The sneering voice of leftism

I can't remember what it was that propelled Robert Peston onto our TV screens - I think it was something to do with the banking crisis or maybe the expenses scandal - but whatever it was he has been a virtual ever present on the BBC news since.

On the face of it, Peston is the ideal sort of person for the BBC to employ as they attempt to address the criticism of their often overt left wing leanings. The son of a peer and with past experience working at a stockbroker's as well as various journalistic stints at leading "right wing", pro-capitalism newspapers such as the FT and Telegraph, Peston must be as right wing capitalist as they come, right?

Wrong.

Peston's membership of Common Purpose reveals his true political leanings, but you'd never know that just by looking at him. What does give him away, though, is his voice - because Peston has that trademark of the rabid left winger; a whining nasal drone shaped by his barely concealed contempt for politics of the right.

It's the same vocal style I first became familiar with through my scouse English teacher in the mid-seventies. It doesn't matter what the upbringing, accent or dialect - left wingism is characterised by this whining nasal drone with underlying tones of contempt and sneering. It's nasty. This English teacher saw me as something of a protege - I was, at the time, leaning to the left myself - and took me under her wing to some degree introducing me to punk rock and the works of the "poet" John Cooper Clarke.

To be fair, it's probably true to say that this introduction to John Cooper Clarke was what sparked my love of classical - proper - poetry. I found his stuff to be such drivel that I had no choice but to go and find out about real poetry and what a joy I discovered.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that the BBC are reacting to the fact that their institutionalised left wingism has been outed by trying to give an impression of impartiality. Peston is one of those who is supposed to address that. Unfortunately, for the BBC, his sneering nasal drone gives away the reality of Peston's rampant left wing ideology. It always does. Whenever you listen to anything on the BBC, it pays dividends to listen as much to the tone and style of the delivery as much as the words they say - because however they try to dress up their left wing bias the sneering voice of leftism cuts through.

Lies, responsibilty and hypocrisy

So after all the buildup and hype, Tony Blair's appearance in front of the Chilcot inquiry turned out to be one great anti-climax. I'm not really sure what people expected - perhaps they thought he'd break down sobbing as he confessed to deliberate lying to parliament and the people. Was that really likely from "Teflon Tony"?

Personally, I always thought this inquiry was a monumental waste of time and money. We've learned nothing new and the only thing that has come out of it is that civil servants and politicians will say and do whatever they think is necessary for them to save their own skin. Having Blair appear in the dock was really nothing more than a stunt.

What it did do, however, was give those professional protesters a chance to come out on the streets again with their pre-prepared placards, slogans and chants to voice their "disapproval" of Blair's actions.

Which is fine - except .......

Well, how many of those protesting voted for Labour? I suspect that most of them did - and I suspect that most of them will do so again. I suspect that the majority of "anti-war" protesters are Labour supporters who celebrated with gusto when Blair walked into Number 10.

These people are convinced that Tony Blair and the Labour Party lied about going to war against Iraq. They are all convinced that Tony Blair and the Labour Party systematically deceived the people of Britain to pursue personal ambitions for their own ends.

And yet, these same people are prepared to accept that, apart from that, everything else Tony Blair and the Labour Party did was above board and scrupulously honest. Whether it's on the subject of health, education, economics, poverty, immigration or what have you - they all swallow the rhetoric, statistics and "evidence" as indisputable fact as long as it supports their own personal bias.

How can they be so stupid? If Blair and the Labour Party were prepared to lie about something as monumentally important as going to war, don't they realise that they are even more likely to be lying about issues that are less important?

The people who voted for Labour are the ones who elected Labour to power. They are the ones who put Tony Blair into Number 10. If there were warmongers in government, it is they - the Labour voters - who put them there and they are as guilty and as culpable as anyone. For them to then wave banners and chant slogans criticising the government that they chose reeks of hypocrisy.

Not in their name, but only with their help - and those self same people will do it all again on May 6th 2010.

An awful lot of Balls

Is it just me or does it seem that almost every time I listen or watch virtually anything relating to politics on radio or TV they have that dreadful man Ed Balls on? I forget what his job title is - it's not called "Education" anymore is it - something like Secretary of State for Children and Families? How long before we get a Secretary of State for Left Handed Lithuanian Lesbians I wonder ... maybe we have already - I dunno, they seem to create new ministerial roles virtually every week.

Anyway, why was Balls being asked for his opinion on the (pathetic) sentence of those two sadistic thugs in south Yorkshire on Radio Five earlier today? I'm pretty sure he's not with the Home Office - or whatever that once great ministerial post is called this week - so his opinion on the sentence is hardly important.

And from what I know about his wife - the hard faced cow whose name escapes me for the moment - I'm pretty sure that his opinion wouldn't dare to be different from hers, so why not just ask her? It's clear to me that the only Balls with any balls in the Balls household is his missus - and with that in mind, why would anyone trust such a henpecked waste of space to run a government department anyway?

I've had enough Balls to last me a lifetime. The man is a spineless, charmless twerp who lacks the ability to string two coherent sentences together - I can see why his missus married him. The last thing a leftist harridan like her would want was a man who might talk back.

Suicide cult

The planned Christmas strike by BA cabin crew reminds us again that the problems which beset British industry in the seventies haven't gone away and that the biggest problem of all retains its capability to be self destructive.

The problems I refer to are, of course, industrial relations and the reason they remain so bad is predominantly down to the attitude of unions who refuse to acknowledge the lessons of the past and the role that they played in the demise of British industry.

Let me say, first of all, that I am not opposed to unions. They are, in theory, a good idea - but far too often they are led by militant and, to be quite frank, lunatic left wingers who still believe that capitalism is the enemy that must be slain. Let me also point out that I don't believe that the management of BA is free of culpability either - whenever there is an economic downturn it is the usual response of a business to cut pay, bonuses and jobs even if the business remains buoyant.

If business was more honest in the way it did these things rather than always looking for any old excuse to bash their own employees then maybe the unions would be less aggressive back - but business in Britain is incapable of thinking much beyond anything other than the current share price or the short term. However, this style of management is not a uniquely British thing whereas unions hell bent on destroying the industry their members work for is.

The British car industry was destroyed by militant unionism. It wasn't that long ago that the last major British car manufacturer shuffled into the pages of history when the unions hammered the last nail into Rover's coffin. Now it appears Unite (a daft name for a union if ever there was one) is determined to do the same to BA.

BA has made a massive loss. It's going to get even worse. No ifs buts or maybes - it is on its last legs. They really do need to reduce costs or the company will collapse. When that happens, the BA cabin crew won't just have lower pay - they won't have any pay which is exactly what happened to the employees of Rover the vast majority of which now work in call centres for a fraction of the money or claim the dole. Great job protecting the workers there!

I've got no doubt that once Unite have smashed BA into the ground they will then demand that the government step in to save the company - which won't happen. What would be the point? It didn't help the nationalised car industry or the nationalised coal industry or the nationalised steel industry.

And that's another point worth mentioning. Even though I am a right winger who believes in the capitalist economic system, I believe that nationalising an industry is sometimes both right and necessary. It wasn't nationalisation that destroyed our coal, car and steel industries - it was militant unions. Of course, it wasn't helped by some of the government decisions taken along the way - such as joining the "Common Market" which is now having a similarly ruinous effect on one of our last nationalised industries; the Post Office.

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century it was militant unionism that was largely responsible for destroying British industry. It seems they are determined to keep doing the same today. I don't think they'll ever stop until the last major British industry is consigned to history, but at least then we won't have to worry about militant unionism any more.

The double standards in demonstrations

I had hoped to post about this yesterday, but the w word intervened again (that's w for work - not wife!) and it had to wait.

Basically, it's about the double standards that exist in society today at all levels as demonstrated by the repeated calls in the media, from the police and various politicians for a group opposed to the islamification of Europe to call off a planned protest in Harrow later this month.

Personally speaking, I don't like marches, protests and demonstrations. It's not that I have a problem with them in principle - I don't - my main concern is that the vast majority of them are now hijacked and controlled by large politically motivated groups which often have no real interest in the local issue other than an opportunity to push their own political dogma.

Hence a minor protest by a group of residents concerned about council plans to turn their allotments into a block of flats gets taken over by Greenpeace and turned into a mass worldwide demonstration against "climate change". That's a bit of an extreme example, but I do know of some instances where something like that has happened and the original complaint of the protesters has been forgotten in the end.

Having said all that, I do recognise the right of anyone to peaceful protest - but it seems that certain elements in society, including elements of authority, do not. The group calling itself "Stop The Islamification Of Europe" have been urged to call off their planned protest outside Harrow mosque because it is alleged that it may spark violence.

Why would it? If, as we are frequently told, Islam is the Religion of Peace then why would there be any violence? Are the protesters planning to beat each other up?

The actual concern is not with the original march - but that counter demonstrators from so called "anti-fascist" groups are planning to do whatever they can to curtail the rights of fellow citizens to hold demonstrations. Incredibly, the irony of such a plan is lost on these "anti-fascist" groups who can not seem to understand that their attempts to silence other opinions is itself fascistic in nature or indeed that they are demonstrating in favour of Islam, an ideology which embodies fascistic principles.

If the police, media and politicians are really concerned about the possibility of violence then they should be telling these anti-free speech groups to call off their protest as that is far more likely to spark violence. Indeed, it is actually the intention of these groups to provoke violence as that is the tactic which will see the protest by SIOE abandoned and increase the likelihood that future planned marches by the group will be prevented by the authorities.

But these "anti-fascist" groups are are not some cobbled together group of concerned citizens. They are funded by the mainstream parties - including the Tories - and the unions. They are made up of well known left wing political activists, communists and anti-capitalists and they have not been shy in using violence and intimidation in the past.

Personally, as I've hinted at, I'm opposed to the protest by SIOE outside Harrow mosque. If the people of Harrow want to protest then they should be free to do so, but I don't like large political groups doing this sort of thing. If SIOE want to protest they should do so outside government offices and buildings. ANY organisation or group of protesters which is not local to the place in which they are protesting should be restricted to holding their protest in designated areas - such as public parks or town squares - but that is just my personal opinion.

However, given that our regulations permit these groups to hold their protest outside a mosque in Harrow then they should be permitted to do so and not be subject to intimidation by counter protests or by the authorities to abandon their lawful demonstration.

The cavalcade of conspiracy

So the Copenhagen stitch up - sorry, conference - is under way with much fanfare and the usual bunch of Environazis demanding that their voice be heard even though they are proven to be liars and deceivers.

Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with saving the planet. Even if these mad Canutists were correct in their assumption that increasing CO2 will result in runaway warming (which I do not believe they are as there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support that hypothesis - none at all) then all these efforts will supposedly delay the inevitable by, at best, 10 years.

The reality is that it isn't going to happen. Any contribution to global warming made by man is insignificant and whatever we do isn't going to make the slightest difference to the climate in 100 years time or 1000 years time - but this isn't really what Copenhagen is about.

The purpose of Copenhagen is not to fix any supposed problem with the climate - it is the first step in an attempt to create a socialist world order under the pretext of some half-baked hypothesis. The main purpose of the conference is to redistribute wealth - and to make that redistribution legally binding. It is, in effect, the creation of a new world government appointed - not elected - to take money from you and me and give it to someone in a far off country.

I have no doubt that in a hundred years time, people will look back on these days in with sadness and bewilderment and wonder how it could have happened. By then, of course, the whole scam will have been well and truly debunked and the mad scramble to "save the planet" will have been revealed as nothing more than a political con-trick.

Unfortunately, it will be a con-trick that will have huge implications for the world and for the west in particular. This is happening at a time when the economic system of the west is on the brink of depression - we're teetering on the precipice of total economic collapse. Don't be fooled by the massaged statistics - all of Europe and the USA remains on the brink - and our political leaders are about to sign away what little hope we had of avoiding this for the sake of a flawed and wholly political belief.

Predictable and pointless

A task force set up to investigate the state of social work in Britain after the murder of Baby P under the very noses of social workers has come up with some wholly predictable and pointless recommendations.

Basically, they suggest more pay and higher status for social workers.

Yes, really. The reason Baby P wasn't helped, apparently, is that social workers - as well as, presumably, the police officers and health care workers who also ignored Baby P's sorry plight - failed to act because they don't get enough money or social status.

The leader of this task force was one Moira Gibb - a member of the social work profession for some 25 years herself. It's like asking MPs to investigate the expense scandal (yes, I know they did - and I know they came up with the idea of more pay and status for MPs).

I'll tell you why social work is failing. There are two fundamental causes.

First is the feminisation of social work. I have no idea what the percentage is, but the majority of social workers seem to be female. The vast majority also happen to be left wing which is the second problem.

The way to solve the crisis in social work is not to throw yet more money at the industry, but to rebalance it. More men and more right wingers in social work.

Why will this help?

Because men (heterosexual men, anyway) are more likely to be emotionally dispassionate and right wingers are far more likely to be judgemental and be more balanced in that judgement. Left wingers are, by their own admission, non-judgemental - except when the person or thing they are judging conflicts with their left wing ideology in which case they come down on it like a ton of bricks.

Hence a married Christian couple who dare to expose their child to the "horrors" of Catholicism are much more likely to have their children taken away than a drug-addled single mum who has a succession of psychopath boyfriends with a taste for extra strong ultra cheap supermarket lager and a penchant for tattoos.

Social work, though, is a self-perpetuating industry. It's very existence depends on having the right social conditions in place to need a social work industry. It needs a drug culture, a welfare culture, a binge drinking culture, a domestic violence culture, a single parent culture and so on to enable it to grow and expand. Other peoples misery is the life blood of social work - social workers need it to justify their employment and pay.

The last thing they want to do is actually solve anything.

Tolerance is a privilege - not a right

Tolerance is a word that is bandied about an awful lot these days - particularly by those on the liberal left - and yet little thought is given to what tolerance means and how it should be applied.

Tolerance does not mean - as some seem to think - acceptance. It actually means "to put up with" - usually for a particular behaviour with defined limits and the implied understanding that should those limits be breached then toleration of that behaviour will be withdrawn. As such, tolerance is a privilege and not a right. No one and no behaviour has a right to be tolerated - instead that tolerance has to be earned.

Consequently, tolerance can not be legislated for - as the progressives increasingly try to do. When they try to do this it is actually counter productive because the more you try and instruct people to tolerate something the more likely they are to resent being told to put up with something which they do not like - and they will say so.

So what the left then do is legislate to prevent people saying that they don't like the sort of behaviour they are being asked to tolerate which makes the people even more resentful - but worse still, rather than openly discussing their concerns, they keep their thoughts private or share them only amongst their close friends and family.

The result of this, as we are seeing increasingly in Britain today, is that there is more likely to be intolerance of certain behaviours by ever more people than there was 50 years ago. This is because those who wish to indulge in certain behaviours did so with more and more disregard for the concerns of those who were being asked to tolerate those behaviours - but successive progressive governments told those people to shut up - by law.

So they did - and that caused even deeper resentment. Once that point was reached it was inevitable that many people would kick back in any way that they could. Some did so by forming their own behaviours which others were forced to accept, while others went further and started physically attacking people or groups whose behaviour they found unacceptable.

The attempts by successive governments to enforce tolerance has led to an even more fractured society with various "tribes" establishing their own "safe havens". It's not helped by the left dictating what can and can not be tolerated - as if this was either reasonable or possible! What gives anyone - whether they are in government or not - the right to tell someone else what they can or can not find acceptable?

It's like passing a law that everyone must like the colour green, but no one is allowed to like orange. What happens if someone doesn't like green, but really likes orange?

Nobody and no behaviour has an automatic right to be tolerated. It is a privilege that they earn by moderating that behaviour in such a way so that others are not offended by it. It doesn't matter what that behaviour is - binge-drinking, homosexuality, racism, infidelity or whatever - the behaviour has to be moderated to within tolerable limits for the rest of society.

And the more militant a group is about demanding "tolerance" the more likely they are going to find that society is not willing to tolerate their behaviour any longer.

Bullys and bias

I've now watched QT on iplayer and it was, as others have pointed out, a travesty - but my own view was that was always likely to be the case. Let's be honest here - neither the BBC or those non-affiliated people taking part are in the least bit impartial and no one who goes on QT espousing views which the liberal elite do not deem acceptable is going to get a fair hearing.. It's been that way for some years now - at least since the departure of the late, great Robin Day.

Nick Griffin was rightly lambasted by Dimbleby over his past - but it is then wrong for Dimbleby not to apply the same standards to the other guests. Why, for instance, is he not criticising Jack Straw for his communist past? Why isn't he pointing out to Bonnie Greer that the Black Panther Party are now a respected political movement in the USA, but began as an overtly racist organisation (and quite probably remain so)? Not that I'm suggesting Ms Greer was involved in the Black Panther movement, but it demonstrates the absurd non-critical approach taken to overtly racist non-white organisations compared to the highly critical approach taken towards the BNP.

And why wasn't Dimbleby pointing out to Warsi that the majority of Moslem countries still treat women and non-Moslems as second class citizens (at best) and that perhaps she ought to consider why it is that non-Moslems are banned from entering certain cities? Not racist, strictly speaking, but most certainly fascist! How would she feel if Britain decided that non-Christians were not permitted within 10 miles of Westminster Cathedral?

Ultimately, though, I think Griffin has suffered some personal damage from this - but nothing that he won't recover from. He actually came off less badly than the others who were shown to be rude, ill mannered and incapable of proper debate. Shouting at your opponent and interrupting them at every opportunity does nothing to improve your own standing, but will encourage others to take a more sympathetic view of the person being bullied.

So this may not have worked out great personally for Griffin, but I don't think it will have done the BNP any harm. What it most certainly has done, though, is damage the credibility of the BBC and the other guests who appeared on the show.

You know that schools are in a a bad way ...

.... when the products of the system are not deemed qualified enough to stack shelves or to waft a box of detergent in front of a bar code reader at Tesco. Sir Terry Leahy says the standards are "woefully low" and he should know - being the boss of Britain's biggest private employer.

I suppose some will argue that those in the education system - such as the inspectors, teachers and exam markers - have a much better insight into the real state of education, but those people are terribly biased towards a system which generally they support thanks to the default political stance of your average "educationalist" (i.e. raving Marxist).

The boss of Tesco knows the reality, though and the reality is that schools are churning out dross these days. Quite often it is dross with 4 or 5 GCSEs, but frankly those are virtually worthless qualifications. The vast majority of school leavers who go on to university spend the first year of their life in tertiary education doing remedial work to bring them up to the standard required to study for a degree - something which the sixth form of a secondary school is supposed to prepare them for!

I know it's set in the USA, but do you remember the film "The Graduate"? Yes, I know it had little to do with education - well, formal academic education, anyway - but Dustin Hoffman played a character called Benjamin who had just attained a bachelors degree (I can't remember what in). He was just coming up to his 21st birthday.

The character was pretty unremarkable - he was certainly no prodigy - just your average everyday graduate of those times and the average graduate in England back then was also around the 21 mark. These days - what with gap years before they start, remedial years when they do start and more gap years during their time at university - the average age of a graduate is likely to be two or three years older - and yet they appear less able than their sixties and seventies equivalents.

Our entire education system is in a dire state - from primary through to university it is failing to deliver the standards required and is falling well below the standards of 30 years ago. The reason is obvious. Education stopped being a process for preparing children for the world of work and became a tool for indoctrinating children into the left wing political dominance.

Even in that sense, though, there are signs that education is failing. Not only are more and more school leavers lacking in the basic skills which were once taken for granted it is also becoming apparent, to me anyway, that many of those school leavers (including many that left school some time ago) are increasingly disillusioned with the left wing world view that has been foisted upon them and are turning to conservatism.

Generally they tend to be from white "working class" backgrounds - the very people the left was supposed to support, but who were long ago abandoned in favour of more appreciative "victim groups" such as immigrants, gays and feminists. The working class of Britain has always been socially conservative and, I suspect, will always remain so. The fact that they have been failed so abysmally by all our mainstream parties is the reason why so-called "far-right" parties such as the BNP are starting to prosper. The truth is that the BNP offer left wing politics with social conservatism - something which the white working class is bound to find attractive after so many decades of being sacrificed for the causes of minorities.

The EU and BBC bias

As expected, the Irish people - faced with a mounting economic crisis and the offer of substantial bribes coupled with thinly veiled threats - have reversed their original vote against the Lisbon Treaty and have now voted to accept it at the second time of asking.

No doubt some people will argue that this proves that the Irish media, business and political establishment have successfully argued the case for the Lisbon Treaty - personally I think it more accurately reflects the pragmatism of the Irish people who, realising that they will be repeatedly asked to vote again and again until they say "yes", decided to concede now rather later.

So the Irish vote tells us nothing new - just reinforces the point that any attempt by any member nation to reassert their national sovereignty as a member will be received with the usual cold contempt by the architects of the EU.

For me, though, the most infuriating thing about the run up to the Irish capitulation was that whenever the BBC mentioned the impending vote they always referred to the treaty as ".... the Lisbon Treaty - designed to improve/reform/modernise the way the EU works" or something along those lines. This is the worst sort of subliminal indoctrination there is - repeatedly slipping in some term with positive connotations for the explicit purpose of making the subject more acceptable.

Who says that the Lisbon Treaty was "designed to improve/reform/modernise" the EU? The designers! Yet they know full well that that is not what the Lisbon Treaty was designed for. It was designed to give the EU full legal status - to allow for the imposition of a permanent EU presidency and foreign office. It was designed to make sure that the Irish, French, Dutch, British or whoever - regardless of their constitution - will never ever be allowed a referendum on such things again.

Yet not once did you hear any of this from the BBC. And while we are on the subject of BBC bias - I watched this morning as Bill Turnbull interviewed Boris Johnson on breakfast television and asked him about his time in the infamous Bullingdon Club while at university with Cameron - as if this is somehow relevant or important.

It isn't. Sorry to dismiss all the conspiracy theories, but members of parliament and the political establishment belonging to elite clubs and behaving in arrogant, superior ways when they were young is nothing new. It's been going on for centuries and still goes on today. There have been countless ministers of the state who have belonged to these sorts of clubs from both sides of the house.

What is new to British politics is that there are now ministers of state who have been - and may be still are -active communists, but they never get asked about their past by the BBC. I wonder why that is?

Different standards apply

Driving home very late last night I finally gave up on the CD and switched on the radio and tuned in to Radio Five Live - which turned out to be a big mistake.

The radio show playing at the time was a "debate" about whether is is right to ban BNP members from being teachers. I put debate in quotes because it was nothing of the sort - anyone who dared to oppose the idea of banning BNP members from teaching was shouted down by various participants while anyone supporting the ban was given ample opportunity to rant and rave no matter how ridiculous their proposition.

For example, one idiot kept ranting about whether we'd allow paedophiles to teach. Well, judging by the frequent and numerous incidents of teachers having sexual relations with their underage pupils I'd say it is pretty apparent that we already do - but what the hell is this equating being a member of a legitimate political party with kiddy fiddling?

The moderator - or whatever he was - allowed this on the basis that the BNP is "openly racist". Racism, apparently, is actually a crime according to the people on the show. I actually thought the crime was racial discrimination, racial harassment or incitement to racial hatred rather than just expressing or thinking racist views or thoughts - but what do I know. After all Ron Atkinson was sacked for casting aspersions on a black footballers commitment, but he wasn't actually convicted of any crime - I guess things have moved on from those days.

Anyway, the assertion was that anyone who is a member of the BNP must be racist - a sweeping generalisation which wouldn't be allowed in any other situation. For that reason, the panel decided that it was right to ban BNP members from being teachers as they would treat non-white children as inferior.

But hang on a second - if that is the assumption then we should also ban members of the Labour Party from being teachers as you could equally claim that they are just as likely to treat children of bankers, accountants, company directors etc as inferior. And you should ban Conservatives from teaching as they would be inclined to treat children of miners (if we had any), factory workers (ditto) and union activists as inferior.

Likewise you should ban Green Party members from teaching as they would treat meat eating children, those that arrive at school in 4x4s and just about any kid who isn't a tree hugging nut nibbler as inferior. Actually, we ought to just ban Green Party members. And what about Moslems - particularly those who go for the full Moslem garb? There you have a radical Moslem teacher who may be treating non-Moslem children as inferior - and may even be putting pressure on moderate Moslem children and their families to adopt the full regalia! Why don't we ban Moslems from teaching, then?

And as someone pointed out - to universal silence - we should ban feminists and gays from teaching as they may be inclined to treat boys or straight children (huh?) as inferior. If you take the proposition to its natural conclusion - nobody should be allowed to teach.

But of course that is ridiculous. The fact is that teachers have to obey stringent rules in the way they treat children - both national laws and local school rules - no matter what their political affiliation or particular world view is. If any teacher breaks those rules they can be disciplined and even sacked - whether they are BNP members or members of the NUT (and the vast majority who have been disciplined or sacked have been members of the latter rather than the former).

What is being suggested here is that different rules should be made for BNP members purely on the basis that those who make the rules don't like them. That is bigotry, discrimination and intolerance on a grand scale.

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?

How the left admit they've failed on education

The left never actually admit they are wrong on anything. It's one of the features of left wing thinking that any real world evidence which falsifies a wide held left wing belief is either wrong or can be reinterpreted to demonstrate that their belief is correct. Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) - very much a left wing belief system - being a prime example of that technique.

However, they frequently admit their failings by accident. Or, to be more precise, by their incoherent thought processes. For example, it is a long held belief of the left that poverty causes crime. Is this true?

Well, if it is true then it is obvious that fifty years of progressive liberalism have failed - because crime is considerably worse than it was fifty years ago when there was far more poverty than there is now. But the left counter that by adjusting the way we measure poverty so it appears that there are more poor people today than there really is - in which case, fifty years of progressive liberalism and the welfare state has failed again.

To prove their theory - that poverty causes crime - they have to demonstrate that there are plenty of poor people which is why crime is so much higher today than it was fifty years ago, but by doing that they admit the failure of another left wing plank. It's an implicit admission of the failure of the left - but one they will never own up to.

It's a similar thing with education. According to the left, comprehensive education has been a great success. It is fairer and delivering higher standards than ever before - so they say.

But then comes the admission of failure again. You see, another one of their theories on crime is that it is caused by poor education. Time and again I hear someone from the left saying that "prison doesn't work" - what is needed, they insist, is education to stop people falling into crime.

This stark admission ignores the fact that everyone has access to a state education from the age of 5 until they are 16. If it is true that poor education is more likely to result in a rise in crime then it is demonstrable evidence that comprehensive education has been an abject failure because - as we know - crime was considerably lower before comprehensive education.

So, either the theory is bunkum or the policy is failing? Which is it lefties?

Of course, both theories - that poor education and poverty cause crime - are rubbish. A century ago we had considerably more poverty and poorer education, but far less crime - but a century before that we had even poorer education and even more poverty - and crime was rife.

What causes crime? The absence of morality is what.

Basic instinct

So the government are abandoning plans for the ID card scheme to be compulsory?

In a significant climb down, Mr Johnson yesterday announced that the cards would only be issued to Britons on a voluntary basis.

In which case - what is the point? We already have a voluntary ID card scheme known as a "passport" so why bother with another one? Not only that, but the passport is useful if you want to get out of this country - which increasing numbers of Britons are choosing to do.

Mr Johnson is the man touted by the mainstream media as Gordon Brown's successor although, for the life of me, I can't think why. Johnson is to charisma what Brown is to cheerful - as far as I can tell, his only real quality is that he isn't Harriet Harman (which, to be fair, is a major positive for any politician).

But perhaps the biggest reason why we should hope this man never gets to be in charge of the country is this seemingly throw away comment .....

Mr Johnson insisted he was still an “instinctive” supporter of ID cards

That is the basic instinct of the people who now govern our country. The instinct of mistrust, repression and surveillance that typified regimes like the Soviet Bloc. That is what our fathers and grandfathers spent six years fighting against and another fifty defending us from in western Europe during the 20th century.

The wolves aren't just in the sheep pen - they are running the farm.

Why relying on "comparative advantage" is chasing rainbows

Research carried out by the Institute of Education, part of the University of London, has reached the conclusion that "work-based training" is a waste of time and money and that "many courses would do little to help Britain emerge from the economic downturn".

Professor Lorna Unwin, who carried out the study alongside academics from Cardiff and Southampton universities, said: "All too often learning is regarded as something separate from work itself and is seen solely in terms of formal episodes of 'training' that can be counted and costed – the bean-counting approach.

We'll come on to the "bean-counting" in a moment, but first ponder this.

At the moment, official estimates state there are around five million adults in Britain lacking basic literacy, while 17 million struggle with simple arithmetic.

That 17 million adults equates to more than one half of the available British workforce. That on it's own is a statistic that damns any pretence that the comprehensive school programme has been a success - if we had known, when they embarked on the wrecking of our education system, that after 40 years half our adults would be barely numerate with a further 5 million barely able to read would we have gone ahead with it?

Why do we persist with the lie that comprehensive education is "working" when it clearly isn't? The answer, of course, is that comprehensive education is part of the progressive doctrine - and as all our parties are progressive parties, none of them will actually admit the damning truth.

However, this condemns them.

Ministers have encouraged adults to enrol on courses to boost the level of basic skills.

If comprehensive education was working, why would ministers have to encourage adults to enrol on courses to boost the level of basic skills. That is what we have eleven years of state education for! If they've not reached the required level of basic skill in eleven years then there is clearly something wrong with the system.

So, state education is not providing our population with even the basic skills - but that's not the end of the problem.

In the latest study, researchers investigated the different courses being offered across Britain but insisted many were "unrelated" to businesses' needs.

It blamed Government targets which they said were fixated by the number of people with qualifications - rather than the type of course.

Which brings us back to the bean-counters. The Labour government's fixation with targets is what drives the bean-counting - the aim of which is not specifically to improve standards, but to provide the government with the figures so that they can feel good about themselves - and to use as propaganda.

Take the goal of having 50% of school leavers attending university - a spurious figure plucked out of the air. Why 50% - why not 70% or 100%? The important thing about university is not how many are going, but that we have the required number for our needs doing the courses that our industries and businesses require. Thirty years ago or so, that was roughly around 30% - and that was at a time when we a considerably larger industrial base than we do now.

I don't know how close we are to that 50%, but what is apparent is that many graduates are struggling to find employment related to their degree. What is the point of spending countless thousands of pounds educating someone to degree standard just so that they can work in McDonalds or end up using those skills in some other country?

The article goes on to bash the quango system.

Authors of the study - Improving Working as Learning - also criticised the complex system of bodies set up to lead training and skills initiatives.

"What was once a collection of disparate bodies jostling for the right to serve and influence employers has itself become a many-headed bureaucratic hydra, which, in turn, devours part of the funding intended for the 'real' economy," researchers said.

Not just "part" of the funding - a considerable chunk of it. The Learning and Skills Council alone has a budget of some £10.4 billion! - and that is just one of the bewildering myriad of bodies set up in the education sector.

All of this brings me to my point. I keep hearing people - in newspapers, websites, blogs and so on - talking about our "comparative advantage" in the globalised economy. This "comparative advantage" is based on the belief that we, as a supposedly developed high technology nation, have skills which the rest of the world needs. Although we don't make anything anymore, they argue, that doesn't matter because we have the skills to develop the technology and design the things that the rest of the world wants.

BULLSHIT!

Our education system is so completely wrecked that half our workforce is barely literate or numerate - and it isn't getting any better. Meanwhile, those developing nations are churning out hundreds of thousands of highly qualified, highly skilled and exceptionally competent graduates year after year. Why on earth would they come to us for something they can get better and cheaper in their own nation?

There are only two areas where we maintain any sort of comparative advantage with the rest of the world - arms and pharmaceuticals. Our arms industry is shrinking rapidly with the bulk of it now residing with one company - Bae - while pharmaceuticals gets a universally bad press thanks to the demonic outpourings of the left who moan about these companies "profiteering" from the sick and needy in the third world (does anyone realise how much it costs to develop a drug, how long it takes to get it approved and how little time is left on the patent by the time it gets to market? - and that's with the 1 in 20 drugs that ever get that far! What are they supposed to do - give it away?).

Neither of those two industries are sufficient to maintain that comparative advantage - and pretty soon we won't be world leaders in those areas either.

Without a decent education system to produce the workforce we need we can not maintain a comparative advantage. Without a decent industrial and production base we can not maintain an economy that matches our living standards - something has to give. Any changes we make in our education system will take a generation or more to bear fruit - even if we started today we would not feel the benefit for 25 years or more and there is no indication whatsoever from any of our political parties that they have either the will or the know how to do that anyway.

Without that decent education system we have no comparative advantage. There are seventeen million adults in Britain who can not add up properly - there are probably three times that many Chinese adults with high quality degrees in highly sought after subjects. How are we supposed to compete with that?

Comparative advantage does not exist for Britain. Either we adopt protectionism or we accept that we're going to have to get used to considerably lower living standards.

Core beliefs

First of all, let's start with the best joke of the day from Tim Montgomerie talking about the possibility that the BNP may win a seat in the EU Parliament.

Britain will no longer be able to proudly say it has kept fascists out of high office.

That's funny for a couple of reasons. First of all, the BNP don't claim to be fascist - that assertion is put forward by people like Montgomerie - they claim to be just another democratic political party, but one with a different world view to that of the three main parties. Just because someone says different doesn't make it so - it's what they do that matters.

Which is why it is funny on the second level - because if you want evidence of fascism you only have to look at our current government for that. Fascism is characterised by authoritarianism, corporatism and the suppression of free speech - three major features of this Labour administration. Fascists in high office? We already have them, Tim old boy.

The main thrust of Montgomerie's article though is to claim that the BNP present a veneer of respectability to hide their core beliefs and have successfully used the internet to promote this. Montgomerie uses an anecdote about a conversation with two people who were suggesting they would vote BNP.

I asked if they knew about the Nazi ideology that many BNP activists followed. I asked if they knew about the party's preference for an all-white Britain. They didn't. They were horrified and promised to find a different vehicle for their protest vote.

Now this may be true about some BNP members, but the point is that it is not necessarily the position of all of them or even the majority of them. I'm pretty sure you'll find plenty of Tory, Labour and Lib Dem members who actively support elements of Nazi ideology - such as anti-smoking, animal "rights", environmental obsession and suppression of free speech and thought.

More to the point, you will find amongst the ranks of the senior Labour party many MPs and even current and former Cabinet members who were supporters and followers of the communist ideology. Let's be honest about this, Hitler was a madman and responsible for the death of some 15 million people, but he pales in comparison with the heroes of the left.

The ideology that so many Labour members, MPs and leaders followed caused the death of hundreds of millions of people. It's repellent enough that the Nazis murdered some 6 million people in their concentration camps - why is it less repellent that the communists so beloved of Labour murdered tens of millions more in their gulags?

Why do we forget this? Why do we forgive it?

I know it's hard, but if you remove Hitler's anti-semitism and the fact he led Europe into a major conflagration there is no doubt that he transformed Germany from a broken and pathetic nation into a major industrial and economic power. People forget just how low Germany had sunk in 1933. Hitler's Germany gave us BMW and Volkswagen. Communism gave us the Moskvitch and Lada.

So if you're talking about core beliefs - are BNP any worse than Labour?

I don't think so.

I hate the lionization of Che, but it's wrong to ban his image

Whenever I see the iconic image of Che Guevara displayed on some t-shirt I always feel a bit of anger which is usually overwhelmed by a wave of pity for the wearer. Anger because of the fact they are carrying a symbol of genocidal authoritarianism on their chest and pity because they are obviously too dumb to realise it.

But even though it makes me ever so slightly angry and is clearly something which no right minded person would want to associate themselves with, I don't agree with the idea of banning it - or any other symbols related to authoritarianism.

The iconic image of Che Guevara found adorning students' walls and t-shirts across the world could be banned in Poland under a government proposal to outlaw materials that incite "fascism and totalitarian systems".

As someone who believes in real freedom of speech I believe it is wrong to suppress anybody from holding or expressing freely held beliefs and views - regardless of how repugnant they may be to others. Of course it should not be permissible for someone to openly advocate violence or, indeed incite others to violence - and there are laws to prevent that* - but that is not the same as this.

One of the benefits of living in a liberal (traditional - not progressive) democracy is also one of its biggest drawbacks - the right to say and think things which others might find objectionable. We've already seen moves in this country to curtail that such as restrictions on what you can and can not say about people of a different race or sexual orientation - that is the path that leads to authoritarianism and should be resisted by all people who genuinely believe in true liberal democracy and genuine freedom of thought and expression.

It is generally the reflex of the very systems that these moves seek to ban that are being applied here - Nazism was built on crushing any view which did not fit its own particular narrow world view and communism was the same.

So even though I find the sight of Che Guevara splashed across the chest of some dumb idiot objectionable, I will defend their right to wear it.

* Laws which seem to be ignored or rarely applied when it comes to Islam.

Getting the balance right

Anyone who reads this blog will realise by now that my politics is .... complicated, to say the least. The truth is, I don't think politics is simply a black and white case of, left and right, libertarian or authoritarian, socialism or conservatism and I don't believe there are that many people in Britain who are that politically simple.

I am - in various parts - conservative, libertarian, nationalist and capitalist. I know some people consider some of my views as bordering on socialism - if not outright socialism - but I disagree. Generally, those parts of my politics which appear to verge on socialism are simply traditional British nationalist, social conservatism. People seem to forget that the Labour movement, although socialist, was also very very socially conservative -so what often seems like Old Labour views are nothing more than the views which Old Labour once shared with the old Conservatives.

What I can't understand, though, is those people who think that we should take one particular political philosophy and keep it as pure as possible. There is no indication that this would be successful - and in all likelihood it would be catastrophic. Take the views of many libertarians and conservatives that we must retain a globalised "free market" economy, for example.

It is a basic feature of market economics that the market must find a level. We all know this - it is the most fundamental law of capitalist economics - supply and demand. Given that, it is inconceivable to assume that we can have a globalised free market economy in which one nation can pay its workers £30,000 a year for doing a job while a different nation pays its workers £3000 for doing the same job. Forget comparative advantage - that assumes you have an advantage and I have yet to see anyone demonstrate where that advantage is - the law of supply and demand says that if the going rate for doing a job is £3000 per year then £3000 per year is what you will be paid.

There's no point in denying it - we all know that's the case, but why do so many people ignore it?

The trick with politics is to get a balance. It's never going to be possible to achieve a perfect political system so the best you can hope for is to create the least imperfect system. Ironically, this is what we had basically achieved by the time the second world war began. It hadn't happened by accident and it wasn't a quick process, but decades of slow political progress had led us to a nation which was reasonably wealthy, industrious, motivated, had decent and improving social conditions, quality health care and decent living standards.

This had come about through a combination of conservatism, liberalism (traditional - not progressive) and nationalism all bound together by a heavy leaning towards social conservatism. The very attributes which I believe define my politics and, quite possibly, the politics of a considerable number of British people of my sort of age and older.

Why are we that way? Well, our politics was defined by our earliest influences and shaped by our later development as we grew older and assumed more responsibility of our lives. Just about everyone who was born before 1960 went through the same system - some of us grew up in working class Labour voting households while others grew up in middle class Conservative voting households. What is more, parliament was basically made up of people with a similar disposition.

However, since the sixties there have been two major changes which have altered that. First of all, the education system has become politicised and is now institutionally leftist. Some might argue that it was institutionally conservative before that - but it was social conservatism, not political. As a result of this politicisation of our education system - from infants to university - most people under the age of 40 had their original political views shaped not by their parents and their social circle, but by the schools. As a result they tend to be socially liberal and left of centre by the time they reach adulthood.

All the same, once they are exposed to the harsh realities of life, more than a few redefine themselves as politically conservative - although they remain socially liberal. So, although they move slightly to the right politically - they remain considerably further to the left than their contemporaries from 40 years ago.

The other thing that changed was the introduction of career politics. Most of our politicians today follow a path that ensures they never receive other influences in their political ideology other than the education system (socially liberal) and their choice of political party. As a result, parliament increasingly comprises people who, unlike in the past where there political outlook had been shaped by outside influences and personal experience, have very little exposure to alternative viewpoints.

Now, because our politicians come from such a narrow perspective, the balance of politics has tipped far too far to the left. Everyone knows that the so-called centre ground of today is far to the left of the centre ground of fifty years ago. We need to restore that balance to restore our nation. That won't be easy.

It won't be easy because it has to begin with the education system which needs to be politically "cleansed" - from top to bottom. However, right now the education system is dominated by leftists - both at classroom level and at policy level. Changing this around will be a mammoth task, but is by no means unachievable.

However, it can only be achieved by a government which is determined to achieve it and there is no indication that the Conservatives are the ones to do that. What is needed is a clear determination by a party to end the indoctrination of children - exposure to issues ranging from multiculturalism to global warming - and restore schools and universities to imparting pure knowledge to our children rather than political dogma.

It requires a determination by a government to take on the union stranglehold that currently ensures that the political dogma which is pushed to children is predominantly leftist. This doesn't just mean tackling the unions, but changing the whole way our teachers become teachers and who can teach. It also means giving more control to parents and local communities to decide what sort of schools they need and where rather than having them imposed on them by central government.

This would be a start - but that is all it would be. More - much much more is needed from infants to university to remove the stain of leftist ideology which currently colours our political map and creates the political imbalance which is so destructive to our national well being.

We need to get that balance back and get it right. Social conservatism mixed with traditional liberalism, political conservatism and British nationalism stood us in good stead for decades. It can do again, but only if we let it -and only if we understand that following a pure ideology rarely brings the desired result.

The reactionary left

Over on Iain Dale's Diary there is a quote from the architect of the Red Rag website, Derek Draper.

"We believe that what is true of political communications and consumer marketing is true of any and all communications: human beings decide what they think of you with their gut. If your emotional message leaves them cold, then your argument won’t matter."

I've tried to leave a comment on this on the site, but for some reason it won't accept my words of wisdom. So I'll post them here.

Basically, Draper is right - but only because we let him be right.

Once upon a time, political discourse in Britain was based on rational, fact based argument - but that was when Britain was a reserved nation not given to emotional outbursts and mawkish sentimentality. Unfortunately for the left, their arguments have very little impact when faced with rational argument which is why left wing politics made very little progress in Britain until the left introduced emotive argument.

I suppose the exact moment this happened is debatable as the origins of this lie in the suffragette movement - not directly, as the suffragette movement's main argument was actually quite rational - but as a consequence of middle and upper class women being exposed to the harsh realities of the prison system through their illegal activities.

This led to the movement for prison reform based entirely on irrational, emotive arguments rather than rational thought and was a turning point in political terms. Even so, it would still be another 40 years or so before it became mainstream. The reason for that, as I mentioned, is that Britain was still a reserved and conservative nation driven by an overriding belief in rational thought as the guiding principle for action.

The real change, however, didn't occur until the sixties when the left finally started to break down the traditional British reserve which was always their biggest obstacle. Instead of being encouraged to keep our emotions in check we were encouraged to "let it all hang out" as if this was a good thing. This was propagated through a series of reactionary movements designed to kick back at the "establishment".

Since then the left has relied entirely on reactionary, emotive argument to put their case and to close down any dissenting voice. Whatever the subject, the response of the left is to use emotive language to win the argument - so if you argue that spending cuts are necessary, they insist this means closing schools and hospitals.

The biggest mistake of the right was to fall into the same trap and start trying to argue their case on emotive terms. Cameron is a prime example of this with his ridiculous publicity stunt early in his leadership to demonstrate the dangers of "global warming".

AGW is a perfect case in point. Rationally, the anthropogenic global warming case is slight to say the least. The belief that mans contributions to greenhouse gases (a mere 0.03% of the naturally occurring total) is the main driver of global climate. Rather than concentrate on the facts - i.e. climate variability is entirely natural and nothing out of the ordinary; that warming is generally more beneficial to life on earth than cooling; that CO2 is not a pollutant, but an essential trace gas and airborne fertiliser helping us to produce higher crop yields and feed our growing population - instead of that the left use emotive arguments.

So AGW is all about drowning polar bears, flooded nations and drought ridden deserts where arable land once flourished - all of which, apart from being dubious assertions anyway, are emotive arguments.

This is the way the left works - whatever the subject. You want to discuss immigration? You're a racist. You think education was better with selective grammar schools? You're an elitist. You think the first principle of the criminal justice and prison system is to punish wrongdoers? You're inhuman. You think social conservatism is better than social liberalism? You're an authoritarian.

The left can do this because the right has let them. And because we've let them we've had to join them. So now all the arguments take place on their terms - and this is why the Tories have moved so far to the left.

Rational argument has been thrown out of politics because we now let our hearts rule our heads. We know in our minds that Britain is descending into an anarchic hellhole. We know that the policies of the last fifty years have failed to produce a better nation, but we're unable or unwilling to argue the rational case.

Until we on the right start to argue the toss using rational argument we will never be able to beat the left. As long as we continue to let them dominate the debate with their emotive reactionary arguments then we'll always be second best. Draper knows this.