"review of the far-right": the shifting sands of politics

In the wake of the terrible massacre in Norway, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered a review of the far-right, which is apparently to include the English Defence League.

Things had been going so well: the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph had dropped the "far" tag and started referring to the EDL merely as "right-wing" (although given its predominabtly blue-collar membership a survey of union membership among EDL members might be instructive). The organisation has been steadily winning a better reputation among the police-forces with whom it consults and cooperates before and during demos; and, almost alone, it has shone a searchlight into the shadier corners of Blackpool, where 14-year old Cheryl Downes was groomed for sex, murdered and disemboweled by kebab-shop owners.

Describing other people's politics is often relative to where you are standing. Remember the fall of the Soviet empire, when Russian communists suddenly became right-wingers, in a clear indication that the term was indication of disapproval as opposed to marking a sea-change in Politburo direction?

Just so, Dave Prentis, general secretary of the public trade union Unison, writes that "violent racist attacks and intimidation by the far-right is on the rise in Europe and we must take that threat seriously". However, an "Islamophobia" resource in the union's website gives the game away: "centre-right politicians across Europe pretend that majority cultures are somehow under threat from Muslim minorities" (my italics). for "centre-right", read conservative parties, ie the socialist shibboleth that to be conservative is synonymous with racist, discriminatory and, ultimately, murderous.

I am not against having a debate about the role of right-wing politics in Europe, because debate is necessary for a healthy democracy. I just wonder how we will fare at the hands of, say, the BBC, which at its most centrist is the cultural wing of the Labour Party and extends leftwards from there, to depths from where anywhere to the right of Ed Balls must seem an awfully long way away.

For the record, I wish to quote what Anders Breivik said about the English Defence League. It would turn my stomach to provide a link to the maniac's document - if you need to find it, you can hardly avoid it. On page 1436, he states:

The EDL are in fact anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-Nazi. They even have many members and leaders with non-European background (African and Asian). They have worked so hard, and continue to work hard, to keep National Socialists out of the organization, but yet they are strategically labeled as racist-fascist-Nazi-monsters by the multiculturalist authorities. The EDL, although having noble intentions are in fact dangerously naïve. EDL and KT [the murderer's putative organisation] principles can never be reconciled as we are miles apart ideologically AND organizationally. The EDL even rejects taking a stand against multiculturalism which proves that they are even more naïve than Sarkozy, Merkel and Cameron who have all admitted that multiculturalism has been a failure and a disaster for Europe.

...The EDL, on the other hand, IS a democratic movement. They STILL believe that the democratic system can solve Britain’s problems… This is why the EDL harshly condemns any and all revolutionary conservative movements that employ terror as a tool, such as the KT. And this is why, we, the KT view the EDL as naïve fools, wasting all their energy monkeyscreaming to deaf ears while they should instead have focused on means and methods that are meaningful in regards to achieving true political change, in regards to tearing down the multiculturalist regime known as Britain.

I feel sullied for just having quoted him - join the dots yourself. And while you do, if you are in any way counter-hegemonic - a member of the EDL, perhaps, or a home-schooling parent, or a maverick trades-union member who won't tow the party line - keep listening for the midnight knock on the door.

May God be with those who died in Norway, and those left behind.

Cambridge University: agendas clash as Prince Philip steps down

The Cambridge News' Raymond Brown reports that Abdul Arain, an independent trader on the city's Mill Road, is to stand against Lord Sainsbury for the post of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge when the present incumbent, Prince Philip (right), steps down in June of this year. I wish both men good luck, and hope for a clean campaign.

What worries me is that the contest, which is ostensibly about who will represent the University at official functions, is in reality about the imminent opening of a Sainsbury's store in the old Mickey Flynn's Pool Hall on the thoroughfare.

The reason I'm worried is that we've been here before, in the form of a campaign to keep Tesco out of Mill Road that, while ultimately a failure, released more heat than light in its frantic efforts to exclude an outlet popular with blue-collar workers from the "multicultural" area. It was alleged that shops would close down like dominos should Tesco's open a store there, while in reality far fewer shops have become vacant than you might expect in an economic downturn. You can still buy Rosaries, wigs, hard-core porn and second-hand firearms on Mill Road, just as you could before Tesco opened, just as you will be able to after Sainsbury's opens.

I'm also worried that, as mentioned, the present university Chancellor is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of the Queen, father to the heir to the throne and grandfather to Prince William, who was recently spectacularly married to the Duchess of Cambridge, aka Kate Middleton. A less desirable claim to fame is that, since 1997, he has been accused of the manslaughter (at least) of Dodi al-Fayed and Princess Diana (right) by Mohammed al-Fayed, whose latest effort in his crusade was the Cannes-panned documentary about the infamous crash in a Paris tunnel, Unlawful Killing. Will Mr Al-Fayyed be able to resist a bit of troublemaking should the Prince's stepping down prove a popular subject in the media?

Mr Arain is Kenyan, which gives him something in common with Barrack Obama, whose father came from the country. A low point of Mr Obama's presidency, which I do not ascribe to him personally, was when former president Jimmy Carter decried Obama's detractors as racists. I hope supporters of both candidates will pull back from using the race-card in this campaign.

Perusing the list of Cambridge University Chancellors evinces an absence of names that are not Norman/Anglo-Saxon in origin. It could be that, since the University attracts the most talented people from all points on the globe, the time for a Chancellor from outside this island nation is overdue. But any candidate should have as his/her first priority the good of the University and its contribution to Cambridge and East Anglia; if there's a place for one shopkeeper to try to stop another from opening nearby, the Chancellorship is not that place. It could be that, in the interest of the University and the region which reaps its benefits, the installation of a Chancellor from further afield may have to be overdue a little longer.

English Defence League: Tommy Robinson on Newsnight

I'd like to say a big thank-you to the 20,000 visitors who have visited this site since I had to stop updating it due to time issues.

This isn't a blog I could post at the other place, since it's related to an English Village magazine published by the parish church, therefore I try to keep all politics out of it. As the past year's gone by I've become increasingly aware of the English Defence League (EDL), which was founded in Luton in March 2009, when a group of Muslims protested at a homecoming for the Royal Anglian Regiment.

It was first portrayed as a skinhead group, but it soon became clear that as well as white people it welcomed black people, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, gay people etc who are concerned about the spread of radical Islam in the UK. The EDL has both outlived many obituaries and is about to celebrate its second anniversary in Luton. In the run-up to this, founder Tommy Robinson (left) was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on last-night's Newsnight. Previously in the programme, Paxo appeared at his ease interviewing a Government minister, a Jordanian Prince and a USA acedemic, but seemed considerably discomfited when faced with an angry and determined working-class bloke.

Paxman's career-defining determination to put the BBC first (he famously ended Michael Howard's career by asking the former prisons secretary the same question 12 times because - as he later admitted - his producer was insisting that the next interviewee wasn't ready) showed itself tonight. He reacted incredulously to Robinson's insistence that the problem wasn't Muslims but rather the Koran. Had he researched the subjects likely to come up during the interview, he would have learnt that Muslims reject the Judaeo-Christian convention that holy books, while inspired by God, are written by fallible human beings. Islamic belief is that Muhammed produced series of verses dictated by the Angel Gabriel, and the book of those verses is only the Koran if written in Arabic in the original words.

They may have a point, of course - much of the Judaeo-Christian Scriptures have been through more translations than you can shake a stick at and, as Kiwi theologian Revd Bosco Peters states, every translation involves interpretation by the translator. So while we as individuals grow up with a Bible around which our culture has entwined like a second strand of DNA at the hands of generations of translators, the orthodox Islamic view is that not just the message but the words of their scriptures are immutable - and so, say the proponents of Sharia law, are the tenets upon which their immutable society is based.

On another level, Paxo was clearly indignant about Robinson's remarks about Pakistani drug-dealers, insisting his interlocutor join him in affirming that there are white drug-dealers. But again he was missing the point: as drugs-workers and police know but are unable to say in polite society, much (if not most) most of the heroin that enters the UK to be cut and distributed to drug-dealers of all races is brought through Pakistan.

I think everybody knew that Jack Straw would crop up in the conversation. The former Labour Home/Justice Secretary said that there was a particular problem in the Pakistani community whereby men saw young white girls as "easy meat". Paxman refused to deal with Straw's statement, which wasn't surprising - the day it was made, the BBC 10pm news wouldn't touch it. Robinson's summary of the difference between the two men was masterful:

Have you seen people on drugs pushed by Muslims? You might not have, but I have.

Have you seen girls chatted up by Muslim men and put into burqas? You might not, but I have.

Have you seen young girls who've been raped and pimped by Muslim men? You might not, but I have.

Paxman's answer, with which he probably said more than he meant to, was "these are your issues".

These are our issues, and why the demonstration is being held in Luton, where schools of radicalisation has produced to date two known suicide bombers as opposed to the BBC, which stands accused of so many instances of editorial bias towards militant Islam I'll leave you to google it. I can't go to the EDL demonstration in Luton because I'm working, but I hope it goes well. Please read this if you plan to go to the EDL demonstration at Luton on Saturday 5th Feb.

England/USA draw: a metaphor for another football game?

At work we've all participated in a sweepstake, with everybody selecting a World Cup team. There were the usual comments for some folk - for example, a colleague who chose Switzerland was told to cheer up because "they're rubbish at football - but boy can they yodel!"

As for me, a friend circulated an email asking how I, a Scot, was going to deal with having picked England. I replied that I respected the traditions and supported the national teams when I lived in Italy and France, and it was the same now (finishing with "cricket test? What cricket test?")

As it happened, we tried watching the games in the Draughty Old Fen, then put on the radio for the commentary, but had to switch over both times because of those blessed Vuvuzela horns; but I can remember my Mum making similar criticisms of Irvine Meadow fans and their rattles after matches when we lived in the Ayrshire town (behind the stadium).

With its customary patriotism, the BBC has published a report saying that England were forced to settle for a disappointing draw. What rubbish: a defeat is disappointing, a draw isn't.

The draw possibly also served as a metaphor for the political football game being played by Barack Obama and David Cameron over the BP oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, to which the company's chief executive added insult to injury with his comment "I'd like my life back".

Obama's constant references to "British Petroleum", however, perhaps indicate a failure to grasp the interpenetration of liabilities and responsibilities, which are as mixed as USA midfielder Stuart Holden's Scottish and English parentage: a situation, like so many pertaining to Anglo-American relations, best depicted by Wes Wilson's adaptation of the Yin/Yang theme in his poster for the Beatles' concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.

Obama's half-hour phone-call with the Prime Minister, in which he told Cameron that his handling of the crisis had "nothing to do with national identity", may indicate that somebody's told him of the likely consequences of his demands that BP not pay dividends until the spill is cleaned up: that American investors and pension funds, which make up 40% of BP's shareholder constituency, will want him to explain to them why their returns have fallen. Unfortunately this isn't going to be over quickly - the gulf-stream is set to move contaminants to the coasts of the Carolinas, and eventually over to those of western Ireland and north-west Scotland.

Both England and the US gave a good account of themselves in this first game for either team. I wish us well against Algeria, and them good luck against Slovenia, both on Friday. I'll try to catch the games...maybe with the volume off?



Related posts:

World Cup: Top Ten songs about Football

Top Ten Songs about England

eurovision 2010: great music, shadows fall

Click to see this post with links to YouTube instead of embedded videos if you have a 56k modem or slow broadband

I've just finished watching the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Norway's Telenor Stadium in Bærum, a suburb of its capital, Oslo. My own predictions panned - the Netherlands never made it through to the final, and Spain ended fifteenth, despite having the opportunity to play twice due to a stage-invasion during their first attempt that I'd thought was part of the act.

It was very enjoyable, and I'd like to bring you what I thought was the best of the music - while looking at shadows that sometimes seemed to be lurking behind the industrial joy of what I'd hoped would be an uncomplicated night.

I don't think I'm applying for a stay in the Tower of London for saying that Britain's entry in this year's Eurovision was even a bigger turkey than Turkey (who did field one of their biggest bands, but disappointed with the absence of the usual belly-dancing act).

Manga (the band) is big in Turkey, and other countries were fielding artists who had written songs, recorded albums, and one even owned a recording studio. It would be churlish to suggest that the ten points given to Josh Debovie - landing us in 25th place out of 25 - it has to be said that the song is something I'd expect to hear Redcoats welcoming holidaymakers to Butlins with, or in a quondam Gang Show; I suspect it's not even sophisticated enough to make it into a franchise movie of the High School Musical genre. Maxima said it all when she commented that Jedward would have made a better job.

Last year's show in Russia was, it seems in a different world where lavish productions were possible - although news broke today that the expense may have put paid to Russia's chances of televising the World Cup. Given that the Russian show pulled Eurovision back from death by public apathy due to a tainted voting system, it was sad to hear booing when Russia was awarded points for Peter Nalitch and Friends' Lost and Forgotten, as the tale of lost love with a penitential streak was a really good piece and, like many songs this year, of an above average standard. Here they are at the finals of the contest to find a song for Russia:




Not that we were the only turkey, and this was when one started to see shadows. Giorgos Alkaios and Friends did a taverna-style dance routine that was pretty minimalistic in terms of costumes and background. Perhaps this was at the best as denizens of the northern Euro area, not least Germans, might have ended up asking their politicians what exactly they were contemplating mortgaging their future to. Likewise, the Serbian entry's chorus was "Balkan, Balkan, the Balkans!" and I wondered if the singer realised he was singing about the land the generation above him had gone a-slaughtering through.

On the other hand, Ukraine's Alyosha was much more demure live than in her video. An environmentalist from the land of Ukraine, she made no fatuous references to polar bears or ice but looked (in part) at the relationship between video games and the violence sweeping the world. This is from an earlier BBC recording showcasing the songs for Europe:




There was certainly no shortage of songs in English - but if this is an indication of the language's global ascendancy, in Eurovision terms the victory is a pyrrhic one. The cultural diversity that the European Broadcasting Union was set up to celebrate has lost out. Interestingly, however, Armenia's Eva Rivas got round this by sining, in English, a song themed around the country's national symbol, the apricot, which gives its colour to the flag's lower bar. There was a flurry of protest in Turkey about possible references to its genocide of Armenians in 1915, but it's not clear that the lyrics bear that out, and in any case Turkey gave Armenia 6 points. Rivas performs the song here in the second semi-final - note Jivan Gasparyan playing duduk (traditional Armenian flute) - at 83, he's the oldest musician to accompany a Eurovision act on stage.




Not to be outdone in the field of eminent musicians, Albania's Juliana Pasha was accompanied by Italian violinist Olen Cesari, who had recently played for the Pope, in It's all about you. Like a cross between Debbie Harry and Maddy Prior, she perhaps hoped that by going barefoot on stage she could emulate Sandy Shaw's winning performance with Puppet on a String in 1967. But even Cesari's heroic efforts couldn't rescue the song from its own mediocrity, which might have been disguised somewhat had it been sung in Albanian: so, as a hint of this was featured in the introduction to Oslo 10, I feel unashamed of bringing you Ms Shaw!




Later that year, Israel would launch a pre-emptive attack on Egypt fuelled by proof that the country was, with the help of all Israels neighbours and Arab lands from further afield, going to do the dirty first. If, in gaining Gaza, Israel is an occupying country, then it's probably the most benign occupier since Cyrus the Great. The burden of this is apparent in much of modern Israeli culture, and its 2010 Eurovision entry - sung, refreshingly, in the country's own language - is no exception: I think it'll take a while to unravel all the meanings contained, onion-like, in Milim, a love-song sung by Harel Skaat:




Belarus' entry, Butterflies, again sung in English, could have been a bit more rehearsed for pronunciation, and given that Eurovision posts translations of every song online would have lost nothing fron being sung in Belarusian or Russian. But they had an innovation towards the end of the song that announcer Graham Norton said would have every girl under eight shouting "I want one!" The video was great, but seeing how they represented the special effects live was sublime:





Ireland must have been another country watching Greece very closely, because my Irish friends tell me that back home they're not pleased that, after making such sacrifices in personal and work terms to mitigate the financial crisis in Europe, they are having to watch richer countries prepare to bail out Greece, which helped found the EU's instability by cooking the books in the first place. But Niamh Kavanagh, who won Eurovision for the Emerald Isle in 1993 - again an established star singing a song strong enough to storm any hit parade - gave a first-class performance with It's for You, another song this year looking beyond the precarious value of things to deeper truths.




Given that Belgium's French- and Flemish-speaking populations could be on the track for a messy divorce, it was perhaps wise of Tom Dice to sing Me and My Guitar in English. More than this, however, it was significant that a man alone on the stage with a guitar, helped just a little by strings on a backing track, should come 6th. Is this an indication that Europeans are rejecting showiness, or even setting their faces towards a new austerity?



Poor old Portugal has never won the contest despite, like Ireland, consistently sending great singers with great songs: this year Filipa Azevedo with a sentiment I know well: Há Dias Assim - It's One of those Days.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQI4X4BL4Qw

Germany's Lena was this year's Eurovision, with a throwaway pop tune that will be sung by young girls across the continent because it will annoy parents, especially Dads. Consider: "I went everywhere for you/I even did my hair for you/I bought new underwear that’s blue...I even painted my toenails for you..." 'Nuff said. The 19-year-old's enthusiastically-applied lipstick reminded me of what we used to call in quondam Glasgow "Jubilee lips" after the colour the ghastly iced concoction of that name, composed mostly of deep red food-colouring, would leave one's kisser.

The scoring was interesting: after French premier Nicholas Sarkozy humiliated Germany's Angela Merkel with a table-thumping tantrum over differences in how to overcome the crisis precipitated by Greece, the two countries awarded each other a lukewarm 3 points in the scoring; while Greece, having vented its spleen at having been found out in its own murderous tantrum, gave Germany, its potential financial saviour, 2 points in return for 8.

That said, the result was that a delighted girl won a prestigious contest, and this was her night. Here she is receiving the trophy:

blogosphere "thank-you's"

Risa from Isramom has been kind enough to tip me in an internet meme that was started on Adventures in Mamaland. I enjoy Risa's blog because she presents life in Israel as a series of everyday occurences in a religious Jewish family in the Holy Land, free from the accretions of gentiles like me who can write a blogpost then go to work in a Merry England wherein one can still perform the basic tasks of living without risk to life and limb. Thanks for the kind words, Risa; much appreciated.

These are the rules of the meme:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.


2. Share one thing about yourself readers might not know otherwise.


3. List six (6) bloggers you think are fantastic, and say why.


4. Contact the bloggers you've picked, and let them know about the award.

One thing about me that regulars to the Draughty Old Fen might not know is that I'm addicted to cheese. So much so that last night, I NEEDED cheese so much that I stole some of Maxima's white stilton with bits of fruit in it, which she buys because nobody else in the house likes it. She confronted me and asked me why I took it. I replied that I took it because it was the only cheese in the house. I'm still on probation.

Here are six bloggers I think are fantastic:

Firstly, Naomi Litvin. The author of We Never Lost Hope: a Holocaust Memoir and Love Story, she critiques antisemitism and the contradictions of modern society in a manner that is no less forensic for being literary. I like her because, as the father of girls, I am grateful for the spotlight she shines - with David Appletree of the Jewish Internet Defence Force - upon Facebook.

My second choice is Linda, an American home-schooling Mom and photographer who writes passionately and frankly about the joys and miseries of life, love and standing her ground as a staunchly pro-life Roman Catholic. Her blog, Don't Poke the Baby, is as unmissable for her lyrical wisdom as it is for her photography.

Ellee Seymour is a Press Consultant and journalist who blogs about both national affairs and the minutiae of her beloved East of England. The reason she's my third choice is that I admire the inner security that allows her to praise people with whose views she disagrees when she feels praise is due. Another reason I admire her is that she's a supporter of Headway, a charity that helps people get over head injuries.

John Smeaton, SPUC Director is the blog of the head of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. He writes for people from all political and religious backgrounds and none who are concerned for members of groups vulnerable to Establishment anti-life prejudices - the unborn, pregnant women, people suffering from after-effects of abortion that aren't recognised as existing, the terminally ill, people with chronic physical/mental illnesses,older people - to name just a few. I chose him because I have uneding admiration for the tightrope he walks by praising members of the Establishment who are brave enough to defend members of these groups, while critiquing enemies of the vulnerable, who are often members of the same Establishment groups.

Lorena lives on a ranch in Texas, and on Lorena's Blog you can find photos of the most exquisite quality. Her blogs, centred on family and animals with the occasional review, are well worth the read.

Lastly, but by no means leastly, I first heard of Naomi Litvin's blog through David Appletree's world-famous blog, The Jewish Internet Defense Force, which provides a voice for Jews in the US and worldwide at a time when many vested interests would have this voice extinguished. More than this, though, if you're not Jewish and/or haven't heard of David, keep an ear open: as Facebook falls, I think you'll hear his name as one of the brave who spoke out against the exploitative network when it could do no wrong in the eyes of the Mainstream Media.

Again, a big thank-you to Risa. It's one thing to get a badge for political blogging, but to be tipped by somebody who likes to read what you have to say is on an entirely different level. And, as the time when I can only blog occasionally as other things demand my time fast approaches, it's something I'll never forget.

top ten songs about flying

Click here to go to Top Ten Songs about Flying for 56k modems or slow broadband

When I first heard of Eyjafjallajökull, I was of the same opinion as Richard Normington, in that it seemed more like a keyboard malfunction than anything else. But things started to look sinister when continent-sized areas in the course of the volcanic cloud, containing putative glass fragments that could cause high-flying jet engines to close down, were declared no-fly areas on the basis of computer models that are as diconnected from reality as the politicians who made decisions solely on their predictions, without reference to reality.

Thankfully, we can fly again. As it happens, I don't fly that often, but even in the circumference of the world I inhabit the no-fly orders had consequences, from a colleague who couldn't make it to work, through a fellow worshipper whose presence had been required to validate church accounts, to a friend who had been badly injured abroad and whose family was deprived even longer of her presence.

I thought that I'd like to dedicate this month's Top Ten to the theme of flying, because the cooling of Eyjafjallajökull's ire coincides with a crucial time in our country's history, when we decide which political parties will suppress the innate instinct to fly as high as we can, and which will not only nurture it but ensure that we lift up our peers in so doing.

10 - Would you like to fly?

The 5th Dimension, who were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002, are famous for taking the song Age of Aquarius from Hair to the top spot. My favourite song of theirs is Jimmy Webb's Up, Up and Away which, whenever I hear it, brings memories of childhood awakenings to the song being played on the ever-present radio.





9 - Wild Swan

In my opinion, Tony Clarkin - the bearded guitarist in the video - deserves to be hailed alongside Pete Townshend as arranger par excellence of his own lyrics with insight and sensitivity worthy of Berlioz. The video, telling the story of a son who simultaneously hero-worships his crusading father and feels the overarching need for his presence beside him, comes to mind because of a wild swan that's been making the news in Cambridge. Called Mr Asbo, he's been accused of harassing and even overturning boats on Cambridge's river Cam. A recent film aired on BBC 1's The One Show displayed the swan at his most aggressive - but the BBC has been accused - in a video that I recommend you watch - of goading the swan's mate into leaving her nest in order to see off a canoe that was ordered to go dangerously close to it for the sake of "car-crach TV". Given that Asbo, according to vet and Telegraph blogger Pete Wedderburn, has actually had his cygnets killed by "passers by", I'm not surprised he's mardy. The state hasn't killed my children, but arrogates to itself ever greater powers to brainwash them according to abusive agendas that seem to have no other purpose than to "rub the Right's nose in diversity". I feel as angry as Mr Asbo.





8 - Volare

In February 1991, I had an interview in London and arranged to stay with a friend in Brixton. The interview went well but later in the day came the news that 10 Downing Street had been attacked by an IRA mortar. Mobile phones being as rare as they were huge in those days, I found myself having to wait in one of the lines that trailed from every phone box. My friend explained, "I think everybody's phoning home to say they're ok". That evening, he. I and another friend went to his flat in the middle of Brixton High Street, kicking up the snow that had emptied the thoroughfare of cars. Since all of us had lived for some time in Italy, this is the song we sung:





7 - Flying machines in pieces

This is such a video of James Taylor's Fire and Rain, which is about, in part, the suicide of his fried Suzanne Schnerr, whom he'd met while both of them were hospitalised for addiction to heroin. "Flying Machine" was the name of his first band; but the line "flying machines in pieces on the ground" is about more than the breakup of a musical unit, but I wonder if. when Taylor sings "Susanne the plans they made put an end to you" (my italics) he's running from the couple's co-dependency. But. counterintuitively, I can see a better case for the use of prescribed pharmaceutical diamorphine (heroin) under strictly controlled than for legalisation of cannabis, because we cannot halt supply of heroin within our own borders. The thing is, cannabis-legalisation site UKCIA (offline at the moment) has made a case for legalisation of weed as a gateway to legalisation of just about every illegal drug. Having been a drugs-worker, I hope this never happens; I'd hate the misery I saw in the needle-exchange to become commonplace.



6 - So much owed by so many to so few

In 2002, Nick Clegg, now leader of the Liberal Democrats, wrote an article about a school trip to Germany:

A boy called Adrian started it. He shouted from the back of the coach, "we own your country, we won the war". Other boys tittered. One put a finger to his upper lip - the traditional British schoolyard designation for Hitler's moustache - threw his arm out in a Nazi salute, and goose-stepped down the bus aisle. Soon there was a cascade of sneering jokes, most delivered in 'Allo 'Allo German accents.

I was shocked by his ignorance. Britain was indeed on the winning side of WWII and was a major and heroic player, but to baldly assert that "Britain won the war" is as disingenuous as is baldly asserting that Germany lost it. We must never forget the key role that Britain played in defeating the Nazis (who were by no means synonymous with Germany), but it is salutary to remember that, on the eve of the Pearl Harbour attacks on December 7, 1941, Britain was losing, and Winston Churchill had authorised the distribution of bayonets with a poster campaign saying "at least you can take one with you".

As it happens, historian Colin Heaton concluded in Night Fighters that had Britain been conquered, America would have eventually had confront Hitler's contagious monomania - but Britain would have been a much changed place. Thank God that never happened.

Rector Pellegrina wasn't quite convinced when I confessed a guilty pleasure in heavy metal. I hope this video about the Battle of Britain - by an RAF composed of 10% Polish pilotry - will give her cause to reconsider.





5 - Flying Sorcery

Al Stewart merged his twin loves of flying and history for this song from his classic Year of the Cat album. An article on his website explains the context of the lyrics, from Amy Johnson, to the biplanes called Faith, Hope and Charity which defended the George Cross island of Malta and the double meaning of the Flying Circus. Enjoy this footage of him singing in Cambridge's namesake town in Massachussetts.



4 - Flying for me

John Denver was a founder of the "citizen in space" project and was even considered for the honour, but was pipped at the post by Christa McAuliffe, a secondary/high school teacher who had worked in Washington DC before moving to Concord in New Hampshire. Denver recollected that on the morning of January 28 1986 his adopted son Zac phoned him and told him to put the TV on, any station: there was the Challenger disaster, inspiring him to write:

She was flying for me
She was flying for every one
She was flying to see a brighter day for each and every one
She gave us her light
She gave us her spirit and all she can be
She was flying for me

3 - Abide in His shadow for life

We had a discussion on hymns at our annual church meeting recently - you know the sort, that can quickly degenerate into an "old=Good" vs "New=Better" argument all too quickly. It was left to our venerable and classically-trained organist to point out that while traditions need maintaining, some new hymns are beautiful. One of these, I think, is Fr Michael Joncas' On Eagles' Wings, based on Psalm 91 and Isaiah 40:31. Given that John Smeaton, director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, has been correcting misleading Government advice on sexual education and abortion, I think it's appropriate that this video of the song performed by Angela Birkhead-Flight is dedicated to "all babies who have died prematurely due to abortion, miscarriage or other means".



2 - Icarus

Although Kansas sung a song specifically about Icarus, another one - Carry On my Wayward son - seems to be a more meditative take on the sublime fall of the son of Daedalus, the craftsman who gave a ball of yarn to Ariadne so she could guide herself and Theseus out of the Minotaur's labyrinth, although there appear to be elements of Plato's allegory of the cave threaded through. Father and son, of course, strapped on wings of wax and feathers in order to escape the wrath of King Minos of Crete, but Icarus ignored a warning from Daedalus not to fly too high, and plunged into the sea when the heat melted the wax. It's often taken as a cautionary tale warning those who are over-ambitious of the danger of flying too high on constructions that should have been kept closer to earth. Just so, blogger Benedict White tells us that Gordon Brown was warned when Labour took power in 1997 that his proposed financial reforms would lead to a systemic banking failure. But he flew too high...



1 - The final attack

In the film The Dambusters we see a disconsolate crew looking back at the Möhne Dam on the Ruhr, feeling they have failed: then, suddenly, under the attacks that have been visited upon it, the dam's wall collapses and water floods out.

In reality, the crew pulling away was the fourth wave: a fifth Lancaster dropped its bouncing bomb upon the already-disintegrating wall to consolidate the damage.

This election has been a long, unpredictable slog. The Conservative party's first wave of attacks upon Gordon Brown, who is damming up the British people in a politically-correct prison where the silent majority of law-abiding people are punished the most, might be said to have happened shortly after his unelected accession to the Labour throne in June 2007, when he bottled out of an election he might have won when the David Cameron and George Osborne announced that only millionaires would pay inheritance tax. The second wave was a tsunami of activism, fuelled by both shoe-leather and blogs, cat-herding organised by the long-suffering Eric Pickles, the third a series of defeats inflicted upon the Prime Minister,Chancellor of the Exchequer and miscellaneous Ministers by David Cameron, George Osbourne and the Shadow front-bench team. The fourth is happening now, as candidates, activists and supporters work like Trojans to bring about change necessary for national survival.

The fifth wave is coming shortly, even as the dam walls crumble - illustrated by Gordon Brown's disastrous labelling of his own supporter, Gillian Duffy, as a "bigot" because she challenged the prevailing orthodoxy on immigration, imposed on people like her by rich ideologues who do not have to live in areas like hers. The fifth wave of attacks upon Labour's walls of infamy will come on May 6 and be inflicted by the voters, and I pray that the power-houses of willful negligence are swept away by the resulting inundation.



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Daniel Zeichner, that salute and a bizarre exchange

Old Holborn is an independent libertarian candidate for Cambridge who dresses as Guy Fawkes, including mask.

The reason I mention him is that he appears to have been the first person to have posted a picture of the city's Labour candidate Daniel Zeichner performing a revolting gesture during a debate at the Cambridge Union. Zeichner, giving his opinion of the Polish Law and Justice Party with which the Conservative Party in Europe is allied by giving a Nazi salute. This is yet another instance of the blogosphere leading the news agenda.

Zeichner referred to the incident at a hustings ran by the Stop the War Coalition at which Old Holborn was also present and - according to minutes - found it necessary to point out very early on, in a conversation that was heading in sinister directions, "80% of Conservative MPs and 40% of Labour MPs are signed up as friends of Israel. Only Israel has more Jewish MPs than Britain." The hustings was also attended by Julian Huppert of the Liberal Democrats, Martin Booth of Cambridge Socialists, Simon Sedgewick-Jell (representing Tony Juniper) of the Green Party and Daniel Zeichner. Conservative candidate Nicholas Hillman was speaking at another engagement.

Zeichner was lucky enough, given his recent history, to arrive right at the end of the section of questions on Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Soon after, though, the following bizarre exchange took place between Zeichner and a photographer standing at the front:

Photo:
How does Daniel Zeichner square what he says with his membership of Labour Friends of Israel?
DZ
I’m not a member.
Photo
I have information that you are.
DZ
I’m not.
Member of public to photographer: “sit down!”
Photo
I withdraw my previous comment, as my knowledge is not sufficient – what did you mean by “forces outside our control?”
DZ
My Dad was born in the 1930s in Vienna, and was driven out by the Nazis. I’m not Jewish, but my Dad lived in Vienna at a time when it was wise to get out.
The photographer turned to the seats and said "I want to reassure everybody I’m not anti-Jewish", then he and the member of the public who’d told him to sit down accused each other of wanting to direct the meeting before the Chair regained control.

As a member of both Conservative Friends of Israel and Anglican Friends of Israel, I'm curious: what's so wrong in being a friend of Israel? We deserve to know.

All of the minutes are very interesting - click to read them here. I'm sure that anybody who wants to take issue with them can refer to the video of the event filmed by Cambridge Socialists.

top tips for Tuesday

At this vital time in the General Election timetable I've returned from holiday to find that my computer has chosen to go wobbly - I'm sure it was made by a sicialist - and I can't launch Photoshop. My daughter, who - like many children - is the resident computer expert is visiting Granny on the other side of the Fens; so, apart from pics I already have on Photobucket, I'll have to leave you to the tender mercy of Blogger's in-house image hosting program...

Suddenly blogging as the General Election approaches looks much more interesting...and dangerous. In the wake of a report by Iain Dale on a judgement against a Labour blogger sued regarding a comment he left on his site, barrister James Tumbridge (right) posts a gust blog on Ellie Seymour's site on What bloggers need to know about defamation. Watch out for the most thought-provoking conclusion to a blog that I've seen for a long time.

Nick Hillman, Conservative PPC for Cambridge, posts on the meeting to save the city's Strawberry Fair, which has been opposed this year by police on drug-taking and disorder grounds. As a historian he shares his views on the prospect of losing this festival, which began in the early 1970s.

Richard Normington profiles the launch of the Conservative Manifesto, with links to the appropriate parts so you can make up your own mind.

If a picture speaks a thousand words, then this snap taken by Phil Salway of the Coleridge Conservative team in Cambridge, of the Green Party's electoral campaign headquarters in the Alternative Bookshop on the city's Mill Road, speaks volumes about what the Green Party really thinks about the commitments it wants us to take on energy conservation. Be sure to click the link or the pic to go to Andrew Bower's (Cambridge City Council Conservative Candidate) to have a look and read an analysis.

In the US, commentator Michelle Malkin posts on First Lady Michelle Obama's initiative on "youth engagement" in Mexico City, contrasting this with the plight of farmers in Texas (which shares a border with Mexico) "besieged by border violence".

Canadian newspaper website The Gazette looks at the Vatican reaction to Richard Dawkins' and Christopher Hitchins' histrionic plan to have the Pope arrested on his forthcoming State visit to Great Britain in September.

David Appletree of the Jewish Internet Defence Force reproduces a letter from Rabbi Dov Coder complaining to YouTube about hate material posted by David Dukes, notorious antisemite, racist and Ku Klux Klan member...

...while There is nothing British about the BNP looks at a racist group joined by BNP vice-chairman Simon Darby that's hosted by Facebook, a site Appletree warns about repeatedly.

And finally, here's a treat: Open Music Archive, "a collaborative project, initiated by artists Eileen Simpson & Ben White, to source, digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings. The archive is open for anyone to use and contribute to.".

top ten songs about England

Click here to go to Top Ten Songs about England for 56k modems or slow broadband

I can't pinpoint when I became an Anglophile; my Mum and I would go to Blackpool frequently when I was young, but during the traditional "fair fortnight" holiday the Lancashire coastal resort would essentially turn Scottish in what remains of Scotland's support for the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses, the price of cooperation having been Berwick (which soon returned to England).

I first lived in England after marrying Maxima, who comes from the other end of the Fens. After a spell we went and lived in Glasgow as my mother was very ill and, after her death, came to the Draughty Old Fen when offered a temprorary job here; when it became permanent the family moved down - it was a good move.

Although Maxima was regularly sent to coventry in Scotland because she's English, the situation has never been reciprocated here. I find the English warm-hearted, supportive and generous, despite their having laboured under an administration that for twelve years has tried its best to chip away at its best-loved traditions, the latest victim having been Pooh sticks, ostensibly cancelled for health and safety reasons.

I will always retain a level of affection for Scotland, but my guttering loyalty to the country was finally extinguished when the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, was released for political reasons. Remembering TV pictures of the approaches to the Borders town choked with ambulances that would return empty, I felt sick.

Having deconstructed the notion of "race" to the level that, the Establishment says, your race is what you decide it is, one might make a good case for "English" to be a race, although in the diversity-ridden alternative universe presently prevalent in the corridors of power I suspect that one would be a non-starter. But if I called myself English, my accent would betray me the moment I opened my mouth. However, I definitely feel more British than Scottish, and will continue to do so should Scotland go its own way to make the United Kingdom into, says Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party, the United Kingdoms.

I love England. And so, in the month when we celebrate the Feast of St George, I would like to offer you a Top Ten about this wonderful, kind race: the English.

"In England, where my heart lies..."


Paul Simon toured England in the early-mid 1960's, and famously spoke of his wish to voyage Homeward Bound, which he wrote while stranded at Widnes train station. "Home", of course, meant America, but it also referred to Kathy Kitty, the English girl he'd fallen in love with (hence the line "Kathy I'm lost" in America). Like many before and after he also fell in love with England - see the reference to "Cathedral bells" etc in To Emily, wherever I may find her. Here's the late Eva Cassidy singing the song live, including the classic reference to "England, where my heart lies".



Dirty Old Town

Lancashire songwriter Ewan MacColl, father of Kirsty, wrote Dirty Old Town about Salford, near Manchester, where he was born. Written in 1949, it was immediately adopted and made famous by the Dubliners, and subsequently by bands all over the English-speaking world in an example of the way English-speaking culture can go international in a heartbeat, although the socialist songwriter may not have liked to think of it that way. Luke Kelly, Dubliners founder member, sings it with his band here, displaying the English-Irish cross-pollination that has enriched both countries for centuries.



Zadok the priest

This great anthem was written by Handel for the coronation of George II in 1727. Since the union of he Crowns of England and Scotland was in 1603, and the Act of Unions uniting the two countries' Parliaments in 1707, one could say that this is a British anthem. But should Scotland secede from the Union, it will be up to them what heritage from the Union they take: I hope that Zadok the Priest - based on 1 Kings 1:38-40 - is retained by England, even if it should be duplicated elsewhere.



From Brixton to another place

Electric Avenue is a thoroughfare in Brixton linking two roads full of stalls, just like you might see in Eastenders. As cosmopolitan as it is, the video of Eddy Grant singing about the street suggests that its inhabitants and patrons might like, maybe just once in a while, something else.



Preotecting the old ways...

Yorkshire folk singer Kate Rusby covers the Kinks' 1968 hit The Village Green Preservation Society for a series called Jam and Jerusalem, which was modelled on the Womens' Institute, formed in 1915 to revitalise rural communities, but which now has a vital message for women and girls everywhere.



Burn them down?

The Jarrow Crusade was a heroic peregrination from Jarrow, near Newcastle, to the Houses of Parliament, to protest against the unemployment, poverty and even starvation that followed the collapse of the US stock exchange in 1929. In Alan Price's song about the event we hear him put himself into the song in a deconstructionist manner; but, more than that, while the majority of marchers wanted a job, we hear him echoing the cries of the vocal minority to "burn them down" - which prefigured the minority in the Miners' Strike of 1984-85 for whom a settlement of better pay and conditions would have been a disaster, because they wanted nothing but régime change.



Cricket

It was sad to see that Cambridge University's Emmanuel College was forced to desist from holding a May Ball in praise of the British Empire. Nobody's going to support the Amritsar Massacre, but Britain - and England - spread abroad a culture that continues to refer back to the English way of life where, as poet Rupert Brooke asked, stands the church clock at ten to three? A sign of this culture, visible in India, Pakistan, the West Indies, Australia and New Zealand, is cricket: and here is the tune that has accompanied English cricket on TV for decades - Soul Limbo by Booker T and the MGs.



Queen of Bollywood

Before the (modern) Suez Canal was opened in 1856, civil servants and administrators working in India would often marry Indian wives, because of the unworkability of having a wife "back home" due to the long passage time. Thus began a new race, called Anglo-Indians or Eurasians, who are still very popular in the Bollywood film industry. This is Asha Bhosle singing for the BBC - enjoy.



The seaside

The fascination for seaside resorts grew exponentially during Queen Victoria's reign, and still remains. As well as Blackpool, there were Skegness, Brighton, Torquay and many other resorts. After a fallow period, English seaside resorts are becoming more popular due to the recession, as it becomes relatively more expensive to go abroad. (Study the video below and you'll see Brian May.)




Fisherman's Friends

The Fisherman's friends, of Port Isaac in Cornwall, were founded to support the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in a part of Britain where it's all too easy for boats to go missing. If you like what you hear, please think of the men and women who give so much to bring us fish, and of the men and women who are ready to sacrifice everything when something goes wrong. Click on the flag to find out more about the RNLI, or on the image of the Fisherman's Friends' latest album on the left to find out more about the band.



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Related posts:

this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this england

let England stand free

Happy st George's Day!

lies, damn lies: statistics, strikes and the abuse of truth

We're looking forward to going to a Christian retreat at Skegness called Spring Harvest, which we attended last year.

We'd been worried about an impending strike by the RMT union that was going to stop as many as four trains in five from running.

The timing of transport strikes gives a fascinating insight into the anti-religious mentality of union leaders. On the feastday of Frederick Denison Maurice, founder of Christian Socialism, we see a train-strike planned to disrupt the travel plans of members of Judaeo-Christian faith traditions around the time of Easter and Passover, and BA cabin crew, among the highest-paid in the industry, planned their original strike to disrupt the Christmas/Hannukah period.

The original BA strike was cancelled because members of the Unite union who no longer worked as cabin crew voted for the stoppage, invalidating the ballot. Now, we hear that, thankfully, the Telegraph's David Millward reports that an injunction has stopped the railway strike because - among other innaccuracies - more votes were cast than there are members in the relevant parts of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union.

This blind reliance on manipulated statistics betrays a contempt for the truth that pervades the modern left. For example, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just been rapped by Sir Michael Scholar, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, for stating in a podcast that immigration fell in 2009, using uncompareable statistics to back up his claims. But for me the most shocking abuse was by Equalities Minister Harriet Harman, who consistently claimed that the conviction rate for alleged rapists was 6%, discouraging women who had been violated from reporting the crime to the police, when the true conviction rate is over 60%.

Despite the best efforts of the RMT to disrupt travel at the time of major Christian and Jewish feasts, the trains will run next week and so (please God) we'll get to Spring Harvest, but I bet Frederick Denison Maurice is turning in his grave.