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!

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.

"It never occurred to us"

Did anyone else watch "Rivers of Blood", the BBC2 documentary on Enoch Powell's famous speech, on Saturday night? I did, and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. Although I didn't agree with all of its conclusions, it was far from being the hatchet-job that I was expecting, and it certainly seemed strongly sympathetic towards Powell's critique of multiculturalism, even if it did, rather bewilderingly, imply that his speech was responsible for bringing state-sponsored multiculturalism about. It was also a pretty well put-together programme, with plenty of interesting talking-heads, balancing out the predictable ("he was a wicked racist!") contributions of a couple of race hustlers, and the execrable Roy "Tub of Lard" Hattersley. Plus, the Socialist Worker and the New Statesman both hated it, which can only count in its favour! As a regular critic of the BBC, I must say that on this occasion they've actually done rather well. Now, if only they could get it right the other 99% of the time...

If you didn't catch it, then it's been uploaded to Youtube, and the first segment can be seen here. It's all interesting, but I was particularly intrigued by some comments from Lord Lester, the left-wing barrister, and former advisor to Roy Jenkins, who as Home Secretary in the mid-1960s first articulated the leftist doctrine of multiculturalism. Speaking at the very end of the film, he said:

The model we had was, everyone would share the broad values of being British; what we did not expect, was that there would be those who would unwisely suggest that, for example, Sharia law should be applied in this country, or that the punishment of stoning for adultery might be looked at...It never occurred to us that there would be those kinds of unwise challenges to the broad values of a liberal democratic society.

It really is astonishing that the liberals who launched the multiculturalist agenda that has dominated (and disrupted) society for over forty years never even considered the possibility that not everyone was going to accept the "broad values of a liberal democratic society", however they might be interpreted. They never thought it possible, that encouraging people to continue living their lives as though they were still in some backwater village in Pakistan, would also have the effect of encouraging them to continue to adhere to the moral, social, and political codes prevalent in those backwater villages. Their naivety was simply astounding!
Of course, while Lord Lester, and, apparently, Roy Jenkins by the end of his life, may have realised that something is not quite right, there are still a Hell of a lot of liberals who have not achieved this realisation. They still believe, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, that the increasing size and influence of the Islamic population in Britain is nothing to fear, and that, indeed, it is those of us who oppose Islamification who are the real threat to this country. I have had plenty of liberals tell me that even should Muslims eventually become a majority in Britain, it will be no problem, because they will have accepted all our values. Well, they haven't done so in the last forty years, but have rather become more extreme with each passing generation. The fact is, these liberals who decry any attack on Islam as part of some "racist" conspiracy may well find, that in thirty or forty years' time, they, like Lord Lester today, will be complaining that "it never occurred to us" that British-born Muslims would actually start executing apostates, or establishing separate Sharia jurisdictions in cities such as Birmingham or Oldham. But by then, of course, it will be too late for them to do anything about it.

West Midlands Police: Looking out for the Islamists

Police have been criticised for taking action against a television programme which exposed how some Islamic preachers use British mosques to spread a message of hatred and segregation.

Broadcasting watchdogs have cleared Channel 4 of wrongdoing over the controversial documentary about Muslim extremism.

The programme featured footage of preachers at a number of mosques, including one who praised the Taliban for murdering British soldiers.

West Midlands police rejected calls to take action against the preachers for stirring up racial hatred – and turned on the film-makers.

Three months ago, the police, backed by the Crown Prosecution Service, made a formal complaint to Ofcom, alleging that the way 50 hours of videotape had been edited was 'distorted'.

But The Mail on Sunday has been told Ofcom has backed Channel 4's claim that the film was fair and has criticised the police response.

Thinking about the actions of the police, who now seem to be firmly mired in the same morass of PC liberalism into which the rest of the public sector has already sunk, I was reminded of this quote, from the beginning of Enoch Powell's so-called "Rivers of Blood" speech:

Above all, people are disposed to mistake predicting troubles for causing troubles and even for desiring troubles: “If only,” they love to think, “if only people wouldn’t talk about it, it probably wouldn’t happen.”

Of course, we have, in the thirty-nine years since those words were spoken, gone beyond the situation Powell described. We now have a situation where problems are not just being predicted, but where they are happening, and where many of those in authority are so desperate to believe that there are no problems, that they fete the very people who are actually causing the problems (or who, indeed, are themselves the problem), while at the same time harassing and persecuting those who have the temerity to point the problems out. This would appear to be the case here: the police, confronted with a truth which, while correct in terms of being factually accurate, is not politically-correct, have chosen to take action, not against the Muslims who incited murder and terrorism, but against those who reported that they were doing so. After all, it would be so much nicer for everyone if Imams were not inciting murder in mosques, that it is simply not nice to point out that, actually, they are doing so. Because for the PC left, a designation which can now fairly be said to include at least the upper echelons of the police force, anything is better than to face the politically-incorrect, but factually accurate, truth.

Nigel Hastilow and James Watson murder Indian sailors, says Tribune

ON October 20, two Goan sailors, Gregory Fernandes and Finod Appa, were brutally attacked by a drunken gang of racist youths in the Hampshire village of Fawley.
Mr Fernandes, 32, and his friend were returning to their ship Garonne, moored alongside the marine jetty near the Fawley refinery, when they were surrounded and beaten. Mr Appa sustained a broken shoulder while Mr Fernandes, who was more badly beaten by the 20-strong gang, later died from his injuries.

Hampshire police said the unprovoked assault was racially aggravated. Shocked residents, ashamed by the racially-motivated attack, held an emotional candlelit vigil.

“The community is in shock”, said the Reverend Barry James of All Saints Church, who led the service. “People are dismayed and ashamed of what happened here, in what is normally a small, quiet, sleepy village.”

Christine English, who lives in Fawley, said: “We’re stunned that an innocent visitor could be killed in a racist attack, not in one of the tougher areas of the city, but in a quiet New Forest village.”

Well, I think that we can all agree that the people who committed this murder are worthless scum, who ought to be strung up. And if I lived in Fawley, I imagine that I would be quite shocked too, to have this kind of thing happen on my doorstep.

However, one thing I should perhaps have mentioned before, is that this article comes from the far-left magazine, Tribune. As a result, the above, pretty reasonable, reporting, is swiftly followed up with this idiotic statement:

A link is now being made between what is said in public by people such as Nigel Hastilow and James Watson and racially motivated violence such as this on the streets of Britain.

Really? And by whom is this link being drawn? And what evidence have they adduced to establish the existence of such a link? Have the unnamed drawers of the link uncovered evidence that, for example, racist violence by whites against non-whites rose sharply in the aftermath of Prof Watson's comments, or Mr Hastilow's article?

Nigel Hastilow was the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis in the West Midlands until his racist remarks – that Enoch Powell was right to talk about “rivers of blood” in his infamous speech on black immigration – embarrassed Tory leader David Cameron. James Watson is the controversial scientist who caused a row when he spoke of the “inferiority of black people”.

So, I guess we're not going to get any answers to the questions I raised in my previous paragraph. What we do get is the throwing around of the word 'racist', as if that is actually probative of anything.
We also get a bit of apparently deliberate dishonesty and misrepresentation. First, we are told that Enoch Powell talked "about 'rivers of blood'". Now, while his famous speech from 1968 has been dubbed the "Rivers of Blood Speech", Powell never actually used the phrase himself. He did refer to "the River Tiber foaming with much blood" (a quote from a passage in Virgil's Aeneid) but he never actually said "rivers of blood". And yet the author of this piece, Paul Donovan, appears, from his use of quotation marks, to imply that the words are taken verbatim from Powell's speech. This is patently untrue, although Mr Donovan might perhaps argue that his untruth serves to illustrate a wider truth.
The second, and more egregious, misrepresentation occurs when we are told that Prof Watson "spoke of the 'inferiority of black people'". Again, the use of quotation marks in this context would seem to suggest - and suggest quite strongly - that Watson himself actually used the phrase "inferiority of black people". Well, if he did, then it isn't mentioned in the Sunday Times report of the interview which sparked off the whole witch hunt last month. Furthermore, not only did Watson not use the phrase "the inferiority of black people", but he also did not use any other words or phrases tending to imply that blacks are inferior. On the contrary, he specifically said that there should be no discrimination on the basis of race. As such, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, unless Mr Donovan should happen to be privy to information withheld from the rest of us, then he is deliberately attributing to Prof Watson, not only words which he did not actually speak, but also sentiments which he did not actually express.

Content with this little piece of deception, Donovan continues:

When the Labour Government came to power it set up the MacPherson inquiry to look into the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. The inquiry’s remit was later extended to examine racism nationwide.

Lord MacPherson’s final report made 75 recommendations, many of which have been implemented. Race crime was upgraded among police priorities and heavier sentences handed down where racial motivation can be proven.

True. I don't personally think that that's a good thing, except insofar as it increases some sentences which might otherwise be woefully inadequate, but it certainly is what's happened.

Despite this, racially motivated violence has continued to increase in Britain.

True. But what Mr Donovan omits to add is that most racist crime is directed against white people. In 2004, white people were the victims in 51% of all racially-motivated crime, in 61% of cases of violent racist crime, and in fully 83% of the most serious instances of racist violence. Once these basic facts are known, then the whole issue of racism appears in a rather different light from that in which Mr Donovan is attempting to cast it.

While violent crimes such as the murder in Liverpool of black teenager Anthony Walker are the most extreme form of race hate, the Institute of Race Relations points out that “every day on the streets of the UK, in playgrounds, classrooms, shops and at work, minority ethnic people are racially harassed.”

And that's wrong, and those who perpetrate such offences should be punished. But still more frequent than a non-white person being racially harassed by a white person, is a non-white person racially harassing a white person.

The contributions to public debate made by people such as Mr Hastilow and Professor Watson and, before them, Enoch Powell create an atmosphere in which it is easier for racists to operate.

Any evidence for that?

Race relations legislation – and changing attitudes – mean that blatant racism of the sort that saw signs reading “No blacks, no Irish” displayed in windows no longer exists, but racism has become more covert.

Any evidence for the existence of this new "covert" racism? No? Well, actually there is, after a fashion:

Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Wales, said that Mr Hastilow’s remarks exposed the racist underbelly of the Conservative Party.

There's your evidence: Peter Hain says so. I suppose that is evidence, of a sort. Whether we should attach any weight to it is, of course, a rather different matter.

And anti-racist campaigners fear that when someone such as Mr Hastilow or Professor Watson expresses their inflammatory racist views in public they give succour to those intent on racial violence on the streets of Britain.

Some questions:

1. Who are these "anti-racist campaigners"? Why doesn't Mr Donovan name them and quote directly from them (or fabricate some quotes, since that seems to be his style)? Or is it in fact the case that Mr Donovan is expressing his personal views, and attributing them to "anti-racist campaigners", in a bid to give them some added moral authority (yes, I know that race hustlers have no moral authority whatsoever, but I doubt that Mr Donovan knows that)?

2. What evidence is there that when Nigel Hastilow or James Watson expresses an "inflammatory racist view" (i.e. a view with which Paul Donovan does not agree), violent thugs "intent on racial violence" derive succour? Do such thugs actually sit around thinking "hmm, James Watson made some remarks about race and IQ, therefore it's okay for me to kill an Indian"? Did racist violence against non-whites increase in the aftermath of the comments of either Mr Hastilow or Prof Watson? Does Paul Donovan's article consist entirely of unverified assertions?

That last one's easy...

“The tragic death of Gregory Fernandes proves how important it is to confront racism in all its pernicious forms,” said the Institute of Race Relations this week.

Well, I'd agree that the murder is tragic. And I'd also agree that racism should be confronted. I imagine, however, that my definition of what racism is would differ substantially from that endorsed by Paul Donovan, or the Institute of Race Relations.

Hastilow resignation rejected

Tory leader David Cameron faced fresh embarrassment after rebel Tory activists snubbed calls to ditch a Parliamentary candidate who said Enoch Powell "was right" on immigration.

The Halesowen and Rowley Regis constituency association refused to accept the resignation of would-be MP Nigel Hastilow and instead demanded crisis talks with the Conservative Party Board, the organisation's top decision-making body.

Senior Tories had hoped the local party would drop Hastilow, 51, who quit on November 4 after refusing to apologise for comments he made in a newspaper column in support of Powell's 1968 "rivers of blood" speech.

Officials have been lobbying the local association in a desperate bid to limit the bad publicity, asking them to move on and choose another candidate.

But local members remain furious at the way Hastilow was treated by the party HQ and refused to accept his resignation, saying his views on immigration have widespread support.

Excellent news!

Meanwhile, Neil Hamilton has written an excellent article on the Hastilow case in the Daily Express! Yes, I know he's a smarmy crook with a deranged wife and a worrying predilection for loud, spotty, bow-ties, but his article is excellent nonetheless. Some salient extracts:

Immigration is out of control and millions of indigenous Britons feel like foreigners in their own country. Even Gordon Broon recognises this. A few weeks ago, posing as leader of the Brownish National Party, he promised “British jobs for British workers.”

All spin and lies, of course. EU law, which Broon wants to extend without a referendum, stops us deciding who we want to let into this country.

Two weeks ago, Cabinet Minister Peter Hain (himself an undesirable immigrant) came clean, admitting 1.1 million foreign nationals have taken jobs here since 1997, not 300,000 as previously claimed.

The Office for National Statistics says it is 1.5 million. Governments have routinely deceived the British people about mass immigration. Those, like Enoch, who campaigned to close the door, were abused as fantasists and racists.

Yet, if we had had a referendum 40 years ago, how many of us would have voted to transform our great cities into colonies of foreign cultures?

[...]

But immigration is principally a question of numbers. Our major cities have become a kaleidoscope of ghettos, co-existing but not coalescing. Manchester University demographers forecast that, by 2011 Leicester will be the first British city where Brits are a minority. Birmingham will follow by 2027.

On current trends, ethnic Britons will cease to be the majority group in Britain sometime in the next century.

Would you vote for that? Don’t worry, the politicians won’t ask you to.

Personally, I agree with everything Hamilton has written. And, as an added bonus, he's managed to upset the execrable Cameronite mouthpiece Daniel Finkelstein, who says that describing Peter Hain as an "undesirable immigrant" is an "utterly unacceptable insult" (he does not, of course, actually bother to say what, precisely, is so "unacceptable" about it). So, well done Neil Hamilton!

Enoch WAS Right!

I imagine that by now most of my British readers, at least, have come across the story of Nigel Hastilow, the erstwhile Tory candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, who has resigned as a parliamentary candidate after expressing a widespread, but forbidden, sentiment. Writing in the Wolverhampton Express and Star, Mr Hastilow had said:

When you ask most people in the Black Country what the single biggest problem facing the country is, most say immigration.

Many insist: 'Enoch Powell was right'.

Enoch, once MP for Wolverhampton South-West, was sacked from the Conservative front bench and marginalised politically for his 1968 'rivers of blood' speech, warning that uncontrolled immigration would change our country irrevocably. He was right. It has changed dramatically.

And of course, he's right: the country has changed dramatically. I don't think that anyone denies that - the only issue is whether we think it is a good thing. I don't, and I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of the public don't. Keith Vaz, on the other hand, does.

Of course, it's the reference to the Evil Enoch that has really raised hackles. The work and pensions secretary Peter Hain says that Mr Hastilow's comments have exposed the "racist underbelly" of the Tory Party. The supposedly right-wing shadow home secretary, David Davis, described the comments as "very unwise", an indicator of the extent to which the Tories now, and for some time previously, have allowed the politically-correct left to frame the limits of "acceptable debate". The left has deemed Powell's so-called "Rivers of Blood" speech to be something akin to Hitler's speech at the Nuremberg Rally, and, in their eyes, anyone who dissents from that line is clearly an unrepentant Nazi. And they have succeeded in inculcating this view in a great many people, especially those who are too young to remember Powell's speech, and have never, of course, bothered to read the text of it.

Well, I have read the text of Powell's speech, and not only do I find nothing in it that any rational person could complain of, but I also find that he rather accurately predicted many of the unwelcome changes that continued mass immigration - now running, by the way, at over fifteen times what it was when Powell delivered the speech - has brought to this country. So, yes, my belief is that "Enoch was Right", and that Nigel Hastilow showed considerable courage (and possibly substantial foolhardiness, from a careerist perspective) in raising the issue. I also think that, whether the likes of Peter Hain like it or not, the vast majority of people in this country do, knowingly or otherwise, share in the general sentiments expressed by Enoch Powell. Of course, Hain and Co don't like this, and thus they make every effort to shut down any discussion of the issue that transgresses the artificial limits of acceptability that they have imposed, and which the Tories slavishly go along with. They attempt to induce a general belief that even talking about immigration, beyond those very narrow limits, is "racist", whatever that means this week. But they cannot change the fact that the problems that Enoch Powell identified nearly forty years ago are still with us, and that they have got worse, and that most people recognise this.

Postscript: Should any readers wish to peruse the speech's text, then I would advise them that the Mild Colonial Boy, Esq, posted the full text at his blog last month, and that you can read it there. Which I would recommend doing, especially if you haven't read it before.

Update: Nigel Hastilow has a blog of his own, here. In particular, he has left a very brief post to thank those who have expressed their support for him over this matter. At the time of writing, it has attracted 92 comments, of which almost all are strongly supportive. I have also left a message of support, which is currently waiting to be moderated. The strong support that is being shown for Nigel Hastilow, most of it, I would guess, coming from people who stumbled across his blog by means of a Google search, as I myself did, contrasts with the general condemnation coming from the political elite, and serves to illustrate the disconnect between that elite, and the general public.