Month: January 2025

I’m happy for the Americans. Their country must have so few problems that the president-elect and his right hand can redirect their boundless energy to helping Britain out of her morass.

This isn’t to say no morass exists, nor that Trump and Musk aren’t making good points. In fact, I agree with most of them. However, both gentlemen routinely overstep the fine line separating valid criticism from meddling in the affairs of a sovereign country.

At the moment, their two-prong attack focuses on Britain’s energy policy and Keir Starmer’s record as Director of Crown Prosecutions, both truly appalling. The two critics seem to be dividing the workload: Trump is at the moment talking about energy and Musk about Sir Keir.

The president-elect responded to the news that Apache, a US oil company, would cease production in the UK because of the “financial impact of the energy profits levy”. Indeed, when Boris Johnson was PM, he and his chancellor Rishi Sunak raised the windfall tax on oil companies from 35 to 38 per cent.

This goes to show yet again, if any further proof is necessary, that there is no substantial divide between our two main parties: both are woke and Left-wing, if perhaps to different extents. Both are committed to the economic suicide going by the name of net zero.

Now, Trump may be all sorts of things, but woke he isn’t. That’s why I’d happily sign my own name under his message to Britain: “The UK is ­making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of the windmills!”

However, Trump and I are different in more ways than I can count, but the one relevant here is that I am a British subject, and he is a foreign politician. Trump is entitled to his opinion, and in this case I happen to agree with it, but he isn’t entitled to talk to Britain the way he undoubtedly talks to his flunkeys.

There is an element of blackmail here as well, because Trump knows that Britain desperately needs a trade deal with the US. At the very least, Starmer craves an exemption from the blanket import tariffs Trump is planning to impose because, if he goes through with that idea, it will cost Britain billions.

Now, that idea is wrong, almost as much so as Britain’s shutting down North Sea drilling. But Trump has the power of his convictions, right and wrong ones alike, and he is unlikely to back down. This gives him leverage over Britain, but it still gives him no right to talk to us in the peremptory tone of a blackmailer.

There are more important things than money, national pride being one of them. Starmer would be within his rights to tell Trump – in the idiom the latter favours – to shove his deal and his directives where the sun don’t shine.

Musk also has a point when attacking Starmer’s record as DCP. Starmer, Musk said, “was complicit in the rape of Britain when he was head of Crown Prosecution for six years. Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crimes in British history.”

I agree with this point, but not with Musk’s right to make it publicly. He is no longer just a private citizen with a huge capital and an ego to match. From 20 January onwards he’ll also have a key role to play in the US administration, and it’s outrageous that he sees fit to demand criminal prosecution of the prime minister of a foreign country and America’s staunchest ally.

Indirectly, Musk also took a swipe at Nigel Farage, who is the ally within an ally. In his pilgrimage zeal, Farage has turned Mar-a-Lago into an equivalent of the Ferney of 18^th century progressives, the Santiago di Compostela of Christians and the Mecca of Muslims.

However, for all his sycophancy to Trump and Musk (who is waving a $100 million bait before Nigel’s nose), Farage is a British patriot. There is a line he won’t cross, and his rebuke of Musk is exemplary.

In his own political evolution, Musk has been swinging from left to right depending on which way the economic wind was blowing. At the moment, he has swung as far right as it’s possible to go without having to don a brown shirt. All marginal parties and individuals in other countries are his friends and beneficiaries, and unfortunately it’s not just the benign Reform Party that he patronises.

Musk also supports Germany’s AfD, which is desperately trying to downplay its neo-Nazi roots in search of political respectability. And Musk’s British pet is Tommy Robinson, the darling of the MAGA crowd currently serving an 18-month term for contempt of court, the latest of his numerous criminal convictions.

In spite of his touching concern for British legality, Musk demanded that Robinson, a former member of the British National Party and the founder of its successor, the English Defence League, be released from prison.

If Musk counted on Farage’s support, he miscalculated. The ungrateful would-be recipient of Musk’s largesse said: “Anyone who looks at my history will know that I did more to defeat the BNP than anybody in British politics. I have always forbade them to be members of Ukip, the Brexit Party and Reform. That includes a certain Mr Robinson. He is a serial criminal … he seems to want to launch a holy war. I don’t. Elon Musk makes his own mind up. He is the high priest of free speech. He is entitled to those views.”

His ignorance of the Past Participle form of the verb ‘to forbid’ emphasises Mr Farage’s credentials as Trump’s friend. However, other than that, he is absolutely right.

Farage also put his finger, perhaps inadvertently, on another point worth making. Musk, a recent convert to the right end of politics and hence exhibiting a neophyte’s zeal, along with, more important, Trump, seems to be putting together an international anti-woke crusade.

There are some indications that such seeds may fall on fertile soil, what with voters in various countries showing signs of exasperation with tyrannical woke politics and indoctrination. The US herself, Argentina, Italy, several Eastern European countries, Germany, to some extent France are all leaning that way.

However, voters are fickle, and they tend to display as much spinal elasticity as Mr Musk himself. Let’s not forget that the same US electorate that commendably voted for Trump this time around had twice elected Obama and came close to electing Harris.

No anti-woke, anti-Left campaign will succeed unless it’s conducted with tact and discernment. Tact is demonstrably lacking in the pronouncements made by both Trump and Musk, and I doubt it’ll ever creep into their statements later – neither man has the right psychological makeup for it.

But discernment is even more important. Looking from across the ocean, MAGA chaps may not spot the difference between serious politicians like Farage and fascisoid scum like Robinson – or between, say, German conservative parties and the AfD.

If they lump them all together into the same campaign, that’s how the masses will perceive them. That will compromise the whole movement and arm subversive Lefties with enough ammunition to fight a successful rear-guard action.

The best way for Trump, Musk et al. to shake other countries out of their Left-wing torpor isn’t to be rude and bossy to them, but to turn America into a glittering success story by implementing conservative policies across the board. That will provide an example others may find difficult not to follow.

Conversely, an attempt to bully HMG into submission is guaranteed to cause a negative reaction among Britons, including many of those who detest the Starmer gang. My advice in the title above stands: mind your own business, chaps. And turn your own business into a triumph.

It’s a general rule supported by much empirical evidence. When it comes to schooling, conservatives educate, socialists indoctrinate.

Since socialists are in charge of education in Britain and just about everywhere else in the West, our schools keep churning out ignoramuses who have the hysterical power of their hairbrained convictions.

At least Tory governments try to reverse this tendency, but their attempts are invariably smashed against the stonewall of teachers, unions, pressure groups and school administrators. Most of these were educated at various hatcheries of wokery, to which they pledged lifelong allegiance. They use their strength in numbers and vocal chords to defeat any encroachments on woke probity.

I’m happy to report that this divisive confrontation is now over. Perfect harmony exists between Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and the groups I’ve mentioned. They are prepared to launch their combined assault on what’s left of British education.

To that end, Miss Phillipson has set out to change the national curriculum. She wants to “breathe new life into our outdated curriculum to make it more diverse”. It should reflect “the diversity of our society” and indoctri… sorry, I mean teach, youngsters to “appreciate the diversity of Britain.”

Some subjects, currently “mono-cultural”, are set to be “decolonised” in order to “embed anti-racist and decolonised approaches in the curriculum”. Let’s hear it for the “inclusive curricula that reflect diverse authors, cultures and perspectives.”

As the founder and chairman of the Charles Martel Society for Multiculturalism, I wholeheartedly support this approach to education. Indeed, if our schools can only teach youngsters one thing, it should definitely be how to appreciate and admire the diversity of our society. In fact, that indeed does seem to be the only thing Miss Phillipson would like to teach in her new curriculum.

However, it pains me to say that she has her work cut out for her. For example, it’s not immediately apparent how things like physics or mathematics can be twisted… sorry, I mean improved, in light of the new programme. I have every faith in our educators, and I know they’ll try to do their level best, but the task seems borderline impossible.

Hence the main thrust of new education will be directed against… sorry, I mean at, the humanities, mainly literature and history. The guiding spirit of the drive for diversity is Prof Becky Francis, who in the past criticised the Blair government for “an obsession with academic achievement”.

I couldn’t agree more. Even the Blair-type obsession of this nature runs against the grain of British education. Academic achievement, fancy that. It’s much more important, explain our educators, to steer clear of “traditional” English literature, especially in “majority white” classrooms.

Thanks to the emigration policies of successive governments, such classrooms are becoming exceedingly rare, but – fair enough – a few here and there are still extant. It stands to reason, of course, that those classrooms shouldn’t be allowed to be mired in white complacency. So the first target for re-education has been well spotted.

The Association of School and College Leaders laments that “in particular, ethnicity and sexual orientation are under-represented in the national curriculum”. I share their frustration, but no immediate corrective steps suggest themselves readily.

If American literature has produced quite a few books highlighting ethnicity and, mainly in the 20^th century, sexual orientation, classical British literature is tragically remiss in that area. I suppose hints at fashionable sexuality can be discerned in Oscar Wilde’s works, and perhaps one or two ‘confirmed bachelors’ pop up in other places as well, but none of it is explicit. It’s as if those writers were ashamed when they ought to have been proud.

The situation with ethnicity is even more dire. Classical English writers from Chaucer onwards were unapologetically white people who, as good writers will, described the life they knew. Which is to say the life of white people. Other races hardly ever figure.

Such lackadaisical omissions can be corrected on stage easily enough, by having, say, Hamlet played by a black transsexual woman missing a limb or two. But rewriting the play to make the Prince of Denmark speak in the idiom once popularised by Ali G seems like a tall order.

The five main exam boards of Britain explained that: “The literary canon should better reflect the range of cultures and experiences of all young people.” Splendid idea, that. The trouble is that such a literary canon has so far failed to materialise.

Perhaps members of our educational establishment should put their day jobs on hold and actually produce a canon to satisfy their exacting requirements. As new books and poems are being written, the old literary canon, all those Shakespeares, Keatses and Dickenses, could be squeezed out one by one, until the Great Literary Replacement has been achieved.

However, one has to doubt that such a Herculean feat can be accomplished within the lifespan of this government, even should it have more than one term in office. Still, no harm in trying, a stitch in time and all that.

At least with literature one can see a clear path to improvement in line with the reinforced commitment to “in particular, ethnicity and sexual orientation”. History, on the other hand, can’t by definition “better reflect the range of cultures and experiences of all young people”.

You see, by its very nature, history deals with the past, whereas “all young people” live and acquire their experiences in the present. The present is infinitely more diverse, multicultural, transsexual and generally better than any period in the past, that much goes without saying. Alas, and I don’t know how to put this not to offend anybody, the past stubbornly remains firmly lodged in, well, the past.

I agree that our DEI educators are entitled not only to their own opinions but also to their own facts, but I’m just concerned that, if they rewrite history completely, they’ll undermine their own credibility. They do have plenty of it, credibility, but if it’s undermined, they’ll have less. That saddens me.

To their credit, they don’t give up easily. For example, some history teachers (and a popular TV show) insist that Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the wife of George III and hence a queen of England, was black.

No written or pictorial evidence for this supposition has so far been unearthed, but who’s to say it won’t be in the future? This is a line of thought perfected by Darwinists: yes, they say, the missing link hasn’t yet been found. But it may be found in the future, which means it will be found, which means we can safely assume it has been found.

In a similar vein, King Edward II is always believed to be homo- or bi-sexual, though not yet trans-. James I definitely had a commendable sexual orientation, as any reader of his letters to the Duke of Buckingham will confirm.

That fact should definitely be given a much greater prominence in history lessons, but one should tread carefully. Since James was Scottish, a teacher may run the risk of offending that devolved nation, thereby sinking into xenophobia, Little Englishness and potentially racism.

Altogether, these are rather slim pickings left for our DEI-fied educators. Since they can’t rewrite history as easily as literature, the only path open to them is to nail Britain’s past to the wall of opprobrium by portraying it as racist, homo- and trans-phobic, misogynist, colonialist – and nothing else.

Giant strides are already being made in that direction, but there is still room for improvement. And with Bridget Phillipson in charge, such improvements won’t be long in coming. I trust her implicitly.

Pope Francis wouldn’t make the short list of my favourite pontiffs, and he’d even struggle to get on the long one. Yet his homily at New Year’s Day Mass serves a powerful reminder of what it means to be a Christian in general and Catholic in particular.

One hopes it would also remind those holding different faiths or none of what it means to be a decent person. But, when it comes to killing by state, otherwise known as euthanasia or ‘assisted dying’, that hope is slim.

Priests are free to hold all sorts of political and cultural views, including, as most these days do, those I find objectionable. But any priest who supports that abomination should be summarily unfrocked, and I’d even go so far as to say that even lay Christians ought to be excommunicated if they see nothing wrong with euthanasia or, for that matter, abortion.

Some views are simply incompatible with Christianity, certainly its apostolic denominations. One can get away with having no respect for, say, private property or real music, but not for human life, which is only God’s to give or take away.

Congratulations to His Holiness for refusing to obfuscate that straightforward message with a smokescreen of qualifications and equivocations. He spoke forcefully about the urgent need to protect “the precious gift of life, life in the womb, the lives of children, the lives of the suffering, the poor, the elderly, the lonely and the dying.”  

Unfortunately, he also called for “the elimination of the death penalty in all nations”, but hey, we can’t all be perfect. A valid argument can be made that the death penalty for murder upholds the sacred value of human life, rather than denying it. In any case, this is a separate conversation.

To his credit, the Pope has never been bashful about letting his views on abortion be widely known. At various times, he has referred to it as “murder”, akin to “hiring a hitman to solve a problem”, while describing pro-abortion laws as “homicidal”.

However, that ship has sailed, at least in Britain. As far as I know, even the mildest anti-abortion legislation isn’t even being mooted. But ‘assisted dying’ is a current issue: even though the relevant bill passed its second reading recently, it still isn’t a law.

It passed narrowly, which gives some hope for the future. In fact, 147 Labour MPs opposed it, along with most Tories and two out of five Reform MPs, including Nigel Farage. That three other Reformers supported the bill emphasises the difference between right-wing populism and conservatism, but again this dichotomy is for another day.

One of the most vociferous campaigners for the bill was TV presenter Dame Esther Rantzen, who is suffering from Stage 4 lung cancer. As a survivor of Stage 4 cancer myself, I sympathise with her plight, but not with her view on the state killing her — and eventually millions of others — by way of relief.

Her suffering touched a chord in what passes for Keir Starmer’s heart. Back in October, he said that he had “made a promise to Esther Rantzen before the election that we would provide time for a debate and a vote on assisted dying”.

That was one campaign promise Starmer has kept, which is more than one can say for a whole raft of other promises he has broken with blithe cynicism. Not only did he push that diabolical bill through two readings in Parliament, but he himself voted for it with so much enthusiasm that it was easy to get the impression he’d happily stick a needle into Dame Esther’s arm himself.

She should thank God he didn’t, and neither did anyone else. Had the bill become a law there and then, Dame Esther would probably no longer be with us. As it is, I for one was happy to read her announcement that “the new wonder drug I’m on” may hold back the spread of her cancer “for months, even years”. 

If AstraZeneca’s Osimertinib can add so much time to Dame Esther’s life, it will make a powerful statement in favour of modern pharmacology – and a rational one against killing by state.

One of the requirements for doctors to kill a patient with impunity is that he is to have no more than six months left to live. This requirement is based on certain premises, all of them dubious.

First, doctors can seldom pinpoint the end of a life with any accuracy. I’ve known several people given months left to live who then went on to stick around for several more years. Doctors can make a mistake and so can medical science.

Second, this denies the possibility of a miracle, delivered either by God or, as in Dame Esther’s case, a pharmaceutical company or – most likely – both. Practical and theological arguments thus merge into one, delivering the kind of blow to the ‘assisted dying’ bill from which it would never recover in any decent country.

That the bill will likely become a law in Britain before long diminishes her claim to being a decent country. An essential qualification for this accolade is unwavering belief in the sanctity of human life – something demanded by God, Pope Francis, simple decency and even common sense.