Today's Witch Hunt

As many readers will have noticed, the latest Evil Racist to be hounded out of his job is Boris Johnson's former adviser James McGrath, who has been sacked after saying that all darkies should leave Britain. Except that, of course, he didn't really say that. What he actually did was respond to whining race hustler (and Labour activist) Marc Wadsworth - who had quoted whining race hustler Darcus Howe's hysterical suggestion that Johnson's victory would lead to "a mass exodus of older Caribbean migrants back to our homelands" - by saying "well, let them go if they don't like it here". A couple of thoughts suggest themselves:

First, to quote Ed Balls, so what? It's not as if he said that all blacks should be rounded up at gunpoint and forced to leave. He simply said that, if some people find the thought of living in a Johnson-controlled London so terrible that they want to leave, then they should not be prevented from doing so, and the rest of us should not beat ourselves up about it. And what, exactly, is so appalling about that? Is the Mayor of London supposed to base his entire policy around the wishes of a handful of paranoiacs? Was Mr McGrath supposed to fall on his knees before Wadsworth, imploring him to prevent the postulated "mass exodus"?

Second, what McGrath said is pretty mild compared to certain remarks made by Ken Livingstone while he was in office:

Today at one of his regular press conferences, Ken Livingstone was discussing plans to regenerate Stratford in east London. He said the following about Simon and David Reuben, well-known property developers who are involved in the project:

Perhaps if they're not happy they can always go back [to their own country] and see if they can do better under the ayatollahs.

Asked to clarify his remarks he added:

If they're not happy here, they can go back to Iran and try their luck with the ayatollahs, if they don't like the planning regime or my approach.

The Reuben brothers are from India and are of Iraqi Jewish descent.

As readers may have noticed, Livingstone did not resign after saying this.

Third, I agree with Steve at Pub Philosopher that Boris Johnson's response to this incident demonstrates the spinelessness of the Cameron Tories. Johnson's decision to sack McGrath, which has been endorsed by Cameron himself, was a display of supreme moral and political cowardice. The screams of "racism" emanating from a race-baiting Labour activist, and echoed by sympathetic elements of the media (for example, the BBC initially said that McGrath had made "an apparently racist remark", and in other ways misrepresented the incident to show him in a negative light), achieved their desired effect: the sacking of a man who had done nothing wrong. To put it more succinctly, the left said "jump", and the Tories paused only to ask "how high?".
The justification given for McGrath's sacking, by Johnson and others, is that, while McGrath's comments were not racist, they might have given rise to a public perception that the man who made them was. However, this is a public perception (or perhaps only an illusion of one) that is formed and driven by the left, and which will only be given credence by the Tories caving in as easily as they have done. In order to ensure that "anti-racist" witch hunts like this one do not achieve a 100% success rate, no matter how lacking in substance the accusations of "racism" might be, and to ensure that we can actually speak openly about important issues like race and immigration, it is necessary to stand up to the witchfinders. The Tories have utterly failed to do this, and, as such, one has to question whether, even if they have the desire to change anything in this country (which I rather doubt), they also have the guts. As Steve puts it:

If this episode is anything to go by, all any noisy, self-righteous pressure group will need to do is say "BOO!" and the Tory government will roll over and die.

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.

Courage and spinelessness

In its first session since last week's general elections, the new Iranian parliament is expected to discuss a law that will condemn to death anyone who decides to leave the Muslim faith and convert to other religions.

The parliament, also known as the Majlis, will debate the new law which has been presented by the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Under the proposed law, anyone who is born to Muslim parents and decides to convert to another faith, will face the death penalty.

But...I heard Islam was a Religion of Peace. Where is the moderate, tolerant Islam we keep hearing about?

Currently converts, particularly those who have decided to leave the Muslim faith for Evangelical churches, are arrested and then released after some years of detention.

Ah, there it is.

According to unofficial sources, in the past five years, one million Iranians, particularly young people and women, have abandoned Islam and joined Evangelical churches.

This phenomenon has surprised even the missionaries who carry out their activities in secret in Iran.

An Evangelical priest and former Muslim in Iran told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the conversions were "interesting, enthusiastic but very dangerous".

"The high number of conversions is the reason that the government has decided to make the repression of Christians official with this new law," said the priest on condition of anonymity.

"Often we get to know about a new community that has been formed, after a lot of time, given that the people gather in homes to pray and often with rituals that they invent without any real spiritual guide," he told AKI.

"We find ourselves facing what is more than a conversion to the Christian faith," he said. "It's a mass exodus from Islam."

The total population of Iran is roughly 70 million, of whom 98% are Muslims, of one kind or another (at least officially). Clearly, the conversion of one million people, or 1.4% of the total population, is not going to have an immediate Earth-shattering impact upon the religious make-up of Iran. But it is significant, taking place over a period of just five years, and in the face of such severe persecution of those who do convert. Certainly, it must be worrying the Mullahs, if they want to start executing Christian converts!

But what really struck me about this story related not so much to the future religious direction of Iran, as to the contrast between the courage of these Iranian Christians, and the spinelessness displayed by so many of our own "Christian leaders". In Iran, these brave people are putting their freedom, and, potentially, their lives, at risk in order to reject Islam and embrace Christianity. Meanwhile in Britain, the Canon Chancellor of Blackburn Cathedral expresses his gratitude for Ramadan, the Bishop of Oxford describes plans to broadcast the Adhan - the Islamic call to prayer - over the city as "enjoyable community diversity", and congregations dwindle as churches close and reopen as mosques.

Hat-tip: Gates of Vienna

Guns for the people!

What vexes John Markell most about the Virginia Tech massacre is not that he sold the killer one of his guns but that none of the victims was able to shoot back.

"I shoot with those people at the university - the professors, the deans, the grad students - and they shoot good," he said, fiddling with the same model handgun as that used in the killings.

The owner of Roanoke Firearms, a packed armoury of shotguns, assault rifles and handguns a half-hour drive from the university, said that his daughter graduated from Virginia Tech 10 years ago.

"What aggravates me is that my daughter is a heck of a shot and she has a concealed weapon permit but nobody is allowed to carry a gun on campus," he said.

Millions of Americans will accept his implication that the killings happened not because guns were too freely available but because they were not available enough.

And so does this blogger, for one. The phrase "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns" may be so cliched that one blushes to reproduce it, but it holds true nonetheless. Let's face it, most people who go out murdering aren't particularly fussed about the law. If they're prepared to kill people, then gun control laws aren't going to stand in their way.

But the majority will obey the law and go unarmed. In this case the 'law' was a rule imposed by Virginia Tech, banning guns on campus. Nonetheless, good students obeyed this, meaning that the one psychopath among them was able to go on his killing spree without any risk of return fire. Just think how many deaths might have been averted had his first attack been met with a barrage of bullets.

A while back, here in Britain, one of the issues over which liberals liked to attack Tony Martin was that the guns he used on that glorious night back in 1999 were illegally owned. Now, just consider: because Tony Martin had an illegal firearm, a career thug ended up dead. Good riddance! Whereas, had Tony Martin obeyed the letter of the law, he would probably have been the one who ended up getting hurt, perhaps fatally, and Fred Barras would probably have spent another sixty worthless years stealing from decent people.

So, I say, let's have more guns in Britain too. After all, if the public don't fight crime, who else will? The police? Don't make me laugh.

Postscript: Similar sentiments to the above were recently expressed by Patty at A Tangled Web. Thanks to Mr Smith, and David Vance, editor of ATW, I shall soon be posting over there. When news of my imminent arrival was announced on Monday, it sparked off many of the local leftists into a veritable two minutes hate. Readers may be amused by some of the comments: I certainly am, and have added two of the choicest ones to my masthead. In the meantime, I am thinking what to write for my first post there. If I play my cards right, then, judging by the virulence with which they responded to the mere mention of my name, I could succeed in inducing fatal coronaries in some of them.

Cambridge Motoon Student Apologises

Subject to the CPS making a sane decision, the Cambridge Motoon case appears to be drawing to an ignoble close:

A CAMBRIDGE University student who sparked a huge row when he published anti- Islamic material has issued a grovelling apology.

The 19-year-old second-year Clare College student went into hiding after he printed a cartoon and material satirising religion in college magazine Clareification.

For his own safety and that of others, the student, who is British, has not been named. During the initial furore surrounding the publication he was taken out of his accommodation and put in a secure place.

Cartoons which had sparked worldwide protests in the Muslim community were reprinted in the edition. The college has promised to take action to prevent a similar incident occurring.

Part of the student's apology read: "I understand that this edition has caused deep offence and hurt to very many people, both inside and outside Clare, through its derogatory references to individuals and also to various groups, including women, Jews, Christians and Muslims."

Of course, he didn't get death threats from women, Jews, or Christians, did he?

A Clare College spokesman said:

"Because of the gravity of the situation and the diversity of views expressed about the best way of handling it ("Kill Him", "Respect free speech in an institution of learning" - who knows which one is right? - FR), the Dean of Students set in train procedures for convening the Court of Discipline.

"As events unfolded, however, a collective decision was taken to pursue instead a course of restorative justice and reconciliation."

Restorative justice and reconciliation? It sounds like they'll be getting Desmond Tutu in next.

The Cambridge University Muslims have graciously accepted the apology (there'll be no beheading tonight, folks), and the university authorities can now return happily to the safety of dhimmitude. I don't blame the student for apologising - after all, if it's a choice between that and being sent down then learning to be a good dhimmi is a small personal price for an individual to pay. But virtually everyone else involved should hang their heads in shame.

It'll make beheading them much easier, next time something like this happens.

It's rude to stare...

...and now it's a 'hate crime', too! At least, that's what new advice given to pupils and teachers in Scotland suggests:

PUPILS and teachers have been told by an official body not to stare at Muslims for fear of causing offence.

A document intended to educate against religious intolerance and sectarianism urges teachers to “make pupils aware of the various forms of Islamophobia, ie stares, verbal abuse, physical abuse”.

But Learning Teaching Scotland (LTS), which issued the advice to schools north of the border, has been criticised by politicians and Muslim leaders for going “over the top”.

The document states: “Some Muslims may choose to wear clothing or display their faith in a way that makes them visible. For example, women may be wearing a headscarf, and men might be wearing a skullcap. Staring or looking is a form of discrimination as it makes the other person feel uncomfortable, or as though they are not normal.”

(Hat-tip: Dhimmi Watch)

So, it's not just a prolonged stare that constitutes 'discrimination'. Even looking at a Muslim can now be a hate crime. So the good dhimmis must keep their eyes on the ground, never presuming to look at their Muslim betters. What is particularly worrying here, though, is that this is another example of pro-active dhimmitude. Rather than wait for Muslims to kick up a fuss about something (and, let's face it, you wouldn't have to wait long), LTS have decided to preempt the complaint. Not a good sign.

I have to say, also, that whenever I see a Muslim man competing to win the "look like a terrorist" prize, or a Muslim woman disguised as a tent, I tend not only to stare disapprovingly, but also to tut to myself. I guess I must just be an incurable bigot.

The Rewards of Charity

A 42-year-old man is recovering in hospital after being beaten up as he tried to help a woman who was being attacked by her partner in Lancashire.

The football fan had been watching Accrington Stanley play on Saturday evening when he saw a man abusing his girlfriend outside the club's ground.

He intervened to help the woman but was punched to the ground by the man who kicked him until he was unconscious.

A 35-year-old man from Accrington was arrested in connection with the attack.

What might have improved this situation? More police on the street? Well, it would certainly have reduced the chances of this happening. Accrington Stanley play in League Two (the old Third Division, and before that the old Fourth Division - in English football, if you wait long enough and don't get relegated, you find that your team is in a higher division, or at least one with a more impressive name). 1,808 people saw them beat Peterborough 3-2 yesterday - surely a few police must have been around?

Even if they weren't, there were nearly 2,000 people, presumably overwhelmingly decent enough, and many of them young and fit. Perhaps they could have intervened? Just two or three of them would easily have been enough to stop both the original attack, and the subsequent attack on the one man who was brave enough to get involved. Maybe they were all busy jumping up and down. (Note: It seems that the match had in fact ended two hours before. See update below).

But, of course, people don't like to get involved these days. Back in February there was a piece by Jeremy Vine in the Telegraph describing how he, and 30 other people, sat back and watched as a man was beaten up on the tube. There was only one assailant; the other passengers could have torn him limb from limb. But none of them had the stomach. And then, via Laban Tall, this piece, from last November, by London-based American blogger Jackie Danicki, describing her mugging on a packed tube train. No one intervened, with one passenger justifying his inaction on the grounds that "he didn't want to make things worse for her".

Why don't we intervene anymore? Well, partly because the police would be as likely to arrest us as they would the actual criminal. And also because people have, in large part, become so decadent that they would rather cower in a corner than risk becoming involved in anything savouring of - whisper it - violence! But there is also the breakdown of any sense of community. This was a point made by Gareth at BNP and Me the other day, and it is entirely correct. These days we have little connection with one another, and often very little in common. Perhaps in an ideal world we would be prepared to put ourselves at risk for people to whom we have no connection, but in the real world, this usually will not happen. And this, I think, is another consequence of the war waged by the liberal-left on Britain, its culture, its society, and all the ties that bind its citizens together. It's also the reason why, when brave people like the man in Accrington do get involved, they all too often end up getting badly hurt.

Update: A commenter has alerted me to the fact that, contrary to the impression given by both the BBC report and this blog, the attack in Accrington took place two hours after the end of the game. So there probably weren't too many people about. Apologies, therefore, are in order: first, to Accrington Stanley fans, for casting aspersions on them, and second, to readers of this blog, for publishing an inaccuracy.

The criticisms of the London tube travellers stay, however.