Category Archives: race

The Archers: an everyday story of feminist career women folk

Robert Henderson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PC World: Playing a little game with the politically correct

Robert Henderson

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

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

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

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

and this

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

How wondrously pc…. But from the same person…

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

RH Hmmmmmm…RH’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Henderson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How the English saw themselves at the height of Empire – Cecil Rhodes’ will

Today the English are frequently represented by the politically correct left liberals  as being a people without any sense of identity, indeed, not really a Nation  at all.  The politically correct are able to freely peddle this fantasy because at present they have a vice-like grip on power which allows them to pass laws which make it dangerous to express  ideas such as thegreat  historical achievement of the English as a people; English anger at the mass immigration into England  and, indeed, any expression of pride in being English. They also  use their control of the media to  censor such ideas and promote  multiculturalist pro-immigrant propaganda. This propaganda  has also been institutionalised in England’s schools and universities.

Things were very different in the past. At the height of British imperial power the English (and both the English themselves and foreigners spoke of England not Britain at that time) commonly believed that England was the most civilised country in the word with the most exceptional people, a people so blessed that it was for the good of the human race that they should administer much of the world.

The final version of  the will of Cecil Rhodes which I reproduce below will seem extreme to modern eyes, especially to those conditioned by ceaseless pc  propaganda decrying both England’s past and the reality of the English as a people.  But Rhodes  did not seem extreme in his own time. There were of course English people then who opposed his imperial plans on moral grounds  but they were very much  in the minority.  Rhodes was within the mainstream of Victorian British imperial thinking, Most importantly,  Rhodes was accepted by the British political elite  as someone who should be listened to, not written off as a dangerous extremist.

———————————————————————————————————-

The final will of Cecil Rhodes

It often strikes a man to enquire what is the chief goal in life; to one the thought comes that it is a happy marriage, to another great wealth, and as each seizes on his idea, for that he more or less works for the rest of his existence. To myself thinking over the same question the wish came to render myself useful to my country. I then asked myself how could I and after reviewing the various methods I have felt that at the present day we are actually limiting our children and perhaps bringing into the world half the human beings we might owing to the lack of country for them to inhabit {a lebensraum argument} that if we had retained America there would at this moment be millions more of English living. I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race . Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence, look again at the extra employment a new country added to our dominions gives. I contend that every acre added to our territory means in the future birth to some more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence . Added to this the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars, at this moment had we not lost America I believe we could have stopped the Russian-Turkish war by merely refusing money and supplies. Having these ideas what scheme could we think of to forward this object. I look into history and I read the story of the Jesuits I see what they were able to do in a bad cause and I might say under bad leaders.

In the present day I became a member of the Masonic order I see the wealth and power they possess the influence they hold and I think over their ceremonies and I wonder that a large body of men can devote themselves to what at times appear the most ridiculous and absurd rites without an object and without an end.

The idea gleaming and dancing before one’s eyes like a will-of-the wisp at last frames itself into a plan. Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. What a dream, but yet it is probable, it is possible. I once heard it argued by a fellow in my own college, I am sorry to own it by an Englishman, that it was a good thing for us that we have lost the United States. There are some subjects on which there can be no arguments, and to an Englishman this is one of them, but even from an American’s point of view just picture what they have lost, look at their government, are not the frauds that yearly come before the public view a disgrace to any country and especially their’s which is the finest in the world. Would they have occurred had they remained under English rule great as they have become how infinitely greater they would have been with the softening and elevating influences of English rule, think of those countless 000′s of Englishmen that during the last 100 years would have crossed the Atlantic and settled and populated the United States. Would they have not made without any prejudice a finer country of it than the low class Irish and German emigrants? All this we have lost and that country loses owing to whom? Owing to two or three ignorant pig-headed statesmen of the last century, at their door lies the blame. Do you ever feel mad? do you ever feel murderous. I think I do with those men. I bring facts to prove my assertions. Does an English father when his sons wish to emigrate ever think of suggesting emigration under another flag, never – it would seem a disgrace to suggest such a thing I think that we all think that poverty is better under our own flag rather than wealth under a foreign one.

Put your mind into another train of thought. Fancy Australia discovered and colonised under the French flag, what would it mean merely several millions of English unborn that at present exist we learn from the past and to form our future. We learn through having lost to cling to wehat we possess. We know the size of the world we know the total extent. Africa is still lying ready for us it is our duty to take it. It is our duty to seize every oportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race more of the best the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.

To forward such a scheme what a splendid help a secret society would be a society not openly acknowledged but who would work in secret for such an object.

I contend that there are at the present moment numbers of the ablest men in the world who would devote their whole lives to it. I often think what a loss to the English nation in some respects the abolition of the Rotten Borough System has been. What thought strikes a man entering the house of commons, the assembly that rules the whole world? I think it is the mediocrity of the men but what is the cause. It is simply – an assembly of wealth of men whose lives have been spent in the accumulation of money and whose time has been too much engaged to be able to spare any for the study of past history. And yet in the hands of such men rest our destinies. Do men like the great Pitt, and Bourke and Sheridan not now exist. I contend they do. There are men now living with I know no other term the  mega chschegis  of Aristotle but there are not ways for enabling them to serve their Country. They live and die unused unemployed. What has been the main cause of the success of the Romish Church? The fact that every enthusiast, call it if you like every madman finds employment in it. Let us form the same kind of society a Church for the extension of the British Empire. A society which should have its members in every part of the British Empire working with one object and one idea we should have its members placed at our universities and our schools and should watch the English youth passing through their hands just one perhaps in every thousand would have the mind and feelings for such an object, he should be tried in every way, he should be tested whether he is endurant, possessed of eloquence, disregardful of the petty details of life, and if found to be such, then elected and bound by oath to serve for the rest of his life in his Country. He should then be supported if without means by the Society and sent to that part of the Empire where it was felt he was needed.

Take another case, let us fancy a man who finds himself his own master with ample means on attaining his majority whether he puts the question directly to himself or not, still like the old story of virtue and vice in the Memorabilia a fight goes on in him as to what he should do. Take it he plunges into dissipation there is nothing too reckless he does not attempt but after a time his life pulls on him, he mentally says this is not good enough, he changes his life, he reforms, he travels, he thinks now I have found the chief good in life, the novelty wears off, and he tires, to change again, he goes into the far interior after the wild game he thinks at last I’ve found that in life of which I cannot tire, again he is disappointed. He returns he thinks is there nothing I can do in life? Here I am with means, with a good house, with everything that is to envied and yet I am not happy I am tired of life he possesses within him a portion of the  mega chschegis of Aristotle but he knows it not, to such a man the Society should go, should test, and should finally show him the greatness of the scheme and list him as a member.

Take one more case of the younger son with high thoughts, high aspirations, endowed by nature with all the faculties to make a great man, and with the sole wish in his life to serve his Country but he lacks two things the means and the opportunity, ever troubled by a sort of inward deity urging him on to high and noble deeds, he is compelled to pass his time in some occupation which furnishes him with mere existence, he lives unhappily and dies miserably. Such men as these the Society should search out and use for the furtherance of their object.

(In every Colonial legislature the Society should attempt to have its members prepared at all times to vote or speak and advocate the closer union of England and the colonies, to crush all disloyalty and every movement for the severance of our Empire. The Society should inspire and even own portions of the press for the press rules the mind of the people. The Society should always be searching for members who might by their position in the world by their energies or character forward the object but the ballot and test for admittance should be severe). Once make it common and it fails. Take a man of great wealth who is bereft of his children perhaps having his mind soured by some bitter disappointment who shuts himself up separate from his neighbours and makes up his mind to a miserable existence. To such men as these the society should go gradually disclose the greatness of their scheme and entreat him to throw in his life and property with them for this object. I think that there are thousands now existing who would eagerly grasp at the opportunity. Such are the heads of my scheme.

For fear that death might cut me off before the time for attempting its development I leave all my worldly goods in trust to S. G. Shippard and the Secretary for the Colonies at the time of my death to try to form such a Society with such an object.

The significance of borders –why Representative Government and the Rule of Law Require Nation States

Author: Thierry Baudet

Publisher: Brill

ISBN 978 90 04 22813 9

Robert Henderson

This a frustrating book.  Its subject is of the greatest interest, namely, how human beings may best organise themselves  to provide security and freedom.   It contains  a great deal of good sense because   the author understands that humans cannot exist amicably unless they have a sense of shared identity and a territory which they control.   (Anyone who doubts the importance of having such a territory should reflect on the dismal history of the Jews.) Baudet  vividly describes  the undermining of the  nation state  by the rise of  supranational bodies: the loss of democratic control, the impossibility of taking very diverse national entities such as those forming  the EU and making them into a coherent single society;  the self-created social divisions caused by mass immigration  and the rendering of the idea of citizenship based on nationality effectively null by either granting it to virtually anyone regardless of their origins or by denying the need for any concept of nationality in the modern globalised world.  He also deals lucidly with the movement from the mediaeval  feudal relationships of fealty to a lord to the nation state;   correctly recognises representative government as uniquely European;  examines the  concept of sovereignty intelligently and is especially good on how supranationalism expands surreptitiously, for example,  the International Criminal Court is widely thought to only apply to the states which have signed the treaty creating it. Not so. The nationals of countries which have not signed who commit crimes on the territories of states which have signed can be brought for trial before the ICT.

That is all very encouraging stuff for those who believe in the value  of the sovereign nation state. The problem is Baudet  wants to have his nationalism whilst keeping a substantial slice of the politically correct cake. Here he is laying out his definitional wares:  “I call the open nationalism that I defend multicultural nationalism – as opposed to multiculturalism on the one hand, and an intolerant, closed nationalism on the other. The international cooperation on the basis of accountable nation states that I propose, I call sovereign cosmopolitanism – as opposed to supranationalism on the one hand, and a close. Isolated nationalism on the other. Both the multicultural nationalism and sovereign cosmopolitianism place the the nation state at the heart of political order, whole recognising the demands of the modern, internationalised world. “(p xvi).

Baudet’s  “multicultural nationalism” is  the idea that culturally different  groups ( he eschews racial difference as important) can exist within a  territory and still constitute a nation which he  defines  as “a political loyalty stemming from an experienced collective identity…rather than a legal, credal or ethnic nature ” (p62) . How does Baudet think this can be arrived at? He believes  it is possible to produce the  “pluralist society, held to together nevertheless  by a monocultural core”. (p158).    Therein lies the problem with the book: Baudet is trying surreptitiously to square multiculturalism with the nation state.

The concept of a monocultural core is akin to  what multiculturalists are trying belatedly to introduce into their politics with their claim that a society in which each ethnic  group follows its own ancestral ways can nonetheless  be bound together with a shared belief in institutions  and concepts such as the rule of law and representative government.  This is a non-starter  because a sense of group identity is not built on self-consciously created  civic values and institutions –witness the dismal failure of post-colonial states in the 20th century –  but on a shared system of  cultural beliefs and behaviours  which are imbibed unwittingly through growing up in a society.  Because of the multiplicity of ethnic groups from  different cultures in  modern  Western societies,  there is no  overarching single identity within any of them  potent enough to produce Baudet’s   unifying “monocultural core”. Moreover, the continued mass immigration to those societies makes the movement from a “monocultural core” ever greater.  In practice his “Multicultural nationalism” offers  exactly the same intractable problems as official multiculturalism.

Baudet’s idea of a “monocultural core”  would be an unrealistic proposition if cultural differences were all that had to be accommodated in this “pluralist society”, but he  greatly magnifies his conceptual difficulties by refusing to honestly  address the question of racial difference.  However incendiary the subject  is these  differences cannot be ignored.   If human beings did not think racial difference important there would  there be no animosity based  purely on physical racial difference, for example, an hostility to blacks from wherever  they come.  It is their race not their ethnicity which causes the hostile reaction.

The idea that assimilation can occur if it is actively pursued by governments is disproved by history. France, at the official level,  has always insisted upon immigrants becoming fully assimilated: British governments since the late 1970s have embraced multiculturalism as the correct treatment of  immigrants. The result has been the same in both countries; immigrant groups which are racially or radically culturally different from the population which they enter do not assimilate naturally.  The larger the immigrant group the easier it is for this lack of assimilation to be permanent, both because a large population can colonise areas and provide a means by which its members can live their own separate cultural lives and because a large group presents a government with the potential for serious violent civil unrest if attempts are made to  force it to assimilate.

The USA is the best testing ground for Baudet’s idea that there could be a common unifying  core of culture within a country of immense cultural diversity.   Over the past two centuries it has accepted a vast kaleidoscope of peoples and cultures, but  its origins were much more uniform. At  independence the country had, as a consequence of the English founding and  moulding of the colonies which formed the USA , a dominant language (English) , her legal system was based on English common law, her political structures were adapted from  the English,  the dominant general culture was that of England and the free population of the territory was racially similar.  Even those who  did not have English ancestry almost invariably prided themselves on being English, for example,  John Jay, one of the founding Fathers of the USA who was  of Huguenot and Dutch descent, passionately wrote:  “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.” (John Jay in Federalist No. 2).There was the presence of a mainly enslaved black population and the native Amerindians, but the newly formed United States at least at the level of the white population had a degree of uniformity which made the idea of a core monoculture plausible.

From the mid-sixties after US immigration law was slackened migrants arrived in ever increasing numbers and with much more racial and ethnic variety. The result has been a balkanisation of American society with a legion of minority groups all shouting for their own advantage with the  original “monocultural core” diluted to the point of disappearance.

There are other weaknesses in Baudet’s  thinking.  He is  much too keen to draw clear lines between forms of social and political organisation. For example,  he considers  the nation state to be an imagined community  (a nation being  too large for everyone to know everyone else)  with a  territory  it controls  as opposed to tribal or universal loyalty (the idea that there is simply mankind not different peoples who share moral values and status). The problem with that, as he admits, are the many tribes which are too large to allow each individual to know each other (footnote 23 p63).  He tries to fudge the issue by developing a difference between ethnic loyalty and national loyalty, when of course there is no conflict between the two. Nations can be based solely on ethnicity.

Another example of conceptual rigidity is Baudet’s  distinction between  internationalism and supranationalism.  He defines  the former as the traditional form of international cooperation whereby nation states make agreements between themselves but retain the ultimate right to decide what policy will be implemented (thus preserving their sovereignty) while the latter, for example the EU, is an agreement between states which removes,  in many areas of policy , the right  of the individual contracting states to choose  whether  a policy  will be accepted or rejected.   Although that is a  distinction which will appeal to academics,  in practice it rarely obtains because treaties made between theoretically sovereign states often results  in  the weaker ones having no meaningful choice of action.

Despite the conceptual weaknesses ,  the strengths of the book are  considerable if  it is used as a primer on the subject of national sovereignty.  Read it but  remember from where Baudet is ultimately coming.

Is it in the blood?, CMJ and the hypocrisy of the media

Robert Henderson
The long-serving BBC cricket  commentator and journalist Christopher Martin-Jenkins died on Ist January 2013.  The press and broadcasters in Britain were crammed with tributes which veered perilously close to the fulsome.  This was more than a little strange because until the mid-1990s Martin-Jenkins had decidedly non-pc views on foreigners  being selected for the England cricket team  and doubts about the commitment to England of at least one much capped ethnic minority England player Mark Ramprakash. who was born and raised in England.  A selection of CMJ’s comments on the subject of foreigners and Ramprakash are in the second letter to CMJ reproduced below.
To the best of my knowledge none of CMJ’s views of foreigners playing for England appeared in the tributes and obituaries. Not only that when I posted a comment giving details of his non-pc views   on Cricinfo the comment went up but then was taken down. The cricket establishment was very determined that CMJ’s views should be buried.
When my article Is it in the blood? was published in the July 1995 issue of Wisden Cricket Monthly it created a howl of collective anguish from the politically correct British media and some politicians.  Over 50,000 words of criticism and outright crude abuse  abuse appeared in the mainstream press and broadcasters to which I was allowed no opportunity to reply (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/is-it-in-the-blood-peter-oborne-and-the-question-of-englishness/  Because of  this I wrote to CMJ in 1996 asking for his assistance in  bringing my inability reply to public notice. He refused. My letters below give the story.
After I had contacted CMJ he ceased to comment on foreigners or British raised ethnic minority players being selected to England.   The fear of the pc police had got hold of him. But he did not merely stay silent from then on; rather  he towed the politically correct line on the employment of foreigners.
13-November 1996
Tel:0171/387/5018
Mr C. Martin-Jenkins 29 Cavendish Road Redhill Surrey RH1 4AH
Mr Martin-Jenkins,
I enclose an account of my dealings with the media since the publication of ‘Is it in the blood?’
You will doubtless wish to bring the hypocrisy, the self-serving censorship and the general lack of moral sense shown by mediafolk in this matter to the attention of the public through your newspaper and broadcasting outlets.
What is it that mediafolk are always bleating on about? The public’s right know…the Press’ duty to expose immorality in the public interest…? Something along those lines I think.
Yours sincerely,
Robert Henderson
————————————————————————————————————————-
18-February 1997
Mr C. Martin-Jenkins C/O Daily Telegraph London E14
Dear Mr Martin-Jenkins,
Thank you for your letter. You are being naive in suggesting that I approach someone like Charles Moore in an attempt to put my case before the public. Not only have I approached Mr Moore, but the editors of every other national Sunday and Daily, all specialist cricket magazines and the Spectator. All have refused to allow me a word in my defence. Mr Moore did not even have the courtesy to reply to the letter I enclose.
If you want a prime example of the absence of moral sense exhibited by mediafolk in this matter, read the comments about me written by Mathew Engel in the 1996 Wisden after he knew (1) that Frith had lied about his absolute support for my opinions (see letter dated 30/3/94); (2) that the title was Frith’s; (3) that Frith had edited the article and changed its balance and (4) that I had been denied any opportunity for reply. Engel also lied about knowing who I was in his Guardian column of 3/7/95. All this from a man who wrote in the 1995 Wisden:
‘It cannot be irrelevant to England’s long term failures that so many of their recent Test players were either born overseas and/or spent their formative years as citizens of other countries. In the heat of Test cricket, there is a difference between a cohesive team with a common goal, and a coalition of individuals whose major ambitions are for themselves…There is a vast difference between wanting to play Test cricket and wanting to play Test cricket for England.’
And in the 1996 Wisden:
“It is reasonable to believe that not everyone who has chosen to regard himself as English has done so out of any deep patriotic commitment.”
I have asked Mr Engel to explain the difference between his position and mine but he is unable to do so.
The corruption goes far beyond the press, as you will discover from the extended essay I enclose entitled ‘The liberal censorship’. The broadcasters have been every bit as cynically intolerant and self serving as the press – my experiences with the BBC are barely credible. Worse, everywhere I have turned for redress – from the PCC, the BCC, my MP, the judge who presided at the libel settlement hearings, the Bar Council and the Law Society – has been met with same blanket refusal to offer me even the form let alone the reality of justice.
You excuse yourself from publicly revealing my treatment and exposing the misbehaviour of your colleagues by the curious device of stating that you had no obligation to do so because you did not write on the subject of my article. Since when did journalists only feel an obligation to write about matters in which they were personally involved? Moreover, democracy only works if every man defends every other man’s right to free expression.
You also say that you are unconvinced by my arguments. Really, Mr Martin-Jenkins? Here are a few of your thoughts on the subject of national commitment:
August 1990 Radio 2 Sportsdesk (in a tone of profound complaint): “The selectors seem to be obsessed with West Indian born pace bowlers.”
‘Over the weekend both Robin Smith, born and schooled in South Africa and Graham Hick, born and schooled in Zimbabwe, have had their recent form closely analysed. You could easily have made a case for neither being retained for the third Test this week, when Graham Thorpe and John Crawley seem ready. Apart from a debate based purely on cricketing criteria, the latter two have been English since birth. Will not their dedication to the cause of England be that much deeper when they are tied to it by blood as well as money?’ Christopher Martin-Jenkins (CMJ) Daily Telegraph 27/6/94)
May 23rd 1994 Daily Telegraph “… we shall not have a consistently successful England team…until we produce more Goughs; that is to say English born, English bred products of English schools”
‘Tony Greig and Ian Greig, Chris Smith and Robin Smith, Allan Lamb and Graeme Hick, have all used the England cap as a flag of convenience, a point reinforced when the first three left England for Australia on retirement.’ (CMJ Daily Telegraph 10/7/1994)
They [Southern African born England caps] tried their hardest as every England player does, and were more competitive than most. But were they trying to succeed in their cricket careers on behalf of England? Or were they trying to make England win at cricket? (CMJ Daily Telegraph 10/7/1994)
‘Colleagues on this touring party [1993/94 West Indies tour side] have suggested of him …that Ramprakash sometimes seems more at home with West Indian players, that his cricketing hero and chief confidant is Desmond Haynes; that he would be just as happy in the other camp [the West Indies]‘ CMJ Daily Telegraph 16/3/94)
This matter is a general scandal Mr Martin-Jenkins. Are you still unwilling to help me?
Yours sincerely,
Robert Henderson

What has happened to Emma West?

Robert Henderson

It is now 14 months since Emma West was charged with racially aggravated public order offences after she got into an argument on a tram which led her to make loud complaint about the effects of mass immigration. This was captured by a passenger on a mobile phone and uploaded to YouTube. The details of her arrest and treatment plus a link to the incident on YouTube can be found at http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state/.

Three times her trial  has been delayed, on the  third occasion in early September last year (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/emma-west-trial-delayed-for-the-third-time/).  No further trial date was set then and to the best of my knowledge none has been set since her last appearance in court. (If anyone has more up to date information please let me know).  On each occasion the delay was ascribed to the need to complete psychiatric reports on Miss West.  It stretches credulity way beyond breaking to believe such reports could not have been completed long ago.

Why has there been this inexcusable and increasingly absurd delay? Despite being put into a high security prison for more than a month (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state-part-2/)  and having the risk that her son be taken into care, Miss West has made it clear throughout that she wishes to plead Not Guilty.    The reason for the delay  probably lies in that plea. The liberal elite rely on people charged with such offences being intimidated into pleading Guilty.  A full blown trial would mean public discussion of the consequences of mass immigration and the ruthless measures which the liberal elite use to suppress such debate.  They  greatly fear that because it would risk the politically correct emperor being shown to have no clothes. .

The facts of the case speak for themselves: the behaviour of the authorities is not compatible with a free society.

—————————————————————————————————

UPDATE 9/1/2013

Miss West was scheduled to come to trial on 2 January,  but the case was adjourned for the fourth time because an unspecified expert was not available.  A new trial date has not been set  ( http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Trial-alleged-tram-racist-Emma-West-adjourned/story-17782550-detail/story.html).

The continuing and ever more absurd delay suggests that the powers-that-be are in a quandary about what to do. It is unlikely Miss West  will change her plea to Guilty after this length of time and the awful prospect for the authorities of a trial in which the official  omerta against speaking honestly about race and immigration will be broken looms ever larger. On the other hand,  if the case is dropped it will be a signal to the public that the liberal elite are afraid of any public challenge to their creed.

Miss West has also been charged with assaults against the police:

“West was also due to appear at Croydon Magistrates’ Court on Monday charged with assaulting two police officers at her home on March 3, 2012.
She denies both charges and the trial has been rescheduled to occur on March 4.” (Ibid)

To the best of my knowledge  this is the first time these charges have appeared in the media.  If the assaults took place  ten  months ago it is a little difficult to understand why the  case has not already been tried as it is magistrate court case or why the case did not proceed on its original January date , which I take to have been 7 January.  It will be interesting to see if it does take place on 4 March. If it does not,  and the Crown Court case on the race-related charges has not been heard by then, it will be a strong indication that the CPS  want the racial abuse case out of the way before she is tried for the alleged  assault.  It could be that it has been kicked down the road simply  to give the  authorities two months to think about whether the Crown Court case should proceed.

The Archers – An everyday story of underclass folk

Robert Henderson

Always a programme to capture the politically correct Zeitgeist, the latest evidence of this is in the extended  space given in both the regular Archers and Archers extra programmes to the underclass, the politically correct version of the old idea of the undeserving or hopeless poor.

The underclass are represented by the  Horrobin family. This being the Archers  the Horrobins are  white (natch) and English (natch). The family members have stereotypical underclass names such as Garry, Tracey and  Donna.  One of the men,  Clive,  is a violent career criminal. Another, Keith, has just been jailed for four years for arson committed on  David Archer’s farm.  Bert ,the patriarch of the family,  is a hopeless inadequate unable to look after himself. He and his son Garry live on benefits.  Donna, the wife of Keith,  also incompetent in the basic management of life falls into the coils of a local loan shark who is violently warned off by her brother-in-law Clive who also robs him.  They are a white liberal’s dream: a family who are white and English and begging for politically correct state interference in their lives.

But it is not only the white English underclass  who are in trouble in Ambridge. Above the underclass storyline in the social pecking order, there is  Ed Grundy is running into ever deeper trouble with his premium milk business. Ed is, guess what, white and English.  He is shown as bizarrely incompetent .  His father Eddie is dropping ever heavier hints that he is finding work  becoming ever scarcer.

Then there is Matt Crawford who is (sigh), white and English. Crawford is a property developer of working-class origins who is regarded by his partner Lilian Bellamy  (white and English) as having driven a tenant from one of his properties to his death by Rackmanesque methods of harassment consisting of widely disruptive and unnecessary repair work in an attempt to get the tenant Arthur and his wife Joyce out of the property.  Arthur obligingly dies.  Lilian blames Crawford and starts an affair with Crawford’s half brother Paul (white and English), and the two engage in all too graphic geriatric sex.

Finally there is Lillian’s son James (white and English),  who has spent the past few months living with his mother and Crawford  after breaking his leg attended by his previously estranged girlfriend Leonie (white and English). James is a 40-year-old mother’s boy forever behaving with all the psychological insight of a five-year-old; Leonie is as a caricature of pretentiousness.

Compare the way in which English characters are depicted with the treatment of the ever expanding numbers of ethnic minorities in the soap opera.  Blacks and Asians are generally represented in what the politically correct imagine is a positive manner. They are always good looking and without exception middleclass.  There is Usha the Hindu solicitor married to the local vicar (I am not making this up). The vicar was previously married to a black Jamaican who died. His “dual heritage” daughter Amy is a midwife with a degree. Amy’s erstwhile black lover was in IT. Brian Aldridge’s daughter Kate is married to a black South African journalist. The latest ethnic character Iftikar Shah is a maths teacher and cricket coach.

All the black and Asian characters are either wooden (for example, Amy) or unwitting stereotypes (for example, Amy’s Jamaican grandmother and Usha’s Hindu aunt) . This is because the white liberals who create the Archers have, being white liberals, next to no experience of blacks and Asians other than the Westernised middleclass ones they encounter. Moreover what contact they do have will probably be in the course of their work not in social settings, because these self-proclaimed disciples of the joy of diversity have a strange habit of ling in very white, very English worlds.  It is always worthwhile  running the Chiles Test over them (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/the-chiles-test-for-white-liberal-racial-hypocrisy/) .  The result is  black and Asian characters speaking in stilted or caricature fashion with the white characters studiously avoiding reference to their racial origins and desperately trying to  ingratiate themselves with the black or Asian character. Dearie me, it is just like the social interaction between white liberals and blacks and Asians in real life.

The depiction of the white working-class including the underclass is equally unreal and for the same reason: the white middleclass liberals in charge of the Archers have no experience of the white working-class.   But instead of the crawling masochistic subordination shown to ethnic minorities,  the white liberal has a mixture of hatred and fear for the white working class: hatred because they do not tow the politically correct line; fear because the white liberal knows the white working-class  were betrayed by the left political class through the engine of  mass immigration and  now stands as a permanent rebuke to the white liberal  for his betrayal.  If the white working-class were realistically depicted they would be,  by the definitions used by white liberals, characters which were racist, homophobic and chauvinist.  None of that appears in the white working-class characters in the Archers, not even in the world of the Horrobins.

The white immigrant characters, the numerous seasonal workers employed on the Aldridge farm and Elona,  the Albanian careworker  cannot aspire to the same status as the black and Asian characters, heaven forfend that they should be seen as the equal of the  Asian  and black minorities, but  they are of course hardworking and in the case of Elona putting forward a case for sainthood at some future time.  (Her husband is Darrell has a criminal record and is (sigh) white and English). One of the seasonal workers obligingly turns out to  be gay and has a fling with Brian Aldridge’s  gay stepson Adam Macey, thus pushing  another part of the Archers’ political correct agenda.

So there you have it, the rules of the Archers’ character game.  Characters who are white and English may  be routinely depicted as incompetent, criminal, unpleasant with at least a proportion of them  at or towards  the bottom of the social pile; white immigrants must be shown as honest workers at worst and saint like at best ; blacks and Asians must always be middleclass and generally admirable.

The Chiles test for white liberal racial hypocrisy

Robert Henderson

In 2003 radio and TV presenter  Adrian Chiles self-indulgently allowed himself  a gigantic wallow in liberal breast beating .  In a long article for the Daily Telegraph entitled  ”Why are all my friends White?”, Chiles expressed his  surprise that he, a white liberal bigot of impeccable anti-racist, multiculturalist  credentials, had no non-white friends and precious little deep social interaction with blacks and Asians:

“ The thought struck me as I was looking through my wedding photos recently: why is it that I have no black or Asian friends? I work with some black people, I socialise with them, but when I looked at the pictures of the 131 guests at my wedding, I was shocked to find that there wasn’t a single non-white face among them. I consider myself a fairly liberal, open-minded chap, so the demographic of my circle of friends was quite troubling. I decided to investigate further, and scrolled down the 99 names in my mobile phone’s memory, to find that there is only one black person on the list – a television producer whom I work with.

 “ It’s not that I haven’t come into contact with many black or Asian people during my life. I grew up in the West Midlands, which is home to the largest non-white communities outside the capital. And I now live in Hammersmith, a decidedly multi-racial area of west London. Yet, when Petal Felix, the aforementioned producer, came to visit me to discuss the possibility of making a documentary on the very subject that was causing me such concern, I was horrified to realise she was the first black person who’d ever been to my house. “

Faced with this traumatic (for the politically correct) disjunction between the  quasi-religious utterances about the enriching qualities of racial and ethnic diversity in a society and claims that “race is just a social construct” that people such as Chiles routinely make,  he  embarked on a series of exquisitely exciting (for a modern white  liberal) exercises in masochism as he explored the very white, very English world he inhabited and in all probability still inhabits. (The absence of non-white faces in Chiles’  wedding photos is made all the more enjoyable for normal, that is, politically incorrect people,  because his then wife Jane Garvey, who is currently employed by the BBC as the presenter of the feminist propaganda vehicle Woman’s Hour,  is an especially devout disciple of political correctness).

“We decided to make a film – The Colour of Friendship [for the BBC]  – that would attempt to find out whether mine was an isolated case or not; and whether 21st-century Britain really is a multi-cultural melting pot, or – if we’re brave enough to admit it – still a largely segregated nation.”

Chiles worked with an all black team whilst  making his programme. He finds being in the racial minority disconcerting:  “As a white, middle-class male, very rarely have I found myself working in a minority – until now. This time, the producer, executive producer, researcher and camera crew on this documentary were all black. I was surprised to find that I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable with the situation and grew increasingly defensive about it, although I was unable to articulate exactly why…”

Chiles  takes the all black TV crew  to a Pakistani–run pub in West Bromwich (the area in the English midlands where he grew up)  which he still  regularly frequents and fondly imagines is an example of unalloyed multiculturalism in action. Much to his horror when they arrive he finds “the punters in the Sportsman turned out to be 95 per cent white. The only Asians in there were staff, serving beer and curry to groups of white blokes.”   His liberal fantasy world has overcome reality.

Throughout the programme Chiles is constantly putting his liberal foot in it.  When he recounts a story about how his wife could not say the word black when giving a description of someone his black producer Petal tells him that it “is typical behaviour for white people who don’t mix with black people. For God’s sake, it’s perfectly all right to call black people black!”    At one point he uses the term “half-caste” and is covered in liberal horror when he is told “mixed-race” is the polite word these days.  Most traumatically for Chiles  (and hilariously for the politically incorrect),  he meets  Simon Darby of the West Midlands branch of the British National Party. Unsurprisingly, Darby complains that whites cannot celebrate their whiteness. This leads  to the ultimate horror for a white liberal of being suspected by Petal of wanting to celebrate his whiteness: ”Petal and me into a furious argument when he asserted that it is no longer possible to celebrate “whiteness” in Britain.

  I wondered aloud why it would be quite reasonable for Petal to say publicly that she was proud to be black, while for me to say that I was proud to be white would cast me, in some people’s eyes, as either a football hooligan or a Nazi.

  “So are you proud to be white?” Petal asked me.

  “Actually, no.” I shouted back, startling an elderly woman, who was struggling past with her shopping. “I just want to know what the difference is.”

In addition to these embarrassments Chiles  constantly encounters  the physical reality of racial and ethnic division. He visits Handsworth,  and Hagley,  towns  stuck in the middle of the heavily black and Asian settled West Midlands and discovers Handsworth is almost entirely non-white and Hagley almost entirely white.

He also addresses racial separateness at the individual level when he meets  Nigerian Didi Anolue who tell him she is “looking for a husband – specifically, a black Nigerian. She rules out marrying a white man, which sounds fine coming from her.

 “But how would it sound if a white woman in Stourbridge declared she’d never marry a black bloke, I wondered. It would sound terrible. But what’s the difference?”

At the end of his Odyssey Chiles seeks answers to his questions:

“ If anyone would be able to answer my growing list of questions, it would be Dr Robert Beckford, who runs the Centre for Black Theology at the University of Birmingham. He told me the reason I am unable to assert that I’m proud to be white (not that I’d want to) is that “the language of whiteness has been appropriated by the far Right”, and it has to be taken back from them before people like me can understand what it means to be white and engage in a sensible debate about race. And another thing, he said: “Everyone’s always studying Afro-Caribbean culture or Asian culture. Why isn’t anyone studying white culture?”

  Until that happens, I might never find out why I have no close black or Asian friends. But, whatever the reason, I don’t think it necessarily makes me a bad person.”

The answers to Chiles’ questions

Chiles  should not be surprised at what he finds  because all he is displaying is normal human behaviour, namely, a selective preference for those who most resemble him.  This is called assortative selection and is a trait widely found throughout the animal kingdom.

The strength of assortative selection in humans can be seen most easily in mating  patterns. Even in such racially and culturally mixed areas as inner  London, the number of mixed race relationships is remarkably small  considering the apparent opportunities on offer. Indeed, the fact that  there are shared external physical differences which cause human beings  to classify people by race testifies to the general reluctance of humans  to mate with those who radically differ from them in physical to mate with those who radically differ from them in physical  appearance.

There are also differences in mating patterns where mixed race  relationships occur. Women are more likely to take a mate of a different  race than men and the higher the socio-economic class, the less likely that a mixed race relationship will exist.

These selective tendencies are very powerful.  In  Freakonomics Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner  cite a study made of a  US dating site (the full story is on pp 80-84).  The site is one  of the  largest  in  the US and the data examined  covered  30,000  people equally  divided  between San Diego and Boston.   Most were  white  but there was a substantial minority of non-white subjects.

The  questionnaire the  would-be  daters had to  fill  in  included  a question  choice on race as “same as mine”  and “doesn’t matter”.   The study  compared  the responses  by white would-be  daters  (those  from non-white were not analysed) to these  questions with the race of  the emails  actually  sent soliciting a date.   The result  in  Levitt  and Dubner’s words was:

“Roughly  half of the white women on the site  and  80  percent  of  the white men declared that  race  didn’t  matter to them. But the response data tell a different story  The white men who said that race didn’t  matter sent  90  percent of  their e-mail  queries  to  white women. The  white women who said race  didn’t  matter sent about 97 percent of their e-mail queries to white men.

 “Is  it  possible that race really didn’t  matter  for  these  white women and men and that they simply  never  happened  to browse a non-white date  that  interested them?”

 Or,  more likely, did they say that race didn’t matter  because they wanted to come across  especially  to potential mates of their own race as open-minded?”

In short, around 99% of all the women and 94%  of all men in the sample were  not  willing  to  seek a  date of a  different  race.   How  much stronger  will  be  the tendency to refuse to breed with a  mate  of  a different race? Considerably greater one would imagine.

The effect of social and economic differences is that the higher up the  social scale a white person is, the more likely they are to have meaningful social contact with non-whites. Moreover, the contact they  do have is almost entirely with middle-class and very westernised blacks and Asians.

The truth which “white middle class liberals” like Mr Chiles find disconcerting is that they are much more likely to live in a very white world than the white working class whom they  both despise and fear.

 The Chiles Test

Chile provides the answer “ The only thing I know for sure is that, in this multi-racial society, many middle-class whites have much less meaningful contact with black or Asian people than they would like to think. If you don’t believe me, check your wedding photos and your address book.”

If the Chiles test is based on non-white faces in  wedding photos, arguably the most potent indicator of social interaction, it is a fair bet that most white liberals would score perilously close to zero.

What did Chiles learn from his experiences? That the liberal fantasy  of multiculturalism and multiracialism is just that, a fantasy and a most dangerous one because of the fractured society it produces? Don’t be silly the man’s a white liberal. At the time the programme was broadcast Chiles announced  to the  Birmingham Evening Mail that he “hopes his three-year-old daughter Evie will marry a black or Asian man one day (Aug 18 2003  Graham Young).

Chiles’  ignorance of the realities of racial and ethnic difference or a refusal to acknowledge them,  is summed up in that wish. He fails utterly to understand that the conflict in heterogeneous societies is not merely between white and non-white,  but amongst  non-whites of different types and those of the same race but different origins, for example, in Britain blacks with West Indian ancestry  are often at daggers drawn with blacks from Africa.  He makes the mistake, which itself is an unconscious form of racism as defined by modern  liberals, of lumping all non-whites together.

If his daughter does marry a “black or Asian man”   she will not be decreasing racial  and ethnic tension in Britain but increasing it, because the greater the heterogeneity the greater the mistrust and tension between racial and ethnic groups occupying the same territory.

The Archers – an everyday story of simple ever more politically correct folk

Robert Henderson

Listeners to the Archers have long remarked at the miraculous retention of an Irish accent by the bastard son of  Brian Aldridge and Siobhan Hathaway Ruairi Donovan after arriving in England at the age of 5 and living there ever since. He  has suddenly re-appeared speaking  a form of RP.  A very rare example of reality intruding into the modern Archers.

Elsewhere  the serial  has continued to be the story of ever more politically correct folk. The inhabitants of this village supposedly  set in the heart England  continue to be treated to more and more of the joy of diversity as the Ambridge demographic increasingly  resembles that of England’s  inner-cities.   The village cricket team is being coached by  Iftikar Shah,  who is of God-like visage and physique (natch)  and immediately captivates all the women and the two gays in the village who spend time swooning at the mere thought of him.  In addition the black ex-boyfriend of “dual heritage” Amy, the vicar’s daughter, is due to return at some point with a story which gains him redemption from his stereotype feckless black male situation at present.

The Albanian care worker Elona who is married to the English Darryl Makepeace. Darryl is a chippie who was “led astray” by bad influences who persuaded  him to steal  from his employer resulting in a jail sentence for receiving. He has been employed by the dodgy Matt Crawford (another disreputable English character with a prison record) who wants to pay him “off the books”. Sidesplittingly,  Elona,  insists he is placed under PAYE . A  storyline  using the same basic characters which would have been connected with  reality would be Elona having the criminal record and urging Darren to remain “off the books” so no tax was paid and benefits could be safely falsely claimed at the same time.

There are English additions to the cast, but unlike the pc approved characters, they are a white “problem family” of the type beloved of the British political class and the Daily Mail. An extra brood of Horrobins has arrived, living off benefits, coming from broken relationships and, horror of horrors, smoking.  One of the Horrobins, Tracy, is relentlessly pursuing Iftikah and another is charged with having set fire to the Brookfield barn in an arson attack to try to frighten David Archer out  of giving evidence in a criminal case involving a serious attack on his cousin Adam.   The only new  white character  who is not presented as a blot on the landscape is Rhys the barman who is Welsh .

But the biggest laugh for watchers of political correctness has come from the desire of Jamie Perk’s girlfriend to play cricket more than anything else in the world. This improbable female ambition  has resulted in the Ambridge youth team playing a local girl’s school team and losing (natch).

Gay storylines have begun to overwhelm the  programme.  Ambridge’s civil partnership couple Adam and Ian have reached a crisis in what they unblinkingly refer to as “our marriage”  , with the terminally self-regarding  Adam  threatening to move away from Ambridge after quarrelling with his step-father Brian Aldridge over how the farm is run.  After a quarrel Adam leaves the house and has what turns out to be a one-night gay stand with Pawel, one of his Polish seasonal pickers, a one-might stand  Adam regrets the next day . As things stand Pawel is hanging around like a bad smell with Adam terrified that he may spill the beans about their one-night stand.

But that is not the end of Ambridge’s politically correct  sexual liberation.  Harry, a young middleclass Englishman is a graduate who has somehow ended up as a milkman working for Mike Tucker,   heads off in a camper van for a few days at  the Edinburgh Fringe.  With him go Fallon, the daughter of the landlady of the Bull, his Scottish flatmate Jazzer and Kirsty  the barmaid from  Jaxx’s Bar.   Fallon is desperately hoping that she will be able to start a relationship with Harry during the trip.

Going through the Lake District the van breaks down and Harry takes them to the house of an old university  friend of his  named Karl  whom he has not seen for years. During the course of  the evening and the following night Harry is outed as having had a homosexual relationship with Karl before they broke because Harry is, guess what, bisexual,  while Karl is  simply homosexual and resented  Harry’s female friends.  (I am not making this up, honest!).    The four would-be  Edinburgh Fringers get into the van and begin driving off before Harry suddenly stops the van and announces that he is staying with Karl. He gives Fallon a note for Mike Tucker saying he will not returning.

The result of all these exciting new storylines is a loss of 400,000 listeners in short order as regular Archers turn off in disgust and dismay.  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9445689/Archers-loses-400000-listeners-amid-controversy-over-sexed-up-storylines.html).

A Machiavellian explanation for this bizarre behaviour would be that the BBC is trying to surreptitiously destroy the programme.  In a way I wish I could believe that because it would at least be a rational act. Sadly, I think the producer of the Archers is doping this in the belief that if the Archers becomes a model of the politically correct fantasy world dreamt of by liberals it will become, in the favourite liberal word, relevant and much more successful.

What next? Well, here a  few  storylines  to fit the new Archers’ template which  the writers could tuck into:

– Peggy Archer outs herself as a lesbian who is hankering after the Albanian help Elona.

– Jack Woolley is revealed as Nazi war criminal Jakob Wolter,  a death camp guard at Belson  who  escaped to Britain at the end of the war and settled in Birmingham under an alias.

– The wicked  agribusiness fiend Brian Aldridge  is convicted  for the possession of  child pornography, loses everything and the Borchester Land mega-dairy plan dissolves into nothing.. Jennifer has to become a charwoman to stave off starvation.

– The beast of Ambridge turns out to be an alien from outer space intent on abducting  human specimens for  dissection.  Caroline and Oliver, the only  remaining  genuine  toffs  mysteriously  disappear.

– Helen Archer is found to be an android created by the aliens to study the local life. The android  was introduced to Ambridge  decades ago when it  was substituted for the newly born Helen.