Month: November 2014

Communities Minister Penelope ‘Penny’ Mordaunt is widely regarded as our sexiest MP.

True enough, her numerous swimsuit photos show her to be slightly on the heavy side, but generally falling into the ‘I would’ category.

And speaking in relative, rather than absolute terms, she is definitely tastier than Tessa Jowell, Theresa May or even David Davies.

You may think that talking about our legislators in such a flippant and disrespectful manner is demeaning to the Mother of all Parliaments.

Well, if you really feel that way, all I can say is that you were born 100 years too late. Protecting the honour of our fundamental institutions would have been apposite when Disraeli and Gladstone locked horns, for then our institutions did have honour to protect.

Since then they’ve become a sort of TV reality show, or perhaps a talk shop with a salesmanship dimension.

Most of the serious business of government is transacted elsewhere anyway, in Brussels, Strasbourg and Berlin. What’s left for the bums on green seats is basically self-promotion and point-scoring at the expense of those across the aisle.

Yet most of our MPs lack the honesty to admit that. They still put on fine airs and pretend they run the country, a pretence that’s wearing thinner by the minute.

That’s why one must compliment Penny Mordaunt not only on her thighs, relatively free of cellulite (and I do hope there was no Photoshop involved), but also on her candour.

The good time girl Penny knows exactly what our Parliament has become, and she doesn’t mind who else knows it.

That’s why she delivered a spoof speech about poultry welfare, the sole purpose of which was to give her an excuse to make smutty double entendres based on the words ‘cock’ and ‘lay’.

You see, Penny grew up in a paratrooper’s family and since then has had a soft spot for the armed forces. In due course she became a Navy reservist and in that capacity hangs out a lot with naval officers at Dartmouth.

Our sea wolves are known for their propensity for using language as salty as Atlantic water, and they tried to force Penny to yell obscenities during her training.

“They failed,” says Penny proudly, “but during our mess dinner at the end of the course, I was fined for a misdemeanour. The fine was to say a particular word, an abbreviation of cockerel, several times during a speech in the Commons…”

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Penny ploughed right ahead on the floor: “The cause of hen and cock welfare is raised with me by many of my constituents,” she said with a straight face Jack Dee would have envied.

“One strutting coxcomb,” she pressed on, “will lead to many chicks and what is to become of the male contingent with not a layer among them?”

And so on in the same vein, with a non-stop barrage of ‘cock crow’, ‘cock-a-hoop’, and ‘end-of-lay birds’. I was particularly moved by her reference to ‘laying hens of pensionable age’, a practice that can’t be too highly recommended.

She ended on a bravura call to action: “Let’s have no more cock-ups on hen welfare!”

The amazing thing was that the MPs present, including the Speaker, took her bit of fun seriously. John Bercow was even seen taking copious notes throughout.

When Miss Mordaunt eventually owned up to her prank, some MPs waxed indignant. Labour’s Sheila Gilmore, for example, said the spoof was offensive to those who genuinely cared about poultry welfare.

And former Labour minister Kate Hoey referred to Penny’s appearance on Splash! (which gave us the chance to admire her thighs) by saying, “She should realise that the House of Commons is not a TV reality show.”

But Kate, that’s precisely what it is, what it has become. Rather than ganging up on the curvaceous Penny Mordaunt, you lot should praise her for removing the silly pretence that Parliament still matters.

Dave, for one, knows how valuable Penny is, which is why he called her a ‘parliamentary star’.

And we all know how effortlessly and seamlessly such stardom can segue into stellar turns in other fields, such as the speech circuit, appearances on Have I Got News for You or consultancy to Russian gangsters and Muslim jihadists.

I do hope Penny uses the House of Commons as a springboard to success in stand-up comedy. And, as a fellow champion of poultry welfare, I wish she would clarify her position on matings between 41-year-old hens and cocks of pensionable age.

 

 

Out of general respect for the clergy, I don’t like saying nasty things about men of the cloth (women of the cloth are fair game: I don’t recognise their entitlement to that particular fabric).

But in yesterday’s debate in the upper chamber of our Parliament Lord Harries of Pentregarth left me no choice.

Until his motion, I had thought that the kind of remarks he made could only come from a man who is either ignorant, stupid or subversive.

Yet the former Bishop of Oxford proves it isn’t necessary to choose: one can succeed in being all three, fusing them into an utterly toxic alloy.

He declares that “religion is visible and agitative in a way that it was not before. It has a voice, or rather a variety of voices that want to be heard in the public sphere.”

If I understand correctly, His Grace believes that there exists in this country one monolithic entity called religion, which practises glossolalia by speaking in various tongues.

Being a polyglot, this uniform entity now occupies a prominent place it has never held in our society before.

Obviously history isn’t a subject His Grace is familiar with, so I won’t take up much space pointing out how prominent Christianity was in our country before the likes of him became the establishment.

But his ignorance in his area of professional expertise is staggering. For there is no such thing as generic religion. There are only different religions, each as fundamentally different from one another as any of them is from atheism.

Then Lord Harries rejoices in the fact “that issues concerning the wearing of the cross… have found their way to the European Court of Human Rights…”

Of course to the ECHR all religions are indeed the same, and equally repugnant. That’s why it decrees that employers are within their right to ban the wearing of Christian symbols.

It’s understandable that the Court should feel that way: as an EU organisation it isn’t  just secular but aggressively atheist. However, for a priest to feel that way about the cross should be grounds for summary unfrocking and excommunication.

And Lord Harries does feel that way: “…the European Convention on Human Rights is now rightly a benchmark for our society.”

For His Grace all religions merit equal “respect and concern”, which must be reciprocal. Admittedly, “both Christians and Muslims… will claim a higher loyalty [but] this must not be interpreted as loyalty to a foreign power structure, as it was, for example, by some Roman Catholics in the 16^th century.”

In other words, all religions are equal, but Catholicism is less equal that others. Surely a Christian prelate who sits in the House of Lords must be familiar with the notion of an established religion?

The very existence of a state religion, in our case the Church of England, presupposes that other religions can’t have the same rights by definition.

The 1701 Act of Settlement, for example, states that no one who becomes or marries a Roman Catholic can inherit the throne. This means that even a Western Christian confession that is doctrinally close to Anglicanism, especially its orthodox wing, is denied equal rights.

Would it be too much of a stretch to suggest that this injunction extends to religions such as Islam that aren’t just non-Christian but aggressively hostile to Christianity?

As to ‘loyalty to a foreign power structure’, 80 per cent of London Muslims support ISIS. Are they entitled to equal ‘respect and concern’ too?

Yes, according to His Grace: “This equality is not just tolerance; it means accepting and celebrating people in their difference.”

It’s good to see that Lord Harries’s capacity for all-inclusiveness far outstrips that of Jesus Christ himself. One understands that the European Court of Human Rights represents a higher authority, but still:

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” “Ye fools and blind…” “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” “…your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.”

There’s no ‘equal respect and concern’ anywhere in sight, even though Jesus is generally regarded as a loving man even by those who don’t believe he is Our Lord.

One understands that Christianity, with its tradition, history, scripture and indeed founder, means little to the likes of Lord Harries.

Still, for old times’ sake, he must make a big effort and try to realise that what he is saying is downright heresy.

Jesus Christ told us to love not only our neighbours but even our enemies. Yet nowhere does he say that we must love everything our enemies stand for.

Of course, a Muslim is entitled to equality before the law, and he’s even entitled to respect – but as a human being and subject of Her Majesty the Queen, not as a Muslim.

Christians in particular must love Muslims and pray for the salvation of their souls, an outcome badly compromised by their hateful creed. But that shouldn’t prevent us from deporting some, or even many, or even most, of them should they be deemed to be a threat.

I’d suggest that the 80 per cent of London Muslims who support ISIS constitute such a threat – thereby forfeiting any right to ‘equal respect and concern’.

If deportation or internment sounds too radical, or especially impractical, our government must still do all it can to protect us from the venom liberally hosed down on our heads out of every one of the UK’s 1,600 mosques.

Lord Harries’s religion, whatever it is, clearly can’t accommodate this line of thought. The thought it does accommodate is that Islam should enjoy not just equal rights but equal time with Christianity.

As a shining example for all of us to follow he cites Bristol cathedral, where the beginning of the Christian year was celebrated by “a brilliant creative act of accommodation”.

The brilliant creative act was the reading of passages from the Koran, presumably along with some Christian texts, though Lord Harries doesn’t make this clear.

This, according to him, lights up a straight path to lead to shining heights: “This principle of hospitality can and should be reflected in many public ceremonies, including the next coronation service.”

Surely His Grace must be aware that our realm is constituted along Christian lines, that one of our monarch’s titles is Fidei defensor, Defender of the Faith? Perhaps not.

In that case, he may not realise that he’s proposing constitutional sabotage, something that in times olden was described as treason. I’m genuinely sorry that Tyburn Hill has become a residential area.

Granted, when Prince Charles was young and impressionable, he stated his objective of skipping the definite article, becoming instead Defender of Faith, meaning all faiths.

One function of high prelates in the established Church of England is to keep our princes on the Christian straight and narrow whenever they deviate.

Lord Harries sees his role differently: he’ll grab every imprudent word out of the royal mouth and run with it – all the way to perdition.

And I’m not using this word in the strictly religious sense. If we let subversive fools like His Grace destroy the very foundations of our society, we’ll perish in a perfectly secular way.

 

Is insulting strangers something you like to do in your spare time? Don’t worry about a thing: insult away, you can do so with impunity.

You can metaphorically describe as female genitalia a man who accidentally bumped into you in the street. You can use the same word to describe a woman metonymically.

You can opine that a man’s head has been replaced with his reproductive organ, or, to add a slight transatlantic flavour, that he has an Oedipal relationship with his mother or else practises oral sexual contact with other men.

You can describe a strange woman as a female canine or a strange man as a son thereof.

Whichever epithet you use, you may intensify it with a modifying participle based on fornication.

The possibilities are vast, though not quite so endless as in Spanish or especially the language I grew up with. Still, if you’re good at combining elements in an inventive way, English offers enough to insult a person grievously and memorably.

The best part of it is that the person on the receiving end of your opprobrium would be able to do absolutely nothing about it, other than coming back with “and same to you, squire”.

But hey, sticks and stones and all that. The important thing is that you’ve had your jollies, you got yours in first, making your victim’s retort sound downright churlish and childish.

Better still, if you accompany your insults with the kind of facial expression Julius Caesar ascribed to Germanic vandals going into battle, the likelihood is that there won’t be any retort.

‘On the balance of probabilities’, to use my favourite legal term, the victim may decide that being called a bad name isn’t something worth being nutted, bottled or knifed over.

But God forbid you insult not just a person but our modern ethos. Woe betide anyone daring to make a pejorative remark based on a person’s race, religion, class or sexual orientation.

Even if you refrain from obscenities, you can still get into a lot of trouble by merely alluding to some unfashionable resentments by, for example, referring to a person as ‘your kind’.

By doing so you’d be offending not just an insignificant little individual but the whole society, emphatically including its ‘liberal’ trendsetters (and more or less excluding everyone else, but then in our egalitarian, democratic age no one else really matters).

The other day Mr Justice Mitting communicated this point to Tory MP Andrew Mitchell, former Chief Whip, by ruling against him in a libel trial.

As far as I’m concerned, Mr Mitchell deserves all he got simply for insisting on using a bicycle as a means of transportation. It’s my considered opinion that all London cyclists should be rounded up and deported to Holland, where their kind would fit right in.

This suggestion may strike you as a bit radical, and I understand how you feel. But Mr Mitchell got his comeuppance anyway, even though his bicycle was involved only tangentially.

The Chief Whip felt, probably justifiably, that he was entitled to ride his bike out of Downing Street through the main gate, rather than the pedestrian exit.

However, the police detail refused to open the gate for him, which made Mr Mitchell fly into a rage. Clearly he’s a man prepared to stand on principle even at a detriment to himself.

The parliamentarian unleashed an obscene tirade, packed with the kind of expletives to which I obliquely referred above. That, however, wouldn’t have got him in trouble by itself, even though apparently Mr Mitchell had a fair amount of previous along similar lines.

However, somewhere in between all those Anglo-Saxon epithets based on various amorous practices, he described the officers as ‘plebs’, a word based on the Greek for ‘crowd’. Alas, the way the word ‘plebeian’ was later used in Rome had clear class implications, and not nice ones at that.

The policemen knew a good opportunity for revenge when they saw one. They immediately reported Mr Mitchell to his superiors, and all hell broke loose.

The culprit honestly admitted swearing at the policemen, but he vehemently denied using the offensive word. In spite of that, Dave Cameron sacked him, just to be on the safe side. Yet if he hoped that would be the end of it, he was grossly mistaken.

A string of suits, counter suits and counter-countersuits followed and dragged on for the next two years. Finally justice spoke, using Mr Justice Mitting as its mouthpiece.

This being a civil rather than criminal case, Mr Mitchell’s guilt didn’t have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. ‘On the balance of probabilities’ sufficed and, according to the judge’s judgement, the balance swung in favour of PC Rowland and against Mr Mitchell.

The disgraced cyclist is now going to become about £2 million poorer, while his political career has suffered a blow from which it’s unlikely ever to recover.

All this is par for the course, and I for one think Mr Mitchell got off easy. A few years from now expressing class prejudice will become an imprisonable offence, and possibly a capital one.

What I do find fascinating is the words Mr Justice Mitting used to communicate society’s outrage.

“I am satisfied at least on the balance of probabilities,” he pronounced, “that Mr Mitchell did speak the words alleged or something so close to them as to amount to the same, including the politically toxic word pleb.”

In other words, even the probability that someone allegedly used a word close in meaning to the word ‘pleb’ constitutes sufficient grounds for ruining the offender’s life.

But PC Rowland didn’t accuse Mr Mitchell of vaguely alluding to the class gap between them. He specifically insisted that the word ‘pleb’ had been spoken and, by the sound of it, Mr Mitting wasn’t convinced it actually had been spoken.

His balance of probabilities seems to have rested on a rather shaky fulcrum, badly in need of firming up. This the judge proceeded to do, but instead, in my view, knocking the fulcrum out completely.

PC Rowland, he said, was “not the sort of man who would have had the wit, imagination or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an account of what a senior politician had said to him in temper.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but what Mr Justice Mitting said sounds like “Because PC Rowland is exactly what Mr Mitchell called him, a pleb, he wouldn’t have known the word ‘pleb’ and, even if he had, he’s so stupid it wouldn’t have occurred to him at the time. You know what plebs are like.”

Since in Mr Justice Mitting’s considered judgement PC Rowland is intellectually close to a courgette, he probably didn’t realise that the judge’s conclusive remarks were more offensive than the original affront.

So perhaps we should all sign a petition to bring Mr Justice Mitting to justice on the PC’s behalf. See you in the dock, Your Honour. 

 

My new book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick, is available from Amazon and the more discerning bookshops. However, my publisher would rather you ordered it from http://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.htmlor, in the USA, http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752

 

Democracy is about the rule of the people, and Mr Mellor is one of those people.

I can think of no one who typifies our ruling elite better than this former minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government, no one who could preside over our cherished democracy as successfully.

Well, perhaps I could think of a name or two. Quite a few names actually. Or, to be exact, just about any of our rulers – whichever party they represent.

They all profess to be ruling in the name of the people, while cordially despising those same people – presumably because of the people’s failure to see through them.

Not many of our rulers, however, get caught expressing such sentiments publicly, but Mr Mellor is one of the chosen few. Yet again he has been undone by the technological advances of which modernity is so justly proud, specifically by the advances in recording technology.

The first time was back in 1992, and that put paid to Mr Mellor’s political career, though of course didn’t remove him from the ruling elite. Once in, never out, not even if there’s a bit of prison time involved.

There was no prison for Mr Mellor, even though he transgressed against a biblical commandment, if admittedly one that few of us regard as just.

Though very much married, Mr Mellor was having an affair with a lady of easy virtue. At the time his amorous tastes struck me as slightly bizarre, but then I’m notoriously square in such matters.

Apparently he wore the home strip of his beloved Chelsea FC during sex – while everyone knows that all worthy men support Arsenal or, at a pinch, Spurs.

Also, he had a taste for sucking the girl’s toes, which I suppose is harmless enough, provided the toes are clean and neatly pedicured.

Such intimate details became known when the young lady subsequently sold her suck-and-tell story to News of the World for £35,000, as one does.

The story, and that’s where the recording technology came in, was supported by telephone conversations secretly taped by the girl’s landlord, and I bet Mr Mellor is still cursing Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of both diabolical devices used therein.

A scandal ensued, and in the process a few other indiscretions came to light, such as Mr Mellor having accepted a free holiday from the PLO, an organisation then not universally seen as Britain’s friend.

In his defence, the PLO woman he dealt with had the best pair of legs in London, which I once ascertained walking behind her up the stairs when she was wearing a short skirt.

Anyway, Mellor had to resign, yet here he is now, 22 years later, again caught by a hidden tape recorder preserving for posterity yet another toe-sucking… sorry, I mean toe-curling, incident.

Mr Mellor and his mistress were going home in a black cab, when he took vociferous exception to the route the driver was taking.

Now, before getting anywhere near a black cab, aspiring London cabbies have to take ‘the knowledge’, a written test that takes most of them several years to pass.

No wonder: to pass the test, the applicant has to know just about every building within a seven-mile radius from Charing Cross. He must also be able to name every street along both the shortest and, depending on the time of day, fastest route to every destination.

Mr Mellor’s cabbie passed the test and then drove for 10 years before his car was graced by Mr Mellor’s august presence.

As a member of the ruling elite, Mr Mellor knows everything better than anyone who isn’t a member, even if that person is an experienced professional.

Geography of London is one area in which hoi polloi can’t possibly be more knowledgeable than Mr Mellor. I imagine nuclear physics would be another such area, along with cooking, microbiology and last season’s statistics of Chelsea FC.

Mr Mellor is naturally superior to the plebs, a category that includes more or less everybody the other side of the select group.

This he communicated to the stubborn driver in no uncertain or polite terms. Alas, unbeknown to him, the driver was not only stubborn but also tricky. He pushed the ‘record’ button and now we can all take delight in Mr Mellor’s self-acknowledged superiority.

To open a dialogue, he described the cabbie as a “sweaty, stupid little s***” and a “smart-arsed little bastard”. Mellor then told him to “shut the f*** up” and tested the driver to find out if his ‘knowledge’ exam included familiarity with Mr Mellor’s credentials.

“I’ve been in the cabinet,” he screamed. “I’m an award-winning broadcaster! I’m a Queen’s Counsel! Don’t give me a lot of s***!”

Since repetition is the mother of all learning, Mr Mellor proceeded to go over his CV several times, to make sure the information would be retained.

Actually, the driver wasn’t challenging Mr Mellor’s expertise in any of the listed areas. He stayed in the confines of his own profession, not realising that, comparatively speaking, his knowledge was as inferior to Mr Mellor’s as his social standing.

At the end of the conversation, whose transcript is almost a newspaper-page long,  Mr Mellor called the cabbie a “stupid little s***” and told him to “stop here, by the red light. Then you can f*** off.”

I’m sure you’ll join me in issuing this plea, which comes from the bottom of my heart.

Please, David, come back to politics. Our democracy needs superior, educated, cultured gentlemen like you, gentlemen being the operative word.

For one thing, the revival of your political career may stop you writing on classical music, in which your taste is, frankly, a tad philistine and your knowledge well-nigh nonexistent.

Most important, at this time of rampant egalitarianism we need someone who can show us our place. Someone to keep us on our toes – if you’ll pardon the expression.

Come the f*** back, David. All is forgiven.

 

My new book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick, is available from Amazon and the more discerning bookshops. However, my publisher would rather you ordered it from http://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.htmlor, in the USA, http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

American cities are aflame.

Fires raging everywhere. Riots paralysing urban life. Manhattan tunnels and bridges blocked by the mob of ‘protesters’.

Cars ploughing through crowds. Rioters, no doubt made thirsty by the heat of burning rubbish, busting into off-licences.

Tear gas in the air. The state of emergency declared in Missouri. The governor solicitously recommending that white people don’t go out if they can help it.

‘Peaceful’ demonstrations rapidly becoming an orgy of vandalism and looting. State of emergency declared.

Do you sometimes feel that Americans are having all the fun?

Sure enough, we have our share of riots too. But ours are strictly local, almost parochial. They lack both breadth and depth.

The denizens of Tottenham may be wreaking most enjoyable havoc, but other postcodes of London remain quiet. And as to Liverpool or Newcastle, they may not even know what’s going on in the north of the capital.

Not so in America, and here I’d like to dispel the impression I may have given in the past by often describing our society as a lunatic asylum.

That may be, but we didn’t start the pandemic of madness. That honour belongs to the Americans, and they can still teach us a thing or two.

For example, from personal experience our papers don’t allow journalists to describe jury verdicts as wrong or, God forbid, unjust.

Due process has worked, justice has spoken and that’s all there is to it. To suggest that in a particular case justice spoke ungrammatically and with a bad accent is to bring into question the fundamental principles of our polity, which is discouraged.

Even the more radicalised segments of the British population grudgingly accept the rule of law, for the time being. And if this or that verdict seems unjust to them, they seldom express their feelings by setting cities on fire, although this may change before too long.

The events in Ferguson, the largely black suburb of St Louis, Mo, and the string of riots they’ve triggered all over the place, show that not all Americans have intuitive respect for the law coded into their DNA.

So what happened?

After weeks of deliberation, the grand jury decided that there were no grounds for prosecuting the police officer Darren Wilson for shooting the black teenager Michael Brown.

But the riots began even before the verdict. The very fact that the grand jury had to think about it was a sufficient trigger.

Any time a police officer, especially if he is white, shoots a black man, it’s racially inspired murder.

Large segments of the American population, and not necessarily just the blacks, don’t acknowledge that sometimes the officer may be acting in self-defence.

If the prison population in America is 80 per cent black, it’s not because black Americans commit more crimes. It’s because they are discriminated against, as many left-leaning Americans have kindly explained to me.

This is the good story, and no facts are allowed to interfere with it. That’s why President Obama implicitly endorsed the legitimacy of the rioters’ grievances by sending three of his administration’s officials to attend Michael Brown’s funeral.

The circumstances of the case are well known. Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson were quietly going about their business, which that August evening involved robbing a convenience store.

Afterwards they walked home in the middle of the street, smoking their stolen cigars.

Officer Wilson stopped his car, rolled down the window and told them to get on the pavement.

In response, Brown rushed to the car and started throwing punches through the window, causing the officer numerous lacerations and, by some accounts, a broken eye socket.

Now Michael was not only a bad boy but also a big one. Standing 6’4” and weighing the better part of 21 stone, he had a clear advantage over officer Wilson in unarmed combat.

That’s why the combat didn’t remain unarmed for long. Wilson pulled out a gun and the boys ran away in opposite directions.

Wilson ran after Brown, who suddenly turned around and advanced on the policeman. Fearing for his continued good health, Wilson shot Brown six times, the last shot proving lethal.

Examining reams of evidence, including CCTV footage, the grand jury cleared officer Wilson of all charges, and riots ensued.

The rioters, inspired by the rousing pleas of the Brown family, are demanding justice, which in civilised countries is usually associated with due process.

But American blacks have been corrupted by their white ‘liberal’ champions into believing that true justice has little to do with the law. Each case in which a black man is the victim has to be judged by the higher law of righting an historical wrong.

The blacks have been conditioned to identify themselves by their race first and their nationality a distant second. Yet ‘African Americans’ aren’t really African, and they are encouraged to think they aren’t really American either.

They are members of the international and supranational communion of victims, which also includes women, homosexuals, Darwinists, champions of sustainable energy, Muslims – in fact, anyone who sees himself as a victim.

This whole mindset is generally deplorable, and indeed I’ve deplored it on many occasions. Yet, specifically talking about American blacks, one has to wonder if the Americans are reaping what they’ve sown.

For black slavery did exist in America until the 1860s, and Jim Crow discrimination in the South for a hundred years after that.

In that, America largely compromised her founding principles and indeed claims to Christian antecedents, which was brilliantly pointed out by Dr Johnson: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

Past sins tend to come back to haunt not only individuals but also countries. Can it be that America is now paying the price for past wrongs, exacerbated by the wrong of knee-jerk post-Enlightenment liberalism?

Sins can be repented, which in this case America has done. Correcting them is something else again, and no easy solutions exist.

America did indeed opt for easy solutions by creating a huge black underclass bankrolled by the public purse, corrupting it with a sense of automatic entitlement and practising ‘affirmative action’, otherwise known as reverse discrimination.

This didn’t so much solve the old problem as replaced it with a new one. Ferguson, Missouri, provides a vivid illustration of that but not a useful lesson.

No lessons, especially those of history, are ever useful in the madhouse of modernity. It’s proud of its madness.

 

My new book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick, is available from Amazon and the more discerning bookshops. However, my publisher would rather you ordered it from http://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.htmlor, in the USA, http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Parliament yesterday: our government submitted a bill that officially defines the United Kingdom as a nation state of and for the British people.

The bill, intended to become part of Great Britain’s basic law, would recognise the country’s British character, institutionalise Christian law as an inspiration for legislation and confirm English as the only official language.

When I heard the news, I jumped up, punched the air, shouted Yes!!!… and woke up.

Actually the opening two paragraphs came from a Guardian story almost verbatim. (I hasten to reassure you that I didn’t sully my hands with a copy of that awful newspaper. This is something I refuse to do on principle, so thank God for the Internet.)

I only changed a few words because the story wasn’t about Britain. The bill submitted by the Israeli cabinet to the Knesset was about Israel, Jewish law and Hebrew.

The Guardian wouldn’t be what it is if the story’s very next sentence informed the readers that “Arab Muslims and Christians make up 20% of Israel’s population.”

No comment necessary: the proposed law will discriminate against Christians, just like in Saudi Arabia.  Hence this practice isn’t indigenously Muslim, as assorted fascists/reactionaries/fossils/Ukip supporters will have you believe.

Clever journalism, that: the fact cited is both accurate and misleading. It’s like saying that 20 per cent of the restaurants in my area are Italian and Bolivian. Without a further breakdown, specifying how many are Italian and how many Bolivian, the information isn’t very helpful, is it?

In Israel’s case, of the Arabs living in Israel only nine per cent are Christians. The rest are variously fanatical Muslims, many of whom are wholeheartedly committed to the destruction of the country in which they live, with the attendant massacre of most people in it.

Prime Minister Netanyahu drew a perfectly valid distinction between civil and national rights, again making me both envious and eager to throw darts at Dave’s picture.

Civil rights, he said, would be equal for all, but national rights would be reserved for Jews only: “It cannot be that those who harm Israel, those who call for the destruction of the state of Israel, will enjoy rights like social security.”

This statement made me think of those thousands of British Muslims dancing in the streets after the destruction of the World Trade Centre and then again after a series of terrorist attacks on London transport.

How many of those dancers ‘enjoy rights like social security’? How many of them vote, deciding who will govern the nation they hate? Just about all of them, is the answer to that.

In the wake of murderous attacks on Israelis in synagogues and streets, Netanyahu also talked about establishing a proper balance between the national and democratic aspects of his country.

This immediately led to an outburst of indignation all over the progressive world. Who cares about national character or indeed survival? Democracy is sacrosanct, it must be worshipped like the surrogate secular deity it has become, and if it proves to be a suicide pact, then so be it (provided it’s not our suicide).

True enough, genuflecting at the altar and kneeling at the guillotine involve assuming the same posture. But the consequences are rather different.

That democracy may be suspended, or at least curtailed, at wartime used to be taken for granted.

It wasn’t democracy but national survival that made the Americans intern all Nissei Americans in camps for the duration of the Second World War. It was similar considerations that led the British to intern all resident Germans in the Isle of Man.

Not many screamed bloody murder then. So why doesn’t Israel enjoy the same latitude? Why don’t Israel’s desperate times call for desperate measures?

Unlike Britain and the USA that were only at war for six and four years respectively, the State of Israel has been under attack for 66 years – from the day it came into being.

Netanyahu feigned surprise at some glaring contradictions voiced by Israel’s critics. On the one hand they insist on the right of Palestinian Muslims to have their own national state. On the other hand they wish to deny the same right to Israel.

That Israel still retains democratic institutions at all, along with equal civil rights for everyone, is a miracle of self-restraint to which one struggles to find any analogues. This in spite of Israel not being blessed with a patina of centuries during which just secular institutions could evolve at an unhurried pace.

Let Peter Hitchens pine for a strong, meaning fascist, leader like Putin. I wish we had a strong leader like Netanyahu, someone who realises the lethal potential of Enlightenment contrivances like democracy in a country struggling for its survival.

 

My new book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick, is available from Amazon and the more discerning bookshops. However, my publisher would rather you ordered it from http://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.htmlor, in the USA, http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752

 

 

 

 

I’ve lived in four countries and have at times been treated as a foreigner in each, including the one of my birth.

So take it from me: a bit of ethnic snobbery can improve the breed on both sides, the snobs and their targets.

The success of some ethnic and racial minorities, such as Indians in Britain, Vietnamese in the USA, Germans in Russia, Italians in Argentina, Jews and Chinese just about everywhere, shows how victims of ethnic hostility can, if they so choose, put it to productive use.

If, say, a Jew is taught from birth that being merely twice as good as his gentile competitor isn’t good enough, and nothing short of 10 times as good will do, he’ll be more likely to become at least twice as good.

There will, of course, be some collateral damage – rather than being made stronger, some will be deeply damaged. But that would intensify the natural selection within the group, if you’ll forgive my waxing Darwinian in such a cold-blooded fashion.

Natural selection doesn’t explain much, and certainly not everything. But it does explain something, and this is one example.

So in a way diasporic groups should welcome all those ‘kikes’, ‘chinks’, ‘wops’ and ‘dagos’, even though I know how hard it is to react with such equanimity.

This point is easy to argue, though many, especially those blessed with heightened sensitivity, will disagree. But what about the effect ethnic prejudice has on those who mete it out? The argument in favour becomes harder, but not impossible.

It’s in people’s nature to prefer the company of their own kind and be on guard against those perceived as strangers. Not all natural qualities are commendable, but this one is too human to disparage.

The Greeks despised all outlanders, so did the Romans. The Persians saw the world as concentric circles of virtue, with themselves at the centre and goodness dissipating towards the periphery. The Japanese saw the gaijin as savages.

These days the Dutch and the French crack jokes about the Belgians, the Russians about the Georgians and the Chukchi, the Americans about the Mexicans and the Poles, the English about the Irish, the Swedes about the Finns – and everyone has fun at the expense of the Jews.

This isn’t always innocent, and sometimes the seemingly good-natured quips belie real nastiness lurking underneath.

But usually such variably funny humour and indeed ethnically pejorative terms serve simply to establish, emphasise and protect the jokers’ group identity, which can be done by stressing both sameness and otherness.

However, care must be taken for word not to become deed. Haughty disdain giving way to hatred may end up as persecution, which must be nipped in the bud.

People aren’t entitled to protection against everything they find offensive, but they are entitled to all the security civilised society has to offer, along with equality before the law.

Any attempt to deprive ethnic minorities of this entitlement offends not only them personally but society at large. Hence it must be discouraged and, if need be, punished.

Yet penalising pejorative words and ethnic jokes, even when they are manifestly innocent, is a treatment that’s much worse than the disease. In fact it may well be lethal.

When the state first encourages, then promotes and then enforces totalitarian (also known as PC) Zeitgeist, it never does so out of noble intentions. Its aim is to expand and perpetuate its own power while limiting individual freedom.

It’s in this context that we ought to view the current hysteria involving the football manager Malky Mckay and his new employer, Wigan owner Dave Whelan.

Mckay made Cardiff City hugely successful but then was fired, along with recruitment head Iain Moody, for some questionable transfer deals.

As part of the investigation Moody’s house was raided and all his computers seized. So far no evidence of criminal acts has been found or at any rate reported.

What was found were all sorts of communications suggesting that Messrs Mackay and Moody don’t always express themselves in strict compliance with the culture of diversity.

They circulated a photograph entitled Black Monopoly, where every square said ‘Go to Jail’, referred to Cardiff’s Malaysian owner Tan as ‘f***ing Chink’, pointed out the Jews’ inordinate affection for money, described a colleague as ‘gay snake’, expressed a preference for recruiting white players, suggested that it would be nice to ‘bounce on [female agent’s] falsies’ – and in general gave every indication that in their private correspondence they aren’t always guided by Debrett’s Etiquette for Young Ladies.

The ensuing outcry filled the papers for a week at least, with the severity of suggested punishments increasing towards the left end of the publishing spectrum. Capital punishment wasn’t mentioned, but only because it’s not on the books.

As a minimum, the papers were united in demanding that Mackay never work in football again. He let the side down by compromising the image of footballers’ pristine purity we like to cherish in our hearts.

A footballer, you understand, is there primarily to set an example of probity and virtue for the young generation. Even if he spends his working life trying to break opponents’ legs, in the after hours he’s expected to impersonate a Franciscan abbot.

Though these tattooed chaps frustrate such expectation every time they go out on the town, it doesn’t matter – provided they stay within the confines of Zeitgeist rectitude.

Stabbing a lit cigar into someone’s eye, taunting American visitors in the aftermath of 9/11, driving drunk with a Stop sign attached to the rear bumper, bottling or nutting a nightclub doorman – all these are, well, if not exactly forgivable, at least understandable.

Boys will be boys and all that, as long as they transgress against individuals only. But God forbid they offend the prevailing ethos – no punishment can be too severe.

Nevertheless, rather than becoming a bus driver (at best), Malky Mackay has just been appointed manager of Wigan Athletic, owned by Dave Whelan, 77, himself an ex-player.

Clearly this self-made millionaire had to have an ulterior motive that went beyond simply finding a manager with a proven record of success.

An investigation was in order, and what do you know, it established gruesome facts about Mr Whelan. Apparently – are you sitting down? – he can’t see what the brouhaha is all about. Who among you, he said – out loud! – never referred to a Chinese person as a Chink?

Moreover, he opined in a Guardian interview that “Jewish people chase money more than everybody else”, although few Jews among my friends have been as persistent in that pursuit as Mr Whelan himself.

Boorish, yes; silly, of course (just consider the paper Whelan chose for airing his observation); promoting derogatory ethnic stereotypes, no doubt; offering the traditional anti-Semitic apology along the lines of ‘some of my best friends are Jewish’, definitely.

But a criminal unworthy to be part of the saintly football community? Absolutely not.

Yet this is exactly the punishment for which our press is clamouring. Both Mackay and Whelan are supposed to be drummed out of football for ever, with the latter banned from access to his own club.

This is worse than just hysterical overreaction: this orgy of political correctness is fascism by a different name.

Admittedly, Messrs Whelan and Mckay aren’t the kind of people I often see at my dining-room table. But I’d rather break bread with these uncouth chaps than with their detractors.

I don’t mind chatting about football all evening (though my wife might). But I do mind listening even for a second to the hypocritical bien pensant inanities one can confidently expect from Guardian readers – and writers.

 

My new book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick, is available from Amazon and the more discerning bookshops. However, my publisher would rather you ordered it from http://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.htmlor, in the USA, http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALEX BOOT will be talking about his latest book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick next Tuesday, 25th November at 1.00 pm sharp in the Griffin Room at The Counting House, 50 Cornhill, London EC3V 3PD.   Alex, who has proved one of the most popular (and provocative!) speakers to address The Freedom Association’s Freedom in the City events, will be signing copies of the book, which will be available for sale at the event.   Admission is free, and open to all. There will be a voluntary collection at the end of the meeting, to help cover the costs of room hire etc.   Should you wish to have lunch before or after the event, you will find that the Counting House serves a wide range of (by London standards) reasonably priced food.    I do hope that you will come and hear Alex, and look forward to seeing you at the Counting House on Tuesday.

Observing the 1961 Jerusalem trial of the mass murderer Adolf Eichmann, Hannah Arendt coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’.

In 2014 the mass murderer Charles Manson, 80, proves yet again that evil isn’t just banal. It’s also extremely attractive in all sorts of ways, including sexual.

This monster, serving a life sentence for the 1969 cult murder of the actress Sharon Tate and seven others, including her unborn child, has been issued a licence to marry a 26-year-old woman who says she loves him.

The bride, Afton Burton, first became smitten with the bridegroom, who had Sharon Tate’s baby cut out of her womb and butchered, when she was 17.

At that impressionable age she read Charlie’s jailhouse scribbles on the harm nasty people do to the environment and realised he was a man after her own heart.

Since then this loving daughter of Baptist parents, who inexplicably disapprove of her nuptial plans, has moved to California to be nearer Charlie’s prison. She has been visiting him regularly, though not in a conjugal way (as a lifer, he’s denied that privilege, even assuming that at his age he’d be able to take advantage of it).

The girl bears an uncanny resemblance to some murderous female members of the Manson ‘family’, and the same question can be asked of her as of them.

What exactly is the bridegroom’s attraction?

What, for that matter, is the attraction of other murderers, many of whom have panting fans ‘on the out’?

Certainly in Afton’s case this question is hard to answer in any rational terms and yet, until we hear the contrary, we have to assume the girl is sane.

Considering that the bridegroom will next be up for parole in his mid-90s, Afton can’t look forward to any domestic bliss, however short-lived. Nor will her passion for Charlie ever be consummated in any traditional way.

Generally speaking, it’s possible to love deeply flawed and violent people. Though we like for something, we love in spite of everything.

But, delving into the issue a bit deeper than Hannah Arendt, perhaps we’ll discover that the answer isn’t so close to the surface.

For I’m convinced that many people are attracted to murderers or other nasties not in spite of their being evil but because of it.

Gangsta thugs with a string of criminal convictions to their names are seldom short of middleclass girlfriends. And it’s out of ‘lurv’ that many women routinely stay with violent men who break their bones.

Looking on a larger scale, historically unprecedented mass murderers, such as Lenin, Stalin or Hitler, had millions of fans in the West.

Many of those didn’t necessarily share the ideologies behind the murders – they were driven not by theoretical abstractions but by the anomic evil within them.

The attraction was often sexual, as it was with many Bloomsbury chaps who envied the leather-jerkined commissars their masculinity, something they themselves didn’t have.

There was something irresistibly butch about all that rustling leather crisscrossed by belts supporting Mausers. Beats regular rough trade any day.

Or take women like Unity Mitford, who loved the Führer not just ideologically but erotically. Opinions differ on whether or not she sated her passion with Hitler himself, but she certainly entertained SS officers created in his image, a dozen at a time.

Evil attracts; absolute evil attracts absolutely. That never changes, and today one sees hordes of so-called conservatives, both male and female, pining for the muscular masculinity of Col. Putin (Peter Hitchens, ring your office).

And I doubt that all those British Muslims who join the ranks of ISIS cannibals do so out of Islamic piety. It’s much more likely that they are attracted by the horrific violence that they can both admire and perpetrate.

That sort of thing may or may not have sexual overtones. But even when it does, those aren’t the initial impulse.

Rather sex in such instances is the expression of deep-seated evil, whose origin is not in the libido of Freud’s fancy but in the workings of the hideous creature to which an earlier source refers as ‘the prince of this world’.

I hope when the long-awaited wedding takes place, whoever is officiating will say “What therefore Satan hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

The rest of us should perhaps take some time to ponder evil, and why it’s so much more than just banal.

My new book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick, is available from Amazon and the more discerning bookshops. However, my publisher would rather you ordered it from http://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.htmlor, in the USA, http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752

It has taken 20 years after female ordination for the Church of England to go completely, as opposed to partially, bonkers.

The C of E Synod yesterday rubber-stamped the consecration of women bishops, thereby confirming its PC credentials at the small cost of relinquishing whatever residual claim it had to being a Christian ecclesia.

To reinforce the impression that we’re dealing with a clinical, rather than merely theological, aberration, the Archbishop of Canterbury mournfully admitted that it might be as long as 10 years before the episcopate faithfully reflects the demographic makeup of mankind… sorry, personkind is what I mean.

This reminds me of the Soviet story of an alcoholic looking at an “Alcohol is slow death” poster and saying “Well, we’re in no rush.”

In the overall state of euphoria some Synod members confidently predicted that before long we’d be blessed with gay bishops as well, and they didn’t mean it as the antonym of morose.

They missed a trick for it’s likely that two birds, as it were, will be killed with one stone. If malicious rumours are to be believed, some of the women candidates for bishoprics combine the two essential qualifications by being both female and homosexual.

Considering their general take on theology and Christian tradition, they probably see this as a reflection on the dual nature of Jesus Christ.

Commenting on the historic ruling, for which he had campaigned with nothing short of maniacal persistence, Archbishop Welby couldn’t contain his joy: “Today we can begin to embrace a new way of being the church and moving forward together. We will also continue to seek the flourishing of the church of those who disagree.”

I’m not sure I fully understand the second sentence. If His Grace meant conservative Anglicanism within the C of E, then some may accuse him of hypocrisy. For years now, under the leadership of its principal prelates the Church has been marginalising conservative, which is to say real, Christians.

They have been effectively silenced at church assemblies, such as this Synod; their priests have been pushed out on the slightest pretexts; their continued use of the Prayer Book and the Authorised Version has been discouraged and mocked.

Not long ago I met an intelligent young man who had matriculated at a seminary and was about to be ordained in the Church of England. He enthusiastically admitted that he had never in his life attended a 1662 service, which ought to tell you all you need to know about the meaning of ‘moving forward together’.

Probably coming up next: making rock ‘n roll music mandatory for all Anglican liturgy.

Contrary to the misconception dominant for 2,000 years, when Jesus said “you are the rock on which my church will be built”, he wasn’t making a pun on the Greek word for Peter (Petrus). As we have to acknowledge now, Jesus presciently foresaw the advent of rock ‘n roll and saw its vast potential as the building block of Christian worship.

When, by way of moving forward together, the proposed measure goes into effect, such services will gradually start to downplay the God part of the masses, turning them into out-and-out pop concerts. Ushers at the door will be making sure that all three sexes are proportionately represented in the audience (formerly known as congregation).

Clearly, the Catholic Church has much to learn from the Anglicans. For the time being, Pope Francis, whose natural instincts are similar to Archbishop Welby’s, has been forced to accept grudgingly that “children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother.”

Personally, I would have tried to express the same thought in the terms of the God-given natural order, rather than relying on the purely secular construct of rights. But hey, let’s not quibble – we must be grateful for whatever we get.

However, His Holiness didn’t specify the sex of either parent, which, depending on how you read it, may be either a careless or deliberate omission. After all, two homosexuals wishing to adopt a child may nominate each other for these formerly ‘gender-specific’ roles.

If, as I optimistically believe, the Pope hasn’t yet realised that such old-fashioned terms might these days need qualifying, then it’s clear that orthodox Christians still exert some influence at the Vatican.

This may point out the direction in which orthodox Christians among the Anglicans may consider ‘moving forward together’.

Swiftly shifting from religion to politics, one has to compliment the Tory party for its restraint – while wishing it had been more decisive.

Desperately trying to keep the projected  margin of Ukip victory at Rochester and Strood in single digits, a Tory spokesman kindly explained to the local electorate the dangers of voting wrong.

Should you in your folly, he proclaimed, decide to vote for Ukip, the value of your house will drop like a rock. Potential buyers wouldn’t want to move into the otherwise desirable area knowing that Ukip voters roam free at night.

Truer words have never been spoken in any lunatic asylum of my knowledge. But more strident words have.

In this instance, the threat would have carried so much more punch had the voters been told that a cheaper house would be the least of their worries.

Vote Ukip, the Tories should have said to complete the clinical picture, and your wife will have an affair with your best friend, who will then join forces with her to poison you and reclaim your devalued house. Alternatively, your brakes will fail at a motorway speed, you’ll contract Ebola at your Aids clinic and you’ll never see an openly homosexual bishop in your area.

I’ll keep you posted on any future developments. Meanwhile, may I suggest installing another lock and a more up-to-date alarm system?

 

My new book, Democracy as a Neocon Trick, is available from Amazon and the more discerning bookshops. However, my publisher would rather you ordered it from http://www.roperpenberthy.co.uk/index.php/browse-books/political/democracy-as-a-neocon-trick.htmlor, in the USA, http://www.newwinebookshop.com/Books/0002752