This is what Robin Harris, David Cameron’s first boss in the Tory Research Department, said of him back in 2007. It’s easily proved, by tracking his changing views on any subject you care to name since he first sought office. Zig, zag, and zig again where necessary. But don’t delude yourself that a man with no principles won’t do any damage. Because his only concern is to gain and hold office, he will do all he can for that end. And to win and keep office these days, you need to be either politically correct or courageous. Mr Cameron is not courageous. That is why one of his two big outbursts this week means something, and the other means nothing. Outburst number one was worthy of Gordon Brown, and apparently modelled on his brainless intervention in the case of Laura Spence. Mr Cameron attacked Oxford University for rightly refusing to choose its students on the grounds of skin colour. Can you think of any other country where a Prime Minister would seek to enhance his reputation by an inaccurate and frankly thuggish attack on one of the few great institutions left standing? This is how debased we are. Outburst number two was a patronising Alf Garnett impersonation, in which he gave the impression he plans to curb mass immigration, without actually doing anything about it. Mr Cameron’s travelling chorus of tame political reporters duly plugged this transparent vote-grab as if it were a real initiative. I often think these people should get their salaries direct from Downing Street rather than from the news organisations that officially employ them. Now, a couple of years hence, if this Coalition manages to stay together, which of these two policies will have borne fruit? It’s not difficult to work out that Oxford University will be doing its utmost to find black-skinned students, rather than judging people by their ability. If this is wrong in one direction, why isn’t it wrong in the other? So I know that the much praised Scarman report into the 1981 Brixton riots was a disgraceful document that repeatedly excused lawless violence and played down the organised and criminal character of the outbreak. Even Lord Scarman mentioned that two men (one white, one black) appeared to be directing one attack on the police (paragraph 3.53). Even Scarman noted that the rioters ‘offered terms’ to the police, clear evidence of a directing leadership (though he said elsewhere, in paragraph 3.77, that it was a ‘spontaneous combustion’). And even Scarman recorded the ‘sinister contribution’ made by ‘strangers’ in ‘making and distributing petrol bombs’ (paragraph 3.104). There was ‘clear and credible’ evidence of such organised bomb-making given to him in private session by two witnesses. Is it, by the way? We have lots of drunken, tattooed slags with lardy muffin-tops protruding out of their waistbands. They have lots of women dressed as bats. I’m not entirely sure this proves that we’re better. As for the bat outfits, is it really such a great idea to ban them, as the French have done? As anyone could have foreseen, the law gave a number of attention-seekers the chance to get arrested on TV – but it did nothing to make France less Islamic than it was before. And it set a dangerous precedent. The Muslim vote is getting more important every year in many European countries. One day, there may be a law telling women they must cover their faces. And those who protest will be reminded of what they did when the boot was on the other foot. Nicolae Ceausescu was killed after a kangaroo trial. Erich Honecker was hounded from country to country until he died of cancer. Slobodan Milosevic was locked up until he died. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is now under arrest and his sons in jail. Are they wishing that – like the rulers of Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria – they had killed more of their own people and stuck it out? I wouldn’t be surprised. 'Bert' opines (in one posting): ' There’s nothing wrong with being squeamish'. I think I can be pretty sure this one will happen. Those of you who have access to the Sky Arts 1 channel can see an hour-long interview of me by Professor Laurie Taylor at 10.00 pm on Thursday 14th April, and if that is not enough for you, a further hour after 11.00 pm when Prof. Taylor interviews my brother Christopher. Having already seen both (and read transcripts of them) I may well be asleep at the time. There comes a point when all interviews of me, and of Christopher, seem to me to be more or less the same (though his recollection that he tried to persuade me that I was adopted might interest some. I mainly only ever hit him, or doused him with soapy water using old washing-up liquid bottles) . But I have been amused by one or two of the previews in the TV listings magazines contrasting my hectoring, lecturing style with my brother's greater affability. There's no arguing with the fact that I like a good hector. But the joy of this interview, recorded in Harrow-on-the-Hill late last summer (Cleo Laine was in the same Green Room, as they were recording several that day back-to-back) is that for once I am allowed to develop my points and finish my statements without the usual hostile interruptions I would get from the BBC. Christopher (whose interview was recorded much more Laurie Taylor and I are vaguely acquainted. He was the famously culturally revolutionary sociologist , and leading light of something called the 'Deviancy Symposium' when he was a professor and I was an undergraduate at York 40-odd years ago. In those days I was a dogged Bolshevik, dreaming of strikes and barricades, and of storming barracks and Winter Palaces, and regarded his interests as frivolous. I now grasp that he had understood the nature of modern revolution far better than I. He's also a pretty good interviewer, though I must admit to being more than a little bored with being asked why I stopped being left-wing. I think my interviewers are all secretly afraid the same thing will happen to them, and want to know how to avoid it. What would their friends and colleagues say, if they came out as conservatives? French plans to outlaw the wearing of Islamic face-veils will not achieve anything of importance, and are, for the most part, a crude interference with private choice. I suspect that, after a few weeks during which Muslim militants will create deliberate confrontations, the law will be as rigorously enforced as (say) Britain's rather more important law against using a hand-held mobile phone while driving. The real problem for France and for most other European countries is that they have permitted large-scale immigration from Muslim countries, and under the rules of multiculturalism they have from the start permitted and even encouraged Muslims to live differently from other citizens. the choice has been made. It's gone too far to stop with gestures of this kind. A ban on Islamic dress, by failing, will only serve to emphasise that these countries are well on the way to an accommodation with Islam. All that remains in doubt is how generous that accommodation will be. I have long said that it is quite possible that much of Europe will become formally Islamic in the years to come. The only real question is how long this will take. The eradication of Christianity from laws, customs, ceremonies, education and culture in general will make this process much easier than it would have been when these countries were actively Christian. I only hope Professor Dawkins is pleased as amplified calls of 'Allahu Akhbar' waver and echo from the Islamicised towers of redundant Victorian churches in the damp and misty air of North Oxford. Islam is in general becoming more militant about the veiling of women. Only 30 years ago in the Middle East, most urban women went uncovered in cities such as Cairo or Beirut. Now the hijab, or headscarf, while not a legal obligation, is fast becoming universal. Not wearing it has become a statement, just as wearing it was a statement 30 years ago. Conformity makes life simpler, so most women conform, and it is virtually impossible to find out what they really think about it any more. Something similar is happening in Central Asia, where Islam was once driven back by the combined force of Kemal Ataturk and Josef Stalin. Veiling is common in the formerly Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tadzhikistan. On a recent visit to Turkey, I noted the growing popularity of Islamic dress among urban women. Or is popularity the wrong word? Prevalence, certainly. The popularity is (I suspect) largely among increasingly Islamist menfolk, though I spoke to some young women who had enthusiastically adopted the hijab at some cost to their careers - wearing it is still, I think, forbidden on the campuses of state universities. By the way, can we try to get the terminology right in any discussion? There's a tendency for people to assume that all Islamic female headgear is described by the word 'burka' (spelled in several different ways). It is not. The hijab - by far the most common - is a headscarf, usually worn to cover all or most of the hair. The Niqab, almost invariably black, is a mask which covers the whole face apart from a narrow slit for the eyes, worn with a scarf which totally covers the hair. The burka is a garment which shrouds the entire body,. Rather than having a slit for the eyes, it has a cloth grid, through which the eyes cannot be seen. There is also a garment, whose name I do not know, worn by the women of Kashgar, in which the face is entirely covered (not even the fine grid of the burka) so that the women look alarmingly as if they have risen from their graves and are walking the streets in shrouds. For myself, I don't mind all that much. The first time I saw a woman in full niqab scurrying through the security barriers at the BBC TV Centre in London, I thought it ridiculous and muttered something along the lines of 'Oh, for heaven's sake!'. Though the place was busy and noisy, and I had spoken softly, she (with the amazing sensitivity which people sometimes have to scrutiny when they are themselves a bit nervous) turned and gave me a long, surprisingly expressive look, of mingled annoyance, resentment and scorn. It is amazing how much expression can be conveyed by the muscles around the eyes. Since then, I've come to think that - providing they lift their veils for full facial inspection on the rare occasions where facial identification is desirable and necessary - they're welcome to wear what they want. In fact, I suspect that Islamic militants would be most displeased if we just ignored this aggressive separatism, and behaved as if it wasn't going on. But if you don't want an Islamised society, rather than messing around with clothing laws, here's another thought. May I suggest that you work out what your answer to that fierce, simple and easily-understood religion's consoling precepts is. Yes, we currently have bigger guns and better bombing planes, but so what? We are richer. But will we always be? We can get drunk (and we do). Is this a big advantage, either morally or materially? Likewise, the use of our women's freedom to dress as they like. Faced with the choice of beholding a tattooed ladette displaying a muffin top glowing with fake tan, or a Muslim woman in full niqab, most of us would at least hesitate. I put this mildly. I have more than a suspicion that our existing society continues to survive without revolt or collapse only because it gets a little richer each year. Once that prospect is gone, and the succeeding decades instead bring shrinking pay packets, higher prices and fewer jobs, where will minds hungry for solace and comfort and hope turn to? Thanks to half a century of active secularism, most people in this country are quite clueless about Christianity and wouldn't know where to begin with it. If a religious revival comes (and we're about due for one) who is best placed to take advantage of it? I am here re-posting a couple of comments I placed on the 'General Debate' thread late on Saturday, on the assumption that quite a few people won't have read that far. The first deals (I think comprehensively) with the ill-informed objection to Christians supporting the death penalty, often raised by Atheists, on the grounds that the Commandment says 'Thou Shalt not Kill'. This is annoying because the atheists themselves couldn't care less what scripture says, and are trying to catch Christians out - and because they so seldom seem to realise that the matter has many times been dealt with before, and is not as they think it is. This should now go into the index under 'Capital Punishment' or 'the Death penalty', and so should be easily found. Not that this will stop them. At the bottom, I've appended a response I have made to 'Bert', after he responded to a criticism from me that his postings here are essentially frivolous, opposition for the sake of opposition. I still think this, despite Bert's protestations. On the question of the Commandment 'Thou Shalt do no Murder', it is so rendered by Christ himself (Gospel according to St Matthew, Chapter 19, 18th verse, Authorised or 'King James' version). This is why it is also so rendered in the service of The Lord's Supper in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Now, as this dispute is supposed to be about what Christians believe the Commandment to mean, and Christians believe that Christ is God himself, or they would not be Christians, this rather closes the debate. If God himself in his most recent appearance among us (as believed by Christians) says 'Thou shalt do no murder', then that is what the Commandment is, superseding and overriding any previous version, or clarifying it if you prefer. Atheists can believe what they like. I cannot see why they should care one way or the other. But they really need to be better-informed before trying to tell Christians how to interpret their own scriptures, don't you think? I might add that Christ himself was subject to the death penalty, and his sayings were recorded when sentence was passed on him and while it was being carried out, and He did not take the opportunities offered to condemn it in principle. I agree that arguments from silence are not always reliable. But in this case, the silence is pretty eloquent. He did say much on other subjects during this event. What is more, one of the two thieves stated from his cross that they were justly punished for their crimes, and Christ did not contradict him. Non-religious persons trying to make trouble will just have to accept that mainstream Christianity somehow manages to distinguish between lawless murder and lawful execution - even if Atheists appear to be unable to do so. Likewise it manages to observe that the destruction of a baby in the womb is the wrongful taking of life, which atheists also seem unable to perceive. I am impressed that Mr Saunders is confident enough in himself and in our civilisation to say that the author of these words was an 'ignorant semi-savage'. I wonder how many of his words or deeds will be remembered by anyone 2,000 years hence, and what the people of that age will think of ours, especially the unpunished murders and the millions of massacred babies? Bert: 'Let me say that I could not do what you do: offer my view for public consumption, in a well-argued way, on a whole range of topics. If I did, I would quickly get shot to pieces. It is hugely to your credit that you often engage directly with posters. But you choose to colonise the high moral ground, and to adopt a sneering tone when it suits you with those who disagree with you. It’s your blog and that’s your prerogative. But you shouldn’t be surprised if, on occasion, some posters choose not to lie down before the weight of your prose.' Bert: 'You’re right: I’m not that bothered by the classification of crimes.' 'However, I am interested in the point of principle: if you can claim that crimes are being downgraded with little or no evidence, how should we treat some of your other claims – about the existence of dyslexia, or the “wickedness” of taking some drugs?' I reply **These are different sorts of statements, as 'Bert' really ought to understand. On ''Dyslexia' I am required to prove nothing. It does not exist, and its proponents cannot show that it does, (Indeed many of them simply do not understand the nature of proof, like the advocates of 'ADHD', who think that because they *think* that a thing that they have observed is 'x', then it must therefore *be* 'x'. (As in 'if you came and stayed in my house for a weekend, you'd know that 'ADHD' exists, once you'd seen my Timmy'). They will not accept the rather dispiriting conclusions for their activities which flow from the fact that 'Dyslexia' doesn't exist. As a minor industry has now sprung up around 'Dyslexia' (and quite a major one round 'ADHD'), and as it excuses decades of bad teaching and dud education theories (and in the case of 'ADHD' excuses even more bad teaching, and anti-boy discrimination, and bad but generally-accepted child-rearing practices), it is easy to see why there is so much resistance to this conclusion. I simply challenge the proponents of the existence of 'Dyslexia' to provide an objective diagnosis for its presence in the human body. Or a 'treatment' for it, which wouldn't also 'treat 'illiteracy. I also provide a sound and rather neat alternative explanation for the mass illiteracy of children in countries with bad schools. It is curiously missing in countries with good schools, and also curiously missing in the pasts of countries which once had good schools, and now have bad ones. Can he guess what it is? My view on self-stupefaction is based upon general Christian morality. Those who don't have a moral foundation for their views, and believe that 'do what thou wilt' is the highest law (and there are lots of them) will necessarily not agree with me about this, or many other things. Those who share my Christianity won't necessarily agree with me about my interpretation of it on this matter. So I cannot expect to construct a coalition for legislative change and proper enforcement of existing law on this view alone. Generally, therefore, I argue from the practicality, that nobody can actively want significant numbers of young people to have their minds overthrown or their lives, and the lives of their families, otherwise ruined by the use of drugs. On that, we enter the realm of fact. And also the realm of obfuscation and misrepresentation which the pro-drug lobby ceaselessly use against me (see the latest ignorant (and/or false) suggestions that I have no proposals for the control of alcohol, and that this attitude is formed by my own vanishingly small consumption of alcohol). These things are not the same as pointing out (after much study and thanks to direct, privileged personal communications from people involved) that claims that the abolition of the death penalty has had an insignificant effect on the murder figures are open to question from many directions. I should note (since he asks) that I remain baffled by the contributions of Mr Aspinall, who seems to have taken a weird wrong turning at some point and cannot find his way back. I suggest he just stops. What is he on about? My reference to suspensions of the death penalty was quite clear. It referred to two specific occasions when it was suspended, and nothing that he has said has added to the understanding of the point I made. The fact that other people may have mentioned or discussed suspensions at other times has no bearing on this at all, unless those suspensions actually took place. They didn't. This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column This is a wicked perversion. Here is what it really means: when this was still a free country, you could climb thanks to your talent and hard work. My favourite example is that of Lord Denning, one of six children of a Hampshire draper who became the greatest judge of our time. One of his brothers, Reginald, helped plan the D-Day landings and became a general. Another, Norman, became an admiral, and Director of Naval Intelligence. The boys’ mother, Clara, must have been quite a person, but Whitchurch National School and Andover Grammar School should take a little credit too. In their austere, disciplined, orderly classrooms, children from poor homes could learn real knowledge, and gain the habits of work and diligence that might take them to the very summit of our once-open society. If they had talent, it would be nurtured and encouraged. If they were studious, they would not be bullied for it, but rewarded. Faced with ferocious exams, which it was possible to fail, they learned that real life wasn’t easy and had to be tackled with application and determination. That’s how a proper middle class, confident, strong and open to talent, is made. But those who now shape and direct our society long ago destroyed these places. Believing it was kinder, they scrapped the discipline, the order and the rigour, and turned the exams into feeble jokes. When the truth became clear, they refused to change their minds but carried on as before. The three Denning brothers would rapidly have had their hopes crushed by today’s state school system. If three such boys – or girls – now exist, we will never hear of them, except perhaps in the courts, because the corruption of the best is the worst of all, and a bright and energetic mind, when all the doors of ambition and hope are slammed in its face, can easily turn to wrongdoing. I cannot express on paper just how angry this makes me, or how angry it ought to make you. The nearest I can come to it is this – to say to Nicholas Clegg, David Cameron and Edward Miliband that they are all three of them cruel, contemptible and stupid, enemies of promise, enemies of their country, and enemies of the poor. And in each case the crime is especially serious because of their own immense personal privilege. I hope all their political careers end in abject, howling failure, preferably with them being laughed out of office, the only punishment they are likely to understand. Because all three of them, and their wretched parties, have set their faces against the honest self-improvement that is the mark of a free society. Instead, they gargle the discredited slogans of equality – an equality they don’t even believe in for themselves or their children. You will have to ask yourselves why the leaders of supposedly democratic parties in a supposedly free society have endorsed a policy that is more or less identical to that of the Eastern European communists of the Forties. More importantly, you will have to ask yourselves why on earth you have continued to vote for them, knowing what they are and what they stand for. They go (in no particular order): Would the mullahs have approved of the Baroness’s daring choice of toenail polish? Why doesn’t she wear a headscarf on public occasions in Britain? Was Mr Cameron trying to buy votes among British Pakistanis when he announced a huge £650 million dollop of aid to the Islamic Republic? Do Pakistani leaders visit Westminster Abbey when they come to London? Since then, I have been consumed with curiosity about those other pictures of Mr and Mrs Cameron on their cheapo Ryanair holiday to Spain. Does the Prime Minister really need to go to cashpoints? And when will the real holiday be? The endless Indo-Pakistan tension? Our fault. The mess in the Middle East? Our fault. The destruction of democracy in Iran? Our fault. I am myself a child of Empire, born in what was then Malta GC when the mighty Mediterranean Fleet still filled the Grand Harbour at Valletta. And, having seen one or two other empires in action, I still say ours was the best. What’s more, it seems to me that in this cruel world you either have an empire or become part of somebody else’s, and I know which I prefer. The problems I list above were mostly not caused by the Empire itself. They followed its sudden, rapid collapse after the disastrous surrender of Singapore in 1942, one of the worst of the many failures and retreats that took place under the over-praised leadership of Winston Churchill. People keep saying that we made a good job of withdrawing from Empire. It’s just not true. The scuttles from India and Palestine were needlessly bloody and crude. They left grave, unsolved problems. If you take over someone else’s country, you have to stay there for good, and commit yourself absolutely. The current fashion for leasehold colonialism, where you barge in with bombs and soldiers and then clear off, is guaranteed to cause more difficulties than it solves. That said, I have never seen such an adventure crumble into chaos and failure as quickly as Mr Cameron’s ill-considered Libyan affair. Bombing our own side? Well, I never. But how on earth do we get out now we’re in? So much for the brilliance of Etonians, eh? Actually the programme is gripping evidence that education is going down the plughole, as undergraduates goggle blankly when asked to identify easy quotations from major classics of English literature. It’s not just that they don’t know the answers. It’s that they don’t know they don’t know. Meanwhile, the supposedly all-knowing Mr Paxman still can’t cope with German words or place names. Halle doesn’t rhyme with ballet.16 April 2011 8:34 PM
Leave it aht, Dave! Nobody’s buying your Alf Garnett routine (and you don't even believe it yourself )
14 April 2011 2:58 PM
The Civil Sword
That depends what one is being squeamish about. Being squeamish about the careful use of force and violence against guilty persons convicted in fair trials to defend peace, order and safety is quite different from being repelled (as so few are, but I am ) about blowing innocent German civilians to bits in their homes, or baking them to death in firestorms, because you can't make contact with the enemy's army.
Funny, in fact, that so many who are squeamish about the swift and humane execution of justly convicted killers are so relaxed about the mass murder, often by tearing them to pieces with metal instruments, of unborn babies, the bombing of Belgrade, Baghdad and Afghanistan (and now of Libya).
'Bert' continues: ' and just because you don’t think it’s right for the state to kill doesn’t mean that you don’t want to defend what is right.'
Well, yes it does, if you think it's fine for the state to kill, or license killing, for other purposes that suit you. Which is why people who support such policies always claim(though without explaining why) that the predictably lethal wars or predictably lethal transport policies they like are not in any way comparable to the existence of a death penalty. Not to mention the predictably lethal arming of the police, a direct consequence of the abolition of lawful execution in Britain.
And it also does if by disarming yourself you unleash much greater violence on those you are supposed to be protecting. And I have established here that greater violence has followed the abolition of the death penalty, something my emotional spasm opponents don't like discussing.
He then asks: ' As for your peroration, do you really think, in the cold light of day, that scrapping the death penalty is a “betrayal of civilisation”?'
Absolutely. The colder the light, the more I think it.
A civilisation that won't defend itself will soon cease to exist. QED.
'Curtis' submits :'What about John's gospel, 7.53-8.11? A crowd asks Jesus if a woman, just caught in adultery, should be executed, by stoning. This was the law in Jerusalem then Jesus stops the execution by saying ‘That one of you who is faultless shall throw the first stone.’ This passage makes me think that if Jesus were around today, he would oppose the death penalty, on the grounds that no one is good enough to execute anyone'.
(A note in brackets: This provides an illustration of how much we have lost thanks to the discarding of the Authorised Version of the Bible, in which the words are rendered so much more memorably as : 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her'. (How is this hard to understand as it is? Or archaic? It only contains two words of more than one syllable, and they are 'without' and 'among') )
The incident seems to me to be too specific, to the sin of adultery, to allow of this interpretation. Also, taken in company with Christ's behaviour before, during (and, as it happens, after) his own trial and execution, it cannot be used to make such a point. Without the latter, it might serve. With it, it does not. He intervenes to prevent an act of gross hypocrisy and (as so often in his life and ministry) to take the side of a woman against male hypocrisy or dislike. Not to object to the penalty as such ( had there been a sinless person there, that is to say anyone who had not committed adultery himself, Christ presumably could not have objected if he had cast the first stone).
Mr Walker runs away from the argument thus :'You yourself were the person who started the emotional side of this debate. All that nonsense about 'wielding the sword of civil society' etc. Sounds good but is not an argument'.
I didn't offer it as an argument. I have set out my argument in detail in articles findable through the index, and in the relevant chapter in my book, which Mr Walker ( despite my urgings) has chosen not to read , preferring to get het up and then flounce off. Like so many abolitionists, he prefers self-righteous emotionalism to a cool analysis of the practicalities. He is, perhaps, afraid of losing in such a contest. The phrase 'The Civil Sword' is just an expression, used by persons as various as John Milton and Andrew Jackson to refer to the state's monopoly of violence. If it upsets or otherwise unsettles Mr Walker, I cannot help it.
The person hiding behind the name 'Scaramanga' thinks he is being satirical when he is in fact just being boring.
Mr Charles writes: ' "Strict pacifists can use the risk of innocent death as an absolute reason for opposing execution (provided they also wish to ban private motor cars)." This utilitarian nonsense could've been written by Jeremy Bentham.'
Really? If I were to advance the perfectly good Christian arguments for a death penalty, namely the greatly heightened chance of genuine repentance and remorse on the part of the killer, not to mention the large number of murderers who commit suicide, which is gravely distressing to a believer, Mr Charles and others would jeer at me for superstition and mumbo-jumbo. So I stick to the things they can understand, which are measurable on a materialist calculating machine (however desiccated) and are equally true. But people who would jeer at a transcendental argument cannot really, in all consistency, also jeer at a utilitarian one.
He continues: 'PH exhibits a massive failure of imagination in regard to what capital punishment does to society as a whole.'
He should be more specific. I am not sure what imagination I need to deploy here. I have myself witnessed two executions in a foreign jurisdiction. I grew up in a society with a death penalty, and it was chiefly different from today's in being more peaceful and less violent, and having an unarmed police force.
He adds: 'I would HATE to live in a society that was ruled by retribution. I aspire to something better. I'd refer him to my earlier post on this thread if he wants clarification.'
I still don't see what's wrong with retribution forming part of a criminal justice system. Indeed, I can't see how it could function or long survive without it. And I suspect Mr Charles doesn't have my experience of seeing inside several prisons. I have no doubt that long-term imprisonment is immeasurably more cruel than swift execution. But 'ruled' by retribution? Hardly. Though the anarchy towards which we are heading, as justice fails, will be ruled by vengeance and blood-feuds.More Hitchens than most people could possibly want - Sky Arts 1, Thursday Night, 10.00 pm
recently) has also been known to use the edge of his tongue, and even go in for a little lecturing. But I would say that people you agree with tend to sound more affable, and people you disagree with tend to sound more hectoring, as a general rule. For some reason, I suspect my following among the writers of TV previews is small.What not to wear
Killing no murder?
I might add that both the 39 Articles of the Church of England (Article 37) , and the Roman Catholic Catechism, both conclude that the death penalty is justified in certain circumstances. Those who compile these documents do not do so without much study of scriptural texts, or without much thought.
'Bert' contributes the following ( I have interspersed my responses with his comment, marking them **): 'I have no personal hostility to you (more the converse, I’d say). I’ve never met you, and while I disagree with you about most things, I’ve no objection to you having your say in your newspaper and via this blog.'
**That is very generous of him. Not to object, I mean.
Bert: 'This is an internet forum where people are able to comment freely, using pseudonyms if they wish, whenever and on whatever they like. In my case, I sometimes choose to comment when I think that your posts do not match up to the high standards of rigour that you set for yourself and contributors. The unqualified assertion about crime at the start of this particular post seemed to me to be an egregious example of this. (And your post of 8 April at 10.44 am, while I agreed with it, was irrelevant to the point that I had raised.)'
**I don't think it was irrelevant at all. Why was it irrelevant?
**No, I'm not. But I do get exasperated when this is done for reasons that appear to me to be unserious, namely a general oppositionism for the sake of it. This is just mischief, which wastes my time and energy, and does not conform to the high-minded purpose (of enforcing rigour) stated above.
**Exactly. This isn't something he cares about. So why get involved at all? I do care about it, a lot.
**I like that 'little or no'. I have explained (irrelevantly?) the legal difficulties of stating in a public forum that a person has been convicted of manslaughter who ought to have been convicted of murder. I have stated that I have received (necessarily private, and I might add , deeply distressing in their details) letters from the relatives of victims of homicides , where the matter has been treated in this way. The writers of these letters have nothing to gain by untruth. No civil suit is affected, no claim for compensation contemplated. There is instead an unsatisfied thirst for justice and right. This I share.
Nor, it seems to me, is my analysis of the homicide figures unlikely to be true. On the contrary, it is highly likely given the nature of our criminal justice system and of our times.
This seems to me, under the circumstances, to be pretty compelling evidence. But 'Bert', dismisses it as 'little or no'. Well, it's certainly not 'no' evidence. But is it so 'little' that it can be dismissed as without worth? I would like him to tell my correspondents so, and see what he received in return. He dismisses it because he wishes to pick nits, on any possible occasion. I think a man who picks nits with the authenticity of the communications of the relatives of persons cruelly and unlawfully killed is more concerned with the nits than he is with the facts. In fact 'more concerned with the nits than with the facts' is a very good pithy summary of 'Bert' in general.
**As to this from 'Bert': How should we treat some of your other claims – about the existence of dyslexia, or the “wickedness” of taking some drugs?'From draper’s son to judge . . . THAT was social mobility
The phrase ‘social mobility’ has been twisted round by the elite to mean the opposite of what it once did. In their mouths it signifies ‘crude discrimination against those who seek to advance themselves or their children through effort and talent’.
Were the varnished toes a hit, Baroness?
The sight of a barefoot Baroness Warsi, in full hijab, accompanying Mr Cameron (in his socks) to a mosque in Islamabad prompted a number of irreverent questions to which I do not know the answers.
Daft Dave’s ‘leasehold’ Empire
The Prime Minister was right when he pointed out that most of the major crises in the world have their roots in the British Empire. It’s unquestionably true. Afghanistan’s stupid border? Our fault.
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I don't think the Tory leadership really want us to vote NO in the AV referendum, do you? They’re not trying. All the more reason to vote NO, then.
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Almost every year, the presentation of the winners’ prize on the final of University Challenge is ruined by some celeb, or Jeremy Paxman himself, saying that the show proves there’s no ‘dumbing down’ in British education. This year, it was the turn of the ever-so-slightly over-praised historian Antony Beevor.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column
The Prime Minister is an opportunist who doesn’t believe in anything. Don’t take my word for it.
Meanwhile, mass immigration, and the official PC dogma that prevents integration, will continue as before.
Sinister truth about Brixton ‘uprising’
I have this terrible habit of actually reading official documents.
It is my belief that a less soppy judge could have written an entirely different report with utterly different conclusions. Yet now this nasty, sinister incident is being dignified as an ‘uprising’. I hope historians won’t
be fooled by this.
As for the unhinged Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, don’t get me started.
Why not outlaw muffin-tops too?
Gosh, it’s fashionable to be tough on Muslims these days. We invade their countries. We tell them what not to wear. And we lecture them on how our ‘way of life’ is superior to theirs.
Most of the anti-Islamic blowhards are neo-conservatives who also favour what they
call ‘free movement of people’, known to you and me as unrestricted mass immigration.
And it is that policy which has turned Islam into an increasingly powerful minority in our societies, one whose growing demands for a more Muslim Europe cannot be challenged or resisted by unenforceable laws or secular liberalism.
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There’s yet more whimpering from the government about the spread of fortnightly bin collections. They just can’t admit that the reason for this unwanted change is the European Union’s Landfill Directive, which forces British councils – which rely more heavily on landfill than those elsewhere – to recycle more or pay huge fines. Oh, to live in an independent country again.
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Tristan van der Vlis, the Dutch rampage killer who murdered six people last week, is said to have spent time in a psychiatric institution. Was he prescribed antidepressants?
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Why do dictators refuse to quit? Simple. They see what happens to those who give up.
If the ‘West’ really wants Colonel Gaddafi to go, it would be wise to give him an easy exit.
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I cannot think of any one fact which more clearly shows the speed and depth of our national decline than the news that when our Navy catches pirates, we give them nicotine patches and let them go.
Posted by Britannia Radio at 11:17