ROGER GRIFFIN, MUSIC TEACHER

LET US SALUTE A TEACHER. Roger Griffin 66, once of Beechview Primary School in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is a music teacher who has been summoned before a Teaching Agency conduct hearing being held in Coventry.

            Mr Griffin, a music teacher, is facing a disciplinary panel because of the language he used toward his pupils. He branded some of them as ‘pests’ ‘idiots’, ‘clowns and buffoons’. He is also being accused of playing his piano in the school hall while an Ofsted visit was in progress. He had been told by assistant head Beatriz Melero to remain at home for the day, but, as Mr Griffin wisely counselled, 'Surely it is a function of Ofsted to identify bad teaching as well as good. They should not have the decision made by the school management for them.

                'I would have thought that I was entitled to have Ofsted see my work as much as anybody else in the school. I don't see the fuss about my reaction to being told I couldn't have my work inspected.'

                The Deputy Head, Miss Melero, also lays accusations that Mr Griffin disregarded her directions that he should follow the National Curriculum in his music lessons, to which the increasingly likeable Mr Griffin, agreed that he had not used the National Curriculum in his teaching of music because; 'I made it quite clear that I never will follow the Qualifications and Curriculums Authority (QCA)  schemes of work as they contain an error and I will not teach an error’. He went on to insist that the schemes he devised himself were in advance of those created by the QCA; 'My scheme of work is much better than the QCA scheme of work,' he said. 'My work supports the National Curriculum to levels that by itself the National Curriculum can't reach [probably because of dumbing down].’

                As for the language he used toward his pupils, he justifies such expressions thus; 'Persistent miscreants who act like delinquents can expect to be treated as such.

                'If they don't like being called idiots, fools, clowns, buffoons or any similar epithet, there is a very simple solution: don't act like one.'

MR GRIFFINS’ appearance before such a body tells us a lot about modern teaching in this country. Miss Melro it appears, was seconded into her role as a trouble shooter to boost the school’s ailing fortunes after its previous head teacher went absent on a ‘long term basis’.

                Something tells me that all is not well with Beechview School; and why was Mr Griffin told to take the day off during an Ofsted visit? Did he have something to tell which Miss Melro would have sooner been kept from Ofsted?

                Beechview School seems to have been an unhappy one before Miss Melro took over to boost it. It must have needed boosting, if Mr Griffin’s use of such language was necessitated. He seems to me to be a man that will not tolerate fools gladly and should have been elevated to the same position in the school as the previous absentee head master.

                All Mr Griffin, it seems, wanted to do throughout his teaching career was to advance knowledge; in his case the advance in knowledge was concerned with his love of music. He was a man who believed, as any teacher should, in educational standards, whatever the subject being taught.

                In the modern era where the slipper or the cane causes a seizure among modern educationalists; what is left in the teacher’s armoury to eradicate  bad behaviour if not language? Mr Griffin never used common (and I do mean common) swear words toward his pupils. He told it as he saw it in terms of the children’s behaviour, and his own life-long experience as a teacher.

                Mr Griffin has lived long enough to see both sides of the teaching coin. Remember, he was taught under a far stricter disciplinary regime than exists today.

                I, like Mr Griffin, was inducted into this country’s education system at about the same time. My school years covered the decade between 1955-1965. During these years teachers were allowed to physically punish pupils; but, as with modern ASBOS, a certain minority looked upon such a punishment as a badge of honour – but one which they were loath to repeat. Once was enough for  recalcitrant pupils then. The slipper and the cane were, like the sword of Damocles, hung over the heads of pupils, and this proved enough to keep discipline in the classroom then.

                The cane was the nuclear option which was rarely  used and only by the headmaster; but we pupils knew it was there, and the teachers also took comfort in its existence. No teacher then, would have taken the type of behaviour from a pupil that they are expected to take today without the option of physical punishment.

                Mr Griffin is obviously old school, while Beatriz Melero represents all that has gone wrong within the modern school. Pupils need discipline at school and boundaries set at home – a very high proportion of today’s pupils are unfamiliar with both concepts; and Mr Griffin realises such slackness can only increase innumeracy and illiteracy , as well as the criminal population.

                Children are untouchable and they know it. They hold all the cards as has been shown by the way Mr Griffin has been treated.

               

               

               

               

ALL WILL HAVE PRIZES

POLITICIANS HAVE BEEN bludgeoned by press and public as hypocrites for so long now, that it has become like water off a duck’s back to your average spin-meister on the green benches.

                The latest to be accused of charlatanism is none other than Nick Clegg. This time it is over the education of his children (a popular vehicle for insult among politicians), who he is thinking of sending to be educated at a private school. Having himself been educated at Westminster, Mr Clegg sees no reason why his own children should not also share his ‘luck’ as he calls his own private education.

                The trouble is that Mr Clegg is fond of making statements (like all of those from the same political class) which their personal lives contradict. Here is Mr Clegg sprouting off about equality in education; 'Right now there is a great rift in our education system between our best schools, most of which are private, and the schools ordinary families rely on. That is corrosive for our society and damaging to our economy.'
                You can see that his critics have a point: for unless the Great and Good who, like Mr Clegg, believe in equality, subject their children to the failings of the comprehensive system as millions have to do, then hypocrite just about sums up Mr Clegg.

                Our private schools give a superior education to our children than the comprehensives. If this were not the case, people like Nick Clegg would never consider them an option for their own children.

                When talking of social mobility Mr Clegg uses figures to persuade us of his argument, an example of which is the fact that  70 per cent of High Court judges and 54 per cent of company chief executives were given a private education.

                If this does not convince you of the excellence of the private education sector then what would? But Mr Clegg is not trying to persuade us of the private systems excellence but of its unfairness. It is, I assume, unfair because people like Mr Clegg can send his children to such institutions while the great majority lack means to do so.

                If so he has several options to pursue. He can do what the previous Labour government did for the whole of its 13 year tenure in government and close even more Grammar schools out of a vindictiveness that only added to the inequalities of our state education system: or he can reinvigorate the state sector by re-introducing the grammar school as an integral part of the education system as it once was.

                The grammar school helped those whose parents could not afford what Mr Clegg’s children will undoubtedly get - the finest education. The grammar school was an entry into such a world. It gave the educationally gifted from working class backgrounds the help up the academic ladder that Mr Clegg feels is no longer available to them.

THE SYSTEM OF the 11-plus was the great demon that post war Labour governments set about seeking to destroy; and with it many of our grammar schools. The streaming of ability into A, B, or C at the time was loaded in favour of middle class children. It was exemplified in my time at my junior school by the divvying up of streaming according social background. Remember, at that time, we had arrived from infant school where exams were never given, and so when we moved on to junior school there was no academic reference for streaming the pupils

                At my particular Alma-Marta the A stream seemed over populated by children from the middle class areas of the catchment area of the school.

                This was blatantly unfair because those picked for the A stream were to be coached to pass the 11 plus.

                Streaming needed reform, but what it got was revolution in the form of Shirley Williams; yet another beneficiary of private education. Her early Alma-Marta was St. Paul’s Girls School, which, according to the Good School’s Guide, was for the ‘bright, talented, motivated and confident girl [it is an] exhilarating start to the big adventure’.

                So exhilarated was Baroness Williams that she came up with the comprehensive system of education that has added to the blighting our society ever since. She systematically threw the good out with bad of the old system of selective education, and brought a dull and collectivised system into being – while persecuting the private schools, which forever afterward were to become the main targets of the socialist dumbing down that we remain infected with today.

                Even under the old 11-plus, those who failed it were not forgotten. They had a whole array of options left to them. Apprenticeships, vocational training at technical colleges or polytechnics. Today these latter institutions have been turned into universities for fear of making their students feel in some way underprivileged or under appreciated.

DUMMING DOWN has been the preoccupation of the state sector in education. Politicians have set a new low in order to make every student feel good about themselves and, more importantly from a voting perspective, also their parents.

                State education has been dumbed down by vote hungry politicians, and has been found wanting. The Comprehensive sector is a worthless enterprise with little academic credence left to it. Of course there are fine examples of schools within the state sector; if there were not there would be little left for the politicians to defend.

                If Nick Clegg is serious about equality in education, then he must realise that it has its limits. We are all different. Educationally speaking, any system of education worth its salt must select the wheat from the chaff. The wheat being the brightest and deemed fit for academia and its mental disciplines. The chaff  on the other hand, go where those who do not make the  grade turn to.

                For the so-called chaff, skilled and highly paid work awaits them. For those who cannot (like myself) make the intellectual grade; then opportunities await them that many of the so-called well educated cannot financially compete with.

                The trouble is, that the real snobs are not the blue blood Tories, but the egalitarian leftists who believe they rightly know what is best for their children and it usually means the private sector, while serving up their egalitarian gruel by the bucketful to those now left without even a grammar school to help them up the educational ladder.

                These people are not only hypocrites, but dangerous ones at that. By their social engineering of the education service, they have left both academics and businesses complaining about dumbing down, while at the same time students believe they have earned their A levels, and believe them to have had the same rigour attached to them, as at any time in our history.

                Every August more and more students make the grade, and soon a 100 per cent pass rate will become the norm – what then for our overcrowded universities. There must not be losers in ‘modern’ liberal, egalitarian Britain, and this applies to every level of education, whether academically, or on school sports day.

WE HAD AN education system under the old 11 plus which was blatantly unfair in the 1950s; but could have been reformed. It did not need Labour’s cultural revolution which now undermines the legitimacy of exam results.

                If I had had wealth and children, I would have sent them the best private schools from an early age. They would have been given the best chance in life that the best education in the world could buy.

                Nick Clegg is right to send his children to a £30,000 per year private school. He should not feel that he has to justify himself. But because of his misguided loyalty to the comprehensive system, he will no doubt, as he loves his children and want the best for them, send them to a private school.

                But being a liberal, he will, no doubt, suffer the pangs of conscience that being a member of such a club requires – but as the bard noted; ‘a conscience makes cowards of us all’.

               

God bless the Queen, and the misery she continues to heap upon embittered republicans

THE GUARDIAN HAS sad news to give its readers. The paper decided to test the popularity of the monarchy in this jubilee year; so they commissioned ICM to conduct a poll. Asked by ICM whether they thought Britain would be better off or worse off without a Royal Family - the respondents were unanimous. Those who thought Britain would be worse off numbered 69%, while those who thought Britain would be better off accounted for 22%; with 9% not knowing.

                If the republican inclined Guardianistas hoped that things would change once the present popular Queen was out of the way and Prince Charles took the throne, then they face further disappointment. While it is true that  48% believe the crown should pass to William, and 39% to Charles, only 10% believed that we should become a republic and elect our head of state.

                Support for the monarchy crosses all party political boundaries and is not confined to elderly Tories. Both the Labour Party and Lib Dem supporters believe in a monarchy.

                Even at its lowest ebb, during the period of Princess Diana’ death, support for the monarchy remained at a healthy  48%. But still the republicans believe history to be on their side. They cannot comprehend anything other than the meanest of slights to be given this institution.

                They have been pickled in class hatred for generations and cannot contemplate any kind of need for a modern monarchy, bereft of the Divine Right since the Cromwellian constitutional revolution. Modern day republicans have little to offer by way of a system of elected presidents.

                The Queen, as head of state, is politically neutral. She cannot and would not wish to take sides between the political parties, if only because to do so would threaten the very foundation of the institution of monarchy. She councils and advises; she is trusted by all prime ministers when they meet her each Tuesday. Unlike a president, the Queen does not have a political axe to grind, and she cannot go to war or have any say in whether the nation should do so or not.

                Paradoxically, she is as much a servant of her people as those who have been elected  to serve in parliament.  We are very lucky as a people to have such a constitutional arrangement that, over centuries, we have managed to broker for ourselves.

IN EUROPE, THEY ALSO BELIEVE in having a presidency. The president of the European Commission for instance, is José  Manuel  Barroso, who, like the Queen, is unelected and has, arguably, far more power within Europe than our Queen does over any single English county.

                Indeed, the European union is replete with such unelected power brokers. This is the EU’s idea of republicanism, and our own republicans would be better deployed in getting to grips with this anomaly in what is after all meant to be a democratic union; before chastising the British monarchy.

                The Guardian is pro-republican, as well as Europhilic. The paper believes that this country should have an elected president instead of an unelected monarch; the paper does not exactly remain silent on the democratic abuses that infect the many institutions of the European union at every level; but it does not at the same time press the issue to the same extent that it is happy to do with the institution of the British monarchy.

                José  Manuel  Barroso was in attendance at last week’s meeting of the G8, as the only unelected president on show. He behaved then, as he still behaves, like many a 16^th century monarch once did, who, like himself,  believed in their own Divine Right to rule.

                The Divine Right of unelected politicians to oversee and effectively govern Europe (i.e. the EU Commissioners), have replaced that of kings; and yet the Guardian, that supposedly stands full square against such medievalism remains incoherent on the subject.

               

WHEN I READ the Guardian on the net, I cannot resist the comments that always follow from their readers. The Guardian reader is a veritable source of amusement for the amateur psychologist (not to say psychiatrist) among those trawling the net.

                For instance, after the Guardian published its poll findings into the state of the British monarchy, I must admit that I was as presently surprised by the contributions made, as no doubt were the paper itself.

                I was amazed at how sympathetic many comments were toward the monarchy and can only assume that many of them were from readers of conservative papers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.

                However, the authentic voice of the Guardianista was heard, and it was epitomised by a contribution from ‘Essextronica’. Essextronica wrote the following: ‘In these difficult times it amazes me that people aren't bothered by the queen bling-blinging it up the Thames in her yacht, rubbing it in or the millions spent on the royal wedding. No instead we cheer them on. I could cope with the concept of a hereditary monarchy if it wasn't for the extreme wealth and privilege and instead they had proper jobs and earned a living like the rest of us. 
                I agree that most of the population are too thick to understand the issue. On one of her recent visits the BBC interviewed some of the spectators asking them what they liked about the queen and these were clearly not people who were capable of critical thought’.

                This lady or gentleman is as arrogant as any aristocrat at the court of the Sun King. Essextronica would no doubt consider his/herself (it reads like a women, so I will use the appropriate pronoun from now on) above the common heard. She condescendingly believes that, ‘…most of the population are too thick to understand the issue’,(let them eat bread).

                Essextronica has a high opinion of herself and has a low opinion of those who disagree with her. She believes herself, like many of the Guardian’s ever diminishing readership (it no longer makes a profit) to be gifted with liberal certainty, despite the failure of the eurozone, multiculturalism, comprehensive education, immigration and every single social experiment conducted over the past four decades of this country’s history.

THE BRITISH MONARCHY, HOPEFULLY, is here to stay. The French rid themselves of their monarchy by a liberal use of the guillotine. The German monarchy, like that of the Russian, fell fowl of revolution following the First World War, the former proving more ‘successful’ than the latter.

                In Europe after the First World war, the kings departed, leaving the UK untouched by revolution. In Russia tsar Nicholas had overseen a form of Divine Right to rule and pressed such a ‘right’ upon his people goaded on by his wife, who in turn was under the spell of the monk Rasputin.

                The British however, had long since found a formula that worked. The Constitutional Monarchy found its place in the lives of the British people via an advisory role; as well as a client role to parliamentary procedure.

                We do not need a president to mismanage our lives. A prime minister should prove adequate for such a purpose. Having a monarch as a head of state has proven its worth in this country, and the people recognise this, as the ICM poll proves.

                The monarchy in Britain acts as a source of conviction when the politician’s fail them, as they often do. Elections have proven as unreliable as the hereditary principle when choosing a leader.

                Democracy is the best and only way forward for a free people. But we in the UK have also benefited from a constitutional monarchy, which provide stability and brings tradition to our nation.

                We in the UK are unique throughout the world in the way we govern ourselves as a free people who never fear free speech, or the vile and vindictive probing of republicans

                Our constitutional monarchy has proven itself; and will surely continue throughout the generations (if, that is, Charles does not f***-up).

SCOTLAND THE…CANTON?

TODAY BEGINS THE START OF the Scottish Nationalist Party’s (SNP) referendum campaign for Scottish independence  which could, may, or might be held in 2014.

                Alex Salmond the SNP leader  will, according to Simon Johnson of the Daily Telegraph, ‘…be joined in Edinburgh this morning by celebrities and the leaders of minor left-wing parties to formally start his bid to end the 305-year-old Union between England and Scotland.’

                Alex Salmond’s announcement comes however as a YouGov poll published by the former  chancellor Alistair Darling, which shows that 57 per cent of Scottish voters opposes independence, compared to 33 per cent who said they would vote for.

                It is not an auspicious way to herald the venture, and Mr Darling must have chosen his release to do the maximum damage to an imbecilic notion of independence at a time when all the nations of Europe are embarking upon a journey which will bring an end to the nation state. Under such a dark cloud, Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh nationalism are all meaningless - as for independence, ditto, and for the same reason.

                If the poll proves correct, then the Scottish people can readily see that which Alex Salmond fails to. ‘Scottish independence’ is an oxymoron at this time in European history. No nation will remain a nation, either independent or safe.

                According to Simon Johnson, Salmond will be joined by celebrities (e.g. Sir Sean Connery) as well as the leaders from ‘minor left-wing parties’. Like the minor left-wing parties, the SNP has outlived its purpose; for both socialism and notions of nationalism are now passé as far as modern history and Europe are concerned. Socialism still thrives within Europe, but it does so by going against the grain of history, resulting in the mishandling of the eurozone.

THE SCOTTISH people, unlike the parade of celebrities at today’s Edinburgh ‘event’, know on which side their bread is buttered. If Salmond was serious, he would be telling the Scottish people to vote UKIP. By doing so Scotland, as well as the other nations within the UK would be given an in/out referendum on Europe. The UKIP route is the only route that Salmond and people like him can take, if they wish to see an independent Scotland, as Scottish nationalists.

                As things stand at the moment, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales, are all facing canton status within a United States of Europe. Scotland can only have a credible independence from England if the people, including Alex Salmond, vote out in a referendum. Otherwise the SNP is behaving fraudulently by leading the Scottish people into believing in Scottish independence – for all they will be doing is swapping what Salmond believes to be one master (England), for another (Europe).

                On the very day the UK joined the European Union, when we were told that it would only ever be a trading alliance, a United States of Europe was always meant to mark the end of the journey. It was the ambition that dare not speak its name – especially by generations of Eurosyphilis UK politicians.

                I believe that we will not see a referendum for Scottish independence because, firstly, Alex Salmond will not, in the end call one because of the sane opinion of the Scottish people toward such an arrangement will remain. Lastly, he, as well as the Scottish people, will, by 2014, when such referendum  may or might be held, both realise that Scottish independence  will have become obsolete as far as any true meaning of the expression is concerned.

               

THE 305-YEAR HISTORY of Scotland’s union with England has brought many benefits to both peoples. We in England have always profited from the vital Scottish contribution to British culture. For all our put-downs of each other, we have built an empire together and been the midwives of an industrial revolution that put science in the forefront of our civilisation. We have, between us, helped rescue a European continent from Nazi barbarity and in doing so helped free the whole continent of Europe.

                Scotland has seeded more than its fare share of world-wide respected scientists, novelists, economists and philosophers; as well as exported through migration many entrepreneurs who have succeeded in foreign lands. Indeed, considering its demographic paucity, Scotland has proven itself to have been a marvel in the aid to building civilisations, in whatever part of the world their citizens found themselves.

                I could have written a whole piece on Scotland’s impact on world-wide civilisation. But, in terms of Scotland’s population, its contribution has been, if not superior to England’s, then equal to it. England has, however, been responsible for many bitter memories among the Scots.       

                 What Alex Salmond wishes to resurrect is the ancient antagonisms that go far back to William Wallace in the 13^th century. This is where the ancient resentment begins for a Scottish nationalist and may explain their ignorance of the world in which Salmond, as a Scottish nationalist, now lives.

                Hollywood’s treatment of William Wallace, played by Mel Gibson, must have seemed like a gift from heaven to Alex Salmond. But it is a shame that he prefers Wallace’s medieval ambition for Scotland to the modern world’s dichotomy, which would either makes his nation redundant through Europeanization, or able to cling to its union with England and defend itself from such mediocrity as being a canton of Europe.

                The UK must stand together as a whole against its Europeanization into becoming a mere canton that threatens all nations within the UK. It is not Scottish independence that is important; simply because it would be taken from them by Europe.

                If Scottish Nationalism wishes to breath freely of its many desires for its nation’s future; then Salmond must secure Scotland’s release from Europeanization. If he fails in such an ambition then Scottish Nationalism would become a prisoner tied in far more weighty shackles than they ever felt they had under the union with England.

               

               

               

               

               

Greece’s fall could mean UKIP’s rise

AT THE MOMENT UKIP IS A ONE trick pony.  Its leader, Nigel Farage, has become the everyman of You Tube telling the European Parliament (EP) what they do not want to hear (including British Tory EMPs); and in doing so has created quite a following. His rhetorical duels within the EP, and his blunt, unceremonious attacks upon the whole institution and its many gravy train functionaries from the president downwards, have helped relieve the frustration and anger of Eurosceptics throughout Europe.

                Mr Farage leads a party of, shall we say, well meaning amateurs whose names and performances within the EP have been largely ignored. What UKIP needs are defections from the Conservative Party of politicians that carry substance. At the moment only Mr Farage has the skill and political weight to see off his Europhile opponents; but his party will not play any significant role in the battle to seek a referendum unless he manages to attract dissenting Tories prepared to cross-over to UKIP.

                It has been suggested that a Tory- UKIP coalition instead of one with the Lib-Dems, would prove to be ideal from a Eurosceptic viewpoint. Whether it would appeal to David Cameron, I very much doubt. In any case there is no way forward for such a consideration, unless UKIP manages to pick up parliamentary seats at the next election at the expense of enough Tories, to make the Tory Party amenable to a coalition under a different leader.

                There is no doubt that, because of the eurozone crises, the British people are prepared to vote for a referendum on either staying in or leaving the EU. But while they are impressed with Mr Farage, they still see UKIP as a party belonging to the periphery, like the Greens. UKIP is, however, still in tune with the people’s zeitgeist . If we take it for granted that the economy is the British people’s top priority,  it is followed by  Europe and immigration soon after.

                But both Europe and immigration have long since been ill-considered topics for endorsement, by the main parties, for fear of the kind of popular dissent that they feel would erupt from the electorate.

               

ALL OF THE THREE MAIN PARTIES are, as far as their various individual leaderships are concerned, Europhiles to a man or women. In this country they will make the right sceptical noises and will continue to do so, until they have captured a generation educated into the belief that nationhood is no longer a necessary component of modern Europe.

                In an orchestrated belief in the future of a federal  Europe, the centrist leadership of all the main parties in the UK will remain loyal to a single currency.

                Greece must stay in the Euro! This is the call from David Cameron who fears that Greece’s exit would cause  contagion among Europe’s southern members and lead to dangerous repercussions for the UK.

                 After 18 meetings by the EU over Greece’s perilous position , each one more cataclysmic than the last; I now believe the financial markets have become accustomed to such woeful episodes regarding  Greece’s withdrawal from the eurozone; which had  at one time, promised so much in terms of financial security…  but delivered so little.

                The financial markets have already calculated Greece’s removal from the euro and so it should not have the impact that the Europhile leadership of the three UK parties believed it would have.

UKIP HAS TO act under Nigel Frarage’s leadership, to bring UK eurosceptic MPs on board. To do this UKIP must attract to its ambitions the likes of John Redwood. Redwood is  a supreme eurosceptic. He has the intellectual clout to advance the eurosceptic proposition, but he may still believe that the modern Tory party will, under Cameron’s leadership, keep the UK nation free from Europe.

                As things stand among the main parties, their eurosceptic supporters are proving hard to tear away. But if, as seems likely, Greece will have to return to the Drachma to escape her eurozone misery, then the eurosceptics from all parts of parliament will call upon their leaders one last time to deliver an in/out referendum to British people.

                If the party leaders continue, as they have done in the past, to ignore such requests from eurosceptic  MPs, then UKIP will become an attractive alternative to being constantly ignored and despised by their party’s leadership.

                If yet another appeal for a referendum is ignored, the eurosceptics will finally have to stand up and be counted, by warning Cameron and Milliband of their intention to go with UKIP if a referendum is not forthcoming within the lifetime of this parliament.

                

The price of timidity

AT A COST OF £20 BILLION to the UK and over 400 young lives lost; the war in Afghanistan is being discussed at a meeting in America between NATO leaders, including David Cameron, in order to thrash out the timing of the retreat from Kabul.

                We were told before we went into Afghanistan, that it had been a graveyard for various foreign armies, and it now seems that for the second time in its history the British army is being chased out by a bunch of tribesmen using weapons barley advanced from those used by the British in the 19^th century.

                While the Taliban are armed with Kalashnikovs and propelled grenades circa 1960-2012 (many of which no doubt were left by the Soviet Army when they were chased out), we on the other hand, have the best technologically advanced weaponry the early part of the 21^st century can provide at a cost of billions.

                So what went wrong? Why are we leaving with our tail between our legs? The answer lies not in any lack of skill or courage on behalf of our servicemen and women. On the contrary, the UK forces are what it says on the bottle - the best in the world.

                Given our superiority in men and weaponry, the Taliban should have been eliminated and could have been, had we shown our enemy the same degree of ruthlessness that was shown to us by them.  Only then could we have won this war        , and could have done it far more quickly than the time it has taken for us to finally retreat in disgrace.

                I supported the war in Afghanistan from its beginning as a response to the 9/11 outrage. Al-Qaeda was the original target, as they were using Afghanistan to launch terrorist attacks against the West. The  main purpose of the mission was, I believe, to hunt down and destroy al-Qaeda and their leader Osama bin-Laden, who was, after all, responsible for the murderous attack upon New York’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon ,where 3,000 people perished.

                I believe George Bush sought al-Qaeda’s destruction and nothing more than that. Certainly, I do not believe for one moment  that he envisaged occupying Afghanistan and trying to build a nation on democratic foundations. Nation building was  never on George Bush’s or his advisors horizon when he sent his young men and women to Afghanistan.

               

THERE WAS ANOTHER ACTOR on the stage at the time who did seek such an ambition for Afghanistan; and he postulated a strategy known as ‘liberal interventionism’. Tony Blair, no doubt, came by his strategy after it proved successful in the Bosnian conflict between  5^th April 1992 – 14^th December 1995.

                After a standing ovation by Congress following a speech he gave in the aftermath of the tragic events in New York, George Bush became more amenable toward Tony Blair and  his strategy of liberal interventionism. After all, Blair had taken the country by storm, and no doubt George Bush was (as all politicians are) seduced by the Blair approach, just as the British people( including myself) were between 1997-2007.

                The trouble with liberal interventionism is this. It ties the hands of the military who are, as a result, set rules as to how they engage the enemy. Liberal interventionism, is the military equivalent of social liberalism.

                The West has the formidable weaponry to dispose of any nation outside of the bubble that seeks to destroy any part of it – including the Taliban. But, liberal interventionism precludes doing what is needed if it causes the politicians sweaty and sleepless nights in combat with their conscience.

                If Churchill or Roosevelt had followed the precepts of Mr Blair, the bombings over Germany would never have happened, and we would be negotiating with the Germans over sending observers into the concentration camps; just as today we are, through the United Nation, seeking Iran’s approval for investigators to investigate their nuclear programme.

                Churchill knew that war cannot be sanitised in the way that the war in Afghanistan was. It only leads to defeat no matter how much the politicians (in the case of Afghanistan) try to spin it out as a victory based upon the killing of Osama bin-Laden - as it will be, after we leave that wretched, corrupt, and medieval country.

IN AFGHANISTAN our soldiers had their hands tied, not only by the politicians, but also by the liberally educated officers out of Sandhurst. I remember reading…I think in the Daily Telegraph, of a young sniper, who through his scope picked out an unarmed Taliban planting  an improvised explosive…he was, would you believe, obliged to consult a senior officer before he could take aim and kill those Taliban.

                I also remember, as you may, an MoD recruitment advertisement on television that sought to recruit on the basis of such a procedure. The image shown was of a fighter jet targeting Taliban who were also planting an improvised explosive. But those planting the device were allowed to go on their way before the fighter jet blew up the device. The announcement that followed praised the action for not causing any death –except that is, to the soldiers that those who were allowed to flee the scene would seek to kill in the future.

                We have been told that our soldiers were fully educated into the practice of hearts and minds. This kind of social work is better left to the inner city estates of our cities than being taught to fight and kill. We could have done what George Bush originally wanted in less time at less loss in both personnel and time.

                If we get ourselves involved in such a war, then citizens will inevitably be the casualties and our people have to understand this from the very start.  Blair’s form of nation building is doomed to failure because our enemy will always hold the upper hand when it comes to ruthlessness .

                We cannot take on such people unless our leaders do, like Churchill did,  whatever proves  necessary to bring about  victory. Our enemies in Afghanistan and wherever we fight in the future will see our limits as weakness. They  understand from what they have witnessed with the West’s involvement in and retreat from Afghanistan, that we lack both the ruthlessness and the stamina to defeat a determined enemy.

                 

OUR POLITICIANS LIVE BY  the political menstrual cycle of five yearly elections, and will always fall foul of them when considering military action, strategy and conduct of a conflict.

                It is not true that we could not have won the war in Afghanistan – we could have and should have. First of all we should have stuck to the original limitations of ridding Afghanistan of al-Qaida and, as a bonus, drive out the Taliban. After which we could have removed our ground forces and used air power including the drones that have been so successful in killing many Taliban commanders - but even the use of drones have caused a flurry of concern from human rights. It is little wonder that the West is in decline.

                Any country or continent that cannot defend its interests or the safety of its citizens because the military have had their hands tied by politicians, then decline is the only road to go down.

               

SAVE THE GOLLYWOG

AUSTRALIA IS HAVING its own problems with gollywogs. Remember in 2009 when Carol Thatcher was grassed up in the BBC’s Green Room by Adrian Chiles after she made a reference to a tennis player looking like one of the dolls?

                Well , now shops in Queensland are being attacked by the chairman of the Centre for Indigenous Cultural Policy (of course…who else). Mr Bob Weatherall is the centre’s chairman and has become irate over the sale of these inoffensive dolls. He deems them ‘offensive’ and demands they be banned. ‘It doesn’t bring unity within a community,’  and, ‘It doesn’t bring back equity.’  

            Apparently however, the gollywogs are proving popular with shoppers – many of whom (if they are of my vintage) remember them, not from Enid Blyton, but from jars of Robertson’s jam. Each jar had a gollywog impressed upon it which could be peeled off and collected toward one of a set of gollywog badges that many school children wore proudly on their school uniforms without any thought for causing offence, because there was none to cause, and none meant. They wore them perhaps, because  they had had at one time owned a gollywog doll. At the time almost every child in the country either owned one in one form or another, or at least had heard of the gollywog.

                Gollywogs were part of our popular culture. I say were, because today if a child was seen to be embracing such a rag doll their parents would be questioned by the likes Australia’s Mr Weatherall, on information received by the likes of Adrian Chiles. Yet the gollywogs posed no threat, the children embracing them were not destined to become racists. As far as cultural practices are concerned, ownership of a gollywog pales into insignificance when we are talking about arranged marriages, honour killings, genital mutilations, child exorcism, and the raping of white children by Muslim men.

                I presume that it is not golly but wog that causes such fits of outrage by the PC arbiters of acceptable words and images.

                WOG, I am told, is an acronym that stands for Wiley Oriental Gentlemen. It was never a reference to the colour of a person’s skin and had nothing to do with black people, but rather the trading skills of middle and far eastern market traders who would go overboard to sell a trinket, or what we would call today a souvenir to British soldiers stationed in the Middle and Far East. Of course it also meant that, in particular, the Arab could not be trusted.

                In other words, it was a reference to a specific character of a specific race, and not to the whole compendium of a race. In any case it does deserve the interpretation that the politically correct has put upon it. The gollywog is a much loved character once enjoyed by my generation but vilified by the sinister sounding  PC purists who, like their puritanical Victorian predecessors, seek to change previously acceptable language and custom in order to, in the modern version, foster a multicultural dystopia.

                The politically correct are the modern puritans; the vanguards of what they deem an acceptable uses of the English language. They have in their armoury laws which they can take advantage of, if they deem a particular offence has been committed toward a minority through the wrong use of language. These people are trustees of the ‘hate crime’ and what they say goes.

THE GOLLYWOG MUST NOW BECOME the emblem that we must use to fight back against the new puritans. I suggest a cross of Saint George with a gollywog emblazoned within one of the crosses quarters to suggest the idiocy of those who take themselves seriously enough to want to crush such a display through the use of the courtroom.

                We are in the midst of a new Puritanism, the Puritanism of multiculturalism, and we had better start to fight back or retreat into acceptance of its gruel-like strictures and live in abeyance to their inanities, for fear of whatever they hold in store for those who reject multiculturalism.

                A simple doll has caused outrage, not by the people, but by those who seek to protect all forms of minority culture. Which means diminishing the host culture to the level of those allowed citizenship, as in the UK.

                Multiculturalism should fail, but its promoters strive to rid the country of people like myself who are embarking upon the last few laps of their lives, and who are, they believe, the one obstacle that stands between them and the realisation of their dystopian vision.

               

               

               

               

               

Social democracy seeks a cure for a disease of its own spreading

PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE is famously quoted as saying ‘I hate rich people’. He also threatened a 75 per cent tax on millionaires if elected. The French people rewarded him with the French presidency. While other European politicians like Angela Merkle and David Cameron, hoped that, like them, Mr Hollande’s pre-election rhetoric was just that – a populist message dished up to the great unwashed in order to solicit their votes; followed by backtracking once in power. Indeed, the very formula used by Mr Cameron himself two years ago.

                But President Hollande is made of sterner stuff, for he actually believes in what he says and has every intention to tax and spend to procure growth in the French economy. Austerity has suddenly become yesterday’s economic model. It is now to be a return to the classical Keynesian formula of government spending to ignite growth.

                I do not think in my lifetime have I seen a worse bunch of politicians governing Europe than our present assortment. They are an arrogant, sad, hapless and ill-fated bunch if ever there was. We are in the middle of the greatest economic threat to our survival, and it has been solely the creation of the very people who are now collectively scratching their heads and demanding more oil in the form of taxpayers’ money to be poured onto the pyre of the European ideal, hoping to salvage something from their great love affair with super statehood.

PRESIDENT HOLLANDE, having thrown a spanner into the austerity works, must now fulfil his promise to the French people and tax the rich. The 75 per cent he has announced in advance of the French elections has caused a boom in the sale residential properties in London. According to Der Spiegel  ‘…the wealthy French have been looking for ways to get themselves and their money out of the country. And nowhere looks more attractive than millionaire-friendly London’.

                But the French are not the only ones . Wealthy Greeks, Italians, and Spaniards are also salting their money abroad, and who can blame them. More than 300,000 French people are now living in London, more than, according to Der Spiegel , the populations of ‘… Rennes, Reims or Avignon’. Estate agents have seen a boom at the high end of London property market  - we are talking  many millions of pounds. Houses are being eagerly sought within the price range of 5-15 million pounds.

                Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, is exorbitant (nothing new there)in his welcome for the latest exiles from France. Indeed I can imagine Boris as a latter day Sir Percy Blakeney, in heavy disguise, venturing forth across the channel to save French millionaire’s from President Hollande’s rapacious grasp.

                Hollande had hoped to garner a harvest of  €300 million from his wealth tax, a paltry amount considering the amount of money that will leave France as a consequence of the French president’s bigotry.

                Why is it, that whenever socialist politicians run out of spending money, they first vilify and then seek to loot the wealthy in order to waste further billions. Socialists love spending other people’s money and no more so than with the rich who they have a phobia toward.

WHAT IS France’s loss will be London’s gain – and potentially, France stands to lose far more than she seeks to gain from the 75 per cent tax on the wealthy. It is asinine  and self-defeating for a politician to allow their prejudices to cloud their judgement.

                The rich will always find a more favourable occupancy within a truly free market. Why should they, after all, be made by politicians to pay for their own squandering of the public purse?  If President Hollande truly hates such people, then what would he replace them with? Commissars? Food queues of people that snaked for miles in order to get a loaf of bread because the state was so incompetent at running business?

                Socialist’s hate wealth. They believe it to have been extracted from their beloved proletariat to help finance the lifestyle of their capitalist employers. Such people know little of ambition and innovation. No doubt our socialist French president uses a computer. If he uses Microsoft software, then Bill Gates is one of those he would demand a 75 per cent tax from if were a citizen of France, which, thankfully, in the present climate, he is not. Which, in Mr Gate’s case would mean him no longer pouring vast amounts of his billions into the conquest of malaria throughout the developing world. Mr Gates is rich and President Hollande hates rich people; therefore President Hollande hates Bill Gates. I am sure he does not, but the logic of his position tells a different story.

THE RICH EMPLOY millions of people, and in doing so provide the means by which, for instance, families can grow and own their own homes. Today’s rich employers know the benefits to their yearly profits of a well looked after work force. Today’s multinational manufacturers, if for no other reason than to keep ahead of the game, nurture the skills of their workforces.

                Socialists (because of their prejudices) live in a world where 19^th century mine and cotton mill owners were calling the shots, and children were climbing up chimneys . President Hollande’s attitude toward the rich fits neatly into this antiquated appreciation of capitalism.

                The rich, like the poor, are always with us; unless socialism rids us of the rich, which no doubt the new French president would celebrate.

                President Hollande will do great harm to his people if, through the prejudices he freely admits of toward the rich, he drives them out of France like some Bourbon aristocracy, which seems likely if he pursues his collectivist ambition for France.

                Those French who seek a home in London should, as Boris Johnson has already done, be welcomed. For they are no different to the Huguenots that also escaped oppression from bigoted attitudes over the channel.

TAX AND SPEND as an engine of growth was given credibility in America during the 1930s by  President Roosevelt , and  merited some success - but only because of the Second World War, which did indeed encourage vast amounts of state spending to prepare for a war that came at the right time for such a model.

                ‘Austerity’ is nowhere to be seen in Europe. If we go back once more to the 1930s with the soup kitchens, children with rickets, the ashen faced unemployed standing aimlessly on street corners, or working on municipal projects, not for money but food - then we had austerity.

                Today we have European citizens being asked to retire two or three years later, accept less generous pensions, and work longer than the required 35 hour week that President Hollande’s party introduced as part of the woeful social contract that Jack Delores implemented.

                It is true that people are feeling the pinch and are truly fearful for their future; this is undeniable, and austerity in its historical sense may be the eventual outcome following the euro-politicians next peace of magic - the one that President Hollande now seeks to weave.

               

               

               

               

               

               

               

                                                                                 

HISTORY AS PROPAGNDA

SPARE OUR  CHILDRENS young minds from the abuses of politicians who wish to eviscerate objectivity in the teaching of history in order to advance their own particular cause.

                When the world was more prolific regarding communist states than, thankfully, it is today; the leaders of  such grotesquery set about indoctrinating their up and coming generations into the virtues of communism, the cruelties of Western Imperialism, and the insights provided by Historical Materialism.

                When the world was more prolific regarding Nazi states than, thankfully, it is today; the leaders of such grotesquery  set about indoctrinating their up and coming generations into the virtues of anti-Semitism, the Jewish world conspiracy that was capitalism, Arian perfection, and the inferiority of the black races.

                During the days of the British Empire the children of our ruling class were taught to believe themselves part of a people chosen by God to oversee the affairs of the world; and many stupid, not to say cruel things were done in the name of such an empire; and for the past forty years our children have been indoctrinated into an equally dangerous notion – that the British Empire was wholly evil.

                The Empire did marvellous things for the different cultures they colonised; and, as far as colonisation went, the pink coloured part of the map was better served than those parts that fell afoul of French, German, and, worst of all, Belgium colonialism.

                In India we built the city of Bombay, created a fully functioning civil service and administrative centre, and built a railway system which is in use today. What is more we left the country better than we found it. If the Empire had been as evil and tyrannical as many of our own liberals like to paint it; we would not be host to so many from the Indian sub-continent today.  

WE MUST ALWAYS BE ON OUR guard when politicians seek to rearrange the educational deck, especially when it comes to the teaching of their nation’s history.

                The latest such manoeuvring is becoming evident across the border where it is said the Scottish National Party (SNP) are seeking such nefarious alterations to the history curriculum in Scottish schools.

                Now, a nation’s history is meant to be a truthful and balanced record of events and episodes in the progress of a nation’s unfolding. It is meant to be a trusted record, constantly being challenged by historians when a new insight into a particular event or chapter challenges the accepted wisdom. This is the correct approach to the teaching of history. It must not be used as a weapon by politicians to wheedle their way into the minds of children through changing the school curriculum, and then removing those parts that may distort the historical narrative they wish to impose. If this is not another form of child abuse, then I know not what is.

                Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, is about to repeat the stupidities of stupid men in times past; men who, like him, had a conviction that warranted the censoring of history for the good of the nation. As a nationalist, Salmond has a view of Scottish history which he wants  all children in Scotland to learn. This history, however, has been  made somewhat anorexic  by what it is prepared to leave out. Instead of a feast of learning, the pupils of Scotland will be left to the unfulfilling mercies of Alec Salmond’s thin gruel of the kind which Ebenezer Scrooge once enjoyed,  and believed  perfectly adequate.

                If reports prove correct then those children in Scotland preparing to study their Highers will be told that Britain is an ‘arch-imperialist villain’, while the Empire will be restricted to lessons about slavery.

                The Great War also suffers from the censors pen; as the SNP finds it sufficient to teach it only from the perspective of those Scots that took part. As for Scottish history…well, you have guessed it. Hollywood will play its role – for where else could a disseminator of historical distortion turn for some kind of support after the success of Braveheart? Braveheart history will ornament the history curriculum in Scottish schools.

                Scottish victories over England will be the history curriculums’ main focus, as it has been for Alec Salmond for most of his life. Scottish Nationalism has long suffered from a deep vein thrombosis they believe was inflicted by the old enemy that had led them on a far, far too long journey of bitter disappointment.

                Now Scotland has an opportunity to rid itself of English rule and Alec Salmond sees himself as Scottish histories’ prodder. He believes that once Scotland emerges from the gloom of any association with England; he will deliver Scotland into the open arms Europe, where nationhood no longer has any part to play in a United Sates of Europe.

                As with Irish nationalism; Scottish nationalism will sell their sovereignty to Europe and become a mere canton within Europe. Which, further down the line, will prompt the question  - what was their nationalism all about in the first place?

ALEC SALMOND knows all too well where Scotland is heading, but chooses to play the nationalist card in order to rid Scotland of England beforehand. As a nationalist, Salmond is a fraud. He is as much a part of the Federal European dream as the French and Germans, to name but two.

                If Scotland, through the use of nationalist rhetoric, manages to divest itself of any association with England, then Alec Salmond will immediately sell Scotland out to a Greater Europe and gladly see his country reduced to a canton within such a dystopia.

                History is a nation’s record and should not be tampered with by politicians who may have a resentment  to address, such as Alec Salmond seems to have.

                If what we read comes about, then Salmond will have created a very dangerous precedent – one which will confuse the children as they grow up and experience a more rational and objective knowledge of their nation’s past.

                Politicians, whether north of the border or south, must be prohibited from altering the history curriculum. If changes are perceived as being needed then be advised by academic historians, whose heads are not polluted either by narrow nationalism or class consciousness.