The Grand Tour and Immigration

AFTER STAYING ON MESSAGE WITH the Foreign Office (FO) when in Turkey by accusing the Israelis of overseeing and even maintaining a ‘prison camp’, in reference to Gaza; he suddenly strays off message whilst visiting India where he is supposed to be hawking up business. His visit however, was dominated by insulting India’s neighbour, Pakistan.

This time he accused Pakistan of exporting terror, which, in the murky politics of that part of the world may indeed be true; but I doubt if Hillary Clinton will see it that way after she promised $500 million in aid to Pakistan barely a week ago.

I also doubt whether the Foreign Office would have wanted him to speak so bluntly. After all, the chaps and chapesess at the FO will no doubt complain to each other that they now have to pick up the pieces.

Criticising the Israelis is one thing as far as the FO are concerned, after all, historically speaking, their pro-Arabist stance is almost part of their culture. I do not know whether it is as strong today, but no doubt, the latest influx of young civil servants were bound to have come through an academic process that was overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian in its sympathies.

IN INDIA CAMERON has been criticised for his immigration policy of restricting the numbers of immigrants to some 50,000 per year. He has also been brought to book by Vince Cable who it seems shares the view of India that such restriction will have a detrimental effect on our trade. Cable will not say bluntly what he means; so I will do it for him: what he advocates is unrestricted immigration into this country. Which Cameron knows, (and Cable also knows, but could not care less) is that the British people will not tolerate such a policy.

All of those businessmen who think human labour should be allowed free entry to fulfil their commercial needs, as well as what they see as in the interests of the country’s economic survival, have not taken cognisance of the social implications of their laissez-faire attitude to the trade in foreign human labour.

First of all they will be entering a multicultural environment where they will be encouraged to view the culture from which they emerged as equal to the indigenous culture they have entered into.

The indigenous people of this country resent such an egalitarian tag put on what is after all the host culture. Multiculturalism says that all cultures are equal, but they are not. When or if I ever choose to live in India, the culture I come from is not equal to that of the Indian people – I have to adapt. It would have been my choice to live in India, and as such I would expected to live by the rules of Indian culture and in time may have been won over to the government’s position on any particular position.

But my own 2,000 year old British culture has, it seems, to play the part of just another culture no better or worse than whatever the culture of whomsoever chooses to live among us from abroad. This is what the people of this island nation resents. They are not racist; they will welcome anyone into their hearts who fairly integrate into and accept British culture. For British culture is the dominant culture and it is equal to no other who chooses to live among us – and this is as it should be. It is not racist to defend your culture. If so all cultures from all over the world are racists.

That wretched ideology known as Multiculturalism has obfuscated the relationship between different peoples - just as Marxism obfuscated the relationship between classes in the 19^th century.

IF DAVID CAMERON OR VINCE CABLE; or for that matter, the businessmen they have taken with them to India, wish to open this country up to ever greater immigration, then the first thing they must do is get rid of the ideology of Multiculturalism, which has allowed the BNP to play so successfully upon the prejudices of the British people caused by its devaluation of the host culture.

But even if we allow further immigration into this country we must take account of the sheer weight of their numbers, which has nothing to do with racism, but more to do with demography.

If I were given the choice, I would welcome more Indian immigrants into the country at the expense of Muslims or East Europeans. I would do so because India produces many ambitious and successful people. They have entrepreneurialism written into their DNA. They may be snobs, as the British were and still continue to be, but at a far lesser extent today than 50 years ago.

I believe that David Cameron is right in restricting yearly immigration to 50,000 per year. I believe the vast majority of those people should come from India or the far East. Others claiming entry from outside the EU should be given short shrift.

As far as the EU is concerned it appears everything is out of our hands because of the various agreements our trusted politicians signed us up to, in particular the Schengen Agreement which this country signed up to some two years before the rest of Europe. Under the agreement we allowed East Europeans to enter this country long before they had access to the rest of Europe.

We should be able to choose the restricted numbers of people allowed to enter our country without the European Union demanding that the continents citizens should be given open access to the United Kingdom. If we need to attract people from abroad to invigorate our economy then we, as a nation, should be the sole arbitrators of such an influx.

Cameron is right - Gaza is a prison camp

DAVID CAMERON, ON A VISIT TO TURKEY to tout for business and kow-tow to Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, has compared Gaza to a prison camp, adding that Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla: ‘… was completely unacceptable and I have told prime minister Netanyahu we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous.’

First of all, Gaza is indeed a prison camp - but one of Hamas’ own making. Gaza suffers an embargo because Israel is trying to combat the missiles that Hamas feel at liberty to target Israel with without any formal condemnation from Cameron. The wall erected by Israel to further isolate Gaza was as a result of Hamas’ suicide bombers entering Israel and butchering civilians.

Every overt military action taken by Israel has been a defensive action; a reply rather than an assertive need to wipe out the Palestinians, as many on the Left want to believe.

On the West Bank, the Palestinian economy is booming and the people feel a degree of contentment with their lot for the first time in their post war history. This does not mean that they no longer want or seek a Palestinian State, but that they prefer the road of prosperity and negotiation to that of Hamas’ terrorism.

Gaza is on a war footing with Israel, and Israel is forced onto a similar footing with Gaza. The Israelis have not sent troops and Apache helicopters into the West Bank, because they do not see the West Bank Palestinians as any kind of military threat to their existence.

As for the flotilla sent to break Israel’s embargo; Cameron should be ashamed of himself. The Turkish vessel, the Mavi Mamara was allowed to set sail in the first place because Turkey, frustrated at being locked out of the European Union, decided to send out a warning. The so-called peace activists aboard the one ship that the Israelis encountered resistance from, were no more peace activists than Margaret Thatcher was a socialist.

Now Cameron has taken Turkey’s bait, to the detriment of our relationship with Israel. History will prove that Israel would have proved a better ally than Turkey.

At the age of 60, I voted last May for a Conservative government, after a life-time of voting Labour. Until that final moment when postal ballots reached their deadline, I was determined not to vote at all for the first time in my life. But I decided to do the unforgivable for life-long Labour supporter; I voted Tory.

Now, and not for the first time in my life, I have lived to regret a decision, that I believed was of major significance.

DAVID CAMERON MAY THINK HE IS adjusting the country to a new ‘reality’ by courting Turkey. But the majority of people (excluding of course our businessmen) do not believe in that reality.

The continent of Europe harbours some 15 million Muslims. We can see the problems such a constituency represents. In France we have had the banning of the Burka; in Britain we have had the Archbishop of Canterbury finding a berth in English law for the sharia variety.

Our politicians have done everything in their power not to upset the Islamic community in this country. Cameron has ruled out banning the Burka. Or politicians have never given to the British public the numbers of Taliban deaths – only our own.

The 1.5 million Muslims living amongst us have been sheltered from the numbers of Muslims killed by our armed forces in Afghanistan - just as our own people have.

THE TROUBLE WITH MULTICULTURALISM for a British prime minister, is not his or her’s intellectual qualities, but rather their juggling skills.

For instance. After David Cameron moved on from Turkey to India where the current obstacle to trade is limited immigration to Britain. Cameron wants to cap levels of immigration, partly because, this island nation cannot absorb unlimited numbers from entering our country.

Personally, the Indian people are far closer to the Protestant work ethic than are the Muslim, or any other Southern European community. And I would therefore be on Cameron’s side regarding the Indian community.

But multiculturalism should never be tolerated. For such a construct is unworkable. We can all live in a multi-racial society providing the host culture continues to lay down the conventions. It is not a matter of race but culture. In Britain we have a our own culture that has evolved over 2000 years. On this island it can never be equal to any other culture. If people from other cultures wish to live among us then they must live by this cultures edicts. If not, then they must return to their own cultures where their practices will be accepted.

I am encouraged by the Wikileak documents – and so should the country

WHEN ANY COUNTRY DECIDES TO GO TO WAR then it is certain that civilians will be caught up in it and killed, which is why politicians have to think carefully before going to war. So it has surprised me that so much fuss is being made over the leaking of 90,000 documents to Wikileaks, some of which detail Afghanistan civilian deaths.

In Afghanistan the Taliban fighter flits between the role of husband and terrorist. He knows that we in the modern West lack the stomach to fight a total war as our fathers and grandfather’s did from 1939-45. Today it is politically unacceptable to kill civilians, even if they are off duty Taliban.

Perhaps the Guardian , The New York Times, and Der Spiegel (among just three of the liberal newspapers Wikileaks gave priority too) hope that these documents will have the same impact as the Pentagon Papers did during the Vietnam War. And it is perhaps no coincidence that Wikileaks’ guiding light, Julian Assange, is the son of two anti-Vietnam War protesters.

Assange is a computer programmer who has defied the authorities ability to prevent his website from advertising the West’s dirty little secrets. Like all of those on the ‘progressive’ Left, there is attached to him the label of naivety. What he has done with his latest expose amounts to nothing more than what everybody knew or suspected.

I can understand the liberal press getting up-tight about these disclosures, but papers like the Telegraph and Mail have given the same prominence to the leaks. Even if these two papers believe we should remove ourselves from Afghanistan at the first opportunity - surely they cannot believe that the methods we are deploying are wrong or immoral in a war situation? If so then our armed forces should be disbanded immediately.

ANOTHER OF THE ITEMS HIGHLIGHTED BY THE PRESS was the existence of a secret organisation called the "black" unit of special forces whose job description was to hunt down Taliban leaders to "kill or capture" without trial.

As usual it is the without trial aspect that upsets our liberals. The Taliban care little for such niceties when they send suicide bombers among Afghanistan’s civilian population, yet we are supposed to hold back. This so-called ‘black unit’ should continue to operate and be encouraged to do so, under the very same conditions that applied before this ‘exposure’.

To speak the truth, the existence of such a unit gave me hope that there was light at the end of the Afghan tunnel.

All I have read until now is how many of our brave soldiers have been killed (without, by the way, comparable Taliban deaths). What this release of documents tells me is that a total war strategy is being enacted, but in secret by special forces.

A friend of mine has told me that the father of two serving soldiers who work alongside him, has told him that his serving sons are fed-up with having their hands tied behind their backs in Afghanistan and, after two tours of duty, are now ready to resign from the armed forces.

IF ANYTTHING CHANGES AFTER THESE disclosures to further frustrate our armed forces ability to take on the Taliban, then it is not the individual soldiers, but the politicians themselves who should be hauled before a war crimes tribunal.

The Taliban can be defeated, but I am afraid so many restrictions have been placed on NATO forces by politicians that this whole business can only end in failure, and the Taliban know it, which is why they are in no hurry to enter into talks with the West, as many of our pusillanimous politicians are trying to encourage them to do.

Why should the Taliban accommodate the West? They have been given their delivery date by Obama and Cameron. All they have to do is just wait; and kill as many NATO forces in the meantime as they can; resulting in many truly meaningless deaths of our young men.

The Taliban will have defeated the West, not because of their strength and determination, but because of the West’s lack of both.

Why doesn't that woman just move on?

DENISE FERGUS, THE MOTHER OF JAMES BULGER, has had the impertinence to question the treatment given by the authorities to Jon Venables, who appeared in court this week on charges of downloading child pornography from the net.

Mrs Fergus spoke of her anger at the way Venables’ identity was hidden from the public in court as he gave evidence to the court via video. This in itself is an abuse of the system that surely demands a comment from Liberty on behalf of Mrs Fergus. Venables is no longer a child and should not be treated as if he were. The system of screening a defendant’s identity is being abused, and Liberty should have said so.

It seems that all of the agencies from this latest government down want only one thing, and that is for Mrs Fergus to go quietly about her business and let them go quietly about theirs.

In March of this year a social worker who was looking after that other murderer of James Bulger, Robert Thompson, gave an interview with the Daily Mail. 

Thompson is now 27, and, unlike his accomplice remains free. And will remain so because, in the word’s of the social worker, ‘Of course I can’t be sure, no one can, but I can’t see Robert going the same way as Venables,’ he said. ‘He is just too smart, too calculating.’

If you think Venables is bad, then this interview would have disabused you. The ‘prison system danced in attendance around him[Thompson]’. Apparently Thompson never cried or had any regret, and if the subject of two year-old Jammie Bulger’s murder was brought up, Thompson just shrugged: ‘It was something that happened, and I don’t want to discuss it with you.’

If Venables treatment was the same as that given to Thompson (and there is no reason to believe it was not), then they must feel like Gods, knowing that they are beyond the reach anything other than the mere perfunctory.

EVEN WITH THIS GOVERNMENT, Venables’ identity will be recast upon his release from his latest outrage, to the tune of £250,000 of taxpayers hard earned cash.

Denise Fergus is like a limpet clinging tightly to that vessel of state known as the Justice Department and its new Secretary for Justice, one Kenneth Clarke, whose ‘hail and well met’ countenance was so rudely put paid to by Mrs Fergus’s description of him as a ‘stuttering buffoon’. Well said Denise.

There is something going wrong with this country, a wrong which I thought this new government would have at least tried to put paid to; and if the new government had been a Conservative one instead of the stew we have had served up to us, then what I hoped for may have happened.

What I sought from voting Conservative for the first time in my 60 year life, was that they would turn their backs on the social liberalism of the last government when it came to crime.

The last government managed to make the criminal the victim instead of his or her true victim. Whether it was burglary or murder, the true victim was invited to take part in a rather disgusting affiliation with the criminal known as ‘restorative justice’ where the true victim was invited to help their tormentor on his or her road back to release by confronting, and hoping in the process, to inflict such guilt and compassion upon the criminal that he or she could be released after their pitiful sentences, and be returned to society fully forgiven by the state.

WHAT THE AGENCIES WORKING WITH Venables and Thompson would like, would be for Denise Fergus to perform an act of such ‘restorative justice’. They would then welcome her back into the fold, if they could only trust her to confront these two with the actions they did, in the hope that, according to their belief, these two could be returned to society to lead ordinary lives. For to these people, it is not a matter of punishment but restoration.

But Mrs Fergus would, I hope, refuse; and in so doing, she would be proving to be nothing but trouble to all of the agency’s involved with these two murderers. They want her to disappear and leave Venables and Thompson to them. She is a hindrance, and may she continue to be well into the future.

I have read that Venables was relieved to be returned to prison; but this will not stop the liberals wanting his release when he comes up for parole after a year served of his current sentence. If Venables felt relief at his capture and detention, then why not honour it by keeping him there for the rest of his life.

We are in a fix generally in this country regarding crime. The liberal (what Karl Marx called) superstructure, are now so cut off from the small c conservatism of the British people, that they act as if those people were worthless currency.

VENABLES AND THOMPSON should never have been released from captivity; by doing so the criminal justice system invited Denise Fergus to be a permanent Bain on their existence.

The criminal has become the victim; while the victim, if left still alive, is told to get over it – but of course not in those words; but by innuendo.

Denise Fergus should continue to trouble the authorities. She should continue to show the repellent nature of both the ‘restorative justice’ system as well as Kenneth Clark’s Erewhon view of criminality.

Denise Fergus should never fear any rebuke for her crusade. For there is much yet to be discovered about her child’s murder by these two criminals.

Never ever be forced on to the defensive in your attempt to see justice brought to Jamie. For justice has not been brought up to date. And until it is, ignore those who hope time will diminish your vigour.

CRISPIN BLUNT

THE JUSTICE MINISTER Crispin Blunt has been shot down by the prime minister for his earlier announcement that he was prepared to rescind his predecessors guidance which prohibited prison governors from allowing tax payers money to be spent on comedy workshops of the type once available at Whitemoor Prison. Jack Straw had put paid to such activities following the bad publicity surrounding the monster’s ball held by inmates of Holloway Prison which included such celebrity murderers as, Amie Bartholomew, Emma Last, Rochelle Ethrington, Bella Coll, Jayne Richards, Alison Walder and Ginny Crutcher.

I must say that Crispin Blunt seemed determined upon his journey of self-destruction earlier when he announced his intentions. Perhaps he is writing out his resignation as I write.

He also attacked and wanted to see an end to Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (ISPP) that judges can give to any offender who upon their release may prove a danger to the public.

Mr Blunt apparently feels this is unfair to the inmates in our overcrowded prisons, and no doubt he and the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke both share the same philosophy as Andrew Bridges, the chief inspector of probation who had the audacity to suggest recently that prison was a,“rather drastic form of crime prevention”.

Andrew Bridges believes that prison overcrowding demands that serious criminals should be released, and if they reoffend we (not him mind you) will just have to live with the consequences, because we, as a nation, cannot afford to build ever more prisons. Is this after all what it is all about – cost? Both Left and Right in this coalition government see an advantage in reducing the prison population. The Right may not like what it entails but the deficit would be cut. As for the Left, well they actually believe in the policy as part of their ‘progressive’ liberal agenda.

We are told that the annul cost of keeping someone in prison is £40,000. If this remarkable figure proves to be true, and if cost plays such an important role in the minds of these social liberals, then why not bring back capital punishment instead of risking the lives of the innocent public by releasing murderer’s early with the possibility of them reoffending?

AS IT HAS BEEN THE social liberal’s who have played the economic card. Let us examine what it costs the taxpayer to keep a murderer in prison for say 15-20 years, which sadly represents the outer reaches of life sentencing for some 4,500 criminals. This would cost the taxpayer £600,000 if they serve15 years of their full sentence. If, on the other hand you were part of that elite group of murderers serving true life sentences, which number just 38, then the sky’s the limit in terms of cost to the tax payer.

So rather than releasing these people early with the possibility of them continuing their bloody trade on the outside; why not bring back capital punishment? I am sure that both on safety and economic grounds the British people can be won over.

CRISPIN BLUNT quoted Winston Churchill in defence of his argument. It was a fallacious comparison simply because I believe that Churchill would have abhorred our modern times, and felt nothing but pity for the state of our country and its people today… ill-served as they are by this generation of politicians of the calibre of Mr Blunt. But this is not the point - one of my abiding images of Churchill was taken at the Siege of Sidney Street when he was the Home Secretary.

People in this country believe that while a criminal is in prison, it does indeed increase their safety. And like them I also believe this to be the case. It is only ‘progressive opinion’ that disputes this truism mainly because they believe in redemption for the criminal.

They also believe in something called ‘restorative justice’. This is where the victim is expected to confront their assailant - in order to help them? What is society asking of its law abiding people, that they should countenance such a request?

It appears that the victim’s only roll nowadays is to help their persecutor. What kind of society is it that allows such a thing. Would Winston have approved of ‘restorative justice’?

Crispin Blunt thought he was in tune with modern Conservatism when he made his comments. And he was right to so believe. David Cameron set out to change the ‘Nasty Party’ and transform it into a popular, unthreatening party.

Just as Labour were caught between the old class politics, and New Labour, which embraced the middle classes; so modern conservatism feels the need to follow the same route toward popularism.

Oh Dear!

FIRST OF ALL OUR PRIME MINISTER ran the country down in New York, then his deputy, Nick Clegg opened up the possibility of British soldiers being hauled before a war crimes tribunal while also facing the prospect of private prosecutions.

David Cameron’s comment that we were America’s ‘junior partner’ in 1940, when America never entered the war until 1941, was probably made out of ignorance rather than any intent to insult his country. But he should not have been so ignorant about his country’s recent history in the first place. Did he not study the time lines of the second world war at any educational establishment he attended? He was given the finest education this country could offer, and I certainly do not begrudge him that; but his ignorance of such an obvious fact also reflects upon those pedagogues who tried to inculcate knowledge into the young Cameron’s head.

If Cameron is feeling at all embarrassed about his blunder, he should perform a penance by writing to his former masters and apologising to them for his display of ignorance.

NICK CLEGG’S CASE, on the other hand, is far more serious, for he could have done real damage by his comment during yesterday’s PMQs : he showed by his action just why the Liberal Democrats could never govern the country on their own. Whether or not he believed the war in Iraq to have been legal or not mattered little to anyone, until, that is, he stood at the Common’s dispatch box as a government minister and proclaimed the war illegal.

Now many in this country who opposed the war will no doubt congratulate Clegg for his honesty (if not his political judgement).

What he has done, however, has alerted the lawyers to more rich pickings and left our servicemen vulnerable to prosecution. But then this is what happens when you play the populist card that should only be used in opposition, but never in government. It appears that the other two parties through years of governing this country already know the difference.

Naivety and inexperience is Clegg’s only way out of a difficult position. Henry Kissinger in a different context coined the phrase real-politic, but like Cameron and his somewhat vague remembrance of the Second World War, Clegg is probably too young or not interested enough to know who Kissinger was.

When in government, the world is no longer black and white. It is the grey shades in between that have to be deployed by any competent government in order to govern with any measure of success.

Survival depends upon pragmatism and the ability to compromise. The latter being a skill the Liberal Democrat’s took on board with great success following last May’s election, but failed miserably in adhering too at yesterday’s PMQs.

THE WAR IN IRAQ had to be fought (whether legal or not) if Saddam Hussein was to stop ignoring the many overtures made to him by the United Nations; the sanctions put in place by the UN were eroding, and Saddam cared little for his people’s welfare, especially as he could blame their discomfort on the international community. He did this with great success as far as many people living in the West were concerned; who began to demand the abandonment of sanctions.

For instance George Galloway travelled to Baghdad (to deliver a box of Quality Street to Saddam). All peaceful options were being undermined and made unworkable by such overtures.

We were told that over 100,000 women and children had died as a consequence of the West’s sanctions. Saddam knew he was on a role and could play the useful idiots in the West like a classical pianist.

The charge sheet known as UN Resolution 1442 (2002) is very long. It begins by recalling all previous resolution going back to 1990, and produce paragraph after paragraph beginning with Recalling, Recognizing, Deploring and Deploring Further various ignored requests for Saddam to fall into line with the wishes of the international community; but time after time he played the part of puppet master, successfully painting himself as the victim in Western ‘progressive’ circles.

To get a flavour of the language in Resolution 1442, I quote the following:

“Deploring also that the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its

commitments pursuant to resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism, pursuant to

resolution 688 (1991) to end repression of its civilian population and to provide

access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance

in Iraq, and pursuant to resolutions 686 (1991), 687 (1991), and 1284 (1999) to

return or cooperate in accounting for Kuwaiti and third country nationals wrongfully detained by Iraq, or to return Kuwaiti property wrongfully seized by Iraq”.

Every peaceful attempt that could have been made to end the crises with Iraq was indeed tried to the point of satire.

President Bush may have had his own reasons for invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam. Perhaps he wanted to do (in a Freudian sense) what many said his father should have done when Iraq invaded Kuwait. But his father, for whatever reason, left the Thief of Baghdad in power to continue his reign.

If we had left this tyrant in place his family dynasty would not only have been in power stirring up the region today, but would have done so for many decades to come. And if you think that the people of Iraq are today worse off than they would have been under the Saddam dynasty, then you all need psychiatric examination.

SO I BELIEVE NICK CLEGG’S contribution far out ways in seriousness, that of David Cameron. It does so, not only because of the real worry and hurt it inflicts upon many military personnel who were sent to Iraq on behalf of their country to do the politician’s bidding - as they are required to do, but also because Nick Clegg has opened them up to legal action.

I hope, for the sake of our military that nothing comes of Mr Clegg’s stupidity at PMQs. Perhaps, which seems unlikely, the lawyers will turn away any client associated with seeking compensation following the Iraq War…dream on.

THE 'SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP'

ONCE MORE THE CHATTERING CLASSES IN THE MEDIA are speculating about our relationship with the USA. The reason is, once more, to do with a visit by a British prime minister to those shores. The so-called ‘special relationship’ was given birth by Winston Churchill who saw America as being part of the English speaking peoples and thus culturally speaking… our cousins.

Both this country as well as the continent of Europe have had their survival as free countries made contingent upon American support on two occasions: twice in recent history they helped us defeat an enemy who would have ravaged the continent without the formidable military and industrial might of America.

Today’s generation know little or anything about the sacrifices made by America on our behalf, mainly in terms of their young men’s lost lives: but also in terms of the military equipment they supplied to the war effort in Europe without which we would never have survived as a democratic nation.

America could have easily turned its full attention toward Japan after Pearl Harbour and left us, the last free people in Europe, to manage as we could. If they had done that instead of dividing their military capability upon two fronts, they could have brought the war against Japan to an end far more quickly than they did at much lesser cost in their young men’s lives, as well as our own in Burma.

SO WHEN WE TALK about a ‘special relationship’ with America it is far more than mere rhetoric. In the past it meant a great deal to this nation, and I hope and believe it meant as much to the USA after our joint involvement in two world wars.

But time moves on and I am prepared to accept in a somewhat belligerent manner that the ‘special relationship’ now needs to be written with inverted commas flanking it.

I would however say this. America and the UK still have the same cultural symmetry that Protestantism introduced to America, with its ethic of hard work and the family as the anchor that proved the harbinger of economic success.

Many people in America still live by this, but are reduced to ridicule by other parts of the union. The so-called ‘Bible Belt’ is a term of contempt most commonly used by liberals in the media throughout the world to describe these well anchored people.
If I had to chose a future for my country that involved its submergence into any other, then that country would be America. I would sooner this country that I am so proud of should become the 51st state of America than a mere canton within Europe.
For this is what this country is now being faced with. If we cannot act independently as a free nation, whose laws are binding without external interference; where our foreign, defence and financial independence is subjected to an overriding authority within Europe…then better we become, if they would have us, the 51st state of the Union.

THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP MEANS very little to president Obama, as no doubt David Cameron will have gathered from this visit. This current president carries baggage that should have been left at the checkout when he became president of the greatest nation on earth.
But Obama carries a history of dislike for the British for personal reasons. Reasons that rightly or wrongly should not be part of contemporary history. If he wishes to pursue his resentment of the British, then he must do so out of office, despite what his wife may tell him.
I believe this country should remain a country; but our politicians are hell bent upon making us a canton of Europe. Under such an invitation, I as a British citizen, would prefer our incorporation as a nation into another state of America than a mere sterile appendage to Europe.

A WARRIOR IS ABOUT TO BE SACRIFICED

‘The soldier has been removed from duty and flown home. There is no sense of glory here, more a sense of shame. He should not have done what he did.’

A source

A PRIVATE FROM THE 1^st battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles has been brought home from Afghanistan by the MoD, and may face a court martial. His ‘crime’ appears to be that he cut the head off of a dead Taliban with his kukri knife; apparently, his action was contrary to a part of the Geneva Convention which says that soldiers are banned from demeaning their enemies.

I do not know who the MoD are trying to impress with their treatment of this young private. What he did was done in the tradition of the Gurkha. The MoD openly boasts that, quite rightly, the Gurkha is brave and a much feared warrior, and we should be grateful that he is an integral part of our army.

At the centre of the Gurkha’s reputation is the infamous kukri, the curved knife that belies their fearsome reputation. They used it in the Burma Campaign during the Second World War in the same way it was used by this young private in Afghanistan today; and they used it then without any kind of rebuke from General Slim let alone the possibility of a full blown court martial - on the contrary, Slim praised its use against such an enemy as the Japanese, and he would have been just as stoical regarding its use against the Taliban.

I know my father, who fought in Burma, would have taken this young Gurkha’s side if he were alive today. I can remember him telling me as a child, of a full frontal charge he witnessed carried by the Gurkha against a Japanese position. They attacked the enemy with great loss and ferocity, but once upon the enemy they threw to one side their rifles and unsheathed their kukris.

In Burma it was not only the front-on battle with the enemy that was the pattern in Europe during the last war. In Burma it was cat and mouse. The jungle afforded protection for all combatants, and so we sent out small parties of men to make contact with the enemy and disrupt their supply lines through thickets of jungle. The Gurkha’s often returned with the heads of Japanese soldiers they had killed to prove their success, and every British soldier was glad of it.

THE TALIBAN SENDS AGAINST US suicide bombers - where in the Geneva Convention is this specifically stated to be not cricket? And if it is, why are Taliban ignoring it and what are the lawyers who concocted the convention going to do about it?

According to the Daily Mail , what this young Gurkha did amounted to a ‘gross insult to the Muslims of Afghanistan, who bury the entire body of their dead even if parts have to be retrieved’. And we no doubt go out of our way to retrieve these parts, which is why this young Gurkha is being made the sacrificial lamb, and why his action is being treated like a crime.

I watched a short video recently where a British sniper told of an incident that occurred in Helmand where he viewed through his rifle scope a trap being laid for his comrades by three Taliban, but before he was allowed to target and kill the enemy he had to ask a senior officer for permission to fire. Such are the preposterous rules of engagement our young men are being asked to follow.

The fact is, is that I wish there were more men like this young Gurkha. If he were allowed the freedom to fight using the same methods as his ancestors (methods which the MoD are all too willing to propagandise in order to bolster the Gurkha reputation) then this war in Afghanistan may end sooner than we hope.

But I also believe that if our politicians allowed our soldiers to use the same methods as their ancestors, the quote at the top of this piece would never have been signed by ‘a source’.

When confronting such a belligerent enemy as we find ourselves doing in Afghanistan, then we must find their weakest point and exploit it to our benefit. In the case of the Taliban it seems that it is important that once dead, according to Muslim tradition, the whole body must be returned, and apparently every effort has to be made by the British to return all body parts. This is why the young Gurkha private’s actions so upset the ministry.

It is not this young private who should face trial but the MoD as well as their political masters. For we have found a weakness to be exploited; but the fierceness we so much admire in the Gurkha has been tempered in our own armed forces by the modern politician. It is the hope of every general to find a weakness in his enemy’s defences and exploit that weakness in order to overcome the enemy. What seems to be happening in Afghanistan, is that our men are being asked to fight a civilised war - when no such war has ever been fought in history: if it had been the case, then the side that deployed the philosophy would be the loser.

THE TALIBAN HAVE GOT OUR measure. They know our men are being made to fight with one hand tied behind their back; they also know that we will be leaving Afghanistan in 2014. All they have to do is wait, and if in the meantime they manage to kill another 100 or so British soldiers then all well and good. But what such deaths will accomplish as far the West is concerned is beyond my comprehension.

In the meantime a brave young soldier faces a court martial and possible prison…and why? Because he played the Taliban at their own game? He showed the kind of ruthlessness that is required to defeat a ruthless enemy.

This young Gurkha, whatever the outcome, can feel proud that he behaved no differently to his ancestors and kept alive the Gurkha reputation.

SENTENCING

THE KILLER OF head teacher Phillip Lawrence, Learco Chindamo (now 29), was released last Thursday after serving a 14 year sentence. His release reopens the debate about sentencing murderers in this country for what is after all, the ultimate crime. There are currently 4500 offenders serving terms for murder who are due to become eligible for parole; while, out of a prison population of nearly 90,000, there are only 38 convicted murderers who are actually serving life in the truest meaning of the term, and will never be eligible for parole - though this does not stop them trying, as we saw last week, when the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ failed in his attempt to secure such eligibility.

When the last person to face capital punishment was hung in 1964, the ultimate penalty was replaced by the life sentence, and everybody at the time was given to believe that life was meant to mean life. If, at the time, it had meant anything less, then the people would not have gone along with it and ‘progressive’ politics would have been stifled at birth

Since the change in the law we have been on a slippery slope of ‘progressive’ sentencing. Our politicians’ have always provided the hard line rhetoric on sentencing to cover their tracks with the electorate. But their forked tongues have always been betrayed by the reality of everyday life experienced by those living on our crime-ridden inner city estates.

There is, and have always been, a great divide between our legislators, prosecutors, lawyers and judges, and the ordinary people who cope with their decisions on a daily basis.

Last week, for instance Andrew Bridges, the chief inspector of probation had the audacity to suggest that prison was a, “rather drastic form of crime prevention”. With these people on their side, is it little wonder that the criminal population have little to fear from the criminal justice system.

The criminal justice system is indeed something to be feared for the law abiding, to whom a prison cell is a hell hole never to be endured; but for the recidivist criminal it holds no fears, especially in the modern age of human rights. For such people life in our modern prisons may be hard but far from unbearably so.

CRIME ALWAYS COMES near the top of the list after immigration as far as the of British people are concerned. On top of which poll after poll has shown that a majority exists within this country for the reintroduction of capital punishment.

This shows how far apart the politicians and the legal classes are from the people they are supposed to serve. In truth our politician’s regard the people’s support for capital punishment as a kind of atavistic response which they hope to bury once and for all as the generations pass by, and a more civilised European ‘cafe-culture’ replaces it. Which is why, no doubt, our politician’s so readily signed up to European human rights governance over our own law making.

Learco Chindamo is a product of such a system. He has paid his price to society and is therefore free to live once more among the free. But the price he was asked to pay was insufficient for the crime he committed. The price he was asked to pay by our judicial system, working quite rightly in accordance with laws passed by our parliament and the European Court of Human Rights, was pitiful in the extreme.

Since the 1960s we have created a liberal monolith that even Samuel Butler, the author of Erewhon would have found incredible. Today this monolith of progressiveness has exceeded the boundaries of normality and is becoming part of the extreme at the leftward end of the political spectrum.

The first duty of any democratic country is to provide security for its people, if it fails in this then the people are at liberty to challenge their government. But if democratic challenges only results in more of the same, then, as in the USA, the people should have the right to bear arms in their own defence.

IF SOMEONE KILLS ANOTHER human being then the length of their sentence should not be determined by any parole system given to them by some judge who sentences them to the least…whatever.

We live in an age where the criminal takes precedence over the victim. Reform of the perpetrator of crime now seems to take precedence over the feelings of their victims . It appears that no matter what the criminal has done, the Christian ethic of redemption seems to take priority.

If our prison population is to decline then we have to make its residency unpopular for the recidivist criminal. As things stand at the moment, the prison population is far better protected than those of us law abiding citizens who live on the outside.

Our values appear wrong. The Left, who have more or less governed our society since the early 1960s at every level, have managed to produce this distorted morality; and they should take full blame for its outcome.

An amoral maze

AS THINGS STAND AT THE MOMENT 30,000 people have used the social networking website Facebook to declare their undying admiration for Raoul Moat, the murderer who killed himself at the weekend.

At Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday, the prime minister was asked to intervene to have this eulogising of Moat removed from Facebook. I hope the prime minister ignores this request, because the views of these people represent a social document that exemplifies the nature of a large part of modern Britain and is worthy of academic study by one of our all too numerous social science departments.

The man was described as a paranoid narcissist who recorded many hours of tape for posterity. He was undoubtedly in some way deranged, and if he had lived would have proved a useful subject for criminal psychologists to investigate…so whether dead or alive, science, in one form or another, was bound to benefit.

My own layman’s view of the people who felt the need to share on Facebook, is that many of them were ex-cons, drivers of un-insured vehicles, men or women betrayed by partners, and the usual social liberals who are the constant overseers of all kinds of conspiracy, who think that Moat’s death was provoked by the police themselves. The theory being that the tasers caused a muscular spasm that in turn caused Moat’s finger to squeeze the trigger of his sawed off shotgun.

But this is me – what do I know? Well I have not read the messages to Moat on Facebook, only examples culled by today’s Daily Mail: Jamie Sullivan wrote:

“He got pushed to the edge by a lying scummy girlfriend who told him she was shagging a copper: she tried to wind him up and it worked quite well

“He only done what every guy in jail says he would do if his partner cheated while inside – difference is he wasn’t all mouth!”

Another of Mr Moat’s devotees, one Matthew Sharma wrote: “If my Mrs ever does to me what she did to Raoul I hope I’m brave enough to do a Moaty.” It appears a new verb has now entered the English language on the back of Moat’s violence?

I have to mention a Terrianne ‘Courtney’ Robinson, if only to show that women are as equally enamoured of our anti-hero as the men. She wrote: “He’s a fucking LEGEND for attempting to kill the police – should have taken a lot more down with him! R.I.P. Big Man.”

But I leave the best to last; for Neil Robinson seems to fit my category of the conspiracy theorist who, like poor old ‘Moaty’ believe themselves to be the victims of the system they convinced themselves was corrupt. Mr Robinson, to me, seems to fit the profile of a true Guardianista from his contribution : “Cameron should be more concerned about the way his Plod’s handled the whole thing. People that are leaving flowers are showing their respect for a man who was wronged badly by the system.”

THE SYSTEM; YES IT IS always the system to blame; and if it is the capitalist one, then even better. But whatever the system, systems are secondary to the anchor of morality. What those who have written on Facebook in support of Raoul Moat seem to lack is any kind of civilised morality, including those educated liberals who blame the system.

I feel that those who have written in support of Moat on Facebook, have to stand back and examine themselves. Are their views of Raoul Moat in some way coloured by their own experiences instead of any rational thinking?

I believe that some 90 per cent of those 30,000 contributions to Facebook on Moat’s behalf fit into this category. They are transferring their own experiences on to their judgment of Raoul Moat.

Rather than trying to close down this Facebook sight, it should be left to run its course. For it serves as an example of the muddled moral thinking that grips so many people in this country today.

Raoul Moat was a killer. His psychological mapping may have been of great use to the scientific community, but his behaviour should have negated all public sympathy. All, that is, apart from his 30,000 supporters on Facebook. But we are population of some 60 million people.

Raoul Moat died because he brought it on himself. He was no Robin Hood who deserves his place in folklore, as will in all probability be assigned to him by future generations in Newcastle.

THIS RUTHESS MAN mapped out his own destiny. He navigated, through his tapes, his final journey. He steered himself onto the rocks and died confronting the waves set against him by his own behaviour. What else could be done to rescue him than what was already done?

The police acted as they were required to do. They tried to disarm Moat for some six hours by pleading with him. There were no grudge’s bared by Moat’s blinding of a policeman. All the police wanted was Moat captured alive to face trial for the murder and physical assaults he undoubtedly caused. So why should the police wish him dead as parts of the Media are implying by their coverage of the final minutes?

The answer is to keep the story alive and retain public interest. Raoul Moat was responsible for his own death. The police did everything in their power to keep him alive, and no matter what any enquiry comes up with, the police had no more interest in Moat’s death than those who have bizarrely supported him.

Raoul Moat did what he did and it was unforgivable. No excuse is acceptable, whether from the ranting and ravings of Facebook’s contributors, or the sympathies from parts of the liberal media.

This man got what he deserved from his own actions and his family and Facebook subscribers should accept the consequences of those actions.

Raoul Moat met the end he lustred after from the time he meant to go public; and to go public meant killing someone.

He deserved his fate. He was not the an anti-hero that many on Facebook now see him as, but merely a brutal man enriched by steroids.