John Payne's attackers sentenced

The three Pakistanis convicted of the racist attempted murder of John Payne have each been sentenced to eighteen years in jail. It's not the most they could have received (attempted murder carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment), and they won't serve all of it, but it's not negligible either.

Startlingly, the BBC has now got around to covering the story, and has accorded it a prominent place on the front page of the BBC News website, having hitherto utterly failed to mention it at all. Can we now expect the rest of the MSM, which has almost completely failed to report this story, to now follow suit and finally give it at least some of the attention it merits?

Lib Dems in good idea shocker!

Patients needing emergency NHS treatment after becoming drunk or incapacitated by drugs would be charged under proposals yesterday from Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman.

The plan is one of a series of policy shifts in a strategy paper he published before the party's annual conference in Brighton next week. Mr Lamb said: "If you get rat-arsed on a Friday night and get taken to A&E where you are foul and abusive to staff, is it right for the taxpayers to fund your life-saving treatment?"

He called for wide public debate on whether the community should pay for the excesses of the individual. There was a strong case for charging drunks for stomach pumps or treatment of injuries, and pubs and clubs should also be made to contribute if their complicity could be proven.

You know, aside from this very last bit, I actually agree. I really fail to see why the taxpayer should fund the treatment of those who use up valuable resources through their own vice and stupidity. I recall that on the one occasion when I was unfortunate enough to find myself in A&E, the room was filled with the sound of drunken idiots, and a nurse told me that I was the only person in there who was not there as a result of alcohol or drugs. And this was a Tuesday night - imagine what it must be like on a Friday or a Saturday. No, as far as I'm concerned the taxes that we pay entitle us to free NHS treatment when we fall ill through natural circumstances which are no fault of our own. When, on the other hand, we fall ill entirely as a result of our own actions, then we are imposing a burden on the NHS that we could quite easily have avoided imposing, and we, not the taxpayer, should bear the cost of that.

Why do I disagree with that last bit, about pubs and clubs also being obliged to contribute? Well, basically, because it's not their fault if their customers drink too much. It is not unreasonable to expect individuals to exercise self-control, and, indeed, the Lib Dem proposals seem designed to promote the idea of personal responsibility. Thus, if you go into a pub, and have a drink, you are responsible for seeing that you exercise self-control in the amount of alcohol you consume. This is your personal responsibility, and not that of anyone else, including the person who supplies alcohol to you. To suggest that pubs and clubs should bear part of the responsibility if a drunk injures himself is to deny or reduce the personal responsibility of that drunk for his actions.

At ATW...

I've written a short post on the subject of the BBC, which today acknowledged its left-wing bias.

Indescribable dhimmitude or brilliant satire?

In a quite extraordinary article in Time Out magazine, Michael Hodges has suggested that Islamification would improve London beyond all recognition. Now, it appears to me that Hodges is writing in all seriousness, in which case we are dealing with a psychologically and morally sick cretin on a par with Madeleine Bunting. On the other hand, the article is so extreme that we could be witnessing the emergence of the greatest satirist since Swift. But for now, I'm sticking with psychologically and morally sick cretin.

As well as describing Islam as being "based on noble traditions and compassionate principles", Hodges dismisses fears that an Islamic Britain might end up like, well, every single Islamic country on Earth, as "a hysterical, right-wing nightmare". He then goes on to suggest that in every conceivable way, Britain would be better off under Islam. When the facts don't fit his model, such as when his assertion that we would all be more educated if Muslims were to take over is somewhat undermined by the low levels of education common among Muslims, in Britain as elsewhere, he simply dismisses this as being caused by undefined "social factors", which will easily disappear under the coming Caliphate. After all, there's no poverty or ignorance in Iran or Saudi Arabia, is there?

The sheer mind-boggling idiocy of the man is beyond all mortal power of expression, and I would advise readers to go over and see the article for themselves: if it's not satire, then it has anthropological value as an insight into the mindset of that curious creature, the modern liberal. But, I will give you just one quote, which pretty much sums up the entire piece:

it is reasonable to assume that under the guiding hand of Islam a civilised accommodation could be made among faith groups in London.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go. A pig just flew in at the window, and he's breaking into my fridge.

Hat-tip: Brussels Journal