A night in the cells gave me a different view of the cops

Thank goodness Boris Johnson had a night in the cells to learn that policemen are not saints. All MP's should have his experience. 291 of them deserve to spend much longer in custody for their betrayal of Britain.

As a young man, I spent almost a year as a criminal defence lawyer to learn that policemen are as flawed as other humans. It should not have come as a surprise, but I was brought up by Daily Mail readers who believed in our "boys in blue;" (they don't any more, by the way).

Policemen under pressure to perform take short cuts, just as the "cop shows" on TV portray. "Doing wrong to do right" makes good TV and bad real life.

If an Oxford Police Constable will try to stitch up a blond undergraduate with a criminal damage charge to improve his clear up rate, how much more will an anti-terrorist officer with the Home Secretary on his back and a terrified public clamouring for action in the wake of a terror attack be prepared to bend the rules to get "a result"? Consider the case of the Birmingham Six. I don't doubt the police in that case believed them guilty. They didn't knowingly stitch up innocent men. That was the effect of their behaviour, however.

The police are not to be trusted. Not because they are the police, but because they are people. None of us are to be trusted when push comes to shove, which is why society has frameworks of rules within which we can be protected from each other.

28 days detention without trial is less than half as wicked as 90 days. But it is still wicked. And the "glorification of terror" law is a farce. Unless the Home Secretary is prepared to order the arrest of the French ambassador next Bastille Day, that is.

Sun readers fondly imagine that the law will be used in racist ways to round up shifty-looking Muslims. That's why they favour stringent powers. Sun readers presumably imagine we have enough jails to round up millions of Allah-botherers and hold them until - what? Until the threat passes? It won't. Not by these means, at least.

All historical experience of terrorism (and we have more than most nations) shows such measures will make things worse. Every time they are used, our authorities will generate sectarian hatred. One innocent Muslim held without charge for 28 days will produce dozens of Muslims (him, his family and friends) with a genuine sense of injustice. One evangelical Christian punished for preaching a literal, but unflattering, interpretation of the Koran, will produce thousands of embittered non-Muslims.

Blair's macho stance on terrorism betrays the psyche of a deeply insecure man. The press today focusses on his political weakness. History will focus on the damage he has done to our society with his endless spin, posturing and political manoeuvering. He is the worst PM we have ever had. What a shame his annointed successor may be even worse.

Telegraph | Opinion | A night in the cells gave me a different view of the cops

High principles and low politics

It is surprising to read this in the Daily Mail, but encouraging. Tony Blair, a lawyer married to an eminent civil rights lawyer, is deliberately and cynically removing fundamental freedoms to win favour with tabloid editors and voters of authoritarian leanings. The Mail's editor is sending a hostile signal. His readers ARE those authoritarian British voters.

Our ancestors fought for these rights. If we lose them, we will not get them back without fighting again. Are we ready for that? Bearing in mind that the preceding sentences might be in breach of the proposed new laws, exactly how would we fight?

European neighbours from civilised countries; some with great traditions of democracy, lived under decades of totalitarian rule because it was impossible to organise effective resistance to police states with fewer resources, both technical and legal, than our government is now putting in place. They might not be free today if their rulers had not been impoverished by the implosion of their ludicrously-organised economies. If we allow detention without trial - on the say-so of a policeman or politician, we may have to wait for one of the world's top 5 economies to collapse. That could take a while.

In the meantime, we will lose the freedom from fear we have always enjoyed in dealing with authority. Annoy them and they will have the power to destroy our livelihood on a pretended suspicion. Initially (until the next Blair "reform") they will have to justify themselves to a judge. But they won't need evidence to suggest we are guilty; just enough to give grounds for "suspicion". The spin-masters behind the "dodgy dossier" won't find that hard.

I really hope this is a turning point for the better in British history. The opinion polls suggest otherwise, but if there are enough men and women of judgement and principle in the House of Commons tonight, there is still a faint hope.

High principles and low politics | the Daily Mail

Universities warn over terror Bill | the Daily Mail

It may not be the worst thing about this Government, but its sloppy approach to legal drafting is a telling disgrace. I don't know how the Government Law Officers and the lawyers in the office of the Parliamentary Draftsman can live with themselves. Again and again, they have permitted the sloppy language of the saloon bar and the political pamphlet to find its way into law.

To criminalise the ownership or production of "suspicious" materials begs the questions of "suspicious to whom?" or "giving rise to suspicions of what?"

I can almost hear Blair or Clarke saying - some months from now - that terrorists have applied for jobs in University libraries or chemistry labs to give themselves a respectable "cover" to store and disseminate suspicious literature or to produce suspicious chemicals.

Simply saying that fears of impinging on academic (or any other freedom) are not "justified" is not an answer. It doesn't matter what Parliament intended in drafting a law (unless the law is ambiguous). Generally it matters what the law actually says. The police and Crown Prosecution will use it as it is drafted and the courts must interpret it likewise. It will not be a defence to say "...but Parliament didn't intend this..."

If there is no evidence to charge a man, don't arrest him. He is innocent until proven guilty, right? So get the proof. Observe him, follow him, tap his phones (under judicial supervision) or whatever. Don't just arrest him because you don't like the look of him and then fish around for some justification for what you have done. Nor, in a free country, should you arrest him for thinking bad thoughts or even expressing them. He should only be arrested when he can be charged with actions or - at the very least - with criminal conspiracy to act.

We are drifting rapidly into a police state. The idiots who think that every danger requires a ritual sacrifice of liberty are ignoring the biggest danger of all. The last century was characterised, not by terrorist atrocities, but by the enslavement of individuals by over-mighty states. That is still by far a greater danger.

Universities warn over terror Bill | the Daily Mail

Voters back 90-day detention plan | the Daily Mail

Are they mad? Do they understand that "terrorism suspect" is not the same as "terrorist?" Can they not conceive that they, their spouses, their children or their friends could be among those suspects? How on earth can it be true that 72% of British voters are prepared to allow the liberties that have protected us for centuries to be thrown away one after another? Who are these people?

Voters back 90-day detention plan | the Daily Mail

I hate England - Sunday Times - Times Online

It has long been the case that the only race which it is permissible to hate is the English. For proof, please read AA Gill's article in full. If you are English, be warned that you may find it offensive. It is clearly intended to be so. If the English are the lumpen, loutish, angry, bloodlusting would-be axe-wielders he portrays, we must at least be proud of our self-restraint. How else can we account for our murder rate being one third that of his beloved Scotland's? It is that same restraint that allows us to view with cool contempt the hatred of this affected twit.

When reading his words of wisdom, please apply my patent racism test. Substitute "Pakistani" or "Welsh" for every reference to the English. Then ask yourself if this clown deserves his sophisticated reputation.

I hate England - Sunday Times - Times Online

Telegraph | Opinion | Simon Heffer on Saturday

Simon Heffer highlights the nauseating consequences of a government so addicted to "spin" (tr. lies) that it has ceased to exercise any moral judgement. Soldiers are prosecuted on evidence described by the judge as "...too inherently weak or vague for any sensible person to rely on..." Why? Because Muslim Labour voters must be shown that the Government is on their side. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner brings some of his own officers up on disciplinary charges over false allegations of racism. Why? To show that he is a "progressive" policeman worthy of being under the PM's security blunkett when he fouls up.

Stand morality on its head. Elevate hypocrisy to the level of art. Win three, and maybe yet four terms at the trough of corruption and privilege by lying at every turn. What do you get? Modern Britain.

Telegraph | Opinion | Simon Heffer on Saturday

Blair accused over sunset advice

I cannot commend you strongly enough to this brilliant spoof of the BBC's style and Tony Blair's approach to civil liberties.

BBC NEWS | UK | Politics | Blair accused over sunset advice

The stamp of inequity

This Telegraph opinion piece makes a good point, but the most interesting observation is in the sub-text. Such injustice could never be visited on "...the Government's client groups..." says the anonymous commentator. It can be done however to those who are "...socially responsible, and with a stake in the country, and therefore unlikely to do anything except suffer in silence..."

So someone has finally, at least in code, spoken the truth. The Labour government is not interested in ordinary, decent people. Its "client groups", by implication, are those who are socially irresponsible, have no stake in Britain and have tendencies to violent antisocial behaviour.

This has long been implicit in Labour's every policy. I don't understand why even the Torygraph is too polite to say so openly. Perhaps it is afraid to put a spoke in the wheel of the Cameron "New New Labour" bandwagon?

Would it not be amusing, by the way, if a brave new free enterprise society were to arise from a revolt against stamp duty? It has happened before...

Telegraph | Opinion | The stamp of inequity

Blair's Britain, Part II

One evening this week, the motion detectors in the small yard at the rear of our town house in England set off warning bleeps inside. It had just gone dark. Mrs Paine looked through the blinds. Two shaven-headed young men, aged between 18 and 20, were leering at her, bathed in the bright light of our automatic security lamps. They gave her the finger, laughed and - thank goodness - vaulted the rear fence and ran away.

She called me in Russia. I suggested she called the police. She laughed. "They won't come for days. What's the point?" That was a sad thought, but I could only agree. In modern police thinking, the guys in our yard were "customers", not us. And calling them would have reduced the small chance of their doing anything useful by giving them more pointless form-filling.

What disturbed my wife most was that, in the seconds before our visitors noticed her, they seemed to be enjoying themselves; messing about and setting off the alarms (more audible, deliberately, outside than in) without any concern. Probably they were waiting to see if anyone reacted before forcing an entry. "They were laughing," she said, "I am frightened."

She has now rejoined me in Moscow. Our apartment here is guarded by private security men, paid for - and accountable to - the residents. Russia neither has Government for the underclass, nor a police sensitised to social issues.

Since, unlike fox-hunting or speeding, burglary is not considered a serious enough crime to be worth police time in Britain, it's as common an irritation to householders as a burst pipe or a lost roof tile. Every home we ever had in Britain, humble or more upmarket, has been burgled.

What makes the incident part of "Blair's Britain" is that these men didn't care about being seen. They thought it was funny. They were frightening because they were shameless. They know that Labour is the Government for the underclass; that the police don't even pretend to try to catch them. They feel utterly safe. We don't.

We don't need more laws. We don't need new initiatives. We don't need more statistics. We don't need more police powers. We need our police off their arses and out on the streets. We need police who understand who they REALLY work for. We need the laws we have always had rigorously enforced, and all "binge legislating" (as Andrew Marr tellingly described it) of recent years ignored until public order has been restored.

Public transport 'drink ban plan'

This story illustrates two points about Britain and British politics. What is it, to begin with, about the British and drink? Why should we be the only people in the world who can't be trusted to be sensible with the stuff? The answer is, of course, that we are no different than anyone else. It's not that we are less trustworthy, but that our Government is less trusting. Any parent of teenagers knows that there is no better way to stimulate bad behaviour than to expect it and clamp down on it before it begins.

The second point is about our approach to law enforcement. Some people frequently get drunk and behave badly. Most people don't. Bad people behave badly whether it's illegal or not. They will smuggle alcohol onto trains and planes and drink it, Michael Jackson-style, from Coke bottles. When they get nasty the bus drivers, trolley dollies and wagon dragons will pretend not to notice because, let's face it, they weren't hired to be police.

Good people, however, are easily controlled. So, says the Government, let's control them and be seen to be doing something. It may create thousands of unpleasant interactions between fundamentally nice travellers and fundamentally nice people serving them on buses, trains and planes, but no-one can say we didn't act.

Don't trust anyone to be personally responsible. Anticipate bad behaviour. When it happens, restrict the liberty of good people as well as bad, spreading resentment and rebellious attitudes. Avert your gaze from the really bad in case they get nasty. Repeat this pattern a thousand times and you have modern Britain, with its sociologist coppers and bullshitting politicians persecuting the respectable and chumming up with the underclass.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Public transport 'drink ban plan'

Putting it kindly, Blunkett is mad

Bloggers lack the benefit of the news media's specialised lawyers. Many seem to assume that it's safe to be outrageous, but some public figures are notably litigious. Defamation is an untrue statement about another which is likely to lower their reputation among "right thinking" members of the public. The best defence is "justification"; i.e. that the statement is true. Against politicians, the fallback defence is that, if untrue, the statement was "fair comment on a matter of public interest".

Even with constant legal advice on tap, the media lose a number of libel cases every year. They reserve funds for the purpose (in the case of Private Eye, that must be a major part of the budget), but bloggers could face losing their homes if they are sued successfully. They are publishing globally, so they may be liable under laws they don't know in countries they have never even visited. The pseudonyms under which many write would be no protection. ISPs or the companies providing their blog accounts could be ordered to disclose. Some are therefore notably brave, rather rash or - always the best defence in litigation - too poor to be worth suing.

David Blunkett is not a man averse to the courts. In clearing Tom Utley's opinion piece today the Telegraph's lawyers have shown courage and I respect them for it. I am not qualified to comment on David Blunkett's sanity, but feel free to state he is a man of little political judgement and less understanding. As Home Secretary, he was a threat to the nation's liberties, for which he appears to have little or no respect.

I liked Utley's word "mentionitis"; the need of a lover to mention his beloved. In my opinion, Blunkett's main beloved is Blunkett. Despite his protests against invasion of his privacy, the examples Tom Utley cites suggest to me that Blunkett's main psychological objective is to be noticed, rather than be ignored as his mediocrity so richly deserves.

Telegraph | Opinion | Putting it kindly, Blunkett is mad

Home repossession orders soar by 66 per cent as debt mounts

It's horrible to think of people facing repossessions, but when we read that UK consumers owe "more than £1,000 billion, exceeding the debts of Africa and South America put together" what do we really expect? We knew we had 70% of Europe's consumer debt, but to learn we owe more than two continents combined really puts the problem in context.

House prices have been rising faster than earnings. Ultimately, that's not sustainable. The Economist estimated months ago that UK housing was 60% overvalued on average.

Labour's economic "success" is a mirage. The liberal reforms of the Thatcher years have been steadily eroded. We have not been getting richer as much as we have been spending borrowed money against overvalued assets. That gave us the appearance and perhaps even the feeling of success, but the reckoning was bound to come eventually. As belts tighten and retail-driven jobs are lost, the true costs of the burgeoning British state - 800,000 unproductive posts added since Gordon Brown took the financial reins - will become painfully apparent.

Telegraph | News | Home repossession orders soar by 66 per cent as debt mounts

Labour has left a scar on the soul of Britain

Simon Heffer's article expresses exactly what I feel about Britain today. He may be slightly unfair in blaming Labour so directly. As he says, there are no grounds for optimism that a Conservative government would be any less invasive.

Generations of voters have lived with and now accept the dominant role of the state in everyday life. We have been "sovietised" to such an extent that only economic collapse will force us to the truth. That could take longer than I have left.

The current controversy over smoking bans is a case in point. Only the intensity of the repression is in dispute. Comments on the BBC website say facile things like "why shouldn't the majority view prevail?" Ordinary people are illiberal and intolerant, failing to understand that, in one way or another, we are all in minorities. If only those activities which are *always* conducted by a majority are free from State control, then we may as well appoint our commisars now.

As for the "secondary damage" argument - entirely unproved - so what if it's true? There is secondary damage from thousands of everyday activities. I hesitate to name them for fear of encouraging their suppression. Suffice to say that no man is an island. It is not possible to move through this life without impacting others. A little courtesy to those we inconvenience should be met with a little tolerance from them. We are all on one side or other of that equation in the course of every day. If we can't accommodate each other, we must let the State decide between us.

No-one forces non-smokers to go to smoking restaurants or pubs. If they *only* go to those with no-smoking policies, their majority status will soon ensure that most are non-smoking. Likewise, if staff choose not to work in smoky environments, most employers will have to accommodate them. We, as individuals, have been dealing with it for years. I have not been anywhere for some time without a smoke-free area. I have had to give up favourite restaurants because there is nowhere for a post-dinner cigar. I have not complained. I have accepted the proprietor's right to set the policy he thinks will appeal to his target customers and I have looked for other places. There is no need for the state to dictate terms.

I have come to the view that it isn't the government's fault that it interferes in every aspect of our life. We are a democracy and governments stay in power by - in general - giving people what they want. It is the fault of the uneducated, authoritarian majority which expects it of them. I am so far from being a "normal" Briton today, that I must retire to a different country, with a less-intrusive, or at least less well-organised, State.

Since any attempts by Blair to roll back even the most recent stupidities of Labour education policy are resisted fiercely by the Labour Left, there is no hope of better educated voters in my lifetime. Generations of comprehensive education have poisoned the wells to such an extent that we lack suitably-qualified people to teach maths, science and languages. Our schools, like our other public services, are Socialist "voter farms" where any teacher with a remotely liberal opinion would be afraid to express it.

I cannot see a way any way out but out. I have a few years yet to decide, as I work outside the UK. My only ground for optimism is that one candidate for Tory leader has a daughter named Liberty. Unless he's more radical than he seems, naming her Chastity may prove to have been no less nostalgic.

Telegraph | Opinion | Labour has left a scar on the soul of Britain

Fear and rumours grip Birmingham

Did the Asians of Birmingham arrive in England with more money than the immigrants from the West Indies? I don't think so. If they own the shops in the Lozells area, is it because they stole them? No, they have bought or rented them.

Do they get the chance to buy or rent because of "racism?" I don't think so. Do white racists discriminate between non-whites? I have never heard of such a thing.

As for Asians "working together" in the way complained of by black activists, the only evidence I have of that from my own experience, is the practice whereby an Asian seller of a business will lend his purchaser the money to buy. It is true that I have not seen that done across ethnic lines, but I think it could happen if the business terms were right. Even if it is only possible between Asians, because blacks don't trust each other enough, neither do whites. So that can hardly be the problem.

The obvious other type of "working together" (Asian family members sharing the risks and rewards of a business) is open to anyone. It is no-one else's fault if blacks (and whites) choose not to do it.

The attacks on Asian shopkeepers, if they were white on black, would be called "hate crimes". In this instance, the police are swift to deny that and to claim that they don't represent the true state of community relations in Lozells.

Racism or not, it seems to be a repetition of a pattern whereby disadvantaged communities in Britain perpetuate their own problems by externalising them; by blaming them on others. Why do blacks in Lozells not see the Asian shopkeepers as a positive example of what can be achieved by enterprise and effort? Why not try to emulate their success, rather than resent it? Sadly, one could ask many Scots, Welsh or English Northerners the same question. The "others" are a ready-made excuse, which obviates the need to try. One can luxuriate in the glorious status of oppressed minority, benefitting from every civilised person's respect and sympathy, without lifting a finger. You may be poor, but the Guardian loves you, and the National Theatre can be relied upon to glorify your noble poverty at regular intervals.

In a sense the white English are to blame for everyone else's problems. If they weren't there as an excuse (and if they had not legitimised that excuse by creating such institutions as the Commission for Racial Equality) these problems could not exist.

Until minorities understand that by using others as scapegoats they perpetuate their problems, nothing can change. Certainly, the scapegoats' bleating will not help. Perhaps a greater reluctance to be tethered and slashed might?

Already, one can detect a new aspiration in British society. To get the full benefits of membership, one must belong to an oppressed minority. Hence the increasing suggestion that to be assaulted, murdered or raped is worse if one belongs to a "minority" rather than being a horror which all humans can endure. Hence the growth in lobbying for this or that minority group. The truth is that we are all in a minority of one and our best chance of success is to work with people from other such minorities, in whatever way achieves the best results!

We have chosen to pretend that we live in the idealised multicultural harmony that we desire. The common areas in our ethnic Venn diagram comprise the most educated and civilised members of the different communities. They do the Guardian crossword together in the wine bar and reflect complacently on our society's achievements. Life in Lozells, and places like it, is not quite like that. But it could be, if people didn't destroy their potential by denying it exists; if they didn't excuse their failures by blaming them on others before even trying.

Facing facts, and speaking the truth to each other might be hard, but it could be our only way forward as a nation.

BBC NEWS | UK | Fear and rumours grip Birmingham

Blair faces new charge of cronyism over leaked plan to make Labour donors peers

Why does the Daily Telegraph use the gentle word "cronyism" rather than the more accurate word, corruption? Does anyone now remember how New Labour swept to power amid allegations of Tory "sleaze?"

Telegraph | News | Blair faces new charge of cronyism over leaked plan to make Labour donors peers

To be English

How did our nationality become such a dilemma to us? We can understand and respect national pride in the French, the Scots or the Irish. We can even accept their taunts with good humour. So why can't we give what we get? Do we really think our Nation is worthy of less love or respect than others? I don't think so. In our hearts, though too "modern" to admit to it, I suspect most of us love our country as much as did our great hero whose death was commemorated this week.

The Act of Union was an expensive mistake. England has gained nothing from it but the brooding, resentful presence of Scots for whom their every misfortune is our fault. In a hopeless attempt to make the Union work, the English have suppressed their sense of national pride; have called themselves British (as few Scots ever did) and have tried vainly to win the love of their neighbours.

In an ideal world the people of our islands - including the island of Ireland - would be one nation. The differences between us are far, far slighter than the cultural forces which bind us. Peoples with the same language; people whose children learn the same nursery rhymes; people who laugh at the same jokes; people who can love the same poetry and art; people who have common approaches to liberty and rights, belong together. But if more than 200 years have not brought the Scots to that realisation, why waste money, energy and guilt on centuries more of unappreciated effort?

I have lived in two other countries. I came to love Poland. I want her to prosper and take pride in the sight of her goods on display in other nation's shop windows. My children grew up there. Most of my friends are Poles. If she is threatened, or criticised, I feel for her.

Now I live in Russia. Russia is harder to love (and less eager to be loved) but in two years I have come to respect and admire an enormously impressive culture. Russia has contributed nothing good to politics, economics or gastronomy, but she has made a peerless contribution to the arts.

Yet I have never felt more English than I do now. I have never cared more when England is threatened or criticised. I have never been more concerned about her future. I have never felt more resentful of the traitors who rule her, confound their knavish tricks.

I am concerned that some people who came to England full of claims have never learned to love her, or even respect her. Even some of their children and grandchildren feel, inexplicably, more loyalty to foreign ideologies, customs and traditions than to those of the great nation that has welcomed and nurtured them and twisted its own ideologies to accomodate them. No nation outside the Anglosphere has ever tried to modify its culture so as to absorb the influences of foreign immigrants. It was a brave experiment, and I am proud of the attempt, but it cannot yet be called a success.

If I can learn to love Poland in a decade, what is wrong with my country that some of these people can't learn to love it in three generations? What is wrong with my countrymen that when a few such maniacs commit suicidal and murderous attacks on our people, they look to blame each other?

England has rarely been ruled by her own. For centuries we laboured under rulers who despised us and delighted in tracing their ancestry to William the Conqueror. They owned the land and we worked it. At the time of the story portrayed in Braveheart, the kings of England and Scotland both saw themselves as Norman. The confrontation in Stirling Cathedral, so chauvinistically portrayed in the film, would have been a polite discussion in courtly French between two nobles who felt no more for the Scots or English than for their other cattle. They would have scorned to speak either Scots Gaelic or English. It's ludicrous that the heirs of those "cattle" should base animosity to each other on long-forgotten allegiances to such invaders.

Now the Scots ARE ruled by their own. They have their own parliament and they have ours too. They have all the top cabinet positions and they shape the United Kingdom's policies to Scotland's ends. They conspire, as they always did, with the French and their joint aim is as it ever was. England is once again ruled by foreigners while the practical English - as ever - focus on the arts, the sciences and the generation of wealth to be squandered by others.

When will England too be free? I am a cosmopolitan with friends from many nations. I do not need to despise them or their countries to feel in my bones that no nation has given the world more than mine. We deserve our place in the world, and to be proud of it.

Arthur's Seat: Kiss me, Hardy

How it would have been if Nelson had operated under modern regulations....

Arthur's Seat: Kiss me, Hardy

Councils could seize empty homes

Our government does not recognise the boundaries of its legitimate influence. If it wants more social housing, it can tax and spend on building some. Of course it has done so much taxing and spending already, that it knows it will be unpopular.

There is no way however that it should be entitled to use the property of others against their will. It already has compulsory purchase powers if it really wants to acquire property at fair value. Why should it have the right NOT to pay for it, but to use it anyway?

It is naff all to do with the State how our possessions are used. These proposals are outrageous.

BBC NEWS | UK | Councils could seize empty homes

Race row disrupts Radio 4 debate

I have every sympathy with Joan Rivers. Accusations of racism are bandied about far too casually. It's a serious thing, to discriminate unfairly against a fellow human being for irrelevant reasons. It carries very serious opprobrium today and many of us are tired of some members of ethnic minorities who leap to blame every disappointment in their lives on the alleged "racism" of those around them. Lenny Henry satirises this beautifully with his "it's because I a black man, innnit" sketches.

It's not just blacks. Some of the Welsh have become so consumed with pathetic self-pity that they call the police if Ann Robinson or Tony Blair denigrate them. Irving Welsh wrote in the Guardian today about why Scotland has a murder rate three times higher than England. He managed, in a twisted way, to put part of the blame on the English and their "sense of superiority." This apparently makes the poor Scots so unhappy that they kill each other. Weird. I have never heard an Englishman denigrate a Scot, except in response to the most dire provocation. Nor have I heard an Englishman express his sense of superiority to the Scots, though I have often heard the reverse - and in the most blistering terms.

Get a life guys, for goodness sake. There must be some problems in the world for which the long-suffering English are NOT to blame, surely?

Libby Purves' response to this episode was pathetic. A lively debate about an important subject arose spontaneously and she behaved like an embarrassed hostess whose dinner guests were bickering. Her implied rebuke to both Rivers and Howe at the end was ridiculous.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Race row disrupts Radio 4 debate

World is a safer place despite people's fears

Presumably the Government will now, on the basis of this research, scrap its programme of attacks on our ancient liberties, and repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act and other scandalous legislation? After all, its justification for these measures has been that the world post-9/11 is a much more dangerous place than ever before. This research proves that is not true.

Telegraph | News | World is a safer place despite people's fears

ID cards vote: Labour majority cut | the Daily Mail

I wonder why the Daily Mail feels the need to put the "right" in "right to travel" in quotation marks. Those of us who will not submit to the assault of having the state take 13 biometrics in order to tag us and track us like cattle, will not be able to renew our passports. That feels like a loss of liberty to me.

ID cards vote: Labour majority cut | the Daily Mail

Labour survives ID card rebellion

Labour survives. Not our freedoms though. The truth was spoken in the Commons, but still the whipped curs ran through the lobby. They should be ashamed.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Labour survives ID card rebellion

Poor children may be bused to school in wealthy areas

Modern debating techniques, Part II:

"It is not some kind of social diktat or American-style enforced de-segregation"

This proposal is EXACTLY that, so the spokesman begins by denying it, thus (he hopes) taking the sting out of the criticism.

Between the ages of 11 and 13, I was bused from one village to another in the first years of comprehensive education. The schools in our poor rural area were not deemed large enough to provide the right "mix" of pupils. I remember sleepily waiting at dark bus stops early in the morning. My wife - from the same area - remembers riots and bullying on her bus, which often led to the driver turning everyone off to walk miles. The idea was quietly dropped after a few years. Now it's back in another guise, and only the local bus companies will benefit.

British education is in a mess because of social engineering, not for lack of it. Kelly is rearranging deck chairs in true New Labour style. She will do anything but admit that Labour's educational theories (and the Conservatives failure to resist them) caused the horrors of "bog standard" comprehensives and destroyed social mobility in Britain.

Labour activists will delight in depressing house prices around less bad State schools, smashing home owners' small dreams. Those who do their best for their families are again penalised for their temerity.

New Labour is in power, not because of the ever-shrinking working class, but because it has successfully deceived more gullible members of the middle class. Kelly should remember that.

Holy war looms over Disney's Narnia epic

Allah forbid that a Christmas movie should have a Christian sub-text. How crazy is this story? Islamic evangelism is rife in Britain, but there is a "row" when Disney releases the "Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe"? I can't imagine where the "row" was. In the offices of the Guardian, perhaps?

The Narnia stories are great books for children and I hope the producers of the films have done them justice.

The Observer | UK News | Holy war looms over Disney's Narnia epic

If the Tories have a drug problem, it's their addiction to past quarrels

At a business conference a few years ago, a group of 10 friends sat around a dinner table. We were all about David Cameron's age, but from several countries. The conversation turned to drug use at university. One after another told stories of "bongs" and "grass" and more. I found myself admitting I was the only one who had never used a controlled substance.

I believe that drug use is much more pervasive than figures suggest. Many millions of Britons "do drugs" at weekends. Not all of them are addicts. Not all of them will be. I suspect that if any exposure to illegal substances is a bar to leading a political party, the pool of available talent will be much reduced.

There's no reason to be interested in whether Cameron did drugs. There's every reason to wonder why the media are pressing him so hard, when they are not asking Tony Blair. How has the British media been hijacked?

Telegraph | Opinion | If the Tories have a drug problem, it's their addiction to past quarrels

Dishonest debating tactics

Armando Ianucci makes an interesting point about how modern debate is conducted. He hits the target with his example of Tony Blair ritually acknowledging the importance of civil rights before proposing the destruction of more of them.

I experience the same irritations in business life. Colleagues who know full well they are a waste of time begin wasting my time by saying, "I know you are busy and I don't want to waste your time, but..."

Ianucci is right in identifying this as a confession, but his proposed "swift kick in the loins" is not really a practical response. I confess that I don't know any better countermeasures to such dishonest tactics. In consequence I spend too much of my life politely allowing my time to be wasted. Any suggestions?

Telegraph | Opinion | Notebook

Parents: we are not the law

I can only applaud. That I should feel the need to do so when, anywhere else in the world, this article would be no more than plain common-sense, says a lot about New Britain.

spiked-liberties | Column | Parents: we are not the law

Innocent in London

I am behindhand in finding this story and blogging it. However, this diary of an innocent man arrested in London on suspicion of terrorism is an important document. I hope I can lead more people to it.

Innocent in London

BBC seeks increase to licence fee

There is no reason for the BBC's licence fee to increase above the rate of inflation. In fact, there is no real justification for the licence fee at all.

The BBC no longer fulfils its historic role as an independent public service broadcaster. It long ago went down-market to compete head on with the commercial stations. In fact ITV now produces better drama.

The BBC also appears to have given over editorial control of news coverage to the Government. Since the Dr David Kelly affair, its outlets have toadied disgracefully. Sadly, there is no guarantee that financial independence would end that behaviour. Murdoch's media also appear to have been pimped.

It is time either for the BBC to be granted independence and allowed to advertise, or to be closed down entirely.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | BBC seeks increase to licence fee

Lords line up to debate right to die

The libertarian position on this should be clear enough. It's your life. If you want to die that's up to you. However, you cannot compel anyone else to kill you or assist you to die.

The problems are also clear enough. If euthanasia or assisted suicide is permitted, it will often be faked so that people can inherit wealth or be rid of a burden. The law should protect the weak by requiring a clear written expression of will in the presence of an independent witness. Relatives will disagree and the document will be important in any subsequent litigation.

If a doctor is prepared, subject to such a clear expression of will, to provide the means for a suicide, that is probably the best solution. Assisted suicide is not the same as asking a doctor to kill, which would be a problem for many; not only on ethical grounds but because the doctor risks involvement in legal disputes.

Assisted suicide does not help those who are physically incapable even of taking pills unassisted. Nor does it help those whose condition has deteriorated until they are mentally incapable of expressing their wish to die. Again, even if a doctor can be found to carry out the killing, it should only be lawful if there is a clear legal expression of the patient's intentions, made before he became incapable. So-called "living wills" can deal with this issue.

I have no doubt that, even with all necessary legal protections, many old people will die against their will if these measures are introduced. We are all too ready to convince ourselves of the truth of things that suit us. Auntie Flo's death will seem a mercy to those who stand to inherit. No caring heir will let paperwork stand in the way. Muddled old ladies will sign unknowing. Signatures will be lovingly forged.

Baroness Warnock thinks the old have a duty to die rather than be a burden to their families. If this view gains credence, the dangers are obvious. Elderly people may feel pressured to "do the right thing" by their families. If your son is massively in debt and the costs of your care are a burden; if your daughter cannot earn to support her family because she is your carer, how will you feel if the idea of euthanasia is raised? How will the State's rules on consuming your estate to pay for your care affect your view? Will you feel pressured to die early so as to save those costs and leave more to your indebted children? Many old people are a burden to the State, rather than their offspring. It would not be long before someone argued a similar duty to the taxpayer. Voluntary euthanasia could soon become involuntary, whether because of social pressures or even legal requirements.

This is one of those issues where it's easy to devise simple rules. However, the complexities of life are such that there are bound to be unforseen outcomes. While the libertarian position is clear, any changes to the law on this subject should be made with extreme caution. The Government's usual style of "legislate today, think tomorrow" will not do. Cheap headlines about "mercy killings" and heart-rending "human interest" stories on the subject, could lead to thousands of murders.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Lords line up to debate right to die

Hoon indicates possible compromise over anti-terror laws

The Labour Party's leaders have become masterful at manipulating public perceptions. In the current "debate" (if such it can be called when HM Opposition is silent) they first proposed the ludicrous new crime of "glorifying terrorism". Critics ridiculed it. They "backed down". See? They are "listening".

Then the debate moved to the three months' period of detention without trial (and without charge). Labour's people hint they will "compromise". The Lib Dems, the only politicians engaging in the debate, signal they will not budge. They are quite right to say so, but they have fallen into a negotiating trap. Labour will say the Lib Dems are unreasonable and uncompromising, someone from the leaderless Tories will agree and suggest a compromise, and the current 14 day period for police to make a case or release a suspect will be extended, if not to 3 months, then to 2. Next year Labour will propose 12 months - and so it goes on.

The public senses the rhythms of these debates, but does not follow the details. Labour is well-tuned to the rhythms and exploits them beautifully. No-one even asks the question "...but isn't 14 days already too long for an innocent man to be held against his will without the blessing of the courts..?" No-one even considers how such powers could be abused.

Under the proposed new regime, annoy your local police and you could find yourself repeatedly held in custody for two months and 29 days on suspicion. You won't be able to challenge the police in court. You won't be entitled to know on what suspicion you were held. You will never be able to challenge a policeman again, no matter what he is doing to you or your family.

Is that an unreasonable and disloyal scenario? Is it unfair to our gallant police? I think that's what you would have told me if I had predicted that an 82-year old member of the Labour Party would be prevented from entering the party's conference under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. I think that's what you would have told me if I had predicted that an innocent young man whose actions gave no reasonable grounds for suspicion would be shot 7 times in the head by muddled flatfoots on the London Underground, on the basis of an over-the-shoulder glimpse by a colleague taking a leak in the bushes outside a block of flats.

Compromise between good and evil is evil. Labour's massive assault on our civil liberties is evil.

Telegraph | News | Hoon indicates possible compromise over anti-terror laws

Gypsy row AM faces censure

How can a political assembly debate issues if certain points of view are suppressed? I don't know if this Conservative member of the Welsh Assembly is prejudiced against Gypsies or not. Certainly the comments reported here are entirely innocuous. Try substituting "Welsh" or "English" for "gypsy travellers" and they remain entirely true. They are so innocuous, one wonders why he even bothered to make them. That they should provoke disciplinary proceedings is entirely bizarre.

Until I read something more damning, I shall assume that he has said nothing worse. His enemies would surely not be quoting such mild remarks if they had anything better.

We are living through a witch hunt in this country. The mad puritans who would forbid all dissent are our enemies; traitors to everything that makes our country worthy of affection and respect.

BBC NEWS | Wales | Gypsy row AM faces censure

Climate change strategy meeting

Professor Bjorn Lomborg, a professor of statistics and a former Greenpeace member, writes in his book "The Sceptical Environmentalist" of the "litany" of received ideas about the environment. These are ideas which are now politically-correct and beyond debate. Global warming is one of them.

Because the belief is quasi-religious, at least in its intensity, people don't catch themselves using it in contradictory ways. They sub-consciously edit evidence, noting anything that suggests global warming and ignoring anything that contradicts it.

Most data used by the environmental movement is simply taken from too short a period. Often the start and end points have been selected to support a particular view. Lomberg's book contains several interesting graphs which show all known historical data, with the misleading section selected by environmentalists highlighted. Some people in the movement, no doubt with honourable intent, are deliberately presenting propaganda as science.

Nobody knows whether the "hole in the ozone layer" is new, or whether it has always been there. The variations detected since we noticed it may well be natural.

Chester (then Deva) was one of the great wine-exporting ports of the Roman Empire. Long before the Industrial Revolution, the North of England was warm enough to grow wine. On the other hand, we have historical records of weather so cold in England that "ice fairs" were held on the Thames. Why do we now believe that the weather of modern times is "normal" and any climate change must be Nature's punishment for our wickedness?

If we take a really long-term perspective, we are actually in the middle of an Ice Age. The whole of human civilisation has risen (and may well fall) during what is technically an "interglacial interval".

Global warming is a theory, and not a very good one. Of course we must monitor climate changes and consider their implications. Of course we should use non-renewable resources carefully to make sure they last until there are viable alternatives. I am puritanical enough to object to waste in principle, without needed an all-embracing ideology to legitimise my view. However, there was human society before refined oil and deo volenti there will be human society after it. There is no reason to suppose (still less to advocate) that the latter should resemble the former.

The environmental movement (and I speak as one with a monthly standing order to FoE) draws attention to important issues but it often overstates its case. Many activists are single issue fanatics. Others are Luddite technophobes, Wordsworthian romantics or reborn Puritans. Some advocate reducing the population of the USA by 85% to make its economy ecologically "sustainable", for example. Their dreams of a simpler, more "natural", society can only be achieved by the forceful exercise of absolute power. Very few of us will choose to give up the technologies which have extended our lives and made them richer.

I don't think most environmentalists are fascists. However, they do provide power-hungry politicians with lots of "right on" excuses for state interference in everyday life. That's why the politicians like to say "we are all environmentalists now". That's why we cannot accept the environmental "litany" without debate.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Climate change strategy meeting

Compulsory pensions? He kept that quiet

Amid all the coverage of Labour's jackboot conference policing methods, and in my indignation at Tony Blair's unsatisfied urges to destroy liberty, I missed this one. So, it seems, did almost everyone else.

Are we really so easily fooled by the misuse of language? "Moving beyond voluntarism" is an amazing euphemism for "compulsion", isn't it?

Telegraph | Opinion | Compulsory pensions? He kept that quiet

Tube death probe delay explained

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner's concerns in this letter are interesting. It was written two hours after the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. At that point, based on what the Metropolitan Police were saying in public, he should still have been expecting praise for his officers, not legal trouble. The Commissioner has claimed that, at that point, he was not aware that the public statements about "bulky clothing" and "suspicious behaviour" were untrue. So why the concern?

The really interesting question is what happened during the period Sir Ian succeeded in preventing the IPCC from obtaining access to the scene. Might it have anything to do with the mysterious absence of CCTV footage from certain cameras?

BBC NEWS | UK | Tube death probe delay explained: " "

Hero's return for Labour heckler

Labour said Mr Wolfgang could return for the conference's final day provided he did not cause further disturbances.

How dare they accuse a man of causing a "disturbance", when he was acting in the finest traditions of British democracy?

This story says it all about New Labour. They are control freaks and habitual abusers of power. The Prevention of Terrorism Act was used against this old man - a refugee from Nazism no less - for simply exercising his right to free speech. That cannot be blamed on "over-zealous stewards".

For that matter, if the Labour leadership thought the stewards were acting incorrectly, why did they not intervene? They were watching it happen. Whatever damage limitation their PR people advise today, it seems reasonable to infer that their silence at the key moment indicated approval of the stewards' actions.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Hero's return for Labour heckler:

Heckler, 82, wins apology from Labour

"Mr Wolfgang tried to re-enter the hall, but was refused permission under Section 44 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Now we know what the Prevention of Terrorism Act is for - it is to protect the delicate ears of Labour ministers from dissenting opinions expressed by 82 year olds.

"Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Heckler, 82, wins apology from Labour

Judges face human rights shake-up

The significant passage from Blair's speech reported here is set out below:-

"And on law and order, Mr Blair again emphasised his 'respect' agenda, saying plans will be published by the end of the year to 'radically extend summary powers to police and local authorities to take on the wrongdoers'. The detail of this was not immediately available."

"Summary powers" for those not tuned in to the jargon of our burgeoning police state, mean the ability of police and local authorities to punish "offenders" without recourse to the courts. In other words, law-enforcers will be judge and jury in certain cases.

Not only does Blair subscribe to the Sun King's view that "L'Etat, c'est moi", but he also shares Judge Dredd's creed - "I am the law". Before you complain that the Judge Dredd reference is an overstatement, please remember the case of Jean Charles de Menezes. He was summarily executed on the merest suspicion of being a terrorist.

More significant was the passage the Grauniad did NOT report here, namely the PM's observations about fighting 21st Century crime with 19th Century methods and about the "system" being designed primarily to ensure the innocent were not convicted. In other words, he is preparing us for a further attack on such "outdated" concepts as the presumption of innocence. It is hard to imagine what more he can do without making serfs of us all.

Press and public seem unable to grasp that, without independent verification of guilt by courts beyond political control, anyone who annoys the authorities will be liable to arbitrary punishment. Of course that's not what they say, but it is what such proposals mean. A press which cannot look behind political rhetoric is useless. Where is the challenge, from Right or Left?

To add to the gloom, Charles Clarke signalled there will be no retreat on ID Cards. So the ID card-linked database which will make the personal information of all citizens available to Judge Dredd will go ahead, despite all public misgivings.

Our free society is collapsing before our eyes. Where is the Opposition?

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports |
Blair says reform must go further:

Britain to pull troops from Iraq as Blair says 'don't force me out'

This is a sad story. I supported the invasion of Iraq. Given what our government was telling us at the time, it seemed necessary. It also held out the prospect of establishing the first Muslim Arab democracy, the very existence of which would be a threat to the corrupt regimes of the region.

We were lied to and let down. Lied to because the casus belli ; the existence of weapons of mass destruction which made Saddam Hussein a threat outside his borders, was false. Despite the Government's vigorous efforts to suppress the truth; attempts which have neutered the BBC, driven Dr David Kelly to suicide and destroyed the reputation of Lord Hutton, no-one now doubts we were lied to. They told us that if we knew what they knew, we would understand that the war was necessary. It is now apparent not only that there was no secret data, but that much of what they were telling us was - to be polite - unreliable.

Blair seems to have seen even the prospect of a bloody war as an opportunity to enhance his image. He does not seem ever to think of anything else. Such an approach, these days, passes for "political genius".

We were let down because neither our government nor that of the United States had a post-victory plan to establish order in Iraq, let alone democracy. It is amazing that they were naive enought to expect flowers in their gun barrels and a happy-clappy tentful of joyous Iraqis ready to build a system few of them had experienced.

Too few troops were sent and the "de-Baathification campaign" closed down the existing security forces, most of whom would have taken orders from new political masters. Instead, they were sent home with their guns, their training as a dictator's hired thugs, and no pay. What were they meant to do but fight for the return of the regime which had paid their wages and made them a privileged elite?

We expected the rapid imposition of a new constitution followed by an orderly handover to a new government. Any changes to the constitution could have been left until after our troops were withdrawn. What we got was a "big tent" and a bunch of mutually-mistrustful people driven into it to "come up with something". It was pathetic.

I have hoped against hope that progress could be made, so that all the sacrifice made by the allied troops would not be in vain and so that we were not reduced to handing decent Iraqis (again) to murderous bullies. However the withdrawal is "spun", it seems that is what will now happen.

This is a worse outcome than Vietnam. Every evil regime in the world will feel safe, because no democracy will be able to muster support for action against it. Islamic extremism will not die with the withdrawal from Iraq. It will grow. One day we will have to confront it. The fiasco in Iraq means it will be stronger by the time we are able to do so.

The Observer | Politics | Britain to pull troops from Iraq as Blair says 'don't force me out'

Shot man's family to visit station

I am sure we all feel for the de Menezes family as they visit London, both to visit the place where their son was shot and to hear from the Independent Police Complaints Authority as to the evidence it has gathered so far.

It is interesting that that IPCC says it cannot release all the evidence. It gives two reasons. One is that it does not want to prejudice future legal action. It is hard to see how it can disclose anything at all which will not do that. One of the main arguments against an enquiry like this is that it inevitably prejudices any proceedings.

Secondly, it says there is information which cannot be released on the grounds of "national security". That is very curious. The shooting took place in a public place. The essential facts are known. The investigation is really about the intent of the officers concerned and their justification for what they did, not about their actions.

Unless the IPCC proposes to conceal the identity of the killers, the intelligence on which they acted or the orders they were given, it is hard to see what else can be hidden. If it withhold that information, the conversationwith Jean de Menezes' family may be a little short.

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | Shot man's family to visit station

An Englishman's Castle: Picking on th Missus

The Englishman makes a very good point. Leaving aside the hilarious inarticulacy of "master communicator" Blair (available in full for your enjoyment if you click through the links), the fact is that his own wife has been guilty of the new thought crime he is introducing.

Recent revelations from inside Downing Street suggest that Nu Labour makes policy up as it goes along. Given the quality of the policy, that's no surprise.

An Englishman's Castle: Picking on th Missus

The Observer | UK News | BBC refuses to hand over Islamist tape

In law enforcement, as in everything else, there need to be clear priorities. This story suggests that Britain's police don't have their priorities straight.

No arrests have been made of anyone involved in the July 7 bombings in London. The immediate perpetrators, of course, carried out summary justice on themselves. However, there must have been accomplices. Where are they?

When there is every reason to suppose that others may be planning similar attacks, how can the police have time to focus on "thought crimes"? They should be looking for people who may be building more bombs and training more bombers, not messing about with publicity-seekers.

The Observer | UK News | BBC refuses to hand over Islamist tape

Family mourns conker accident youth

Of course we all feel sorry for this boy and his family. But there are more health risks involved in telling children not to play, climb trees, or whatever than there are in play-related accidents.

Our children are unhealthy partly because we are afraid to let them play outside like we used to. The motorised school run, computer games and excessive parental controls driven by media scare stories are damaging childrens' health.

I am sorry for young Louis Read, but at least he died having fun. At least he was being a child. He was just unlucky. Better to die that way than of poor health later because he never climbed a tree.

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | Family mourns conker accident youth

'Judge Dredd' powers for police urged

I just love the way "Judge Dredd" Blair comments that it would be "unfortunate" if Britain became a police state. It's a classic of British understatement.

Telegraph | News | 'Judge Dredd' powers for police urged

Call to end sex education opt-out

See what I mean? Minutes after I agree with the so-and-sos for the first time in my life, they show their true colours and make me regret my words.

"Parents cannot be relied upon to teach their children about sex" says the Liberal Democrat health spokesman. The State can, apparently.

It does not matter whether parents can be relied upon to do what a Lib Dem wants. It does matter that parents are free to bring their children up their own way. Look at successive advice from health officials on such issues as whether to put your baby to sleep on its front, back or side. What was obligatory one year, became dangerous the next.

Some parents may not do the right thing. Most do. All have the right to try. Governments can be GUARANTEED to do the wrong thing. Any party with pretensions to the name "liberal" should understand that.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Call to end sex education opt-out

Lib Dems vow to fight terror powers

I can't abide the Lib Dems. They are an opportunistic bunch of wets, prepared to say anything at any time that will get them ahead. It pains me enormously to find myself agreeing with them. As far as civil liberties in Britain are concerned, they are currently - alas - the only show in town.

Blair and the Brownies are vying with each other to paraphrase Soviet justifications for treating individual liberty as a selfish, bourgeois concern. The Tories are so scared of Labour that they cannot even stand up on an issue which historically is theirs. The bulk of the population is too complacent to care. All the average voter wants to do is pay this month's mortgage and pretend the credit crunch is never coming.

So it's left to the Lib Dems to speak sooth, almost by default. They are not a naturally libertarian party, despite their name. They have a history of seeking to interfere in the minutiae of our lives. But on this occasion, they are right. More power, provisionally, to their wet lettuce elbows.

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | Lib Dems vow to fight terror powers

Mandelson attacked over party on yacht

Given the way New Labour ruthlessly capitalised on so-called "Tory sleaze", perhaps I am squeamish in wishing the Conservatives would stop banging on about such stories? Mandy's socialising is perhaps more serious than the ridiculous damp squib of "David Blunkett and the A Level results", but it's still pathetically trivial. The current government is perhaps the worst in modern history. it is ludicrous that HM Opposition flails about like this while failing to land a solid political punch.

Public life in Britain is remarkably puritanical. No-one outside the UK ever believes me when I tell them that we charge the Prime Minister rent for his Downing Street flat. Most heads of government are much more lavishly accommodated, and all at public expense. The idea of Schroeder or Putin paying their own way is beyond the comprehension of Germans or Russians. I don't even dare mention such concepts to French friends. Chirac has been housed in spectacular style at their expense since before most French people were born.

Britain can be a very mean-spirited place. I am all for high standards in public life, but given that all but the most moronic MP's are losing out financially by being in Parliament, I think we could usefully leave the subject of their salaries, expenses and perks alone and focus instead on what value they deliver.

It's odd that the effective repeal of Magna Carta and the introduction of draconian police state powers excites only a few "liberati", while an EU Commissioner dining on a billionaire's yacht, a Home Secretary getting his mistress pregnant, or a Prime Minister holidaying at the expense of wealthier friends gets everyone excited.

The revelation over the weekend that the Prime Minister gave political undertakings to Rupert Murdoch should have been enough to bring the government down in a functioning democracy. Yet it went unnoticed in the "scandal" of his describing fellow-Celts as "the fucking Welsh". Our political priorities are askew.

Telegraph | News | Mandelson attacked over party on yacht

Jailers 'sadistic toward Muslims'

The murder of Zahid Mubarek by Robert Stewart is indefensible. If prison officers deliberately exposed Mubarek to harm by placing him in a cell with "...a known racist psychopath..." that is indefensible too. Of course this begs the question, what was a "psychopath" doing in a conventional prison? Are we dealing with a psychiatrist's, a journalist's or a prisoner's definition here?

The Daily Mail writes in shocked terms that "...a Muslim and a Jew were ordered to share a cell even though both objected..." When dealing with racial and religious issues, it's often useful to substitute other groups for those mentioned in a text. For example, if we substitute "black person" and "white person" for "Muslim" and "Jew", how do we respond to the same sentence? Or how about "Welshman" and "Scot", or "Presbyterian" and "Anglican"?

Muslims in Britain cannot expect to live apart from other races. If they commit offences and are jailed, they should get the same multicultural experience as everyone else.

in another, more trivial, example a relative of mine told me a story from a paintball venue in the North-West. The normal deal is that all the groups who arrive are divided into two teams to play against each other. So half of each group of friends or colleagues finds itself in opposition to the other half, playing alongside a number of strangers. Recently, group of Muslims from Manchester refused to play with non-Muslims. They wanted to play on their own.

The management, fearing the reaction, immediately changed their normal practice to accommodate them. This created the need for two arenas and two games. Yet if another group had refused to play with Muslims, (or Blacks, Presbyterians or Welshmen), there is no way the management would have co-operated. The Muslims in question were racists. As a libertarian I believe both that they were entitled to their view and that the paintball centre management was entitled to refuse their demand.

It is only in such everyday ways that we can rebuild our society to accommodate and assimilate the various groups within it. We are all citizens together and both public and private sectors should operate, in that wonderful old phrase, "without fear or favour". We should neither improperly discriminate against a group, nor accept its demands to discriminate against others. In our rush to abolish favours, we have perhaps become too fearful.

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | Jailers 'sadistic toward Muslims'

Telegraph | News | Clarke bungle reveals his doubts over terror law

When President of the National Union of Students, Charles Clarke was already a "young fogey". Affecting a Karl Marx beard and representing a "Broad Left" grouping which included Communists of various shades, he nonetheless looked and sounded like the old-fashioned public school boy and Cambridge man that he was and is. Not very surprising then that he's not up to speed on the modern world, and inept enough to send out Word documents complete with tracked changes.

Every law firm secretary knows to PDF documents unless tracked changes are being used on purpose to follow the course of a negotiation. Apparently the Home Office is staffed, as well as headed, by IT-illiterates. Come back Sir Humphrey, with your neat handwritten marginal notes.

I can understand why Clarke is nervous about his measures. Anyone with any experience of student politics knows that young intellectuals play with ideas; the more extreme - in many cases - the better. The new rules on "glorifying" terrorism would have captured almost every Lefty with whom Clarke played in his student years, including - quite possibly - him. Never an NUS conference passed without resolutions in support of this or that set of mangy third world "freedom fighters".

For that matter, the proposed new laws would have caught me in my day. I was briefly a Maoist; supporting the greatest terrorist state in history. I was also an active supporter of Palestinian terrorists, selling "Free Palestine" newspapers at my school gates. Thankfully, I grew up - at least politically.

"Glorifying terrorism" is something that is done on the national day of many now-respectable states. The French Revolutionaries were terrorists. The founders the Republic of Ireland and Israel too. I won't extend the list. You can do that yourselves, to your heart's content.

The State is entitled to regulate our actions, but not our thoughts or the expression of our opinions. Attempts to do so will criminalise, and therefore radicalise, more and more people. Left to work through their youthful intellectual confusions, such people might otherwise grow up to be a Home Secretary or a respectable libertarian blogger.

Telegraph | News | Clarke bungle reveals his doubts over terror law

Telegraph | News | Clarke plans to extend terror detention laws

This, I believe, is where we came in. So the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 is already not enough for the government. They need more powers and they need them now. When they have them, I am sure they will not be enough. They will never be enough until we are either all in continuous detention or have turned into terrorists.

Government by tabloid headline may have worked well for New Labour on more prosaic issues (if you don't mind thousands of pointless new crimes and a massive waste of taxpayers' money). On civil liberties issues however, it is simply not acceptable.

Telegraph | News | Clarke plans to extend terror detention laws

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Survey reveals global dissatisfaction

This is really interesting. Forget the results for the rest of the world. Let's just look at those for Britain. 70% of us think our elections are "free and fair" but 66% of us think our government does not rule according to the will of the people. The BBC commentator seems to think that's a contradiction, but it's not. I am sure that both opinions are correct.

I assume the 30% of voters who DON'T think our elections are free and fair take the view that the failure of the government to respect the people's will implies there's something wrong with the electoral system. They may think that an alternative to our "first past the post, winner takes all" system would somehow identify better specimens of that class of people who are attracted to politics. Or they may more reasonably think that some kind of proportional representation would inhibit radicals from making dramatic changes by creating a need for ever-shifting coalitions. Certainly this last possibility is attractive in current circumstances, with civil liberties disappearing in double time under an unprincipled government with no respect for individual rights.

I like our electoral system, precisely because it provides a clear result. I have always compared it to a steering a tank. You don't have a steering wheel, but two levers, marked "left" and "right". By pushing one or the other every four or five years you can ensure that, over your lifetime, successive governments take more or less a reasonable direction. During the Thatcher, Major and Blair governments however (i.e. all my adult life) it has not worked. As a student politician, leading my university's Conservatives, I remember telling the leader of the Labour students that his party was betraying the nation by failing to provide an electable alternative to the then invincible Tories. Now I feel the Tories are betraying the nation by doing exactly the same. For most of our democracy's history, HM Opposition functioned as, in some ways, the most important part of the system - challenging what the government did and exposing incompetence or corruption. Prime Minister's Question Time was the very symbol of our feisty and aggressive democracy, and the Leader of the Opposition was never out of the public eye. Now the Opposition sulks in its tents with its spin doctors, or wastes what public interest there may be in its actions by bickering its way through endless, pointless leadership contests between equally useless contenders.

Disraeli famously remarked to a dissident, "...damn your principles, stick to your party...". For generations we could smile at that, precisely because our Parliamentarians were a famously bolshy, independent-minded bunch. Sir Gerald Nabarro or Alan Clark might suck up to the leader (or an anticipated replacement leader) for immediate political benefit, but in their hearts they marched to their own drums. Now we have craven, grey, professional parliamentarians who follow Disraeli's injunction to the letter. One reason they are so craven is because they are rarely financially independent. I would like to retire at 55 and dedicate 10 or more years of my life to politics - to put something back and give some public service. No party will currently take candidates over 40 however. Why? Because they would not as easily submit to the party whips. As mature, financially-independent politicians, they might actually follow their consciences. That's not acceptable to party leaders, to whom their parliamentary parties are mere armies to be marshalled.

In a Parliamentary democracy with no written constitution to protect individual rights, we rely entirely on Parliament. Our consitution can be summed up in three words; "Parliament is sovereign". If Parliament wanted a final solution to the Muslim problem, for example, there is nothing in our system to stop it ordering the construction of gas chambers. If a future Parliament with a Muslim majority wanted a final solution to the kaffir problem, it could do it.

The "separation of powers" between Executive (PM and Cabinet), Judiciary (the courts) and Legislature (Parliament), requires Parliament to make the law, the government to implement it and the courts to interpret it. Our system currently uses Parliament only as a pool of "talent" to staff a Cabinet which then, through the "whips", exercises ruthless discipline over the rejects. The Executive makes the law. Our judiciary implements it (to my personal knowledge, often with a heavy heart) because it has no significant role of constitutional oversight.

Without an independent Parliament, we are always going to have the present unhappy circumstances. The Whips are the problem. The Parties are the problem. The people are the problem for sticking to their historic parties rather than running as independents or at least voting for them. Unless we can find a way to get better-quality people into Parliament and put the Executive back in its cage, any repetition of the BBC's interesting poll will produce the same result. More worryingly, if the Parties continue to see themselves as competing brands positioning themselves from day to day according to focus groups and opinion polls, rather than consistent political principles, our people may lose all confidence in democracy itself. Let's face it, that's already happening. Many of us don't vote, precisely because the "free and fair" result does NOT produce a government which will govern according to our will. In such circumstances, when economic circumstances don't keep us happy and relaxed, more and more of us will turn to political extremism.



BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Survey reveals global dissatisfaction

BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | McCartney intimidation 'growing'

This was obviously going to happen as soon as the story died down in the press. I sadly predict this family will eventually be killed. I also predict that Martin McGuinness will "not believe" republicans are involved in the killing and that the government will wring its hands and do nothing. After all there is a good chance that the killing will be done by murderers the government has released from prison under the terms of its surrender to the decades-long, US-funded campaign of terrorism by Sinn Fein/IRA.

If the leaders of the Orange Order are to be believed, the recent riots were started by unprovoked police violence. Who would believe that in Britain? Well, who would have believed that an innocent man in London could be shot by police without warning? Who would have believed an innocent civil servant could be driven to suicide (if that's what happened) by government hounding over his telling the truth to the press about the lies told to the people to justify war in Iraq?

Things are going badly wrong in many ways in our country.

Is it possible that the terms of the surrender involve the British Government turning its forces against the loyalist population? Perhaps it is trying to accelerate acceptance by Protestants of Northern Ireland's absorption into the Irish Repbulice?

Unless something changes in British politics I also sadly predict that the government will do all it can, despite Blair's brave words to the UN today, to appease the forces of radical Islam in Britain. We are in for a long war on terrorism because our leaders are not really on our side.

Meanwhile, the government seems most interested in using terrorism as an excuse to increase its powers.

BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | McCartney intimidation 'growing'

BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Protestant fears and loyalist anger

The BBC asks another stupid question. Why are loyalists angry? Because they have been betrayed, that's why. Because IRA terrorism, backed by armchair terrorists in the USA and impliedly supported by European "allies" who refused to deport murderers because they were "politicals", has won.

If we have a terrorist problem in the UK, it is at least partly because Blair's surrender to the IRA has delivered a clear practical message to counteract his windy rhetoric about the "war on terrorism".

BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Protestant fears and loyalist anger

Jews and Freemasons controlled war on Iraq, says No 10 adviser

Thousands sign a petition against ID Cards? The Home Office finds a way to count all their signatures as one. The largest march on London since the Peasants' Revolt? The Government abolishes fox hunting anyway. Why were their views not influential? Well, if one follows the logic of the delightfully-named leader of Britain's Muslim barristers, Ahmad Thomson, perhaps it was because they were not Jews & Freemasons.

I have never understood why qualifications in psychiatry involve so much study. Loonies seem invariably to give themselves away by their belief in the disproportionate influence of Jews and guys in funny aprons. One would have thought a simple questionnaire around those issues would replace all other diagnostic techniques.

The important question remains. If there are as many moderate Muslims as the Prime Minister says, how come all the ones he knows are extremists?

Telegraph | News | Jews and Freemasons controlled war on Iraq, says No 10 adviser

Islamic stance on women can be oppressive, says Cherie

Well duh. It's interesting that the Telegraph thinks these remarks by the Prime Minister's wife have "caused embarrassment". To whom, for God's sake? Not women, that's for sure.

I suggest we ask every country in the world if it's embarrassed by Mrs Blair's remarks and withdraw our ambassadors from every country that replies "yes". Then we could impose visa requirements and an immigration quota of zero on all its citizens and expel any of them who might be living in Britain at present.

People who think Britain should soft-pedal on human rights in order to "improve relations" with the Islamic world are spiritual descendants of those who would have thought it was tactless to talk about Jews in the presence of Nazis. To hell with them. Carry on, Cherie.

"Telegraph | News | Islamic stance on women can be oppressive, says Cherie

BBC NEWS | UK | English countryside 'almost gone'

It is sad that town and country in Britain are divided as never before. I usually sympathise with country people under pressure from urbanites who don't understand the rural way of life and who tend to be rather "Beatrix Potter" in their view of the animal kingdom.

However, if we analyse what the Council for the Protection of Rural England is asking for here, it is state intervention to prevent people selling their houses or land to city people, in an attempt to keep the country as it is right now. The interference with property rights proposed is just staggering and there is nothing in history to suggest that such state controls ever result in a more desirable outcome than the interplay of market forces.

People are leaving the land. That's because agriculture is becoming more efficient. That trend could well be reversed by an increasing demand for organic produce. One more food scare, and the Brits will want everything hand-reared. Farmers who are taking subsidies to "set aside" land (and presumably firing the workers who would have farmed it) might consider earning a living by going for high-end organic production instead.

If the government wants to intervene helpfully, it could more usefully improve urban infrastructure so that our cities are more liveable. I have been a long-distance commuter from the country to the City and it's not an easy choice. I would have preferred decent accommodation in London, but at that stage could not afford it.

This kind of ill-thought-through propaganda, with its "doomsday scenario" to grab a headline is very counter-productive. There is a serious debate to be had here, but demanding massive state intervention to "save" the countryside is naieve in the extreme.

BBC NEWS | UK | English countryside 'almost gone'

Key findings of oil-for-food report

Of course Annan should resign. It may seem terribly old-fashioned to say so but any CEO in business, or highly-placed official in politics takes the credit for their subordinates' successes. The quid pro quo is that they also take the blame for their failures. The UN Secretary General does not need to have participated in his son's alleged misconduct or to have been aware of his subordinates' failings to be accountable for the UN's dismal performance.

The most significant comment in this summary of the findings however, is buried at the bottom of the list - just as it is only hinted at diplomatically in the text of the report itself. France and Russia, two of the "P-5" permanent members of the Security Council, were "...reluctant to address illegal oil flows to Syria...".

As a guest in Moscow, I choose not to comment on Russia's role.

What of France though? Why would that respectable member of the family of nations be reluctant to impede illegal flows of oil; flows serving the corrupt purposes of Saddam Hussein's regime, rather than genuine "oil for food" exchanges? Can we draw any inference from its conduct in this respect as to the reasons behind the subsequent conduct of French foreign policy in the run-up to the US Alliance's invasion?

Our European "friends" and "allies" took a cynical line about the invasion. The suggestion was that it was "...all about oil...", i.e. about the US gaining control of supplies from Iraq. It seems possible that it was indeed "...all about oil..." i.e. La Belle France's reluctance to lose her secret control of those supplies. Given that the US could have had Iraqi oil far cheaper by supporting France, China and Russia in ending sanctions, this is at least a more credible theory that that of the world-weary Continental sophisticates.

Telegraph | News | Key findings of oil-for-food report

Telegraph | News | Yahoo 'helps China track down and jail dissident

That a Western company, in breach of local law, should aid a totalitarian state in hunting down a dissident is disgraceful. It remains to be seen what Yahoo! stood to gain from turning secret policeman and there is the possibility that a rogue employee, perhaps a Chinese agent, supplied the information. If it proves that Yahoo! cooperated deliberately, internet users who care about freedom should seriously consider boycotting the company's products and services.

So much for Tony Blair's cheery pronouncements yesterday on China's alleged progress towards democracy.

Telegraph | News | Yahoo 'helps China track down and jail dissident'

CNN.com - New Orleans mayor orders holdouts removed - Sep 7, 2005

I am not a Louisiana lawyer. I guess there may be emergency powers there which make it legal for the Mayor to give this order, but I can't imagine why. These people are certainly not acting rationally. I would have been out of there before you could say "gumbo", but freedom includes the right to be daft. I doubt whether camping out in your damaged and isolated New Orleans home is, for example, any more dangerous than climbing Everest. We assume that the mountaineering nut jobs who risk death for glory are adults capable of making their own choices. Why are these determined homeowners any different?

CNN.com - New Orleans mayor orders holdouts removed - Sep 7, 2005

Telegraph | News | BBC says Humphrys was 'misguided and inappropriate'

Don't you just hate the word "inappropriate"? It is a prissy, priggish word. It has become the modern equivalent of the religious word "sinful" but without the notion that, as none of us are without sin, we must not rush to judgement of other sinners.

Whenever one speaks the truth these days, it's "inappropriate." Whenever one challenges authority, it's "inappropriate". Note that the BBC is at pains NOT to say that John Humphreys' remarks were "untrue." No, unspecified elements of his speech were just "inappropriate". Note also that they accept his remarks were not biased and that he did not seek to be "contemptuous" or "dismissive" of ministers in general (God forbid).

Despite the fact that he was speaking in a private capacity; that he has made similar remarks - unchallenged - before in the august presence of ministers and not least that he was speaking nought but unvarnished truth, he has effectively been slapped down in public by his employers.

At what point in our history did our employers acquire the right to control our opinions, or the expression thereof, outside working hours? At what point did it become any of their damn business what we say or do when not in actual production?

What is truly "inappropriate" is for any commercial employer to seek to modify the thinking of its staff or restrict the expression of their thoughts. The payment of a salary entitles an employer to the performance of contractual tasks to the best of one's ability during working hours. Nothing more. Companies these days also expect "loyalty", a rather feudal notion - but minus the "noblesse oblige" bit. I would argue that they are entitled to as much as they give in that respect; usually precisely nothing.

The BBC should shut up and let Mr Humphreys say what he has to say on his own time. At least, when off air, he occasionally says something interesting.

Home thoughts from abroad

This is a fruitful time for fascists. We are fortunate that our would-be Hitlers lack his charisma.

It seems that the July 7 bombers had a leader. This "soldier" of Islam left a bowel-wrenching video message, duly broadcast on Al-Jazeera. In a homely "Last of the Summer Wine" voice - the sort of voice British advertisers favour to sell financial services - he justified his planned terrorist attack on innocent civilians by citing the "wrongs" visited on his people. His people, I need hardly say, were emphatically not us, however Yorkshire his accent and however fully we had accepted him as British.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, the black citizens of the drowned historic centre make the Lord of the Flies seem like a picnic at Glyndebourne. As they murder, rape and pillage, their leaders offer all the ratiocination of a spoiled toddler demanding an ice cream. A leader with one-tenth of Hitler's charisma would make much of that. To keep myself positive as I read of these horrors, I am constantly keeping the image of the intelligent, accomplished and industrious Condoleezza Rice at the front of my mind. I hope the looters’ and rapists' fellow-Americans are making similar efforts.

In Britain, we have fought the good fight on racism. In 1976, for long-forgotten reasons, I and other students took to the streets of Birmingham with anti-racist leaflets. All our provocations could only produce one racist response from many hundreds of bored shoppers. Most white Brummies, their city full of black immigrants, were cheerfully indifferent. This, however, was before the Commission for Racial Equality built an anti-racist industry with quotas to fill.

A year or two later, I gave one of my fellow students a lift to his home in Handsworth, Birmingham. He tried to persuade me to drop him off miles away but I insisted on driving him to his door. While he explained to neighbours in the street that my car should be left alone, his mother and brother received me into their home for coffee; their first-ever white guest. They did so, to the embarrassment of my fellow student, with naked hostility. I left as soon as one-way politeness permitted. I thought of it again years later when I heard a black activist explain that racism was a white problem and that black people could not, by definition, be racist. I thought of it again when I heard another activist explain that, consciously or unconsciously, all white people were racist.

If Britain were racist, would Chinese and Indian pupils achieve the best results in our schools and universities? Would our Chinese and Indian businesspeople prosper so well? Those communities that do less well academically and economically need another explanation. The rest of us are tired of being an all-purpose excuse for their failures. Whatever the real reason, I don’t believe they fail because their ethnic group lacks the potential. I suspect that if the CRE-sponsored search for excuses were to stop, so would the failures. The exceptions in our society, like my long-lost law school colleague, or like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell in America, prove that there is a way forward for those prepared to stop feeling sorry for themselves.

As for our alienated and under-achieving Muslims, remember that the Muslim world once led us all in knowledge. There is a reason for the “Al” in “Algebra”. However almost all the energy once devoted to the sciences is now channelled into rote learning of the Koran. Such study develops the memory but inevitably (as it is believed to be the unchallengeable word of God) not the critical faculties. Our Muslims don’t need us to oppress or disadvantage them. They do it themselves, not least by discarding the talents of half their population.

Anti-racism means striving to ensure that no one is unfairly disadvantaged by his or her ethnic origins. It does not mean legitimising uncultured behaviours under the aegis of "multiculturalism". It does not mean holding back from attacking evil – such as the oppression of women or the suppression of the critical faculties of the young – because it originates from a particular ethnic group.

The CRE-led forces in Britain have created racism where there was none. Since their careers depend on racism, what else did we expect?

Please understand me aright. I dislike racism as much as I did that long-ago day in the Bull Ring. I certainly don’t want the fascist right to gain ground. Those people are as much the enemies of liberty as Blair and his thought police. I am merely pointing out that the vice of political correctness has closed so tightly that many ordinary people would currently be tempted to shock the Establishment – and frighten into silence those who trade false accusations of racism for privilege – by supporting fascists. The present crop of fascist leaders are personally repellant. That's lucky, but how long will our luck hold?

As long as the voice of the legitimate right is silent in the land; as long as everything uttered by politicians is “politically-correct” (i.e. a transparent lie that may not be challenged); we risk the loss of the silent majority to the forces of political evil.