2012: The Year of the Slug (as predicted here!)

Getting back into a normal routine after a long break can sometimes be a little tricky owing to (please pardon the pun) a little sluggish inertia, particularly after the extended period of festive overindulgence. At the beginning of last July I wrote a brief piece on Britain’s perennial favourite topic – the weather – and in it opined that whereas I thought that September was likely to offer us the best prospect of a dry warm spell it could well turn out that the resident Chinese population might “change the designation of 2012 from ‘Year of the Dragon’ to ‘Year of the Slug’.” Unfortunately, my facetious weather ‘forecast’ for the remainder of 2012, with the exception of October, turned out to be reasonably accurate, discerning as it did much more wet weather to come. Indeed, by the end of December The Daily Mail used my very own designation for the year in its headline ‘Year of the slug: 2012 was a washout for gardeners but perfect for pests’.

The past year was, in domestic meteorological terms, the most miserable that I can recall, and few can be hoping for a repeat of the seemingly interminable deluges that have of late bedevilled us. Farmland, homes and businesses were flooded, holidays were ruined and little prospered other than the seemingly ubiquitous and quietly triumphant hordes of slugs, accompanied on occasion by squadrons of malicious mosquitoes. This week we learn that the poor weather has had a negative impact upon the nutritional content not only of our food crops, but also of the grass upon which our livestock have fed when our pastures have not lain inaccessible beneath water. As if this situation in itself was not bad enough, a story in today’s Daily Telegraph draws our attention to an unwelcome new resident that is finding our green and sodden land a highly appealing home: a five-inch long monster slug from Spain revelling in the Latin name of Arion vulgaris. This nasty pest apparently possesses a hefty appetite for carrion, and in Scandinavia, where it has also managed to establish itself of late, it is reported as having become a hazard to motorists owing to the prodigious quantities of slime that the slugs leave on the road when feasting upon roadkill.

Arion vulgaris thus joins the harlequin ladybird, the New Zealand flatworm and of course the grey squirrel as but the latest in a line of invasive species that have been displacing and replacing the native fauna (although admittedly few would own to feeling any particular affection for our domestic slugs). What with sudden oak death and ash dieback, the contemporary analogues of the Dutch elm disease of the 1970s, our natural environment, rather like our social one, is suffering from the ill consequences wrought by the mighty forces of globalisation, with genuine diversity being replaced by transnational homogenisation.

Will 2013 become a second ‘year of the slug’, or will we finally enjoy a respite from the rain? Given the saturated state of the country, it may perhaps become the year of the mosquito. Whatever the case, thus far we seem to have been experiencing a stereotypical British winter: miserably grey, damp and mild. A taste of chilly winter weather lies in the offing later this week, and possibly lasting for much of January, but will it really deliver upon its promise? The Met Office, as is oft its wont, is being equivocal, and Piers Corbyn won’t tell us that his predictions about the winter were ‘right’ until some time after the event when he can find some weather that tallies with a forecast that he had sold to his exclusive set of subscribers. Surely, 2013 must be better than 2012 meteorologically? We have not had a decent summer in over half a decade, so would it be too much to expect some fine weather for the summer of 2013?

Update
True to form, the day after this article was posted Piers Corbyn popped up in The Daily Express to warn about the coming cold spell: "WeatherAction expects snow amounts to be as bad or worse than the record-breaking December 2010." Renowned for its exuberant exaggeration of all portents of snow and chill and its cavalier disregard for facts, the Express also added:

It's the same weather pattern responsible for the bitter 2009-2010 winter, the coldest for 31 years when transport networks were crippled and planes grounded. Icy easterly winds will sweep across Britain with everywhere at risk of wintry showers from the weekend and "significant snowfall" over high ground in Wales and the North.

The statement above is simply incorrect. Glaringly so. One of the notable features of the exceptionally low temperatures in the first month of the remarkable winter of 2009-2010 was the fact that the month of extreme chill with which it began was ushered in by a front issuing from the Arctic North, not from the East. It was bitter northerlies which prevailed during the coldest first four to five weeks of that winter that began with a surge of Arctic air during the last week of November. This is why the eastern counties of Britain and areas such as the North York Moors were particularly badly hit by snow. Facts? Now, why would journalists wish to bother with such irksome details as facts? I await the Express's first heatwave headlines with bated breath (sometime in March or early April perhaps?). 

Arion Vulgaris: Spain's sluggish contribution to Britain's globalising fauna

Ed Miliband and Peter Sutherland: united in anti-European Bigotry

In political, economic and demographic terms, we are living through remarkable times. The news, whether it be domestic or international, is almost uniformly bad. And yet amidst this maelstrom, the helmsmen of the emergent global economic and political order continue to chart a course that they set long ago, cognisant of the storms that their policies must surely engender, yet happy for us to suffer the ill-effects of their globalist tempest, utilising the naïveté of those who believe in the ideal of a global village, to aid in their construction of a global prison, from which none, they hope, will be permitted to escape.

Bound by fetters of debt, intellectually and emotionally crippled by decades of propaganda instilling self-doubt, guilt and self-loathing, the peoples of Europe – in particular those of the West, for those of the East have not yet fallen prey to this singular psychopathology – edge towards embracing oblivion in the name of ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance’. Globalisation, they are told ad nauseum, is not only inevitable, but also beneficial. We are told so by our politicians and our bankers; by our broadcasters and big business; by our press, trades unions and ‘anti-racism’ campaigners. From the dope-addled hippy, to the calculating corporate fascist; from the Trotskyist subversive to the Islamist longing for the introduction of a universal caliphate, all yearn for the destruction of nations and peoples, specifically, of European nations and peoples. As such, they are united in a desire to snuff out freedom and political will. They are the totalitarian advocates of a post-political future, in which choice is removed, and individuals become the objects of administration, rather than the subjects of politics. The detail of each of their globalist visions may be divergent, but their consequence is the same: the purging of human agency from history, and the end of freedom for all but a narrow stratum of a governing global oligarchy.

Strange, is it not, that those of us who oppose this process, are the ones stigmatised with the label of ‘fascist’? Only the genuine political self-determination of peoples across the globe, can serve as both the guarantor of human freedom, and the preservation of true cultural diversity. Agencies of supranational governance, the free movement of global capital and transnational corporations guarantee something quite different: perpetual insecurity and the end of freedom.

 

It is against such a backdrop, that speeches given earlier this week by Ed Miliband and Peter Sutherland should be viewed. Miliband, naturally, requires no introduction, but the figure of Peter Sutherland is altogether more shadowy, although out of the two, it is Sutherland who wields the more genuine power. What is the influence of an MP or an aspirant Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, compared to that of such a man as Sutherland? Non-executive Chairman of Goldman Sachs International; Bilderberg Group Steering Committee member; UN Special Representative on Migration, Head of the Global Forum on Migration and Development? Still, it matters not that Miliband’s existing and potential power should be the lesser of the two, for both men share a mental outlook and policy platform, neither possessing any notion of responsibility to, or affection for, the peoples and nations of Europe.

Miliband’s speech, like his recent speech on Englishness, was essentially devoid of content. Its intent however, was just the same as its forerunner: to generate headlines conveying the impression that he cares about the ostensible topic under discussion. Whilst sections of the media and some trades union spokesmen have dutifully complied with this charade, feigning outrage over his touching upon such topics as national identity and immigration, both speeches delivered the same message as found expression in the policy of the last Labour Government: immigration and globalisation are positive, and should be promoted as such. This can be demonstrated through reference to key elements of Miliband’s speech reproduced below (I have added emphasis in bold).

Excerpt 1: “Britain must control its borders but it must always face outwards to the world.

The Britain I believe in is a confident and optimistic country, not one which is insecure and inward looking.

If people are looking for a politician who says immigration is just bad for Britain, that's not me.

I believe immigration has benefits, economically, culturally and socially.”

Excerpt 2: “I am the son of immigrants and I am hugely proud of it.

I will always talk about immigration in a way that is true to who I am, to my heritage, to my mum and dad.”

Excerpt 3: “Providing a refuge for those fleeing persecution.

And a new approach to immigration based on building a different kind of economy.

An economy that doesn't leave anyone behind.

That continues to attract people from abroad who contribute their talents to our economy and society.

That offers proper wages and good conditions.

That's the kind of economy that will enable Britain to compete with the world.”

In summary the core message of Miliband’s speech was this: Labour made a gaffe in selling mass immigration from the EU accession states to the public and this backfired electorally, not because the party believes this to have been wrong, but because it handled its propaganda maladroitly. The Labour Party needs to repair its image with its traditional indigenous (although Labour’s upper echelons would never use such a term) working-class supporters, who have to a considerable degree deserted Labour; it would still like their votes. By talking about “immigration” in a manner which suggests to the public that Miliband is recognising Labour’s mistakes and addressing their concerns, whilst in reality simply acknowledging that there had been public disquiet and then reiterating the message that Labour still advocates mass immigration and thinks that it is beneficial, Labour hopes that it can pull the wool over the public’s eyes and win back the support of ex-Labour voters without changing policy. Miliband wishes to change the presentation of policy, whilst retaining its essence: open borders and the deculturisation of the United Kingdom, especially England.

Another highly noteworthy aspect of Miliband’s speech was the target that he selected in his discussion of mass immigration: white Central and Eastern Europeans from the EU member states of the former Soviet bloc. Nowhere did he have a critical word to say with respect to the far larger, as well as more culturally and economically problematic, influx of immigrants from Asia (predominantly Pakistan and Bangladesh) and Africa (e.g. Somalia and Nigeria). It seems that he is perfectly at ease with this mass settlement. Why? Although it is true that mass immigration from the EU accession states of the former Soviet bloc has lowered wages, increased unemployment and placed an increased strain on housing, education, health and utilities, there is not so great a cultural gulf between these immigrants and the host population as that between us and the incomers from Asia and Africa. Although the press are keen to run stories about ‘East European’ or ‘Romanian’ criminal gangs, these are predominantly Roma, and thus should not be conflated with ethnic Romanians or other immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe.

So, why is it, taking into consideration the additional problems associated with significant elements of the immigrant populations from Africa and Asia, that Miliband chose not to focus upon them? Given Miliband’s glaring omission, it could give the impression that he has some issue with white European peoples that he does not have with non-Europeans. In this respect, his sentiments are very much at one with those of Peter Sutherland, who according to the BBC told the House of Lords this week that:‘The EU should "do its best to undermine" the"homogeneity" of its member states.’ His recommendations, that fly in the face of the bloody experience of history and of many ethnically cleft states around the world today, were not backed up by evidence, but rather by mere assertion, resting upon some spurious sense of deferential morality that places the interests of peoples outside Europe, above those of Europeans. Thus it was that he insisted that: 'the future prosperity of many EU states depended on them becoming multicultural. He also suggested the UK government's immigration policy had no basis in international law.’ 

Sutherland’s stance is utterly brazen. Those who have accused the Bilderberg group of attempting to swamp European states with non-European immigrants have been accused of being ‘conspiracy theorists’, but in Sutherland’s statement and in the policies of the UN, the EU and the UK Government, we see the same open-borders globalist logic at play, and it betokens a dark future for all Europeans. He continued:

It's impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the other argument can survive because states have to become more open states, in terms of the people who inhabit them. Just as the United Kingdom has demonstrated.

He also ‘urged EU member states to work together more closely on migration policy and advocated a global approach to the issue - criticising the UK government's attempt to cut net migration from its current level to "tens of thousands" a year through visa restrictions.’

How, in substance, does Sutherland’s position differ from that of Ed Miliband’s? I see little if anything to distinguish these two advocates of an open-borders Europe, the future of which they would seem to believe ought to belong to the peoples of Africa and Asia. What is it that imbues these men with such an animus towards Europeans and their democratic right to national self-determination? Their views alas, represent the dominant perspective in elite – or more accurately, oligarchical – decision-making circles. It is thus up to true democrats in each European nation to make their opposition to this intent and associated policies known, so as to preserve a future for our peoples, our liberties, distinctive cultures and overarching civilisation. Without our active opposition to globalism, our progress, indeed our existence, is finished. A new political party, founded upon such democratic anti-globalist principles, is coalescing in Britain right now, and will be ready to contest the EU elections in 2014.

Ed Miliband: Globalism Repackaged

Higher Education: Benefits, Costs and Propaganda

“Education, education, education.”

For many years, young people in this country have been brought up with Blair’s mantra of “education, education, education” ringing in their ears, and one form of education in particular – university, or, more strictly speaking, higher education – has been championed as the path to upward social mobility and prosperity. With this view in mind, policy has been directed towards the mass expansion of higher education (HE) – its ‘massification’ as some term it – with Labour having set the arbitrary goal of by 2010 persuading 50% of young people to study towards and achieve a degree. Initial movement towards this target proved to be more sluggish than the Blair administration had intended, leading to a rescoping of the 50% target so that it was broadened to apply to any “higher education qualification” which could encompass sub-degree qualifications such as the misnamed foundation degrees (i.e. a vocationally-focused qualification equating to the first two years of degree study), HE diplomas and certificates.

As time progressed, the constant repetition of the message that HE would lead to higher lifetime earnings, a better lifestyle and social mobility, was taken up by much of the mass media as well as schools, colleges and universities. This was accompanied by a rush away from manufacturing and the traditional extractive industries in the deluded belief that the key to wealth generation lay primarily with a vastly expanded service sector, and the UK’s participation in what the Leitch Report termed the ‘global knowledge economy.’

Children, knowing no better, came to internalise this message, and many academics, who have no such excuse, did so too. Yet, what underpinned this policy? What solid data was there to justify this claim that obtaining a degree, or an “HE qualification”, led to greatly improved earnings and life chances? What does the data suggest with respect to graduates who have come through the system in recent years? How do their prospects fare with respect to those of earlier generations? What, if anything, has this policy achieved?

Academic inflation and the debased currency of a degree

Many recent graduates will of course be able to provide a personal answer to a number of these questions, but what is striking about the whole thrust of this policy, often badged as “widening participation”, is the manner in which it has debased the currency of a degree. This debasement has taken two forms: firstly, the rapid expansion in the number of graduates has lessened the market value of a degree owing to their oversupply; secondly, the academic content of many degrees has been downgraded to cope with the inadequacies of the contemporary schooling system, which has left a certain proportion of the current undergraduate body with inadequate skills. The marketisation of HE is likely to exacerbate these trends still further.

For the past couple of decades, we have witnessed the annual headlines relating the latest year-on-year increase in the grades of GCSEs and A Levels, and yet those with direct experience of working in the university sector have not noted an increase in the calibre of the student intake. One of the reasons for this trend is of course the modularisation of A Levels, the ability to retake the said modules on several occasions, and the gearing of teaching towards passing the test, rather than towards the development of critical engagement with, and internalisation of, the subject matter of A Levels. Michael Gove has however announced that he intends to tackle these problems, with a move back towards a more rigorous approach based upon examinations rather than coursework, and a limited opportunity to resit.

We need more mathematicians: the sums don't add up!

Despite the fact that it was recently reported by the CBI that only one in five jobs in the UK are said to require graduate-level skills, the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) issued a report earlier this month calling for increased government investment in the university sector, claiming that this was necessitated by the UK sliding down the international league in the production of graduates, whilst China and India are investing heavily in increasing the supply. It highlights the particular need for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates, singling out mechanical engineering in particular. However, other evidence suggests that a significant proportion of graduates in these disciplines are unable to find employment in a sphere related to their subject, so what is being claimed appears to diverge from reality. Why should this be so? If it is the case, as the UCU claims, that employers are reporting a shortage of STEM graduates, should not more effort be put into helping match graduates with appropriate employment opportunities near the end of their studies, rather than simply increasing the number of graduates? If STEM graduates find themselves underemployed upon graduation, this is neither good for them as individuals, nor for employers nor for society at large; it represents a shocking waste of potential, as well as of time and money.

Another debatable claim contained in the UCU report, was that state investment in higher education should be increased because it is highly cost effective: whereas it claims that it costs the state an average of £18,800 to educate a graduate, the return in increased earnings over a lifetime is said to be £180,000. If this were true, the Government would provide higher education for free, but, as should be evident, it plainly is not the case. Even grander claims were being made about the increased earning potential conferred by graduate status in the early 2000s, with one figure widely bandied around from 2001 onwards claiming that graduates earn circa £400,000 more than non-graduates over a working lifetime. This eye-watering figure was employed to bolster the Blair administration’s Aimhigher initiative which was launched in 2004, but this statistic was, unsurprisingly, arrived at through rather dubious means, based as it was upon the highly selective interpretation of data relating to a cohort of graduates born in the early 1950s. Needless to say, the prospects that faced such graduates, who then comprised but a tiny fraction of the population, differed considerably from the massive numbers (and proportion) of graduates coming out of the system today. Our economy has also been eviscerated in the intervening period, with job insecurity becoming the norm and lifetime career structures and their earning potential destroyed by the opening up of the economy to full-blooded globalisation.

Raising the bar, destroying the premium: the betrayal of the Blair generation

One of the stated objectives of the last Labour Government’s mass expansion of higher education was the promotion of social mobility, the opening up of opportunities for young people with no familial experience of university education. It was thus touted as a route into the professions and, more generally, to prosperity. However, as has already been alluded to in the reference to the low percentage of job roles requiring graduate-level skills, this approach was at best wrongheaded, and at worst, immoral. Rather than serving as a means of social advancement, the acquisition of a degree has often led to young people from these backgrounds entering the same types of roles that they would have done had they left school following the completion of A Levels or GCSEs, with the same types of salaries. An oversupply of graduates has led to a lessening of the wage premium offered by employers, with many roles and occupations that were once open to individuals with a handful of decent O Level passes, now demanding a degree. Likewise, graduate professions have raised the bar, now often demanding Masters or Doctorates, resulting in more debt for the student, more years spent out of the labour market, and a lower return on their investment. Academic inflation has run rampant, greatly devaluing the currency of a degree, the cost of which has simultaneously increased significantly.

What then, is higher education for? For anyone who would wish to study because they are motivated by the love of their given subject, I would say take the opportunity, but do not expect it to provide you with a route to a better life and higher earnings, because very often it will not.

Special interest groups, distortion and the need for clarity and reform

It seems clear that one of the primary motivations underlying the UCU report is the understandable desire of UCU members to protect their livelihoods. Owing to the rapid expansion of the university sector, higher education institutions are now big employers playing significant roles in the economies of the towns and cities in which they are located. Any downsizing in the sector could thus have a notable negative impact upon some local economies. For the past three years, pay in universities has effectively been frozen (with the egregious exception of university vice-chancellors, a number of whom earn well in excess the salary of the Prime Minister), staff numbers have been cut and the radical overhaul in the tuition fees system has led to a great deal of uncertainty with respect to the viability of some institutions in their current form. It is understandable therefore, that this report should seek to forward the claim that an increase in funding for higher education should be made a national priority, but it is precisely for these reasons that the conclusions it draws should be treated with a healthy degree of scepticism, given their tendentious nature. 

Should higher education be for the benefit of students, the country and the economy, or for that of vested interests within the university sector? Unpalatable as it may be, it would seem that our higher education sector suffers from overcapacity, and that rather than seeking to increase absolute numbers of graduates and the proportion of young people gaining degrees, we should instead be looking to redeploy staff in higher education elsewhere in the economy. The big question of course, is where? Young people should be given better opportunities in FE colleges, learning useful skills that will make them marketable and afford them a decent living. The one thing that does seem rational in the UCU report, is its emphasis upon protecting STEM subjects. To secure a meaningful economic recovery we need to harness the full potential of our graduates in these disciplines through promoting a hi-tech research and manufacturing based economy. We need to create jobs that generate new wealth, not jobs in the service sector that are parasitic upon the recycling of existing capital, or borrowing it from the international money markets.

Higher education in this country needs to be reprofiled and retooled. Young people must be provided with the most objective information available with respect to the likely implications of studying a certain degree; the doors that it will open, and those that it will not, together with genuine information relating to salary expectations and career progression. Contrary to offering a leg-up to children from working-class backgrounds, the policies of the last Labour Government and its successor have spun them an unrealistic yarn and led to everyone running faster to effectively stand still. This, coupled with Labour’s (and the Condem’s) vigorous pursuit of globalisation, leading to increased job insecurity and downward pressure on wages, has constituted a betrayal of the Blair generation.

Whether £27,000 of debt for tuition fees, coupled with many thousands more for living expenses incurred whilst studying, and the thousands potentially lost through not working during this period are adjudged to be worthwhile in obtaining a degree, must be left to the individual, but the decisions that they take should be based upon objective information and evidence, not upon the self-serving data supplied by the higher education sector itself, or by government. Cynics might say that getting students to pay for a degree is a cost-effective means of removing them from the unemployment statistics for three to five years whilst simultaneously making them pay for the privilege. 

Hénin-Beaumont: Le Pen versus Melanchon

Today the first round of the French elections to the 577-member National Assembly will take place, with the second round being held in a week’s time. Given the economic and political turmoil besetting the Eurozone, this election will have particular significance for the future tenor of policy within its constituent states and for the EU more widely.

Hitherto, the Front National has not won a seat in the National Assembly under the current first-past-the post system (under proportional representation it managed to take 35 seats in 1986), but it is estimated that the party could possibly, rather than probably, take up to 8 seats on this occasion. It is in the town of Hénin-Beaumont that the most interesting constituency contest looks set to take place, with Marine Le Pen standing against Left Front leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. Across France the Front National has been scoring between 12 and 18% in opinion polls over the past month, with those from the past week suggesting a level of support between 14 and 15%. However, in Hénin-Beaumont the popularity of the Front National is considerably higher, which coupled with Marine Le Pen’s profile, could result in a win for the party.

Hénin-Beaumont is twinned, rather appropriately given its closed pits and post-industrial malaise, with Wakefield. Even the light industry that replaced mining, notes the BBC, is closing down and moving out, such as in the case of a Samsonite factory which shut five years ago, its jobs being outsourced to Eastern Europe with half of its workforce remaining unemployed today. The ‘enormous factory floor is now home to squatters.’ Clearly, this is not a town imbued with a sense of optimism, its economic plight serving as an indictment of globalist free-market policies. Le Pen’s approach therefore, ought to possess a strong appeal in the constituency.

Traditionally, Hénin-Beaumont has been a Socialist stronghold, but in 2009 the Front National secured first place in its mayoral election with 39% of the vote in the first round, but alas, it was defeated in the second ballot owing to all other candidates standing down and uniting around a left-wing independent Daniel Duquenne. If Le Pen does not take more than 50% of the vote today, it is therefore likely that opposing candidates will once again stand aside and recommend that their supporters unite against the Front National. However, this in itself should not be a cause of despair for Le Pen, for Duquenne’s victory in 2009 was secured by a very narrow margin: 52% to 48%. The most recent test of popularity for the FN in the constituency was the presidential election, and Le Pen came out on top with 35%. Will she therefore be able to break the mould of French politics and win a seat? Such a victory appears to be plausible.

Jean-Luc Melanchon is a visceral opponent of the FN, the Galliawatch blog noting his recent comment that "Our objective remains to defeat the FN, to eradicate it politically, we will do whatever is necessary until we have the last word." (from an interview published in Direct Matin June 5, 2012). His bad tempered totalitarian tenor is accompanied by a vigorous anti-French position as expressed in his recent statement that “There is no future for France without Arabs and Berbers from the Maghreb.” Quite the contrary Monsieur Melanchon, I think that you will find that France will possess no future other than as a mere geographical and historical expression if the demographic inroads made by these North African peoples continues.

Flyers displaying these two statements have been circulating in Hénin-Beaumont, but who has produced them is a matter of uncertainty. It has undoubtedly made the irascible Melanchon furious, but why, given that he has said these things and presumably believes what he has said, should he be angry? The flyers after all, are only informing voters of what Melanchon stands for. One of them, admittedly, is in poor and rather inappropriate taste, featuring a doctored image of Melanchon set against the backdrop of a concentration camp, presumably as a retort to the constant unjust accusations of ‘Nazism’ thrown at the FN (Madonna, the superannuated enfant terrible, apparently made a cheap and inaccurate 'political' point whilst performing in Tel Aviv last week, appearing onstage brandishing an AK47 with a projection of Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead as a backdrop). The other however, is reproduced below and features his quote on Arabs, Berbers and his de facto support for the end of France. It is only fair that the voters know what this man believes, and as such, these flyers fulfil a useful function. 

What, if any role, will this negative publicity play in the campaign? Whatever happens, the contest in this French town in desperate need of economic regeneration is going to prove to be a very interesting one.

Human Rights Watch: promoting Islamism and undermining Democracy

The very name of the organisation – ‘Human Rights Watch’ – conjures up a vision of some benign guardian keeping a watchful eye upon the (mis)conduct of governments and ensuring that gross violations of ‘human rights’ are brought to the attention of men and women of good intent around the globe. Who can argue against the desire to protect life and limb, freedom of conscience and equality before the law? These all strike me as eminently sensible; the prerequisite foundations for any just society. However, ‘Human Rights Watch’ has revealed itself to be something other than what I have described, and paradoxically, through a muddled combination of globalist universalism, abstract individualism and cultural relativism, has now found itself in a situation where it is actively facilitating the spread of an ideology and its bearers that do not recognise the concept of ‘human rights’.

Astonishingly, an AP report from 22 January entitled ‘HRW calls on West to accept Islamist rise to power’ states:

“The United States and other Western governments must accept the new reality that Islamists have emerged to fill the power vacuum in the Arab world after a wave of popular uprisings, Human Rights Watch said in its annual report Sunday.

The New York-based group also urged Islamist parties, which have emerged as the biggest winners in recent elections in Tunisia and Egypt and are expected to fare well in Libya, to respect the rights of women and religious minorities, saying they cannot "pick and choose" when it comes to human rights.

Islamist parties are "genuinely popular" in the Arab world, said HRW's executive director, Kenneth Roth, warning that "ignoring that popularity would violate democratic principles."

"Being a political Islamic government should not be a reason to turn a government into a pariah," Roth told reporters in Cairo, where the group released its annual report.”

For some reason, HRW staff appear unable to appreciate that Islamism is based upon an outlook entirely alien to their own which does not recognise the abstract human rights that they purport to espouse. This is what makes HRW’s comments regarding European countries all the more worrying:

“The group also claimed that even member states of the European Union have violated human rights through restrictive asylum and migration policies.”

Effectively, HRW is seeking to deny Europeans the right to national self-expression and self-determination, and would instead be content to see such a mass influx of Muslim immigrants that they would undermine the very foundations of human rights themselves across Europe, as well as national citizenship rights. HRW is deeply infected with the bacillus of cultural, ethnic and racial self-loathing characteristic of the dominant ideology within European countries and their daughter societies America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. So deep and entrenched is this self-loathing, that today HRW published an article by Benjamin Ward entitled ‘Europe’s Treatment of Minorities Endangers Our Core Values’, key extracts being reproduced below:

“EU governments proved reluctant to help refugees and migrants fleeing Libya, including people risking their lives at sea in rickety boats. European countries have been quick to resume migration cooperation with Libya, Egypt and Tunisia with the aim of speedily deporting migrants who reach Europe, including those originating from Sub-Saharan Africa. And the arrival of Tunisian migrants in Italy last year led to a row in which leading EU governments questioned aloud the value of free movement, a fundamental EU pillar.

When it comes to Europe’s domestic human rights record, the long-term trends are deeply worrying. As a new essay from Human Rights Watch explains, four trends stand out: the erosion of civil liberties in the fight against terrorism; the rise of populist extremist parties and their negative influence on mainstream politics; the declining effectiveness of traditional human rights institutions; and growing intolerance and abuse toward migrants and minorities. Taken together they amount to a crisis.”  

Thus, HRW has reached well beyond its original remit of documenting and campaigning against human rights abuses in totalitarian societies, and has instead moved into the realm of globalist political lobbying, effectively acting as a vigorous advocate of the ‘no borders’ movement. It calls for the undermining of democratic process and choice in European nations by denigrating the domestic desire for national security and solidarity through its use of demonising terminology such as “populist extremist parties.” If European nations are unable to protect their own citizens and their own cultures, then they will be swamped and destroyed by alien cultures and peoples not so reticent about using whatever means they deem necessary to impose their will and demographic stamp upon the territories that they occupy. The demographic danger that European nations face hails predominantly from Africa and Asia, and this immigrant horde carries with it an ideology that shows nothing but scorn for the values that HRW claims to hold dear: Islam. These demographic interlopers cynically employ the ideology of ‘human rights’ when it suits them, without believing in its content. So, why is it that the earnest types at HRW fail to understand this basic fact? Perhaps the following goes some way to explaining it.

One of the notable features of recent history is the manner in which concepts of human behaviour, rights and responsibilities born and elaborated within European societies and their settler colony offspring have come to be seen, particularly by the natives of these states, as universally valid and applicable. Initially, these ideas were spread to almost every corner of the globe as a consequence of the dominant geopolitical position of these powers, either through their direct dissemination by systems of colonial education, or via newly accessible texts printed in imperial languages such as English, French and Russian that were eagerly devoured by emergent colonial intellectual elites. Peoples who had previously lived their lives in accordance with non-occidental norms and values dictated by the specifics of their religious, caste or tribal affiliation, were thus exposed to radically different ways of conceptualising nature, society and the individual, as embodied in specifically Western ideologies such as Liberalism, Socialism and Marxism. Even in those non-Western states that avoided colonisation, the success and dynamism of occidental societies spurred a thirst for emulation, as best exemplified by the case of Japan.

The apogee of occidental power was brought to an end by the First World War which dented Western self-confidence and gave birth to a sense of profound doubt and pessimism with respect to the nature of Western Civilisation and its achievements. It, together with Japan’s defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, led to the emergence of a growing revolutionary confidence amongst colonial peoples, both in the form of anti-colonial nationalism and also revolutionary Marxism, with the two often fusing under Soviet and then later Chinese tutelage. The Second World War dealt a further blow to occidental confidence, with Europe subsequently divided into rival Capitalist and Communist camps headed respectively by the USA and USSR. It was the experience of the 1930s and WWII that enabled the predominantly Jewish émigrés of the Frankfurt School who had established themselves in American academe to propound and propagate their dogma of multiculturalism and ‘anti-racism’, which was later exported to Western Europe owing to the hegemonic position of the USA in that half of the continent. Decolonisation, ‘national liberation struggles’ and the New Left born in 1968 fused with US multiculturalism to create a new sphere of leftist identity politics, that whilst seeing itself as ‘radical’ and ‘oppositional’ at the time, has come to form the hegemonic discourse of Western nations today: multiculturalism, political correctness and cultural relativism. From this so-called movement of ‘liberation’ stem the social balkanisation, censorship, thoughtcrime and self-denigration and abasement before other cultures, most notably, before Islam, that characterise Western societies in the current period.

This effective collapse of self-belief within the West has led to the self-loathing mode of thought that characterises the perspective of Human Rights Watch, which whilst more than willing to condemn generous and tolerant Western societies as being ‘intolerant’ and a danger to liberty, is keen to also turn a blind eye to the inherent barbarity of doctrinaire Islam and Islamism. By doing so, HRW is effectively running the risk of calling for the burial of the West, and its replacement by unbending, intolerant and barbaric theocratic social norms and punishments. HRW thereby reveals itself to be a decadent organisation that actively undermines the ideals it was established to defend. Founded in 1978 as successor to Helsinki Watch, a body created in 1975 to monitor human rights abuses in the then Soviet bloc, it has in recent years received its primary funding from George Soros’s Open Society Foundation (formerly Institute). Wikipedia reports that Soros donated $100 million of the $128 million that it received in 2011. Soros of course has caused a great deal of human misery through his speculative activities and has ‘warned’ of the rise of nationalism in Europe. Might not his money have no small impact upon the focus and activity of Human Rights Watch, and its anti-democratic, anti-European and anti-nationalist agenda? [Hat tip to Cygnus for sending the link which suggested this piece].

A Congolese Carol (to the Tune of 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen')

God rest ye merry gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay

For Congolese have gathered

For riot and affray

In Trafalgar Square they punched the air

Then sundry passers-by

And there is no point in asking why, asking why

And there is no point in asking why.

In London, in England

‘Diversity’ was born

And with this word upon their lips

It was no lie they swore

But they would take advantage

Of us for evermore

And there is no point in asking why, asking why

And there is no point in asking why.

For now we find no peace of mind

There’s nought that we can do

For a Congolese may be unkind

And throw a drink at you

And burn your skin and laugh and grin

Then turn and say “f*** you!”

And there is no point in asking why, asking why

And there is no point in asking why.

You came to help your loved ones

Who with the cancer ail

And with your kindness and your songs

We hoped that you’d prevail

But then there came the Congolese

Hence this unhappy tale

And there is no point in asking why, asking why

And there is no point in asking why.

The Congolese moved in a pack

With cruelty in their hearts

And their baying black sisters

Played their mocking part

Oh why they came to attack you

Was unclear from the start

And there is no point in asking why, asking why

And there is no point in asking why.

They came to burn the Christmas tree

From our Norwegian friends

They came to vent and spew their hate

And claim it was ‘amends’

For a vote that was cast far away

That their conscience did offend

And there is no point in asking why, asking why

And there is no point in asking why.

Emma West now sits in gaol

Her children taken away

Rhea Page in a state of shock

With a judge who caused dismay

And who will grieve for the young man

The murdered Danny O’Shea?

And there is no point in asking why, asking why

And there is no point in asking why.

Oh tell us why you’ve done this

We do not understand

Why you say it is so good

To flood our native land

With people who’ve no business here

And bite our feeding hand

And this is our point in asking why, asking why

And this is our point in asking why.


We have The Daily Telegraph to thank for news of this disgraceful attack on carol singers seeking to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support, whereas The Guardian and the BBC omitted this from their reporting of the arrest of 139 Congolese demonstrators for a variety of offences including inflicting damage on cars, property and shops. Fights are also said to have broken out amongst the demonstrators. At a guess, many of the people involved in this violent outburst will have arrived here claiming 'asylum'. As with the gang of young Somali women who attacked Rhea Page, I would suggest that those who indulged their violent impulses should have no place in this country, and ought to be deported back to Congo with no right of readmission to the UK. Another tale of woe involving a Congolese in England can be accessed here.  

'Victims' (courtesy of The Guardian)

 

The TUC march against Cuts: why not against Globalisation?

An estimated 100,000 people are said to be heading to London today to participate in a TUC-organised protest against government spending cuts. Of course, there is a justifiable and palpable sense of anger at the axing of jobs and public services, but I wonder, how many of those people taking to the streets today actually comprehend what lies at the root of the cuts and the economic crisis that has brought them about? I am of course, referring to globalisation. Given that the TUC and the last government (as well as the current one of course) are vigorous advocates and enablers of this process, this protest is utterly misdirected and quixotic. If those who march today genuinely wish to defend public services and jobs, they should be marching against globalisation.

Whereas the BBC and other media outlets invariably highlight the expense arising from the policing of EDL demonstrations, there is no such mention of the costs of deploying 4,500 police in London today.

Disgracefully, one of the unprincipled architects of our current economic plight – Ed Miliband – will be attending the march, despite the fact that he has no alternative suggestions to remedy the budget deficit or our economic malaise. His profligate globalising policies would only serve to hasten our terminal decline. According to the BBC, Miliband yesterday stated

‘that “the voices of the mainstream majority” would be making themselves heard.’

“I think the government will be making a great mistake if they somehow dismiss all of the people on that march as troublemakers or just ‘the same old people’. They are not.” '

If you took part in this march today, please wake up to the fact that what you are doing will count for absolutely nothing if you do not actively oppose globalisation and instead seek to defend our national interests and national sovereignty.

Reflections on British Nationalism and the Foundation of the British Freedom Party: Part 2

Recognising the Boundaries of Belonging
Since the advent of the Blair era in particular, mainstream politicians and journalists have repeated the mantras that “Britain is a nation of immigrants” and that “the British cannot define themselves because we don’t know who we are”. The first of these mantras is of course an act of tendentious distortion, comparing distinctly unlike phenomena taking place over vastly differing timescales. The second is an out and out lie, unless the referents of this statement are taken to be those who happen to be recent immigrants (i.e. those who have arrived in the post-WWII era) or their descendants.

Although Daniel Defoe’s poem of 1701 – A True-Born Englishman – is often cited as a precursor to the contemporary multicultural dogma, in truth Defoe wrote this piece specifically with a view to ridiculing a wave of anti-Dutch xenophobia then abroad in England that extended to attacks on ordinary law-abiding residents of Dutch descent. It is worth quoting the most famous passage from the poem to set the context:

Thus from a mixture of all kinds began,
That het'rogeneous thing, an Englishman:
In eager rapes, and furious lust begot
Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot.
Whose gend'ring off-spring quickly learn'd to bow,
And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough:
From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,
With neither name, nor nation, speech nor fame.
In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,
Infus'd betwixt a Saxon and a Dane
While their rank daughters, to their parents just,
Receiv'd all nations with promiscuous lust.
This nauseous brood directly did contain
The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.

Note that Defoe compresses the history of 1800 years into 14 lines, enumerating the various peoples who had had some input into the genetic and cultural inheritance of the English. Nowhere does he make reference to Saxon, Danish or Roman ‘communities’ as this would have been (and still is) errant nonsense. All of these strands, drawn from closely related European peoples, had become woven into a single people who saw themselves as a distinct nation: the English. The historical migrations of peoples to the British Isles took place over millennia, and although open to various interpretations, recent studies suggest that the genetic input from elsewhere after the Neolithic period was relatively modest. The closest genetic relatives of the English, particularly those resident in the West of the country, remain the Basques, even though there is nothing in recorded history about any Basque migration. Our ties reach back into deep prehistory (see ‘The Origins of the British’, Stephen Oppenheimer, 2006).

I raise the question of genetics not because I believe that the English are a ‘pure race’, for this is in the same realm of fantasy as the idea that we are ‘a nation of immigrants’, but because it highlights the reality of the current politically motivated desire to erase English identity and English conceptions of nationhood. There is a real continuity, genetic and cultural, between the people who inhabited what we now know as England in prehistory, and those who today know themselves to be the English. However, we English only exist for many in the media and political class when there is call for an imperialist bogey, for somebody to blame for the woes of the world and to pay for them. Then suddenly, we become all too readily identifiable, even though the architects of the imperial design were the ruling stratum who dispossessed our own humble forebears of their rights to common land and an independent existence.

In England, the English constitute a readily identifiable indigenous people, and as such we deserve the right to political self-determination and primacy within our own land. Is it so wrong for us to demand this right in line with indigenous peoples elsewhere? I think not.

Who then, I hear you ask, is English? The answer is straightforward: if you are a UK citizen who lives in England and you have to ask yourself the question “Am I English?” then patently you are not. If the question should pop into your head “Am I Pakistani, or am I English” or “Am I Nigerian, or am I English?” then you are not English, but a resident Pakistani or Nigerian UK passport holder. In such cases you hold the same civil rights as every other citizen, but you are in no respects English, and it is precisely because of this cleft identity, this split loyalty, that you should not have a determining voice in the future of England, for it is not your land to dispose of. Such people have an ethnic homeland as we do, and should not see it as a right to colonise and take ours.

For someone to simply turn up in the UK and to receive citizenship under our current immigration regime does not in any way magically impart to them the quality of being ‘British’, ‘English’, ‘Welsh’, ‘Scottish’ or ‘Irish’. Whereas in bygone centuries those who settled here gradually lost their ties with their lands of origin and were absorbed into the host population and dominant culture through intermarriage, those who have come in recent decades have not done so. Why is this so? The reasons are quite straightforward and are derived from the radically different set of historical conditions that have arisen since the Second World War. These have militated against the absorption of incomers and promoted a heightening of perceived difference as well as its perpetuation, and can be characterised as political, legal, technological, sociological and economic. Importantly, there is also the scale and pace of immigration to consider. This dwarfs anything previously described in the historical record and in itself has thus acted as a barrier to the absorption of incomers.

Political factors militating against absorption into the host society and identification with its culture include: the official promotion of multiculturalism through schooling, employment law, the mainstream media and the university system. These are underpinned by ‘hate’ laws. Ethnopluralism is vigorously promoted as are minority religious beliefs associated with non-indigenous peoples. Anyone opposing the official multiculturalist dogma is stigmatised and barred from taking positions of influence in the state sector.

The word ‘revolution’ is much overused, but its application to communications technology in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is apposite. New modes of transport including intercontinental flights facilitate the mass transit of people from Asia and Africa to the UK, whereas distance and expense would previously have debarred such a movement of people, as would have the many states that lie between our islands and their lands. Telecommunications ensure that once immigrants arrive here they never have to feel that they our out of touch with their country of origin: the telephone and satellite television followed by the internet have allowed diasporas to keep in touch with the mother country without feeling any great psychological need to adapt to the culture of their new home which is itself denigrated and denied by the UK’s political and cultural oligarchy (the same situation can be found across most Western European countries).

Sociologically, immigrants increasingly cleave to their own identities and cultures because of the aforementioned factors. Some groups, such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, constantly replenish and reinforce their ancestral cultures through the importation of ill-educated rural dwellers (usually close relatives) from their homelands via chain migration. Our law allows for so-called ‘family reunion’. I’ve nothing against family reunion, but shouldn’t it be in the family’s land of origin? Looking at the increasing social fragmentation and atomisation of the receiving society, these immigrants tend to feel more comfortable in their own ethno-communal networks and cultural contexts. Although some people from such backgrounds have come to identify with and adopt the host culture, most have not. This is particularly true of those with Muslim identities who tend to define themselves against indigenous British norms and values.

Economics plays a role in the promotion of ethnic fragmentation and mass immigration because immigrant labour can be used by those within our ruling oligarchy (I prefer to use this term rather than ‘elite’, because I do not think that the oligarchy necessarily contains our ‘best’, even if some of them may be amongst our ‘brightest') to make handsome profits by undermining domestic labour rates. In summary, multiculturalism and mass immigration are favoured by those who control the levers of the economy because these mechanisms can net them huge profits. Whereas ordinary indigenous Britons suffer, members of the ruling oligarchy can afford to insulate themselves from the deleterious impact of their policies by living in exclusive residential areas (often rural) and by sending their offspring to private schools where they do not have to mix with the polyglot multifaith multitude that are a significant burden on state schools.

Having outlined the reasons why there are now many UK citizens who have no sense of affiliation with the native peoples of the British Isles, I can however say that there are many people in England (Scotland and Wales too) who can recall that some of their ancestors entered the country from elsewhere such as Poland or Italy, but over the generations have been assimilated through intermarriage and adoption of the native culture. I regard these people as English, certainly more English than someone who can trace their ancestry here back ten generations who has converted to Islam. Those who convert to Islam consciously turn their backs not only upon their nation but also their ethnicity, their culture and Western Civilisation: there never has been and never will be such a creature as a Muslim Englishman or woman. The concepts are antithetical. A non-Muslim individual of Jamaican descent who loves England and English culture is more English than an ethnic English Muslim convert, for the former has chosen to embrace our heritage and identity, whilst the latter has spat upon it. Such an example I take to illustrate the concept of cultural nationalism.

UFOs sighted in the Headlines

Everyone enjoys a good UFO tale, and today has produced a pretty top-notch one in the form of a news conference given by a number of US airmen including Charles Halt, a former USAF Chief Colonel who was once in charge of RAF Bentwaters and was a witness of the famous Rendlesham Forest UFO incident. Many have since claimed that the airmen were spooked by beams from a local lighthouse, others however, Halt included, think that what they saw was something rather less earthly. Halt claims that the unidentified craft landed in the base’s nuclear storage area.

The Daily Telegraph quotes another participant in today’s Washington press conference, Captain Robert Salas, as saying that

The US Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it.

He claims that on 16 March 1967 a UFO deactivated nuclear missiles at the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana:

I was on duty when an object came over and hovered directly over the site.

The missiles shut down - 10 Minuteman missiles. And the same thing happened at another site a week later. There's a strong interest in our missiles by these objects, wherever they come from. I personally think they're not from planet Earth.

Was there some significance to holding the press conference today? Are they plugging a book? Is there some other agenda at play here, or are they telling the truth? I am open-minded (but as Dawkins would say, not so open-minded that my brains fall out), but err on the side of scepticism.

Now, let us for the sake of argument assume that their testimonies are suddenly taken seriously by national governments and media irrespective of their facticity: what implications would such a revelation have? Would it be used as another argument to promote globalism and a transnational architecture of governance? I suspect that the answer would be yes. Would it be a useful means of generating fear globally and thus ushering in an era of greater social and economic control by the nascent global oligarchy? It would seem so.

Leaving aside the usefulness of the acceptance of such a fact, or indeed a fiction, to those who favour the construction of a global government, I suggest that it would also tap into eschatological fantasies of both religious and secular varieties (see this link to a piece entitled 'The Coming Strong Delusion' for an example of such beliefs). The three monotheisms originating in the Middle East all subscribe to the notion of a Day of Judgement and the deliverance of humanity by some supernatural saviour. The global promotion of the acceptance of the reality of advanced extraterrestrial intelligences at work in our world could prompt an outpouring of eschatological hysteria as Jews, Christians and Muslims each await or prepare for the coming of their respective Messiahs and the Mahdi. Perhaps Ahmadinejad would look forward to prostrating himself before the Twelfth Imam in the form of a ‘grey’ from the neighbourhood of Aldebaran before enlisting his help in the battle against Dajjal? Beware their efforts in ‘cleansing’ the world of impure ‘elements’ (i.e. you and me) were any of these to get it into their heads that Judgement Day was at hand. It would have the potential to get rather bloody.

Greens would love to embrace the alien myth as this would underscore their belief in the necessity of creating a harmonious united globe, which would once again play into the hands of the emergent globalist oligarchy. So, much as I do enjoy a good UFO story, I hope that today’s report continues to be regarded as such rather than a reality, for if it is accepted as the latter, prepare yourself for the final onslaught of the real enemies of humanity: the globalists, whether they undertake it alone or with extraterrestrial assistance. Welcome to a world of everlasting helotage!

Below is a Fox News report on the story featuring an interview with one of the witnesses:

Tony Blair: Ravings of a Dark Age Messianic Crackpot

Hat tip to Rugfish over at the Green Arrow blog for drawing attention to the following extract of a Tony Blair lecture. Since he shuffled off his prime ministerial role almost three years ago, Blair has busied himself with a variety of activities, including lecturing at Yale University’s Faith and Globalization Initiative.

Once he had vacated 10 Downing Street, Blair increasingly gave vent to his religious cant, and it is this delusional cant that forms the major ‘substance’ of his course at Yale. In the first of the following extracts, you will hear Blair outline his globalist aspiration to force people of all faiths together, and it is readily apparent, although he does not name it, that Islam forms the focus of his attentions. Blair wishes to force us into embracing the Muslim world, and for all to be absorbed into a globalist new world order and culture in which there is no escape from Islam.

Blair is no theologian. Blair is no philosopher. Blair is no political scientist. Blair is a delusional arch-opportunist; a promoter of globalisation, national and civilisational suicide. He is a man of ‘faith’. He has faith in himself, and it is this sense of ‘faith’, this delusion, that made him so confident that the contents of the Iraq dodgy dossier served as a sufficient pretext for launching our country into war with Iraq. He needs not reason, simply ‘faith’.

Watch his vacuous address, and ask yourself this question: do his expressed sentiments not go a long way to illuminating the years of enforced multiculturalism, mass immigration and subservience to Islam that the UK witnessed following his election in 1997?

In the second extract, he attacks atheism, science and Richard Dawkins, leaving in no doubt that he would prefer to ally himself with the seventh-century Muhammedan mindset than with enlightenment. Blair viciously equates atheistical rationalism with the barbarism of Islamic fundamentalism. Blair may have left office, but his continuing malign influence means that he remains an extremely dangerous man.