Diary
Farewell, Bishop of Rochester
30 March, 2009
The news that Michael Nazir-Ali is to step down as Bishop of Rochester is sad indeed. Aged just 59, Nazir Ali had many years of service ahead of him and his departure will leave a big gap in the Church. It is all the sadder because for the last few years, he was one of the rare clerical voices refusing to spout the politically correct dogmas of the left/liberal establishment.
Unlike the lame duck, lily livered, Sharia supporting Archbishop of Canterbury, Nazir Ali was outspoken in his criticism of multiculturalism. He successfully gauged the way that it undermined the nation state and British values, creating alienated, ghettoised communities, particularly among second generation Muslims. He shrewdly observed how the ‘equality’ agenda of the left, a kind of secular religion for many, was slowly undermining the position of Christians in Britain.
As he once put it: ‘The long withdrawing roar of the sea of faith seems to be getting louder: nurses cannot pray, the Creed cannot be recited at Christian services for fear of offending non-believers, Christian marriage counsellors are removed because they believe in Christian marriage and Christian adoption agencies cannot be publicly funded because they believe that children are best brought up in a family with a mother and father to look after them…’
Above all, he could see how the growth of Islam in Britain was creating problems for civil society. There were areas of the country that he dubbed ‘no go areas,’ an insightful cultural observation about creeping Islamification which earned him police protection after a series of death threats. Rowan Williams would never have uttered a single one of these observations. In other words, Nazir-Ali was brave enough to say things that were beyond the pale for his colleagues and his premature departure is a loss for us all.
topWe should stop giving sanctuary to these deranged jihadis
28 March, 2009
The decision by the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, to investigate MI5 over claims of alleged torture will seem reasonable to many. After all, no one individual is or should be above the law. Binyam Mohammed alleges that he was tortured at the behest of the US government and with the complicity of an MI5 officer who watched his treatment. Given our justifiable aversion to torture, this might seem a reasonable process.
But the more that one looks at this case, the murkier it gets. Mohamed does not allege he was tortured by the British secret agent, merely that the torture he experienced (which was, he claims, at the behest of the US government) was carried out with the complicity of the British agent. Granted, some terrible things may have been done to Mohamed, but the complicity of the secret service will be very hard to prove. But acknowledging this fact has obscured the point that Mohamed was no innocent abroad.
By his own confession, Mohamed travelled to Afghanistan to attend al-Qaeda's al-Farouq training camp where he received, according to the statement released through his lawyers, ‘40 days of training in light arms handling, explosives, and principles of topography' and 'was taught to falsify documents.’ As Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens of the Centre for social cohesion points out, ‘Al-Farouq's training was reserved for only the best and most committed jihadists, and among those who have passed through its sandy gates include four of the nineteen 9/11 bombers.’ Instead of feting this man as a modern day hero who stood up to American imperialism, we should perhaps be asking why we welcome jihadis whose gory death cult threatens us all.
Indeed, this case should never have been put before British judges. Mohamed is not a British citizen. Aged 15, he arrived in this country from Ethiopia and was granted leave to stay, but not asylum. He chose to leave the UK to live in Afghanistan where, as we now know, he was schooled in the deadly arts of terror. A man who clearly despises this country and its values is owed no obligation of residence here. Thus the real scandal in this case is the authorities’ misplaced indulgence of fanatical terrorists.
topLow taxes define the Conservative party
25 March, 2009
In today’s Telegraph, the irrepressible Simon Heffer offers a withering analysis of the Tories’ latest tax proposals. Lamenting that the Tory leader prefers to ‘follow opinion rather than lead it’ Heffer likens the new 45p tax band, proposed by Gordon Brown and accepted by David Cameron, as an attempt to vilify the rich. In his words this is ‘the contemporary equivalent of the slaying of the first-born.’
The Tory decision to condone the 45p band for those earning over £150,000 is as immoral as it is impractical. It is wrong in principle because it makes the state a near partner in your business and impractical because, as Heffer correctly observes, ‘The disincentive to enterprise, growth, job and wealth creation will be disproportionate to what this tax would actually achieve.’
The achievement will be limited to just over £1 billion according to respected economic think tanks, a drop in the ocean compared to total government spend each year. Yet the move is bound to scare off foreign businessmen and entrepreneurs whose dynamism and skills are just what the City is crying out for now. It is the last thing we need in a recession.
No doubt the Tories are thinking that in order to pay off Gordon Brown’s colossal debt mountain, taxes will have to go up. Yet the alternative to bleeding dry our productive private sector is a long term commitment to revising the unproductive public one. The Tories should propose an annual audit of government spending so that the taxpayer can see the billions being wasted on Brown’s unnecessary quangos and client state. Instead of punishing those who are already taxed to the hilt, Cameron can propose measured tax reductions based on abolishing waste throughout the public sector. Much as it will be hard to slash public sector jobs in a recession, it is the necessary pain that can accompany tomorrow’s fiscal stimulus.
But the Tories seem to have other ideas. In truth, their tax plans are in apparent disarray. One minute they propose to abolish inheritance tax for most properties, then they describe this as an ‘aspiration’, before they re-instate it as policy the next minute. Before this recession, Cameron proposed to ‘share the proceeds of growth’ between tax cuts and higher public spending. Now he has (fortunately) ditched that policy, owing to the fact that the growth is currently in negative figures. But it is hard to say if the Tories are committed to reducing, maintaining or increasing levels of public spending. Unless the Tories are prepared to unequivocally defend lower taxes for all, including the well off, they will have lost all sense of purpose.
topThis financial chicanery shames our politicians
25 March, 2009
There seems to be no end to New Labour’s financial sleaze. Tony McNulty has now joined a long list of ministers whose expense accounts have been shown to be an utter sham. We now know that he has claimed up to £60,000 for a second residence which, it turns out, was actually his parent’s house. McNulty’s claim that he used it to carry out constituency work has been treated with the contempt it deserves.
The whole point of such allowances is to help MPs, who live far from Westminster, to carry out their Parliamentary duties in the capital. Thus MPs can designate a London property as a ‘second home’ and claim generous allowances as a result. Yet McNulty is a London MP whose main residence is a few miles from Westminster, an inconvenient truth which negates any claim for additional allowances. His excuses are a risible attempt to wriggle off the hook in the face of a fierce media storm.
McNulty argues that he acted within the existing rules, and perhaps he did. But this misses the point. If the rules allow an MP to label any property, even one with which one has a tenuous connection, as a second home, they are clearly absurd. If they can be abused in such blatant fashion, they are hardly serving the public who are being forced to stump up for these misdirected payments. In these strained economic times, taxpayers should be seething that their elected representatives are prepared to use every devious means to augment their salaries.
Worse than all of this is the contempt McNulty has shown for the public. He has now backtracked, claiming that he will forego his allowance while recommending the same self denying ordinance for any MP living within 60 miles of Westminster. In other words, he wants us to think he is a saint for foregoing something he should never have had in the first place. To adopt a holier than thou attitude after revelations of his own wrongdoing is sheer hypocrisy.
McNulty knows he has no case to answer and is trying to save his crooked little neck in the most disingenuous fashion. Of course, he is hardly alone in the expenses hall of shame. For McNulty read Jacqui Smith, Ed Balls, Derek Conway and a host of other politicians whose sly manipulation of the rules has shamed Parliament.
Some MPs have now stormed back, claiming that expenses should be abolished in return for upping their wages to £100,000 a year. So in response to incessant stories of corrupt financial arrangements, we are now supposed to accept gargantuan salary rises for our politicians while the rest of the country suffers a recessionary pay freeze. This is impudence of the highest order.
And all of this despite the fact that these same politicians are not actually responsible for the majority of legislation passed at Westminster, given that four fifths of it emanates from Brussels. By giving up so many of their powers to the EU, our politicians are no more than glorified part timers, content to sign away their authority to an elite of unaccountable bureaucrats.
MPs have no case for salary increases. Instead the rules on expenses need to be tightened up and miscreants dealt with, if need be, by the criminal law. The alternative is that Parliament will slowly lose the last vestige of authority and credibility in the eyes of the voting public.
topLet the flag of St George fly proudly
22 March, 2009
Some months ago I used a column to attack Boris Johnson when he suggested an amnesty for illegal workers in the capital. This was a somewhat maverick proposal which, if adopted, would have flouted the rule of law and exacerbated the problems of unrestricted immigration.
So I am delighted that the Mayor has had a reversal of fortune and declared that there will be a week of events to celebrate St George’s Day. Johnson has promised that the flag of St George will fly proudly from his offices while he himself will take a ceremonial tour of the capital on a routemaster bus. Events in Trafalgar Square and around the city will celebrate some of the most cherished aspects of our culture. The music of Elgar and Handel will sit proudly with the finest creations of Shakespeare. This is exactly what we have been crying out for: an unashamed, unapologetic celebration of Englishness and English culture.
Johnson’s predecessor, a man never happier than when chastising the ‘evils’ of white people, was famous for his visceral contempt for Western mores. In good multicultural fashion, he championed every culture and nation except his own one. As a result, no St George’s Day celebration received official approval which, in a way, was just as well. Had Livingstone organized an event on 23rd April, he would have removed any references to ‘white’ or ‘English’ people on the grounds that this would have been ‘racist’ to minorities. He could hardly have fallen foul of the diversity agenda now, could he?
So three cheers for Boris Johnson! Well done for ditching the multicultural, PC drivel of the left and embracing some good old fashioned patriotism instead. Let's hope fellow Tory modernisers take the hint.
topThe UN's assault on liberty
19 March, 2009
After one week of the site being down, due to the incompetence of my web host company, I am delighted to announce that normal service has been resumed. Web blogs will continue as normal.
Nothing better illustrates the UN’s lack of moral legitimacy than the possibility that it may soon pass a resolution outlawing ‘defamation against religion.’ It will shortly hold a conference on human rights in Geneva where delegates will be presented with a draft resolution calling for “firm action against negative stereotyping of religions and defamation of religious personalities, holy books, scriptures and symbols”. The motion is sponsored by the powerful 56 member Organization of the Islamic Conference, which wants to see any such resolution become a binding part of international law.
A law against defamation is nothing less than an attack on the hallowed principle of free speech. It is a deliberate attempt to ring fence religion (in this case, Islam) from legitimate criticism and debate, thus transferring the sphere of human rights, not just from individuals to a group, but from that group to its belief system. It is a fundamentally anti democratic proposal.
It is also an outrageous inversion of the law of defamation. This law’s purpose is to protect individuals from malicious attacks which ‘tend to lower their estimation in the eyes of right thinking people.’ It is necessary for anyone who wishes to protect their reputation from malicious attacks.
But concepts do not deserve the same protection, at least not in a court of law. They function within a global market place of ideas where they are subject to a process of rigorous intellectual scrutiny and debate. This is, after all, one of the hallmarks of a tolerant and civilised society. A universal blasphemy law would give a spurious form of special treatment to religious groups, using censorship to enforce thought control on society. It is the sure path to totalitarianism.
This particular resolution is being sponsored by an Islamic group which wishes to end the ‘stereotyping’ of ‘Islam and terrorism.’ Unfortunately, the association of Islam (one interpretation at least) with violent, jihadist subversion is very real indeed and is supported by the daily statements of imams and ayatollahs around the globe. That is precisely why Western nations need to look at the how religious indoctrination is brainwashing a generation of Muslim youth into attacking their fellow citizens.
No religious group should engage in special pleading if its faith promotes violence, misogyny, homophobia or race hate. Yet radical Islam mandates precisely those things, all the more reason why critical debate and reflection should not be suppressed. This is naturally very different to inciting hatred of Muslims or any other religious group, for which laws exist (quite rightly) to protect any vulnerable minority.
Inside the walls of a venerable institution, such a reactionary proposal would be dismissed with the contempt it deserves. But inside the United Nations, which routinely genuflects before tyrannical regimes, an illiberal defamation law is par for the course.
When the UN passes this resolution, it will represent a direct challenge to the democratic leaders of the West and the values they espouse. If our leaders' commitment to freedom and tolerance is genuine, they should respond with an immediate boycott of the UN and all its pernicious resolutions.
topMy enemy’s friends are, er, my friends too.
13 March, 2009
So Jacqui Smith has finally suffered from an attack of common sense! The Home Secretary, better known for her craven submission to rogue Islamist fanatics, has now caved into media pressure by banning Ibrahim Moussawi, Lebanese spokesman for Hezbullah. He was due to speak next week at the School of African and Oriental Studies on political Islam. As a representative of a group intent on destroying Western society, this man's presence here is not conducive to the public good and a banning order is clearly welcome. Still, no one should pretend that this represents a sea change in attitudes towards Islamic extremists.
This week, the Policy Exchange produced an authoritative analysis of the government’s £90million anti extremism programme ‘Preventing Violent Extremism.’ They point out that the police and local councils are trying to defeat violent Muslim extremists by cosying up to political Islamists who are now ‘well dug in as partners of national and local government and the police.’ The problem is that these groups, while renouncing the use of force, are nonetheless ideological fellow travellers with extreme Islamism. The difference is one of tactics, not belief.
As the authors point out, this means that ‘some of the government’s chosen collaborators in ‘addressing grievances’ of angry young Muslims are themselves ‘at the forefront of stoking those grievances against British foreign policy; western social values; and alleged state-sanctioned ‘Islamophobia.’’ PVE, they go on to argue, ‘is thus engaged in underwriting the very Islamist ideology which spawns an illiberal, intolerant and anti-western world view.’
Among the partners chosen to oppose extremism are the Cordoba Foundation, a pressure group which gave a platform to a representative from Hezb-ut-Tahrir, the anti semitic Islamist group. The Muslim Council of Britain is also on board, despite their support for suicide bombings in Israel and their equivocation over terror in general.
The report is particuarly critical of the police who are deemed unsuitable for the task of selecting appropriate PVE partners. This was certainly evident in the woeful handling by the West Midlands police of Channel 4’s Dispatches programme in 2007. But this week saw an equally abject display of surrender when officers tolerated inflammatory rhetoric from Islamic hatemongers at an army parade and, worse, arrested 2 people who were clearly incited by the provocative outbursts. The report states that the police have been recruiting Islamist advisers, including one who wishes to create an Islamic state in Britain. Quite how this enhances community cohesion is beyond my comprehension.
The report’s authors say that this delusional strategy is ‘born of a poverty of aspiration’ centering on the belief that one cannot ‘reasonably ask angry Muslims for much more than a pledge not to use violence in Britain.’ If so, it is a form of patronizing reverse racism from a government that is supposedly committed to diversity. Thus the most intolerant Muslim voices are given privileged access to the government at the expense of moderates who want to combine their faith with patriotic values.
Ministers may claim they are simply being pragmatic here. Better to choose non violent partners to calm the irrational exuberance of jihadis. But this is not realpolitik as we know it. It is a case of my enemy's friends are my friends too. Not only will the government fail to win over moderate Muslims, they will also empower those whose radical agenda involves the curtailment of our way of life. So while Ms Smith has acquitted herself a little by keeping out one radical, it will take much more to fully restore public confidence.
topUlster's conundrum
11 March, 2009
More than a decade after the Good Friday Agreement, you might have been forgiven for thinking that Ulster had seen the back of violence and bloodshed. Surely too much time and effort had been invested in the peace process for there to be a renewal of sectarian murders. Sadly, someone forgot to tell the Real and Continuity IRA. Both these groups came to regard the Provos as little more than traitors to the Republican cause, and as political sell outs to Downing Street. And now we can all see the terrifying consequences with the cowardly and callous murders of three innocent people in the space of as many days.
The sad truth is that for all the political advances of the past decade, violence has never really left Ulster. The Real IRA carried out the worst single attack of the Troubles with their deadly attack at Omagh in 1998. Just last year there were 18 terrorist attacks reported, leading the police to upgrade the threat warning to 'severe'. Just a fortnight ago, a huge bomb was left in Castlewellan, though mercifully there were no casualties. And now three more lives have been wickedly snuffed out in barbaric fashion. While none of this compares to the carnage that engulfed Northern Ireland in the past, it is vile thuggery nonetheless.
But our present and past govenments must shoulder some of the blame for this thuggery. The peace process, while it brought undoubted dividends to Catholics and Protestants alike, came at a heavy price. The disbandment of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, one of the finest anti terror organizations in the world, must count as one of the most egregious examples of appeasement in recent memory.
Following this Chamberlainite folly came the decision to release Republican murderers from prison, a craven concession to violent extremism in the interests of keeping the IRA on board. And these Republican paramilitaries, while de-commissioning their weapons, increasingly turned to other forms of criminality and violence to fund their mafia lifestyle.
The end result was a flawed peace process, the emasculation of the security apparatus and the marginalization of political moderates like David Trimble. It was just this kind of misguided appeasement from Western powers that plagued, and still plagues, Arab-Israeli peace talks.
There is a glimmer of hope from the cross party rejection of these vicious attacks. Despite their half hearted ‘outrage,’ even Adams and McGuiness realize that there can be no turning back to the bloodshed of former years. But to pretend that institutionalized violence disappeared with the peace process would be naïve and misguided.
topEducational sticking plaster
10 March, 2009
On the surface, the idea of fast tracking high flying professionals into the classroom sounds attractive enough. There are indeed plenty of well qualified individuals with the kind of life experience that can inspire and motivate our pupils. As schools minister, Jim Knight, says: ‘There are thousands of highly talented individuals in this country who are considering their next move, who want to do something challenging, rewarding, that is highly respected and where good people have great prospects.’ During this recession, teaching will certainly provide a more stable career than many in the more volatile City.
In reality, the government’s latest drive to improve educational standards will do little to improve our long suffering schools. For it is one thing to get fantastic teachers into the classroom, but entirely another to keep them there. Being a high powered lawyer, banker or soldier does not in itself provide the mental toughness that is required for the (frequently chaotic) classrooms in some state schools. What tough schools need, above all, is a re-assertion of discipline and authority. This is best instilled by vigorous and effective leadership from the top, with head teachers ensuring that behavioural codes are rigorously enforced and boundaries set. In other words, a zero tolerance approach is needed. One should add that schools need to be freed from the onerous constraints of paperwork that emanate from power hungry Whitehall bureaucrats. Get the big things right and the small things will follow.
topLast chance saloon for the Bank of England
06 March, 2009
The Bank of England’s cut in interest rates and its decision to (effectively) print £150 billion of money represents a last ditch gamble by the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. This really is last chance saloon territory. Mervyn King has now exhausted all the weapons in his armoury in a desperate bid to stave off depression. Interest rates can barely go any lower while printing more money has all the dangerous echoes of the Zimbabwean economy.
This is an unprecedented gamble, made in the hope that the ‘re-capitalized’ banks and financial institutions pass on the new money to businesses and consumers. The key word here is hope. No one, not even the most experienced economist or seasoned politician can say with any conviction that this measure will work. It is a gamble worthy of the Las Vegas school of economics.
If it works, the money supply will expand and the flow of credit that was previously lubricating the economy will be restored. This will prevent the dread prospect of a vicious deflationary spiral involving falling prices, mass unemployment and low demand, as well as the continual constriction of credit. But if it fails, and the experience of Japan in the 1990s suggests it may, the BOE will have needlessly introduced inflationary pressures into the economy, causing misery further up the line. We can only pray that quantitative easing turns out to be less mad than we think.
topImmigration and the corruption of debate under New Labour
4 March, 2009
New Labour doesn’t handle inconvenient stories with grace. The civil servant Jo Moore exemplified a tendency to denial on 9/11 with her now infamous email to ‘bury bad news.’ She was a small cog in a carefully contrived spin machine whose tentacles emanated from no. 10. But the demise of Blair did not change this insidious culture. Brown’s use of spin, ranging from empty rhetorical promises to carefully timely visits abroad during Tory conferences, has been just as damaging to the political process. Last week’s ‘Fred the Shred’ saga, for all its rightful vilification of banking hubris, diverted attention from the government’s regulatory failures. The fingerprints of the diabolical Lord Mandelson were hard to miss.
But this government is equally adept at the smear tactic. They love to expose the ‘malicious’ motives of their detractors, especially when those people fail to worship at the altar of the government’s PC agenda. Thus if you question immigration or asylum policy, suggest that the EU is harmful to British democracy or fret about Islamic extremism, you will often be cast as a pathetic Little Englander, a dangerous reactionary with antediluvian tendencies.
Such is the experience of Karen Dunnell, chief statistician for the Office for National Statistics. According to the immigration minister, Phil Woolas, Ms Dunnell has committed a terrible thought crime by releasing figures showing that one in nine current UK residents was born outside the UK. Apparently this revealed her all too ‘sinister’ agenda, given that the news was neither ‘new nor informative.’ In a letter to the head of the Fabian Society, Woolas declared that the ONS was just ‘playing politics’ by the needless release of statistics.
How Woolas could accuse others of manipulating data for political ends and maintain a straight face is beyond me. He even admitted that he tried to stop the ONS from publishing the figures by declaring that they had gone ahead despite his ‘objections’. But the whole point of the independent ONS is to serve the public, not the government. It produces impartial statistics which are designed to inform the making of public policy, not rubber stamp government decisions. Woolas declared that it was not the role of the ONS to ‘dictate the debate’ on immigration. Yet by slamming the motives of Ms Dunnell and objecting to the release of embarrassing facts, it was the government trying to dictate to the ONS, not the other way round.
In truth, New Labour is running scared. They know that the artificial inflation of the British population through an unsustainable increase in immigration has been a hot potato for the last ten years. They know that mass immigration has been socially divisive, given that the influx of low skilled people has lowered wages and job opportunities for the indigenous community. They know that many who enter Britain, particularly from the Third World, are poorly educated and welfare dependent, factors that breed resentment in the wider public. Now that the country is hemorrhaging jobs in its deepest recession for decades, these issues have become more potent than ever.
This should be the time to face facts about the changing demography of Britain and the role played by immigration. Instead the government smears those who reveal inconvenient facts by accusing them of having a sinister agenda. Yesterday Phil Woolas refused to apologize for his Stalinist smear tactics, declaring: 'The ONS need to be aware that they are entering shark-infested waters.’ Indeed they are – and the sharks happen to be government ministers who are corrupting public debate in Britain.
topTerror in Pakistan
3 March, 2009
Today’s attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team are genuinely appalling. Once again, they reveal the lethal and barbaric nature of jihadist Islam, and the lengths to which its supporters will go to kill innocent lives. They also remind us that Pakistan is the epicentre of Islamist violence and one of the most volatile places on earth. In the last few years, Pakistani terrorists have carried out murderous attacks in all the country's main cities, blowing up hundreds of innocent people, including the country’s great democratic hope, Benazir Bhutto. Their madrassahs and mosques have inspired dozens of terrorists, including the perpetrators of the 7/7 attacks.
The slaughter today may have been carried out by Lashkar-e-Taibe, the terror outfit that planned and carried out last year’s atrocities in Mumbai. This group, which enjoys extensive links with Al Qaeda and the Taleban, has been funded and supported in the past from sources within Pakistan. Their aim is to take over Pakistan and the rest of the Indian subcontinent, uniting Muslims throughout the region en route to establishing a caliphate in South Asia. To this end, they wish to eradicate the perceived enemies of Islam, the Hindus and the Jews. They are as lethal as Al Qaeda.
Taking robust action against Lashkar, and other radicalised groups, should be the top priority for President Zardari’s government. Yet in the last few months, he has shown more concern for clamping down on democracy in Pakistan, siding with a politicized judiciary that has banned his main rival for power, Nawaz Sharif, from contesting future elections. Worse his response to the violent intimidation from Muslim insurgents has been a form of futile appeasement. The government recently signed an accord with militants in the Swat valley, allowing them to implement Sharia law in return for a cessation of violence. In effect, the area has been handed over to Taleban supporters who are now busy abusing the human rights of its inhabitants.
While Pakistan remains a nominal ally of the West, it is also a breeding ground for extreme Islamism. According to one CNN opinion poll, nearly half the population express some sympathy for Osama Bin Laden. The country’s intelligence services, which funded Lashkar–e–Taibe in the past, are peppered with Islamist sympathisers while the army remains half hearted about tackling jihadism. Lest we forget, this is also a nuclear armed state on the borders of another nuclear power, and a fearsome rival at that. The West cannot afford to watch Pakistan fragment or allow its government to ignore the peril within its midst. Its terror has a global reach.
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