Having had to depart from a local
pub rapidly due to ‘football’ being shown simultaneously on five wide-screen
TVs on a Greek satellite with volume at maximum so that the furniture vibrated
and the commercials were all in Greek, I yield to no-one in my loathing of a
kid’s game that now involves 22 men kicking a roundball fromone end of a field to another with the object of placing it between two
sticks and getting paid £1 million a week for this 90 minutes of tomfoolery.
The saving grace is that the that
the moral delinquents who get into the red-tops more for the stories that come
from their swimming in the soccer cesspool than for actually playing the game
do, often unwittingly, add to the gaiety of nations.
Currently there is a big
hoo-hah over a white player who was very rude about a gentleman of colour; I am
not sure whether they play for the same team, but it is not germane anyway.
The nub of it all is that he
is being investigated for racism with a possible view to prosecution under one
or other of the laws brought in by NuLab to criminalise us all.
Thanks to a piece which will
appear in Rod Liddle’s column in the Speccie next week we now get a glimpse of
what this is all about.
It seems that the miscreant called
the innocent party a ‘f*****g black c**t’.
The stasi are not going for
him because of the foul language, which is now so common in some circles that
it is considered normal speech, having lost its power to shock through frequent
use.
No, it is ‘black’ that is considered
to be offensive.
But he is black. This is the
only bit of truth in the insult. Regarding this as offensive is surely racist
in itself and the representatives of the race relations industry who are
pursuing this should surely be the ones in the dock.
If the boot had been on the
other foot (in a manner of speaking) would the black guy be up for it by
calling the other guy a ‘f*****g white c**t’?
I think we should be told!
********
So farewell, then,Jimmy Saville:
The old weirdo has finally fallen
of his twig, snuffed it, gone to meet his maker, shuffled off this mortal coil.
God fixed it for Jim.
We know all this because BBC
TV News gave this the #1 spot for over 20 minutes. Good to know that all’s
right with the world and nothing occurred anywhere more important than the
demise of a creepy pop-jock.
In my piece around this time
last year on the topic of tax havens, I poured scorn on the notion that the
Swiss would give up their cherished banking secrecy just on the say-so of the
US and UK.
Well, the UK has just
revealed some details of its ‘transparency’ deal with Switzerland.
In return for disclosing the
20% or so of undeclared accounts that are identifiably British, the Swiss will
not be required to reveal anything more. But any fule kno that most off-shore
accounts are blind or discretionary trusts or some other vehicle that does not
identify the owner. Off-shore banks specialise in these, and there are entire
law firms that do nothing else.
And the levy only applies to
accounts still held as at May 2013, so anybody idiotic enough to keep his
off-shore account in his own name will have 18 months to shift his wedge to
another ‘tax haven’. True the Swiss will be required to reveal the number of
accounts shifted and the 10 most popular destinations, but not to disclose how
much money was moved or by whom.
What’s more, the Swiss and
Brits have agreed not to make public any information gathered, so Freedom of
Information Act inquiries will get nowhere.
Not that any of this will
bother the Swiss or make any difference. The really big amounts of funny money
come from Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and China.
And did you know that
although the US insists that the IMF investigates transparency into other
countries’ offshore banking practices, it will not allow the IMF into its own
banks, notwithstanding that America is the world’s largest tax shelter.
We have just finished
watching a TV documentary about the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The role
of this venerable institution is to turn out officers and gentlemen (and ladies
these days). We were appalled and disgusted.
Why so?
When I was at Officer Cadet
School in the mid-50s, foul language was absolutely forbidden. You might just
get away with ‘damn’, but not ‘bloody’, ‘bastard’ and definitely not the ‘f’ or
‘c’ words. An officer cadet would be firmly disciplined and possibly ‘RTU’d’ –
returned to unit. A staff member would be out. (But I do remember at a church
parade later in my service when a squaddie went into the church wearing his
hat. The Sergeant Major bawled out ‘Take your ‘at off, laddie. Show some
respect in the House of the Lord, you c**t’).
And yet at modern-day
Sandhurst we get an unbroken stream of profanity from the instructors. The
deeply unimpressive NCO instructor seemed incapable of speech otherwise. A high
proportion of Officer-Cadets are women. Formerly it would have been unthinkable
to use foul language in front of women of any class under any circumstances.
Now it is commonplace; even young women seem to use the ‘f’ word as a normal
and frequent part of speech. Perhaps now we only train officers, even the
concept of ‘gentleman’ being incomprehensible.
As the OED defines it, the
word conjures up ‘a chivalrous, courteous man’. It has little to do with class.
In days past, the labourer might be a perfect gentleman and the Squire anything
but.
I remember my old man
describing someone as ‘a gentleman-farmer; the only thing he raises is his
hat!’
It envisages good manners
(likesaying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’
and sending letters of thanks in returnfor presents, concepts largely foreign to today’s generation),
consideration for others, opening a door for a lady .Years ago when feminism
was just taking hold a friend of mine did just this. In reply he got ‘Sexist
rubbish’. ‘No, madam, just good manners’ was his reply; but that episode might
just give us a clue as to why ‘gentleman’ is no longer understood.
It was not shouting, not
boasting, not ‘showing off’, no flashy or scruffy dressing. It was minding your
own business and nor asking personal questions especially of people you
scarcely knew (the bourgeois cocktail party gambit of opening a conversation
with a patronising ‘And what do you do?’ was intended to ‘place’ you and
determine early whether you were worth talking to). It was about having good
table manners and not eating in the street.
A very important concept used
to be ‘a gentleman’s word is his bond’. A friend of mine was a tea trader in
London, as was his father and his father’s father before him. They never had
paper contracts. He reckoned he would sometimes do two or three deals as he
walked from Liverpool Street station to his office in Finsbury Square in the
morning, always on no more than the strength of a handshake. Then came the ‘Big
Bang’ in the City and American and Dutch traders moved in. Thereafter every
deal needed a voluminous written contract.
He left the City.
It was Oscar who said ‘a true
gentleman is never rude unintentionally’, although I rather like ‘a gentleman
is one who would never hit a woman with his hat on’. And reverting to the
military, our weapons training instructors would always advise when lying
behind a light machine gun ‘to take the weight on your elbows......like a
proper gentleman!’
Back in the 80's, I
managed a project in Libya from my then base in London. After some months into
the project, I became frustrated with client personnel and their seemingly
xenophobic attitudes. During one of my site visits, I querried an Egyptian who
was working there and he sorted things out for me. He said that Libya is best
understood as a completely Bedouin country whose residents remained in a desert
state of mind. They sought water by day and warmth by night and little else
concerned them. Hence, their apparently dour and indifferent demeanor.
I was satisfied and the
intelligence actually helped me get through the project. I even quoted my
source from time to time. It was not until yesterday that I realized the facts
did not add up. An article on various Libyan caught my attention. It noted that
one tribal militia held the Tripoli airport, another the Ghadafi complex and a
third the port area. Was not Libya dominated by three major and competing
tribes? Some research was needed on the subject.
Libya is decidedly not
totally Bedouin, but rather a mixture of Arabs and Berber peoples living in
100's of different tribal groups. Ghadafi was from a tribe of mixed Arab and
Berber people called the Gaddadfa. Surnames in Libya are often the same as or
very similar to a person's tribe.
Arabs form the majority
of the population followed by Berbers. There are also a very large number of mixed
Arabs and Berbers, like Ghadafi. An accurate ethnic census of Libya does
not exist. Suffice to say the majority are Arabs and Arab-Berber mixes. The
pure Berber population is quite small, as are the African or more specifically
Nilo-Hamitic Tebu people, some nomadic Hausa and nomadic Tuareg. The latter are
a branch of the Berber.
I am not sure of the
percentages of ethnic Arab influence, but the Bedouin seem to dominate with
considerable contributions from the Beni Selim and Beni Hilal which are of Bedouin
origin. Other Arab ethnic groups, especially from Egypt, also penetrated the
deserts comprising modern day Libya.
The Berber, or more
politically correct the Amazigh, inhabited the area since the stone age. They
are ethnically related to the ancient Egyptians and extend all the way to
Morocco. The word Berber was imposed on these tribes by the Romans giving the
impression that they, and other warring tribes of the time, were uncivilized
barbarians. Hence, Berber stems from the word barbarian rather than the other
way around. Another misconception of mine.
Libya follows the Sunni
Muslim religion with the exception of a small group of Sufi. They are
tolerated, but only just.
An index of the Arab and
Berber tribes, clans and sub-clans of Libya would be an academic exercise of
little immediate interest. Clearly, Libya is ethnically diversified with a mix
of formerly nomadic peoples the majority of whom now live uncomfortably
together in urban settings along the country's Mediterranean coast.
The future
of Libya will heavily depend on the ability of the more dominant of these
groups to work out there differences and set aside their ethnic and tribal
allegiances. In my opinion, such a requisite is nearly impossible to achieve
and Libya will remain ethnically divided, competitive, distrustful and jealous.
Our dear friend and
fiend, the poison dwarf, leaves no uncertainty about his feelings for Dave. The
entire scenario in Europe exposes a classic theme of dissent between the UK,
France and Germany with Italy and Spain being warned to behave themselves. In
this case by tightening their belts. It would not do for these two bastions of
Club Med living to importune the big boys up north.
I predict the big boys will
ultimate become one, Germany, with France reverting to its southern European
norms. Meanwhile, the tadpole will make heroic efforts to bark in hopes of
keeping Dave and his non-Monetary Union friends in their respective lairs.
I am reminded of a
critical period in American history dating back to the drafting of the
constitution. Delegates put it together in camera and when it was complete,
they wisely decided to put it up to a strictly yes or no vote. None of the 13
colonies were permitted to amend the draft because if the document were opened
for scrutiny, it would never become law.
Most of the colonies agreed from the
beginning, but some, like New York, faltered owning to the uniqueness of its
situation. I believe that a more or less common culture prevailed and the
requisite signatures were obtained. There were, by the way, some amendments
made and accepted before the final document was produced.
It is inconceivable to
me that the UK, Ireland and Europe could agree on any EU type concept as the
basis for unity does not exist. Nor should it, as it is the cultural and
linguistic and social differences that give these nations their charm,
personality and national identity. While the US was in its infancy when the
colonies agreed to form a republic, Europe is not. Europe is set in its
ways and each member feels its culture is preferable if not superior to the
others. While everything would be OK if the Greeks started behaving like
Germans, this is not going to happen. Nor will the Greeks comply with
regulations proposed by Brussels or Berlin.
It would be prudent for
the dwarf to mind his tongue as the end result of his frustration
is an expansion of the cracks in EU solidarity accompanied
by increased antipathies between the French and British.
Moreover, Dave has a
point and if it is not heard and explained and debated, it will fester.
Brussels cannot force the UK to monetarily contribute
to Greek financial stabilization as it is a perceived
infringement on UK sovereignty. Nor does it help that Dave does not
have the money just now to contribute to Greek and other Club Med country
stability.
Making common commercial, civil and financial regulations is one
thing, but forming a common kitty is quite another.
I must
confess that I have tended to neglect Heffer since he moved to the Daily Wail.
It’s a
curious rag. It has some of the best columnists in the business – apart from
Heff, there’s Tom Utley, the egregious Richard Littlejohn, and Quentin Letts,
the best Parliamentary Sketch writer in the business (and author of a number of
very funny books, like ’50 People who buggered-up Britain’.
And yet the
news and editorial is so shrill as to border on the hysterical. It’s as if the
company mantra is taken from ‘Abide with Me’:
‘Change and
decay in all around I see.....’ There is never, ever any good news that I can
find but there is a lot that is trumped-up.
I
particularly dislike the way it demonises the younger, under-25, generation, but
as this seems to be a national pastime maybe the paper is only reflecting its
readers’ attitudes.
Here is an
example.
A couple of
weeks ago it published a series of photos supporting a shock-horror spread
about binge drinking amongst young women, showing them vomiting, striking crude
poses, or lying dead-drunk in the street. It went on to say that such scenes
are witnessed all over the UK every week-end (they have ways of knowing what
happens all over Britain every week-end). Well, not on my manor, squire.
And this was
just a reprise of a similar spread 2 years ago of pictures that were mostly
taken 5 years ago.
So let’s see
if we can get a bit of balance in this.
Sure there
is misbehaviour amongst the young, ranging from booze to crime. It was ever thus.
There was not much recorded juveniles crime 50 years ago for the simple reasons
that there were very few 18 – 20 year olds on the streets, being mostly in the
services (which the unthinking suggest should be brought back), and because the
police preferred to give miscreants a good thraping rather than go to all the
bother of prosecutions.
And the
reason you didn’t see drunks lying in the street was because in those days the
Old Bill enforced the law on ’drunk and incapable’ which they clearly fail to
do now, like much else. Another reason is that there was not the affluence of
modern times, but when we had the money we tied a few on. Of course, we only
drank beer. This was in the days before the drinks-makers deliberately set out
to foster under-age drinking through the introduction of alcopops and other
vileness.
And exactly
how ‘widespread’ is this behaviour. Now here’s a funny thing. It’s always
someone else’s kids who are causing mayhem.
So what has
the older generation gifted to the younger?
Well, for
starters an education system that has been mucked about for 40 years and has as
a consequence become increasingly dysfunctional to the extent that vast numbers
of school-leavers are functionally illiterate, who have standards of literacy
of 9-year olds, who are becoming incoherent as their spoken vocabulary is
alarmingly small, and who are effectively unemployable in an economy that no
longer demands sheer muscle-power. We have ‘universities’ that are a laughing
stock, that run useless course such as the history of lace-making in the
Shetlands and ‘football studies’. We have an acute shortage of graduates in
‘hard’ studies such as physics and maths, so that although job opportunities
are there in abundance there is a massive mismatch between what business and
industry need and what the educational system is prepared to supply.
At the same
time we turn schools into examination mills that put enormous stress on
youngsters. In my time we sat for 5 ‘O’ levels at 16, 3 ‘A’ levels at 18 plus 1
‘S’ level for those seeking a County Scholarship to university. Now the poor
little devils sit for maybe 10 or 12 ‘O’ levels.
Through our
greed, fecklessness and improvidence we have bequeathed huge burdens of debt to
our children and grandchildren together with declining living standards,
smaller pensions and later retirement.
We have
brought up our kids without any concept of discipline so that we now have the
1984’ish position whereby attempts at disciplining a child may result in a
visit from the police or social workers. ‘Do what thou wilt is the whole of the
law’.
In Jamaica a
couple of years back I was chatting to some British army NCOs who were there
for jungle training. They told me about recruitment problems and why so many
‘colonials’ get into the army. Partly it was because the standard of education
of recruits was too low but also it was lack of even the most basic idea of
discipline to the extent that they were totally mystified as to why they were
required to get out of bed before 11 a.m. This was not defiance; it was
incomprehension.
And what
sort of role models have we given them? Spud-faced footballers who get £1
million a week for kicking a ball once a week for 90 minutes, who have the
sexual mores of the farm yard; coke-snorting anorexics also paid large sums to
wear awful clothes; untalented sluts who are famous for being famous; ‘pop’
singers who flaunt their sexual preferences but without any noticeable talent; and
crooked leaders.
Parents
obese to the point of obscenity feed them on junk and take-aways, never cook a
meal for them and never sit down to eat with them. We encourage them in
obesity, ban competitive sports, and hedge them around with ludicrous health
and safety rules so that they grow up unfit, fat and risk averse.
And we have
the chutzpah to criticise?
As the old
song says ‘I’m glad I’m not young anymore!’
The big domestic news
remains the Republican presidential nomination debates. This exercise in
political masochism is finally being recognized for what it is. Although only
about half finished with their scheduled number of debates, viewers and pundits
alike are beginning to question the wisdom of this type of political
forum. Predictably, as a candidate rises to the top of the polls, the
other candidates begin to tear the person apart by making accusations, bringing
up past blunders, and asking 'gotcha' questions. The latter being questions
designed to embarrass or berate candidates.
What all this does bring
out, in full public view is the integrity, vulnerability, mean spiritedness,
toughness and resilliance of the candidates. Rick Perry, Governor or
Texas, asked Mitt Romney, the current leading contender, why Mitt hired illegal
workers to mow his lawn. This was intended to embarrass Romney and to expose
him as a liar with respect to his stand against illegal immigration. The
problem was that Mitt's worker was not directly hired by him, but was employed
by the landscaping company Mitt had hired.
This example illustrates
Perry's lack of forethought and outright stupidity in thinking that
he could expose (gotcha) Romney. Mitt, for his part, simply told the truth
and further stated that he had fired the firm as soon as he learned it employed
illegals. The end result? Perry looks like a fool. Romney looks like a victim,
but should have nevertheless been more thorough in hiring people and, most
important, Obama looks like a candidate for sainthood.
It is beyond me why
candidates that are so obviously unfit to rule, like Perry, would even think of
subjecting themselves to the judgement of the tv audience. I can only conclude
that Perry does not even understand himself, let alone national and world
politics. Following closely in his footsteps is Michele Bachmann who has
managed to memorize about six phrases which she weaves into the answer to every
question she is asked. Herman Cain, an outstanding black businessman, is high
in the rankings, but lacks the political and economic depth to prevail.
Rick Santorum, who served
as a Senator from Pennsylvania, shows promise, but gushes at the mouth, and
seems unable to keep his wits about him, but should prove increasingly capable
with maturity. Ron Paul is a non-starter, but with some major assets. He is
solidly logical although often impractical. He is a Libertarian and as such
does not quite fit into either the Republican or the ultra-Conservative Tea
Party mold.
Newt Gingrich, on the
other hand, is doing extremely well except in the polls. He is bright,
experienced, clever, profound and infested with personal issues. His brain is
too capacious for his ego and he is forever making the types of faux pas that I
associate with an individual who is excessively intelligent but lacking in
wisdom. He should be a senior advisor without a cabinet position.
You must see Peter
Oborne's article in the DT on Ghadaffi's demise. It brings the post-Ghadaffi
situation into focus and perspective.
My take at the moment is that Libya will
not be settled until the tribes are isolated from one another which of course
means dividing country into two or three smaller and independent nations. I
know this idea is popular among Americans as we have divided Viet Nam and Korea
and probably should have divided Iraq by at least separating the Kurds.
Peter's
insights offer little alternative than independence for the major Bedouin
tribes. He also mentioned Berber people in Libya's western mountains. I was
unaware of their presence in Libya. It explains why one of the revolutionaries
featured recently on tv here had a Berber name.
I just cannot see another
solution and I have no hope at all that the forces of democracy will iron out
the enmities, jealousy and distrust that prevails between the tribes.
Your William Hague is in
Tripoli now; brave lad. His meetings with Mustafa Jalil are making history
as I write. I doubt that dividing Libya is on the agenda,
but Jalil and his National Transitional Council will need massive
doses of help and experience and good luck before the tribal differences can be
resolved.
There is also the big
question of disarming the revolutionaries. Peter noted that Kalishnikov rifles
are so plentiful that their street cost is only $800, down from $4,000.
This
cannot be right. When I worked in Yemen about 12 years ago, they were selling for
$50 each. Also, I can buy a state of the art assault rifle here in Texas for
about $400 and less technical models for half that price.
Libya must be
swimming in money if they can get $800 for an AK 47.
So there was Obama on TV
thanking the brave men and women of the US forces for their great victory in
Libya. He also managed about four words to indicate that some others were also involved.
Except that there were 20 countries
making a military contribution, most NATO some not.
From the outset, Obama was
clear that US participation would be ‘low key’.
The heavy lifting was done by
the British and French who carried out most of the air-strikes.
So, to the tune of ‘Mademoiselle
from Armentieres’, altogether now:
Europe continues to sleep-walk into disaster. We have the ludicrous spectacle of Sarko as bag-carrier for Angular. We have him telling the world that France and Germany are in accord, but he doesn’t tell us about what. The Economist quotes a Eurocrat as saying that this ‘partnership’ hides ‘the strength of Germany and the weakness of France’.
France has not had a budget surplus for nearly 40 years. It has one of the biggest debt ratios in the Eurozone. Its AAA rating is in doubt. And Angular has just given Sarko a firm ‘Nein!’ when he tried to persuade her to ante-up to save the Dexia bank.
The solution to the Euro’s problems lies in sorting out Greece once and for all (and default seems inevitable, with Angular wanting the depositors to take a bigger haircut than they signed up to), throwing a firewall around solvent countries, recapitalising the banks, and re-writing the rules.
Now the wheels are coming off with a vengeance.
It wasn’t meant to be like this.
When the Euro was first contemplated all those years ago, knowledgeable voices were raised against it, pointing out that anyone with ‘O’ level economics or a basic knowledge of history would see that a ‘one size fits all’ currency was a chimera, an unworkable fantasy, because different economies had different needs and were at different levels of development and efficiency.
History had shown that every time a multi-national currency had been tried it had failed. For example, if you had one economy that needed an interest-rate reduction to stimulate growth and another needed an interest rate increase to cool down inflation you would have a situation that was absolutely irreconcilable and could only end in tears.
And so it has proved.
It was cheap money that slew the Celtic Tiger, after it embarked on a crazy spending-spree causing rampant inflation when an interest rate hike was essential to cool it.
The antis were derided by the pro-Euro claque as economic Neanderthals, Little Englanders, Luddites, and every other epithet that the Guardianistas could throw at them.
But now the Great Conspiracy unravels.
Brussels knew all along that a Eurozone couldn’t work without more.
That was part of the game-plan.
The Euro was just a step along the road. It was a tactical measure.
The Eurozone was designed to fail.
The real objective was not currency union but political union. A single currency cannot succeed without it, as the Brussels mafia well understood.
What was essential was the transfer of budgetary and fiscal powers to Brussels, so that individual member states would lose any control over national budgets, interest rates, taxation levels, borrowing powers – in short, all the elements essential to the independent nation-state. The members would become satraps of the EU Empire.
The dominant parties would be Germany and France. Germany would be the senior partner because of population size and economic strength. The French would be the German’s understrapper.
With the advent of monetary/political union in Europe, all of Hitler’s war aims would have been achieved except for the wide-gauge railway between Berlin and Moscow.
Mixed marriage has become
something of a hot topic, possibly because latest surveys show that they are on
the increase and that mixed-race births are on the increase (well they would
be, wouldn’t they) and partly because of a TV series headed up by George
Alagaiah.
George is the ideal person
for the programme. He is an enormously experienced foreign correspondent, now a
BBC anchor, speaks Received English, is extremely good-looking, and he is a Sri
Lankan married to an English woman.
I am not entirely
unacquainted with the subject. A close relative successively married an English
woman, a Malaysian, and a Chinese. Thirty-odd years ago, an Irish friend who
was a judge in Botswana married the Indian headmistress of the local girls
school, and used restaurants and hotels in neighbouring South Africa at the
height of apartheid without ever being challenged. I have another chum who is
built like an anorexic jockey married to a statuesque Jamaican with a brilliant
daughter at University. There is a local guy married to a Vietnamese who has
really got his life sorted. She is Executive Vice President of an international
company and he fishes all day in the Mekong River. I worked with a Jamaican Rhodes
Scholar married to an English artist; unsurprisingly the kids are very bright
indeed.
And why not?
The simple truth is that we
English are the product of ethnic mixing since time began; Picts, Scots,
Iceni, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frieslanders, Scandinavians,
Normans, Jews, Huguenots, Italians, West Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis,
Indians, Chinese and all the rest of the great melting pot that makes us
what we are.
And there is a great deal of
truth in the old saw that it’s a wise child that knows its own father.
Some years ago, the Sunday Times did a DNA study of a select group from various
ethnic backgrounds. The West Indian who guessed his paternal ancestor might
have been a slave from Sierra Leone, as in ‘Roots’, discovered that
he was German down the paternal line. There was a German influx to Jamaica in
the early 19th century (hence Germanstown) which interbred and has
now vanished, except in one remote village where they have clung to both their
racial identity and their language).
The great irony is that we
now know that Alex Haley himself was actually Welsh in the paternal line!
There are some sound
biological reasons for mixing the breed. Exclusiveness tends to make the stock
deteriorate with humans as with animals. That is why so many of the aristocracy
seem to come from the shallow end of the gene pool. And maybe why the mongrel
English have such a propensity for strong drink, lechery, riotous assembly,
fighting, exploration, Empire-building, and survival.
From observation, mixed
marriages are as successful as others, perhaps more so because it takes
particular binding to succeed against the prejudice of others. Where they fail
seems to be mostly due to irreconcilable cultural differences. A Muslim man marrying
an American woman would soon be in trouble if he tried to treat her as if they
were in Islamabad not New York. Similarly an English woman who married her
Renta Rasta would rapidly find that marital fidelity was not on his agenda.
But there is one aspect that
Dave has promised to deal with (and he always keeps his promises, don’t he) and
that is discrimination in adoption. Homosexual men can adopt boys with all the
attendant dangers but woe betide a mixed-race couple who try to adopt a child.
The race relations industry, being by definition racist, has a policy on this.
Remember the white husband and Asian wife? They couldn’t adopt a white child
because she was too dark, and they couldn’t adopt a coloured child because he
was too light. Truly, it’s a mad, mad world, my masters!
Years ago there was little
race consciousness in the UK, probably because most people had never seen a
person of colour. In 1955, the non-white population was only 125,000. That was
the year I entered the army, and in all my service when I must have seen
literally thousands of soldiers nary a one was black. The pendulum now seems to
be swinging back. To the younger generation, pigment is an irrelevance; in
fact, it is becoming distinctly cool to be of mixed race, with so many role-models
around, like Lewis Hamilton. Open the pages of the Sunday Times ‘Style’
magazine and many or most of the models have honey-coloured skin.
One of the most extraordinary
products of a mixed race marriage is Mechai Vivavaidya.
Mechai’s father was one of
the Thai elite. In the 1930’s he was selected for medical training in Scotland.
There he met a Scots student whom he married after they both qualified as
doctors. The circumstances of their marriage were a reflection of the times and
the attitude towards miscegenation. To her family, marriage across a colour
line was to be deplored; to his he was seen to be marrying beneath himself.
But it was a great success
and they practiced medicine together in Bangkok.
Mechai went to school and
university in Australia. Some years after his return to Thailand he founded the
Population and Community Development Association which promoted birth control
and in particular the use of condoms partly to counter the growing AIDS problem
and partly to arrest the alarming population growth rate. When he began his
campaign the average family was 7 children. Today it is 1.5.
People who have met him say
his personality is such that you can feel him enter a room; truly magnetic. He
clearly has the charm and intelligence of his Thai family background and the
sheer grit of his Scottish mother.
His biography is ‘From
Cabbages to Condoms’; it is riveting.
Of course, you will always
get the ‘sucker’ question ‘Would you like your daughter to marry a coloured
man?’ That one telegraphs its arrival about three days in advance. The answer
is ‘It’s not the colour, stoopid, it’s the culture!’ If my daughter wanted to
marry a Jamaican, I would look at him carefully because some Jamaicans make
notoriously bad husbands. If she wanted to marry Lewis Hamilton, I would do
handstands! She’s old enough to be his granny.
Dave has finally shot his
fox. Old Brer Liam, the last of the Thatcherites in the Cabinet, was doomed from the moment Downing Street expressed ‘full
confidence’ in him. The dirty tricks brigade inside No 10 had been briefing
against Fox for months. The leak about ‘defence cuts are indefensible’ obviously
came from that source and caused no end of trouble between him and Cameron.
And yet we have the appalling
Huhne who is being investigated for serious criminal charges and has just been caught
red-handed briefing against fellow members of the Cabinet and the junior
Justice Minister with the silly name who has been up to some hanky-panky carry
blithely on.
At least this gave Dave the opportunity
to correct a serious mistake and make a sensible appointment, instead of
thenobody he has now chosen.
I refer, of course, to the
former Shadow Defence Secretary, Patrick Mercer, who is a gallant soldier, a retired infantry Colonel,
a highly intelligent man, and very articulate. Unfortunately, he committed the
cardinal sin for a politician. He told the truth. And when he said that he had
been told by his NCOs that black soldiers were inclined to play the race card
when charged with skiving, Cameron, in the best traditions of political correctness,
promptly fired him.
It got a bit embarrassing
when his former Sergeant Major said that the Colonel was absolutely right; and
he himself is black.
And that is why I would
never, ever vote for a Tory party led by Cameron.
One topic that Dave might
find time to address is how to get the State off our necks. Much of the
state-sponsored bullying that goes on has no basis in law.
For example, I had a young
mother complaining to me that the authorities had threatened her with
prosecution if she took photos of her toddler at his nursery school Xmas party.
They told her she would be in breach of the Data Protection Act. Only they made
it up. There is no such offence.
Under the ludicrous ‘Sarah’s
Law’, brought in after the horrific murder of two young girls by a school
employee who already had form for child-molesting, people who wish to work with
youngsters have to get a clearance chit from the Criminal Records Office. This,
of course, does not prove that you are not a kiddy-fiddler; merely that you
have not been caught. The upshot is that the voluntary sector has been
decimated; who is going to be a Boy Scout Master if he has to pay about £140
for a chit?
Then we had the ludicrous
case of the elderly lady flower arrangers at the cathedral who were told to get
CRO checks because the choirboys used the same lavatories. They simply
resigned.
The latest nonsense is a
father being stopped by a security guard in a shopping mall when he took a photo
on his mobile phone of his small daughter eating a large ice cream. The
jobsworth ordered him to delete the picture. When he told the guy that he had
already posted 3 pix by twitter, the police were called. They told him that taking
pictures of his daughter in the shopping mall was possibly an offence under S.44
of the Terrorism Act. They took his particulars but no further action.
Now ‘they’ appear to have
extended this nonsense beyond the intention of the law of protecting children
by requiring clearance for volunteers to work with adults. How bureaucrats love
to gather power over peoples’ ordinary lives.
So what’s to be done?
My stance would be ‘Just say
No!’ Here are some of my suggestions.
Never make eye contact with
e.g. airport security. If you get an unreasonable demand from an official, ask
for the name and phone number of his superior. Ask to see the supervisor. Keep
the Daily Mail editorial desk phone number on your mobile; you might get your
15 minutes of fame if you grass-up a bullying official.
And here is one that really
worked because the feisty lady shopkeeper concerned had the backbone to take on
the jobsworths.
She had waste paper to
dispose of, so she took it to the council paper skip. However, it was full, so
she left the box of paper alongside it. After she had returned to the shop, she
shortly received a visit from the fool of an inspector who gave her a fixed penalty
notice of £80 for littering. She told him to put it where the sun don’t shine.
Then she got a notice of
summons for non-payment, to the magistrates’ court.
She replied ‘Sure, see you in
court. But not the magistrates’ court, maties; the Crown Court. I want a trial
by jury’.
She heard nothing more. The
local authority had been faced down and they were not prepared to face the
opprobrium of trial or of the inevitable scathing comments from the Judge.
It finally happened. It was inevitable. As many feared, one
of our religious fanatics has finally come out with the words needed to
undermine Mitt Romney who is accused of being a cult member because he
is a practicing Mormon. Everyone was aware of Mitt's convictions, but
nobody with anything to lose would discuss them. Finally, a supporter of
Rick Perry, Robert Jeffress publicized Romney's Mormonism claiming the
confession is a non-Christian cult. Jeffress is the pastor of a First Baptist church
in Dallas, Texas. He was actively anti-Romney during the last elections in
which Romney also sought nomination for the presidency. You should be aware
that the Dallas and Fort Worth area is a hotbed of conservatism and the home of
several wealthy and diehard Republicans.
The accusation by Jeffress occurred following a campaign
speech by Rick Perry in Dallas. Perry has since distanced himself from the
remarks, but the damage is done. I cannot say that Rick conspired with Jeffress
to make the statement, but Rick certainly knew of Jeffress' anti-Mormon track
record and apparently had no problem with being introduced by Jeffress prior to
his campaign speech.
Romney is clean as a whistle as far as I can tell making it
difficult to attack him on personal grounds. His so called waffling on various
issues does not really hit the mark when opponents bring up the subject. What
does hit home is Romney's Mormonism. Historically, Mormons were not accepted by
Christians and were chased out of many locations on the trek to Utah. The big
problem is they augmented the Christian Bible with the Book of Mormon. The
latter contains a multitude of deviations from the Christian Bible that most
Americans find difficult to swallow if not outright offensive. As a nation
composed largely of Christians, any contender for public office in
the USA who does not fit into this category is at risk.
My take is that the biggest damage that can be done to Romney is
to expose his Mormonism and to make the argument that he is not a Christian.
This is debatable, however, as Mormons, including Romney, claim they are
Christians. Herman Cain entered the fray as a voice of reason asking 'what does
all this have to do with fixing our economy'. Other contenders similarly
distanced themselves without getting into the theological debate.
The bottom line is the USA is far from a religiously tolerant
nation. First and foremost, it is a Christian nation that suffers sects and
other world religions provided they do not challenge our Christianity. The
American Jews wisely avoided this issue. For some reason, belief systems like
Hinduism and Buddhism are non-threatening. Islam, however, is increasingly
threatening what with large-scale migration from places like Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Nigeria into the US. Moreover, the growth of the Black Muslim
movement here has domesticated Islam in the sense that it is now home-grown.
Every other black athlete, it would appear, bears a Muslim name on his or
her jersey. This movement will soon overtake any issues concerning Mormons and
will seriously test our official claim to freedom of religion.
Islamaphobia is growing. Witness the claims that Obama is a Muslim
as evidenced by his middle name and his father's religion. Some Muslims claim
that if a persons father is a Muslim, then the offspring are also Muslim.
Following this logic, the recently departed CEO of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs, is
also a Muslim given his Syrian and Muslim father.
Nor should we forget that some white Americans also grow up in
Muslim families or convert to Islam later in life, although the percentage of
white Muslims is low. Of the 7 million Muslims in the US today, about 33% are
of Arab descent and 30% are African-Americans. Islamic sect members, such as
the Sufi, Dervish and Ishmalis, are better tolerated in the US than in their
home countries. Moreover, Sunni and Shia divisions have far less
importance here than in the Middle East.
I
don’t know whether to laugh or cry over the European debt crisis because I
can’t make up my mind whether it is farce or tragedy. At this time it’s the
former but on my prediction that Greece will default in less than a month it
could rapidly become the latter.
It’s definitely déjà vu all over again.
When the banks went tits-up in 2008, the
‘moral hazard’ question was why should the US taxpayer prop up Lehman Bros and
its creditors when great reward for great risk have gone hand in hand.
Isn’t this reducing banking to a casino where if the bankers win they keep the
moolah but the taxpayer picks up the losses?
Now the question is why should the northern
taxpayer pick up the tab for Greek incontinence?
In the earlier case, the US Government let
Lehman go to the wall pour encourager les autres (which of course was overseen
by Hank Poulson, latterly boss of Golden Sacks, Lehman’s biggest competitor).
The outcome was a collapse of confidence in
the whole banking system, not quite what was intended
In the current case, the plain answer is
that if Greece makes a disorderly retreat there could be another run on the banks
and on the debt of solvent countries that have liquidity problems,
especially Italy and Spain.
One outcome of all this is that the
European leaders have shown that not one of them is fit to lead a pig to
market, as my old man used to say.
At the outset they maintained that Greece
wouldn’t need a bail-out. It has had two.
They maintained that the Greeks would not
infect other countries. They did.
They said that the banks would not need to
be re-capitalised because European countries never default. Don’t hold your
breath.
The US government is in competition for the
pusillanimity prize.
It supported a private-sector rescue plan
for Bear Stearns. It nationalised Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It delivered the
coup de grace to Lehman whilst rescuing AIG.
But at least it did something. The European
leaders can’t agree on a single thing. National governments, the ECB and the
European Commission all seem to be going off in different directions. Coats are
now being trailed that bond-holders may have to take a bigger haircut from
Greece than they have already signed up to.
That’s pretty good way of further damaging
confidence in the banking system.
But ‘Keep buggering on, Inches’, as Winston
used to say to his valet.
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