OK.

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2015 elections, Alex Salmond, BBC, Britain First, Coalition, coalitions in uk politics, Conservatives, David Cameron, Defend the modern world, ED, ed miliband, Election 2015, fallout from election, how many muslims in uk, immigration statistics in the uk, immigration to the uk, Labour, Labour Party, nicola ed pocket, Nicola Sturgeon, political issues in the uk, politics, UKIP, UKIP Labour

The 2015 general election result is in. Out of the three possibilities – great, OK or terrible – the ball has slipped into the second groove. We have an OK regime, a tolerable one, not especially healthy and not particularly self-destructive.

The Liberal Democrats have been shot to pieces and will find it difficult to survive. The Labour Party is far from dead, and will soon reinvigorate itself with younger generation of advocates (the favourite for leadership being, of course, the ‘British Obama’).

The UKIP grenade, much hyped as being nuclear in its fallout, went off with a silent puff. Farage has been fatally embarrassed. The faces of Middle England are shiny with tears. Chinks of hope for the future have closed.

The Islamisation process ongoing in parts of Britain has not been altered one bit by the result. It would have been quicker under the Labour party, and slower under UKIP. The Tories won’t interfere with it one bit.

That’s about all that can be said.

D, LDN.

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Act One (Postponed).

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Civilisation, Counter-Jihad, David Cameron, Defend the modern world, IS London, ISIL London, ISIS, ISIS London, Islamic State, Ladbroke Grove, london, RAF, Terror Arrests, Terror in London, UK, West London

The day I begin writing this post has seen armed metropolitan police storming properties in West London (not more than 15 minutes tube journey from my house). Those resident there are said to have been planning the opening act in the terror wave against European targets that is almost sure to arrive in revenge for EU involvement in the war against IS.

The area (Ladbroke Grove) is familiar to me. I was walking around those streets the other weekend. Who knows, I may have brushed against the budding militants as I strode about, happy in my ignorance that this part of London is now a haven for violent cavemen.

I predicted some weeks ago that a terror wave will soon blaze across Europe, targeting mostly capitals and dense population centres. I’m afraid that prediction has only been strengthened by these arrests. The police have done a heroic service by preventing this attack, but another attempt is inevitable. Such is the risk of the age. No Londoner can be sure, as we rock back and forward on the subway train, that our carriages will not dissolve into fresh blood and white fire.  

Nevertheless, I can take this occasion to remind the scum who plot to shed my blood and that of my neighbours; we are not afraid of you. This beautiful city, this thousand-ringed tree of history decorated with sparkling merit, shall expel you as soon as it finds a singular voice. And that is only a matter of time…

D, LDN.

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe.

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Civilisation, Conservatives, Counter-Jihad, Cultural Marxism, David Cameron, Defend the modern world, Elections, EU, EU Election, EU Parliament, Nigel Farage, UKIP, UKIP Islam, Votes, Who to vote for.

Last Thursday, elections were held in Britain to elect a fresh body of MPs for the European Parliament. The United Kingdom Independence Party was always the favourite to ‘win’, and that prediction has now been decisively justified.

Despite this foreknowledge, the media has since reacted with a purple-faced hysteria. Reading the papers this morning, one would think that Nigel Farage has been announced Prime Minister, Archbishop and direct inheritor to the crown. Metaphors like ‘earthquake’, ‘shock’ and ‘hurricane’ are being hurriedly worn out, as are adjectives like ‘unprecedented’, ‘historic’ and ‘revolutionary’. In the Mail and Telegraph, rustic conservatives are pictured jubilantly flushing down pints of real ale, whilst liberals and leftists are portrayed with creased brows and watery eyes.

In France meanwhile, Marine Le Pen has dramatically triumphed in the popular vote and in doing so may have fatally wounded traditional Gallic conservatism. In Denmark and Germany, far-right parties have also seen their fortunes rise, if only by one seat in the latter case. Bucking this rightward trend, Geert Wilders’ PVV Party returned a smaller vote than at the last election, despite earlier opinion polls suggesting an increase. Elsewhere, Greece has thrown its support behind the radical Leftist grouping Syriza.

My feelings about all this haven’t had the time to mature, but I’ll offer them anyway.

The descent of Geert Wilders is obviously disappointing, as is the victory of radical socialists in Greece. Madame Le Pen’s victory meanwhile provides cause for both hope and fear; Hope that the French people are collectively waking up to the state of their civilisation, and fear that Anti-Semitic boot boys merely have an attractive disguise and are privately bent on dividing the continent as fatally as their German predecessors.

In regards to UKIP, my feelings grow even more nuanced. I love listening to Nigel Farage speak and concur with a lot of what he says, especially about the decadent and unresponsive elite of Westminster. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel his party has been elected on an imagined manifesto.

If one votes for UKIP believing – as many do – that they will ‘sort out’ the Islamisation of Britain, one will likely be disappointed. UKIP in truth has no coherent policy on religion, cultural protection or race, save for a flaccid, over-qualified commitment to an ‘immigration freeze’. Anyone who voices Islamophobic opinion within UKIP furthermore, is routinely expelled without hesitation.

In addition, the Muslim inflow to Britain is not usually the fault of the European Union, and would not necessarily be affected by Britain’s withdrawal from it. True, we would have fewer Poles, Ukrainians and Romanians, but as miniature Pakistans swell within London, Birmingham and Manchester, that seems rather beside the point.

I don’t want to be completely negative about all this. There are reasons for celebration today. Across the continent of Europe, many vital signs are beginning to return, and the comatose patient is beginning to blink and shuffle, perhaps signifying that it is ready to awaken.

UKIP is one such blink. The party has value, but only as a path-breaker for others who will tread the prepared ground with greater daring.

D, LDN

Don’t be silly, Vladimir.

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America 911, Barack Obama, BBC, BNP, Britain, British comedy, Christianity and Islam, Christopher Caldwell, Civilisation, Coffee, David Cameron, England Pride, Europe, George Orwell, John Donne, No to Turkey in the EU, Putin, Russia, United States, Vladimir Putin

I have some respect for the Russian President Vladimir Putin. His leadership, though authoritarian and often cruel, has greatly improved the lot of ordinary Russians, among whom the President enjoys considerable affection and support. On Syria too, the President has taken a uniquely rational and firm position, much to the benefit of us all.

That being said, at this weeks G20 summit, Putin made a silly, offhand comment that has offended many in the UK. Talking to a reporter, the President is alleged to have described Britain as ‘a small island nobody listens to’.

Whatever motivated him to say it (almost certainly the Syrian debacle) and though it isn’t technically-speaking a slight on British culture, I must join with the Prime Minister in defending my little island from such a patronizing and ignorant assessment.

David Cameron’s rejoinder has so far met with mixed reviews. Shortly after Putin made the gaffe, our Prime Minister gave a bizarre speech intended to list the glories of British achievement, historic and current. Among the examples he chose were the Beatles and One Direction.

Can’t we do better?

The nation of Russia has roughly 143 million inhabitants and a land mass of 17,000,000 square kilometers. Britain has 60 million citizens and a land mass of 230,000 square kilometers. That is indeed a great difference in size, so hats off to Mr Putin for noticing this. The difference in cultural achievement however is equally large, but this time exactly inverted. Despite its size, Britain can make a claim to be the most inventive country the world has ever known.

The following list is an excerpt from an even larger list of British inventions compiled by the Radio Times:

Light Bulbs, Telephones, Steam Turbines, Electric motors, Cement, Fire Extinguishers, Photography, Chocolate Bars, Television, the Jet Engine, the Kettle, Hovercraft, Vacuum Cleaners, Stainless Steel, the Torpedo, Hypodermic syringes,  the World Wide Web, ATM machines, Carbon Fibre, the Programmable computer and the Military Tank.

Britain’s musical exports have included David Bowie, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Radiohead, Oasis, Blur, the Smiths, Joy Division, New Order, Pulp, Adele, Massive Attack, Coldplay, Muse, the Who and the Kinks.

British writers, past and present, include Shakespeare, Martin Amis, Phillip Pullman, Byron, Coleridge, Samuel Johnson, Keats,  EL James (sorry), JK Rowling, CS Lewis, De Quincey, John Donne, George Orwell, Thomas Carlyle, Aldous Huxley and Samuel Pepys.

It’s never a bad thing to pat one’s country on the back, especially in the midst of such a bleak political and economic landscape. Whatever else Britain may be, its people are of the profoundest creative quality and without them the world would be considerably poorer.

D, LDN.

In Defence of the ‘Backlash’.

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BBC, BNP, Christianity and Islam, Counter-Jihad, David Cameron, Defend the modern world, English Defence League, Help for Heroes, Islam, Lee Rigby, Multiculturalism, Woolwich

The word ‘backlash’ is a curious one to apply to the mood of English society following the events of last week. Nevertheless, the BBC, Daily Telegraph and numerous other media outlets invariably chose to label the atmosphere of disgust created by the slaying of Lee Rigby, an ‘Anti-Muslim backlash’, as if it were a change of heart, or an irrational misunderstanding.

The word ‘backlash’ is usually employed when talking about something that has previously been over-praised. The television series ‘The Office’ for example was praised so much and so often, that within weeks of the final episode being broadcast, pop-culture scribblers began to predict a ‘backlash’ against it. For me this isn’t what we’ve witnessed after Woolwich.

There has not been so much a backlash as a sequence of natural responses to evil by a morally healthy population.

The day before last, some hot-headed liberal emailed this blogger to accuse me of taking pleasure in the Woolwich tragedy. He charged me with being ‘excited and delighted’ by the event and the way it would bolster my ‘prejudiced worldview’…

He’s wrong about ‘delight’, but I won’t lie and say he is entirely wrong regarding ‘excitement’. Something within me was undeniably excited when news broke of the attack. It was the urge to take the battle to the enemy. I knew this particular atrocity would prove more socially explosive than the usual assaults on our transport infrastructure. The victim was a young, rosy-cheeked soldier wearing a ‘Help for Heroes’ sweater. His killer was a Qur’an-quoting thug showing zero remorse. How could people not be angered by something like that?

Still, I’m far from justifying everything that has occurred since then. According to the BBC, there have been arson attempts on Mosques, Death threats sent to Islamic community centres, and racist graffiti painted on the walls of multicultural enclaves. Most famously, a Muslim woman in Woolwich was rumoured to have had her Hijab ripped off by a passing youth.

I won’t defend the breaking of the law. But as to the people who commit these actions, they are not without legitimate grievance. Our elected leaders are plainly doing nothing to address the conditions which led to the murder. David Cameron spoke, ludicrously, of the attack as being a ‘betrayal of Islam’, and not, as a braver leader might have put it, an ‘application’ of the faith. With leaders like these, how are young people supposed to feel?

The exception to all this moping about has been – predictably – the English Defence League. Just hours after the murder occurred, EDL activists were in Woolwich, chanting and making themselves known. They were filling a void left by our police, our politicians and our media.

Lamentably, the same old classist rhetoric has come forth from those who should know better. Yes, yes, we know most EDL members are (gasp!) ‘working class’, and that consequently they sound different to the people who read the news. That doesn’t make them any less human, or any less English, or their patriotism any less valuable.

The poor are always more essential in times of conflict than the rich. It’s been that way in this country for centuries. Shakespeare wrote these lines in ‘Richard II’:

‘The pale-face’d moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war.’

What was true in Shakespeare’s age is true in ours. The chattering classes in London want to deny that war is upon us because they fear the conditions of war; they fear ‘losing what they enjoy’. The ruffians by contrast, with nothing to play with but abstract ideals like Queen and country, are joyfully stepping up to the plate. Good for them, I say!

Soon, the dust will settle on this particular tragedy. Anger cannot last forever and grows weary like any other emotion. But from what I’ve seen during this ‘backlash’, the people of this country are louder, braver and more morally confident than ever before. We may not be there yet, but we are getting closer to the event which finally brings the country, young and old, into concert.

For now, let’s wish the EDL well. I hope they succeed in making clear to the Muslim community that England is not a faint or negotiable concept – and that once roused, its people do not fall quickly back to sleep.

D, LDN.