EGYPT ON THE BRINK OF…

THE TRUTH IS NOBODY,  whether politician, seasoned correspondent or academic specialist of the Middle East, knows where the events unfolding in Egypt will lead.

                Western leaders, who have to sound authorative, are as bemused and as ignorant as their civil service advisors are about where this will all end. Predicting the outcome of revolution is like calculating the roulette wheel.

                One thing however is for sure. Waiting upon the outcome must be causing sleepless nights in the corridors of Western power. Of course, the elephant in the Oval Office as well as Downing Street, is the possible rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt once President Hosni Mubarak goes.

                The Muslim Brotherhood are popular with the Egyptian people and would prove disastrous for the West if they were to win any democratic election, if and when President Mubarak departs. If they gained control of the country, what would their attitude be toward Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria?  Would the military allow them to rule if they embraced sharia law and tried to turn Egypt into a theocracy?

                There is no doubt that the West would have liked President Mubarak to stay in power  while pursuing a reforming agenda. But if such a proposition carried any credibility at the beginning of these troubles, it has long since lost both its attraction and any possibility of ever happening.

                However, I believe many leaders in the West have a soft spot for Mubarak’s  former intelligence chief         Suleman who has just been appointed vice-president. From what I have read of this man, he would continue  Egypt’s friendly relationship with the West.

                He is seen as a moderate who is also respected by Israel, which has had many dealings with him in the past on Mubarak’s behalf.  Suleman’s contribution to the stability of the Middle East, it seems, cannot be underestimated, and the West would breath a lot easier if it was dealing with ‘President’ Suleman.

                But alas, the people correctly associate  him with Mubarak and would therefore reject him if given the chance through a secret ballot. Which brings us to Mohammed ElBaradei, the Nobel peace laureate who the people do see as a credible opposition leader.

                The trouble with Nobel peace laureates, is that they either lack credibility (Kissinger) or are trusting idealists who are vulnerable to drowning in the choppy  waters of political power. I am as ignorant of Mr  ElBaradei’s  qualities or qualifications to run Egypt. I know nothing of his party, or even if he has one; if not who would he appoint as president to help him govern?

                Mr ElBaradei, if he becomes the people’s choice, will have to form a government with… who? Will the Muslim Brotherhood have a role to play?

THESE ARE DESPEATE TIMES indeed for the West as well as Israel. I believe that Egypt’s fate has a greater significance for the West than had the fall of the Soviet Union. Egypt has been pivotal in orchestrating peace in the Middle East for the last 30 years. Mubarak was trusted by Israel as was Sadat before him. Both leaders knew that an accommodation would have to made by the Arab world with the state of Israel; even if, at times, it meant putting the Palestinian cause on hold.

                Those like Mr ElBaradei  give priority to the interests of the Egyptian people whose condition has fallen into dreadful decline during the Mubarak years ,while we in the West look and have to take cognisance of the big picture.

                The big picture for the West is this. If  Egypt were to fall into the hands of an Islamist party hell bent, like communism, upon the belief that their religion must encompass every acre of the planet, then the West will have a battle on its hands.

                Israel will have to contend with an invigorated Islamist Egypt as well as Hamas and Hezbollah. Added to this mixture would be Iran and Syria with al-Quaeda and the Taliban    stirring the pot in Afghanistan.

                With so many followers of Islam now living in the West, a Muslimist Egypt would represent the best opportunity for the Islamic world in 500 years to advance their faith into the West.

                As a Western citizen I obviously feel for the Egyptian people and truly believe that were    Mr Suleman to be allowed to govern transitionally until Egypt once more found its way by some kind of democratic mandate, then this would be the best outcome for Egypt and the world.

                Mubarak is estimated to have had stored away some $20 billion according to  the Daily Telegraph. He should depart and leave his vice-president to seek a democratic way forward for the Egyptian people. Let him keep his loot as many a dictator has been allowed to do in the past. He may have served the interests of the West well, but was it because he, like the West, believed that the interests of the Middle East was best served by an understanding with Israel, or was he more interested in the West’s money?

THE PRESENT CRISIS will be resolved one way or another, as the West awaits its fate. A fate which will determine whether military conflict with Israel will replace the uneasy concordant between Egypt and the Jewish state.

                The possibility of military conflict between the West and Islam is what the Western leaders most fear. They do so partly because, especially in Europe, Muslims have been encouraged to take up residency. In Britain for instance the current Muslim population will double over the next  30 years to 5 million. While in the rest of Europe there are currently some 15 million Muslims with the prospect of a further 80 million joining them from Turkey.

                In Europe this advance has been due to ‘moderate’ politicians who believe in a Multicultural society. This enterprise has lead to the creation of the apostate among leading European politicians. The German Chancellor, Angela Murkel has recently owned up to Multiculturalism’s failure in Germany.

                In this country the outcome of Egypt’s revolution is perhaps more eagerly awaited than in most other Western nations. If, for instance, Mr  Suleman leads an interim administration until elections can be held, then the UK can breathe a sigh of relief until the Egyptian people have their say through the ballot box.

                What would then be considered a favourable outcome for the UK with 2.5 million Muslims in residency on its shores is indecipherable . But no doubt whatever the outcome, our Foreign Office will paint as pretty a picture as ever appeared from the palette of Monet… in order to safe- guard our cultural diversity.

                 

                

Blair is still no war criminal

ON HIS SECOND APPEARENCE at the Chilcot Enquiry into the Iraq War last Friday, Tony Blair once more spent five hours being questioned by some of the best minds available over his management over what many believe to have been an illegal war. There were some sitting and listening to his evidence who had lost loved ones during the Iraq War. They hoped that Mr Blair would publicly apologise to them, and others like them in their position for ever taking us to war in the first place. This our former prime minister failed to do and was briefly heckled by one despairing wife or mother.

            What he did do was express his regret for the lives lost during that brief war, and for giving the impression at his last appearance that he deliberately ignored their suffering.

            Tony Blair, like Margaret Thatcher, is loved more abroad than at home. But the Iron Lady was never accused of being a war criminal, and never had a sizable  portion of her people demanding that she stood trial in the Hague as a war criminal.

            Tony Blair has not been so lucky, for there are many from all points of the political compass who do wish such a fate upon him. Among them are not only the ragbag loony Leftists to whom such a demand is just part of their  portfolio of  rhetoric which they use without caution or thought: there is also those on the Right who think an appearance before Mr Milosevic’s  accusers in the Hague would suit their opinion of Blair admirably.

            It is understandable, emotionally at least, that the loved ones of those killed should adopt a position that seeks Mr Blair’s imprisonment as a war criminal. It is a position one can understand  emotionally  if not intellectually, and they have a greater legitimacy for such demand than does Mr Blair’s political enemies, who, whether from the Right or the Left, have different agendas to the families of those killed in the war.

IS THIS NOT THE fourth or fifth enquiry into the Iraq War? It seems that every time one enquiry leaves Blair free to roam our streets, there are demands for another. Thus was born  Chilcot’s enquiry which one hopes will be the definitive one; but one must wait and see whether Chilcot’s verdict is a decisive valedictory to such enquiries or enough doubt will be presented as to allow further inquisitions until Blair’s enemies are satisfied, if not by a war crimes trial, then at least by Mr Blair’s unequivocal political guilt.

            I belong to a generation that was born in the shadow of Nuremburg, and I soon understood what being a war criminal meant.  The criteria then was provided by the Nazis. They consciously, for ideological reasons, deliberately set about the elimination of a whole race of people. It was the ambition of  Nazism to  do so. The Jews were not, in that awful phrase ‘collateral damage’; they were seen as just as inferior by the Germans as the black peoples had been seen by the slave traders and owners a hundred years earlier.

            As we know the Jews were joined by the gypsies as the enemies of  racial purity. Thus those who concocted the final solution, as well as those who implemented it were treated as war criminals when Germany was defeated.

            But let us remember this. By the modern definition of being a war criminal, Churchill and ‘Bomber’ Harris would join Tony Blair in the Hague. Was it not those two who oversaw the carpet bombing of German cities? Did hundreds of thousands of civilians not die indiscriminately in the bombing of those cities?

            Carpet bombing  was a formula whereby thousands of tons of munitions were dropped on German cities by us, causing indiscriminate carnage to the citizens of Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig. Surely, according to modern logic, this also represented a war crime?

            No doubt those on the Left would agree that such a military enterprise did represent a war crime. But those who sit on the Right and would like to see Mr Blair sitting in the Hague would no doubt baulk at such a comparison. To those people I would suggest they forget their political animosity toward Blair and consider whether his behaviour bares comparison to the Nuremburg defendants, and whether Churchill’s behaviour also bares the same comparison .

            After all, did Tony Blair not use his gifts of persuasion to encourage Bill Clinton to help the people of Kosovo  against the Serbs? Was he not successful in that endeavour?

            When the Muslims of Kosovo were liberated and the Serbs brought to heal, it was discovered  once again what war crimes meant in their original sense. Srebrenica was a war crime for which no UN official was ever sent to the Hague, despite the fact that their peacekeepers bore the responsibility for the deaths of Muslim civilians. They bore the responsibility because they gave them no protection against the Serbs. It was a disgraceful inaction that the Dutch who were given their role, failed to fulfil its remit.

            Tony Blair saved the UN from their failings in the Balkans by his determination to form a coalition of the Western powers to bring Serbia to heal. His success in that venture it seems, has counted little.

            In Sera Leon Blair  saved this small African nation from the barbarism of anarchy by ridding the country of  philistines who distributed debauchery and torture in equal measure throughout the country. Today in Sera Leon Tony Blair is seen as a ‘god’ or ‘king’ among the people.

            Tony Blair  believes in something called ‘liberal intervention’. It is a concept I do not believe in because it entails, (if necessary) nation building. Nation building is best left to the people after the tyrant has been removed from power and the people allowed to continue with their lives. To try, as we have done in both Iraq and Afghanistan, to reconstruct or rebuild both countries (in Iraq merely as an afterthought following the invasion) we in the West leave ourselves open to decades of political, military and financial involvement. Something the people living in the West do not support – especially at the cost of more deaths among our young soldiers.

             So I too am a Blair critic; but if his detractors had their way and he was harangued before a war crimes tribunal in the Hague, no democratic leader would take the necessary action in the future to stop a tyrant for fear of sharing Mr Blair’s fate.

            In his contribution to the Chilcot inquiry, the former prime minister referred to the next threat on the horizon for the West.

            Iran is fast becoming the fulcrum for the future of the whole Middle East. President  Mahmoud  Ahmadinejad’s reach extends throughout the region orchestrating conflict and turmoil from Afghanistan to Lebanon, Egypt and Gaza. Tehran’s power has grown as a result of the West’s weakness in preventing it.

            After Iraq, no Western leader is prepared to challenge Tehran, except by meaningless threats via the United Nations. Ahmadinejad is on the brink; and if he so wishes could tip the whole of the Middle East into conflict.

            As Blair said at the end of his contribution to Chilcot: “I am out in that region the whole time.  I see the impact and  influence of Iran everywhere.  It is negative,

destabilising.  It is supportive of terrorist groups. It is doing everything it can to impede progress in the Middle East peace process and to facilitate a situation in which that region cannot embark on the process of modernisation it urgently needs.

“This is not because we have done something.  You know, at some point -- and I say this to you with all the passion I possibly can -- the West has to get out of this what I think is a wretched policy or posture of apology for believing that we are causing what the

Iranians are doing or what these extremists are doing. We are not.  The fact is they are doing it because they disagree fundamentally with our way of life and they will carry on doing it unless they are met with the requisite determination and if necessary force.”

            Whatever you may think of Blair and his dealings on the international stage, the above warning should be heeded, and support be given to any Western leader prepared to act with force. Our weakness has been Tehran’s strength, and if we continue to shy away Iran will smell our fear.

“We got it wrong” (Phil Woolas)

THERE IS PERHAPS no greater threat to the stability of this country in the medium term than the arrival of large scale immigration on to our shores. It says something  of the seriousness of this subject that those who now discuss it publicly are not automatically targeted as racists and bigots as they were several years ago. Now even ex-Labour ministers who once pointed the finger are sharing their doubts publicly. Former Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears would have been run out of the Labour Party if she had said 10 years ago that, "The effects of migration can put a strain on public services, especially when there is a large movement into an area in a sho In 2007 Liam Byrne, the then immigration minister said there had to be “swift and sweeping changes” to the immigration system, while David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, insisted to the contrary, that there was “no obvious limit” to immigration.

            We have since learnt that Labour welcomed and even encouraged large scale immigration as a weapon to beat the Tories over the head, while also hoping to profit electorally from  the arrival of such large numbers. This is no doubt why Mr Blunkett could see no obvious limit to immigration.

            The enforced silence over the issue of immigration that has been demanded of us by the politically correct has led to some frightening statistics:

A migrant still arrives almost
every minute.

We must build a new home every six minutes for new migrants.

England is already, with Holland, the most crowded country in Europe
(except Malta)

Immigration will add 7 million to the population of England in the next 24 years - that is
7 times the population of Birmingham.

To keep the population  of the UK, now 61.2 million, below 70 million, net immigration must be reduced by 50,000 a year. With balanced migration it would peak at about 65 million.

Revised September 2010

The UK’s population is 61 million today.

The Government forecasts it will hit 70 million in 2028.

70 per cent of this growth will be due to immigration.[1]

                        This country has always welcomed those fleeing persecution in other countries and I hope it will continue to do so.  But what we are faced with is a threat to our stability as a society and the evisceration of our indigenous culture by the orthodoxies of an ideology called Multiculturalism.

            The last time we had immigration on this scale was in 1066, when the immigrants in question had to fight their way in at great cost to them and ourselves. “Ourselves” being at the time, Saxons, who had once themselves been intruders, but also died in their thousands to defend the country they had created for themselves since the 5^th and 6^th centuries. This

island’s peoples have never gone quietly into that dark night. But today it seems that this legacy of resistance has been neutered by Multiculturalism. Rather than stand out against

these intrusions, our politicians have merely acknowledged them as a by-product of  Globalisation - the buzz-word for the 21^st century.

            I can remember when zeitgeist once decorated the vocabulary of our political class. Nowadays it has been replaced by Globalisation, a term no doubt as equally ephemeral in the cultural lexicon of the times.        

           

IMMIGRATION INTO THE UK on such a scale harbours the real possibility of violence just as it surely embraces resentment among not only the indigenous white population but also those  second generation migrants who have managed to adapt to our culture, and who came to this country in the 1950s.

            According to a YouGov poll  commissioned by Migration Watch taken in 2009 on behalf of a Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration,  80 per cent of adults were concerned or very concerned about immigration into the UK, while just 20 per cent supported the [then] current levels of immigration.

            Karen Dunnell, the National Statistician, has said that net immigration[2]

 would need to be cut by 80 per cent if the government wanted to keep this country’s population below 70 million by 2028.

            It was, you may remember, Margaret Thatcher who once used the term “ being swamped” to describe the state of immigration into this country and was vilified not only by her natural political opponents and the liberal media, but also by many within her own party. She now sits, like Miss Haversham, exploring what might have been. But she made the mistake of speaking before her time on a subject that could so easily destroy all political ambition in a gifted politician.

           

THE LAST GOVERNMENT sought to evangelise the benefits of mass immigration with heavily corrupted statistics which has led to the people’s distrust of all government “facts”. For instance mass immigration (which is what we are being faced with) was presented as a necessity not only to our economy but to any economy.

            Immigration has made its contribution to all modern economies and will continue to do so. But it must be done so in accordance with strict measures such as four-yearly work permits. In this we way we attract the skills on a basis that never promises citizenship, but helps both the immigrant and his family living abroad, as well as the British citizen.

            On the issue of immigration the politically correct from all parts of the political  spectrum have either willingly, for ideological reasons, or for pragmatic reasons, supported the Multicultural agenda. They have accordingly buried our culture for both idealistic and self serving reasons – both of which will prove to be disastrous for our nation.

            The modern politicians have ill-served their people and may have, through their actions, done what even Hitler failed to do. They have managed to destroy our nation’s culture and handed it over to a non-entity.

            While we in the West succour to our breast and seek to assimilate among us as citizens, ever more foreign cultures, we sacrifice our own culture. While those who live with us demand we accept their culture – thus Multiculturalism is born.  It was born from our acknowledgment of the historical guilt we inherited from our colonial past.

[1] The difference between those emigrating and those immigrating

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[1] All of the above statistics have been provided by Migration Watch

[2] The difference between those emigrating and those immigrating

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BIGOTRY UNDER ATTACK FROM THE HEROIC BARONESS

BARONESS WARSI, THE Conservative party chairman is to deliver a speech attacking bigotry. Good for her! As a Muslim, Lady Warsi will no doubt be addressing the bigotry of Muslims toward the Western ‘infidels’ generally, but with special attention given to the treatment of gays, and women.

            She will no doubt be attacked by those bigoted preachers of hate within some of our mosques who see the West as the Great Satan which must be destroyed in the name of Allah and replaced with sharia law, that agreeably benevolent system of justice which is on display throughout the Muslim world for us decadenti in the West to admire.

            Lady Warsi will be congratulated on her brave stand against the Islamists who preach and act upon their bigotry. She knows what this element are capable of, and will no doubt join many a Western liberal in opposing them. Her speech will be the first by a Muslim to attack outright, with no qualification, the bigotry that exists among those living among us who practice the Muslim faith, and do so inspired by Allah.

            The Conservative Party made a wise choice in selecting the baroness to her position within the party. To so bravely speak out against the bigotry of her faith when we know what the consequences could be for her, shows remarkable bravery of the type old fashioned Tories would admire.

            Lady Warsi will be speaking on behalf of those Muslim women who are beaten regularly for any relapse in sharia law, however serious or minor such an infringement may be. Whether it be in Saudi Arabia or Iran, the Baroness’s words will be listened to by her Muslim sisters throughout the Muslim world and they will no doubt find some comfort with the fact that a Muslim woman has risen to such a position and is allowed to speak on their behalf without fear of the lash.

            Those Muslim women forced into arranged marriages and threatened with disgrace or even death if they do not comply with the cultural norms of Islam, will also welcome the baroness’ championing of them against the bigots who enslave them.

            It is true that bigotry is not confined to Islam, but those bigots represented by the BNP or their like have yet to highjack three airliners and force the pilots to crash into various targeted areas of London killing 3000 citizens as they did in New York

            Bigotry is found in all cultures. How many Indian women in this country would be allowed to marry Somali men for instance? But such bigotry does not lead to the lash or, in extremis – death.

            As Lady Warsi will no doubt point out, Muslim bigotry trumps even that of the BNP or any Western variant . She will no doubt say that, in the West such bigotry, when it does occur, is against the law and will be treated accordingly as a hate crime. Something which no Muslim country to my knowledge has on statute under sharia law.

            Another target of bigotry in all cultures is homosexuality. But only under Islam does the state exemplify and boast of its prejudice against it. In Britain, as the baroness knows, its elected parliament has the final word as the elected legislator of the country. So if bigotry against homosexuals expresses itself  publicly, then the law of the land steps in. For homosexuality is perfectly legal in many Western countries, unlike in Muslim countries where sharia law prevails and homosexuals are persecuted without restraint and left unprotected by the law.

           

BARONESS WARSI’S SPEECH will hopefully serve to enlighten her Muslim constituency to the meaning of bigotry. I have no wish to pre-judge the good lady’s speech but, considering its subject, I believe the Muslim community should have a better understanding of those among them who seek to replace Western values and religion with Islam, and who have no compunction in using any form barbarism to achieve their aims.

            This is why baroness Warsi’s contribution is so important.  For the Muslim community will listen and take heed of. By warning them against being drawn into the bigotry of sharia law she serves this country and the Muslim community well.

            David Cameron may have been criticised of late, but he cannot have been proven more perceptive than with his promotion of  Baroness Warsi to the chairmanship of the Conservative Party. Her attack upon bigotry will no doubt make many a law abiding Muslim think twice before falling into the clutches of Islamism.

            

Diamond Geezer

WHY BOB DIAMOND, THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF BARCLAYS, should have been asked to appear before the Treasury Select Committee in the first place is beyond me. Why he then agreed to such an invitation only compounds my bewilderment over yesterday’s proceedings.

            First of all the committee members belong to that discredited fraternity known as politicians; whose collective behaviour in the last parliament leaves them with little or no moral authority to challenge the behaviour of bankers; whether they were bailed out by the government (i.e. taxpayer) or not. As we know Barclays resisted the government’s overtures and carried on doing business successfully without any government handout.

            The questioning of Mr Diamond by the Great Thick-skinned in the committee room was meant to shame rather than to enlighten. One member demanded to know whether the head of Barclays would be accepting his annual bonus, seemingly ignorant of the fact that he had forgone this entitlement for the previous two years.

            Another member of the committee reminded a puzzled chief executive of the biblical adage relating to camels and needles; expecting, no doubt, to seriously undermine his moral authority. Instead, the question was greeted with laughter from other committee members.

            Barclays is among the top ten banks in the world. It could, given the wrong kind of environment, transfer its operations abroad to the detriment of a British economy that has relied upon the financial sector for it success over the past decade.

            The bonuses the banks pay their high flyers are deserved if they add to the profitability of the banks and financial houses.  Let us appreciate, as part of the calculation, that the much loathed successful banker who rakes in £2 million in bonus payment, has to give half of it back to the exchequer. In fact 20% of all taxes harvested by the exchequer comes from the financial sector. If we over regulate that sector billions paid in taxes would find a new home abroad, leaving  both our NHS and education budgets somewhat short of funds.

IT IS EASY TO BLAME the banks for the economic mess the world finds itself in today. But the truth is, that the banks form only part of the equation when it comes to how we came to be in this mess. Remember those  100% mortgages which helped create the property bubble?

            We the people were also part of the equation leading to failure. We were the willing authors of those pieces of fiction known as mortgage application forms, where we exaggerated our true worth while the banks and building societies gave us a nod and a wink.

            The politicians comprised the third part of the equation. It was they who allowed the recklessness to continue in the financial markets. They did so because while the bubble was inflating they harvested the popularity

            The politicians in power cannot be blamed for milking economic success , however transient it proves to be. But what is unforgivable, is for them to put the whole blame for the ensuing mess upon the shoulders of the banks.  The politicians dare not acknowledge their own costly failures, and they certainly do not wish to portion any part of the blame upon us, the people. For to do so would be political suicide. So it is the banks and only the banks which are now in the politician’s sights.

BOB DIAMOND was the epitome of self-restraint before the Treasury Select Committee. He sat Aurelian like absorbing the brick-bats. He knew that his one ambition in life was creating wealth. To him, unlike some of  his 13 complainants, he grasped the fact that the more wealth that is created for his company, the more taxes come into the hands of the treasury; resulting in greater public expenditure; and if this mechanism is undermined in any way by politicians courting  populism, then it would be the public that would suffer.

            Wealth and its creation has always been a problem in this country since the 1960s.  Having once been the author of capitalism, this country fermented an antipathy toward  it in the 1960s that is still with us today. The bankers are seen as the yielders of greed. But many a business, small or large, has profited from their activities and been able to invest part of their profits in the abilities of the very men and women whose bonuses they despise.

            Many of the works of these individuals  profit  pension funds. Those who garner for themselves the bonuses the public resent them having, have increased, by their activity, the financial volume of those funds, and through their labours have  provided a comfortable pension for many retired people.

            We, as a country, are blessed with the financial expertise that has kept us afloat for hundreds of years.  Apart from the ordinary citizen, the financial sector has helped build our manufacturing base. To many of our people the image of the cigar smoking top-hatted capitalist demon has once more breeched the surface of popular prejudice.

            If we abandon our financial sector, which over regulation will conspire to achieve, then we will become the authors of our own destruction and will truly deserve our ruination.

            We are blessed in this country with a financial sector second only to New York. If the people  and the politicians wish to abandon or disadvantage it in any way then  the British people will suffer the consequences, which is why the Chief Executive of Barclays, Bob Diamond remained calm and collected throughout his interview with the select committee . For Barclays will survive whatever judgement the Treasury Select  Committee arrives at.

             

'LITTLE EMPERORS'

WHENEVER DEMONSTRATIONS ON THE CONTINENT turn nasty, the police introduce water cannon, tear gas, rubber bullets, and, in extremis, stun grenades to break up the anarchy: the same police are also known for wielding their batons robustly and indiscriminately. They do so in order to defend themselves and their comrades from injury. The public on the continent understand this and even the demonstrators know what to expect from the authorities when their behaviour gets out of hand. They do not go running home to the suburbs to complain of  the police’s ‘disproportionate response’ to their behaviour.

            In this country it is different as we saw last Thursday when the sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie took to the streets of London to complain of university fees. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, what will be remembered from the events that took place was the behaviour of the demonstrators.

            The Metropolitan Police, by comparison with their colleagues on the continent, showed great restraint . The Met tried to accommodate the demonstrators by liaising with the NSU organisers in order to secure a safe route  along which the march could take place. We now know that many of the marchers broke away hell bent upon provocation and violence.

            How many actually took part in the violence that was to follow is an interesting feature of what occurred. Those reporting the events for the media insisted that the provocateurs were a ‘minority of anarchists’ hell bent on trouble.

            But for those of us who were sitting at home watching the unfolding drama, such a comment was in direct contradiction to what we were seeing on our television screens.

            It is true that those attacking the police had their faces covered, but there were many others taunting the police and even more applauding such behaviour. If they were a minority then they were a minority whose numbers reached the thousands.

            It was not just a minority of ‘outsiders’ causing the violence, but many of the spawn of Middle England; which is no doubt why the Daily Mail in particular  used the ‘minority of anarchists’ theme when reporting the violence.

MANY OF THOSE working in the media attended university and no doubt have children attending, or are about to attend university.  It is from such a source that we were given our information regarding  the events surrounding the demonstration.

            The response to the students was commensurate with their pattern of behaviour. It was reported, for instance, that snooker and golf balls were thrown at the police. Such missiles cannot be picked up off the street – they have to be brought to the event with the sole purpose of causing injury to the police. Yet even when faced with such premeditated violence, the police acted with far greater restraint than their colleagues on the continent.

            Instead of water cannon and tear gas, the Met used a tactic known as ‘ketteling’; which is mean to confine the protesters within a given area until they have calmed down sufficiently to be allowed  to leave gradually in small numbers. This is what happened last Thursday when  the police, to prevent students going on the rampage in other areas of the city, set about ketteling the protesters.

            Of all the methods used for controlling out of control demonstrators, ketteling must be among the least violent forms of managing crowds used by any police force anywhere in the world.

            For these ‘Little Emperors’ to pretend that they had been attacked by a ruthless Gestapo and brutally attended to, may fit in with those preconceived prejudices of the Left regarding the police, but the reality of last Thursday’s events were observed by millions of people who let their eyes inform them of the reality; and that reality did little for the reputation of our higher educated.

THE HEIR TO THE THRONE AT THE COURT OF SEPP BLATTER

MOST INTERNATIONAL BODIES are more or less corrupt. Whether it is the United Nations, the European Union, or the IOC and FIFA; the greater the level of an organisation’s unaccountability to the public, the more their members will be tempted by the possibility of a first class carriage on the gravy train.

            Today the second in line to the throne, as well as our prime minister will both go crawling, cap in hand, to one such body – FIFA. They will be pleading on behalf of the FA for the 2018 World Cup to be staged in the UK; and such is the overwhelming hunger for such an event to be staged on our shores, that our future head of state and his prime minister are not only fully prepared to ignore the corrupt behaviour within this organisation, but also to condemn as ‘unpatriotic’ the BBC’s decision to show last night’s Panorama programme that sought to expose FIFA’s fraudulent practices.

            It is a somewhat strange form of patriotism that  allows itself to cohabit with such a body as FIFA, while condemning those who wish to expose its dishonesty in the national interest.

            I am no friend of the BBC but it was right to show this programme when it did; and if our Great and Good wish to tarnish themselves and the office they hold by ignoring the scandal, and actively negotiate with such an organisation, then they should forfeit whatever public deference they may command.

           

THE UK should never have bid for the event in the first place knowing the kind of people they would be dealing with. FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, knows how addicted to the game are its millions of supporters; and as such he is all too aware of the power he wields over their governments when it comes to the World Cup. He sits Buddha-like orchestrating the bids and forcing governments to change their country’s laws to suit FIFA’s requirements.

            It is surely a sign of decline into irrelevance when a country is willing to send, as part of its delegation, its prime minister to help negotiate, not with another government, but with the heads of a sporting body. Both FIFA and the IOC have become over powerful . They should have no more influence over politicians and princes than does the British Tiddlywinks Association. By pandering to such sporting bodies our politicians have devalued their office and elevated Mr Blatter’s.

            No matter how popular it is, football is a sport and should be treated as such. It is now, sadly, common practice for our political leaders to involve their office, for populist reasons,  in the sporting world.

            It began, I believe, with Harold Wilson in 1966 when we won the World Cup. It was Wilson who began the political association with sport and sports people and it has flourished ever since. Today we even have a sports minister interfering in what should be  left to the various sporting organisations to oversee .

            Because all sport is popular our politicians want a piece of the action and are prepared to demean their office in pursuit of it. They are like Roman emperors courting popularity through the provision of the circus. Today’s rulers however, have turned themselves into Mr Blatter’s courtiers, hoping to receive the nod that will see them return in triumph to these shores.

            As with the decline of the Roman Empire, superficiality has been elevated above all else in the Western  society; thus we have had the rise of celebrity, football, and a particular favourite  in this country, the rise of the chef. Where once we admired heroes who did great things on our country’s behalf, we are now inundated with countless food programmes which have given us the celebrity chef to fawn and fret over.

            The picture presented to us, is one of decadence and decline. Our leaders pay homage to the trivial because to do so means clinging on to power. To be popular one must profess affection for and knowledge of  all kinds of populist  culture.  Today, it is more important for a leader of this country to read Hello magazine than it is to have read Dickens or Trollop; or , for that matter, to have had a solid grounding in their country’s history.

            For our prime minister and heir to the throne to supinely approach a corrupt sporting organisation and plead before its governing body for a sporting competition to take place on UK soil is humiliating to people he represents.

            If leaders of other countries think so little of the offices they hold that they feel comfortable dealing with such people, then so be it. But for our leaders to ingratiate themselves with the FIFA family only reduces further their own reputations among the British people.