It's annoying when people I come into contact with (I'm a TEFL teacher so am constantly around progressive liberals) accuse me of being brainwashed by Nigel Farage for my pro-Brexit, anti-mass immigration stance. Why can't they believe that I actually am this horrible, even without the help of Nigel Farage?
Yet I've got to say I feel the same way about them: the anti-racist, all-immigrants-welcome, they-shall-not-pass LARPers, who enjoy pretending Britain is always on the brink of a fascist takeover - as opposed to us producing a regular stream of drunken, chaos-loving losers familiar to me since my days of travelling to football matches in the 1970's. These barracade-loving anti-fascists have been brainwashed by 60-years of indoctrination by our schools, the BBC and various other institutions. There is no level of mass immigration, no level of societal breakdown, no lack of infrastructure, no level of anti-westernism, no level of rape or other violent crime that would detach these people from their beloved vision of themselves as Champions of the Dispossessed.
So is there any difference between them and me? Have both of us been equally indoctrinated into our respective views, them by the system and me by Nigel Farage (actually, John Derbyshire)? One important difference between us seems to me to be that there is little reward for holding a set of unpopular, low-status beliefs that are likely to put you at odds with the people you work with on a daily basis. And I can honestly say that I would like to fit in. It gives me no pleasure to be the person who is only begrudgingly invited along for Friday drinks. Before John Derbyshire turned my head I was as popular as the next man and enjoyed being so.
Conversely, there are all kinds of beneifts to adhering to progressive liberal orthodoxy. It enables you to fit in with polite company and to view yourself as having successfully negotiated and imbibed the lessons of our education system. You can therefore rest assured that you are one of the 'good, bright people'.
I similarly get a bit frustrated when people accuse me of writing right-wing things just for financial purposes. No, I really am this bad, it's genuine! (but also, I think I could make just as good a living having more socially prestigious opinions, and I reckon more so)
Ed, you could make a fortune as an apostate. A British David French who writes pieces like "The Riots Convinced Me Starmer is Our Churchill" or "Only Islam Can Teach Christians to Transcend Hate" or "How Transgender Love Saved My Marriage". You'll be invited to all the best garden parties and retweeted by Megan Markle.
If only there were a real incentive out there to be right, rather than to be seen as kind, good, inclusive etc. I sometimes fantasise about there being real world consequences for holding wrong beliefs. Say, God comes down and says, "Those who are correct on the question of whether Diversity is Our Strength/black people commit more crime than the Japanese/men can have a cervix, will enter the kingdom of heaven while those who are wrong will burn in the fires of hell forever. Now, is there anyone here who wishes to rethink the position they have held until now?"
I wouldn't change any of my beliefs. I may turn out to be wrong, but the views I hold are genuinely ones I believe.
However, I'm not convinced the same can be said for the other side. My guess is that many of them have never really thought that much about these things but if they were forced to and the stakes were high enough, I suspect a non-neglible percentage would wander sheepishly over to the other side. (In my fantasy, God punishes these people anyway for their previous bad faith hahahah).
But just to make myself unpopular with many on my own side, I think the same is true of religious beliefs. If the stakes were high enough I think many people would have to concede that no, they don't actually believe that there is a God who sent His son to earth to redeem us for our sins etc. etc. And if I'm wrong on this and everyone who claims to believe these things really does believe them, then I would be both pleased that they are so honest but utterly amazed that people could view the workings of the universe so differently to me.
With this question, a TV programme from years ago, which for some reason included a section with the late comic actor John Bird talking to the interviewer, always pops into my head. The urbane gent was asked about what should happen to burglars when they are caught and he came out with the usual stuff about understanding their difficult upbringing, light treatment by the courts, and the need for rehabilitation. So far, so bland. Then he added, with a twinkle in his eye: “Of course, if it was my house they broke into, I would want them flogged!” He was sending himself up, but many a true word…
A civil way of conducting a decent dialogue. From the other side, or our side, God is also the linchpin or cornerstone (to use Christ’s own term) on which the world is structured in an ordered way. Knock it away, as we have done, and all hell breaks loose. The ones who don’t like you don’t like God, so maybe pick a side and we can worry later about what we mean by God or whether He is real and what is real.
I have already chosen my side and it has nothing to do with Christianity or atheism. It is the side of what I consider to be nice, decent, reasonable people, some of whom are Christians, others who aren't.
About half the people I read appear to be Christians and when they talk about linchpins and cornerstones, as you do, I think I get what they are talking about. After all, I too find it hard to orientate myself in a world devoid of God. After your parents and teachers have disappointed you in some way, you have to become the arbiter of what is good and bad and that leaves you - well, that leaves ME - feeling all at sea and not up to the task. I would dearly love to throw in my lot with some support group, the bigger the better, and Christianity is big!
As you see, I have every reason to want to trade in my atheism for Christianity, which would give me some solid ground to stand on. It's just that I'm constitutionally unable to read the Bible without laughing. What others see as deep, I see as patently made up and literally incredible. And I really don't get people, who are often cleverer and more insightful than me, that take it all at face value.
Thanks for a generous post and asking some very deep questions. A wise old priest at the end of his life said to me that as he grew old he saw the point of religion as teaching us to think. The asking of the question and the search for answers is as important as finding the perfect solution. The thing about ‘God’ is that the idea is quite flexible and can be imagined symbolically, culturally, personally, logically, spiritually or any combination thereof! Whatever, and back to where we started, we had a wobbly if deep religious underpinning to our culture, which we have hacked away, without knowing what to put in its place.
'The thing about ‘God’ is that the idea is quite flexible and can be imagined symbolically, culturally, personally, logically, spiritually or any combination thereof!'
This really is my problem with the idea of God. Like a jelly, it's just too amorphous to pin down. In making it all of the above you make it impossible to picture, which is the only way I can understand anything.
So God can be pictured as an old man with a beard, who had a son who He sent to earth (though the son is really an aspect of God Himself); He's a force, like electricity, which presumably didn't have a son since forces don't have sons; He's an aspect of yourself, like your conscience; you can have a personal relationship with Him and sometimes He talks to you in English (or whatever language you speak); He is unknowable; He is everywhere, just like the primitive animistic religions believed of their gods etc. To me this looks like believers are covering all their bases.
You say the idea of God is logical so I suppose by your definition my lack of belief is illogical. However, I don't see why.
One thing I will say is that the decline of western society, morality and civility seems to have gone hand in hand with the decline in Christianity in the West. Yet Japan, which has never been a Christian nation and is probably the least religious country on the planet, despite some people being nominally Buddhist or Shinto, is a wonderful country. This leads me to believe that religion isn't necessary for people to live well. So maybe it's something else about western life that has gone wrong. Multiculturalism? Moral relativism? A falling off of genetic quality leading to more mental illness, as manifested by the weird beliefs of leftists?
I expect you were taken in by a sign on a bus. Your liberal friends of course look at all the evidence, weigh up the pros and cons of an issue, listen carefully to both sides of an argument and come to a well informed conclusion.
Indeed. I remember entering the staff room and the talk suddenly died down. I asked them what they had been talking about. Three teachers admitted they had been talking about me and that it was allegedly easy for them to predict my views on every topic since they constitute 'a package' i.e. conservative. I was surprised that they couldn't see that their own views constituted a package, which was the evil twin of mine. But as you say, they were convinced that they viewed each topic separately and never, I tell you never, simply formed their views along party lines.
Having admitted to having a 'package of views', that is not completely true. I'm sure they would have predicted that I was a Christian, given my conservatism and love of tradition but as you know, that isn't the case.
They might even have predicted that I think the West is the best, when really I find Japan and its people to be the most civilised. Yet I must confess that I do read various Substacks to find out how I should feel about a particular topic and I do take my lead from people like Ed. It's a bit embarrassing to admit that you don't think things through for yourself but I, like most other people, don't. Instead we look to see what respected members of our ideological tribe think and copy them.
As for the bus, I think I only learned about its existence after the election - which I didn't vote in anyway since I was in Japan at the time and didn't know, and couldn't be arsed to find out, how to vote by post/email.
I think we like to take our ideas in packages, so much easier than working things out piece by piece. On the other hand, most ideas go into a collective set depending on your ideology, and we get divided into one side or the other. It is rare now to see someone like Tony Benn who was a strong socialist but also opposed to the EEC.
Ed West is a great admirer of Japan and we can respect and admire their culture and learn from it. Our ‘Western values’ may not be (much) better but they’re not bad and we could look at them critically and fairly but we can’t without wanting to tear them down completely. Hence back to being one side or the other.
It's not exactly that Japan does things differently to us in the West. It's just they do it better. I remember first going there and expecting some kind of culture shock but what I felt was, 'These people are just like me, but more so'. They listened attentively to you and made noises to show they thought what you were saying was interesting. They were quiet in public places, especially on public transport. They moved away from the doors so that people could easily get in and out. They had quiet conversations with their children, not for the benefit of onlookers - Look, I'm being a parent! - but as a simple, intimate interaction. All of this was done as second nature. None of this is difficult unless you are an egomaniac that wants others to constantly notice you and reaffirm your wonderful vision of yourself.
The trouble with the UK (and not just the UK) is that it has all these blasphemy laws, except that no-one knows what they are until someone is suddenly thrown into jail for violating them.
The weirdest one was when that autistic girl got arrested for saying that one of the cops looked like her lesbian grandma. That was really weird. Is "lesbian" an insult now?
There is other footage of that WPC laying into the crowd in Leeds. Policing like a lot of professions attracts bullies - The problem with human nature is that people need to be bullied or intimidated sometimes
Also, after shouting at and getting the face of a guy with a genocidal "from the river..." placard the other week, I was told by a policeman that "I need to keep my opinions to myself". I expressed surprise and disagreement but didn't argue the point. Still stunned.
It's amazing that more than a decade after the so-called Twitter joke trial, people don't realise that posting is publishing and you can be arrested for it. Personally, I'm glad the guy who ran the CPS back then and insisted on prosecution has faded into obscurity and hasn't been heard of since.
The Bolsheviks believed ordinary crime was the fault of 'social excess' caused by Capitalism. Criminals were victims and needed gentle treatment. Political enemies were different and needed to be treated harshly.
There are some odd observations in this piece: "even Private Eye seemed to have more concern for the Just Stop Oil protesters..." Even? Ed, where have you been the last 15 years or so? Private Eye stopped being a thorn in the side of the Establishment many years ago and has dedicated itself to being merely an approved court jester. It is fully on board with global warming orthodoxy.
The suggestion that a secondary motivation for the harsh sentencing currently being applied, seemingly on Government instruction, "must surely be to send out a signal to pro-Palestinian protesters to watch their behaviour, by making an example" might be plausible if pro-Palestinian protests had not yet occurred, but were about to occur. However, this is not the chronology, and given the history of months of impunity for the "mostly peaceful" but persistently menacing marches that have occupied major thoroughfares in London weekend after weekend, surely the more plausible signal being sent to the hate marchers is "we're on your side". There is a very brave Iranian dissident in London, who held up a placard to one of these marches saying "Hamas = Terrorist", a completely accurate statement of the status of Hamas in British law. Needless to say, he was arrested.
The harsh sentencing of those who, if not too befuddled by drink to consider things (which I grant you, probably accounts for many) would be opposed to those marchers and their attempt to insert the alien politics of the Middle East into British public life, is just the counterpoint of the indulgence of officialdom towards the racaille dominating the streets of London.
Exactly. If the authorities wanted to send a signal to pro-Palestinian protestors, they had innumerable opportunities to do that *during the pro-Palestinian marches*. OK, we've recently had a change of government. But do we really believe that Labour are more inclined to crack down on pro-Palestinian protestors than the Conservatives? And that the current prosecutions of 'far-right thugs' - combined with government assertions of support for "our communities" - is being understood by lefty/pro-Palestinian/Muslim protestors as a warning to them? I don't think so.
Yes, the blindingly obvious way to send a signal to the hate marchers is to arrest them, and if foreign, deport them. There is a very good Substack by Armas, who has a piece called This Sceptred Isle, which describes the cultural signals being used to tell us this is no longer our country and the historic population and its ancestors must atone for their sins and accordingly accept being subsumed by more, er, vibrant cultures. The two-tier policing and justice system is part of this: it's sending a very clear message about who counts in Britain now and who doesn't.
Aren't judges supposed to be independent, & not under the immediate sway of politicians? And if so, how come the judges in these cases all seem to be jumping to Starmer & Cooper's tune? I don't get it. Would appreciate if someone with more understanding of our judicial system could explain.
Judges have never been independent. Who can be independent of those who create the positions to which they also appoint them? Judges appointed by labor-leaning politicians tend to make labor-leaning judgements.
England was built on a sense of fairness, and what is happening is not fair, not even close. So this is destroying the fabric of society, and it's happening on purpose. Now they're adding extreme mysoginy to the list of terrorist offenses. Surely, everything written in the Koran is offensive to women, who are losing their rights daily. Will the government ever prosecute Islamic preachers? If not, then this is not fair by any measure, is it.
I'm struck that the crime of "stirring-up racial hatred" (2006 amendment of the 1986 Public Order Act) is not so far from the offence of "Picking quarrels and provoking trouble" [寻衅滋事罪] used on similar occasions in the PRC. In fourteen years, so far as I'm aware, the Tories made no effort to amend this imprecise and informal wording - and now here we are.
All the cases that I have read about where sentences have been passed following the recent post-Southport disorder have happened after the accused accepted their guilt at the charging stage, so no trial was required. Therefore, the impression from the BBC and the papers that swift and exemplary justice is being delivered is only partly true. These people starting their stint behind bars are the mugs, the easy wins for the CPS. There will be people who managed to evade arrest by, I dunno, wearing a mask, and people who have said they are not actually guilty, it’s up to the CPS to make a case.
A lot of mental energy has been spent on explaining or critiquing the disparity in justice.
A different "lens", as the academics of today say, would be to view these actions as exactly reflecting the priorities and intent of the actors.
Though the low-level agents may have different rationales (thanks to media and the schools), at a higher level, it is more threatening to the globalist-minded elite that you would question open immigration than that someone, as a brown Muslim, would threaten to blow something up.
I've literally just started reading Toxic by Sarah Ditum, which says this in the intro "On message boards and social media, users often behaved as though they were in a private space, communicating among friends, only to realise belatedly that they were actually on public platforms, broadcasting to the world." It's not younger people, digital natives, who are being sent to prison for posts; it's people who came to it late, and still don't understand it.
I’m constantly reminded by the household retired police officer that arresting someone (or just telling them to stop) at a public protest or disturbance doesn’t mean “you’re not allowed to say that”.
It means that saying that in this place at this time constitutes a public order issue. The police on the ground have to stop things escalating to a point where violence occurs regardless of who is right or wrong.
Being arrested or told to go home is not the same as being prosecuted.
But Ed is right that without enough resources to adequately police protests the immediate response of the police will tend more that way.
It's annoying when people I come into contact with (I'm a TEFL teacher so am constantly around progressive liberals) accuse me of being brainwashed by Nigel Farage for my pro-Brexit, anti-mass immigration stance. Why can't they believe that I actually am this horrible, even without the help of Nigel Farage?
Yet I've got to say I feel the same way about them: the anti-racist, all-immigrants-welcome, they-shall-not-pass LARPers, who enjoy pretending Britain is always on the brink of a fascist takeover - as opposed to us producing a regular stream of drunken, chaos-loving losers familiar to me since my days of travelling to football matches in the 1970's. These barracade-loving anti-fascists have been brainwashed by 60-years of indoctrination by our schools, the BBC and various other institutions. There is no level of mass immigration, no level of societal breakdown, no lack of infrastructure, no level of anti-westernism, no level of rape or other violent crime that would detach these people from their beloved vision of themselves as Champions of the Dispossessed.
So is there any difference between them and me? Have both of us been equally indoctrinated into our respective views, them by the system and me by Nigel Farage (actually, John Derbyshire)? One important difference between us seems to me to be that there is little reward for holding a set of unpopular, low-status beliefs that are likely to put you at odds with the people you work with on a daily basis. And I can honestly say that I would like to fit in. It gives me no pleasure to be the person who is only begrudgingly invited along for Friday drinks. Before John Derbyshire turned my head I was as popular as the next man and enjoyed being so.
Conversely, there are all kinds of beneifts to adhering to progressive liberal orthodoxy. It enables you to fit in with polite company and to view yourself as having successfully negotiated and imbibed the lessons of our education system. You can therefore rest assured that you are one of the 'good, bright people'.
I similarly get a bit frustrated when people accuse me of writing right-wing things just for financial purposes. No, I really am this bad, it's genuine! (but also, I think I could make just as good a living having more socially prestigious opinions, and I reckon more so)
Ed, you could make a fortune as an apostate. A British David French who writes pieces like "The Riots Convinced Me Starmer is Our Churchill" or "Only Islam Can Teach Christians to Transcend Hate" or "How Transgender Love Saved My Marriage". You'll be invited to all the best garden parties and retweeted by Megan Markle.
If only there were a real incentive out there to be right, rather than to be seen as kind, good, inclusive etc. I sometimes fantasise about there being real world consequences for holding wrong beliefs. Say, God comes down and says, "Those who are correct on the question of whether Diversity is Our Strength/black people commit more crime than the Japanese/men can have a cervix, will enter the kingdom of heaven while those who are wrong will burn in the fires of hell forever. Now, is there anyone here who wishes to rethink the position they have held until now?"
I wouldn't change any of my beliefs. I may turn out to be wrong, but the views I hold are genuinely ones I believe.
However, I'm not convinced the same can be said for the other side. My guess is that many of them have never really thought that much about these things but if they were forced to and the stakes were high enough, I suspect a non-neglible percentage would wander sheepishly over to the other side. (In my fantasy, God punishes these people anyway for their previous bad faith hahahah).
But just to make myself unpopular with many on my own side, I think the same is true of religious beliefs. If the stakes were high enough I think many people would have to concede that no, they don't actually believe that there is a God who sent His son to earth to redeem us for our sins etc. etc. And if I'm wrong on this and everyone who claims to believe these things really does believe them, then I would be both pleased that they are so honest but utterly amazed that people could view the workings of the universe so differently to me.
With this question, a TV programme from years ago, which for some reason included a section with the late comic actor John Bird talking to the interviewer, always pops into my head. The urbane gent was asked about what should happen to burglars when they are caught and he came out with the usual stuff about understanding their difficult upbringing, light treatment by the courts, and the need for rehabilitation. So far, so bland. Then he added, with a twinkle in his eye: “Of course, if it was my house they broke into, I would want them flogged!” He was sending himself up, but many a true word…
A civil way of conducting a decent dialogue. From the other side, or our side, God is also the linchpin or cornerstone (to use Christ’s own term) on which the world is structured in an ordered way. Knock it away, as we have done, and all hell breaks loose. The ones who don’t like you don’t like God, so maybe pick a side and we can worry later about what we mean by God or whether He is real and what is real.
I have already chosen my side and it has nothing to do with Christianity or atheism. It is the side of what I consider to be nice, decent, reasonable people, some of whom are Christians, others who aren't.
About half the people I read appear to be Christians and when they talk about linchpins and cornerstones, as you do, I think I get what they are talking about. After all, I too find it hard to orientate myself in a world devoid of God. After your parents and teachers have disappointed you in some way, you have to become the arbiter of what is good and bad and that leaves you - well, that leaves ME - feeling all at sea and not up to the task. I would dearly love to throw in my lot with some support group, the bigger the better, and Christianity is big!
As you see, I have every reason to want to trade in my atheism for Christianity, which would give me some solid ground to stand on. It's just that I'm constitutionally unable to read the Bible without laughing. What others see as deep, I see as patently made up and literally incredible. And I really don't get people, who are often cleverer and more insightful than me, that take it all at face value.
Thanks for a generous post and asking some very deep questions. A wise old priest at the end of his life said to me that as he grew old he saw the point of religion as teaching us to think. The asking of the question and the search for answers is as important as finding the perfect solution. The thing about ‘God’ is that the idea is quite flexible and can be imagined symbolically, culturally, personally, logically, spiritually or any combination thereof! Whatever, and back to where we started, we had a wobbly if deep religious underpinning to our culture, which we have hacked away, without knowing what to put in its place.
'The thing about ‘God’ is that the idea is quite flexible and can be imagined symbolically, culturally, personally, logically, spiritually or any combination thereof!'
This really is my problem with the idea of God. Like a jelly, it's just too amorphous to pin down. In making it all of the above you make it impossible to picture, which is the only way I can understand anything.
So God can be pictured as an old man with a beard, who had a son who He sent to earth (though the son is really an aspect of God Himself); He's a force, like electricity, which presumably didn't have a son since forces don't have sons; He's an aspect of yourself, like your conscience; you can have a personal relationship with Him and sometimes He talks to you in English (or whatever language you speak); He is unknowable; He is everywhere, just like the primitive animistic religions believed of their gods etc. To me this looks like believers are covering all their bases.
You say the idea of God is logical so I suppose by your definition my lack of belief is illogical. However, I don't see why.
One thing I will say is that the decline of western society, morality and civility seems to have gone hand in hand with the decline in Christianity in the West. Yet Japan, which has never been a Christian nation and is probably the least religious country on the planet, despite some people being nominally Buddhist or Shinto, is a wonderful country. This leads me to believe that religion isn't necessary for people to live well. So maybe it's something else about western life that has gone wrong. Multiculturalism? Moral relativism? A falling off of genetic quality leading to more mental illness, as manifested by the weird beliefs of leftists?
You have written elsewhere that having counter-cultural views is hard work, and you are probably more entrenched in those views because of the effort!
Can confirm - Ed's held these views a long time
Delighted to learn there is at least one other TEFL teacher out there that doesn’t bat for the left!
I was an ESL teacher- Tbh I think being RW got me workI taught a lot of Latin American military.
Ex wife is currently teaching at the Army base in Lima- They have a panzer T as a gate guard!
This is not perhaps the most pertinent point
I expect you were taken in by a sign on a bus. Your liberal friends of course look at all the evidence, weigh up the pros and cons of an issue, listen carefully to both sides of an argument and come to a well informed conclusion.
Indeed. I remember entering the staff room and the talk suddenly died down. I asked them what they had been talking about. Three teachers admitted they had been talking about me and that it was allegedly easy for them to predict my views on every topic since they constitute 'a package' i.e. conservative. I was surprised that they couldn't see that their own views constituted a package, which was the evil twin of mine. But as you say, they were convinced that they viewed each topic separately and never, I tell you never, simply formed their views along party lines.
Having admitted to having a 'package of views', that is not completely true. I'm sure they would have predicted that I was a Christian, given my conservatism and love of tradition but as you know, that isn't the case.
They might even have predicted that I think the West is the best, when really I find Japan and its people to be the most civilised. Yet I must confess that I do read various Substacks to find out how I should feel about a particular topic and I do take my lead from people like Ed. It's a bit embarrassing to admit that you don't think things through for yourself but I, like most other people, don't. Instead we look to see what respected members of our ideological tribe think and copy them.
As for the bus, I think I only learned about its existence after the election - which I didn't vote in anyway since I was in Japan at the time and didn't know, and couldn't be arsed to find out, how to vote by post/email.
I think we like to take our ideas in packages, so much easier than working things out piece by piece. On the other hand, most ideas go into a collective set depending on your ideology, and we get divided into one side or the other. It is rare now to see someone like Tony Benn who was a strong socialist but also opposed to the EEC.
Ed West is a great admirer of Japan and we can respect and admire their culture and learn from it. Our ‘Western values’ may not be (much) better but they’re not bad and we could look at them critically and fairly but we can’t without wanting to tear them down completely. Hence back to being one side or the other.
It's not exactly that Japan does things differently to us in the West. It's just they do it better. I remember first going there and expecting some kind of culture shock but what I felt was, 'These people are just like me, but more so'. They listened attentively to you and made noises to show they thought what you were saying was interesting. They were quiet in public places, especially on public transport. They moved away from the doors so that people could easily get in and out. They had quiet conversations with their children, not for the benefit of onlookers - Look, I'm being a parent! - but as a simple, intimate interaction. All of this was done as second nature. None of this is difficult unless you are an egomaniac that wants others to constantly notice you and reaffirm your wonderful vision of yourself.
The trouble with the UK (and not just the UK) is that it has all these blasphemy laws, except that no-one knows what they are until someone is suddenly thrown into jail for violating them.
The weirdest one was when that autistic girl got arrested for saying that one of the cops looked like her lesbian grandma. That was really weird. Is "lesbian" an insult now?
No, but "grandma" certainly is.
There is other footage of that WPC laying into the crowd in Leeds. Policing like a lot of professions attracts bullies - The problem with human nature is that people need to be bullied or intimidated sometimes
Also, after shouting at and getting the face of a guy with a genocidal "from the river..." placard the other week, I was told by a policeman that "I need to keep my opinions to myself". I expressed surprise and disagreement but didn't argue the point. Still stunned.
It's amazing that more than a decade after the so-called Twitter joke trial, people don't realise that posting is publishing and you can be arrested for it. Personally, I'm glad the guy who ran the CPS back then and insisted on prosecution has faded into obscurity and hasn't been heard of since.
yeah what was that guy's name? I believe his father was a toolmaker
The Bolsheviks believed ordinary crime was the fault of 'social excess' caused by Capitalism. Criminals were victims and needed gentle treatment. Political enemies were different and needed to be treated harshly.
There are some odd observations in this piece: "even Private Eye seemed to have more concern for the Just Stop Oil protesters..." Even? Ed, where have you been the last 15 years or so? Private Eye stopped being a thorn in the side of the Establishment many years ago and has dedicated itself to being merely an approved court jester. It is fully on board with global warming orthodoxy.
The suggestion that a secondary motivation for the harsh sentencing currently being applied, seemingly on Government instruction, "must surely be to send out a signal to pro-Palestinian protesters to watch their behaviour, by making an example" might be plausible if pro-Palestinian protests had not yet occurred, but were about to occur. However, this is not the chronology, and given the history of months of impunity for the "mostly peaceful" but persistently menacing marches that have occupied major thoroughfares in London weekend after weekend, surely the more plausible signal being sent to the hate marchers is "we're on your side". There is a very brave Iranian dissident in London, who held up a placard to one of these marches saying "Hamas = Terrorist", a completely accurate statement of the status of Hamas in British law. Needless to say, he was arrested.
The harsh sentencing of those who, if not too befuddled by drink to consider things (which I grant you, probably accounts for many) would be opposed to those marchers and their attempt to insert the alien politics of the Middle East into British public life, is just the counterpoint of the indulgence of officialdom towards the racaille dominating the streets of London.
Exactly. If the authorities wanted to send a signal to pro-Palestinian protestors, they had innumerable opportunities to do that *during the pro-Palestinian marches*. OK, we've recently had a change of government. But do we really believe that Labour are more inclined to crack down on pro-Palestinian protestors than the Conservatives? And that the current prosecutions of 'far-right thugs' - combined with government assertions of support for "our communities" - is being understood by lefty/pro-Palestinian/Muslim protestors as a warning to them? I don't think so.
Yes, the blindingly obvious way to send a signal to the hate marchers is to arrest them, and if foreign, deport them. There is a very good Substack by Armas, who has a piece called This Sceptred Isle, which describes the cultural signals being used to tell us this is no longer our country and the historic population and its ancestors must atone for their sins and accordingly accept being subsumed by more, er, vibrant cultures. The two-tier policing and justice system is part of this: it's sending a very clear message about who counts in Britain now and who doesn't.
Aren't judges supposed to be independent, & not under the immediate sway of politicians? And if so, how come the judges in these cases all seem to be jumping to Starmer & Cooper's tune? I don't get it. Would appreciate if someone with more understanding of our judicial system could explain.
Judges have never been independent. Who can be independent of those who create the positions to which they also appoint them? Judges appointed by labor-leaning politicians tend to make labor-leaning judgements.
How far you have fallen from 1688 and the English Bill of Civil Rights
I would say that, in some sense, the central state has more power now.
England was built on a sense of fairness, and what is happening is not fair, not even close. So this is destroying the fabric of society, and it's happening on purpose. Now they're adding extreme mysoginy to the list of terrorist offenses. Surely, everything written in the Koran is offensive to women, who are losing their rights daily. Will the government ever prosecute Islamic preachers? If not, then this is not fair by any measure, is it.
I'm struck that the crime of "stirring-up racial hatred" (2006 amendment of the 1986 Public Order Act) is not so far from the offence of "Picking quarrels and provoking trouble" [寻衅滋事罪] used on similar occasions in the PRC. In fourteen years, so far as I'm aware, the Tories made no effort to amend this imprecise and informal wording - and now here we are.
the Chinese government even introduced an app that allowed people to report bad tweets so that the bad-tweeters might suffer social punishment.
Indeed. One of the scariest episodes of 'Black Mirror' shows how easily such a system could work here.
All the cases that I have read about where sentences have been passed following the recent post-Southport disorder have happened after the accused accepted their guilt at the charging stage, so no trial was required. Therefore, the impression from the BBC and the papers that swift and exemplary justice is being delivered is only partly true. These people starting their stint behind bars are the mugs, the easy wins for the CPS. There will be people who managed to evade arrest by, I dunno, wearing a mask, and people who have said they are not actually guilty, it’s up to the CPS to make a case.
A lot of mental energy has been spent on explaining or critiquing the disparity in justice.
A different "lens", as the academics of today say, would be to view these actions as exactly reflecting the priorities and intent of the actors.
Though the low-level agents may have different rationales (thanks to media and the schools), at a higher level, it is more threatening to the globalist-minded elite that you would question open immigration than that someone, as a brown Muslim, would threaten to blow something up.
I've literally just started reading Toxic by Sarah Ditum, which says this in the intro "On message boards and social media, users often behaved as though they were in a private space, communicating among friends, only to realise belatedly that they were actually on public platforms, broadcasting to the world." It's not younger people, digital natives, who are being sent to prison for posts; it's people who came to it late, and still don't understand it.
Yes, they don't understand that meaningless comments on the internet are worthy of multiple years in jail in a supposed free country.
I’m constantly reminded by the household retired police officer that arresting someone (or just telling them to stop) at a public protest or disturbance doesn’t mean “you’re not allowed to say that”.
It means that saying that in this place at this time constitutes a public order issue. The police on the ground have to stop things escalating to a point where violence occurs regardless of who is right or wrong.
Being arrested or told to go home is not the same as being prosecuted.
But Ed is right that without enough resources to adequately police protests the immediate response of the police will tend more that way.
A troublingly informative piece Ed - which is what we pay for!
"Where the Law is weak, it must be cruel."
As proven time and again.