REVOLUTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

YOU WAIT DECADES FOR a revolution then seven come along all at once. The Middle East at the moment can be compared to Europe immediately following the First World War, when the kings departed the continent driven by failure and social unrest. Russia became the Soviet Union, while Germany briefly courted revolution; and the Hapsburgs found themselves without a throne to sit on.

            Monarch after monarch paid the price for turning Europe into a blood-bath where some 20 million young men were sent to their graves at the behest of Monarchic feuding.

            Today in the Middle East Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen and Algeria, are all enmeshed in upheaval and nobody has a clear view of any future beyond today for these countries.

            The West in particular nervously awaits the verdict of history in a part of the world where it has so much at stake, and where, if the tide of history turns against it, the West will have to do more than sit on the fence and pray.

            But it is not only the West, but also militant Islam that is trying to decipher the runes on an almost daily basis. For Iran is hoping that the tide will eventually turn in its favour, and it can be at the centre of an Islamic empire bent upon the destruction of the infidel and the Jew.

            In all of these countries those people protesting are calling for democracy to be instated and free speech to be its only master. Such an arrangement would indeed suit the West, but it could also suit militant Islam.

            If, through the ballot box, an Islamist party were to be elected , would such a party be willing to relinquish power through the ballot box once its term in office came to an end?

            In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood are making all the right noises in order to be part of the democratic process. For if polls are to be trusted, the Brotherhood would be a formidable opponent for any secular  party to compete with in that part of the world; and if they earn the right to govern and do so with a radical Islamic agenda, they will not want to be removed from power.

            In the Islamic world democracy is little more than a means to an end for the Islamists who seek to bring the world to Islam - just as in the West communism sought the same goal and needed only one election in Russia to govern it for the next 70 years.

PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD  no doubt sees Iran as  pivotal  in the unfolding events. Like the old Soviet Union, which saw itself as the Sun around which all communist nations were mere satellites; so Iran would like to see the Islamic world.

            Iran’s purpose at the moment is to help Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and al-Queada to take on Israel and the West. But what if the outcome of the unexpected upheavals in the Middle East manage to expand its influence beyond terrorist groups to whole nations and peoples in the Islamic world – what then for the West?

            We in the West have never been weaker than we are today when faced with such a threat from the Islamic world. If the Islamic world managed to speak with one voice (which is what Ahmadinejad wants), and that voice sought the destruction of the West; the Islamic world could conquer. Never in its history has Islam had such a chance to conquer Europe. In the past Europe managed to halt such an expansion in its tracks. But today the Islamic world could not be stopped, if it so desired the conquest of its faith over all others.

            Europe’s frailty of leadership with its opening up of its boarders to some 15 million Muslims; with the prospect of a further 80 million more joining from Turkey if allowed entry to the European community, shows just how strong Islam is in the modern world.

            We in Europe are highly vulnerable if the events unfolding in the Middle East meet the expectations  of the Iranian leadership. In this country, for instance, our politicians, policy wonkers and civil servants, have fretted about how our Muslim population of over two million people would react to racial slurs, charges of Islamism and any reference that could upset their population.

            We have allowed and still allow foreign Imams to teach and preach hatred of the kaffir in our Mosques. While the Mosques have become no-go areas where the law is forbidden to walk  for fear of upsetting the Muslim community. We have allowed such a circumstance to come about because we have allowed over two million Muslims to live among us and now our leaders fear an explosion of resentment and so prefer to bury their head in the sand rather than to confront. Confrontation is anathema to our leaders who still think that Islam can be made docile like the dear old Anglican church and be drawn into our ways.

           

THE EVENTS unfolding in the Middle East are crucial to what the world will look like in two or three decades time. Islam is a proselytising faith that, like Christianity, seeks to convert the world to its way of seeing things. In the past Christianity tried to bring about such conversions by means of force.

            It was a medieval method of advancement that eventually met its match with Reformation – still, Christianity has survived in all of its many aspects, until today.

            But Islam has not been put upon by any Reformation. It has not been so restructured. So it flourishes today in its  medieval  armour. Its whole  presence in the modern world may be antediluvian, but its advancement is real and dangerous .

            The President of Libya , Colonel  Gaddafi , once said that all the Muslim world had to do was sit and wait; demographics would do what was needed as far as the West was concerned. He was of course referring to the millions of Muslims living  in Europe and the West generally?

            The Libyan President may prove to have been somewhat complacent if he ends up like Mubarak. But nevertheless he will have delivered, in a moment of lucidity, a profound  insight to those in  the Muslim world engaged upon the world’s Islamification through violence.

           

           

           

           

           

            

IS THIS THE END OF WELFARISM?

TODAY THE COALITION has published its Welfare Reform Bill, and Work and Pensions Secretary Ian Duncan Smith was on hand with the prime minister to launch it. It promises a shakeup of seismic proportions to the welfare state. If so, it is long in coming and much needed; for such a reform should have happened decades ago under the Thatcher administration; but not even the ‘Iron Lady’ had enough metal to take on the social liberals in all political parties and throughout the media, legal and educational establishments.

            Because welfarism went unchallenged for so long, reform today will make it harsh for many people to come to terms with. After Thatcher and Major, New Labour actually added new benefits to the already bloated system. Billions of pounds have been spent to keep people idle, while the failings of our educational system have made many employers angry at the lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills among school leavers.

            We have allowed a culture of refusal to grow among those ill-equipped school leavers whereby they can refuse work if it pays little more than the combined benefits handed out to them by the state. This has led employers to plead for no restrictions on immigration to fill the jobs many of our young workforce are badly prepared to do, or just refuse to do without fear of penalty.

            Perhaps the biggest welfare scandal of all time was created by the politicians themselves. Starting with Margaret Thatcher and continuing with Major, Blair and Brown, whereby hundreds of thousands of people were shifted by sleight of hand from the dole queues onto what today is called Incapacity Benefit. By doing so the politician’s artificially reduced the unemployment levels. This was because those claiming any disability benefit were not counted  on the unemployment register.

            In the 1980’s, when unemployment reached three million, such a wheeze kept the unemployment figures lower than they might have been, without which a further drop in popularity could have seen the premature end to what became a long premiership for Margaret Thatcher.

            Her successors continued with the same smoke and mirror policy. Which means today we have some 2.6 million claimants of Incapacity Benefit. Of course there are thousands of genuine recipients, but because of the behaviour of politicians, these have all been tarred with the same brush. I do not believe for one moment this country harbours so many disabled in so much distress that they are incapable of work of any kind.

THE SYSTEM OF WELFARE was meant purely as a safety net for those who found themselves without work in times of harsh economic circumstances.  It was never meant to keep people idle, in many cases, for decades without requiring  them  to make  a contribution to the economy through work.

            Welfare needs to be got to grips with. It does not mean, or should not mean, a blitzkrieg on all claimants of disability benefits. But those working and paying their taxes need to know that their contributions are being spent wisely and not flittered away on those who choose to abuse the system.

            I find it almost repugnant that someone should have to hand over part of his or her salary, in the form of tax, to keep welfare dependency alive among those who are quite happy to put two fingers up to such people while laying claim to that which others have worked so hard to make.

             Ian Duncan Smith will come under great pressure from liberal Britain to moderate this policy. Remember Margaret Thatcher? Even she for all the good things she did by transforming industrial relations and selling off the old state run industries, dared not embark upon a conquest of social liberalism in this country.

            The Welfare State has become a leviathan . Where once a pond was envisaged an ocean has been allowed to grow over the decades and now threatens a tsunami.

THE WELFARE REFORM BILL promises  once and for all to return it back to its basics. The Bill offers the following bulleted programme of reform which I have taken from the Daily Mail .

·         Universal Credit will replace 'dizzying' array of benefits

·         Claimants who refuse three reasonable job offers to lose hand-outs for three years

·         Disability Living Allowance to become 'sustainable' system with regular health checks

·         Those deemed fit to work will lose benefits if they turn offers down

·         Housing benefit restricted to cheapest 30 per cent of homes in an area

·         Cap on household benefits linked to average earnings

            The Coalition is in for one hell of a fight over this Bill. I have no doubt that its promoter (one of the few Tories left), Ian Duncan Smith ,will see it through without compromise at any stage. But I doubt whether the Coalition will prove so robust in its defence once opposition threatens to overwhelm their confidence and personal ambition.

            If any politician succeeds in reforming this vast encumbrance, he or she will have done a service to this country that stands comparison with the contributions made by both Churchill and Thatcher.

ROUGH JUSTICE FOR THE BANKERS?

VINCE CABLE, THE COALITION’S BUSINESS SECRETARY  is beginning to sport the rhetoric of a modern day witch-finder general when it comes to ‘greedy bankers’. On today’s  edition  of the Andrew Marr Show, he promised further retribution against the banks, suggesting a need for ‘fundamental surgery’. As ‘helpful’ as  Project Merlin (the agreement between the banks and the Coalition) was, Mr Cable said it was ‘by no means a finished article’.

                Use of such language causes much buttock-clenching among the Tory half of the coalition. Both  the prime minister and his chancellor had sought at least a truce with the banks after Project Merlin was launched. However, there are many in the nation (including Mr Cable) who will not be satisfied until the heads of these institutions are put in the stocks and held up to public ridicule.

                Remember the good old days when Mr Cable’s profession topped the unpopularity polls?  Now it is the banker’s turn to  feel the nation’s wrath. Whether they were bailed out or not by the taxpayer, it seems that the public refuses to discriminate between what they see as arbitrary categories.

                When the banks were weaving their magic and the country was feeling its benefit, the politicians  also enjoyed success with the electorate because of it. The 100 per cent mortgages and those creative pieces of fiction  ( the mortgage application form)  completed by those who naively succumb to  the advances of those selling the mortgages, faced little warning from the politicians at the time. Instead the politicians used  such sleight of hand to conjure up for themselves further terms in office.

                In other words, all partook of the kind of thimble-rigging that governed our economy and almost lead to its collapse.

                It was of course more complicated than this; but the bad loans were the kindling that eventually set alight the whole economy, and it was the tax payer who manned the fire hoses, while the politicians set about blaming the bankers as if they and they alone were to blame for the whole conflagration.

                To eviscerate the bankers alone  as we appear to have done on this occasion threatens an even greater tragedy for our economic welfare.  The politicians will never tell the electorate that they, as much as the bankers were greedy. For if ever there were a case of ‘f it looks too good to be true – then it is’, the dodgy mortgage transactions that once flourished were just that.

                People thought they had found the Holy Grail in home ownership, and there was no politician available at the time to disabuse them of this belief because they to found themselves as beneficiaries of the great economic madness that was unfolding before their eyes.

                Now, after all of this mess, what are the politicians asking the banks to do? Why, lend and continue lending. The banks, having been told they must behave more responsibly regarding their lending, after behaving so irresponsibly,  are now behaving irresponsibly in not sanctioning loans to businesses . Are the politicians seeking to orchestrate the policies of the banking system? If so they and they alone must accept any failure that such overtures may embrace.

THE FINANCIAL SECTOR in this country is regarded as second only to Wall Street in terms of finance. We long ago demoted manufacturing in this country, and promoted the financial sector.  The City of London is the magnet for most of the world’s financial activity.

                In total some £20 billion is collected in tax per annum from  City trading. The more prolific and profitable its dealings, the more revenue it pays in taxation . If ever there were a goose that laid a golden  egg it is indeed this country’s financial sector. Twenty billion is no small contribution to health and education.

                Now we come to bank bonuses, where individual city bankers or traders receive large bonuses from their companies.

                Such large  bonuses , let us remember, are distributed according to performance. What this means in the private sector is ever greater profits for their company and ever greater taxes to be paid as a consequence.

                As for the individual recipients of such bounty (in many instances totalling over the million pounds) there is also a further tax to pay. Those who receive such bonuses give half of it to the government to spend wherever they choose. Yet the politicians are the very people who seek to blacken this source of revenue.

                Wealth is good for both  the individual as well as the economy of nations. Wealth, in a fairly regulated democracy, does indeed trickle down to help the poorest. It does so through taxation which allows the state to provide help; but also from all forms of charitable giving. An example of which is the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, giving away billions of dollars to various projects in the Third World.

                We no longer live in a country of 18^th centaury mill owners. But, to hear the attacks lavished upon the bankers you would be forgiven for thinking that time had indeed stood still.

                This country has no longer a major manufacturing base from which to sell to the world. Our industries have undergone major upheavals over the past 30 years. We no longer have the manufacturing strength that entitled us to call ourselves Great Britain. Now we import goods to be distributed through the service sector.

                The financial sector is now the economic backbone of this country, and if we wish to continue to compete, this sector must not driven away from these shores by the ill-considered prejudice  of people who would have something real to complain about if the financial marketers did indeed flee on mass to some other, more favourable and less  vindictive corner of the globe.

                Vince Cable has led the charge against the bankers, and believes more needs to be done to rein in the bonuses. I, on the other hand believe that the greater the bonuses the more the government’s croupiers at  Her Majesty’s Inland Revenue can take in taxes.

                                    

EUROPEAN LAW RULES…OK?

TODAY PARLIAMENT DEBATES whether prisoners should be given the right to vote. It will be a futile and wasteful exercise, and, as is normal parliamentary procedure, the issue will be voted upon at the end of the debate; and, like the inevitability of death and taxation, it is certain that the nays will have it.

                Now, in any functioning  parliament elected by its people, this would  spell an end to the whole issue, and the people would continue about their lawful business while perhaps pausing briefly to scratch their heads in puzzlement at how such a proposition could have diverted our political representatives for so long in the first place.

                But the piece of theatre we will be witness to today  will show the British people just how little their votes matter, and how much of our sovereignty has been given away and continues to be drip- fed to Brussels by politicians from all parties.

                For it matters little that our representatives come to a view on anything if such a view runs contrary to laws passed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), an organisation which our political leaders are signatories to. So it matters little if our MPs vote against and argue the case against votes for prisoners . If we decide to ignore the ECHR and stand by the sovereignty of our parliament, we ourselves will be breaking the law and face a fine  of £100 million (or is it Euros).

                It does not matter how worthy or not an institution such as the ECHR is. For if it lays claim to the  sovereignty of all  national lawmaking within the EU (lawmaking which has been signed away, in a kind of Faustian pact), then the right to decide upon what laws should or should not govern our individual nations no longer matter.

                David Cameron says he feels sick at the prospect of prisoners getting the vote. But will he set himself against the ECHR  and ignore, as he should, any imposed fine, or will he seek compromise?

                My guess is, is that he will do nothing to obstruct our eventual incorporation into Europe as a province or canton. Indeed it would be in the interests of the European project if the EU was to give Cameron a victory over the issue votes for prisoners. For would it not prove us sceptics wrong? Would it not advance Cameron’s status as a Europhile to throw him a crumb or two?

                A  compromise will no doubt surface:  and one compromise which has been much vaunted suggests the suffrage should be given  only to those with minor misdemeanours of say a four year stay at her majesty’s pleasure – but given the state of prison sentencing in this country, a murderer could so easily be given the vote.

ALL OF OUR POLITICIANS  from whatever party they belong, know from their constituents that crime oscillates with immigration as being the two big issues that is of most concern to them. These concerns will be ignored by the MP’s at their peril. This is why all MPs, whether true believers or not, are prepared to veto the voting rights for prisoners. But those among them who, like Ken Clarke, believe wholeheartedly in the European ‘project’ can feel safe in the knowledge that the MP’s wishes will be ignored and we will dutifully obey once more, European law.

                For what this issue of votes for prisoners is really about is the gradual and inevitable loss of this nation’s sovereignty by way a foreign legislator. Such a prospect far outshines in importance the single issue of prisoners rights.  What this issue represents is the creeping hegemony of Europe and  the dissolution of the nation state, resulting in its abandonment to some kind of European super state.

                The ability of people to determine their own  laws through an elected national parliament is not mere lip-service to the ideal of democracy but the embodiment of that democracy.

                National identity is embedded in people. It cannot be judicially vanquished by any foreign court  whether signed up to or not by all national elected representatives of the people.  The nation state can carry ( in England’s case)  hundreds of years of identity. An identity that I hope the people of England can still feel a passion for. If they do, then there is no law that can separate them from that identity.

                No politician can sign this away. No agreement to do so between any English government and any foreign entity can take from us our national sovereignty and heritage, Only the people themselves (and only for a generation)  can be tempted away from that identity.

                No legal structure can legislate, and no government can sign up to an agreement, that effectively disbands a nation’s sovereignty. To  do so leaves no obligation upon future generations to obey any such accord. 

                Should, for instance, Scotland disband its attempt at independence because it challenges the Act of Union?  Of course not. It is the Scottish people and only the Scottish people who can determine their own destiny – and it must be the same with England.

                Therefore any decision made by any national government to relinquish its sovereignty may have judicial merit, but it cannot  override the will of the people. The law, in other words, is not written in stone but in the sands of time.

               

               

                 

                

‘STATE MULTICULTURALISM’

LAST WEEK THE PRIME MINISTER, gave a speech in Germany, part of which was dedicated to a critique of Multiculturalism.  For the first time in Multicultural Britain, we had a prime minister finally nerving himself to the challenge of publicly discrediting this ideology. He followed in the wake of Germany’s  Prime minister Angela Merkle who had denounced the credo as unworkable on a previous occasion.

                If  Mr Cameron  had voiced  such concerns and made them a major issue during last May’s General Election, he would be governing with a comfortable majority today, instead of horse-trading with  Liberal Democrats. But at least he has set the tone for the debate that needs to be had.

                Had Mr Cameron  spoken of such things just five years ago he would have seen his political ambitions  evaporate before his eyes, while his name would foul the sweet aroma of politically correct thinking that infuses many a dinner table of the London chattering classes.

                However, the expected backlash, which no doubt the prime minister and his advisors expected, turned out to be somewhat of a damp squib. There were no screams of racism - that intellectual pollutant that had silenced reason in the past: there were was also no outraged Labour MPs infecting the airways (as they once did in the past)  with their phoney outrage.

                No, any criticism from her majesty’s opposition was not about the content of Mr Cameron’s speech, but more to do with the purely coincidental  timing of a march on the same day by the British Defence League in Luton.

                The fact is, is that all Labour politicians, even those representing areas of second and third generation migrants, know how their voters feel on the topic of Multiculturalism. There are as many from the Indian and West Indian communities who oppose Multiculturalism, as there are among the aboriginal population.

                We have reached a point in this country’s history where we have to salvage the remains of our indigenous culture and demand from those of other cultures who wish to live among us to adapt to the host culture or return to wherever in the world their culture belongs.

                It is no longer acceptable to say (as Multiculturalism implies) just obey the law and live as you please. The host culture will adapt to you instead of you adapting to it. It is a wonder that the host culture has tolerated such a situation for so long. But then we realise the cost to anyone who opposed such a situation in the past. Such people were fascists, Nazis, members of the National Front, and latterly the BNP.  Fear has governed the evolution of multiculturalism and allowed it to take root and grow.

                If Multiculturalism was our only problem we could indeed consider ourselves fortunate. But we also have to concentrate our minds on the numbers of immigrants that have, in recent years, been allowed to intrude themselves upon us. Under Labour such vast encroachments were given  the nod by iin order to increase their votes and to indict the Tories of racism if they dared object.

                Since the 1960s, the Conservative Party has been vulnerable to charges of being racist because they produced multiculturalism’s greatest hate figure.

                Enoch Powell would today,  intellectually speaking, stand head and shoulders above any single politician from whatever party now occupies the green benches. He has become, in liberal folklore, their very own Hitler. Although there were many political admirers of his qualities at the time, the age of modern social liberalism demanded his evisceration  from British politics.

ENOCH POWELL’S CONTRIBUTION to parliamentary politics surpasses any modern contribution. He was a first rate classicist and staunch believer in the law and democracy. He was not a Nick Griffin as many liberal’s would like the modern voter to believe. It is true that his name is often called upon by the BNP to supplement their madness with the tincture of credibility; but the thoughtful Enoch would have, not so much turned on Nick Griffin, but ignored him completely.

                What made Enoch Powell public enemy number one was his famous (or infamous)  ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech given on April 22 1968. It was this speech that, in liberal Britain at the time, started what was latter to become the ideology of multiculturalism. Guilt for this country’s colonial history swept the nation and translated itself into a vitriolic hatred for what became known as Powellism by the British Left. Self loathing was the imprint that the 1960s left on the Left regarding our history.

                ‘Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.  We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population.  It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. 

                This passage from Powell’s  ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech has proven to be the most quoted among Powell’s liberal combatants since the 1960s. But Powell understood the sensitivities of the British people far better than did his political contemporaries or, for that matter, the modern politician. Which is why today all politicians from all parties are all too aware of the feelings of their constituents on this subject; and for the sake of their  seats are all too willing to modify their sentiments.

                If we look at the statistics on  immigration today, they are set to surpass Powell’s predictions.  Come the middle of this century, this island’s  population will have to acclimatise itself to some  70-80 million people. Powell’s figures (considered racist)  are somewhat  short of the mark. Yet by producing them he forfeited  his career at the time and had to  suffer the ignominy of having his name associated with racism .

                I believe in the coming months Enoch Powell ‘s contribution to the immigration debate will be read and heard more sympathetically than in the past. The knee-jerk reaction that accompanies any mention of his name in anything other than an unfavourable light, will lose its force and, rather belatedly, we will be able to confront those liberal demons that have been allowed to take control of the immigration agenda and mould from it the ideology of Multiculturalism.

                David Cameron has at least acknowledged the mess he, and those from within the Left of all the political parties, have made. Multiculturalism was part of the knee-jerk reaction to Enoch Powell mentioned above. It took off and its almost virus like qualities infected every political and academic institution. But rather than bringing people of other cultures together, it has drawn them tribally further apart.

                Let us hope that it is not too late and the genie can be put back. At least the lack of any meaningful backlash to Cameron’s speech by Multiculturalism’s supporters, may suggest that the tide is finally turning.

               

               

                 

So you want a revolution?

WHAT TWO DAYS AGO seemed to be a peaceful revolution, last night turned nasty as pro Mubarak supporters entered the fray. The spectacle was almost medieval as several horsemen and one camel charged the protesters in Tahrir Square, flaying erratically at the crowd with batons. But one after another, the horsemen were dragged from their steeds and suffered beatings from the anti-Mubarak demonstrators. It was a futile gesture paid for by Mubarak’s henchmen which I hope (if they are still alive) those quixotic cavalrymen with their broken lances, found themselves well rewarded for.

                This sudden lapse into bloodshed has been the christening that every revolution has to have, which is  just one of many reasons why they are not a good idea. Another is that you never know what will emerge from the maelstrom. - as many have found to their cost, what comes after is invariably worse than what went before.

                To the educated youth, revolution is a Byronic wet dream. The romance of the barricade and the noble principles that erect it, are the stuff of youthful idealism. But then, as we saw last night in Tahrir Square, those ideals suffer their first setback when the first blood is spilt.

                Revolution does not deserve the idealistic narrative given it by Marxists and anarchists. It is invariably a bloody business where, as we have seen in Egypt, law and order has been replaced by the DIY justice of desperate people who, without the protection of the law, have to form themselves into vigilantes in order to protect their homes.

                Revolution gives the phrase ‘taking the law into your own hands’ a rationality. It not only tares down the bad without guaranteeing something better, it also destroys what was good under the ancient regime - as it now threatens to do in Egypt.

EGYPT HAS BEEN A force for good in the Middle East since Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David  Accord in 1978 followed in 1979 by the Egypt-Israeli peace agreement. Since these two crucial periods in the history of the Middle East, Egypt has played the pivitol role between the Arab world and Israel, while acting to keep the Palestinians united…not an easy accomplishment as we have seen with the split between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority  (PA).

                The West is right to be worried about the outcome of the present revolution in Egypt. No doubt Left-wing cynics will celebrate the demise of Mubarak and accuse him of being a puppet of the hated United States. But, in Israel, Mubarak’s name meant stability for the Middle East - if not the pursuit of happiness for his people.

                Be careful what you wish for is sound advice, especially when revolution stirs. Mubarak has to go. Of this there can be no doubt even amongst his closest advisors. For to continue on until September as he wishes, when he promises to stand down is not a credible proposition for a  tyrant to offer his people. For a tyrant does not have to hold on to any promise he makes, especially if, as  Mubarak hopes, things will have calmed down enough by then to allow him (or his son) to continue ruling Egypt.

                 There is another saying, ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’. If the price of getting rid of the Mubarak menace is to replace it with a government which rightly feeds its people and elevates their social condition, but takes a hostile stance toward Israel and the West, then what may follow will make the current bloodshed seem like a mere paper cut.

THIS IS WHAT THE WEST FEARS. It fears what comes next – after Mubarak. The elephant in the room as far as the West is concerned is the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and what part they will eventually play in the governance of Egypt.

                It is said that the Muslim Brotherhood  is the opposition party with the greatest support in Egypt. The West however wants a secular society - for a kleptocracy is better than a Muslim theocracy that partners Iran. But the Muslim Brotherhood  may now have aspirations for Egypt that they never dared consider before the current events in Tahrir Square .

                Of all the computations the West has got to grips with following the demise of Mubarak, the one that suggests a popular Islamicist presence in government that (like the Bolsheviks in Russia) may seek to successfully engineer a victory for itself through any democratic mandate at a time of greatest dishevelment for the Egyptian people, is the most heart-stopping of scenarios.

WHEN MUBARAK GOES, what Egypt needs is a transitional period of leadership whose ultimate function is to pave the way for  democratic elections to take place, and for parties and politicians to organise themselves, and present candidates for office.

                I believe  Omar Suleman, the present vice president, to be  such a transitional leader who can lead Egypt toward democracy. He represents Egypt’s best chance of transforming a tyranny into a democracy. Omar Suleman, it is true, is not trusted by many Egyptians. But them, his true worth is not known to the Egyptian people.

                Omar Suleman has served Egypt and the Middle East well. It is he who has brokered and entered into negations on Egypt’s behalf with both Israel and the Palestinians. It is he who, if any single person can, lay claim to accomplishing  Middle East peace over the past two decades. Omar Suleman may have been part of Mubarak’s government, but his talent as a negotiator acting to resolve disputes on behalf of all conflicting parties is what is needed at this time in Egypt.

                If his gifts are to be dismissed because of his association with the ancient regime, then who will take control of this vital country? If there is no measure of transition to keep the country functioning while elections can be organised, then chaos will reign, with the best not coming out on top, but the most powerful seizing power.

               

                

MOST WOMEN DON’T UNDERSTAND THE OFF-SIDE RULE…

…BUT NEITHER DO MOST MEN. However it appears that to say so off camera about a female linesperson  when she is officiating at a premiership game, is sexist and punishable by, in the first instance, suspension from a lucrative job with Sky Sports.

            Both Andy Gray and his colleague Richard Keys were the culprits who were caught musing about the shortcomings of Sian Massey who was the linesperson in question. It was not personal and Ms Massey has to her credit acted with far greater maturity than her two detractors. By her silence she has also put herself above the feminist backlash that has surrounded the ‘Sky Two’ from all sectors of the media since the incident arose.

            What seems to have determined Andy Gray’s fate however, was his treatment of a female co-presenter, Charlotte Jackson, whom he jokingly asked to attach a microphone down the front of his trousers. Apparently Ms Jackson was not amused, but the incident, which took place before the Massey episode went unpunished by Sky at the time, and was only resurrected once the Massey incident reached the newsrooms.

            Not since the 17^th century when the country was in the grip of the Puritans have people had to be careful about what they say. Whether it be sexism, racism, homophobia or Islamaphobia, we all have to take care of what we say and who we say it to: and in this age of advanced technology, we must  also have a thought for who may be listening.

            Careers can be ended and freedom taken away for violations unknown of  50 years ago. Everywhere today, throughout  childhood and into adulthood, we are politically corrected, whether in the classroom or in the workplace  all kinds of newspeak like ‘diversity training’ is being instilled with minimum complaint.

            It is irrational to dislike someone because of the colour of their skin, and both immature and nasty to make up names to humiliate with. But name-calling has never been a crime in England since that brief Puritan hegemony.

            To refer to someone as a paki or nigger is indeed offensive, (although I have heard nigger being used by black against black without it being classed as a hate crime) but to drag someone before the court with the very real possibility of a prison sentence for such utterances should enrage a truly free society.

           

WHAT GRAY AND KEYS DID on the scale of ‘hate crimes’ was somewhat minor. But their target was ill-judged. Of all the isms and phobias currently seen  as crimes, anti-feminist remarks are the most deadly to man in modern Western culture.

            Like all dystopian concepts, political correctness relies upon fear in order to succeed in its aim of virally altering Western culture.  Thus we have put onto statute ‘hate crimes’, punishable by terms of imprisonment, or the loss of a job. The modern workplace  has become part of the nursery along with schools and academic institutions to help create a deadening variety of human being freed from hating or even disliking by the threat of punishment, as Andy Gray and Richard Keys have found to their cost in not understanding and naively falling fowl of this Brave New World in the making.

It is the right of every free born Britain to let rip free from the turn of the gaolers keys. It is our right to offend without telling untruths - untruths which can be challenged already through the laws of libel and slander.

Paki and nigger is name-calling, be it in a most extreme form. It will undoubtedly offend as it is intended to so do, but do you incorporate into such a law other types of similar offence. What of the disabled? I myself suffer with ankylosing spondylitis, a curvature of the spine that has left me exposed in the past to jibes such as hunchback and Quasimodo.          These taunts naturally left me angry. But the last thing I would have wanted was for those who used those names to be punished by the law. For if we use  the law in a way it was never intended to be used, it would be like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut.

The law cannot make people like each other and if it tries it amasses further resentment and ultimately the possibility of social unrest.

The use of the law is no way to protect the citizen from insults. Only the march of time unhindered by ideological palliatives such as political correctness can lead to common courtesy

Political correctness is Multiculturalisms Little Red Book and the sooner society is rid of both the better it will be for society. You cannot change human feelings to what you would like them to be through recourse to the law; you cannot alter human likes and dislikes by recourse to the law; and it is indoctrination to impose an ideology on a culture through schooling , work and the state broadcasting service.

Gray and Keys have fallen fowl of the thought police. Whether this episode will make them better citizens or make them resentful and more determined to resist this nasty and oppressive template of  Multiculturalism remains to be seen. But I hope that any change in their behaviour will not have come about because of any fear of punishment from a frightened future employer.