"We are now going to pray to Allah"

Two schoolboys were allegedly disciplined after refusing to kneel down and "pray to Allah" during a religious education lesson.

It was claimed that the boys, from a year seven class of 11 and 12-year-olds, were given detention after refusing to take part in a practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped.

Yesterday parents accused the school of breaching their human rights by forcing them to take part in the exercise.

One, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer.

"Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful."

Another parent Karen Williams, 38, whose 12-year-old daughter is a classmate of the boys, said: "I am absolutely furious my daughter was made to take part in it and I don't find it acceptable.

"The teacher had gone into the class and made them watch a short film and then said 'we are now going out to pray to Allah'.

"Then two boys got detention and all the other children missed their refreshments' break."

She added: "Not only was it forced upon them, my daughter was told off for not doing it right.

"They'd never done it before and they were supposed to do it in another language."

She said the pupils were asked if they had water on them, and when one girl produced a bottle, the teacher began washing her feet with it.

Her husband Keith, 44, a painter and decorator, said: "The school is wonderful but this one teacher has made a major mistake. It seems to be happening throughout society. People think they can ride roughshod over our beliefs and the way we live."

The alleged incident, at the Alsager school, one of Cheshire's top performing schools, happened on Tuesday afternoon. The teacher, Alison Phillips, the school's subject leader in RE, is understood to be staying away from the school until the furore dies down, although she has not been suspended.

She is said to have got prayer mats out of the cupboard and also asked children to wear Islamic headdresses.

Deputy headmaster Keith Plant said: "I have spoken to the teacher and she has articulately given me her version of events."

Sources at the school said the incident could have been down to Miss Phillips instigating a role play and not properly briefing the pupils, all aged around 12, what she was doing.

A couple of points stand to be made here. The first is that compelling children to engage in or to simulate Islamic rituals, without asking the consent of their parents, and treating them as miscreants when they refuse to do so, is totally unacceptable. As many other bloggers have already pointed out, it is rather difficult to imagine that any teacher would dare to compel Muslim children to engage in acts of Christian worship against their will.

It's true that British state schools are obliged to hold acts of collective worship of a Christian character. But this simply reflects the fact that Christianity is, and has for 1,500 years been, the majority religion of our country, and is a fundamental building block of our native culture. More pertinently, parents have the right to withdraw their child from all such collective acts of worship, should they feel strongly enough about it. From the details of the incident at Alsager School, it would seem that Ms Phillips' actions went, at the least, against the spirit of respect for parental choice which is the basis for this exemption.

More generally, I am inclined to wonder why the children were being expected to perform or simulate Islamic acts of worship anyway. After all, in order to learn about Islam one does not actually need to engage in such acts. Presumably, this is simply another instance of the ridiculous "make learning fun" approach, under which children spend their time imagining what it might be like to be a Muslim, or "a Spanish sailor about to embark in the Spanish Armada", or, as occurred in my own schooldays, a fellow passenger of Rosa Parks', or an Egyptian slave labourer working on the pyramids. All very enjoyable no doubt, and easy on the teacher too (washing one's feet and distributing prayer mats is probably rather less challenging than explaining the finer points of Sharia law), but not something which leaves the pupil with any actual knowledge of the subject, and not something which really has a place in any class other than Drama.

Finally, I have to ask: if Ms Phillips really wanted to show the children how Muslims pray, should she not have taken herself and the girls in the class off to a separate room, to ensure that lewd thoughts did not distract the boys from their devotions? That is, after all, what would have happened in a real mosque. Or do RE teachers commonly write Islam's less palatable aspects out of the script?

Hat-tip: Homophobic Horse (in the comments)

A Counterblaste to Tobacco (but not to crime)

Violent assaults and serious antisocial behaviour are lower priorities for councils than stopping people smoking, town hall targets showed yesterday.

Despite a government poll showing community safety was voters' overwhelming priority, anti-crime initiatives will not be the main focus of authorities.

Details published yesterday by Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, set out the targets picked by each local authority — and agreed by her department — to be their future priorities. While performance will be measured across the whole range of 198 indicators, targets will be set only for the 35 chosen as top local concerns.

Jobless 16-18 year olds, reducing teenage pregnancy, providing housing, protecting the environment and cutting child obesity were the five selected by most councils. While reducing “serious acquisitive crime” such as thefts from cars was sixth, cutting the rate of “assault with injury” was 13th and domestic violence 20th.

Considered a higher priority than both by most councils were stopping smoking and boosting the numbers of local people “who feel they can influence decisions in their locality”.

The local targets are agreed with central government after consultation with bodies such as local police, health service and jobcentres.

Alongside the new targets, Ms Blears published a YouGov poll, commissioned by the Government, showing that 82 per cent of respondents considered “creating safer communities” among their top priorities.

The councils that do best at meeting their chosen targets will qualify for extra cash.

Presumably the number of people "who feel they can influence decisions in their locality" might best be increased by actually listening to the concerns of people, and placing the issues which they worry about at the top of the agenda, rather than by according those issues less importance than something which they don't really care about one way or the other.

But, of course, dealing with crime and anti-social behaviour might prove to be rather difficult. By contrast, in the present political climate, smokers are a remarkably soft target, and cutting levels of smoking (which, in my opinion, are not a matter for local government, anyway) is a remarkably easy challenge. Indeed, since the number of smokers is already in steady decline, it may be quite possible for councils to do nothing and still hit their targets! Perhaps that explains the claim that preventing people from lighting up every now and then is more important than preventing people from mugging one another. Or perhaps this rather bizarre ordering of priorities simply testifies to the prevalence of nanny statist attitudes among our political masters, national and local. Either way, it's idiotic.

Hat-tip: Julia M

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.

The real terrorist threat

BBC bosses have defended the grisly beheading of a Muslim by a Christian zealot in new drama Bonekickers.

In the bloody scene, ex-EastEnder Paul Nicholls plays a fundamentalist who decapitates a Muslim with a sword.

Producer Rhonda Smith said: "It's not meant to be shocking or to cause offence and it comes very much from the storyline."

BBC chiefs are planning to warn viewers about the gruesome beheading scene.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "It is in a 9pm slot in early July and viewers will be advised of the content immediately before broadcast."

The six-parter billed as Time Team meets Indiana Jones follows a group of archaeologists solving historical mysteries. It stars Julie Graham, Hugh Bonneville and Adrian Lester.

The beheading scene comes in an episode dealing with the excavation of medieval soldiers from the time of the Crusades.

It leads to the hunt for the cross on which Jesus was crucified which the Crusaders may have brought back from the Holy Land.

Also keen to find the cross are right-wing Christian fanatics who also want to use violence to drive Muslims out of Britain.

Hmm. Haven't I come across this last plot detail somewhere before? Consider this Daily Mail summary of an episode of Spooks, broadcast on BBC1 back in 2006:

[The episode] showed a group of evangelical terrorists who carry out a number of attacks on the Muslim community and attempt to spark a religious war in the UK.

The programme also depicted a rogue Bishop, who was also a government advisor, organising the assassination of a radical Islamic preacher.

[...]

In the programme the Christian terrorist group was seen carrying out a hand-grenade attack on Muslims and planing to blow up a Mosque in Manchester.

It featured a video broadcast by the fictional group saying: "Britain is a nation under Christ - we will no longer tolerate the Muslims in our ranks - this is a declaration of war against Islam."

With the BBC raking in all that money from the licence fee, you'd hope that they could at least manage to think up new and original ways of demonising Christians!

I accept that there is an element of "if you don't like it, don't watch it" with programmes like this. And I certainly don't say that no Christian should ever be depicted in a negative manner on any TV show.

But what I object to is the sheer mendacity and hypocrisy displayed by the Beeb. When this programme is broadcast it will be the second time in as many years that a BBC drama has featured Christian terrorists targeting Muslims. This despite the fact that there is a distinct paucity of such incidents in the real world. The BBC is inverting reality, and allowing its programmes to give the impression that there is a problem with Christian violence, when such a problem simply does not exist.

At the same time, of course, there is a genuine and significant problem with Muslim terrorism in Britain (and many other places too). But will the BBC make a drama featuring Islamic terrorists targeting Christians, Jews, or Hindus? You know, a drama with a plotline that actually reflects reality. No, of course they won't. They won't even dare to broadcast a joke with a vague, non-insulting, reference to Islam in its punchline! After all, if they were to suggest that followers of the Religion of Peace could get even slightly violent, then, not only would that be horribly non-PC, but it might also put them at risk of, um, violence. Violence being the only appropriate response to such a slanderous accusation, obviously. By contrast, Christians, being designated oppressors, are eminently legitimate targets, and, since they are not actually violent, you can get away with saying that they are.

Hat-tip: Dhimmi Watch

Institutionalising Islam in our schools

The other day, Bernard left a comment with a link to an editorial in the Church of England Newspaper, warning of the encroachments of Islam into our national life. The editorial has now been replaced with a more recent editorial, although you can still read it at a couple of blogs, such as Jihad Watch. One of the interesting points that the editorial made was this:

At all levels of national life Islam has gained state funding, protection from any criticism, and the insertion of advisors and experts in government departs national and local...we hear of municipal swimming baths encouraging ‘Muslim women only’ sessions and in Dewsbury Hospitals staff waste time by turning beds to face Mecca five times a day — a Monty Pythonesque scenario of lunacy, but astonishingly true. Prisons are replete with imams who are keen to inculcate conservative Islam in any inmates who are deemed to be culturally ‘Muslim’: the Prison service in effect treats such prisoners as a cultural block to be preached to by imams at will. Would the Prison service send all those with ‘C of E’ on their papers to confirmation classes with the chaplain?! We could go on.

The point is that Islam is being institutionalised, incarnated, into national structures amazingly fast, at the same time as demography is showing very high birthrates.

Today, we see yet more evidence of this phenomenon of Islamic institutionalisation:

Imams will teach in state schools under Government plans for tackling extremism to be announced next week.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, admitted today that a minority of children could be “at risk” from extremists and said that schools must be able to deal with radicalisation.

British-born imams will be drafted in to schools to instruct children about Islam and the Koran as part of the Government’s “Prevent” strategy, which aims to weed out extremism before it takes root.

Lessons will include teachings from the Koran and discussions about equality between the sexes, the sanctity of life and the rights of the individual. Mr Balls said the citizenship lessons would help young people to feel “part of their society, and resilient to those who seek to divide rather than unite”.

The battle against radicalisation in schools is a major plank of the Home Office’s wider policy on extremism but the National Union of Teachers (NUT) met fierce opposition when it suggested a similar scheme in March. The NUT proposed that Muslim clerics and other faith leaders should go into every state school as an alternative to faith schools. Critics warned this could allow extremists to target pupils.

But the Government believes that if the imams are British-born they will imbue children with the multicultural values.

Because, of course, no British-born Muslim has ever turned to extremism, have they? And "multicultural values" (whatever they may be)? They're just what we haven't had enough of lately!

White liberals know best

The following story from the Cambridge Evening News provides a rather interesting insight into the workings of the liberal mind:

ENTERTAINMENT and arts provision in Cambridge does not adequately meet the needs of the multi-cultural mix of the city's residents - according to Cambridge councillors.

But members of the black and ethnic minority groups the council say are under-served feel there is plenty of provision for them.

David Warford, a member of the Cambridge Caribbean Association, said: "I have never heard any of our group complain about a lack of provision of services. We regularly organise trips to the Arts Theatre and the Corn Exchange and proportionally there seems to be a good mix of show and plenty of Afro content."

But council bosses have now been told to look into developing a wider range of entertainment, art and shows to "better meet the interests of the black and minority ethnic communities in Cambridge" after councillors unanimously voted to review the services at a meeting.

So, black people don't actually believe that they are being discriminated against. But, hey, what do they know? The white liberals on Cambridge City Council say that blacks are being oppressed, and they must be right!

And now there will no doubt be some lengthy process of consultations, specially-contrived events aimed at showcasing "Cambridge's cultural diversity", and what not, carried out with plenty of liberal hand-wringing, not to mention the liberal application of public money - all to solve a problem no one ever knew existed!

Hat-tip: Central News

Thought Policeman of the Day: PC Paul Hughes

Here is a short video which really sums up the extent to which free speech is being suppressed in Britain today. A man is arrested on suspicion of a "racially aggravated public order offence", for singing the words "I'd rather wear a turban":



The speed with which PC Hughes pounced on the man as soon as he heard the "racist" words was really rather impressive. And am I being utterly paranoid, or did a slight smirk, as of a bully exulting in his own power, briefly leap across his face as he told his victim what his "crime" was (at 14 seconds in)?

Still, I'm sure we can all agree that arresting people like the heinous (and totally unrepentant) evildoer seen in this video is a far more valuable use of police time than such petty trivialities as, for example, stopping axe wielding burglars. Thank Heavens the police have their priorities straight!

Hat-tip: John Trenchard

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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!).

The latest immigration triumph

Nine illegal immigrants disappeared after they were given free train tickets by police and told to make their own way to a detention centre more than 60 miles away.

The move was described as "ludicrous", but police have defended their actions, saying they were acting on the advice of immigration authorities.

The men, who are from Afghanistan, were discovered by Cambridgeshire police under the back of a lorry in Fordham, near Newmarket.

They were apprehended by officers before being given train tickets and told by police to make their own way to an immigration facility in Croydon, Surrey.

But none of the men arrived at the centre and they have not been seen since.

Well, who would ever have thought that people who break the law in order to enter the country would be anything other than 100% keen to follow the rules once they got here? Not any of the bunglers in charge of managing (ha!) immigration, certainly.

Cambridgeshire police say they were acting under instruction from officials at the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), a Home Office department.

But officials at the BIA denied such guidance was issued and insisted they had asked for the nine men to be held in custody so that they could be interviewed.

Frankly, I couldn't care less who screwed up this time. The fact is, that for all the efforts to pass the buck that the petty jobsworths in the police and the BIA seem to be engaging in, they are both government agencies, and specifically Home Office agencies. And it doesn't really matter to me whether Home Office Agency A was at fault, or whether the blame instead lies with Home Office Agency B - the end result is the same either way.
The fact is, that there have been far, far, far too many Home Office cock-ups over immigration already (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), with today's example just the latest in a very long line of blunders. The sheer incompetence that the government and its agencies have consistently demonstrated in their management of immigration is what really bothers me, not the question of which government agency was to blame for each specific cock-up. But, having said that, the lack of anyone willing, on this occasion or any other, to come out and admit that they got it wrong, rather than always pathetically trying to shift responsibility onto someone else, does serve to add insult to injury.

Taking the biscuit

Culture minister Margaret Hodge has put her foot in it for the second time in a week by boasting how she can ease racial tensions over coffee and biscuits.

Her recipe for peace and harmony was delivered during a debate about research showing political disillusionment among the white working classes.

The millionaire MP for Barking, where the British National Party has established a foothold, said: "It is really interesting what I am doing now, because I am doing things like, simple things, asking people to come and have coffee and a chocolate biscuit with me."

Wow! Coffee and biscuits with Margaret Hodge! I'll be surprised if people don't move to Barking just to be able to partake!

"And people from all sides of my community come in, white and black, they may come in feeling really hostile and angry with each other, and they engage in a conversation and actually at the end of it you see a change in attitudes."

Mrs [sic] Hodge was immediately accused of patronising her constituents.

Well, yes. I can quite see that being told, in effect, "come, you dear little people, and bathe in the glory of my enlightened tolerance for a few minutes, and you will see that all your apparent problems are really just as silly as you are" might seem just a tad patronising. Even if coffee and biscuits, or even tea and cake, are thrown in.

Of course, aside from being patronising, her comments are idiotic, and her "solution" utterly superficial. People are not going to change their whole set of attitudes, simply because they have coffee and biscuits with a nice friendly person of another race. Indeed, in many cases there is very little reason why they should change their attitudes: clearly, many people, particularly working class whites in places like Barking, have a lot of legitimate concerns about the demographic, cultural, and infrastructural impact of mass immigration (among other issues), and those concerns do not become any less legitimate simply because one has a nice chat with a friendly Nigerian.

But, of course, Hodge, like all liberals, refuses to accept that any concerns anyone might have about the path Britain is taking could ever be anything other than utterly irrational fears, born out of ignorance and bigotry. As such, it may be quite logical, from her point of view, to believe that her "coffee and biscuits" method could work: after all, if the concerns themselves are only superficial, then the solution to them also needs only to be superficial. Like almost all contemporary politicians, she's out of touch, and, hopefully, come the next election, she'll also be out of Parliament.

Numbers up, standards down

Universities are being paid a bonus worth up to £1,000 for every student they accept with lower qualifications.

They are receiving the cash premiums for taking students with Ds and Es at A-level as ministers battle to come within reach of a controversial university expansion target.

Funding chiefs admitted the Government's flagship target to recruit 50 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds to higher education - originally given a 2010 deadline - is not likely to be met for another decade.

Universities are being told to spend the bonuses on remedial classes to help students with few or no qualifications cope with degree-level studies.

They are expected to provide pastoral support for students and re-draft their first-year teaching to include courses that will ease them into university life.

But academics called the payments "perverse incentives" and said universities should concentrate on developing talent rather than meeting numbers targets.

There were also claims that the bonuses amount to inducements to universities to distort admissions and sideline candidates with good grades.

Under a funding settlement unveiled today, universities will be paid "retention" bonuses on a sliding scale, with £943 available for undergraduates with no qualifications at all.

Premiums will also be paid when students achieve DDE or less at A-level, with smaller sums available for three Cs or less.

The cash is meant to help bring down dropout rates after evidence that nearly a quarter of students fail to finish their courses.

Now, in my opinion, high drop-out rates indicate that large numbers of students are being recruited, who are simply not suited to the academic rigours of university education. Certainly, one has to wonder how those who have only been able to achieve grades DDE or below at A-level are going to cope with a degree, which is supposed to be significantly more difficult. The high drop-out rate, which is particularly concentrated in academically-weaker universities, clearly indicates that many of these poorly-performing students are not able to cope.
One would think, therefore, that the solution would be to avoid recruiting students who have not demonstrated an aptitude for education sufficient to enable them satisfactorily to complete a degree. But, of course, putting intellectual quality before sheer quantity, in this manner, would go against the government's ridiculous 50% target. Accordingly, the government chooses to pay these bonuses, which really amount to little more than rewarding universities for recruiting, and giving degrees to, students who have not demonstrated their suitability for higher education. Surely this policy cannot fail to encourage universities to reduce their admission and assessment standards! As the number of university entrants pushes closer to the magic 50% mark, we can expect to see many more students being recruited who have not shown that they are up to the challenge of a degree, and, with this, either a further increase in the drop-out rate, a further reduction in standards, or, most likely, both.

Hideously white, part 94,000

If members of the public were asked to identify one thing that embodied British culture, many would pick the Proms. Weeks of classical music; the Royal Albert Hall; Union Flags and Land of Hope and Glory on the last night - what could be a better modern symbol of the nation? And it's certainly popular: hundreds of thousands of people attend the the thing itself, and millions of people across the World tune in to watch.

This, however, is not enough for Margaret Hodge, who holds the post of culture minister in one of the most uncultured governments we have ever seen. Delivering a speech on "Britishness" to the left-wing Institute for Public Policy Research, Hodge complained that the Proms were insufficiently inclusive:

The audiences for some of many of our greatest cultural events - I'm thinking particularly of the Proms - is still a long way from demonstrating that people from different backgrounds feel at ease in being part of this.

I know this is not about making every audience completely representative, but if we claim great things for our sectors in terms of their power to bring people together, then we have a right to expect they will do that wherever they can.

By contrast, the BBC reports that

...Mrs [sic] Hodge praised other institutions for "creating the icons of a common culture that everybody can feel a part of" - such as the Angel of the North, the British Museum and the Eden project as well as TV and radio shows "from Coronation Street to the Archers" and shared public holidays.

Quite how one can "feel a part of" the Angel of the North is unclear, unless one is speaking literally. But, generally, Hodge's preference for Corrie over Elgar speaks volumes about Labour's philistine outlook on the world. It evinces an instinctive preference for popular culture over high culture, purely because it is popular. The actual artistic or aesthetic merit of a thing is irrelevant to Hodge: all that matters is how many people tune in.

How many people tune in, and how many of the right sort of people tune in. Because, aside from the philistinism that Hodge's comments betray, there is also an evident racial subtext: when she talks about "inclusiveness", she is quite clearly complaining that the Proms are just too hideously white. This is not the first time that a Labour culture minister has attacked the arts for this heinous crime: in 2005, David Lammy accused arts organisations "of being 'too exclusive' and not doing enough to promote black people in senior roles".
The fact is, that events like the Proms tend to attract white people, in much the same way that rap concerts tend to attract a disproportionate number of blacks (albeit balanced out by middle-class white teenagers attempting to be edgy). Classical music is white music: it is our cultural heritage, not that of non-whites. This is not to say that non-whites can't enjoy classical music, and no doubt some do, but it does explain why the audience at events like the Proms is overwhelmingly white. Non-whites aren't being excluded: they're just not interested.

The other main reason for Hodge's attack is that the Proms, and particularly its famous last night, are proudly, openly, and traditionally British. Its white attendees wave the Union Flag and listen to Land of Hope and Glory, with nary an emblem of multiculturalism in sight. Watching the last night, one could almost imagine that the war that the left has waged against this country's heritage for many decades had never happened. For the left, which delights in the damage it has done to this country in the name of multiculturalism, this is just unacceptable.

More database fun

Thousands of DNA samples taken from criminals have been filed under the names of innocent people, it was revealed yesterday.

There are 550,000 false, misspelt or incorrect names on the Government's vast DNA database, which contains more than 4million samples.

That means one in every eight records is thought to be inaccurate.

[...]

Most alarming is the revelation that many criminals are using other people's names if they are caught.

Home Office Minister Meg Hillier gave the example of somebody who was arrested, and gave their sister's name.

"That data would be on the database," she told MPs.

Politicians are worried that people could be charged with crimes they have not committed if DNA belonging to a criminal who gave their name later turned up at a crime scene.

It was stressed that innocent people could provide an authentic sample of their own DNA to prove it did not match.

However, they would still be forced to undergo the stress and humiliation of a criminal investigation.

Presumably, the police could easily verify someone's identity, simply by searching them. After all, they managed it when they arrested Euan Blair.

But, in over half a million cases, they simply haven't bothered, but have stored the DNA, without knowing for sure whether it actually belongs to the person they think it does.

And some among us want to give these idiots a database containing the DNA of every man, woman, and child in this country! Still, we shouldn't be too worried: on the basis of this showing, the Plods would struggle to organise a piss-up in a brewery, let alone a DDR-style police state...

Hat-tip: House of Dumb

Thought criminals make bad parents, part 2

Last October, I wrote about Vincent and Pauline Matherick, the Christian couple removed from the register of foster parents in Somerset, after they said that they would not be happy discussing homosexual relationships with eleven year-olds.

Thankfully, the Mathericks were subsequently reinstated. However, now a similar case has arisen, up in Derby:

Lawyers are to seek a judicial review of a decision by social workers to ban a Christian couple from fostering young children because they refused to sign up to new gay equality laws.

The action against Labour-controlled Derby City Council is likely to become a test case for the Government's Sexual Orientation Regulations. Social workers rejected an application by Eunice and Owen Johns, who have four grown-up children, to be foster parents because they refused to agree to tell any children in their care that homosexual lifestyles were acceptable.

The couple, who have been married for 39 years, had applied to offer weekend respite care for foster children under the age of 10.

Okay, so far, so bad. But there's more:

But the adoption panel was also unhappy that the couple was adamant that any child in their home would have to go to church with them on Sundays. Mrs Johns, a retired nurse, is a Sunday school teacher.

The adoption panel has admitted in internal documents that Mr and Mrs Johns could feel that they had been "discriminated against on religious grounds".

Now why on Earth would they think that?

Mrs Johns said: "I would love any child, black or white, gay or straight. But I cannot understand why sexuality is an issue when we are talking about boys and girls under the age of 10."

Clearly the words of an unfit parent, and all round ne'er-do-well.

As I wrote back in October, regarding the Mathericks:

Is there even any suggestion that, were a child with homosexual tendencies to be placed with them, they would do him any harm? No - simply because a (foster) parent might disapprove strongly of some of their (foster) child's lifestyle choices does not mean that they cannot raise them in a loving and appropriate manner. I would add that I find it very unlikely that foster parents - or, indeed, legal parents, whether by birth or by adoption - commonly sit their eleven year-olds down and lecture them on the wonders of homosexual relationships, or that they take their teenagers to "gay association meetings" (whatever those are). Yet, somehow, children do not seem to be growing up permanently scarred by the absence of these formative experiences. I would therefore suggest that they are, at best, completely unnecessary.

And as for banning foster parents from taking children in their care to church: well, I think that just illustrates the extent to which far-left, anti-Christian, ideology dominates social services departments. It's fine, it seems, to sit children down and force them to hear about homosexuality, but raising them in the religion which is still adhered to by the majority of Britons - well, that's just beyond the pale!

This case is particularly ridiculous, when one considers that we have for some time had a nationwide shortage of foster parents. Banning couples like the Mathericks, or the Johns, from fostering is not going to solve that situation, and will not help any children. But for the social workers, helping children evidently comes a poor second to promoting leftist ideology.

Hat-tip: Cranmer

The jobs the British Bangladeshis won't do

First, read this extract from the Office for National Statistics website:

In 2001/02, among men, Bangladeshis had the highest unemployment rate in Great Britain at 20 per cent - four times that for White British or White Irish men.

[...]

The picture for women was similar to that for men, although the levels of unemployment were generally lower. Bangladeshi women had the highest unemployment rate of all at 24 per cent, six times greater than that for White British or White Irish women (4 per cent each). The rate for Indian women was slightly higher than for White women at 7 per cent.

For all ethnic groups unemployment was highest among young people aged under 25. Over 40 per cent of young Bangladeshi men were unemployed.

Now, consider the following news story:

The Home Office is being urged to ease restrictions on migrant workers entering Britain from Bangladesh, to avert a crisis in the curry industry.

Curry houses are struggling to fill thousands of kitchen staff vacancies, says the Immigration Advisory Service.

For years, many staff in the UK's 9,000 curry restaurants have been recruited directly from Bangladesh.

But restrictions on the workers have been tighter since eastern Europeans were given employment rights.

So, there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of unemployed home-grown Bangladeshis, and yet the (publicly-funded) Immigration Advisory Service (whose head, former Tory MP and convicted fraudster Keith Best, feels that immigrants make better citizens than the native British) wants to import thousands more Bangladeshis to carry out what is, for the most part, fairly unskilled work. Not very logical, is it? Unless, of course, the IAS's aim is simply to get as many immigrants into the country as possible...