If Sam Tarran Were In Charge

International Democracy

2009-11-27T22:39:00.003Z

Telegraph: The Iraq war was not “legitimate” because Britain and the US failed to win international support for the 2003 invasion, Sir Jeremy Greenstock has told the official inquiry into the war.

Sir Jeremy, who was Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations between 1998 and 2003, believed the war was legal under the terms of successive UN resolutions, but did not have “democratic backing”, he told the Iraq Inquiry.

Well, what on earth does that mean?

“I regarded our invasion of Iraq as legal but of questionable legitimacy, in that it didn’t have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states or even, perhaps, of a majority of people inside the UK."

I get the last part. But what is democratic about the UN? Nothing, and thank the Lord for it too. As we know through our experience of the European Union, once an assembly is popularly elected, it can begin claiming it draws its sovereignty and authority from its electors, the people. In the UN's case, as in the case of the EU, this would then render it superior to our own national legislature. Which is not what you want to do with an organisation that gives responsibility to safeguarding human rights to the likes of Cuba and China.

The nation-state is the highest political reality; there is nothing above or beyond it. Whether the UN's collection of "member-states" agreed with the invasion of Iraq is an irrelevant and dangerous question. It distracts from other, more important questions, like whether it was in the national interest in the first place.

God forbid

2009-11-25T18:31:00.004Z

Times Online: Gordon Brown today sparked controversy on the eve of the Commonwealth summit by suggesting he backs the sweeping away of 300-year-old laws that prevent Roman Catholics ascending to the Throne.

... Mr Brown, anxious to enhance his reputation for constitutional reform, seems determined to push the issue.

And there you go. A three century old law is to be thrown out the window, regardless of why it was created in the first place, because a joyless, uninspiring Scot wants to try and save his ruined reputation.

Why is he so keen for that particular reputation, anyway? There are plenty of other things more people get more annoyed about. Is it something discussed hotly at ex-prime minister dinner parties? Or is it because he's cocked everything else up so terribly?Clearly he's forgotten he's already urinated on the constitution.

Our ancestors created this law because of the religious settlement of this country, and because it's illogical for the sovereign of our nation to be bound to the directives of an external authority, to hold his highest loyalty to a foreign earthly body. God forbid one day we'd have a prime minister who actually understood the constitution of the country he governed.

Without Consultation

2009-11-25T16:44:00.005Z

The new Supreme Court has ruled on its first 'big' case. This should have been a landmark in UK law, the first time the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, that cost a staggering £56.9 million, had been forced to step up to make a big decision.

But no, it's role was purely to interpret a law created by an unelected and unaccountable assembly in Brussels. That's quite fitting, actually, considering the main reason the Court exists, the only reason our tried-and-tested constitutional settlement has been pulled apart, is because of our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.

There's always something repugnant about the destruction of a constitutional settlement that has grown and evolved in this country through the centuries around the monarchy and the unlimited supremacy of the Crown-in-Parliament, for the sake of what is deemed by modern political scientists to be 'correct' and 'democratic'.

But it's even worse when it is done because of interpretation by lawyers of a document which our Government had little or no influence over, created by another group of foreign lawyers, and which we have been offered no say. Perhaps the worst thing about it is that an initiative intended to make us more 'democratic' was done without consultation with the British people.

Regulation of Airguns

2009-11-25T16:11:00.003Z

BBC News: The UK government has announced a list of new powers it wants to transfer from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament, under its response to the Calman Commission review of devolution.

We have to assume that this is Labour's response to the fact that they know longer 'hold' Scotland and to the SNP. Personally, I believe the SNP's electoral fortunes had little to do with a spirit for Scottish independence, and more to do with the fact that everyone hates Labour.

Nevertheless, we still have these proposals. And apart from a small increase in the amount the Scottish Executive can vary income tax, they're a very trivial bunch, like regulation of airguns and suchlike.

What's more, there's still no hint from Labour, or anybody else for that matter, that they wish to solve the constitutional nightmare that they've created with regards to the position of the United Kingdom Parliament. At the moment, we have three devolved assemblies, all with completely degrees of power and influence. We have a situation where MPs from the devolved regions still have a say on matters that don't effect their own constituencies. And all the solutions that would keep these assemblies are unsatisfactory and abhorrent.

Just get rid of them.

Community of Communities

2009-11-25T16:10:00.001Z

I read in the local paper that my old high school had a "culture workshop" the other day, where students got "the opportunity to learn about other cultures".

Funny, considering they know sod all about their own.

Working More Closely

2009-11-22T20:18:00.004Z

Today, we learned that "Irish republican terrorists tried to blow up a police building in Belfast and murder police officers in an ambush in Fermanagh last night", both attacks part of what police say is "growing terrorist activity".

Last week a mortar bomb was discovered hidden on a roadside in Armagh. Police said it was designed to kill officers.

Earlier this month, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) reported that the republican terrorist threat in Northern Ireland was at its highest level for almost six years.

The IMC, which collates information provided to it by all the security services, said that the two main republican groups, the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, were working more closely together to increase the threat posed to security forces.

This is the same weekend that the Northern Ireland First Minister, DUP leader Peter Robinson has to deliver a pledge that he "would not be walking away" from power-sharing with Sinn Fein, although he could no longer guarantee the future of the assembly.

Terrorist violence, of course, feeds upon the hope of success. The Good Friday Agreement was a surrender to terrorism, from which comes that hope of success for the 'dissident' republican groups. So long as the faintest hope exists that Ulster can be removed from the United Kingdom and attached to a foreign country by force, terrorism in the province, however 'small', shall persist. And in forcing the unionist majority to share power with former advocates of republican violence, the Government is doing nothing but fueling that activity.

At European Level

2009-11-22T19:58:00.002Z

There were some commentators earlier this week who, when it was announced that Van Rompuy was to be the President "of Europe", said that this was a victory for the European Commission. And so it is. The Council of Ministers is powerless as well as the European Parliament, and now the new executive figure is, to all intents and purposes, the EC's puppet.

Hence his words this week all replicate what Barroso and his ilk have said at some time or another. For patriots across the Continent, they're devastating:

"The financing of the welfare state, irrespective of the social reform we implement, will require new resources ... The possibility of financial levies at European level needs to be seriously reviewed."

We can see, then, that Van Rompuy is pushing for the full implementation of the governing apparatus and functions of a nation-state. And thus we begin to see the formation of a very bureaucratic, very wasteful, very European state structure.

She-Ogre Rising

2009-11-19T19:24:00.005Z

Last week, I was unfortunate enough to have to listen to Carol Ann Duffy's The Last Post as I watched the Armistice Day service at Westminster Abbey. It was like throwing up and seeing the pizza you'd eaten six hours previous wallowing in the vomit, for I had to endure the cliche-filled whining of this enter-button crazed cantankerous cretin for three years prior to this.

For she - who looks like a fatter, manlier Eric Idle (sorry, Eric) - is the darling of the left-wing elite: female, bisexual, vegetarian, Marxist to the core, who has developed a seething resentment of all men thanks to growing up in a household dominated by her father and four brothers, and because of a failed relationship with a much older man in her youth. You can see, then, why them what run things are so eager to brush Keats, Tennyson and Wordsworth from the curriculum in favour of this egotistically and physically bloated she-ogre:

Fortunately, Sean Gabb has already taken it apart (as hard as it is):

Where is the exalted language? Where is the known rhythmical pattern? ... What we have here is not poetry. Its lack of rhythmical structure aside, there is nothing beautiful or memorable about it ... I say that Last Post is not poetry and is mediocre as prose ...

Go and read the whole thing. For some of us it's even educational.

The answer, I think, to Miss Duffy’s popularity and official endorsement is the democratisation of the arts. The modern movement was motivated in part by a snobbish elite that wanted things to praise that ordinary people could not appreciate. Since then, however, the idea has taken hold that anything that everyone cannot do should be shunned. When the Victorians spoke of bringing the arts to the people, what they had in mind was Beethoven at sixpence a head in the Crystal Palace. What it means today is praising stuff that anyone could have created.

The Way We Live Now

2009-11-10T19:39:00.003Z

Cranmer writes today again on the Pope's invitation for Anglo-Catholics to rejoin the Roman Catholic Church, and the Archbishop of Canterbury's rebuke and converse invitation for more reformist Catholics to defect to the Anglican Communion. However, Cranmer does note that he feels too much "fuss" is being made of it, and, in a previous post, "wonders if the arrival of the Catholic-Anglicans might not be a Trojan horse of unintended reformation within the Roman Catholic Church".

But I think it does matter. The Church of England has never been a strict, uniform religious institution. What it was, and is, though, is the nation. The Reformation was not so much a religious event than a political one. It was an affirmation of the principle that the crown of England was subject to no other earthly authority, and that no law made for England should be made outside England. Crucial to it was a rejection of papal authority. With this, the national church became the nation.

Defectors to the new wing of the Roman Catholic Church must, then, not consider themselves 'Anglicans'. It would be a nonsense.

But we're not going to attack the 'defectors' here. Abandoning the church of your family and your country cannot be an easy decision, after all. Instead, questions need to be asked, and it is not whether "more orthodox-minded Roman Catholics may be as delighted to see the back of the pro-Vatican II liberals, progressives and ‘trendies’ as some in the Church of England may be delighted by the departure of the ‘closet-Catholics’". To me, because of the historical nature of the Church, that seems irrelevant. They should be questions like, why a church designed to be a 'via media', to be as all-encompassing as possible, is now splitting so tragically? How has a church that was once seen to be a symbol of the nation and its unity become so fractured?

The buck stops with the church leadership, and a succession of politicians who underestimated the value of a national church. They have let yet another proud and historical national institution fall into great disrepair. And what are such institutions if they are not the nation itself?

Remembrance

2009-11-08T15:47:00.005Z

"They died in vain", says Dr North today. A similar point is made in a few papers, including The Telegraph. As much as today we want to be able to forget about such things as the EU Constitution, and focus solely on remembrance, how can we?

Don't forget that it's in their name that this is being done. For decades, politicians across Europe have used the scale of death in both of the wars that devastated the continent as an excuse to destroy the nations for which they fought. They have perverted our memory of the fallen.

Because the young men who went out to fight and die in 1914 and 1939 did not do so for some faceless, bureaucratic supranational construct, nor for abstract nonsense like human rights or 'tolerance'. They did it to defend their country and their way of life.

And right now, both are under siege.

Juvenile Incapacity

2009-11-08T15:41:00.003Z

A terrific post by The Heresiarch on continuing calls to lower the voting age to 16 (via DK):

... in other ways, at sixteen many youngsters are much less "adult" than they were even a generation ago.

That's certainly the message that is coming from the government. New restrictions on the freedom and capacity of teenagers have been brought in continually under New Labour. The age at which it is legal to purchase cigarettes, knives or fireworks has been raised from 16 to 18, as has the age at which one can obtain a licence for such firearms as are still legal for anyone. The age for purchasing alcohol is still 18, but there's a growing campaign in some quarters for Britain to follow the repugnant American policy of raising it to 21 - and, in any case, the severity with which the law is now being enforced has effectively raised it, in practice if not in theory.

And this legal extension of juvenile incapacity in many areas has gone along with an ever more protracted adolescence. By the time they reached the voting age of 21, many people in the past would have experienced several years effective social adulthood. Leaving school at fifteen or sixteen, they would have been working, paying taxes, and, in many cases, marrying and starting a family (and, provided it was done in that order, with less disquiet about teen pregnancy than would be caused today). Many died for their country before reaching the age at which they could vote for its government. Today, it is expected that young people remain financially dependent at least until they finish university at 22 or thereabouts. The government that is contemplating a reduction in the voting age is also in the process of raising the school leaving age to eighteen. So whereas in the past many 16 year-olds had no say over the politicians who were deciding their tax rates, in the future they may have a say, but have much less moral claim to it than their predecessors. A paradox indeed. But is a quinquennial ballot really much compensation for the loss of the independence and trust they once enjoyed? Or, to put it another way, if adolescents can be trusted with a vote, why should they not be trusted with a penknife?

Platoist-like

2009-11-07T23:10:00.005Z

BBC News: The government is set to produce guidelines to ensure the independence of its scientific advisers, Science Minister Lord Drayson has said.

... A statement from the academics was sent to government officials and ministers, and calls for them to back their academic freedom and independence and to properly consider their advice.

In a statement to MPs, Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the reason for sacking Prof Nutt was not the work of the council, but because of "his failure to recognise that... his role is to advise rather than criticise".

Can't help but agree with Johnson here. If we let academics have their way, then we will be moving dangerously close to a Platoist-like rule of 'experts'.

As I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) Nutt offered advice, HMG didn't take it, Nutt threw toys out of pram. Not by publishing figures which showed (I leave methodology etc out of it*) that cannabis was less dangerous than alcohol/fags, something which is quite possible, but by explicitly saying the decision was wrong. At which point you can see why Alan Johnson lost patience with him. How can you ask someone for advice if the deal is that you HAVE to accept it or the adviser will go public on his disgreements ? At that point you may as well hand over policy to the adviser and democracy goes out of the window.

Let's be clear here about the nature of the debate. Some are trying to turn this into an issue of freedom of speech. That, it ain't. If I had an employee who was going out and slagging off the way I ran the business, I'd be having words.

A Bit Slow

2009-11-05T20:49:00.009Z

The papers have been reporting that Cameron is hoping his new plans will "head off" a party rebellion over his abandoning of any plans for a Lisbon Treaty referendum. For some, it ain't worked.

But for others it has. They've been taken in by it. Which is a shame, because it's such a poor attempt at a con. One is Louise Bagshawe over at CentreRight:

A Sovereignty Act making British law supreme is vital. A commitment to ignore the ratchet clause and subject every new power grab to a referendum is wonderful. Renegotiation of the various areas where Lisbon has gone too far is very important.

The European Communities Act was signed into law in 1972. I understand some people are a bit slow, but all these years on, some just haven't quite got it yet: British sovereignty is no more. You even have a court ruling that proved it.

Not good enough? Try it in a context with another country, the Van Gend en Loos case, in which the ECJ itself stated, "...the Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights." Such a concept should be abhorrent to us. It is completely against the traditional doctrine that the Crown-in-Parliament is the supreme legislative power. But if people like Louise keep living in ignorance, we have no chance. And with eurosceptics like this, who needs europhiles?

Of course, this is not the end:

... I remember asking my European Law professor whether there was any way of overturning the decision, or otherwise reasserting the sovereignty of Westminster. "Oh, yes", he replied breezily. "All you have to do is repeal the 1972 European Communities Act".

David Cameron is desperate to push this issue to one side. These proposals are the equivalent of jingling your keys to distract a small child. We cannot let him take away from us an issue of such importance for us and our country.

P.S., Actually had a modest tour of the Houses of Parliament yesterday. Felt quite sad knowing that despite all the work that had been put in to constructing and decorating such a wonderful building, it now means absolutely nothing.

Happy Guy Fawkes Night

2009-11-05T20:34:00.003Z

Doubtless some blogs will be linking to that clip from V for Vendetta, saying that it's a day for freedom, etc. Well, yes ... but not that kind of freedom. Guido Fawkes was no freedom fighter, but a Catholic mercenary hired by a group of noblemen to destroy the ruling class of England, install a puppet, Catholic government, and restore papal supremacy. Victory over Catesby and co., was a victory for the British monarchy and the independence of the nation.

How ironic, in light of recent events ...

One has to wonder, on the day we commemmorate deliverance from a seditious continental terrorist plot and the treacherous subversion of Rome, that the continental powers have achieved the subjugation of England, her Monarch and her Parliament, and the Treaty of Rome has triumphed. The wheel is come full circle.

The Way We Live Now

2009-11-05T20:22:00.004Z

Apparently, one of the receptionists at my college was told by an elderly visitor the other day that on the bus to the college, not one of the college students gave up their seats for him. The receptionist made the point that, as bad as it was, the college could do nothing about it.

This elderly gent thought this was bad. Imagine what the poor citizens of Orpington feel (via Laban) ...

Dozens of college pupils were involved in violent clashes with police yesterday afternoon (November 3), forcing the closure of Orpington High Street. The trouble flared at around 5.25pm when more than 40 Orpington College students waited for a bus outside Boots in the high street. Around 15 of them boarded a route 51 before the driver shut his doors and a patrolling PCSO told the remaining teenagers they would have to wait for the next bus. But instead the youths on the pavement tried to force their way onto the bus, kicking the front and back doors. The violence quickly escalated and a 25-year-old PCSO sustained a cut above his left eye. He was taken to a south London hospital by ambulance. Two other police officers were also struck during the incident. The high street was shut for around an hour while police fought running battles with the teenagers.

The locals comment ...

As a paper informing the public, you need to get your facts straight!! I was on that bus! there wernt 40 pupils at the bus stop, more like 100 (and about 60 police officers) behaving like animals because they have to wait to get on. The police officer didnt get a slash to the face, he got stabbed. Every monday and tuesday this stupid behaviour happens usually resulting in the bus driver turning off the engine. the school kids in the morning have their own bus, 1 needs to be provided at 5PM for the college lot then they can do what they want to each other( which is usually fighting upstairs!) instead of making the public who actually want to get home from work wait 2 hours!!!!!! When the kids who were upstairs causing trouble had to wait to be searched as they got off the bus, the police officers were saying sorry for the inconvinience to THEM!! what about the passengers that had to wait????? Passengers who used their last money on their oyster cards had no other way of getting home, and the police wernt bothered!

One of the comments repeats the oft-repeated message:

Are these students paid £30 to attend, I wonder? When this country was still sane, only the clever kids stayed on at school and went to college. Now, because the government wants to fiddle the unemployment figures, all the riff-raff are staying on and spoiling it for the students who actually want to learn.

Positive Action

2009-11-05T18:25:00.006Z

There's been a lot of journalists in recent days that have jumped upon Cameron's ditching of his promise of a Lisbon Treaty referendum to proclaim that the 'eurosceptic' movement is moreorless dead, that after the 'victory' over the single currency it shut up shop, its best left for other causes, and now it is stuck on 'repeat'. No vision, no ideas.

And you have to say - given the relative ease with which they've managed to repackage the Constitution and tell the people of Europe it's ice cream - it's probably true.

Personally, I think the argument against British membership of the EU is always going to be a negative one, because more than anything it is a restriction on our ability to govern ourselves. What we do once we've left is fairly irrelevant. That's up to the political parties. The argument against EU membership is nothing if not one of patriotic principle.

But, Dr Lee Rotherham has written a book which wonders what this country would be like in ten years time if we left the EU now. What's more, if you're quick enough, you can get a free copy!

Fair play to Dr Rotherham for this positive move.

The Real Betrayal

2009-10-30T14:08:00.005Z

We learn from Dr North that he has learned from "diverse sources" that "the Luftwaffe is to join the RAF in a fly-past over London next year to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain".

It's a strange thing, bizarre, actually. There could be a number of things going on. The organisers may have invited the German airforce as part of a symbol of, as North puts it, "reapproachment". But this is the anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Surely, the Germans aren't going to celebrate the deaths of their countrymen at the hands of British airmen, nor are they going to celebrate Britain's crucial victory.

Either way, "reapproachment" is a political message. Using an occassion that should be a tribute to the feats of the RAF pilots and ground crew, to the survival of Britain as a nation, to promote a modern political mood of 'unity' is just as cynical, just as sinister, and just as much of an insult as the desecration of the poppy posters by the anti-war mob.

This is a betrayal of those that fought and died in those crucial months in 1940. But as North notes, it's symbolic of another, grander, more evil betrayal: the betrayal of all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country by the politicians who took over in the aftermath.

British soldiers in the Second World War found the strength to fight in sometimes unbearable situations, to risk their lives for the good of their home. Our politicians can't even find the strength of character to continue running the country by themselves.

The Wrong Way

2009-10-30T13:20:00.003Z

We read that a "historic" event is taking place in the Commons today. The 300 members of the UK Youth Parliament are holding a "series of debates", apparently the "first time any body of people other than MPs had debated in the chamber". Stopped for comment, Harriet Harman agreed with the speaker of the Youth Parliament, that "We need to do everything we can to increase the involvement of young people in politics."

Is there much point? If Harman and co., have their way, our Parliament will have as much power as the youth one that sits in the Commons today. And now that the unlikely defender in Prague has seemingly given up, the way is cleared.

I would have thought Harriet Harman would have been a bit more concerned with increasing the involvement of voters in politics. A good deal of them just don't see the point in turning up. Another good deal of them are sending their vote in what Harman would call the "wrong way".

Disrespectful

2009-10-29T20:05:00.003Z

Telegraph: A Royal British Legion poster urging the public to support this year's Poppy Appeal has been defaced to attack former prime minister Tony Blair.

The original wording on the poster, featuring war widow Hester Wright, 22, and her six-year-old son Josh clutching a portrait of her dead soldier husband, should read: For their sake, wear a poppy. But objectors to Mr Blair's war record altered one version of it outside Gillingham railway station, Kent, to read: "For their sake, prosecute Blair."

There are some very evil people in this country.

More Revelations

2009-10-27T12:49:00.004Z

As Jack Straw moves to deny that Labour deliberately opened the door to immigration to spite the Right, we receive more revelations about their farcical immigration policy:

Possible links between mass immigration and some crimes were censored from a keynote government report, the Standard can reveal.

This report, Migration, A Social and Economic Analysis, happened to have been published in a general election year, 2001. It wasn't just links between immigration and crime that were cut, however. The report also attacked Britain's "positively shameful" record towards the Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, and claimed racism towards black racism has come "not just from extremists or working class communities, but from politicians and policy-makers at the highest level".

But it's the cynicism of cutting the paragraphs on the negatives of Government policy that arguably rightly receive the most attention.

The missing section warned: "Migration has opened up new opportunities for organised crime." However, it said migrants were not more likely to be criminals, despite foreign nationals forming a higher proportion of the prison population than of the general population. The disparity, it stressed, was almost entirely caused by foreign visitors held for drugs smuggling at ports and airports, and nothing to do with settled migrants.

It reported: "There is emerging evidence that the circumstances in which asylum seekers are living is leading to criminal offences, including fights and begging."

Who's Nostalgic?

2009-10-26T19:07:00.005Z

Miliband is the sort of person you'd expect to abandon Britain's independent foreign policy. He just looks spineless, gutless, like a stiff breeze would blow him over.

Britain would lose out internationally if it tried to oppose the EU foreign policy on the grounds of ''hubris, nostalgia or xenophobia'', Mr Miliband said.

''It is very strongly in the British national interest for the European Union to develop a strong foreign policy ... Either we are a crucial partner when it comes to responding to crises, a flexible worldwide operation able to deploy a range of tools to support stabilisation and uphold the rule of law; or we are a paper tiger, our influence and ability shorn by internal fracture, our promises and protestations proven empty by a lack of capacity and will."

Superb europhile logic: the way to protect the interests of the nation is by ending it. A member of a Government that has had no qualms about sending British forces into Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, now decides that we "lack" the "capacity" to "deploy a range of tools".

It's an old argument, though. Pro-Europeans since time immemorial have argued that a pan-European state is the only way to make sure the nations of Europe have a say in the world. Fatalists in past decades have looked at the EU as a substitute for the Empire many of them grew up with.

It's nonsense. Longing for Britain to be able to have some great influence upon the affairs of far-away continents, in whatever manner, is in itself "nostalgic". Even if we had the "capacity", is it our duty to police the world anymore? Is it right to do so? What's wrong with minding our own business? Quite a few other countries do it, you know. If our economy were strong enough and our armed forces able enough, one would have thought we would always have influence.

Now, Miliband isn't entirely stupid, is he? He must understand that his argument is complete and utter nonsense. So what is his motive?

Oh, yeah ...

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is the subject of growing talk in Brussels, Paris, Berlin and Scandinavia that he is in line to become Europe's first foreign minister.

Well-Thumbed

2009-10-25T21:32:00.006Z

Cranmer today attacks the comments of former Anglican minister, now Europe Minister, Chris Bryant on David Cameron's position on the Lisbon Treaty. By the looks of it, the Church should be glad to be rid of him.

For a start, he's based his argument on false information. He argues that David Cameron is lying by promising a referendum post-ratification. He would by lying if he'd have actually promised one. But David Cameron hasn't got a position on what to do post-ratification. He's relying on the Czech President holding out. If that fails, he's stuck.

... Mr Bryant said the time for arguing about Lisbon was over ... "The moment has passed for that. We have got 26 countries that have ratified the treaty now. My focus is on how we can make this work for Britain."

As Cranmer says, the time for arguing never ends, especially not with a Treaty with such massive implications. The Telegraph article claims Bryant sat with "well-thumbed" copies of the Treaty in front of him. Well, I don't know what he was 'thumbing' them for, because he clearly hasn't read any of his "copies" (how many do you need?). If he had, he'd be aware that the text of the Treaty doesn't say anything about making it work for member-states. The text says that it's designed to work for the European Union. Member-states are an irrelevance, mainly because the writers of the Treaty don't really see them as independent anyway.

If you don't understand that, then you're stupid.

Dead Shift

2009-10-25T20:43:00.008Z

After returning home from a rather dead shift at work, I found I had the energy and the patience to watch (the majority of) Thursday's Question Time, my first full(ish) episode in a very long time. I tried watching it on Thursday, but gave up and switched to the brilliant In Treatment instead.

I have to stand by my assumption that this would be the public trial of Nick Griffin, and he didn't come off well. I also have to concur with Cranmer and Pub Philosopher that it was probably Bonnie Greer who came off best in the programme.

For it certainly wasn't the 'mainstream' politicians. Jack Straw got what he deserved on the issue of immigration, from the other panellists, the audience, and Dimbleby, especially when he bizarrely tried to shift the blame for the rise of the BNP onto Enoch Powell's period as Health Minister in the 1960s. Huhne didn't impress, and Warsi wasn't much better.

But, in the end, will it mean anything? Not a chance. The people who would never vote BNP still won't. The people who would always have voted for the BNP will still do so. And those who have been deliberately dismissed by this Government will still shift their support to Nick Griffin. So those who have now patted themselves on the back, confident that the boos among a TV audience mean that the BNP has now stalled as a political force, are in for a nasty shock. You haven't won anything, or anyone, yet.

And There You Have It

2009-10-24T00:37:00.008+01:00

Assuming this is genuine, (via Devil's Kitchen) we find that someone's admitted what we've all suspected for a very long time ...

The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

... "But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland."

It's worth noting there was no denial from the Home Office spokesman contacted by the Telegraph for comment. It's also worth nothing the great timing of this revelation, the day following the public pillorying of Nick Griffin. It can't be a coincidence, and I bet Griffin and his cronies are delighted.

Here, they have a statement from a former advisor to the sitting Government admitting that it doesn't care about its voters or the country they govern - they are devoted instead to their utopian delusions and their loathing of the political Right, and aren't afraid to screw up a few innocent people's lives to try and make them reality.

Of course, we always knew this in a way. There was no way Tony Blair and co., were stupid enough to think what they were doing was in the national interest. We always knew there were certain conveniences to a slack immigration policy:

When I was a business journalist in the late 1990s, I remember writing stories about how bus companies were recruiting in homeless shelters because they couldnt find the staff. The people in those shelters were being offered structure to their lives, from an employer forced by economic conditions to deal with the greater risk they pose. It was a sign of economic growth addressing social problems – as it should be.

But mass immigration has broken this link. It meant Gordon Brown could actually afford to keep so many million on benefits, as tax receipts were being generated by comparative newcomers. It was a lot easier than trying to reform welfare. Scandalously, thats what Brown did. To my mind, it is the most contemptible failure of his time as Chancellor. He had the money, the economic boom, to sort out the welfare dependency that afflicts so many communities in Britain. But he took the easy, short term route. To use that analogy the Prime Minister is so fond of deploying, he walked on by on the other side. Why get your hands (and poll ratings) dirty with welfare reform when you can rely on immigrants to keep the economy growing and tax receipts flowing? And who wants to end up with disabled people chaining themselves to the railings of parliament, as happened when Blair tried welfare reform? Brown took the easy option. And his short-termism has condemned millions to worklessness and poverty who might otherwise have escaped it.

And it's not just true with welfare reform. This is true with education reform, tax reform, and economic reform. This Government has a real cynical contempt for both the past and for the future.

This matters for Cameron, because he will inherit Browns dysfunctional labour market – one distinguished by its striking failure to provide that now-notorious Brown slogan British jobs for British workers. What if, when the recovery comes, the economy just sucks in more immigrants and the huge surge in dole numbers is never properly reversed?

Thats why immigration matters. You cant understand the UK labour market, or the pernicious nature of the UK welfare state, without it.

They're not stupid, this bunch. They know exactly what they are doing, and they and their ilk have known it for decades. As Sean Gabb put it ...

The purpose of the Government that took power in 1997 was to bring about a revolutionary transformation of this country—a transformation from which there could be no return to what had been before.

And for those of us who have to live with the consequences and try our best to put it right? Well ...

If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

A Taste of Reality

2009-10-19T17:51:00.005+01:00

The BNP are really getting up certain people's noses at the moment. You may even say that the 'mainstream' politicians are scared. At least, that's the conclusion I draw from Peter Hain's bizarre intervention:

The BBC has rejected Welsh Secretary Peter Hain's warning that it could face legal action over BNP leader Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time ... Mr Hain wrote to the BBC's director general arguing the British National Party was "an unlawful body" after a court ruling on its membership policy.

To their credit, the BBC have maintained a position that it is their duty to "scrutinise ... all elected representatives". Peter Hain's mystifying intervention stinks of panic. Much like Symon Hill's recent piece on Comment Is Free:

The main parties' constant pandering to rightwing agendas, their failure to speak up for the benefits of immigration and their devotion to the interests of the wealthy have all contributed to the far right's electoral success.

Pub Philosopher looks at it more deeply, but the crux of Hill's argument is that the white working class support for the BNP has nothing at all do with demography, but is really about the class war. It's a desperate attempt to dismiss reality in favour of his own, flawed political doctrine, which is what 'multiculturalism' is really all about.

What the BNP are bringing to those that have always regarded themselves as 'mainstream' is, quite simply, reality. And they can't deal with it, because it goes against everything they've believed in for so long. But we better hope that they take heed fairly quickly, because the situation about us is moving towards becoming irretrievable.