Alan Craig's judicial review application fails

An update on this post:

A Christian party has lost a High Court bid to have its party election broadcast (PEB) repeated, after claims it was censored by the BBC and ITV.

Christian Choice said the BBC forced changes to its description of a Muslim group in a PEB aired in London.

The BBC said it expressed concern and Christian Choice responded by agreeing to change the form of words.

The judge said the request had been left "far too late" - although he did not think the PEB had been libellous.

Alan Craig, the party's candidate for London mayor, had argued the action breached his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights - which guarantees the right to freedom of expression.

Rejecting Mr Craig's request for a judicial review, the judge, Mr Justice Collins, said he should have launched the legal challenge before the broadcast took place on 23 April.

He said it was "perfectly permissible" for the BBC to take into account legal advice that the original broadcast might have been libellous - although he did not think it would have been.

However he said he was not a libel lawyer, and that was not the point.

Mr Craig said the BBC had "commanded" the words be changed about the Muslim group planning to build a large mosque in east London; a proposal which Mr Craig opposes.

But the judge said the BBC had indicated that if a legal challenge had been issued before the broadcast it would have "backed down and let them publish as they wished."

"Unfortunately that was not done," Mr Justice Collins added.

According to Melanie Phillips in the Spectator, Mr Justice Collins added that "the Tablighi Jamaat could properly be described as 'extremist'; that it was 'responsible for imbuing ideas leading to terrorist activities'; and that it was 'understandable that Cllr Craig should have concerns'". Nothing in the judgment sounds like a ringing endorsement of the conduct of the BBC and ITV; rather, they appear to have won only because of Mr Craig's delay in bringing the matter before the court.

It's hardly a ringing endorsement of Tablighi Jamaat, either. After all, the organisation has now been described as "extremist" by a High Court judge. That goes some way beyond Mr Craig's preferred term, "separatist", and massively further than "controversial", the word that ITV deemed just too offensive to be broadcast. I'd venture to suggest that Mr Justice Collins' description of Tablighi Jamaat might well make a rather nice quote for the anti-mega mosque campaigners to use in their future campaign literature!

Postscript: As the building of the mega mosque draws ever nearer, and as Ken Livingstone promises to help the Brick Lane mosque get public money to build a minaret, spare a thought for the ten thousand members of Europe's largest church, the Kingsway International Christian Church. They were forced off their site in East London to make way for the Olympic development, and have been unable to find any appropriate replacement premises. It says rather a lot about the religious and cultural state of our country, when Europe's largest church is made homeless, while just a few miles away the authorities connive in the creation of what will be Europe's largest mosque.

ESL pupil numbers still rising

Official figures today revealed that one in seven pupils don't speak English as their first language - and the number of infant school pupils in unlawfully large classes has risen by more than 50 per cent in the last year.

The statistics, compiled by the The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF),show that the proportion of pupils whose first language is not English has risen to an all-time high.

In primary schools, 14.4 per cent of pupils speak another language as their mother tongue, up from 13.5 per cent in 2007, while in secondary schools the figure is 10.8 per cent, up from 10.6 per cent.

This equates to more than 800,000 pupils on the school roll with English as their second language.

As I have noted before, there are now over 1,300 schools in the UK in which the majority of pupils speak English as a second language. The number of ESL pupils has risen massively under Labour. In primary schools, for example, it has jumped from just 7.8% in 1997, to 14.4% now - an increase of 85% over eleven years. It is simply fanciful to claim that this will not have a very negative impact on the education of both native and immigrant children, at least in those classes and schools where non-native English speakers predominate, or form a significant minority. As I wrote back in December:

...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.

There is also a significant financial issue. Teaching unions have estimated the yearly cost of educating an ESL child at £30,000. At present, the average amount spent annually on a state school pupil is £5,270. If all ESL children are receiving the support they need, then each one of them is likely to be costing the taxpayer an extra £25,000 each year. With the rapidity of the increase in the number of ESL pupils, that added expenditure quite quickly builds up. And it has to come from somewhere.

Finally, the colossal increase in the number of schoolchildren speaking English as a second language serves to demonstrate the extent to which immigration levels have ballooned under Labour. This is major demographic change - population replacement, indeed - taking place right before our eyes, and it shows no sign of stopping, or even of slowing down.

"Stop being a crusader"

A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.

Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a British human rights organisation whose president is the former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, is calling on the UN and the international community to take action against nations and communities that punish apostasy.

Its report, No Place to Call Home, claims that apostates from Islam are subject to “gross and wideranging human rights abuses”. It adds that in countries such as Britain, with large Muslim populations in a Westernised culture, the demand to maintain a Muslim identity is intense. “When identities are precarious, their enforcement will take an aggressive form.”

As, indeed, it does in many overwhelmingly Muslim nations, where such identities are presumably not quite so "precarious"!

If the allegations in this report are accurate - and there is no reason to suppose that they are not - then the conduct of the police really was disgusting. Not only did they fail to take action against the people making the threats of violence (a response which, given their track record, is hardly surprising), but they treated the victim as if he himself were at fault. Moreover, in condemning Mr Hussein for having the temerity to live as a Christian in a neighbourhood full of Muslims, and expect not to have his house firebombed (!), the police used terminology straight out of the Islamist lexicon, condemning him for "being a crusader". Still, given that the police tried to have the makers of the documentary "Undercover Mosque" prosecuted for accurately reporting extremist comments by Muslim preachers, we shouldn't be too shocked by their response to Mr Hussein's complaint. Although I do wonder what it is about Muslims that leads the police to treat them in so favourable a manner!

More generally, the treatment meted out to Mr Hussein, and other Islamic apostates, by their erstwhile coreligionists serves to demonstrate the complete incompatibility of Western and Islamic culture. It is quite some time since I last heard of anyone being threatened with death for converting away from Christianity, and I don't recall ever meeting anyone who favoured executing apostate Christians. By contrast, 36% of young Muslims in Britain believe that converting away from Islam is an act meriting the death penalty. As I have noted before, the threats and attacks that Nissar Hussein endured were far from unique.

Censoring election broadcasts

Readers may be familiar with the name of Alan Craig, the Christian Peoples Alliance councillor in Newham, who has been leading the opposition to the creation of the East London mega mosque. Mr Craig is also standing for the Christian Choice in Thursday's London mayoral election. Last Wednesday, the Christian Choice released their election broadcast for the mayoral and London Assembly elections. The broadcast, which can be seen here, contains a brief mention of the mega mosque, and refers to Alan Craig's opposition to it.

However, Mr Craig today launched legal action against the BBC and ITV, claiming that they had forced him to edit the broadcast to remove criticisms of Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic organisation behind the building of the mega mosque. In the first version of his broadcast, Mr Craig described the group as "separatist". This term proved unacceptable to the broadcasters, who ordered him to substitute the word "controversial", which he did, under protest. Subsequently, however, ITV decided that even this mild description was intolerable, and insisted that the appellation be applied only to the mega mosque, and not to the group building it. Ironically, Mr Craig was even prevented from using the hackneyed phrase "moderate Muslims", in reference to those Muslims who have opposed the mega mosque, because it was felt that this could imply that Tablighi Jamaat was not "moderate". The fact that all the evidence suggests that the group is both separatist and extremist, and that it is, in consequence, undeniably controversial, did not deter the BBC and ITV from censoring anything that could remotely resemble a criticism of the organisation.

But even if one does not agree with Mr Craig's views on Tablighi Jamaat, it is still unreasonable to censor his broadcast. As Andrea Minichiello Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre, put it "providing that the content of an election broadcast is within the law, the BBC and ITV should enable the electorate to hear the unedited views of candidates and allow them to make up their own minds as to whether they agree or not". In censoring the Christian Choice election broadcast, the BBC and ITV have restricted the ability of a candidate to put his views to the public, have prevented the public from developing the fullest possible knowledge of a candidate, and have thus sought to undermine democracy.

Hat-tip: English Rose

Who's got all the money?

More than 100 MPs have declared family members they employ using their taxpayer-funded expenses.

The list of 106 includes the home secretary, environment secretary and the standards committee chairman.

A register of employed relatives was set up after revelations about Tory MP Derek Conway's payments to his son. It will become compulsory in August.

There is no rule against MPs employing relatives but the European Parliament has voted to ban the practice for MEPs.

It really does say something about our MPs, when hundreds of them are behaving in a manner that even the passengers on the Strasbourg to Brussels gravy train deem unethical!

The register is currently voluntary but will be compulsory by 1 August.

It is likely more will come forward. The current list amounts to 54 Labour MPs, 39 Conservatives, eight Liberal Democrats, one independent, two DUP and two SNP MPs.

But in February Tory leader David Cameron said "just over" 70 of his MPs employed family members.

If the discrepancy between the 39 Tories who have admitted that they are employing relatives, and the 70 odd who actually do so is typical of all parties, then somewhere near 200 MPs have family members on the payroll. Out of a total of 646, that seems rather a lot.

There are no rules against employing relatives and previously there had been no obligation to declare them publicly.

Shadow Commons leader Theresa May said: "In principle, there is nothing wrong with employing family members, but it is important that we have openness and transparency so that the system is not abused."

But Matthew Elliott, of the pressure group the Taxpayers' Alliance, said the employment of relatives was "completely outdated" adding: "To dispel any suspicion that they are taking advantage of taxpayers' generosity, this practice should be banned once and for all."

MPs only have to give job titles of employed relatives - they do not have to spell out details of the work they do.

Being in a charitable mood, I'll accept that some of those relatives who are on the payroll are doing the job they're paid for. But in the light of the Conway family saga, one has to wonder how many of those with impressive titles and taxpayer-funded salaries are really just Henry Conway-style freeloaders. A fair few, I'd guess. Certainly, I imagine that we might see some interesting declarations from those MPs who are holding back their declarations until the last minute. It's almost like they had something they wanted to hide...

When public money is being spent, it is only reasonable to demand that the public be allowed to know precisely what it is being spent on, and be able to feel sure that it is not being wasted. Given the Conway scandal, and the claim from Labour MP Chris Mullin that MPs feel entitled to claim as much on expenses as they can get away with, regardless of how much they've actually spent, we cannot simply take our MPs at their word when they assure us that the money they claim in expenses is being used honestly and effectively. Matthew Elliot's suggestion of preventing MPs from giving taxpayers' money to their relatives seems drastic. But given the avaricious nature of many (most?) MPs, it may perhaps become necessary. Or we could just take away all their expenses, and let them fund their own activities from their own pockets...

Witch hunt of the day

I read that the Labour MP for Hastings and Rye, Michael Foster, has called for members of the BNP to be banned from working in the public services, after it was revealed that the Department of Work and Pensions had granted permission to two of its employees to stand for the party in the forthcoming council elections. Foster's demands have been backed by the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Mark Serwotka.

Members of the BNP are already banned from working in the police force, and an officer in the Greater Manchester force is currently facing disciplinary proceedings for allegedly committing the heinous crime of wearing a badge supporting the party. In the past, it has also been suggested that they should be banned from working as firemen, and there have been a number of individual cases of BNP members being dismissed from their jobs, in both the public and private sector, on account of their political affiliations. Oddly enough that great champion of liberty and human rights, Shami Chakrabarti, has yet to interest herself in these matters...

There is no suggestion that either of the two civil servants at the centre of this case have been performing their duties in any manner other than that required of them. Nor, so far as I am aware, has there ever been any such accusation in any of the numerous cases of people being hounded out of their jobs for either supporting the BNP, or in some other manner offending the sensibilities of goodthinkful liberals (vide Frank Ellis). In a decent society, an individual's ability to do their job properly would, in most cases, be the sole determinant of the question whether or not they kept that job.

In modern British society, however, there is an increasing tendency to deny known thought criminals the legal and moral rights that everyone else takes for granted. As I have written before, this is profoundly dangerous to the democratic process (or what's left of it), and has the potential to fatally undermine all political debate. After all, it is difficult to view the bans and consequent witch hunts that the likes of Michael "Matthew Hopkins" Foster favour as being anything other than an attempt to intimidate people into not exercising their rights of free speech and freedom of association in a manner other than that approved by the liberal-left, by threatening to take away their livelihoods if they speak heresy, or associate with heretics. And yet Foster and his ilk have the nerve to call themselves "anti-fascists"!

Whoever wins, we lose

Londoners really are spoilt for choice in the forthcoming mayoral elections. Who can differentiate between the three towering statesmen, those intellectual colossi and ornaments of public life, who have done us the honour of seeking our votes? Not me, that's for sure! To me, they all seem exactly the same. Consider the forthright and insightful approach that they've all taken to the question of Islam:

Boris Johnson was today forced to defend his stance on Islam, insisting he believed it was a "religion of peace".

What an original way of looking at it!

The Conservatives candidate for London mayor, Mr Johnson, has been criticised for an article he wrote in the wake of the 7/7 London terror attacks in 2005 claiming "Islam is the problem".

But in a televised debate today, Mr Johnson said the problem was extremists taking the words of the Koran out of context.

No trite platitudes from independent-minded Boris! He really does offer a fresh perspective. And isn't it impressive that he knows so much more about the correct context for Koranic verses than, you know, actual Muslims?

In fairness, Johnson did then follow up by suggesting that "there has certainly been too much uncounted and unfunded immigration into London". Which is correct. However, one might be inclined to take him rather more seriously on immigration, had he not repeatedly called for an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Note to Johnson: you do not reduce immigration by rewarding people for entering the country illegally.

But Johnson's genius was more than matched by the wisdom of the incumbent:

The current Mayor, Labour's Ken Livingstone, said London could be a "model for the world" in terms of its ethnic diversity.

But he was forced to justify his decision to share a platform with the controversial preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

The cleric has described homosexuality as an "unnatural and evil practice" and said the Koran permitted wife-beating as "a possibility" in certain circumstances.

He's also expressed support for suicide bombers.

Mr Livingstone said: "He is a man who is prepared to say al Qaida is wrong and to be very strong in that condemnation."

However, I think that, on this occasion, the award for most idiotic candidate has to go to Brian Paddick, formerly Britain's most senior homosexual policeman, and also, we now discover, a renowned Islamic scholar:

Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick, a former deputy assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan Police, said: "What I said in the immediate aftermath of July 7 was that the term Islamic terrorism, as far as I was concerned, is a contradiction in terms.

"In that there is nothing in the Koran to justify the murder of 52 innocent men, women and children."

First, that's patently untrue. There are plenty of verses in the Koran which could be, and are, used by practising Muslims (a category which does not include Brian Paddick), to justify the use of violence against non-Muslims. There are also plenty of Islamic scholars who are prepared to endorse such violence. On what basis, I wonder, does Paddick assert that his knowledge and understanding of Islam is greater than theirs?

Secondly, it it deeply disingenuous to suggest that when devout Muslims commit acts of terrorism, in the name of Islam, it should be called anything other than "Islamic terrorism". But presumably Paddick prefers Jacqui Smith's Newspeak definition of such atrocities as "anti-Islamic activity".

At a time when the majority of British people see Islam - not a "tiny minority of extremists", but the religion as a whole - as a threat to our country, the three leading contenders for the mayoralty of our capital city are bending over backwards, and performing all sorts of linguistic contortions, to avoid saying anything that might conceivably upset any Muslim. On the fortieth anniversary of Enoch Powell's great speech, when the nation is crying out for someone to take a similar stand against Islam, craven politicians of all parties are merely spouting meaningless platitudes about "religions of peace". This applies not only to the mayoral candidates, but to the overwhelming majority of politicians, and certainly to the senior figures in all three main parties. I have no idea whether Livingstone or Johnson will emerge victorious on polling day (at least it won't be Paddick, thank Heavens). But I can be sure of one thing: whoever wins, London and Britain will lose.

BBC bias on immigration (2)

Following on from Mark Easton's assertion that public opposition to immigration is almost non-existent, and confined only to a small group of intolerant bigots, his fellow Beeboid Kathryn Edwards has written a piece entitled "Powell's 'rivers of blood' legacy", timed to coincide with the impending fortieth anniversary of Enoch Powell's famous speech. In this, she gives us the views of a very diverse range of commentators. They are:

Elias Mattu: a first generation immigrant, Labour councillor in Wolverhampton, and director of the West Midlands Equality and Diversity Partnership. Among other comments, he denounced Powell as "an evil man". Edwards omitted to mention his party affiliation, merely describing him as "a Wolverhampton city councillor".

Dr Clive Harris: described as a "black sociologist". Edwards omitted to mention that he is closely associated with the race relations industry, through his involvement in the Afro-Caribbean Millennium Centre, and his directorship of the Centre's spin-off, the Frantz Fanon Research Unit, described as "the UK's only black-owned public policy think tank".

Rob Marris: Labour MP for Powell's old seat, Wolverhampton South West, and alleged vandal.

So, two race hustlers, one of whom is also a Labour councillor, and a Labour MP. What a very representative cross-section of the community!

On the other side of the debate, Edwards briefly mentions Nigel Hastilow, before adding that "Mr Hastilow has said he will not give interviews to the BBC about the 'rivers of blood' speech". She does not mention, however, that, as Hastilow has made clear on his blog, he refuses to appear on the BBC because of the corporation's consistent bias. And, in any event, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that, since Hastilow refused to speak to her, Edwards should have made the effort to find someone else to speak on behalf of the vast majority of people who oppose unlimited mass immigration.

The imbalance in the choice of commentators is not the only instance of bias in Edwards' article, however. Her general reporting is deliberately slanted to an anti-Powell stance. Consider the following extract, for example:

Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West, was not the first politician in that era to find himself embroiled in such controversy.

In the 1964 General Election campaign in nearby Smethwick, supporters of the Tory candidate Peter Griffiths were reported to have circulated the slogan, "If you want a nigger for a neighbour - vote Labour".

This appears to be a rather cack-handed attempt to smear Powell by falsely associating him with the overtly racist slogan allegedly used by Peter Griffiths' supporters.

It was the Race Relations Act introduced by the Labour government in 1968 which prompted Powell's speech.

He argued it would mean "British" families losing out on matters such as housing, with immigrants being given an unfair advantage.

Why is the word 'British' in quotation marks? The clear imputation is that there are no such people as the native British.

Black sociologist Dr Clive Harris said that playing the race card at that time had proved to have "mileage" for politicians.

Here, the notion, promulgated by the race hustling Dr Harris, that Powell was "playing the race card" is repeated uncritically by Edwards, as if it was an indisputable fact. This is typical of the way in which Edwards accepts all the claims, no matter how controversial or how obviously false, that are made by her three left-wing interviewees, while barely giving any consideration whatsoever to the views of those who thought Powell was right then, or those of us who think that, with the benefit of hindsight, he was remarkably prescient. Kathryn Edwards should be proud: her whole piece is a classic of BBC propagandising dressed up as impartial reporting!

Answer: he's white

The Daily Mail has the story of eighteen year-old Jamie Bauld, who recently had a charge of racially-aggravated assault against him dropped, following a seven month police investigation. So, what sort of person is Jamie Bauld? The kind of thug who goes out "Paki-bashing" at weekends, perhaps? Well, no. He's actually a Down's Syndrome sufferer, with a mental age of five.

The incident that led to the police investigation occurred last September, at the special needs department of his school, Motherwell College. Jamie had an altercation with an Asian girl, who also had special needs, during the course of which he pushed her. Hardly the most heinous of crimes in any context, you might think, and particularly not when both participants have the mental age of primary school children. However, some unknown person clearly felt otherwise. They placed an advertisement in the local paper, asking for witnesses to the "racial assault", after which the eminently sensible gentlemen of the police force decided that it was worth their while to get involved, and questioned Jamie, prior to charging him with assault. According to his mother, Jamie did not understand the questions that the police were asking him, and simply agreed with every accusation put to him, out of a desire to please his interrogators. She adds that, like many children, he does not actually notice racial differences.

A fortnight ago the prosecution was finally dropped, and Jamie's parents have received an apology from the Crown Office - Scotland's equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service. At least that's something.
But it really is astounding that matters were taken this far. Or at least, it ought to be. However, given that recent years have also seen a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl arrested for complaining that her (Asian) fellow pupils were not speaking English, and three ten-year-old boys respectively questioned by police for using the word 'gay' in an e-mail, threatened with prosecution for throwing a berry at a Slovak immigrant, and prosecuted over a playground scuffle with an Asian child (a decision that even the judge condemned as "political correctness gone mad"), my response to Jamie Bauld's case was not so much amazement, as resignation. Our country, and, particularly, it seems, our police and our public prosecution services, are infested with censorious liberal thought police, always on the lookout for new victims to persecute, harass, and vilify. What can drive any human being to seek the prosecution of someone like Jamie Bauld is totally beyond me, unless they do it for the bully's thrill that some derive from victimising someone who is utterly incapable of fighting back.

Jamie's mother asks "how can my son be racist"? A valid question, particularly given that there appears to have been no suggestion that the altercation in the classroom was accompanied by anything indicative of racist attitudes, on the part of either Jamie, or the Asian girl. The answer, of course, is that he is white. As such, he is, in "anti-racist" ideology, presumed guilty of racism, and nothing can prove him innocent. Even though there was no racial element in this incident, the fact that he had a conflict with a non-white person, while being himself guilty of being white, proves, to the "anti-racist" thought policeman, that he had a racist motive for his actions. Because those white devils are all evil racists, you know...

BBC bias on immigration

On the BBC website, the corporation's Home Affairs Editor, Mark Easton, has penned a rather bland piece on the debate over immigration, apparently prompted by the news that nearly two-thirds of British people believe that inter-racial violence is likely to erupt in the near future. The article itself merely rehashes themes which should be familiar to most reasonably well-informed people, and I would not mention the piece, but for the first few sentences, which provide a textbook example of the subtle bias for which the BBC is renowned:

Almost two-thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has suggested. So what does it say about race relations in Britain?

We have witnessed in Britain over the past decade a level of immigration greater than at any time in our history.

A million have recently come from Eastern Europe, but the migration to our shores has been from all parts of the globe.

Yet this extraordinary social change has been conducted with remarkably little hostility or public opposition.

Our experience is testament to the tolerance and adaptability of the British people.

Two points:

First, Easton's assertion that there has been "remarkably little...public opposition" to the colossal increase in levels of immigration that we have seen in the last decade is a blatant lie. As has been demonstrated time and time and time again, approximately 80% of the public believe that immigration levels are too high, and that they should be heavily reduced. If that is "remarkably little opposition", then I can only guess that to achieve the status of "significant opposition", the figures would have to be at least equal to Kim Jong-il's share of the vote in the last North Korean elections!
Admittedly, the public have not manifested their opposition to immigration by rioting, or by lynching immigrants. But that does not mean that opposition is any less prevalent, or any less strongly felt. Indeed, one might almost imagine that Mark Easton regards the general public with something bordering on contempt, given that he apparently believes that the British people invariably respond to anything they disagree with by getting aggressive and "hostile".

Secondly, I would be interested to learn precisely what Easton means by his statement that "our experience is testament to the tolerance and adaptability of the British people". Perhaps he simply means that the fact that the public have abstained from violence is testament to their tolerance, in the same way that Muslims were praised for their "restraint" for only rioting a tiny little bit over Fitna.
But given the close proximity of his statement about "tolerance and adaptability" to his (false) claim that there has been no significant opposition to the present levels of immigration, it is hard to avoid drawing the inference that the (alleged) acceptance of unlimited mass immigration by the British people is what proves their "tolerance and adaptability". And of course, this, almost necessarily, implies that opposition to immigration is intolerant, and indicative of an inability to adapt.
Maybe Mark Easton did not mean to imply this. Maybe he really does believe that tolerance consists of refraining from violence when you're upset or angry. But more likely, he simply regards it as axiomatic that support for mass immigration equals tolerance, while opposition to mass immigration equals intolerance and bigotry. This is the usual nature of BBC bias: not conscious or deliberate, but simply an expression of the subconscious liberal assumptions that may be shared by the overwhelming majority of Beeboids, but which are not shared by the public at large.

Ali Dizaei in race hustling shock

A senior Muslim policeman has said the Metropolitan Police's (Met) recruitment process is putting off young Muslims.

National Black Police Association President and Met Police Commander Ali Dizaei said the process should be "non- biased and fair".

He said some recruits were discouraged because they come under suspicion if they frequently visited some countries.

A Met Police spokesman said all staff regardless of background underwent the same vigorous security procedures.

Speaking to BBC London, Commander Dizaei said: "Just because someone visits a country several times does not necessarily make them a risk.

"We have to be quite careful to ensure our vetting process is non-biased and are fair and get the best people for the jobs without compromising national security."

BBC London's Home Affairs Correspondent Guy Smith said the National Association of Muslim Police told him another concern was that Muslim officers found it difficult to join SO15, the Met's counter-terrorism command, for which you need to be a detective.

Of the 300 current Muslim officers serving in the Met, half have less than three years experience.

This figure suggests that rather a lot of Muslims have been joining up recently, doesn't it? Or at least, that they've been joining up at a faster rate in the last couple of years than they had done previously. Which somewhat undermines Dizaei's claim that young Muslims are being discouraged from joining the force.

One should also note that the alleged "discrimination" consists, not in Muslims receiving inferior treatment, but rather, in the fact that all potential recruits are treated exactly the same. Dizaei claims that Muslim applicants are more likely to come under suspicion because of the countries they visit. But, had I been in the habit of making regular journeys to, say, Afghanistan, then, were I to apply for a job with the police, it is likely that they would look rather askance at me too. Perhaps Dizaei feels that visiting dodgy countries run or populated by large numbers of terrorists or terrorist supporters should not count against an individual's application to join the Met. But if this is what he thinks, then he should come out and make that case, rather than throwing around unsubstantiated accusations of discrimination. Still, I suppose he's just doing what he does best.

In a similar vein, the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) appears, from this BBC report, to be complaining that Muslim officers are not being recruited into SO15, because they are not meeting a requirement that applies to all applicants equally - i.e. being detectives. This is clearly related to the fact that Muslim officers are disproportionately likely to be new or recent recruits. In order to demonstrate actual discrimination, it would need to be shown that Muslim detectives were being denied positions in SO15, wholly or partly because of their religion. The NAMP has not done this. Of course, certain recent stories suggest that it is not unreasonable to question whether it would be wholly desirable to put large numbers of Muslims in a counter-(Islamic) terrorism force anyway.

When Ali Dizaei talks about making the recruitment process "non-biased and fair", he, like most race hustlers, actually means that it should be unfair and biased in favour of his special interest group - in this case, Muslims. He seems to believe that police vetting procedures should be relaxed in cases where the applicant is a Muslim, while his allies in the NAMP apparently feel that it should be easier for Muslims to enter SO15 than for the rest of us. Either that, or they're both in favour of a general lowering of standards for entry to both the police, and SO15, which might help some Muslim, career-wise, but which certainly won't make the police more effective. Either way, they're wrong.

Of course, while there is no evidence whatsoever that Muslims are being discriminated against, one should not imagine that police recruitment procedures are entirely fair. Members of that entirely legal political party, the BNP, are subject to an absolute ban on joining the police. But they're thought criminals, so it doesn't matter, right?

Thought Crime Roundup (2)

Nigel Hastilow, who, readers will probably recall, was dismissed (or at least, forced to resign), as Tory parliamentary candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, after favourably invoking the name of Lord Voldemort Enoch Powell, has an interesting article in the Telegraph, considering Powell's legacy:

Whatever the accuracy of Powell's predictions, and however strong his language, his main argument was that the country was "undergoing the total transformation to which there is no parallel in a thousand years of English history".

That is more true today than it was four decades ago. The level of immigration in the intervening years has been higher than Powell foresaw; the consequences are more far-reaching.

One of the most obvious is the demand for land, infrastructure and housing. Across Britain, local battles are taking place over plans to build three million more houses to accommodate our ever-expanding population.

The Government's own estimates suggest the number of people living here could climb from 60 million to 110 million in the next 75 years.

Of course we need houses for such an explosion in numbers. And roads, railways, schools, hospitals, shops and jobs. So the spiral of development twists on and on.

This will cost the taxpayer hundreds of billions of pounds and concrete over our countryside. Milton Keynes, for instance, will grow to twice the size of Birmingham. There won't be enough water - new homes there will have showers but no baths. It does not seem unreasonable to question how sustainable all this is.

And that's only the infrastructural impact; he hasn't even considered the cultural one. It does not seem unreasonable to question, say, the desirability of having millions of people in this country who support the imposition of Sharia law, either. As the number is, at present, somewhere around 800,000, that possibility is not remote; rather, it is almost inevitable. But very few politicians dare to talk about it - even Hastilow appears to have shied away from doing so.

Yet when I raised the issue, the Conservative Party was horrified. David Cameron has nurtured a politically correct, BBC-friendly, caring Conservatism which despises "nasty party" throwbacks who bang on about immigration.

In other words, a "Conservatism" bearing an uncanny resemblance to modern liberalism.

The mistake was to mention Enoch Powell.

I was told that to survive as a candidate I should confess to being "incredibly stupid" and submit future articles to Central Office first. So I resigned.

Losing the chance to become MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis was a bitter blow. But nothing consoled me as much as the overwhelming support I received from strangers. I was inundated with letters and emails, many arguing that this is too important an issue to let go.

For many politicians, immigration is the subject which dare not speak its name.

That's why so many people feel betrayed. Their elected representatives refuse to articulate the voters' concerns with anything approximating honesty. The conspiracy of silence among mainstream politicians is calculated to drive decent men and women into the arms of extremists.

The BNP is bound to flourish when anyone who tries to discuss immigration openly is howled down by cries of "racist".

Sadly, my experience is likely to intimidate other Tory hopefuls into silence. As one of them told me: "I agree with you completely. I'm just glad it was you who said it, not me."

Here we again see the suppression of democracy and debate that I talked about in my previous post. The issue of immigration, and the numerous other issues to which it gives rise, routinely top the list of the most important issues facing the country, in polls of the general public. And yet this vitally important topic is going unmentioned by almost all politicians from the three main parties, because they know that to discuss it openly, honestly, and forthrightly, would, in all probability, be to commit political suicide. This stifling of debate, in which all three main parties, and much of the MSM, are complicit, is making a veritable mockery of our claim to have a representative democracy.

Mr Hastilow concludes with the following sentence:

And I am glad I won't live another 75 years to see the full hideous consequences of today's population explosion.

On the basis of anecdotal evidence alone, I must say that this view seems to be shared by increasing numbers of people. When people start giving up on their country in this manner, it is in large part because of the failure of the political elite to govern in a manner which inspires people with genuine long-term optimism. The failure of the politicians to respond to voters' concerns, and the rendering of widely-held political beliefs as unspeakable heresy, is a major cause of this failure.

Thought Crime Roundup (1)

At a time when various leftists are throwing tantrums over the decision of the Hampstead and Highgate Express (the "Ham and High") to publish a BNP advertisement, a potentially rather more important bit of news relating to the party has gone largely unnoticed. BNP for Cleveland relates the story of Barry Towers, who has been dismissed from his job as a steward at Middlesbrough Football Club, allegedly because he stood for the BNP in a recent council by-election in the city.

Now, I have no personal knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Barry Towers' dismissal. In the absence of any MSM coverage, or any comment from the football club on the case, all my remarks must be based solely on Mr Towers' version of events, as relayed via the BNP for Cleveland blog. And certainly, it would be desirable to be apprised of a few more facts about the dismissal; notably, what reason the club gave Mr Towers for dismissing him - did they say that it was on account of his involvement with the BNP, or are they claiming that there was another, more justifiable, reason?
In the absence of such information, it is impossible to be certain what the true situation is. However, the temporal proximity between Mr Towers' candidature (the election only took place a month ago), and his dismissal, is interesting, to say the least. And he would not be the first BNP member to have been sacked for his involvement with the party.

To allow election candidates, whatever their party, to be dismissed from their jobs on account of their political activity is to undermine the very basis of the democratic process. Such behaviour cannot be construed as anything other than an attempt to stifle debate, by intimidating people into not expressing certain views, and preventing certain policies or ideologies from being put before the electorate. If this is indeed what has happened here, then that is deplorable. Equally deplorable is the fact that the decision of a local newspaper to promote free speech and debate has been met with greater outrage, than the apparent attempt of an employer to suppress it.

Cartoonish idiocy

Pupils will be able to gain 25 per cent of their marks in geography GCSE by drawing cartoons and writing poetry.

The Oxford, Cambridge and RSA exam board yesterday unveiled a course which allows assessment through "creative pupil presentation methods".

These include writing poems and reflective journals, drawing cartoons and making videos, podcasts and posters.

The shake-up is designed to make geography more interesting for teenagers and comes after a fall in numbers taking the subject at GCSE. Last year, 213,124 pupils sat geography GCSE, down from 227,832 in 2004.

The board's "geography A" syllabus allows pupils to study "relevant" topics including the socioeconomic impact of supermarkets.

It is divided into four units, each worth 25 per cent of the total marks.

A unit called You as a Global Citizen is internally assessed by teachers and requires two written tasks.

Task one is to "investigate how consumer decisions may have a positive or negative impact on people", while task two requires students to "investigate a local retail area" such as a shopping centre or out-of-town retail park.

The specification says: "Presentation of this work can take a variety of formats including, for example, presentations, poems, posters, video, oral, reflective journals, fieldwork data collection sheets, research tasks, reports, extended writing and cartoons."

Another unit, Shaping Our Fast Changing World, says that teachers should ensure their pupils have acquired skills including fieldwork techniques and "cartoon interpretation".

The decline in the number of candidates sitting exams in traditional subjects is something that I have noted before, in respect of history and modern languages, both of which are now studied to GCSE by only a minority of pupils. Instead, an increasing number of GCSE and A-level candidates are taking exams in such new disciplines as the infamous media studies, which in some cases is even replacing the generally compulsory English literature exam. The same trend is seen at A-level, where media studies, which was found to be the easiest of all A-levels by an exam watchdog earlier this year, has overtaken physics in popularity.

The rise of these new subjects can be explained, I believe, by the very fact that they do tend to be easier. Weak pupils at least, and perhaps some bright but lazy ones as well, see such subjects as a less arduous route to a decent GCSE or A-level grade than the traditional subjects. This results in a race to the bottom, as exam boards seek to draw pupils back to the traditional subjects by making them easier (a process barely disguised by the use of buzzwords such as "more interesting" and "more relevant"), as we see in this case, and in the recent launch of modular GCSEs by OCR, the same board that is behind these interesting revisions to the geography syllabus. Ultimately, this lowering of standards will benefit no one, and certainly not the pupils, who will increasingly be left with an inferior education, while being told that they are the "best qualified generation in history".

On the plus side, there is something of a backlash against the decline in standards, apparent in the news today that state schools will be able to follow many of Britain's leading public schools in dropping A-levels altogether, and instead offering a new, supposedly tougher, qualification (the "Pre-U") modelled on the old two-year A-level, which was abolished in 2000, and replaced with the current, modular, system. This move is to be welcomed, to the extent that it allows those schools which are still focused on genuine intellectual rigour, rather than simply on finding the easiest way to pass all their pupils, to continue to uphold academic standards. However, I imagine that the majority of schools will stick with A-levels, potentially leading to a two-tier exam system in which pupils in some schools sit the (hopefully) challenging Pre-U, while others sit A-levels which are increasingly easy, and, therefore, increasingly devalued.

Deaf to reason

I see that the government has caved in to pressure from various "deaf rights" campaigners, and removed a clause in the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which would have prevented people undergoing IVF treatment from using embryo screening to ensure that they had a deaf child. Deafness was originally included among the "serious medical conditions" which the bill prevents parents from favouring.

Personally, I am astounded to learn that anyone could actually want to have a deaf child, in preference to a hearing child. Deafness places those who suffer from it at a profound disadvantage within society. Since the primary method of interpersonal communication is, always has been, and always will be, verbal, then this disadvantaging of those who cannot engage in verbal communication is inevitable. We can make every effort to minimise the disadvantage, but we can never eliminate it. Because of their inability to communicate verbally, deaf people will always have fewer opportunities, educationally, career-wise, and personally, than those who are able to hear.
Besides which, the ability to hear is good in itself: it can provide those who possess it with a great abundance of positive experiences, which are simply not available to deaf people. To deliberately choose a child that will be deprived of the ability to hear is cruel, to say the least.

Deaf groups, who have evidently understood that the road to success lies through victimhood, have claimed that it is discriminatory to prevent parents from choosing to have a deaf child, while allowing them to choose to have a hearing child. And maybe they're right (although I would point out that deaf people are not actually being prevented from doing anything that a hearing person can do). But discrimination is not, in itself, a bad thing. Whenever we select one option over another we discriminate; indeed, the deaf groups seek to allow parents to discriminate against hearing children in the selection of embryos. And when one option is so clearly preferable to the alternative, as is the case here, then discrimination is perfectly good and reasonable. Of course, one might well have concerns over the "designer baby" scenarios that might come about as a result of allowing IVF patients to select embryos at all, but that is another matter...

Nor does it devalue the lives of deaf people generally to say that we should prevent parents from favouring deaf embryos. There is nothing unreasonable in saying that we can respect people as individuals, while also acknowledging that they have a condition which we would prefer as few people as possible to have.

The desire to select the characteristics of children in the manner proposed is, I think, indicative of a view of children that classifies them as little more than politicised fashion accessories. Consider the following case study, from the Telegraph article linked to above:

Paula Garfield and Tomato Lichy, are at the centre of the debate over the new fertility legislation. Both are deaf – as is their daughter Molly, three.

They would like a second child, but because Paula is in her 40s, she may need IVF treatment.

They want the right to choose to have a deaf child and say it is discriminatory to ban deaf parents from doing this. Mr Lichy said:

"Being deaf is not about being disabled. It's about being part of a linguistic minority. We're proud of the language we use and the community we live in."

It would seem that Miss Garfield and Mr Lichy's aim in selecting their prospective child would be not so much about giving it the best possible start in life (which would, of course, necessitate the child being able to interact with the majority of those around it), as about justifying their self-perception as members of an oppressed minority. If people do have children, then it is self-evidently preferable that they regard them as ends in themselves, rather than as tools for making political points. This does not appear to be the case with those who wish to inflict deafness upon their offspring.

Like the TARDIS

A WOULD-BE MP is being investigated by police after it emerged 27 people are registered to vote at his house.

And officers are also probing claims a prospective councillor has five people registered at his home who are also listed at other properties in the same town.

Both Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Mohammed Afzal Anwar and Labour Pendle Council candidate Mohammed Tariq have insisted they have done nothing wrong.

Police launched their investigation after separate allegations were made to Pendle Council and Lancashire Constabulary by the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties in Pendle.

Mr Anwar said there was nothing untoward about the number of voters living at his terraced home which is 214 to 216 Manchester Road, Nelson, and consists of two houses knocked into one.

He said that 27 people were registered to vote at the property, but that not all were resident in this country at any one time.

Mr Anwar said no postal or proxy votes would be requested for the property.

He said that he had discussed the situation with election officials at Pendle Council.

Mr Anwar said: "There are different people who are living in different parts of the properties. There are certain people who go abroad from time to time. One or two are students who have been in Poland for example.

"And other people are going (abroad) and coming back. There will be no postal or proxy votes issued from this address."

His election agent, Coun Tony Greaves, said the property was inhabited by Mr Anwar, his father, three brothers, their respective families and "contains 24 bedrooms."

Only two people registered at the addresses, who were currently resident in Pakistan, were not entitled to vote, said Coun Greaves.

Labour party officials asked Pendle police to launch a probe amid claims that not all residents living there should be entitled to vote.

The claims followed Liberal Democrat allegations over Labour candidate Mohammed Tariq, who is standing in Whitefield ward in next month's Pendle Council elections.

He is accused of having five people registered at his Portland Street home who are also registered at other properties elsewhere in Nelson.

Pendle Labour group leader Mohammed Iqbal is Mr Tariq's election agent and said the prospective councillor had done nothing wrong.

He said: "I have looked into Lord Greaves's allegations concerning Mr Tariq. They seem to centre round two members of our candidate's family."

Police confirmed that they were investigating allegations of electoral fraud in Pendle.

And, of course, there really is very little to be said, pending the result of the police investigation(s). Except that they must be pretty impressive terraced houses that Mr Anwar has, to be capable of yielding twelve bedrooms each. Should the allegations against him prove to be without foundation, we can only hope that those in authority will utilise his evident talents, and task him with solving the nation's housing shortage!

Hat-tip: The Green Arrow

Postscript: Meanwhile, former Slough Tory councillor Eshaq Khan has been charged with conspiracy to defraud, as have four of his campaign workers, all of whom have also been charged with offences under the Representation of the People Act 1983. Last month, an election court found Khan guilty of vote-rigging, in the closely contested election for the town's Central Ward.

Showing his true colours?

I see that Boris Johnson was jeered by members of the audience at a London mayoral hustings held at the Methodist Central Hall earlier in the week. Apparently the audience, which, the Evening Standard tells us, "was packed with black church groups and student and trade unions who are the natural constituency of Labour rival Ken Livingstone", was initially unreceptive to Johnson's charms, and booed and heckled as he attempted to speak, until one of the event organisers had to ask them to be quiet. Well, it's fairly typical of the left, isn't it, to try to silence their political opponents in this manner, rather than engaging them in debate.

Except that there's very little to suggest that Boris Johnson is the political opponent of these leftists. Of course, he and they are members of rival political tribes, but there's little in the way of substantive political or ideological disagreement between them. The Standard informs us that "by the end of the two-hour event...the jeers had turned to cheers as he won round much of the audience". Huzzah! But it is interesting to see how this apparent transformation was brought about; essentially, he won round the leftist-dominated audience by expressing views which they shared.

First, he treated them to a tasty morsel of welfare state socialism:

The audience began to warm to Mr Johnson after he agreed to fund the "London living wage" of £7.20 per hour for the poorest workers if elected.

Then, he added a liberal endorsement of lawbreaking:

He won over even more people when he talked about housing and agreed to a one-off amnesty for all illegal immigrants living in the capital.

Mr Johnson spoke of his own family's immigrant roots and said his Muslim great-grandfather, who fled to Britain from Turkey, would be "very proud" he was standing for Mayor of London.

The candidate said: "If an immigrant has been here for a long time and there is no realistic prospect of returning them, then I do think that person's condition should be regularised so that they can pay taxes and join the rest of society."

He even accused the present government, which has presided over the highest levels of immigration this country has ever seen, of being just too harsh towards those poor illegals:

Mr Livingstone added it was a "tragic miscalculation" by the Labour government not to have an "immediate amnesty for everybody" when it came to power in 1997.

He wobbled a bit...

However, the Tory faced jeers when he said it was not within his powers to stop the Met staging controversial dawn raids of migrant families. "I've given you as many yeses as I can, my friends," he implored his audience.

...but hit back strongly by implying that he would grant preferential treatment to people who have no right to be in the country at all:

He added that he would "look at" London Citizens' proposal to subsidise transport for failed asylum seekers in London, while Green Sian Berry and Liberal Democrat Brian Paddick backed the idea.

Taxpayer-subsidised transport for failed "asylum seekers" looks set to become a reality whoever wins. Ken Livingstone has pledged that they shall travel for free, telling the audience the heart-rending tale of how "many end up walking for miles across the capital because they are unable to afford the Tube or train fare". Yes, having to walk is indeed a terrible hardship, which no one should have to endure.

Returning to Boris Johnson: he actually concluded with a halfway decent idea:

Mr Johnson was then applauded when he repeated his pledge to scrap the Mayor's newspaper, The Londoner, and plant trees with the money saved.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Londoner is a complete waste of money, and that planting trees would certainly be a better use of the money (although tax cuts would be a still bigger improvement), I see very little reason, reviewing Johnson's comments, to support him, even against Ken Livingstone, in the mayoral election. After all, aside from their differences on the vexed Routemaster v. bendy buses question, they seem to be in perfect agreement on pretty much everything. Certainly, on the basis of his statements at the hustings, Johnson's views are firmly entrenched on the left of the political spectrum, reflecting the widespread ideological surrender of the Tory Party to the liberal-left. Either that, or he is constantly changing his message to suit his audience - hardly an admirable or desirable trait in a politician, albeit a common one.

Getting to know Islam

This story is a few days old now, but it is still worthy of notice:

A primary school in Amsterdam wished to provide its pupils with an understanding for other cultures. But during a visit to a mosque, the children were told they were dogs.

Developing an understanding of other cultures, and being called a dog, are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

With a view to developing understanding and respect for other cultures among children, primary school De Horizon regularly organises outings to various religious organisations. The chairman of the El Mouchidine mosque told the children from group 7 (aged 10) and their chaperones however that non-Muslims are dogs.

Muslims have quite a wide range of such dehumanising insults to throw at the infidels. For example, London's King Fahd Academy teaches children that Christians are pigs, and Jews apes.

In a letter to the children's parents, the school expresses its regret at the incident: "We are shocked that during the guided tour, the mosque's chairman told the children and chaperoning parents that non believers were dogs. We consider this statement as unacceptable since we allow our children to partake in this project to develop respect for freedom of religious choice".

In the meantime, the school's management has addressed the mosque on the undesirable behaviour of the chairman. Both parties will say nothing further on the matter. "We will resolve the matter amongst ourselves and I have no inclination whatsoever to discuss the matter with the media", as newspaper De Telegraaf quoted the school's spokesperson Mariet ten Berge. "We have been to the mosque before and it always went well".

I can't imagine quite how the school is going to broach the matter to the mosque authorities! "Could you please maintain a veneer of respectability, and keep your more bigoted views to yourself next time; we don't want the children getting the right idea about Islam", perhaps? Or maybe the grovelling "We're deeply sorry that some of the children took your honoured chairman's remarks out of context - it won't happen again", will be more to the taste of the school's management?

Angry parents had sent the letter on to De Telegraaf but were reportedly rapped on the knuckles by the school's management. "The school wishes to play this down. That is precisely the problem", as one mother commented.

In this story, and the school's response to it, you have a microcosm of the general attitude of the authorities to Islam, and those who expose the wrongdoing of its followers. A Muslim does something wrong, and every effort is made to hush it up, "resolving the matter amongst ourselves". Meanwhile, those who do no more than publicise the misdeeds of the Muslim are themselves denounced, or at least "rapped on the knuckles", for having the nerve to criticise the Poor Oppressed Victims. I'm rather surprised that the parents in question have not, as yet, been accused of "Islamophobia"!

I wonder whether the school is planning to continue sending children to visit this mosque? Certainly, this report contains nothing approaching an indication to the contrary, and the school's desire to deal with the matter privately, and to downplay any criticism of the mosque authorities, suggests that they hope for rapprochement, and the continuance of this mutually beneficial relationship.

Oh well, at least the children got a more balanced look at Islam than they would have done from simply listening to some dhimmi schoolmistress repeating platitudes about "Religions of Peace".

Postscript: A comment at Dhimmi Watch, where I first saw this story, quotes the following news report (I have no idea what the source was, since no link is given), in which the mosque chairman seeks to explain his statement:

According to a press release by Mohamed Guennoun, chairman of the El Mouhahidine [sic] mosque, the report above is based on erroneous information. He had never called unbelievers dogs and he rejects such statements.

[…]

When one 12 year old asked if Muslims are obligated to go to the mosque he had answered: No that is not obligatory. But there are those among us - those who think extremely - who think that if you as a Muslim don't go to the mosque five times a day to pray then you're really an unbeliever and not more than a dog.

Guennoun stresses that he was speaking of the extremists. He doesn't belong to that group and he rejects their way of thinking.

All the children, however, seem to have got the impression that he was calling them dogs. Bloody Islamophobes!

So proud, so very proud

Addressing the Pakistan National Council of the Arts, on a visit to the country, our beloved Home Secretary Jacqui Smith favoured her auditors with the following remarks:

After Christianity, Islam is the largest faith community in the UK. 1.6million declared themselves Muslims in the 2001 census, and that figure may now be as high as 2million. Islam is one of many faiths which are practised in UK communities. We are proud to live in such a diverse country.

Three points:

1. It's interesting to note that Jacqui Smith does not refer to the 'community', but to "UK communities". An inadvertent admission, perhaps, of the extent to which mass immigration and multiculturalism are turning the UK into little more than a patchwork of disparate groups, having nothing in common beyond the fact that they inhabit the same patch of land.

2. The fact that the Muslim population of Britain has increased by 25% in just seven years demonstrates quite how rapidly Islam is spreading within our country. True, their numbers may still be comparatively insignificant, at just 3.3% of the total population, but, on the basis of present trends, they will not remain so for long. Considering how much influence they already wield, and the extent to which they are already in receipt of preferential treatment, one wonders how far the craven politicians and media will go in their efforts to appease the Muslims in the future.

3. Who, I wonder, is this "we", who "are proud to live in such a diverse country"? Is it the public at large? Well, since 53% of us say that Islam poses a threat to the West, I rather think not. The British public have never been consulted on whether they wanted to live in "such a diverse country"; they have simply had it imposed upon them, together with the mantra that failure to show sufficient appreciation for "diversity" is to mark oneself out as an evil bigot of the worst kind.

I'm certainly not proud to live in a country with an ever-increasing Islamic population. I am, however, deeply worried. After all, the increase in the size of the Islamic population probably means that the number of people in the UK who want to impose Sharia law has, since the start of the millennium, risen from 640,000 to at least 800,000, not to mention a parallel increase in the numbers who want to engage in such wholesome activities as killing apostates. Hardly an occasion for pride, I would have thought.

Jacqui Smith's comments demonstrate, once again, quite how out of touch she, and the rest of the buffoons running the country, are. At a time when the public is increasingly concerned about the impact that Islam is having upon our society, Smith proclaims, on behalf of all of us, her pride in the presence of millions of Muslims in Britain. The only hope for this country is to kick these cretins out at the next election; thankfully, as Jacqui Smith has a majority of less than 3,000 in her Redditch constituency, she at least should be gone pretty soon.

Will you tell the liberals, or shall I? Part two

One of the statistics mentioned in my previous post was that 66% of Britons believe that immigrants undercut British workers and take their jobs. This particular belief is the one most frequently mocked by advocates of unlimited immigration, who like to depict it, usually harnessed in tandem with the straw man argument that "they take our women", as a claim made by the stereotypical crude, ignorant "white van men", who, many liberals like to believe, are the only source of opposition to immigration (aside, that is, from taxi drivers, and "racists"). As is so often the case, however, the mere fact that liberals don't want to believe it does not make it any less true (indeed, one might almost say that the probability of a statement being correct increases in direct proportion to the vociferousness of liberals in disputing it). As the Sunday Telegraph reports:

Mass immigration has been accompanied by a fall in the number of Britons with jobs, official figures show.

Since 2004, when citizens of eight central and eastern European countries were given the right to work in Britain, the number of UK-born people working here has fallen by 500,000, from 24.4 million to 23.9 million.

Over the period, the number of migrants in work, including people born abroad but now naturalised as British citizens, rose by 1.1 million - to 3.3 million. They now make up one in eight of the workforce.

The figures, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), provide the strongest evidence yet that Britons have lost their jobs to immigrants, says a leading expert on immigration.

Robert Rowthorn, a Cambridge University professor who uncovered the findings, said: "It seems hard to deny that immigration from the new EU member states has had a negative impact on the employment of UK natives."

The good professor should be careful what he says. If any lefty student groups at Cambridge should get wind of it, they might try and get him sacked!

Attitudes to immigration

A poll for Channel 4 has revealed that the public is not exactly ecstatic about the unprecedented levels of immigration that this country has been experiencing over the past ten years or so. 83% of Britons told pollsters that the country faces a "population crisis", a view shared by 58% of "settled migrants". Fifteen percent of respondents were in favour of halting immigration altogether, and fully 84% wanted to reduce it.

Why do the public feel this way? Well, it seems that many of us are not quite so enthusiastic about the myriad benefits of diversity as the liberal-left might wish. While a quarter of people believe the leftist canard that "immigration has led to a rich and varied culture in Britain", 58% say that British culture has been "damaged and diluted" by immigration. Multiculturalism seems to have been convincingly rejected too: 69% of people say that it isn't working, a view shared by 45% of settled migrants, and even 41% of recently-arrived migrants. 66% of Britons also believe that migrant workers undercut British workers and take their jobs.

There's not a lot here that's new, to be honest. The proof that the public was strongly opposed to both immigration and multiculturalism was already pretty overwhelming - this is just another shot in the cannonade of evidence. The important issue is not so much whether people have concerns and objections, as whether any government will take heed of these concerns, and act accordingly. Personally, I doubt that they will.
Responding to the Channel 4 poll, Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch said:

This is stunning confirmation that the public want to see firm and effective action to reduce the scale of immigration. It is a view shared by two-thirds of previous immigrants. The Government cannot remain in denial much longer.

Well, the first two sentences may be correct, but, alas, I fear that he underestimates the capacity of the present government to ignore any fact that does not fit their worldview. They allowed, and continue to allow, unlimited mass immigration against the wishes and without the consent of the public. I expect that they will "remain in denial" up to and beyond the next election. We can't expect any action from Labour. Meanwhile, the Tories have at least called for a limit to be imposed on immigration, but, as we all know, what they say and what they might do should they come into power may prove to be two very different things...

Great excuses of our time

A SPEEDING driver has avoided a ban after his lawyer argued that he needed his licence to visit both his wives.

Mohammed Anwar, 51, was caught driving at more than twice the speed limit on his way home from work in Falkirk.

The restaurant owner, who has two wives under Islamic law, was clocked driving at 64mph in a 30mph zone on the Cumbernauld Road, Muirhead, Glasgow, on 21 August, 2007.

Yesterday at Airdrie Sheriff Court, Anwar, of Clouston Street, Glasgow, pleaded guilty to speeding, but his lawyer, Paul Nicolson, said: "He realises his licence is at risk, but this is an unusual case and he is very anxious to keep his driving licence as he has two wives.

"Under his religion he is allowed a maximum of four," said Mr Nicolson.

"He has one wife in Motherwell and another in Glasgow and sleeps with one one night and stays with the other the next.

"Without his driving licence he would be unable to be able to do this on a regular basis. He is also a restaurant owner and has a restaurant in Falkirk, which he has had for the past 30 years."

Sheriff John C Morris, QC, allowed Anwar to keep his licence, fining him £200 and imposing six penalty points on his driving licence.

While it is sort of illegal, bigamy brings other advantages in today's Britain. For example, should Mr Anwar's business ever fail, then, as was reported back in February, he will be able to claim additional benefits in respect of his additional wife. Not a bad deal, really.

Meanwhile, I wonder how far an infidel would get claiming that he needed the car in order to commute between his wife and his mistress? About as far as the bus queue, after his licence was withdrawn, I'd guess (and quite right too!).