Category Archives: Politics

Is There A Simple Way To Choose Between Voting Systems?

The fact that there are so many voting systems in use around the world implies that the choice of system is more likely to rest on cultural values and context rather than on some scientifically developed, or socially accepted, theory.

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The right to own and carry weapons in England

The desire to  restrict the possession of weapons has always come from those who wished to not  only monopolise power but to do so on their own terms. When the crossbow was
invented, the medieval nobility attempted to ban it because it reduced the  effectiveness of the armoured and mounted knight. Failing in that, they  attempted to restrict, with some success, its ownership to people they could  control. The Samurai in Japan enforced ruthlessly their rule that only Samurai should  carry swords. When the demobbed conscripts of British Army returned to Britain after  the First World War, the British government passed the first serious laws  regulating gun ownership not because they feared that the British would begin  to murder one another in great numbers but because they feared Red revolution.

As things stand in  Britain, legal gun ownership has become so onerous, that many long-time licence  holders have given up. The effort in obtaining a licence and in maintaining it is  considerable, because of both the draconian storage conditions required by the police
and their eagerness to engineer the revocation and denial of licences. Even if  you legally own a gun, woe betide you if you are spotted openly carrying it in  a public place. Assuming you are not gunned down by over-excited policemen, you will not merely have your licence revoked but probably end up in court as well. As for other  weapons, if the police want to pick you up for possessing an offensive weapon  there is a fair chance they can do so even if you do not mean to carry one.

Forget about knives or coshes, which are complete no, nos, you are conceivably
committing an offence if you have an aerosol of hairspray about your person or
a hammer, for the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act creates a general offence of
possessing an offensive weapon in a public place, an offensive weapon being
anything from a gun to a piece of wood or stone or a kitchen knife which is made,
adapted or intended to cause physical injury to a person.

Is there an historical basis for private weapon ownership in England?

This is an impossible  question to answer categorically. It is undeniably true that weapons were held  widely by private individuals. Feudal military obligation was in fact built on  the private provision not merely of men but of arms and equipment. In late  medieval times statutes were enacted to encourage long bow practice. The Spanish  Armada which attempted to invade England in 1588 was repulsed by a mixed  English fleet of private and Royal ships. Yet although  weapons were commonly held by private individuals for many centuries, the right  of the individual to hold weapons, especially guns, was far from being absolute  or accepted by authority. The Bill of Rights passed after William of Orange
came to the throne in 1689 stated:

By causing  several good subjects, being Protestants, to be disarmed, at the same time when  papists were both armed and employed, contrary to law. (Clause 6 of the Bill of
Rights 1690)

That the subjects  which are Protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their
conditions, and as allowed by law. (Clause 7 of the Bill of Rights 1690)

There are four points  to note. First, Catholics were not thought to have the right to have arms.  Second, the clear implication is that Protestants were to be armed to defend themselves Catholics. Third, the very fact  that such a clause was included means that the right to weapons was not so much  of English life that it was taken for granted. Fourth, it uses the phrase  ”suitable to their conditions”. This must mean that the right to  weapons was limited and not limited merely in the sense that a private  individual might not have a cannon but might have a musket. It is also  illuminating that when the US Bill of Rights was created a century later it  ran:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of
the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  (American Constitution Second Amendment)

The American Bill  of Rights was based on firmly on English tradition, the founding fathers of the  USA considering themselves to be preserving English liberty after  it had fallen  into corruption in England. Yet they did not say that a man has the right to bear
and keep arms full stop. They say he has it because of the need to maintain a  militia.

Nonetheless the 1690  Bill of Rights does grant a right to bear arms of some sort. Leaving aside the  question of what arms are permitted, does the Bill of Rights have any force
today? The problem for those who would say it has is that the Bill of Rights is  simply an Act of Parliament. It has no special constitutional status, any more  than does any other British law with constitutional implications. As such it is  difficult to see how it can not have been amended by the subsequent passing of  laws restricting the ownership of weapons. It is true that none of those laws  specifically nullifies the Bill of Rights, but it is a long established practice in English law that the passing of a new Act which contradicts a
previous law is treated as automatically nullifying the earlier law (the concept of implied repeal).  Whether  this practice is entirely sound in law is perhaps debatable, but I cannot
imagine any English court overturning the de facto principle retrospectively simply
because of the immense implications of doing so.

It is also argued  by some people that a Common Law right to bear and own weapons exists because  in the past men were permitted to own and bear arms and a Common Law right developed  accordingly. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. A Common Law right can
be removed by statute and indeed the vast majority of our law today is Statute law.  Our present gun laws are all statute based.

What the position should be in a free society

In my perfect world  a man would be able to purchase a gun and ammunition in England as easily as he  might buy a pound of potatoes. Similarly, a man should be able to carry any
other weapon or implement he chooses. He should have the right to keep and carry weapons not merely for self-defence, but because otherwise arms are left in the  hands of governments and criminals and denied to the ordinarily law-abiding  citizen. Not only should a man be able to own a gun (or any other weapon) he should be able to do so without accounting for it to the police. What, you say, anyone  able to own a gun and no licences to boot? Would not that result in Britain  being turned into the Wild West? The answer is no. Consider this, at present  there are plenty of guns in private hands in Britain, whether held illegally or  legally, yet gun crime remains  rare  in – 39 in England and Wales in 2009 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/21/murders-drop-home-office-figures).  Much more of a problem were knife and other sharp instrument (for example, broken bottle) murders which totalled 255 for the same year.

Even if all guns  were made illegal, there would still be a large and by all accounts increasing  number of illegally held guns in private hands. Now comes the clincher. The
vast majority of gun crime is committed with illegally held guns. In other words
the present wearisome system of licensing and the penal conditions of security under
which guns must be stored on private premises have next to no effect on solving
gun crime.

If guns were  allowed to everyone without restriction, the situation would be essentially the
same as it is today. Gun crime would be committed with weapons which were registered. But would not more guns mean more gun crime? That presumes there  would be a massive increase in gun ownership. This is far from being certain. Before  serious legal restrictions on gun ownership in Britain were enacted, gun ownership  was not the norm. Nor does the ownership of a gun mean the owner will habitually  carry it any more than the near universal ownership of lethal knives has meant  that most people carry such knives. It is also worth reflecting on the fact  that even criminals in Britain rarely use guns, despite their widespread  availability in our larger cities. If criminals do not routinely use them to  kill and wound, why should we believe the law abiding citizen will?

Generally, it  does not matter if people are not policed because, Man being a social animal, will  not normally act in a fatally harmful way to others. Moreover, in a very law  abiding society such as ours, there is less chance of seriously socially  disruptive behaviour than in most, perhaps all, other societies. The English have  a remarkably low murder rate generally (about 800 a year in a population of 60  million) and always have done. Some  years ago, the Canadian  criminologist Elliott Leyton published a study of murder in England entitled Men  of Blood. This analysed English murders from mediaeval times to the present. Leyton  found that the murder rate at any time was abnormally low. The paucity of English  murder is not the result of a careful control of weapons through the ages, especially  guns, for as mentioned above for much of our history weapons were available. The only rational explanation for it is that there is something in the English
character and society, that has made extreme personal violence rare. If any people
can be trusted to own weapons the English can.

That guns do not  equal mass homicide can also be seen from the example of Canada where seven  million guns are owned legally in a population of 30 million. They have a   higher rate of gun killing than England, but it is still very low. Switzerland  with its citizen army with all males of military age having a gun at home is  another example of widespread ownership with a low gun crime rate. If you want a  lethal weapon you can always get one quite legitimately because there are so  many things which will do. The Government bans commando style knives? No  problem, you just go to your local hardware store and buy a decent 6″ blade  cook’s knife. Or why not make yourself an old-fashioned cheese cutter out of  cheesewire with a couple of pieces of wood to act as grips and Bob’s your uncle  once you have the wire wound around someone’s neck. The state trying to outlaw lethal   weapons is like the state trying to outlaw pornography in the age of the  internet.

The right of self-defence in England

Robert Henderson

If there is such a thing as a natural right it is surely the right to self-defence, for any
organism will defend itself when attacked. To deny a man the right to defend
himself when attacked would be literally inhuman and , of course, in England we
have that right in law. We may defend ourselves even to the extent of killing
another if it is to save ourselves or another who is threatened. The problem is
that our law has become so hemmed about by conditions and restrictions, that most
people are both confused about what is permitted in practice and fearful of the
consequences of using force in their defence. This is scarcely surprising when cases
where burglars have been killed, such as that of Tony Martin, have resulted in the
victim of burglary going to prison (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/oct/30/tonymartin.ukcrime2),
while lesser cases which have resulted in non-fatal struggles all too
frequently seem to result in the person who was attacked being punished.

At the same time as this confusion over the law exists, the British state is growing ever more paranoid about the private citizen owning and carrying weapons. Guns are so
severely restricted that few people will go to the trouble of applying for a licence for anything other than a shotgun and there is a law against carrying a knife of any sort, even a pocket knife, with a blade of more than 3″ in a public place without good cause, for example, for the purposes of work.

The third piece in the jigsaw of our uncertainty is the increasing failure of the police to
provide protection to the private citizen, especially in country districts. This was the prime cause of Tony Martin’s action in illegally arming himself with a pump action shotgun to defend himself in his remote farmhouse. (Martin knew from past experience that he regularly was subject to intruders which the police  could not or would not do anything to prevent.)

The failure of the police to adequately protect people breaches the implicit contract between the state and the individual in relation to personal safety: the individual
gives up his right to absolutely control his personal security on the understanding that they state will provide both physical security and meaningful redress for injuries which the individual may suffer from others. Small wonder that people take things into their own hands on occasion. The police failure to protect also makes the need for weapons more necessary to the individual for self-defence.

The right to self-defence in English law

The law on reasonable force as it is presently interpreted goes something like this: if you  are attacked with a knife you may defend yourself with a knife: if you are attacked with bare fists you may defend yourself likewise. Do more in either instance and you will be in danger of being charged with an offence against the person, anything from common assault to murder. Pedantic proportionality is all. If you carry on assaulting your assailant after he is disabled, you will most likely face charges. If you have the opportunity to run away but do not, that may count against you in any assessment of whether you should be prosecuted. All this is demonstrably absurd. It assumes that people under attack can reasonably be expected to make judgements in the heat of the moment which in reality require calm consideration.

What is reasonable force?

Consider a few of the variables in assessing what is “reasonable force”. Women, the disabled, children and older men cannot reasonably be expected to defend themselves from a simple physical assault from a fit, strong assailant. Other things being equal, a small man cannot be expected to fight a large man; an older man a younger man, a fit man an unfit man. But, of course, other things are often not equal. Many men who are physically capable of fighting are absolutely hopeless at it. I have known a man of six and a half feet allow himself to be beaten by a man a foot smaller. Fighting is a matter of heart above all else. But it is also a matter of practice. Most men throwing a punch at someone’s face would be more likely to harm their fists than their opponent because they have
never been taught to punch correctly. (For those without any experience of fighting, I would recommend the knee in the groin or a good-old fashioned headbutt.) More importantly, those who are not used to fighting (and middleclass men generally fall into this category) are not psychologically prepared for a fight. This will mean one of two things: the person either capitulates utterly or goes into a berserk rage and keeps on damaging their opponent until the rage passes.

To these disparities of size, sex, age and mental and physical competence, we may add others. Someone who is assaulted does not know whether an assailant is going to restrict themselves to simple assault without a weapon. They may be armed for all the victim knows. Nor need this be obvious. To take a well-publicised case, that of Kenneth Noye who was convicted of murder in a road-rage incident  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/noye-admits-stabbing-on-the-m25-but-insists-that-he-killed-in-selfdefence-724180.html.

Noye carried a knife when he got out his car to confront his victim, but he only produced and used the knife when he began to get the worse of things as the two fought. (Noye
is also a good example of the effect of age on the ability to fight. He was 48 at the time of the murder. His victim was in his twenties. Noye was a career criminal with a reputation as hard man. Yet until he produced a knife, he got the worst of a fight he might reasonably have expected to win. Age had caught up with him). It is also true that even if an assailant does not have a weapon, the victim cannot know how far the assailant is likely to go. Will he restrict himself to punching? Or is the assailant the sort to put the boot in when
someone is on the floor? No one can know, Perhaps even the assailant does not know.

The obviously armed assailant presents a particular problem in judging what constitutes
proportionality of response. If someone comes at you with a knife, is it in order to use a gun? If the assailant has a club, may one use a knife? The law as it stands gives no clear guidance. It is all “every case has to be judged on its merits”.

Then there is the question of what happens should you disable your opponent. Suppose that a small man fells a much larger man with a lucky blow of, shall we say, a candlestick.
The smaller man is then left with the problem of what to do next. If he allows the more powerful man to recover, the smaller man will in all probability end up being badly hurt. The smaller man might be able to avoid that fate simply by running away (this is what the law would want you to do), yet he may be unable to reasonably do this even if he wishes to. That would be the case if the temporarily disabled man was a burglar and the smaller man’s wife and children were in the house where the fight took place. Let us further assume that there is no phone and the house is isolated as was the case with Tony Martin. In such circumstances, it could be argued with some force that it was reasonable to
deliberately disable the burglar by a further assault while he was unconscious to prevent the chance of violence from the burglar when he recovered consciousness.

Behind all these circumstantial problems stand the very human emotions of panic and rage. When one is attacked, the only desire is to ensure one’s safety. Adrenaline flows
and to say that any human being is in control of themselves in such circumstances is patent nonsense. The law does in practice take into account panic, but again it is all very hit-and-miss. Rage on the other hand is no excuse for what is judged a disproportionate assault.

The law as it presently stands effectively ignores human nature. It says that someone who is attacked must exercise truly marvellous self-control. In defending himself, the victim must not lose his temper and carry on attacking the attacker after the attacker has been disabled. This is utterly unrealistic. Someone in a blind rage or panic is manifestly not in control of their actions. There are good evolutionary reasons for that. When someone is responding to an attack, an uncontrolled response is the best way of responding to protect oneself. The evolutionary bottom line is: dead attacker equals safety.

What is a reasonable law of self-defence?

What then is a reasonable law of self-defence? The great bugbear at present is proportionality of response. In drafting a new law, I would start from the premise that an attacker forfeits his right to the protection of the law, that he literally takes his life into his hands. If the attacker is seriously wounded or even killed, that should be seen simply as a reasonable consequence of the attack. The test of “reasonable force” would become defunct. All that would have to investigated after an assault was whether there was evidence which suggested that the claimed attacker was in fact not the attacker. Provided such evidence did not exist, the person assaulted would have no case to answer. I would also remove from an attacker who suffers injury any opportunity to take civil action against his victim.

The great danger with such a law is that murder could take place under the guise of
self-defence. I would make two responses to that. Firstly, murder is very rare in Britain. It has been rare historically. The Canadian criminologist, Leyton Elliott who made a study of murder in Britain (Men of Blood) concluded that homicide in England was astonishingly rare and had been, relatively speaking, since the middle ages. In other words, there good sociological reasons to believe that few murders would take place under such an amended law. Approximately 800 homicides  take place in England and Wales each year (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/4273125/Murder-and-manslaughter-rate-increasing.html).

My second point is that a claim of self-defence would still have to conform to the facts of the death. It would be no use, for example, claiming that a fight had taken place at on the morning of May 3 if the forensic evidence clearly showed that the body had been dead before that time.

I would introduce one further criterion to determine whether self-defence was proved, namely was the threat offered by the assailant credible. For example, most people have encountered the mad old lady who suddenly for no apparent reason sets about people in the street with a newspaper or some other equally inoffensive instrument. Clearly such a person would not present a credible threat to anyone other than another old lady or a young child. It would be ridiculous for a fit, younger adult to be able to claim self-defence against such an assailant. If on the other hand that same old lady entered someone’s house uninvited in the middle of the night and was struck down and killed by the householder in the dark under the apprehension that she was a burglar, that would be self-defence.

A law on the lines I have suggested would not be perfect. There would still be problems about establishing who was the assailant and who the victim. But that problem already exists under the present law. What such a law would definitely do is prevent the  prosecution of householders such as Tony Martin who surprise those within their homes.

My proposal would also accommodate perhaps the most contentious part of self-defence, namely pre-emptive action. An assault which results in physical action against someone is clear cut. But the law does not say that to commit assault physical violence has to be used. A person may believe themselves to be in imminent danger of being assaulted – someone may be making threatening statements or carrying a weapon or coming rapidly towards someone else. In such circumstances, the law gives the person who fears he or she is about to be assaulted the right to defend themselves before they are assaulted. However, a person who engaged in such behaviour as things presently stand would have the greatest difficulty in sustaining such a claim if reliable witnesses were not present at the time. And if such witnesses were present, a prosecution might well result on the grounds that the presence of witnesses made an assault unlikely or one that could have been resisted. It is
a ticklish problem to say the least. But one could use one of the main criteria for determining whether a physical assault had taken place to decide whether an assault was like to take place, namely the credibility of the witnesses.

In short, all my law would require someone to do would be to show that they had been assaulted by an assailant in circumstances where a credible threat existed. If that was proved, no prosecution would take place. There might be some rough justice in that, but less than there is at the moment. Moreover, what rough justice there was would most probably be at the expense of the wrongdoer rather than the law-abiding citizen.

The white working-class and the British elite

From the salt of the earth to the scum of the earth

Robert Henderson

Thirty years ago the primary client base  of the Labour Party was the white working-class, while the Tories still had remnants of the heightened sense of social responsibility towards the poor created by two world wars. Fast forward to 2011 and the white working-class are treated by the entire British political elite as a dangerous, almost subhuman species.

 The mixture of contempt, fear and hatred which the white working-class now draws from the political class is echoed by the elite generally, indeed by not just the elite but the middleclass as a whole. Where once the white working-class were next to uninsultable publicly, sneering references to “chavs” and “chav culture” are now commonplace in the mainstream media where they pass with barely a critical public word, while ethnic minorities seemingly have licence to publicly  insult the white working-class with impunity, vide the Coronation Street episode in January 2006 where a male Asian character accused his sister of behaving like “poor white trash”.

 What caused this immense change in the status of the white  working-class? There were three direct primary engines of change. The first was the success of Thatcher and her ideology, the second a critical point was reached in post war mass immigration, the third Britain’s membership of the EU and other restrictive treaties which tainted her sovereignty.

 Globalism and laissez faire economics

 When Margaret Thatcher became Tory Leader in 1975 the neo-paternalist stance the party had adopted since the smashing Labour victory of 1945 was changed to one of laissez faire non-interventionism, with its an inherent disdain for public provision and service. Thatcher threw away the protectionism which had sustained the white working-class, allowed much of British industry, especially heavy industry, to go to the wall, and privatised the nationalised industries. Unemployment, already at a post-war high at the end of the Callaghan government, rose dramatically to around 3 million. The unions were then weak enough to successfully attack with severe legal restraints on strikes and a ban on secondary picketing.

Unemployment has remained high since the early 1980s – the current official unemployment figures are bad enough taken at face value (around 2.5m by the international Labour survey method) – but in reality it is probably considerably higher – there are 2-3 million on long term sick benefit now compared with around 600,000 twenty five years ago. Common-sense says the country cannot in 2011 have four or five times the number of seriously incapacitated people it had twenty-five years ago. This high unemployment has kept the white  working-class largely quiescent and the unions emasculated.

Thatcher also threw away the post-war consensus that the white working-class was admirable, or at least deserving of special consideration because of their disadvantaged social circumstances. Thatcherite Tories were only interested in the working-class insofar as its members were willing to buy into the narrow aspirational template which Thatcher promoted. If you were working-class and wanted to buy your council flat and were happy to gobble up the shares of privatised national industries, the Tories approved of you; if you wanted to maintain traditional working-class employments and communities, you were a soldier in the ranks of the enemy.

Labour did not immediately cast off the white working-class as clients. That took 18 years of opposition. Through four election defeats Labour gradually jettisoned all that they stood for in their cynical quest for a way back to power. The end result was a supposedly Labour Government headed by Blair which became, quite bizarrely, even more fanatically committed to “free markets” and “free trade” than the Tories.

 Immigration reaching a critical level

 By 1979 immigration had swollen the population of blacks and Asians in Britain to a point where their numbers were significant enough to pose a serious threat to British society if racial conflict got out of hand. 

Until the end of the 1970s the official line on immigrants from all the mainstream parties was they must assimilate. Towards the end of the decade it was obvious to even the most fervent advocate of integration that assimilation was not happening. Rather, large populations of various ethnicities were stubbornly continuing to form ghettos in the major British towns and cities and were attempting to lives which as far as possible replicated those of their ancestral countries.

 To avoid having to admit what a disaster immigration had been, the British liberal left adopted an ideology to fit the facts of what was happening. That ideology was multiculturalism, a creed which rested on the fantasy that a coherent society could be produced by allowing every ethnic group in Britain to retain its separate identity. Indeed, the multiculturalists did more than say we should allow such a development, they positively encouraged ethnic minorities to remain separate. The kindest interpretation of their behaviour is that these were people enthusiastically pouring paraffin onto a fire in an attempt to put it out.

But the multiculturalists were faced by a most awkward fact. The white working-class was and always had been resolutely opposed to mass post-war immigration. Not only that but they were willing to say so publicly – the dockers had marched with Enoch Powell. Therefore, the liberal left had to do two things to prevent the white working-class from expressing their discontent both with the immigration which had occurred and with the new policy of multiculturalism , in which the native British culture was to have no privileged place but was to be merely one amongst many competing cultures. Worse, in practice the  native culture (or cultures if you prefer) was not even to be  allowed to compete because to do so would be to give the native population a public voice and a focus for their discontent.

The Labour Party at the parliamentary level was generally willing to espouse the new ideology uncritically because it fitted with their internationalist rhetoric. It also helped that the immigrants overwhelmingly voted Labour and were neatly consolidated in ghettos in the larger towns and cities where their votes were likely to elect Labour candidates more often than not.

Of course there was the seemingly ticklish problem for the multiculturalists of Labour being out of power for 18 years. In practice it did not matter, for it was not only the overt liberal left who embraced multiculturalism. Whatever their rhetoric, in practice, the Tories climbed on the multiculturalist bandwagon quickly enough. Thatcher had spoken not long before being elected in 1979 of Britain being “swamped” by immigrants. But once in office she did nothing and the position continued to worsen, not least because she signed the Single European Act in 1985 which granted any person legally resident in another EU state the right to work in Britain. And of course throughout the 18 years of Tory office, people with the “right” multiculturalist views controlled the media, academia and increasingly the civil service. They were always on hand, both behind the scenes and publicly, to ensure the Tory Government did not actually do anything to disturb the multiculturalist programme.

 Worse was to follow. In opposition the Tories followed the course of the Labour Party. Three election defeats in a row persuaded them elect as leader David Cameron, a man who adopted the same strategy for the Tories as Blair had pursued when he dumped everything Labour stood for. Cameron quickly got rid of everything which was considered “Old Tory” . This included wholeheartedly embracing multiculturalism. The electoral circle on immigration was formally closed. There is no major party to vote for if you do not want further mass immigration.

 The silencing of the white working-class voice on immigration was achieved by a number of means Most potent was the mixture of legal threats such as the various Race Relations Acts and the religious exclusion of anti-immigration views from the mainstream media. British culture was gradually relegated to a less prominent place in schools. Pupils were taught, if they were taught anything about the past, of white wickedness. The Atlantic slave trade was represented as the greatest crime of history, the British Empire nothing more than a cruel invasion and subjugation of defenceless peoples. Any sign of publicly expressed native white pride  was jumped on from everyone from politicians to teachers and denounced as xenophobia at best and racism as worst.

 It did not take long for anyone who was not a supporter of multiculturalism to be beyond the liberal elite Pale. By 2011 multiculturalism has been formally embedded into public life through a mixture of ideological sharing amongst the elite and their auxiliaries and the law, most notably in recent years by the Race Relations (Amendment Act) of 2000 which effectively places an obligation on all employers who receive public funding to demonstrate that they are not being discriminatory.

The contemptuous mentality of those who currently permit and advocate mass immigration to Britain is epitomised by a speech in 2006 to business leaders by the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King. King said:”If the increased demand for labour generates its own supply in the form of migrant labour then the link between demand and prices is broken. Indeed, in an economy that can call on unlimited supplies of migrant labour, the concept of output gap becomes meaningless….The UK is not in that extreme position, but the inflow of migrant labour, especially in the past year or so from Eastern Europe, has probably lead to diminution of inflationary pressure in the labour market, relative to previous experience.

“The Home Office estimates that around 120,000 workers entered the UK from the new member countries of the European Union between March 2004 and March 2005. Without this influx to fill the skills gap in a tight labour market, it is likely earnings would have risen at a faster rate, putting pressure on employers, and, ultimately, inflation”.’ Daily Telegraph 14 6 2006.

There you have the elite view of the day: human beings are to be treated purely as factor of production along with land and capital. No greater contempt for the masses, including the white working-class, can be held.

The EU and other treaties

Whatever their public words, both the Tory and Labour parties were generally nationalist in their behaviour until well after the second world war. Traditional Tories were nationalists by conviction, while even the Labour left were in practice protective of the nation state because they strongly opposed the importation of cheap goods and cheap labour. British membership of the EU (then the EEC) from 1973 onwards changed the rules of the game for both parties.

The Treaty of Rome made Britain generally subordinate to a foreign authority. It was not like a normal treaty such as that of NATO which is formed simply for a particular limited purpose and which can be ended or withdrawn from cleanly. The Treaty of Rome was a full blown political project with the specific aim of creating a supranational political entity. Even when Britain joined, the EU’s powers to interfere with British political decisions were substantial, although nothing like as extensive as they are in 2006. It simply was not possible to be a wholehearted nationalist any more. That undermined traditional Toryism and paved the way for Thatcherism, which was predicated on the individual rather than the community.

For the Labour Party learning to love the EU took a long time. Their 1983 manifesto advocated withdrawing because the EU was viewed as a capitalist club. But as the Party painfully lurched towards accepting the globalist market-led creed, there came the realisation on the left that both globalism generally and membership of the EU were wonderful promoters of internationalism. They did not deliver the internationalism which the left had traditionally sought, all brotherly love and material sharing, but they accomplished a central part of the internationalist dream, the destruction of nations. This realisation, together with the fear they would never hold power again drove Labour away from their practical nationalism.

As the years passed the entire political class also discovered general benefits from globalism and EU membership. Being in international clubs such as the EU and the WTO effectively destroyed democratic accountability. Any policy relevant to a treaty could be pushed through with the excuse that Britain was legally bound by treaty to do this. Membership of the EU in particular ensured that the excuse could be used over vast swathes of policy. This loss of democratic accountability removed the last vestiges of white working-class power because there was no mainstream Party with a chance of forming a government to speak or act for them. The white working-class might as well have stopped voting then for all the good it now did them. 

Devolution and demonising the English

Up to 1997 the white working-class in the UK as a whole suffered much the same decline in prestige and strength. Blair’s victory in that year altered matters fundamentally. Primarily for the self-serving political reason that Labour normally depends heavily on Scots and Welsh MPs to achieve a working majority in the Commons, the Party adopted a policy of devolution for Scotland and Wales. (Northern Ireland was also brought into the devolution mix but for other reasons). It was one of the first major pieces of NuLabour manifesto-promised legislation to be enacted.

Devolution created a ticklish problem. How could it be that England, where more than 80% of the population of the UK resided and where even more than 80% of the UK’s GDP was generated, should have no national representation? Why did England not deserve its own political voice if Wales and Scotland and even tiny Northern Ireland did? Because there was no reasonable answer to that question Labour (and the liberal left generally) invented unreasonable ones: England was too big, there was no such thing as Englishness, the English had no desire for a parliament, such a parliament would only mean more politicians and expense and, most tellingly, the English could not be trusted with nationalism, a claim best translated as “The ruling liberal elite are determined at all costs to prevent the English having a voice because if they do they will look after their own interests which are currently being outrageously neglected”.

When I say ruling liberal elite I am of course including the entire political elite. A prime example of the cross-party agreement on the “dangers” of English nationalism came in a BBC Radio 4 programme Brits which went out on 10 January 2000. The then Home Secretary Jack Straw and the Tory leader of the moment William Hague appeared. This is what they said:

Straw: “[the English] are potentially very aggressive, very violent [and had in the past] used their propensity for violence to subjugate Ireland, Wales and Scotland”.

Hague:” English nationalism is the most dangerous form of nationalism that can arise in the United Kingdom, because England is four-fifths of the population of the UK…Once part of a united country or kingdom that is so predominant in size becomes nationalistic, then really the whole thing is under threat…”

The unresolved question of English devolution within an otherwise devolved UK led to a shift by politicians from the denigration of the white working-class generally to denigration of the English in general and the English white working-class in particular, the latter being commonly portrayed by politicians and the media as brutish people with the unspoken subtext “they cannot be trusted with power”. As most of the British white working-class are English, the white working-class were further marginalised. 

Devolution also had a direct material effect on England and in particular the English poor. The amount spent per head on public services has for a long time (since the late 1970s) grossly disadvantaged the English because of the Barnett Formula which was introduced to ostensibly  ”compensate” the Scots for supposed additional costs resulting from a small population spread over a large area – the problem of the Highlands and Island.  In reality, it was a Labour bribe  to win Scotch votes and beat down demands for  devolution   The underfunding of England increased after devolution.

In short, devolution weakened public provision in England compared with the rest of the UK. That diminution of provision has struck most profoundly at the English white working-class.

The gradual demoralisation of the white working class

 If laissez faire economics, immigration reaching a critical level and international treaties were the immediate reasons why the white  working-class has fallen so far from favour, the ground for their realisation was prepared during the thirty-five years which followed the Labour victory of 1945.

 It is important not to be sentimental about the white working-class before their desertion by the British political class. Britain was far from being a peaceful society. Industrial relations were seriously fraught from the Eighteenth century onwards, long before nationalisation and the modern welfare state. Much crime went unreported because working class communities refused to report it. Vicious fights regularly took place in places such as the docks and the mines. There was considerable football hooliganism. Until the Irish Free State was founded, Irish nationalism was a constant  running sore. Violent criminal gangs controlled places such as the Elephant and Castle and Brighton.

 British education until after the second world war (and the Butler Act’s implementation) was seriously flawed, with most children leaving school at 14 having received no more than a primary education – only those who committed themselves to staying until 16 received  secondary education. The general standard of education was not high,  although, unlike now, the members of the political elite were frequently well educated.

 There was also a great deal of abject poverty right up to 1939 with many working people living from wage packet to wage packet, often  with the aid of a weekly trip to the local pawnbroker. There was only a rudimentary welfare state and to fall ill if you were poor was to place yourself at the mercy of the charity of others.

Despite these shortcomings, at the outbreak of the second world war working class society was much more coherent and secure than it is today. Most important was the fact that mainland Britain was racially and ethnically a very homogeneous society, even the ancestral  cultural divisions between the English, Scots and Welsh were largely shadings within a single cultural spectrum rather than violently competing ethnicities. Across the water Ireland was a problem, but even there the divisions were political and religious rather than matters of  profound ethnic difference. Such serious ethnic tension as there was resulted from the influx of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, but even there the persistent failure of Mosley’s Blackshirts to gain electoral support in the midst of the Depression tells its own story: vehement anti-semitism was not a widespread problem.

The homogeneity of Britain generated a sense of security because the mainland British at least did not have the distraction of chronic and serious ethnic strife. That sense of security was bolstered by the fact that each of the four home nations had their own territory which they dominated in terms of occupation of the land even if they did not formally control their territory. The white working-class generally did not feel threatened by people whom they felt had no place in Britain. Most felt, whatever their personal troubles, that at least they were secure in their own land.

Added to, and arguably arising from, this marvellous ethnic and territorial security were potent and well established social support mechanisms of the working class, viz:

 1. Unions, including their large welfare role.

 2. Co-Operative Societies – Harrods for the working class.

 3. Friendly societies.

 4. Homogeneous working-class communities which mutually

 supported their members.

 5. Large scale manual employment for the working class.

That was the position at the end of WW2, and for a considerable time after 1945 the condition of the white working-class actually improved as a full blown welfare state, rising wages and very low employment significantly increased their security and advantage.

The 1944 Butler Education Act gave all British children the chance to go to a grammar school and even those who did not gain a grammar school place got an extra year of schooling, schooling which went beyond the primary level. It was a far from perfect educational system but it was a considerable improvement on what had gone before. Most importantly, for the first time it gave large numbers of white  working-class children the chance of a first rate education and, for a significant minority, the chance to go to university.

Unions remained strong and both major political parties were committed to maintaining by protectionist measures the British economy, a fair slice of which was in any case nationalised. The white working-class were both the electoral bedrock of the Labour Party and courted by a Tory Party which realised it had to abide by the Attlee Government’s social reforms if it was to be elected (in the mid-fifties one of the proudest boasts of the Tory Government was that they had built 300,000 council houses in a year).

To this growing advantage was gradually added a de facto censorship of criticism of the white working-class. Throughout the period 1945 to 1975 there developed a pernicious habit amongst the British elite whereby public criticism of the white working-class became unacceptable in much the same way that over the past thirty years ethnic minorities have ceased to be publicly criticised.

Like any powerful class which is exempted from criticism the white  working-class abused their position, or perhaps more correctly, allowed their elected representatives whether in politics or unions, to lead them into abusive ways. The unions were all too ready to call strikes, strikes which when they affected the nationalised industries had the power to cripple British life.

The unions had become too powerful and it was their extreme propensity for “industrial action” – strikes, working-to-rule, demarcation disputes and violent picketing – which began to break down the public silence over white working-class abuses. Gradually it became acceptable for politicians and the media to criticise the white  working-class. They needed little prompting because politicians of all colours and mediafolk were more often than not were middleclass, and the middleclass had very little natural empathy with the white  working-class, just as today politicians and the media have no natural empathy with the ethnic minorities who are their current client class.

By 1970 the white working-class was outwardly as secure as a class as they had ever been and would be again. But even at the seeming height of their class advantage they were weaker than they once had been, naturally weaker than ever before in fact because sociological rats  had been gnawing away at their natural cohesion since 1945.

The mass post-war immigration began in the late 40s but it was not a major problem for the white working-class until the 1960s. More immediately damaging were the slum clearances which dominated the twenty five years after the War. These destroyed many working class communities by the simple expedient of dividing them up  between different housing estates. The working class were still living together but they were no longer the tightly knit coherent communities which had existed for generations. Instead it was strangers living together and living together not in housing which allowed an easy social life to develop, but more often than not in high rise buildings which destroyed social intimacy.

Ironically the new welfare state damaged the white working-class because it weakened the informal traditional social supports deriving from a well established community (help from friends and extended family) and led to the decline of formal supports such as friendly societies and the co-operative movement.

Education subverted

In the 1960s came the disaster of comprehensive schools and progressive educational theory. Comprehensivisation took away the ladder by which the bright white working-class child progressed, the grammar schools. The secondary modern -technical school- grammar school established by the Butler Act was far from perfect because it left large numbers of children labelled as educational failures, but that which replaced it was far worse a system. Most comprehensives simply did not have the resources or the will to provide a grammar school level education for their brightest pupils.

Progressive educational theory caused a general diminution in educational standards through a combination of its “discovery” method of learning, i.e., do not actually teach them anything, and a self-denying ordinance which forbade any criticism of a child’s work. Stir in the lunacy of producing school exams to be taken by children of all ability (GCSE) and the incontinent expansion of higher education from the late 1980s onwards, season with the quasi-commercialisation  of schools and universities through money following the pupil or student, top with school examination boards becoming overtly commercial, and you have the recipe for the mess which is modern British education, where exam grades rise inexorably while performance moves just as remorselessly in the opposite direction.

 The percentage of working-class children at university is actually lower in 2006 than it was forty years ago. Of course the numbers of children in higher education has expanded massively since the mid-sixties and in absolute numbers far more white working-class pupils go on to university in 2006 than 1966. But it counts for nothing. If more white working-class pupils may have GCSEs, A Levels and degrees now, the standard of the education they receive to gain such qualifications is so degraded from what it was forty years ago that the qualifications are next to worthless as guides to employers of a person’s ability and the education received while taking them fails to equip students for the world of work even at the basic level of literacy and numeracy.

 Had the major sources of traditional white working-class employment not been largely destroyed in the 1980s and 1990s, comprehensive education would not be so dire in its consequences for the white working class, because they would still have been employed in secure jobs which do not require much education. Instead, millions  are trapped in unemployment (admitted unemployment or disguised as ill, retired early or attending worthless courses in higher education) or in insecure and ill-paid jobs, stranded without the education to find decent, well-paid work.

 Any society also has to take into account the fact that any population contains many people who are naturally poorly equipped to do anything other than unskilled jobs. Ten per cent of the British population has an IQ of 80 or less. An IQ of 80 is the level at which psychologists generally agree someone begins to struggle to cope with the demands of an advanced society such as Britain. Such people require jobs they can do. Immigrants take those jobs and depress wages. The white working-class are being left with less and less.

 With their traditional employments largely destroyed, subject to a state educational system which leaves them ill-equipped for any job other than the unskilled, beset by cheap immigrant labour competing  for unskilled jobs and crippled by the cost of housing, the white  working-class are ever more dependent on public provision. That provision is becoming increasingly uncertain as immigrant demand for social provision multiplies, public spending soars to dangerous heights and Blair’s mania for introducing private money and companies into public provision runs riot.

 What were once the public utilities – gas, electricity, water, the railways – are becoming dearer and dearer despite providing an increasingly poor service through a lack of investment in maintenance and the shedding of jobs (the government cannot do anything to subsidise utility prices because of our membership of the EU). The poorer you are the larger part of your income is taken by these vital products and services.

 Benefits and the state pension are linked to the Consumer  Price Index (CPI) but this understates inflation substantially, primarily because the cost of housing, is not included. This understatement of inflation means that benefits and the state pension are gradually losing their value in real terms.

 There are also many people for whom the basket of goods and services is unrepresentative. For example, 14% of the index is devoted to motoring expenses which means that the RPI figure is barely relevant to non-car owners. RPI also excludes from its spending pattern such inconvenient people as OAPs surviving on the state pension because they are not “typical”. Generally, the poorer you are, the less representative of your spending RPI will be.

 Wages are also affected by official inflation figures because they are used as a benchmark for both public service and private industry wage increases. I say inflation figures because more than one index is used. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) is the index used these days to give the headline rate of inflation. This is even less accurate a guide to the true rate of inflation than RPI because it excludes housing costs altogether. Where this figure is used to guide wage increases the real value of the wage decreases even more rapidly in real terms than benefits and the state pension.

 Then there is taxation. The poorest people in work in the population pay by far – in direct and indirect taxes combined – the highest proportion of their income in tax of any part of the population.

 Conclusion

The crime of the post-war British elite of all political colours has been to destroy the social and economic structures which gave security and viability to white working-class society without replacing them with something else. The elite mashed their communities through slum clearance, thrust mass immigration into the areas in which the white working-class lived, destroyed through “free trade” the great industries which traditionally employed them and hamstrung the unions by a mixture of legislation, cheap foreign labour both at home and abroad and the creation of a perpetual “reserve army of labour” from the native population. At the same time the white working-class were deprived of the means to create new lives and social structures through a decent education. Whatever the white working-class are now, they are the product of decisions made by the British political elite since 1945.

I am not a sentimentalist who imagines that the ideal world would be one in which the white working class continued unchanged as noble “sons of toil” or that ” working-class culture” should be preserved in aspic. Had every white working-class person in the country been converted into part of the middleclass by an unforced process of improved education and rising wages I would have seen that as part of a natural sociological change. But that of course did not happen, probably in principle could never have happened in a country the size of Britain. The white working-class have been disenfranchised. The British middle class have been at best complicit in the attack on the white working-class and at worst have taken an eager and active part in it. For decades they thought themselves personally safe from the consequences of immigration and, later, imagined that they were immune from the effects of globalisation. They find themselves unable to buy houses because of the absurd prices.  They are beginning to learn the hard facts of sociological life: mass immigration and globalisation eventually affects all but the truly rich, a poetic justice but one which harms the country.

Mass migration is an English not a UK problem

When people talk of mass  immigration to the UK they really mean mass immigration  to England.  The  2001 census gave this breakdown by ethnic group for the UK:     

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=455This is a graph showing Population of the United Kingdom: by ethnic group, April 2001

 The white group comprised   White British   50,366,497   85.67%

                                                     White (other)   3,096,169         5.27%

The non-white population will be underestimated  because of  (1) the fact  that the ethnic origin question  relied on the willingness of the census form filler to answer the question honestly or at all and (2) the large number of illegal immigrants. The latter  are overwhelmingly non-white, not least because the countries with majority white populations have a large degree of legal access to the UK  (EU Associates such as Switzerland  and the EU countries barring Bulgaria and Romania   have complete access and foreigners  with  a British parent or grandparent are granted a large degree of access) while the countries with majority non-white  populations have much more restricted  access.) The Census is also distorted because of the many  legal residents without English, a growing number of old people who are not up to completing the census  and a large population of transient residents such as students. The 2001 census had  98% of forms returned.

The extent of the possible  discrepancies   is shown by a council in central London: “Westminster council has the most cause to feel hard done by. In 2000, in the so-called mid-year population estimate, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) counted 244,000 people as living under the wing of the local authority. A year later, the official census (also carried out by the ONS) provided a figure of just 181,000. “We’re adamant that something major did go wrong,” says Kit Malthouse, deputy leader of Westminster council. The ONS and the council are now trying to work out where the discrepancy lies by comparing their lists of addresses for the area.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/sep/11/thisweekssciencequestions).

This seeming undercounting in places such as Westminster had a profound effect on their  central government funding which was based substantially on the size of  a borough’s population. More broadly, under reporting of population had  implications for EU funding because a lower population meant a higher average income, whereas a lower average income meant a greater likelihood of  EU grants.  Westminster response was to compile its own population count “ from sources such as the number of people paying council tax, or who registered to vote, or who used its hospitals. For example, it found that between 1991 and 2001, its electoral register rose by 26 per cent, and the primary school rolls by 28 per cent. In the end, its count came up with a figure close to the ONS’s pre-census estimate. “We have a very mobile population, a high proportion of young people, asylum seekers, students, hostels,” Malthouse said. “Twenty-five per cent of our population turns over every year… There were obviously problems in getting forms to the people… They say that our population fell by 6,000 over ten years, but during that period we have built 8,500 homes”  (http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2003/11/thelastcensus/)

The completion of forms in some areas was pitiful, viz:   “If you get a response rate of 95-98 per cent and then you have the coverage survey it is very clear it will work,” Gill Eastabrook, the then chief executive of the statistics commission, told me in May. “What happened in Westminster is that they did not get anything like 90 per cent. It was in the 70s…The problem is in the inner cities. But it is not that simple. Oxford and Cambridge are quite high up the list. It might have something to do with students. This is not about undermining the census as a whole. It is about specific bits.” The commission’s inquiry into the census, conducted at Westminster’s request, is due in the second half of October.” ( http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2003/11/thelastcensus/)

The discrepancy between the 2000 mid-year estimate and the 2001 census for the overall UK population was approximately 1 million.  Len Cook, the head of the ONS, tried to explain the missing people by various means such as students registering at more than one address,  sour grapes on the part of councils who by implication had been receiving funds for people who did not exist, claiming that the mid year estimates were wrong and most improbably, that  the emigrants from the UK,  overwhelmingly men  in twenties  and thirties,  had been  not been recorded as having emigrated.  The last reason  provoked this scornful comment from ,” said David Coleman, professor of demographics at Oxford University:

“To suggest that 800,000 white British males had left these shores unannounced over the last decade was beggaring belief, especially as there was no evidence of them cavorting on Bondi beach…The influx of asylum seekers and ethnic minorities – many of whom are known from past surveys to be undercounted, especially in major urban areas – would a priori be a more plausible explanation for the shortfall on the census figures.” Illegal immigrants, who would avoid direct, doorstep measures like a census, could show up on other records, like doctors’ lists or housing records – thus possibly accounting for the difference between Cook’s count and councils’ estimates.” (http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2003/11/thelastcensus/)

In short, the most likely explanation was that many immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom were non-white, had not been counted.

In the end the figures were fudged with the aid of an independent follow-up survey called the census coverage survey (CCS)  conducted just after the Census during  four weeks in May and June 2001. Over 4,000 professional interviewers conducted 320,000 10-minute interviews on doorsteps in all regions of the country with a particular concentration of effort on the inner-city districts likely to have had the worst return on census night.  From this estimates were made of the profile of the missing  million. These were then included in the final census statistics.  (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2277835.stm)

The regional distribution of the non-white population in the 2001 census

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=457

 This is a graph showing Regional distribution of the non-White population, April 2001

Regional distribution of the non-White population, April 2001  Census

Non-White ethnic groups comprised  9 per cent of the total population in England compared with only 2 per cent in both Scotland and Wales, and less than 1 per cent in Northern Ireland.

The concentration of non-white population  in the 2001 Census

45 per cent lived in the London region in 2001, where they comprised 29 per cent of all residents.  The  West Midlands had  13 per cent of the non-White population,  the South East and North West 8 per cent each  and Yorkshire and the Humber 7 per cent.    81% of all non-whites lived in those five regions.

Less than 4 per cent of those from non-White groups lived in the North East and the South West. Minority ethnic groups made up only 2 per cent of each of these regions’ populations.

Seventy eight per cent of Black Africans, and 61 per cent of Black Caribbeans and 54 per cent of Bangladeshis  lived in London.  Of  Pakistanis 19 per cent resided in London,  21 per cent in the West Midlands, 20 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber, and 16 per cent in the North West.

How the population has changed since 2001

The latest official population estimate (2009)  for the UK is 61.8 million. (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=6) . That is a three million increase over the 2001 census figure. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15106

The figures for each of the home countries in 2001 were

England

49,138,831

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/64.asp

Wales

2,903,085

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/w.asp

Scotland

5,062,011

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/179.asp

Northern Ireland

1,685,267

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/152.asp

Getting hard figures for population changes since 2001 is next to impossible. However, these are  latest official population estimates (2009) for each of the home countries

England  51,809,700   Increase  since 2001  2,670,869   percentage increase   5.43%   

Wales      2,999,300     Increase  since 2001      96,215    percentage increase   3.31%

Scotland   5,194,000    Increase since  2001     131,989  percentage increase    2.05%

N. Ireland 1,788,900   Increase  since 2001    103,633  percentage increase     6.15%    

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15106 click on  Mid Year Population Estimates 2009: 24/06/10 (2.7Mb – Zip) then click on each country’s Excel file

The latest Government estimates of on-going immigration and emigration are:

Migration Statistics Quarterly Report No 8: February 2011 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/mig0211.pdf  –  p4)

“Estimated total long-term immigration to the UK in the year to June 2010 was 572,000, similar to the level seen since 2004• [This includes British citizens returning].

“The provisional estimate of net long-term migration to the UK in the year to June 2010 was 226,000. This continues the increase since the year to December 2008, when net migration was 163,000. The increase has primarily been driven by the fall in emigration. (Figure 1.1) p5

“The estimated number of non-British citizens immigrating long term to the UK in the year to June 2010 was 455,000, not statistically significantly different from the estimate of 432,000 in the year to June 2009. The estimated number of non-British citizens emigrating long term from the UK was 200,000, not statistically significantly different from the estimate of 224,000 in the year to June 2009. (Figure 1.3) p6”

Since 2001 net annual migration into the UK has never been less than 148,000 (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/pop0809.pdf)

In 2009 it was reported that “The number of immigrants in the UK has risen by more than two million since 2001, according to a Government report.  Around 6.6 million UK residents – 11 per cent of the population – were born abroad, according to surveys by consultancy Oxford Economics.” (http://www.immigrationmatters.co.uk/2-million-more-immigrants-in-uk-since-2001.html)

A vision of the future is shown by the demography of children. The  Daily Telegraph reported in 2007 of  ethnic minorities  that “Across the country, they account for almost 22 per cent of pupils at primary school compared to 20.6 per cent last year. At secondary level, numbers rose at a similar rate, to 17.7 per cent…. Across inner and outer London, black and Asian pupils outnumber white British children by about six to four.” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1564365/One-fifth-of-children-from-ethnic-minorities.html ).

 The future

Leeds University published research in 2010 which produced projections of the ethnic composition of the UK population in 2051: ETHNIC POPULATION PROJECTIONS FOR THE UK  (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/853/uk_in_2051_to_be_significantly_more_diverse) This estimated that  21 per cent of the UK population would be non-white and that the white British component would have fallen to 67 per cent with an overall white population of 79 per cent (http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/fileadmin/downloads/school/research/projects/migrants/WP_ETH_POP_PROJECTIONS.pdf – see para 20).

Demographic projections are notoriously treacherous but 21 per cent in 2051 strikes me as being very conservative. As the size of the non-white population grows they will inevitably gain more political power both at local and national level. That will make it increasingly difficult for any  Government to stem the flow.  In addition, if the UK remains within the EU there will be a continuing flow from the poorer EU countries, some of which will be non-white as the non-white population of the EU is growing.  There is also the looming possibility of Turkey’s admission to the EU which would grant 70 million (at present figures) Muslims the right to move freely within the EU.  There could also conceivably be other countries joining the EU, especially those in Eastern Europe.  The EU’s  growing power may also  mean other countries which are not members of the EU, will  come to enjoy the same migration privileges as countries such as Switzerland and Norway which have an arrangement with the EU which means they would be  signed up to the “four freedoms” of the EU which includes freedom of movement.  

To the poisonous embrace of the EU can be added treaties and conventions such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on Refugees.  As global instability  grows through a mixture of economic globalisation and Western liberal internationalist interventionism such as that in Libya at present, the flow of refugees is likely to increase and the difficulty in removing them from the UK worsen as judges make the law derived from the Human Rights Act ever tighter.

On the domestic  level, the younger age profile of non-white  immigrants and their descendants  born in Britain and their higher  reproduction rates  point to an inexorable overhauling of the native white population.  The larger their percentage in their population, the greater will be the demand for foreign relatives to be allowed to settle in the UK.

Counterbalancing the non-white population growth will be  foreign white immigration . These people in principle will be able to become complete assimilated within a generation if they choose that path. As the numbers of white immigrants from the EU is large and communities big enough to form cultural  ghettos,  the assimilation may take longer than a generation. However,  even if they do not rapidly completely assimilate, there will be much less cause for friction between them  and the native white population because the racial issue do not arise. The growth of non-white groups  will also be a driver for white immigrants and their descendants to assimilate because contrary to what liberals claim to believe racial solidarity is potent.

There is no reason to believe that the settlement and demographic patterns within the UK of  the past sixty  years  will change dramatically, especially in the case of the non-white  population which is overwhelmingly in England.  Groups which have a strong identity and reason to maintain it will  continue to live in and move to areas where their groups are already strong. That means England (and particularly the south East and the larger cities) will be subject to ever increasing non-white settlement and reproduction.  

Can anything be done to stop England becoming a place which is unrecognisable as the homeland of the English?  The answer is yes if the political will is there. The first thing would be the recovery of control of our borders. That requires the UK’s  withdrawal from the EU, the repeal of the Human Rights Act, the repudiation of the UN Convention on  Refugees and the repudiation of any other treaty or UK Statute which prevents control of our borders.  British citizenship should be denied to anyone  who  was not born here or possessed of a parent who was British. Having done that,  it will be possible to start removing the illegal immigrants and making life less comfortable for immigrants legally here but without citizenship.  This could be done by withdrawing the benefits of the Welfare state in its broadest sense  from them; those without work deported  and a  legal right given to any native Briton to take a job being done by a foreigner provided they were capable of doing the job.  Finally, dual citizenship should be made illegal and those with dual nationality who wished to remain in the UK would have to relinquish any nationality other than British.

The truth about social housing and ethnic minorities

To an English public incessantly bombarded with politically correct propaganda on the evils  and illegality of discrimination based on race, religion, nationality or culture,   it will come as a surprise to learn that in one of the most vital things in life, a secure home,  it is quite in order to  discriminate generally against people who are white and particularly against those who are English.

The most blatant examples of this discrimination are housing associations whose properties   are either specifically for reserved for Black  and Minority Ethnic  (BME) tenants or have practices which result in most of their tenants coming from BME groups.  How is this possible in our politically correct world in which discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity or nationality is a cardinal sin? Section 35 of the Race Relations Act 1976 (RRA (1976) does the trick:

 “ Special needs of racial groups in regard to education, training or welfare—Nothing in Parts II to IV shall render unlawful any act done in affording persons of a particular racial group access to facilities or services to meet the special needs of persons of that group in regard to their education, training or welfare, or any ancillary benefits.” (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/74/section/35)

Here is how the statutory code of practice on racial equality in England interprets section 35:

“2.41 Section 35 allows housing organisations, including ethnic minority housing associations, to make special provision for certain groups; for example by developing temporary hostel accommodation catering especially for newly-arrived Somali refugees, who may have needs arising from shared traumatic experiences; or sheltered housing schemes for Chinese elders; or by providing wardens and carers who speak a particular Asian language; or by meeting certain dietary and religious requirements. Individuals should still be assessed according to their needs” (http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/code_of_practice_on_racial_equality_in_housing_england.pdf)

The  definition a racial group under section 1 of the RRA (1976) is very broad:

“Meaning of “racial grounds”, “racial group” etc.

(1)In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires—

“racial grounds” means any of the following grounds, namely colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins;

“racial group” means a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins, and references to a person’s racial group refer to any racial group into which he falls.

(2)The fact that a racial group comprises two or more distinct racial groups does not prevent it from constituting a particular racial group for the purposes of this Act. “(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/74/section/3)

That definition does not exclude the native white population of Britain in theory , but in practice it does because no one in a position of public authority or influence would dream of suggesting that the white Britons, especially the English,  are suffering discrimination and should have HAs which cater to their special needs. However, British courts have ruled that, for the purposes of the RRA, Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers and Jews, constitute racial groups

The overwhelming majority of  BME HAs are  found in England. Over one hundred were created  at one time or another since the 1970s,  although the number has been reduced  through mergers.   The first Scottish one was not created  until 2004  http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/first-scots-bme-association-seeks-support-for-set-up/444544.article  . Wales was even slower off the mark (http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/wales-moves-closer-to-first-bme-association/445683.article)

The Federation of Black Housing Organisations was the umbrella body representing BME HAs until it  closed due to financial problems in 2008. (http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/end-of-an-era-as-bme-umbrella-group-closes/6502330.article) . The representative role has been taken over by  BME National  which is allied with the National Housing Federation.   This organisation represents 65 BME HAs in England (http://blog.bmenational.org.uk/about-2/). The mission statement of BME National runs:

■Be the umbrella group for BME housing associations that provides a consultative and promotional platform for BME housing issues.

■Represent and positively promote BME housing associations.

■Collaborate with the NHF to influence national housing policy.

■Promote equality and diversity in the delivery of  housing and support services.

■Promote the needs and aspirations of BME communities in addition to their contribution to successful, vibrant and integrated communities.

■Work with the NHF to influence local and central government, the Tenant Services Authority, the Homes Communities Agency and other relevant statutory authorities in establishing and implementing policies and procedures affecting the housing, support and wider interests of BME communities. “(http://blog.bmenational.org.uk/about-2/terms-of-reference/) .

 BME covers a wide range of minorities.  It includes blacks and Asians of all varieties, but also white groups such as Jews, the Irish and those from Europe especially the recent immigrants from the East like  Poles and Czechs.   The one group which does not appear is, yes, you’ve guessed it, is the English. The BME Housing Associations (HAs) which cater for them may be based on race, nationality or religion.

The  official definition of a BME HA is one where 80% or more of its governing body is chosen from BME communities.   In 2009 the proportion of BME housing associations governed  by boards consisting entirely of BME people was  31 per cent (http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/mixed-messages/6503767.article).

Further de facto BME  privilege arises in the employment  of staff and the granting of tenancies. Staff are largely drawn from BME populations, either from a particular group such as Muslims or the Irish or from various BME groups, for example,   Clare Winstanley, the chief executive of Innisfree, an HA set up to cater for the Irish (although it now  takes a more varied clientele) says  “The majority of staff and board members are Irish or of Irish descent” . (http://blog.bmenational.org.uk/2010/12/01/the-modern-role-of-bme-housing-associations/).

Where a language other than English is involved the exclusion of white employees will be close to complete. As Bashir Uddin, chief executive of London’s Bangla housing association, explains  “Our staff speak Bengali, Hindi, Urdu,” (http://www.housing.org.uk/campaigns.aspx).

Do tenancies in BME HAs normally go only to members of particular groups?  In the past the BME HAs were happy   boast about their discriminatory letting policies, but they  have become coy about them over the past decade  because they realise that nakedly preferential treatment of racial and ethnic minorities not only goes against the central tenet of political correctness (no discrimination), but will also give cast iron grounds for resentment and political action by those discriminated against, in this case the  native population.  Some BME HAs remain closed to all but the groups they were set up to represent; others  have expanded their lettings to take in a more varied  set of tenants. However, these HAs still have a strong predominance of the groups they were set up to represent and the variety in the tenants is heavily slanted towards members of other BME groups, for example, a n HA originally set up to supply housing to West Indians may take in Africans.  There has also been a trend  for BME HAs to be absorbed by mainstream HAs.

 Why is it important to have staff and board members who come from the ethnic group? ‘[Winstanley] cites the example of Clochar Court in the London borough of Brent,  as an “incredibly happy place” that houses older and elderly Irish tenants. She believes it would be different if the staff and most of the tenants weren’t Irish. “Memory becomes very important when you’re older,” she says. “It therefore becomes important to be with people for whom those memories are relevant.” (http://blog.bmenational.org.uk/2010/12/01/the-modern-role-of-bme-housing-associations/). That privilege is of course denied to the white native population who live in areas with large numbers of BME people.

There is also official government encouragement to give  BME people in housing associations  generally a privileged position. The official regulator for social housing The Tenant Services Authority (TSA)  states ‘Housing associations should focus on meeting the needs of the ever more diverse black and minority ethnic (BME) communities, particularly hidden or emerging migrant communities, where this is appropriate.’     (Good Practice Note 8 http://www.housing-rights.info/housing-associations.html) and ‘…develop and deliver allocations processes in a way which supports their effective use by the full range of actual and potential tenants, including those with support needs, those who do not speak English as a first language and others who have difficulties with written English’. (http://www.tenantservicesauthority.org/server/show/nav.14715).

In allocating tenancies to BME groups Housing Associations  have had a considerable  advantage over  local  council housing  because HAs can allocated tenancies are criteria they design themselves rather than operating the type of  open waiting list  points system driven  used for council housing. This allows them, for example, to offer places to immigrants who would not otherwise qualify for social housing, for example, asylum seekers.   However, this may change because the Coalition Government  has stated it intention to allow local councils to develop their own criteria as well. (para 4.8 http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/housing/pdf/1775577.pdf) .This has the potential to increase the ability of councils to show special preference to BME groups.

More generally,  section 19B (1) the Race Relations (Amendment) Act  2000 placed a  general  duty on those providing  public services not to discriminate: “It is unlawful for a public authority in carrying out any functions of the authority to do any act which constitutes discrimination.” This covered those providing social housing whether that be council housing or Housing Association properties.  That  Act and the  politically correct atmosphere of   modern England  generated   a  statutory code of practice (which had legal force)_on racial equality in housing  which not only required all landlords, private and public, to not discriminate but prove they had not discriminated in the allocation of tenancies and the treatment of tenants.  This involves the usual pc rigmarole of “Training, monitoring, and race equality impact assessments” which puts pressure on councils and  HAs to be ever more biased towards BME applicants.  (http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/code_of_practice_on_racial_equality_in_housing_england.pdf).

Do BME groups take a disproportionately  large number of social housing tenancies? A Race Equality Foundation Briefing Paper of February 2009 Looking to the future: changing black and minority ethnic housing needs and aspirations is unequivocal that they do. “Many BME groups are already over-represented in social rented housing, and recent statistical evidence suggests that even those groups that have been traditionally under-represented in this sector are now entering it in growing numbers. (see Conclusion  http://www.better-housing.org.uk/files/housing/housing-brief11.pdf#search=”access”)

The Briefing Paper   highlights  the fact that BME  members seek the larger property disproportionately: “Large properties of four or more bedrooms form only 2 per cent of England’s social housing stock (SEH, 2005-2006), making it difficult for large households to access suitable properties in the social rented sector, especially via mainstream service providers… the demand for large family homes is addressed mainly by black and minority ethnic housing associations (BHAs) that work with certain communities in which large households are common. As BME populations grow, the need for larger family homes in the affordable housing sector may increase significantly, even if acculturation will eventually lead to smaller family sizes among the British-born generations (Penn and Lambert, 2002). This need should also be reflected in the mainstream sector provision.”  ( see section 4 http://www.better-housing.org.uk/files/housing/housing-brief11.pdf#search=”access“)

The Race Equality Foundation also asserts that BME people require special needs beyond the massive privilege of living in an environment populated and run by people drawn from their own ethnic/racial group: “The extent to which cultural needs and preferences influence people’s housing aspirations in terms of interior design vary between and within different BME groups. Black and minority ethnic housing associations, which house large numbers of Chinese and South Asian people, listed several elements that are of particular importance to their clients (HC, 2008a). Many of these preferences, such as kitchens that accommodate stir fry cooking, bathrooms with showers rather than baths and living rooms that can be partitioned, derive from people’s religious and cultural traditions.

“Other design preferences that appear to be particularly important to some BME households include a desire for large communal areas and separate kitchens and living rooms. These are important especially for Muslims and relatively recent migrants from Africa (HC, 2008a). Instead of being regarded as cultural preferences, however, these would probably be more accurately described as lifestyle choices. Nevertheless, it is possible that Muslims and recent migrants feel more strongly about these, or are more likely to prefer entertaining at home due to, for example, limited access to suitable communal facilities. As qualitative data reveals, cultural preferences are less important to most BME parents than their children’s needs and the desire to bring their children up in a safe environment (HC, 2008a). Although safety is an issue that affects all households with children, this may be even more pronounced for BME social tenants – partly because so many of them have children and partly due to the concentration of BME populations in urban areas and (often socio-economically deprived) neighbourhoods where anti-social behaviour is a bigger problem than in smaller towns or more rural residential areas.” (see section 4 http://www.better-housing.org.uk/files/housing/housing-brief11.pdf#search=”access“)

Are there any hard figures on the total number of BME people in social housing?  The answer is no for those born in Britain. For those born abroad we do have some solid statistics. These involve very large numbers .  In 2007 the Daily Telegraph reported that  “… after an investigation by ITV’s Tonight With Trevor McDonald programme, the Government has admitted that 200,000 of Britain’s social homes – five per cent of the total – were given to immigrants last year.”  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1556229/200000-social-homes-given-to-immigrants.html) .   The official position  for 2007 is “… there were 191,185 general needs social rented lettings across England in 2006/07. The nationality of the named tenant was recorded for 170,363 of these lettings. Less than five per cent (4.54 per cent) of these 170,363 lettings were recorded as being to foreign nationals… “ (http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/1138584).  A report prepared for the  Equality and Human Right Commission  found that  “some 90 per cent of those who live in social housing are UK born” , that is,  ten per cent were immigrants. (http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/ehrc_report_-_social_housing_allocation_and_immigrant_communities.pdf  – see p 64  ) . The giving of social housing to immigrants is indefensible when there are millions of native Britons either homeless or living in inadequate accommodation is indefensible. If British born BME people are also getting more of the social housing  than their numbers suggest they should then the white native Briton is doubly disadvantaged.

What is clear is that the native population in Britain  and especially the English is  being left without a voice while BME groups are having every support from politicians who pass ever more draconian laws to enforce “racial equality” and publicly funded groups which campaign on their behalf.   The mentality of those with power in Britain is demonstrated nicely by a passage in the Race Equality Foundation Briefing Paper:

“Exclusively white areas and areas that are known to have problems with racist harassment, however, are not regarded as safe by ‘non-white’ BME tenants and are thus seen as undesirable. As a result of active avoidance of areas known to be racist, many people from minority ethnic groups in effect minimise their chances of being subjected to racist abuse (HC, 2008a). In many instances, fears about racist harassment are well founded, since racist hostility remains a problem in many parts of the country (Beider, 2005; Hemmerman et al., 2007; Law, 2007; HC, 2008c). Racism, and the restrictions it places on BME households’ locational choice, is an important consideration that ought to be taken seriously by housing providers.” (see section 3  http://www.better-housing.org.uk/files/housing/housing-brief11.pdf#search=”access“)

The authors of the paper  are so biased in their mindset that they can only see the formation of BME ghettos   as a the result of white racism. It would not occur to them to ask why whites flee areas with large BME populations let alone conclude that the whites who do flee do so because of the racist attitude of BME residents.

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.

What has happened to “English votes for English laws”?

The obvious democratic imbalance in the post-devolution settlement is the absence of an English parliament. The Scots, Welsh and the Northern Irish have devolved assemblies which are steadily increasing their formal powers and political permanence through the development of a political class concerned only with their own home country. The English neither have a parliament nor the prospect of one, for no House of Commons party is committed to creating an English parliament.

This is no small matter because the  absence of a parliament robs England of a national political focus and voice at a time when other parts of the UK are growing ever more strident in their demands through their devolved political institutions.

But the imbalance is far more than simply the lack of a Parliament. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, despite their devolved powers, still retain cabinet representation, grand committees, select committees and special question times devoted to their local affairs.  

The Scottish Grand Committee is made up of all MPs sitting for Scottish seats. It has rarely met in recent years because the powers given to the Scottish Parliament mean that Bills passed at Westminster affecting only Scotland are rare. However, the committee has not been abolished and could be reconvened. 

The Welsh and Northern Irish Grand Committees are still regularly functioning bodies because their assemblies have lesser powers than those of the Scottish Parliament. That may change in the case of the Welsh Grand Committee because of the extension of powers voted for in the recent Welsh referendum. The Northern Irish and Welsh committees debate issues relevant to their countries. This can be a very wide-ranging remit as it can include such business as the effects of a Queen’s Speech on the two countries. 

The Welsh committee consists of the 40 Welsh MPs, and up to 5 others. The Northern Ireland Grand Committee includes each of the 18 MPs in Northern Ireland, together with up to 25 other MPs.

The Celts have a second bite at the Westminster committee cake, for there are select committees for each of them, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Welsh Affairs Committee.

To complete the Westminster representational hat-trick, there remains within the Cabinet Secretaries of State for each of the Celtic countries.

What does England have? Absolutely nothing: no Parliament, no devolved powers, no Grand Committee, no select committee, no question time, no secretary of state in the Cabinet.

Most obnoxiously MPs from non-English seats can vote on English matters even where, as is often the case with the Scottish parliament, English MPs cannot vote on equivalent legislation for parts of the UK other than England. Thus Scottish MPs voted for Foundation hospitals and increased university tuition fees in England, despite the fact that neither measure will be introduced into Scotland because the devolved Scottish political establishment is against them. The Welsh will be joining the game as they have just voted yes (2011) to the Welsh Assembly receiving similar powers to those of the Scottish Parliament.  

Not content with denying the English a voice, the Blair government attempted to begin the process of political Balkanisation in England by announcing in 2003 that referenda for assemblies in the North East, the North West and the region of Yorkshire and Humber would be held. According to the draft Regional Assemblies Bill of  2004, the assemblies would have had  much inferior powers to the Scottish Parliament and inferior powers to those of the Welsh Assembly.

The Blair government tested the water with a referendum for a North East Assembly in November 2004 believing that this was the English region most likely to vote for an assembly and if they did this would act as a spur to other regions to follow suit. The ploy failed so miserably, with voters rejecting the an assembly by 696,519 votes to 197,310, that plans for further referenda were dropped. 

But although elected assemblies were not established in England, the process of setting English regions against one another was put in hand shortly after the Blair Government was formed through the creation of Quangos. Eight English Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) were established under the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998. These were for: the East of England, East Midlands, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber.

A ninth RDA, the London Development Agency, was established in July 2000 following the establishment of the Greater London Authority (GLA). The first eight RDAs are responsible to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) ministers.  The London Development Assembly is responsible to the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.  

What do RDAs do? Here is the LDA website description:

“Our aim is to create better futures for London’s citizens by delivering projects that will help produce a prosperous, inclusive and sustainable city.

Working in close partnership with the Greater London Authority, London boroughs, businesses and the third sector, we have:

•provided practical advice and help to Londoners and to London’s businesses

 •promoted London on a world stage – most recently at the Shanghai Expo

 •helped set up the first two of the Mayor’s academies

 •won recognition and international acclaim for our regeneration activities

 •enabled London to start making significant cuts to Co2 emissions through our climate change programmes

 •put projects in place that have helped thousands of Londoners benefit from the impact of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games” (http://www.lda.gov.uk/our-work/index.aspx)

There most significant role is probably their administering of the EU Regional Development Fund disbursements to English regions.

 All the RDAs are scheduled to be abolished by March 2012 (http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/economic-development/englands-regional-development-agencies), but it is not certain that this will happen because the Government has conceded in the face of opposition from the Lords over the Public Bodies Bill which authorised ministers to make the decision (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldbills/025/11025.i-ii.html), that Quangos will not be abolished without parliamentary scrutiny.  

The RDAs will be superseded by Local Enterprise Partnerships. These concentrate on much smaller areas than the RDAs. The Coalition Government describes them as:

“Local enterprise partnerships are locally-owned partnerships between local authorities and businesses. Local enterprise partnerships will play a central role in determining local economic priorities and undertaking activities to drive economic growth and the creation of local jobs. They are also a key vehicle in delivering Government objectives for economic growth and decentralisation, whilst also providing a means for local authorities to work together with business in order to quicken the economic recovery.

“As local enterprise partnerships are based on more meaningful economic areas, they will be better placed to determine the needs of the local economy along with a greater ability to identify barriers to local economic growth.” (http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/local/localenterprisepartnerships/)

To date the Government has announced 30 partnerships that are ready to  establish their local enterprise partnership boards. These are: 

Birmingham and Solihull

Black Country

Cheshire and Warrington

Coast to Capital

Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

Coventry and Warwickshire

Cumbria

Enterprise M3 (North Hampshire/West Surrey)

Greater Cambridgeshire and Greater Peterborough

Greater Manchester

Hertfordshire

Kent and Greater Essex and East Sussex

Leeds City Region

Leicester and Leicestershire

Lincolnshire

Liverpool City Region

New Anglia

North Eastern

Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Derby, Derbyshire

Oxfordshire City Region

Sheffield City Region

Solent

South East Midlands

Stoke and Staffordshire

Tees Valley

Thames Valley Berkshire

The Marches

West of England

Worcestershire

York and North Yorkshire

Until these bodies are up and running it is impossible to say exactly what powers they will have or what the relationship will be between them and national government.

As part of the Balkanising of England agenda of the recent Labour Government, English Regional Grand Committees were established in November 2008. However, these no longer exist because the Standing Orders that set up these committees expired in April 2010. With the exception of London, the regions of the UK that were covered by a Regional Grand Committee were the same as those administered by the RDAs. London was omitted because it has an elected assembly and mayor.

The nearest any mainstream party has come to offering England any redress for the democratic imbalance is to call for “English votes for English laws”, that is, laws which affect only England should be decided by only English MPs. This idea surfaced as far back as 1999 when William Hague made it official Tory policy. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/394997.stm). David Cameron has also supported the policy. (http://www.heraldscotland.com/english-votes-for-english-laws-would-damage-union-1.847545).

After the Coalition Government was formed in June 2010 Nick Clegg was given the task of considering the matter (http://toque.co.uk/nick-clegg-charged-considering-west-lothian-question)

To date no concrete proposals have been made or the matter been seriously discussed in Parliament. I have emailed both Cameron and Clegg asking what the Coalition’s position is without eliciting a reply. It is reasonable to assume that the question has been kicked into the long grass.

“English votes for English laws” is no remedy for the disadvantage under which England currently suffers, but it would act as a catalyst for an English Parliament in two ways. First,  if the matter was done honestly, the  majority of the UK Government budget would be decided by English MPs because most is spent in England. That would create an impossible tension between a UK Government and the English majority if the UK Government could not form a majority from English seats alone. Second, the mere fact of having to concentrate on English interests would create a sea-change in the mentality of the English political elite. MPs sitting for English seats would be unable to ignore the essential unfairness of the present situation because English voters would expect them to do something about it.

There are dangers with “English votes for English laws”. One way it could be fudged is by declaring many Bills which are obviously affecting England alone to be matters of UK importance. There would also be ample opportunity to push legislation through without the procedure being invoked on the grounds that it is EU deriving from the EU.  It is conceivable that the process could be emasculated whilst leaving Westminster politicians free to say the “West Lothian Question” has been solved, a tactic which would not remove the problem but could suppress public debate about it. Nonetheless, it is the only realistic  way forward  those who want an English Parliament and Government  for the foreseeable future.  Consequently, it is a tactic (not an end in itself) which should be supported.

Black and Asian cultural separatism in the UK

The British Film Institute (BFI) funded research  produced a report in 2006 entitled “Media Culture: The Social Organisation of Media Practices in Contemporary  Britain” (http://www.bfi.org.uk/about/pdf/social-org-media-practices.pdf).   

The report focused on “ the relationships between cultural tastes and knowledge as expressed in film and television preferences, and ethnicity, social class, gender and education” (p 4).  I shall be concentrating on the findings relating to how ethnic minorities relate to the English.  

The research  was based on a ”survey of a nationwide representative sample of adults resident in Britain at the time the survey was administered (November 2003 to March 2004).3 This survey comprised a main sample of 1564 supplemented by an ethnic boost sample of 227 drawn, in roughly equal proportions, from Britain’s three main minority ethnic groups: the Indian, Pakistani and Afro-Caribbean communities” (p 9).  The main sample included 7% ethnic minorities.

My observations on the quotes from the report appear in bold.

Rejection of Englishness

 “….Eastenders is very popular, more so than with the main sample, and the same is true of the Australian soap Home and Away. There is, however, a marked disinterest in Coronation Street, especially on the part of Indians and Pakistanis.

“(ii) While, in the cases of popular dramas, The Bill is very popular with all three groups, and especially the Indian and Pakistani groups, other popular dramas like Midsomer Murders and A Touch of Frost are strikingly unpopular, and – although this is not shown in the Chart – more so on the part of those born in Britain.

“These findings show, in some cases, a distant relation to programmes that conspicuously embody the values of ‘middle England’ (Midsomer Murders, A Touch of Frost) as well as those of northern working-class culture (Coronation Street) while, in others, suggesting a strong but selective interest in American and Australian imports.” (p26)

Eastenders has significant numbers of ethnic minority characters, Coronation Street does not.  

“The members of all three minority ethnic groups go more regularly to the cinema than do the population generally. Indians and Pakistanis are especially fond of cinema-going with 46% and 41% respectively going once a month or more frequently compared to 18% of the main sample. It is notable, too, that members of the ethnic boost file are more likely to have large collections of film on video. Five percent reported collections of 200 or more films compared to 1% of the main sample. Watching film clips on the internet is also more popular with all minority ethnic groups than is true of the British population generally. Eighteen percent of the Indian and Pakistani respondents, and 13% of the Afro-Caribbean respondents, reported this use of the internet compared to 7% of the main sample. Members of the Indian and Pakistani communities are also more likely to use the internet as a means of accessing news and sport. Thirty nine percent of Indian and 35% of Pakistani respondents use the internet for this purpose compared to 22% of the main sample, with Afro-Caribbean usage falling a little below this.” (p19)

“With regard to digital, satellite or cable television, however, each of the three minority ethnic groups accesses this to a greater degree than the population as a whole – around 73% for Indians and Pakistanis and 63% for Afro-Caribbean respondents compared to 55% of the main sample. Internet access is less, however, especially for Pakistanis, 33% of whom reported internet access in contrast to 54% of the main sample and 56% and 45% of the Indian and Afro-Caribbean respondents respectively.” (p20)

“The members of all three minority ethnic groups, and especially Afro-Caribbean respondents, are considerably more likely to have access to digital, cable or satellite television than members of the main sample . The Indian and Pakistani groups show strong preferences for ethnic or overseas channels,  but low involvement in popular channels. This interest in overseas channels is especially marked among members of the ethnic file born overseas – 19% compared with 6% of those born in Britain – just as these have relatively little interest in popular channels (1%) compared to their, on the whole, younger British-born counterparts. The use of non-terrestrial movie channels is high on the part of both Afro-Caribbean and Indian respondents…” (p23)

The greater use of the cinema, private film collections and digital, satellite and cable television by blacks and Asians  can be plausibly explained by a desire to access media which is not English/British.

“ The Afro-Caribbean members of the sample are pretty disinterested in Channel 4 but highly involved in Channel 5, with Indian and Pakistani respondents also more interested in this channel than the main sample.” (P22)

Channel 5 shows more programmes with black and Asian participation.

“It is notable, too, that, in terms of preferred genres, documentaries are relatively low in the priorities of all three minority ethnic groups which, conversely, show a strong preference for news and current affairs programmes – particularly on the part of the Afro-Caribbean and Pakistani communities. Those born overseas are also much more likely to prefer these kinds of television than are the UK born: 30% in contrast to 13%. Indians and Pakistanis are not much interested in soap operas and all three groups are less interested in dramas than the main sample. Indians and Pakistanis are particularly fond of comedy on television, and Afro-Caribbean people like television quizzes, game shows and television sport, which is also popular with Indians. No member of the ethnic file indicates reality television as their most preferred television genre (and it figures highly in the dislikes of all three groups), and the same is true of programmes centred on the home (cookery, home improvements, gardening) on the part of the Afro-Caribbean and Pakistani respondents. These programmes also figure quite highly in the dislikes of all three groups, especially for Afro-Caribbean respondents who, along with soap operas, rated this as the type of television they liked least after reality television.” (pp24/25)

“Coming, finally, to films, the lack of interest in documentaries that we have seen in relation to television is echoed for all groups except for the Afro-Caribbean, and the marked lack of interest in costume drama and literary adaptations – one of the stable outputs of the British film industry – is striking (Table 1). This is also toward the higher end of the least-liked film genres for the three groups, especially Indian respondents. Indian and Pakistani respondents are, unsurprisingly, strongly interested in ‘Bollywood’ – especially those born overseas (24% compared to 10% of British born) – while Pakistani respondents show a strong liking for science fiction films, although this is almost entirely accounted for in terms of British-born Pakistanis. There is zero interest in art or alternative cinema across the three minority groups and Afro-Caribbean respondents have an especially strong aversion to war films: 19% indicate this as the film they like least – more than twice the rate of the main sample and that for the other minority ethnic groups.” (pp26/27)

Most documentaries shown on British television or in British  cinemas concern English/British history and culture and are presented by native Britons.

“The responses reported in Table 2 are a little more puzzling. Discounting the World Cup which, unlike the other television events, is clearly one with a global reach, here the greater likelihood that those born in the UK will know about these events than do those born overseas is not accompanied by a greater liking for them – a tendency that is especially evident in relation to the Queen’s Christmas message. Clearly given the relatively youthfulness of those born in Britain, age is a factor here. But this may also in some cases reflect a rejection of, or distancing from, certain key aspects of the national culture: none of the British born Indian and Afro-Caribbean respondents, for example, are part of the 3% of the UK born who watch the Queen’s Christmas message. This interpretation is all the more plausible when considered in relation to the similar tendency that is evident in the other aspects of film and television choice already discussed: the lack of interest in television programmes with strongly white, middle-England associations (Midsomer Murders, A Touch of Frost, in contrast to The Bill, for example, the differences in responses to Coronation Street and the more multicultural Eastenders, and the strongly negative reaction on the part of minority groups to the classic signature of ‘quality’ British cinema – costume dramas and literary adaptations…” (pp33/34)

This finding shows an active wish to reject native British culture especially that deemed English.

“One striking difference in relation to film – that relating to the genre set in which women have the strongest interest – reflects the inclusion of Bollywood within this set. For while women within the ethnic file like this a good deal more than the men, it recruits far more support from Pakistani and Indian men than any of the other genres in this set do from men as a whole. Perhaps the most consequential finding here, however, is the strong disconnection of black and Asian Britons from ‘respectable film’ – the set with the strongest national associations – and from the war/westerns/musicals set of ‘older popular cinema. But the stronger interest of black and Asian Britons in the ‘younger popular film’ set is equally notable. This is echoed, in the case of television, by the high rate of interest of black and Asian Britons in the ‘younger popular television’ set, and the lower rates of interest in relation to the main sample that are evident for both ‘respectable’ and ‘older popular’ television – again, both groupings with strong national associations (news, current affairs, nature and history documentaries in the case of ‘respectable television’; quiz and game shows, cookery, home improvement and gardening shows, and the more international police and detective series) “(pp 73/74)

The lack of interest in programmes with a strong national, that is, English/British, interest is further evidence of the rejection of British/English culture.

“In the case of visual art, for example, 62% of the ethnic sample had not heard of Turner, the most well known of all the artists we asked about, compared to 27% of the main sample and 22% of the White English group. We see a similar patter for Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: 34% of black and Asian Britons had not heard of this compared to 7% of the main sample and 4% of the White English. those born overseas and, in the case of Pride and Prejudice, the respective figures are 17% and 47%.” (pp 73/74)

This lack of knowledge of English culture is probably  a consequence of the disproportionate  avoidance  English broadcasting and films and the failure to teach English/British culture and history  in schools.

 “In Table 11 we compare things which members of both our ethnic and main samples never do. Here, watching broadcast television and, more dramatically, going to the cinema increase significantly for second- and third-generation migrants, as do eating out, going to the theatre and going to night clubs and, to a lesser extent, of going to pubs. There is a similar tendency in relation to visiting art galleries. There is, however, virtually no change in levels of participation relating to going to museums, art galleries, bingo, orchestral concerts, and a notable decrease so far as visiting stately homes and historic houses – key institutions of national heritage – are concerned. “

This passage shows that native born blacks and Asians  are becoming less not more absorbing of English culture, what might be termed passive cultural ghettoization.  

“Distinctive forms of taste connected with ethnicity tended, in this sample, to emerge within Indian and Pakistani groups rather than Afro-Caribbean. Chief amongst these were the high level of cinema participation, especially of Bollywood films, which were viewed by families together either at specialist cinemas or at multiplexes, and the high level of satellite television ownership, with forms of participation in the former group being more explicitly connected to diasporic identities.

“Focus groups with Pakistani and Indian middle and working classes revealed the importance of satellite channels, such as Zee TV, the Asian Channel and B4U, which were watched as sources of entertainment, particularly Asian dramas or soaps, sources of information about new cinema (specifically Hindi or ‘Bollywood’ film releases) and sources of news.” (p110)

This shows the active cultural ghettoization which is taking place.

 Conclusion

What do we make of all this? It paints a picture of blacks and sub-continental Asians  becoming less not more s integrated into the cultural and social life of the country as the years and generations pass.   The concentration of black and Asian population in British cities facilitates both cultural and physical  ghettoization.

There is an especial  failure to engage with English culture, something which is of particular significance because the large majority of  black and Asian settlement  in the UK is in England and more than four fifths of the UK population reside in England.  

Blacks and Asians in Britain show at best no interest in becoming assimilated and at worst an active desire to resist such assimilation.

On the face of it, none of this is surprising because of the doctrine of multiculturalism which has been promoted assiduously by the British elite since the 1970s.  But that does not mean multiculturalism was something forced on blacks and Asians (and other minorities).  Rather, it is plausibly a response by British politicians in the 1970s as the previous official  government policy of integration or assimilation was shown to have failed miserably with ghettoes of black and Asian immigrants and their offspring already formed.  Multiculturalism was a response to social development which politicians either could not or would not check. It simply validated what was.

The Coalition Government has made a good deal of noise about the ills of multiculturalism,  but have done nothing meaningful to turn back the tide of separatism.  Nor are they likely to do so because it is not only natural for human beings to try to live in racial/ethnic groups and to maintain the culture of the group.   Mass immigration and its consequences will not go away. In its practical effects it is a form of conquest.

The Low, Low Standards Of The “NO” To AV Campaign

For democracy to be seen to done in an election the candidate chosen must get more than 50% of the vote. If this does not happen you get the situation that we in the UK are familiar with. Candidates and governments are elected with less, sometimes much less than half of the votes cast. To get around this the French use the “run-off” system in their Presidential elections. In this, if the leading candidate does not have more than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the voters are called back to vote again. This continues until one candidate gets more than half the votes. Such a system ensures that a minority President, or government, cannot be elected. It is democratic and it is fair. But, with its multiple rounds of voting, it is arduous and time consuming.

Read more on The Low, Low Standards Of The “NO” To AV Campaign…

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