Julia Langdon reports in The Daily Telegraph today of the scandalous waste of public funds on the part of the Labour Government by virtue of there now being 3,259 "experts" employed in the Government's PR business, a figure swollen from the few hundred employed when the Conservatives left power in 1997.  The cost to the public purse of these 3,259 salaries, pensions, benefits and provisions has not been publicly quantified.

Furthermore,

"there is the stunning threefold rise in the cost of the marketing exercise run under the name of the Central Office of Information (COI), which was £322 million last year as opposed to £111 million in the year Tony Blair's Labour broom swept into power."

Then,

"[these] press officers have been raised in a culture that does not seek to enlighten public opinion about the processes of government.

 

On the contrary, their job is to present the Labour Government and all its policies in the most favourable light possible. A press officer is more likely to telephone to dispute a published article — and to do so more quickly (under orders, of course) — than he or she will return an urgent request for information."

Finally,

"They tell you as little as possible and their words are meaningless. They use words with a literal accuracy that obfuscates the truth and does not allow for any suggestion of original thought or imagination."

For his part Graeme Wilson reports that the Labour Government spent £154 million on advertising over the past 12 months, more than Tesco and Sainsbury's combined, and that Government spending on advertising has almost quadrupled since Labour came to power nine years ago when it inherited a budget of only £39.5 million.

The Conservatives say (but wouldn't they just) the huge increase in the advertising budget proved that Labour was more interested in spin than delivering better services for the public.

It does seem a bit like that though, doesn't it?

On 29^th August 2006 The Law Society published a report entitled "Career experiences of gay and lesbian solicitors."

The report explained,

"There is a large body of work, including a growing body of research undertaken by the Law Society, which explores how social divisions of ethnicity, race and gender impact on workplace experiences and career choices. To date there has been a gap in consideration of sexual orientation in this equation — something that this research begins to address with the encouragement and support of the Law Society Equality and Diversity Committee."

Under the heading "Sample" we are informed,

"Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of fifteen gay men and ten lesbians [my emphasis], who were working as solicitors in private practice or the employed sector, through regions of the South-West, London and the North-West."

This report came to be mentioned in the Guardian earlier in the week and had prompted me to post an article about one of its sillier recommendations.  Having now read the report, I am even less impressed.

The common weakness of much "research" these days is that it is just assumed there is a problem that has to be resolved, in this instance sexual orientation discrimination, and the researcher goes looking for it.  If the Law Society is going to undertake this sort of research, it must do it properly, with carefully chosen, representative samples.  It would have been helpful to establish for instance, what heterosexual respondents thought.  If, as was likely, they had thought the atmosphere at work was not particularly accepting and inclusive, that finding would have had considerable weight.  It is very foolish to create policy in reliance upon a survey involving such a small unrepresentative sample.

The Law Society research was interesting in one respect in that when discussing the factors that determined whether a gay would "out" at work, those factors seemed to comprise self-imposed constraints.  These included; the age of the solicitor; self-confidence; and the desire or ability to maintain a double life.

Too often individuals who perceive that they are significantly different to the majority[1] ascribe to that majority a viewpoint which in fact mirrors their own doubts and negative feelings about themselves.  What is not understood by many who consider themselves to be part of a minority group, any minority group, is that the "homogenous, unsympathetic majority" are mostly possessed of a complete indifference to their dissimilarity and accordingly cannot discriminate against them on that basis.

I can say without any fear of contradiction that nothing is more likely to drive a wedge between people of differing preferences than for one group to claim to be discriminated against merely by members of the other group being themselves.  Those who wish to transform and mould Society into their own image should dwell upon that fact long and hard.

Career experiences of gay and lesbian solicitors

If a deception of  this magnitude can be inflicted so casually upon the electorate by the Liberal Democrats, to what chicanery would they not be prepared to stoop in order to secure votes?

You are an alcoholic, aren't you? Yes, he finally replied

This report could only have been published in The Guardian.[1]

In its first report on the career experiences of gay and lesbian lawyers The Law Society, the professional body for solicitors, accused City law firms of having "undertones of homophobia" because of their emphasis on out-of-hours hard drinking and visits to lap dancing clubs.  It found most gay lawyers surveyed were reluctant to "come out" at work because they feared it would seriously hinder their career.

When I was an enthusiastic young lawyer[2], it seemed to be strip clubs, all-hours hard drinking and compulsory membership of the department football team who were expected to kick the hell out of the opposition early on a Sunday morning. I wasn’t having any of it.  I have little doubt that to a few of my contemporaries I was being a spoilsport. I was obviously a loner, a loser and the kind of person who would find himself alone in the kitchen at parties.  I could not have cared less.

We are told that the Law Society’s report did note that,

“…others[3] accepted this sort of behaviour as part of the “work hard, play hard” ethos.”

How very sensible, reasonable and mature of them. The Law Society sees it slightly differently, according to Law Society president, Fiona Woolf,

“These findings highlight the concerns of gay and lesbian solicitors and should alert firms of the need to review their policies to tackle discrimination based on sexual orientation and ensure a climate of acceptance and inclusiveness.”

The problem with this approach is that (in this instance) heterosexuals are causing social discomfort to a small number of gays simply by being themselves during out of work hours.  There is no evidence that the “straight” majority are being deliberately exclusive. In any event, “out of hours hard drinking and visits to lap dancing clubs” is hardly the leisure policy of any firm of solicitors, let alone a City Firm. The solution can never be that the majority must change its chosen, lawful behaviour to accommodate the oversensitive feelings of (here) a small number of gays, or whoever else might be the minority group.

[1] OK, so the story was probably lifted from The Law Society’s Gazette, but that’s no excuse for its wider dissemination, even by a low circulation national newspaper.  In fact, the Law Society’s report mainly focuses upon avoidance of “concrete” discrimination, for instance employee benefits being equal as between heterosexual married couples and same sex partnerships, and not “hurt feelings” arising from perceived exclusion.

[2] A condition that did not last long.

[3] In other words, a majority of gay lawyers.

This could have come from the mouth of Tony Blair himself or any one of his Home Secretaries.

Draw attention to an “injustice” to a “victim” or against the “law abiding majority" and then drum up ill-informed public support for a change in the Law or procedure – change that never had been necessary until this incompetent, mindlessly tinkering  New Labour Government assumed power.

Before slamming (to use a word much beloved of the Press) judges or the criminal justice system, just bear in mind which Government enacted the “soft” sentencing laws and some of the procedures that  have to be applied.

Everything this New Labour Government touches turns eventually to dust.

Loss of confidence in courts taking legal system into dangerous terrain

Poacher who turned gamekeeper

Just as Charles Kennedy had started to rebuild his political career, apparently his erstwhile friends (“senior party insiders”) have briefed Greg Hurst a reporter from The Times, who has written a book about him.  Not only does the book helpfully flesh out those damaging rumours that leaked and led to Mr Kennedy’s resignation, young Turks such as Heather Teather[1], Edward Davey[2] and Norman Lamb[3] who had been tipped as future leaders and high flyers of the Party, are stitched up to look like Brutus and the Gang.  Implausibly, Sir Menzies Campbell is cleared of any complicity in Charles Kennedy's political assassination.

The Sunday Times reports today that,

“A string of senior Liberal Democrats have provided material for the book, which is expected to reveal embarrassing details of Kennedy’s long battle with alcoholism...”

Well, I suppose that whilst you are ensuring that Charlie Boy’s comeback stalls, you might as well stymie some of your future leadership-challenge opponents as well. This is not going to be taken well by those who are “done down”.  In a parliamentary party as small as that of the Liberal Democrats, by a process of elimination it will not be difficult to deduce the members of the cabal who have been plotting since before the fall of Charles Kennedy. When Sir Menzies is unceremoniously ditched as party leader in a year or two’s time, the next Liberal Democrat leadership contest is not going to be a teddy bears’ picnic.

Twenty years ago, Mr Ray Honeyford now 72, played the part of the little boy who pointed out that the Emperor was not wearing any clothes.  For his trouble, he was "retired" from his position as the headmaster of Drummond Middle School in Bradford. He was vilified by politically correct "race experts", sent death threats, and condemned as a racist. He was never allowed to teach again.  Mr Honeyford's crime was that he suggested that children of immigrants should be integrated into British Society.  He had challenged the accepted orthodoxy of the Left and had to punished, severely.

Times change, of course. Now the chickens have come home to roost and multiculturism has been exposed as being the dangerous, socially divisive mumbo-jumbo that many of us suspected but were too timid to say publicly.   Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary has now publicly questioned the multiculturalist orthodoxies. Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, had already challenged whether the nostrums of multiculturalism had done more harm than good.  Just as there was not a single Nazi to be found  in Germany after 9th May 1945, soon no one will admit to ever having been a multiculturalist.
 
Mr Honeyford is not triumphant however. Asked whether he was impressed by Miss Kelly's recent speech, he said that,

"[Ruth Kelly] was only a politician, a bird of passage, minister of education one day and minister of communities the next, and like all politicians liable to say whatever was fashionable or useful to her career at the moment. "

Ouch! That was on par with Sir Robin Day's "mere, transient politician" jibe  addressed to (then just plain) John Nott, the UK Secretary of State for Defence during the Falklands War in 1982.

Rod Liddle delivers his denunciation of the multiculturalists with all the delicacy of a punch in the teeth, but given the manner in which the multiculturalists conducted their campaign against perceived opponents during the course of the past thirty years, this is nothing less than they deserve.

See the detailed article of Karyn Miller, Melissa Kite, James Orr, Nina Goswami and Roya Nikkhah in the The Sunday Telegraph.

So, Celtic goalkeeper Artur Boruc has been cautioned because he made a religious gesture, crossing himself, in front of Ranger's fans at Ibrox Park on 12^th February 2006. According to the Police (a view supported by the Procurator Fiscal):

"On this occasion, the actions included a combination of behaviour before a crowd in the charged atmosphere of an "Old Firm" match which provoked alarm and crowd trouble and as such constituted a breach of the peace."

My word, those Rangers fans must be extraordinarily over-sensitive fellows.

In response, a spokesman for the Catholic Church, Peter Kearney, is reported to have said that the Procurator Fiscal's [decision that a caution was warranted] was "alarming" and that, 

"It is extremely regrettable that Scotland seems to have made itself one of the few countries in the world where this simply religious gesture is considered an offence."

Of course, we have been here before.   In January 1998 Paul Gascoigne, then a Rangers player, was given a warning by the Scottish FA after miming playing the flute during a game against Celtic.  One might deduce that Celtic supporters, like their Rangers brethren, are also exceptionally sensitive.

A thin skin is not just the preserve of the clearly very over-sensitive Scots, however.  People south of the border have become upset over the smallest thing too.  The sight of a "Bollocks to Blair" T-shirt has been known to make some tearful, so much so that they have felt constrained to report the matter to the local constabulary, who true to their oath, have felt the offender's collar.  Signs suggesting that the dog of the household might consume calling Jehovah's Witnesses has turned the stomach of others.

Unlike Artur Boruc, previous offenders have not had Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond or the Roman Catholic Church on their side.  Perhaps this particular piece of nonsense can be nipped in the bud, but I suspect not. 

Over the course of the past twenty years or more, the ever-widening concept of "causing offence" has become too ingrained. Those legislators who were so anxious to prescribe for instance racial abuse, never foresaw the unintended consequences of their actions, that is to say, that all people come to believe that they have a right not to be insulted.  Legislation in favour of one group raises a legitimate expectation in another that they are entitled to protection as well.  Our political leaders and judiciary readily accept that calling a person of Asian extraction a "Paki" is unacceptable, reprehensible, wrong and worthy of prescription by the Law.  On the other hand for example, an insult delivered against someone who is not a member of an acknowledged minority group, is considered unacceptable, reprehensible, wrong, but otherwise just one of those things.  It is not "just one of those things".  An insult, is an insult, is an insult.

If the Law protects one group against insult, then arguably it must protect us all.  A mindset has developed that those who feel offended can and should have those who insult them at the very least "spoken to" by the Police and with luck, prosecuted.  It is all very immature. Insulting behaviour has always said more about the person delivering it than the person receiving it.  Only a few years ago a black male was convicted of threatening and abusive behaviour by virtue of having called a conductress a "black bitch".  On the Law as it stands, the case was correctly decided, but the whole situation has become absurd.  We have lost a sense of proportion.

"DNA test can detect Picts' descendants"  reports The Daily Telegraph, today.  So far, so good.

 “A geneticist has created a DNA test for “Scottishness” that will tell people whether they are direct descendants of the Picts.”

Uh-oh.  I think the journalist added that middle bit about “Scottishness” himself.  It is not wrong in the widest sense, but it is not accurate either.  You see, the Picti were the real McCoy, a real native tribe like the Iceni and not the Johnny-come-lately, immigrant, warrior Scots and English who were Irish and German, respectively.[1]  The Scots were in fact invaders from Ireland and were distinct from the Picts and Gaels much as the Anglo-Saxons were distinct from the Celtic, British  tribes they displaced.  You will note that Dr Jim Wilson, of Edinburgh University, does not actually say that his DNA tests can determine “Scottishness”. The test is for “Pictishness” not “Scottishness”.

By the 11^th Century AD “Scot” appears to have become a description for everyone living in that area now known as Scotland, in the same way that "English" came to mean more than just Angle and/or Saxon. However, a descendant of the Picts can claim to have lived in these islands since time immemorial, whilst true Scots, like the English, a mere fifteen centuries.[2]

[1] Wikipedia reckons that the Picti and Gaels became the Scots, which is correct, but the Scots were a distinct tribe who hailed from Ireland and who colonised a significant part of what became Scotland.  Strictly speaking, therefore “Scots” are Scots, Gaels and Picts but the Scots were the politically dominant ethnic group who forged a nation in their image, in much the same way as did the English, south of the border.

[2] Examples of other jarring historical inexactitudes guaranteed to cause a fistfight if blurted in the presence of any descendant of  Hengest and Horsa during the course of an otherwise civilised conversation:

“When the English painted themselves from head to toe in woad, lived in mud huts and rode around in chariots, the civilised Romans lived in centrally heated villas.”

“Hadrian's Wall was built by the Romans to protect the English from the Scots.”

“The Legions of Emperor Claudius conquered England in 43 AD.”

Earlier this week Alice Miles took David Cameron to task for being a little less than firm with local Conservative Associations that do not modernise.  In once sense, her criticism is unfair in that it expected too much of David Cameron's candidate selection process reform too early.  Much of the impetus for change will come from the “new blood” that has joined the Party and is joining the Party as a consequence of Mr Cameron’s leadership.  She fails also to understand one very important characteristic of Conservative Associations – no one can order them about, not by reason of there being any rule that says so, but because it would be un-Conservative to do so. They have to be changed from within and there lies the real problem.  New members will take time to “bed down” and are not likely to rock the boat too soon by pointing out some home truths to the established hierarchy.  As yet, there might not even be enough of them.  However, much of what Ms Miles said was justified.

Whilst rigging a selection process to positively discriminate in favour of say, women or ethnic minorities is not the way forward, for reasons rehearsed elsewhere upon numerous occasions in the past, the current “system” positively discriminates in favour of right-leaning, white, middle-class, middle-aged men.

The solution is very simple.  Mr Cameron must encourage persons of centre-leaning proclivities to join or rejoin the party, take a positive role in the local association and provide support when friction or obstruction arises from the old guard.  In brief, he has to actively court the “wets” who were so effectively marginalised during the Margaret Thatcher years.

I had long ceased to be a member of the Guildford Conservative Association when David Howell MP, now Lord Howell of Guildford, retired but I am well aware of the manner in which the next Conservative parliamentary candidate for Guildford came to be chosen. It is enough to say that the local association was fixated upon choosing another white middle-class male as their candidate. “We’ll have a woman MP over my dead body!” one of the members present at the selection process was overheard to say.  The local association duly ignored two female applicants of high quality and chose the middle class white male, the eminently invisible Nick St Aubyn who promptly lost the seat to the Liberal Democrats’ (female) candidate in the General Election of 2001 after serving just one term as Guildford’s MP.

It was not just a matter of the Association’s pinko-lefties such as myself having been “boiled away” after years of Thatcher worship by the Party generally, it was the fact that the right-winger/fogy alliance had a means of self-propagation ensuring that “their kind” always managed to run the show.

That is the challenge for Mr Cameron, to continue actively enticing Conservatives of a broader political spectrum than currently exists back into the party in such numbers that our opinions can no longer be ignored by the fogies.  We might not be able to increase significantly the number of female or ethnic minority Conservative MPs, but he can rest assured that no candidate will be rejected simply because they are gay or black or Muslim or female.[1]

Notwithstanding my protestations to the contrary, I do read The Guardian and The Observer newspapers, though I should qualify that admission by making it clear that they are not my favourites.  Often infuriating, sometimes plainly wrong-headed they provide an alternative point of view that enables me to redefine or adjust my own.

What has become evident to me over the years, however, is that these titles are the moderate voice of some fairly strange-minded people who hold fairly extreme views, which are not reliant upon evidence, reason or truth.

Today in The Observer, a Leader presents an argument that must have provoked a large part of its readership to foam at the mouth.  In essence, the article seeks to point out that the West has not in the past and does not even now "have it in" for Islam and that "we" should not fall for the lies that suggest that it has or that we are the authors of our own misfortune as regards being the target of disaffected "Muslims" who wish to kill us for our sins.

The Leader pulls no punches:

"It is also a logical and moral absurdity to imply, as some critics of British policy have done, that mass murder is somehow less atrocious when it is motivated by an elaborate narrative of political grievance."

Furthermore,

"But anyone whose alienation leads them to want to kill indiscriminately has crossed a line into psychopathic criminality. Policy cannot be dictated by the need to placate such people."

And,

"But [British Muslim leaders] have a more immediate responsibility to promote the truth: that Britain is not the aggressor in a war against Islam; that no such war exists; that there is no glory in murder dressed as martyrdom and that terrorism is never excused by bogus accounts of historical victimisation."

Reading some of the critical comments recorded upon the Observer's website in response to this Leader, most of which are not made by "disaffected young Muslims", is quite an education.  It is also very depressing.

These ludicrous lies about the West and Islam

According to the BBC News website this morning,  one part of the heightened security arrangements for flights require that,

“Any liquids discovered must be removed from the passenger” 

Does this mean that airport security is going to take the piss?

The Department for Transport’s new advice to air passengers

"And all across the Muslim world, "we" - the West, America, Israel - are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching the martyrdom of Lebanon this week - its slaughtered children in Qana packed into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses had to be wrapped in carpets - a terrible and daunting thought occurs to me, day by day. That there will be another 9/11."

Robert Fisk

Yes Mr Fisk, there will be. It is inevitable, but note this.  The atrocity that was 9/11 occurred before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.  It had been planned when the comparatively peace-loving Democrat Administration of Bill Clinton was in charge of the United States.  Al-Qaeda had already attacked the World Trade Centre on a previous occasion as well as other American targets abroad.  The Israelis had been the victims of numerous rocket attacks, suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks notwithstanding having evacuated southern Lebanon in 2000 (which they had occupied in the first place because terrorists where using the country to launch attacks against them.)

The West might well have handled the "war against terrorism" in an inappropriate, even disastrous manner such that the conflict has now broadened and new recruits attracted to "the cause", but our enemies were always out to kill us anyway.  All we have done is to exacerbate the conflict by seeking to eliminate them, directly or by proxy, before they strike us. There are any number of reasons why it can be argued that the West did "this" or "that" wrong, but the argument that we have brought it upon ourselves does not wash.  Terrorists started the shooting war. Images of Hezbollah's human shield casualties can mask, but not change that.  That we might become civilian casualties ourselves is something that we must bear, otherwise we are not worthy of the servicemen who are prepared to fight and risk their lives on our behalf.

I understand that one of the consequences of Mel Gibson’s outburst against the Jewish Police Officer who arrested him in Malibu for an offence of drink-driving last week was that one of his new projects, a mini series which was to have been entitled “Holocaust”, has now been shelved.[1]  This might prove to be good news.  Given his predilection for starring in epics whose historical accuracy was severely challenged in a very particular respect as evidenced in “Braveheart” and “The Patriot”, there was always the suspicion on this side of the Pond that Mr Gibson’s series might have sought to cast the English as the villains of the piece and the Nazis as poor schmucks who took the rap. Perhaps we should be thankful for small mercies.  In all other respects I wish Mr Gibson a successful and speedy rehabilitation.[2]

The Tết offensive launched by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army against US led forces in South Vietnam between 30^th January 1968 and early 1969 was a military failure, with the communist forces failing to achieve any of their military objections, suffering staggering losses in the process and inflicting upon themselves a defeat of a magnitude the US had failed to achieve during the previous three years of “winning the war”.  Nevertheless, the journalists “on the ground” at the time saw things very differently, such that by February 1968 Walter Cronkite, the CBS Evening News anchorman, was able to pronounce that “the Vietnam War was unwinnable” and from that moment, the US had lost the War.

Almost to a man, modern "war correspondents" prefer to focus on the human story, of civilians caught up in a conflict not of their making.  So the lasting image of war becomes one of a naked Vietnamese child, burnt skin peeling from her body, running away from her napalmed village.  The true story of war, that of one sovereign regime resisting another seeking to impose its will through the use of armed might, is lost in emotive scenes of the suffering of non-combatants.  Even when journalists find themselves with nothing else to report but fighting between opposing forces, they misinterpret what they see.  A recent case to point occurred early in the Iraq War in 2003, when journalists were eager to suggest that the US thrust into Iraq had “run out of steam” short of Bagdad and that the war was not “going to plan”.  In fact, having applied successfully classic blitzkrieg tactics, US armour was merely awaiting its planned re-supply and for other ground forces to catch up with the advance.[1]

There is a depressing feeling of déjà vu when watching the television coverage of the latest crisis in the Middle East.  Once again the media concentrates on the human stories,[2]  but constant reports of the latest civilian casualties do not help us to understand or to focus upon what is actually going on.  This manner of reporting does us a disservice; it is manipulative, deliberately playing on our emotions, rather than seeking to inform or providing dispassionate, impartial analysis.  Whilst the media does remind us from time to time, almost as an afterthought, that Hezbollah and its supporters seek nothing less than the total annihilation of the state of Israel, its pictures tell an entirely different story: one of innocents made to suffer by Israeli military action and so called disproportionate retaliation.

I have a simple-minded understanding of the conflict.  This latest crisis in the Middle East has everything to do with Iran's desire for hegemony in the region.  Iran is waging war against Israel through its proxy, Hezbollah. Israel, a sovereign state, fights by internationally accepted rules of war, whilst Hezbollah does not.[3] If Israel, a democracy, does not fight, it will cease to exist. In the fug of the television media's constant broadcasting of the "human story" with its inherent anti-war message, this truth is being lost.

So, how many Divisions has the BBC?  Like the Pope and Walter Cronkite's CBS it does not have any, but nonetheless more than enough to overcome the Israelis in Lebanon.

Save when our national security is at grave and immediate risk (for example, by invasion) the Government should never commit our armed forces to war without providing them with all the tools required for the job.  This New Labour Government, which has such a flair for involving us in military adventures abroad, pays insufficient attention to the finer details of waging war such as providing adequate equipment; routine provision of body armour and armoured personnel carriers being but the most recent examples.  It is abhorrent that "mere, transient politicians" waste our servicemen's lives with so little thought or good purpose.