The strange death of political Britain

Thinkster

So, when are you going to run?

Verity

God, I love this blog!

Again, Melanie takes a scalpel to the flesh of the body politic and finds it decaying, the stench disguised by perfumed slogans.

She is correct to identify the Gramscians. None of this happened by accident. None of it was because whomever the incumbent, "they couldn't run a whelk stall". They have pursued their agenda with malign cunning and have succeeded in eviscerating the heart and soul of Britain, destroying our formerly cohesive and familial society, turning the police and education upside down, forcing people to fret about the world (as in "environmentalism" and "man made global warming) rather than their local concerns, which are their proper concerns.

So there are paedophiles disguised as "educators" forcing "sex education" on five-year olds, clicking the Delete key on our country's glorious history and our great gifts of the English language and our English Common Law to the Commonwealth, negation of the rights of our relations from other Anglophone Commonwealth countries to settle in Britain, but insistance on the "human rights" of Pakistani and Somali murderers, "honour" killers and rapists not to be repatriated.

I find it astounding that the British tolerated this. It was only mind control. They could have resisted, but they didn't.

The long march through the institutions ... Astounding.

Ann

Masterly.

Frank Pulley

Sounds like a great manifesto to me Melanie: honest analysis and prompt, ruthless remedial action. You have all the makings of the best Home Secretary this country has ever had; if I were Cameron I would make you an offer you couldn't refuse. As Shadow Home Secretary, you could have some real fun with the current incumbent; her opposite number David Davis is a nice chap, but he has hardly laid a glove on her, yet she is incredibly slow witted and leaden footed. She is manifestly unfit to lead the most important Department of State in the UK. Someone needs to make the Home Office 'fit for purpose' and from that much would flow and the long fight back could begin. After the next election you could slide into Marsham Street like a duck into water and get quacking immediately.

The Chocolate Orange Inspector

Masterly as always, Frank Pulley, but the Conservatives don't want a strong Home Secretary.

David Cameron is engineered from the Blair template. He's a controller. Whatever it takes. Subvert the democratic process - impose daft, shockingly undemocratic A lists on constituencies.

Cameron is a nasty piece of work.

Proof? David Davis has been a bitter disappointment. So has William Hague. Both immensely able men. Yet now strangely disconnected. I wonder why?

Think on it.

Could it be because Cameron, with his fake, not to say impertinent, concerns and his ignoring the real concerns of Conservatives, has been chosen by the nomenklatura in Europe and that's the way it's going to go, regardless?

Verity

PS - Frank Pulley - Cameron would be frightened of, and probably loathes, Melanie Phillips, who has 10 times the brain wattage he has. He wants inferiors around him, which is why his mental superiors David Davis and William Hague keep their powder dry.

David Cameron is a fake. He loves the Nulab agenda and will benefit from it. That's why he commanded the Opposition benches to give the slithery Tony Blair an ovation.

He sees himself as the heir apparent, and - more alarming - so does Tony Blair.

Nigel Hamley

One of the best appraisals of the state of Britain I have ever read.Cameron will ignore it at his peril

David M

There's a sadistic gratification in seeing the demise of New Labour and, I must confess, I've been enjoying every minute of it. I dare say Richard LittleJohn is also enjoying the spectacle. Personally I never forgave Blair and his Party for how they cobbled up the free education system in this country. Under Thatcher, any working class student (myself included) could go to university and be funded if he (or she) applied themselves. Yet the Labour elite who themselves enjoyed a free education at university decided to burden future students with crippling debts and cause countless undergraduates to simply drop out. This at a time when China and India are churning out thousands of I.T. and science graduates. Moreover, to add insult to injury, thousands of overseas students were encouraged to come to the U.K. under Labour to enjoy the same funding and support as Britons. It must have cost billions in State loans. Whereas Britons studying abroad had to fund themselves. At any rate, I remember under the Tories people said Labour was unelectable for 3 reasons. (1) They would weaken the armed forces or even leave us defenceless. (2) They would throw open the borders. (3) They would cobble up the economy. Thus, it's no surprise today the army is overstretched and demoralised. Immigration got way out of control. The economy under Labour was also like a slow leak. While the ship still floats you can spin your way around economic troubles but when the water gushes in and the ship flounders, there are no more excuses to be offered. I really think New Labour's policies have finally caught up with them but let us at least enjoy the spectacle. Except Brown probably never had a chance to try and salvage the wreckage left by Blair.

Not Lord Halifax

From the distance of the Antipodes it seems that Melanie Phillips is the only sane person left in England. Surely no good is ever going to come from the intellectual dishonesty of the denial practised by the appeasers of Islam in the Church and in the Government? One day the appeased will wake up to the fact that they are being condescended to, in the way it is condescending to the blind to use all those euphemisms like "sight impaired". What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deny. The view here amongst Anglophile Australians is that Britain is "f....d", mostly by reason of the Islamisation of the country. Most of the people holding that view probably don't know the full and horrific extent of the insane cultural self-repudiation which Phillips continues to document so brilliantly and honestly,following on from that clarion call to the cancer in our midsy, "Londonistan".

Michael B

This is superb commentary as what is being addressed, were it to be recognized as such by the demos and were some revivification to take place within those polities, is absolutely at an archimedean level. But it very much is a revivification that needs to occur and the work that needs doing is in fact archimedean level work. Those with ears to hear ...

Kevyn Bodman

Melanie at her best, incomparable and unsurpassable.

And that our decline has been deliberately engineered is perhaps the saddest part.

Melanie,you've had the suggestion made to you that you should offer yourself for election.
I guess you have made a conscious decision not to?
If that is the case please don't let up on your forceful writing.
And I'll keep a bottle of champagne on ice, to be opened when you come round to my way of thinking on the dangers of 42 day detention without charge.

A wonderful post, Melanie.Thank you.

field

Hmmm...

Were Baldwin and Chamberlain and Balfour and Asquith really such giants?

And did the giants always serve us well? Was Disraeli's enthusiasm for Empire of long term benefit to this country? Was it morally a good thing to pursue?

Ray

It is indeed the Gramscians (and the 'broken society' they have left behind) that the Conservative Party should now be rallying itself to do battle against - a struggle that promises to be every bit as titanic as that Mrs Thatcher waged against trades union militancy.
Oh, and the other great battle the Party needs to steel itself up for is the one it will sooner or later have to wage in earnest against that other great monument to central planning and bureaucratic misdirection - the European Union.

Emmet

As usual, Melanie says it as it is. Bishop Nazir Ali also said it the other day: the country is in moral meltdown. Why, because of the "social revolution" of the sixties, when Marxist crackpots took over academia. They're still there (and still in Parliament), destroying the country.

Water

I’m not jumping on the band wagon, this is good (as ever Melanie) but when you look in the past this seems like an average piece. Looking back at some of the pieces that you’ve written they have been unquestionably superior. This is good but if someone is going to applaud you they’d be mistaken in not looking at your past work (as some of it is truly great), this is run of the mill for you. This said your average ‘run of the mill’ Blog entry is much better then so many others best efforts, hence why this is still very digestible.

D Gray

Mrs Thatcher in her greatness handed power from this country to Europe without the people being given a chance to say whether they wanted it.Blair handed more power over to Europe and promised to give the people of this country a say but then ratted on the promise.Blair lost control of the countries borders and never took islamic fundementalits at home seriously until mass murder took place in London.On many ocassions they both failed which is why they were got rid of,the fact that rubbish replaced them is an entirely different story.

Neil Turner

Don't you think that Britain gets the government it deserves ?

It amazes me that so few people vote in the first place. The latest reality TV show figures higher on most people's agenda

And secondly, looking at the floating vote (ie not Labour or Tory die-hards), why as a country did we choose to give New Labour a 3rd term, when it was clear that they had consistently lied, sold off power to the EU, and gone to extreme lengths on tax and spend.

Will the Tories be any different ?

Q. Will they recover powers lost to the EU ? No idea, but proabably no

This means a continuation of no effective border controls, no control over radical Islamists, mass-migrations from the eastern bloc, and Human Rights legislation that neuters our legal system

Q. Will they revoke and reduce political correctness ? Probably not

Will they maintain the ridiculous "CO2 causes global warming" scam ? Certainly they will

Will they reduce taxation ? Possibly, but not in the short term

So after the celebrations in 2010 on Cameron's crowning, what will really have changed ? Answers on a post card please

Ian C

An excellent summary of where Britain is in 2008 - and how we got here.

Like it or not our only best hope is that Cameron proves to be better than even the most ardent admirer hopes for. At best he can only buy Britain some time because the tasks in front of a new gov't will take alot of prioritising.

The heart of the problem is the ineffectiveness and incompetence of gov't. That is why political participants have been able to play the self-absorbed, empire building, mainly socialist agenda while in power, rather than doing only and no more than what no-one else can do - the only raison d'etre of government.

Unfortunately, Cameron, indeed every politician, ignores this interpretation of where Britain is at less his/their own peril as at the rest of ours.

The Real MichaelB55

Precisely Melanie. The Conservatives will only be taken seriously, rather than as a mere alternative to a collapsing government, when they appoint a political heavyweight to a freewheeling Cultural portfolio, so as to focus on the multiple ills that IDS, Rochester, yourself and others have highlighted. As long as 'Culture' means free opera tickets or such inanities as the Booker/Turner/whatever prize, as opposed to the connections between Gangsta rap and kids being shot in Peckham, we will know that the Tories are unserious (still).

Neil Saunders

Both Thatcher and her acolyte Blair are largely the products of the crude, first-past-the-post electoral system of the UK (which favours the politically footloose floating voter in the marginal constituency at the expense of the thoughtful and the committed), so their achievements in repeatedly obtaining office need to be seen in this light.

Thatcher was never a true Conservative; indeed, the Gladstonian liberalism you impute to Blair began with her.

With regard to the intellectual coherence of their guiding philosophy (and their longer-term viability as a political movement) the Conservatives made the repeated mistake of failing to accept Kenneth Clarke as their leader, just as Labour had somewhat earlier made a similar mistake in rejecting Denis Healey. (Measured against figures such as these, Thatcher and Blair may be seen for the lightweights they actually are.)

Thatcher was too intellectually limited to see that the kind of free-market economics she espoused could not possibly coexist with the social and cultural conservatism she otherwise favoured. (She should have read "The Communist Manifesto" at least once, instead - by her own admission - of "The Fourth Protocol" repeatedly.)

Tony Blair appears never to have been sexually promiscuous (unlike some of his cabinet), just morally and intellectually so. Even his religious convictions appear opportunistic; just as he likes to hobnob with the most powerful man in the world (whoever he may be, and whatever he may stand for), so he likes to remain on speaking terms with the most powerful entity in the universe.

I don't think that the modus vivendi between the sociocultural (i.e. politically-correct) left and the free-market right is quite the coincidence you take it to be. Both are essentially highly individualistic programmes of deregulation (the one social and the other economic). What has actually happened, I think, is that, recognising the essential compatibility of their respective programmes, the two sides have entered into an informal non-agression pact. Indeed, I refer to this fusion of PC social policy and free-market economics as the "permanent coalition". It constitutes the new consensus among our political and business elites (and their priesthood in the worlds of entertainment, mass media and education), accounting for the absence of genuine political alternatives in our so-called democracies.

George Orwell wrote The Road To Wigan Pier as a kind of political primer for his times; in our times I would recommend The Politics Of The Forked Tongue (New European Publications, 2002) by Aidan Rankin as a similar kind of primer.

James Murphy

Oxygen from Melanie! (& Verity, Frank Pulley et al, as usual). But I'm afaid the air is, and will remain, foetid until the main pollutant, socialism, is fumigated from our mental landscape, and this will only happen when its supply-line - the hydra-headed serpentine sense of envy and resentment - is ruptured. I see the posters on this site as intellectual guerillas committed to such action in the best sense, and am glad to number myself amongst them. That is to say, individuals waging a cultural rear-guard action in the only way left open to them - in their personal relationships, at work, (when possible) even at usually fatuous dinner parties, etc, etc. - Melanie's stoic intellectual bravery - witness her surrounded by wolves on question time, etc - shows that it is possible to radiate a light that refuses to be extinguished even in extreme intellectual darkness. And Verity, to extend your metaphor: the body politic has cancer: we can amputate and nurse the patient back to a semblance of health and give it a few more years of life but socialism's tumescent jealous mediocracy always returns. Surely classical history teaches us that society exists in a state of more or less constant turmoil, with first one, then another faction obtaining bloody control of the mob. This is not as depressing as it sounds, for there are always momentary interregna when great men and women come to the fore and inspire communities of like-minded souls to break free from the general mire - this we have learned to call culture. Maybe socialism is the stench that those of who live in the Chelsea of the mind just have to put up from time to time as it blows across from the wandworth of the soul...

J. Isaacs

Great piece by Melanie Phillips, as usual. Water, will you please stop being such a drip and read the magnificently handled Not Lord Halifax's comment. Not sure we are finished yet though, with Melanie Phillips and other writers telling it like it is. Roll on the sequel to "Londonistan".

Nick Kaplan

This book is an interesting (if somewhat extreme) analysis of exactly what Melanie is talking about and what we can do to combat it; http://www.candidlist.demon.co.uk/hampden/culturewar2.pdf. It is really worth reading, even if (like me) you disagree with much of what it says.

Ian Parker

There are some extraordinary suppositions about what the Tories will have to do when they take office. The only problem with this is that it ignores the obvious; the Tories, under Cameron, have no coherent policies on anything. Quite simply, if you lack principle, you lack policies. This is Cameron in spades. As a result, the Tories try to base their announcements upon some half-baked analysis of what the opinion polls might be saying. They then flip-flop on core issues as the tide shifts. Most forlorn is the hope that they will dismantle the monstrous, debilitating bureaucracy that has been created under Labour. In fact, the only clear commitment these half-wits have given is to match Labour’s bloated and increasingly unaffordable expenditure levels! A greater act of political incompetence is hard to fathom.

So, in reality, all the Conservatives are offering is more of the same with a slightly different spin. They are inept on Europe, have nothing to say of moment on serious issue such as rampant crime and we can have little confidence that they will do anything other that talk about immigration.

Both Thatcher and Blair were strong leaders with clear visions. That is what is needed now as the country lurches further into crisis. That leader has yet to stand up.

Water

J. Isaacs it only drips because its true. This said I do appreciate her Blogs (no qualms there).

Nick Kaplan

Neil Saunders ; your analysis is false, Thatcherism and the free-market ideology it was based on does not and cannot sit alongside the moral-relativism and cultural suicide of the left. The basis of the free-market thinking of Thatcher was the philosophy of Friedrich von Hayek (whose book, ‘the constitution of Liberty’ inspired Thatcher, showing she was not an intellectual lightweight), which advocates personal responsibility, independence and self-respect. None of these core values fit with the leftist belief in dependence and blaming ‘society’ for one’s own faults and failures. Thatcher wanted to wean individual’s off of their dependence on an overgrown state in order to strengthen families and individuals. Her policies aimed at ending leftist envy politics and saving Britain by revitalising its economy. All of this fits very well with the true/ original conservatives of the past such as Burke, Hume, and to an extent Locke and Smith. The time when the Conservative party was not in fact conservative was the period under McMillan, Heath and the likes of Ken Clarke who believe in Statism rather than the strength of Individuals, families and society.

Robin

I sit in a hugely enjoyable Mens' Bible Study every Monday lunchtime and I'm not surprised when we get variations on "I like Melanie Phillips". As Verity and others say, this blog is so good.

But "good" is not just the word, is it. I find it's also remarkably depressing in a sort of encouraging way.

Today's pithy analysis of the smell of British politics points us towards what seems to be an unsolvable problem: what to do as an individual.

The collapse of NuLabour is only to be expected when this government is run by morally and intellectually bankrupt pygmies. It's the little things that are just so infuriating, not least of all the emergence of local council Thought Police threatening and prosecuting all sorts for trivia.

My biggest challenge is what to think about the Tories. I long for them to be a reforming party, cutting taxation and government intereference in my life. But I can't yet trust them. I'm not convinced by the Boy David, thinking him just a touch shifty.

UKIP is always an alternative, but a single-issue party may just not be able to deliver a government.

As for Melanie as Home Secretary? Let's get a petition up on the Downing website.

Dee Mac

Melanie, please, for the sake of this great nation of ours, start your own political party.

The only genuine alternative to the main parties is being offered by the BNP. I'm sure that is not to your taste, nor many of your readers. But unless someone 'respectable' is prepared to take up the challenge, they will be the ones to benefit.

Are you up for it, Melanie?

adrian drummond

I usually can't abide Melanie Phipils because of what I believe to be her lobsided view about Israel. However, I thought this was an excellent analysis.

Water

"But unless someone 'respectable' is prepared to take up the challenge, they will be the ones to benefit" personally I'll turn to the Tories first as will most speccys.

Frank Pulley

Verity and The COI:

Accept all your qualifications about Cameron; but please note, I mused, "If I were Cameron...."
:-) That's a long way from believing that he would do ever do it - but even at my time of life, I'm allowed to dream, aren't I? And you and I know that Melanie is far too shrewd to enter the Westminster Gasworks and join the rabble of crooks ensconced therein. Anyway she can do far more good (and necessary harm) from her current platforms. So allow me my pleasant reveries beyond the awful reality of today's inept Government. The pragmatist in me has to have an hour or two off sometimes, along with the Tourettes that sometimes accompanies him.

Water.

I'm glad someone else has pulled your little tail; I was beginning to think that I was the only one that found you obsequient, arrogant and condescending concurrently in the waffle you produce on this blog. Your entries today have reinforced my resolve to dislike you. From now on you qualify for the ultimate remedy: the scroll key applied on sight. That way I shall avoid Water on the brain. And when you consider that I'm still reading 'phil's' posts occasionally you'll know how reluctant I am to closing my mind to opinion. Or as I observed on another thread way back:

Water, Water everywhere and all the bored did shrink;
Water, Water everywhere and ne'er a stop to think!

Dave M

Melanie always seems calm and polite as well as forceful when she's invited on programs such as Newsnight. In some ways, she's similar to Richard LittleJohn (who also hits back at the anti-Israel brigade), although Richard is more prone to shouting the opposition down in outrage over Labour. I think things have changed over the last 5 years and Melanie's views are now being listened to. Have you also noticed how Channel 4 has become the T.V. station to challenge the BBC over Islamic sympathising? First we had the Undercover Mosque documentary and then that excellent documentary to challenge multiculturalism with Raggi Omar travelling through the country, somewhat worried over what he found. To my mind, I think there is now deep concern over the impact of radical Islam in the U.K. and this is very different to a decade ago when Melanie's views were sometimes shouted down by the audience on T.V. debates. The problem now facing the pro-Islam echelons of the BBC and New Labour is people are now rejecting this outlook for the country and are even alarmed by it. After the Archbishop Of Cantebury hit a raw pulblic nerve, even the BBC message boards were flooded with postings that would indicate a situation of near hysteria. I don't think people ever objected to sensible levels of immigration from the Middle East but they do strongly oppose this latest promotion of Islam within the country. For example, in my region, there has been public uproar over a council plan to build a huge mosque the size of a football field in the middle of the city. As care homes and schools have been closing down, people are furious.

Verity

1:49 Ian C writes: "The heart of the problem is the ineffectiveness and incompetence of gov't."

With respect, when are you going to get the message? Blair was devastatingly competent at the task he had set himself: the destruction of Britain and the furtherance of the One Worlder agenda. You mistaken believed his agenda was your agenda; but it wasn't.

It baffles me that people ignore the real Cameron the way they ignored the real Blair and believe what they want to believe rather than what is instantly apparent with the rose-tinted specs removed. Cameron is one of them. A one worlder looking forward to his place at the top table in the capital when he's put in his time as the provincial governor of Britain.

James Murphy: "The Chelsea of the mind"! I am going to pinch that.

Neil Saunders

To Nick Kaplan

Nick, my analysis would be false had the free-market right and the PC left not been apparently prepared to ditch some (presumably less essential) aspects of their earlier beliefs. You are assuming a doctrinal purity that no longer exists, if it ever completely did.

(Incidentally, I have never been very impressed by Hayek. If you haven't already done so you should read George Orwell's review of The Road to Serfdom.)

It is no use bleating that free-market ideology cannot sit alongside the moral relativism of the PC left; the fact of the matter is that it does. (One might plausibly argue that political correctness "marketises" the social and cultural spheres, with the sovereign individual free to "consume" his or her preferred lifestyle, ethical code or cultural preferences.)

James

Excellent and insightful article, as usual.

www.theobjectivestandard.com - worth a perusal; some enlightening free essays, and a good rational blog, too.

The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-faire by Andrew Bernstein - an essential read.

Loving Life: The Morality of Self-interest and the Facts that Support it by Craig Biddle - an essential read.

Water

"Your entries today have reinforced my resolve to dislike you" Frank Pulley I'm Glad you have come to that conclusion and it's funny as you are both arrogant and rude in and of yourself. Also I did not need my opinion of you reinforced after you saying yourself that you are aware of the fact that you made need counselling I drew my conclusions.

Personally I have long been ignoring your posts, though today I noticed your reference to myself hence why I thought it best to remind you that I couldn't care less for your opinion.

Verity

3:45 pm Frank Pulley - Perhaps I misapprehended your post due to my Pavlovian reaction to the word "Cameron".

How old is this man (without bothering to look it up)? Forty-four? Forty-five? And his face as vacant as that of a newborn baby. I've never seen a middle-aged face with less life etched into it.

True, he cannot flesh out any ideas in public due to the certainty that they would be stolen by the magpie socialists whose mission isn't yet complete. But he has never articulated any of the problems that voters talk about all the time. Would it kill him to say something alone the lines of, "Our traditional, ancient, hard won British freedoms are being dismantled by the socialists" for example?

And he ought to give an iron-clad promise to derogate from from the destructive HRA that has neutered our legal system. The socialists would not race to emulate that.

Water

Further to your last point just to reconfirm yes it would be best if you sought the counselling you yourself admitted you needed. As for arrogant look at what you have written it is arrogant, I merely stated the facts. The fact is that this is good though not the best article Mel has written (nothing arrogant there). Also (as I said last time you threw you rattle out of the pram) hopefully they will teach you to mind your own business at counselling. To hit the point home in case you are in denial you yourself said you needed counselling, this came from your own fingertips. As for me having a tail I think your hallucinating maybe another issue they will address at counselling.

Water

In the words of Orwell Frank "Freedom is the right to tell people what they don't want to hear", just to hit it home a third time. Look at what you have written, I stated the facts you were arrogant. What you might not want to hear is that you need counselling but as you admitted yourself...you do.

Nick Kaplan

Neil Saunders;
George Orwell hardly came from a neutral position when criticising the road to serfdom, being a socialist himself he was unlikely to agree. But the fact is that all over the world socialism, left to its own devises, has been a totalitarian force for evil; from Russia to China to the corporatism of National Socialist Germany. Hayek was right and history has shown him to be so. You say “It is no use bleating that free-market ideology cannot sit alongside the moral relativism of the PC left; the fact of the matter is that it does.” I think this is my fault for not being clear enough, I didn’t mean it was a physical impossibility, just that it was not a product of design. Perhaps I am wrong but I took the overall tone of your first post to be suggesting that the current settlement is a compromise between free-marketism and left-culturalism. My point is merely that such a compromise cannot be the product of design as leftist political values are alien to those conservative/ libertarian philosophical values which underlie free-market thinking. The result of those left-wing cultural and moral values that you rightly admit are still pervasive can be seen in the destruction of families, communities, and the general collapse of the nation. The reason for this collapse is too little individualism and personal responsibility, not too much.

radharani

Urgent Attention
Another free thinker is to be executed in Iran in the coming days It is with great regret that I inform all freedom loving people of the world that the Mullahs' terrorist regime is about to execute one of Iran's finest thinkers, a true patriot, scholar and historian.
Dr. Foroud Fouladvand is a dedicated monarchist, a Ferdousi expert as well as expert on the history of Iran and Islam.
A confirmed report sent to the office of Dr. Fouladvand in London from inside Iran suggests that Dr. Fouladvand and two of his compatriots are going to be executed on Saturday, May 31, 2008 or possibly even sooner.
The two men to be executed alongside Dr. Fouladvand are Mr. Nazem Schmidtt, an Iranian/American citizen, aka Simorgh, and Mr. Alexander Valizadeh, an Iranian/ German citizen, aka Koroush Lor.
Dr. Fouladvand, a British citizen, was known throughout the Iranian community for his open criticism of Islam and the Mullah's tyranny.
Dr. Fouladvand, who is an expert on Islam, openly challenged the Qur'an in his daily television broadcasts for listeners both inside and outside Iran. His Television discussions were offensive to the Mullahs. On March 10, 2006, in a preplanned action, about 65 of his supporters refused to leave a Lufthansa plane in protest of the European Union's policy of appeasement of the Mullahs' regime.
Dr. Fouladvand was led to believe by an agent of the Mullahs' regime posing as a monarchist activist from within Iran that there were many Iranian patriots inside Iran who believed in him, and that a meeting with them would be fruitful in organizing and uniting people inside Iran to oppose the Mullahs. On October 13, 2006, Dr. Fouladvand and a number of his friends, including the above-named men, left London for the Turkish/Iranian border. The last news of Dr. Fouladvand's whereabouts was on January
17, 2007, when he was expected to meet the supposedly Iranian activists in the Kurdish province of Hakkary in Iraq, which is close to the Iranian border.
In January 2007, the agents of the Mullahs' secret police arrested and smuggled these three men into Iran, where they were imprisoned and were subjected to torture

patricia

Did Brown say something to annoy you, Mel?

Did he call for Justice for Palestinians or make some other defamatory call?

Did he call for Israel to comply with the '67 UN resolution that suggests you leave the Occupied Territories?

Or something equally out of order!!?

What did he say to annoy you?

Do tell us....

Nick Kaplan

James; Thanks for the link, many of the essays on there look very interesting. Just wondering where you found The Capitalist Manifesto? Also I would recommend http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index, many of the articles are well worth reading, just type a topic into the search bar and go.

David Lindsay

Blair was never an "icon" to anyone beyond the North London dinner party circuit. But apart from that, with the Tories now riven between a Blair-worshipping centre and a grassroots Thatcher cult wholly unrelated to her actual record, what is to be done?

We need to revive the party of the Attlee Government's refusal to join the European Coal and Steel Community on the grounds that it was "the blueprint for a federal state". Of Gaitskell's rejection of European federalism as "the end of a thousand years of history" and liable to destroy the Commonwealth.

The party of the trade unionists and Labour activists who in the early twentieth century peremptorily dismissed an attempt to make the Labour Party anti-monarchist (as it now is), and resisted schemes to abort, contracept and sterilise the working class out of existence (as is now very well under way).

The party of Bevan's ridicule of the first parliamentary Welsh Day on the grounds that "Welsh coal is the same as English coal and Welsh sheep are the same as English sheep". Of those Labour MPs who in the 1970s successfully opposed Scottish and Welsh devolution not least because of the ruinous effects that it would have had (and is now having) on the North of England. And of those Labour activists in the Highlands, Islands and Borders, and in North, Mid and West Wales, who accurately predicted that their areas would be balefully neglected under devolution.

The party of the Attlee Government's first ever acceptance of the principle of consent in relation to Northern Ireland, of the Wilson Government's deployment of British troops in order to defend the grateful Catholics there precisely as British subjects, and of the Callaghan Government's administration of Northern Ireland exactly as if it were any other part of the United Kingdom.

The party of the Catholic and other Labour MPs who fought tooth and nail against abortion and easier divorce, of the Methodist and other Labour MPs who fought tooth and nail against deregulated drinking and gambling, and of those in the Labour Movement who defeated Thatcher's and Major's attempts to destroy the special character of Sunday and of Christmas Day.

The party of Attlee's dissuasion of Truman from dropping an atom bomb on Korea, of Wilson's refusal to send British forces to Vietnam, of his use of military force in order to safeguard the right of the people of Anguilla to be British, and of Callaghan's successful prevention of an Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands.

And so on.

That party believed in national self-government, the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts. In local variation, historical consciousness, and family life. In the whole Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West. In agriculture, manufacturing, and small business. In close-knit communities, law and order, and civil liberties. In academic standards, and in all forms of art. In mass political participation within a constitutional framework. And in the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilisation to the point of natural death.

And it recognised that all these are corroded to nought by the "free" market, both directly and because it drives its despairing victims by the million into the arms of Jacobinism, Marxism, anarchism and Fascism, all four of which feed into neoconservatism.

Therefore, it gave the United Kingdom the universal and comprehensive Welfare State (including, for example, farm subsidies), and the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment, the former paid for by progressive taxation, the whole underwritten by full employment, and all those good things delivered by the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government.

Turnout in the traditional strongholds of the above political movement was in some cases as low as one in three at the 2005 General Election. The votes are there to be had, if we can get onto the ballot paper and secure even a small amount of publicity in the right outlets. Some of us are already working on making it happen.

Water

radharani thank you I had not heard of these name before.

Commondog

These blogs will be put together one day and studied as a guide to the atmosphere in the pre-war years.

I just hope those students will be looking for clues as to how the West was, at the last gasp, brought out of its slumber; rather than as evidence of the civilisation which the Caliphate has just replaced.

BTW Water.

Are you just trying to cultivate an image of dispassionate learnedness?

(Monocle in place)..."Looking back at some of the pieces that you’ve written they have been unquestionably superior."

If you've 'just finished university' then why - especially in response to such a powerful text - are you commenting in the voice of Bertrand Russell?

Commondog

rhadarani.

Thank you for your report, I was totally unaware of these events as I rely largely on the BBC for news. Not really what they are looking for.

Best of luck to you and I hope even at this late stage that some way can be found to help these brave men.

Water

Commondog I’m not trying to cultivate an image of dispassionate learnedness, for so called learnedness has nothing to do with the situation. I was just merely stating what I felt, if it came across that way it was not how it was intended, I was merely stating the facts.

David Lindsay

Interviewed in this week's Catholic Herald, Geraldine Smith makes a valiant effort to defend Labour, admitting that Old Labour's Methodism and Catholicism have given way to New Labour's "metropolitan elite", but claiming that that elite is not typical of the Labour Party.

However, beyond that elite's salons, there hardly is any Labour Party, or Conservative Party, or Liberal Democrats, these days. No one from any other background now stands the slightest chance of being given a first shot at standing for Parliament, never mind of being made the new MP for a safe seat.

The old Communists, Trotskyists and fellow-travellers have entirely supplanted the Labour Party, while their imitators (and erstwhile university drinking mates, drugging mates and mating mates) have entirely supplanted the Tories and the Lib Dems.

On the same page, it is reported that one in six councils (of all parties, I bet) is now cancelling free travel to church schools, in the case of Bradford, at least, in order to pay the taxi fares for pregnant or nursing schoolgirls (of whom, please note, there were supposed to be no more after the 1967 Abortion Act).

Thank God that we have an excellent candidate based in Bradford. If you want to know who "we" are, then do get in touch - davidaslindsay@hotmail.com

Verity

Common Dog - Re your response to Water's pretentious dismissal of what is one of the strongest and most eloquent posts I've ever read, well said, sir!

Max Kaye

Thanks Melanie.

Frank Pulley

Verity

I know what you mean about the obvious lack of experience and authority in the demeanour of all the the Shadow Cabinet team and the Tory Leader himself.I Suppose that's what happens to a political party after a decade in opposition. But I guess I'm anxious that a Conservative Party ousts the current Red Brigade asap. If the Cameroons turn out to be another modified Marxist outfit masquerading as something else: another troop of Gramscian Guerrillas, then we'll have to turn our attention to them too. But I'm prepared to give him and them the benefit of the doubt pro tem. Who knows, once in power they may shape up and get on with the job of reclaiming the culture; snatching our sovereignty back from Brussels; sacking about two thirds of the dross that is currently on the government payroll and restoring the power of policing back to where it belongs - on the streets via the Queens' Warrant, not at the whim of minority pressure groups in Town Halls, the Mayoral Office of Londonistan, or the corrupt and politicised lawyers of the bloody CPS. He also needs to shitcan the leftie judges that have been insinuated into the system since NuLab was spawned. The latter is a difficult one. But as I pleaded before: let me have a few dreams in my dotage, or I'll die in fear for my children and grandchildren who will have to suffer the consequences of 50 years or more of gradual political and cultural surrender. As one who has worked very hard to resist the subversion of this country for all my adult life, I feel badly let down. Which is why it's a fillip to have heavy hitters like yourself punching their weight on this blog. As for our hostess - what would we do without her?

Paul B

I can look on and read Mrs P words in shock & awe. I admire several other journalists, but none have quite the same (excuse the phrase) ball tightening impact as MPs. I am not worthy.

Nick Kaplan

David; you really need to grow up or learn some history. The Social Democracy of Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, and the other quasi-socialist Tories in between, came to its miserable and inevitable conclusion in the 1978 Winter of Discontent when rubbish and dead bodies piled high on the streets as garbage men, doctors, grave diggers and various other zealous trade-union leaders intimidated their members into striking. In the meantime inflation rates hit 25% whilst the top rate of tax reached an astonishing 83% meaning that any vaguely productive individual either fled the country or spent 80% of their time settling union disputes. So much for the post-war Social Democratic utopia. During the post-war consensus the nation, which you claim to support, was in a state of terminal decline due to the polices that you want to bring back. Said policies involved selling out on all the values that truly made Britain Great such as Locke’s Life, Liberty and Property. The sentiment of all governments after Attlee was to ‘manage the decline of Britain’... so much for their patriotism. Your glorification of the working class is simply pathetic (it’s the individuals and their aspirations that you should support not the class in and for itself), and the ideas you advocate seem to be designed more to prolong its existence (and suffering) then to help individuals achieve and get themselves into a higher income bracket. But, given that you’re a Social Democrat this should hardly surprise me, the destruction of grammar schools by the left always was just a poorly disguised but successful attempt to destroy social mobility so that Labour voters would remain dependent on the state and the Labour party. If you truly supported the individuals in the working class rather than the institution itself, you should support Thatcher whose ‘right to buy’ scheme did far more to promote ownership, responsibility, independence and aspiration in the working class then did the previous generations social engineering, envy, subsidisation, protectionism and state ownership which merely prolonged its suffering.

Ravi

And the latest policy by the Govt to help unite the country and put us back on the rails of morality, cohesion and consideration for our peers is to force schoolchildren to be taught by Imams the values of Islam.

Imams will teach in state schools under Government plans for tackling extremism to be announced next week.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, admitted today that a minority of children could be “at risk” from extremists and said that schools must be able to deal with radicalisation.

British-born imams will be drafted in to schools to instruct children about Islam and the Koran as part of the Government’s “Prevent” strategy, which aims to weed out extremism before it takes root.

Lessons will include teachings from the Koran and discussions about equality between the sexes, the sanctity of life and the rights of the individual. Mr Balls said the citizenship lessons would help young people to feel “part of their society, and resilient to those who seek to divide rather than unite”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article4035200.ece

Neil Saunders

To Nick Kaplan

"George Orwell hardly came from a neutral position when criticising The Road to Serfdom. Being a socialist himself, he was hardly likely to agree."

Two points: 1) Nobody who states a definite opinion on a controversial matter "comes from a neutral position"; in the context of this forum you do not, and neither do I! 2) Orwell was a socialist, but a very idiosyncratic one.

My feeling is that you have read very few or none of his writings. If you had, you would realise that a principled opposition to totalitarianism was a recurrent motif in them (and forms, indeed, the main subject matter of his two most celebrated works, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four). Whatever his errors in supporting some kind of socialism, Orwell had the unflinching moral and intellectual honesty to expose and condemn the totalitarian tendencies of the left.

By the way, you are wrong to collapse regimes as different as the Soviet and Maoist dictatorships on the one hand and the Nazi state on the other into a single "socialist" category. (Yes, Nazism and Fascism ARE statist, but that does not automatically make them socialist in the relevant sense of the term.)

Furthermore, there have been democratic socialist or (social democrat) regimes - especially in continental Europe - that have not slipped inexorably into "totalitarian evil". I disapprove of such regimes, but not because they are totalitarian or (on any serious understanding of this powerful term) evil.

Political correctness is, in my opinion, not a symptom of the triumph of socialism but of its collapse. The so-called left have shifted their allegiance from the indigenous industrial proletariat to minorities in general and to Muslims in particular. (A form of individualism - founded on identity politics - raised to the level of the group.)

I did not take you to mean that the fusion of the free-market right and the PC left (which I believe has occurred) was a PHYSICAL impossibility (whatever this might involve), but you seem to remain persuaded (wrongly) that it is some kind of logical impossibility. (Incidentally, I have only the very vaguest notion of what you might mean by its not being "a product of design", and I am not at all sure what relevance this might have whether it is so or not.)

You were not at all wrong in taking my first post as not merely suggesting, but stating quite explicitly, that "the current settlement is a compromise between free-marketism and left-culturalism".

"My point", you write, "is that such a compromise cannot be the product of design as leftist political values are alien to those conservative/libertarian values which underlie free-market thinking."

Let me unpick this farrago of unsupported assertions: 1) I have no very clear idea of what you mean by "design", or of what (if any) relevance it might have. 2) I have stated quite unequivocally in my earlier post that politically-correct social and cultural projects are perfectly compatible with a free-market economy; we are living in a society that demonstrates such a combination. 3) In a version of the genetic fallacy you are assuming that present-day free-market ideology must retain a commitment to certain foundational values (which you call "conservative/libertarian", but do not define); however, while history might or might not have vindicated Hayek (and I think, broadly speaking, it has not), it perennially demonstrates the falsity of this kind of political essentialism. Ideas evolve, while loyalties shift, merge and then re-divide.

Like you I wish to see the traditional family and the nation-state maintained, but I do not see global capitalism as their defender and guarantor. Rather the contrary. I once again affirm that it is the devil's deal that has been struck by the libertarianism of the left (political correctness) and that of the right (free-market fundamentalism) that is the greatest threat to their continued existence. In the light of this it is perverse to insist on more "individualism" (and then to equate this with "personal responsibility") when what is clearly needed is a greater commitment to the common good on the basis of shared values and ideals.

Water

It was not pretentious in fact it was very sincere and heart felt because I'm a great fan of her better entries. This said it is still a good bit of blogging I don't deny that, just not the best of her work in my opinion.

Water

This said Commondog thanks for the comparison to Russell. Though a lot of his thoughts on Logic were obliterated by Ludwig he was a Legend and a deeply respectable man.

James

Nick, The Capitalist Manifesto is advertised in The Objective Standard. Incidentally, Craig Biddle's book - Loving Life - is the clearest exposition of Objectivism I have read.

Particularly thought-provoking essays at The Objective Standard are the following:

No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism by John David Lewis.
The Forward Strategy for Failure by Yaron Brook and Elan Journo.
Just War Theory versus American Self-Defence by Yaron Brook and Alex Epstein.
Religion versus Free Speech by Craig Biddle.

Atheism: The Case Against God by George H Smith. This is the most compelling refutation of all theological arguments for a supreme being (and the supernatural in general)that I have read; in parts a difficult read, it is very clearly written, employing rigorous and logical argumentation from first to last, and should appeal to all thoroughgoing rationalists.

Tina

I hope Cameron and co read this piece, it's the best I've read in a long time.

Water

Good points by both Nick and Neil. Though Neil I would have to agree "The so-called left have shifted their allegiance" though with this in mind beyond indigenous industrial proletariat, how would you classify the indigenous individual. For after what period time (or what ever empirical method you employ) would state that an individual is said to be indigenous to this land when we take into consideration the Anglo-Saxons and what have you, thus to a degree we are all immigrants. What happened to the other posts Mel?

Nick Kaplan

Neil Saunders;
Thanks for the reply. I completely agree that Orwell was a principled man who opposed Totalitarianism in all its forms. His writings show this to be so and his books have been a core reason why such totalitarianism has not (yet) reached our shores. However, this does not stop him from failing to see the connection between socialism/ collectivism in general (this is why I include Fascism, also a highly collectivist ideology) and totalitarianism. I think Hayek put his finger on something fundamental in ‘Road to Serfdom’ and this is that the institutions and collectivist principles of the left undermine the values necessary to preserve liberty and hence will often lead to totalitarianism. This doesn’t mean that those that advocate socialism also favour totalitarianism (this is far from the case), but it is always worth remembering the phrase “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The problem with collectivism, be it the kind of divisive collectivism of identity politics the left now promote or the kind of state collectivism they formally promoted, is that it does not value the individual in and for him/ herself. When it is accepted that an individual may be coerced to achieve a collective end, that his property and economic liberty may be sacrificed for the ‘greater good’ then it doesn’t require a much further extension of this principle before most liberties and rights may be sacrificed for some other perceived greater good. Furthermore, to all intents and purposes socialism in practice has always meant state monopoly and thus total dependence on the state. It’s easy to see why such dependence on the state has the dangerous potential to lead to totalitarianism. In the words of Trotsky (no friend of Capitalism) “"In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work does not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat."

Nick Kaplan

Neil Saunders;
Regarding the other points you make perhaps I am not being clear. When I say design what I mean is that there was no deliberate compromise between the right and the left whereby left-wing cultural values were accepted in exchange for the implementation of right wing economic policies. You say “I have stated quite unequivocally in my earlier post that politically-correct social and cultural projects are perfectly compatible with a free-market economy; we are living in a society that demonstrates such a combination.” I agree that they are compatible in the sense that they can be implemented at the same time. As I am (I’m sure you’ve guest) no Marxist, I don’t believe the economic base of a society determines its culture. As a countries economy and its culture are quite separate entities, it is of course possible for left-wing culture to sit alongside a right-wing economy, in this sense we are in complete agreement. The problem is you are failing to distinguish between a free-market economy and a free-market ideology. A belief in free-markets (something those on the left do not hold) is totally inconsistent with a leftist social culture, as the two are based on opposite values. I agree, as do all right-wing Libertarians, that shared values are essential. These shared values must be in life, liberty and property. All of which are the fundamental values on which Great Britain was built , which Libertarians advocate and which the left and their collectivism have destroyed.

david skinner

The labour party were swept into power in 1997, bursting with idealism and a plan for building a society based on justice and equality. The country was behind it and there was practically nothing of a revolutionary nature that Mr Blair might do by way of combating the values of our then run-down, spiritually impoverished way of life for which it wouldn’t have given him its full support.

Yet how infinitely sad; how, in a macabre sort of way, that the form this revolution took should be a demand not for redressing the widening gap between the rich and the poor, those with second and third homes and with those with none, or with addressing the problems of illiteracy, justice and security, but for the demand for condoms and freedom to commit sodomy in public parks.

After ten years in power the ultimate and lasting legacy of this government will be to have passed a law making it a criminal offence to harass, offend or incite hatred towards sodomy, to give free rein to the sexual appetites of any slobbering debauchee or sexual predator and finally to have given our children a reputation for achieving the highest record of unwanted pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted diseases in Europe. To continue along this path of releasing the reigns on constraint and self -control will result in an inevitable collapse of society.

Assuming that I am hankering for a past, golden age that never was, some would accuse me of wanting to turn the clock back to the 1950s or even the 1890s.
But I believe that we need to be more radical than that; we need to go back 2000 years to the words of Jesus Christ who was the rock on which our nation was built . Tragically, that same rock becomes a stumbling block to those who dismiss him. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the following story, but as an allegory of the relationship of a nation to Jesus Christ it is true:

This is based on an actual radio conversation between a U.S. Navy
aircraft carrier (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authorities
off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. (The radio
conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on
10/10/95 authorized by the Freedom of Information Act.)
Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to
avoid collision.
Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the
North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15
degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again,
divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND
LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE
ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS
SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES
NORTH--I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH--OR
COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

London Calling

Watching question time last night on BBC1, a youth in the audience said to Geoff Hoon "sorry mate, but I just don’t trust you, how do you expect 18 -25 year olds to vote"

2010, ten more minutes of this government is too much to bare, not only does Labour lack strong leadership, there really isn’t anyone standing in the wings of Labour to replace Gordon Brown either.

In my view I think the general public have moved on with the times and no longer connect with parties that associate themselves with class, left, right, middle thinking, Green party, respect party, BNP.

We need a party, that represents
the Britain we now are, regardless of class.

Listening to the snobbery I have witnessed at times here on the spectator, just brings it home to me what an out of touch, blame game culture we have become.

Blame the Underclass

Blame the parents

Blame the Government

Whatever you do, don't Blame me......

Politics needs to move with the times, to engage with the youth, instead of playing at politics and strive be good politicians, that mean what they say with conviction and honesty, unfortunately to date we have only witnessed very few and it is no wonder our youth on Question Time has given up hope and millions like him.

I therefore propose the removal of class politics ... you see the public woke up and the future generations will be looking for leadership that speaks for all the people, otherwise politics will just mean “those lot in Westminster”
and those lot in Westminster need to wake up and fast.

Nick Kaplan

Neil Saunders;
Also you say: “Political correctness is, in my opinion, not a symptom of the triumph of socialism but of its collapse. The so-called left have shifted their allegiance from the indigenous industrial proletariat to minorities in general and to Muslims in particular. (A form of individualism - founded on identity politics - raised to the level of the group.)”
Political Correctness is just the same old leftist egalitarianism and is still motivated by the leftist desire to destroy enterprise, capitalism and true individual rights. Multiculturalism isn’t individualism, it’s the negation of individualism, it’s the belief that the individual is not valued due to his/ her own qualities but the characteristics of the group to which he/she belongs. (Need I comment on the absurdity of saying it’s a “form of individualism... raised to the level of the group” I think that’s called an oxymoron). In brief, multiculturalism is the view that all cultures, from that of barbarism to that of an advanced industrial civilization, are equal in value. Since cultures are obviously not equal in value—not if man’s life is your standard of value—this egalitarian doctrine can have only one purpose: to obliterate the value of a free, industrialized civilization, by declaring that such a civilization is no better than primitive tribalism. Multiculturalism is Gramscianism put into practice; it’s socialism in its cultural form.

London Calling

radharani
May 30th, 2008 4:17pm

Sorry I posted my comment on this post before reading your urgent attention plea.

With regards to Dr. Fouladvand are Mr. Nazem Schmidtt, an Iranian/American citizen, aka Simorgh, and Mr. Alexander Valizadeh, an Iranian/ German citizen, aka Koroush Lor.

I am very saddened to hear that freethinking people like these are going to being murdered for expressing the truth.

My prayers are with them all and I hope Iran is free one day from this barbaric mindset that currently rules Iran.

You spoke out with courage and I believe these brave Men are truly honoured with your presence here.

I hope your voice reaches those
that can help.

jon livesey

Most people who view today's Britain with regret - I am one of them - have a nostalgia for a Britain in which affinities ran vertically. A society in which ones identity as British trumped other social divides, and in which there was massive, even if quiet, support for national institutions. It was a Britain that had such a well-defined national identity that it wasn't even really part of its own Empire. Britain was a European country that happened to have an Empire, but was not cosmopolitan in itself.

In today's Britain affinities run horizontally. A British author in 2008 has more affinity with Salman Rushdie that he has with the chav who empties his bins or with the soldier who guards his security.

Like any society, the old Britain had its methods of social control, but the new Britain does too. Political correctness, which favours those with whom today's rulers feel affinity, works just as effectively at controlling thought and speech as "Queen and country" or "Tommy Atkins" ever did. It's just that the old myths elevated Britain and the Britishness of all social classes, while the new myths celebrate a new multicultural class that includes reggae singers, soccer players and imams, but does not include British factory workers and retail clerks. Whoever wins in today's Britain, British workers are the big losers.

This leads to three conclusions. First, multiculturalism and PC are class-based movements, with their own multi-national aristocracy, based mostly in London, viewing the rest of the country as essentially foreign.

Secondly, the Labor Party stopped being British a long time ago, and the Tories would like to be British, but are a bit too defensive about it to be totally convincing.

Thirdly, and perhaps astonishingly, the BNP is emerging as a genuine working and lower-middle class movement, which is completely unashamed of a Britishness which has in fact been abdicated to it by the other parties.

Where this all goes, I can only guess. Totally new parties have emerged in Britain before, usually when one of the existing parties have totally lost the plot. My guess is the combination of the EU, immigration and devolution could create a perfect storm for the existing parties, and that those who expect the next general election to be a two party fight in a familiar mould may be in for a surprise.

Nick Kaplan

Radharani; Although we are a diverse group, I think I can safely say I speak for all of us here when I say that our thoughts and hopes are with those men, who in an act of bravery have made the ultimate sacrifice to highlight the importance of Liberty and of Reason.

Verity

Water,whose languid, lifeless drip,drip,drip dulls the senses, we (that is, my countrymen and me, although I sense not you) live on an island which is defensible over hundreds of years. Unlike land borders which are easibly breachable. "thus to a degree we are all immigrants."

I'm not, sweetheart.

Nick Kaplan writes re George Orwell: "His writings show this to be so and his books have been a core reason why such totalitarianism has not (yet) reached our shores."

You jest.

Nick Kaplan - Do not take it upon yourself to speak for me under any circumstances. No one elected you a universal spokesman.

Water

Nick, “cultures are obviously not equal in value” I wouldn’t say that all cultures are, for some do fall circumstance to barbarism without a fraction of a doubt. After all if your paradigm for discerning value (in whichever format it maybe) has been effected from within the confines of a particular culture, it will evidently discern certain peripheries with regards to the self and others (which will not be shared by all cultures) as these notions are particular to the subject culture.

This said a paradox has always struck me, in that ‘if you accept’ that a basic degree of humanity must always be exercised with regards to all cultures (and that that basic degree of humanity is conducive to a value in and of itself) then cultures per se possess a degree of equal value (in the form of a basic degree of moral worth that must be exercised upon all of the human race). Then, as a civilized human being, judging from within the confines of a civilized society would you say that all cultures are equal in terms of the value of humanity so construed?

Commondog

A Help Request.

After even my short while consulting this blog, it's become apparent that I am at a disadvantage in my lack of knowledge about things Gramscian.
It seems that in discussion about the state of the UK right now, most roads lead to Gramsci.

Early on, I had a link or two from one kind person whose name I forget, sorry and thanks, you know who you are. But if there are other links or preferably works in print that anyone could suggest I would be grateful.

I have googled only to be faced with acres of stuff of a rambling and in-depth nature. My favourite books are thin ones on account of I'm a lazy sod, so concise is my bag (if this is at all possible with this character)

Water

That's fine Verity if you don't agree you don't agree, as for being dull not quite, because it's a fact if you look at our genealogical origins.

Nick Kaplan

My apologies Verity. But do you disagree?

Commondog

A late substitution.
Bertrand Russell has been brought off suffering from cramp.
His place out there on the left-wing has been filled by the new signing Jacques Derrida.

In an endearing touchline gesture, the monocle was handed over to the Frenchman (ish), who brought jeers from the crowd by throwing the glass to the floor, crushing it under his lilac coloured rigger boots, and rushing immediately to the referee to demand close inspection of his notebook and the offences commited thus far.

Nick Kaplan

Water; I think Humans are only of equal moral worth at birth (or perhaps conception, I’m not sure at what point life begins). After that our choices and actions determine how ‘valuable’ we are, I think this is the only basis on which you can justify punishing a criminal i.e. that his actions mean that he is not of the same worth as his victim. So I believe it is a mistake even to say that all humans are of the same moral worth, although most are. I think the same applies to cultures, the values and actions a particular culture promotes will determine of what worth that culture is. As many cultures such as Islam i.e. cultures that have not accepted enlightenment values, place little value on Liberty or individual rights (such as self-ownership) then those cultures are certainly inferior to western culture because they negate human nature. Christianity on the other hand broadly accepts values such as these and thus is far superior, and should be promoted as such. Although as an atheist I disagree with the basis and some of the content of Christian values (e.g. its denial of the right to euthanasia) I would live in any Christian country above any country of a different religion/ culture, even all those countries that have formally been atheist such as the USSR, which also negate the value of the individual and thus are less worthy.

phil

Melanie an excellent commentary ,but who is going to do it ?my choice is William hague ,but he would probably only get one vote -me

phil

Nick you made a bad mistake apologising to the fragrant Verity -.quite the most pompous and boring poster on this thread.an expert in sarcasm but not knowledge and aided and abetted by her sycophant frank
-You(Nick) post thought provoking writing which is always worth reading