Britain, according to Dave, is racist, which “should shame our nation”. Actually, being led by such a nonentity is a greater reason to be ashamed.
A young black man, according to Dave, is more likely to find himself in prison than at a university. To someone currying favour with the progressivist crowd there can be only one explanation: racism. Our universities are reluctant to admit blacks, while our courts are eager to send them down.
This is a possible explanation, but it’s neither the only nor the likeliest one. In fact, considering the facts Dave cited, it doesn’t add up at all.
The racism explanation would make sense only if certain premises could be factually established:
Premise 1: Universities reject qualified black candidates.
Premise 2: Such candidates are as qualified as rival whites.
Premise 3: Black people are innocent of the crimes for which they are imprisoned.
Premise 4: If found guilty, a black is more likely to receive a custodial sentence than a white defendant with the same criminal record, who’s seen as presenting the same danger to society.
Since Dave failed to establish any of these premises, his diatribe is the same bien pensant drivel that has become his trademark.
He did say that “It’s disgraceful that if you’re black, it seems you’re more likely to be sentenced to custody for a crime than if you’re white.” But without the qualifications mentioned in Premise 4, this is yet another example of hollow chattering, something further emphasised by the word ‘seems’.
When a prime minister makes such a far-reaching claim, there can be no ‘seems’ about it. Either is or isn’t, that’s the choice, to be made on the basis of facts, scrutinised and analysed.
Dave accused his alma mater Oxford of “not doing enough” to attract black students. That softens the accusation: not doing enough may be treated as laziness or negligence, not racism. That charge would only stick if Premises 1 and 2 were established, which they weren’t.
If they could be established, Dave would have jumped at the chance. Hence one has to assume, without leaving the realm of logic, that neither of those assumptions is true. Therefore, even though universities are lackadaisical about dragging young blacks in, they don’t discriminate against them, meaning they aren’t racist.
Now what would constitute doing enough? Discriminating against more qualified white candidates in favour of black ones?
Apparently not. Since it would be nice to retain at least some conservative support, Dave hastened to add that he didn’t favour reverse discrimination.
However, in the good tradition of Islington salons he failed to state what he does favour, other than that Oxford should “go the extra mile” in search of more blacks. In which direction the extra mile should be travelled wasn’t specified.
Dave then shot himself in the foot, having first withdrawn it from his mouth. “White British men from poor backgrounds,” he said, “are five times less likely to go into higher education than others.”
I’m confused. So we’re talking not about race but family background, for poor white men don’t usually sport blackface at university interviews. Having first caught my breath after the dizzying turn in rhetoric, I must admit that finally we’ve uncovered a kernel of truth – though not the way Dave meant it.
A combination of various government policies have indeed covered Britain with a blanket of rotten council estates. While they don’t greet visitors with the sign “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”, they might as well do so.
The policies responsible for this tragic situation were enacted in social affairs, education and justice.
The massive welfare state created a culture of dependency, depriving youngsters of any incentive to seek a job that in all likelihood wouldn’t match the level of their benefits. At the same time, by effectively acting as provider father and depriving the family of its vital economic function, the state made real fathers redundant. That effectively destroyed the family, with every predictable social consequence.
The annihilation of grammar schools deprived boys from poor families of any educational, and therefore social, hoists, attaching youngsters to the rotten estates in perpetuity and leaving mostly crime as a way of supplementing their benefits and attaining peer respect.
And our justice system encourages crime, rather than punishing it in a ruthless and deterrent fashion. For example, a leading sociologist has calculated that a burglar commits, on average, 50 crimes before seeing the inside of a courthouse, and another 50 before going to prison, usually for a derisory term.
The prevailing belief is that prison represents not punishment commensurate with the crime, but a chance to rehabilitate a youngster who in any case is less guilty than society at large. Justice is thus no longer justice. It’s an extension of social services, and we know how effective those are.
The salient point here is that all those destructive policies come to us courtesy of intellectual and moral cripples like Dave, who spout progressivist drivel and then act on it to stay on the right side of the Zeitgeist.
This would be almost bearable if at some point they spared us their hare-brained, sanctimonious nonsense. Fat chance, as Dave is proving.