The art world has no shame

Once again, a policy of the USA has brought uproar to the world. There is widespread news coverage of the demonstrations, protests and condemnations against the US by people upset by its actions and the way their own governments appear to capitulate to US demands.

Only this time it is the art world -and the policy in question involves bringing a predatory paedophile to justice. When he was well into his forties, the film director Roman Polanski admitted having sex with a 13 year old child while in the USA - and then went on the run to escape justice. Now, after travelling to Switzerland to receive an award, the dirty old git has been arrested and faces extradition to the US.

Good!

But the art world is in uproar. How dare the Swiss arrest one of their great and good? How dare they give in to the demands of the US bullies? People appear on TV to denounce the US and the Swiss for their actions in pursuing a celebrated director.

Let's put this into perspective. If Roman Polanski were just a normal every day 76 year old paedophile nobody would give a damn. They'd all be glad that this disgusting creature was finally facing justice for his despicable acts - but because he is something in the art world this somehow makes statutory rape OK?

To be honest, the reaction from the art world doesn't surprise me. Art long ago gave up trying to reflect the culture that created it and started trying to shape the culture it existed in. Art became all about "pushing the boundaries" and being "challenging" - codewords for obscene and ugly. In a world where a pile of shit can be considered worthy art it is not a surprise that a predatory paedophile is so revered.

But to me, the reaction to the arrest of Polanksi is the ultimate shaming of the world of art. At least it would be if the art world had any shame.

Sparse posting

Apologies for the dearth of posts recently, but I'm in the middle of an incredibly busy period with work. No doubt the optimists will see this as another one of those "green shoots", but the reality is that we're having to do slightly less work with a lot fewer people.

Keep the faith, people.

Whose side are they on?

Sometimes I wonder about teachers. You'd be forgiven for thinking, like I used to, that the reason most people get into teaching is that they are driven to help kids - but more and more I think this is unlikely.

Sure, there are still a few out there - probably the older ones - who still think that the point of education is to impart knowledge onto children, but the vast majority are driven by other impulses. Take, for instance, the case of the dinner lady sacked for revealing to the parents of a child that their daughter had been tied up then whipped while at school in an incident the school described as "an accident".

First of all, how can a group of kids accidentally tie another child up then whip her with a skipping rope? Secondly, given the implausibility of the first point, why would the school seek to deny that the incident was one of bullying - and an extreme case at that? And thirdly, why would the school then sack someone for telling the truth to the parents of the victim?

On the first point, it clearly was not an accident, but a deliberate and cruel act.

The reason the school wants to hush it up is because the head of the school does not want to deal with the problems of bullying that so plainly exist in their school - so they do whatever they can to deny that the problem even exists.

And on the third point, the truth teller is sacked rather than the liars and deceivers because the education system itself is controlled by liars and deceivers. They are well versed in lying and deceiving as they spend considerable amounts of time, effort and money working up various ways to convince the various bodies that their school is good - and one of those metrics is bullying so they can't have anything that looks like bullying.

So the schools dream up all sorts of processes which are not designed to solve the problem of bullying but actually designed to ensure that whenever am incident of bullying is discovered it is scrupulously investigated (according to procedures) and then found not to be bullying at all.

The question is why would they do this? Surely it is in the interests of both the parents and the school for these things to be dealt with properly. Well - yes, it would be if the purpose of the school was to provide education and nothing else - but that isn't what they are about these days.

Because the purpose of schools these days is to prove that education in a progressive state is successful and universal. Above all it is vital to prove that it is better than education in a conservative state - even when it quite plainly is not. The whole point of the targets and the processes and procedures is to provide demonstrable evidence that progressive state education is great for all - nobody fails, nobody misses out and nobody gets bullied.

Of course, they still have a long long way to go to achieve that deceit, but they are working on it year on year. Whose side are they on? The parents? The children?

Nope - neither. They are on the side of progressive ideology. THAT is the only thing that matters to schools these days - not you or your kids, but their precious ideology. Nothing - not the parents, not the kids and certainly not education - must be allowed to get in the way of that.

Incidentally, as yet another teacher is convicted of sexually abusing a child in their care one can't help wondering what sort of uproar there would be if teaching were a religion?

Rumble in "The Jungle"

So the French are planning to close down the makeshift camp where immigrants gather before launching their attempt to come to the land of milk and honey - or, rather, housing and benefits - England. How very thoughtful of them.

It's also rather considerate of them not to bulldoze the camp during the month of Ramadan as most of the camps occupants are Moslem - predominantly Afghan from what I understand. Although it does strike me as a bit silly to give them all advance warning of the fact that they are to be rounded up and deported - but hey, what do I know. I'm sure it has nothing to do with France wanting to be seen to do something about the problem rather than actually dealing with it.

But I've got an idea.

You see, it may have escaped their attention in France, but NATO is currently engaged in operations in Afghanistan - including reconstruction work (for some reason). So why not just round up all these immigrants, fly them back to Afghanistan and put them up in a makeshift camp there while their asylum claims are processed (and refused). While they are there they can be put to work - paid of course, we don't do slave labour - making the camp more comfortable and permanent with a water and power supply. Over the course of time, these camps will evolve businesses - shops, restaurants and so on - which will offer employment and pay.

Many of those people will learn valuable skills which can then be applied to build new camps for more immigrants and before you know it you have a virtuous spiral. We could call these camps "new villages" and, as well as providing material support, our troops could offer security and safety. Once it becomes established that these "new villages" not only offer the opportunity to earn a decent living, but provide safety from the Taleban word will get around and everyone will want one. Hey, you could even go as far as moving whole villages out of Taleban areas into safe havens - thus depriving the Taleban of the vital resources of food and men.

Once that is done, you can squeeze the Taleban militarily until their starving, weary and demoralised troops decide to call it a day.

Far fetched? It worked great in Malaya.

Missing the point

I'm keep hearing people say that the war in Afghanistan is "pointless". I don't know why they keep saying that - maybe it's the hope that if they say it often and loudly enough it will become true - but whatever your views or opinions on a war it seems ridiculous to say that it has no point. Even at the very least, the point of the Afghan war is to defeat the enemy. Whether that can be achieved or not is another matter, but if people can't see the point of that then they really aren't trying very hard.

The question they should be asking is why are the Taliban our enemy? The reason, of course, is that Britain has a large, increasingly demanding and assertive Moslem population. Moslems are different to most people as they usually identify themselves first and foremost by their religion. Their first allegiance is not to a specific nation or a particular community, but to Islam - and this doesn't change.

So what happens in Moslem countries matters to them - and if a Moslem does something which they believe furthers the cause of Islam then they are generally supportive of it even if it is to the detriment of their host nation or the nation of their birth. It's actually quite often the case that those who claim that what happens in Afghanistan is nothing to do with us are often the same people who seem to think that the "plight" of the Palestinians is something to do with us. Why? Some sort of colonial responsibility? If that is the case then the same could be said for Afghanistan - or Iraq or Pakistan.

As long as we have a large Moslem population in Britain then what happens in any Moslem country will have an impact on our nation and we may well be required to act in some way. I don't necessarily like it, but at least I can see the point.

I'd just like to qualify all of that by pointing out that I don't believe we owe the Afghans anything - we don't owe them peace, we don't owe them democracy, we don't owe them prosperity, we don't owe them freedom, liberty or even hope. As long as what happens in Afghanistan stays in Afghanistan they can do what they like - but as long as we have a large Moslem population living in this country then that will never be the case.

Decking, rubbish and rats

Back in the nineteen seventies as I went through the transition from boyhood to adulthood I spent pretty much most of my spare time doing something or other outdoors. This was, of course, in the days before personal computers and the Internet, multi channel 24 hour television, games consoles and all the other distractions the modern society has for a 10 - 16 year old.

We lived in a part of Slough which was then still semi-rural but was slowly being transformed by new housing estates and building projects. Close to where I lived was a large meadow where I had spent many happy hours as a child picking blackberries and damsons or making "camps" and hideouts, but by the time I was 12 this meadow had been bulldozed to make way for an enormous housing estate and my playground was now the building site.

As I got older I wandered farther afield, often scavenging through skips to find parts for my bike. I never ever had a new bike as a kid - it was built entirely from bits and pieces I'd salvaged and gradually put together. The only thing new on it was the paint - and even that was the leftovers from something my dad had been using to paint a metal gate!

Despite spending so much time outdoors I only ever saw one rat - one early morning during the blazing summer of '76. I still recall the way it sat staring at me with those beady black eyes as it sat beside the coal bunker just three yards away from our front door where I crouched dead still. It appeared dispassionate - unconcerned by my presence as it nibbled at some tidbit it had found by the hydrangea.

Unfortunately for the rat, I was looking at it down the barrel of my trusty .22 BSA Meteor and a split second those beady eyes were bisected by a well aimed lead pellet and the rat was no more. It was the only time I used my air rifle on a living creature - not because I didn't want to, just because I never came across another rat! My BSA spent the rest of its time sinking enemy battleships or shooting down Junkers 88's that I'd assembled from a plastic model kit the day before. For someone well skilled in taking out the swastika on the tail of a 1/72 scale Bf109E from 10 yards, popping a slug between the eyes of a big fat rat from less than half the distance was simple.

Why am I going on about this? Well, primarily because in the last couple of years I must have seen a couple of dozen rats in and around my garden. They don't live in my garden - they come in under the fence looking for treats left out for the birds on the bird table. How the hell they get up there is a mystery to me, but somehow they do and they are big fat ugly things.

I'm no gardening fanatic, but I like to keep it looking fairly decent and I like to relax in my garden when the weather suits - but not everyone is like that. Indeed, there are fair number of gardens close by which the owners seem to think is a convenient place to chuck their rubbish. Most of the rats come from the garden directly behind me which is less like a garden and more like the municipal dump with old fridges, cookers and washing machines nestling against my back fence along with piles of old carpet and rubble.

As I said, there are a fair few gardens like that around me - I know them by sight, but not by name although I would lay money on none of them being called "Smith". The other problem is the proliferation of decking. Rats love decking.

Being fairly liberal and not keen on banning things for the sake of banning them I wouldn't go as far as to order a ban on decking - yet. Instead I'd insist that any body with decking would be required to have them inspected quarterly for rat infestation and have to pay for that - along with a certificate proving that they've been given the all clear.

On second thoughts, I'd ban decking. Anything that stops my neighbour clomping around on his in hobnail boots at half past six on a Sunday morning!

What did they expect?

The government - along with a number of their own agencies - appear to be a little concerned about the rise of "far right" groups such as the "English Defence League" who have recently staged a number of high profile and often violent demonstrations against what they see as the increasing islamification of Britain.

But surely the government - and their agencies - must recognise that this is an inevitable consequence of their policies towards such things as immigration and multiculturalism? I say they "must" recognise this as it can only be the very stupid or the exceedingly naive who would think that any nation could absorb such a massive influx of foreigners into their lands and then be expected to change their ways to accommodate those foreigners who are not required to change their ways one bit!

Over the last few years there have been numerous Moslem led demonstrations which were provocative and confrontational - but concerns about these have been waved away by the establishment as the "right to protest". However, as soon as a bunch of white people start doing the same the establishment decides to crack down on them. The protests by these groups would most likely have not become violent if opposing groups had not deliberately sought confrontation with them. We've already seen how supposedly "anti-fascist" groups resort to violence and fascist tactics to close down the rights of elected BNP members to have their say - now they are doing the same to another group.

Do they really expect them to just roll over and give up?

Progressives don't do voluntary

A fair few years ago - long before I started writing this blog and not long after rediscovering Christianity - I had an argument with a friend who, trying to convert me back to socialism, insisted that "Jesus was the first socialist".

This annoyed me for several reasons. Not least because I found it hugely offensive for my friend to attempt to impose a political doctrine on an historical figure who was particularly apolitical. I don't wish to make the same mistake, but if anything Jesus was a small c conservative - certainly socially and morally. That said, many socialists - particularly old school ones - remain socially and morally conservative themselves.

But the reason it annoyed me more than anything is that it simply is not true. My friend claimed that Jesus was in favour of wealth redistribution - which is true - but what he neglected to say was that Jesus believed it should be entirely voluntary. Further more, it is quite clear from the Bible that Jesus believed that tax collectors were "sinners" who had to be saved and from that we can deduce that Jesus clearly was not a socialist.

Socialism doesn't do voluntary. Perhaps one of the biggest myths about socialism that has grown out of the last 50 years or so is that it is all about "fairness". The idea that progressives have some sort of hegemony in fairness is ludicrous to conservatives like me - but it depends entirely on what you define as fair.

For example, progressives don't think it's fair that someone well off should have a nice house in a nice area, good quality clothes and a smart brand new car in the drive while someone less well off has to make do with a run down council flat, cheap tat from a supermarket and run a ten year old, fifth hand Ford Fiesta.

Someone like me, on the other hand, doesn't think it is fair that those who work hard to provide for themselves and their families should have more and more money forcibly removed from them under threat of imprisonment just so that some lazy, feckless good for nothing can continue to live their lives of indolence. What that does not mean is that I believe that those who are genuinely in need should not receive some sort of help - far from it.

But I believe that the vast majority of that help should come from voluntary sources and not through state coercion. Over the last ten years or so we have seen an increase in the number of so-called "charities" which are nothing more than agencies of the state. Most, if not all, of their funding comes not from voluntary sources, but is handed to them by the government - and the government, as we know, does not have any money. It all comes from the taxpayer (note: taxpayers are only from the private sector. There are no taxpayers in the public sector as they receive their salary out of taxation in the first place. Taking £10 and giving £2 back does not make you a contributor!).

Part of the reason for the government doing this is that, over the last 50 years or so the amount of money voluntarily given to charity fell considerably. However, that is not a surprise to me. Indeed, it is an inevitable consequence of an increasingly socialist society whereby the burden moves from the voluntary to the coercive.

Jesus was no socialist and progressives are no more "fair" than conservatives. Socialism will always make society less less voluntary and more coercive and that is the biggest difference between conservatism and progressivism.

Flight of fancy

There's an advert running on television at the moment that attempts to glamorise air travel as it depicts a bevy of beautiful air hostesses wandering through an airport terminal along with a handsome captain.

The advert is, I think, mimicking the scene from the film "Catch Me If You Can" where Leonardo Di Caprio strides through a similar airport terminal dressed as a pilot accompanied by beautiful Pan Am stewardesses. The advert fails - in my opinion - for two reasons. Firstly, the women in the advert - although beautiful - look like models rather than genuine air hostesses, which makes the whole thing look fake right from the start.

The other problem with it is that I remember what air travel was like in the eighties and it was nothing like that. The scene it attempts to copy was set in the 1960's when air travel really was glamorous and before the blight of terrorism affected it for ever. By the mid eighties - when the advert is set - not only did airport security already mean that you had to arrive at the terminal well before your flight was set to depart, but that you had to endure searches and queues that would try the patience of a saint even then.

But that was nothing to what it must be like today. I don't fly any more for that reason. It's not that I don't like flying - I don't mind it in the least (although it is rather boring) - but I despise being herded around like cattle and treated like an inconvenience rather than a paying customer.

The days of air travel being glamorous are long gone - unless, perhaps, you are one of the fortunate few with enough money to circumvent the cattle herding, but even then you will most likely have to experience at least a little of that when you arrive at your destination. The question is, can we ever get it back?

I seriously doubt it. I seriously doubt whether most people would even want to go back to the days of the "jet set" as it smacks of the elitism which we are programmed to despise these days, but I'm sure most people would prefer it if we could get some common sense back into airport security. I think most of you could guess what that means, but just in case you can not - it means targeting certain people of a certain appearance.

Of course, we can not do that these days as it would be decried as "racist" rather than common sense, but one can always hope. Until we do get some common sense back into airport security yours truly will continue to avoid flying.

Define "bad parent"

The head of Barnardo's may have stirred up some controversy amongst the progressive liberals with his view that children of bad parents should be taken away and offered for adoption as quickly as possible, but it's a view that I tend to agree with - with some concerns.

You see, the problem is how you define a "bad parent". For me - and probably most people who read this blog - it's quite a simple thing. A bad parent is one who tends to indulge in feckless and risky behaviour - serial partners, drug taking , excessive alcohol consumption and so on.

But our social services are not full of people like me or those who read this blog - they are stuffed to the brim with Guardian reading liberal lefties who have a very different idea of what constitutes bad parenting than you or I.

To them, a bad parent is someone whose kid might be 5lbs "overweight". Their child may be very happy, well dressed, regularly doing well at school and developing perfectly normally in every other way - but to the liberal left an "overweight" child is a sign of abuse and "bad parenting".

To the progressive fools who inhabit our social services offices a bad parent is someone who prefers to school their kids themselves at home rather than entrust them to one of the many appallingly bad state comprehensives and primaries where discipline does not exist and bullying and intimidation is rife.

This is the difficulty we have and will always have as long as our social services remains in the hands of the liberal left - and this is why, before we do anything else, we need to change this. We need our institutions - such as social services, the police, criminal justice system, education services and so on to be more conservative as they once were.

As long as they remain under the control of the liberal left there isn't a hope in hell that we can begin to address the problems we have - and as long as we have a government that subscribes to the progressive orthodoxy then nothing will change.

The current Tory party isn't going to do it.

Why I am opposed to television debates

There is, once more, a groundswell of support for there to be televised debates between the leaders of the main political parties when the next election comes around. I'm not in favour of these for a number of reasons.

First of all, the main problem with these debates is that it will exclude the minor political parties. Although these parties enjoy considerably lower levels of support than the main political parties it does not necessarily follow that their policies, opinions or viewpoints are any less valid than those main parties. Consequently, any debate which does not include these minor parties will marginalise them further. To some extent, this is already a problem with our TV dominated political scene - where the major political parties can enjoy mass coverage for their opinions that other parties can not.

Secondly, it potentially boils the whole election process down to who comes across better on screen rather than who has the best policies for Britain. Contrary to popular belief, elections are not a personality contest - nor should they be - but rather a system for airing and explaining a political party's policies for governing the country.

Thirdly, there is the potential for a well planned and executed election campaign to be completely derailed by one simple slip of the tongue by the leader during the debate. For this reason, the debates are highly unlikely to be of a free form necessary for proper debate to take place, but will instead by carefully stage managed and mostly consist of each leader attacking the others on their policies rather than going to any great effort to explain their own. As such, the debate would provide no real substance to the election process.

Fourthly, the argument (which I have heard put forward) that these debates take place in the USA and other countries is hardly a good reason for having them here. Just the opposite if anything! The last thing I want to see in Britain is British politics being dumbed down to the extent it is in the USA - where the Presidential election really is a personality contest.

Finally, and perhaps most crucially, we are not electing a Prime Minister. I realise that many people do base their vote purely on which leader they like best - and that even more people simply vote for the same political party regardless of their policies or leadership - but what we are supposed to actually be doing is voting for a particular person to stand as our MP and represent us (and our constituency) to the House of Commons.

By televising debates between leaders we are losing sight of this important point even more than we already have done - and yet it is crucial to our electoral system and our system of democracy and parliament.

This is why I am opposed to televised debates. More than this, if it was down to me there would be no party political broadcasts in the six weeks prior to an election and no appearances on television for any person standing as an MP. Instead, those people who wish to be elected will have to get out there and meet the people whose vote they seek.

On a promise

Over on The Telegraph comment section, Simon Heffer discusses an issue I raised the other day - Scottish independence - and seems, more or less, to reach the same conclusion as me.

But he inadvertently (at least I assume it was not intentional) raises another issue - about the Tory Party. Mr Heffer refers to the information on "the West Lothian question" available on the Conservative party website which claims ...

" ..... that a Tory government will address the West Lothian Question and give English MPs a "decisive say" in matters that affect only England."

Mr Heffer then goes on to say .......

"I am not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds promising."

That, in a nutshell, encapsulates the Cameron doctrine. It all sounds very promising, but remains starkly devoid of detail and nobody really knows what it means.

Mr Cameron and his party have made a myriad of statements that often sound "very promising" but when you actually try and make sense of any of it you will find that their position is either almost identical to that of Labour and/or the Lib Dems or just so vague that it could mean almost anything to anybody.

In some ways that is a clever plan. It allows conservative voters to still cling - vainly, in my opinion - to the vague hope that the Tory party might yet prove to be conservative while allowing progressive liberals the hope and belief that the Tory party really has changed (which it has).

Ultimately, though, one group or the other is going to feel very let down come a Tory election victory and my money would be on those hoping that the Tories will come out of the conservative closet after the next election.

They won't - and I will tell you why. If you want to get an idea of what a national Tory government will be like then take a look at any of the Tory run councils. You will find those councils as wedded to the progressive doctrine as any Lib Dem or Labour council. You will find they are as committed as any to promoting the favourite causes of progressive liberalism and have virtually abandoned any pretence at conservatism whatsoever.