Tony Blair on 'Innocence of Muslims'

Tony Blair appeared on this morning's Today Programme on Radio 4 to speak about the violent reaction of many Muslims to the film 'Innocence of Muslims'. For once, he appeared to be genuinely discomfited: voice croaky and quavering and stumbling for words. He struggled to find a politically correct way of explaining the situation, yet reluctantly had to concede that the violence had something to do with Islam, although he termed it "a wrongheaded view of religion". However, on a more encouraging note, although rubbishing the film for its poor production values and content, he did not call for its censorship or wider restrictions on free speech, which is something that the OIC will surely press for afresh following this outbreak of violence amongst Muslims across the world.

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. 

Islam, Islam über alles, über alles in der Welt

The ‘religion of peace’ strikes again, this time in the form of a 21-year-old Kosovan gunman who has killed two US airmen and wounded two other people at Frankfurt Airport. He has been named as Arif Uka, and although his motive is said to be unclear, I think that we can hazard a pretty good guess as to what it was given that he is said to have shouted 'Allahu-akbar!' as he murdered his victims.

The Frankfurt Airport shooting will doubtless be subject to much speculation and scrutiny, but as in the case of Nidal Malik Hasan, who shot dead 13 people and attempted to kill another 32 at the Fort Hood US military base on 5 November 2009, there will be a concerted effort to find that this attack had ‘nothing to do with Islam’. I think however, that members of the public with an IQ higher than their age will be able to divine that there is a strong common denominator in the wave of attacks of various types directed at Western and non-Muslim targets in Europe, North America and indeed across the globe. Witness today’s assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, a Catholic Pakistani government minister. Islamic ideology is a potent poison indeed, but can be readily combated through a dose of a readily available yet oft-ignored antidote: the truth.

On New Year’s Eve last year, another Kosovan by the name of Ibrahim Shkupolli (no points for guessing his religion) went berserk and shot his ex-girlfriend, before killing four workers in a shopping centre in the Finnish town of Espoo. He then blew his brains out. Why are these Kosovans allowed into our societies? What do they bring us, other than problems?

‘Thanks’ to Tony Blair, the UK and other NATO nations waged an unprovoked war of aggression against Serbia in 1999, leading to its dismemberment and the creation of the disputed microstate of Kosovo. He, and those who supported that war, should have realised by now that intervening anywhere in favour of Muslim populations will not earn you any gratitude. The UK should have had no part in the Balkan conflict, just as it should have no part in any military intervention in Libya or elsewhere in the Arab world in the future.

Cameron’s suggestion to send planes to enforce no-fly zones over Libya, and his refusal to rule out the despatch of ground troops to that country fills me with dread. How much more blood and treasure must we lose in a quixotic attempt to enforce a doctrine of respect for ‘human rights’ in countries where the bulk of the populace do not subscribe to such a notion? Why should we be involved? This conflict has nothing to do with us. Our forces should be used to secure our borders and protect shipping on the high seas. Leave other countries to their own troubles, for we cannot sort them out for them.

Has Tony Blair woken up to the reality of the threat from ‘radical’ Islam?

In an interview with the BBC Blair said of ‘radical Islam’:

"There is the most enormous threat from the combination of this radical extreme movement and the fact that, if they could, they would use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

"You can't take a risk with that happening."

Mr Blair said he agonised over how to respond to radical Islam and still had doubts that he was right.

These are really difficult issues, he said, but added: "This extremism is so deep that in the end they have to know that they're facing a stronger will than theirs."

So, Tony Blair has revealed that he sees ‘radical Islam’ as the ‘world’s greatest threat’. In ideological and practical security terms, I think that he is correct, but only half so. Only half so because he fails to own up to the fact that ‘radical Islam’ is nothing more than applied Islam. It seems to me that this failure in his understanding is linked to his own personal ‘faith’ position and his unwillingness, shared by millions, to either acknowledge or accept that Islam is in many respects very different to other religions: dangerously different.

Blair has for many years, particularly since he resigned his position of Prime Minister, been open about his profession of Christian faith. Whatever your personal thoughts on Blair as a man and a politician, I think that his longstanding Christianity and conversion to Catholicism are sincere. It is indeed from his personal adherence to Christianity and its doctrines of the power of forgiveness, turning the other cheek and standing up for the underdog, that many of his problems in comprehending Islam flow. For him, he mistakes what Islam ought to be for what it is, i.e. he thinks that like Christianity it should be intensely pluralistic, flexible and accommodating to changing social mores, whereas it is not.

Like most Christians (indeed followers of any religion or secular political dogma) Blair cherry-picks the elements of Christianity and Catholicism that he finds palatable whilst ignoring others, and thus for example supports contraception despite papal opposition to this practice and the doctrine of papal infallibility. In this case, Blair thinks he knows (as indeed he does) better than the Pope. Doctrinaire Muslims do not behave in such a way. For them, all they think they need to know about how to lead a moral life is contained in the Qur’an. The majority also accept the legitimacy of the Sunnah and the hadith, although not unsurprisingly there are slightly different takes upon the legitimacy and application of their various aspects. In essence however, all doctrinaire Muslims are unified in their belief of the veracity and universal applicability of the qur’anic message.

Blair’s failure to develop a logical and adequate strategy of containing and dealing with ‘radical’ Islam thus arose from his confused apprehension of Islamic ideology. Whilst being at the vanguard of military efforts to ‘defeat’ this menace in Afghanistan and allegedly in Iraq, Blair simultaneously encouraged and protected Islam in the United Kingdom through the promotion of multiculturalism and an open borders mass immigration policy. Under the aegis of multiculturalism the population of the UK was subjected to draconian ‘hate’ laws such as the 2006 ‘Racial and Religious Hatred Act’ which were consciously formulated to protect and privilege Islam; ‘faith’ schools were encouraged, entrenching pre-existing segregation by providing state funding for Muslim institutions where pupils wasted (and still do waste) time on memorising the Qur’an and absorbing its anti-scientific and anti-rational dogma; the national curriculum required the brainwashing of non-Muslim children into believing that Islam is a ‘religion of peace’, thus leaving them vulnerable to Muslim predation and proselytisation.

Due predominantly to the deliberate engineering of mass immigration to the UK, the Muslim population under Blair swelled rapidly, rising from an official 1.6 million in 2001 to 2.4 million by early 2009. So-called ‘refugees’ from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq also swelled this expansion. At the same time as he removed pressures from Muslim immigrants and the established Muslim population to integrate into the life of the host population through assimilation, he buttressed its sense of separation through privileging and incentivising Muslim identities, doling out state funding to specifically Muslim projects and so-called ‘community leaders’.

As they expanded, the established Muslim enclaves in Britain’s cities and towns grew increasingly separate, their sense of exclusivity bolstered by the ongoing revolution in telecommunications presaged by satellite television and reaching its apotheosis in the spread of domestic internet access. Coupled with increasingly cheap transcontinental flights and ongoing large-scale chain migration, these factors ensured that the Muslim population in the UK increasingly alienated itself from the host population and sensed a growing sense of solidarity with a transnational ummah rather than with fellow non-Muslim citizens.

To this combustible mix of legal, political, demographic, sociological and technological factors working in favour of Islamisation in the UK, Blair then added two wars against Muslim majority states. Unsurprisingly, the state-sponsored fifth-column – UK passport holders belonging to the Ummah – responded negatively to these wars. That they hated non-Muslims beforehand and saw themselves as superior to non-Muslim Britons was beyond dispute, but Blair not only did not recognise this, but seemingly chose to goad them with his foreign policy. Although a case could be made for some form of military action against Afghanistan upon the grounds of combating Islamism, none could be in the case of Iraq. Admittedly, having looked at the relevant UN resolutions I am of the opinion that the Iraq War that began in 2003 was technically legal, but whether or not it was the right thing to do is a matter for debate. Personally, I do not think that it was wise to become involved in that particular conflict, for it had nothing to do with fighting Islamism. If we had wished to do the latter, it would have made far more sense to attack Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

Whilst being cognisant of the Islamist threat emanating from Afghanistan, Blair remained unwilling to acknowledge its deep roots within the UK’s hostile fifth-column. His domestic policies, as those of his successors, served only to further entrench and nurture doctrinaire Islam in the UK. It is doctrinaire Islam that must be dealt with, and we can only deal with it effectively if we abandon multiculturalism and implement the following measures in the UK: make Muslim faith schools illegal; repeal all ‘hate’ legislation relating to religion; ban the proselytisation of Islam as being inimical to the public good; ban Muslim charities; ban all further Muslim immigration, including the ‘right to family reunion’; ban the further construction of mosques and madrassahs; withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights; purge the curriculum of dhimmitude and encourage apostasy within the resident Muslim population. This package of measures will be popular and just.

Instead, Blair continues to adhere to a schizoid path that will bring unnecessary bloodshed to our country. A radical change in domestic policy would be more productive in combating Islamism than military intervention overseas. Only once we have secured our own territory can we hope to extend moral assistance to those seeking to rid themselves of Islamism.

Like most rational people, I would not be happy if the incumbent Iranian regime acquired nuclear weapons, but more to the point, the Pakistanis already have them. Pakistan is an existing threat, yet this is not clearly articulated in our mass media or by our political elite because of the large Pakistani presence within our shores. If any military action were to be employed against Iran, it would need to be of a very precise and measured type. The Iranian people should not suffer because of the folly of the incumbent regime. Given time, pressure will further build for reform in Iran, but if we were to launch an indiscriminate attack upon the country it would gravely undermine the position of reformist voices. We must not fall into this trap.

Although it is encouraging to see Blair describing Islamist ideology as “regressive, wicked and backward-looking” he needs to wake up to the fact that ‘radical’ Islam is nothing more than applied Islam. Once Blair and others like him have finally recognised what Islam is, then we will be able to get down to the business of dealing with this problem effectively and decisively. Ultimately, the resolution of this problem must be ideological, but for us to triumph our people must possess the necessary resolve, and this can only be acquired if we ditch the misguided political dogma of multiculturalism. This is something to which Blair remains deeply committed. He means well, but as the old proverb goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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.