"Safeguarding the public"

Do you remember the case of Daniel Driscoll? He's the convicted murderer currently on the run after absconding from an open prison - along with a couple of drug dealers - earlier this month.

Well, it looks like we could soon be hearing about plenty more cases like his:

THE government has quietly resumed the practice of sending high-risk offenders with a history of violence to open prisons, in breach of its own guidelines.

According to complaints submitted by probation officers to their union this month, criminals convicted of grievous bodily harm, domestic violence, robbery and wounding are being moved to open jails.

The National Association of Probation Officers (Napo) has received reports from six of the country’s nine open prisons about a new influx of cases of inappropriate referrals.

Staff at one open prison said that in mid-December they had 25 persistent offenders, all deemed to be high risk to the public.

The use of open prisons to house violent criminals was first announced in October 2006 by John Reid, then home secretary, as a short-term solution to overcrowding.

It was stopped in March this year following complaints from staff about the increasing violence and drug use by the transferred offenders. The government then issued instructions that no violent criminals or sex offenders should be transferred.

It has now emerged that when the prison population passed 81,500 in November, this was ignored and prisoners began once again to be relocated to open prisons.

[...]

A spokeswoman for the justice ministry said: “Our position has always been to safeguard the public.”

What, I ask, does she mean by that? Does she mean that the government will do all it can to safeguard the public? Or does she instead mean that safeguarding the public is simply a vague ideal, something that it would be very nice to be able to do, but which isn't really a priority? Since it's clearly not the former, I can only assume that the message is that while the government would very much like to keep the public safe from violent criminals (by, for example, ensuring that such offenders are kept in high security prisons, rather than in open prisons from which prisoners abscond at a rate of more than one a week), that's just too much like hard work, and that therefore the public can go and screw themselves!

My New Year Wishes

Dizzyfatplonka has tagged me with a quite interesting meme. Simply put, I am required to list eight things that I want to happen in the coming year. So here are the things I look forward to seeing in 2008:

1. A politician swinging from every lamp post in Westminster.

2. The BBC closed down.

3. The wholesale restructuring of our education system - harder exams, (British) history made compulsory to GCSE level, a return to traditional teaching methods, the abolition of soft subjects, fewer university places, the ditching of the new diplomas, and of course, more grammar schools. And the end of the practice of using the education system as a tool for left-wing indoctrination.

4. The creation of a genuine pan-European mass movement against Islamification, building on the foundations already laid by SIOE.

5. An end to mass immigration.

6. British withdrawal from the EU.

7. The death of the nanny state. I especially want to see the repeal of the law against smoking in pubs, the destruction of the massive police DNA database, and the dropping of plans to impose ID cards upon us.

8. I become the owner of a Morgan Aero 8.

Sadly, I think that the only ones that have even a remote chance of occurring are 1, 4, and 8. Because they're the only ones that don't depend on the goodwill or competence of politicians...

I know that some bloggers regard memes as irritating, and that some bloggers love them, so, in order to avoid irritating those in the former category by including them, or disappointing those in the latter category by excluding them, I will simply throw this open to those who want it. Enjoy!

More equal than others

It was with mounting anger, but without much surprise, that I read of yet another instance of state-sponsored anti-white discrimination. This time, it's taking place in the education system.

Among the various sources of funding available to schools, is the "Black Pupils Achievement Programme" (BPAP - not to be confused with the similar but much more expensive "Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant" (EMAG)), funded by the government, and therefore the (generally white) taxpayer, to the tune of £1.3million a year. The BPAP, to which over a hundred schools have so far signed up, was instituted in order to rectify the supposed under-achievement of non-white schoolchildren. As part of the programme, schools are given money to send all their pupils on regular trips to art galleries, museums, and the offices of local companies, in order to inspire them to work hard. All their pupils, that is, except those who happen to be white. They are excluded.

Other aspects of the BPAP include altering the school curriculum to ensure that it reflects the "experiences of African-Caribbean and Muslim pupils". As such, children at those schools that have signed up to the programme will now be studying the topography of Caribbean islands in their Geography classes, and will be analysing rap music during their English classes. Will the lyrics studied include those by performers such as Ice Cube and Public Enemy, who openly advocate hatred of, and sometimes violence against, whites, I wonder?

There are two main issues and two subsidiary points to be made here. First, these classes which are now being restructured in order to fit with the "experiences" of blacks and Muslims presumably include white pupils as well: I assume that even they are not excluded from all education. Well, this being so, I would ask what is being done to reflect the "experiences" of white pupils? This is a pertinent question: at the beginning of 2007 Sir Keith Ajegbo's report on citizenship lessons in schools revealed that white working class children often suffer "labelling and discrimination", especially in racially-mixed areas. Sir Keith wrote that white working class children:

...can feel beleaguered and marginalised, finding their own identities under threat as much as minority ethnic children...

With particular relevance to the present case, he added that:

It makes no sense in our report to focus on minority ethnic pupils without trying to address and understand the issues for white pupils. It is these white pupils whose attitudes are overwhelmingly important in creating community cohesion. Nor is there any advantage in creating confidence in minority ethnic pupils if it leaves white pupils feeling disenfranchised and resentful.

Sir Keith cited the example of a white British girl, who, having heard that her classmates came from such centres of vibrant diversity as the Congo, Portugal, Trinidad, and Poland, declared that she "came from nowhere". I cannot see that the negative perceptions that many native children have of their identity will be improved by such measures as the replacement of white poets with black rappers in the English curriculum.

More generally, I wonder why there is this especial focus on non-whites. While it is true that some non-white groups achieve poorer exam results, on average, than whites, it is also the case that white working class boys generally perform worse than any other group. Their results are also improving at a slower rate than those of other groups. So why are no measures being taken to remedy their poverty of achievement? Indeed, why is it that, so far from being helped, they are being actively discriminated against, in the manner detailed above?

To conclude, I would draw readers' attention to the fact that Trevor Phillips, the man responsible for ensuring that discrimination does not occur in Britain, refused to comment on this blatant instance of unfair treatment. I doubt that he would have been so reticent, had the Education Department been using taxpayers' money to send white children on trips, from which non-whites were excluded. And I would ask whether any reader, having observed the manner in which the present elite is thus discriminating against and failing the white working class, can honestly criticise any member of that class who then votes for the BNP? Because I don't think you can.

Hat-tip: Battle for Britain

Police Priorities

Gangs of thugs vandalising a war memorial and intimidating the elderly? Not a problem.

Lone middle-aged woman confronting a gang of 15 vandals and clipping one of them round the ear? Arrestworthy!

And these people seriously believe that they deserve a pay rise? Personally, I think a collective P45 would be more merited.

Kettle, meet pot

A government campaign will warn bosses that they face large fines and prison sentences if they are caught employing illegal migrant workers.

The Home Office will run radio and print adverts ahead of a tightening of the law on illegal labour in February.

Employers could be fined up to £10,000 for every illegal worker they negligently hire, or could face up to two years in prison.

The immigration minister said firms would have no excuse to break the law.

Liam Byrne said: "Illegal working attracts illegal migrants and undercuts British wages. That's why we're determined to shut it down.

"The message is clear for employers - we will not tolerate illegal working."

Well, I certainly don't disagree with that, and I hope that the advertising campaign, and the new laws, succeed in deterring employers from employing illegal immigrants. But I do wonder whether the government in general, and the Home Office in particular, are not being a tad hypocritical. After all, not only has their repeated failure to tackle illegal immigration probably done more to "attract illegal migrants" than anything any private company - however avaricious - could do, but they have themselves been caught employing illegal immigrants!

Pot, meet kettle

Without wishing to belittle the possible political significance (not to mention the human tragedy) of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, I must say that I laughed heartily when I saw that Gordon Brown has accused her killers of being "cowards afraid of democracy".

Because, for the avoidance of doubt, this is the selfsame Gordon Brown who has in the past few months backed down from holding a general election, and reneged on Labour's manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on the EU constitution. Yes, it's that Gordon Brown. Not another one.

Merry Christmas!

Just a brief note to wish all readers and their families a very diverse Winterval happy Christmas! Best make the most of it this year, because if certain people get their way, there won't be many more...

I will be back around the 27th.

"Donkeys led by Donkeys"

On Wednesday, I wrote that "the government likes to have several cock-ups over illegal immigration on the go at any one time". As I now realise, "several" was something of an underestimate, as two stories over the last two days serve to demonstrate. Yesterday, it was revealed that the Border and Immigration Agency is refusing to deport any of the estimated 4,000 foreign criminals serving sentences of under one year in Britain's jails. Apparently, staff at the agency simply have "no interest" in doing so. Would that we could all avoid doing our jobs whenever we decided that we had "no interest" in them!

And today, it was revealed that since 1999 the government has granted indefinite leave to remain in Britain to approximately 100,000 illegal immigrants. This follows Tuesday's revelation that a further 165,000 illegals look set to be granted a de facto amnesty over the next few years, after Home Office staff lost their files. So, by the time our leaders have finished, over a quarter of a million illegal immigrants will have been granted the right to live in Britain. They will also have the right to bring their families over here - what will that swell the numbers to?

Admittedly, the figures will still be dwarfed by the number of immigrants (over one million in the last two years) that Labour is letting into the country legally...

The present government is useless in most respects; many and varied are its defects. But its complete inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to deal with immigration must surely rank as the most colossal of its many failures. As for the staff at the Home Office, their general incompetence is a fitting partner to Labour's inadequacy and mendacity: as a commenter (Michael Murphy) at the Daily Mail so aptly put it, they are "Donkeys led by Donkeys".

Scumwatch

The ringleader of the group who committed this crime may have been as young as 14:

A terminally-ill woman in a wheelchair has been assaulted by a group of youths who hit her on the back of the head.

Police said the attack in Woolworths in Biggin Street, Dover, Kent on Saturday, may have been filmed on a mobile phone.

The youths were seen laughing and looking at a mobile phone after the attack on Beverley McFarlane, 41, who has lymphoma, a form of cancer.

A Woolworths spokeswoman said the firm is co-operating with police and all stores had CCTV and security guards.

Mrs McFarlane said she grabbed her bag before being thumped hard in the back.

She said the attack began when one youth banged a tin of chocolates she had on her knees.

She said: "I grabbed my bag, thinking that they might grab my bag, and then another boy came behind me, and thumped me in the back.

"It was that hard it made me cry."

[...]

Staff alerted a supervisor to the incident, who radioed for police backup.

The staff then intervened and asked the boys to leave, after which the incident was "in police hands", [a Woolworths spokeswoman] said.

Of course, the ideal course of action would have been for the staff, assisted by the other customers (who seem to have done nothing whatsoever while this was going on) to secure the boys, by force if necessary, and detain them until the police arrived. But I suppose that then it would have been fifty-fifty whether the police arrested Mrs McFarlane's attackers, or the people who (hypothetically) caught them.

On the plus side, the lowlife responsible for one of the crimes I wrote about back in February has been jailed indefinitely. Of course, had he not been granted early release from prison - despite breaking a fellow inmate's jaw while incarcerated - this crime would never have happened at all:

A crack addict who left a charity worker for dead had been freed early from prison weeks earlier after another violent attack.

Ebanezer Adesina was on licence when he ferociously attacked Roger Hare after the profoundly deaf grandfather asked him to move his legs so he could get off a train.

The 20-year-old was released early from a three-year jail term for robbing two men.

While in jail, he broke a fellow inmate's jaw and was sentenced to serve 15 months concurrently for the attack.

Adesina, who was unemployed, was on the same train as 61-year-old Mr Hare, who was returning home after an evening discussing charity events in London on February 20 this year.

As he stood up to leave the train at West Dulwich station in South London, Mr Hare politely asked Adesina to move his feet so he could pass by.

Adesina remained motionless and as Mr Hare brushed past him, he stood up, swore and started to punch his victim repeatedly.

Mr Hare was struck with such force that he landed head first on the platform, shattering his skull.

Witnesses described him hitting the ground "like a sack of potatoes".

Adesina then calmly stepped over his Mr Hare's unconscious body and walked out of the station, telling a passenger who shouted at him to stop: "What's the point? He's dead already."

Mr Hare spent a week in a coma on a life-support machine.

Yesterday Adesina, from Dagenham, East London, was sent to jail indefinitely at Southwark Crown Court for causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

And a Scumwatch old boy has also found his way to chokey, albeit for only four months:

A thug who blocked the path of an ambulance carrying a dying pensioner to hospital was today jailed for four months.

Michael Boyd, 22, stood directly in front of the ambulance to prevent it making its journey to hospital.

Inside, a paramedic was treating Norman Bell, 84, who had collapsed from a massive heart attach as he played bowls at St Oswald Catholic Social Club in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Wigan, in July.

Mr Bell died the following day.

Magistrates in Wigan were told today that Boyd, a father-of-one from Belvedere Road, Newton-Le-Willows, put his hand on the windscreen of the ambulance then began to swear at the driver and shouted threats that he would kill him.

The driver set off but Boyd continued to shout threats then began to bang on the side of the ambulance.

I should point out that there's no evidence that Boyd's actions contributed to Mr Bell's death. Still, with a sentence of four months (which will mean rather less than that in practice), I have to say that Boyd has got off pretty lightly.

ESL pupils up 73% under Labour

On Tuesday, I wrote about the fact that English is now a minority language in 6.6% of primary schools, and 5.8% of secondary schools. Today I was looking at the BBC News website, when I came across some statistics which put these unpleasant figures in context:

The proportion of primary school pupils in England with English as a second language has risen by 73% in a decade.

Across the country the proportion is 13.5% - up from 7.8% in 1997.

The incredibly rapid increase in the number of such pupils over the past ten years is, I think, further evidence of the extent to which levels of immigration have ballooned under this present government, and of the effect which the de facto open door immigration policy pursued by Labour in particular is having on the country.

"Islam is on the rise and cannot be stopped"

Liberals may dismiss talk of the Islamification of Britain as "Islamophobic", but it seems that the Muslims themselves know rather better:

Statistical information released yesterday showing Muhammad is the second most popular boys name in Britain "proves Islam is becoming the majority in the UK and will one day enter every house in Europe," a senior terror leader told WND in an interview.

"We see from this study of Muhammad's name that Islam is on the rise and cannot be stopped no matter what your crusader governments do," said Muhammad Abdel-Al, spokesman and a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terror group.

[...]

Abdel-Al is known for his fiery threats against Western targets, but he said statistical trends indicating Muslims are gaining a major foothold in the UK show there is no need for violence to spread Islam.

"In Europe there is no need for war because if people keep on joining Islam in these countries then Islam will become the majority, which I think is the process that is taking place now, so there will not be any necessity to have war with [non-Muslims]," he said.

Also reflecting on recent trends, Sheik Yasser Hamad, a cleric and a Hamas leader in the northern West Bank, said in a recent WND interview he too sees Islam quickly spreading in the West.

"Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him, said that the sun will shine from the West. This will physically happen as part of the signs of Judgment Day, and it will practically happen as part of a big revival of Islam," said Hamad. "Islam ... may start its new campaign from the West."

Similar sentiments have in the past been uttered by such Islamophobes as Colonel Gaddafi and Mullah Krekar.

Hat-tip: Jihad Watch

At ATW...

A post about the new Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg. Click here to read it.

Deport Jacqui Smith!

"Illegal immigrant at Home Office", was a headline on the 'politics' section of the BBC News website this evening, and for one ghastly moment I thought that Peter Hain had been made Home Secretary. But then I remembered: Hain may be an undesirable immigrant, but, sadly, he's not an illegal.

No, the headline just referred to the latest embarrassing revelation in the story of the government's ongoing cock-up over illegal immigration. Sorry, I should have been more explicit: as the post immediately prior to this one shows, the government likes to have several cock-ups over illegal immigration on the go at any one time - the one I refer to in this instance, however, is the one involving illegal immigrants (approximately 11,000 of them, according to the latest estimate) being cleared to work in the security sector . Now, I see that among those organisations finding themselves being guarded by an illegal immigrant, was the Home Office itself:

An illegal immigrant was employed as a security guard at the Home Office, the government has admitted.

The man worked at the front desk of the department's headquarters in Westminster checking people's passes.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said problems were identified with one of the sub-contractors providing services to the Home Office.

His job would have involved checking the passes of people visiting Ms Smith, ministers and senior civil servants.

Deportation proceedings have now begun against the guard.

Maybe they should make him Home Secretary. He couldn't possibly be more useless than the current one, or any of her recent predecessors, or likely successors. Yes, make him Home Secretary, and deport Jacqui Smith (and Liam Byrne, for good measure).

The stealth amnesty for illegal immigrants

As many as 165,000 asylum seekers are to be granted an "amnesty" to live in Britain, it was revealed.

The vast bulk of the migrants are failed refugees whose files were left lying in boxes by bungling Home Office staff.

They have now been living here so long that officials have ruled that it would be a breach of their human rights to kick them out.

Ministers admitted that the first 19,000 have already been granted leave to remain under what the Tories described as a "stealth amnesty".

All will now be free to bring their relatives to Britain - and claim the full range of benefits.

As I have written at least three times already (in relation to calls for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, which is basically what we have here) these people are illegal immigrants: their very presence in our country is in violation of our laws. As such, it is simply ridiculous to say that because they have succeeded in breaking the law, and getting away with it, for an unusually long time, they should be rewarded (in this case, by being allowed to live here legally). As I wrote in July, it's rather like saying that if you kill someone and then avoid capture for ten years, then you should have all charges against you dropped, and be given a knighthood.

Furthermore, the fact that these illegal immigrants are being rewarded for breaking the law is likely to encourage more people to seek to enter Britain illegally. Thanks to the government's complete inability (or perhaps unwillingness) to do anything to limit either legal or illegal immigration, this country is already seen as a soft touch, as the number one destination for the discerning phoney refugee - as one Iranian would-be illegal immigrant, waiting at Cherbourg to nip across the channel, put it, "Britain has been our destination from the day we left our home countries". Now, because of yet more government incompetence, coupled with the excesses of the "human rights" culture, there is a further incentive to come here: stick around long enough, and you can stay forever.

Another triumph for the prison service

A convicted murderer and two men convicted of drug offences have absconded from a jail in Derbyshire.

Killer Daniel Driscoll, 33, failed to return to HMP Sudbury on Saturday after being let out on temporary release.

Lee Mulholland, 28, serving five years for drug offences, walked out of the open prison on Friday.

Andre Hackett - serving four years for possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply - also failed to return after a temporary release on Saturday.

Driscoll, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, was jailed for life in 1992 aged 18, along with Anthony Coughtrey, then 19, after being convicted of stamping and kicking William Walsh, a 19-year-old father-of-three, to death.

He was ordered to spend a minimum of 15 years behind bars but in 1998 this was reduced to 13 years.

[...]

More than 660 inmates have walked out of Sudbury prison in the past 10 years.

That's more than one a week, on average. You'd think that those running the prison service might just possibly have learnt their lesson by now (specifically, the lesson that convicted criminals are, almost by definition, not the most trustworthy of people, and that if you are responsible for keeping them locked up, it's probably a good idea to keep them behind bars and in your line of sight). But apparently not.

As for the specific facts of this case: there's not really an awful lot to be said. Personally, I would like to see the death penalty for at least some murderers, and life meaning life for the rest. That's life without occasional trips to the cinema, by the way. As such, I regard it as utterly appalling that Driscoll was granted temporary release. But he was, and the number of convicted killers loose in society has just increased by one. Which is one too many.

"I hope you all die a long and slow and horrible death"

Laban Tall meets the tolerant, sensitive, and thoughtful left, in the form of Liverpudlian Labour councillor and "Christian Socialist", Louise Baldock.

English not spoken here

Further evidence of the negative impact of the present levels of mass immigration emerges with the news that there are over 1,300 British schools in which English is the first language of fewer than half the pupils. This problem is particularly prevalent in primary schools, with English being a minority language in a total of 1,143 such schools. That's roughly 6.6% of the nation's primary schools! In 569 of these schools English is the first language of fewer than 30% of pupils.
The situation in secondary schools is only marginally better - English is a minority language in 195 secondary schools (5.8% of the total number), including 83 schools in which English is the native tongue of below 30% of pupils. The situation has become so bad, that even teaching unions - hardly known as bastions of right-wing or anti-immigration sentiment - have begun to express disquiet: Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, told a House of Lords committee that the situation was "out of control".

And he is, of course, right. So far as I can see, there are three key problems with what is going on. First, and most importantly in the long-term, these astonishingly high figures - with English now a minority language in over one in twenty English schools (and there's no guessing as to the number of schools in which twenty, or thirty, or forty percent of pupils are not fluent in English) - are indicative of the extent of the demographic change that is being inflicted upon this country.
But even if we ignore that, then the immediate problems this presents are still highly significant. Consider the cost of all this, for example. Teaching unions estimate the cost of educating a non-English-speaking child at around £30,000, a sum which fairly dwarfs the £5,270 currently spent annually on an average pupil at a British state school. Indeed, with £30,000 you could send a boy to Eton, and still have a fair bit of change left over. As the above figures indicate, there's clearly rather a lot of schoolchildren (one in eight, apparently) who speak only a limited amount of English, and the money to fund their education is going to have to come from somewhere.
The other problem which teaching unions have highlighted is the deleterious effect that this has upon teaching standards. And of course, if half the class is struggling with the language, then, in the first place, they themselves will find it difficult to gain the full benefit of each lesson, and, in the second place, they will occupy a disproportionate amount of their teacher's time, and retard the progress of the entire class, including those who can speak fluent English. And the problem is self-perpetuating: as a Polish immigrant mother told The Times back in May, if you have a school in which large numbers of children do not speak English, then the pressure on them to learn English is reduced, and the progress that immigrant children make with the language is slowed. After all, if you are the only non-English speaker in your class, then in order merely to socialise with the other children you will have to become fluent in English; if more than half your class speaks your language, then that requirement is removed. It must also be more difficult for individual non-English speakers to get the extra attention they need if there are twenty of them, than if there are only one or two.

The government's response to these problem is to say that it has increased the funds available from the "Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant". Where that leaves any native British children unfortunate enough to find themselves stuck in a school where most of their fellow pupils speak English only as a second language is unclear, although "on the scrapheap" would seem a fair bet. But what this case demonstrates, once again, is the need, not for more funding in an attempt to relieve the negative effects of the government's de facto open-door immigration policy, but for the reversal of that policy, and for the imposition of very strict limits on immigration.

Such magnanimity!

Saudi king 'pardons rape victim'

The War against Golliwogs continues

Golly dolls - the black and white toys which many believe have offensive racist connotations - are being snapped up in NI shops.

A Belfast woman said she was "horrified" to find them in a local shopping centre.

Nicola Bailey said: "I can't believe people are making, selling or buying them."

But for the shop owner, the dolls have proved a top seller.

Nevertheless, the owner of the Mr Christmas shop in Connswater has apologised for any offence and said he would send the rest of his stock back.

The Equality Commission said the dolls were a "throwback to the 50s".

They have been stocked at the Connswater centre since September.

They are very popular, the shop said and, at one point, they were sold out. The dolls have been one of their best selling items in a number of years.

But the shop's owner said it was never his intention to offend. Once his display dolls are sold, he won't sell any more and will return the rest of the stock to the manufacturer, he said.

Chief Commissioner of the Equality Commission, Bob Collins, said the dolls were not appropriate.

"The world has moved on a great deal and everyone should move with it," he said.

Does this middle-aged man really have nothing better to do with his time than fixate over the sale of children's dolls? Apparently not.

Still, at least they didn't get the police involved this time...

On a related note, I wonder if anyone has any details regarding the number of racially-motivated crimes committed as a result of contact with golliwogs? For some inexplicable reason, I have yet to see the (no doubt very detailed and damning) figures.

Great euphemisms of our time

"Hunting the Loch Ness monster" - an activity (ooh er) commonly engaged in by "militants":

AN ELECTRICIAN accused of being a Muslim holy warrior claimed he was hunting Nessie during an alleged jihad training course.

Somali-born Kader Ahmed, 20, told a court he went on a trip arranged by preacher Mohammed Hamid, 50, to Scotland at Christmas 2004.

He said they visited Inverness and Loch Ness and added: "I'd never been to Scotland before. It was very cold when we went up. It was snowing.

"It was very beautiful as well. I had never seen reindeer before."

He said they stopped near Loch Ness for a few days, sleeping in their minibus as it was too cold to camp, and tried to spot the elusive monster.

Ahmed, from east London, admits going on camping trips and paintballing sessions with Hamid's group, who included four of the men later convicted of the plot to bomb London on July 21, 2005.

But the trainee electrician, who was 17 when he met Hamid, told Woolwich Crown Court he assumed it was harmless fun "like Scouts or Cadets".

He denies three counts of attending a place used for terrorist training.

Hat-tip: Jihad Watch

Do we trust the BBC? No.

Fewer than a third of Britons believe the BBC performs well when it comes to accurate news reporting, a survey has revealed.

Only 29 per cent gave a positive rating to publicly-funded news.

It was a lower figure than people in ten of the 14 countries involved in an international survey.

Public news services in Russia, Venezuela and Egypt were among those rated more highly by viewers and listeners.

The result is especially embarrassing for the BBC as the research was carried out on behalf of its own World Service.

Earlier this year a survey for the regulator Ofcom showed that the number who think the BBC is impartial has fallen to 54 per cent from 77 per cent in 2002.

Now, this is what really concerns me: the majority of people still persist in believing the Beeb to be impartial, in spite of all the great abundance of evidence to the contrary. Still, the fall in levels of trust is significant, and it is to be hoped that the trend will continue (actually, the ideal would be for the trend to be justifiably reversed, but there's no point hoping for what won't happen).

Postscript: There's another instance of BBC bias, and general incompetence, reported in this article by Charles Moore in yesterday's Telegraph.

Brown and Liberty!

I see that before he flew off to Lisbon to sell the country down the river (the Tagus, presumably), Gordon Brown favoured the members of the House of Commons liaison committee with some inspiring sentiments on the subject of liberty. To be precise, he said:

I think Britain was the pioneer of liberty for the modern world. I think in later years America took it upon itself to claim that it was the leading country in promoting liberty. I think Britain. But our view of liberty is different from the American view of liberty. Our view of liberty is not the 'leave me alone' liberty that we characterise with some of the American constitution. Our view of liberty is liberty in the context of social responsibility.

Now, to an extent, he's right. This country does have a long and proud tradition of liberty - the notion of the "free-born Englishman" is not merely apocryphal. Equally, I think that genuine social responsibility is important, although I don't really know what Brown means when he talks of "liberty in the context of social responsibility".

What is more, I suspect that if Brown did make his sentiments more explicit, I would not be greatly enamoured of what he had to say. Because Brown's praise for "liberty" rings somewhat hollow when you consider what the Labour government has done over the past ten years. This is, after all, the government which has:

Restricted free speech, with its laws against "inciting religious hatred";

Banned smoking in pubs;

Presided over the creation by the police of the world's largest DNA database;

Banned fox-hunting;

Passed laws compelling adoption agencies to place children with homosexual couples (a move which also undermines social responsibility, since it looks set to drive Catholic adoption agencies out of business);

Banned handguns.

And still on the cards we have:

The further restriction of free speech, with laws prohibiting the "incitement of hatred" against homosexuals and the disabled;

The introduction of compulsory ID cards, which that buffoon Liam Byrne says will become "a great British institution".

I do not pretend that the above lists come anywhere close to being definitive.

And then there are Gordon Brown's own words, in the aftermath of the acquittals of Nick Griffin and Mark Collett on charges of "inciting racial hatred":

Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country. We have got to do whatever we can to root it out from whatever quarter it comes. And if that means we have got to look at the laws again, we will have to do so.

So, in the first place, Brown appears to believe that simply because something "will offend mainstream opinion" (by which he means, Gordon Brown's opinion), it should automatically be illegal. Secondly, he advocates a reactive approach to law-making, under which the government waits to see what behaviour members of the public engage in, and then decides whether to criminalise that, rather than setting down the law as a guide to conduct. I fail to see how anyone who thinks in these terms can have the temerity to even mention Britain's tradition of liberty.

Verses composed on the occasion of the signing of the EU constitution treaty

We'll hang Gordon Brown on a sour apple tree,
We'll hang the Miliband Brothers, to keep him company;
For that's the place where traitors ought to be.

With apologies to 1930s socialists.

Latest ATW Post

I have written a new post at ATW, entitled "The Racist Crimes you won't hear about on the BBC". In essence, it's a revised and expanded version of yesterday's post about the racist attempted murder of John Payne, with particular reference to the role of the media in general, and the BBC in particular, in suppressing the news of racist crimes against whites.

Racist thugs convicted

An update on the racially-motivated attempted murder mentioned en passant in this post - specifically, a verdict in the case:

Three Asian racists were convicted at the Old Bailey today of shattering a man's skull because he was white.

Sodrul Islam, 23, Delwar Hussain, 21, and Mamoon Hussain, 20, were found guilty of attempted murder for the attack on John Payne, 33.

Up to 30 Asians set upon the victim and his friends for drinking in a pub on the Clichy estate in Stepney, which the gang considered to be their turf.

They shouted insults including "white honkies" at the five people who dared to walk through.

Mr Payne was then felled with a machete and the gang repeatedly punched and kicked him as he lay helpless on the ground.

The gang continued as Mr Payne's sobbing girlfriend tried to shield him.

He suffered a severe fracture of his head and bone fragments penetrated his brain.

Surgeons at the Royal London Hospital battled to save him.

He continues to require constant medication and suffers severe epilepsy, nightmares and flashbacks.

The three defendants, from Stepney, will be sentenced in the New Year.

Still not a single word about the case on al-Beeb's website. Indeed, the Daily Mail appears to be the only news source of any description to report the conviction. Oddly enough, I find it difficult to imagine that we would be witnessing this almost total media blackout had the mob of murderous thugs been white, and their victim Pakistani. Oh well - c'est la vie...

Hat-tip: Pub Philosopher

Banning the BNP?

Via Conservative Home, here is the text of an early day motion that Boris Johnson - apparently working on the premise that the best way to defuse an accusation of racism made against oneself is to make a similar accusation against someone else - is in the process of initiating:

“This House notes that in May 2008 there is a possibility that at least two members of the BNP will gain a seat on the London Assembly. As things currently stand there is a grave risk of these two members of the BNP having a deciding vote on the Mayor’s budget. This is a potentially disastrous situation in which a future Mayor of any party could depend on BNP support to pass his budget. We call upon all politicians from all parties to denounce the BNP in London and ask for all politicians to work together to combat anyone who seeks to play the race card in London politics. We call upon the Government to use its powers to combat this very real threat.”

This last sentence is particularly interesting. As a number of commenters at Conservative Home have already asked, what is it, exactly, that Johnson wants the government to do with "its powers" in order to "combat this very real threat"? Is he calling for some kind of restriction to be imposed on the BNP? Or even for the party to be banned?

I would also suggest that if Johnson and his fellow MPs are really that concerned about the possibility of the BNP getting a couple of assembly members elected, then they should consider the concerns (particularly over mass immigration) that lead people to vote for the BNP, and take some proper action to deal with the problems that give rise to those concerns. But, of course, it is so much easier for our political class to engage in sanctimonious hand-wringing over the fact that some voters are daring to use their votes in a less-than-PC manner, than to actually take any steps towards undoing the damage they've done to the country.

More Islamic Apostasy

Following on from the story of the imam who tried to kill his daughter after she converted from Islam to Christianity, the Sunday Telegraph has published an interesting article on the subject of British-based Islamic apostates, and the threat they face from their erstwhile coreligionists. The whole thing is worth reading, as yet another illustration of the utter barbarity of Islam, but two points in particular are worth noting. First:

...it is not only extreme Muslim families that believe it is their religious duty to threaten, and even kill, members who renounce the religion.

"My father could not be described as an extremist," insists Sofia [an Islamic convert to Christianity], who is now 31. "We read the Koran and prayed regularly together, but he never insisted on my wearing Islamic dress and he was quite happy that I went to the local comprehensive, which was all girls, but not by any means dominated by Muslims."

Her parents were, in other words, the kind of people who politicians idealise as "the moderate Muslim majority" - devout, but apparently not totally in hock to Sharia ideology, and willing to mix with non-Muslims, to at least some extent. Yet when they discovered that their daughter had converted to Christianity, they beat and intimidated her, and then disowned her and threw her out of their house. Of course, had they been part of the "tiny minority of extremists", they might have reacted really badly!

One point to note is that they did not at any point try to kill her, or threaten to do so. Quite probably, they were not among the significant minority of Muslims who advocate the death penalty for apostasy. But even so, their views on this were clearly utterly different from those held in the West. From this, it follows that simply because a Muslim does not support the death penalty for apostasy (or, indeed, any other of the most extreme manifestations of Sharia law), we cannot necessarily infer that their views are "moderate", by our standards. We know that 36% of Muslims aged 16 to 24 support the death penalty in cases like this. What we don't know, is what, precisely, the other 64% believe.

The second point worth noting is that, while the Muslim Council of Britain's Inayat Bunglawala did, to his credit, condemn threats against British-based Islamic apostates as "awful and quite wrong", he refused to condemn the seven Islamic states whose laws mandate the death penalty for apostasy. This was, he said, "a matter for those states". I can't help wondering whether the basis of this apparent discrepancy is that Bunglawala shares the view of the author of the Islamics blog, that the execution of apostates is justified, or even required, in Muslim countries, but not in non-Muslim countries. If so, then we have yet another reason not to want Muslims to ever become a majority in Britain.

Indeed, whatever Inayat Bunglawala may think, the attitudes of Muslims in general are clearly utterly incompatible with the values of the West. Sooner or later, on this issue as on so many others, one side is going to have to give way...

Birth rate update

A baby boom among immigrant families is driving the population to a record high, government figures will show this week.

The figures, from the Office for National Statistics, will reveal that Britain's highest birth rates are in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, both predominantly Muslim.

The birth rate among women born in Pakistan but living in the UK is three times higher than that among British-born women, the figures will show.

Separate figures due this month will reveal whether Mohammed has overtaken Jack as Britain's most popular name for baby boys.

As Mullah Krekar put it, "we are the ones who will change you". Or should he perhaps have said "replace you"?

Nicely put!

...the BBC is an evil organisation bent, apparently, on the sole aim of demolishing British culture, abolishing Christianity and degrading and bestialising the formerly noble and stout-hearted British people. This is an end for which I refuse to pay.

Over at Orwell's Picnic, Hilary White writes a letter to the TV licensing people...

Vaz and the terrorists

I see that my favourite MP is in the news again:

The MP who heads the parliamentary body scrutinising Britain’s counter-terrorism laws addressed a rally at which a plea for support for suicide bombers was broadcast, The Times has learnt.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, addressed the annual Tamil rally in the ExCel centre in East London.

He spoke after participants watched a televised address by Velupillai Prabhakaran, the commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a terrorist organisation banned by the Home Office.

Mr Vaz, the MP for Leicester East, was joined by a fellow Labour MP, Joan Ryan. Their presence drew an angry response from the Sri Lankan High Commission, which released a statement claiming that the event was a “clear violation of the UK terrorism laws”.

The rally was organised by British-based Tamils on the birthday of the Tamil Tiger leader. In his address, Mr Vaz told an audience of more than 10,000 people: “I understand the demands made by some for an independent Tamil state. They will grow, unless there is justice.”

The arch-Europhile does not, however, feel the same way about demands for an independent Britain.

Ms Ryan, the MP for Enfield North, told the rally: “I am sorry to have to remember the 70,000 innocent Tamils who lost their lives in the struggle. We must pursue the aims and values for which they lost their lives.”

Earlier in the day, Mr Prabhakaran, in full military dress and in front of the LTTE flag, appeared on six giant screens calling for “the entire Tamil-speaking world to rise up for the liberation of Tamil Eelam”.

In a reference to the LTTE’s use of suicide bombers, he said: “The immeasurable dedication and sacrifice of our heroes is delivering a message to the Sinhala nation.”

The Sri Lankan High Commission accused Mr Vaz yesterday of being “partisan to a proscribed terrorist group” and claimed that the event was organised by apologists for terrorists. “This event was organised by a front organisation of a terrorist group for fundraising and propaganda purposes,” a spokesman said.

When told of the contents of the LTTE leader’s speech and of the criticisms of the Sri Lankan Government, Mr Vaz, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils, responded: “I’m not really interested in [the contents of Mr Prabhakaran's speech].

“I was there to deliver a message from the all-party group, which is what I do. I was there to deliver a message from my constituents. I have many Tamil people in my constituency.” Mr Vaz said he was unaware that the Tamil leader was going to speak.

[...]

Ms Ryan also said that she did not realise that Mr Prabhakaran had spoken.

It would not have been difficult for them to work out that he might speak, however:

The date of the rally, November 27, Heroes Day, is linked with the LTTE. It falls on the birthday of Mr Prabhakaran, and it is marked by Tamil Tiger sympathisers around the world. Mr Prabhakaran’s speech from the Sri Lankan jungle has been televised at every previous UK Heroes Day.

So, either Vaz and Ryan agreed to speak at this event, without bothering to find out anything whatsoever about it, or they are lying (and you can't imagine Keith Vaz doing that, can you?). Either way, it doesn't reflect particularly well on them.

But then, what has Keith Vaz ever done that did reflect well on him?

Postscript: This is not the first time that Vaz has been associated with representatives of the Tamil Tigers. As documented by the Green Arrow back in July, he has in the past campaigned to have the UK-wide ban currently imposed on the political wing of the organisation lifted.

"Following Islam to the word"

The daughter of a British imam is living under police protection after receiving death threats from her father for converting to Christianity.

The 31-year-old, whose father is the leader of a mosque in Lancashire, has moved house an astonishing 45 times after relatives pledged to hunt her down and kill her.

The British-born university graduate, who uses the pseudonym Hannah for her own safety, said she renounced the Muslim faith to escape being forced into an arranged marriage when she was 16.

She has been in hiding for more than a decade but called in police only a few months ago after receiving a text message from her brother.

In it, he said he would not be held responsible for his actions if she failed to return to Islam.

Officers have agreed to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.

[...]

"I know the Koran says anyone who goes away from Islam should be killed as an apostate, so in some ways my family are following the Koran. They are following Islam to the word."

[...]

Hannah was born in Lancashire to Pakistani parents who raised her and her siblings as strict Sunni Muslims.

She prayed and read the Koran, wore traditional Muslim clothes and was sent to a madrassa, a religious Muslim school.

She ran away from home at 16 after overhearing her father organising her arranged marriage.

Hannah was taken in by a religious education teacher and decided to convert to the Christian faith.

Although unhappy, her parents tolerated their daughter's dismissal-of Islam as a "teenage phase".

But when she opted to get baptised, while studying at Manchester University, her family were incensed and the death threats began.

Her father arrived at her home with 40 men and threatened to kill her for betraying Islam.

"I saw my uncle and around 40 men storming up the street clutching axes, hammers, knives and bits of wood," she said.

"My dad was shouting through the letter box, "I'm going to kill you", while the others smashed on the window and beat the door.

"They were shouting, 'We're going to kill you' and 'Traitor'.

"It was terrifying. I was convinced I was going to either die, but suddenly after about ten minutes the noise stopped and the men suddenly went away."

The immediate response of liberals, when confronted with appalling cases like this, is half-hearted condemnation, combined with the commonly-heard refrain that this is the work of a "tiny minority of extremists". Which is a very reassuring explanation, marred only by the fact that it is patently untrue. Earlier this year a survey carried out on behalf of the think-tank Policy Exchange revealed that 36% of Muslims in Britain between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four supported the death penalty for apostasy. Not a majority, but a very significant minority, akin to the percentage of the general population who voted Labour at the last general election. Among older Muslims, support for the execution of apostates was lower (which is hardly encouraging, since it means that Muslims are becoming more, not less, extreme with each passing generation), but still 19% of Muslims over fifty-five advocated it. To keep up the general election analogy, that's on a par with the Lib Dems.

As regards the specific facts of this case, I would add that the father here is not a marginalised, extreme figure. Rather, he is an imam - a leader of his community. Neither was he lacking for supporters within his community: when he went to his daughter's house and threatened to kill her, he brought forty men with him - a far from negligible number, especially when drawn from only one local community. And those men didn't just support the death penalty for apostates - they were prepared to assist in carrying it out.

Nor is this the first case of its kind in Britain. Back in 2005, The Times published an article by Anthony Browne, which documented several other cases of attacks and threats made against ex-Muslims, by members of their own communities and, in some cases, their own families. It is probable that we will, sooner rather than later, see a resident of this country killed for converting away from Islam. And clearly, the fact that this has not happened already, cannot be attributed to any lack of effort or willingness to do the deed on the part of the far-from-tiny minority of extremists.

"Worth 1,000 BBC journalists"

That is how Jonathan Ross described himself last night, in response to criticisms of his £6million annual salary. The secretary-general of the National Union of Journalists has responded by calling his remarks "obscene". A bit like the conduct of the NUJ, then...

Personally, I'm surprised to discover that Jonathan Ross has such a low sense of his own worth. After all, a thousand times zero is still zero.

Note: For an example of what I mean when I call BBC journalists worthless, read this story at Biased BBC, as flagged up by Homophobic Horse.

Some are more welcome than others

Last month I wrote that the Stop the War Coalition had invited Ibrahim Moussawi, chief foreign news editor for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV station, to speak at its rather misnamed (considering that the representative of a genocidal terrorist organisation was among the speakers) "World Against War Conference". Despite Tory calls for the government to prevent Moussawi from entering Britain, he attended the conference, which was held last Saturday. Admittedly, his speech was rather more restrained than that given by George Galloway, who proclaimed Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah the rightful president of Lebanon, but nonetheless his presence shames both the Stop the War Coalition, who invited him, and the government, which, unlike its Irish counterpart, did nothing to prevent the entry of this terrorist propagandist into Britain.

But that's not all. Because, while Moussawi is free to enter Britain, and speak to a bunch of terrorist supporters and delusional liberals, the Israeli public security minister, Avi Dichter, has had to decline an invitation to give the keynote speech at a counter-terrorism seminar held at King's College London, for fear that if he set foot in this country, he would be arrested. This is because in 2005 Israeli "human rights activists" persuaded a British court to grant an arrest warrant against Mr Dichter, in relation to the assassination in 2002 of a Hamas terrorist by the Israeli Air Force, in which a number of Palestinian civilians were killed. As the then head of Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet, Mr Dichter had played a part in planning the operation.
English courts have jurisdiction to try suspected "grave breaches" of the Geneva Convention, under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957. While Mr Dichter would normally enjoy diplomatic immunity, he has been told that this would not apply in this case, since his visit to Britain would be in a personal, rather than a diplomatic capacity. The British government has reportedly promised the Israeli government that the law will be altered to ensure that Israeli officials can come to Britain without the threat of arrest hanging over them, and it is to be hoped that it will do so swiftly. But until it does, we have in this country an intolerable situation whereby Hezbollah propagandists can come and go as they please, but government ministers in the Middle East's only democracy cannot.

Can we call him a crook yet?

In all the ongoing fiasco over the dodgy dealings of various senior Labourites, one story has given me particular satisfaction. One story? Well, three actually:

1. Hain declares deputy leader gift

2. Hain admits more donations errors

3. Hain Cheated the Labour Party as Well

And there could be more to come...

Oh, how I hope this kills that utter bastard's career. And so close to Christmas!

Postscript: As regards the question posed in the title, the answer is "yes, we can call him a crook - that's a fair way to describe a convicted criminal".

More voluntary dhimmitude

A follow-up to Sunday's post, "The Dhimmi Mindset":

The city museum of The Hague has decided not to include in an exhibition a work of art that may offend Muslims, it was reported on Monday.

The picture, made by Iranian artist Sooreh Hera, is entitled Adam and Ewald and shows two gay men wearing masks of the Muslim prophet Mohammed and his son-in-law Ali.

It is part of a photoseries the Gemeentemuseum has included in the 7up exhibition due to open on December 15.

The Gemeentemuseum's director Wim van Krimpen told reporters the museum is interested in purchasing Hera's complete series, which he called "high quality works of art".

However, he added he will not exhibit Adam and Ewald in the next few years because "certain people in our society might perceive it as offensive".

Note that word "might". Apparently no Muslim has actually kicked up a fuss - but they don't need to. The good dhimmis across Western Europe will now voluntarily censor themselves, rather than risk even the slightest possibility of Muslims getting upset.

Of course, it is quite probable that the depiction of Mohammed as an incestuous homosexual would offend Muslims. That would still not be a reason for prohibiting it, and it would be base cowardice to refuse to show a "work of art", simply because it upset Muslims. But automatic, unquestioning self-censorship of the kind seen here is still more cowardly, and more contemptible.

Hat-tip: Klein Verzet

Cause and Effect

Consider this story:

Children are more likely to be injured by their classmates in England than in almost any other comparable country, a Pirls international survey has found. England was ranked 37th out of 45 countries and provinces in a league table of pupils' feelings of safety in school - but first when English headteachers were asked. Norway was ranked top, followed by Sweden and Denmark in the index of children's perceptions of their safety. Morocco, Russia and Iran all had better records than England.

Now, I wonder, could cases like the following have anything to do with this sorry state of affairs?

In October, three sixth-formers from a school in the South East took knives on a school trip, which resulted in a pupil being stabbed in the chest. One successfully appealed against exclusion and is back at school.

In June, governors overturned the decision of a secondary school head in the Midlands who had expelled a teenage pupil for setting up a website calling on classmates to kill a teacher.

In May, an 11-year-old pupil who repeatedly battered a fellow pupil on the head, punched a member of staff and smashed a door was returned to the school in the South East by the governing body.

A relevant previous post:

"Protect your child: buy them body armour"

The Dhimmi Mindset

One of the strongest indicators of a dhimmi mentality, both on an individual and a societal level, is the willingness to anticipate Muslim outrage, and to act to remove the potential source of offence, even in the complete absence of any actual complaints from the Muslims. An example would be the recent craze for prohibiting images of pigs, or stories about Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. Well, today has furnished us with two paradigmatic instances of this same phenomenon of voluntary submission. First, via Dhimmi Watch:

A BRITISH children’s author who named a mole Mohammed to promote multiculturalism has renamed it Morgan for fear of offending Muslims.

Kes Gray, a former advertising executive, first decided on his gesture of cross-cultural solidarity after meeting Muslims in Egypt.

The character, Mohammed the Mole, appeared in Who’s Poorly Too, an illustrated children’s book, which also included Dipak Dalmatian and Pedro Penguin, in an effort to be “inclusive”.

This weekend Gray said he had decided to postpone a reprint and rename the character Morgan the Mole even though there had been no complaints.

“I had no idea at all of the sensitivities of the name Mohammed until seeing this case in Sudan,” said Gray. “As soon as I saw the news I thought, oh gosh, I’ve got a mole called Mohammed this is not good.

“I feel incredibly sorry for that teacher,” added Gray. “Luckily for me, I’m in a position where I can avoid this.” The book has sold 40,000 copies in Britain and abroad since 1999.

And Exhibit Two:

Shepherds dressed in old sheets, Christmas carols and the competition to see who will play Mary and Joseph… nativity plays have been a feature of British primary-school life for generations.

But a survey has revealed that headteachers are watering down or ditching the centuries-old Christmas story in favour of secular tales to avoid upsetting pupils of other faiths.

Only one in five schools are ­planning to perform a traditional nativity play this year. They are now outnumbered by schools that say they will be either putting on a non-religious play, such as Scrooge or Snow White, or giving no performance at all.

Almost half the schools said they planned to put on modern reinterpretations of the Christmas story, with extra characters, new songs and modern themes, such as The Bossy King, Whoops-a-Daisy Angel or The Hoity-Toity Angel.

The findings will add to fears that Christian teachings are being abandoned by schools, despite the wishes of parents. Recent surveys show an overwhelming majority of families would like the nativity play, telling the story of Christ's birth, to live on in schools.

Of course, since they (or at least, the majority of them) are only white British Christians, their cultural sensitivities can safely be ridden over, roughshod.

One point common to both these cases (and to the various pig ban cases as well) is that no Muslim, or virtually no Muslims, have actually complained. Certainly, I've never heard tell of a Muslim objecting to a nativity play, and Kes Gray himself acknowledged that, for 40,000 books sold, no one had complained about his fictional mole's name. But that doesn't stop either Gray, or the legions of do-gooder headteachers, from behaving in this utterly craven manner. They have become so well-indoctrinated into "cultural sensitivity" that they are now more sensitive to perceived "Islamophobic" slights than all but the maddest of mad Muslims. Were it not so utterly contemptible, one might actually be rather impressed with the capacity of multiculturalism to so completely brainwash its adherents.

Islam is a threat to Britain, and to her cultural identity. If present demographic trends continue, then it will, before long, become an enormous, potentially overwhelming, threat. But, as Klein Verzet wrote last month, for the time being, the threat posed by Islam, significant as it is, is as nothing against the threat posed by the little Vichyists of the politically-correct, pro-multiculturalist, liberal-left.

Marksman of the Day

A Texas man has become a hero after he took it upon himself to shoot and kill two burglars who had broken into his neighbour's house.

Joe Horn called the police to report the burglary and then stepped outside and shot the burglars dead as they left the neighbour's house.

A recording of the call suggests Mr Horn, 61, was itching to kill the two burglars.

"Don't go outside the house," the 911 operator pleaded.

"You're going to get yourself shot if you go outside that house with a gun. I don't care what you think."

"You want to make a bet?" Horn answered.

"I'm going to kill them."

Admirers, including several of his neighbours, say Mr Horn is a hero for killing the burglars, protecting his neighbourhood and sending a message to would-be criminals. Critics call him a loose cannon. His attorney says Mr Horn just feared for his life.

[...]

Horn was home in Pasadena, about 15 miles southeast of Houston, on Nov 14 when he heard glass breaking, said his attorney, Tom Lambright.

He looked out the window and saw 38-year-old Miguel Antonio DeJesus and 30-year-old Diego Ortiz using a crowbar to break out the rest of the glass.

He grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun and called 911, the police emergency number, Lambright said. "Uh, I've got a shotgun," he told the dispatcher.

"Uh, do you want me to stop them?"

"Nope, don't do that," the dispatcher responded.

"Ain't no property worth shooting somebody over, OK?"

Horn and the dispatcher spoke for several minutes, during which Mr Horn pleaded with the dispatcher to send someone to catch the men and vowed not to let them escape.

Over and over, the dispatcher told him to stay inside.

Horn repeatedly said he couldn't.

When the men crawled back out the window carrying a bag, Mr Horn began to sound increasingly frantic.

"Well, here it goes, buddy," Mr Horn said as a shell clicked into the chamber.

"You hear the shotgun clicking, and I'm going."

A few seconds passed.

"Move," Horn can be heard saying on the tape. "You're dead."

Boom.

Click.

Boom.

Click.

Boom.

Mr Horn redialed 911 and told the dispatcher what he'd done. "I had no choice," he said, his voice shaking. "They came in the front yard with me, man. I had no choice. Get somebody over here quick."

Mr Lambright said Mr Horn had intended to take a look around when he left his house and instead came face to face with the burglars, standing 10 to 12 feet from him in his yard.

Mr Horn is heavyset and middle-aged and would have been no match in a physical confrontation with the two men, who were young and strong, Lambright said.

So when one or both of them "made lunging movements," Mr Horn fired in self-defence, he said.

Family members of the two shooting victims have made few public statements.

Diamond Morgan, Ortiz's widow, who has an 8-month-old son with him, told Houston television station KTRK that she was stunned by Horn's statements on the 911 tape.

"It's horrible," she said. "He was so eager, so eager to shoot."

Yes, and your husband was clearly rather eager to help himself to other people's property. Had he been able to refrain from doing so, he would still be alive today. As it is, I for one won't be shedding any tears for him.

Update: They certainly know how to deal with burglars in Texas: here's another case of a Texan property owner shooting a thief dead, on Thursday afternoon local time.