Britannia Radio

31 July 2010 10:30 PM

More broken-backed than Brokeback, the rebels afraid to strike

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column

What keeps us free? Mainly, the difference between the two big parties in Parliament. As long as they are not too friendly, governments cannot get away with attempts to push us around, or make bad laws. But in the new era of the Coalition, there is no such difference.

Nobody even pretends that there is. Two of the parties are clasped in a fond embrace. The third looks on beaming. Take this astonishing example from the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Mrs Theresa May, the Liberal Conservative Home Secretary, was making a shameful statement. She announced that the Government was following European orders by imposing on this country the European Investigation Order.

This gives EU police forces new powers over ours and is another step towards the snuffing out of our independent legal system. You will hear of it in years to come, and wonder: ‘How did that happen?’ This is how it happened.

Tory loyalists, who believed David Cameron’s stern pledges of no more concessions to the EU, ought to be shocked by this. But forget them. Such wilful dupes, in my view, richly deserve to be governed by confidence tricksters. What about the rest of us, who don’t? We should learn from what happened next.

As Mrs May trilled her naive approval of this surrender to the power of Brussels, the sound of sycophantic slobbering could be heard rising from the Labour benches. Most glutinous of all were the words from the fanatical Labour Europhile Chris Bryant. He simpered: ‘May I warmly thank the Home Secretary for adopting this sensible, pragmatic and pro-European policy? I look forward to sending her a membership form for the European Movement.’

Another Labour Euro-toady, Mike Gapes, remarked triumphantly that her plans ‘are ­welcome, and represent a move away from Europhobia’. The Shadow Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, rose cheerfully to greet her statement.

With ghastly flirtatiousness, Mrs May simpered back at him: ‘I welcome the positive and constructive approach that the right honourable gentleman has taken today. Sadly, we are about to go into recess, so he and I must find a means of meeting other than across the Dispatch Box in the coming weeks.’ Yuck.

But Mr Johnson was also exulting at the total powerlessness of the remaining conser­vative Tories. He sneered that the ‘real opposition’ would come from what he called the ‘Brokeback Tendency’ behind her. And so it did. Several Tory MPs protested and were brushed aside. They were powerless against this monstrous coalition of the Liberal Elite, which has seized their party in a sort of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

The trouble with the Brokeback Tendency is that this is too good a name for them. They are broken-backed, irresolute, willing to wound but afraid to strike. They still fear to defy David Cameron, though he never hesitates to trample on them and on all that they believe in. The longer they wait for the ideal moment, the deeper they are slurped into the quicksands of the liberal centre. As Mr Cameron has himself pointed out, True Grit would be a better name under which to rally.

A book for the voyage, Laura

Good luck to Laura Dekker, the 14-year-old Dutch girl who wants to sail round the world on her own. Laura was born on a yacht, had her own boat by the time she was six, and began sailing alone when she was ten. How I envy her. The last time I tried to sail alone, I was clinging to the wreckage within five minutes.

The efforts of the authorities to stop her were obviously motivated by reasonable concern. Imagine what the British state would have done. But children can do so much more than we think they can and grow with responsibility. Once, this attitude was common. Does anyone now read Arthur Ransome’s Swallows And Amazons, in which the children’s father is asked for his permission for the youngest to sail unsupervised, and replies in a telegram ‘If not duffers, won’t drown. Better drowned than duffers’.

In a later book, the wonderful We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, the same children unintentionally sail across the North Sea to Holland, when they accidentally slip anchor. They arrive safely, entirely because they have been trusted in the past. Someone should send Laura Dekker a copy.

Britain’s Spaniel obeys his master’s voice

I have just returned from a visit to Turkey and I can con fidently say that the Prime Minister does not know what he is talking about when he urges Turkish membership of the EU. He is both out-of-date and wrong. Turkey’s grim, Islamist government is more interested in links with Tehran and Damascus than in Brussels, anyway. And how he can claim to want to cap immigration and open our borders to millions of Turks, I have no idea. I’d say the same about his dim, student union-level comments on Gaza and his sudden realisation that Pakistan might just be sympathetic to the Taliban. But I’d add this. His recent lurch into foreign affairs follows his adoring visit to Barack Obama. And the stuff he is saying is exactly what the Obama White House wants said, but dare not say itself. If Anthony Blair was Bush’s Poodle, Mr Cameron is fast turning into Obama’s Spaniel. Junior partner? I’ll say. But how does this benefit Britain?

***********************************

On Thursday evening, I watched another three coffins come back from Afghanistan. At the Oxfordshire roadside, the small ceremony as the dead go by has become a well-organised routine. I am uneasy about this. These deaths are shocking and needless. Each one should give rise to outraged questioning about why we are there. By the way, the oddest revelation from the Afghan leaks this week was that the Taliban can shoot down our helicopters. The enemy know. Our helicopter pilots presumably know. So why was it kept from the public?

***********************************

If Britain does switch off its speed cameras, can someone please commission reliable research on the effects? I expect they will be bad. Since the police stopped patrolling the roads, I suspect the cameras have been the last thing between us and anarchy, as selfish, aggressive driving becomes almost universal, much of it drug-influenced.

***********************************

There is a reason why governments so often turn to stunts and gimmicks in matters such as education and policing, where liberal policies are not working. They refuse to change the policies, or admit they are wrong. But they want to look as if they are doing something, anything. Elected police commissioners and volunteer constables will, I predict, be entirely useless. You’ll know that real change for the better is on the way when they bring back proper, genuinely local police forces which serve the public that hires them, rather than serving the politically correct Establishment.

30 July 2010 9:58 AM

Something for the weekend - my latest rebuttal of the Storke Fallacy, for those interested

I'll respond to Mr Storke by interleaving my replies with his contribution.

Mr Storke: ‘Mr Hitchens amazingly asks: “Why do left-wingers still act and talk as if they were bold rebels, when in fact their ideas are the conventional wisdom of the governing elite and the academy?” Are you serious?’

My response: Mr Storke must learn to treat his opponents with basic respect. Of course I am serious. I have never been more so. I believe Mr Storke is serious, too, which is why I am devoting so much of my week to rebutting his arguments. Mr Storke should recognise that other people may differ from him, instead of falling into a sort of fainting fit when he encounters an opponent who doesn't share his world view.

Mr Storke: ‘Left-wing ideas are not conventional wisdom in our prison policy.’

Me: That is Mr Storke's *opinion*. It is not an established fact. If he would only read my book, especially the essay on Wormwood Scrubs, he would be able to argue this matter effectively. As it is, he will not make the effort to understand my position, which I am making to understand his.

Now, why might this opinion be incorrect? First, who runs the prisons, makes their rules, decides what their purpose is? Why, it is an agency under the control of government which has for almost 60 years been controlled by social democrats and social liberals of three major parties, who believe (like Mr Hari and Mr Storke) that crime is a symptom of 'social diseases' such as bad housing, poverty, the class system etc.

Secondly, what is the ethos of the prisons system? Does it believe that prisons should be punitive, as conservatives do?

How can it? It would be wholly inconsistent of it to do so. It does not believe that crime is the result of wilful wrongdoing (as the old Prison Commissioners did before the modern era). So how could punishment, or deterrence, be morally justified in its view? It believes (like Mr Storke and Mr Hari) that crime is a symptom of other wrongs. If pressed on the question of punishment, it says that the deprivation of liberty in prison is the only punitive element of it. Its stated purpose is a hope that the imprisoned person may be rehabilitated - though it offers no evidence that any such thing takes place, or ever has.

The organisation of HM Prisons is based upon this ethos. Prisoners are not punished as such while they are in prison - except by their fellow-inmates. There are no imposed disciplines, no compulsory hard labour, no real uniform, no severe deprivation of pleasures. On the contrary, the authorities turn a blind eye to the sale of stupefying drugs, and to the presence of illegal mobile phones, as well as permitting phone links with the outside world, lightly-supervised and frequent visits, TVs and other entertainments. In most cases, the sentences served are so short in practice that the deprivation of liberty is a minor inconvenience.

This was once a respectable view, that is, it was respectable before it was tried in modern Britain. Now it is plainly not working. It is not frightening convicted criminals into staying out of prison, nor is it deterring potential criminals from embarking on criminal careers. Nor is it rehabilitating anyone. This is either because rehabilitation of habitual and incorrigible criminals (virtually the only people in prison apart from the deranged) is impossible. Or it may be because it is too difficult and expensive. I tend to the former view, but am prepared to accept the possibility that the second may be correct, if only because it has never been tried and therefore has never been disproved.

The conservative (indeed, the intelligent and constructive) response to this situation would be to accept that the liberal approach has failed, and to reinstate prison's original punitive nature. The liberal response is to keep the prisons for outward show, while continuing to eviscerate the penal system. Wormwood Scrubs, with its grim, penal exterior and its much more relaxed and liberal interior, is a good metaphor for this.

Interestingly, the liberal establishment hires a state-employed inspector of prisons to call, in a series of reports which never address the fundamental problem, for even more liberal approaches. This is because the liberal state maintains prison buildings (as it orders its judges to pass fictional sentences, only half of which will ever be served, at most) only as a sop to the voters. It would much rather not have prisons, or any punitive elements in the system, at all. Its tender conscience rebels at the idea of incarcerating, let alone executing, another human being. But it lacks the political courage to try this on the electorate, hence the absurd arrangement at the moment under which people who don't believe in punishment operate a system which was physically designed to punish, and is no longer allowed even to make moral judgements. One other result of this is that police have become neutral mediators between 'victims' and 'offenders', who are morally equal in the eyes of the law - so much so that a 'victim' who defends himself on the assumption that he has a moral right to do so is treated very harshly indeed.

So it would perhaps be more correct to say that we have a prison system which still has the outward form of a conservative punitive system, but whose actual internal workings and purpose are entirely the work of liberal world-reformers.

Mr Storke again: ’If left-wing ideas are directing our prison policies why is it that The Adult Learning Inspectorate found fewer than 8 percent of prisoners are taught to read and then given meaningful work that could lead to a job on the outside?’

Me: Sigh. One more time. Because left-wing ideas are also directing our schools, which regard effective teaching methods as 'authoritarian' and refuse to use them, resulting in widespread illiteracy. And because undisciplined and disorderly prisons, full of serial offenders on short sentences, are far from ideal places for remedial schooling.

Mr Storke again: ’Worse, one third of prisoners are released to ‘No Fixed Abode’.

As Johann Hari writes, “If we send prisoners back out homeless and illiterate, what do we expect will happen?”

Me: This is a confusion. Prisoners have 'no fixed abode' presumably because they have lost their former abodes while in prison. Does Mr Storke want them rushed to the top of the council waiting list? Does he want their rent paid by the law-abiding while they are locked up? Or what? Plenty of people with small incomes struggle to find places to live and don't commit crimes. Many of them are presumably illiterate, given the prevalence of illiteracy in our population (a problem whose cause Mr Storke has consistently ignored throughout this whole long discussion). But Mr Storke unintentionally raises a different question. If prisons are significantly more comfortable than life on the outside, people will not make much effort to stay out of them. The kind of prisons I envisage would not generally see any of their inmates twice. They would much rather live honestly in a homeless hostel than return.

Mr Storke: ‘If left-wing ideas were the “conventional wisdom” of the elite, Mr Hitchens, then we would not be locking up mentally-ill people without treatment,’

Me: Here we go again, the blank refusal to respond to my repeated point that the use of the word 'mentally-ill' without specifying what he means is obfuscation. I imagine Mr Storke is a victim of the syllogism which says that anyone who does bad things is mentally ill because he does bad things, and does bad things because he is mentally ill. Alas, I cannot accept this logic myself because (as I keep trying to point out) our chief difference is that I believe that people are responsible for their actions and he doesn't.

But, leaving that aside, I have no doubt that 'mentally-ill' people are indeed 'treated' in prison with the drugs which our medical system so readily hands out on the thinnest excuse. What other 'treatment' is available for these subjective complaints, I do not know.

Mr Storke: ‘…offering literacy training to fewer than 8 per cent of prisoners, (despite the fact 60 per cent have a reading age lower than a six-year-old)’

Me: I imagine this has something to do with the practicalities I mention above.

Mr Storke: ‘…refusing to fund rehabilitation projects, (such as the Open Book Project, and the drug rehabilitation projects which Cheshire Drug Squad tried with such excellent effectiveness in the 1980's,)’

Me: Hang on. Weren't these projects publicly funded? And when, please, are we going to get the details of this amazing Cheshire Drug Squad triumph, which I have asked for again and again, and am never given?

Mr Storke: ‘…and closing down 100 drug rehab centres in one year alone (as Mr Hari reported we did in 2009).’

Me: Perhaps they weren't working. I'd need the details.

Mr Storke: ’If left-wing ideas were ‘conventional wisdom’ we would, by now, have tried Switzerland's policies on drugs,’

Me: Not necessarily. But it seems to me that our own legal system's refusal to prosecute, let alone punish people for possessing illegal drugs, and the whole trend of British drugs policy since Baroness Wootton's defeatist report of 1968, has been very similar to the Swiss policy. Has Mr Storke never heard of the Methadone programme? Can he give me a recent instance of a heroin user being prosecuted for possession, and given any sort of punishment?

Mr Storke: ’…and Denmark's policies of rehabilitation and education for prisoners.’

Me: I have now pointed out three times that Denmark, a very wealthy, tiny country entirely different from ours, is a poor comparison. I have also repeatedly asked for details of its alleged successes, which Mr Storke has never supplied. This is the last time I shall bother to respond to him on this topic, at all, unless he provides the evidence to back up his extravagant claims.

Mr Storke: ’We have done neither. All we have done is lock more people in dank, squalid, overcrowded dumps, severed by distance from any contact with relatives, denied any education, or treatment, and released back onto the streets, homeless and illiterate, and worse than they were when they went to jail.’

Me: This is simply, straightforwardly not true of the drug abusers Mr Storke is talking about. (It is only partially true of the treatment of convicted habitual criminals, the main occupants of our prisons, as qualified by what I have written above, and by the prisons chapter in my book, which I urge Mr Storke to read.) This country's treatment of illegal drug users, who are generally treated as in need of treatment rather than of punishment, is utterly different from what Mr Storke describes, and he knows it.

Mr Storke: ’If prison policy is governed by left-wing ideas, how is that the Howard League for Penal Reform found, when it visited child prisoners at Deerbolt Young Offenders Institute, that, although over 60 per cent of these kids could not write their own name, 50 per cent of them there were getting no schooling whatsoever. And that is how we try to turn around the lives of child criminals? No wonder we have such high reoffending rates among adults.’

Me: Because this is what happens when left-wing ideas dominate a country. Because left-wing ideas are based on several fundamental misapprehensions about human nature. And because this ends in chaos and pathos of this kind. Always has, always will. That's why. But I would also mention that the Howard League is not exactly a neutral observer, and that Mr Storke's use of the word 'child' to describe the hulking, feral louts who generally populate YoIs is disingenuous.

Mr Storke: ’Mr Hari reports over 50 per cent of male prisoners lose touch with their families because, due to prison overcrowding, over 5000 prisoners are kept in jails more than six hours from relatives, and many can’t afford the journey. Yet figures show those prisoners who can stay in touch with their families (so they are not released back into life, alone and bereft of contact with their children or relatives) are 20 per cent less likely to reoffend.’

Me: Perhaps. I'd like to see these 'figures', which (if they are like most of Mr Storke's research) might mean something else entirely. But some points arise. The prisons are overcrowded because they aren't frightening enough, and too many people are ready to risk being sent to them. Prisoners are not there because they've behaved responsibly towards their families, or anyone else. Perhaps they should have thought about their family life before they committed the crimes that put them there.

Mr Storke: ’Mr Hitchens continues to dispute the Zurich research.’

Me: No, I don't. This is a perfect example of how Mr Storke doesn't pay attention. I haven't *seen* the accursed Zurich research. So far as I can tell, Mr Storke hasn't seen it either, just partisan reports of it.

Mr Storke: ’I am afraid the facts demolish Mr Hitchens’ position.’

Me: No, they don't. Mr Storke (who loves to use words like 'demolish’ rather than to address the points I raise) has yet to realise that if the Zurich project had completely ended the use of illegal heroin in that city (which I doubt) I would still oppose it. I think the possession of heroin is a crime to punished, not a desire to be subsidised at the expense of the law-abiding. I think that if heroin users were locked up for their crimes, we would have very few of them.

Mr Storke: ’Heroin abuse did not just fall by 4 per cent, Mr Hitchens. It fell by 4 per cent EACH YEAR.’

Me: I know. I know because it was I who produced this figure, which Mr Storke had unaccountably omitted from his version of the 'Independent 'story. He hasn't explained why. And now he has the nerve to wave this fact about as if I am suppressing or ignoring it. What larks.

Mr Storke: ’It has now fallen by 82 per cent. In Zurich alone, the number of addicts dropped from 850 when the scheme began, to just 150, by 2002.’

Me: But what is it that has actually fallen? The fact is that the policy (as again described in a sentence omitted from Mr Storke's version and supplied by me) means that these heroin users are now taking an alternative stupefying drug all the time, paid for at a rate of £33 a day per head, by the taxpayers of Switzerland. To say they are no longer 'heroin addicts' may be technically correct, but it is not really the truth about their lives.

The filthy crime of drug-abuse has not stopped. It has instead become a nationalised industry.

Mr Storke: ’Mr Hitchens says there has only been a significant fall in new users of drugs. But these are the people the policy is aimed at. The purpose of this policy, like the purpose of deterrence, (which Mr Hitchens likes so much) is not just to help existing users but, most importantly, to prevent potential drug users taking up drugs.’

Me: But I do not think it is doing so. They are just using legal drugs given to them by the state. Deterrence would not have this effect.

Mr Storke: ’Like the purpose of deterrence is not just its effect on existing criminals, but on potential criminals, too. In this respect, it has been a roaring success, with an 82 per cent overall reduction in new users, and a massive ‘de-glamourisation’ of the drug among teens and young people (who are the group most vulnerable to experimentation with drugs).’

Me: See above.

Mr Storke: ’Mr Hitchens chose to ignore the crucial quotes from the report's authors, that the drug policy also led to a decline in crime, and drug-related deaths (whereas Britain, which does not have the Swiss policy, has the highest rate of drug-related deaths in Europe).’

Me: Sorry about that. I was at least busy answering Mr Storke's other questions, though he never answers any of mine. Well, if you ‘avoid crime’ by paying criminals to commit crime, using money squeezed out of honest hardworking folk in taxes, then it seems to me that you have made the state an accomplice to crime, so that the taxman robs us all on behalf of the criminal heroin user. The arrangement of ‘Subsidise disgusting workshy self-indulgent behaviour, or face having your home broken into by wild-eyed junkies’ seems to me to be fundamentally wrong, on a moral level with a protection racket or a blackmail demand. Even Mr Storke, I imagine, would oppose a scheme for paying would-be Bernie Madoffs millions of pounds in taxpayers' money, in return for them restraining themselves from robbing their clients. But the principle is the same. And I am against it, on principle.

Mr Storke: ‘But another fact (sorry, but this is again from a Johann Hari article) shows the Swiss burglary rate has also fallen by 70 per cent since they tried this approach (see the excellent Hari article Crime Problem?: Just Lock ‘Em In The Lavatory).’

Me: Source again, please? And see above, anyway.

Mr Storke: ’Mr Hitchens complains that I ask him to check sources with Mr Hari. I do this, because Mr Hari won’t reply to my emails,’

Me: Has Mr Storke actually asked Mr Hari to help him? And has Mr Hari actually refused, or ignored him? If so, I shall have something to say about that. If it is just a case of Mr Storke being too overcome with admiration for his hero to dare to approach him, then I urge him to try. Mr Hari, in my experience, is not puffed up or grand.

Mr Storke: ’…but, as a respected journalist, he would reply to yours.’

Me: I am touched by his faith. Perhaps so, but perhaps not. Anyway, if Mr Storke is not ready to do his own research, I'm not really ready to nursemaid him. I try to be fair to opponents, but there are limits to my generosity. As for Mr Hari's willingness to reply to me, some people like to debate with their readers. Others don't. I myself found it impossible to handle my e-mails, in the days when I published an address. I tried, but it was just too much.

Mr Storke: ’I also do this, because Mr Hitchens questions the Denmark statistics. Yet Mr Hari has quoted them in three separate articles. So, if you won’t believe them, are you saying he made it up?’

Me: No. I just make it a rule to read research before employing it in an argument.

The rest of Mr Storke's post seems to me to go round and round an old circuit, and I haven't time to rehearse my replies to his elderly and much-used points.

28 July 2010 4:14 PM

Defeated or not? Mr Storke fights back

Jason Storke continues to insist that he has in some way triumphed in the debate over his liberal beliefs on crime and punishment. Very well then. I shall continue to point out that he has, on any reasonable terms, been defeated.

I doubt if we can settle this matter here to his satisfaction, because his idea of the rules of debate is fundamentally different from mine (see below).

But for the benefit of those third parties who have followed this discussion, my account of the debate so far is as follows. Mr Storke initially arrived here full of enthusiasm for a highly partisan article by the ultra-liberal commentator Johann Hari, in an unpopular tabloid newspaper. He was clearly pleased, as people with strong views often are, to see his opinions confirmed by a national newspaper commentator. Good for him. But he then went on to brandish Mr Hari's article at me as if it were some kind of proof that the conservative approach to crime was mistaken.

As well as making various overblown and unsubstantiated claims about crime reduction, drug reduction and rehabilitation in Switzerland (for which he has subsequently provided a sort of source, see below) and Denmark, (for which he has provided no source at all) he suggested that a liberal document by Professor David James on mental illness in prison somehow proved that rehabilitation worked.

I obtained the document and studied it, but so far as I could see it did nothing of the kind. Rather than acknowledge this, Mr Storke has simply shifted his ground. This is notable in one whose debating technique is so swaggeringly confident. For instance, Mr Storke: ’If you are genuinely interested in the subject of crime and reoffending rates, and you would like to read the research on Professor David James/Denmark etc, which proves you wrong’ (11th July, 8.05 pm, comment on 'Not all that Cordiale an Entente’).

As I note above, Professor James's work does not 'prove me wrong' and has nothing to do with Denmark, as I assumed it would because of Mr Storke's super-confident tone and his linkage of the two.

He has also, irritatingly, told me that I should go chasing after Mr Hari to ask him for his sources. That is not my job in this debate. I think Mr Hari is an entertaining and thought-stimulating columnist, but one whose political, moral and cultural views are utterly different from mine. I think the only proof of the correctness of his view or mine would lie in the consequences of his theories for society, set against the consequences of mine. Even then, perhaps Mr Hari and Mr Storke would rather not pay the price for peace and order which I am prepared to pay. Since, alas, Mr Hari is far closer to the establishment than I am (why do left-wingers still act and talk as if they were bold rebels, when in fact their ideas are the conventional wisdom of the governing elite and the academy?) it is going to be some time before my theories can be demonstrated in practice.

And here's a paradox for the thoughtful. The prisons Mr Hari purports to loathe are entirely the product of his theories and opinions, not of mine. The seething moral and educational dump in which we live, in which seriously mentally confused people are crammed into prisons because there is nowhere else for them to go, and in which millions of people cannot read or write after 11 years of full-time education, is the direct result of the vigorous application of leftist theories of schooling and mental health, not to mention their destructive policies on illegal drugs. Mr Storke is rightly angry about the state of the prisons and the poor education of the people. And so is Mr Hari. But both somehow mistake them for arguments against conservatism, when they are in fact the exact opposite.

But if Mr Storke wants to use Mr Hari as his principal ally, and to borrow his arguments, then it is up to him, not me, to help us all find the original documents on which he relies, or upon which Mr Hari relies. My increasing worry is that Mr Storke, filled as he is with the righteous passion of the progressive reformer, may not actually have read the stuff he is pressing so keenly on me.

If I source anything in this discussion, it will generally be my book on the subject, 'A Brief History of Crime', available through any decent library. But if I source anything else, I shall certainly see it as my duty to say where it can be found. Mr Storke must accept that he is the one making his case. If he has read the sources to which he refers (and has he?) then he should be able to tell us where we can do the same.

Mr Storke has, despite repeated pleas to separate facts from opinion, continued to insist that the undoubted, indisputable fact that many prisoners are illiterate automatically supports his highly contentious belief that they have taken to crime because they are illiterate, which is an interesting proposition but one which I would doubt - and for which he offers no proof.

Lots of non-prisoners, you see, are illiterate too. And many criminals can read and write. See the problem here? I know Mr Storke doesn't, because he doesn't wish to - always the greatest obstacle to understanding. But I suspect others may.

He also seems unable (or more likely unwilling) to see that the expression 'mentally ill' lacks objective clarity and indeed is used to refer to many wholly different states. His repeated use of it, as if it meant the same thing in all circumstances, makes it very hard to dispute with him.

He also employs it without any scepticism about the claims of convicted criminals to be 'mentally ill' (and the convenient acceptance of these claims by liberal prison authorities, whose purpose the definition also serves).

Then comes the issue of Zurich and the great heroin experiment. Mr Storke pressed upon me a Lancet article which he alleged showed various things. I'll repeat here what I wrote in response to Mr Storke about this paper:

I said: ‘The Lancet article on drug use in Switzerland, on which Mr Storke relies so heavily, is not in fact available freely, but must be paid for. Has Mr Storke paid for and read it?’

All I can reach is the authors' summary, unless I am prepared to spend quite a large sum to buy the whole thing.

It does not seem to me to justify Mr Storke's claims, made for the research, which are: ‘The facts from Switzerland prove drug rehabilitation reduces crime, which blows Mr Hitchens’ arguments out of the water. Drug rehab was tremendously unpopular when first introduced in Switzerland, but is hugely popular now, due to the amazing effect it has had on crime.’

Here is the summary. Perhaps Mr Storke could point to the words in it which support his claim?

'Switzerland has been criticised for its liberal drug policy, which could attract new users and lengthen periods of heroin addiction. We sought to estimate incidence trends and prevalence of problem heroin use in Switzerland.

Methods

We obtained information about first year of regular heroin use from the case register of substitution treatments in the canton of Zurich for 7256 patients (76% of those treated between 1991 and March, 2005). We estimated the proportion of heroin users not yet in substitution treatment programmes using the conditional lag-time distribution. Cessation rate was the proportion of individuals leaving substitution treatment programmes and not re-entering within the subsequent 10 years. Overall prevalence of problematic heroin use was modelled as a function of incidence and cessation rate.

Findings

Every second person began their first substitution treatment within 2 years of starting to use heroin regularly. Incidence of heroin use rose steeply, starting with about 80 people in 1975, culminating in 1990 with 850 new users, and declining substantially to about 150 users in 2002. Two-thirds of those who had left substitution treatment programmes re-entered within the next 10 years. The population of problematic heroin users declined by 4 per cent a year. The cessation rate in Switzerland was low, and therefore, the prevalence rate declined slowly. Our prevalence model accords with data generated by different approaches.

Interpretation

The harm reduction policy of Switzerland and its emphasis on the medicalisation of the heroin problem seems to have contributed to the image of heroin as unattractive for young people. Our model could enable the study of incidence trends across different countries and thus urgently needed assessments of the effect of different drug policies.’

I concluded (and I repeat) that this does not seem to me to confirm Mr Storke's assertions.

In fact, I should say there was much in it that didn't. I also wanted to know if Mr Storke had spent the approximately £20 sterling necessary to read the full article. He wrote as if he had read it. He didn't reply to this question, instead quoting at length from an article in 'The Independent', a newspaper by no means committed to moral and social conservatism.

Here (for new readers) is Mr Storke's response to my querying of the source:

No, he does not provide the source, or quote directly from it, nor does he confirm that he has read the original document on which he bases his confidence.

No, he produces an account of the report, sympathetic to his own point of view.

Mr Storke: ’Let me first nail this, by giving him the report's findings, as quoted in the lead story of the Independent, in 2006 “Heroin: The Solution?”

‘The UK should follow the example of Zurich, which adopted a liberal drug policy a decade ago, and has seen an 82 per cent decline in new users of heroin, experts say.

‘The new approach has medicalised drug use and removed its glamour, researchers say.

‘Crime and deaths linked with drugs have fallen, and the image of heroin use has been transformed from one of rebellion to an illness.

‘It quotes the report's author:

‘ “Finally, heroin seems to have become a loser drug, with its attractiveness fading for young people,” said Carlos Nordt of the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich.

‘The Lancet, which publishes the research today, accuses the Government of resisting reforms such as the introduction of drug consumption rooms - safe injecting houses for addicts - which are contributing to Britain's death rate from illegal drug use, which is the highest in Europe.

‘An 82% decline?

‘The de-glamourisation of the drug among teens, as a result of its medicalisation and treatment?

‘A rapid decline in crime and drug-related deaths, and drug abuse?

‘Those facts appear to conclusively demolish Mr Hitchens’ arguments that it is punishment, not rehabilitation, which drug users need, if we are to reduce crime.’

So, far from providing the full data, or even comparing his account with the Lancet summary I quoted, Mr Storke's response to my request for the full source is to hurl at me another partisan news report, from a newspaper whose Sunday stable mate once actually called for the decriminalisation of cannabis (a call it has since rescinded, not least because of the growing evidence of links between that drug and mental illness).

Now, Mr Storke seems to have left out of his account of the story the following words, which appear in the original 'Independent' article.

‘The change has been achieved by offering drug addicts in Switzerland ‘substitution’ treatment with injectable heroin on prescription, as well as oral methadone, needle exchange and “shooting galleries” where they can give themselves their fix.’

Or this passage:

‘The overall number of heroin addicts in the city has declined by 4 percent a year, even though the average length of time each user spends on the drug has increased.’

I don't know why he left these out. But it would appear that the 'treatment' involves giving heroin 'addicts' free supplies of this formerly illegal drug - the assumption apparently being that doing so (I'm told this costs in the region of £33 a day) will keep them from committing crime - a form of blackmail/appeasement whose moral implications strike me as suspect.

Then again, the alleged huge drop of which so much is made is not in heroin abuse as such, but in the numbers of *new* abusers. Overall use has declined by the statistically tiny number of 4 per cent, and users are spending longer 'on' the drug than before.

This seems to me at least to suggest that the simple story put out by Mr Storke (and his media allies) is far more complex in reality. I'd add that this action followed the disastrous liberal 'Needle Park' experiment, during which a lawless zone was set up in which heroin abusers were free to take their poison without restraint. You can see why most people would be glad of anything rather than that. My view, that a straightforward punitive approach would have been far better for all involved, has plainly not been tried - not because it wouldn't work (it would) but because the authorities do not have the moral courage to apply it. This is the real argument between those who view some acts as wrong, and those who excuse them.k

27 July 2010 8:59 AM

‘Tell that to the Nudists’

In reply to the contributor whose response this was to my view that we couldn't tell people what to wear, the answer is simple. A law which says that nakedness should be concealed by a garment (or that going naked in a public place is illegal, I'm not sure of the law) is quite different from a law which defines exactly what that garment may or may not be.

In one case, the issue is that public nakedness is assumed by the law to be wrong on grounds of decency. This deals with the widely-accepted and in many cases instinctively-felt view that some parts of the human body are private and should remain so. It does not, so far as I know, specify how the covering should be done, but that it should be done. As so often, two things which appear to be similar or the same are actually quite different.

In the other the proposed burka ban is saying what garment may or may not be worn. Nor does it concern the private parts of the body, a concept which varies from culture to culture but in no case includes the human face as such (or Muslim men would be covering their faces too, see below). Presumably any modern anti-burka law would have to ban men and women from wearing it, to avoid anti-discrimination legislation.

There are other differences. A law which requires concealment of what are generally known as 'private parts' is different in type from a law compelling the display of the female face (though I do wonder what this debate would be like if Muslim males were required to wear face-coverings, or believed they were, and began to do so in large numbers).

The fact remains that a free state, such as ours has been, would be in serious danger of violating its own principles if it sought to legislate in this way. There's the other point, that such a law would be very hard to enforce. Use your imagination.k

Those Americans

Henry Rand says: ‘Suez was a very big military success.’ Alas, it wasn't. There was much bravery, but a lot of mess, and key objectives were not taken when they should have been. Egyptian resistance was also often more effective than expected. This is a widespread myth we tell ourselves to compensate for the diplomatic disaster. I recommend everyone interested to read the account of the whole affair by Keith Kyle in his superb book ’Suez: Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East’.

But I really can't accept the views of some people who blame the Americans for what they did to the British Empire, or attribute this to some sort of personal anti-British prejudice on the part of FDR (which I never suggested). Nor do I in any way deny that lots of Americans like us British.

It is just that the interests of the two countries are sharply different, and were most strongly different during the first 60 years of the 20th Century, when propaganda history - of the 'Finest Hour' - sort maintains we were close friends. On the contrary, we were rivals.

Admiral Mahan's great book on sea power is often taken as a compliment to the Royal Navy - and so it was, but it was rather more than that. Admiral Mahan, an Irish-American serving in the USN, also understood that the US, if it wished to emulate Britain and become a great power, needed a big Navy of its own. And who would be the greatest loser if another power dominated the oceans of the world?

Theodore Roosevelt's 'Great White Fleet' was the first stage in this. It still amazes me that most people know far more about Tirpitz's doomed and short-lived German High Sea Fleet, which failed in its idiotic purpose and was uselessly scuttled in the end. It was Teddy Roosevelt's big USN, and Woodrow Wilson's 1916 'Big Navy Act', which modernised Teddy Roosevelt's fleet and expanded it, that really threatened British sea power - as we would discover during the negotiations for the Washington Naval Treaty.

This was, in a way, the equivalent of what Ronald Reagan did to Mikhail Gorbachev over 'Star Wars'. The Americans secured the treaty of limitation (discussed here some weeks ago) by simply threatening to outbuild us - and so bankrupt us - if we did not do as asked. Or rather as told. Financially ruined by the 1914-18 war, we dared not defy them.

By the way, the behaviour of the US 6th fleet during the Suez episode (alluded to in Keith Kyle's book) is one of the most fascinating episodes in the history of our two nations. British officers believed that the USN was deliberately harassing and obstructing them as they headed towards the invasion. This is as near as the two countries have come to an armed clash in the 20th century, but a misjudgement by either side could have been very problematic.k

Lobotomised by Johann Hari?

'Dom B' (is this an anonymous monk?) writes: ’This is more like it! More of you please Peter, and less of Mr Storke and his lobotomising Johann Hari regurgitations.’ Sorry, but this is how it works. My column, in the Mail on Sunday, advertises this blog as a place where people are invited to 'debate with Peter Hitchens'. The column itself (which is posted here late on Saturday or early on Sunday, and always carries a note explaining that it is my column) is my weekly summing up of five or six, sometimes fewer, sometimes more, issues on which I feel moved to write. I do not know what people will want to debate. But when they do, I will usually do so until the issue is satisfactorily resolved.

What 'Dom B' lauds with the words 'this is more like it' is the MoS column, which I urge him to read in the MoS itself, along with all the other good things there. This blog couldn't exist without it. But I would say that my column is better than it otherwise would be and my understanding of the world is likewise better, thanks to the sharpening and refining of my arguments which results from these debates. I think others can also benefit from these discussions. In fact I believe the defeat of Mr Storke here has been quite instructive, not least in the need to check sources before citing them.

But if I am challenged by someone like Mr Storke, it is educational for all of us, including me, to take up that challenge. And I will continue to do so.

If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down.

July 27, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Share this article:

• Digg it
• Del.icio.us
• Reddit
• Newsvine
• Nowpublic
• StumbleUpon
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Fark

Mr Wooderson and Freedom of Speech

There's also the case of Joshua Wooderson, and his strangely muted response to Nicholas Humphrey's call for the censorship of religious education. I referred to this because a contributor 'Iain', alleged that atheists wanted ‘only’ schools to be stopped from teaching Christianity as truth.

I wrote in response: ’If he will turn to pages 152-3 of the British edition of my book 'The Rage Against God' he will find there particularly the remarks published on RichardDawkins.net on 15th May 2006, much approved of by the Professor, of ‘The Mind Made Flesh’ a chapter from 'What Shall we tell the Children’ by Nicholas Humphrey. These can also easily be Googled. I think he will find there, clearly expressed, a call for censorship of the education of children *at home*. I hope he finds it as shocking as I did.’ [NB, I do urge readers to look at this passage.]

Mr Wooderson, rather than actually dealing with the substantive point, then implied that I had said or implied (which I hadn't) that *all* atheists took this view, and continued (irrelevantly): ‘This makes the simple mistake of assuming that Richard Dawkins speaks for all atheists (or even most). Unlike the religious, we have no authorities. Most atheists (or even anti-theists) would probably disagree with Mr. Dawkins on this. Whatever we may think of education of children at home, it is wholly unfeasible, and scarily authoritarian, to attempt to censor what goes on there. If Mr. Hitchens does not in fact believe that Richard Dawkins is representative of atheists (maybe I've misunderstood his point), then I wonder why he bothers to mention it.’

Mr Wooderson's latest evasive post (see below) needs examination. He says yet again he can't be responsible for other atheists, which I of course completely accept. I never said or thought that he was, though he seems to have convinced himself that this is the case. But if atheists have no responsibility or care for what other atheists think or say, why has he then intervened in this discussion? And, if he rejects Nicholas Humphrey's view, which you might think would be the implication of his concern, all he needs to do is to say so clearly. But actually he won't. In fact it seems to me that he is getting less condemnatory of Nicholas Humphrey the more we discuss this.

First he said that such censorship was impractical, adding that it was 'scarily authoritarian'. I pointed out that totalitarian rulers had found ways of making such things practical (the totalitarian mind, usually that of a self-righteous liberal reformer with no thought of prisons and show-trials, is the nursery of the totalitarian state, because these people think they are so good). I jeered at him for the rather weak, teenage phraseology of his criticism - 'scarily authoritarian' seeming to me to be neither firm enough nor unequivocal enough , if the subject at issue is the freedom of speech and thought on which all liberty depends.

I also thought it interesting that he placed this objection second, after his claim that the suppression of freedom involved was impractical. Surely a lover of freedom would have been more forceful, and put his principled objections first, before the practical ones? Could it be that in fact Mr Wooderson, despite there being no Atheist common opinion, was in fact more sympathetic to the views of Nicholas Humphrey than he had at first suggested?

And so I have pressed him - and press him again here - to denounce Nicholas Humphrey's statement, unequivocally and forcefully. Will he? Mr Wooderson now says: ’What Mr. Humphrey says about the indoctrination of children seems quite sensible, even if I disagree profoundly with his proposed solution. So if my reaction to the proposal is less extreme than you'd like, Mr. Hitchens, I'm sorry, but I don't find it as offensive as you clearly do, and there are more important things to worry about. That's not to say I agree with it, though (so if you'd kindly stop saying what I do in fact believe, I'd be much obliged).’

I don't believe I've ever said what Mr Wooderson believed. He has told us, I and I have responded to his statements, in general being careful to quote from him his actual words. Or is he saying he doesn't believe what he himself says? Beats me. As for my unqualified absolute defence of the freedom of speech and thought, I note Mr Wooderson describes this position as 'extreme'. If absolute defence of freedom of speech is 'extreme', then I am an extremist. But what in that case is the centre? What does Mr Wooderson really think? Does he really, actually believe that people who disagree with him about God should have freedom of speech and thought, and particularly the freedom to teach their children their beliefs? Or doesn't he? And if his position is what I suspect it to be, then how much are all his earlier protestations about atheists all thinking differently really worth?

I am not sure. Mr Wooderson said himself on 23rd July ‘While of course free speech is a central tenet of democratic society, I don't believe it's an absolute right,‘ and then he added the following non-sequitur (as if I'd proposed censoring Mr Humphrey, which is the opposite of what I'm doing, as I'm very anxious that his words should be as widely read as possible.)

‘Certainly, I would listen to anyone advocating it to see whether their argument stood up... otherwise, free debate is rather pointless, isn't it?‘

Well, either it's pointless or it's not. If it's not pointless, there has to be free speech to permit such free debate, and if it's free it has to apply to everyone, or it's not free (which includes parents teaching the Christian faith to their children). Which makes it an absolute - not a 'right', whatever that is, just an absolute necessary condition of free debate and a free society. You either want that, or you don't. I do. That is what civilised people think, as far as I know, and when I find anyone making conditions which just happen to restrict the freedom to think and speak of people they disagree with, then I know what I'm dealing with. And I don't like it. Mr Wooderson, of course, has unlimited space in which to reply to this.

The House I Grew Up In

Some readers complain that I never give advance warning of my broadcasting appearances. I've often explained why this is - that they can be arranged - and cancelled - at the last minute. But thanks to the availability of archives, I can now mention past appearances which are still available on the web. In fact, I'm quite struck by how little attention this particular broadcast has attracted, given its contents. Perhaps that's because it's not wholly unfavourable to me. Anyway, I recently recorded a programme in the series with the self-explanatory title of 'The House I grew Up In'.

This was transmitted on 19th July, and can be found by Googling 'Peter Hitchens' and 'The House I grew Up In'. (Or you can click here.)The same search will produce the article I wrote about making the programme, which appeared in the Mail on Sunday second section on 18th July 'The Gentle Ghosts of Cedarwood'. (Or you can clickhere.)