Much wailing and gnashing of teeth

Perhaps the best thing about Boris Johnson's victory last Thursday/Friday has been the sight of the entire British left wringing their hands in palpable woe. Many of them apparently believe that the election of a candidate they don't like represents a failure of democracy! Perhaps they should elect (or rather, speed up the process of electing) a new people! Anyway, here is a brief catalogue of some of my favourite lefty whines:

We start at JuliaM's new blog, where she has found three examples of mournful pieces by Guardian hacks at the paper's "Comment is Free" site. John Harris's "Enter the Jester" is particularly amusing:

...one can surely envisage the idea of London as the ultimate switched-on metropolis - the political class's beloved "world city" - beginning to wilt...corks are already popping in the home of such neo-Thatcherites as George Osborne, William Hague and Liam Fox. The chances of a David Cameron government taking power and laying waste to what remains of the welfare state and the public sector ethos are now all the greater.

Other schadenfreude-inducing whinings include, from the blog Stumbling Sonata, the revelation that it was all those damn lower middle class suburbanites who did it. If only the right to vote were restricted to those who could be trusted to use it properly (a category that is apparently composed primarily of the author's friends and acquaintances) then that nice Mr Livingstone would still be in charge!

I simply cannot get my head around the fact that so many people voted for that shameless, bumbling moron. I have not met a single person who lives in central London who wanted Boris for Mayor so I can only conclude that the bored suburban masses all came out of the woodwork to provide themselves with four years’ entertainment at the cost of the capital. This is what a nation that watched Big Brother will do.

Yes, it's all TV's fault!

Meanwhile, the author of the evidently rather unsuccessful "Stop Boris" blog warns that Johnson's victory will bring out the violent racist in all of us:

With Boris as Mayor and the BNP on the Assembly, we could also see race-hate crime on the increase in the capital for the first time in many years, following years of the capital bucking the national trend with a fall, versus a rise elsewhere.

We could indeed see racist crime rise in London. We could also see the sun darken at noonday (I'm sure many leftists fully expect it to). However, there is no evidence to suggest that the election of people that the left don't like will bring either scenario about.

In any event, as I've pointed out many times before, most racist crime is targeted against white people. So is Mr Stop Boris in fact arguing that all those tolerant minorities will now be going out beating up white people for having the temerity to vote for Boris Johnson or the BNP?

On the subject of the BNP, it has to be said that, owing to the misery engendered by Johnson's victory, Richard Barnbrook's election to the London Assembly has received less attention than it might otherwise have done. But it did serve to further depress the spirits of many leftists. Take this, from the Daily Mirror's political correspondent, James Lyons:

And things look even worse. Forget Labour's May Day mauling and Boris's triumph in London its [sic] another result in the capital that has me holding my head in my hands.

Personally, I suspect that it is not in his hands that Mr Lyons has placed his head...

Richard Barnbrook is the new British National Party member on the London Assembly after the odious far-right party managed to get more than 5 per cent of the vote. They also picked up council seats in other parts of the country.

I met the charming Mr Barnbrook and his travelling circus of slack-jawed goons during the 2005 general election and the idea that anyone could vote for them fills me with horror.

And, of course, pompous lefty hacks being "filled with horror" (as opposed to their normal state of being 'full of shit') is a prospect just too dreadful to contemplate. Remember James Lyons next time you're voting: you wouldn't want to upset him, would you?

But my very favourite display of leftist rationality and common sense came in a comment on this Times article about Mr Barnbrook's election:

Boris as Mayor and the BNP on the Assembly. This is the worst night London has seen since the Blitz.

Steven Morrison, Streatham, London, UK

Nothing like keeping a sense of perspective, is there?

Plus ca change...

So, Red Ken is gone. And in his place we have a left-liberal who fawns over Muslims, favours an amnesty for illegal immigrants, and declared in his victory speech that London "brings the world together in one city". I'm truly delighted to see the back of Livingstone, but forgive me if I don't break out the champagne just yet.

On the plus side, the BNP's mayoral candidate Richard Barnbrook has been elected a member of the London Assembly. That should be one in the eye for the leftists in all three big parties. The Times informs us that "anti-facist [sic] and gay rights groups have called for protests in the capital in light of the win". There's something rather ironic, is there not, in self-proclaimed "anti-fascists" protesting against the result of a free and democratic election?

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.

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

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.

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.

More lies and corruption

Ken Livingstone’s campaign instructed public servants to write articles in support of his last reelection as Mayor of London in a breach of rules forbidding political abuse of taxpayers’ cash.

Documents passed to The Times prove that staff paid for by public money were told to carry out campaign work during office hours. One e-mail to the mayor’s former senior adviser on Asian affairs, Atma Singh, sent at 9.30am, explicitly asks that he write two articles in support of Mr Livingstone by noon that day.

The evidence directly contradicts the Mayor of London’s claim last week that senior public officials could not and did not carry out such work during the 2004 campaign. He said officials could engage in political activity “as long as they obey the law, which is that they can’t publicly campaign, which is they can’t make a speech for me or write an article for me”.

Asked if an investigation would find that no one had used office time to prepare articles in pursuit of his campaign, he replied: “Absolutely right.”

Yet on May 27, 2004, Mr Singh received an e-mail from the campaign office of the Ken4London based in the headquarters of the London Labour Party. It said: “We are still waiting for your article for the Asian Post . . . and the East Muslim News (400-500 words on Why should Muslims vote for Ken Livinsgtone? – this is urgent, publication date June 1st). Both required 12 noon today.”

Mr Singh also told The Times that he spent up to 90 per cent of his days during the campaign working for Mr Livingstone’s reelection, in contravention of electoral rules.

The e-mail, along with others, is being handed over to the Electoral Commission today as part of a formal complaint against Mr Livingstone.

Well, at least now we know where Rosemary Emodi (Livingstone's former "race adviser", who resigned last week after it was revealed that she used her position to get a free holiday at an expensive African resort, and then lied about it) got her inspiration from.

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.

Boris Johnson: Worse than Hitler

Were I a betting man, I wouldn't mind putting a few quid on Boris Johnson for next mayor of London. Why do I think this? Well, I don't believe that the Labour Party, and its innumerable hangers-on, would be attacking Johnson quite so frequently, and with quite so much vigour and vitriol, unless they were really rather scared of him.

In the latest attack, the Brownite Compass group has accused him of being "a type of Norman Tebbit in a clown's uniform", "a champion of the 'regressive consensus' who threatens the 'very large progressive consensus in the capital'", and a threat to multiculturalism. He sounds more appealing already, doesn't he?

Compass has gone so far as to create a dossier of Johnson's thought crimes, which sounds like rather interesting reading:

The dossier's charges range from his "enthusiastic" support for the Iraq war (where he once claimed there had been only 150 casualties) and George Bush, to his opposition to the Kyoto treaty on climate change, the minimum wage and the public smoking ban. Mr Johnson also supports fox and stag hunting, grammar schools and section 28 - Tory legislation outlawing the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools.

His risque jokes as a magazine and newspaper columnist are also in Compass's sights. It cites instances when he referred to black people as "piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles"; accused New Guinea of "orgies of cannibalism" and insulted both Portsmouth and Liverpool - the latter offence prompting Michael Howard to force an apology, even though, as editor of the Spectator, Mr Johnson had not personally penned the offending editorial.

As motoring columnist for GQ magazine Mr Johnson has also committed to print his full share of sexist remarks, referring to a sports car he test-drove as "the swishest, fastest, most chick-pulling Lotus ever devised", while in a Ferrari he felt that "the whole county of Hampshire was lying back and opening her well-bred legs to be ravished by the Italian stallion".

So, what do we learn from this? Well, we learn that the people at Compass are a humourless, censorious, bunch of PC neo-Bowdlerists, and that Boris Johnson is rather more sensible on most issues than the average Cameronite. Speaking for myself, after reading this summary of the dossier's contents, I feel rather more pro-Johnson than I did previously.

I have written about the attacks made on Johnson by the PC left before, and my views remain the same as they were then: he may be far from being an ideal mayor, but he would certainly be an immense improvement on Livingstone. For this reason, I would certainly give him my second preference vote, and urge others to do the same.

All the fun of the mayor

I read that the probable Tory candidate for Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has had his bid for election "spurned" by black MPs. Well, that's what the headline at al-Beeb ("Black MPs spurn Boris mayoral bid") says. What they mysteriously omit to mention until the second paragraph of the article is that the two black MPs who have attacked Johnson, Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler, are both from the Labour Party. Indeed, not only that, but they are both from the party's far-left fringe. And I would hardly say that for a Tory to find two Labour MPs to be opposed to his campaign constitutes "spurning". Nor, indeed, can I see that two far-left nutters represent "black MPs" collectively, as the BBC headline implies. Looks like yet another little example of BBC bias to me.

But, if one looks past the BBC's misleading headline, to the claims made by Abbott and Butler, then, well, one rather wishes one had stuck at the headline. Because the whole basis of their objection is the usual song-and-dance about "racism". That's right, Boris Johnson is, in essence, a veritable goose-stepping Nazi, just biding his time before unleashing a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Brixton (I mean, a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Brixton other than the one directed against the borough's white populace, which is ongoing). And what is the basis of this revelation? Well, Johnson once used the word "piccaninnies" in an article in 2002.

Well, so what? Until I saw that Abbott and Butler had kicked up a fuss about it, I had no idea that "piccaninnies" was even deemed offensive. And, frankly, it doesn't upset me that Boris Johnson has used the term, and it wouldn't make me any more or less likely to vote for him. But if anyone is so offended by the word, that they feel that they'd rather keep Ken Livingstone in power, then let them vote for him. That's what we call democracy, something that Abbott and Butler, both supporters of the Venezuelan dictator Chavez, may not know very much about.

I would also point out, that Livingstone's own conduct on racial matters has hardly been exemplary. Aside from accusing a Jewish journalist of being equivalent to a concentration camp guard, he has also literally embraced the terrorist-supporting Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. If Abbott and Butler were really interested in having a mayor who represented the people of London then they wouldn't be supporting such a man.
But of course, all they're really engaging in when they criticise Boris Johnson is party-political sniping, using their status as designated victims in an attempt to invest their attacks with a moral force that they would otherwise lack.

Personally, I am not great fan of Boris Johnson. I find his politics rather wet, albeit better than those of his friend David Cameron, and the buffoonish character he adopts irritates me, although he was good on Have I Got News For You. But, should I be living in London when the election comes round, then he will certainly have my second preference vote. Even a friend of Cameron's is a significant improvement on Red Ken.

In related mayoral news, I note that Brian Paddick has come out (boom boom) and professed a desire to come a poor third in the election (or, as he put it, to be the Lib Dem candidate). Paddick, it will be recalled, was the most senior homosexual police officer in the country, until he left the Met after falling out with his boss. Now he's working on a book about his experiences as a poor oppressed victim in the institutionally evil police force. Perhaps he could have Ali Dizaei as his running-mate...