Dogwash

From Private Eye No 1237 (29 May 2009). Make of it what you will.

Somebody described me as a "race realist" recently. I'm not sure whether my interlocutor intended this as a broad-spectrum insult or had some specific point to make about my perceived opinions. One thing's for sure: it was not intended as a compliment.

I was reminded of this ill-tempered exchange while listening to a piece on the radio about ethnically-targeted medical treatment. Research, it would appear, is identifying genetic correlations with the effectiveness of particular treatments which sometimes map very clearly onto what most of us understand pragmatically as race. In a fairly extreme hypothetical example, a particular drug treatment might be effective with 90% of White people, but with only 5% of Blacks. It is relatively new science, very much work in progress.

What was fascinating was that some of the interviewees in the radio package objected strongly to the research being pursued at all, and if it was to be pursued, to the results being applied clinically. Not because the conclusion might be wrong, but because both the underlying categorization of patients and the very result itself are racist. A good deal of dialectical squirmery was resorted to, but that is what their position amounted to.

So in the name of the cardinal political dogma that all races are equal in all respects — indeed that race does not really exist and is at most a social construct based on melanin prejudice — effective medical treatments must be suppressed. It seems that the Righteous would rather a patient suffer unnecessarily or even die so long as their precious political dogma remains intact.

Well, Sunshine, if rejecting that kind of thinking makes me a race realist, then I rejoice at the description.

You don't seem to see the amiable nutters of the Hare Krishna persuasion trotting round central London so much these days. Time was when columns of a score or more of the saffron-robed buggers could be regularly seen jogging energetically up and down Oxford Street, serenely but non-threateningly barging bemused shoppers out of the way as they passed.

And then yesterday I was making my through the by-ways and alleyways parallel to the Street itself. You will of course understand that no sane Londoner, certainly no sane male Londoner, actually walks along Oxford Street these days to reach a specific destination; that is a contest best left to the throngs of the cosmopolitan hoi polloi.

I heard a familiar sound in the distance.

But there was something not quite right about it. Partly it was the location. The vulgar sound of energetic drumming and chanting on New Bond Street, no less, was somehow a crass demotic intrusion, a solecism, nay a veritable sacrilege in that island of refaned haute coûture and an extravagance so discreet and natural it seems like modesty, where normally a calm, respectful, almost understated silence reigns, broken only by the occasional purr of a Rolls Royce or Bentley.

But there was something else, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. And then they hove into view, trotting briskly up the hill. A squad of no more than seven. A drummer at the rear, some tambourine monkeys, and one bloke in the lead, endlessly chanting "Hare Krishna! Hare Rama! Hare! Hare!" through a microphone.

Perhaps the recession is so bad that even the Hare Krishna ('Arry to its mates) is having to downsize acolytes. Perhaps it's just the march of progress. But somehow it didn't seem right, like a motorized prayer wheel in a Tibetan monastery.

Plus ça change, plus ça devient pire.

We've had the shock news that BNP leaflets use stock images, including pictures of furriners. (here and yet more damning evidence here.)

Today, intrepid commentator Rod Liddle reveals that the Cyclopean thug Griffin has a Lynyrd Skynyrd number as his mobile ringtone. (Quick, where's my copy of 4 Way Street? I need to play "Southern Man" repeatedly until I am cleansed of this horror.)

Finally there is the terrible news that the nasty BNP have cast doubt on the deservedness of L/Cpl Beharry's Victoria Cross. This one might have a bit more traction, though one does wonder why it's taken the relentless websleuths at Searchlight and their MSM clients quite so long to discover and report something published on the BNP website in August 2008. The BNP piece refers to third-party criticism of the award. I can't pin down any sources for this now, but I do remember questions being asked at the time (2005) and also feeling a certain unease about the extent to which the incidental fact of Mr Beharry's ethnicity was hyped up by the media and by the Government's spin machine. It struck me as demeaning to the man.

As someone whose own "military" experience is confined to a spot of toy-soldiering in the CCF at school, I'm not best qualified to comment on the worthiness of the citation. But several points do seem clear enough:

1. That in the media response at the time, Pte (later L/Cpl) Beharry's ethnicity overshadowed his bravery to a disgraceful and ultimately suspicious extent.

2. That there was a certain undercurrent in military circles that while his bravery under fire merited proper recognition, the award of Britain's highest military honour was unjustified and raised questions of an agenda.

3. That the BNP piece suddenly rediscovered at this convenient time reported, perhaps ill-advisedly, existing third-party, if unsourced, concerns. It is not a racial smear made up out of thin air.

If I draw any conclusion from the Beharry story, it is that this man's undoubted bravery has been cheapened not so much by the alleged and conveniently hyped BNP slur, but by the persistent atmosphere of institutional antiracism, tokenism and sly positive discrimination promoted and fostered so assiduously by our liberal elites over the past 40 years and particularly by the present administration. This inevitably subjects any Black achievement to a certain unavoidable undercurrent of suspicion of tokenism or favoritism. This monster is the child of bien pensant liberalism rather than of "fascist" bile. Had this man had been awarded a VC during the early 1960s, the issue of its deservedness would never have arisen.



The sheer level of establishment desperation revealed by the media campaign is quite telling. An outbreak of BNP-smearing before a major election is routine, but I cannot remember anything quite this relentless. It will serve the buggers right if a significant portion of the electorate adopts a "fuck you" attitude and votes for the BNP because of all the unremitting smear and the dirty tricks.

Frankly this is all getting boring. The meeja Johnnies are not really putting the effort in. Now if good old Piers Moron were still in charge at the Mirror, he'd have had a set of photoshopped images up by now, picturing Griffin, Darby and Kemp sitting down to feast on a dinner of spit-roasted whole piccaninny with a slice of watermelon in its mouth. Come on lads, show a bit of imagination.

At the Newspeak blog, which I've not encountered before, there is a post pointing out that the photos in a BNP election leaflet are demonstrably generic stock images rather than representing actual BNP supporters. The item is replicated at Lancaster UAF and mentioned at Harry's Place.

Now let's be scrupulously fair here. The photos are placed next to "quotes" from supporters, supporters in the same categories as those illustrated alongside, saying why they have come to support the party. But then again, the quotes are unsigned and the text has an easily recognizable generic quality to it, suggesting to any vaguely intelligent reader that the quotes represent typical or summarized responses. And as for the photos, it really didn't need the tireless background research of the Newspeak blogger to tell me, or any one else with more than one functioning brain-cell, that they are generic stock images. I do not believe for a moment that they are intended as anything else.

Does anybody really believe that the happy, comfortable, healthy, grey-haired, woolly jumper-clad middle class couple who appear on every brochure which tries to flog you insurance for the over 50s, world cruises or equity-realization scams are genuine customers of the company concerned? Of course not. Does it matter? No.

Or that the beaming Black folk who adorn every flyer for museums and similar visitor attractions are actual customers? Or believe in the Balamory-esque diversity which adorns tourist brochures for parts of the country where the appearance of a Black or Brown person in the High Street would merit the front-page lead in the local newspaper and an outbreak of celebratory bunting? Or was I convinced by the internal corporate propaganda at my former employer, the generic illustrations of which would have you believe that the company was staffed entirely by young Chinese men, young Black women and a sprinkling of middle-aged female White managers?

The blogger at Newspeak doesn't seem to be particularly political and seems to have written the post as a slightly edgy curiosity. (In any case one has to make allowances for people who not only code in Python, but are brazen enough to openly publish a code sample! Shudder! Death to the Antisemicolonists! May they be condemned to spend eternity porting the Windows Vista kernel to INTERCAL!)


What is to the point is that serious political sites of the "anti-fascist" persuasion have actually bothered to pick this trivium up and run with it as if it were yet more conclusive proof of the evil, incompetent duplicity of the fash.

Yawn. Stop sniping at trivia, you wankers, and address the issues, in particular the numero uno issue of uncontrolled mass immigration turning my country into a foreign land, filling rapidly with strangers who I have no reason to believe are remotely interested in the long-term welfare of me or my tribe. If you're not prepared to do that, then just shut the fuck up.


Mind you, this isn't Lancaster Unity's real non-story of the week. You may want to sit down and take a deep breath before reading about the Anger in Bridgwater. And who is so angry in the fair town of Bridgwater that their anger is so newsworthy, you ask?

Trade unionists and anti-racists in Bridgwater, a town with a proud history of radicalism, are angered by the news a BNP candidate is standing for election in their town.

As Mandy Rice-Davies might have put it, well they would be, wouldn't they?

Only three weeks till the elections. I'm not sure I can take much more of this non-excitement.

I am indebted to His Lordship, the Rt Hon the Earl of Cromer, for the intelligence that Mr Ledley King, a professional association football player, is not merely a violent drunk with an overdeveloped sense of his own importance, but is also according to this Daily Mail report a racist, having intemperately referred to one of the doormen, Mr Wahib Butt, at the nightclub to which he was refused entrance as a "Paki".

I am confident that, in keeping with the spirit of the Kick It Out campaign, Mr King will be promptly resigning not simply his captaincy, which would be an inadequate token of his shame, but his very employment at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, thus saving the Directors the unpleasant task of dismissing him.


Of course he will. Won't he?

The Lancaster UAF site reports that a BNP candidate has been invited to address a local residents' meeting:

We have been informed that the Poulton Resident's Association has invited BNP candidate Ms Vicky (Julie) Blain to a hustings for Poulton Ward Parish Council candidates at the Poulton Children's Centre, Clark Street, Morecambe. Obviously, this cannot be allowed to happen, so we're asking you to phone the centre and register a strong but polite protest at the fact that they are allowing the BNP on to the premises to spread its racist poison.

(My emphasis.)

And now compare with the immediately preceding post, which begins

We will not be silenced

It is ironic that supporters of a party that claims to be the champion of free speech were quick to move to silence our latest campaign video because it highlighted the racist and authoritarian nature views of BNP leader Nick Griffin. Our short video, hosted on YouTube and sent out as an email to our supporters, was temporarily taken down after complaints from BNP supporters.

Ironic?

These self-righteous onanists wouldn't know irony if it walked up and hit them over the head with a claw hammer.

According to Lagos-based anti-corruption campaigner, the splendidly named Festus Keyamo, interviewed on Radio 4's Broadcasting House, the financial creativity of our MPs is setting a bad example to Nigerians.

We're doomed, innit.

I don't use the post office counter very often, but I do appreciate it when I need it. The Post Office has been the essential retail arm of the state for a century or more. It is a valuable public service which should be run efficiently but for its social value and not as an ordinary business judged solely on its direct profitability, as this imbecile free market-obsessed government and their asset-stripping pocket-lining crook-agents insist on doing.

But I digress. This is, after all, a "Multiculture" post. At least, I think it is: I'll let you judge.

The local post office was, amazingly, nearly empty when I arrived. Two positions were staffed and in use; there was one customer waiting in the queue. One of the positions became free but the lady at the head of the queue waved me through, indicating that she preferred to wait for the other position. I thought nothing of it, assuming that she had unfinished business which was already in hand with the clerk (do they still call them postal officers?) at the still-busy other position.

I completed my transaction. Rather more laboriously than I would have expected for a low-complexity two-page form and some supporting documentation, but in due course I had my replacement Old Fool's Pass in my hand. (In my ever-mounting senility I had dropped the original somewhere.) As I left, the clerk, in the now approved Post Office Counters procedure, tried to sell me some insurance. At least, I think she did, for she was softly spoken, the glass was thick, and her accent was nearly impenetrable. I should explain that, judging from her name badge, her appearance and her accent, the lady behind the counter was of the Nigerian persuasion.

Which, as I left the building, led me to speculate on the motives of the customer who had kindly ceded her place to me. You see, the self-sacrificing customer was manifestly a West Indian woman (or African Caribbean as I believe we must now call it). Was her preference for the White counter clerk driven perhaps by some ethnic hostility towards Africans? No, I don't know either, but it wouldn't be the first time in my experience of South London.

I was listening to one of the BBC World Service's news 'magazine' programmes. It may have been Outlook but to be honest they are all much of a muchness.

In a slot about the impact of the 2012 Olympics on London and its people, a teenager is interviewed. Born in Uganda but raised in Plaistow, he seems a bright lad and he bangs on in a typical second-generation Black Londoner accent about finding his African roots and reuniting with his Ugandan culture. (Potential javelin thrower at the 2016 Olympics, perhaps.)

A Zimbabwean playwright tells us of her subtly subversive work.

A Commanche women whinges about racism and complains bitterly about being confused with Mexicans. (Clearly, she is asserting her Native American here and not being racist towards Hispanics.)

A Canadian man of mixed Irish/Scottish/Ojibway heritage tells us of the oppression of his people. I'll leave you to guess which of his ancestor tribes he is identifying with here.

As an Englishman with a side-order of Irishness (sort of bangers and colcannon if you like), I begin to wonder whether I am too, if you'll pardon the expression, vanilla to exist.

For years I have been referring to rosé wine as "mixed", thinking it to be a mildly derogatory joke to suggest that it is made from tipping some red wine into a glass of white and stirring with a spoon (a wine spoon?). It was getting to be one of those signature jokes that people begin to cordially loathe you for.

Turns out to be true. Just shows what I know. I shall stick to pontificating about beer in future.

I've just been down to see the Strangers into Citizens shindig in Trafalgar Square. Not a huge turn-out by any means. There was plenty of milling-about space in the square. I will be interested to see the competing reports of crowd size.

Reasonably well-behaved. (At least it was until I left the area at about 13:15 — I cannot speak for later. There may well have been look-outs reporting back, "Right, he's gone; let's get stuck in", but I doubt it somehow.) A thin, relaxed, but watchful police perimeter, with non-participant civilians wandering freely into and out of the edges of the central island.

The first speaker wished the audience "Salaam Aleikum", which struck me as a touch indiscreet bordering on provocative. Then they got down to the "Anybody here from Zimeroonia, etc?" morale-raising sequence. Judging by the crowd response and some of the banners there was a fairly significant South American presence. The Albanians, on the other hand, were absent or were keeping well shtum. Presumably the substantive speeches, if any, were given after I left.

People were handing out Union flags along with the leaflets, which struck me as a bit impertinent, to be honest. And there was even, Gordelpus, a feeble rendering of "God Save the Queen". Sorry, guys, I'm not convinced.

I will be interested to see the Press and TV reports later today, but on the showing so far, this "manifestation" is hardly up there with the Poll Tax Riots or the G20. There have been naughty suggestions from the Right that the Old Bill should have waited until the Undocumented were duly gathered, kettled the buggers and then identified and deported the illegals. In the event not an efficient use of resources, I feel.

I was going to offer you my "considered opinion" on the claims of the "Strangers into Citizens" campaign whose supporters will be taking to the streets on Bank Holiday Monday, but Laban has already provided us with a comprehensive and righteous fisking of the detailed arguments. So I will confine myself to some supplementary comments.

Once the woolly-minded Geldofesque fluffy-bunny sanctimony, the outright hypocrisy and the cloud-cuckoo economic, social and demographic reasoning have been shovelled off to one side, we are left with the underlying barefaced lie. The Strangers into Citizens project posits its appeal for acquiescence by the general public on the categorical assurance that this is a one-off exercise. It asks us nasty racist indigenous thugs to accept the "regularization" of these deserving folk just this once; thereafter, they assure us, the doors will be slammed shut.

This is bullshit on two distinct fronts.


Firstly, the "amnesty" will simply send out a signal to the waiting millions, nay, tens, hundreds of millions, that if you blag your way into the UK, you need only keep your head down for as long as it takes for your sheer numbers to become a political and logistical embarrassment, whereupon the next one-off and absolutely, irrevocably final amnesty will take place.

Just consider the thousands who camp out at what is effectively Nouvelle Sangatte. Listen to the interviews. They have paid serious money to work their way across Europe in the hope of reaching what, despite all attempts at dissuasion, they genuinely believe to be some kind of El Dorado.

Worse, they also feel a sense of entitlement to be here, usually based on some woolly but unshakable notion of reparation for what the British have historically "done to their people". These guys are not simply attempting to break into the country for their economic improvement, they are exercising their perceived birthright. They are entitled, they believe, to the house and the benefits payments they expect to receive in the UK. The feeble attempts of the British authorities to exclude them are no more than an incomprehensible and unwarranted annoyance.

It is an attitude which finds echoes across the world.

You do not stem that determined flow by saying, "Look chaps, we're full now. Yes, we know we managed to find room for the last lot, but no more. Be good fellows and just bugger orf, will you. What! Wait a minute! No! Stop that man! — Oh dear. — Perkins, just, er, quietly increment that Absolutely Non-negotiable Limit again, there's a good chap."

An amnesty will not stem the demand; it will exacerbate it. I see nothing in the actions or intentions of our government to address that consequence. Nothing will work short of the universal understanding and belief among the waiting and desperate hordes that they will fail to enter, that if they do contrive to enter they will invariably be caught and removed, and that they and their benighted employers will derive no economic benefit from their stay. The employers in particular must learn to fear the certainty of draconian punishment for knowingly employing illegals, for it is they who both benefit by and facilitate this crime.

It's harsh, but it is necessary. If you are in a full lifeboat which is struggling to hold its present complement of 60 people and you see a couple of people in the water, you will help them aboard. But if you see 600 heads bobbing in the water, then if you are sane you will use the oars to beat them off, lest the boat sink under the weight and all 660 drown. And, extending the metaphor, when some of those you have already helped aboard see that it is members of their own clan who are floating in the sea, they will surely seize the oar from you and cast you and the rest of the original crew into the water to make room for their own. Bleak? Alarmist? Suit yourself.

An amnesty is hardly a sensible start, is it?


Secondly, the attractiveness of illegal immigrants to their employers, direct or indirect, is their very illegality. An "illegal" can be paid at any rate you choose to pay, or not to pay if you can get away with it. Legal minima do not apply. Nor do employers' national insurance contributions, nor health and safety regulations, contracts of employment, periods of notice, nor any other employment-related legislation. Illegal employment is capitalism at its most raw, in one hell of a buyer's market.

As soon as the present tranche of "irregulars" gains status, they will be dumped in favour of the next wave of hopefuls, meaning that our newly empowered citizens-elect will either have to agree to continue to work in the black economy, thus defeating the object of the exercise, or alternatively they will have to throw themselves (and in due course their chain-migrated families) on the mercy of the welfare state.

Once our hard-working stalwart Ahmed is settled in his council flat with his ILR papers and his pukka NINO and his freshly chain-migrated wife, then newly-arrived Ali, Mehmet and Olu will be queuing up behind him, ready to do his old job off the books and for half the minimum wage. So it's off down the doctor for your disability certificate for you, Ahmed, mate. What, your wife's expecting again! Gordon Bennett, hire some more Malawian midwives, quick!

Not of course that our Ahmed's prized status under this hare-brained scheme will necessarily be legitimately earned. Six years is a long time. I'm sure the ingenious entrepreneurs of Nigeria's 37th state, Thamesmead, will soon have a fine line in fake documentation available for a consideration, all guaranteed verifiable by their, ahem, inside agents and liaison specialists within the relevant public bodies.

Rinse and repeat.

As the train pulled in at Greenwich Station, the Italian tourist lady alerted her family, who were intently poring over a timetable,

"Arriva!"

I only just stopped myself from chipping in,

"No, Docklands Light Railway, actually."

(Hint for those who haven't a clue what I'm on about.)