only jobs which immigrants take from Britons. Lucky Chistian Bola, 18, arrived here three years ago from the Congo and sought asylum and managed to gain a much sort-after place at one of London’s few remaining grammar schools, Latymer. He gained this prize after his local vicar David Bolster expressed the opinion that Bola “could benefit from studying at the school.” (Evening Standard 18 08 2006). Unkind folk might think one of our own people studying in his place would have benefited the country rather more.

The enemy within storyline has been as strong as ever. Two months ago we had the Forest Gate fiasco: in August an alleged plot to blow up airliners on the north Atlantic run appeared over the horizon. As I write 12 young British-based Muslims have been charged in relation to the plot, most with conspiracy to murder (Daily Telegraph 23 8 2006), with another 8 are still being questioned.

Sometimes I wonder why Muslims bother with terrorism in Britain when the British establishment is so eager to embrace their more advanced Islamists. Take the Foreign Office, Its chief adviser on Islamic affairs is one Mockbul Ali, 26, one-time political editor of the newspaper of the Union of Muslim Students. Soon after 9/11 Ali wrote in that paper “If you are not white, you are most likely to be liberated through bombings, massacres and chaos.” (Sunday Times July 30, 2006).

Kieran Keenan discovered what it is to be a native white Briton in Britain 2006. A history graduate, Mr Keenan had the temerity to apply for the post of trainee museum assistant at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. Alas, his skin-colour disqualified him. A Brighton and Hove Council political apparatchik explained helpfully that it was “positive action” which is legal because it is “lawful to offer training only for people of a certain racial group or to encourage people from that group to apply” (Daily Telegraph 13 7 2006). Strange how such “positive action” is never offered to the native white population in areas such as the law, medicine, the BBC, the CRE and professional football and cricket, in all of which they are grossly under-represented.

December 2006

As this is sadly the last issue of Right Now! I am going to give no more than a nod to the big issues such as the fundamental act of treason which is post-war immigration and the various fifth columns we have within our country and instead try to cover some of the ground I wished to cover into previous columns but couldn’t because of pressure of space.

The biggest omission has been insufficient on honest-to-goodness non-political crime – sadly, I never managed to fit in the promised “black violence special” (what a column that would have been!)

British governments no longer publish general crime statistics by race. In their absence, the best that can be done to get at the truth is to monitor media reports and this is what I have done. For each two month period between issues of Right Now! I have kept two files of press cuttings. One file related to immigration and one to anti-social behaviour by immigrants and British-born ethnics.

The sheer volume of the cuttings was an eye-opener. For a subject which we are forever being told by the liberal bigot elite “is not a major issue with the British public”, the mainstream media do seem to devote a startling amount of space to immigration, while the representation of immigrants and British-born ethnics in reports of anti-social behaviour ranging from horrendous noise to murder and gang-rape is so grossly disproportionate to their representation in the population as to verge upon the comic.

Judged by the files I kept, crimes such as rape, murder, serious assaults and mugging are overwhelmingly committed by black men. One crime – the rape of a woman of a different race from the rapist -appears to be an almost exclusively a black and Asian crime (predominantly a black crime). Overwhelmingly, it was white women who were raped in such cases. Gang-rape of white women by blacks and Asian was not uncommon while gang-rape by whites is very rare indeed – I could find no instance of a white gang raping a black or Asian woman. Gun crime is overwhelmingly a black crime, a fact reflected in the existence of Operation Trident unit in the Met Police which deals with black-on-black killings.

Asians lag behind black men in the violent crime stakes, although they are coming up strongly on the rails, particularly in the field of “honour killings”. Nonetheless, the favourite crime Asian crime still seems to be fraud.

By way of comparison I kept a cuttings folder for a two month period for murder, manslaughter, rape and GBH committed by native white Britons and separated the immigrant and British-born ethnics instances of such crimes to another file. The native white Britons file ended up thinner than that for immigrants and British-born ethnics.

Another very difficult statistic to get hold of is the cost of “diversity” action within public bodies. Occasionally the veil is lifted as happened with the Met Police. The Evening Standard reported (27 10 2006) that ‘last year alone œ187 million – six per cent of the Met budget – went on “equality and diversity training”‘. It is a fair bet that most of the money will have gone on race-related work because of the Met’s religious desire to “make the force look like London”.

The other major issues which have been under addressed are gipsies and the over-representation of blacks and Asians in public employment. Gipsies are important because they represent a long established group with Britain, yet they behave as though the rest of the population is their prey. This behaviour is simply explained: it is the tactic of the nomad, namely despoil an area of resources then move on. Moral: any group, native or immigrant, which feels they are outside the moral bounds of the society they are physically within will feel entitled to behave badly to those outside the group. That is why multi-racial/ethnic societies are always a disaster: there is no shared sense of moral commitment to the whole of the population.

The widespread over-representation of blacks and Asians in public employment is epitomised by the BBC. The Beeb publicly boasts that they have a target for 12.5% of their staff to come from ethnic minorities. That is an over-representation of around 50% based on the last census in 2001. Leaked minutes from a BBC internal discussion meeting showed that even BBC staffers thought they were unbalanced – the erstwhile BBC political editor Andrew Marr was minuted as saying that the BBC is an “organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people.” (Daily Telegraph 27 10 2006).

My purpose in writing the JoD has been twofold. The first was to provide a counterblast to the perpetual deluge of multicultural propaganda which tells us how lucky we are to have had our country turned from a monocultural desert to a blooming garden of ethnic diversity, a lie on a par with Stalin’s claims to have created a new socialist heaven on earth.

My second reason was to show that it is still possible in Britain to write about race and immigration in the most forthright way without running foul of the law. I have ensured that all the candidates likely to initiate a complaint to the police about my column have had sight of it, from Trevor Phillips at the CRE to the most pc of journalists and politicians. None of them has tried to have me prosecuted.

There is a lesson in that: race-related police action and prosecutions will only normally be taken against those whom the authorities think can be intimidated and who will, consequently, not speak out against their mistreatment. It is also worth noting that the vast majority of police investigations of these indubitably political crimes do not result in prosecution, their real purpose being to intimidate the general public into self-censorship. Stand firm and there is very little chance of being prosecuted for inciting racial hatred.

If anyone wishes to continue publishing the column please contact me at anywhere156@yahoo.co.uk.

The column below was written for the May 2006 issue. This was never published because the May 2006 Right Now! was moved to June 2006 for which I wrote a new column.

Being a liberal bigot means living a life of constant disappointment as resolutely non-pc reality rudely intrudes into their pc fantasy world. By far the most inconvenient reality at the moment is Islam. Sadly, while liberal bigots ever more frenziedly chant their mantra “Islam is a religion of peace”, Muslims amuse themselves by giving them the lie direct.

In February the followers of the religion of peace and mercy were in fine voice on the streets of London. They were marching against the supposed insult to Islam of cartoons featuring Mohammed published in Denmark. Gaily they skipped along with banners bearing jolly messages such as “Behead those who insult Islam”, “Massacre those who insult Islam”, “Butcher those who insult Islam”, “Slay those who insult Islam”, “Behead the one who insults the Prophet”, “Europe you will pay, your extermination is on the way”. One fine fellow, Omar Khayam, a criminal out on parole (you couldn’t make it up), added to the festive outing by dressing up as a suicide bomber (Metro 7 2 2006).

The police did their pc duty and made no attempt to stop the placards being carried and, just to make sure the demonstrators were not harassed by wicked whites, provided a strong escort as the demonstrators marched. They did make two arrests – of white non-Muslim counter-protestors who carried placards with one or more of the Mohammed cartoons. The police also attempted to prevent press photographers taking photographs of the demonstration and threatened to arrest at least one person who had the temerity to ask why the police were not arresting the placard bearers calling for murder. (Sunday Telegraph 5 2 2006).

The Metropolitan Police’s spokesman immediately after the demonstration gave no indication of any investigation of those with the banners, but merely “explained” the reluctance to arrest demonstrators by citing public order fears (as Rachel Sylvester put it: “One law for the bloodthirsty: another for the tolerant” – Daily Telegraph 6 2 2006). Eventually the police set up an investigation, but only after vigorous protests in the mainstream media, from the public (500 separate complaints were eventually made to the Met) and, perhaps most importantly, a statement by the Tory Home Affairs spokesman, David Davis, viz: “Clearly some of these placards are incitement to violence and, indeed, incitement to murder – an extremely serious offence which the police must deal with and deal with quickly. Whatever your view on these cartoons, we have a tradition of free speech in this country, which has to be protected. Clearly, there can be no tolerance of incitement to murder.”(The Sunday Telegraph of 5th Feb 2006).

The demonstration consisted of hundreds of people, many of them carrying banners inciting violence and murder. By mid-March all of three protesters (Daily Telegraph 16 3 2006) had been arrested by our fearless boys in blue and charged with incitement to murder and the incitement of racial hatred.

No such reluctance about arresting and prosecuting two members of the BNP, their leader Nick Griffin and an activist Mark Collett. They were tried in January on various counts relating to racial insult and incitement. The trial ended with half the charges being swept aside through not guilty verdicts and the others left undecided because the jury was hung.

Only a few hours after the end of the trial word came that the prosecution would be seeking a re-trial on the hung charges, a quest which was satisfied most expeditiously with the re-trial set for October. The trial and re-trial required the agreement of the attorney-general, a member of this Labour Government. The head of the Crown Prosecution Service, the Director of Public Prosecutions Ken MacDonald, is a Labour supporter. It warms the heart to know we have such a disinterested justice system.

The BNP two were charged with offences which resulted from speeches made at meetings of BNP members and only became public property because the BBC placed an undercover reporter Jason Gwynne within the BNP, who secretly recorded them for later broadcast by the BBC. Grotesquely, part of the charges against Griffin concerned his accurate forecast of suicide bombings in Britain, a prediction which came horribly true on July 7 2005. The worst that could be said about the speeches was that some of the language was crude.

Abu Hamza, aka Captain Hook, was brought to book for ten years of inciting racial hatred and various acts of violence including murder. Hamza received seven years at Her Majesty’s pleasure despite his defence counsel, Edward Fitzgerald QC pointing out the embarrassing fact that “It is said he was preaching murder, but he was actually preaching from the Koran itself.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper 0,,174-2001006 00.html.

Dr Frank Ellis of Leeds University (who is well known to readers ofRight Now!) has been enjoying the attentions of some of what Aubron Waugh delighted in calling Mrs Williams’ unemployables. Twenty years ago they simply went on the dole: now they go to university.

Frank gave a long and forthright interview to Mark Kennard, the editor of the university student paper the Leeds Student. The interview included reference to Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanan’s IQ and the Wealth of Nations, a book in which the authors compute the average IQ of black Africans to be 70, the level which is recognised in Britain as constituting mental retardation. Cue for the regulation “anti-racist” rentamob squealing for Frank’s dismissal. (As I write – March – this has not happened.)

The interesting thing is that Frank was merely repeating what any psychologist specialising in intelligence testing will take as a given: that blacks have a much lower average IQ than whites and that whites have a less dramatically lower average IQ than Asians of the Chinese racial type. Strangely, no one ever complains about the higher Asian average IQ.

Will there always be an England, whatever the origin of its people?

The title of this piece  is taken from an article by Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph  (16 April 2011 – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/8454662/Will-there-always-be-an-England-whatever-the-origin-of-its-people.html ).  Moore’s article addresses a  fact which  to most, probably all,  people is obvious , namely,  that human beings are not interchangeable units who can be moved from and to societies in large numbers without having  effects which change the nature of the society which receives the immigrants.  The article is noteworthy because this profoundly important truth has been resolutely censored by the mainstream British media for over forty years  and denied by mainstream parties  of all political colours.

Moore was prompted to write the article by an experience on 14 April. He was due to attend an St Georges Day dinner at the Honourable Artillery Company  (held early so not to clash with Easter) where he was to give the toast to “England”.   The venue was in Sussex and he went by taxi only to find that  his driver was very much at variance with the theme of his intended evening, viz;

“ In these days of satnavs, few drivers really know where anything is: this one got slightly lost. Eventually, I had to stand in a central London street in my white tie and tails, waving my arms and calling in the driver on my mobile phone. He was a friendly man, who quickly endeared himself to me by saying that I had a “lovely accent”. He spoke somewhat fractured English and when I asked him where he was from, he said Bangladesh. It turned out, however, that he was born and had spent his entire life (about 40 years) in England.

“He asked where I was going after dinner. I said Sussex. He had never heard of it.

This experience caused Moore to ask a question forbidden by the commissars of  political correctness:

“What, I asked myself, was his “England”? If he had had the misfortune to sit in on my speech that night, would he – even if he spoke the language better – have picked up any joke or reference that I made? Would names like the Duke of Wellington, Tennyson, or William Blake have rung even the faintest bell? “And did those feet…?,” we sang. “What feet?,” my driver might have wondered. Anyway, what is “England’s green and pleasant land” to a man who lives 50 miles from Sussex but has never heard of it? He told me he finds our climate horribly cold, so that when he wants to get out in the country, he flies “back” to Bangladesh. “

Having trodden deep into the treacherous marsh of political incorrectness,   Moore attempts to rehabilitate  himself by placing his feelings within the realms of political correctness:

“These thoughts made me brood. Part of the pleasure of the England which I was trying to talk about is that it is shared. I am English-English (with a little Irish thrown in), but England is not the special possession of those like me, and I wouldn’t want it to be.”

England as a special place for the English? Heaven forfend!  However, having made his obeisance to the god of multiculturalism, he  blots his liberal credentials copybook further by continuing

“The point about a country is that it belongs to all its settled inhabitants. I don’t think that the driver felt excluded from an England which he wished to possess; rather that he simply had very little idea of it. He had an idea of London as a place (and of Tottenham Hotspur as a football club), and Britain as an entity that issues passports, but England? Little more, perhaps, than a geographical expression, and, as I say, his geography was vague. “

Moore than sways back into politically correct mode with

“Yet I could not possibly claim that I am a better citizen of this country than he. He works and, I expect, pays his taxes. He has a family. He patiently and politely drives businessmen to meetings and even takes men in white tie and tails to incomprehensible ceremonies. What I was on about that evening probably has less to do with the way we live in this island now than does this pleasant Muslim doing his bit to make London the most successful and cosmopolitan commercial hub in Europe. “

I was particularly struck by Moore’s grovelling and defeated acceptance that the Bangladeshi taxi driver was more representative of England than Moore and the people with whom he was about to celebrate St George’s Day.

Moore than goes on to retail the massive immigration since the advent of Blair in 1997 – the population of the UK has risen by more than two million through net immigration since then. He then breaks the liberal omerta on immigration by pointing out the salutary fact that net immigration only tells us  “about overall numbers, but not about the composition of the population. It conceals the fact that hundreds of thousands of British-born people left and many, many more non-British people came. “

All well and good. He then adds

“Most of us do not want immigration on this scale. That is shown by every poll. But, in another sense, most of us do. You and I want someone to serve us in a bar and clean the hospitals and make cheap clothes. I want someone to drive me across town so that I can make my Colonel Blimp remarks to a friendly audience.

Here Moore continues to  swing backwards and forwards  between honesty and political correctness. He confuses the fact of immigration and the jobs done by immigrants with what the native population wants. All immigrants do is displace native workers by a mixture of taking lower wages than the natives  (which they can afford to do because the savings they make are multiplied several times in value when they take the savings back to their own country) and colonising areas of work especially those which are organised by gangmasters who themselves are often foreign and generally only employ people from their own ethnic or national group. Moore’s view is that of the white middle-class liberal who would cannot conceive of immigrants ever competing with him for jobs, healthcare or housing.

Moore also shows a remarkable lack of imagination when it comes to breeding rates:

“Above all, we show, in our obsession with birth control, that we do not want to provide a big enough next generation of people like ourselves. Demographic projections now show Britain overtaking Germany as the largest EU country in 30 years or so. None of that growth will come from the indigenous white population. “

I doubt that it has ever occurred to Moore that much of the cause of native English families having children at  below replacement rate is directly or indirectly due to the mass post 1945 immigration and its consequences. These  plausibly may have reduced the  willingness  of the native population to have children from  a mixture of demoralisation through seeing parts of their land colonised and the competition for jobs, housing, schools and welfare  which immigrants have brought.  It is also a fair bet that many native white families have left  England because of the immigration.    There is also the point that demography is notoriously unreliable at making accurate predictions. Without the post-war immigration it would not matter very much that the  native population’s breeding rate was below replacement level  because a new equilibrium would gradually emerge. With mass immigration the lower breeding rate of the native population is of the greatest importance because it is conceivable that within 50 and certainly 100 years the native English could be a minority in their own land through a mixture of continuing mass immigration to the UK (the vast majority  of which comes to England) and higher breeding rates amongst immigrants and their descendant populations.

Moore ends by flying the white flag as he accepts the end of England as inevitable: 

“All this need not be a total disaster. It is possible, though hard, to forge a United Kingdom made up of many ethnicities. Leaders like Mr Cameron are right to try to insist on common standards and better rules, rather than to despair. But whatever it is, and however well it turns out, it cannot be England. Perhaps when I am very old, my grandchildren will ask me what England was. It will be a hard question to answer, but I think I shall tell them that it seemed like a good idea while it lasted, and that it lasted for about 1,000 years.”

Moore is a  defeatist when there is no need to be one. The dissolving of England and the English in a multicultural  immigrant soup is not inevitable.  The size of non-assimilated populations is not yet so vast that nothing can be done. Most of the immigrant populations is compressed into the larger towns and cities. Geographically, most of England  is still occupied by the English. Mass immigration could be ended if  Britain recovered control over its own borders by withdrawing from  the EU, repudiating  all other treaties and conventions which facilitate immigration to the Britain such as the UN Convention on Refugees and throwing over the globalist ideology which currently holds sway.  Having stemmed the flow, a British government could then start reducing the numbers here  by removing illegal immigrants, followed  by  the departure of those without work, followed by the removal of those without British citizenship whose  work is not absolutely necessary .  Native Britons could be given the right to take a job occupied by an immigrant if they had the ability to do it.  The benefits of the welfare state (barring  emergency healthcare) could be denied to first generation immigrants.  British citizenship should be withheld from those who cannot or will not assimilate.  Those actions would allow meaningful control over the size of the ethnic minority populations in England.

What Moore does not address is his own position and the position of those of his class and position.  Moore has spent his life as a journalist (over 35 years).  Between 1984 and 2003 he was successively editor of the Spectator magazine, the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph.  Never at any time in his various editorships  did write or speak out forthrightly against the malign effects of  mass immigration or allow any of the publications he managed to  forthrightly promote such views.   Instead, he was if not content willing to play the politically correct game when it came to race and immigration.  If doubts were expressed they were always couched in terms which attempted to place them within the parameters of politically correctness. Immigration was not bad per se, it was merely a question of numbers. When immigrants misbehaved, stories which dealt with the misbehaviour were  placed on a pc cushion along the lines of “immigrants are generally a great boon to the country”.  This  latest article shows Moore is still trying to do the same thing.  Nonetheless,  it is a significant breach in the carapace of political correctness which has grown over England in the past fifty years and should be welcomed for that reason.

What to do if you become involved with the criminal law

Robert Henderson (30 March 2011)

Contents

Paras

1-2        What this guide is for

3-8        General tactics

9-13      Choosing a lawyer

14-22   The Arrest

23         Your mental state if under arrest or seemingly under arrest

24-29  How you will be treated after arrest

30-32  How to behave after arrest

33-35  Stop and Search

36-38  Searches with warrants

39-41  Searches without warrants

49-51  The caution

52-58  What to do when cautioned

45-51  The right to silence

59-65  Interrogation

66        The planting of evidence

67         If you are charged

68-71   Detention

72-74  The police

75-78  The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)

79-81   The government law officers

82-86   What to do if you get to court

87-89   Should you go into the witness box?

90-98   Expert witnesses

99-100 Other paths to explore

101-102 Formal police caution or court?

103-105 When should you plead guilty?

What this guide is for

1. Over the past twenty-five years fundamental safeguards have been removed or are in danger of being removed from our legal system through measures such as the Serious Crime and Disorder Act, various anti-terrorism laws, the retention of the fingerprints and DNA of those not found guilty of a crime and the breach of the convention that no one is placed in “double jeopardy” by being tried twice for the same offence. At the same time, the whole thrust of government policy and behaviour is ever more authoritarian, vide the neutering of Parliament, the series of gratuitous and aggressive wars and the increasingly intolerant treatment of protestors. In such circumstances the chances of becoming involved with the criminal law are increasing even for the law abiding. That being so it pays to be prepared to deal with the police, lawyers and the courts.  This what the guide is designed to do.

2. The guide does not tell you what the law is with regard to a particular crime. Rather, it tells the reader what to expect from the police, lawyers and courts, what can and cannot be legally done by the police and associated agencies such as the security services and how you can best defend yourself whilst keeping within the law.  The law most useful to know in this context is that related to these Acts:

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984

Public Order Act 1986

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act

Terrorism Act 2000

Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005

The full text of these acts can be found http://www.legislation.gov.uk/

General Tactics

3. Your general tactics should be three. First, give the authorities particularly the police) as little cooperation as possible within the law, whilst remaining formally polite and reasonable. Second, lay down markers all the way along the line if official misconduct occurs. This covers everything from complaints by you about the failure to observe legal procedures, such as advising a suspect that he is under arrest, to complaints about physical violence. Such markers will provide you with powerful weapons to dissuade the police and the Crown Prosecution Service from mounting a prosecution against you (from embarrassment if nothing else), provide you at your trial with ammunition to taint the prosecution evidence and conceivably give grounds for appeal.  Third, ensure that those in authority know that you will fight to the limit any attempt to prosecute. Such behaviour will both give the police or the prosecuting authority (The Crown Prosecution Service) little to go on and be quietly intimidating to both.

4. Whenever you are abused, whenever you feel that your legal rights have not been observed, whenever you believe that police procedures have not been followed, do the following: (1) make it clear immediately to the nearest police officer that you will be making a formal complaint and (2) make a written note, as soon as possible, of what has happened and sign and date that note. If you have a solicitor, pass the note to them as soon as you physically can so that he or she may certify the date that they received it. Ensure that a copy of your notes exists.

5. If you have a means of recording conversations, use this to record any conversations relating to you by police officers after you are arrested. These may be conversations in which you are a participant or conversations about you but not involving you, by police officers. Make it clear on the recording who you are, when and where the recording was made and the people recorded. Hand this recording to your solicitor as soon as possible. Ensure a copy of any recordings is made. Nothing but nothing is as effective a check on official misbehaviour as their knowledge that they are being recorded.

6. If you have one on you, use your mobile phone to tell others about your arrest if you can. If you have the means of connecting to the Internet put out details of your plight through the Internet.

7. If the police stops you from doing (6) and (7), ask the reason why, the rank of the officer and the name of the officer. Make a written note of it as soon as you can. Include the time the refusal was made, where it was made, the time and date of when the note was made and your signature. 

8. If you threaten to make a complaint, always do so. Never cry wolf.

Choosing a lawyer

9. You will need a solicitor experienced in criminal law. Solicitors often appear in the magistrates courts, although they may also instruct a barrister to act for you. The solicitor will normally instruct a barrister if you get as far as the higher court. Specially licensed solicitors can also appear in the place of barristers in the higher courts(Crown Court, High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court), but I would not recommend trusting your fortunes to one, especially if it is a very serious charge. 

10. If a barrister is instructed, make sure that he is experienced in the area of criminal law with which you are involved. Make certain that the person who turns up to represent you if you are taken to a police station is a qualified solicitor and not a legal executive. Refuse to say anything if a solicitor is not available.  

11. Wherever possible give your instructions to your solicitor and barrister in writing. Keep a copy. This will prevent them going their own sweet way. Barristers in particular always believe that they know best and often disregard or bend their clients’ instructions out of all recognition.

12. Written instructions can be useful if your lawyers let you down. If you feel your solicitor or barrister is incompetent or dishonest, you can sue them and/or make a complaint to their governing bodies, the Law Society (solicitors) and Bar Council (Barristers).  Moreover, if your barrister or solicitor does not follow your instructions, that could be grounds for appeal under the more liberal appeal rules which now apply.  Written instructions are also useful if you want to dismiss your barrister during a trial. The court will look on your request more kindly if you can show that your instructions have not been carried out. They could also provide grounds for an appeal or retrial.

13. The quality of lawyers you will get is largely governed by the amount of money you have. If you are on legal aid, you will probably have to take what you are given by way of a barrister. Your choice of solicitor will also be restricted to those willing to take legal aid work. The already unfair situation is about to become worse.  New rules governing legal aid are shortly to come into force. These will restrict legal aid to lawyers licensed by the government. This will greatly reduce the number of solicitors available for criminal work  and in many parts of the country it will be difficult to find a lawyer able and willing to take a case. In addition, legal Aid is no longer automatically available for criminal cases (since 2010) and you may have to pay all or part of the defence costs (http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/criminal/criminal_legal_aid_eligibility.asp). However, if you are arrested you will get free legal advice at a police station.  If you are charged with a really serious offence, you should end up with competent lawyers and most probably get your full costs met from public funds.  

The Arrest

14. An arrest can be made with or without a warrant being issued. Until the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005 (SOCA) there were significant restrictions on the power of arrest without a warrant, most notably the restriction of an automatic right arrest to  an arrestable offence. An arrestable offence was any offence which has a fixed mandatory penalty (e.g.  murder) or which carries a sentence of at least five years’ imprisonment. Inciting, attempting, or conspiring to commit, or being an accessory to, an arrestable offence was also an arrestable offence.  There were also a few other offences, such as taking and driving, which are arrestable offences even though they carry a sentence of less than five years.

 15. Prior to SOCA a police officer could also make an arrest for a non-arrestable offence if he reasonably suspected that a non-arrestable offence has been or is being committed and (1) he thought that  “a general arrest condition” is satisfied (for example, he reasonably believed that an arrest was necessary to prevent a suspect causing injury) or (2) he had the statutory power to  make the arrest (for example, for drunken driving) or the common-law power to arrest (e.g. for a breach of the peace).  SOCA has made the power of arrest so broad that it in practice an arrest can be made for any suspected offence. Here is the relevant section from the Act:

(1)For section 24 of PACE (arrest without warrant for arrestable offences) substitute—

24 Arrest without warrant: constables

(1)A constable may arrest without a warrant—

(a)anyone who is about to commit an offence;

(b)anyone who is in the act of committing an offence;

(c)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be about to commit an offence;

(d)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an offence.

(2)If a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that an offence has been committed, he may arrest without a warrant anyone whom he has reasonable grounds to suspect of being guilty of it.

(3)If an offence has been committed, a constable may arrest without a warrant—

(a)anyone who is guilty of the offence;

(b)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be guilty of it.

(4)But the power of summary arrest conferred by subsection (1), (2) or (3) is exercisable only if the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that for any of the reasons mentioned in subsection (5) it is necessary to arrest the person in question.

(5)The reasons are—

 (a)to enable the name of the person in question to be ascertained (in the case where the constable does not know, and cannot readily ascertain, the person’s name, or has reasonable grounds for doubting whether a name given by the person as his name is his real name);

 (b)correspondingly as regards the person’s address;

 (c)to prevent the person in question—

 (i)causing physical injury to himself or any other person;

 (ii)suffering physical injury;

 (iii)causing loss of or damage to property;

 (iv)committing an offence against public decency (subject to subsection (6)); or

 (v)causing an unlawful obstruction of the highway;

 (d)to protect a child or other vulnerable person from the person in question;

 (e)to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence or of the conduct of the person in question;

 (f)to prevent any prosecution for the offence from being hindered by the disappearance of the person in question.

 (6)Subsection (5)(c)(iv) applies only where members of the public going about their normal business cannot reasonably be expected to avoid the person in question. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/part/3/crossheading/powers-of-arrest)

 16. There is one great exception to this arrest regime.  The Terrorism Act 2000 (sections 40-43 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/40) allows an arrest without reasonable suspicion for any suspected breach of the Act. In all other circumstances to make an arrest without a warrant the arresting officer must have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been  committed, is being committed or is about to be committed. Offences include not leaving a designated area when ordered to do so or holding a demonstration without a licence in a designated area – an area designated by the government  (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/section/128)

If an officer cannot show that he had such reasonable suspicion, he has prima facie wrongfully arrested and falsely imprisoned. The officer might also be guilty of an assault if force was used.

17. In principle anyone may make an arrest, the popularly called “citizen’s arrest”. Such arrests are in practice fraught with difficulty for the arrester, because of the potential for disputes over the circumstances of the arrest and what constitutes reasonable force. Someone effecting what they thought to be a “citizen’s arrest” might well end up on charges of assault, the use of an offensive weapon and false imprisonment.  If you wish to chance your arm here are the situations which justify such an arrest:

24 Arrest without warrant: other persons

(1)A person other than a constable may arrest without a warrant—

(a)anyone who is in the act of committing an indictable offence;

(b)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an indictable offence.

(2)Where an indictable offence has been committed, a person other than a constable may arrest without a warrant—

(a)anyone who is guilty of the offence;

(b)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be guilty of it.

(3)But the power of summary arrest conferred by subsection (1) or (2) is exercisable only if—

(a)the person making the arrest has reasonable grounds for believing that for any of the reasons mentioned in subsection (4) it is necessary to arrest the person in question; and

(b)it appears to the person making the arrest that it is not reasonably practicable for a constable to make it instead.

(4)The reasons are to prevent the person in question—

(a)causing physical injury to himself or any other person;

(b)suffering physical injury;

(c)causing loss of or damage to property; or

(d)making off before a constable can assume responsibility for him.”

(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/part/3/crossheading/powers-of-arrest)

18. For most practical purposes only the various police forces and Customs and Excise (now amalgamated with the Inland Revenue as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) have an exercisable power of arrest. Members of the security forces (M15 and M16) have no powers of arrest beyond those of the ordinary citizen. However, a “citizen’s arrest” by the security services would almost certainly carry fewer dangers for the arrester than it would for the ordinary citizen. This is because the state authorities will generally protect the arrester through their de facto control of prosecutions. (Politicians and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) will deny vehemently that such control is exercised. The facts are heavily against them.  Our justice system is controlled by law officers who are part of the government. The DPP is appointed by the government. One of the reasons the DPP may give for a failure to prosecute is that “prosecution is not in the public interest,” which can easily cover security service illegality. It is also doubtful whether any security officer, that is, an officer formally employed by the security services, has ever been prosecuted for offences committed during the course of his or her work.)  It should be borne in mind that Special Branch – which is often mistakenly thought of as part of the security forces – is part of the Police and its members consequently can effect an arrest as easily and safely as any other police officer.

19. If a warrant is sought for someone’s arrest, the officer applying to the magistrate (or judge) must satisfy the granting authority that there are sufficient grounds for an arrest, that is, there are grounds for a reasonable suspicion that an offence has been committed.

20. When making an arrest with a warrant the arresting officer must show the person arrested the warrant, but he need not do so at the time of the arrest. Always attempt to obtain a copy of the warrant, the name of the person who has granted it and the reasons given by the applying officer for its granting. If possible ask to photostat or photograph the warrant.  If this is not possible, ask for time to make notes about the detail of the warrant. If this is denied, note the officer who denies the request and the words in which the denial is given. Make a written note as soon as possible. Ask the person(s) engaged in the denial to sign the note you have made certifying it to be a true record.  As soon as possible either you or your solicitor should write to the magistrates (or judge) who granted the warrant asking them to confirm the reasons for granting the warrant. If necessary, call the magistrate (or judge) to your trial to justify the granting of a warrant.

21. When an arrest is made, the officer must tell the suspect why he or she is being arrested and give the grounds for the  arrest. The officer will probably do the former but may well  omit to do the latter. If you are arrested, and the officer  fails to give the grounds for your arrest, always ask  immediately what his reasonable grounds are and the crime of  which he suspects you. Note any failure to give the grounds. Never resist arrest. That in itself constitutes a criminal offence if the arrest is deemed legitimate. Moreover, it is very easy to end up on a charge alleging some form of assault.

22. The police’s favourite time to arrest is in the early hours of the morning. They do this because they believe – quite rightly – that the suspect will be at their most susceptible at that time. However, such arrests tend to be for serious crimes and more often than not crimes involving career criminals. Most arrests are made on the spur of the moment.

Your mental state if under arrest or seemingly under arrest

23 The bad news is that you will almost certainly panic if you have no previous experience of such circumstances. That is nothing to be ashamed of, it is just the way human beings are made. The good news is that panic can be controlled. Visualise now the circumstances under which you will be arrested before you are arrested. Do this regularly. When you are arrested, use deep breathing to control the panic, preferably with your eyes closed. It should calm you down. Then cling on tightly to the idea that if you follow my instructions, you have a very good chance of never being convicted of anything provided the evidence against you is not overwhelming.

How will you be treated after arrest?

24. The physical circumstances you will experience after arrest will vary greatly. At the police station, you will probably be held either in an interview room or a cell. The cell experience may be simply a question of being locked in a small room or, particularly in the inner cities, resemble something rather more demonic, with a rich stew of the mentally ill, the drugged and the drunk either in your cell or ensconced nearby. Ignore them as best you can. Even if you have someone seemingly threatening in your cell, it is unlikely they will be violent without provocation.

25. If you are unlucky enough to be remanded in custody, obey the golden rule of giving no provocation. If you do not go looking for trouble there is a fair chance you will not find it. If you are educated, offer your help to other prisoners with letter writing and such forth. Try to get yourself remanded to the hospital wing. If all else fails, ask to be put in solitary confinement for your own safety – you have legal right to this.  Time served in custody counts as time served if you receive a prison sentence.

26. With the restrictions created by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), especially the requirement to record interviews, it is unlikely that you will be physically assaulted by the police. However, it is just possible that you may be. Your chances of being assaulted – other than in a resisted  arrest – are virtually nil if you are a woman, although you might be subjected to some form of indecent assault. If you are old, it is unlikely you will be assaulted.  If you are a middle class man they are small, unless you are extremely provocative or unlucky. If you are working class the odds of assault improve somewhat. If you are a career criminal they go up sharply. You also have to bear in mind the crime which is being investigated. If it is (1) serious, 2) causing public outrage and (3) intrinsically sick making, such as the rape and murder of a young child, your chances of being assaulted to gain a conviction will decidedly improve.

27. If you are physically assaulted your best means of resistance is to go inside yourself mentally. Exclude the outside world, make everything seems far off and unimportant. Remember also that the human body can take an immense amount of physical abuse without you dying or being permanently crippled. If you are young, you are practically indestructible if you  receive a routine beating. Moreover, the type of physical abuse you are likely to be subjected to is unlikely to be more than beating on non-vital parts. If you are attacked and free to move, go down on the floor and roll yourself into the foetal position.  Just try to hang in there. Unless you are arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000,  They can only keep you in custody without charge for 24 hours normally and 36 hours at most unless there are exceptional circumstances. If you are charged, you must go before a magistrate’s court as soon as possible. Make any complaint you have to the court. The Terrorism Act 2000 allows a person to held for 28 days without charge.

28. The police have the right to take from someone under arrest fingerprints, DNA samples  and shoeprints from anyone arrested for a  a recordable offence . This covers the overwhelming majority of arrests – see  http://gizmonaut.net/blog/uk/recordable_offences.html . At present these details are retained routinely on the police database in England and Wales (only convicted offenders samples are kept in Scotland)  even if no charge is brought or if a charge is brought but the defendant is found not guilty. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2009 that this was a breach of the Convention on Human Rights and any records held of those not convicted of a crime should be deleted. The UK  Government promised to bring forward a scheme but has not done so to date. (http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snha-04049.pdf).

29. Being arrested is no longer a small matter. The retention of details of an arrest, especially your DNA, on a searchable database means that you are a potential object of suspicion even if you have never been charged with a crime. It would increase your chances of being investigated for other crimes significantly, not least because with a database contained thousands of DNA samples there is a reasonable chance of false positives, that is, another person’s DNA being identified as yours or vice versa. There is also a growing tendency of the police to go after close matches whereby the DNA of a close relative may lead to you being drawn into an investigation. Finally, planting another person’s DNA at a scene is easily done, a fag-end or used tissue will do the trick. 

How to behave after arrest

30. Use a polite but firm manner. Many people imagine that they can gain an advantage by showing the police that they are subordinate, normally by being ingratiating. This is an unqualified mistake.  The police will interpret such behaviour as weakness. On the other side, aggressive or abusive behaviour merely alienates those in authority and those who will judge you, magistrates, judges or juries.  Avoid it.

31. It is important that you maintain a psychological distance between the police and yourself  at all times. You may think that by becoming on ostensibly friendly terms with the police you will get better treatment. The reverse is the case. The police will identify your wanting to be liked as weakness and will use a surface amiability to lull you into a false sense of security. You are then more likely to volunteer information.  This may either be directly incriminating or prompt a line of questioning which either incriminates you or leads to a situation where you have to suddenly refuse to answer. That will not look good in court.

32. If you encounter behaviour from the police which you judge to be unacceptable, for example physical threats or serious verbal abuse, make it clear instantly that you will be making a formal complaint. Having issued the threat, you must always carry it out. Ask to see the most senior officer present to make the complaint. Such complaints can of themselves be useful in discrediting in court police evidence or defusing any suggestion that by keeping quiet you had something to hide. They can also ward off any further attempts at abuse. 

Stop and Search Laws

33. There is no general power of stop and search but there are a number of  laws which allows it in specific circumstances. Most of these can only be exercised where the officer has ‘reasonable suspicion’ that a particular crime has been committed, for example, the power to search a person for illegal drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the power to search for stolen or prohibited items under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE). Two Acts provide for stop and search without reasonable suspicion, Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

33. Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows a Chief Constable or the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to designate an area as stop and search areas. Within these the police can use stop and search powers without the need for any reasonable suspicion. In the past section 44 has been used within peaceful public protests. At the moment the whole of London is a designated area for stop and search under section 44. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/44)

34. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, empowers  a police officer of the rank of inspector or above to issue a written authorisation for additional search powers on the basis of a reasonable belief that incidents involving serious violence may take place or that people are carrying dangerous instruments or offensive weapons in the area without good reason. The powers relate to pedestrians and vehicles in a specified locality, for a specified period, not exceeding 48 hours at a time. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/section/60)

35. Where an authorisation has been issued, any constable in uniform may stop and search any pedestrian or anything carried by the pedestrian, or any vehicle or anyone in it, for offensive weapons and dangerous instruments and may seize any such items which are found. In addition, the police may require you to remove any item which they reasonably believe you are wearing wholly or mainly for the purpose of concealing your identity.

Searches with warrants

36. Search warrants are authorised by magistrates or occasionally judges. When the police come knocking on your door you will not have time to scrutinise the document closely but check the warrant for the address and the magistrate or a judge’s signature.  If the first is wrong or the second  missing, point this out to the police and make it clear you consider the warrant to be invalid.  The police may well ignore what you say, but you have laid down a marker for the future. If the warrant was not valid the police will be unable to claim they did not know it was invalid and acted in good faith. If the police do ignore your complaint and search, record or make a written note of their response. If you can make a video or audio recording from the moment you realise what they have come for. If you refuse to let the police in, be prepared for them to make a forced entry. As with the arrest, it is better to allow the police to do what they will then argue the toss afterwards.  

37. If it is  an all premises warrant “no premises which are not specified in it may be entered or searched unless a police officer of at least the rank of inspector has in writing authorised them to be entered.” http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/section/113

38. To obtain a warrant for offences under the Terrorism Act 2000, all the applying officer is required to do is show that the person falls within the very broad definitions offered in section 1 of the Act (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/1)

Searches without warrants

39. Under section 18 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, where a person is under arrest because of a reasonable belief that an offence has been committed, a police officer of the rank of inspector or above may authorise a search of premises which they have reasonable grounds for believing contain evidence of the suspected offence. Such a search should be restricted to looking for such evidence, but in the nature of things if other evidence of unrelated offences is uncovered the police will act on it.

40. A search can also be made of premises without authorisation by an inspector or more senior officer if “the presence of the person at a place (other than a police station) is necessary for the effective investigation of the offence.]” (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/180. This would apply if someone is arrested and the arresting officer has reasonable grounds for believing that a search of premises before taking a suspect to a police station will provide evidence of a suspected offence. If such a search is made, the officer conducting the search must advise an inspector or more senior officer of the search at the first opportunity.

41. Whether a search is made with or without a warrant, there is a reasonable chance that the police will leave the place searched in a mess and/or with damage. If this happens, make a complaint at the time, take photographs and follow it up with a formal letter of complaint to the Chief Constable or in London the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Depending on the circumstances, there may be grounds for either criminal charges or civil action against the police.

The caution

42. The present caution is this syntactical abortion:

“You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence”

43. The police, Customs and Excise and certain Inland Revenue officers (Customs and Excise and the Revenue are now amalgamated with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or HMRC for short) can administer the caution, question under the caution and take statements under the caution.

44. The caution must be administered in accordance with a code of practice issued under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE). It can only be administered where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a criminal offence has been committed. It must be administered as soon as is practically possible after the officer reaches the conclusion that such reasonable grounds exists. For example, if you are being questioned without caution, the questioning officer cannot continue questioning you without administering the caution if it becomes apparent from your answers that a reasonable ground for suspecting that you have committed an offence exists. An example of when a caution could not be immediately administered would be during an arrest involving violent resistance where the person being arrested was saying things which indicated guilt, for example, “Take your hands off me or I’ll do you like I did X”, X being someone injured in a brawl. 

45. Anything you say after the caution is administered is admissible in evidence unless you can show that the statements were obtained incorrectly.  Anything you say before the caution is given is not normally admissible in evidence. However, there are exceptions where pertinent statements are made in circumstances where the officer cannot  reasonably be  expected  to issue  a  caution.  Such circumstances are most commonly found where a resisted arrest occurs – see above. These statements, even though not after a caution, may or may not be admitted in evidence depending on the court’s judgement of the circumstances. However, in any circumstances, the officer must, as previously mentioned, administer the caution at the earliest possible opportunity.  It is unlikely but not impossible, that words uttered before the caution was given to a person peaceably under arrest would be admitted as evidence. However, bear in mind that statements you make to anyone else other than the police could be given in evidence. For example, if you are on remand, a cell mate might decide to give evidence against you based on conversations you have had.

46. When the caution is given, the officer must make clear whether or not the person to whom it was administered is under arrest. If he is not under arrest, the officer must make it clear that the person is free to go about his business. In any circumstances, the officer administering the caution must remind the suspect of his right to legal representation.

47. The officer administering the caution must note the fact in his notebook or interview record as appropriate.

48. After a caution has been administered, an officer continuing an interrogation after an interval or an officer beginning a new interrogation must remind a previously cautioned suspect that he or she is still under caution.

What to do when cautioned

49. If the officer giving the caution states that you are not under arrest you may leave immediately. Do so after asking what his reasonable grounds are for suspecting that you have committed a crime.  Say nothing in response to any further questions.

50. If the officer fails to advise you whether or not you are under arrest, ask whether you are under arrest. If you are not, make a note of the officer’s name and the failure to advise you of your arrestable status. Then ask what his reasonable grounds are for suspecting you of a crime. Then leave without saying anything further. The police cannot detain

51. If you are under arrest, try to obtain the officer’s identification whether it be a name, number or office or station from which he or she works. Make a formal complaint about any failure to advise you whether you are under arrest.  This is important because it may give grounds for invalidating the caution and thus affect the admissibility of evidence, in this cased your failure to respond. Ask what his reasonable grounds are for suspecting that you have committed a criminal offence.

 The Right to Silence

52. Contrary to popular opinion, the Right to Silence has not been abolished. All the present caution does is provide an opportunity for the court to draw to the attention of the jury (or magistrates), the fact that the accused refused or failed to give information, at some pre-trial moment, on which they base their defence partly or wholly. The change in the rules has not resulted in a significant change in the general conviction rate which suggests that it makes little if any difference. 

 53. If I had to give one piece of advice to anyone cautioned, arrested or charged with an offence it would be this: “Say absolutely nothing”.  That advice would apply whether or not the person had a solicitor in attendance during police questioning. Those who doubt that it is good advice should ask themselves two questions: (1) why do smart career criminals do it as a matter of course? and (2) why did the  last government circumscribe the right to silence? The answer is that it is generally the most successful tactic in both avoiding prosecution and if brought to court, conviction.  Always go with the professionals – in this case smart career criminals – is a good piece of advice in any circumstances.

54. The reason for the tactic’s success is that many criminal prosecutions involve some self-incrimination from the accused. This does not necessarily mean that the accused has admitted to anything which directly implicates them in a crime. It may often simply mean that they have told a lie which is discovered or have inadvertently contradicted themselves when speaking of circumstances not directly linked to a crime. The trouble with that is that it casts doubt about their general truthfulness, which is an important consideration, particularly in a jury trial.

55. Information given in writing is a different matter. A letter to the police is obviously controlled by the writer. A formal statement is also controlled by the suspect. The police will almost always try to write statements for you. They will say it will be better because they know what the courts want. Resist these blandishments. Always write your own statement.

56. But written information should only be given where there is (1) a pressing reason such as the provision of an alibi and (2) where you are absolutely certain that the story you tell is not merely true but the whole truth. Where possible avoid giving any written information.

 57. If you do refuse to answer questions, one question only needs to be addressed by the jury or magistrate:  was it reasonable for the accused not to have given information at an earlier time. Obviously there are particular reasons for a failure or refusal particular to a case, such as the information not having been available to the accused at an earlier time.  However, there are also general reasons.

 58. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak without a legal advisor being present. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if recording facilities were unavailable. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if you had just been arrested in an unexpected and/or violent manner. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if you had been abused by the police. It would be reasonable for you to refuse to speak if you believed that police procedures had not been observed. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if you feel ill. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if you have been kept in circumstances in which you might reasonably be judged to be exhausted.  It is always reasonable to refuse to speak if your legal adviser tells you not to. 

 Interrogation

 59. The good old bad old days when people could be simply “verballed” by the police into prison or onto the gallows are happily gone, although many an old copper doubtless still sheds a tear for their passing and old, unreconstructed members of  the Met’s Sweeney doubtless moisten their pillows nightly.  The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 changed all that. The onus is now on the police to video record – interviews wherever possible. The police must show that recording was not possible. 

60.  Once you have been cautioned, a simple statement that you do not wish to say anything should be enough to prevent further questioning. However, the police will most likely keep pressing you to say something. The best tactic is simply to refuse to say anything. 

61. If you do decide to be interviewed, insist that your legal representative is present. Insist also that the interview is videoed. Insist further that a copy of the tape is given to the legal representative immediately the interview is completed. Get your legal representative to record the interview. Apart from obvious reason of ensuring the police do not doctor the interviews, such behaviour will be intimidating for the police.

62. Once the interview begins, refuse to answer any questions until the interviewing officer has answered some questions of your own. Ask first, do you have reasonable grounds for suspecting that I have committed an offence? If he answers no, get up and walk out. The police have no right to detain you and you have a prima facie case of wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. If the officer answers yes, ask: what are your reasonable grounds for suspecting that I have committed an offence? Let your legal representative judge whether the answer he gives meets the criteria for arrest. If it does not, seek to leave immediately. If prevented, do not answer any questions.

63. Doing interrogation, the police must make it clear within the recorded and written records when breaks are taken. Do not relax your guard if a break is taken. Reasonable refreshment must be provided to the suspect. The suspect must be given reasonable opportunity for rest. Bullying, in the form of a question being frequently repeated might well disqualify the interview from being admitted in evidence.

64. The police may still try to play their age old tricks on you – “tough cop, soft cop”, “You play ball with us son, and we’ll make sure the judge goes easy on you”, “Your mate’s coughed” etc. (Yes, policemen do actually speak like this. I blame this on them watching too many TV police series).  Do not believe a word they say. The police have no interest in  you beyond obtaining a conviction. They will lie to their hearts content in pursuit of that end.

65. If you are unlucky enough to be the subject of physical violence in an attempt to obtain a confession, what should you do? Resist signing if  you can. If you cannot, I suggest that you pretend to agree to sign a statement, but then write on it “I have been physically abused in an attempt to get me to sign this statement.” Then initial your words. Remember, initial not sign. Your action will present the police with a straight choice: do they leave the document intact (in which case it is evidence of sundry criminal behaviour on their part) or do they destroy it and commit the criminal act of perverting the course of justice? Alternatively, sign your name in a way it would not normally be signed. If your normal signature is John Smith, sign J.Smith. If you are right handed, sign left handed. This abnormal behaviour would provide evidence that you signed under duress.

The planting of evidence

66. Although “verballing”,is now a largely past black art, the police can still plant evidence. This can be extremely difficult to disprove. The main means of disproving it are circumstantial. If, for example, you have no history of drug abuse, it might seem implausible to a jury if the police claim that they have found a gramme of heroin in your possession. In your favour is the fact that modern juries are far less trusting of the police than they were even twenty years ago.

If you are charged

67. Being charged does not necessarily mean that you will be prosecuted. However it is a formal accusation of a crime. It indicates that the police (or other authority such as the Customs and Excise branch of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs)think that there is evidence which may lead to a prosecution. The charge should be entered in the charge sheet at the relevant station and a copy should be supplied to the accused.

Detention

68. You may be detained by an authorised officer, normally the police, only after arrest, You may be detained without charge. However, such detention may only occur when it is necessary to secure or preserve evidence or to obtain it by questioning. If detained without charge, always ask the detaining officer for justification of your detention.  Normally such detention should cease after 24 hours unless it is in connection with a serious charge such as rape, kidnapping, causing death by dangerous driving etc. Then a superintendent or more senior officer – chief superintendent, assistant chief constable, deputy chief constable and chief constable in all cases except the Metropolitan Police – may authorise an extension to 36 hours. Magistrate’s courts may authorise a extension of detention without charge for a further 36 hours. With exception of those held under terrorist laws who made be held for 28 days, a suspect held without charge may thus be kept for 72 hours at most.

69. If a suspect is charged with an offence, he or she must be granted police bail or brought before a court as soon as is reasonable. If the delay in bringing a suspect before court seems unreasonable, a writ of habeas corpus may be sought by the person detained. This will force the police to bring you before a court.

70. An arrested person held in custody may have one person told of this, although if a serious offence is concerned and a senior police officer reasonably believes that this would interfere with an investigation, this advice to the person can be delayed for up to 36 hours. If you are refused a chance to tell one person that you have been arrested, ask for the reason, the name of the person making the decision and the name and rank of the person making the decision.

The police

71. The police do not decide whether a prosecution is to be undertaken. Their responsibility is to gather evidence and then  prepare the evidence (with a covering submission) for forwarding to the Crown Prosecution Service.

72. The police may seek the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service at any point in an investigation, whether or not charges have been brought.

73. Many policemen are neither very bright nor well-educated. The minimum educational qualifications for most forces are still dire: 4 GCSE’s is par for the course. This means that they are not too hot on the paperwork side, either in its actual preparation or in their desire to undertake it. This natural reluctance has been built on in recent years by an immense increase in the paperwork required for a submission to the Crown Prosecution Service. Thus it is in your interest to make a case as unattractive to them as possible. Keeping silent does this. Occasionally, it may be expedient to flood the police with entirely legitimate paperwork, for example in the case of company fraud.

74. Bear in mind that policemen are only too human. If they make a serious mistake, they will wish to cover it up even if it means killing a strong case against a subject. It is in your interest to see they make mistakes if you possibly can.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)

75. The CPS is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The DPP is appointed by the government. The present DPP is Keir Starmer QC who was appointed in 2008. The DPP reports to the attorney-general, who is a member of the Government.

76. The CPS is the public body which determines whether most criminal prosecutions are to be brought – the DPP has the formal responsibility for these decisions.

77. At the decision making level, the CPS is staffed by qualified lawyers. Apart from the most senior, these tend to come in two sizes: the young and inexperienced and the older and incompetent. This is because it is rare for competent, experienced lawyer to work for the CPS as a case worker because(1) they can earn far  more in private practice and (2) he is not his own master.

78. The incompetence of the CPS lawyers can be exploited. As with the police, they do not like either difficult or complicated cases. The action you take to dissuade police officers from submitting a case to the CPS will also work at the level of the CPS lawyer. In addition, as with policemen, bear in mind that CPS lawyers are human. If they make a serious mistake, they will also wish to cover it up even if it means illegally dropping a strong case.

The government law officers

79. These are the Justice Secretary/Lord Chancellor (the two offices are held by the same person), the attorney general and the solicitor general. They are all politicians of the ruling party. The formal position is that they act only as impartial law officers when concerned with legal matters. This is of course utter tosh. Their existence is the main means by which government of the day manipulates the justice system.

80. The few criminal prosecutions not left to the DPP to decide are matters such as treason, offences under the Corruption Acts and offences under the Race Relations Act. The decision on such prosecutions is made by a member of the government, the Attorney-General, the second most senior political law officer after the Lord Chancellor. In the Attorney-General’s absence, the decision is made by the Solicitor-General, the third most senior law officer.

81. The Attorney-General (or the Solicitor-General) also has the right to intervene in criminal prosecutions. He or she may enter a plea of nolle prosequi (Latin: to be unwilling to prosecute) to terminate criminal proceedings. In the case of criminal proceedings on indictment, that is those tried by jury and thus generally the most serious, the proceedings are automatically ended. In the case of summary proceedings –  those in magistrate’s courts – the leave of the court is required. This leave would normally be automatic. Pleas of nolle  prosequi  are  not appealable.  Nor does the attorney-general (or the solicitor-general) have to give a reason for their plea, although normally a reason will be given such as “not in the public interest” or “unfit to plead”.

What to do if you get to court

82. Tempting as it may be to represent yourself, there is a good deal of truth in the adage that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client.

83. Most people have little experience in speaking in public. That alone will make them very nervous. The court atmosphere will be intimidating even if the court is a modern one. Then there is the problem of court procedure which the novice will find bewildering. Above all, there will be the need to question witnesses. This might seem simple but it is not. The average person will not be able to keep the flow of questioning going or construct sequences of questions which logically build up to a “killer” question. The average person will also put questions to witnesses which are irrelevant or inadmissible (which tries the patience of the court), questions which allow the witness to embroider their reply (which slow proceedings and may influence the jury in ways you do not want) and questions to which no certain answer can be expected. Good barristers ask only questions to which they know the reply, which is ideally yes or no.

84. However, having said all that there are cases where it may be necessary to defend yourself. This is where you cannot reasonably have any confidence in any barrister (or these days, solicitor) presenting your defence, honestly, ably or energetically in court. Such cases are very rare and are likely to arise only where the charge being answered is essentially political. Charges under Section 70 of the Race Relations Act might fall into this category.

85. The only other occasion when you should consider presenting your  own case is when you come to the conclusion during your trial that your counsel is making such a hash of your defence that to take it over yourself could not make matters worse.

86. If you do end up defending yourself, you may make use of advice in court from someone who is not your appointed counsel (a Mckenzie’s Friend – http://www.mckenzie-friends.co.uk/), for example a friend with some legal knowledge such as a solicitor’s clerk. However, the person does not need any legal knowledge. The judge should also extend a good deal of latitude to you when it comes to questioning of witnesses. He may even question witnesses on your behalf if he feels that you are failing to do the job adequately.

Should you go into the witness box?

87. Generally I would say no for the same reasons that I hold to the belief that keeping silent is on balance the best tactic. Give the court as little to go on as possible. It also hamstrings the judge, for “summing ups” frequently revolve around evidence given by the accused in the box. Such advantages will more than counterbalance any disadvantage you may incur by the magistrate or jury questioning why you have not taken the stand. But there are other reasons as well.

88. If you go into the witness box you will probably be very nervous. Prosecuting counsel will hold all the cards. He determines what questions will be put. You will be restricted more often than not to yes or no answers. Even if you are completely innocent, you may well come out of the box seeming dishonest. Moreover, if you do not go into the box, the jury or magistrate do not get a glimpse of your personality. They have to go entirely on the facts of the case. That is generally an advantage, particularly where a jury is concerned, because most people who give evidence come across as either frightened (which tends to make the jury despise them) or bombastic (which makes the jury dislike them.

89. The one occasion you probably should go into the witness box is if you are engaged in a political trial for that will give you the chance to expose the nature of the charge against you.

Expert witnesses

90. If you want an “expert” opinion to support your case you can usually find one. Moreover, certain types of evidence are either intellectually worthless or so questionable that they should, rationally, immediately create a “reasonable doubt”, the evidential test for a criminal conviction. It is up to you and your lawyers to make sure the questionable nature of the evidence is brought out emphatically during your trial. Even the most famous of forensic evidence, fingerprints, are not as secure a piece of evidence as the courts make out. A few years ago an historian of science, Simon Cole, published Suspect Identities:  a history of fingerprinting and criminal identification (Harvard University Press) which demolishes their infallibility and attacks the science which underlies fingerprint evidence.

 91. Such things as handwriting comparisons and voice prints are inconclusive – try getting a so-called handwriting expert to identify correctly fifty pieces of handwriting when he does not know how many were written by the same person. If you are faced with such an expert, get your counsel to set him such a test. If an audio recording is produced purporting to contain your voice, have it tested to see if it is edited and the recording is an original not a copy. Different recording machines of even the same model may produce different “electronic footprints”. Ditto video recordings. If you are faced with an audio alone, simply claim the person is not you. It is damned difficult to prove otherwise. Much video evidence is inconclusive because of camera angles and image quality. If all else fails, rest you claim on the fact that digital recordings can be manipulated in very sophisticated fashion and even what seems to be a cast iron recording of you doing whatever the prosecution says you were doing is no real proof.

 92. Psychiatry is no better than institutionalised quackery. As the psychologist Hans Eysenck never tired of pointing out, people suffering from mental illness who receive treatment from psychiatrists show no greater rates of recovery than those who receive no treatment. Incredible but true.

 93. You can refuse to be seen by a psychiatrist unless you have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. If you agree to be seen by a prosecution psychiatrist before your trial, insist on (1) your solicitor being present and (2) the interview(s) being recorded by your solicitor. Then say that you will not answer any questions unless the psychiatrist can provide objective evidence that his understanding of the human mind is any better than the next man’s as a result of his psychiatric training. There being no objective evidence, the psychiatrist will be unable to provide it. He may or may not admit so much. However, he can be forced in court to make the admission when he is under oath. Moreover, you can enter the recording of your meeting with him before the trial as evidence of quackery and your willingness to cooperate if it could be shown that such cooperation would have any worth.

94. You may be faced in court with psychiatric evidence which has not involved your cooperation, for example “Cracker” type speculation. Again, get your counsel to ask the psychiatrist to show objectively that he has special expertise. If he cannot show that he has special expertise, then he should be disqualified as an expert. At the worst you will have demonstrated to the jury or magistrate that there are solid grounds for doubting the evidence.

95. Eye witness evidence is so suspect that it is a wonder it is allowed. Academic study after academic study has shown the same thing: eye witnesses are monumentally unreliable. Get a psychologist who specialises in the field to give evidence on your behalf. Pay special attention to the time lapse between the crime and the first time the eye-witness makes a statement – the longer the time, the more suspect the evidence.

96. If you require expert advice for your defence, you have two main problems: (1) finding and paying the expert and (2) getting counsel who can understand the expert. (If you want to see counsel making an idiot of themselves, go and see a case involving serious forensic evidence. Second favourite for this sport is a case where counsel has to deal with a company fraud case involving arcane accountancy practices.) A further problem is that much of the forensic expertise readily available in this country is to be found in government controlled laboratories.

97. If you cannot get your own forensic tests done, you could be convicted simply because of incompetence by the laboratory used by the prosecution. Quite a few instances have come to light in recent years. Moreover, there have been a number of cases where there has been a deliberate attempt to cover up mistakes. So do try to get your own forensic tests done.

98. There is also the question of forensic evidence being planted by the police. Take DNA. It is a simple matter to obtain DNA evidence from a suspect. Get them to touch something. Get them to eat something like an apple. Take a hair from them without their knowledge. Pick up a used tissue. I think a defence could reasonably be mounted against DNA evidence on the grounds that it was planted. Similar objections could be made against other forensic evidence. Juries are much more susceptible to claims of the planting of evidence than they once were.

Other paths to explore

99. Try putting prosecuting counsel into the witness box on the grounds that he is being dishonest and that cross-examination will reveal that dishonesty. (For example, why has counsel asked about Y when he also knew about Z and Z discounts Y?) I do not think that this has ever been done, but it would be interesting to see what the judge’s response would be. A refusal might also provide grounds for an appeal.

100. Similarly call the Crown Prosecution case worker who dealt with your case. It is a fair bet that cross examination will reveal him or her to be incompetent. This could cause a prosecution case to simply collapse.  Again whether you will be allowed to call this witness is dubious. But is worth trying.

Formal police caution or court?

101. The police are increasingly using formal cautions as alternative to taking a case to court. The caution has nothing to do with caution issued to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you. It is a procedure whereby the person accepts their guilt and receives what amounts to a form of administrative justice by being formally advised of his offence, the acceptance of the crime and the consequences of accepting a caution, namely, that the caution and all the details of the crime  will go on the Police Computer together with their DNA and fingerprints (as things stand) for all time.  

102. There is a strong temptation to accept a caution even if you are innocent because it takes away the stress of a trial with the possibility of a significant punishment if convicted, the expense of defending yourself if you cannot get legal Aid, gets the matter ended rapidly, avoids publicity and does not leave you with as criminal conviction. However, a caution will be taken into account by a judge if you are sentenced for a future offence and may cause you difficulty with employers especially those needing a Criminal Records Bureau check. You need to take legal advice before accepting a caution. It could also cause problems if you want to go to countries which require a declaration of criminal offences – they may consider a caution a conviction even though it is not considered so in this country.

When should you plead guilty?

103. Discounts on sentences are available for those who plead guilty. An admission of guilt at the earliest opportunity could earn a one third discount on sentence although that would depend on the circumstances of an admission. Being caught red-handed during a burglary would count for less than the man who went to the police and gave himself up because he was troubled by a bad conscience.  Pleading guilty at a later stage will get smaller discounts.

104. The question of whether you should plead guilty is obviously dependant on circumstances. Listen to your lawyer. However, if you confess to your lawyer(s) that you are guilty then they cannot continue to represent you if you insist on a not guilty plea.   

105. A special circumstance is when plea bargaining comes into play. There is no official plea bargaining, but the prosecution may informally make it clear to the defence that they will drop a more serious charge if a guilty plea is entered on a lesser charge. There is a strong temptation to accept such a deal even if the defendant believes themselves to be innocent. If you find yourself in such a position,  you will have to decide whether conviction even though you are innocent is the lesser of two evils.

A fundamental malaise

I had this piece published in Wisden Cricket Monthly in 1991. The situation has not changed substantially. The re-entry of South Africa to Test cricket has removed the excuse for South Africans to play for England but this has in practice had little effect, vide Trott and Pietersen in the present side. The position with foreigners in county cricket has significantly worsened following the Kolpak judgement which resulted in the right of anyone with a passport from any EU country and those with associated EU status to work in any EU state.

The foreign invasion of English cricket is matched in all our other important team sports: football, rugby Union and rugby league.  The situation of such sports is an accelerated microcosm of what is happening to English society in general. Those with power, influence and authority are wilfully allowing our country to be invaded (there is no other word which adequately describes what is happening) by those who cannot or will not fully assimilate. It is the most fundamental form of treason because once here they have effectively conquered our territory as they form alien outposts in which they attempt to replicate the cultures from which they came and this isolates their descendants born here.  

                 A Fundamental Malaise

If the loss of the Ashes series [1990/91] is to be a watershed, it must  be  seen for what it is; not just a defeat but  an humiliation; and an humiliation heaped on many others in the past ten years. Until that unsavoury fact is accepted  the process of renewal cannot begin, because the causes of the truly sorry state of English cricket will not be honestly sought. Instead,  comfortable excuses will be made, false   comfort found in thoughts about cricketing cycles, of how things will take a turn for the better simply by the passing of time.

Many reasons have been given for England’s present cricketing weakness; too much limited overs cricket, poor opportunities in the schools and so forth. The problem with these excuses is that other, more successful countries, experience the same difficulties, if difficulties they truly are. This being so, it is reasonable to look for a deeper, more general, cause.

The quality which distinguishes contemporary English cricket from that of other nations is a lack of pride. This I ascribe largely to the destruction of any real sense of national cricketing identity. How can an eleven substantially composed of ex patriot South Africans, Asians and West Indians command any sense of belonging? It is, in effect, no  more than a team of ‘All Stars’. The same defect operates at the county level.  It is this loss of the cricketing equivalent of patriotism, which I believe to be at the bottom of the present failure to produce a worthy England eleven.

Too readily, I fear, British nationality is used as no more than a legal convenience; vide Nasser Hussein, who before departing for the West Indies blithely stated that he thinks of himself as Indian although – how big hearted of him – for cricketing purposes he considers himself to be “English” (this was reported in the Daily Telegraph). And this is a man   who has spent the greater part of his life in England. What then of the Smalls, Lambs, Smiths, and Malcolms who spent either all, or the greater part of their childhoods, in foreign cultures?

The rot began in 1969 when the residential qualifications for county sides were considerably relaxed, and foreign players, both official and unofficial, flooded the county scene. The self-interested such as Imram Khan may argue disingenuously that their presence improves the standard of English players. That this is a demonstrable nonsense can be shown by   reference to the steady decline in England’s performance since 1969, the date at which qualification rules were greatly relaxed. The decline is particularly marked since the  mid nineteen eighties by which time, interestingly, most of the pre-1969 generation of cricketers had retired.

Some might argue that the decline would have been more pronounced without the introduction of foreign players, but  this is an illegitimate form of reasoning.  I can say as a matter of fact that England’s performance has declined since 1969 by reference to the years prior to 1969. No one can say as matter of fact that England’s performance would have been worse since 1969 without the participation of foreign players in county cricket, because there is no point of comparison. The only way to test the matter is to have a comparable period (twenty one years) with foreign players excluded (I say a comparable period because an English first class cricketing generation is approximately twenty years).

The disadvantages arising from foreign players are generally well rehearsed – lack of opportunity for English players, the improvement of foreign players and so forth – but there is a consequence  which I have never seen or heard discussed, in print or over the air, namely, the evasion of responsibility. The general attitude of English players seems to be that of the amateur to the pro in a league side. They assume a   subordinate position to the official foreign players almost as a matter of course. If English players do not feel that they can take the leading part in their county eleven what chance can they have when promoted to the England side?

I believe the qualification for England should be the same as  that which I consider would be a sane basis for the citizenship of any country, namely, the imbibing of a culture.  Where  a man is born  is  irrelevant.  What distinguishes him is his instinctive allegiance to a culture and the assumption in childhood of the manners and values of that culture. The successful ingestion of manners and values produces the social colouring necessary for any coherent society and allows a man’s peers to accept him without question as one of themselves. That unquestioning acceptance is  the only objective test of belonging. The most unhappy and unnatural beings are the Mr Melmottes of the World who ‘…speak half a dozen languages but none like a native.’ These are men without country or psychological place. 1

The problem was crystalised by the Duke of Wellington. To those who insisted on calling him an Irishman he replied “if a man is born in a stable it does not make him an horse”. To this I would add that if a man is born in a house but later chooses to live in a stable, he does not become a horse.

What practical measures can be taken to recreate a true English first class cricketing community? The first step should be to exclude all cricketers classified as “Overseas Players” under the present rules. The second is for counties to agree to a self-denying ordinance to ensure that genuine  EEC nationals and those with passports of convenience, for  example, Kevin Curran, are excluded. The third and most contentious, is to accept only those players who have either spent their childhood in this country or have received what is a effectively a British upbringing abroad – Dermott Reeve would be a good example of the latter. All eligible players would have to pass the test of being accepted as English, Irish, Scotch or Welsh by their peers.

In the coming season we have the prospect of Graham Hick playing for England. Now, as a runscorer (although not as a stylist), I rate Hick very highly indeed. In fact, young as he is, I will stick my neck out and say that he is the nearest thing to another Bradman (although he is no Bradman) the cricketing world has yet seen. Having watched him bat on   five occasions, on all of which he has scored more than fifty, I am left with a memory of the sort of mechanical efficiency which is recorded in contemporary descriptions of the Don. If he played for England I do not doubt that he would score heavily. On cricketing grounds the temptation to include  him in the England side is very great.  Yet objectively, there is no more reason to play Hick now than there was seven years ago. All he has done since then  is  spend approximately half of each year in Britain and refrain  from playing for Zimbabwe. In no discernable sense is he more British now than he was at the age of eighteen. Let the  selectors signal a new beginning by telling Hick openly that they will not select him, now or in the future.

But apart from the question of practical success or failure, there is another reason why English cricket should be restricted to those with a genuine cultural stake in Britain. For me, the present England side mocks the very idea of national teams. Why? Well, it is essentially an aesthetic judgement.  The inclusion of South Africans, West Indians and an Indian in recent elevens offends my sense of rightness or proportion, just as a badly drawn picture or self  conscious acting performance does.

My feelings about the England side apply equally to county cricket. If I go to a county match I want to see twenty two players who have an unquestioned and primary allegiance to Britain. I do not want to see “All Star” elevens. When I see Yorkshire take the field I feel satisfaction, notwithstanding their often disappointing play in recent years. It simply   feels right, that sense of what is fitting again. How sad that the thin end of an extremely broad wedge has been forced into Yorkshire CC during the winter. Let us hope that it is  not the harbinger of something worse.

 1 Melmotte is a character in Trollop’s ‘The Way We Live Now’