So let us be honest. When we saw the TV footage of Muslim demonstrators in Luton greeting the returning soldiers as butchers and rapists and cowards, didn't we feel a sudden wash of anger, asks Melanie Reid? Didn't we, inside ourselves, hear a voice we recognised as our own cry: "You bastards!" The people of the town, out on the streets to welcome home the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment, clearly did. Their visceral reaction was to turn on the anti-war protesters. There was, for a few minutes, the remarkable sight of the spirit of peaceful, respectable middle-Britain, in its M&S anorak and its sensible shoes, provoked into physical violence. The scene was brief, but its resonance huge. You can bet that any clever politician who watched will know they witnessed this unassuming, easygoing society of ours reaching the limits of its tolerance. MELANIE REIDThe Times Luton has around 20,000 Muslims and is a black spot for jihadism, says Ruth Dudley Edwards. The police conciliate the vociferous in the hope they won't get so cross that they bomb the airport. Fear is the only reason that Muslim groups receive special treatment. Why else would the representatives of around two million people have money and time lavished on them in such an obscenely disproportionate way, while no one much bothers about the peaceable Hindus? And why else would the Government throw £90 million at PVE (Preventing Violent Extremism) – an unaccountable, contradictory, bureaucratically convoluted counter-terrorism initiative that has the authorities snuggle up to homophobic, misogynistic West-haters, just so long as they don't actually use violence? RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDSDaily Telegraph "The whole country is proud of our brave servicemen and women who serve... with great distinction and courage," Gordon Brown said. This was a statement of such idiocy - as if protesters aren't part of that "whole country"; as if he isn't their PM too - that it's hard to decide whether to laugh, weep or fantasise about horsewhipping him the 35 miles from Westminster to Luton, writes Matthew Norman. On reflection, I'm plumping for the latter. The private treachery shown towards those they publicly lionise ranks high among the scandals of the age. Many British soldiers have lost their lives and been wounded because their Labour overlords failed to equip, prepare and protect them properly, and more will do so in Afghanistan in the years ahead. Their treatment at home is barely less shameful. MATTHEW NORMANThe Independent Unicef estimates that the death of communism in Europe caused three million premature deaths, writes Anjana Ahuja. The United Nations calculates that ten million men disappeared during the transition. Life expectancy dropped in many affected countries (for Russian men, who especially suffered, it fell from 64 to 58 between 1991 and 1994). Unemployment and hazardous drinking (including the consumption of spirits and even aftershave) were found to be serious factors. The authors of a controversial new report speculate that those countries undergoing shock therapy unwittingly swept safety nets away with the old order. Many Russians lived in "one-company towns"; when the companies and jobs disappeared, so did healthcare, childcare and the social hub. ANJANA AHUJAThe Times Once, rising sea levels were seen as a threat to distant coral islands: toodle-oo for Tuvalu, goodbye for the Gilbert Islands and curtains for the Carterets, writes Fred Pearce. But this week scientists raised their forecast of the rise in 21st-century sea-level from about a foot to about a yard. On the face of it, this didn't seem too much of a change: what's a couple of feet between friends? But it means we're talking about the exit of Essex, the fall of the Fens and Trent Valley turning turtle. And how many takers are there in Europe for the tens of millions of environmental refugees who would flee submerged river deltas such as the Nile and Ganges, or low-lying coastal areas in western Africa and eastern China? FRED PEARCEDaily Telegraph Minnows in the fame shallows like myself complain when a paparazzo leaps out from behind a bollard on a bad hair day, but then exchange family photos for free tickets toMadagascar 2. It's a dirty business and few emerge with principles entirely intact. Most of those featured critically in the public domain complain of not having experience of dealing with the press; but unless you're born a Windsor, who does? Mariella Frostrup The Guardian Of course, it should be no surprise that the miners' strike remains a focus of controversy and myth-making 25 years later, because at root it was about power and class, not fuel - just as today's arguments about its legacy are more about the future than the past. The underlying message of those who rubbish the strike and deride its leaders is that militant trade unionism is a road to oblivion - just when industrial conflict seems likely to grow. Seumas Milne The Guardian Sales of Dickens, Thackeray and Trollope have jumped by more than 15 per cent in the past few months, as readers hark back to a Victorian world in which financial uncertainty was ingrained in daily life, and the soul-deadening pursuit of money ruthlessly satirised. Where we have Bernard Madoff, Dickens created Mr Merdle, the dodgy financial fat cat of an earlier age: "All people knew (or thought they knew) that he had made himself immensely rich; and, for that reason alone, prostrated themselves before him." Ben Macintyre The Times Military planes targeting coca farms, funded by the US, had been spraying mists of pesticides (sic) over food crops, grazing animals and even areas where children were playing, Glyphosate is the most frequently used pesticide. Independent studies have suggested a range of symptoms including facial numbness and swelling, rapid heart rate, raised blood pressure, chest pains, nausea and congestion. Grace Livingstone The Guardian An ad for a job with TFL: Experience of leading multiple projects/programmes simultaneously and managing change as well as considerable commercial acumen (with £75m+ budget responsibility) and first class influencing skills are all essential as is PRINCE and MSP accreditations and ITIL and ISO20000 knowledge." So many acronyms. So little meaning. Have you the least idea what the job actually entails? Matthew Parris The TimesLuton's Muslims barrack the army
Full article: How al-Qaeda stoked our Massereene fury 
Brown slams Luton police for being soft on Muslim anti-army protest
Full article: Stop pandering to enemies of our way of life Brown's hypocritical pride
Full article: Soldiers suffer contempt from all sides
Brown slams Luton police for being soft on Muslim anti-army protest 
How capitalism killed millions
Full article: Warning: capitalism can damage your health England under water
Full article: We should be alarmed about rising sea levels In Brief
Privacy law is not the answer
Full article: Draconian laws are no way to reform our ravenous media
MPs to recommend new privacy laws after Max Mosley evidence 
Legacy of the miners’ strike
Full article: A generation on, the miners' strike can speak to our time Charles Dickens and Bernard Madoff
Full article: The way we read now as our world totters Colombia’s pesticide poison
Full article: Colombia's desert war PRINCE and MSP accreditations
Full article: Corporate babble
Thursday, 12 March 2009
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