Time to stop digging

It used to be the received wisdom that when you find yourself in a hole, the sensible thing to do is to stop digging. Nowadays, however, the new orthodoxy is that when in a hole, you should dig ever more frantically until – with luck – you re-emerge at the Antipodes.

With scarcely a break in the serried ranks of government and opposition until the other day, when Kim Howells took upon himself the honourable role of the little boy who pointed out that the emperor was naked, the lunatic policy pursued by the denizens of Westminster Walter Mitty Land with regard to Afghanistan has been to redouble our futile efforts to bring Western-style 'democracy' to a country whose proud people have never bowed their necks to a foreign invader, or to foreign notions, in a thousand years. Afghanistan has always been a thorn in the flesh of its neighbours, including the erstwhile British Raj and the Russian Empire. As the gateway to India, it was the focal point of the 19^th century 'Great Game' between the two great powers. Successive British and Russian attempts to invade and subdue the warlike and lawless Afghan tribes in their mountain fastnesses have always ended in disaster for the invaders.

The history of all this is an open book to any who cares to read. So why should we imagine that the present Western incursion into Afghanistan will end any differently? Listening to idiotic politicians and well-meaning servicemen prattling on about how we are performing an essential service to the Afghan people by bringing our alien and unwanted notions of freedom and justice to them, and so it is obligatory upon us to remain for as long as it takes to achieve our purpose, would be comical if it were not so tragically sickening.

As the procession of coffins returning through Wootton Bassett gets longer, grieving wives and mums mumble through their televised tears that their brave boys were heroes – but isn't it time now to bring the other lads home, because we don't really know what they are there for? The mood of the country is turning increasingly negative, with a tinge of defeatism creeping in. So the Prime Minister yet again defiantly dons his fake Churchillian mantle and sombrely tells us that the 'mission' remains essential for our home security. His repeated assertion that British troops fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan make terror incidents at home less likely is absolute tosh – the reverse of the truth, in fact – and the crass politician or civil servant who first dreamed up this glib mantra deserves to be hung, drawn and quartered. For the plain fact is that young Muslims born and growing up in Britain are being antagonised, and radicalised, by the spectacle of British troops fighting their co-religionists in faraway places.

If we don't succeed in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown insists, fundamentalist Islamists and that shadowy entity, Al Qaeda (whose existence – like that of God - is always assumed, but never demonstrated, by Western leaders) will take over Pakistan and its nuclear weapons – and then the real balloon may well go up. So the Afghan 'mission' must not fail. And it is for the benefit of the Afghan people – we are their liberators, not their invaders. Strange, then, that the Taleban, who were almost wiped out by the first onset of American and British troops, are now steadily increasing their hold over more and more territory.

Brown, however, has neither sent adequate reinforcements nor equipped the unfortunate soldiers already there with the weapons and armoury they need to do their assigned job successfully. And now, while still insisting that we must remain in Afghanistan and triumph there, he has started to hedge his bets by making the sending of more troops conditional on the Karzai government in Kabul rooting out corruption. This is asking the leopard to change its spots with a vengeance. What we would term 'corruption' is not an Afghan aberration, nor, in their eyes, a malpractice – it is endemic in the way of life of those regions, where business is customarily accompanied with 'sweeteners' – backhanders – which are regarded as a normal part of any deal by all the parties involved. To expect a government, or a people, to abandon its customary cultural practices in the name of bringing them 'democracy' which most of them do not want is as purblind as the flatteries of King Canute's courtiers. And for Gordon Brown of all people to make such a demand is consummate hypocrisy from someone whose own government, and that of his predecessor, has been riddled with corruption and venal behaviour on the part of politicians – the classic case being the abandonment, on Tony Blair's personal instruction, of the BAE Systems fraud investigation over Saudi contracts. Sauce for the gander?

It could well be that the Brown 'condition' is a cunning pretext for an early withdrawal on the ground that the Afghan government is not fit for purpose, and that therefore our 'mission' cannot succeed. If so, it would be the first glimmer of sanity in an otherwise manic policy – and also, of course, gives the lie to his incompatible argument that our remaining there is essential for Britain's own security.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a shameful and troubling episode in our national history. Launched on false or at least flimsy pretexts at the behest of a frightened and bullying power-drunk ally, they have been little short of disastrous in performance and even more so in diminishing Britain's world reputation. And they – Afghanistan in particular – are far more dangerous than most people, including those involved in running them, seem to realise. There are no wars without consequences. It is not simply a matter of either 'winning' or else calling it quits, bringing the boys back home, and resuming normal everyday life as if the whole thing had never happened, or was just a friendly football match. The material carnage and the stench of death left behind will be as nothing compared with the legacy of lasting bitterness against the West, and Britain in particular, which this latest post-imperial adventure will leave in the hearts and minds of Iraqis, Afghans, and their fellow Muslims around the world – not least here at home. We have stirred up a hornets' nest. How these negative emotions will work out in the future remains to be seen. But the outlook is far from rosy.

Anticant remembers…..

The Battle of Hampstead

It is sixty years since Anticant came to London as a young man to start an interesting job and become a part-time Bar student. After some months lodging in stuffy South Kensington, he decided to move up to the fresher air of hilly Hampstead, which reminded him of his north country Pennine home.

He found a vacancy in a small, solid, square detached house near Belsize Park. Across the front of the first floor, four large arched windows let copious sunshine into what had originally been the best bedroom, and which now became Anticant's spacious bed-sitting room.

The owner of the house was a rather grand lady, Mrs Constance M. (Anticant thought of her as "Connie", but would never have to presumed to address her as such.) Her husband, a local solicitor, had died untimely, leaving Connie a widow in her late forties. She took in three gentleman-lodgers to make ends meet, looking after them efficiently and sometimes a trifle brusquely – she almost certainly considered being a 'landlady' beneath her. She regarded herself as part of the Hampstead cognoscenti, and gravely informed Anticant that nobody who was anybody lived "on the wrong side of the Finchley Road". (In later years, Anticant did so for several decades.) Despite long sessions of sunbathing in her pretty back garden, Connie always seemed tense and hyperactive. Possibly she was sexually frustrated, but Anticant did not choose to explore that avenue.

The other lodgers were all interesting in different ways. There was a jolly young Dutch naval officer, attached to the embassy, courtesy of which he supplied Anticant with bottles of cheap rum. There was a distinguished-looking elderly gentleman of distinctly bohemian cast, who wore a flowing cloak and a low-crowned wide-brimmed hat of the type favoured by artists in the 1890s. His name was Rowland Kenney, and he was indeed far more distinguished than Anticant realised until much later. Mr Kenney was a major figure in early 20^th century socialist politics, and had been the first editor of the Daily Herald. He had served as a British diplomat in Scandinavia and Poland, and had written books about all this, including an autobiography, Westering. Even more interestingly, he was a brother of Annie Kenney, the Saddleworth-born mill girl who was one of the earliest associates of Mrs Pankhurst and her daughters in their epic fight for womens' suffrage, and who, with Christabel Pankhurst, had caused a national sensation by serving a short prison sentence in 1905 after refusing to pay a small fine for making a disturbance at a meeting addressed by Liberal cabinet ministers Winston Churchill and Sir Edward Grey at Manchester's Free Trade Hall. Sadly, Anticant had no idea of Mr Kenney's past, or of his connection with Saddleworth, while they both lived in Connie's house, and it was with much regret that he later realised what a unique opportunity he had missed for some fascinating conversations and mutual family reminiscences with the old gentleman.

After Mr Kenney left – or before he arrived; it doesn't really matter – there was a retired colonial civil servant of immense dignity with whom Anticant sometimes went for Sunday morning walks across Hampstead Heath while Connie was preparing lunch, for which we were under strict instructions to be back by 1 'clock PROMPT. This gentleman affected a monocle, and spoke in an accent so refined that he would have pronounced it "refained". Our failure to return punctually after an especially sunny stroll to the Spaniards Inn and back led to a memorable scene which threatened to erupt into a veritable Waterloo. We did, in fact, overstep the mark badly, only getting back to Connie's forty minutes after we were due. She was absolutely furious; the excellent lunch over which she had spent immense trouble while we were gadding about was (in her eyes) ruined, and she told us off in no uncertain terms.

Anticant bowed meekly before the storm, but the stately ex-governor (or whatever he was) did not. He rose from the table, drew himself up, fixed his monocle firmly into his eye, and declared: "I" – he pronounced it "Ay" – "have never been spoken to like this before, and Ay have no intention of putting up with it at may tayme of life!" Whereupon he stalked out and betook himself to the nearest pub for a beer and sandwich, leaving Connie gasping like a fish and Anticant giggling up his sleeve. Unsurprisingly, the pompous gent. moved to other lodgings shortly after this epic brouhaha.

All this happened more than half a lifetime ago. But it stays vividly in Anticant's memory, not least because he passes by that house quite frequently on his journeys to and from the Hampstead hospice where he is now a day patient. Driving past, he looks up at the four arched windows and reflects on all that has transpired since his year's tenancy of that charming room. Connie is long dead, and probably nobody except Anticant even remembers her in that road where she once reigned supreme in her hospitable house and sunny garden.

You couldn’t make it up…..

72,234 people signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to resign immediately. Here is his response:

"The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all."

HA! HA!! HA!!!

Political fatheads

Three items of recent news typify the inane incoherence of current political thinking (or what passes for it).

First, elections: Having squandered much treasure and many young lives on fruitlessly endeavouring to ensure that the Afghan people were given the chance to vote “honestly”, the Americans and British are now wringing their hands about “corruption” and a “failed state”. They are fine ones to talk! If they looked nearer home, they would find both in their own back yard. Does anyone honestly think that George W. Bush, with his hanging chads, the stopped Florida recount, and the wafer-thin award by the Supreme Court, was really the legitimately elected president of the USA in 2000? And can a British government with an overall majority based upon just over 35 per cent. of the votes cast at the 2005 election (on a 60 per cent. total poll) credibly lecture Afghans or anybody else about the virtues of democracy? Phooey!

Next, politicians versus experts: While it was quite funny to see the normally laid-back Alan Johnson going ballistic because one of his scientific advisers had had the temerity to question the logic of his refusal to accept advice to downgrade the classification of cannabis – presumably because that wouldn’t have gone down well with Sun and Daily Mail journalists (some of whom, it’s a pretty safe bet, are personally familiar with more arcane illegal substances), the logic of his “scientists are all very well, but ultimately these are political decisions” stance rang pretty thin. The usual clap-trap was then pumped out about ‘having scientists on tap but not on top’. He was promptly backed up by the Prime Minister, whose message amounted to “our minds are made up – don’t confuse us with the facts”. Obviously, Postman Pat has no intention of going down into history as Postman Pot.

Finally: David Cameron’s abject wriggle out of his ‘cast-iron’ promise that the Tories would hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. There’s no point, he says, because it’s too late now. And – needless to say – it’s all the government’s fault. The way in which all the mainstream parties duck and weave to ignore the obvious desire of the British people to have a direct say about our continuing membership of the European Union is contemptible. Even more contemptible is their failure to initiate, less alone to sustain, an informed debate about the pros and cons for the UK of belonging or not belonging to the EU. Such a debate is long overdue.

Fit for purpose?

The question is being widely asked: ‘Is Tony Blair fit to be President of Europe?’ An even more pertinent question is, was Tony Blair fit to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?

Judging from revelations by his old chum and former mentor “Derry” Irvine - head of the barristers’ chambers of which both Tony Blair and his wife Cherie Booth were members and first met each other, and once known as ‘Tony’s chief crony’ - the answer is an unequivocal “No”.

Lord Irvine of Lairg was the last holder of the historic office of Lord Chancellor until its abolition in 2003, and his recently released paper to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution’s Cabinet Office Inquiry reveals that he was unceremoniously bundled out of office without any prior consultation concerning this major constitutional change even though it affected him personally.

When Bonnie Prince Charlie landed at Moidart to ignite the ‘Forty-Five’ and summoned his loyal clan chiefs to join him, one of the foremost, Cameron of Lochiel, endeavoured to dissuade him, being convinced that the expedition was sheer folly, whereupon the Prince won him over by saying that he was determined to proceed, and that “Lochiel, whom my father esteemed the best friend of our family, may remain at home, and learn his Prince’s fate from the newspapers”. Poor Lord Irvine fared even worse: he learnt his own fate from the newspapers.

Having maintained a dignified silence for six years, Lord Irvine has now broken cover because of evidence given to the Select Committee by Lord Turnbull, who was Cabinet Secretary at the time. Lord Turnbull, when asked whether the incumbent Lord Chancellor was consulted about the government’s decision to abolish his office, replied: “The Lord Chancellor was consulted. The trouble was that he disagreed with it”. The conventional route of consultation could not be followed because Lord Irvine was unwilling to act as the advocate of change and was not prepared to lead the consultation, Lord Turnbull alleged. “On the day it was a complete mess up.”

Not so, Lord Irvine now declares. It was HE who was not consulted. “In early June 2003 there were press rumours that the office of Lord Chancellor was to be abolished. I had no intimation of this, but when the TIMES and the TELEGRAPH carried the rumour I determined to see the Prime Minister.” He did so on 5^th June. “I asked him directly if there was any truth in the press rumour that the office of Lord Chancellor was to be abolished and transferred to a new Secretary of State in the Commons. He hesitated and then said it was being considered, but nothing had as yet been decided. I asked him how a decision of this magnitude could be made without prior consultation with me…within government, with the judiciary, with the authorities of the House of Lords which would lose its Speaker and with the Palace. The Prime Minister APPEARED MYSTIFIED [Anticant’s emphasis] and said that these machinery of government changes always had to be carried into effect in a way that precluded much discussion because of the risk of leaks.”

Lord Irvine left the meeting “surprised (a) that the Prime Minister thought the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor was of the same order as any [other] machinery of government changes…and (b) that the Prime Minister had no appreciation that the abolition of this Office of State, with a critical role in our unwritten constitution affecting a House of Parliament, the judiciary, of which the Lord Chancellor was by statute Head and by constitutional convention guarantor of its independence, required extensive consultation, most careful preparation and primary legislation.”

Lord Irvine saw Blair again on 9^th June, when the Prime Minister lamely said that it had been impossible to discuss the proposals with the Lord Chancellor in advance – even though they concerned the abolition of his own office! – because such discussions “would leak all over the press”. Lord Irvine comments: “It then strongly bore in on me that the Prime Minister had not received any or any proper advice and was completely unaware that complex primary legislation was required.”

Further discussion convinced Lord Irvine that the whole project was botched, and missed an opportunity to make properly considered constitutional and administrative changes. “We left off on the basis, as the Prime Minister was always wont to say, that that no final decision had been taken, but I felt that in reality the die was cast…”

Next day Lord Irvine handed the Prime Minister a note pointing out that there were about 5,000 statutory references to the Lord Chancellor in primary and secondary legislation, and without a proper amending Statute redefining his existing functions administrative chaos would be unavoidable. Constitutionally, the Lord Chancellor was regarded as the guarantor of judicial independence. To proceed without any consultation with the judiciary, or with the House of Lords authorities about the Chancellor’s role as Speaker, would be high-handed and insensitive. “Since the political decision is to close down a great Office of State with broad constitutional implications, then it should be done in a seemly, measured and balanced way instead of the incoherent, unworked up and piecemeal approach currently likely to be adopted.” He followed this up with a more formal memorandum outlining the steps he thought should be followed. But the next day – June 12^th – this was rejected by the Cabinet, and “that afternoon I returned the Great Seal to Her Majesty and ceased to be a member of the government.”

Lord Irvine has obviously written and published his paper under the stress of considerable indignation. Leaving his personal feelings aside, what does it tell us about Blair’s prime ministerial performance? Coming hot on the heels of his ‘sofa government’ approach to the Iraq war via sexed up dodgy dossiers and broken promises about a second UN resolution, the Irvine episode may seem something of a storm in a teacup. But it isn’t – it vividly confirms and illustrates – as many New Labour ministerial memoirs still to come seem likely to do – the insouciant, at times almost wacky, atmosphere at No. 10 during the reign of King Tony.

Tony in Never-Never Land? Or, maybe, Turnbull in a China Shop? Either way, is this weird and intellectually frivolous man really European Presidential material? I don’t think so. The only deep thing about him is his incorrigible shallowness.

If I ruled the world.....

In a comment on my previous post Irony rules, OK? concerning Saudi Arabian ‘justice’ I said:

The West's insatiable need (or greed) for oil motivates it to prop up and subsidise these corrupt and barbaric regimes, and thereby to connive at our own destruction. Much of the billions of 'petrodollars' they take from us return into Europe and USA as funding for Saudi-promoted Wahabbi'ist mosques and 'faith schools' which preach and teach disdainful abhorrence of the local culture and open democratic society.

If there ever was a Trojan Horse...

Phil then posted the following:

The alternatives:
We stop buying oil from them.
We invade them and change their regime.
We fund internal revolution.
We buy their oil but limit all other interaction.

I only think the first and last are worth discussing. If the UK stopped buying their oil others would continue and the UK would continue to receive the same petrodollar investment into religious incitement to insurrection. However, the UK wouldn’t need to support the government and could cease to being hypocritical.

We could buy their oil without supporting them in other ways and we could do more to stop religious incitement of hate.

These are obviously very difficult political and ethical issues. What clearly we in the west should not do is what we are doing – openly supporting dictatorial and theocratic governments who suppress their own people and directly or indirectly invest in insurrectionist activity within our countries.

What are your suggestions?

My response:

Cripes – as Mayor BoJo would say – you are turning Anticant’s Arena into an Instant Oracle for solving the world’s problems…..

Well, here goes:

The ethical issues aren’t difficult at all. First and foremost we need to recalibrate our national moral compass, which has gone sadly wonky in recent years because of all the claptrap and bullshit which passes for public debate. Free speech must be restored to its time-honoured place in our affairs: that includes the freedom to offend, and the abolition of ‘hate speech’ crimes designed to stifle the expression of honest differences.

The political issues are more complex, but for a start:

1. Renounce humbugging diplomatic utterances such as the Queen’s having twaddle about “shared values” put into her mouth even on vapidly formal occasions such as State banquets. It is perfectly possible to be polite to visiting foreign guests without being hypocritical.

2. Admit that TES (aka Lawrence of Arabia) was a bit of a charlatan, and that his rosy visions of the House of Saud as lithe young warrior-chieftains roaming the desert in flowing robes on pedigree white stallions is not entirely borne out by the current effete crop of Saudi princes.

3. Limit, as you suggest, our relations with Saudi Arabia to strictly commercial transactions which do NOT include the sale of arms to them, or the corruption and bribery which goes along with that.

4. Persuade the US (a) to abandon the fatuous policy of ‘liberal interventionism’, because we cannot foist our Western version of democracy upon people who don’t want it, any more than we can allow them to subvert it in our own countries; and (b) to withdraw the automatic ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card which is currently in the pocket of the Israelis, as a prelude to working seriously to achieve an even-handed Middle Eastern settlement of the Palestinian problem and wider issues, including Iran.

5. Make it crystal-clear to the Saudis, and to Muslims living in Britain, that anti-Western propaganda, whether on religious grounds or not, and the financing of terrorist operations through bogus charities, will result in long prison terms for those found guilty, followed by deportation even if they are accredited diplomats.

6. Stop pandering to social and quasi-legal practices such as ‘Sharia law’ within our borders which run counter to our domestic traditions and values, and ensure that there is only one law – UK law - for everyone residing in or visiting these shores.

The Oracle has rather run out of steam, but perhaps that’s enough for the time being.

Racial pride is fine. Racial hatred is wicked

Of all the manifold stupidities of current political debate, the mantra that ‘racism’ is a mortal sin of which any respectable person should be thoroughly ashamed is probably the most absurd.

Every human being belongs to one or more races. There is no such thing as a ‘raceless’ person. There is no such thing as a hundred per cent. racially pure person, whatever the ignorant claims of racial supremacists. We are all, to a greater or lesser degree, mongrels – many of us, including myself, proudly so. And we are all – or should be – proud of the races to which we belong and with which we identify. Sometimes this can be a mistaken pride, because every race has an associated cultural tradition which is far from perfect, and blots on its historical record of which it should not be proud. But the natural instinct of every human being and group is to stick up for its own, right or wrong.

There need be nothing bad about this. Where it becomes socially toxic is when people use race as a weapon against others. This is woefully common, and occurs not only as direct aggression but as manipulative social engineering. If the recent assertion by a former speechwriter for Tony Blair and other Labour ministers is true, the huge increases in the numbers of migrants coming into the United Kingdom over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and to "rub the Right's nose in diversity" – a euphemism for irrevocably changing the country’s population mix in ways which were bound to cause friction between the existing inhabitants and newcomers from different backgrounds, cultures and religions.

For such a drastic step to be taken by a government not only without previous public debate, but whilst deliberately avoiding one, is cynically arrogant in the extreme and, in the eyes of many, a piece of treachery unparalleled in our history. This alone, unless disproved, shows Labour to be unfit as a governing party.

The attempt to avoid serious debate of this issue, and to damp it down as much as possible, has been an ongoing ploy of the ‘Politically Correct’ multiculti brigade throughout the past decade. This has not been a one-party issue; all of the mainstream parties have been anxious not to listen to the concerns of those who dislike the speed and scale of immigration – or, if they have grudgingly listened, have smugly asserted that the critics are quite wrong and that immigration is wholly beneficial, so if you don’t like it you must lump it. And then they are stupid enough to be at first dismissive, then growingly surprised, and now alarmed, at the rise in support for the British National Party.

Whatever else one may think of the BNP – and I for one don’t think much of it – forcing this concern into the open is at least one service – possibly the only one – it has performed for our politics. Now it is up to the mainstream parties to get off their backsides and ensure that the BNP does not garner the fruits of the disgruntlement their own culpable neglect has spawned.

If they are to do this, there will be have to be a much tougher, more principled and realistic, approach to legitimate concerns felt by those whose historic home towns have been in some cases unrecognisably transformed during the past few years. There must be a firmer stance against those who, having been welcomed into our country, express open hatred of our traditions of free speech, fair play, tolerance of different lifestyles, and pluralistic social mix. There can be no room for British ghettoes, self-imposed or otherwise.

It is not wrong to require adherence to basic British values from all British citizens, including newly arrived and first-generation ones. People who choose to live here have to recognise that there are civilised standards they must adhere to. Religious and cultural diversity are to be welcomed; imported religious exclusiveness and cultural apartheid are not. No-one should be expected to abandon their own beliefs or cultural ways as long as these do not conflict with fairness, justice, and the rights of the individual which have been struggled for and painfully achieved here down the centuries.

But evil customs such as ‘honour killings’, female genital mutilation, and the social subordination of women must be tackled head on in Churchillian “up with this we will not put” mode and ruthlessly stamped out, whether they are adhered to as cultural or religious or both. People who believe they have a mandate from their god or their tribal customs to beat their wives and murder their daughters irrespective of the law of the land are not wanted here – let them go and do these vile things somewhere else. No British government, of whatever political complexion, is fit for purpose which fails to make this crystal clear not only by words but also through decisive action.

Those who preach that all traditions and cultures are equal but different and should he patronisingly tolerated in our midst, even though in some respects primitive by our standards, are wrong and deluded. They seek to atone for the alleged sins of past white colonialism by turning a blind eye to things which no decent modern society should tolerate. This is pseudo-liberalism gone mad and colonialism standing on its head. Some traditions do enshrine values which are superior to others; and where these values conflict there can be no compromise. To think otherwise is to collude with primitive bigotry and cruelty, sometimes amounting to barbarism, by speciously painting culprits as victims. Those who do so resemble W.S. Gilbert’s “idiot who, in enthusiastic tone, praises every century but this and every country but his own”. These featherbrained folk have ruled the roost (fast, thanks to them, becoming a dungheap) for too long. Surely it cannot be much longer before their time is up and their shallow ideas are thoroughly discredited and rejected by the electorate.