A New Dawn for British Nationalism?

A New Dawn for British Nationalism?

Posted on May 26th, 2010 by Bob Bailey

The fall out from the recent elections has not settled. There are parallels with the Icelandic volcano and its ash cloud and the constant forecasts of new eruptions. The British Government (CONLIB) of today and political landscape is new and unpredictable. All the smaller parties were squeezed during the election but none more than UKIP which had high expectations and spent a packet on their campaign. What we did see though and dramatically was the UKIP vote heading home to bring about this coalition government of ‘dumb and dumber’ and the anti-British Brigade Pro Euro Brigade. This might well have been the last throw of the dice for UKIP. Over the coming months Cameron will be working all out to ensure that the remaining Tory vote in UKIP comes home. He will buy them off and make all his false platitudes. What will the rump vote of UKIP look like? Well still dissatisfied Tories but surely they will resemble more natural BNP supporters than Tory voters. The forgotten British patriots who heavily invested in the old Tory party but now betrayed by Dave and his left wing spineless careerist fopps.
UKIP left reeling and looking for a new approach to shore itself up have approached the English Dems and Robin Tilbrook in the hope they can provide a lifeline. Robin Tilbrook who calls himself an English Nationalist but acts like a schoolboy playing politics was allegedly offered the Deputy Chairmanship of UKIP. Like a number of decisions taken recently by the leadership of UKIP and Lord Pearson it appears there was little or no membership consultation on this approach. From what I understand a number of lead UKIP members have been outraged by this proposal. I don’t know how Robin Tilbrook feels about this intended ‘marriage’ but I should imagine some of his members would welcome the opportunity of joining UKIP and perhaps getting a chance to be elected to Europe and its ever increasing gravy train.
Well all considering the BNP faired well in the elections under Nick Griffins stewardmanship. A lot of candidates were bloodied a lot of experience gained. More branches formed and campaigns fought. Nick is a wise man and has held the good ship HMS BNP on a steady course over the years. In any party there will of course be growing pains and dissenters but none could have lead this party to the success it has recently enjoyed. Nick has worked tirelessly for British Nationalism with little reward for himself. Of course there are many who sit at home be-crying everyone else’s efforts in Nationalism but failing themselves almost in every area of taking Nationalism forward.
What we are presented with now are real opportunities which I hope the BNP will capitalise on. We need to improve the central party machine we need to fight campaigns more intelligently. There needs to be greater communication and transparency. The economic catastrophe which is unfolding will present new opportunities for the BNP and it is those we must focus on now and the way it affects ordinary British families. We need to spell out what a BNP government would do differently and the benefits which would accrue from voting BNP. The BNP in my opinion will come into its own in the next few years and we will vanquish the pretenders. Onwards and Upwards.

Oxford university undergraduates decisively reject global warming

Oxford Union Debate on Climate Catastrophe

Source:  SPPI

Army of Light and Truth 135, Forces of Darkness 110

For what is believed to be the first time ever in England, an audience of university undergraduates has decisively rejected the notion that “global warming” is or could become a global crisis. The only previous defeat for climate extremism among an undergraduate audience was at St. Andrew’s University, Scotland, in the spring of 2009, when the climate extremists were defeated by three votes.
Last week, members of the historic Oxford Union Society, the world’s premier debating society, carried the motion “That this House would put economic growth before combating climate change” by 135 votes to 110. The debate was sponsored by the Science and Public Policy Institute, Washington DC.
Serious observers are interpreting this shock result as a sign that students are now impatiently rejecting the relentless extremist propaganda taught under the guise of compulsory environmental-studies classes in British schools, confirming opinion-poll findings that the voters are no longer frightened by “global warming” scare stories, if they ever were.
When the Union’s president, Laura Winwood, announced the result in the Victorian-Gothich Gladstone Room, three peers cheered with the undergraduates, and one peer drowned his sorrows in beer.
Lord Lawson of Blaby, Margaret Thatcher’s former finance minister, opened the case for the proposition by saying that the economic proposals put forward by the UN’s climate panel and its supporters did not add up. It would be better to wait and see whether the scientists had gotten it right. It was not sensible to make expensive spending commitments, particularly at a time of great economic hardship, when the effectiveness of the spending was gravely in doubt and when it might do more harm than good.
At one point, Lord Lawson was interrupted by a US student, who demanded to know what was his connection with the Science and Public Policy Institute, and what were the Institute’s sources of funding. Lord Lawson was cheered when he said he neither knew nor cared who funded the Institute.
Ms. Zara McGlone, Secretary of the Oxford Union, opposed the motion, saying that greenhouse gases had an effect [they do, but it is very small]; that the precautionary principle required immediate action, just in case and regardless of expense [but one must also bear in mind the cost of the precautions themselves, which can and often do easily exceed the cost of inaction]; that Bangladesh was sinking beneath the waves [a recent study by Prof. Niklas Moerner shows that sea level in Bangladesh has actually fallen]; that the majority of scientists believed “global warming” was a problem [she offered no evidence for this]; and that “irreversible natural destruction” would occur if we did nothing [but she did not offer any evidence].
Mr. James Delingpole, a blogger for the leading British conservative national newspaper The Daily Telegraph, seconded the proposition, saying that – politically speaking – the climate extremists had long since lost the argument. The general public simply did not buy the scare stories any more. The endless tales of Biblical disasters peddled by the alarmist faction were an unwelcome and now fortunately failed recrudescence of dull, gray Puritanism. Instead of hand-wringing and bed-wetting, we should celebrate the considerable achievements of the human race and start having fun.
Lord Whitty, a Labor peer from the trades union movement and, until recently, Labor’s Environment Minister in the Upper House, said that the world’s oil supplies were rapidly running out [in fact, record new finds have been made in the past five years]; that we needed to change our definition of economic growth to take into account the value lost when we damaged the environment [it is artificial accounting of this kind that has left Britain as bankrupt as Greece after 13 years of Labor government]; that green jobs created by governments would help to end unemployment [but Milton Friedman won his Nobel Prize for economics by demonstrating that every artificial job created at taxpayers’ expense destroys two real jobs in the wealth-producing private sector]; that humans were the cause of most of the past century’s warming [there is no evidence for that: the case is built on speculation by programmers of computer models]; that temperature today was at its highest in at least 40 million years [in fact, it was higher than today by at least 12.5 F° for most of the past 550 million years]; and that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic [no one has asked them].
Lord Monckton repeatedly interrupted Lord Whitty to ask him to give a reference in the scientific literature for his suggestion that 95% of scientists believed our influence on the climate was catastrophic. Lord Whitty was unable to provide the source for his figure, but said that everyone knew it was true. Under further pressure from Lord Monckton, Lord Whitty conceded that the figure should perhaps be 92%. Lord Monckton asked: “And your reference is?” Lord Whitty was unable to reply. Hon. Members began to join in, jeering “Your reference? Your reference?” Lord Whitty sat down looking baffled.
Lord Leach of Fairford, whom Margaret Thatcher appointed a Life Peer for his educational work, spoke third for the proposition. He said that we no longer knew whether or not there had been much “global warming” over the 20^th century, because the Climategate emails had exposed the terrestrial temperature records as defective. In any event, he said, throwing good money after bad on various alternative-energy boondoggles was unlikely to prove profitable in the long term and would ultimately do harm.
Mr. Rajesh Makwana, executive director of “Share The World’s Resources”, speaking third for the opposition, said that climate change was manmade [but he did not produce any evidence for that assertion]; that CO2 emissions were growing at 3% a year [but it is concentrations, not emissions, that may in theory affect climate, and concentrations are rising at a harmless 0.5% a year]; that the UN’s climate panel had forecast a 7 F° “global warming” for the 21^st century [it’s gotten off to a bad start, with a cooling of 0.2 F° so far]; and that the consequences of “global warming” would be dire [yet, in the audience, sat Mr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, whose landmark paper of 2008 had established that not one of 539 scientific papers on “global climate change” provided any evidence whatsoever that “global warming” would be catastrophic].
Lord Monckton, a former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the UK, concluded the case for the proposition. He drew immediate laughter and cheers when he described himself as “Christopher Walter, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, scholar, philanthropist, wit, man about town, and former chairman of the Wines and Spirits Committee of this honourable Society”. At that point his cummerbund came undone. He held it up to the audience and said, “If I asked this House how long this cummerbund is, you might telephone around all the manufacturers and ask them how many cummerbunds they made, and how long each type of cummerbund was, and put the data into a computer model run by a zitty teenager eating too many doughnuts, and the computer would make an expensive guess. Or you could take a tape-measure and” – glaring at the opposition across the despatch-box – “measure it!” [cheers].
Lord Monckton said that real-world measurements, as opposed to models, showed that the warming effect of CO2 was a tiny fraction of the estimates peddled by the UN’s climate panel. He said that he would take his lead from Lord Lawson, however, in concentrating on the economics rather than the science. He glared at the opposition again and demanded whether, since they had declared themselves to be so worried about “global warming”, they would care to tell him – to two places of decimals and one standard deviation – the UN’s central estimate of the “global warming” that might result from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration. The opposition were unable to reply. Lord Monckton told them the answer was 3.26 plus or minus 0.69 Kelvin or Celsius degrees. An Hon. Member interrupted: “And your reference is?” Lord Monckton replied: “IPCC, 2007, chapter 10, box 10.2.” [cheers]. He concluded that shutting down the entire global economy for a whole year, with all the death, destruction, disaster, disease and distress that that would cause, would forestall just 4.7 ln(390/388) = 0.024 Kelvin or Celsius degrees of “global warming”, so that total economic shutdown for 41 years would prevent just 1 K of warming. Adaptation as and if necessary would be orders of magnitude cheaper and more cost-effective.
Mr. Mike Mason, founder and managing director of “Climate Care”, concluded for the opposition. He said that the proposition were peculiar people, and that Lord Monckton was more peculiar than most, in that he was not a real Lord. Lord Monckton, on a point of order, told Mr. Mason that the proposition had avoided personalities and that if Mr. Mason were unable to argue other than ad hominem he should “get out”. [cheers] Mr. Mason then said that we had to prepare for climate risks [yes, in both directions, towards cooler as well as warmer]; and that there was a “scientific consensus” [but he offered no evidence for the existence of any such consensus, still less for the notion that science is done by consensus].
The President thanked the speakers and expressed the Society’s gratitude to the Science and Public Policy Institute for sponsoring the debate. Hon. Members filed out of the Debating Chamber, built to resemble the interior of the House of Commons, and passed either side of the brass division-pole at the main door – Ayes to the right 135, Noes to the left 110. Motion carried.
 None Dare Call It Conspiracy 
The Greening the Environmentalists Drive for Global Power, 
Call It Conspiracy 
The Greening 

Motorist told flag could be racist

If promoting England is offensive to Migrants than please leave to somewhere that doesn’t offend you or don't come in the first place! Personally we find this police officers demand very offensive!

Motorist told flag could be racist

A Teenage motorist was told to remove an England flag from his car by a police officer because it could be offensive to immigrants.

Ben Smith, 18, was driving back home to Ingram Road in Melksham on Thursday evening after filling up with petrol, when the officer stopped him on a routine patrol.

He checked the tax disc and tyres on his Vauxhall Corsa but when he noticed the flag of St George on the parcel shelf he told Mr Smith to take it down.

Mr Smith, who works for G Plan Upholsterers on Hampton Park West, said: "He saw the flag and said it was racist towards immigrants and if I refused to take it down I would get a £30 fine.

"I laughed because I thought he was joking, but then I realised he was serious so I had to take it down straight away. I thought it was silly - it's my country and I want to show my support for my country."

Mr Smith had recently installed new speakers in the parcel shelf of his car and wanted to cover them up so they did not get stolen.

He used the flag and laid it out flat on the shelf so it was not obscuring his view out of the rear window.

But it was only there a couple of days before he was stopped by the officer at about 9.30pm close to Melksham Enterprise Park and made to take it down.

He said he is used to getting stopped by the police because he is a young male driver and is often mistaken for a boy racer'.

But he thought it was "a bit strange" to be asked to take down the England flag when the officer found nothing else wrong with his car.

PC Dave Cooper, of Chippenham Road Policing Unit, said he had never come across an officer asking someone to remove an England flag from their car because it could be racist.

He added: "It all depends on the context of a stop. If they are going past a lot of Polish people, for instance, and abusing them, then we possibly would ask them to take the flag down."

He said there would be no police log of Mr Smith having been stopped with details of what was said to him, as there was nothing wrong with his car.

He added the officer could have been based anywhere around the county and just made an independent stop

 

The British boot stamping on the face of Christian belief

The British boot stamping on the face of Christian belief

Author Melanie Phillips http://www.melaniephillips.com/biography/Terrifying as this may seem, the attempt to stamp out Christianity in Britain appears to be gathering pace.
Dale McAlpine was preaching to shoppers in Workington, Cumbria, that homosexuality is a sin when he found himself carted off by the police, locked up in a cell for seven hours and charged with using abusive or insulting words or behaviour.
It appears that two police community support officers — at least one of whom was gay — claimed he had caused distress to themselves and members of the public.
Under our anti-discrimination laws, such distress is not to be permitted. And so we have the oppressive and sinister situation where a gentle, unaggressive Christian is arrested and charged simply for preaching Christian principles.
It would appear that Christianity, the normative faith of this country on which its morality, values and civilisation are based, is effectively being turned into a crime.
Surreally, this intolerant denial of freedom is being perpetrated under the rubric of promoting tolerance and equality — but only towards approved groups.
Never has George Orwell’s famous satirical observation, that some people are more equal than others, appeared more true.
The Cumbrian arrest comes hard on the heels of last week’s ruling by Lord Justice Laws in the case of Gary McFarlane, who was dismissed as a Relate counsellor because he refused to give advice to same-sex couples on sexual relationships.
The judge not only upheld Relate’s case against McFarlane but went even further, saying in terms that the law could provide no legal protection for Christians who wish to live according to their religious principles.
And how did he arrive at this remarkable conclusion that deprives Christians of their rights? By cherry-picking human rights law.
The judge said merely that this conferred upon believers the right to ‘hold or express’ religious views. In fact, the European Convention on Human Rights goes much further, giving people the right to manifest ‘freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ through ‘worship, teaching, practice and observance’.
Yet the judge chose not to mention this right to put religious beliefs into practice. Instead, he stated that giving legal protection to Christian beliefs was ‘deeply unprincipled’ and ‘on the way to a theocracy’.
You really do have to scratch your head at this. The protection of religious conscience is a fundamental principle of a liberal and free society.
To equate this protection with theocracy — or the imposition of religious law upon a society — displays a remarkable intellectual and moral confusion, and has resulted in a ruling that is frighteningly illiberal and intolerant.
Of course, you could say that this is merely the result of human rights law for which Parliament rather than the judges is responsible.
But the courts could interpret that same human rights law very differently. The problem is that the judges are refusing to strike a proper balance.
Instead of arbitrating fairly between competing rights by granting exemptions for religious believers from anti-religious laws, they are choosing to impose secular values and thus destroy the right to live and work on Christian principles.
What seems to have particularly offended Lord Justice Laws was the idea of protecting certain beliefs specifically because they were religious.
This was wrong, he said, because religious ideas were not applicable to the whole of society, since they existed only in the hearts of religious believers.
He thus appeared, totally, to miss the point — that freedom of conscience is supposedly a right for all, including minorities. It would seem that either a tin ear or, worse, an animosity towards religion drives all before it.
This was what caused the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, to protest in a statement to the court that judges were effectively damning Christianity itself as discriminatory and, therefore, bigoted.
He was so alarmed by the apparent secular prejudice of the judiciary that he suggested the establishment of a special court to deal with cases of religious discrimination composed of judges with some understanding of religious issues.
As if to prove his point, Lord Justice Laws dismissed all his arguments out of hand with the patronising observation that Lord Carey had not understood the law.
On the contrary, it is surely Lord Justice Laws who does not understand that he and his fellow judges are mistaking secularism for neutrality — confusing the secular onslaught upon religion with the need to hold the ring between competing beliefs.
There is a long and growing list of British Christians who have been harassed by the police, sacked or otherwise fallen foul of authority simply for upholding their religious beliefs.
Pensioners have found the police on their doorstep accusing them of ‘hate crime’ for objecting to their council about a gay pride march or merely asking if they could distribute Christian leaflets alongside the gay rights literature.
A preacher who went around with a placard denouncing homosexuality was prosecuted even though he was the victim of an assault by onlookers who threw soil and water over him.
In the field of employment, Christians have been suspended or sacked for refusing to officiate at civil partnership ceremonies or place children for adoption with gay couples and for wearing a cross or praying with patients for their recovery.
Many of these cases involve the issue of homosexuality since this is the principal area where orthodox Christian beliefs cannot co-exist with the law.
This is in contrast to other contentious issues such as abortion, where the law specifically provides exemptions for conscience.
This is because unlike the specific and limited issue of abortion, the militant gay rights agenda represents an attack on the entire value system of our society by destroying the very idea that any sexual behaviour is normal.
Anyone who says homosexuality is not normal is, therefore, thrown to the wolves as a bigot.
This is what recently happened to the then Conservative parliamentary candidate Philip Lardner.
He said churches should not be forced to have practising homosexual clergy and Christians should not be penalised for politely saying that homosexuality is ‘wrong’.
He also said that he would always support the rights of homosexuals to be treated fairly and to live as they wanted in private, but he would not accept that their behaviour was ‘normal’ or encourage children to indulge in it.
For this expression of traditional Christian — and, indeed, liberal — values, he was not only deselected as a Tory candidate at the speed of light on the grounds that his remarks were ‘deeply offensive and unacceptable’, but suspended from his job as a primary school teacher.
As Lardner has angrily observed, it appears that Christian views are no longer acceptable within the Conservative party.
Far from their historic role in defending the bedrock values of this society, the Tories have thus put themselves on the side of the illiberal onslaught on freedom of conscience.
Of course, true prejudice and bigotry are wrong, whether towards homosexuals or anyone else.
But the decent impulse to protect the rights of gay people is very different from trying to destroy the bedrock values of our society.
Yet, that is precisely what it has become. As a result, Britain is turning from a liberal Christian country — whose liberalism is rooted in its religious tradition — into an illiberal, oppressive secular state with no room for religious conscience.
Under the camouflage of human rights, this is the way freedom dies.

British Counter Jihad: Islam Exposed 1

British Counter Jihad: Islam Exposed 1

Author: Reconquista |

The first in a series of short pieces exposing the dirty secrets about  “The Religion Of Peace” the ruling elites and duplicitous Muslims are determined to prevent the British people from discovering.

Use them whenever Islam is discussed to educate, inform and more likely, challenge Islamic apologists without needing an extensive knowledge of either the Qur’an, the ahaddith (accounts of the life of the Islamic prophet Mohammed) or Sharia Law, the legal system all Muslims must adhere to.

1. The Elusive Obvious

As the Muslim population continues to expand and flourish in Great Britain, the ruling Marxist Lab-Con-Dem elite are engaged in aiding and abetting the devout Muslims in an attempt to fool and brainwash the British people into believing that Islam is a peaceful religion; a tolerant religion; one of the three great Abrahamic religions and a religion that makes an important contribution to modern-day Multicultural Britain.

It is way past tea for these lies and deceptions to be exposed. Let us begin the series by asking a very simple question.

What is the first year on the Islamic calendar? Is it:

A) The year the Angel Gabriel is alleged to have first revealed “the immutable word of Allah” to the Islamic Prophet Mohammed?

B) Is it the year of birth of the Islamic Prophet Mohamed?

C) Is it the year of the Hijra, the year when after being rejected as a prophet by the Jews and Christians of Mecca, Mohammed and his followers fled to the city of Medina?

The correct answer is: C, the first year being 622 A.D.

Why is this significant?
On route to Medina, Mohammed again claimed to have received the word of Allah from the Angel Gabriel. These suras (chapters) of the Qur’an are referred to as “The Medina Suras” with the suras of the first revelations being “The Mecca Suras”.

The Medina suras are regarded as the more important and they abrogate the earlier verses, referred to as “naskh” in Islam. It is in the Medina suras that we find delightful little verses such as this verse “The Verse of the Sword”:
9:05 So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

and this next one, a verse that is possibly the most important verse in the Qur’an with regard to how Muslims are to treat “the people of the book”, that is, the Jews and the Christians:

9:29 Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

This is “The verse of tribute”, a verse that is responsible for the oppression of millions of Jews and Christians in many countries throughout Islamic history, a cruel oppression that continues today. This subjugation of Jews and Christians is called “Dhimmitude” with these people relegated to the level of “dhimmis”, people who are second-class citizens who must pay their Muslim masters a tax called “Jizya”.

This begs a question:
Why is the year of the Hijra to Medina, 622, so important to Muslims it was chosen by them as the first year of the Islamic calendar? In Islam, years are noted with the term: A.H. - Anno Hegirae, indicating that the year of the hijra is indeed the first year of the Islamic calendar.

British people – and people throughout the Western world – are being told to believe that Islam - a religion that has as its first year, a year where Muslims believe the Islamic deity Allah told the Islamic prophet (and the number of the verse should be noted):

9.111 Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth, through the Law, the Gospel, and the Qur'an: and who is more faithful to his covenant than Allah? Then rejoice in the bargain which ye have concluded: that is the achievement supreme.

- is a “Religion of Peace”.

I say those who make this claim are liars, deceivers, malicious charlatans who should not be allowed to spread their lies without being confronted with this fact and asked to explain it.

A challenge I now make to any of them who read this. I assert this simple fact about the first year in the Islamic calendar proves beyond doubt Islam is a violent, intolerant ideology that has no place in Great Britain or any civilised country.

Prove me wrong.

Mexican Immigrant Boycott backfires In Texas

from our USA corespondent the Alabama Rose

Mexican Immigrant Boycott backfires In Texas 


Texas is introducing tough new immigrant laws and about time, I bet! but here is a interesting States side article sent to us by our Alabama based corespondent The Alabama Rose!

More Cuts and Bruises for the NHS

More Cuts and Bruises for the NHS

 BNP News

By Mercia — It is reported that the NHS has budgeted a staggering £2 billion to fund a huge programme of redundancies as austerity measures start to bite.

The Department of Health has confirmed that NHS trusts have been instructed to allocate 2 percent of their funding to meet the costs of staff lay-offs.

Meanwhile, data gleaned from some 25 NHS trusts across the country suggest that in a worse case scenario over 30,000 jobs could go in a bid to save money.

This follows on from the recent revelation from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) that thousands of jobs would be cut within the NHS if trusts are to achieve the £15-£20 billion savings demanded of them over the next three years.

Because trust managers have been empowered to decide where the cuts will fall, it is widely feared that clinicians, rather than administrators, will bear the brunt of the cutbacks which will lead to an even poorer service for NHS patients.

In Scotland some 5,000 NHS posts are said to be at risk.

Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS trust, for instance, has been reported as planning to cut over 1,200 jobs this year — including almost 700 nurses and midwives.

Incredibly, a spokesman for the trust is on record as claiming: “By redesigning our services, including a move for some services onto fewer sites, we have identified that we can provide the same high quality care for our patients with fewer staff — 700 (fewer) in 2010–11 year, rising to 1,252 over 18 months.”

What is abundantly clear to most people is that if you cut clinical staffing levels then the standard of patient care must decline — how any NHS trust can adequately manage following the loss of around 700 nurses and midwives remains an, as yet, unexplained mystery.

Meanwhile, the silence from Westminster over the proposed scale of NHS cuts is astounding; perhaps for the reason that as the majority of parliamentarians have “gone private” the continuing deterioration of NHS services are unlikely to affect them personally.

The BNP demands the scrapping of the currently “ring-fenced” multi-billion pound foreign aid budget and the diversion of these funds into restoring the NHS back to the world-class health service it once was.

Labour 'in denial' over immigration

Labour 'in denial' over immigration

Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham said today that a failure to address concerns over immigration may have contributed to his party's General Election defeat.

The former health secretary, who earlier highlighted his "ordinary upbringing" as a way to win back disgruntled Labour supporters, claimed the party had been "in denial" about the issue.

His comments came after former Cabinet minister David Blunkett announced he was nominating Mr Burnham for the leadership, saying he believed he would "widen the field" and "provide a genuine debate".

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Burnham said: "We were in denial. We were behind the issue all the time, and myths were allowed to develop. There's still an ambivalence among some in Labour about discussing immigration. I've been accused of dog-whistle politics for doing so.

"But it was the biggest doorstep issue in constituencies where Labour lost. People aren't racist, but they say it has increased tension, stopped them getting access to housing and lowered their wages."

He also warned that the tough new expenses rules could make family life more "dysfunctional" and risked driving talented people, particularly women, away from politics.

Yesterday, the leadership candidates sought to highlight what marks them out from their rivals.

Diane Abbott played on her position as the only black or female contender, saying the other hopefuls "could have run in the 1950s".

Mr Burnham drew attention to his northern roots and "ordinary upbringing", insisting: "My background is different."

And veteran left-winger John McDonnell reiterated his call for British troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan - challenging his rivals to adopt his stance.

They were speaking as former Labour leader Lord Kinnock came out in support of Ed Miliband, telling the Observer that he had the "X-factor" needed to bring voters back to Labour.

Meanwhile, David Miliband enjoyed a massive lead among voters in a newspaper poll.

Along with former schools secretary Ed Balls, the four MPs are battling to be elected Labour leader in September.

A YouGov survey for The Sunday Times showed David Miliband has 23% support among voters but surprisingly put Ms Abbott in second place on 9%, with Ed Miliband on 8%, Mr Balls 6%, Mr Burnham 4%, and Mr McDonnell 2% 

Bolton Heroine Please Come Forward

Bolton Heroine Please Come Forward

Detectives in Bolton are trying to trace a woman who came to the aid of a teenager who was being forced into a car.

At about 10.35pm on Monday 26 April 2010, the victim, aged 17, was walking along Hill Top, Little Lever.

A dark blue or black BMW, possibly an X6 model, pulled up in front of her.

The driver got out and walked onto the pavement. He then grabbed the girl and told her to get into the car.

As he was trying to force her into the car a woman approached them and pretended to know the victim, causing the offender to get into the car and drive off towards Dearden Street.

The offender is described as Asian, 5ft 10in tall, of stocky build and the backs of his hands were hairy. He was wearing a black hooded jumper and grey jogging bottoms.

Police are keen to speak to the woman who helped the teenager. She is described as white, about 18-years-old, 5ft 5in tall and was wearing a duffle coat.

Detective Constable Richard Willoughby, of Bolton CID, said: "We have made extensive enquiries since this incident but have not been able to locate the car or driver.

"I would appeal for anyone who recognises the description of this man to come forward and am especially eager to trace the woman who came to the aid of the victim. Had she not intervened who knows what may have happened."

Anyone with information is asked to call Bolton CID on 0161 856 5740, or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Treacherous Tories Exposed as Liars Yet Again

Treacherous Tories Exposed as Liars Yet Again

BNP News

By Mercia — Barely two weeks into the new government, and it is rumoured that the Tories are planning to renege on another electoral promise; this time their “commitment” to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights.

Despite it being widely recognised in political circles that the Lisbon Treaty removes the power of the EU-collaborator Westminster regime to enact such legislation, the Tory Party promoted their “Bill of Rights” in what can only now be viewed as yet another piece of electoral fraud.

This is, of course, the same Tory Party that previously promised a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty before, finally, admitting that it would do nothing to give the electorate a say on it, far less work to repeal it.

The Tories also knew that even if they were to enact a watered-down version of what they were so cynically proposing that EU law, in this case its infamous Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, would take precedence over it — meaning it wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on.

Had the Tories a shred of integrity then they could have campaigned for the repeal of the EU's Human Rights legislation on the basis that Britain already has had a written Bill of Rights since 1689 ("An Act for Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject").

How the EU legislation can claim to take precedence over our own, in the absence of the repeal of this legislation, is a question very much in need of an answer.

The Tories, of course, have a long history of betrayal when it comes to selling out Britain's national sovereignty to the EU. It was the Tory arch-traitor Edward Heath, the man who sold this country out to the Common Market (as was) for the price of a new yacht, who comes singularly and powerfully to mind.

Only the British National Party stands for this country's immediate withdrawal from the “United States of Europe”, the repeal of all EU-imposed legislation and for the formal reinstatement of the British Bill of Rights.
read more  
http://bnp.org.uk/

Laughing Bolton Muslim hit-run driver killed pedestrian in 70mph crash

Laughing Bolton Muslim hit-run driver killed pedestrian in 70mph crash

A speeding hit-and-run driver was seen ‘laughing and giggling’ as he fled after a crash in which a young dad died.

Zaffer Kurshid, 21, was doing 70mph in a 30mph zone when he hit Robert Allen, then drove  away leaving him for dead.
He was jailed for four years at Bolton Crown Court.
Witnesses said Mr Allen, 36, of Bedford Street, Bolton,  was thrown more than 40 yards when he was mown down on Chorley New Road. He died at the scene.
Kurshid was described by a judge as an ‘impatient and frustrated driver’. He passed his test just four months before the crash last October.
The court was told that he has a previous conviction for driving without a licence.
Kurshid’s brother Asad, 24, who owned the powerful Volvo S60 involved in the collision, was given an eight-month sentence, suspended for two years, after he pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.
The court heard that he created a fake receipt claiming the car had been sold when he heard what had happened.
Disqualified
He devised the ‘short-lived’ scheme in panic because having a previous conviction for driving while disqualified, he believed officers would think he was the driver, it was said.
Both brothers, who live on Kilnhurst Road, Bolton, handed themselves in hours later.
Zaffer Kurshid, who was in the car with a girlfriend, pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving. He was also banned from the road for six years.
Peter Barr, prosecuting, said Mr Allen, who had a daughter, was returning from an off-licence with his dog when he was struck.
One witness told police: “The car looked as though it was flying.” A driver who saw the collision stopped and called police and paramedics. Mr Barr said another witness saw Kurshid and a girlfriend getting out of the vehicle after he abandoned it near the Bolton School. He said the witness saw them ‘laughing and giggling’.
Jailing Zaffer Kurshid, Judge William Morris said: “You were responsible for this tragic death. You were speeding and travelling at 70mph. You admitted that you did so for the excitement.”
His brother Asad was also ordered to complete 200 hours’ of community service.

UPDATED WITH AUDIO AND VIDEO: BNP Conference Plans Way Forward as Nick Griffin Announces Intention to Step Down in 2013

UPDATED WITH AUDIO AND VIDEO: BNP Conference Plans Way Forward as Nick Griffin Announces Intention to Step Down in 2013

May 2010|  BNP News

The British National Party’s Advisory Council (AC) and other key figures of the party’s structure have completed a weekend of forward planning to overhaul and modernise the party as Nick Griffin MEP announced his intention to step down as leader by the end of 2013 to concentrate on his re-election campaign to the European Parliament.

The extended AC meeting and strategy planning session, held in the East Midlands, also contained a full analysis of the election results, a report on current membership levels, a review of the modernising measures the party is putting in place to bring its election fighting capability up to speed and a no-holds barred presentation and question and answer session with party consultant Jim Dowson.

Mr Griffin made his leadership decision announcement at the end of the first day of the proceedings.

“By then I would have been leader of the BNP for 15 years and that is long enough,” Mr Griffin said.

“It will be time to make way for a younger person who does not have any baggage which can be used against the party.”

Mr Griffin said the timing of his move was predicated by his desire to bring about what he called the putting into place of the last “building blocks” of the BNP’s administrative and political machine.

“This is going to take at least 18 months to implement and after that I intend to hand the party over to someone who will be able to drive support up to where it can be a serious contender for power,” he said.

Mr Griffin said he would concentrate on getting re-elected to the European Parliament in the 2014 Euro elections, adding that he was sure the party could retain its two seats and add several more to the tally.

“I then intend to help the other European nationalist parties to achieve the level of sophistication which the BNP has been able to build up, because a victory for any one of these parties is a victory to all of us.”

Other news to come out of the conference included:

- Current party membership stands at just under 14,000 and is increasing by several hundred every month;

- The party membership churn rate -- the rate at which members fail to renew their membership -- has been cut from over 70 percent to less than 20 percent thanks to the efficient call centre and administrative machine the party now possesses;

- The BNP’s communication team has been reorganised and will soon be dovetailing with the revamped elections team;

- The way that the BNP fights elections is to be revolutionised. The “bloody nose” which the party received in the local elections has provided the BNP with an insight into how the Labour Party has switched to a technologically-intensive campaigning methodology, and the lessons have been learned. The BNP will also now be upgrading its systems to match that of the Labour Party and will leave the old method of election fighting behind;

The figures behind the BNP’s fundraising campaign were revealed in Jim Dowson’s presentation which was followed by an intensive question and answer session. The pertinent facts are as follows:

- The Truth Truck is owned by the BNP, contrary to internet rumour-mongers, a fact confirmed in person by the BNP treasurer who paid for the vehicle, Jennie Noble.

- Mr Dowson does not take a commission on any membership applications or other transactions which run through the call centre in Belfast, once again contrary to internet rumour-mongers.

- The Midas Consultancy has raised more that £2.6 million in donations for the BNP since January 2008, at a cost of £165,000.

“The BNP emerged from the meeting re-energised and ready for the ongoing struggle to save our nation from destruction at the hands of the old parties,” Mr Griffin concluded.

A BNPtv interview with Mr Griffin can be found here.

A Radio Red White and Blue interview with Mr Griffin can be found here.

Citizenship Grants to Leap Exponentially as New Immigrant “Fast Track” Procedure Comes Online

Citizenship Grants to Leap Exponentially as New Immigrant “Fast Track” Procedure Comes Online

 |  BNP News

The number of immigrants being granted British citizenship will rocket from the current 164,000 per year to over 250,000 as the new “immigrant fast track process” comes online.

The fast track process is a special initiative by the Government which grants citizenship to immigrants nearly two years earlier than normal if they “work in charities” or participate in “civic duties” — which include working in a (Labour Party) supporting trade union.

According to the new Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Act enacted in July, immigrants who have been in the UK for five years will obtain citizenship within one further year rather than three if they can prove they have been “active citizens.”

In 2008, some 164,635 citizenship applications were approved by the Home Office, which works out as one every three minutes. The new move will up this figure to one every two minutes.

According to Home Office figures, 1.2 million immigrants have been granted citizenship in the last ten years.

The plan to fast track immigrants will be fully implemented by 2011, according to Jo Liddy, national lead for citizenship and permanent migration at the UK Border Agency.

Speaking to a public service publication, Ms Liddy said that “we think it is right that those who volunteer receive the benefit offered by active citizenship.”

At the same time, increasing numbers of British nationals are leaving this country. Official figures state that 207,000 British citizens left Britain in 2006. Nearly a third went to Australia or New Zealand. A quarter went to Spain or France, and around one in 12 went to the United States of America.

While 1.2 million immigrants — mainly from the Third World — have been granted citizenship in Britain, the total number of British citizens who have left has now reached 1.6 million since 1997.

This is nearly what the Tory and Labour patsies in the “Cross Parliamentary Group on Balanced Migration” seek — the number of emigrants equalling the number of immigrants.

As the figures clearly show, “balanced migration” is not the answer. In fact it is one of the more serious problems, and any voter concerned about this issue will have to bear in mind that the Tory party has essentially endorsed this immigration policy as their own.

* Simultaneously it has been announced that ten percent of Britain’s jail population are foreign nationals who now cost the taxpayer £292 million per year to keep locked up.

Total Intergration Or Meltdown: The Choice For Europe

Total Intergration Or Meltdown: The Choice For Europe
 by Uk Tabloid

The moment of truth has arrived for the European Union. The debt crisis has brought the single currency to the brink of meltdown.

Leaders of the EU now face a stark choice. They can either allow the eurozone to fall apart through the withdrawal of hopelessly indebted member states such as Greece and Portugal, or ruthlessly press ahead with full economic and political unification, creating a new European nation that will impose fiscal discipline throughout its territory.

Complete integration or chaotic disintegration: those are the only two alternatives for the eurozone’s future. What is certain is that the EU cannot go on pouring money into the basket-case economies of the Mediterranean. Since the Greek crisis blew up the euro has lost more than 24 cents in value. Even the bail-out of £645billion for its weaker states failed to restore economic credibility.

In fact the colossal scheme has only disturbed the markets further by giving the impression that European debts are spiralling out of control. Little wonder then that German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned this week that “the euro is in danger”. Yet her action in imposing restrictions on speculation by currency traders does nothing to address the central problem of looming insolvency within the EU, for there is little sign that the governments of Spain, Portugal and Greece are willing to enact the tough measures required to prevent national bankruptcy, especially not in the face of mass protests.

If the euro is to survive then the bureaucrats of Brussels will have to take charge of the budgets of member states. The EU can no longer dole out the cash without having control over revenue and expenditure. Such a step would mean the final demise of any economic independence within the EU. Member states would be reduced to the status of regional authorities, their finances determined by unelected commissioners.

But that is precisely why Brussels will be so eager to embark on a fiscal takeover. The debt crisis provides a unique opportunity for the Eurocrats to realise their dream of creating a unified federal superstate. This has always been the primary goal behind the single currency. The euro is essentially a political project, not an economic one, with monetary union used as a vehicle for integration.

The founding father of the EU, French politician Jean Monnet, said in 1952 that “the fusion of economic functions will compel nations to fuse their sovereignty into that of a single European state”. Similarly, at the launch of the euro in 1999, EU president Romano Prodi declared that “for the first time since the Roman Empire we have an opportunity to unite Europe”.

The vision of unity was the reason that Brussels plunged ahead so recklessly with the euro. There was never any genuine justification for joining together such a jumble of disparate economies. It was absurd to pretend Germany,

that ruthlessly efficient industrial powerhouse, had the same interests as Greece with all its institutionalised debts and corruption.

Monetary union was only achieved by the EU fiddling its figures and breaking its own rules on fiscal deficits. Financial catastrophe was always inevitable. Even though Britain stayed out of the euro we are bound to be affected by the turmoil on the Continent, not least because 54 per cent of all our exports go there. As a member of the EU we may ultimately have to contribute around £15billion to the bail-out.

Just as worryingly Brussels has also demanded that all finance ministers submit their national budgets for approval by the commission, a precursor of full fiscal union. Chancellor George Osborne has rightly rejected this arrogant nonsense but the pressure will only intensify as the economic crisis deepens.

But we should be grateful that at least we have stayed out of the eurozone quagmire. The retention of sterling was perhaps the only good deed that Gordon Brown achieved, though his rejection of the euro was not based on any patriotic impulse but on his aggressive, self-absorbed character. On the one hand he could not stomach losing total command of the British economy.

On the other he wanted to undermine Tony Blair, who embodied the classic trendy metropolitan enthusiasm for the euro. Yet the man we should really thank for keeping Britain out of this mess is the late tycoon Sir James Goldsmith. The impact of his Euro-sceptic Referendum Party in the mid-Nineties forced John Major’s government to promise a national vote before joining the euro, a pledge that was echoed by Labour.

Politicians of all sides knew that the British public would never tolerate the destruction of independence so the popular will acted as a barrier to economic subjugation. British EU enthusiasts, from Edward Heath in the Seventies to Nick Clegg today, constantly tried to deceive us about the real nature of the European project. They claimed that we could maintain our sovereignty while submitting to EU rule.

But that has always been a lie. If their policy had been followed and we had joined the single currency we would now be facing national catastrophe. It would have meant the total demise of our democracy and independence.

Outside the euro there is still a hope of national survival. Within, only the tyranny of Brussels awaits.

Thinking Rationally About Immigration

Thinking Rationally About Immigration

Created:May 2010 10:42 Author: Dr. D | 

Who should be admitted to live in our countries? We are told often how much immigrants contribute to our countries, both economically and culturally. We all hear the old saw about, “we are a nation of immigrants,” which is truly ludicrous in the UK but less so in other nations of the Anglosphere. We are told that we have a positive need for immigrants, even though our eyes and common sense tell us otherwise. Finally, we are sent on guilt trips, saying that we have a moral obligation to accept immigrants.

In a recent article by Johann Hari in The Independent titled “Islamists, their victims, and hypocrisy,” some aspects of this question are examined . In his article, Hari discusses the cases of two recent applications for asylum in the UK that have rejected, and known two Pakistani al–Qa’ida members who are going to be allowed to remain in the UK. One asylum application refused is from a young lesbian (age 27) in Iran who fears for her life and thought she should be allowed to come to the UK where she could live freely. The second refused asylum application is from a 29 year old Pakistani man who has written atheist tracts online, and now fears for his life in Pakistan. He thinks he should be allowed to come to the UK where he can be free to pursue his atheism. Each of those refused were told to stay where they were and “live discrete lives.” Hari says that the trial that determined that the two al–Qa’ida members were such was “a Kafka–trial” where the defendants were not allowed to hear the evidence against them. This seems like a strange allegation to level at a trial that the defendants essentially won, event though they were convicted. They seem to have achieved all substantive goals, so I’m not sure what more was wanted.

Hari then goes on to make a strong argument that, when people in the West deal justly and mercifully with Muslims, it has a far bigger impact on them than any other way we might deal with them. Somehow, he has shifted the argument to be about whether to torture or not, which really is not the same question as whether to admit immigrants or not, but in Hari’s mind, it seems to be the same. And then he comes to his closing paragraph, which I quote:

Brave, bold voices like Kiana and Amit’s do more to undermine Islamic fundamentalism than a thousand bomber–planes that only vindicate the Bin Laden narrative for so many. By sending these remarkable dissidents to die, we aren’t only betraying them – we are endangering ourselves.

It is a nice summation of his argument, and it has some truth in it, but we need to examine it further. (Kiana and Amit were the two who were refuse entry into the UK.) These two people are definitely the products of their own societies. They have taken their stands (lesbianism, atheism) in defiance of their societies of their own free will. I do not for a moment wish to deny them that choice, but I do wish to emphasize that it is their choice, and that their choice has consequences that are their own to bear. Those consequences should not become the burden of anyone else, and most especially not of any other nation.

With respect to Hari’s contention that they will do so much more good if they live, I have to say that they will do the most good if they live in their own societies, rather than hiding in the safety of the West. They should not be in the West, creating ill will for us with the Muslim world, but rather they should be in the Muslim world working reform there. The only way the Muslim world will change is when Muslims make that change; it will not happen from the outside. How many Muslims do you think Ayaan Hirsi reaches?

It is right that these people were denied entry into the UK; they made choices and they must live with the consequences of those choices. It would also be right, if it has been correctly determined that the other two are truly members of al–Qa’ida, which was a choice on their part, to face the consequences of that choice. Life is full of choices, and we do not get to start over, but rather we have to continue to play our hand, based on our previous choices, including mistakes.

But back to the original question, who should be admitted to live in our countries? Long ago, when more rational thinking prevailed on all subjects, and particularly on matters of national sovereignty, nations made decisions about whom to admit as immigrants on the basis of the interests of the host nation. Generally speaking, the host nation considered the assets that the would–be immigrant would bring to the host nation in terms of wealth, knowledge, various skills, and some times simply brute force manpower. But it was the needs of the host nation that determined whether the immigrant was accepted, not the desires of the immigrant.

I am sure that the word refugee has been in the English language for a very long time, but I think it really began to have major significance after WW I. There were large number of dislocated people in Europe, more than ever before, with the breakup of the Hapsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire. All of this expanded many fold after WW II with more displaced people all over the world. The idea of refugees has be employed to play on Christian sympathies to permanently accept people from all over the world into our nations, bringing completely misfit elements into our societies. This continues apace today at an accelerating rate today with many coming from Africa and the Middle East. I think it is necessary to ask the question, “are these people truly refugees, or are they time bombs, waiting to explode?”

There are parts of the world where on–going warfare has been the norm forever. This is true in parts of Africa and elsewhere. If you pluck someone up from there, it is probably correct to call that person a “refugee” in some sense. But moving those people somewhere else in the world does not make them peaceful, civilized people, it just moves the war somewhere else. We have seen this with the large numbers of Somalis transported to Minnesota who are now terrorizing the people of Minneapolis–St. Paul just like they were back in Somalia. They did not all become Americans of Swedish and Norwegian descent when they landed in Minnesota, strange to say, and Garrison Kellior does not know what to say about them being the good liberal that he is.

Since the earliest colonial days in America, people have immigrated to the US. For a long time, there were no restrictions at all on who could come, but eventually laws were passed limiting the number who could come each year from each country. At almost any point along either the northern or southern border of the US, you can literally simply walk across the border; there are no physical barriers at all in most places. For most of our history, there has been no problem, with either of our neighbors, and there is still no problem with Canada. Mexico is a different matter, however.

Mexico has vast internal problems, and rather than seek to solve their own problems, their solution has been to send much of their population to the US to earn money to send back to Mexico. This has been going on for at least forty years with the connivance of the US government as well. The US government has simply stopped enforcing the immigration laws, although the laws remain on the books. As a consequence, many thousands of Mexicans stream into the US illegally every day. They often come in as “mules” carrying illegal drugs, but then go on to take low skill jobs at low wages that are often paid in cash. In most cases, no taxes are paid on these wages, and it is an entirely off the record transaction. Much of the money is sent back to Mexico by wire transfer. They live on food stamps and various types of welfare in many cases, they use the hospital emergency rooms for all of their healthcare needs (they cannot be turned away there, even if they say they cannot pay), they often turn to thievery, rape, and murder. Even those that “succeed” in the sense that they find stable employment and establish a home, usually do not learn English and develop no loyalty at all to the US, always thinking of themselves only as Mexicans even to the third and fourth generations.

Some will have heard of the new Arizona immigration law that has caused quite a furor. I have read the whole law, all seventeen pages of it. It is very bland reading, and it simply says, in very plain English, that local law enforcement is authorized and indeed required to enforce the federal immigration law. It does not permit any of the undue stops or searches that people are so upset about, indeed they are prohibited. People say, “but it might be enforced that way.” Well, yes, a policeman might stop you any time and mistreat you, but how often does it happen? There are severe penalties for the policeman that does such things. The state of Arizona is simply trying to protect its people, to do the job that the federal government has long neglected to do. The citizens of Arizona have been subject to the most amazing dangers and harassments and this is long overdue.

With regard to the central question of whom should be admitted to our countries, I would like to adduce two principal statements:

1. We should only admit those who bring a positive benefit to the host country. There is no obligation to admit anyone at anytime, no matter what their pleading may be. Life is unfair, we have to life the life we are given.

2. The people of the third world, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, etc., must all stay where they are and fix their own broken societies. Anglo–Saxons cannot do it for them. They would not accept it if we tried, and we should not feel that we have any obligation to try. This does not mean that we should not be willing to help in moderation, but the prime responsibility rest squarely with them. We discourage them from doing this most necessary task if we shelter them in our countries.

Blind ideology is dancing on the grave of reason

Melanie phillips May , 2010

Blind ideology is dancing on the grave of reason

The Australian, 15 May 2010
In Britain, the benefits of diversity are apparently boundless. Now that the Pagan Police Association has received government recognition, police officers can take a string of pagan festivals as official holidays.
These include celebrating the festival of lactating sheep, and drinking mead and dancing naked to celebrate the harvest. In court, pagan officers will be allowed to pledge to tell the truth not before God but by what ‘they hold sacred’, including, presumably, the Sun God or Kriss Kringle, the Germanic god of yule.
In Australia, as historian Keith Windschuttle has chronicled in his new book The Stolen Generations – volume three of his tireless evisceration of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History — the allegedly monstrous theft of 100,000 Aboriginal children by Australian officials just because they were Aboriginal never actually happened.
In the US, when a car bomb was planted recently in New York’s Times Square by a man later revealed to be a Muslim trained in bomb-making in Pakistan’s Waziristan region, there was an initial stampede to declare the attempted atrocity was unconnected to Islamic terrorism.
It was said to be most likely the work of a Tea Party member, right-wing militiaman or lone nut. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg even suggested the bomb could have been placed by ’somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the healthcare bill or something’.
What has Britain come to when its police officers are given leave to dance about naked? How can generations of Australians have been taught the egregious falsehood of the Stolen Generations as fact? And how many times have Tea Party members or people opposed to a piece of legislation tried to commit mass murder against their fellow Americans, compared with the number of recent attempts by Muslim terrorists?
Such intellectual perversity can be understood only in the context of a far wider and profound retreat from reason throughout the West.
Across a broad range of issues, the progressive intelligentsia appears to have junked the rules of evidence, objectivity and rationality in favour of fantasy, irrationality and upside-down thinking.
Take man-made global warming, for example. The belief that the planet is on course for carbon Armageddon is now embedded in Western politics. Yet the evidence that the climate is warming to an unprecedented and catastrophic degree just isn’t there. The seas are not rising, the ice is not shrinking, the polar bears are not vanishing, and there has been no significant climate warming since 1995.
Or take the Middle East. Israel is the victim of six decades of exterminatory aggression from the Arab and Muslim world. Yet it is Israel that is expected to make concessions to its attackers, who are said by the West to deserve a state of their own. Meanwhile, the US extends its hand of friendship to Iran, which is building a nuclear bomb to commit another Jewish genocide.
Closer to home, ‘minority rights’ mean activities previously marginalised or considered transgressive are now privileged through ‘family lifestyle choice’ or multiculturalism.
Dissenters from these creeds are socially and professionally ostracised. Academics are hounded as racists for upholding the true historic origins of Western civilisation. Scientists sceptical of man-made global warming find funding is withheld. And those sounding the alarm about the true scope of the Islamic jihad are demonised as warmongering neo-cons or part of a Jewish conspiracy.
Such irrationality, intolerance and, indeed, bigotry run counter to the cardinal tenets of a free society based on reason and the toleration of dissent.
This is because these dominant ideas are all rooted in ideologies: environmentalism, anti-racism, anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism, egalitarianism or scientism, the belief that scientific materialism alone explains everything.
Rather than going where the evidence leads, ideology wrenches the evidence to fit a prior idea. Not only is ideology inimical to reason, it sacrifices truth to power as it attacks those who try to uphold reality in the face of dogma.
This is because the progressive mindset believes it is synonymous with virtue itself. All opposition is therefore not just wrong but evil. Since progressives also believe anyone who opposes them is a right-winger, it follows that all dissent is right-wing and evil, and so must be shut down.
In other words, these are not propositions to be debated in a rational way but are seen as self-evident truths with the infallibility of religious dogma.
They also smack of the political totalitarianism of communism and fascism, as well as resembling, ironically, the fanatical doctrines of militant Islam. Curiously, they also display religious motifs of sin, guilt and salvation.
Odder still, they all exhibit features of millenarianism: the religious belief in the perfectibility of life through the collective redemption of sin. Contemporary secular ideologies identify the sins committed by humanity — oppression of the people of developing nations, despoliation of nature, bigotry, poverty, war — and offer salvation by a return to righteousness.
Thus the greens believe they will save the planet. The leftists believe they will create the brotherhood of man. The anti-Zionists believe they will turn suicide bomb-belts into cucumber frames. The atheists believe they will create the Garden of Reason. And the Islamists believe they will create the kingdom of God on earth.
Dissenters are dismissed because they deny the unchallengeable truths of anti-imperialism, environmentalism and scientific materialism. The explanation for the frustration of Utopia must therefore lie in conspiracies by the neo-cons or the Jews, Big Oil or the Creationists.
The result is not merely that the West has become irrational. By turning truth and lies, victim and aggressor, justice and injustice upside down, it cannot even recognise, let alone deal with, the threats being mounted to its own values and civilisation.
With ideology eroding the principles of rationality and freedom, truth and justice on which it rests, the West is failing to understand what it is that it cannot understand, and so cannot grasp the mortal danger in which it stands.
The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power by Melanie Phillips is published by Encounter, New York. and at  
http://www.melaniephillips.com/

 

 

David Cameron faces backlash as more Tory pledges are axed

David Cameron faces backlash

as more Tory pledges are axed

Cameron risked alienating members of his own party yesterday as he revealed a “radical reforming” programme for his new “partnership Government” with Nick Clegg.

The Prime Minister admitted there was “bad news” for many Tories after key pledges had been scrapped in his coalition deal with the Lib Dems.

Promises to cut stamp duty and scrap bureaucratic NHS targets emerged as the latest casualties of policy wrangling between the parties.

Five more commissions – effectively new quangos – will be launched to consider polices the two parties could not agree on, including overhauling the Human Rights Act, reforming the banking system and cutting the spiralling public-sector pensions black hole. A further dozen reviews will be launched to examine other areas of disagreement.

But Mr Cameron insisted the parties had created an “extensive and detailed reforming agenda” that was “greater than the sum of our two manifestos.”

Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg, his Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister were at the Treasury to launch their 36-page document The Coalition: Our Programme For Government. Senior Tory Cabinet ministers George Osborne and Theresa May and Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable were present in a show of the new Government’s unity. The document lists pledges they plan to implement.

Many will be rapidly turned into proposals for next week’s Queen’s Speech. Among key Tory pledges are an annual cap on immigration from outside the European Union, a drive to create many more state schools and a ban on joining the euro. Action to tackle the binge- drinking epidemic also featured, including a ban on the sale of alcohol at below cost price. The Tories are to press ahead with a major welfare crackdown to slash benefits for the work shy.

A string of Lib Dem ideas for promoting civil liberties and political reform were also a key feature of the coalition plan.

But some Tories were dismayed that many Conservative manifesto pledges had been diluted or dumped altogether. Mr Cameron admitted some of his party’s policies had been “lost.”

But he insisted the coalition programme – compiled in nine days – was “remarkable”.

“Some policies have been lost on both sides, some have been changed and yes, we have had to find ways to deal with the issues where we profoundly disagree,” he said.

He warned Tory supporters: “The bad news is that some policies have been changed,” but he insisted the programme was more than a simple merger of the Tory and Lib Dem manifestos.

“The more we talked, the more we listened, the more we realised that our visions for this country and the values that inspired them are strengthened and enhanced by the act of the two parties coming together,” he said.

“We have tried to combine our party’s best ideas to create something that is greater than the sum of our two manifestos,” he said.

He said the plan combined “optimism” with “gritty realism about what we need to do”.

“Of course I cannot stand here and say there has been an effortless fusion of two manifestos. There has been negotiation. Some policies have been lost on both sides, some have been changed.”

The joint administration would be a “genuinely reforming radical Government”.

He added: “The more I see of this coalition in action, the more I see of its potential not just in solving the problems that lie before us but solving them with a shared set of values.”

Mr Clegg, who spoke first at the event, said: “Even if you’ve read 100 party manifestos, you’ve never read a document like this.”

He added: “Not one party’s ideas, not even just two parties’ ideas, but a joint programme for Government based on shared ambitions and shared goals.

“Compromises have, of course, been made on both sides, but those compromises have strengthened, not weakened, the final result.

“From different political traditions – Conservatism and Liberalism – we’ve come together to forge a single programme drawing on the strengths and traditions of both of our parties.”

Some Tories are particularly frustrated that many Lib Dem taxation policies have been adopted, including hiking capital gains tax to 40 or 50 per cent.

The document also revealed that a Tory plan to raise the stamp duty threshold to £250,000 for first-time buyers had also been put on the back burner.

A Tory plan to introduce a levy on foreign-based “non-domicile” tycoons was also dropped.

The nuclear deterrent will be maintained, with Trident scrutinised to ensure “value for money”. But Lib Dems “will continue to make the case for alternatives”.

There were also concerns that Tory law-and-order commitments had been watered down. While the Tory manifesto had promised legal protection for householders who tackled intruders, the coalition document instead said: “We will ensure that people have the protection that they need.”

But many of the coalition policies were welcomed – including the commitment to the Tory plan to limit annual immigration from outside the EU.

Former Labour minister Frank Field and senior Tory MP Nicholas Soames of the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration, said: “We warmly welcome the Prime Minister’s confirmation that it remains the intention of the Government to get net immigration down.”