A fraudster’s Alma Mata

“Previously, one of 12 men charged in connection with a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners had been president of the[London Metropolitan] university’s Islamic Society, and a dossier of extremist Islamic literature was uncovered by The Sunday Telegraph on the campus.” Daily Telegraph

THE LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY has been banned from issuing visas to foreign students following an inspection by the immigration authorities. They found that a quarter of students either did not attend lessons and were merely using the “university” to obtain a visa, or have never been given permission to stay in the country, or had never had a good enough standard of English.

            More than 2000 students now face deportation unless they can find an alternative university - they have been given 60 days in which to do so.  Universities minister David Willetts is setting up a task force to help the genuine student find another institution to help them completes their studies.

            From what I have been reading of this seat of learning, it is little wonder that what was taking place had not been stamped on earlier. The London Metropolitan University (LMU), as will be gleaned from its harsh, metallic, and modernist exterior, does not have the cache of  Oxford or Cambridge, many of whose colleges were gifted by monarchs over the centuries . The LMU was founded in 2002, has 22,000 students, half of whom are foreign ranging over 190 different countries.

            In other words, they have been a cash cow for the LMU. In June the university was fined £5.9 million for recruiting to many students, exceeding government controls on new applicants.

            On another occasion  Pro Malcolm  Gillies, the vice-chancellor, sought to ban the sale of alcohol on campus because of “cultural insensitivity” and the “high percentage” of students who considered drinking immoral. The ban came shortly before a company called Chillisauce known for organising parties featuring strip shows, and S&M-style nightclubs, was linking up with LMU to offer a masters course in events management – what next? A masters courses in the distilling of Gin?

            Between 2005 and 2008 this modern day St Trinians was overpaid by £36 million in public funds for students it had failed to recruit or dropped out. Yet this institution is not short of supporters, as one would expect when such a culturally diverse institution is threatened.

            First off the mark, is of course the National Union of Students who accused the government of endangering “… the continuation of higher education as a successful export industry”. The NUT was followed by Mr rent-a-quote himself. Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee would have seen himself as being deeply amiss if he could not add twopeneth; “thousands of students in limbo” …“worst possible time” etcetera.

            Then comes that perennial complainer Jeremy Corbyn; “The very existence of LMU will be called into question as a major part of its income relies on overseas students,” he said.

NO INSTITUTION OTHER than the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should be given responsibility for issuing visas. What on earth is happening? Why was any institution outside of government being allowed to issue, what have turned out to be, a free entry to the country – high fives all round!

            An educational institution whose main interest is profit was given permission to grant visas. Now I am all for profit, but I also like to think I have an understanding of human nature.

            It is no good saying that the LMU was policed, when it was allowed to behave in the way it did for so long. Giving short cuts to foreign students by allowing visas to be issued by an educational institution is asking for trouble however many millions or even billions the higher education sector brings to the economy through foreign students.

            If it is to be the case of the more foreign students our universities take, the greater the financial income for the country – then why have visas at all. Why any restrictions if the more human flesh we can peddle the better, providing they can give the cash up-front?

            On the back of this nation’s considerable reputation worldwide for the best in higher education, have come various institutions who, limpet-like, seek to plough a profitable but scandalous furrow; by profiting from this country’s well deserved and well earned reputation for the very best education. I am reminded of Wackford Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby, and Dotheboy’s Hall when I see the way many foreign students are unceremoniously and freely given a visa, in exchange for a education, many of whom have little intention receiving.

IN DICKEN’S TIME, THERE FLOURISHED minor “educational establishments”, like Dotheboy’s in Yorkshire, that sought its income through promising inexpensiveness with what we would call today a five star service. Wackford Squeers could be so cheap by starving and brutalising his charges and finding parents with little or no concern for the fate of a stepson or daughter.

            I am by no means comparing the LMU with Dotheboy’s Hall, or comparing Squeers with Professor Malcolm  Gillies – unless I wish to  declare myself insane. But the way our higher education system has been run since the old polytechnics were turned into pseudo-universities because our egalitarian masters in parliament felt that all should be equal within their programme of social engineering; leaves me to believe that such institutions as the LMU are not Squeer-like in the quality of education they deliver; but merely in their economic ethos.

            The lengths people are prepared to go to make a profit from education is merely exemplified by Wackford Squeers, and should, as Dickens’ intended, serve merely as a warning for all who came after him.

            In higher education today, it is the production line of foreign students for profit that equates with  Squeer’s ethos. The LMU, and any other such institution, should be deprived of their ability to award visas – if there is one formula open to abuse and corruption it is handing such powers over to such a commercially driven organisation as the LMU.

           

           

           

           

            

Rachel Corrie – a sound verdict

23 -YEAR -OLD RACHEL CORRIE was run over and killed by an Israeli bulldozer has she was protesting on behave of the Palestinians near the Gaza-Egypt boarder  in 2003. Today her parents from America heard the judgement of the Israeli court that her death was an accident.

            According to the judgement, Ms Corrie had brought the tragedy on herself by entering a closed military zone during the second intifada. Judge Oded Gershon rejected the lawsuit from  Ms Corrie’s parents saying; “There is no justification to demand the state pay any damages”. Reading from his 162-page verdict, the judge said what happened had been a “regrettable accident” that could have been avoided had she obeyed the warning signs and a travel ban on the Gaza Strip. “She did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done.

            The judge said that Ms Corrie had “consciously put herself in harm’s way. The driver of the bulldozer, in his evidence said he did not see Ms Corrie, or even knew he had hit her.

            Judge Gershon gave the only verdict he could given in the circumstances. That Ms Corrie’s life which was taken from her at only 23-years of age, was a tragedy; but one which could have been and should have been avoided.

            The only way in which it could have been anything other than a tragedy, would have been if the driver of the bulldozer had act deliberately to kill Ms Corrie; anything else comes down to a grave misjudgement being made by the young activist; and however tragic this may have been, the Israeli state was never culpable.

            Even if the driver had deliberately killed her; he may be guilty of murder, but the Israeli state were not culpable in that murder. Ms Corrie had been warned to stay clear of the area and should have been guided by the travel ban – this what not New York after all.

            If Ms Corrie had been physically dragged from the scene by an IDF soldier; then Israel would have been accused of an overreaction or, to use that old favourite of the left, “using disproportionate force”.

           

IN RESPONSE TO Judge Gershon’s verdict, Ms Corrie’s mother Cindy gave a press conference. Obviously the verdict upset her. “'We are deeply saddened and troubled by what we heard today in the court. This was a bad day, not only for us, but for human rights, humanity, the rule of law and the country of Israel.” She went on to declare; 'We believe the bulldozer driver had the ability and responsibility to see what was in front of his machine,'

            At times like this, when a mother, still deeply distraught by the loss of a daughter, makes a statement to the media, it is the practice to feel only sympathy and put any criticism of what she says to one side out of respect. But as I watched Cindy Corrie’s statement and saw the woman; I do not believe she would want to zip peoples lips shut, if only in deference to her campaigning daughter.      So I am, out of respect for this lady, now choosing to speak my mind on her comments to the media.

            First of all, to say as she did, that she was deeply saddened and troubled by what she heard in court was wholly understandable; and if  in her position I had to sit through such a verdict I would have been more than saddened or troubled, I would have been bloody angry. Where she displayed dignity, I would have displayed a mawkish sentimentality and whished the state of Israel removed out of existence.

            This was indeed a bad day for the Corrie family.  But for human rights, humanity, the rule of law and the country of Israel? I am sorry but I must take issue with such  a broad statement. First of all, the state of Israel has nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to human rights, unless they are under the supervision of the European Court of Human Rights, as our own courts are. Palestinian homosexuals, for instance, find an exile within Israel after facing nothing but persecution in Gaza.

            Where humanity comes into this is of course a matter of judgement; but Israel has been attacked on a daily basis by rockets from the Gaza strip; Israel has had to build a wall separating herself from the Gaza strip - a wall which has been compared to the Berlin Wall, as well as the wall that divides Protestant from Catholic in Belfast.

            In the case of Israel, the wall had to be constructed because suicide bombers from Gaza were entering Israel and, Israeli fathers and mothers (like Ms Cindy Corrie) were left mourning their sons and daughters after the Palestinians, as Muslims, sought to lay claim to their 22 virgins after death through suicide.

             Turning to the rule of law and the state of Israel; neither off which Israel need apologise for for what happened in 2003.

            The state of Israel is a democratic nation, and as such the rule of  law has to take pride of place. If not it is no longer a democracy.  Uniquely, in that region of the world, Israel has a stable democracy - although the Arab world are doing their best to undermine and destroy it.

CINDY CORRIE’S statement to all the media gathered for the courts’ verdict cannot be left to bring shame on Israel. Her daughter, moved by idealism, sought to take up the cudgel on behalf of the Palestinians. How much she knew of the history of the region, I know not.

            It is however my guess (and it is only a guess) that Rachel Corrie believed in supporting the underdog, coming from a liberal family (and this is also only a guess). She however, instead of campaigning on behave of the Palestinians in America, wanted to be where the action was. So she took herself off to Israel with little understanding of the realities on the ground.

            In his summing up judge Gershon made reference to an organisation known as the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a body which seeks to advance the cause of the Palestinians, and which, apparently,  Rachel Corrie had joined. The judge’s view was that the ISM, “abuses the human rights discourse to blur its actions which are de facto violence;”adding that. “This included an army of activists serving as 'human shields' for terrorists wanted by Israeli security forces, financial and logistical aid to Palestinians including terrorists and their families.”

            In other words Rachel Corrie was being used as an American citizen. She was what Lenin once referred to as a useful idiot. She served her purpose. Today the case brought by her parents, and its verdict, is being seen throughout the world.

            In a liberal West already dissatisfied (to put it kindly) with Israel, Cindy Corrie’s statement comes as a bonus that will be headlined within the liberal controlled Western media. The BBC, no doubt, will play it for all it is worth without any counter argument against the Corrie family.

            Cindy Corrie disobeyed all the warnings. The driver of the bulldozer, whether deliberately or by accident, killed the young American, what cannot be denied is that Ms Corrie did ignore all the warnings, and therefore had to take responsibility for her own actions, and not through her parents pass it on to the Israeli state

           

A fateful decision is about to be taken

IF ALL THE commentators are proven correct, then the Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to take a decision that, if proven to have been the wrong one, could cost Israel and the West dearly. Speculation has it that he will give the order to attack Iran just before the American presidential elections, making it impossible for president Obama to refuse him American help on the eve of his fight for a second term.

            One commentator compared the period we have just witnessed in the Arab world since the beginning of the Arab Spring, to August 1914 in Europe. Although some may think this a somewhat tasteless comparison considering the millions who died on all sides in  that ensuing horror.

            But, if we look at the Middle East today, almost every country has been in internal conflict. As the dictators fell, the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood has become greater. Sunni and Shia Muslims only remain united by their loathing of Christians, who have been leaving  in their thousands into, what may become a new Diaspora.

            In Egypt the Coptic Christians have been attacked and many have been sent packing. In Syria, the West does not know what to expect when and if Assad goes. The opposition could turn out to be far worse than even than the Assad  regime. While in Lebanon, sectarian tensions, always kept just beneath the surface, broke loose in 1975, which led to a 15 year civil war during which 150,000 were killed and 200,000 wounded.

            Today, the events in Syria, (a country that always poked its nose into Lebanese affairs) will also have  their impact on Lebanon. Lebanon now harbours Hezbollah  on Israel’s northern border. It has 10,000 missile given free and gratis by Iran, and pointing at, and capable of hitting many Israeli towns and cities. Over 34-days in 2006, Hezbollah and Israel locked horns resulting in a stalemate between the combatants; but Hezbollah was thought to have acquitted itself well,

            In the Gaza Strip Hamas (Sunni) rules with an iron glove, and has done so since 2007 after it won the greater number of seats in the January 2006  parliamentary elections. Hamas’s political bureau is based in Damascus. They have only one ambition, the destruction of the Jewish state. To such people, a two-state solutions reeks of liberalism, which they have successfully managed to expel to the West Bank; where what is supposed to be a more pragmatic Palestinian  leadership under Mahmoud Abbas is still supportive of, but weakening to the charms of Hamas.

            When Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Iraq, were constrained by their megalomaniac rulers; Israel could, if not feel safe, then, after two wars with the Arab world, know that  such people would think twice before making the same mistake again – they all represented the Devil they knew and could feel, if not safe because of Hamas and Hezbollah, then at least had order and stability.

ISRAELS MAJOR concern is Iran. It is this nation’s declared wish to rid  what the world regards as the state of Israel belonging to the Jew. The Jew, and only the Jew – not Zionism as our anti-Semitic liberals would have it; but the Jews themselves. It is no accident that Nazi Germany found good allies among  the Arabs of the Middle East.

            Iran, like the Soviet Union of old, is using the major part of its GDP (in Iran’s case based on oil) to further her military ambitions. The first ambition of which would be the destruction of Israel – and in order to meet this ambition, a nuclear option would be needed. It would not only intimidate Israel but also serve to Christen (sic) Iran’s hegemony over the whole region among her Muslim believers.

            This would however cause great concern, not only within the West, but also in other parts of the Arab world such as Saudi Arabia, who would also be determined upon becoming a nuclear power aided by the West.

            The Arab Spring for Israel could mean its Armageddon; unless they act now against Iran. What if, in the future a nuclear Iran (like the old Soviet Union at the time of the Cuba crises)  threatens Israel with overwhelming force if they, for instance, needed once more to take action against Hezbollah or Hamas?

            Prime minister Netanyahu is being tested. His detractors are many, coming from within his own military and intelligence community, as well as from his own president, Shimon Peres. While president Obama has sought and gained the support of Jewish Rabbis to try and hang on to the much needed Jewish vote in the USA.

            Netanyahu’s great political influence was Winston Churchill; and I think we may have a Churchill moment approaching. I only hope that it does not turn out to be another Gallipoli.

              I feel the noose tightening around Israel’s neck following the Arab Spring – I also believe Netanyahu has felt the same tragedy unfolding for Israel. If he waits and lets Iran complete its ambitions for nuclear status, then the additional weight such a prospect would carry among Israel’s enemies;  would seal Israel’s fate once and for all, to the detriment of a free West.

            Whatever happens, failure may turn out to be the victor whatever course is taken. If we wait for sanctions to work long enough for the nuclear weapons to be brought on stream, then sanctions will have failed; and where does this leave Israel?

            If however, Israel decides to at least slow down Iran’s nuclear ambitions by launching an attack, and this fails. Where does this Israel stand?

            There is no simple option. If either failure through stasis (the West’s option) or probable but by no means certain failure through Israeli military action: either way Iranian hegemony will have elevated itself among the Muslim World. Then what price Israel’s inactivity?

           

LIKE THE COMMENTATOR who felt as if the Middle East today bares comparison with Europe in August 1914, I sense something diabolical is about to happen; not today, or tomorrow , but in the weeks and months ahead when the regions Arab dictators have finally departed from history: then we may see the Muslim Brotherhood orchestrating events in the Middle East.

            Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iran  and Jordon (who will fall into line as she did in the Yom Kippur War), will all unite and ignore their differences long enough to quash Israel. Hezbollah and Hamas will lead the charge – and what would be up against them?

            Israel’s army was tested in 2006 against Hezbollah, and the indecisive outcome as well as the performance by Hezbollah on that occasion, has caused much head scratching in Israel. It seems that since the 1967 Six Day War, the Arabs have performed better than the Israelis’ expected.

            The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) comprises 176, 500 troops with 445,000 reservists, out of a population of 7,900,600[1] people. The demographics are not very promising for Israel if she is faced with a further attempt at her annihilation; this time by what may turn out to be fanatical Islamists that outnumber them 10 -1 or more.

            Because Israel’s military, under such an assault, would be heavily dependent upon its reservists who are, let s not forget a vital component in the overall economy, so any conflict would have to be, as in 1967 and 1973, of short duration. If Israel were drawn into a prolonged struggle, her whole economy would face disaster. She would need outside help, and, until Obama, Israel could rely upon America for such help.

            Benjamin Netanyahu has the fate of his nation on his shoulders, as did his hero Churchill; but Churchill knew he needed, what he called our cousins across the Atlantic, and so will be the case today if Israel is to survive.

            I do not like the republican candidate who is challenging Obama for the presidency this November. Romney has failed to impress. So I fear a second term for Obama when it comes to Israel’s survival. I am working on the assumption of a Obama second term, which only adds to my own August 1914 fear.

           

           

           

           

---

[1] According to the 2012 estimate, but 7,412,200 according to the 2008 census

Cultures so far apart can tear down our civilisation

"Mohammed is God's apostle.  Those who follow him are harsh
 to the unbelievers but merciful to one another"  Quran 48:29

THE SICKENING STORY of an 11-year-old Down’s Syndrome  girl being arrested in Pakistan[1] for throwing away pages of a Koran prima (it was not even the Koran), and, as a consequence, is now facing death for blasphemy; must once more bring home to our politicians their ill chosen decision to allow this religion to make such an entrance into our society.

            The young girl belonged to a Christian family who, after their daughter’s arrest had to flee in terror because their lives would be in danger from their Muslim neighbours. It pains me to think what this child is now going through. Beaten and unable to understand why, and ignorant of the charges she is being faced with; and all alone without a familiar family face to reassure her.

            But it gets worse, an 11-year-old boy, a resident from the Christian Colony of Faisalabad, was brutally tortured before being killed. His family could only recognise him from a mark on his forehead. His lips, nose and belly were cut off, and his body badly burnt.

            The boy’s mother Asia Bibi said "We neither received any phone call for ransom nor were we told that Samuel had committed blasphemy,". It seems that being a Christian was crime enough.

             Penalties for blasphemy in Christian societies thankfully died out with the Enlightenment. However such medievalism has been given access to Europe and the UK in particular by our politicians. Under the rainbow banner of Multiculturalism, we now have over two million Muslims living among us in the UK.

            Islam seeks to conquer the world for Mohammed; just as, from the 15^th century onwards,  Christian proselytising sought the same objective using similar means in, for instance, South America where the Christian faith, as well as those Iberian monarchs, coveted the Inca and Aztec gold.

            But thankfully, as secularism advanced throughout the Christian world, such medievalism disappeared from the West’s religious culture. However it continues today as part of another great religion; Islam.

            The Islamic world has never been faced with a Renaissance, Reformation, or Enlightenment, to humanise the faith and put it in its true place within a civilised society. Secularism is today blamed for many things in Western society including the absence of a morality that only a religious faith can make work – and as an atheist myself, I subscribe to such a belief.

ISLAM STILL TO THIS day, resides in a medieval backwoods where all sorts of feudal practices are still performed and minor transgressions punished by death, usually at the will of illiterate Islamic peasant communities who have known little social and cultural advancement in over 1400 years. Ever since Mohammed was forced from Mecca to Medina in 622AD.

            Such a religious faith should have surely been kept at arm’s length when, those who reside over us in  parliament, sought to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony[2] by liberal  happy-clappies introducing us all to multiculturalism.

            Multiculturalism was an experiment based upon skin colour rather than culture. For all that mattered to our liberal class, from whatever party they belonged, was that ethnic minorities should live together in England’s green and pleasant land in retribution for our past colonial sins.

            Despite what they called it[3], our liberals were more concerned about the colour of a person’s skin than the culture  they came from. Indeed much ignorance and little thought was ever given to culture, despite the multifarious  warnings that were available. Presumably, once the Muslim nations such as Pakistan, imbibed British culture, then they would be so overcome by the appeal of Western culture, that they would at the very least tone down their medievalism, and, after two or three generations, become secularists and conform to a post-Enlightenment society. This was supposed to be the short cut that left out the Renaissance, Reformation, and  Enlightenment. But, as we see around us today – the experiment failed.

WE 60 MILLION BRITISH have been cold-called by our politicians and have been brought into an ism that never registered in any manifesto for fear of losing votes. Yet we find ourselves today living aside people that do not speak our language: and in the case of those  from Islamic nations like Pakistan who, as Muslims resort to the kind of barbarism described above, we have to zip our mouths for fear of causing offence.

            We fought for centuries at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives; to at first rid ourselves of the Roman curse, followed by the puritan curse. Religion within these isles was forced into a more temperate form of behaviour ultimately referred to as secularism. Once religion was put in its place, then science could be liberated to do what it eventually promised. Which left the Islamic world unable to advance because of their faith, whose strictures left them floundering within a previous century.

            Since the so-called Arab Spring Christian communities have come under threat causing thousands to flee their Muslim persecutors. Tolerance is not part of the Muslim vocabulary when it comes to other faiths, as has been proven by the events in Pakistan and Egypt.

            The indigenous people of these isles have been betrayed by their politicians for decades, ever since they put Powell to the wheel and drove him from public life. Now, it is becoming more and more apparent that he was right on the issue of culture – his naive accusers have inflicted, over the decades, a dangerous multicultural concoction that can only fall foul of  disharmony and conflict.

            As with the euro, where economies at different  stages of economic progress were, through, a European idealism, brought together into a single European currency. We now see the same process  entered into by our politicians, allowing whole cultures that are centuries apart in the case of  the Islamic world to become a whole…what madness! We now live in the UK with female genital mutilation, exorcism performed on children, and, as in Rochdale the harvesting of young white women from our streets by members of our Muslim community, in order to gratify the sexual frustration that Islam imposes.

            Decades of liberal guilt and colonial sensitivity has allowed this current danger to our culture to manifest itself – we have indeed been ill-served by our politicians.     

           

           

---

[1] Where, by the way, are our human rights lawyers and celebrities when it comes to such barbarism.

[2] Remember that old Coca-Cola ad from the 1970’s, that set the whole multicultural ball rolling?

[3] Multiculturalism

The BBC’s Director General and George Orwell

THE OUTGOING DIRECTOR GENERAL (DG) of the BBC, Mark Thompson has been approached by Joan Bakewell to get  George Orwell’s statue built  from public subscription; and no lesser BBC luminaries  than Andrew Marr, James Naughtie, and Liz Forgan, lent their support.

            Ms Bakewell’s approach was however turned down by the DG, which is fair enough. But Thompson’s reason for doing so is bizarre in the extreme. Apparently Orwell was too Left-wing to be considered for a plinth at the BBC.

            When I read Ms Bakewell’s piece in today’s Daily Telegraph, I at first thought she must have got it wrong, and Thompson would step forward with the usual get out on such occasion of  having had his comments “taken out of context”; for what other reason could there be for such a display of ignorance on behave of a well educated and obviously intelligent  man who, no doubt, had read Orwell’s volumes of essays and journalism, as well as his novels.

            That Orwell was of the left, there is of course little doubt. But for someone to consider him too left-wing, needs to explain themselves further; and I hope Mark Thompson will do so.

            George Orwell could never be pinned down. In Spain he fought with the Trotskyist POUM and in his book Homage to Catalonia, he clearly loathed and distrusted the Communists who were in thrall to Moscow and Stalin, and carried as great a loathing for the POUM as they did Franco.

            During the war years he broadcast for the BBC (who never thought him too left-wing then). Orwell was the willing tool of anti-fascist propaganda. He broadcast from  the now infamous Room 101 at the BBC, and some have suggested that his greatest novel 1984 was not only based on Stalin’s Russia, but also on the culture at the BBC at the time.

            The creator of 1984 and Animal Farm was I believe a socialist patriot. He loved his country, and would today have been considered a nationalist, in the modern sense of the word. He would not, I believe, have supported those who wish to see his nation absorbed into a United States of Europe.   Neither would he have been a believer in Multiculturalism. In India, like Enoch Powell, he experienced the phenomenon which Powell called communalism; that was to lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and ultimately the creation of Pakistan.

            He would have believed in a multiracial society where different races could become British, but he would not tolerate sacrificing British culture on the altar of diversity – of putting British culture on an equal footing with the many dozens of other cultures. He would have insisted that Great Britain and its culture remain supreme over others, and if those others wished to become citizens, their cultures would have to obey British laws and customs, or return to the culture from which they came -does this sound like being too left-wing?

IF ANYTHING, today George Orwell would consider himself  somewhat to the right of David Cameron and just, but only just, to the left of UKIP.  But as I wrote earlier, Orwell could not be pinned down; which allowed many parts of the political compass to claim him as their own .

            When I read Orwell back in the 1970s, I did so warily as a supporter and member of the British Communist Party (BCP). The BCP at the time never thought him too left-wing, and neither did the branch I belonged to.

            One day, I took myself off to London. I went to Collets book shop in the Tottenham Court Road and I bought the whole Penguin paperback edition of Orwell’s essays and journalism, which I have still, sitting on my book shelves – his novels I picked up locally.

            If anyone deserved the notoriety of being too left-wing , it was surely myself at the time. First of all I refused to read Homage to Catalonia, as I had also done with Hugh Thomas’s definitive study, The Spanish Civil War, both of which bared heavily down on Communist Party orthodoxy .

            Of his novels I brought myself to trust at the time were Burmese Days and Keep the Aspidistra Flying. 1984 and Animal Farm were to come much later, when my own doubts began to overwhelm and supplant Moscow’s overtures.

            Orwell was indeed the greatest journalist of his time. He also wrote the greatest dystopian novel of his time, which has transcended his time to become a warning beacon in our time. 1984 was indeed an anti-Stalinist novel, but his time at the BBC gave him much of the material for composing  it.

SO MANY ON THE left have claimed Orwell as their own, including the Labour Party, who at times have used a quote or two to make a point.

            I believe that George Orwell would today be considered a nationalist  with a social conscience. But if he saw what had happened to his country in the years since his death, I think he would, for a start, having believed in the original Welfare State, would today have come to the conclusion that the 21^st century welfare state had become a hindrance. Instead of a safety net, the welfare state had become a whole supermarket of different entitlements.

            If anyone on the left today can claim (risibly) Orwell as their own, then they need to once more return to a study of the great man’s works and put them in a modern context. Like, I hope Orwell would; I believe that the great master of the revolutionary process, Karl Marx, would also transcend and eliminate his whole philosophy if he could return to witness the capitalism of the 21^st century;  instead of depending upon the 19^th century and before, as his philosophical model.

            George Orwell has lightened the load of many a modern journalist by proffering them an independent spirit that cannot be imprisoned by the corporate institution that pay their wages. It is up to them whether they agree the great man’s terms, or continue to cow-tow to their employers and continue to draw the manifold funds awarded to them by whatever news network they scribble for.

            Orwell should have had a statue in his honour decades ago (I would have thought that the NUJ would have seen to this), and, as the BBC refuses to have such a statue on their property; may suggest upon its completion it sits somewhere in London that overlooks our modern journalists as go into and from work, to remind them that there were once standards within their profession.

           

           

            

For, I hope, the last time – the BBC

YES IT IS TRUE. The BBC is liberal and left wing-leaning. This time poor old Ian Duncan Smith had a go at the broadcaster; or rather their economics’ editor, Stephanie Flanders for the way she interpreted the governments’ unemployment statistics.

            The first thing to say is that the people will be on the side of Ms Flanders; not because of the rights and wrongs of the issue, but because Mr  Duncan Smith is a member of the government – it could be any government. The people do not like politicians and would sooner believe that Hitler was a liberal than give the benefit of any doubt to any government.

            I would ask Mr Duncan Smith to remember this; the BBC’s left-leaning liberal bias has the support of all the main party leaders; simply because they are themselves left-leaning liberals. It is a pity that this is the case, but that is where the politicians believe the Holy Grail of the centre ground is - as does the BBC.

            Mr Duncan Smith on the other hand, like myself, sit somewhere right of centre. The BBC takes my money as it does his, but we have no choice but pay. It is, like any other tax, punishable by a stint in prison for none payment. Liberally speaking it is a violation of my human rights – but this is the elephant in the room; and no liberal wants to face up to such an inconsistency in their thinking .     No other nation (outside of a failed state) allows its broadcasters to use the law in such a fashion; but when the state itself controls the broadcaster, via the amount by which the licence fee is to be set, then something is gravely wrong and needs to be dealt with.

            I have no objection to any broadcaster being biased – Fox news in America is biased to the Right. There are also dozens of radio stations in America also turning out a right-wing agenda. So the BBC is by no means alone in its own particular bias. But of course, in America these right-wing broadcasters are not reliant on taxpayer’s money - unlike the BBC.

I NO LONGER TAKE  seriously any attack made on the BBC by politicians; and neither does the BBC. Yet still, politicians from the right of the spectrum allow the BBC to raise their hackles and torment them into chants of bias.

            Now, because of Mr Duncan Smiths’ intervention, the government has followed up with an intent. The BBC’s output during the Tory Party conference this autumn will be closely monitored by call me Dave; on penalty of  - what?

            The battle between the BBC and the politicians is as concurrent as Christmas. But the BBC knows that, although they, the politicians may spitefully disallow the full increase in the yearly licence fee, the BBC believes that the British public are on their side and the politicians dare not go any further.

            But for how much longer can this reliance on the British public’s support be taken for granted? If the BBC is, as those who work for it believe it to be, a British institution whose popularity is as fixed on the nation’s culture as the monarchy; then why does  the BBC not go it alone?

            This institution has lived for decades off the sentimentality of generations of viewers and listeners. So why not give the people a choice. Instead of penalising them for none payment of their broadcasting tax. Why not let them go elsewhere and use the licence fee to select their own form of entertainment; while still remaining “popular” and solvent from the now freely given yearly subscription by those who wish to buy into the BBC?

            For an institution that brags of being the finest broadcaster in the world, to then fear choice, makes me think that the BBC  are far less certain than their boasts make them out to be. They fear the market place and their ability to survive within it without the need for  taxation; if not; if they truly believed that they had the top hand over all other broadcasters, then they would allow people like myself to go our own way in the market place, and not threaten us with imprisonment for none payment of our broadcasting tax.

IF THE POLITICIANS were serious, especially the Tories; they would break up the BBC and set it free from their (or any other government) control. Mr Duncan Smith, as a true believer in the private sector, should be campaigning for such an outcome.

            His silence on the issue of the contentious BBC interpretation of the  unemployment figures would have been preferred. He should have sat back and let the corporation provide itself with enough rope to hang itself; he should have set about trying to reform this antiquated institution on the quiet, so to speak.

            Yesterday in confirmation of the BBC’s bias, statistics provided through the Freedom of Information Act told us what we all suspected. The BBC buys up a quarter of the Guardian’s daily circulation. Over 50,000 copies are bought each day by the BBC. The paper’s job vacancy columns are filled with employment opportunities  from the BBC.

            I can remember as a member of the British Communist Party from 1972 to 1974, buying the daily Morning Star. It was as heavily subsidised by the Soviet Embassy then, as the Guardian is today by the BBC.

           

IF THE BBC’S PARLIAMENTARY ACCUSERS are serious about this institution, then they must act to transform it into a privately financed and truly independent broadcaster. I have heard many politicians attack the BBC but I have never heard from any of them who wished to replace it and put it on a sure footing where it can flourish through private subscription.

            Until the politicians give the BBC its liberty, I will ignore the likes of Mr Duncan Smith as well as any other politician. The politicians have it in their hands to liberate the BBC from their control, and if they cannot bring this about they have no right to complain about any kind of bias.

            The BBC has built up a worldwide reputation and can flourish without threats of imprisonment for those who  refuse to pay the licence tax. The BBC must be set free to go it alone. The confidence is there. They believe themselves to be the best broadcaster in the world; and subscribers should be banging on the doors of Broadcasting  House to subscribe.

            All I want is to be allowed to make a choice in the broadcasting market by using the £149 I am being currently forced to pay to the BBC and through it  the legal eye of the British government; and using it to make my own choice and decision about what I choose to watch. The BBC licence fee denies me this choice, and Ian Duncan Smith denies me this choice by his attack, not on the whole remit of the BBC institution, but by one of its mere supplicants –  the BBC’s Stephanie Flanders.

           

           

            

The Aussie narcissist is to address the nation on the balcony of the Reichstag tomorrow at 2pm

ONCE MORE A British government has managed to make a mountain out of a mole hill, in the way they have reacted to that egomaniacal self-publicist Julian Assange, currently holed up in the Ecuador Embassy in London.

            All they had to do was leave him there to stew without the oxygen of publicity, until he eventually stepped outside the embassy and made himself available to the authorities. Instead; what happened? The British government had an emotional spasm and  issued threats about entering the embassy and arresting Assange[1]: all grist to the Assange mill.

            Accounts I have read regarding his living conditions in the embassy suggest they fell well short of what Assange is used to, and would have eventually convinced him that a Swedish prison was preferable. It seems to me that  Assange is well used to his comforts as well as addicted to publicity; both of which will be in short supply in his current exile.

            Which means that all the British government needed to do was give him enough rope to hang himself; and such a goal would have been best achieved through silence and a degree of patience  on behalf of the UK government.

           

NOW WE HAVE a diplomatic farce on our hands, with the Organisation of American States (OAS)[2] calling a meeting in Washington to discuss the diplomatic dispute between  the UK and Ecuador. The meeting however, was not called over Julian Assange but over the “inviolability” of the Ecuador embassy.

            So the government’s original knee jerk reaction of threatening to enter the embassy to retrieve their “stolen goods” so to speak, has turned this whole wretched business into an international theatre, where the main performer, is no longer able to perform, but knows that the show is all about himself.

            The idiocy of our politicians, and their civil service advisors, it appears, have no  boundaries regarding  their capacity for doing the wrong thing. It was once observed that the main function of Russia in the world was to teach the rest of the world how not to do things.

            I now wonder, after the performance of  our political class since 1997, whether it has now become the UK’s main function.

             Julian Assange can now relieve the boredom that would have once been guaranteed to drive him from the embassy, by enjoying his performance on the world stage without even opening his mouth. The British government has, since its original idle threat, remained silent, but will be drawn into a contest by the OAS. They have now put themselves on the back foot, and will have to respond to the OAS findings after they meet in Washington – a response which will no doubt be responded to by Ecuador.

            Ecuador likes Assange because, as a chippy South American country they will support any one who upsets the mighty West – and the UK government has certainly proven its value to Ecuador in this regard.

            As we have witnessed with the behaviour of Argentina; we are not exactly popular in many parts of South America. Our past colonialism is still, pitifully, used as a custard pie aimed at our face by countries, who were once the victims of Spanish colonialism; which put to the sword  many an indigenous people – something the British never had a hand in.

            But many of those South American politicians who now confront us with our past, are the direct decedents of the Spanish conquistadors, who have the bare-faced cheek to now accuse us of colonialism, after the genocide of the indigenous peoples orchestrated by Spanish colonialism.

WE HAVE ENOUGH ON our plate with Argentina without inflaming the passions of the rest of South America.

            Julian Assange knows he has the power to raise the hackles of  Western politicians. He adds such a bait to his line, knowing it will haul in further converts. Assange sees himself as a kind of messiah persecuted by Western governments. Whether it be the UK, USA, or Sweden, he orchestrates the natural animosity there is in the world for such states to his own advantage.

            Assange cares little about those he has used to his advantage. Probably seeing them as his means to an end – that end being his “priestly” ordination as saviour, and all that he has calculated it will bring him.

ONE SUCH  “MEANS” came in the form of the journalist Vaughn Smith,[3] who provided him with an address that allowed him to stay in Britain. Mr Smith[4] agreed to stand Assange’s bail and provided him with accommodation at Ellingham Hall. Assange lived there for a year before, in 2011, moving to a lodge on Lord Abergavenny’s  Eridge Park estate neat Tunbridge Wells.

            When this second messiah left Lord Abergavenny’s estate and took up residence within the Ecuador Embassy, poor old Smith lost thousands in bail surety.

            But it seems that such a betrayal mattered little to his godliness. He looked only to himself and his vain ambitions.

            Yet Assange is not short of supporters within the liberal community, or those rushing to crown him with various awards. Awards like Amnesty International Media Award, Readers' Choice for TIME magazine's 2010 Person of the Year, the 2011 Sydney Peace Foundation gold medal and the 2011 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism .

            Yes, the liberal tribes have truly helped elevate the Assange Ego. They celebrated Wikileaks as a true, and in the new digital age, a positive contribution to democracy. Julian now entered liberal Rome (London) in a chariot, to be given his triumphrate; but lacked the advice whispered in many a Roman conquerors ears on such occasions…remember, you are human.

            The more popularity Assange harvests, the less he will feel himself of human flesh and blood. He will use the Ecuador embassy as freely for his own purpose as he did Ellingham Hall. Unluckily, the UK has no number of wealthy people willing to support this  mountebank.

JULIAN ASSANGE IS NO Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He is a fraud of the first degree who only sees himself as the prime celebrity in this celebrity age. He truly believes that the charges levelled against him are political rather than criminal. He is wanted in Sweden to face charges of rape and sexual abuse. Sweden is a pioneer social democratic  nation which exemplifies the “European ideal”, and as such offers Assange, if found guilty, far better conditions in their prisons than does the Ecuador embassy.

            What Assange fears is being  sent to America. He fears that the American system of justice will deliver him, if found guilty, to a more regimented and efficient system of justice which he would never escape until the full measure of his sentence was completed.

            This basic and mundane consideration is Assange’s sole concern. He fears more than anything else being delivered into the hands of the USA. He would sooner abandon those who have stood surety for him, than be deported to the USA. Assange  is the kind of  articulate fraud  whose  primary use of the English  language is for keeping  himself solvent and out of prison.

           

---

[1] Well Mr Hague

[2] The USA is not a member

[3] According to Wikipedia:  Henry Vaughan Lockhart Smith (born 22 July 1963) is an English restaurateur, sustainable farmer, news pioneer and independent video journalist. He ran the freelance agency Frontline News TV and founded the Frontline Club in London. The Guardian has described him as "a former army officer, journalist adventurer and rightwing libertarian."

[4] Jemima Khan is also out of pocket