COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXXVIII:

From The London Daily Telegraph, Tom Whitehead reporting, we learn:

Civil servants have refused to name inmates who have fled prison even though individual police forces will often identify them if they pose a risk to the public.

They say releasing their names would breach obligations under the Data Protection Act.

It echoes a row in 2007 when Derbyshire Police refused to release pictures of two escaped murderers.

The latest development emerged in response to Freedom Of Information requests to name inmates on the run rom the prison near Woodbridge, Suffolk.

The open prison which has sea views and once held Tory peer Jeffrey Archer is known as Holiday Bay because of its easy-going regime.

The Ministry of Justice confirmed 39 prisoners had absconded from Hollesley Bay between January 1, 2007, to March 31, 2009.

It also provided a general list of crimes they were sentenced for and confirmed that 16 involved violence.

The offenders included nine robbers, two serving sentences for attempted robbery, one for wounding and four others for grievous bodily harm.

But the ministry refused to say how many - if any - had been recaptured, saying their identities had to be protected from third parties.

...

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "Whilst it is in the public interest to be aware of offenders who have escaped from custody as they may help in identifying the absconders thereby enabling the police to detain them; it is not in the public interest to prejudice any enquiries or operations the police may be conducting into apprehending the absconder.

"It is the general policy of the Ministry of Justice not to disclose, to a third party, personal information about another person.

"This is because the Ministry of Justice has obligations under the Data Protection Act and in law generally to protect this information."

Shouldn't it be called: The Ministry Of Silly Justice?

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.  [tip of the fedora to John Hinderaker]

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXXVII:

From The London Daily Mail we learn:

The number of forced marriages has increased more than ten-fold in just four years, government figures have revealed.

More than 770 suspected cases were reported to the Forced Marriage Unit this year, up from 152 in 2005.

If the trend continues, by the end of this year more than 1,540 Britons will have been coerced into a marriage they do not want to enter - an increase of more than 913 per cent.

The practice affects mainly young Asian women, with more than a third of cases involving those aged under 18. One in six victims are under 16.

Advisors said they are dealing with hundreds of schoolchildren who have confided to teachers that they fear they will be taken abroad in the summer holidays and forced to marry.

The Flames are consuming everything.

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXXVI:

From The London Daily Mail we learn:

A vicar was charged last night with conspiracy to aid unlawful entry to the UK by helping to organise more than 180 'sham' weddings for illegal immigrants.

Reverend Alex Brown, 60, had been arrested in a dawn raid on his rectory home in St Leonards, East Sussex, and his church, St Peter's, 200 yards away.

He is accused of holding a 'conveyor belt' of services to allow African and Eastern European immigrants from outside the European Union to marry those with the right to stay in the UK.

It is claimed that many of the unions were merely marriages of convenience to give the immigrants residency rights.

...

When a migrant completes a bogus marriage, they can remain in Britain and move freely in the EU.

Those with residency rights in the UK, often from other EU countries, are paid up to £2,000 a time to take part in the sham weddings.

Labour toughened marriage laws in February 2005 after the number of suspect ceremonies - often arranged by criminal gangs who could earn £10,000 a time - reached 3,700 per year.

Migrants were made to get a special certificate to marry if they lived outside the EU, or had only limited rights to live in the UK.

Those with only three months' leave to remain were routinely refused on the grounds that the ceremony was performed just to avoid removal from the country.

The number of sham weddings has since fallen to around 300 a year. But the crackdown was left in tatters after the Law Lords ruled it breached migrants' human rights.

Law Lords said forcing a migrant to prove a relationship is genuine is 'arbitrary and unjust', even if they were getting married only weeks before their permission to stay in Britain ran out.

Fuel for The Flames.

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

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THE FUTURE OF THE TORIES:

Over at The Corner, John O'Sullivan has weighed in with some very astute observations about the prospects of the Conserative Party in the next General Election.  Here is a highlight that offers some wisdom the Republican Party should heed in the United States as well:

Cameronism was based upon the idea that future Tory victories could only be based on winning more votes from the metropolitan middle classes and the better educated. These votes had been drifting over time towards the third-party Liberal Democrats. This “centrist” strategy quite deliberately avoided attempts to win patriotic and tradition-minded working class votes disaffected from Labor — even though parties throughout the advanced world have been changing their class character with blue-collar workers moving right and “knowledge workers” moving left. Some Cameron strategists argued that this strategy had been tried in the two previous elections and had failed. (Those interested in such minutiae should read the NRO exchanges between me and Daniel Finkelstein — an actual living Cameron strategist — that followed my article in NR on Cameronism.) Going after such voters was anyway inconsistent with a strategy aimed at the culturally sensitive liberal middle-class who were thought to be more numerous and more winnable. Hence the early gestures of Cameronism towards radical Green politics, the endorsement of Labor’s policies on the budget and social spending (abandoned only after the financial roof fell in), the distancing from Lady Thatcher, the pledge (still being loudly maintained) to cut overseas aid last, if at all, in any budgetary strategy, and other policies of a progressive coloring.

The Cameronites might win, but will they have so lowered the level of the conservative well they draw upon that they will not be able to put out The Flames?

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXXV:

Forbes recently published a good primer on the corruption in British politics by Paul Johnson.  A highlight from the opening paragraphs:

American politicians, in dealing with Britain and continental Europe, have been accustomed to drawing a distinction symbolized by the English Channel: In Britain they found politics to be honest; on the Continent a varying level of corruption was endemic, with it being less pronounced in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, more so in France and Spain and the most in Italy and Greece.

This distinction no longer applies, and it is a point President Obama should note. British politics are becoming corrupt. This is partly because of the deleterious effects of membership in the European Community and Parliament. But there are other factors.

During the 18th century Parliament was very crooked, with seats being sold openly. But eventually Edmund Burke led a vigorous and successful anticorruption campaign under the slogan "Economic Reform," and for more than a century Britain was the least corrupt country in the world.

Then came several important changes. The first was the disappearance of amateur politicians--those who sat in the House of Commons (and the House of Lords) out of a sense of duty, not ambition, and who looked upon politics as a sideline, not a career. Full-time politicians were a minority. But this began to change in the mid-1930s. Edward Heath (later prime minister) shocked the admissions tutor at Balliol College, Oxford when asked the routine question "Now that you have taken your degree, what do you intend to do in life?" Heath replied: "Become a professional politician." The tutor had never before heard the word "professional" used in this context.

Please take the time to click here and read it all.  [tip of the fedora to Instapundit]

The Flames are all-consuming.

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WHITHER ENGLAND?

Its a question frequently on the minds of we Anglophiles these days.  In his Song Of The Week #130, Mark Steyn provides part of the depressing answer in the course of discussing the song We'll Meet Again.  Per usual he serves the bad news with a cocktail to steady our nerves:

In my BBC days, I chanced at one point to see a memo on the corporation's plans for a post-nuclear Britain. In the event of the country getting nuked by the Soviets, some two-dozen underground bunkers around the British Isles would provide public service announcements and general morale boosting, as part of which there would be extensive broadcasts of Dame Vera singing "We'll Meet Again", notwithstanding that the odds of doing so were considerably longer. Maybe, in the event of an Iranian strike, the same old plans will be dusted off and put into action. I wonder if Peter Sellers, who suggested the use of "We'll Meet Again" to Stanley Kubrick for the finale of Dr Strangelove, had also seen the BBC nuclear melodies line-up.

After Strangelove, there were two "We'll Meet Agains", the real thing and a rather flatfooted and heavy handed attempt at ironic subversion, which never quite came off. One reason, I think, is that the song's resilience already has a kind of loopiness about it. Rosemary Clooney told me about playing the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in front of the Queen a few years back. She was sitting in her dressing room, and musing on earlier Palladium appearances, with Bing Crosby and other pals no longer with us. And she must have looked a bit glum because when Shirley Bassey caught a glimpse of her in the mirror she decided to cheer Rosie up by singing "We'll Meet Again". And, by the time they got to the middle eight about saying hello to the folks that you know, Rosie threw in the towel and she and Shirl finished the song together. (By the way, the subsequent Clooney recording is one of the best.) The cheerless British Fifties and the imperial sunset did more to "We'll Meet Again" than Kubrick and the ironists ever could. I mentioned above that rather strained lunch I had with Princess Margaret and Dame Vera. The latter seemed a delightfully near parodic embodiment of Englishness. She sent back the avocado with the splendid dismissal “This foreign food disagrees with me.” Afterwards, we had a little chat about her songs. “They still like ‘We’ll Meet Again’,” she said (I seem to recall a couple of laddish telly pop stars had just had a Number One cover version with it). “But ‘There’ll Always Be An England’ is what they call controversial,” she added, lowering her voice, lest someone might overhear. By "controversial", she meant that the very concept of "England" was now officially discouraged. With one of her two signature songs all but banned from the airwaves, the survivor was imbued with a kind of pathos it had never had during the lowest moments of the Second World War. It came to symbolize simultaneously both Britain's wartime defiance and a resigned acceptance of remorseless decline. Dame Vera is 92 now and still cherishes the song. To me, her original seven-decade-old recording sounds sadder with every passing year. I said about "There'll Always Be An England" that there's now a question mark at the end of the title. Likewise, with this song:

We'll Meet Again
Don't know where, don't know when
But I know We'll Meet Again
Some sunny day.

There'll always be an Albion in our hearts.

Please click here to read the full article by Mr. Steyn [Warning: the link may not work after a few weeks].

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BRITAIN AND THE EU ELECTIONS:

Some analysis of the British vote in the Elections by some of the best...

1) Melanie Phillips on why the British National Party [BNP] was successful:
Not for nothing were the Nazis called ’national socialists’. In similar fashion, the BNP fuse ultra-nationalism and racism with economic ideas which would sit well on the left of the Labour party. It is more helpful, and more accurate, to regard the BNP as opportunists. In the tradition of all fascist and neo-fascist parties, they prey upon a decaying body politic by taking up genuine grievances which are of overwhelming concern to the public but which, for one reason or another, mainstream politics is ignoring. By doing so, they serve to camouflage their own anti-democratic and noxious ideology.

The BNP under Nick Griffin have been particularly skilled at this, getting their people to grow out their shaven heads and get into suits, and sanitising their literature of anything that might frighten the voters off. They remain, however, a deeply and truly racist and antisemitic party, as is demonstrated by the fact that they will not allow black people or Jews to be members because they don’t regard black people or Jews as properly British.

Nevertheless, they have been able to seize their opportunity – and not just because of the expenses scandal. No, the rot in our culture that has let in the BNP goes far, far deeper than that. It is because it has turned attachment to national identity itself into a crime. Anyone who objects to multi-culturalism is called a bigot; anyone who wants to curb immigration is called a racist; anyone who objects to the Islamisation of Britain is called an Islamophobe; anyone who wants to leave the EU and regain the power of national self-government is called a xenophobe; anyone, in short, who wants to retain Britain’s national identity rooted in the shared particulars of religion, law, history, traditions and culture and its powers as a self-governing nation finds themselves ostracised as a pariah.

Voters have been told in effect that there is nothing standing between national suicide on the one hand and racism on the other. If you don’t want the former, you are automatically branded with the latter. And so the BNP have been able to make hay. What’s more, the BNP have had a further devastating impact upon public discourse.  Because they do indeed stand for beliefs that are beyond the pale, they toxify everything they touch. So because they take up causes such as the loss of immigration controls, EU membership or the Islamisation of Britain, this makes such causes radioactive. Mainstream politicians are terrified that if they touch them, they will instantly be tarred as ‘BNP- lite’.

All mainstream parties have colluded in this lamentable state of affairs. The nation-wrecking ideology of multiculturalism and the Marxist redefinition of racial prejudice into racism – ‘prejudice plus power ‘– which have turned our society inside out are the product of the left. However, haunted by its own past shading-off at the fringes into ultra-nationalism, prejudice and antisemitism the Conservative party has been at pains to show itself plus royal que le roi by signing up to multiculturalism and running a mile from the issues of immigration, Islamisation or EU membership. As for the LibDems, all the above applies with knobs on.

So now the public have given their reply to this collusion. Working-class areas are particularly vulnerable to the BNP because they bear the full brunt of these policies. They are areas of very high immigration where the transformation of the ethnic, religious and cultural landscape has made indigenous inhabitants feel strangers in their own country -- and yet they are told they are racist for saying so, not least by the MPs who are now wringing their hands over the BNP success.

2) David Pryce-Jones:
Also unprecedented for Britain is the election to the Brussels Parliament of two members of the British National Party, which undoubtedly has a fascist core. Sir Oswald Mosley, the fascist leader of the 1930s, never succeeded in having a member of his party elected to parliament. Nick Griffin, today's fascist leader, is a good deal less intimidating than Mosley, an uncharismatic man without much powers of speech or intellect. But the Brussels Parliament is elected by proportional representation, and the BNP will therefore find quite a like-minded fascist bloc in it, comprised of various nationalities, including now Hungary which in the Jobbik Party has a real throwback to the 1930s.

However, this voting pattern does not derive from nostalgia for Hitler and Mussolini, but far more simply from the way that every European government has bent over backwards to favor Muslim immigrants over local populations. In one country after another, the government has privileged Muslim immigrants in matters of welfare benefits, housing, communal subsidies, concessions over customs that are illegal and brutal but supposed to be untouchable because sanctioned by Islam, and even in the practice of law. The ensuing Islamization of the continent is the source of immense popular anger, hitherto unexpressed. Put another way, European governments may have had benevolent intentions towards Muslims, but in practice they prove to be efficient fascist-making machines.

3) Andrew Stuttaford:
The relative success (it won two seats) of the unlovely British National Party (a party with, at the very least, as David Pryce-Jones points out, a fascist core) in the U.K. slice of the EU elections is best seen primarily as the product of five factors: (a) the largely accurate perception that the Blair-Brown governments were enablers of mass immigration; (b) not-unconnected fears over the rise of militant Islam within the U.K.; (c) dislike of the EU; (d) the economic crisis; (e) globalization (on economics & trade policy the party is quite some way to the left) and; (f) the widespread perception, flowing in no small part from points a-e, that no parliamentary party is prepared to stick up for the interests of the white working class, a perception that explains the BNP's recent success in finding support amongst former Labour voters. Throw in the the way that the expenses scandal now roiling parliament has discredited much of the existing political class, and there you have it . . .

4) Mark Steyn:
The British results are the latest forlorn thermometer reading of Gordon Brown's long goodbye. Yet, while the Labour Party is shriveling before our eyes, David Cameron's Tories are not obviously the beneficiaries. In the English council elections the Conservatives got a lower percentage of the vote than last time round, and, insofar as there was a (one per cent) swing to the Tories in the European elections, in the end their vote was only a a handful of points higher than the combined tally of the two beyond-the-pale parties, the openly xenophobic* (well, anti-European) UK Independence Party and the openly racist British National Party. If Gordon Brown's rotting zombie of a ministry can't drive voters into the embrace of David Cameron, what can? The Conservatives should have been the beneficiary of both the broader two-party electoral cycle and the more immediate internecine warfare in Brown's cabinet. But they weren't. If I were a Tory strategist, I'd be none too thrilled with what the entrails are saying.

(*Just to clarify, I'm using "openly xenophobic" in the politico-media establishment sense of being opposed to a centralized European superstate. Like many of us who are opposed to the EU, they like foreigners on a one-to-one basis - meeting them on a topless beach at St Tropez and whatnot - but have no desire to be governed by them.)

The Flames are out of control.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXXIV:

From The American Spectator: while looking at the recent scandal over the expenses of Members of Parliament, Hal G.P. Colebatch makes this spot-on observation on the state of fair Albion:

IN A WAY IT WAS all predictable. From the moment Labour took office under Tony Blair in 1997 it set about destroying Britain's sense of its historic culture, tradition, virtues, values and identity. The Adversary Culture was given free rein to attack every British institution which might contribute to such old-fashioned ideas as virtue, patriotism and duty.

Blair claimed soon after coming to power that Britain was no longer "living in the world of a hundred years ago, when guys wore bowler hats and umbrellas, all marching down Whitehall." Yes, and those were the guys who gave Britain a notably incorrupt public culture that once enabled it to do things like govern India with a tiny handful of flintily honest men. Under New Labour an intense culture war was opened up on every possible front to bring old-fashioned values into disrepute.

There were some thing it was thought that real "ladies" and "gentlemen" did not do, such as lie and cheat. The use of the terms "lady" and "gentleman" was made a sacking offence at one university, an innovation which the government condoned as being in accord with the spirit of the times and of Cool Britannia. Symbols of patriotism, including the flag of St. George and the British flag itself, were banned on grounds of political correctness and in order to facilitate the celebration of diversity. Would-be police recruits were turned down for wearing Union Jack tattoos, foster-parents were banned for attempting to teach foster-children Christian values.

Heroic and admired figures from history and the values they championed were ridiculed, denigrated or ignored, by everyone from teachers' unions to local tourism authorities. Seedy and dissolute rock stars and other icons of the drug culture were given honors by the government. Public money was lavished upon theatre and other arts that celebrated nihilism and derided every traditional value and virtue.

A vacuous, hideous celebrity culture was promoted such as to make Oprah Winfrey look intellectually refined by comparison. As well as being starved of men and equipment the ethos and values of the armed forces were systematically attacked not only by the dominant culture of the deconstructionism/political correctness whipsaw but also by all manner of government policies -- probably a major factor in the British Army's dismal performance in Basra. The catalogue of cultural destruction goes on and on. In countless ways the present government has condoned or encouraged the work of the adversary culture in hollowing-out British traditions and values.

The long-drawn-out serial betrayal of the Gurkhas was not only despicable in itself: it was a flaunting of official dishonor and an unambiguous repudiation of honor as a public value. The betrayal of the Gurkhas was not some kind of ghastly inadvertent bureaucratic foul-up or failure of imagination: it was a deliberate attack in the culture-war on the sort of people who admire the Gurkhas and the old-fashioned values of loyalty and valor which they embody. Zimbabweans, black and white, who had moral claims on Britain, including in some cases the claim of past war-service, were abandoned to the psychopathic Mugabe regime. Outright political betrayal and viciousness for cultural and ideological reasons came in many forms, including the abolition of grammar schools that had previously given low-income children an opportunity for a decent education. Scandals and inhumanity exposed in the press in hospitals, prisons and other areas went unrectified and were apparently treated by the government with indifference.

Now Britain has discovered that a large number of the men and women entrusted with holding its high offices of State and with making its laws are -- well, what they are. Where they have not broken the letter of the law they have, in both gross and in disgustingly petty grubbing of other people's money, broken its spirit -- and Britain, with an unwritten Constitution, is more dependent than many nations upon the spirit of the law being observed.

C. S. Lewis said in 1938: "We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

Britain is reaping the fruits of a decade and more of a quasi-official culture laughing at honor, honesty and ordinary virtue.

Please take the time to click here and read the full article.

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WHITHER HONOUR?:

From George Wittman we learn of another outrage in fair Albion:

In a world of seemingly perpetual conflict to be able to depend on an unwavering ally is beyond value. This is the special bond between the British Crown and the Gurkhas. In a distinctly un-British manner, therefore, the UK's Home Office had ruled that only some of the retired members of the famed Gurkha Brigades could resettle in Britain.

The Home Secretary, while never using the word "mercenary," clearly implied that as loyal as these barely over five foot tall Nepalese soldiers had been for nearly 200 years, they nonetheless were not eligible for citizenship as were soldiers of the Commonwealth countries -- to say nothing of the millions of British citizens and residents who emigrated from former colonies.

The result has been, to use a British term, "a right cock-up." Joanna Lumley, the co-star of the television series,  Absolutely Fabulous, who was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, India while her father was a serving officer in the 6^thGurkha Rifles, has launched her not inconsiderable vigor into the campaign to challenge the government ruling. Joined by other notables including her fellow actor Virginia McKenna, whose late husband was a major in the 9th Gurkha Regiment, Ms. Lumley has charged in the best Gurkha style through Whitehall.

Wearing a pin symbolizing crossed khukuris, the massive curved knife of the Gurkhas that is their regimental cap badge, the dynamic Lumley, blond locks flying, sliced her way through Parliament. A successful motion in the House of Commons for equal right of residence for all Gurkha veterans and their families certainly was energized by her efforts.

The problem was that the prime minister must sign off on this -- and so far he hadn't. Off marched the "daughter of the regiment" to confront PM Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street. The dour Scotsman obviously was outmatched by the wily Ms. Lumley and initially folded -- as any reasonably rational male would do. Unfortunately, after the Lumley assault squad had left, Brown immediately went back into hiding with the statement that he "had to consider the matter."

PM Brown and his minions are all blackguards.

Please take the time to click here and read the full article.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXXIII:

The Stealth Jihad never stops moving forward in fair Albion.  From The London Daily Mail, we learn:

A medal personally established by the Queen is being withdrawn after it was deemed offensive to Muslims and Hindus.

The honour - known as The Trinity Cross of the Order of Trinity - has been ruled unlawful and too Christian.

...

But groups representing the Caribbean islands' Muslim and Hindu communities - which account for around a third of their 1.3million-strong population - had argued that the words 'Trinity' and 'Cross' were 'overtly Christian'. They also said the use of a cross insignia was offensive.

Five British law lords, all members of the Privy Council, have ruled that the honour breached the right to equality and the right to freedom of conscience and belief.

The Council is an obscure body made up of senior politicians, bishops and peers.

They advise the monarch on the exercise of the Royal Prerogative and act as a final court of appeal for many former colonies.

In the judgment, Lord Hope of Craighead said that the Trinity Cross was 'perceived by Hindus and Muslims living in Trinidad and Tobago as an overtly Christian symbol both in name and substance' and as such breached the islands' constitution of 1976.

Tip of the fedora to Eeyore, over at Vlad Tepes, who had this spot-on comment:
Nice to see England sweeping up the last remnants of it’s own history and culture. Now that it is an islamic state there is no point in the unnecessary expense of infidel rituals symbols and institutions. The British, ever fastidious in appearance are doing their usual good job of ridding themselves of what remains of their actual English heritage. The monarchy itself may be allowed to remain so long as the lineage changes. Perhaps the Saudis can spare a prince or two....

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXXII:

From The London Daily Mail, Debra Killalea reporting, we learn:

Fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken is to launch a halal-only menu in eight of its London stores in a move which could be extended to other areas of the UK.

The menu, which will form part of a trial, will see the stores selling chicken products which have been fully approved by the Halal Food Authority for the first time.

KFC has 720 stores across the UK, and bosses said the move was designed to ensure the company was catering to a broader range of customers, following a growing demand for halal products.

It is the latest fast food chain to introduce a halal-only menu after Domino's launched one at a Birmingham store in February.

...

As Muslims cannot eat pork, the Halal branches have removed the Big Daddy burger from the menu as it contains bacon.

KFC's scheme will be trialled over the summer, but if it proves a success dozens more branches across the country are expected to follow suit and become halal-only.

...

The move follows a similar decision made by Dominos Pizza, which launched a halal only menu at its Hall Green store in Birmingham earlier this year amid a storm of controversy.

Domino's said the change has improved business despite an initial backlash from non-halal customers who complained they were not able to order pizzas such as the Meteor which contains pepperoni, sausage, meatballs and bacon.

...

Halal means any item on the menu which may contain bacon, ham or pork must be removed and all the chicken must by halal-approved.

Under the rules, the animal should be killed by having its throat cut by a Muslim and any flowing blood of the carcass should be completely drained.

Animals cannot be eaten if they have died of natural causes and have to have been killed.

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer had these comments:
Here is yet another indication of how pleas by Muslim minorities for pluralism and tolerance all too quickly turn into Islamic supremacist assertions that non-Muslims must abide by Islamic norms. And in this case, as in so many others, the non-Muslims in question willingly take on their subservient role, in pursuit of the bottom line.

Prefer to eat non-halal food? Take your business elsewhere, while you still can....

The Flames are roasting.

Please click here to read the full report.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXXI:

From The London Daily Mail, we learn of a new service being provided by the government:

Worried pensioners, shoppers and businessmen are being offered a police escort home from the bank.

Officers launched a hotline for people who have withdrawn cash from a hole-in-the-wall machine, bank or Post Office.

Residents can call up and arrange for a uniformed officer to see them safely from the High Street to their front door.

...

One borough officer said the service was not set up because of a high risk of being mugged but as an 'extra'.

Sure.  The Flames are spreading everywhere.

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

                                                         -30-

INGSOC

From Hal G.P. Colebatch, writing in The Australian:

BRITAIN appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely.

There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.

Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution's principal tasks was "to alter people's actual psychology". Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people's psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.

Mr. Colebatch then goes on to provide a good number of examples.  Here are but a few:

Countryside Restoration Trust chairman and columnist Robin Page said at a rally against the Government's anti-hunting laws in Gloucestershire in 2002: "If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you." Page was arrested, and after four months he received a letter saying no charges would be pressed, but that: "If further evidence comes to our attention whereby your involvement is implicated, we will seek to initiate proceedings." It took him five years to clear his name.

Page was at least an adult. In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher's first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: "It's racist, you're going to get done by the police!" Upset and terrified, the schoolgirl went outside to calm down. The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. According to her mother, she was placed in a bare cell for 3 1/2 hours. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott. Headmaster Anthony Edkins reportedly said: "An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark. We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form."

...

A bishop was warned by the police for not having done enough to "celebrate diversity", the enforcing of which is now apparently a police function. A Christian home for retired clergy and religious workers lost a grant because it would not reveal to official snoopers how many of the residents were homosexual. That they had never been asked was taken as evidence of homophobia.

...

Permissiveness as well as draconianism can be deployed to destroy socially accepted norms and values. The Royal Navy, for instance, has installed a satanist chapel in a warship to accommodate the proclivities of a satanist crew member. "What would Nelson have said?" is a British newspaper cliche about navy scandals, but in this case seems a legitimate question. Satanist paraphernalia is also supplied to prison inmates who need it.

Please take the time to click here and read the full report of the dreary details.  [tip of the fedora to Mark Steyn]

Albion has become a tragedy; beware, Columbia.  The Flames are growing fiercely.

                                                   -30-

COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXX:

It would seem the disease that is destroying Albion's culture has spread into the very heart and soul of the nation.  From The London Daily Mail, Stephen Wright reporting:

Royal protection officers posed for 'comical' photographs on the Queen's throne, traded hardcore pornography in locker rooms and handled firearms while drunk, a court heard yesterday.

Members of Scotland Yard's Royalty Protection Command based at Buckingham and St James's palaces also sold steroids, fell asleep on duty and ran gambling rings, it was claimed.

On other occasions they smuggled friends into royal garden parties and offered them free Palace parking for shopping sprees, it was alleged.

The sensational claims were made at the trial of former Royal Protection Officer Paul Page, 37, accused of masterminding a £3million swindle from the Palace.

Drawing and quartering's too good for 'em, I'd say.

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

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THIS TELLS YOU SOMETHING...

From The London Daily Telegraph, Kate Devlin reporting:

Health service staff are no longer being asked if they would want to be treated in their own hospitals, it has emerged.

The question, which revealed how staff viewed the care offered by their own section of the NHS, has been dropped with little fanfare from an annual poll of 160,000 workers.

The decision to drop it comes to light just weeks after a damning report criticised deaths at one healthcare trust where the majority of its staff stated that they would not want to be treated.

The investigation into Mid-Staffordshire Hospitals trust found that up to 1,200 people may have died needlessly due to "appalling standards of care" at a single hospital.

Figures show that just one in four workers at Stafford hospital said that they would be happy with the standard of care there.

Almost half disagreed or strongly disagreed.

...

John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund, the influential health think-tank, said that asking staff if they would be happy to be treated at their own hospital was an important way of assessing standards.

"If there is anybody who knows what the quality of care at their hospital is, it is the people who work there," he said.

He added: "At Mid-Staffordshire, 47 per cent said they would not be happy with the standard of care, but at some hospitals, fewer than 2 per cent said that.

"The numbers may require careful interpretation, but that sort of variation must be telling you something."

You think?

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXIX:

From Mark Steyn's 02 April 2009 column in Macleans, we learn:

Did you hear the one about the queer, the Muzzie and the pre-op tranny?

No? Well, you’re unlikely to any time soon. The British government, fresh from recent proscriptions on religious and racial “hatred,” is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalize homophobic jokes.

I’ve been trying to recall the last time I heard a homophobic joke in a public forum. You have to go back a ways. At Vegas, Dean Martin used to have a bit of business where he’d refill his tumbler and ask Frank, “How do you make a fruit cordial?” And Sinatra would go, “I dunno. How do you make a fruit cordial?” And Dino would say, “Be nice to him.”

But these days, no matter how cordial you are, it’s never enough. On the BBC comedy show Little Britain, a weekly glimpse of the hellhole of Hogarthian depravity that is the United Kingdom, there is a recurring character whose catchphrase is that he’s “the only gay in the village”—a Welsh village, I believe, so his claim would seem to be statistically improbable, if you’ll forgive a bit of Welshophobia—or is it Cymruphobia? Or Cymruhomophobia? Anyway, he doesn’t actually have any gay sex and he gets inordinately jealous if some real live practising gay comes passing through and threatens his unique status. But one could argue that his determination to be “the only gay in the village” testifies to the social cachet homosexuality now enjoys. On the other hand, one could argue something else entirely. On the other other hand, once you’ve attracted the attention of Constable Plod and his crack humorological investigative unit, you’re probably best to cop a plea and settle for misdemeanour hate-mongering and three points on your licence.

Down the leftie end of Fleet Street, various columnists, justifying their support for the legislation, or at least its goals, have tutted their disapproval of gay stereotyping in comedy. Limp wrists. Camp walks. Judy Garland references. I write as the token heterosexual Judy Garland fan (please, no tittering) on the Maclean’s payroll, and as a chap who’s sung with Liza Minnelli on TV (oh, okay, titter mercilessly, but no guffawing), yet I confess to some misgivings about the state demanding upon pain of a seven-year jail sentence that the citizenry pretend there’s nothing the red-blooded knuckle-dragging English soccer yobbo likes better than listening to Judy singing The Man That Got Away before he nuts you in the head, knees you in the bollocks and tosses you through a chip-shop window. To its credit, the House of Lords inserted a so-called “free speech” amendment to the bill, but the justice secretary, Jack Straw, has decided to repeal that, announcing that there are “no circumstances” in which the right to free speech can “justify homophobic behaviour.”

And why stop there? Representatives of the transgendered and the disabled were also invited by the government to grab a piece of the joke-police action....

Please take the time to click here and read the full column.

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OOOOH THAT SMELL: TALES FROM THE DEMOGRAPHIC DEATHWATCH:

Thanks to Mark Steyn, the following two articles have been brought to our attention:

1) From The London Daily Telegraph, Sarah Kapton reporting, we learn:

Latest figures show homes with just one child now make up 46 per cent of all families and could soon be in the majority of the current trend continues.

Currently there are some 3.43 million homes with only-children and 2.91 million with two youngsters. Families with three or more children are also in decline.

...

Robert Whelan, of the Civitas think tank said: "People haven't changed their idea of what an ideal family size. There is no evidence that people want just one child, but there is an economic imperative.

"The only people who can afford large families are the small numbers of the wealthy, to whom cost doesn't matter and the larger number of those who depend on welfare to whom the cost doesn't matter because the state provides."

Experts say the trend is worrying because children benefit from siblings and in the Chinese culture, where families were constrained by the one-child state limit, youngster were found to grow up spoiled and demanding.

2) From The Times Of London, Richard Kerbaj reporting, we learn:

The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years, according to official research collated for The Times.

The population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, the research by the Office for National Statistics reveals. In the same period the number of Christians in the country fell by more than 2 million.

Experts said that the increase was attributable to immigration, a higher birthrate and conversions to Islam during the period of 2004-2008, when the data was gathered. They said that it also suggested a growing willingness among believers to describe themselves as Muslims because the western reaction to war and terrorism had strengthened their sense of identity.

...

There are more than 42.6 million Christians in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics, whose figures were obtained through the quarterly Labour Force Survey of around 53,000 homes. But while the biggest Christian population is among over-70s bracket, for Muslims it is the under-4s.

This report also includes quotes from two professors who, it seems to me, are either too feraful to say outright what their words imply or are doing a grand job of kidding themselves:

David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University, said: “The implications are very substantial. Some of the Muslim population, by no means all of them, are the least socially and economically integrated of any in the United Kingdom ... and the one most associated with political dissatisfaction. You can't assume that just because the numbers are increasing that all will increase, but it will be one of several reasonable suppositions that might arise.”

Professor Coleman said that Muslims would naturally reap collective benefits from the increase in population. “In the growth of any population ... [its] voice is regarded as being stronger in terms of formulating policy, not least because we live in a democracy where most people in most religious groups and most racial groups have votes. That necessarily means their opinions have to be taken and attention to be paid to them.”

...

Ceri Peach, Professor of Social Geography at Manchester University, said that the rapid growth of the Muslim population posed challenges for society. “The groups with the strongest belief in the family and cohesion are those such as the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. They have got extremely strong family values but it goes together with the sort of honour society and other kinds of attributes which people object to,” he said. “So you are dealing with a pretty complex situation.”

The Flames are everywhere.

Please take the time to click here and read The Telegraph's report and here to read The Times's.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXVIII:

From Front Page Magazine's Jamie Glazov, we learn of sanctioned barbarism in dying Albion:

Latest reports indicate that approximately 500 girls a year have their genitals mutilated in Britain.

It may come as no surprise to the knowledgeable political and cultural observer that the poor victims of these crimes are not from Christian or Jewish families, nor from Hindu or Buddhist ones. They are to be found predominantly in Muslim households. And being Muslim is a status that gives the victims, and all future victims, the unfortunate distinction of being part of a group that society can’t help, because the lib-Left has made sure that the Muslim culture can never be criticized and, therefore, that its sufferers can never be protected or saved.

Fact: female circumcision is illegal in Britain. But this doesn't mean that British law enforcement is doing anything about this crime that Muslim communities are perpetrating against their little girls.

The reality: five hundred girls’ genitals are mutilated every year in Britain. Not one arrest. Not one incarceration.

You think protecting little girls’ genitals is more important nowadays than protecting oneself from the charge of being Islamophobic? Think again.

Islamic women haters, therefore, are reigning free in Britain....

Rule Barbarity?

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

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THE SMELL OF DEATH'S AROUND YOU:

From The London Daily Telegraph:

Appalling standards of care have been exposed at Mid-Staffordshire Hospitals trust, where between 400 and 1,200 more patients died than would be expected in just three years, according to a damning report by the Healthcare Commission.

Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, described the failures as a 'gross and terrible breach of trust' of patients.

A litany of poor standards of care was uncovered by the Healthcare Commission in one of the most critical reports of NHS treatment.

It is not clear how many patients died as a direct result of the failures but the Commission found that mortality rates in emergency care were between 27 per cent and 45 per cent higher than would be expected, equating to between 400 and 1,200 excess deaths.

...

The investigation of the trust now called the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, found overstretched and poorly trained nurses who turned off equipment because they did not know how to work it, newly qualified doctors left to care for patients recovering from surgery at night, patients left for hours in soiled bedclothes, reception staff expected to judge how seriousness of patients arriving at A&E, patients left without food or drink, others who received the wrong medication or none at all, blood and faeces left on lavatories and floors, and doctors diverted away from seriously ill patients in order to treat minor ones who were in danger of breaching the four hour waiting time target.

When high mortality rates triggered questions, the trust board of directors 'fobbed off' investigators by saying the rates were a result of statistical errors but the Healthcare Commission found this was not that case.

The report said there was a 'reluctance to acknowledge or even consider that the care of patients was poor'.

The trust was more concerned with hitting targets, gaining Foundation Trust status and marketing and had 'lost sight' of its responsibilities for patient care, the report said.

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.  [tip of the fedora to Philip Klein of The American Spectator who comments on it here.]

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BIG BEN IS WATCHING YOU:

We learn from David Pryce-Jones that another fundamental freedom is being quietly eroded in fair Albion:

Revolution takes freedom away in one big bang, whereas democratic governments erode it one step at a time. And usually the step is stealthy, so that most people are lulled into a sense there is nothing much to be done about it except shrug. This is the case in Britain, where freedom of speech and freedom of association have already been drastically curtailed under the present New Labour regime. Freedom of movement is now also under assault. Anyone who leaves the country by land, sea, or air is to have the trip recorded, which involves tracking 250 million journeys annually. At least 24 hours ahead of the journey, travelers will have to supply addresses, credit card details, and exact itineraries (quite often impossible, of course). This information will be stored for ten years. Preposterously, the purpose is said to be catching terrorists as they leave for home in après-bomb mood. What will actually happen is bureaucratic oppression and loss of liberty on a yet more unprecedented scale for everyone law-abiding.

Needless to say, there has been no consultation or parliamentary debate. This is the kind of measure that police states undertake....

The Flames are in the attic.

Please take the time to click here and read the full posting.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXVII:

Over at The London Spectator, Melanie Phillips reports on a disturbing alliance some leaders of the Church Of England are making with Islam:

There has long been a notable crossover between the Left and the Islamists, who bury their considerable differences because of their all-consuming hatred of Israel and the West — and in which they find an echo in neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. But what’s new in this explosive mix is the presence of Christian evangelicals. What is extraordinary, moreover, is the targeting by Christian missionaries such as Brian Knell of [Dr. Patrick] Sookhdeo, a principal campaigner to end the death sentence for Muslim converts to Christianity. So why are such evangelicals trying to destroy people who are defending Christianity against Islamist aggression?

The answer lies in a profound split amongst evangelicals: between Christian Zionists who love Israel and want to defend the church against the predations of radical Islam, and those who want Israel to be destroyed and radical Islam appeased. Brian Knell, for example, blames Israel’s ‘institutionalised terrorism’ for the radicalisation of Muslims worldwide. He thus ignores Islamist statements about the innate perfidy of the secular West, the cosmic evil of the Jews throughout history and the need to impose doctrinal purity upon other Muslims in the face of Western modernity.

The warped obsession with Israel is fundamental to these evangelicals’ desire to accommodate radical Islamism. Another participant at the All Nations meeting was Colin Chapman, the father of the UK movement against Christian Zionism — and whose animosity is rooted in a theological prejudice against the Jews. Chapman’s hugely influential book, Whose Promised Land, resurrects the ancient Christian canard of ‘supercessionism’ — the belief that because the Jews denied the divinity of Christ, God transferred His favours to the Christians while the Jews were cast out as the party of the Devil. This doctrine lay behind centuries of Christian anti-Jewish hatred until the Holocaust drove it underground.

In his book, Chapman writes that violence has always been implicit in Zionism and that Jewish self-determination is somehow racist. He also subscribes to the canard of sinister Jewish power. He has written: ‘Six million Jews in the USA have an influence that is out of all proportion to their numbers in the total population of 281 million... It is widely recognised, for example, that no one could ever win the presidential race without the votes and the financial support of substantial sections of the Jewish community.’

It is a sobering fact that such a subscriber to anti-Jewish prejudice should be so influential in the church. And such thinking has many followers, including Stephen Sizer. ‘The covenant between Jews and God,’ he has written, ‘was conditional on their respect for human rights. The reason they were expelled from the land was that they were more interested in money and power and treated the poor and aliens with contempt’. And he has denied validity to Judaism itself saying: ‘to suggest ...that the Jewish people continue to have a special relationship with God, apart from faith in Jesus ...is, in the words of [the leading Anglican evangelical] John Stott, “biblically anathema”.’

And now look at other groups with which Sizer is making common cause in his hatred of Israel and the Jews. He has given interviews to, endorsed or forwarded material from American white supremacists and Holocaust deniers. Last year, he sent an article printed in the Palestine Chronicle about the alleged influence of ‘Israel in Washington’ through ‘powerful overtly Jewish Washington organisations and, increasingly, through Christian Zionist organisations’ to an appreciative Martin Webster, the former leader of the neo-Nazi National Front.

Many will be deeply shocked that the Church of England harbours individuals with such attitudes. But the church hierarchy is unlikely to act against them. Extreme hostility towards Israel is the default position among bishops and archbishops; while the establishment line is to reach out towards Islam in an attempt to accommodate and appease it. With Christians around the world suffering forced conversion, ethnic cleansing and murder at Islamist hands, the church utters not a word of protest. Instead, inter-faith dialogue is the order of the day, with Canon Graham Kings — the theological secretary of Fulcrum, no less — a key player in Anglican inter-faith work. And now Israel’s war against Hamas has had a pivotal effect. There is now a widespread sense that Israel must finally be defeated once and for all — and then the Islamists will calm down.

The churches of England are being looted and destroyed again in Albion, but this time from within.  This is nothing less than an Axis of Legion.  The Flames are growing fiercely.

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PARTS XXV & XXVI:

From Mark Steyn's syndicated column of 21 February 2009:

...The flight routes between Pakistan and the United Kingdom are some of the busiest in the world. Can you get a direct flight from your local airport to, say, Bradford?

Where?

Bradford, Yorkshire. There are four flights a week from Islamabad to Bradford, a town where 75 percent of Pakistani Britons are married to their first cousins. But don’t worry, in the country as a whole, only 57 percent of Pakistani Britons are married to first cousins.

Among that growing population of Yorkshire Pakistanis is a fellow called Lord Ahmed, a Muslim member of Parliament. He was in the news the other day for threatening (as the columnist Melanie Phillips put it) “to bring a force of 10,000 Muslims to lay siege to the House of Lords” if it went ahead with an event at which the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders would have introduced a screening of his controversial film Fitna. Britain’s Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, reacted to this by declaring Minheer Wilders persona non grata and having him arrested at Heathrow and returned to the Netherlands.

The Home Secretary is best known for an inspired change of terminology: Last year she announced that henceforth Muslim terrorism (an unhelpful phrase) would be reclassified as “anti-Islamic activity.” Seriously. The logic being that Muslims blowing stuff up tends not to do much for Islam’s reputation — i.e., it’s an “anti-Islamic activity” in the same sense that Pearl Harbor was an anti-Japanese activity.

Anyway, Geert Wilders’s short film is basically a compilation video of footage from various recent Muslim terrorist atrocities — whoops, sorry, “anti-Islamic activities” — accompanied by the relevant chapter and verse from the Koran. Jacqui Smith banned the filmmaker on “public order” grounds  — in other words, the government’s fear that Lord Ahmed meant what he said about a 10,000-strong mob besieging the Palace of Westminster. You might conceivably get the impression from Wilders’s movie that many Muslims are irrational and violent types it’s best to steer well clear of. But, if you didn’t, Jacqui Smith pretty much confirmed it: We can’t have chaps walking around saying Muslims are violent because they’ll go bananas and smash the place up.

So, confronted by blackmail, the British government caved. So did the Pakistani government in Swat. But, in fairness to Islamabad, they waited until the shooting was well underway before throwing in the towel. In London, you no longer have to go that far. You just give the impression your more excitable chums might not be able to restrain themselves. “Nice little G7 advanced western democracy you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it.” Twenty years ago this month, Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative ministry defended the right of a left-wing author Salman Rushdie to publish a book in the face of Muslim riots and the Ayatollah Khomeini’s attempted mob hit. Two decades on, a supposedly progressive government surrenders to the mob before it’s even taken to the streets.

Please take the time to click here and read the full column.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXIV:

From The London Daily Telegraph, we learn the following from Denis MacEoin, author of the book Music, Chess and other Sins: Segregation, Integration and Muslim Schools in Britain:

Music, chess and cricket are just three things banned in some Muslim schools in the UK. Others are drama, dance, sport, Shakespeare, and, in some cases, any aspect of Western culture whatever. According to the management committee of London's Madani Secondary Girls' School, this is because "our children are exposed to a culture that is in opposition with almost everything Islam stands for". The response to this sense of danger is often to forbid outright any kind of relationship with non-Muslims: "Allah has warned us in the Koran, do not befriend the kuffaar. The Jews and Christians will never be content with you until you follow their way," says Riyadhul Haq, a teacher in Kidderminster.

...

Some Muslim schools teach social cohesion, others regard it as a deadly sin. Some schools impart the skills necessary for a fulfilling life alongside non-Muslim friends and co-workers, others try to recreate a Pakistani or Bangladeshi lifestyle and to make it exclusive.

Several recent surveys have noted an unusual phenomenon among young Muslims here and in Europe: that 16-to-24-year-olds are more hardline in their opinions than their parents or even their grandparents. The youngest generation is moving away from mainstream society, not towards it. The reasons for this are complex, but there can be little doubt that Islamic schools play a role in encouraging children and teenagers to isolate themselves. More than 50 per cent of the establishments I examined for my report on Muslim schools showed indications of strong fundamentalist influence and control. Some were set up by organisations that have been banned in some countries.

Not infrequently, Ofsted inspectors give glowing reports to schools that require much closer examination. Al-Mu'min Primary School in Bradford is linked to the al-Mu'min journal, which carries material from schoolchildren. Its website teaches that Western culture is "evil", photographs are "an evil practice of the unbelievers", and that "the person who plays chess is like one who dips his hand in the blood of a swine".

Please take the time to click here and read the full article.  [tip of the fedora to Andrew Stuttaford]

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HEAR THE SAVAGE ROAR OF 1984:

Hal G.P. Colebatch on the stealth war being waged against Christianity in Britain:

One need not be paranoid to see that a deliberate war is being waged in Britain to destroy Christianity and Britain's Christian identity.

The actual intelligence directing this war is not so easy to see, however. None of the agencies responsible for the above cases is directly part of the national government, which answers ultimately to electors, whose Members sit in Parliament and comprise the Ministries and Cabinet. The apparatchiks responsible for these and countless similar acts tend to inhabit not in the Parliament of Westminster but local authorities and quasi-governmental agencies, hard to pin down, hard to call to account, and very hard indeed to tip out at elections.

This is not to say the government has not condoned them -- the Prime Minister or other ultimately responsible ministers could in each case have intervened with a telephone call or word to their departmental head, but did not. Certainly the allegedly highly religious (and now Catholic convert) Tony Blair did nothing that one could detect to stop such things -- and there were already then hundreds of such incidents -- when he was Prime Minister. The links with the Government are there, but they are fudged and deniable.

It is not only Christians who should be worried:

Plainly there is more to it than Christianity. But here Christianity is the canary in the coal-mine. Non-believers also have cause to be deeply alarmed (certainly, too, Jews have cause -- anti-Semitism is increasingly tolerated and legitimized, but that is another story). There is really no longer even a pretence that what is under way under the slogan of Celebrating Diversity is anything but a massive kulturkampf aimed at creating a new Homo Britannicus. Traditional political processes of Parliament, votes, and even parties seem barely relevant.

So far, while many people are plainly angry and protesting, much of the reaction seems to be bewilderment. "Political correctness gone mad!" is a description used beyond the point of cliché for countess such outrageous incidents -- but if it is madness it is a very clever, cunning and strategically-conscious madness.

The Flames are in the walls.

Please take the time to click here and read the full article.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXIII:

Are we witnessing the death of free speech in Albion?  David Pryce-Jones thinks so and makes a convincing case for it over at NRO along with a spot-on observation of the island peoples:

...And now Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament, and therefore an elected democratic politician, has been refused entry at London airport and deported back to the Netherlands. He is, Jacqui Smith's Home Office pretends, nothing less than a threat to "public security."

How so? Wilders was invited by a member of the House of Lords to show their lordships his film Fitna, all seventeen minutes of it. Among the meanings of this Arabic word in Wehr's Dictionary are "sedition, riot, discord, dissension, civil strife." The film is out to show that the Qur'an contains verses that encourage these bad outcomes, setting Muslims against themselves and others. This is a serious argument, even if clips of terror outrages make the film deliberately sensational, even lurid. Unfortunately, the acts of terror are real, and readings from the Qur'an bear upon them.

Free speech has been a particularly English glory since Milton first argued that it was a principle of freedom itself. Dissidents, rebels, and freedom fighters from Karl Marx and Mazzini to Stalin and Salman Rushdie have had the opportunity to say what they wanted, whether or not anyone disapproved. Now thanks to one Jacqui Smith, so comfortably padded by the taxpayer, this principle of freedom is suspended.

There is more. Lord Ahmed is a Muslim born in Kashmir and put into the House of Lords by Tony Blair. Two years ago, Lord Ahmed invited Mahmoud Abu Rideh, a Palestinian previously detained on suspicion of fundraising for groups associated with al-Qaeda, into the House of Lords. It was his parliamentary duty, he told critics, to listen to what Abu Rideh had to say. Evidently it's that self-same parliamentary duty to ban and suppress Wilders. It is reported that he warned the authorities that 10,000 Muslims would bring real Fitna to the streets by demonstrating in the event that the film was shown, though he denies this. But clearly intimidation has trumped free speech. "Public security" is just humbug. This is not a minor issue. On his way out, Wilders openly called the English "cowards."  Losers, he might have added, shamed and shaming, people untrue to themselves.

Sad, but true.

Please click here to read the full posting.

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COULD THIS BE ONE EXPLANATION, PART XXII:

From the London Daily Mail, Steve Doughty reporting:

Families with stay-at-home mothers face much bigger tax bills in Britain than in the rest of the developed world,according to research.

A couple living on one average wage must meet tax demands that are 44 per cent higher than those of their counterparts in other wealthy countries.

The burden for traditional two-parent families where the husband is the breadwinner is getting harsher.

They paid more tax in Britain in 2007 than in the previous year and their disadvantage against other wealthy countries worsened markedly, the study for the family charity Care said.

Looking further back, married couples with children and one earner in Britain paid 13 per cent more tax in 2007 than they did in 2001.

They lost out as then chancellor Gordon Brown developed his tax credit system of benefits, which are heavily weighted in favour of single parents.

Stay-at-home mothers also lose because the tax system does not recognise couples.

In other developed countries there are tax breaks for earners whose wages support a spouse and children.

Is is bad enough when you do not encourage fathers and mothers to stay together and raise their children.  It is much worse when you go out of your way to encourage single parenting.

Please take the time to click here and read the full article.

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INGSOC RISING

From Andrew Stuttaford we learn that Britain may have turned the final corner:

Initially Brown’s rapid and decisive response played well with frazzled voters desperate to see the government do something. With the financial crisis widely blamed on three decades of (largely imaginary) laissez faire, Labour rediscovered the electoral allure of unashamedly interventionist government. Dour, stern, and carefully wrapped in an image of egalitarian rectitude, Brown came across, however absurdly, as a serious man for serious times. The Tories jeered, but for a while their advantage in the polls faltered: Their impeccably upper-crust leader (who is burdened both by youth and a past in public relations) was caricatured in ways that made him appear a feckless, callow Wooster to Brown’s shrewd, capable Jeeves.

That moment may have passed for now. Swept along by a torrent of economic bad news, the Conservatives are once again clearly ahead. That probably puts paid to the once widely rumored prospect that Brown would call a snap election before the bills finally fall due. Nevertheless Labour’s brief revival was an early warning that this crisis may yet represent an opportunity for a return of the more full-bodied socialism of the party’s destructive past. If Brown is to win another term (an election has to be held no later than June 2010), he will have to shift left. In frightening times in which capitalism is widely (if inaccurately) believed by voters to have failed, there is an obvious opportunity for the hucksters of big, redistributionist government. The announcement that Labour, if reelected, will hike the top income tax rate from 40 to 45 percent (and that’s before onerous social security levies) is only a beginning.

The Flames are engulfing.

Please take the time to click here and read the full article.

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NOWHERE MEN

NRO's Jonah Goldberg on his recent trip to Albion:

Alas, here in Britain, the lesson of compassionate conservatism’s welcome demise remains lost on the Tory leadership. British conservatives remain fascinated with oxymorons such as “progressive conservatism” and “Red Toryism.” (Sometimes the prefix “oxy” in “oxymoron” seems like gilding the lily.)

The longstanding argument against such pernicious sloganeering is still valid. Conservatives who lose their skepticism of government activism invariably fall into the trap of saying “me too” to whatever happens to be the political fad of the day, and hence wind up getting pulled in a direction not of their own choosing, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek once put it.

For instance, Tory party leader David Cameron has a circus-act flexibility when it comes to ideological principles. No adjective is too constraining for his brand of shmoo-like conservatism; “Green,” “compassionate,” “progressive,” “radical,” even “libertarian paternalism,” his conservatism can fit into them all, for his philosophical invertebracy is boundless. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, the mop-topped conservative mayor of London and former editor of the indispensable conservative journal The Spectator, seems to see conservatism as a mere facet to his own charming eccentricity. Both men have a politician’s love of popularity, rather than an ideologue’s love of principle, so both are scrambling like teenagers who’ve spotted Paris Hilton at the mall to ingratiate themselves with Barack Obama, the ex officio president of the United Kingdom.

And herein lies the chief problem with the effort to make conservatism into a philosophy of government activism. “Progressive conservatives” will care more about being popular than being conservative. If they didn’t care about being popular, they wouldn’t have taken up the modifier “progressive” in the first place. With yes-men riding shotgun whenever liberals are at the wheel, the gas pedal of progressivism will always get the lead foot, while the brake of conservatism gets a few perfunctory taps.

And...
Many Tories will tell you that a generous welfare state is necessary to maintain a sense of national community and cohesion. The only problem is that there’s no evidence the ever-rising tide of nanny-statism has done anything but erode the shores of British resolve.

The Flames are not being fought and are burning uncontrolled.

Please click here to read the full column.

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WITHER THE PERMANENT THINGS

From the London Daily Mail, Sam Greenhill reporting:

For years, the royal portrait enjoyed pride of place behind the chairman's seat in the chamber of Mid-Suffolk District Council.

But now she has been removed to a rear wall, while in her place are three pieces of abstract art.

Conservative councillor Frank Whittle is one of those who are unamused by the Tory-run council's decision.

He said: 'The picture has been moved and put on a back wall and so most of the councillors now have their backs to the Queen, which I do not think is right.

'I think it is unpatriotic. She is the country's figurehead and should be the figurehead of the council.'

The modern art piece which has replaced the Queen is called Traces. It is supposed to represent the development of Mid-Suffolk.

Three glass panes depict ways in which people from the county connect with the wider world - through its waterways, highways and 'cyberways'.

One panel features an open blue square and a red squiggly line, to represent how the internet has transformed the lives of local residents.

One of the signs that a culture is depraved is when it exhibits no regard for the symbols of tradition.  This is one explanation.

Please click here to read the full report.

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A VOICE FROM THE WILDERNESS

These days in beloved Albion this Archbishop has to be labeled courageous:

Immigrants to Britain in the past five decades have been treated like hotel guests who 'do not belong', the Archbishop of York said yesterday.

Dr John Sentamu said the failure of migrants to integrate had contributed to the collapse of a common British culture and the lack of a national sense of direction.

He called for recognition of the Christian heritage which used to bind the nation together and for a revival of the civic values once represented by myriad local clubs, churches and trade unions.

The Archbishop's powerful attack on uncontrolled immigration and on the Left-wing interpretation of multiculturalism that encourages migrants to ignore traditional British values, was made in a speech to Gordon Brown's think tank, the Smith Institute.

Dr Sentamu, a trustee of the Institute, has previously criticised multiculturalism and official neglect of the importance of Christian thinking and history.

And...
He referred to the view of Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks that until the 1950s immigrants were like guests in a country house, who were expected to assimilate British values and to belong to the existing society.

But with the decline of empire and the growth of Commonwealth immigration, the pattern had become more like a hotel.

'Guests are entitled to stay if they can pay their way and receive basic services in return for their payment,' he said. 'But they are guests  -  they do not belong. In the same way, migrants to Britain from the 1960s onwards have made their home with their cultural rights protected under legislation framed under a multicultural perspective.

'Consequently, any sense of a shared common culture is eroded, risking increasing segregation.'

Finally...
He also blamed leaders of the Church of England for failing to speak out over the future of the nation as well as ignoring 'the voiceless and the unheard in the market square'.

Dr Sentamu said that since 2001 there had been no fewer than five 'major government reports on social cohesion' all attempting to 'address the problems of a multicultural approach'.

But few aims had been achieved. This was, Dr Sentamu said, because the Government has been wedded to central control and had been reluctant to see local communities have power.

And, he said, 'there has also been a reluctance to acknowledge the strong Judaeo-Christian heritage which has shaped our language, our laws, our education and our hard-won civil rights.'

If more such men of respect would speak out, perhaps the decline could be halted.  As it is, he will probably be consumed in The Flames.

Please click here to read the full report.

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SOFT TOTALITARIANISM

Over at The American Spectator, Hal G.P. Colebatch chronicles the actions of the British Government's Ministry Of Love:

Most recently at Brighton Pilgrim Homes, a charity that operates a care-home for elderly Christians, has been accused of institutional discrimination and has lost its grant from the Brighton and Hove Council because the residents refused to answer questions about their sexuality. Nothing could indicate more clearly that the side presently prosecuting and winning Britain's culture war has no interest in supporting liberty or the individual's privacy or dignity, or show up its own sometimes barely disguised viciousness.

A few years ago Home Office Minister Michael O'Brien found the Fire Service had an overly tough and masculine culture and that firemen were failing to come to terms with homosexuality. He stated: "It is time the Fire Service began to understand that society is changing, and it is time it began changing too." The 6,750 London brigade firemen were then presented by a questionnaire from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, seeking to know whether they were homosexual or not.

Back in November 2003, it was reported that police were investigating the Bishop of Chester, The Rt. Rev. Peter Forster, co-author of a church report on sexuality issues, who, writing in the Chester Chronicle, had encouraged homosexuals to reorient themselves, to see if his advice amounted to a criminal offense.

The bishop compounded this by stating that children raised in families by "a man and woman who have committed themselves to long-term marriage" fared better than those in single-parent families (a view since endorsed by the government's own official reports). The Chief Constable of the area, Peter Fahy, actually said that the bishop needed to "justify himself." The Crown Prosecution Service finally decided that no charges would be laid. However, Chief Constable Fahy administered a moral lecture to the bishop, stating he thought members of minority communities were often targeted and that "I think in a civilised society that's totally unacceptable."

It was a defining moment showing how far political correctness had come, when stating such views ran a risk of criminal prosecution, and when it appeared acceptable that the police had become the official guardians and arbitrators not of law but of opinion.

In October 2007, a Christian couple, Vincent and Pauline Matherick, who over the years had taken in 28 foster children, were forced by local authorities from Somerset County Council to give up being foster parents after they refused to promote homosexuality to children in their care if the children expressed an interest in it.

Will America be next?  Britain has had a decade or so head start on us.  The Flames are sprouting all over.

Please take the time to click here and read the full report.

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