CoffeeHousers' Wall 2 November - 8 November 

Trafalgar

In the spirit of British fair play, I was thinking this weekend about some of the things that Gordon has called correctly. Here’s my top 10. It was hard work to find that many – but he has been around long enough.

My only rule was that Brown must have directly influenced the decision – either as chancellor or as PM.

1. Independence for the Bank of England

His first act in a position of power which, alongside him sticking to the previous government’s spending plans in the first term, established an early reputation for economic competence ensuring the stability of the financial markets post-election. Handing control to an independent Bank led to a long-overdue separation of political influence from the setting of monetary policy.

2. Keeping Britain out of the Euro

Brown was right to stand up to Blair on this. We’d be in an even worse state if we were tied to the ECB rate with little room for manoeuvre. This also signals Brown’s relative Euro-scepticism compared to the rest of his party.

3. Bank Bailout

Adopting the Swedish model of a cash-for-equity swap may well mean that the government gets most of its money back in the long-run. This was certainly a better plan than Hank Paulsen’s idea in the US to absorb distressed debt.

4. Nuclear

Top marks for committing Britain to the world’s first new generation of nuclear reactors, outside France, in decades. Just wish he hadn’t taken so long to make his mind up.

5. Teaching Assistants/Class Sizes

Primary school education has improved over the last decade. Legislating for a cap on class sizes of 30 and introducing teaching assistants to ease the load on teachers has had real benefits in the classroom, and has improved discipline and morale.

6. Lower Business Taxes

The UK continues to have the lowest corporation tax rate (28%) in the G7. G7 average: 36%. I’m also a fan of his R&D tax credits which my own firm has used to recoup a lot of development expense.

7. 3G Licences Sale

Brown picked up a cool £22.5billion on sales of 3G licences to the telecommunications sector back in 2001. This looks a very good deal now that 3G didn’t take off in the way the phone companies thought at the time.

8. Gambling

There are better ways of encouraging investment in deprived areas than landing a supercasino in the middle and tempting the poorer in society to throw their money way. I was glad to see Gordon can one of Blair’s crazier schemes in one of his first decisions as PM.

9. Minimum Wage

No one should have to work in a developed country for less than £6 an hour. This should also act as a deterrent to cheap labour through immigration.

10. Heathrow 3rd Runway

Heathrow is an embarrassment and needs investment. At least Brown has stood up to the climate change agenda and given the green light for BAA and other equity partners to invest in what is one of Britain’s key national assets.

MorrisOx

Well-batted Trafalgar, and scrupulously fair cricket.
However, I would challenge you and everyone else to name a single area of life where Labour has a) not interfered at a personal and private level, and b) not managed to make frontline services faceless, distant and unwilling to accept responsibility.

Steve T

Disagree on minimum wage. Nobody "has to" work for less than six pounds an hour, they just dont take the job. Six pounds an hour prices anybody who is not worth that much out of a job forever. Its an arbitrary nonsense figure that holds meaning only because you believe it to.

John Duckham

Good list Trafalgar. Very decent of you to give the man some credit. Not many do these days.

Kevyn Bodman

A techie/admin matter:
more and more often when I am on the front page of Coffee House and look at the number of comments on a post I find, on opening the full post, that there are more comments than advertised.

I am starting to find this irritating.
Accuracy,please.

T .England

I need a rant!
I am sick to death of certain so called experts talking about skunk weed like they know all about it when obviously they don't!
This morning there was a so called expert on the radio talking about the strength of skunk weed & she said that the average strength of skunk was 14% THC, what! Doesn't sound like an expert to me!
The HIGHEST skunk THC is around 14% the average is more like 6/7% & can go as low as 3% THC but she didn't mention that because it obviously doesn't suit her agenda!

One way to look at it is that, if you was an alcohol drinker but all you could lay your hands on was special brew, even knowing it could send you mad if you drunk too much, you'd still drink it right?
That's simmilar to weed, if you only smoke the strongest skunk because that's all you can get hold of then, like drinking special brew, harm can happen.

Some of those experts just love showing themselves to be nothing of the kind!

MorrisOx

On second thoughts, Trafalgar, there is clear danger of 'What have the Romans ever done for us?' in this thread...

Kevyn Bodman

Thank you Trafalgar,some interesting points.

no.2,re. the Euro.
I don't think there's much value in being relatively Eurosceptic compared to the rest if he is still pro-EU.
But then I'd withdraw completely from the EU.

no 3, the bank bailout.
Better to have let them fail.
It would have been painful, but we'd be stronger quicker, and for longer,if failing businesses go out of business and successful businesses are allowed to thrive.

Neverheless, thanks for your thoughful post.

Tiberius

An oversight I'm sure, Trafalgar, but you haven't mentioned his colossal achievements on immigration policy.

If your points are sincere, I have to say I don't think you know what Brown's driving forces are.

Sean Haffey

It remains appalling that many British citizens who live overseas /www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5496273/coffeehousers-wall-2-november-8-november.thtml#comments">get only a part-pension. Successive Labour and Tory governments have treated these people with contempt, safe in the knowledge that they cannot vote.

This is vile.

Paul B

Michael O`Leary, (boss of Ryanair) love him or hate him, there is no ignoring him. Hes an abrasive little bugger, but by jove he delivers. Some of his tactics and his pricing issues may leave a little to be desired, but he runs a very successful airline, that delivers cheap fares to it customers, jobs for many thousands of people, taxes for Governments, rather than subsidies and dividends for shareholders. The man is a business giant of our time.

EC

Formula 1. Will there be a leaving do for the outgoing President of the FIA, and will they be holding a whip round?

Anne Wotana Kaye

Anne Wotana Kaye
November 2nd, 2009 10:33am

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Mike F.
Alas, the Thought Police who run this country with the aid of their mouthpiece the BBC drive sane people almost to madness. When they are not demanding that heroes like Bomber Harris should have been brought to trial as a war criminal, they are wailing about the havoc caused to cities bombed by the British airforce. Not many tears are wasted on Londoners, citizens of Coventry or any other British victims of World War II. Now, things are even more topsty-turvy. The Anti-Fascist Union is attacking those who do not want Sharia Law in all its terrible, primitive aspects to take control in this small island. Fanatics have taken up residence in our country and are pushing for the oppression of women, forcing UK born females to wear the burka, and the abolishment of all that they do not approve of. To any sane person, this is the true face of fascism, the forcing of a way of life and ethos on the unwilling. The Anti-Fascist Union is fighting alongside these Islamists to prevent English people protesting. The AFU would not protest at islamists demanding death to all Christians and Jews, as well as other creeds, accusing them of being infidals, nor would they protect the rights of churches being entitled to have singing and the ringing of bells. This is unfortunately a country that has seriously lost its way. We should all be very, very careful.

Yam Yam

Here's guys. To lighten the mood a little, if you fancy a good laugh try this...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/02/climate-change-feminist-issue

In2minds

Trafalgar writes about - “things that Gordon has called correctly”.

As I understand it independence for the Bank of England was a requirement of the Maastricht Treaty. So really Brown was only doing what he was told, I don't think this is the same as calling it correctly.

It's funny really as the three footed monster, the BoE, FSA and Treasury, went on to make such a hash of the UK's finances. And we now find it being kicked around by Neelie Kroes!

Vulture

I see that Postman Pat, fresh from his triumphant sacking of the Nutty Professor has sounded off abt immigration in a speech.

He has admitted that Liebour 'made mistakes' in allowing areas to become swamped by non-English speaking migrants, causing a 'strain' on 'jobs and services'.

It seems that PP was not in on the inner Liebour loop that decided to open the gates on immigration as a matter of deliberate policy to obliterate England and 'rub the noses of the Right' in diversity' (c.) Andrew Neather.

Its a bit late to regret this now, pat, as your betrayed voters trickle off to the BNP.
Your toast, mate. Better get back to the delivery round...oh, dear, it seems they have abolished Postmen too! Tough luck, Pat.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Uber Leader Bruin has congratulated Karzai on being elected. That's something Karzai could never reciprocate. Bruin, alas, has never be elected fraudenly or otherwise.

Archie

I realise that Melanie beat her to it, but Minette Marrin over at the Times has stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest with those not sufficiently au fait to study these august pages. Here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article6898174.ece

Dixon

I disapprove of this heading "The Wall". It condones graffiti.

Speaking of which, my local council used to spend large sums of money removing graffiti by, among others, so called "Banksy".

Now that "Banksy" is a "celebrity" he is some kind of local hero. Not only did the local council reverse their policy towards hi...although still hunting other graffitists and hauling them off tp court...they actually paid him a fee to exhibit in the city museum this summer. According to the local paper ( the Bristol Evening Post ) he was paid a whopping million in cash! Not only that, but this same council which has invested massively in CCTV depolyed on poles every fifty yards or so throughout the town centre actually signed a binding agreement to destroy any camera images from which this "Banksy" might be identified.

But the height of this idiocy was only reached last week. A certain famous "Banksy" graffiti showing an adulterer hanging out of a window while the irate huspand scans the horizon, painted on the end wall of a building in Frogmore St, had been shot up by someone with paint-balls. Not happy with paying the "celebrity" graffitist "Banksy" a million quid for climbing all over us on his ladder to success and extending immunity to him for his crimes along the way( criminal damage, to a tune of hundreds of thousands )... they actually paid a contractor to CLEAN and "restore" this defaced graffiti!

What astonished me is that none of this, even the fact that whole streets were closed to facilitate the "Banksy" exhibition ( with its forty-five minute, several hundred person ques ) was given any attention in the national media. Its almost as though this town council had found a way of going "big time" with their malfiescence yet simulataneously "keeping it quiet" beyond the city boundaries.

I think it warrants scrutiny. I would love Niall Connelly to give it his attention.

logdon

Gordon Brown Oct 20 2009

"It is vital that the new Afghan government has legitimacy in the eyes of its people. I have consistently said that the election must be allowed to run its course and that all concerned should respect the process....Our strategy depends on a strong Afghan government showing the leadership required to gain the trust of its people. This election is the opportunity for them to choose that leadership."

Private Eye No 1248. 30 Oct - 12 Nov-2009

November 2 20009
Opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah pulls out of election. Elections abandoned by Hamid Kazai. Gordon Brown telephones Karzai to congratulate him.

And he wonders why people ask about pill taking?

Barbara

Well I've just learnt the truth from Cameron, he won't give us a vote on the Lisbon Treaty, at least he's had the guts to speak after sitting on the fence for a while. I feel let down, after 12 years of this government he gave us some hope, well now it's diminished. We have Labour admitting they got 'it wrong on immigration' oh dear, very honest, Straw wouldn't agree I bet, forced upon us without a by you or leave. So, what now? We the people are the only ones to defend ourselves and this country, for we've no politicans who we can trust, well they do like to steal from us and hate being found out. Justice, has gone from our land, freedom has almost gone, democracy is about to go, and freedom of speech is a dangerous game, for the gestopo police come knocking according to Ann Widecombe, sensible women she is? Where do we go from here has a nation, any ideas anyone? No I refuse to give up so easily, so I'll fight on, and my vote will be most important this time, but it's an easy question to answer, not any of the main three, one of the new parties have mine, one that will let this country escape from the MONSTER over the water, and get our country back into it's rightful owners.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Barbara: I found your blog interesting and frighteningly accurate. One point, however, if you will excuse my dimness. Who or what is the MONSTER over the water? We have many monsters here, but which specific one 'over the water' do you mean? Please reply.

Not for Prophet

Yes, Barbara. Who or what is the monster across the water?

John Duckham

Barbara;

My guess is you mean the EU? Otherwise your post is panicky and cataclysmic. Where is the calm British confidence? You are being frightened by shadows. Gestapo? What, Plod?

Victor Southern

I hope that Cameron withdraws the party whip from the awful Wilshire who claims that in being required to repay some of his ill-gotten gains he is being treated like the Jews in Auschwitz.

Just imagine that there were voters who voted for this man. And that shows we must have open primaries and not candidates who are foisted upon a constituency or who "inherit" a safe seat. Rotten boroughs bring us rotten MPs.

Verity

I totally agree with open primaries. The American way is best. Let the people of all the parties decide who they want to represent them in Parliament and then lobby for them. Selection by parties, after gruesome Tony Blair and David Cameron’s selections, has been blown out the window. Let’s have true democracy – ironic, just as our ancient and hard-earned with blood and bravery democracy is being yoked, as though we were cattle, by the EUSSR – as long as we are allowed. Primaries. I say this partly because this is something the Americans understand and may come to the aid of. Although why we would hope the Americans to come to the aid of something we didn’t bother to defend ourselves rather begs the question.

Anne Wotana Kaye

It's a funny old world. The desperate parents who don't want their children to finish up in sink-schools are berated by the government for resorting to lying to get the children into good schools. What are they actually doing? Giving the addresses of parents and friends as their own places of residence. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Jackie Jackboots used her sister's address, et al. However, in the cases of the politicians it was pure greed, to obtain even more public funds. These parents, are mostly decent people trying to give their children a headstart in a corrupt society.

Wilhelm

Went onto the BNP website last night to find out what all the fuss is about. Fraser Nelson, Alex Masie constant yapping about how wicked, blah, blah, blah the BNP was, made me curious to find out more about the BNP.

The website is very, very interesting, there's lots and lots of stuff about the imigration industry multiculturism racket and by God it is a racket.

They took a camcorder and filmed Wembley high street for 7 minutes, it looked like across between downtown Mecca and Soweto. I only saw one caucasion and he was a policeman. You'll see the video clip. God, it was very demoralisng.

Its because liebour, tories, liberals have been criminal in their responsiblities over the tsunami of folk flooding in, that people
have turned to the BNP.

Its a sad thing to say but the party is well and truly over for England.

Have you noticed when English people go abroad they are more patriotic and right wing ? like those in Australia, New Zealand, Falkland islands.

As Bill O'Reilly said ''the Europeans and that includes the English are just a bunch of socialist appeasing cowards.''

England wasnt like that 500 years, every country has a shelf life, look at the Greeks 2000 years ago and now they are just a bunch of kebab shop owners.

Its all very depressing, isnt it ?

EC

AWK, A very good point. Yet another example of the disconnection between the rulers and the ruled. Do you expect that this will improve under the next demographically selected government? I don't.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Wilhelm:
You say Britain wasn't like this five hundred years ago. Wrong! It damn well wasn't like it fifty years ago.

Vulture

Wilhelm: As we approach November 11th your post set me thinking. I think the rot set in with your namesake in WW1 - the cream of the country dying in Flanders Fields. WW2 put the tin lid on it, after which we relapsed into Liebour Welfare dependency which has gradually rotted the nation's soul (Not to mention its ability to make and sell anything). Stir into the mix a criminally lax penal policy which has ended by criminalising citizens and helping criminals; an equally criminally lax immigration policy which has turned our nation into a Third World dustbin; and a decay in the morality of the ruling class which has made Westminster into a pigsty and you have our current state.
YOu are right It IS depressing. England had a good run - but its well and truly over.
The EU are welcome to chew over its stinking corpse.

Verity

It's the fault of the British. They allowed themselves to be cowed by an over-ambitious turd named Tony Blair into fearing to mention their objections to having their country over run with backward Pakistani and African adherents of a primitive belief system, because they would be arrested for being "racist".

Look at what they're arresting people for now in England. A British couple who own a little hotel had what they thought was a relaxed, friendly discussion on religion with a Muslim couple and the Muslim couple complained to the behemoth race relations industry and the Christian hotel owners were arrested.

All of this has been done deliberately and with inhuman malice.

Greg Dimple

Mary Shelley got the story all wrong. Victor Frankenstein didn't go to the Univerity of Ingolstadt, he went to Frankfurt. Then he came to Britain and founded the Labour party.

Anne Wotana Kaye

EC. Good evening. I am very pessimistic about any improvements if one of the three major parties win a General Election. My feelings about Nu Labour, are I think obvious - just disgust and distain. The Lib Dems are a load of hypocritical wimps, whereas the Tories, under Cameron, are not worthy of the name. Cameron I fear is another Blair, the only difference being he appears to have a charming wife, unlike the harridan, Cherie, who only spurred Blair on. I am very fearful that as unemployment increases, and more people become reliant and then dependant on benefits (rather like drugs), that the monstrous Brown will emerge once again to haunt us.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Tonight's heading inn The Evening Standard states "Brown: I'll get tough on drugs". Does he mean he will take drugs so that he has some bottle?

Beer Moth

Should it matter that there were 70,000 AK 47s imported to the UK
last year, and nobody knows their whereabouts?

Alexandrovich

From the header:
"If you want us to write on anything in particular - add a comment to the Wall."
Is that a promise?

Beer Moth

And another thing: why is it that all of a sudden, there seem to be young men walking along the busy streets, with at least one hand rammed down the front of their tracksuit leggings?

Often they are accompanied by young ladies who appear not to have noticed that they are in conversation with someone who is furtively massaging his testicles.

Verity

AW Kaye - Brown, drugs. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Alexandrovich

Beer Moth: it's an ill wind, at least they're not shoving their rapping fingers in your face.

2trueblue

Morrisox. Great retort.

Brown and Labour have stiffled aspiration throughout our country.

1 Deprived us of our EU referendum

2 Made people dependant on the state

3 Created a massive debt as his parting
legacy.

4 Made no provision to keep the lights on
(Nuclear decision too little too late)

5 Presided over the most corrupt parliment we know of

6 Open door immigration

7 Destroyed our pensions

8 Let Blair give back our EU rebate

9 Broke England into 9 regions and gave gave us 9 unelected and unwanted regional assemblies (we no longer appear on maps as England)

10 Didn't call an election early enough for me!

egh

Beer Moth @ 9.06 p.m: Really? No Joke?
.....

John Duckham

Vulture
November 3rd, 2009 12:15pm

It is time to get rid of the first second and third world categorisations I reckon. Originally the first world was the capitalist west; the second world the USSR and its satellites and the third world the non-aligned states. The third world then arguably had places like Sweden and Switzerland in it because they were non-aligned with anywhere. In any case now all sorts of countries have made all sorts of treaties with each other into great trading and political partnerships from the SCO, ASEAN to the NAFTA, NATO and EU blocks. Now how you judge a country's wealth and the well-being of its citizenry is even more unclear but Britain is certainly slipping fast down the scale of all things with poor infrastucture and a reducing manufacturing base and a bankrupted services sector, which is 75% of the GDP. 30% of the work force in Britain (9 million people) is relying on the government for support either in JSA because they are unemployed (3 million) or Working Tax Credit (6 million) because they are uneconomically employed and unable to support themselves without extra salary, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (also paid to those on JSA).

It is not just the last government that is to blame nor the administrations immediately before but the whole lot since 1945 who have followed successively idiotic policies that have always been framed at odds with our more successful European competitors. That people are now considering disconnection from the EU is another sign of this determination to national suicide, and never mind the third world they will need a special categorisation to describe being British and destitute while all around are rich and successful. Bloody idiots might work for some I suppose.

EC

Beer Moth @10:05

Maybe the tracksuit leggings conceal one of those AK47s and they're just trying to keep it warm ...

Anne Wotana Kaye

BEER MOTH: And another thing: why is it that all of a sudden, there seem to be young men walking along the busy streets, with at least one hand rammed down the front of their tracksuit leggings?
============================================

They are guarding their weapons! :=)

Joan

Do any of you remember Barack Obama? The man so worshipped by so many on this magazine?

Time for a precis of what our hero has been up to:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/simonheffer/6496501/Its-Barack-Obamas-first-anniversary---but-theres-precious-little-to-celebrate.html

Do you also remember this magazine's front page interview with Dick Cheney when the interviewer sneered at his theory of supercycles in politics?

ie: Don't abandon the issues because one day the public will twig and remember your steadfastness to them?

And do we all remember the Conservative Party doing a Gordon Brown gold reserve-manoeuvre and selling all its best policy assets at their lowest price? And that politically now they can't afford to 'buy' them back?

Never mind, as long as this lot get lots of exclusives from Dave in office, they won't give a damn about that.

At the rate we are going, the Republicans could land a real heavyweight in the White House in 2012. Mr Cheney, perhaps?

Happy first anniversary to Mr Obama and his friends at The Spectator. And let's hope the way their support for Mr Obama has backfired doesn't happen again with their support for Dave.

It would be terrible if they didn't look as if they knew what they were talking about.

Anne Wotana Kaye

PMQ today has Brown stating, amongst other rubbish, that he wants to ensure that Afghanistan is prosperous. This is one of the things he want before he withdraws British armed forces. Perhaps his friend, Karsai (Karzi) should come here and ensure our prosperity, rather like a student exchange.

Peter

2trueblue - That's it - summarised to perfection. So how can anyone in their right mind even consider voting Labour?

Rex Burr

I recently answered a question in a Comsumers Association survey about the proposal by some local authorities to give shopping vouchers to those who present the heaviest recycling bins.
It was a rant, so I might as well post it here. I said;
People who are able to put more in their recycling bin are the same people who consume the most. Therefore the scheme becomes a reward for conspicuous consumption. As a pensioner I do not consume much and therefore do not produce much for recycling but some of my council tax would be going to wealthy, high consumers. Where is the justice in that?
Also the scheme removes all incentive for either retailers or shoppers to reduce the amount of packaging. Council cash goes to those who buy the most packaging and it comes back as vouchers to the retailers who sell the most packaging.
It's just another government scheme that has not been thought through.
There I feel better for that.

A. MacAulay

Strange thing about the AK 47's flooding everywhere. Here in Germany, after the fall of the wall and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, Bosnian war, it was widely reported that thousand of weapons were making their way into the hands of criminals, crypto-fascists, schoolchildren, etc. etc. If this were true then not only where are they, but why aren't there hold-ups, hi-jacks, garden fence shootouts every day? It just doesn't seem to happen. There may be a certain compensatory satisfaction in having such a gun beneath your pillow, but common sense tells us, that sooner or later, some nut is going to, even by accident, start shooting.

My conclusion is that the AK's are a canard like dying forests, global warming/change, BSE, etc. etc. which cause worry and anxiety, with the main profiteers being the watching, waiting to save us from ourselves, Big Brother State.

Beer Moth

A. MacAulay

No urban myth this one. Imported and tested in South Yorkshire. May have been subsequently sent overseas yes, but there is no evidence of export.

I wouldn't deduce too much from the fact that they have not been put to use in criminal activities. For that kind of thing, you are dealing in very small numbers. At this level we are talking about a much bigger prize than the bookies on the corner. 'Some nut' is kept well away from stashes like this.

Anne Wotana Kaye

There is a branch of a retail business, in Wigan, called Bodycare. Seems they have banned their staff from wearing poppies in the store. Life appears to be becoming ever closer to a surrealistic nightmare.

A. MacAulay

OK Beer Moth, are you suggesting that a Fronde is being prepared in South Yorkshire? I'm sceptical by nature and from experience and if a secret uprising is open to the non-sympathisers of a mag like this, how much more likely that it is being observed by the Special Branch? Also the use and maintenance of firearms has to be learned. Even if townies think the countryside is uninhabited, groups of strangers firing automatic small arms will get noticed, not least by the local poachers. Sorry, it seems too unlikely. But of course, if you are right then it is a horror scenario.

EC

Beer Moth: "No urban myth this one. Imported and tested in South Yorkshire. May have been subsequently sent overseas yes, but there is no evidence of export."

I wouldn't be too sure of that! I don't know if you were around at the time but in 1976 Thurgoland declared UDI. It seems a long time ago now. It was a short lived rebellion that was brutally extinguished. The patched up bullet holes are still visible on the outside of the Green Dragon.

The struggle to establish The Peoples Republic of South Yorkshire never died! Next time the putsch will come from Barnsley, which has been reinvented as a Tuscan Hill Town and City State.

"Sheffield is already a part of Barnsley."
A. Scillgar.

e&oe

A. MacAulay

And if they fire off their AK's and also massage their testicles, then this is definitely and conspicuously non U.

Peter From Maidstone

Does anyone here read STANDPOINT magazine. I was in WH Smith today and in Maidstone they don't sell The Spectator, so I bought Standpoint to read while I was having a coffee. It's been very interesting. Like The Spectator, not always what I agree with, but so far the articles are not annoying like many of The Spectator ones are appearing to be each week. Does anyone know what the Social Affairs Unit that produces it is all about?

Alexandrovich

Beer Moth!! Thanks a bunch... you've just gone and blown our cover! We got to the West end of the Embankment, turned right and were confronted by 500 of the Met's finest.
I thought you were with us.

Frank P

PfM

The Social Affairs Unit has its own blog, been going for years:

http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/

Theodore Dalrymple (aka Anthony Daniels) erstwhile columnist for the Speccy writes a lot there he is one of my heroes.

Good blog - a generally more serious tone than CH. Recommend it.

egh

EC: Yes, they've made a right mess of dear old Barnsley!

I don't understand the foreign word in your post - I prefer Yorkshire, plain English, and Old English. However, I have faith the strength of character, common sense, and brainpower that've been nurtured in that area for 1500 years or more: so there is hope yet.

BOO

Alexandrovich - never mind. Just put it down to experience and use it as grist to the mill.

EC

Fraser Nelson, November 1st, 2009 4:31pm
okay, I will blog on neather if you really want me to. And explain why I am not that excited about it all.

Did he? Did I miss something?

Ken

"A former communist running the intelligence oversight committee and now advocating authoritarian policies that attack the very essence of our free society ... there he is, large as life, blathering with the self-importance of one who has seen the light and must save us all."
-Henry Porter at CIF.
Porter's worth a read on Labour's obscene crusade against fundamental freedoms and rights. Particularly trenchant on Howells.
http://tinyurl.com/yfkprn5

EC

Frank P,

Are you contemplating getting a train down from the neather regions to attend the "The Spectator Editors' Dinner" on Wednesday 18th? The trifling ticket price of £171.35(inc VAT) is a snip when one considers the prospect of obtaining a perch next to Emily Maitlis for the evening. There again, you could get sat down next to the man himself or, if you're really lucky, next to THX1138 who is almost certain to have bought a ticket.

Apropos of the above and some of your recent general comments, I thought you might be amused by the unintended double entendre in this extract from an old Stephen Glover piece.

"Neil makes sure The Spectator keeps firmly to the party line"
Stephen Glover, The Independent, Monday, 20 October 2008

"The Sir Toby Belch determined to transform The Spectator from a magazine into a party organisation is Andrew Neil. In 180 years, no man has done so much in so short a time to change the culture of the magazine.

THX1138

EC

I have bought a brace of tickets, and yes I was hoping for a seat next to the fragrant Mandarin speaking Ms Maitlis. But unfortunately since Liddle's outburst in The Guardian reminding people that one look at the Countryside Alliance throwbacks was a good enough reason to vote Labour. And the subsequent banning of Beeb journalist writing for other organs in the MSM, The Eye is reporting that The Spectator is flying a bit close to the wind calling posh totty Emily Maitlis an editor.

Well guys, is she a Spectator editor or not? I think we should be told. And if she isn't can I have my money back?

Derek

Peter from Maidstone Yes, I subscribed to Standpoint with the October edition while frustrated with the failure to deliver my Spectator subscription since the issue of 1st August. Daniel Johnson, the editor, is the son of Paul Johnson who for so long graced the pages of the Spectator until he was so meanly and untimely manoeuvred off earlier this year. It is a good-looking publication with articles of style and interest - what a pity it;s a monthly, not a weekly! Btw, in three days' time it will be exactly three months since the Spectator last managed to deliver my subscription... THREE MONTHS!!

Kevyn Bodman

No thread about Hannan's reaction?

Verity

From the computer of Fraser Nelson: "okay, I will blog on neather if you really want me to. And explain why I am not that excited about it all."

As did Michael Jackson, Fraser inhabits the world of Never Neatherland.

Derek

No thread yet on the Francop and the Visea?

Beer Moth

Hurrah for the return of "Spooks" to the telly.

In a world beset on so many fronts by rampant jihad, and with international intelligence agencies beside themselves trying to keep a lid on untold simmering murderous plots thereof; the BBC offers us a drama in which the desperate struggle to avert a dirty bomb, has at its centre, a fundamental Texan Christian, whose nastiness is clearly signalled by the fact that he is the ugliest actor on Equity's books, cannot act to save his arse and whose lines and action are purest evil.

With the sideline spectacle of a CIA London head bint, with about as much gravitas as Posh Spice.

Same old, same old.

Anne Wotana Kaye

How glad I am that my family is grown up. The latest decree by Big Brother is that children of fifteen MUST attend sex education classes, whether their parents agree or not. I, personally, would not want my children taught by teachers, in a mixed sex class. The teachers probably have no religion. are politically correct, and will teach contraceptive methods and discuss homosexuality. A government which lacks morality in all aspects has the gall to teach the young on issues which are not their concern. All these matters which will be taught, are not those I would wish my children to hear about from teachers. However, if other families are agreeable, then by all means let their children attend. Just stop dictating as to what children can learn or not learn.

EC

Beer Moth,

Agreed. Spooks is absolute twaddle. Not to be attempted without what's one's critical faculties being impaired by drink. It will not of escaped your notice that "the baddie" in last night's episode was a mercenary, cold hearted Indian psychopath who was trying to get the other lot, who must remain blameless, a bad name. As I have many Indian friends I was naturally outraged and rang the BBC to complain.

Are you, in fact, really Charlie Brooker?

mac

AWK,

Never fear, it'll all be done in the best possible taste. As directed, of course, by the emollient, cultured and "highly intelligent" Secretary of State for absolutely any topic he decides he needs to pontificate upon. Overweening? Ambitious? Partisan? Nah, just doing what's right for 'the political arm of the British People.'

Balls? Undoubtedly!

mac

One week to go before the burghers of Springburn and Maryhill choose the replacement for the noble Lord Martin. Any news of J. Gordon's reported 'campaigning' visit, which doubtless will consist of a photo-op at a primary school and an authentic meet the people cuppa in a caff with a party apparatchik?

Perhaps there's no news because the bunker's not yet had confirmation of a 100%+ increase in the Labour postal vote?

Verity

AWK- For once, you're wrong. It's children of five who have to attend sex lessons, regardless of the parents' strong objections.

Control. They've controlled every aspect of public life with their health and safety lunacies and police who reprimand a householder for putting up a sign in a broken window reading: "This window was broken by ... ". (The police said it breached the vandal's human rights.) Etc.

All that was gruesome enough, but they're burrowing into families now.

THX1139

I have bought four tickets. One for me and the squeeze, and one on either side of us so we can be reasonably sure we won't have to sit next to THX1138.

Nicholas

Peter from Maidstone. Yes, I read Standpoint. I find it truly conservative in outlook and the articles generally wide-ranging, mature, interesting and reasoned. The Speccie now strikes me as being ersatz conservative and somewhat dumbed down by comparison, when it arrives.

Kevyn Bodman

Spooks is fiction.Not a history or current affairs documentary.

I've just read 'The Vanished Man' by Jeffery Deaver.The bad guy is a magician.
I very much enjoy magic, should I get angry that Deaver has made a magician character a multiple murderer?

I've only watched the first 3 Spooks series.
Is Nicola Walker still in it?
If so I'll keep watching.

Vulture

Re. Standpoint - I have subscribed from first issue and have also written a piece under my own name. My take is that Standpoint is the best Conservative mag in the UK - indeed the only one ( apart from the quarterly Salisbury Review)- since the Speccy's disastrous swing to the Left.

(Though I'm hoping that Fraser may correct the flabby W'Ancona's politics in this direction).

Standpoint has a heavy Catholic bias stemming from the Faith of its editor, and is rightly obsessed with our friends in the Religion of Peace. It's a trifle stodgy and pompous, but has good writers - some who still deludedly call themselves Leftists, like Nick Cohen, but who the poisonous modern Left have forsaken.

Its clearly subsidised by someone - could be the CIA like Encounter, or possibly by Daniel's entrepeneur brother Luke. To any one who hasn't seen it - I'd give it a go.

Peter From Maidstone

I am continuing to be impressed with Standpoint. Last night I was reading a conversation in it between Heathcoat-Amory and Piers Paul Read. It was rather frightening because of the absolute Europhilia of Piers Paul Read. At one point DH-A says, 'the EU is an attempt to go back to a supranational system in which people feel no part'. And PPR replies, 'Yes, that is what we want. The nation state was a terrible idea'.

I think it is fair to say that when I stopped reading the New Statesman (because it seemed determined to offend my faith at every turn), I found that the Spectator was intelligent, generous and welcoming of a variety of ideas (even when I was still a socialist). I continued to find it thus. But more recently I find myself irritated by Spectator articles in the way that I was with the New Statesman.

Of course I might well have changed myself, and I am sure I have, but it seems that the Spectator has as well. As Nicholas 9:28pm says, it seems 'somewhat dumbed down'. Certainly we know that some staff writers consider the readership to be idiots.

Vulture

Just heard a really disturbing report on Today from Thailand. I was not aware of an ongoing Islamist insurgency there directed at the majority Buddhist population that has already claimed more than 3,000 lives. The usual hallmarks we have come to associate with the Relgion of Peace: massacres, beheadings, bombings, attacks on schools and temples, etc.
Meanwhile, in the US, a man named Husain runs amok and kills 12 of his US Army comrades in some sort of protest over Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think we can see a link here : devout Muslims apparently cannot co-exist peacefully alongside those of another (or no) Faith, and think they have divine sanction to carry out mass murder. The implications for us in Britain are horrendous - but will have to be faced.

daniel maris

Isn't it amazing that the BBC can go for so long without mentioning that the person responsible for the shooting spree at Fort Hood is a Muslim.

As though there could not possibly be any connection between being a sincere and devout Muslim and wanting to harm the American military.

At least in the USA the media are mentioning the fact that he is Muslim. Not pre-judging anything, but clearly a Jihadi motive may well be present here as he expressed views very hostile to the anti-Jihadi military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why is it the left-liberal media find it impossible to countenance such a possiblity.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Mac: Good morning. You described the situation in a very stylish manner, far better than the Gang of Balls.
Verity: Good day to you too. Unfortunately, I am often wrong, but not in this case. The Gang of Balls have accepted that children under fifteen need not be indoctrinated at school, but at fifteen and after, Lord only help them.

Anne Wotana Kaye

For Verity:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8344373.stm

Derek

Back of the shop matters, such as (one hopes) trying to establish the editor's authority over the Spectator's rogue subscription service,are - we are told - responsible for the extended gestation period for Mr. Nelson's article on immigration. This should happily now permit him to factor into it the implications of the Fort Hood massacre - although the active disaffection of our own Muslim intelligentsia should already have provided him with the opportunity. I hope that a major focus of the article will be the decision, conscious or just plain unthinking, by our politicos to introduce on a vast scale the pernicious ideology of an authoritarian death cult into our country. It is high time we had names and pack drill.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Daniel Maris: Good day, Daniel
You know why, and I know why, and any honest person knows why the leftist-liberals here wont admit that fanatical Islamists are responsible. The stinking political establishment here has an agenda to promote so-called "multicultural diversity, bla, bla, sh*t. sh*t, at the expense of the freedom, democracy and liberty for which this country was once known. Everything has become topsy turvy. The Anti-Fascist League fights to defend the rights of those who oppress women and demand Sharia law, whilst the English Defence League is demonised. The quicker this lunatic government is voted out the better. Let's hope the alternative will have the guts to restore sanity.

Nicholas

"The quicker this lunatic government is voted out the better. Let's hope the alternative will have the guts to restore sanity."

Unfortunately the lunatic government is just the visible part of the socialist iceberg drifting along and taking every single British institution, private and public, with it. The one thing the Left do well, like the Borg, is the tribal collectivism and single-mindedness of its hive. Unlike the Borg much of it is invisible - or not plainly visible - to the naked eye. Especially the myopic and naive naked eye of the media and commentariat (where they have not already been assimilated). Even where the truth glimmers like a chink in the socialist armour (q.v Neather) the stupid and apathetic media accept the lies and false reassurances of proven charlatans and dissemblers to the instinctive understanding of an ordinary, but largely helpless, majority.

Even if Brown and his gang of Marxist student proto-fascists get booted out, even if David Cameron is not really a "Red Tory", the vast socialist infrastructure of Britain, with its special coded language, its bigotry, its chummy wink-wink presumptions of shared beliefs or, more usually and ironically, hatreds, its stranglehold on the media and government, national and local, will continue the cultural revolution began in 1997. That new Red dawn.

And if you go up against them? Demonisation. Perjorative code words contrived to discredit and marginalise opposition. "Racist". "Bigot". "Daily Mail Reader". "Little Englander". "Foaming". Etc., etc. Their much vaunted "Diversity" does not include the diversity of disagreement. Their "equality" and "fairness" does not include giving dissidents or unfavoured groups equal treatment and a fair hearing.

Joan

James Delingpole:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100015948/hmm-cant-imagine-what-major-malik-nadal-hasans-motivation-could-have-been/

egh

Kevyn: I like your question! When modern fiction affects me like that I also ask myself how and why the author has manipulated that emotional response from me; and, in addition, what from my own experience is making me respond that way.

On the older Lit - I'll never forget being devastated by the suggestion that the Arthurian Merlin is a figure of Antichrist. I mean, I really didn't want dear old Merlin to be evil!! So then I had to start rethinking all my Arthurian stuff...

Anne Wotana Kaye

Mr Brown said the Afghan government had become a "by-word for corruption" and he called for the creation of a new commission to investigate abuses, warning President Karzai that "cronies and warlords should have no place in the future of Afghanistan".
Question: Who will the honorable, elected by the citizens of Britain, Prime Minister Brown select to head the commission against corruption? Will it be Lord Mandelson, perhaps, or someone else in his lily-white gang?

EC

I note that the blurb for The Spectator Editors' Dinner on Wednesday 18th (tickets only £171.35) tells us that the entertainment will include,

"special guest David Blaine, the world famous illusionist, who will be visiting every table in his own unique style"

Instead of using a live ferret, Blaine could stun the gathering by producing Fraser's Neather blog from down his trousers.

Now that would be unique!

Paul B

I`m surprised Blaine is showing his facing in the UK again, after dangling himself in that box a number of years ago. One of country's finest moments imo, with the Fat Slags flashing their Bristols and throwing kebabs at him. I trust Frasers dinner will be a tad more decorous if some what less fun

Verity

EC - Thanks for the laugh out loud!

daniel maris

Latest on the Messed Up Major: apparently before his death, some hours or the day before I think, he was distributing free Korans to neighbours and trying to give away his furniture. Typical Shaheed behaviour.

So bang goes the "he just snapped" line of argument and in comes an undeniable link with the Religion of Peace as we fondly refer to it.

Frank P

EC
Heh, heh, heh! Nice one.

Joan

Thank you kindly for that link; I hadn't picked up my DTel yet. Glad DJ ws so quick of the mark, unlike the other editorial staff of this magazine who wouldn't know a good news story with profound implications for international security even if a parcel of high explosives marked in green ink with 'Alluha Akbar!' arrived on their doorstep in Old Queen's Street.

The PC MSM are already working very hard to water the story down to 'single individual flipped because of the pressures of battle fatigue' (of others).

It's horrifying that the straws in the wind didn't alert his superiors into taking steps to obviate this threat before it blew up in their faces. And following so close on the Afghani police incident over there, do you think there's any chance that our Dhimmi leaders will wake up?

ZZZZZzzzzz. ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz......

No, I thought not!

Frank P

Btw

A typical comment on JD's post in the Telegraph:

"He is a first generation Palestinian his parents emigrating from there. Militant muslim murderer. Let us see what happens. This murderous bastard is a fundamental Islamist who used the armed forces to steal an education and get a job with no intention of fighting against his people in the middle east. This is yet another example of how the libtard dem, obama regime has ruined this country. And the way to tell weather Obama is lying about how he views this tragedy is when his mouth is open. The msm has focused on the fact that he was ’stressed’, ‘harassed’, ‘confused’, behead the bastard. MSM has not mentioned any family members of the murdered soldiers, only reasons why this scumbag should be excused. It begins."

Kevyn Bodman

EC:
unrestrained laughter and spilled coffee here.
Best comment of the week.
Thank you.

Derek

Frank P

Yes, Zzzzzzzzzz indeed!

and so, a fortiori I also repeat my post of yesterday: "No thread yet on the Francop and the Visea?" which is not unconnected with these weighty matters.

Verity

Let's hope she shot him where David Blaine keeps his ferret.

THX1138

EC - Comment of the week. Give that man a free ticket to the gig.

THX1138

Paul B- I remember The Sun held a barbeque under his box-Fantastic stuff.

Andy Carpark

I would like to nominate Paul B for an extremely close proxime accessit. Man after my own heart.

THX1138

Vulture an others- And a European Christian Radovan Karadzic is on trial in The Hague for the religious & ethnic murder of at least 200,000 Muslims, 12,000 of them children and up to 50,000 women were raped in his camps. But we don't hear anything about about from the Islamphobes on this blog.

MikeF

Given that it is Friday afternoon and the week-end is nearly upon us we all ought to lighten up a bit - here is, well, something for the week-end, so to speak. I have just read on the BBC website that a job lot of condoms left over from those distributed to the athletes at the Beijing Olympics has been put up for sale in China. Each packet is emblazoned with the slogan for those games, rather conceitedly you might think in this case - "faster, higher, stronger".

But it did set me thinking what the appropriate wording might be on the packets that will be distributed when the games come to London. Some terms that suggest themselves might be 'over-inflated', 'over-budget' and 'mandatory re-use'. But perhaps the best one would be 'Vote for Boris'.

Any other suggestions?

Beer Moth

daniel maris

Fort Hood: I listened to the first reports of this on R4's 6am news.

Their man in Washington outlined what Major Nidal Malik Hasan had done, stating that he had been caught hours prior to the shooting, on CCTV buying goods in a store 'dressed in clothing which suggests he may be of Islamic faith'. The name presumably left this reporter in the dark. Could be the blinkers he was issued with by the Beeb?

This was followed by what the BBC newsroom took to be good news: that he was acting alone and not as part of 'an organisation'.

Not so sure it is good news. It can be taken - with many other similar acts - to indicate that the much vaunted distinction between extremist and moderate, is a construct of a media community in deep, irresponsible denial.

daniel maris

One encouraging sign, as I don't wish to push this all one way, is that the condemnations from Islamic groups have been quite forthright and unequivocal - none of that MCB talk of "innocents" (a common dodge by Islamic spokespeople in the past). I think that might be evidence that blog criticism is having some effect at least.

However we still have the other familiar tales - the cousin who claims he's a regular guy. Haven't heard anyone say he was a "good guy, very religious" but that might follow.

The latest is that he cried Allahu Akbar - the familiar Jihadi war cry - as he opened up fire.

I don't see how anyone can say yet he wasn't a member of an organisation. He was a member of the Mosque and is reported as having discussions with the Imam (by the Imam himself). What about? The local bring and buy sale? Often pro Jihadi group are quite loosely organised. He may be have been involved in political discussion groups that were highly critical of American involvement in Muslim lands. If he was then, for me, that is an organisation that is involved in this violent act (because in Islamic theology there can only be one response to infidels trying to rule Muslims in their own land, the Land of Islam).

Anne Wotana Kaye

THX1138
Read your posting. Deaths of innocent women and children are a tragedy, whoever they are and wherever they occur. Yet, one thing concerns me. There were also Christians and other non-Moslems slaughtered in that senseless war, yet the world, and especially the BBC seem to only focus on Karadzik, and not his murderous Moslem counterparts.

Peter From Maidstone

THX1138, I am not sure what your point is. The Serbian instigators of the atrocities you mention are indeed on trial, and will be held responsible for their actions. They are rightly condemned around the world by members of most Christian communities as being entirely outside the bounds of authentic Christian practice.

But the UK is not at risk from Serbian Christians, nor was Europe generally. The situation which occurred was very localised - though not any less terrible for that. What the West, and Christians generally, face in Islam is something altogether different, which it is surprising that you do not recognise. Islam wills to overcome the whole world by force and will use violence against the weakest in any place and at any time. This was never the case with those Serbs, whose atrocities they might mistakenly have considered Christian. The rest of the Christian world disputes their claim.

But Islam does teach that the world should be conquered by force. Those who commit atrocities are indeed following the logical outcome of their religion. While those who follow the Christian religion to its fullest extent are heroically humble, peaceful and self-sacrificing.

As a Christian I am interested in learning more about the Sufi form of Islam, which does seem different to others. But I am aware that most Muslims consider Sufism a heresy and also believe that violence could and should be used to stamp it out.

Most of the tens of thousands of people killed in Iraq were not killed by Christians, or even Western soldiers, but were Muslims killing Muslims.

Serbian war criminals are a red herring. I reject their actions absolutely. I am sure most/all Christians here would. But there are 160,000 Muslims here in the UK who support the use of terror by Muslims against infidels. I doubt very much that you would find 160 serious Christians in the UK who believe that terror should be used anywhere in the world against others.

Beer Moth

Kevyn Bodman

Do I take it then, that in your view, fiction does not serve in any way, to articulate and sometimes to influence our understanding of things which are of the real world?

TGF UKIP

Not often I agree with THX 1138 but today I do. Definitely post of the week EC.

Meanwhile, regarding Fraser's money raising ego bash, doesn't it say absolutely everything about the village for who would be daft enough but villagers to pay such a silly sum to dine with a bunch of minor media slebs and luvvies.

Still, after Euro Dave loses next Spring, it'll give Fraser something to reminisce about when he's back doing the garden club and council reports for the Auchtermuchty Free Shopper.

Pot Head

Peter from Suburbia

"I doubt very much that you would find 160 serious Christians in the UK who believe that terror should be used anywhere in the world against others."

I bet you could get to half that number on this blog alone, go over to Guido and you've got the rest.

BTW What's an un-serious Christian?

Frank P

Please allow me to canvass a second opinion here? Reading through a whole raft of blogposts from all the staff hacks here there seems to be strong majority disagreement with almost all their work from the commentariat. We can't all be trolls, so is the policy of the magazine to keep their hits up by deliberate provocation and unpopular posts. Is this a cunning ploy? Or just plain fucking stoooopid? Help me someone, please.

Alexandrovich

Well Frank, their problem is having to walk such a thin line. Of course, the Spectator is only a stepping stone in their careers which leaves their commitment to real journalism decidedly 'iffy'. Their eyes are on what they perceive to be other prizes so the policy of not rocking any boats prevails.
However, this stance attracts bullets from both sides and also makes them ineligible when it comes to complaining about that.
Their main dilemma, with regard to their careers, is backing the right horse and, at the moment, the race looks more like the National than a dead-cert Derby.
Couple this with their understanding that printed paper will be a novelty in a few decades, that line becomes even thinner. But I have no sympathy - not one iota because, as us older generation understand, you make your bed, you lie in it. Unless you're Tracey Vermin.

Peter From Maidstone

I mean by 'un-serious Christian' someone who is only culturally and externally religious in a Christian manner, and is not internally engaged in seeking growth in a true Christian spiritual life.

Nicholas

Frank P - the arrogance of most of the operators of these sites extends to stereotyping the posters (especially if they rant) as "window lickers". It's a strange relationship.

The right wing seems particularly prevalent to foam-flecked, foaming "window lickers" angrily pounding keyboards in their dressing gowns. I wonder if it is seen as a useful distraction to diverty the angry from taking to our streets, burning vehicles and throwing Molotov cocktails at the New Labour Protection Squads. Maybe the Speccie (and other sites) get government subsidies to keep us all ranting away, harmlessly, rather than rioting?

egh

I've been wondering about that too, Frank P.
There is a strong sense we're being manipulated, yes.

We could also be insulted: we keep on saying Freedom of Speech is a gonner, and here we all are practicing it! On the other hand, this is one of the few places we can practice it: so they might be providing it for any number of reasons ~~ including keeping our anger off the streets.

Alexandrovich's suggestions about it are interesting as well; added to which, they probably don't even know what good journalism is supposed to be about. 'Quaerere Verum' and preserving traditional and national values haven't been salient parts of their curriculum, have they? Or, if they have ever surfaced --- thoughtful writing is very hard work, and takes time. And the paperless electronic world disposes of everything so fast, don't you know :))

One thing it all highlights, methinks, is the disconnect between the quislings and the people: and the fact that they make few concessions. That said, though, at least the mag has picked up on the Marxist foundation of our problems; and after all this time, too. So maybe, just maybe...

Anyway, I come here for the comments, mostly. The blogs are secondary - they just verify what's permitted the discussion. So thanks to all!

Vulture

THX@ The point surely is that old Radders is now on trial for his disgusting crimes.
Perhaps you could point me to an ongoing trial in the Muslim world of any Muslim responsible for the countless massacres of Christians (and others)since 9/11 because I seem to have missed them.

Verity

I think we should also take note that most are young and the latter years of their schooling would have been under the destructive, controlling communists who used the education system to thresh out freedom of thought. There are certain tenets that have been pounded into their brains and they come with a certain set of assumptions they think are immutable.

But the posters above are correct. There is a disconnect between the writers and their customers (the commentariat and those who buy the magazine). I think the average age of the consumer of the mag - whether buying into the bloggeria or buying the physical mag - is probably around 20 years minimum in advance in life experience (and educational experience, when thought was free) of the staff.

daniel maris

egh -

Free speech exists when you can speak freely without fear.

That no longer obtains with respect to a whole range of issues from osteopathy to Islam to homosexuality to the child care arrangements of a certain couple on holiday.

You'd be a nut to speak freely and openly about such matters without fear of the consequences.

Kevyn Bodman

Beer Moth:
On the role of fiction or, as we began with 'Spooks', the role of drama.
They can cast light on the human condition,they can explain,teach and also manipulate.
But they don't have to do, and don't always do, any of those things.

There is a range of legitimate responses to fiction and drama. The first thing I look for is entertainment, and in modern TV drama I expect exaggeration of action and reaction in order to fit into the time slot.
I don't think that a criticism of Spooks on the grounds that they had a Texan villain but not a Muslim villain is a valid criticism, because Spooks is not a documentary.
They don't have exclusively American villains.
Neither do I think 'Spooks' is propaganda.
For me it is an entertainment,at the end of the episode I don't carry away thoughts about which group has been demonised or which group has been whitewashed.

I am sure that many right-wingers were able to ernjoy the superb drama of The West Wing, although I must admit that I know two right-wingers who couldn't stand it on the grounds that they considered it Hollywood liberal advertising.

There are other reasons for watching TV drama too. Not of earth-shattering importance but real nonetheless,I enjoy watching competent actresses who are also very attractive.
So my earlier question about Nicola Walker was a serious one.

Kevyn Bodman

I've just heard on BBC World Service radio that Brown has come up with a plan to tax banks' financial transactions.

My first thought was that this is lunacy.
What on earth does he think the effects of that will be, and why will those effects be beneficial?
Any details, anyone?

Frank P

Nicholas

I shall grasp your double-edged sword gingerly, just in case .... :-)

I'm grateful to all who responded to my plea; found a pearl or two in each oyster. I don't suppose any of the staffers would like to comment - or cough to the charges; I know we are talking about them rather than to them, but any rebuttals would be considered judicially.

Or perhaps the best idea is to ignore the blog-posts altogether and talk among ourselves, like students being addressed by a narcotic lecturer.

Verity

Frank P - I think we already do that. I'll bet I'm not the only one who usually reads just the first graph and then heads straight to the Comments.

Sometimes I do read the whole piece if there is an interesting argument being developed. Indeed, in any subject that Melanie is commenting on that interests me, I read the whole thing because she develops skillful arguments.

I read the whole piece on the mass murderer at Ft Hood.

But pieces trying to convince me that David Cameron really is a Conservative and that he really does have a plan (other than getting his seat at the top table in Bruxelles) ... no.

Kevyn Bodman

Frank P:
For a few months I have paid less attention to the original posts here and more attention to the comments.
I scroll down,enthusiastically looking for my old favourites,by-passing a few others completely and reading most of the other comments.
Paricularly since the Neather revelations a couple of new favourite commenters have appeared.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Kevyn B

Trust me, pal, your first gut instinct was correct. Lunacy, lunacy, all is lunacy.....

Anne Wotana Kaye

Kevyn B
Maybe the attached will satisfy your curiosity, nut believe me, the man is bonkers!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8348121.stm

Verity

Kevyn Bodman - "Paricularly since the Neather revelations a couple of new favourite commenters have appeared."

EC, for example? I'm still chuckling over that post.

daniel maris

Trafalgar -

1. Independence for the Bank of England

Well to the extent that alcoholics shouldn't have a bottle of whisky in the house, I guess this was a good decision. Except the Bank of England failed to blow the whistle on the financial bubble and kept interest rates too high for too long.

2. Keeping Britain out of the Euro

OK, I guess you can give him this. But it was never an in principle decision and is subject to change at any moment.

3. Bank Bailout

He took down Lloyds Bank in the process. We might get the money back in time. But with a negative growth rate, we will be paying far more money (in tax and lost benefits) than we would if he had delivered a successful economy that was growing as the USA, France and Germany are doing.

4. Nuclear

You talking about this design:

"Safety concerns may halt construction of a new nuclear facility in Finland, posing questions about the viability of the next generation of European Pressurised Reactors destined for the UK

Finland’s nuclear regulatory body may halt construction of the country’s new European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) amid ‘great concern’ over key safety systems. The concerns will be echoed in the UK, where the Government hopes to have the first of four new EPRs built by 2017.

A major selling point of the new generation nuclear reactors had been their safety systems, a vital consideration as they will produce more radiation than current reactors."

(Ecologist, June 2009)

5. Teaching Assistants/Class Sizes

The value of teaching assistants has recently been queried. I don't think the UK can be said to have a first class system of education - and that despite the Blair-Brown government claiming that its priorities would be "education, education, education".

6. Lower Business Taxes

You may be right about this one.

7. 3G Licences Sale

It's hardly a good idea to get an industry to overpay for access to an important field of new technology - that can only retard development.

8. Gambling

He may not have gone down the supercasino route - but what has he done in terms of eradicating poverty in these neglected areas?

9. Minimum Wage

Yes, Tories definitely got this one wrong with their scare stories and hard-hearted attitude.

10. Heathrow 3rd Runway

It's only a matter of time before an aeroplane drops out of the sky over London on to a school, shopping complex or similar, then see how clever he looks.
I cannot think of any other nation that has such a flight path run for so long over such a built up area - it's absolutely absurd and we have simply been extremely lucky that major disasters have not occurred over London.

We should run with the Thames Estuary airport, which will deliver a much needed stimulus to the Medway ports area and reduce the safety risk and noise nuisance to central London.

Frank P

Verity

I think EC would be offended to be considered a 'new favourite commenter'; he's been here since the inception of this platform, not to mention TDA and Melanie's prior blog before her comments had to be closed because of troll attacks. In fact he's ubiquitous around the blogosphere and is liable to report extra-mural activity of he commentariat here. Very droll, our Ernie. But watch that sting in his tail! A real scorpion at times.

Verity

Frank P - Kevyn Bodman did not refer to "new commenters"; he referred to "new favourites". I would imagine EC's post elevated him to 'favourite' status among some of the commentariat.

Nicholas

"Or perhaps the best idea is to ignore the blog-posts altogether and talk among ourselves, . . . "

There is a potential power in such a course of action. Even more so if we form a party. It strikes me that all the parties striving to clutch fragments of Britain's tattered flag have agendas and baggage that disqualify them from truly representing the frustrated and oppressed majority of indigenes. Since they all seek to morph, to slide, to bob and weave in their appeal to be all things to all people, the opportunity may be ripe for an emergent party and one less inclined to be cowed by epiphets or weakened by compulsion to play the unreciprocated gentleman's game that the Left sneer at in their duplicity.

I look around in vain for a party to represent the foam-flecked window lickers, the Little Englanders and the cynical veterans who can remember life before lies and whose memories of individual and national sovereignty are so dangerous to those so busy mesmerising and conditioning the young for their lives of servitude to the new state.

Resistance flourished even in the darkest days of the Third Reich's European Empire and throughout Reagan's Evil Empire of the Cold War. But it required guts and the willingness to take risks, to stand up against evil and be counted. Those who embrace our history and know there is much to be proud of also know there is much worth saving too, especially in our traditional concepts of law and justice.

In the last 40 years we have had our Russian Revolution, but silently, stealthily, without the alarums and excursions. The 1968 Red insurgents have become the new establishment, their revolutionary ideology even more oppressive and life-sapping than the mythical establishment they supposedly rose to overthrow and which is now consigned to history. One only has to look at the changes to our police to appreciate how different their establishment is, how much more determined to homogenise us, to break our spirit, to gag us and to invade even our private thoughts.

So instead of seeking to occupy a mythical middle ground, a "centre" aspired to by the Red Tories and despised by the cloaked communists of New Labour, we need to orchestrate a mighty resistance, a true insurgency of ideas and words, a bombardment of free spirit to liberate the land.

When I look at the comments on the Daily Mail website (I don't read the paper but wear the Dirty Euro accusation with pride - a mark of my innocence from socialist tarnish) I see for the most part ordinary decent people, struggling to get by, to make sense of what this country has become and with an inherent common sense and an instinctive awareness of right and wrong to see through the bullshit, the propaganda and the shameless big lies. Who represents them - us? Who speaks for John Bull these days? The thirty -something denizens of the infiltrated universities? The ignorant, dumbed down twenty-somethings who shape policy and who have abandoned the restraints of duty for the ruthlessness of personal ambition? No, it is the despised "grumpy old", the marginalised, the disenfranchised who once held the levers of power with wisdom and experience and who are now cast aside by the new religions - so pervasive but so hollow and bereft of compassion. It is the grey army that needs to find its voice, to reclaim the dignity and status that still attends it in fiction but which is so cruelly disregarded in reality.

And so, fellow grey panthers, don your berets of resistance and lift your clenched fists. Demand change you can really believe in and meanwhile frustrate the greedy appetite of the state at every opportunity. We will overcome.

Alexandrovich

Nicholas: Go easy mate! Measured, eloquent, cris de coeur like that last one make me quite misty-eyed, I'm not ashamed to say.
Sincere thanks.

egh

Daniel Maris - well yes; I well remember the day it first dawned on me that freedom of political speech was relative! In any case, and I think preferably, we've usually regulated all kinds of expression ourselves - in consideration of someone or some cause.

My point, really, is that external 'powers and dominions' now seek to limit both thought and speech more fiercely than most of us have ever known. So we're required to regulate ourselves just to stay out of trouble with them - so as not to contravene their 'rules.' But isn't that a cowardly and losing game?

I think Nicholas puts the situation so very, very well. Couldn't agree more with his conclusion - so count me in, and thanks once more.

Peter From Maidstone

Is there any reason why commenters here couldn't put together a blog about Neather? What access do the staff writers have, except to those untrustworthy MPs and politicos whose opinions we do not respect in any case? We must be able to source information for any necessary graphs, and there are plenty of posters here who I think are capable of contributing to a serious analysis. If Fraser doesn't want to post or think that he needs to post on this topic then I am not sure that I want to read anything he might put together. In any case, it would be the comments that his blog might generate which would most interest me.

In2minds

Not Neather but near -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6907991.ece

I spotted this in the Times, eye-watering stuff though.

Alexandrovich

Well Mr. Massie, Mr. Nelson et al, if you think this latest revelation in The Times (thanks In2minds) is not worthy of your attention, you will confirm the mounting suspicion about this whole sorry affair.

THX1138

Over on his new blog Clive Davis explains the reasons for his departure from The Spectator blogs and mostly is the fault of "the loons" amongst the Coffee House commentariat.

"But as I discovered when I had my own blog at the Speccie, most of the noise comes from people who are, frankly, not worth talking to, a small but energetic brigade of green-inkers who would never normally be allowed house-room on a letters page. As well as repeating the same lines over and over, they express a degree of contempt for non-white faces in general, and Muslims in particular, that is downright scary. Shoot illegal immigrants? Why not?"

And plenty more besides:

http://www.clivedavisconfab.com/2009/11/at-the-coffee-house/

And I whole heartedly agree with him.

daniel maris

I see my prediction was correct - Hasan had indeed turned more religious. But in his case this leads to a murderous attack not quiet piety. Odd that. From the Telegraph (7th Nov):
"Relatives said that the death of Hasan's parents, in 1998 and 2001, turned him more devout. "After he lost his parents he tried to replace their love by reading a lot of books, including the Koran," his uncle Rafiq Hamad said.

"He didn't have a girlfriend, he didn't dance, he didn't go to bars."

But of course, Mark Mardell on the BBC was telling us it was a senseless tragedy with no religious motive.

Verity

Nicholas - bravo, as always!

Parties can't be parties without names to rally around. The Labour Party is no longer Labour and the Tories, under over-ambitious jellyfish Dave, are no longer conservative (although the voters still are).

The Labour Party was a name for the times but it was staggering on its pins until the brains behind Tony Blair re-named it New Labour. Keep the staunch older members, but sweep sane people's suspicions about Labour away by adding "New".

So a new party. It's either that or scrape Dave off the shoes of the Conservatives. We are at a critical point for Britain.

We are about to be subsumed, without our permission.

Verity

In2Minds, What I'd always known, but horrifying to read. It made it real. And vicious. Thank you so much. Everyone else, go to In2Minds's link. Right now.

These individuals need to be blown out of the water. PR Director Dave is not the man to save our democracy.

If the Tories don't know enough to get shot of him, a new party is required.

daniel maris

Regarding Nicholas's appeal to the good-natured and stout-hearted, well yes, who can deny it has a pleasant ring to it.

However, it is a little bit like a chocolate box picture or a Hovis advert on TV.

Politics has always been an ugly business, and to some extent politicians are the equivalent of sewage workers - paid good wages to get their hands dirty on our behalf because we don't want to wade through the filth.

And there never was a time when the UK was a united country at ease with itself. Divisions have always existed: region versus region, Norman versus Saxon, Catholic versus Protestant, worker against owner, and now we have PC enforcers versus free speech democrats and Shariah-lovers versus Islamosceptics.

I think a nostalgic party for the "grey panthers" is a non-starter. Any party
has to start with the conditions in which we find ourselves.

I think UKIP has elements of the right approach, clearly looking to extricate us from the EU and put an end to mass immigration. However, a lot of their policies seem to be of the "unthinking capitalist" variety. We need more of the Frank Field, Ian Duncan-Smith input on the issue of welfare dependency. We need a lot more radical policies on taxation, on education (which ain't working well despite Labour's rhetoric), developing a green economy and so on. But above all we need constitutional reforms to create a vibrant free-speech democracy, which will enable us to confront and address our problems.

There certainly is I believe scope for a new party, but a forward looking one, not a backward looking one.

Ken

Mr Nelson's reluctance to step into Neatherland is now surely becoming an embarrassment, Minette Marrin in the Sunday Times is the latest to run with Neatherdoom - http://tinyurl.com/ybcg6g6

Nicholas

Number plate - that Clive Davis article is quite something. It is a classic demonstration of exactly what is wrong with people like him - and you. Spot the obvious exaggerations and inaccuracies in this tripe-laden excerpt:-

"Kudos to Alex Massie for taking on some of the nastier types who spend their days lurking in the Spectator’s web site. I’m really not sure, though, that there’s any point trying to discuss immigration with some of these people. Sure, you can argue about the rights and wrongs of the numbers – being mixed-race, I have a more personal stake in this issue than some other people. There’s no question, either, that the political establishment has been mealy-mouthed about the side-effects of mass immigration. (Half my family is white working-class, so I’m allowed to say that too.)

But as I discovered when I had my own blog at the Speccie, most of the noise comes from people who are, frankly, not worth talking to, a small but energetic brigade of green-inkers who would never normally be allowed house-room on a letters page. As well as repeating the same lines over and over, they express a degree of contempt for non-white faces in general, and Muslims in particular, that is downright scary. Shoot illegal immigrants? Why not?"

Hmm. I cannot remember one person here advocating violence against illegal immigrants. And why does Mr Davis' mixed race credentials give him some special insight and a "personal stake"? Don't the indigenes have a "personal stake" in how their country is being treated in respect of immigration? And his "white working class" credentials "allow him to say it"? Double hmmm. Methinks Mr Davis is confusing his "personal stake" with his "personal chip on the shoulder" - but we'll never know because he refuses to engage with those who might disagree with him. Instead he stereotypes them as outrageously as the "racists" he despairs of.

It seems that people like him are incapable of debating issues on their "lefty sensitivity hair triggers" without slagging off those who disagree with them as some type of untermenschen. Stereotyping and demonising individuals, communities or groups viewed as hostile is a convenient way of avoiding inconvenient truths. And as narrow minded and bigoted as those he accuses. It is one of the reasons we are where we are with immigration.

Never liked the bloke. Thought his refusal to allow comments said everything we needed to know about his smug and priggish arrogance. Good riddance. The days of people like him (and you) to dominate the narrative with intimidation and to silence dissent with (supposedly) morally superior accusations against opponents are well and truly numbered. And if you join him over at his smugfest, prigfest blog I for one won't miss you here.

The genie is well and truly out of the bottle, number plate, and even the Too Superior To Lower Himself To Debate Mr Clive Davis concedes that there is an issue with immigration.

Peter From Maidstone

THX1138. So what are you telling us? Some of the Spectator staff are soft left and despise the readership. We know that. Its shocking and offensive that some staff writers are so explicit in their contempt for us, but it is not surprising based on the quality and content of many blog posts. If the Spectator wishes to become a soft left publication then I am sure the problem of a critical commentariat will be solved because most of us will move elsewhere, but if it wishes to remain something approximating a conservative publication then I would expect it to welcome and make use of the criticism that is made here. It is, after all, mostly made because people do want the Spectator to produce material that is reasoned, intelligent and politically inspiring. Personally I don't mind being called an idiot by people like Massie and Davis, as it says more about their political views than mine.

THX1138

Peter from boring town in Kent- You're confusing the readership with the commentariat as Clive Dvis rightly says "but the Spectator’s masthead gives the loons that extra measure of cachet."

Nicholas

daniel maris - thanks for the patronising put down but no thanks.

Did I write anywhere that the embryonic Grey Panthers were to be nostalgic, backward looking, rose tinted - or soft hearted? Er, no. That is your take and as with so many who believe in looking blindly forwards rather than learning a bit by looking back the baby more often than not gets thrown out with the bath water.

The clue is in the name, the beret and the clenched fist, old son. Also the reference to the gentleman's game that the right insist on playing to the Left's sneering hilarity.

And as for our supposedly divided past. Yes, indeed. But it is the binding sub-text which was/is important. That has all but disappeared. You'll be "doing a Bonnie Greer" on us next, that doyen of English history, and telling us that there is no such thing as indigenes in England. With our "divided past" and our hybrid, polyglot heritage there is nothing worth preserving. Oh, hang on a mo' - that's Jack Straw isn't it.

Yes daniel, lets all look forward. So much easier to pull the wool over peoples eyes if they have no concept of what went before, what made us a people and how those who seek to destroy us arose in the first place.

Not a chocolate box but an ammunition box. Not a Hovis advert but a call to arms. We need to fight. Gentle creatures like you need to keep away from the front lines. It was the good-natured and stout-hearted who stood in that thin, shivering, dysentry wracked line at Agincourt, who sailed the little ships towards the huge galleons of the Armada, who marched resolutely towards the mass of the cavalry squadrons at Minden, who worked the guns in the welter of splinters and blood at Trafalgar, who went over the top in droves to the whistles and machine gun chatter at Ypres and the Somme, who shuffled patiently in the endless lines at Dunkirk, who flew and fought at 15,000 feet over Kent to protect and preserve Britain from its greatest threat, who went against the odds to reclaim an island in the South Atlantic, probably the last true manifestation of national solidarity and spirit before the communists came.

Nostalgic? Yes, especially today. Unashamedly so. But there is a hard reality to come to terms with. Ridicule it if you like. That's what our enemies have always done too, from the Dauphin's gift of tennis balls to the ranting Goebbels and those modern nation-deniers cast in the mold of Jack Straw. England was and is hated. Those who hate the most have the upper hand - for now. It has ever been thus. But never before have we faced enemies of the type or on the scale within as we face now. On this day of all days it is as well to remember what has been necessary, what has been sacrificed, to bring us safe here and now. And we are expected to give it up, to surrender it, without a fight?

In2minds

daniel maris @ 2.01am, UKIP - “a lot of their policies seem to be of the "unthinking capitalist" variety”.

It's my observation that the upper tier of UKIP don't do a lot of thinking, have you been following the Tom Wise case? He's typical,sadly.

egh

"To the Fallen"

By Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

EC

Mandelson, immigration and education ...

Jeremy Clarkson is back on good form in The Sunday Times today.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/jeremy_clarkson/article6907747.ece

Vulture

@THX: Still waiting for that list of trials of perpetrators of terrorist atrocities against Christians in the Muslim world. It seems to be taking you about as long to reserch as Fraser's eagerly awaited piece on Neathergate.

Verity

TNX in some trite, boring London location, your problem is, you are a trite thinker. But at least we owe you a big vote of thanks for ceasing to post your repetitive, trite photos on The Wall. But you certainly went out with a bang with that hysterical one of you posed as a middle aged rebel without applause on "the estate of the late Sir Jimmy Goldsmith in Alguna Parte, Mexico". I had my head down on the desk laughing.

Nicholas, we will need a broad, inclusive name. There are young people with families who also see that there is no one to vote for. And successful professionals who despair. No one is addressing the national interest. Politics in Britain is now diminished to a group of lobbies, by far the largest being the multiculti lobby, followed by the dependency lobby. Then the public sector lobby. Dave has adopted the pinkos' agenda and is simply engaged, like a modiste, in nips and tucks and shortening hems. He has no designs of his own. Michael Gove seems to be the only one who's had some original thoughts.

Any ideas for a name?

Failing a new party, I think we should through our weight behind UKIP.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Would that the atrocious Ainsworth was as diligent obtaining funds for the British defence forces as he was for accumulating expenses for his personal use. Saw his ugly mug on TV, brush the forelock the other way, and he is Adolf Hitler in person.

Verity

How about the Freedom Party?

Freedom from self-serving government.

Freedom from agendas that are against the national interest - like the plan to swamp the indigenous population with Third Worlders who adhere to a primitive desert religion that has never been reformed.

Freedom from quangoes.

Freedom from the state infusing political propaganda into the minds of school children.

Freedom from intrusion by the state into families.

Freedom from the responsibility of supporting people who can't be bothered to support themselves.

Freedom from people in government who have supported the destruction of the state, i.e., Trots, Gramscians, Marxists. Having ever belonged to any of those parties, or been a sympathiser, even at uni, should disqualify one for life for standing for political office.

Others can suggest other freedoms that the Freedom Party could incorporate into its agenda.

daniel maris

Nicholas is arguing for a party of one, The Nicholas Party, whose central committee will always applaud his flights of fancy.

If you can't make an ally of me - anti-EU, anti-mass immigration and anti-welfare dependency, then you ain't got a prayer. Reach for your ammunition box and you will be tagged, tasered, swabbed and shot in no particular order by our PC Police.

If there were to be a new party, it has to be forward looking. No one wants to go back to a Hitchens-style golden age of Dixon of Dock Green, thousands dying in pointless wars of imperialism (Palestine, Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya, Aden to name a few), pea souper fogs, innocents being hanged from the neck until dead, chilblains, hidden sexual abuse and deference to an undeserving class - or rather, very few do in reality want to go back there.

For any new party to have appeal it needs to give a vision of the future that is credible and desirable.

For me that means retaking the streets from young thugs, achieving a real improvement in education standards, reclaiming our democracy, ending mass immigration, developing our own energy resources, creating full employment and ending welfare dependency. A party that could be credible on all those would have my vote for sure.

In answer to Verity's point I would say putting Citizens in the title would be a good idea. Citizens' Democracy, Citizens Party, New Citizens' Party. Because this new party would need to develop the concept of citizenship - the duties as well as the rights - and make it a reality for people.

Frank P

EC

Many thanks for the Clarkson tip. Just the ticket on a November Sunday. He perhaps hasn't the gravitas to be PM, but we could appoint him Minister of Fun in addition to his obvious role as Minister of Transport. Mandelson could be tied to his official limo as living mascot, with his knees dangling over the front bumper to assist in emergency stops (and I'm sure there would be many).

Verity

As well as freedoms "from", the Freedom Party would also have freedoms "to". For example, freedom to enroll your child at the school of your choice. The freedom to speak your mind without a little mental censor sitting on your shoulder. The freedom, if you own a pub, to have smoking if your customers want it. The freedom to own a gun for the protection of your family and your home. The freedom not to pay for idle people's booze, lottery tickets, petrol and TVs. (In other words, only food and hygiene stamps for the indigent, to be spent at designated retail outlets.) The freedom to call the police and have Gypsies or "travellers" moved on pronto.

Peter From Maidstone

Does it have to be a party? Or is it better being a source of thinking and pressure on the conservative party? I agree with words like Freedom, Citizenship and Democracy.

Personally I tend towards libertarianism, even though I am generally socially very conservative. I am always conscious that the application of the law to form society in my own image can also allow the law to deform society in a way I would not like. I am glad that generally people don't smoke in public places any more, but I actually oppose the law on smoking because I am aware that it could easily be turned against my own Church because we use loads of incense.

It seems to me that the best solution for all, including those with whom I might disagree strongly on social issues, is to have a small state that does not intrude itself into our private lives very much, and allows as much freedom of activity as is possible. This would certainly mean that some people engaged in behaviour I disagreed with, but it would also mean that I was free to engage in behaviour that I agreed with without state interference.

Verity

Peter, Maidstone - Yes, I think it should be a party. Not a pressure group or another think tank or quango.

Daniel Maris - I like the word Citizens. How does the Citizens Rule Party sound? Democracy sounds too much like the manky Democrats. Citizens Freedom Party? Free Citizens Party?

Nicholas

daniel maris - no I'm not. That is what you are arguing I am arguing for. That is your interpretation and your perception of the thrust of my "argument" - and it not accurate. You have a wholly negative and distorted view of the past - which makes you part of the problem not the solution.

There are always shades of grey, daniel, not the black and white that cause the problems.

Peter From Maidstone

I am not sure Verity. It seems to me that there is no time to develop a new political party in the few months before a GE, and then there will be 4 or 5 years before another real opportunity to make a difference. But a public facing pressure group/populist think tank could be doing work throughout that period seeking to change the way we do democracy. Out of that work a party might emerge. I would be very interested in supporting such a group, less able to be engaged in a fully fledged political party.

Verity

Archie - Thanks for the pointer to The Times and Minette Marrin's piece. Wow! Have you read it Fraser? She talks about Neather quite a bit.

How's your twice-promised blog on this coming on? You could pick up some tips and useful thoughts from Marrin's piece. (Anyone who hasn't read it: she doesn't pull her punches.)

We await your promised comments.

Kevyn Bodman

The Libertarian Party is a couple of years old.
Many commenters here would be in 90%+ agreement with their policies.

Have a look,here's the website:

http://lpuk.org/

They are not going to win the election, but they are putting forward the best ideas in British politics today and these ideas will spread.

Peter From Maidstone

Thanks for that Kevyn. I have been interested in Libertarianism for quite a while. I wonder if someone could suggest what the main differences are between a Libertarian and Conservative perspective? I am aware that both are rather on a spectrum.

MaxSceptic

Nicholas @ November 8th, 2009 11:06am.

Well written re: that prig Clive David.

Good riddance.

Beer Moth

Kevyn Bodman

My argument is that the BBC habitually avoids the portrayal of Islamist terrorist activity in its drama, and seeks to assert that terrorism is something which other agencies are involved in, to the same degree.

The semiotic drip-feed of such assertion operates - every bit as potently as does the documentary form - to construct a view of the real world. In this case the view created is false and irresponsible.

mac

I read Davis' blog and note that he declined to engage with Nicholas' and Rhoda's perfectly reasonable posts.

Davis evidently carries a sizeable chip in the manner of messrs Joseph Harker and Gary Younge at the Grauniad. Doubtless he is far happier with acolytes like "James Hamilton" who merely urges his hero to close the blog to comments! How terribly 'progressive.'

Rhoda Klapp

AWK, the odious useless Ainsworth is no Hitler. He is however indistinguishable from Peter Sellers as Fred Kite, if your memory goes back that far. Excpet Peter Sellers was not responsible for the defence of a nation other than on screen.

Anne Wotana Kaye

Rhoda K: Good morning. Spot on! I remember the film and the 'orrible little man.

Anne Wotana Kaye

The Queen is a lady of 83 years old. Whether or not one is a republican or royalist, it would be hard to deny that she always conducts herself with dignity and true grace. She must often feel weary, but never displays boredom or tiredness. In simple words, she is a real old-fashioned lady. What a contrast to the idiot at the Cenotaph yesterday. I shall not even mention his name, it is too obvious who was the blot on the landscape. In literary terms I shall simply cry, "Avant and quit my sight, foul spirit!"

Anne Wotana Kaye

Avaunt - apology for typing error from the short quotation from the 'Scottish' play