Tony Blair is hated at home – rightly so.

HAS THERE EVER been a more shocking piece of social engineering in a democracy? The plan was to change the demographics of the United Kingdom; not through any invasion of the type used by the likes of the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Normans or Nazis; but by a prime minister opening up his country's borders long before he even had to in order to strengthen his party's appeal – or rather his own appeal as the deliverer of New Labour.

                

                 We all knew from Peter Mandelson that the Labour Government under Tony Blair opened up our borders without going along with the EU's bedding in period of seven years before it was needed to come into effect. Mandelson has admitted that his puppet master wanted to change Labours traditional electorate from within the working class (which was shrinking) while those that were left were deemed antiquated and hostile to New Labour. Blair also sought to rub the noses of the Tories into the dirt. He hoped that the Conservative Party in the country would rebel; and they did, but only by turning to Ukip who gained four million votes at the last general election.

                

                 Blair opened our country's borders willingly and purposely; believing the country needed fresh blood to champion the cause of his New Labour project. He decided that the British working class had to be replaced, and, to him there could be no better way of keeping his project alive and flourishing than by the importation of replacements. And 685,000 of the replacements came from Poland. Blair's attempt at social engineering will have serious consequences. The joke he wished to play upon the Tory Party will come back to haunt him. He will be seen in the future as a counterfeit statesman of little consequence by history. He will find his mark in the annals, however, more through his misjudgements than through his achievements - which apart from winning three general elections  has very little to commend himself to history. Thatcher also served three terms and saved the country; while Blair ruined its social fabric through his social engineering.

                

                  My brother suggested that the Poles were given preference because Cheri Blair is a Catholic; and the introduction over time by Polish Catholics into the UK would strengthen the UK Catholic population to the benefit, not only of the Catholic Church in the UK; but also to Cheri Blair and her husband; the latter in terms of grateful Poles keeping his project alive.

                 

                  I thought at the time, that my brother was being somewhat in need of a more rational perspective, to put it kindly. However, I am prepared to accept that such a prospect was considered by the Blair's, not as a prime objective; but as an additional benefit to their misconceived and perilous restructuring of the UK's demographics to what he thought would be to New Labour's benefit. Blair is an egoist par excellence: he considers himself almost celestial outside of his country's borders. In all parts of the world (especially the money making parts) Tony Blair is treated, especially in the USA, as a money spinner on the speech-making circuit.

                

                  By falling in line with George Bush junior after 9/11; Blair established himself in the most financially lucrative country in the Western world. He addressed Congress with tumultuous applause. Once he engaged the American public as he did in his speech to the American Congress on that fateful occasion; his celebrity was guaranteed internationally, and he joined the lucrative speech-making circuit commanding six zero sums for a 40 minute speech; after he was forced from office by the ever mordant presence of Gordon Brown in his political life. 

TONY BLAIR has done great harm to this country. He is hated as much at home as he is revered among the wealthy abroad; he consorts with tyrants, and his lawyer wife defends such tyrants using human rights law.  He has harvested millions from such associates abroad; and whatever happens to this country the Blair's will be safe and affluent. They care little about the indigenous population; if their wages are driven down by imports of cheap Labour; if their schools, hospitals, and homes are put in what may turn out to be an unrecoverable position brought about by Blair's Merkle-like invitation to two and a half million migrants to come swamp the system; then so be it.

                

                 The Blair's will not be put out by any of this because they can buy their son and daughter's education and healthcare; and a home in some out of the way cull de sac or crescent hidden by trees or other such foliage from the indigenous proles, where they need never see or experience the social landscape Tony Blair has created – except of course if they need a Polish plumber or Philippine maid to cater for Cheri's needs.

                

                 The Blair's remind me of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. The Blair's are as hated in their country as were the Marcos' in theirs. If the remain supporters wish to win in June, then one of the first things they must do is to clamp shut Tony Blair's mouth. While, as much as I loathe the very sight of the man I voted for on three occasions; I hope he ignores such advice and attend his ego.

                

                 Social engineering has never had a happy history. It was tried by Stalin, Mao, and Hitler among many others over time. Driven by ideology and idealism, both Communism and Nazism turned their creations into a nightmare for those who lived under them: and so it will prove with Tony Blair's experiment in the genre: multiculturalism is the latest ideology that blueprints Blair's social engineering and it will have the same consequences, (and not only for the white indigenous, but also for the post-war Asian and Afro-Caribbean population) as all other forms of political idealism has.

                

                Blair is no friend of the UK. He cares little for his nation; he cares little for its indigenous culture, and he certainly cares little for any rational argument that opposes his vision. He would never tolerate criticism or advice from more practised seniors in the civil service if their advice contradicted the project. He thinks himself immutable, like a Grecian god. His word is the word and he expects it to be obeyed.  Each electoral victory added to his sense of demagogic status. Like all celebrities (which after all he really is) he floated in the ether of fame – loved abroad and hated at home.

               

An insidious and ever growing threat

HOW OFTEN HAVE you heard someone like me (on the Right in politics) use the phrase 'Political Correctness gone mad'? Well, those of my persuasion should desist from ever using it again. Political Correctness does not go mad; it is mad.  Political Correctness (PC) leads to a totalitarian assault on free speech: autocratic impulses runs through it like Blackpool through a stick of Blackpool rock. PC is can only be an evil presence in a society that embraces libertarian values such as free speech. This Orwellian concept of the hate crime is pernicious to liberty. To write or say nigger[1] (as the worse example of many hate words) can end careers and even lead to prosecution. But how many times have I heard the term 'house nigger', or just plain old nigger used by one black person against another with little criticism (let alone a murmur of disapproval) from the liberalista?

                

                They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions: so it has proved to be the case with the ideology of multiculturalism, now adopted throughout the Western World and underscored by PC; and the dreaded legal device of the hate crime. We are faced with a new Puritanism and it comes from the Left[2] this time and not from the Right. It started off as all Leftist political ideologies tend to do, with an idealistic 'progressive' impulse which everybody could agree with (for we all know that it is wrong to use abusive language). But when such well-supported sentiments are carried further than many of those who originally supported the idea intended then PC has gone too far.  

               

                Something begins to happen. Soon the use of language is put under a microscope and the PC parameters are widened to contain new additions to the PC lexicon; which in turn means widening the law to include them; behaviour is studied, and it is not long before the knock on the door reminds one of the Stasi in East Germany – you think I go too far; well let me tell you of the experiences of a 15-year-old school boy who, after discussing immigration with his fellow pupils he used the school's computer to brief himself up and went to the Ukip website (his father is a member, and one of the four million who voted Ukip last May, including myself).

JOE TAYLOR was flagged as a political extremist by his school's deputy head master after he clicked on to Ukip's website using his school username to log in. He was reported to the police by his teachers. The teachers claimed to the police that he had been using a 'politically incorrect websites'. Joe was then brought in for questioning by the police. Joe was also referred to a team of experts whose original purpose was to prevent vulnerable youngsters from being groomed by ISIS.

                

                Joe was taken to be interviewed by the police. During his interrogation, he was accused by his interrogator of being a 'Ukip activist' and said he was wrong to have visited the website. It is one thing to bring to the authorities attention, for instance, a young Muslim pupil tracking ISIS on the internet; both for his or hers sake as well as our own. But what the hell were the teachers, aided by the police doing, in questioning a15-year-old for using the Ukip website.

                

                Ukip is a legitimate political party which I have voted for, for the past four years after voting Labour from 1968 when I reached the voting age, to the rise of Gordon Brown. Ukip does not deserve this kind of treatment; especially when it is used to implicate a 15-year-old whose father happens to vote Ukip. Perhaps Joe should be taken away and put in the care of state until he reaches 16.

I CAN ONLY assume from the behaviour of Joe's teachers, that they are Leftists to the core[3] and they consider Joe's behaviour to be in need of a Marxist type form of re-education in the hands of the government's unnamed team of specialists alluded to earlier.

                

                 It is truly frightening what is happening in this new dystopian PC world. It is creating a purge of the English language (idiomatically speaking). It is barring all forms of distasteful colloquial expressions such as nigger and faggot. There are many hateful expressions that must be put up with, if we as human beings wish to remain free. Humans can be nasty to each other; this we all know and in time such racist forms will be eliminated without reference to the law. Civil society and only civil society will conquer all forms of prejudice, but only over time when civilisation overcomes these antiquated forms of nasty expression.

                

                Multiculturalism and PC were responsible for the events in Rochdale, Rotherham, where gangs of Asians seemed to have a free hand when they removed children from the street assaulted and raped. The police knew what was happening as did social workers and local politicians. But fearful of PC they all allowed these gangs to go about their nefarious business free from prosecution. In Rotherham, it was even aid regarded that they owned the town.

                

                 Jo Taylor was not ignored by the employees of the modern state; he was quickly jumped upon. In Rotherham, a teacher said that children were seen getting into the cars of Asians after school: but such behaviour went unreported by the school. Everybody understood what was happening but they feared what would happen if they did do something. They were scared of being called racists and like the police, social workers, and teachers they kept their mouths tightly shut.

                

                Jo Taylor, on the other hand, had no chance. He was white, and therefore, a right and fitting target for the liberal inquisition. There was no chance of the teachers at his school being charged with racism. But I bet you these same teachers would have behaved in exactly the same way as their colleagues did in Rotherham if Jo had been Asian. A different set of values would then come into force; PC values and consideration of the black spot of racism being given you[4].

                

                We are still in the early stages of a nightmare. When it comes to an end is anyone's guess. All three of this country's main political parties have bought into multiculturalism and because of this we cannot predict an end to the nightmare.

               

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[1] Which, whenever referred to in print has to have four asterisks between the N and the R

[2] I will use the term broadly to include liberals in all the political parties; by which I mean the Left within all the parties

[3] As it appears that vast majority public sector employees are of a leftist disposition; they better predisposed to hunting down bigots than Asian rape gangs.

[4] Although I doubt that young Jo's teachers would have worried about such things; as they are probably vigorous participants in the brave new Multicultural world in any case.

Grima Wormtongue has scammed the electorate

FOR THE NEXT FOUR MONTHS, our nation's media will be snorting referendum cocaine; they will be on a perpetual crazy high until next June, the public will eventually have their say. Our media is split on politically tribal lines, and on every political issue. We have pro and anti-EU newspapers; and we have a supposedly neutral BBC: but it is an institution that garners finances from the EU and is therefore ill-equipped to profess objectivity in any consideration of our membership.

                

         The BBC is a liberal institution. An institution that not all and every taxpayer wishes to be conscripted into, but are forced to on the threat of imprisonment: our people are being asked to support this pro-European institution through a payment of a tax known as a licence fee. There are 28 million BBC taxpayers who are forced by law to pay for its liberal services. But the millions of licence-fee payers who do not share the BBC's liberal outlook have to suck it up and pay anyway.

                

          Now the campaign has begun those who intend voting to leave should study the BBC's coverage with an evangelical-like scepticism.  ITV and Sky have to be objective or would lose subscribers who are not required by law to pay their subscription: they also need advertisers whose products could take a dive if the channels they are advertising with were perceived as bias. But because the BBC has a guaranteed income, it has no such worries, and can put two fingers up to those who complain a liberal bias in their news coverage.

SO LET THE BATTLE begin, in a campaign whose outcome will determine the following: (a) whether we vote to leave, in which case we will retain our sovereignty and nationhood, and all that this means in terms protecting our borders; our parliamentarians passing our laws that cannot be undermined from Brussels: or (b) we vote to remain which will take us on a journey where ever more laws are passed which we longer have any control over; laws that bring about ever closer political union until a federal union finally emerges. Not only will this happen, but it has to happen if a European federal bureaucrat utopia is to see the light of day.

                

                The British people, thankfully, have always had a healthy cynicism toward their domestic politicians. This cynicism arises from being let down by so many promises from whomsoever governs us and from whatever party. The people's cynicism is a healthy state of affairs going back to the 19^th century when Charles Dickens was a parliamentary reporter. Any reference to the parliamentary species in his novels is, to say the least very, unflattering. Like today's voters, Dickens never trusted the political species.

                

                 Cameron has been the EU's Grima Wormtongue; who promised the voters he would persuade the EU of his case for genuine and extensive reform of the EU, especially on migration (but deviously, and for the sole purpose of trumping Ukip, who were garnering Tories to its cause). If it had not been for the threat from Ukip in the last European elections we would not even be having a referendum in June. Cameron's decision to give the British people a vote on their destiny was given under political duress from Ukip.

                

                 Our prime minister did whatever he felt he had to do to remain a prime minister. It was just cynical flim-flam. Cameron's word cannot be trusted on Europe: and I do not care if he is the prime minister. He supports the EU a hundred per cent. He has always believed in this institution – in fact, it is the only genuine political belief he wholeheartedly and genuinely believes in; all else has been a pattern of disparagement of anything that threatens his ambition.

CAMERON, EVEN before he took these reform 'negotiations' on with Europe; declared that whatever the outcome he would still promote the cause to remain part of the EU. It was like deliberately exposing your poker hand before you needed to. This sent out the message to the great unelected of Brussels that they could just go through the motions with Cameron. The great European reform agenda he once promised in fear of Ukip; was now salted down to a period of time before migrants could claim benefits.

                

                What you have to remember is that Cameron cheated you of the genuine reforms needed and did so deliberately on the issue of trust. He was trusted by his own Party and enough Tory voters to secure a working majority in 2015.  Perhaps the possibility of an Ed Milliband government changed the minds of many traditional Tory voters in order to give Cameron a second term. These voters were caught between a rock and a hard place. They were distrustful of Cameron; yet preferred him to Labour and even the liberal democrats.

                

                In 2015 Ukip garnered nearly four million votes; but because of the first past the post system this only gave the party one parliamentary seat: just one MP. Cameron is not a Eurosceptic; he is as a profound disciple of the European project, just as are Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine; as once was Edward Heath. Like those whose political careers came before him; Cameron's attachment to a United States of Europe is cemented into his conscience.

IF THE TORY PARTY wishes to continue; it must now split between Conservatism and a modern liberal variant (once championed by One Nation Toryism) that has little ideological prescience with traditional Conservatism. David Cameron is not a Conservative. He is a social democrat that seeks to transform the traditional conservatism of his party into a social democratic entity.

                

               Cameron has handled things very badly and has done so on the basis of his own career of wishing to brand himself as a great prime minister by history; as all prime ministers are seduced into by their own self-belief.

               

               

               

Shalom

JANUARY 27 IS NATIONAL HOLOCAUST DAY when we acknowledge the suffering of the Jews under German Nazism; not only to acknowledge the suffering: but make sure that such an event in human history is not erased from our conscience for fear of it being repeated. What happened to the Jews under Nazism was the monstrous culmination of 2000 years of persecution throughout the Middle East and latterly Europe; followed, at one time or another after seeking refuge at every other point of the compass.

                

                The Jews were always the scapegoats for economic failure in every country where they settled in the Diaspora: the further you travelled into Europe toward the east the greater their persecution. Eastern Europe from Poland, Hungry, and into Russia: these at the time backward economies, ill managed and living in the past where their political leaders found it all too easy to blame Jewry. They blamed their Jewish communities for their economic failure due to their own incompetence as rulers. And used the much perceived Jewish Fagin-like greed to feed the, what we would call today, bigotry - in other words, Jews were always easy scapegoats for an already anti-Semitic population that flowered through the generations on anti-Semitism as a device to be exploited when ordinary intelligent middle-class people, as well as peasants, were attacking an unpopular government. Jew bashing and baiting known as pogroms were used to pacify a resentful population, indignant at the bad decisions of their leaders.

                

                The Jews have had an uncomfortable (to say the very least) experience within the Diaspora. Told what not and what they could do to earn a living; they had a separate living space within cities, known as the Pale; thus the expression Beyond the Pale. The Pale of human settlement comprised a lockout at a certain time when the Jews had to return the part of cities in Europe where the Jews were corralled and locked in for the night and restricted in their professions and trading arrangements when trying to earn a livelihood. This restriction on Jews and what professions they may or may not choose to follow[1] became provisional upon the return to the Pale.

                

                They were effectively banned from all the forms of earning a living open to the rest of the community; so they, over time, became proficient to the limited forms of earning a living allowed them, money-lending and the trade in diamonds; followed by finance as their lives were transformed by more tolerant societies that were eventually to be found in the West. But even in Western Europe where they had the freedom to earn a legal living in any way they wanted; their success was resented when it came to money. Those trades which the Jews have been historically associated with represents the icing on the cake for today's anti-Semite; and many, this time in the name of the Palestinian, causes them to feel free to attack the Jews of Israel shielded under the banner of 'anti-Zionism'.

THE JEWS have had much to put up with over the past 2000 years. I do not suggest that their suffering has been disproportionate to other minorities such as the African slaves: that is; until Holocaust. But then; even black slavery to America, however brutal it was, represented however cruel and brutal it undoubtedly was, a chapter in the history of the Afro-American people.

                

               But the Jews have had two millennia of constant and brutal treatment[2] from those parts of the world they found themselves in during the Diaspora. No other such persecution of one people over such a timescale has been recorded. The Jew as the scapegoat; the punch-bag for all sorts of economic disappointments: but even the Jew as wheeler - dealer in high finance that, as the Rothschild family did to raise the money needed to fight Napoleon.

THE JEWISH PEOPLE are a great people, and if after two millennia of persecution culminating in the Holocaust, they then decide that there must be a Jewish homeland; where the Jews cannot feel exactly safe physically; but safe from the brutality and the taunts of the Diaspora; then they have found it in Israel. You might say they are not safe. But this time, when the Islamic variant of Fascism comes for them they will, this time, be able to fight back. They will not anymore be the victims of economic trends that throughout Jewish history tend to pep up the latent anti-Semitism within the Diaspora.

                Israel is the Jews Thermopylae; they are surrounded by hostile neighbour's intent upon the Jewish nation's destruction. During the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War Israel managed to drive their Arab neighbours back. And the participating countries in both these wars against the Jewish state could, as defeated nations, live to fight another day. But for Israel if it is defeated; there is no other day: the Jewish state will be dead and buried: and the Jews will once again find themselves left to the vagaries of history as they had been throughout the Diaspora.

                

               Israel is the Jewish people's safety from another Holocaust at some time in the future if the Jews are once more driven from their ancient homeland. This Holocaust Memorial Day should reflect of course upon the Holocaust but also, the plight of the Jews spent in the Diaspora over millennia that led to the Holocaust – Shalom.

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[1] Due to the Anti-Semitism of the time; ancient prejudices founded upon the greed of Jewry kept Jews from the professions. Such anti-Semitism was also based upon the anti-Semitic folk law that blamed the Jews for the sacrificing of children as well as the crucifixion of Christ himself – a toxic mix for the devoutly Russian orthodox peasant.

[2] Of course, over such a vast time period when the skills of the Jews were appreciated by many rulers when they needed finance – but they were, even at such times, treated almost at arms length.

The Tories are now in the media cross-hairs

EVER SINCE JEREMY CORBYN'S election to the leadership of the Labour Party, all media attention has been focused on The Naive One - he has entertained the sane and sensible with his sometimes odious, and at other times, comical views. An example of the latter being his intention to allow our Trident fleet to set sail and patrol the oceans without any missiles, in order to reach a compromise with the unions who are against abandoning our fleet of submarines because of the thousands of jobs that would go as a consequence.

                

                But attention is now turning slowly away from Labour and settling on the behaviour of the Tory government: and guess what? This latest micro-civil war which is beginning is once again about Europe and the betrayal now being felt by Tory eurosceptics toward David Cameron. The sceptics have kept their powder dry because they were dazzled, and not for the first time by their current leaders promises (as was always the case with Labour). This time; the promise of an uncompromising renegotiation of our membership with Europe: it was not the first time Cameron was taken at his word (whatever that means these days). Cameron is a political thimble-rigger; he will promise the earth to sustain himself in power; especially when he was confronted with the rise of Ukip - a party that procured four million votes last May only to feel abandoned by the first past the post electoral system.

                

                Last May Cameron thought he was going to lose. He is, as all politicians are, addicted to the polls; they govern or even micro-manage an election campaign. All the polls got it wrong in the end; but because they called it so tight, Cameron, in order to win back those Tories who had already changed their vote to Ukip, or those who were thinking of doing so; he toughened up his rhetoric on the EU. He would hold the EU to account; he would deliver a set of reforms on the free movement of peoples, migration and the other concerns of the sceptics; that if found unacceptable to his EU masters; he would deliver a referendum; and at one point even suggested he would be prepared to leave the EU. And so Cameron's own eurosceptics trusted, yet again, the word of their leader.

                

                On May 7^th 2015, and against all odds and to the embarrassment of the pollsters; the Tory Party were returned once more, and with a workable majority of twelve. The result was as shocking for the Tories as it was for Labour. The Tories had believed that, at the very least, another coalition with the Lib Dems was the best they could hope for at the beginning of the campaign; and when even this was in doubt he sought to bring on board those one time Tories who he had attacked as swivel- eyed loonies (or words to that effect) when they crossed to Ukip.

CAMERON has always believed and always will believe that this country's destiny is within Europe. His one priority in politics, as it is any modern leader of a political party, is to do great things that history will have determined to have been pivotal in the management (as far as it is capable of being managed) of their country's history. Thus we have, in the war and post war era the successes of Churchill and Thatcher.

                

                 Cameron believes in the European Union without any omission or exclusion, apart from the purely rhetorical exception to plan and advance his career. He conned his eurosceptics, as he did all such disbelievers in the EU who belonged to the Tory Party when he felt his party faced defeat at the 2015 general election.

                

                 Our prime minister, having won the election he did not think he could win; has now reduced (some of his fans would suggest moderated) his demands in favour of what Europe is willing to accede to. He has even boasted of his intention to vote for continued membership, whatever the outcome of the negotiations. So it comes down to whatever the EU is prepared to grant us.

                

                 Whatever this is will be sufficient for Cameron: in all and every circumstance Cameron will be fully prepared to lead his nation into a concoction of democracy that will diminish into dust; it will do so along with the nation state. Next month this whole carnival of renegotiation will hopefully reach a climax when Cameron travels once more to Europe for the final showdown when the media will be on hand to promote it as something more than the ritual it is. Cameron has, since his election taken a scythe to his previous Eurosceptic rhetoric. He has lowered his peoples' expectations for a deal that would keep this nation in existence.

CAMERON HAS twisted and turned over Europe, just as other Tory (and Labour) leaders have had to do. The art of politics for a political leader is to maximise your support in order to advance your career; and this is what Cameron has had to do to keep his political ambition solvent. But in terms of keeping the trust of the electorate; Cameron will make the electorate ever more cynical by his opportunism regarding the EU.

                

                 We now have two political parties; both, one bizarrely, the other disingenuously, but both asking the electorate for their votes by, in Corbyn's case incredulity, and the Tory's case an honourable and gentlemanly trust of the leader – the latter which once, but not today means anything.

               

               

  

               

               

               

 

                

Students of the damned

IF I WERE A SIXTH FORMER, preparing for university I would inform my parents that I did not wish to associate myself with these academic institutions, as they no longer tolerate tolerance of an individual's opinion. The message seems to be that if you come here you either fall into line or you keep your mouth shut. You either follow the prevailing agenda whether it is the nuances of ultra-orthodox feminism, or support for the Palestinians to the extent of turning away Israeli academics and closing down any union debate that invites an Israeli to participate in; or in the latest case of the removal of Cecil Rhodes from his plinth.

                

                What are the various university authorities doing about this kind of student hyperactivity deficit disorder? Well, it seems nothing; for the inmates appear to be in charge of the asylum: either that or the faculty have sympathy with them and will bow down to their demands. What is the betting that Cecil Rhode's plinth will be empty by the end of this year? And who will be next – Churchill?

                

                 The university ethos is being allowed to wither on the vine. The ethos of an open mind ready to be challenged by opposing ideas in order to sharpen or change your own: this is the methodology of the highest education at the best of this country's universities. This is why Oxbridge has their union debates; students can sympathise or support either side of the debate before it begins; and through the course of the arguments made, perhaps change their minds. This is the dialectic of any university in a free society.

                

                  When a student at university the mind should be open to all knowledge as it comes before him or her, whether in the lecture theatre or the library, no knowledge should be out of bounds. If you have a brain worthy of the name (which you would of course if you were attending an Oxbridge college) then your cerebral sponge should be open to all forms of ideas and arguments: and have the capacity to oppose in argument or debate those ideas you take exception to.

                

                 The capacity to defeat an argument you take exception to depends upon an open mind; or if not an open one, then a fair one. But what is inexcusable is to railroad and shout down, or even going to such lengths as banning people from whatever country that you do not have any sympathy for; because you support what you perceive to be their country's 'victims'.

                

                  I refer of course to the state of Israel. The flood of opposition to Israel in modern academia goes beyond the juvenile practices of students. As far as the state of Israel is concerned many of some universities faculties also sympathise with the censoring of Israeli academics, politicians, authors, or any kind of Israeli associated with academia.

IT NOW APPEARS that if you wish to have an open mind at many of our universities; you have to self-censor your tongue if you wish to complete your course. The power of students has grown since the late 1960s and early 1970s. Back then, it was the Vietnam War that lit the blue touch paper on our campuses. The 1960s was the decade when student power took its first awkward footsteps to rebellion. In 1968 we had the assault on the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square; followed by the student protests in Paris. They were happy times for students, and no doubt those who participated in such events eventually went on to become part of the educational establishment; who in turn passed on their leftist liberal ideas to generations to come; and then in turn passed the liberal baton on to other generations.

                

                I think it is the case that there is a trajectory that has ended in the students of the damned that we now see governing our university life; a trajectory that began its journey in the 1960s. The intolerance shown by student bodies today toward those who oppose their thinking is anti-intellectual. Such students do not have the confidence in their own argument to tolerate any kind of opposition to it; so they ban the opposition from what were once the pillars of free thought and expression – our university campuses.

                

               Can it be said that these young people who declaim their opposition to whatever they espouse; who then shut down any form of contrary argument, be regarded as truly and fully moulded in the art of debate or free speech – well yes, they can; but only if they had attended Moscow University under communism: it is an appalling situation; a situation where our elite university campuses are infected by such intolerance to free debate.

IF, AS I SAID AT THE beginning of this piece, I would wish no association with Oxbridge because of this kind of intellectual Ebola that is now doing the rounds; then I would have to choose a university deserving my qualifications – so where to look? Not in this country or in Europe. It would be America and Harvard in the hope that the virus had not spread to such an august institution.

                

               I would tell my parents that Harvard was my preferred university and would apply for membership in the hope that intellectual Ebola virus of political correctness had not yet corrupted the Harvard faculty and some of its students; as is the case in the UK.

               

               

               

               

The late David Bowie

I DO NOT CARE WHETHER a modern day pop celebrity (or any celebrity for that matter) deserves the kind of worldwide mawkish behaviour that is fashionable in this modern age when they die: if there are two industries that have benefited from such displays, it is surely the wax candle and flower industry.

                David Bowie was never my favourite artist. I thought him a self-regarding narcissist who used his androgyny and makeup to accompany his music as a selling point. His voice to me was like a scene from the film Jaws, when Quint (played by Robert Shaw) dragged his nails screeching across a schoolroom blackboard.

                

                Bowie meant very little to me. His appearance in the early 1970's left me divorced from the love of the pop music that was to accompany him throughout that decade. Of course no single individual could be held responsible for my apostasy. No, from the mid 1970's onwards my love of pop music suffered a weary decline. Bowie angered me at the time, not because of his music, but because of his politics.

                

                First of all, at the time I was a Marxist, and was, in the summer of 1975 made manager of a newsagent. It was in this position that I read the New Musical Express which headlined an interview with Bowie in which he believed in a Right-wing form of government in the USA (as well as the UK); a country which he had adopted for himself. Well, as a Marxist at the time, you can imagine my loathing for such a creature. But how right he was and how I was to be proved wrong by events.

                

               But to me his music still holds no appreciation; but before him all pop music including that of the late1950s and the 1960s, I was drawn to; all such music I adored, but has now, in my elderly years, been replaced by a Beethoven symphony –any of his symphonies.

DAVID BOWIE, THE BEATLES, the Rolling Stones, or the Kinks (the latter three I truly loved) mean little to me today except of course nostalgically. As we get older the nostalgia virus will overwhelm us if we want it to. I saw tears for Bowie on my television screen that were wiped away via a sleeve from people of my own age and younger who had not moved on and broadened their musical repertoire: perhaps beyond the popular to the classical. But the tears of those of my own age were sentimentally driven, as were no doubt those wept by the aficionados of Buddy Holiday or any other musical pioneer of every generation that courts a youthful death via a vehicle accident or a plane crash.

                

                The repertoire of the nine Beethoven symphonies has more to offer without a word being sung (apart from the last movement of Beethoven's ninth) than any other creation of popularist pop music. Beethoven's one and only violin concerto stands above all others[1]: this in itself surpasses what we today call popular music.

                

                But do not get me wrong, my whole life has been surrounded by great pop music from the late 1950's through the 1960s and into the early 1970's. But it is only when you discover the classics, when your emotions are driven, not by lyrics, but by the music itself, and in particular, in my case, with Beethoven; that you come alive, and you find yourself elevated in terms of an appreciation that the lyrics of pop music can never lift you.

                

                Bowie's talent I will have to accept was real because of those many millions who listened to him; many of whom now have high ranking positions in the media; and are determined to exhort him as some kind of icon that will, like the Beatles, set the standard for popular music. But Bowie did one thing that caught my appreciation and respect.

                

                When he died he left, I assume in his will, that he should be either buried or cremated within hours of his death without the candles and flowers that would have accompanied a usual celebrity passing. David Bowie's corpse was, to his credit, disposed of without the flummery of media focused tears. His death was to be without any kind of celebrity pomp and circumstance overseen by the world's media without the need for tearful eyes or mawkish tributes from those who knew him.

                

                 David Bowie was to me talentless. He did however achieve an aptitude in one respect; but not because of his music; but because of such attributes as his androgyny and his bisexuality; the music and the songs were pitiable, but the makeup sold the music. He performed well in videos and caught the mood of the time; he however lacked the ability to create meaningful lyrics to his songs as did Lennon and McCartney.

                

                 Bowie was more of a corporeal presence than a talented musician to the youth he aspired to represent. He was a physical presence of the kind which blinded his followers to his lack of ability as a musician, and I think he thought this himself; thus his quick burial without the usual circus of celebrity attendants and media.

               

               

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[1] I make this observation without much knowledge of other violin concertos – but I am 65 after all and a late convert to classical music..