The Canteen Only Serves Kool Aid

You know what the problem with working in a political monoculture is ? There's no one around to provide perspective. Biased BBC points to a text book example from the BBC. They're trying to cite the benefits of forcing faith schools to admit non-belivers. And who's the poster boy for this policy ? You have to see it to believe it.

This is classic BBC. There's no one on the pay roll to point out that, actually, the man on the Clapham omnibus might not buy this guy as the Forrest Gump of Jihad, unwittingly finding himself in compromising situation after compromising situation.

The BBC's Other Bias

There's an old story about a philosopher and an actress who meet at a party. The philosopher asks the actress 'would you sleep with me for $1 million ?'. 'Ok' says the actress. The philospher then says 'How about $10 then ?'. The actress is enraged: 'what do you think I am ? Some kind of prostitiute ?', and the philosopher says 'well, we've already determined that, now we're just talking about the details''.

I remembered that story when I heard about the latest happenings at the BBC. In a move sure to shock millions, it's been revealed that some senior BBC staff are opposing plans to move some departments north:

[BBC director general, Mark Thompson]is fantastically supportive of the move, but at the same time there is enormous resistance to the idea from the highest levels in the BBC, despite the obvious political advantage of moving to the north," the source said.

"These people are in incredibly powerful positions and are absolutely committed emotionally to stopping it from happening.

So here we have an organisation that's the epitome of Liberal PC, morally equivalent, multi-culti, 'who are we to say' drivel, but they're comfortable having senior management who won't move north, 'cause, y'know, it's full of those people. A better example of the essential snobbery at the heart of Liberalism you will not find.

But there's something more here. The BBC disavows charges of cultural and political bias by claiming that their critics are all hyper-partisan loons. Well, OK, but now we have a form of bias where we really can measure it objectively. There it is: the BBC insists on basing virtually all its operations in the most expensive city in the known universe, even while zealously defending its right to rake off the TV tax from oop north. More to the point, the objective BBC has, objectively, done nothing about this. The BBC is happy having executives who openly discriminate against a large chunk of the country. So much for all their pretty talk about their integrity. The BBC is fine with bias in principle, they're just quibbling about the details.

But...But...But I Thought It Was All About Iraq

Doubtless, the Islamopaths are just het up about the agressive foreign policy of these guys. Meanwhile, the Clue Fairy appears to be making deliveries in central Europe. Man, that tiny minority sure gets around.

One Whistleblower The Left Hates

There’s a certain irony in the success of PC Copperfield’s book ‘WastiNg Police Time’. Sales have undoubtedly been helped by the intrinsic glamour of law enforcement, yet few people have devoted so much effort to debunking the mystique of the police.

Regular readers of his blog will know what to expect. The book is structured in the style of a series of blog posts, albeit the individual ‘posts’ are (mostly) original or (occasionally) heavily rewritten versions of actual blog posts – for once the editing process has managed to clear up the writing style without draining away the vigour or the individuality. Of course, there’s the usual downside with this format, with little room to explore topics in each individual 'post'. Then again, most of the cases covered barely deserve consideration in the first place – one of the book’s revelations is just how much police time is spent picking up after the underclass.

One of the long-running jokes at Copperfield's blog is the section on the sidebar headed ‘police equipment’ which contains links to stationary suppliers. After reading this book, you’ll understand why. This isn’t a book about law enforcement, as much as a book about what the police do in place of enforcing the law. Copperfield spends 90% of the book carrying out stupid activities while pursuing pointless cases so as to massage meaningless figures.

Of course, Copperfield really is a trained observer, and he has an eye for the telling fact and the ability to turn a phrase. Isn’t ‘Hogarth in Burberry’ just the perfect description of much of modern Britain ? Still, the most devastating part of the book are the sections where he simply lays out paperwork required even for the most trivial of matters.

As the ‘Hogarth’ line implies, Copperfield is unsparing in his assessment of modern life, and that includes Liberalism’s sacred cows. In particular, I get the feeling Copperfield doesn’t go for all this mealy-mouthed talk of ‘different kinds of families’. Indeed, without the sections in which Copperfield deals with the shrapnel from family breakdown, the book would be half the size.

Certainly, Copperfield has managed to send large sections of the Left beserk. Lefty conspiracy theorists claim Copperfield and Frank Chalk are the same person, which would at least explain the lousy response times – he’s got to finish his marking.

Outright lunacy aside, the Left’s main angle of attack is to claim Copperfield is bringing the police into disrepute. They might want to think about that. In so far as the Left has failed to debunk so much as a single comma, aren’t they really saying that any fair representation of the modern police will lower the public’s opinion of them ? What does that say about modern policing ?

That’s not to say that Copperfield’s thesis is entirely convincing. No matter how bad management is, there are plenty of loonies even in the lower ranks of the police. More to the point, how come we had to wait for an obscure PC to tell us how and why the system was so utterly screwed ? It’s not as if the Police Federation is exactly backwards in coming forwards on other issues, so why the blackout on this insanity ?

Equally, insane though many of the police’s policies are, they didn’t come out of nowhere. Copperfield describes cheerfully arresting obviously innocent people. Well, OK, Dave, but don’t be surprised when the pendulum swings the other way. Then again, the whole ‘arrest the innocent’ policy came about as a result of a perception that the police didn’t take domestic violence seriously. It’s not just the individual policies, it’s that every single one seems to be interpreted in the most insane way possible.

What we have here is a deranged arms race between ever more aggressive police powers, and ever more absurd restrictions on the police. True, Copperfield does hit on at least one aspect of the basic problem: perverse incentives. Police management get no real benefit from cutting crime, but risk the boot if their officers are found to be committing thought crime. Hence, micromanagement at the expense of effectiveness. The top brass are just behaving logically. Sleazily, but logically.

That’s the deeper problem right there. It’s not just in the slums that personal responsibility has disappeared. What’s the real difference between chavs sitting around whining about their ex, and police officers complaining that ‘the system fell down the stairs, guv’ ? For that matter, what’s with us ? How come the public is happy to fork over ever increasing amounts of cash to pay for public servants who show less drive and initiative than the average pizza boy ?

You might have thought all that glossy PR from your local police was nonsense, but this book reveals a system that’s dysfunctional in ways even the most cynical of us could not have imagined. Never mind the balance between freedom and security, we have somehow contrived to sacrifice both. PC Copperfield’s book is funny, very readable and utterly devastating. No wonder the government is in denial.

Torch The Script Instead

I caught the rerurns of the BBC’s Dr Who spin-off Torchwood last week. I’d have written about it earlier, but it took this long to recover the will to live.

Let’s not beat around the bush here: Torchwood is terrible. It shamelessly apes other, better series, while utterly failing to understand why they’re better. It’s the cargo cult approach to screen writing.

For those that had the sense to avoid this series in the first place, the basic set-up is this: a super-secret organisation is waging a secret war against invading aliens. Again.

The series opener used the time-honoured device of an ordinary PC investigating a murder who finds herself drawn into a secret world. Hey, as clichés go, this one’s got a lot going for it. It allows the true nature of the world to unfold naturally as the character probes deeper. The trouble is that would require a degree of deftness completely absent from the script. Instead, the cop manages to track down Torchwood thanks solely to coincidence and an absurd breach of security, after which the head of the team turns into Basil Exposition. Subtle.

You might think that the head of a secret organisation revealing all to someone who’s literally just walked in off the street would be kind of unusual, but fortunately he gives her a Men In Black-style mind wipe and she’s back to square one. Except, of course, there’s another coincidence, and another case of moronicity by one of the team, and so, via a series of absurd events, our cop finds herself filling a vacancy on the team.

Actually, all things considered, the team is just one big vacancy. Dr Who escapee Captain Jack is both team leader and the only halfway interesting character, but as for the rest, well, Team Member One is a cheeky chappie loveable cockney, Team Member Two is a women called Toshiko, who’s coldly logical and brilliant with computers. Team Member Three is the fixer, complete with flash suit and outrageously Welsh accent. Call it a hunch, but I’m thinking in the near-future we’ll be seeing a black dude with a great sense of rhythm.

OK, stereotypes can serve as a kind of shortcut for character development. The trouble is that there’s nothing else to the characters other than the stereotype. It’s stated straight up that none of the team members are involved in any kind of relationships. Ditto, they have no back stories at all. Come to think of it, they’re not so much characters as self-propelled plot devices.

Of course, the opening episode is always hard, but once all the set up is out the way, the series can get into the groove, right ? Oops no. Episode two was more of the same, with improbable coincidences, lousy security and members of the elite team behaving like morons. True, there was a kind of sub-CSI quality to the middle bit, but not enough to rescue the show.

The closest we got to originality in episode two was the plot, with the Earth being invaded by an alien that possessed the body of a young girl and fed off sex energy. And when I say ‘original’, I mean that in the sense of ‘used previously by at least 2500 pr)no movies’. But that’s the other thing about ‘Torchwood’. It’s adult, see. All of which means the plots and dialogue are juvenile, but they use naughty words and refer to S*X a lot.

Two minutes into the opener, the F-bomb was dropped, while the script is full of references to many and varied forms of you-know-what. The trouble is that what with the naughty word, the obsession with 5-E-8 and an oh-so-daring jibe at religion in the opener, the end result is just plain juvenile, like a bunch of teenagers trying to shock the squares.

It’s interesting to compare “Torchwood’ with the gold standard for the ‘small team waging a secret war’ genre. The big idea behind Buffy was that high school was literally hell. The battles with demons served as metaphors for life in general. In short, the series had something to say. Torchwood has no central theme and nothing worth saying. Dull characters wander through situations filched from far better shows never once encountering a worthwhile point.

In it’s own way, Torchwood is something of an achievement. Here’s a genre where almost anything goes, with a whole universe of possibilities, yet somehow the BBC has managed to produce something so utterly, utterly predictable.

Muslims Fear Backlash (Part 7334)

Lest recent events tempt anyone to believe that BBC is anything other than totally corrupt, consider their reporting of recent events in Australia. Quick summary: – since you won’t get this on the BBC – while discussing this case, Australia’s top Islamic cleric excused the rapists on the grounds the women weren’t wearing Islamic regalia.

You can see why the BBC is so reluctant to discuss it. No, instead the BBC is concentrating on the real issue. Will Islamopaths stating publicly their belief that they have the right to rape Infidels give people a bad opinion of Muslims ?

Really.

Jeremy Vine today devoted a segment to this. Not to the remarks, obviously, just to the question of whether Australians have over-reacted to them. Just think about that: our state broadcaster hears someone defending gang rape and their reaction is to worry that people might ‘over-react’ to it. What, for the sake of their despicable argument, would be the right reaction to a defence of the right of feral scum to victimise women ?

The segment itself was a BBC classic. On the one side, there was a screaming moonbat Labour MP, on the other a trendy vicar-type aid stationed in Pakistan. So where was the balance ? Ah well, Mr Trendy-Vicar was the brother of an Australian opponent of multi-culturalism. Often predicted, today was the day the BBC finally did invite on a Liberal to tell us what a Conservative might have said, if they’d invited one on the show.

Bad though that was, late this afternoon the appeasement kicked into high gear. As Laban points out, the headline seems kind of familiar. Me, I just think of the line from Tim Blair: Muslims Fear Backlash After Tomorrow’s Train Bombing

Here’s the opening lines:

A few weeks ago, I happened to interview Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali outside the Lakemba Mosque in Sydney where he delivered his controversial sermon.

Support for sexual assault is ‘controversial’ ? Kind of like supporting tax cuts or school choice ?

Now some of the cleric's fellow Muslims, including the Islamic Council of New South Wales, are calling his comments comparing immodestly dressed women to "uncovered meat" as "unIslamic, unAustralian and unacceptable."

“Compared to ‘uncovered meat’” hardly covers a defence of gang rape.

But the BBC knows who the real villains are:

Senior figures in the governing Liberal Party have seized upon his remarks, citing them as proof that John Howard's criticisms of sections of the Muslim community are founded in fact.

Yes, indeed. A Conservative politician is proven 100% right, and people who point that out are ‘seizing’ on Mr Rape-Fan’s remarks.

Treasurer Peter Costello, a critic of what he calls "mushy multiculturalism" and a prime ministerial hopeful, was strong - and early - in his condemnation.

Has any chancellor in history not been a Prime Ministerial hopeful ? But this is a theme the BBC likes. Later on, we have this:

Pru Goward, the country's outgoing Sex Discrimination Commissioner, also weighed in, calling for the cleric to either be deported or prosecuted for incitement to rape.

A leading light in the Liberal Party, Ms Goward is a parliamentary candidate and is said to harbour prime ministerial ambitions of her own.

She will not have done her chances any harm by speaking out so forcefully on this issue.

See, see: it’s all a cynical plot. After all, why else would anyone oppose gang rape ?

By drawing attention to what it regards as instances of Islamic extremism, the Liberal Party clearly believes it is on the right side of the "values debate" and speaks for a large section of the electorate.

Support for gang rape is ‘what they see as Islamic extremism’ ? What does Nick Bryant see it as ? A wacky, cultural quirk ? Call it a shot in the dark but, yes, I think the Liberal Party may just be on the right side of the ‘is feral savages attacking women a good or bad thing ?’ debate.

Just one more thing:

The Labour leader Kim Beazley also demanded a retraction.

And does he have any Prime Ministerial ambitions ? Nick ain’t saying.

Sheikh Hilali has not only given his critics ammunition. His remarks seem all the more extraordinary given the sensitive nature of race relations in Sydney right now.

See, you can't just come out and say you think women deserve to be raped. It might strengthen the Right. We’re just lucky Jihadi scum raping Infidel women doesn’t affect race relations. But, of course, it doesn’t. Whatever happens, it’s always the Infidel’s fault. For proof of that look no further than Bryant’s next paragraph:

The city is approaching the first anniversary of the ugly race riots on Cronulla beach last December, when white youths attacked people of Middle Eastern background - sparking a number of retaliatory attacks.

Yes, a whole bunch of surfies decided to go on the rampage at Cronulla for no reason at all. What happened at Cronulla was the end result of a determined and prolonged effort by ‘persons of Middle Eastern background’ – or, as I call them, Islamofascists – to ethnically cleanse a popular beach area of Infidels. Think Windsor.

Bryant’s absurd précis of Cronulla sums up better than Shakespeare could the BBC’s MO. When Muslims attack Infidels, it doesn't count, when Infidels retaliate, it's an unprovoked attack, with all subsequent examples of Islamic thuggery being excused as retaliatory. Bryant’s final words fit exactly into this pattern.

Certainly, many Muslim leaders fear a backlash.

"I am expecting a deluge of hate mail," said Walid Ali of the Islamic Council of Victoria. "I am expecting people to get abused in the street and get abused at work."

Yes, yes: that’s the real problem with the leader of a powerful cult speaking out in favour of gang rape of outsiders. It might make people feel badly about the cult in question.

It's A Quagmire

Looks like the BBC’s attempt to suppress its dissident community has failed. Another Beeboid has been caught going ‘off-message’ – though doubtless only hypothetically. Could it be that the BBC is teetering on the edge of civil war ?

There’s only way to guarantee the right result: send in the UN! Here’s hoping the Turtle Bay Teletubbies can do for the BBC what they’ve done for so many other places.

It's Funny Because It's True

Cancel The Revolution!

Party's over. Everyone back on your heads!

Yes, the BBC has spoken. Apparently, all those media reports of the BBC admitting its own bias at a seminar were…..well, not strictly speaking untrue, but y'know, kind of….well, let the BBC’s own Helen Boaden explain:

It was planned as a serious seminar to investigate and understand better the BBC’s commitment to impartiality in an age in which spin and opinion riddle much of the world’s journalism.

Tune in tomorrow when Mr Pot will be interviewing Mr Kettle live!

To keep us all on our toes, a rich variety of formats was used during the day. I was on a "Hypothetical" – where a panel of people in charge is given a series of mounting “real life” crises and asked how they would handle each of them…

The point of the Hypothetical is to generate discussion, debate and ideas. The situations aren’t real; the discussions aren’t binding and they certainly don’t define BBC policy.

All of which leads me to say one thing: huh ?

Whatever the wider context of the discussions, the speakers quoted weren’t talking hypothetically; they were talking about the BBC as it is now.

The main thing is, however, [Jeff Randall and Andrew Marr] were both giving their personal opinions. That is entirely their right ….

See, that’s what really worries me about the BBC: they genuinely seem to think it’s an act of generosity to allow people to dissent.

Anyway, where was I ? Ah yes:

The main thing is, however, they were both giving their personal opinions. That is entirely their right and what they had been asked to do in the interests of discussion. I disagree with them. I found their claim of liberal bias unconvincing – based on anecdote and attitude rather than evidence.

Except, of course, that the BBC has never actually got round to carrying out any research in the first place. After all, this is an organisation which is obsessed with every other form of diversity, but try finding out how many Conservatives work in BBC news rooms. And yes, I said ‘news room’ – having a few folks who might conceivably have voted for Lady Thatcher down in accounts doesn’t count.

This is what I was saying yesterday, nothing sums up the incestuous, self-obsessed monoculture of the BBC like the fact that one of their staff can cite a poll showing that 40% of the public don’t trust them as proof of the quality of their output. Wasn’t there anyone there who could point out that the whole justification for the BBC poll tax is their super-exceptional quality ? Are we sure that even ITV wouldn’t provide a great service with three billon quid and a virtual immunity from the normal laws on competition ?

What really gives the game away is the BBC’s defenders. If the BBC is really unbiased, how come it’s defenders are always people who sound like the Bush conspiracy generator ?

All the usual suspects are present and correct in the comments to that post. Take, for example, the revelation that Conservatives are STOOPID

At 12:54 PM on 24 Oct 2006, Alex wrote:
Glad to see you're not taking the comments of the Mails and the Express too seriously.

The greatest shame, of course, is that those with an ounce of intelligence and more than a hint of healthy cynicism, know full well that items were extracted selectively from the broadcast to back up a pre-conceived story which fits the papers' agendas.
Those without these mental facilities, sadly, believe what they are told to believe by these rather sad journalists.

Keep up the good work Beeb - those who retain the power of independent thought still trust you !

Funnily enough, it’s us thickos who can handle the concept of a distinction between a newspaper in the private sector and a poll tax funded state broadcaster. Libs ? Not so much. Hence, approximately 50% of them make some version of that point, with one guy going for the double header:

At 01:08 PM on 24 Oct 2006,Silas wrote:
I think it hilarious that a right wing rag like the Mail is accusing the BBC of having a left-wing bias. Compared to the Mail, pretty much everyone has a left-wing bias as everything is to the left of them.

I'm surprised, however, that the BBC was only rated at 60%. I pretty much disregard anything on Sky until I see it confirmed by the BBC.

Channel 4's news coverage is usually excellent, and I do like watching it - only because they allow more time for discussion than the BBCs bulletins.

If people want to see a biased news programme, may I suggest they watch Fox News? Then let them complain about the impartiality of the BBC.

Fox: now making Liberal heads explode even from 3000 miles away.

Trouble is, all that use of ‘right-wing’ as a pejorative term does tend to undermine the Left’s argument.

At 01:57 PM on 24 Oct 2006,John Ellis wrote:
Good piece by Helen. In any event, what makes the Mail/Telegraph/Sun any more right on their side of the partiality equation? The red-tops and Murdoch media sicken me with their 24-hour diatribe of poison and disinformation - they are akin to US shock jocks such as Rush Limbaugh. By and large the BBC is impartial, sometimes (as with global warming) dangerously so. I am happy for the BBC to continue to attempt to penetrate what lies behind news and broadcast reality on the ground.

‘Their side of the partiality equation’ ? But…but...but...I thought the BBC was unbiased ?

Or maybe the BBC is biased but that’s OK because Conservatives are too FICK to deserve fair treatment:

At 01:11 PM on 24 Oct 2006, Mike Morris wrote:
Assuming there were a preponderance of "liberals" in the BBC it would just confirm Al Franken's observation in Lies and the Lying Liars...that journalists beyond a certain level tend to be better-educated than the majority and have realised eg that knowing gay people hasn't automatically led to personal disaster. The idea that liberal ideas are anything to be ashamed of is the most pernicious of the deceits peddled by the right-wing muck-sheets.
BTW where's Randall gone? The CBI?

Ashamed ? Hey, it’s the BBC which keeps denying they’re Liberals. Maybe they need to ask those gays they know (????) for some tips on coming out of the closet. But no, that would leave the ‘better-educated’ Liberals having to pay for their own TV. Nothing says socialist solidarity like soaking the working class to keep a bunch of degenerate snobs in coke.

If you want final proof of BBC bias, consider this: all the comments to the original post were fully moderated. The above comments are what the BBC – whose normal comment forum is jokingly referred to as ‘Don’t Have Your Say’ - considers useful contributions to the debate.

Robin Not-Very-Hood

Talking of policing atrocities, I note that Steve Green's personal fiefdom is again blazing a trail for quality law enforcement. Clearly, they need more ribbons.

Sir Robin On Patrol

Remember folks, you don't need the right to self-defence - just call the police and they'll handle it all for you. Oops.

Fantastic line from their boss though: 'I would like to take this opportunity to praise the officers involved for dealing with the incident in a thoroughly professional manner.' Yes, indeed. A very professional job of hiding in some innocent civilians' shop. Absolute top-notch cringing. Y'know, it's a mystery to me why 'hoodies' think they can run riot without consequences. I feel a song coming on.

Insane Right-Wing Mob Vindicated, Inane Left-Wing Nob Humiliated

Well, who’d have thunk it ? A BBC report admits that, actually, they are kind of biased after all. It’s our very own Berlin Wall moment.

Yes, that is a joke, but it’s not so far from the truth. Just like the East German Government, the BBC’s biggest asset has been its aura of immovability as though its existence was a fact of life: bad weather, disease, Liberals taking your money to call you a Nazi. Now, suddenly there is the first crack of daylight. To use a phrase appropriate to one of this month’s anniversaries: this might just be the end of the beginning.

Indeed, no issue exemplifies BBC bias like BBC bias. Critics of the BBC are derided as self-evidently insane. For years the BBC has been abusing its privileged position to push its own agenda, secure in the knowledge that it could crush any opposition - to use Lenin’s term, they controlled the telegraph stations. Suddenly, we can talk back and now we have BBC staff talking in terms that sound like the editors of B-BBC have beaten a confession out of them.

Above all else though, we must acknowledge how much the Tories have done to bring all this about. Or rather, we must acknowledge the nothing the Tories have done to bring this about. True, there has been the odd skirmish about isolated incidents, but the Tories have consistently recoiled from addressing the systemic bias of the BBC. Au contrair, when the Hutton Report came out, the Tories lined up behind the BBC’s absurd version of ‘fake but accurate’. As for the Cameron era, well, enough said.

Bottom line: if for the first time in its history the BBC is being forced to deal seriously with charges of bias, then that owes nothing to Cameron’s alleged elite. But don’t think this just shows how irrelevant the Tories are. No, there’s more to it than that. Cameron’s whole strategy is predicated on the idea that the Right can’t win in Britain. Instead, the Tory Party must accept its own version of managed decline, they’ve got to ‘go along to get along’. But suddenly here’s one of the Left’s key institutions having to give ground in the face of a bunch of butchers and bakers and candlestick makers from towns where you probably can’t even get a decent latte.

While Opus Dave have been trading away the family silver for a favourable profile in the Guardian, a grass roots campaign that’s the antithesis of everything Cameron stands for has made real progress. Draw your own conclusions.

More Fun With The EUSSR

What is it Nu Lab keep saying about identity cards/CCTV/compulsory bottom inspection ? Ah yes, 'if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear'. The funny thing is that the institutions that seem to be most fearful about public scrutiny are the ones Lefties most go weak at the knees over. The UN is still back-pedalling over ‘Oil for Kofi’, the BBC’s using our money to stop us reading a report we paid for, and the EU –well, say no more. Have these guys got something to hide ?

Look at the latest outrage: the EU has suddenly noticed that new technology allows the lettle pepple to video blog. Suddenly, the Liberal death grip on the broadcast media is being outflanked. Actual right-wingers can make programs now. But the EU has an answer: regulation. So now some bloke v-blogging in Leeds will have to comply with the same regime as the BBC. Will this allow the Left to price out most v-bloggers and harass those who remain ? Well, look how they behave now.

Predictably, these measures are justified by the need for 'minimum standards for advertising, hate speech and the protection of children’ – or as I think of it, ‘stuff that’s already covered by existing law’. Needless to say, the government promises to oppose these laws – so expect a collapse by March 2007, with the laws coming in soon afterwards.

On the plus side, these measures do have a refreshing absence of pretence. This is just plain thuggery. The EU wants to use it power to shut down critics, that’s all you need to know.

Tories Out Of The Closet

Given the enormous success of ‘bussing’policies in the US, it was inevitable that sooner or later, someone would propose racial quotas in British schools. Really – it is, in its own way, brilliant the way the Left effortlessly zeros in on only the most dysfunctional features of US policy. How come they never decided we really need a First Amendment ? Nope, their model is always New York not New Hampshire.

But wait – this insanity isn’t from a Liberal after all. It’s from the Tory former head of Kent County Council. That’s not quite as good as Francis Maude claiming Mrs Thatcher gave his brother AIDS, or the head of London Assembly saying England flags flying for the World Cup reminds him of Nazi Germany, but it still is impressively deranged. Just how many senior Tories are moonbats ? If Cameron’s serious about reaching out to under-represented groups, he might try recruiting some Conservatives into the Party.

But let’s leave off the puffy-faced reptile for once. Yes, he’s a silver-spoon totting smug snob with an elephantine sense of entitlement who’s never done an honest day’s work in his entire life, but just this once let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it isn’t all Cameron. Maybe Call Me Dave didn’t hijack the Tory Party, so much as give its top brass permission to say what they really feel. True, the lunacy wasn’t as evident during the Major years, but look at the actual policy: doesn’t it all make a lot more sense once you factor in that the administration was riddled with moonbats ?

In his own way, Cameron might just be a Conservative hero. Inadvertently, he’s encouraged the Tory face cards to say what they really mean. Now, everyone knows where they stand.

The Neutral Media

Reuters again. Much more of this and the BBC will seriously consider dropping them*.





* 'much more' being defined as another 10 000 or so incidents.

The Spirit Of Free Enquiry (Terms & Conditions Apply)

There’s been an entirely predictable reaction to the government’s suggestion that universities might want to make sure no one’s cooking up bombs in the chemistry lab. Staff and students alike are enraged at the suggestion that they would ever fail to do their duty as citizens and report any terrorists they found operating on campus.

No, just kidding. Who did you think you were dealing with ? People who understand that rights come with responsibilities ? Surely not! Just because they’re bleeding the public dry doesn’t mean they feel under any pressure to stop them being killed in large numbers.

But that’s not it. No, what’s worse is the talking point they’re using to rebut suggestions they should, y’know, get off the fence and start showing some loyalty to the country that keeps them from spending their day asking if you want fries with that. Think ‘ludicrously overused, historically illiterate cliché’. Yes, indeed. It’s all ‘McCarthyism’. Again.

You know, if these people are trying to convince us that British universities are hotbeds of innovation and blue sky research, they might want to try not using the same cliché Every. Single. Time. Ditto, they might want to think about referencing the blessed senator from Wisconsin in this context. After all, Tailgunner Joe was hounded into an early grave by a Liberal establishment enraged by his claims that the US government’s dysfunctional security apparatus was allowing large-scale infiltration by communists. The Libs joked about ‘reds under the bed’ right up until the end of the Cold War when newly-opened KGB archives revealed that there was nothing phantom about communist infiltration of US institutions, at which point the Left snootily announced that McCarthy was just a peripheral figure anyway. Still, if the Left wants to remind us of their wilful blindness the last time the West was faced with murderous tyranny, that’s fine by me.

Also, the wasters are worried that any counter-terrorism effort would focus on Islam. Huh ? Are they trying to say there’s some connection between Islam and violence ? Everyone knows the real danger is from militant Buddhists.

Apparently, we shouldn’t expect the ‘smartest people in the country’ to report on any bomb-related activities otherwise that might 'stifle debate', and you know how much they value free speech. The odd bombing is one thing, but breaching the equality and diversity policy. Now, that’s serious.

Bad Dog/Good Dog

Uh oh! The MSM’s taken time out from depicting the Army as a gang of crazed barabarians to lavish praise on a soldier. With British forces heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, the MSM has found something really courageous: a General criticisng the war.

Laban asks the vital question in these situations: WWWSCD ? If that’s not enough for you, just ask yourself this: what if Dannett had announced that allowing the Iranians to pump resources into Iraq unmolested was insane, so we should isolate their border region using air power ? I’m not seeing any glowing headlines in the MSM in that scenario. Apparently, truth telling is all right, but it’s got to be the right truth.

In Order To Combat Racism, This Post Will Be In Swedish

There’s been a little cross-chat in the blogosphere recently as to the motivation of parents who send their kids private, with some Libs snarking that it’s all about the snobbery. The debate has mainly revolved around the question of whether parents can, or can’t, expect better exam results by going private. Personally, I can’t help feeling there’s something else there, aside from the whole question of exam results, some other factor. Ah yes – that’s it: a huge chunk of state school teachers are howling mad moonbats.

Evidence ? We got your evidence right here! Put in a discussion group with people who don’t speak your language, then arrested after you ask to be moved ? If Ayn Rand had teamed up with the Python boys, this is what they would have produced.

As a commentator over here points out, the only racism on display is that of the educrats. They assign the Urdu speakers to a single group so they can all work in their own tongue, but when a native asks for the same courtesy ? Outrageous! Nazi! Racist!

Actually, that’s another thing right there. What’s with the teacher ranting away at a 14 year old girl ? Forget the politics, Libs claim to oppose allowing parent’s to smack their children because ‘they wouldn’t be allowed to smack adults’ (huh ?), so how come it’s OK for some unhinged moonbat to download their toxic ideology onto some kid ? And all this on the taxpayers dime, natch! Maybe the school is so successful they can afford to spend time waging the culture war ? Ah no, perhaps not:

It had the worst GCSE results in the entire Salford LEA last year with just 15 per cent of pupils achieving five good passes including English and maths, a third of the national average.

Further proof for my theory that there’s no better sign of a weak school than the staff suddenly deciding to branch off into dietary advice, social engineering or any other theatre of the culture war.

Headteacher Dr Antony Edkins said: "An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark by one student towards a group of Asian students new to the school and new to the country."

"We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards people and pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form

Coming back at you! I hereby allege that Edkins is a nonce, and child molestation is a serious offence, so he deserves to be jailed. Hey, this Liberal logic is fun! It does work both way, right ? You know, I’m pretty sure a search of the Witchfinder General’s papers will uncover a file explaining that he ‘will not stand for devilry in any form’.

Incidentally, is there anything more pretentious than a PhD who insists on being called ‘Dr’ ? I dunno, but maybe if this tart stopped giving himself absurd airs and graces and trying to garner a favourable editorial in the Guardian, he might get his school up to… well, actually second from bottom would be an improvement, wouldn’t it ?

See, this is it right there. Parents don’t just go private for better teachers, they also go private for sane ones. Teachers who actually want to teach, as opposed to wage cultural jihad. Heads who want to run a school, not a re-education camp. Liberals would no doubt deny that things are that bad, but if that’s true shouldn’t there be an equal number of defenders of state schooling on the Right ? Where are they ?

Allah Ackbar!

For the first time ever, I agree with an Islamofasicst. I’ll even in chip in a few quid for the tickets (but is it too much to hope that we're secretly supplying the Ethiopians with some high-velocity welfare ?).

Kim Jong Prezza

Say what you like about North Korea’s presiding dwarf, but he fulfils an important social role. He’s the perfect barometer of the moral corruption of the modern Left, a sort of extreme version of John Prescott. North Korea makes Cuba look like Sweden, but suddenly the Elvis look-alike is being cast as Robin Hood battling the evil Sherriff of Texas.

Hey, the Left isn’t even bothering to cobble together the usual ‘they have great health-care’ type alibis. North Korea is hellish, but as long as it’s opposed to the US, the Left will continue to treat its presiding loon as a loveable rogue with a few eccentricities.

Lefty moralising is bad enough at the best of times, but shouldn’t there be some actual, y’know, morals involved ? But no, penning winking tributes to sadistic lunatics is where ethical foreign policy is at these days.

What We Can Learn From The Left

I never thought I’d say it, but the Left has a point. What bought me to this life-changing decision was seeing Nick Cohen’s article about the BBC. Nick thinks the cure for BBC bias is for the BBC to stop producing opinion pieces, and concentrate on news. Or to put it another way, even more emphasis on Orla Moron moving through completely destroyed cities. Hey, you can’t get a latte there so it’s not capable of supporting civilised life, is it ?

Nope, cosmetic fixes won’t do it. It’s not just that the BBC’s opinion output tilts Left, it’s that they’re so far gone they can’t produce anything except opinion. One might even say the bias is institutional. Did you know for example that the BBC has a policy of placing 10% of its advertising in ‘The Voice’, the journal of choice for race hustlers. They claim that if they’re going to recruit blacks, they need to advertise in a black newspaper. So what conclusion can we draw from the fact that the other 90% is placed in the Guardian, the moonbat’s house journal ?

Let’s deal with it the way the Left does. Yep, let’s bring in the whole raft of Lefty social engineering measures. Forget just spreading the advertising around. Let’s see managers forced to employ at least 33% Conservatives. And how about disciplinary action for any employees found disparaging Conservatives ? Or diversity seminars, in which staff will be forced to role play being Conservatives ? They could have regular Conservative cultural days, with employees encouraged to explore the culture of the Right, and with Conservatives paid huge salaries to run them. Come to think of it, how about making shows feature positive Conservative role models (seriously, when was the last time a BBC show featured a positive character with Conservative views) ? Most of all - and this is important - Five Live's Nicky Campbell would be restricted to mime.

Left's Civil War Continues

We’ve had Health Nazis vs Femiloons and Maimed Moochers vs Islamopaths, now we’ve got this. Much more of this Lefty fratricide and a guy could get religion.

Actually, credit is due to Dawkins here. For 90% of the Left, atheism is just another word for hating Christians, but Dawkins really does seem to hate religion itself, rather than as a surrogate for more generalised west-hate. Who knows ? One day him and his acolytes may learn that pastors in Alabama churches are not the world’s most dangerous example of religious fundamentalism.

Anyway, the real exciting news is this: The Dawk has his own website. How did we ever get by without it ?

Hail The First Amendment

Talking of terrorism, over in the US, they're a little more robust about calling out Leftist terrorist appeasers.

Tory Vs Conservative: The Litmus Test

When you hear that a terrorist attack may kill thousands of your fellow citizens, is your first thought ‘Oh no! That could really hurt civil liberties!’ ? Find out the answer to that question and you can pretty much guess which side of the great divide someone’s on.

In the red corner, we have the formerly sensible Iain Dale. Mass slaughter’s one thing, but Sir Ian Blair's ‘authoritarian stance’ ? Man, that really worries him. Hey, if the system can’t prevent thousands of people being killed, maybe it needs reforming. Or, to put it another way, just how many casualties would it take for these people to say ‘You know, I think the system is dysfunctional, after all’ ?

Incidentally, this sort of thing sinks the excuse that the Cameroonatics come out with this stuff as the price of power. If anything, the public is far to the right of the Tories on this issue. They’re not coming out with this stuff because they think there’re votes in it, they really do believe a Tory government should outsource national defence to the twelve law loonies and the rest of the insane clown posse (by the way, anyone know if Lord Hoffman’s decided if terrorism is a real threat yet ?).

Come to think of it, nothing threatens civil liberties in the long-term more than this kind of prissy contempt for the defence of the realm. Look how well our current system is performing. Not only did the terrorists score 100% on July 7, but two weeks later they were able to reach 100% of their targets again, albeit mass slaughter was prevented by their appalling grasp of chemistry. Why exactly should the public buy what the terrorist enablers in Liberty and the like are selling ? We’re going to end up with new laws one way or another. Sooner or later the policy of waging war using the legal system, and a legal system that evolved to deal with peasants robbing turnips at that, is going to lead to disaster. At that point everything will be up for grabs.

Tory genuinely interested in preserving civil liberties would be best advised to get on board now, and help create a structure to deal with terrorism separate from the 'dealing with turnip-swiping' setup. It’s either that or face an ever-increasing casualty list until the dyke breaks and an enraged public sweeps away all manner of babies with the bathwater.

Yeah...That's What I Meant To Say

The Master on you-know-who:

What Bush, Howard and Harper have is not hipness, but the sense of being at ease with themselves and secure in their philosophical moorings. Harper's conservatism is a bit cautious for my tastes and Bush's is a bit profligate, but all three know where they want to go and how they're planning to get there - and Bush and Howard will go down as transformative leaders. By comparison with their anglosphere cousins, British Tories seem mired in the shallows - and, if Cameron's first utterances as leader are anything to go by, they're happy to gambol there indefinitely.

The Left Is Eating Itself

First, we had Health Nazis vs Femiloons, now we've got the Hobblin' Hustlers squaring up to the Islamopaths. What's gone right ?

Disability rights activists should be less annoying than other minority groups. After all, they really do have a disadvantage, rather than say, feminists, who seem to be 90% well-off fat chicks whining that their lives aren't even more insanely pampered than they already are. The trouble is that having actual grounds for complaint has merely led them to crank the obnoxiousness up to 11.

No matter how annoying the race hustlers are, at least they've never insisted that some old granny who runs a sweet shop in a Welsh village should spend thousands on the off-chance that a passing Jamaican wants to buy some sweets. Meanwhile the disability mafia is demanding that we flatten Ben Nevis just in case some welfare queen in a wheelchair wants to go up it. Oh...and sueing the Scarborough Marshland Animal Reserve for not being wheelchair accessible.

Never mind all that talk of how the black community went from Louis Armstrong to some bunch of idiot rappers. How the hell did we go so fast from Douglas Bader mixing it with 109s over Calais to a bunch of scrounging deadbeat shakedown artists ?

So, that's one reason why the Islamopaths get more sympathy from me than you might expect. The other is that I worry about the state taking it upon itself to order people to behave in ways contary to their own religious beliefs. After all, we're not talking about a public servant here. Yes, taxis are licenced, but so are pharmaceists - should the state force them to prescibe abortion pills ? Hell, should doctors be forced to carry out abortions ?

The thing is though, as ever with Islamopaths, all this talk of 'religion' is garbage. It's never just religion with these people. This is another attempt at chipping away at the law and carving out special status for Islamopaths. They've even tried this before with taxis. No matter how stupid the disability discrimination laws are, they are the law and they should be upheld. What's more, these are laws Leftists forced through - it's their own laws we're talking about.

For now though, let's just enjoy Liberals splashing around on the horns of an entirely self-made dilema. To support the maimed moochers or to embrace dhimmitude ? I think we need to break out the cards.

UPDATE:

It's an epidemic!

But What About Prince Harry ?

OK, so few things in politics have ever been less convincing than Dhimmi Jack’s sudden awakening to the dangers of Islamofascism, but there’s still an important point to be made here. Yep, Straw is obviously angling for a shot at the top job but, hang on a mo’, hasn’t the MSM been telling us for years that everything in the garden is rosy ? Yet, even in the Labour Party, anti-dhimmitude is what the public want. And all this despite the MSM’s incessant lying about what the veil means.

Far from being a religious symbol, equivalent to a cross or a skull cap, the headscarf/veil/burka et al are overtly political symbols, and pretty nasty politics at that - even some Islamic countries have banned the wearing of headscarfs. The comparison isn’t with people wearing a crucifix, it’s with people wearing KKK robes.

This is the wider point about Islam. All this talk of religious freedom is nonsensical. People don’t oppose Islam on metaphysical grounds, they oppose it because it is a utterly deprived ideology. People wearing headscarfs are advertising that they (or more likely their ‘owner’) are supporters of an ideology that calls for genocide, slavery and world domination.

See, this is why it matters. This issue is the perfect distillation of the insanity of multi-culturalism. Muslims insist they have right to parade round in death cult regalia, but insist that no one discriminate against people who support mass murder. How about a compromise ? They get to proclaim their approval of slaughtering the innocent, we get to treat them like people who approve of slaughtering the innocent ?

And Salt It Too

John Jo suggests an idea whose time has come.

Strange Incident Happens, No People Involved

As a corollary to my rule of thumb that whenever the MSM reports a crime by the invisisible man, the assailant is unlikely to wear factor 50 sunblock, I’d also note that where the MSM reportes that trouble has ‘flared up’, ‘broken out’ or something similarly impersonal, that usually means the trouble was started by the aforementioned non-factor 50 users. Consider events in Windsor:

Police are appealing for calm after three nights of violence at a Berkshire dairy owned by a Muslim family.

The Medina Dairy in Windsor was hit by a suspected petrol bomb on Wednesday evening, on the third night of unrest.

Police have stepped up patrols in the Dedworth area and said they would use "robust policing tactics" to bring the situation under control.

Or rather, consider what really happened:

The outbreak of disorder began after a mother and her daughter were set upon by a gang of 20 Asian youths armed with baseball bats, iron bars and pitchforks.

The shaven-headed thugs – all dressed in white robes – launched the attack after pouring out of a former office building which is being used as an unofficial mosque.

Nothing Would Be Better

Helen over at Euro Ref points out that it’s not quite true to say Cameron has no policies. He has lots of polices, says Helen, just not any Conservative ones. Or, as I’d put it, he has policies, but no principles.

It’s the old thing Richard Nixon said about some people going into politics because they wanted to do big things, and some people because they want to be big. Cameron is entirely in group two. He has no strategy for government, no central vision to exert a gravitational force on policy. Is it any wonder a list of his positions looks like a selection box full of every piece of Liberal conventional wisdom ?

A Tale Of Two Trespasses

Jovial jokers are playing tricks down South:

MUSLIM yobs who wrecked a house to stop four brave soldiers moving in after
returning from Afghanistan sparked outrage last night.

The house in a
village near riot-torn Windsor had BRICKS thrown through windows and was DAUBED
with messages of hate.

Four young Household Cavalry officers who had
planned to rent it were also the target of phone THREATS.

They were
yesterday forced to look elsewhere to live — after top brass warned them against
inflaming racial violence near the Queen’s Windsor Castle home.

Yes, indeed. Wouldn't want these fools inflamming the situation by, y'know, living in the house they'd paid for.

Meanwhile, oop North, they’re dealing with real criminals:

A man who posted racist messages on a website in memory of murdered black teenager Anthony Walker was jailed for more than three years today.

Neil Martin, 30, emailed at least six comments to the website - less than a week after Anthony was killed with an ice axe in a racist attack in Huyton, Merseyside, last year.

Yep - more than five times as long in jail for this as for paedo offences. Who says the Left is a moral cess pit ? Still, there’s a certain irony here. The Anthony Walker murder has already shown up the Left’s double standards once. Now, here it is again. Naughty comments on a website ? Jail. Trashing a house and threatening phone calls ? Police say ‘One line of inquiry is that it is racially aggravated. ' D'you think, Sherlock ?

But Who'd Be The Camp Commandant ?

You know they would if they thought they could get away with it.

Darwin Strikes Back!

These are the days we in the VRWC live for - it’s Health Nazis Vs Femiloons. A vote of thanks too for the eduhcaytion system. So the obsessive Sex Ed not only fails to reduce teenage pregnancy, it also doesn’t teach these kids how to handle it when the inevitable happens. Just what the hell are they teaching ?

Still, there’s one other thing: is it just me, or is anybody else wondering whether the Left has finally ODed on the crazy pills ? Liberals are solemnly discussing what could possibly drive pregnant women to risk their foetuses’ health for their own convenience. What happened to a women’s right to choose to smoke ?

Hey, I’m no Right to Lifer, but you got to wonder what slogan the Left will use for this campaign: ‘Don’t Take Risks With Your Babies Health, Go For A Clean Kill Instead’.

That's What We Were Saying

I was going to fisk Cameron’s speech, but what’s the point ? Despite the MSM’s determination to portray it as the modern day equivalent of Henry V at Agincourt (but better!), we’ve heard it all before.

There was the self-conscious allusion to Blair, the slippery attempt to explain that having no principles is actually a sign of political sophistication, the nauseating exploitation of his own son’s illness...oh, who cares ? Any Cameron speech is entirely interchangeable with any other.

The only point of any interest at all was the further evidence offered in support of my theory that while the Right has a fairly good idea what Liberals believe, Leftists have next to no idea what Conservatives are actually saying. Specifically, there was Cameron’s riff on gay marriage:

There's something special about marriage... When you stand up there, in
front of your friends and your family, in front of the world, whether it's in a
church or anywhere else, what you're doing really means something...

And by the way, it means something whether you're a man and a woman, a
woman and a woman or a man and another man.

Well, ain’t that nice ? Funnily enough, social conservatives didn’t support marriage because they thought it was ‘special’, we supported it because we believed it was the best way to raise children. We knew that once the link between marriage and child-raising was broken, then all we'd be left with is exactly this kind of vacuous drivel about how ‘special’ marriage is. Well, that’s great – now why exactly should I care ?

Even as a single man, I can appreciate that marriage was worth supporting for the same reason education is worth supporting. It was all about our commitment to the next generation. But if it’s just about people standing up ‘in front of the world’ (huh ?), well, they can shove it.

Hey, if marriage is just about two people taking part in a wacky ceremony, why is the government even in the marriage business ? Why not just say the hell with it ? Gay marriage ? Fine. Polygamy ? OK. Man-dog marriage ? Kool. Just don’t try and tell me these people deserve some kind of special privileges just because they had a big party.

Mr Nuance Has Been Retired

Another school shooting in the US, and as night follows day, talking heads have appeared from all quarters explaining what it all says about America. The epidemic of sudden explosion syndrome amongst followers of a certain peaceful religion ? Just coincidence. But don’t expect anyone to be referencing the vast majority of peaceful Yanks anytime soon.

Incidents like this allow the MSM to ram home another of the chattering classes favourite points, namely the evil of guns. Hell, the only way they could have worked themselves into more of a self-righteous snit would be if the killer had been driving round the school in a 4x4. The funny thing is that the same MSM which claims that the gun is at the very centre of US culture, act as though the Koran and the Hadiths are just a set of vague suggestions, completely unrelated to any current events, in fact hardly worth bothering with at all.

I’m willing to bet that there’s less of a correlation between gun laws and crime across the various states of the US than there is between Islam and violence, but we’ll need a gun of our own to hold to the MSM’s head before they’ll investigate that.

US guns Islam

The New Order, How's That Working Out For You ?

Who’d have thunk it ? The Tory Party Conference has collapsed into farce due to their inability to hand out the entry passes. Hey, Cameroonatics – here’s a useful tip: if your USP is supposed to be that you’re sweeping away tired, blundering provincial losers and replacing them with the super-smart Metropolitan Oxbridge elite, you might want to avoid screwing up a job that the bumpkins have been doing just fine for the previous hundred years or so.

This isn’t a minor point. Au contrair, it goes to the heart of Cameroonacy. Criticising Opus Dave for not having any actual policies misses the point. They were never about policy in the sense of wanting to drive through any particular changes, nope, they think the system is fine as is – it just needs to be run by people as wonderful as their own selves. What we’re seeing in the Tories is the first example of a mainstream party basing its entire platform on rampant egomania. Now, we’ve had the first chance to see the type of organisational genius that’ll save the NHS. Impressed ?

Cameron

It's Worse

Yep. One of the defining features of the Cold War was the way Liberals combined constant hysteria about Thatcher and Reagan with their belief that even the most outrageously thuggish statements from the Kremlin actually reflected a deep desire for peace.

Mind you, at least we didn't have to preface any criticism of the USSR with a ten minute explanation of how Marxism was an ideology of peace, and we didn't have MPs complaining that Communists were being discrimiated against because they couldn't join MI-5.

One other feature of that era survives: the Kremlinologist. Of course, back in the day the Kremlinologists'used their skills to try and interpret the fragments of information emerging from behind the Iron Curtain. They claimed to be able to tell which Politburo faction was stronger or weaker according to how Pravda reported on grain yields in the Ukraine. Nowadays, the same skills are required to read our own MSM.

Take the case of the incredible disappearing suspects. I think it's pretty much a given these days that when a serious crime is reported, but no details of the assailant are given, it's unlikely he'll be qualified for membership of the BNP, if you get my drift. And so it goes - if the MSM even gets round to actually reporting in the first place: we're now into week two of the MSM's news blackout on the Brussels riots.

Come to think of it, with their determination to downplay, or just plain ignore, bad news, the MSM has become this war's Pravda. Just as the Soviet press resolutely kept reporting on quotas being exceeded, even as the economy fell apart, we now have the MSM pushing its own form of denial.

Humbuggery 101

Quick! Someone point the NASUWT in the direction of Staples. They must have run out of paper. After all, they were so worked up about those naughty old extemists not three months ago that they must surely be ready to protest about this latest idiocy. Right ?

Straight From The Horses.....

When you think about it, Portillo being involved in the selection of Conservative candidates is pretty bizarre anyway. Still, he did manage to sum up perfectly Blue Labour's whole philosophy of government:

The Tory machine is firmly under Cameron’s control and has embarked enthusiastically on a mission to eradicate old Tory stereotypes. Potential candidates and their selectors are using a new vocabulary. The Conservative intake at the next election will look and sound different and better.