Of Turkey and Iran

Only a very thinly-veiled military dictatorship keeps Turkey from becoming the Sunni Islamic Republic that the world most dreads (similar things apply in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt), yet Turkey is welcomed as a member of NATO and talked of as a future member of the EU. Contrast this with the treatment of Iran, an emerging democracy with an almost European culture, where the mullahs are in any case on the way out as a political force, a status they rarely enjoy in Shi'ism, in marked contrast to Sunnism.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand...

What "Representation"?

On Thursday, Scotland will conduct her first local government elections using the Single Transferrable Vote instead of First Past The Post. Some rural wards are larger than some European states.

Nothing could better illustrate the urban bias of those who advocate "Proportional" "Representation" either for local government or for Parliament, since a similar situation would apply in much of County Durham, and in almost all of Northumberland, Cumbria and North Yorkshire, among many other parts of the country. And just imagine how large parliamentary constituencies would have to be.

Councillors, and MPs at weekends, would never do anything except drive around their vast patches, arriving late for everything, and leaving everything early. Let them have STV for councils in urban areas if they want it, just as they currently have the almost equally bizarre system of annual elections. But leave us our First Past The Post, every four years.

Not Something Of Which I Have Often Been Accused

Yesterday evening, an old lady whom I have known for many years told me that she had already cast her postal vote for me, and then that "I'm praying for God to open your mouth." Since I must have looked a little bemused, she explained, "You're not bold or outspoken enough." Not something of which I have often been accused...

Make France A Light To The World

In yesterday's Observer, Denis MacShane MP, of The Henry Jackson Society and the Euston Manifesto, followed the precedent set by his colleague in both of those enterprises (and in what ridiculously still purports to be the Labour Party despite containing such people), Gisela "Vote Bush" Stuart MP. I mean, of course, that he endorsed Sarkozy over Royal.

How could he not, whether as a Jacksonite or as a Eustonite? After all, France's seat on the UN Security Council, as well as her formidable military might (including nuclear weapons), would then be placed at the service of the neoliberal economics and the corresponding neoconservative geopolitics advocated under those and the other pseudonyms (New Labour, the Cameroons, the Orange Book Tendency) of this country's indivisible Court Party, itself a mere branch office of the junta centred on the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century. Sarkozy's court is another such branch office.

Now, this might all happen under Royal, Blairite that she is. But it would certainly happen under Sarkozy. Therefore, every eliminated candidate's supporters, as well as any Gaullist properly so called (which Sarkozy simply isn't), should vote for Royal, and, when she wins, should never let her forget that she owes her position to the alliance against neoliberalism and neoconservatism, from Trotskyists to monarchists via Gaullists, and including the all-important supporters of Bayrou.

This French independence from the junta and its branch offices would be light to the world, and not least to Britain, where, in the many forms of the Court Party, the junta's power has now become more hegemonic than in any other country on earth, even including the United States.

The Challenges Continue

Very many thanks for so many responses by email to Reclaiming Socialism: Challenging The Euston Manifesto and Reclaiming Conservatism: Challenging The Henry Jackson Society. I have certainly struck many a chord! Although these projects themselves are not going to proceed exactly as originally envisaged, nevertheless they are certainly going to proceed. So watch this space...

And do keep in touch. Meanwhile, if anyone knows how one actually goes about setting up the think tank that so many people have urged me to initiate, then I'd be extremely grateful to find out.

Meanwhile, much merriment over at http://innerwestcentral.blogspot.com. Well, what else do they have to keep them amused? At which point should I have stopped in order to have remained within their concentration span? And I assume that there is no hope of their actually engaging with any of these points? Probably just as well, dears.

Incidentally, there should really have been a fifteenth one somewhere in the midst of it all, about the deliberate importation of a new working class whose members understand no English except commands, know nothing about workers' rights in this country, can be deported if they step out of line, and, since they have no affinity with any particular part of this country, can be moved around at will. The old working class can then go hang, taking with it its unions, its minimum wage, its health and safety regulations, and so forth. What have the Eustonites to say about this? Nothing, it seems.

For that matter, what have the Jacksonites to say about this decidedly unconservative expression of capitalism, as all such expressions really are? And, as I should have put in my original challenge to them, conservatives, properly so called, do not use "realist" as a term of abuse.

Oh, the challenges continue, all right...

I'm Not Going To Let This One Go

The United Kingdom is my country, and no one has the right to take it away from me. The four parts of the United Kingdom are certainly not states, sovereign or otherwise. Rather, the United Kingdom is the state. Sovereignty resides with the Crown in Parliament. Within that, power has shifted decisively to the House of Commons, which has come to be elected by universal adult suffrage. Thus, the People governs itself. The British People. For, in point of fact, there is no other.

And not just legal or constitutional fact. There is no distinctive Scottish (or English, or Welsh, or Irish) ethnic group. There are only local and regional variations, as pronounced within Scotland as between Scotland and anywhere else in these islands. Neither Scots nor Gaelic is Scotland’s predominant language. Indeed, very few Scots speak either at all. Alex Salmond presumes to assure us that "the social Union" will survive, as if it belonged to him. Well, it certainly will survive. But that has nothing to do with him.

The Scottish Parliament exists only by, and pursuant to, an Act of the British Parliament. Its powers are carefully defined and restricted. Only the British Parliament can legislate either for independence or for a referendum on the subject. No British Government would ever introduce either such Bill. The House of Commons would certainly reject independence, and probably also a referendum. And the House of Lords would certainly reject either.

But then, any Labour constituency losses on 3rd May will in any case be made up from the top-up lists. Any swing from Labour to the SNP would serve only to elect several Tories and Liberals. However, in order to keep the Union so safe in future, we need to educate ourselves properly about what it actually is, and isn’t.

I say again, the United Kingdom is my country, and no one has the right to take it away from me.

Mumbai Sapphire? No Thanks!

On the programme Victoria's Empire this evening, Victoria Wood followed standard BBC practice and referred to Calcutta as "Kolkata", or however one is supposed to spell it. There are many examples of this practice of re-naming in today's India, most notably the rendition of Bombay as "Mumbai", a change mercifully repudiated both by that city's High Court and by its Stock Exchange. For the forces behind these innovations are seriously nasty. "Al-BBC", say the neocons. Not a bit of it, if this is anything to go by. Rather, the BBC, Voice of the RSS and the BJP.

The United Kingdom Is My Country

The United Kingdom is my country, and no one has the right to take it away from me.

1. Westminster politicians, not to say Scottish Unionist ones, have no principled objection to the Scottish Parliament's holding a consultative referendum on independence for precisely so long as it never actually attempts to do so, at which point the whole thing would be ruled ultra vires by the courts;

2. No British Government would ever introduce the legislation necessary either for independence or for a referendum on the subject, the House of Commons would probably throw out the latter and would certainly throw out the former, and the House of Lords would certainly throw out either;

3. The continued existence of the United Kingdom is a matter for the whole United Kingdom, and it is at least arguable that it could not morally be dissolved for so long as even one adult, non-insane, non-imprisoned British Citizen objected to that abolition of his or her country;

4. There is even less chance of any such legislation under a Scottish Prime Minister than under and English one, and there will be a Scottish Prime Minister very soon;

5. The view that much of the oil is in fact in English territorial waters has increasing currency in England, and talk of pressing this case militarily if necessary (after the manner of the Cod Wars with Iceland) cannot be dismissed as saloon-bar nonsense, so that part of any independence deal would have to be a split (probably 50/50) in oil revenue such as to demolish the SNP's economic argument;

6. An independent Scotland has absolutely no hope of admission to the EU, since, even if the remnant UK did not veto its application (which it would), then Spain or Belgium would certainly do so;

7. In view of all of the above, nothing could be more guaranteed to destroy the SNP than victory on Thursday, since no two members of it seem to agree about anything except independence, and since it is certainly so riven between a neoliberal intelligentsia and a Hard Left activist base that it could not possibly construct a programme for government, quite apart from the fact that it only contains one serious politician;

8. An SNP victory is psephologically impossible anyway; and

9. After independence, are war memorials going to be demolished as in Estonia (one of the SNP's many models), and if not, why not?

The United Kingdom is my country, and no one has the right to take it away from me.

Prince Harry and Iraq

So, Prince Harry must not go to Iraq, because he might be shot at, and that in no good cause whatever? I couldn't agree more. None of our forces should be sent to Iraq, not because they might be shot at (that's what they signed up for), but because they might be shot at in no good cause whatever. Or handed over to the Iranians in a botched attempt to provoke another war, with Iran. Now there's a thought, Prince Harry...

We Need A British Bayrou

If Bayrou's new centrist party gets off the ground, or possibly even if it doesn't, then it will very usefully define "the centre" in terms wholly different from those ridiculously employed in Britain, where "the centre" sometimes means nothing more than "the editorial position of the BBC", and always means the decadent, libertine, philistine, warmongering, massively unpopular ghastliness of neoliberal economics and the corresponding neoconservative geopolitics. When is someone going to challenge this in Britain, as in France?

Well, Yes

"Is this what open borders and flexible labour markets were meant to produce?" asked the BBC's Alan Little at the end of a report on the mistreatment of unregulated migrant labourers. Well, yes, Mr Little. Of course that is what they were meant to produce. What else did you think might have been the point of them?

Black Gold, or Fool's Gold?

The border between England and Scotland runs from south-west to north-east, and therefore, under international law, would continue to do so into the North Sea, rather than jutting out perpendicularly as Scottish Nationalists assume. And that would put most of the oil in English, not Scottish, territorial waters.

Anyway, what right has one part of the United Kingdom - my country, which no one has the right to take away from me - to presume to declare UDI? If there is to be a referendum on the continuing existence of the United Kingdom, then it should be a referendum purely and simply of the United Kingdom, as a single whole.

Oh well, it's going to have to be Royal

It gives me no pleasure to say it, but the French should now vote for Royal. It would ruin the strongly pro-Sarkozy Tony Blair's very last days in office, and it would keep France's UN Security Council seat, as well as her formidable military might (including nuclear weapons), out of the hands of a supporter of what, if that supporter won, would become the revivified neoconservative war agenda.

I know that I have previously written that one should no more vote for Royal (or Sarkozy) than for Le Pen. But Le Pen is now out of the race, and not just this time round, but (since he is 78) almost certainly for ever. Sarkozy's economic policies are so neoliberal, and his foreign policies are correspondingly so neoconservative, that no eliminated candidate's supporters have any reason whatever to vote for him, but rather every reason to vote for any other candidate against him, secure in the knowledge that she would owe them if they did and she won.

Specifically, she would owe them - from Trotskyists to monarchists, as well as the all-important supporters of Bayrou - her refusal to pursue, at least to the Blairite extent that she might have liked, either neoliberal economics or the corresponding neoconservative geopolitics, both of which include yet further European integration.

He Isn't Pulling Out, Because He Was Never In

David Miliband's "Why I'm Backing Gordon" article in the Observer is easily down to his usual standard; the "I Can" article in the Daily Telegraph was so bad that I honestly think it was originally submitted to the Guardian, rejected, and then published by the Telegraph as a joke. So, we can now be certain that there is not going to be so much as an outside chance of this person's becoming Prime Minister.

Nor was there ever any such chance, of course. Milly even said that himself, repeatedly. Which makes the BBC's relentless "Draft Miliband" campaign as despicable as its refusal to let the matter go, even now, is infuriatingly tedious. For all Gordon Brown's faults, even the Beeb is going to have to face the fact of a Prime Minister with a degree, but not from Oxford. The Rubicon is about to be crossed.

Britain Is Now A Tax Haven

Well, according to the IMF, anyway. So I make the following points (note: the following points, not others such as that foreigners living here should at least pay the same tax as our own citizens, as of course they should) as much to invite reasoned refutation as anything else.

Since there is a global billionaire class, its members have to live somewhere, so it might as well be where their deals are subject to the social and environmental safeguards (admittedly, such as they often are) of our own company law, and are done through people subject to regulation (admittedly, such as it often is) by the Law Society or the Institute of Chartered Accountants. That class cannot like this too much, so there really must be something in the argument that its members prefer London for the culture, the ease of air travel, the global lingua franca as the native tongue, and the convenient timezone. All of which would of course still be the case if the tax rules were tightened up a bit.

I cannot understnad talk of pressure on housing or on public services. Roman Abramovich or Lakshmi Mittal is hardly likely to apply for a council flat, or to seek to purchase a three-bedroom semi-detached in suburbia. Nor, I bet, does he use the NHS, or make much, if any, use of public transport. And nor will he be sending his children to any school access to which was not already restricted to the offspring of the fabulously rich.

So, any thoughts?

Peter Hitchens on Iran

Everyone should read this superlative article by Peter Hitchens on Iran. Everyone.

Reclaiming Socialism: Challenging The Euston Manifesto

Signatories to the following are sought, for release as soon as possible, and very preferably by the evening of Sunday 29th April 2007. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. The list is as given on the website of the Euston Manifesto. General comments also welcome, of course:

To Norman Geras, Damian Counsell, Alan Johnson, Shalom Lappin, Jane Ashworth, Dave Bennett, Brian Brivati, Adrian Cohen, Nick Cohen, Anthony Cox, Neil Denny, Paul Evans, Paul Gamble, Eve Garrard, Harry Hatchet, David Hirsh, Dan Johnson, Gary Kent, Jon Pike, Simon Pottinger, Andrew Regan, Alexandra Simonon, Richard Sanderson, “David T”, Philip Spencer, Jeffrey Alexander, Paul Anderson, Joe Bailey, Ophelia Benson, Paul Berman, Pamela Bone, Robert Borsley, Michael Brennan, Chris Brown, Julie Burchill, Mitchell Cohen, Marc Cooper, Thomas Cushman, Heather Deegan, Jon Fasman, Luke Foley, Raimond Gaita, Marko Attila Hoare, Quintin Hoare, Anthony Julius, Oliver Kamm, Sunder Katwala, Jeffrey Ketland, Matthew Kramer, Mary Kreutzer, John Lloyd, Denis MacShane MP, Kanan Makiya, John Mann MP, Jim Nolan, Will Parbury, Greg Pope MP, Thomas Schmidinger, Milton Shain, Hillel Steiner, Gisela Stuart MP, George Szirtes, Michael Walzer, Bert Ward, Morton Weinfeld, Jeff Weintraub, Francis Wheen, Sami Zubaida, and every other signatory to, supporter of or sympathiser with the Euston Manifesto.

First, you suggest that your “constituency is under-represented” “in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.” We find this suggestion laughable and insulting. In fact, your “constituency” is massively and dangerously over-represented in “the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.”

Secondly, you profess yourselves “committed to the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, and the separation of state and religion.” If either of these separations had ever applied in Britain, then none of the achievements of the Labour Movement would ever have been possible, indeed neither it nor either of Britain’s other two principal political traditions could ever have arisen in the first place.

The desire for “the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers” is in fact the desire for a judiciary still drawn almost entirely from your own upper middle (if merely middle) class to have the final say, over and above a Parliament in which the final say has, since 1911, resided with the House of Commons, a House which has itself come to be elected by universal adult suffrage. The only other possibility is that you desire the Executive to have the final say. Both of these trends towards tyranny have accelerated markedly in Britain since 1997.

Furthermore, “the separation of state and religion” would have precluded not only the emergence of any of the three British political traditions, but also tthat of the movements to abolish slavery in the British Empire and in the United States, the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany, the American Civil Rights Movement, great swathes of opposition to the Soviet Union and to its satellite regimes, the opposition to apartheid in South Africa, the resistance first in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and now in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, huge amounts of work currently being done in China, and so much else besides. More to your point, it would preclude the re-emergence in Britain of morally and intellectually serious political movements and parties, commanding the support of large numbers of morally and intellectually serious people.

Thirdly, when you distance yourselves from “those left-liberal voices today quick to offer an apologetic explanation for [tyrannical] political forces,” whom do you actually have in mind? We submit that this is just code for those who opposed the Iraq War and who (although, of course, it gives us no pleasure to say so) have been proved right in that opposition.

Fourthly, what does “progress in relations between the sexes (until full gender equality is achieved)” actually mean? It sounds like the 1970s “interchangeability of men and women” argument, which feminism itself has largely given up. Similarly, what of progress in relations “between people of diverse sexual orientations”? How “diverse”, exactly? And what would such “equality” entail in practical terms?

Fifthly, we wish to echo you in full when you say that “we support the interests of working people everywhere and their right to organise in defence of those interests. Democratic trade unions are the bedrock organisations for the defence of workers' interests and are one of the most important forces for human rights, democracy-promotion and egalitarian internationalism. Labour rights are human rights. The universal adoption of the International Labour Organisation Conventions — now routinely ignored by governments across the globe — is a priority for us. We are committed to the defence of the rights of children, and to protecting people from sexual slavery and all forms of institutionalised abuse.” We ask you which side you are on when this clashes with either or both of feminism and homosexualism, neither of which is very much, if anything, of a movement either arising out of, or especially sympathetic towards, the aspirations or culture of the working class, including the aspirations or culture of working-class women, and including the aspirations or culture of working-class people of homosexual orientation.

Sixthly, it will not do to say that “The current expansion of global markets and free trade must not be allowed to serve the narrow interests of a small corporate elite in the developed world and their associates in developing countries,” since it has never had any other purpose, nor can it have. “The benefits of large-scale development through the expansion of global trade” simply cannot “be distributed as widely as possible in order to serve the social and economic interests of workers, farmers and consumers in all countries.” And, in any case, what are those “benefits”? What you are proposing is not only impossible and self-contradictory, but a regression from Socialism to Whiggery and Jacobinism, its archenemies far more than any paleoconservative tradition, including Toryism.

Seventhly, then, globalisation simply cannot “mean global social integration and a commitment to social justice.” When you say that “We support radical reform of the major institutions of global economic governance (World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund, World Bank) to achieve these goals, and we support fair trade, more aid, debt cancellation and the campaign to Make Poverty History,” then, while of course we agree with you (except in so far as we regard the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as irreformable), you have contradicted everything that you have already said about economics.

Eighthly, in rightly condemning racism, you pointedly make no mention of the demonisation of the white working class, a trend at least as pernicious in Britain today, and far more prevalent and respectable.

Ninthly, while it is of course perfectly true that “prejudice against the Jewish people” is sometimes hidden “behind the formula of anti-Zionism,” why mention this at all, if it “should go without saying”? And are you really saying that all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, in which case are you simply defining as anti-Zionist, and therefore as anti-Semitic, any criticism whatever of the State of Israel?

Tenthly, while “Terrorism inspired by Islamist ideology” is indeed “widespread today,” Islam itself is the problem, not because all Muslims are terrorists, but because of what Islam, as a body of thought and belief, has always been, since its very earliest days. You will not admit this, because you do not like the obvious Western answer to Islam, and because of the long neoconservative alliance with Islam: in 1980s Afghanistan, in 1990s Yugoslavia, and today in Chechnya, in Saudi Arabia, in Pakistan, in Iraq, at least putatively in Syria, and by means of the unrestricted immigration necessitated by the capitalist system to which you have now subscribed, all with a view to re-creating for neoconservatives the privileged dhimmitude that existed in Moorish Spain.

Eleventhly, what do you mean by “an internationalist politics and the reform of international law — in the interests of global democratisation and global development”? Based on the foregoing, “global development” seems to mean “global capital.” As for “global democratisation,” liberal democracy can only arise out of, and be sustained successfully by, the Biblical-Classical synthesis that is Christianity. Japan will discover this eventually. So will India, which is arguably in the throes of discovering it anyway. Later (having started later), so will Iran. And so forth. Why will you not admit it?

Twelfthly, in “Drawing the lesson of the disastrous history of left apologetics over the crimes of Stalinism and Maoism,” your Marxist roots stand duly exposed. Those in the Labour tradition (not now, nor ever, the same thing as simple membership of the Labour Party) have no such history, but the very reverse. The fact that you feel any need to mention this as if it were anything to do with you speaks volumes. Having made this apology that only Communists (within or beyond any Communist Party as such) need make, you strikingly make no apology for Trotskyist support for the American-led wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the key moment in the emergence of neoconservatism.

Thirteenthly, we concur with you in saying that “we reject, similarly, the idea that there can be no opening to ideas and individuals to our right. Leftists who make common cause with, or excuses for, anti-democratic forces should be criticised in clear and forthright terms. Conversely, we pay attention to liberal and conservative voices and ideas if they contribute to strengthening democratic norms and practices and to the battle for human progress.” Of course, this is nothing new to us, since we are not of the sectarian Left.

But to which “conservative” voices (we have far more doubts about “liberal” voices), exactly, are you willing to listen, and why? For us, this means the conservative critics of capitalist, libertine, decadent, philistine warmongering: the High Tory traditions in the United Kingdom and the Old Commonwealth (and perhaps especially the Red Tory tradition in Canada), paleoconservatism and Agrarianism in the United States, Gaullism and French monarchism, Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism, and so forth.

These at least ask the questions to which the answer is the universal and comprehensive Welfare State, and the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment, the former paid for by progressive taxation, the whole underwritten by full employment, and all these good things delivered by the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government. Do you subscribe, as we do, to this definition of Socialism (since your Manifesto offers none of its own), which is in fact the political position of the overwhelming majority of the British People, but which no party in Great Britain now represents or articulates? Or do you prefer some Marxist (including neoconservative) version? It matters.

And fourteenthly, these authentically conservative traditions are as one with the pioneers of the Labour Movement, and that for the same reason, in rejecting the theory of the perfectibility of human nature by its own efforts alone and in this life alone. This rejection, so staggeringly vindicated in the twentieth (as every previous) century, is perhaps the most important conservative insight of all. Have you attended to it?

The Labour pioneers certainly did so attend. That is why they, like anyone else who so attends, could not possibly have had any part in the attempts to make the world anew advocated by the likes of the American Enterprise Institute or the Project for the New American Century. In a word, neoconservatism.

So, what say you?

Reclaiming Conservatism: Challenging The Henry Jackson Society

Signatories to the following are sought, for release as soon as possible, and very preferably by the evening of Sunday 29th April 2007. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. The list is as given on the website of The Henry Jackson Society. General comments also welcome, of course:

To Rt. Hon. Michael Ancram QC MP, Gerard Baker, Paul Beaver, Prof. Paul Bew, Prof. Vernon Bogdanor, Nicholas Boles, Damian Collins MP, Colonel Tim Collins, Prof. Paul Cornish, Sir Richard Dearlove OBE, Major-General John Drewienkiewicz, Mark Etherington, Sir Philip Goodhart, Michael Gove MP, Jonny Gray, Robert Halfon, Fabian Hamilton MP, Oliver Kamm, Jackie Lawrence, Prof. Andrew Lever, Dr. Denis MacShane MP, Fionnuala Jay O'Boyle MBE, Stephen Pollard, Greg Pope MP, Lord Powell of Bayswater, Andrew Roberts, David Ruffley MP, Dr. Jamie Shea, Dr. Irwin Stelzer, Gisela Stuart MP, Rt. Hon. Lord Trimble, Edward Vaizey MP, David Willetts MP, Prof. Alan Lee Williams OBE, Brendan Simms, Alan Mendoza, James M. Rogers, Gideon A. Mailer, Matthew Jamison and every other signatory to, supporter of or sympathiser with The Henry Jackson Society:

We believe, as we hope and expect that you at least sincerely profess to believe, in such good things as national self-government (the only basis for international co-operation, and including the United Kingdom as greater than the sum of its parts), local variation, historical consciousness, the Biblical and Classical patrimony of the West, family life, agriculture, manufacturing, small business, close-knit communities, law and order, civil liberties, academic standards, all forms of art, mass political participation within a constitutional framework, and the absolute sanctity of each individual human life from the point of fertilisation to the point of natural death. In a word, we are conservatives, regardless of party (if any), as is the overwhelming majority of the British People, which now finds that the conservative position is no longer represented or articulated by any party, at least in Great Britain.

As conservatives, we cannot be in favour of “free” market capitalism, which corrodes to nought all these things and more, both directly and by driving despairing millions into the arms of Jacobinism, Marxism, anarchism or Fascism. Since we oppose the decadent social libertinism deriving from the 1960s, so we must also oppose its logically inevitable, and not unwitting, development into the decadent economic libertinism deriving from the 1980s; and vice versa. And since we oppose the erosion of our self-government and culture (and other countries’, of course) by the European Union, so we must also oppose that erosion by American hegemony and global capital, closely connected as all these three are; and vice versa.

Marxists (including neoconservatives) are obviously correct that the family, private property, and the State have a common origin, and that ecah exists in order to defend the other two. But any conservative, properly so called, must regard Marxists (including neoconservatives) as profoundly and dangerously mistaken in their desire for the withering away of any one or more of the family, private property, or the State. To desire any one or more such withering away is to be a Marxist, not a conservative. Rather, the conservative position is as expressed by Belloc: “Those who have least power in the decline of a state are priests, soldiers, the mothers of many children, the lovers of one woman, and saints.” It is also the position articulated in the words spoken by the Archbishop of Canterbury on conveying the Sword of State to the newly-crowned monarch: “With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order.”

We therefore present you with all that follows.

First, it is not possible to affirm “clear universal principles such as the global promotion of the rule of law, liberal democracy, civil rights, environmental responsibility and the market economy,” since the last of these is incompatible with the other four.

Secondly, we strongly dispute that “the Western policies of strength and human rights,” whatever might be said of either or both of them, “hastened the collapse of the Soviet dictatorship,” since that dictatorship would have collapsed anyway.

Thirdly, “the failures in the former Yugoslavia (especially Bosnia)” were indeed “more than just moral,” although the moral dimension must not be overlooked. It was both a moral and a strategic catastrophe to support the dismemberment of a multiethnic emerging democracy outside the global hegemony in the interests of a Holocaust-denier (Franjo Tudjman) who re-created in 1990s Europe the full panoply of 1930s Fascism, in the interests of a Saudi-backed Wahabbi rabble-rouser and erstwhile recruitment sergeant for the SS (Alija Izetbegovic), and in the interests of the black-shirted Wahabbi Nazi-nostalgists (the Kosovo “Liberation” Army) who now run Kosovo, on the UN’s watch, as a Mafia fiefdom and as the heroin-smuggling capital of Europe. “The early interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone” most emphatically do not “provide an appropriate model for future action.”

Fourthly, the European Union has indeed been “instrumental in expanding its ‘Grand Area’ on the continent since the fall of the Iron Curtain,” as has “NATO, through the process of eastern enlargement, and various initiatives engaging the Soviet successor states.” However, since the EU and NATO are anti-democratic, their expansion is most heartily to be deplored. To support the “furtherance of European military modernisation and integration under British leadership, preferably within NATO” is in fact to support a unified European defence capability under overall American command. We most certainly do not support any such thing. Why do you?

Fifthly, it is one (truistic) thing to say “that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate,” but quite another, and utterly fallacious, to say “that any international organisation which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.” It depends what we want any such organisation to do. The UN could exist, without, for example, China. But what would be the point? Furthermore, to advocate the position criticised here is to advocate British withdrawal from the Commonwealth, a move to which we could not be more strongly opposed.

And sixthly, “the market”, at least as you understand that term, simply cannot “serve the Democratic Community,” nor can it be “reconciled to the environment.” Such is the understanding of authentically conservative traditions such as High Toryism in the United Kingdom and the Old Commonwealth, paleoconservatism and Agrarianism in the United States, Gaullism and French monarchism, Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism, and so forth.

These traditions rightly reject the theory of the perfectibility of human nature by its own efforts alone and in this life alone. That rejection, so staggeringly vindicated in the twentieth (as in every previous) century, is perhaps the most important conservative insight of all. Have you attended to it? In other words, have you, with everything thus entailed, accepted the doctrine of Original Sin, always denied outright in Judaism, and always at least downplayed to the same practical effect in the Liberal Protestantism that, through the reception of neo-orthodoxy in popular Protestantism, and through the secularisation of much Catholic thought and practice after (but not because of) the Second Vatican Council, has so heavily influenced neoconservatism?

No one who accepted that doctrine, and thus the whole Augustinian patrimony of the West to which it is integral, could possibly have any part in the purely human attempts to make the world anew advocated by the likes of the American Enterprise Institute or the Project for the New American Century. In a word, neoconservatism.

How do you respond?

Links

I owe several people links. How can I put them in? And how can I allow non-Blogger comments (although I'd rather not allow anonymous ones, if possible)? Very many thanks. davidaslindsay@hotmail.com

Sex Discrimination By The Courts

Imagine if a group of men had goaded two toddlers to fight like dogs, and had filmed it on mobile phones. Would they have received 12-month suspended sentences and 100 hours of community service? No chance! They'd have been locked up for a very long time. And quite right, too.

Look out for an article in tomorrow's Guardian about how this whole incident is somehow the fault of a man, or of men generically, or of both.

3rd May, And A Resignation Immediately Thereafter

No, not Blair, although no doubt he will. I mean that, unless the allegedly super-popular Cameron delivers truly enormous Tory gains outside the South East (where the Tories already hold most of the seats anyway, so who cares?), then his super-popularity will be exposed as the media froth that it is, his position will thus become untenable, and he will have no honourable or credible option except to resign.

But Some Are More Equal Than Others

Tony Blair would have had to have resigned if the Police had interviewed him under caution about cash for seats (for that is what peerages are - seats in Parliament), so they didn't, thus keeping him in office. That much is now a matter of record. Well, there were reports at the weekend of charges this week. But no such charges have been forthcoming. Surely it cannot be that no one is going to be charged until after 3rd May? Can it?

It Has To Be Bayrou

François Bayrou would certainly beat either Tweedledum or Tweedledee on the second ballot, should he make it that far. He must.

The Blairite Royal might well use France’s UN Security Council seat to support, and indeed France’s formidable military might to participate in, a war against Iran (which would therefore suddenly re-appear on the agenda), and subsequent wars against Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and who knows where else. Sarkozy, a neocon to the American extent of the word, would certainly do so.

But Bayrou, a socially conservative, social-democratic Catholic whose recent overtures towards Euroscepticism represent a welcome recovery of patriotic spirit, certainly would not do so, and, in the very different circumstances of the post-Iraq world, might well be able, therefore, to prevent such wars altogether.

One should no more vote for Royal or Sarkozy than for Le Pen. Indeed, while Le Pen would certainly make France a thoroughly nasty place to live in, or even to visit, he would pose no threat to the wider world, and would indeed be a bulwark against any resurgence of neoconservatism, as well as being (like Bayrou) a bulwark against Islam.

Royal or Sarkozy, by contrast, would not be either such bulwark, but the very reverse, at least cheering on neocon wars all over the place, and pursuing the neocon aims (for so they are) of Islamising Europe and of dismantling social provision.

It has to be Bayrou.

Doors To Manual

Spare a thought for Kate Middleton and her mother. They say "toilet", "pardon" and "pleased to meet you", and, though a married woman, Mrs Middleton has a job. Indeed, she used to be an air stewardess. And some of her ancestors were miners in County Durham.

So neither Mrs nor Miss Middleton can ever now be an MP for any party. Indeed, if they ever did set foot on the floor of the House of Commons, then easily half the Labour front bench, and certainly the entire Tory one, would doubtless chorus "Doors To Manual".

But That's What New Labour Is For

Junior Ministers’ realisation that unrestricted immigration is bad for the poor represents a dangerous revival of Old Labour principles, and we therefore shouldn’t expect the Ministers in question to last much longer.

There cannot be a "free" market in goods, services and capital but not in labour, or vice versa. Artificially exaggerated competition for jobs drives down wages and working conditions. An entirely new working class is being imported in order to replace the old one, with its tiresome unions, minimum wages, health and safety regulations, and such like. The new one will understand no English except commands, and, having no allegiance to any particular locality in this country, will be able to be moved around at will. Nor, unlike the West Indians in particular (or, indeed, my own Saint Helenians), will they be admirers of traditional British culture and institutions.

That is what those who pay for New Labour (in all its pretended distinct guises) are paying for. And that is what they are getting.

Trimble The Tory

Hardly surprising, now that he's London-based and constituency-free, and considering his involvement with The Henry Jackson Society (when are the Labour MPs signed up to that going to defect?). But I never understood why he took a peerage. He could have just waited for some aged Knight of the Shires to die, sent his CV to the local Conservative Association, and breezed in, assuming that no one else with a Nobel Peace Prize had applied.

He would then have become Leader of the Conservative Party, and the much-trumpeted, but actually non-existent, Tory Revival might actually be happening in the electorally key areas of Scotland, Wales, the North, the Midlands and the West Country. For that matter, merger with the UUP would also have forced Labour and the Lib Dems to contest seats in Northern Ireland, all of which Trimble has long come close to advocating publicly.

Ah, well, it was not to be. So it looks as if he'd be Leader of the Lords in a Tory Cabinet instead.

Supermarket Sweep

Yet more record supermarket profits. There should be a windfall tax, if not a permanently higher rate of corporation tax, on the supermarkets, with the money used to help agriculture and small business.

Scottish Election Prediction

I have this on excellent authority: Lab 40, SNP 38, Lib Dem 21, Con 20, Green 7, Solidarity 2, and Margo McDonald re-elected. Apparently, the polls don't take account of local variations, notably where a swing from Labour to the SNP would let in a Liberal or a Tory. Nor do they take account of the fact that the regional top-up lists are precisely that: regional, not national.

Academies For All

At his news conference this morning, Blair was unable to explain how primary schools were supposed to become Academies, but repeated his intention that all schools in England become either Trust Schools (which they are not exactly queuing up to do) or Academies. Quite what would be the point of making all schools into one or other of these, I can't quite see. After all, what if someone had tried to make all schools into grammar schools...?

However, trade unions are seldom short of cash, and the teaching unions, with by definition a middle-class base, must be loaded. Likewise, the National Secular Society's list of Honorary Associates marks it out as easily the best-connected voluntary organisation in Britain, if not in the English-speaking world, and thus no doubt as fabulously rich accordingly; if it is not, then Honorary Associates such as Philip Pullman are certainly not short of a bob or two.

So here's a thought: why don't the teaching unions and the NSS start sponsoring Academies? Or is it that, like Eustonites challenged to stand for Parliament (see a reply to a post below), they consider it "unethical" to suggest that they should put up or shut up?

Goodbye to all that, then, Mr Benn?

In his pre-neocon days, my old friend Tom Hamilton (http://letsbesensible.blogspot.com) used to say that "The War Against Terrorism" should be known by its acronym. Today, Hilary Benn argues for the later variant "The War On Terrorism" to be dropped. Not before time.

Like the alleged existence of "Al Qaeda", it has created the false impression that there are formal links among the movements or organisations in question (no such link has ever been established), it has obscured the real causes (right or wrong) motivating those movements or organisations, and it has prevented engagement with the true influence, because of the true character, of Islam simply as such.

Furthermore, if there really is, or has ever been, any such "War", then why is the government of a part of the United Kingdom about to include a fully armed terrorist organisation which still regards its own Fascist Army Council as the sovereign body throughout Ireland?

Should Des Browne apologise? Should Des Browne resign?

Yes, he should of course do both of these things. As should the entire Government. But not for allowing the former "hostages" in Iran to sell their stories, vulgar and distatesful though that was. Rather, the whole Government should apologise for, and resign because of, the Iraq War itself.

Deport Berezovsky? Yes, But...

[What follows is correct, of course. And yes, Berezovsky should now be deported. But we must not take our eye of Putin's Russia. Putin can turn off our gas any time he likes (which is why we desperately need plenty of civil nuclear energy, the real nuclear deterrent), and intends to back two parties at once in the next elections, one of which pretends to be patriotic and socially conservative in order to attract traditional right-wing voters, the other of which pretends to be Socialist in order to attract traditional left-wing voters, and each of which pretends to be separate from the other one, from the State, and from the dodgy super-rich. Remind you of anywhere?]

This fugitive billionaire has exposed his violent agenda

Berezovsky is the embodiment of 'robber capitalism', and Britain should no longer harbour him after this outrage

Dmitry Peskov
Monday April 16, 2007
The Guardian

There can now be no doubt about the motivations of those behind the long and sustained campaign to blacken Russia's image and destabilise the Russian government from afar over the last few years. In the clearest possible terms, Boris Berezovsky told the world last week that he wants to foment a violent revolution in Russia against a democratically elected president. "I am calling for revolution and revolution is always violent," he says, confirming ominously that "there are practical steps" which he is taking.

We now expect the British authorities to rethink their decision to harbour a fugitive billionaire who is using the protections afforded by the British state to call for regime change in a sovereign state and member of the G8 group of leading democratic economies.

The Foreign Office has already condemned Berezovsky's calls for violent struggle. It now needs to match words with action in accordance with the law. Berezovsky is wanted in connection with charges of misappropriation of funds and fraud in his home country. The latest charges lodged with the Russian prosecutor's office link him directly to the embezzlement of 214m roubles (£4.2m) from the national flagship air carrier Aeroflot.

Now that his motives have been laid bare, it is time also to reassess the carefully executed and well-funded misinformation campaign - the "practical steps" as he terms them - that he has been orchestrating from London.

The first step, of course, has been to undermine the legitimacy of the Russian government. Berezovsky claims that Russia is in the grip of authoritarian dictatorship. In fact, Vladimir Putin has won two democratically held elections and, according to the latest opinion polls, enjoys an approval rating of over 70%. He has made explicitly clear that he will be leaving office after the conclusion of his second term, as required by the constitution.

Berezovsky also claims that "the media in Russia remain under total Kremlin control"; another accusation that is ludicrously far from the truth. There are approximately 3,200 TV and radio broadcasting companies in Russia, of which about 10% are state-owned. Over 46,000 publications are registered in the country, well over 20,000 more than existed in 2000. With a burgeoning media, catalysed by 25 million internet users accessing whatever content they wish, it is ludicrous to claim total government control.

The campaign against the president is also personal and slanderous. Berezovsky has made outrageous slurs alleging the president's involvement in Alexander Litvinenko's death, without a shred of evidence. He claims that Russia's security services were behind the series of apartment bombings in 1999 that killed nearly 300 people, when Putin was prime minister. Again, he does not have anything to back up his claims. In his interview last week, Berezovsky pretty much admitted this, saying that he had dedicated much of the last six years to "trying to destroy the positive image of Putin".

So why does it matter? Who cares about the fantastical musings of a man in self-imposed exile, speaking from the luxury of his London home?

The fact is Boris Berezovsky and his associates have been putting thousands of pounds into creating and financing foundations, thinktanks and campaign groups tasked with illegally undermining the Russian government and its president. I believe that the media, and those who consume its content, have a right to know both who is behind the misinformation campaign and what narrow political agenda is being pursued. By coming out of the shadows this week, Berezovsky has done us all a great favour.

The irony is that, for all Berezovsky's allegations, he personifies how far Russia has changed and moved on. As one of the sharpest critics of President Putin, Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Moscow-based Independent Institute for Strategic Studies, says, "Berezovsky is the embodiment of robber capitalism".

However, Russia no longer tolerates the unfettered personal acquisition of state assets that marked the post-Soviet phase of the country's transition. We now have an effective rule of law; we have high economic growth and stability; we have an expanding middle class and a growing civil society. I am not claiming that there are not real challenges ahead, but I would argue that few countries in the world have made such a profound transition in such a short period of time.

So the choice for the British government, and the wider British public, is clear: should it support a fugitive, bent on violent revolution against a democracy; or should it begin to question his outlook, his motives, and his ways of operating? Action against those who incite violence has recently been a high priority for the British government. It should remain so.

· Dmitry Peskov is deputy press secretary to Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation

· Boris Berezovsky denies the charges laid against him in Russia and maintains they are politically motivated

The Last Acceptable Racism

I wouldn't ordinarily reprint something originally published only under a name like "Clairwil", but this (http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/1091) is so good that I'm prepared to make an exception:

Disparaging the white working-classes

by Clairwil on 13th April, 2007 at 9:04 am

From Little Britain, to newspaper opinion columns. The message is clear: the white working classes are fat, lazy, thick morons and as such they can be spoken of in ways that would be unthinkable if applied to blacks or Asians.

The white working classes are given no credit for doing work that is dirty, tiring , often demeaning and almost always poorly paid, yet are blamed for all society’s ills. To add insult to injury we are now told that immigrants do all that work better, unlike the ‘bumptious’ natives who fail to show gratitude for their minimum wage pittance.

The Dept for Work and Pensions website for ‘benefit thieves‘ for example provides information in a number of languages to help ensure no-one is missing out on their entitlement. Yet the only minority language provision on the section dealing with benefit fraud is Welsh. I am not suggesting for a moment that this is anything more than an oversight but why is it only important to be inclusive when handing out benefits?

Is benefit fraud exclusively committed by fluent English and Welsh speakers? It’s fine with me that government departments are making efforts to make minorities feel included, it would be lovely if they would consider the feelings of the white majority while they did so.

The colour bias to be found in the attitudes of the liberal snob is breathtaking. Writer Michael Collins recalls attending a media party and hearing one white middle class woman complain that the working class area she’d moved to was ‘very white’.

If you doubt the influence these attitudes have, take a look at these quotes from members of the public commenting on the topic of asylum and immigration on this BBC website.

Immigrants and asylum seekers come here to work, not to sponge. I wish I could say the same about elements of our own home-grown, welfare-dependent white population. I’ll vote for any party that promises to increase immigration and the granting of asylum and which promises to deport those elements of our own white population that are a far greater burden on the state in terms of welfare, crime, anti-social behaviour and terminal un-employable than any ethnic minority or asylum seeker. [Garth, Hull, UK]

How about we make more room for immigrants with a bit of enforced migration? There are an awful lot of stupid, unpleasant white Britons in this country who have no skills, can barely speak their first language and contribute nothing to society. I’d be more than glad to see the back of them and the front of someone who has come here to make a better life for themselves. [Sue, UK]

Can you imagine the uproar if someone argued that UK born blacks were sub-literate lazy morons who should be deported to make way for hard working white immigrants? Yet the most vicious prejudice and contempt is considered acceptable if it’s directed towards the white poor.
In reality immigrants and asylum seekers are just people from wide variety of cultures and social classes. They do not come from a planet where everyone conforms to the values of the middle class liberal and can no more be regarded a uniformly fine bunch of people than the native poor dismissed as scum.

Building up immigrants and asylum seekers at the expense of the white native population is more likely than anything else to provoke a racist reaction. I cannot see how simultaneously telling a whole section of society it is worthless scum and accusing them of racism is likely to improve race relations.

In fact if I were a BNP activist I’d be dancing for joy each time whites are trashed and I’d be over the moon as an issue white class hated is barely even on the radar. It’s about time anti-racists started speaking up, if not there are plenty thugs and racists who’ll be more than happy to do so.

One thing is for certain, if and when the backlash happens it won’t be the white middle classes or media snobs that bear the brunt of it.

The Silence of The Hawks

This piece by my friend Neil Clark (http://neilclark66.blogspot.com) appears on the Guardian's Comment is Free website:

The International Red Cross warned this week that the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is getting even worse. At the same, time a major academic study by the Oxford Research Group concludes that the illegal US/UK invasion has "spawned new terror" in the region. In the light of the latest damning evidence of the consequences of the invasion, what has been the reaction of the lap-top bombadiers who five years ago so energetically propagandised for war? I've been trawling the web to find out.

Melanie Phillips, the "moralist" who condemns teenage youths for smashing up bus shelters but not coalition forces for smashing up Iraq, makes no mention of either report on her website this week. Ditto William Shawcross and Nick Cohen, self-appointed scourge of the anti-war left. David Aaronovitch has kept his silence too (perhaps he's in training for another London marathon), as has Andrew Roberts, the "talented historian" who argued that we could equate sanctions-devastated Iraq (including its non-existent air force and its Dad's Army) with Nazi Germany at its peak. Harry's Place, favourite watering hole of "pro-liberation left" prefers to discuss road rage, school history syllabuses and union-made hoodies. Daniel Finkelstein of The Times has discovered an interest in mediums.

Stephen Pollard informs us that he's been reading Norman Lebrecht's Maestros and Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry. The Daily Telegraph's 'Neo' Con Coughlin, who regaled us with tales of Saddam's deadly armoury, has turned his attention to Russian bear-baiting.

Across the pond, Andrew Sullivan opines about shopping bags, while David 'Axis of Evil' Frum tells us about his grandfather. Mark Steyn, who once accused anti-war demonstrators of having blood on their hands, focuses on the trial of his old mentor, Conrad Black.

Down Under, Tim Blair, who in 2004 ridiculed claims that the future in Iraq was "frightening", shares his thoughts on Alaskan sea otters.

From all these people, not a single word about either the International Red Cross or the Oxford Research Group reports. How very different it was four years ago! On the day that Saddam's statue toppled in Baghdad, the neo-cons couldn't wait to brag about the "success" of the war they had so enthusiastically supported. This was William Shawcross, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

"April 9 - Liberation Day! What a wonderful, magnificent, emotional occasion - one that will live in legend like the fall of the Bastille, V-E Day or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Watching the tearing down of Saddam Hussein's towering statue in Baghdad was a true Ozymandias moment. All those smart Europeans who ridiculed George Bush and denigrated his idea that there was actually a better future for the Iraqi people - they will now have to think again."

Really, William? Since the illegal invasion, an estimated 600,000 people have lost their lives in Iraq. Twice as many people have died in Iraq in the last four years as were killed in the previous 23 years under Saddam. The only people who need to "think again" are not those "smart Europeans" who opposed the war, but those far from "smart" people who faithfully parroted - for whatever reasons - the official US/UK propaganda.

Forget mediums, shopping bags and union-made hoodies: it's apologies that we really want.

They Dare, They Dare

Much to my surprise, several of those named in my post on Thursday entitled Go On, I Dare You have been in touch. I won't name people, since for some reason they've all asked me not to. I don't know why.

I'm not surprised that sitting MPs are seeking re-election, nor that certain other individuals are planning to give it a go (not always their first go) next time. And no, in answer to a third party, I didn't really expect a former longstanding MP, who has now retired, to attempt a comeback.

But I have been especially interested to hear from those who say that they intend to take up my challenge and put their views to the electorate as such. I will be watching out for them. So far, they have all been Eustonites; for that and many other reasons, I have a few more thoughts on the Euston Manifesto.

First, in condemning racism, why is no mention made of the demonisation of the white working class, a trend at least as pernicious in Britain today, and far more prevalent and respectable, and on which at least one Eustonite (Julie Burchill) has written importantly?

Secondly, having made the apology that only Communists (within or beyond any Communist Party as such) need make in relation to the crimes of Stalinism and Maoism, why is no apology made for Trotskyist support for the American-led wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, a key moment (possibly the key moment) in the emergence of neoconservatism? I have probably answered my own question there, of course.

And thirdly, to which "conservative" voices (I have far more doubts about "liberal" voices), exactly, are Eustonites willing to listen, and why? I hope that they mean the "conservative" critics of capitalist, libertine, decadent, philistine warmongering: the High Tory traditions in the United Kingdom and the Old Commonwealth (and perhaps especially the Red Tory tradition in Canada), paleoconservatism and Agrarianism in the United States, Gaullism and French monarchism, Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism, and so forth.

These at least ask the questions to which the answer is the universal and comprehensive Welfare State, and the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment, the former paid for by progressive taxation, the whole underwritten by full employment, and all these good things delivered by the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government. Will Eustonites subscribe to this definition of Socialism (since their Manifesto offers none of its own), or do they prefer some Marxist (including neoconservative) version? It does seem to matter.

And these authentically conservative traditions are as one with the pioneers of the Labour Movement, and that for the same reason, in rejecting the theory of the perfectibility of human nature by its own efforts alone and in this life alone. This rejection, so staggeringly vindicated in the twentieth (as every previous) century, is perhaps the most important conservative insight of all. Have the Eustonites attended to it?

In other words, have they, with everything thus entailed, accepted the doctrine of Original Sin, always denied outright in Judaism, and always at least downplayed to the same practical effect in the Liberal Protestantism that, through the reception of neo-orthodoxy in popular Protestantism, and through the secularisation of much Catholic thought and practice after (but not because of) Vatican II, has so heavily influenced neoconservatism?

The Labour pioneers certainly accepted that doctrine, and indeed the whole Augustinian patrimony of the West to which it is integral. That is why they, like anyone else who so accepts, could not possibly have had any part in the ludicrous, blasphemous and idolatrous human attempts to make the world anew advocated by the likes of the American Enterprise Institute or the Project for the New American Century. In a word, neoconservatism. So, what say the Eustonites? And what say The Henry Jackson Society, ostensibly conservative subscribers to so utterly unconservative a theory?

The End of Neoconservatism: Part One

Farewell, then, to neoconservatism. Iran turned out to be the question that it simply could not answer. It was magnificent to behold the incandescence of John Bolton at being denied the whole point of it all: the destruction of Iran’s multiethnic emerging democracy outside the global hegemony (in accordance with the precedent set in Yugoslavia), and the theft of Iran’s oil (in accordance with the precedent set in Iraq). This will never now happen. What has Bolton’s life been for?

Not so amusing, but actually more interesting, was the sound of Denis MacShane holding up as a triumph the peaceful resolution of the "hostage" situation in Iran. In so doing, he repeatedly denounced neoconservatism. Yet MacShane is a signatory both to The Henry Jackson Society and to the Euston Manifesto. Will he now be withdrawing his signature? Will every other signatory to either or both? And if not, why not?

Neoconservatism is now, or was until very recently, in government in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Israel, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. And it also has a politically substantial presence in France, the Irish Republic and New Zealand, among other places. Its erstwhile Portuguese leader is now President of the European Commission.

Yet it has no roots whatever in the mainstream political tradition of any country on earth. Even in the United States, its intellectual debts are to Max Shachtman, Leo Strauss and Ayn Rand. Shachtman tried to make Trotskyism Americanist. Meanwhile, Strauss and Rand gave life to Huey Long’s prediction that America would one day produce its own Fascism, but would call it anti-Fascism.

Then add in, first, the sort of Zionism that denies the very existence of the Palestinians as a people. It would annex the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the State of Israel, along with Lebanon south of the Litani River. And it would clear all non-Jews from Israel thus expanded: they could go to Jordan or to a northern Lebanon annexed to Syria, or they could be put to death.

Add in, secondly, a stock Irish-American saloon-bar rant against a perceived Anglophile network within the WASP élite. What are David Trimble, Paul Bew and Tim Collins doing, associating with this sort of thing through The Henry Jackson Society? Neoconservatism takes this anti-British hysteria even further, demanding the wholesale Americanisation of Britain’s, Canada’s, Australia’s and New Zealand’s economic, social, cultural and political systems, though without the conferral of American citizenship, and thus without representation in Congress or the Electoral College.

So much for the Anglosphere, from which America is in any case busily detaching herself by means of the unrestricted immigration supported by the neoconservatives. That support is because they rightly recognise that there cannot be a "free" market in goods, services and capital but not in labour (or vice versa), there being nothing less conservative than capitalism.

But it is also because insistent non-English-speakers are cheap labour for the neoconservatives’ financial backers, and provide an electoral base for their standard-bearing dynasty. And it is because they actively want to make America as unlike the hated Britain (and by extension Canada, Australia and New Zealand) as possible. Indeed, they want to make Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand into totally dependent carbon copies of this America purged of real or imaginary British influence.

Their definition of the Anglosphere so as to exclude the West Indies is because they deny the economic, social, cultural and political Christian heritage common to the Anglo-Celtic and the West African slave-descended peoples. That heritage includes not only their common English language (which the neoconservatives’ immigration policies are doing so much to displace in the United States), but also their common blood ties. And those ties are not only in the Americas, but also here in these islands, and thus also in later settler societies.

By excluding the West African slave-descended and the Christian dimensions abroad (in American terms), the neoconservatives very deliberately exclude both the West African slave-descended and the Christian dimensions at home (in those terms), and thus also in their narrowly defined Anglosphere as remade in the image of their own racist, anti-Christian remaking of the United States.

Not that the neoconservatives have no interest in the Commonwealth countries of the Caribbean, with which so many British Citizens have such close connections. It is possible in principle for any of the Commonwealth Realms to retain or abolish the monarchy regardless of the decision of any other of them. But it is very difficult to see how any of those in the Caribbean could do so in practice if the forcible Americanisation of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand had included (as, of course, it would have to) the abolition of the monarchy in all four of those countries. Thus will the Commonwealth Realms and British Overseas Territories of the Caribbean be made ripe for invasion and colonisation, along with the two republics (Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago) to which they are so intimately related. Something very similar will happen in the Pacific.

It is striking how many neoconservatives are self-hating Canadian subjects of the Crown and products of the Keynes-Beveridge settlement: David Frum, Mark Steyn, Conrad Black, Barbara Amiel, and so on. Not that Canada is the only, or even the worst, case of the closely related rise of hostility to that settlement, hostility to the Crown, and support for American neoconservative foreign policy.

The End of Neoconservatism: Part Two

Add in, thirdly, the influence of neo-orthodoxy, a mid-twentieth century movement to salvage the traditional vocabulary of Protestant theology even while surrendering to every liberal, secularising assault. As among Lutherans and Calvinists on the Continent, and as in the Anglican, Scottish Presbyterian and historic Nonconformist bodies in Britain, so also in the related "mainline" churches in the United States, neo-orthodoxy successfully sold itself as a vindication of popular orthodoxy. But it is actually ruinous of such faith, as is evident from, among much else, "mainline" churchgoers’ support for neoconservatives.

And add in, fourthly, one of the two de facto schismatic Americanist bodies within the Catholic Church. For American Catholics now divide almost entirely between those who agree with the Pope about sex but not about economics, and those who agree with him about economics but not about sex. The latter are termed "liberals" and excoriated by the former, termed "conservatives". But, in fact, they are equally far removed from the Church’s position, which includes a huge amount of almost unutterably important work on how all these things are connected.

The "liberals" just happen to fail to give the Papacy any credit when they are heavily dependent on its work. By contrast, the "conservatives" lionised the old Pope, lionise the new one, and simply ignore the vast amount of Papal Teaching with which they happen to disagree. Thus, the "conservatives" are able to present themselves as more loyal to Rome than are the "liberals". In reality, both bodies believe at some level that the American Church is autonomous, and both behave exactly as if such were the case.

Those who follow the "conservative" schism are key figures in neoconservatism. They attached themselves to the radical-revisionist misappropriation of the name of Vatican II. This brought them into the same counter-cultural circles out of which neoconservatism was to emerge. It should be noted that one of the most powerful neoconservatives grew up as an ultraconservative Lutheran, became a liberal Lutheran pastor, and converted to Catholicism only when he became a neoconservative!

But do not add in Evangelical Protestantism, to which neoconservatism relates much as Irish Republicanism relates to Catholicism. In principle, they have nothing to do with each other beyond being mutually antagonistic. The upper echelons of each hold the views and persons of the other in horrified contempt.

Yet large numbers of devout Catholics have been cajoled or deceived into supporting Irish Republicanism despite its Jacobin and Marxist roots and character. And large numbers of Evangelical Protestants have been cajoled or deceived into supporting neoconservatism despite its Trotskyism, its Straussianism, its Randianism, its Zionism (serious Evangelical scholars are not "Christian Zionists"), its hatred of WASPs and Ulster Scots, its neo-orthodoxy, its Americanist pseudo-Catholicism, and its roots in the counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s.

Such is the ideology of those who have sold themselves as the defenders of Western civilisation while actively seeking to destroy all memory of that civilisation’s roots in the Biblical-Classical synthesis that is Christianity. They have sold themselves as the West’s guardians against "militant Islam" (the only kind that there can ever be, as they pointedly refuse to admit). Yet theirs was active support for that cause in 1980s Afghanistan, in Bosnia (against Europe’s real age-old bulwark against Islam) and in Kosovo (likewise). It remains so in Chechnya, in Saudi Arabia and in Pakistan.

That cause has been done no end of good by the removal of one of the Arab world’s two principal bulwarks against it, in Iraq. And now the neoconservatives are planning to remove the other such bulwark, in Syria. All this while actively encouraging, through the unlimited immigration without which their capitalist system cannot function, the Islamisation of the West. This whole is with a view to their re-establishment of the privileged dhimmitude that existed in Moorish Spain.

And they have sold themselves as the champions of English-speaking unity while seeking to purge America of what they see as British influence, before seeking to remake the Anglosphere (defined in racist terms) in the image of America thus purged. In so doing, they have sought to destroy the English-speaking world’s single most unifying institution. But, of course, that institution, at the head of or otherwise constitutionally related to nearly forty states and territories, is one of the world’s two principal institutional expressions of Christianity. The other such expression is its historic antagonist, but that is a small and all-but-forgotten matter now, and in any case the neoconservatives have done at least as much to subvert that, too.

The End of Neoconservatism: Part Three

But it is not in the United States that the neoconservatives have become most hegemonic. That dubious distinction belongs to the United Kingdom. An indivisible New Labour Project, now effectively led by David Cameron following the political death of Tony Blair, constitutes the electorally irremovable neoconservative junta trading under the names of New Labour, the Cameroons, the rising Orange Book Tendency within the Liberal Democrats, The Henry Jackson Society, the Euston Manifesto, and so forth. (It is extraordinary, but I have now been doing it for over a year, to sit in a Parsh Council meeting including three Tories yet to know that the only person in the room who wants David Cameron to become Prime Minister is a current Cabinet Minister's researcher.) But the ideology of which these are all the same expression has now collapsed. Presenting the rest of us with an unmissable opportunity.

After all, did anyone ever ask you if you wanted the political parties to merge in all but name, and that on a foreign, fringe and now failed basis? No one ever asked me if I wanted this. I don’t. And I bet that you don’t, either. But the only political party ever to have begun in the Westminster Village, and then attempted to spread out into the country at large, was the SDP. And look what became of that.

Instead, we need, in terms of impact, nothing less than a Reformation in British politics. But unlike the Reformation itself, it will be bottom-up rather than top-down, it will be directed at collapsed rather than thriving institutions, and it will therefore be massively popular, entirely without any need for imposition by force.

It will of course leave its recusants, notable for their tiny numbers, for their heavily intermarried families, for the social and cultural insulation provided by their fabulous wealth, for the lavishing of foreign honours on their most outspoken figures, for the fact that all their institutional manifestations are abroad, and for the fact that almost no one abroad (nor even many people here) has any notion that they exist.

If you want better than that for yourself, and for your house and lineage at least for the next three hundred years, then you will now cut all ties to New Labour, to the Cameroons, to the Orange Book Tendency, to The Henry Jackson Society, to the Euston Manifesto, and to anything else remotely redolent of neoconservatism.

What Lanchester Needs, And How To Get It

I have been a Lanchester Parish Councillor since 1999, a governor of Lanchester Endowed Parochial Primary School since 1999, and a governor of Saint Bede’s since 2000. I am now seeking election to Derwenstide District Council, and re-election as a Parish Councillor, on three simple grounds:

Cut Derwentside’s Council Tax, by making the new Stanley Town Council pay for the services in Stanley provided by Parish Councils elsewhere, including Lanchester;

Recognise the existence of poor people in Lanchester, and target services accordingly (there are more people dependent on benefits in Lanchester than the entire population of Burnhope, where by no means everyone in poor); and

Stop the setting up of a regional assembly by the back door, which is the reason for the latest demented scheme to introduce unitary local government in County Durham.

I am also campaigning for a Youth Worker to clear the teenage gangs of Lanchester's streets, because, yes, it is on account of their having nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. I am a pro-countryside, pro-nation, pro-family candidate. And I have traditional Christian, Catholic values.

I pass no comemnt on any other candidate's values. But no other candidate is saying any of the first three things, let alone all of them, and cannot see, in all charity, how anyone can be in favour of helping the poor while remaining a member of what has become of the "Labour" Party. Nor, in the same vein, can I see how anyone can be in favour of the countryside, the nation or the family while remaining a member of what has become of the "Conservative" Party. And no one is currently doing anything to secure a Youth Worker for Lanchester. (I am a little disappointed to have no Lib Dem opponent: I was going to hit any such candidate over church schools.)

The only way to vote for these things is to vote for David Lindsay on 3rd May.

Why Not Vote "Labour" On 3rd May (Or, Indeed, Ever Again)

Blair, Brown and New Labour have made the poorest fifth of the population poorer than they were in 1997. Blair Brown and New Labour are making the poor pay a far higher percentage of their incomes in tax than the rich do.

Blair, Brown and New Labour are forcing the privatisation of Council Housing, against the wishes of tenants. Blair, Brown and New Labour have allowed crime, drugs and antisocial behaviour to run rampant, overwhelmingly suffered by the working class.

Blair, Brown and New Labour have rigged school admissions in favour of people with connections. Blair, Brown and New Labour have handed millions of working-class jobs to illegal immigrants and to those prepared to accept illegal wages or working conditions.

Blair, Brown and New Labour have made public transport practically unaffordable. Blair, Brown and New Labour want to sign up the EU Constitution, the end of Britain.

Blair, Brown and New Labour have waged five wars to date, never against any threat to Britain, but always involving the deaths of mostly working-class servicemen and servicewomen, sent into battle without the proper equipment, and denied proper medical treatment when injured. But Blair, Brown and New Labour now want to spend an initial £25 billion, rising to an eye-watering £76 billion, on pointless toy weapons aimed at nowhere in particular, which we couldn’t even use without foreign permission.

And so on.

Why Not Vote "Conservative" On 3rd May (Or, Indeed, Ever Again)

Like New Labour, the Useless Tories believe in the "free" market, with no farm subsidies, no Greenbelt, no Agricultural Wages Board, no import controls, and no immigration controls. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories couldn’t care less about rural services and amenities. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories would give no parliamentary time to repealing the hunting ban, or any subsequent ban on shooting or fishing.

Like New Labour, the Useless Tories are European federalists, and welcome into the government of part of the United Kingdom a fully armed terrorist organisation which believes its own Fascist Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories want Britain’s foreign policy to be dictated by America while America’s is dictated by Israel. The Useless Tories are not defending the House of Lords against New Labour today because they are not going to defend the monarchy against New Labour tomorrow.

The Useless Tories have cheered on New Labour’s five wars to date, not one against any threat to Britain, but at least two in support of Islam against the age-old defenders of Christian civilisation, with the Iraq War resulting in the ongoing genocide of the ancient Christian community there. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories welcome the reduction of the British Army to a mere Defence Force of amateur policemen and social workers, welcome the reduction of the Royal Navy to a coastal defence force even though there is no threat to our coast, and want to abolish the Royal Air Force altogether. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories would not equip our armed forces properly, or give the wounded proper medical treatment. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories want to spend an initial £25 billion, rising to an eye-watering £76 billion, on pointless toy weapons aimed at nowhere in particular and which we couldn’t even use without foreign permission. That is because, like New Labour, the Useless Tories do not understand that the real nuclear deterrent is civil nuclear power, to defend us from the turning off of our gas by the Russians or our oil by the Arabs.

Like New Labour, the Useless Tories believe in the "free" market, with no restrictions on alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution or pornography. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories think that cannabis is harmless and that even taking cocaine is "just what young people do". Like New Labour, the Useless Tories see nothing special about marriage as the legally binding union of one man and one woman, and see fathers as nothing more than sperm banks and cash machines. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories want to ignore age of consent offences from 13 upwards. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories want to force Christian adoption agencies and other charities to close down. Like New Labour, the Useless Tories deny outright that Britain or Europe has a Christian heritage.

And so on. Oh, and they've only put up two District Council candidates for three seats here in Lanchester, anyway. So, even if you must vote for those two, please use your third vote wisely...

Paul Wolfowitz

Ha Ha

Ha Ha Ha

Ha Ha Ha Ha

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Ha ... well, you get the gist.

Best news since Lewis Libby, of course. When is Cheney going to be impeached? And what then becomes of Blair's Haliburton directorate to go with his News Corporation one? After all, without the former, why has Britain ever been in the Iraq War?

The Director's Cut

I write this while watching the exanded repeat of this week's Have I Got News For You. More and more programmes seem to be broadcast in the early evenings in a sort of PG version, with a 15 or even 18 version shown at a later time later in the week. Has anyone else noticed this? And what do people think of it?

Thus Speaks The Blair Generation

Welcome to the first in an occasional series entitled "Thus Speaks The Blair Generation".

20-year-old Arthur Batchelor, to whom the defence of this Realm has been entrusted, feels that he was humiliated by the Iranians because they made him wear fake Hugo Boss, darling.

Any more? davidaslindsay@hotmail.com

Oliver Kamm In Drag?

http://www.bnp.org.uk/columnists/brimstone2.php?leeId=80

I take it that this person has signed the Euston Manifesto? If not, why not?

After Life On Mars

After the sublime Life On Mars, how about a series in which Gene Hunt is transported to 2007?

Investigating cash for peerages, perhaps?

Go On, I Dare You!

To those listed on the website of the Euston Manifesto, I dare those of you who are British Citizens to stand for Parliament next time (for any party or none) on that basis and to seek out other such candidates, I dare The Observer or whatever to publish the definitive constituency-by-constituency list of such candidates, and I dare all of you (British or not) to campaign for them in every way available to you.

So, over to you, Norman Geras, Damian Counsell, Alan Johnson, Shalom Lappin, Jane Ashworth, Dave Bennett, Brian Brivati, Adrian Cohen, Nick Cohen, Anthony Cox, Neil Denny, Paul Evans, Paul Gamble, Eve Garrard, Harry Hatchet, David Hirsh, Dan Johnson, Gary Kent, Jon Pike, Simon Pottinger, Andrew Regan, Alexandra Simonon, Richard Sanderson, “David T”, Philip Spencer, Jeffrey Alexander, Paul Anderson, Joe Bailey, Ophelia Benson, Paul Berman, Pamela Bone, Robert Borsley, Michael Brennan, Chris Brown, Julie Burchill, Mitchell Cohen, Marc Cooper, Thomas Cushman, Heather Deegan, Jon Fasman, Luke Foley, Raimond Gaita, Marko Attila Hoare, Quintin Hoare, Anthony Julius, Oliver Kamm, Sunder Katwala, Jeffrey Ketland, Matthew Kramer, Mary Kreutzer, John Lloyd, Denis MacShane MP, Kanan Makiya, John Mann MP, Jim Nolan, Will Parbury, Greg Pope MP, Thomas Schmidinger, Milton Shain, Hillel Steiner, Gisela Stuart MP, George Szirtes, Michael Walzer, Bert Ward, Morton Weinfeld, Jeff Weintraub, Francis Wheen and Sami Zubaida.

And to those listed on the website on The Henry Jackson Society, either as Signatories or as members of the Organizing Committee, I dare those of you who are British Citzens and not Peers of the Realm to stand for Parliament next time (for any party or none) on that basis and to seek out other such candidates, I dare The Times or whatever to publish the definitive constituency-by-constituency list of such candidates, and I dare all of you (British or not, Peers or not) to campaign for them in every way available to you.

So, over to you, Rt. Hon. Michael Ancram QC MP, Gerard Baker, Paul Beaver, Prof. Paul Bew, Prof. Vernon Bogdanor, Nicholas Boles, Damian Collins MP, Colonel Tim Collins, Prof. Paul Cornish, Sir Richard Dearlove OBE, Major-General John Drewienkiewicz, Mark Etherington, Sir Philip Goodhart, Michael Gove MP, Jonny Gray, Robert Halfon, Fabian Hamilton MP, Oliver Kamm, Jackie Lawrence, Prof. Andrew Lever, Dr. Denis MacShane MP, Fionnuala Jay O'Boyle MBE, Stephen Pollard, Greg Pope MP, Lord Powell of Bayswater, Andrew Roberts, David Ruffley MP, Dr. Jamie Shea, Dr. Irwin Stelzer, Gisela Stuart MP, Rt. Hon. Lord Trimble, Edward Vaizey MP, David Willetts MP, Prof. Alan Lee Williams OBE, Brendan Simms, Alan Mendoza, James M. Rogers, Gideon A. Mailer and Matthew Jamison.

Go on, I dare you!

Of Schools and Institutional Racism

The National Union of Teachers is rightly concerned about underperformance by Afro-Caribbean boys. But it attributes this to “institutional racism”. Well, the schools in the Caribbean are famously disciplined and orderly places. They deliver excellent education to pupils of both sexes, routinely poorer than almost anyone in Britain. Indeed, Afro-Caribbean British parents quite often send their children, and especially their sons, to such schools. This is in order to avoid what has been done to the grammar schools on which those in the Caribbean were modelled. The 11-Plus is still in use there.

By contrast, here in the North-East, I have worked as a supply teacher in all-white schools, which are the norm here. At one school, in the only 100% White British district at the last census, the behaviour was so bad that it cannot possibly be worse elsewhere. Pupils in such schools are being robbed of their academic and wider heritage. But pupils in the Caribbean are not being so robbed.

And it is the same heritage, shared by people of West African slave descent and people of Anglo-Celtic descent. It even includes vast blood ties. Blame it on slavery if you will, but Afro-Caribbeans do not seem to mind. Indeed, almost all of the Afro-Caribbean countries even choose to retain the same Head of State as most of the Anglo-Celtic countries. Just as the monarchy is the institutional and personal embodiment of our common heritage, so grammar schools here were key vehicles for that heritage’s transmission. And in the Caribbean, they still are. That is why Afro-Caribbean British parents actively prefer what has been preserved in the Caribbean over what has replaced it in Britain.

To deny that heritage, on ethnic grounds, to any member of either of our interrelated peoples: that is the real institutional racism.

What's Wrong With The Henry Jackson Society?

The pursuit of a robust foreign policy was one of Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson’s most central concerns. This was to be based on clear universal principles such as the global promotion of the rule of law, liberal democracy, civil rights, environmental responsibility and the market economy.

The last of these is incompatible with the other four.

The western policies of strength and human rights, which later hastened the collapse of the Soviet dictatorship

It would have collapsed anyway.

Our failures in the former Yugoslavia (especially Bosnia) were more than just moral.

You've got that right! But not in the sense that you mean...

The early interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, although imperfect, provide an appropriate model for future action.

Kosovo is now a Mafia fiefdom, the heroin-smuggling capital of Europe, run on the UN's watch by the blackshirted Wahabbi Nazi-nostalgists of the KLA. Some "model"!

But modernisation and democratisation often does not require a military solution. For example, the European Union has been instrumental in expanding its democratic ‘Grand Area’ on the continent since the fall of the Iron Curtain. So has NATO, through the process of eastern enlargement, and various initiatives engaging the Soviet successor states.

The EU and NATO are anti-democratic, and their expansion is most heartily to be deplored. Don't signatories such as Andrew Roberts, David Trimble, Michael Gove, Michael Ancram, Ed Vaizey and David Willetts believe that?

4. Supports the necessary furtherance of European military modernisation and integration under British leadership, preferably within NATO.

So, "preferably" under overall American command. All you Tories (and others) who signed up, this is what you signed up to: a unified European defence capability under overall American command.

6. Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organisation which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed.

Well, that depends what you want any such organisation to do. You could have the UN without, say, China, or indeed Russia, in it. But what would be the point? And are you advocating British withdrawal from the Commonwealth? If not, then (in your own terms) why not?

7. Gives two cheers for capitalism. There are limits to the market, which needs to serve the Democratic Community and should be reconciled to the environment.

It can't, and it can't be. I give no cheers for capitalism, and I ask the three Labour MPs who have signed up to this why they give two, or even one.

What's Wrong With The Euston Manifesto?

A. Preamble

egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment.

And I think we all know who that means...

Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.

"Not", indeed!

The present initiative has its roots in and has found a constituency through the Internet, especially the "blogosphere". It is our perception, however, that this constituency is under-represented elsewhere — in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.

Yer what?!?

B. Statement of principles

"1) We are committed to ... the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, and the separation of state and religion."

If either of these separations had ever applied in Britain, then none of the achievements of the Labour Movement would ever have been possible, indeed neither it nor either of Britain's other two principal political traditions could ever have arisen in the first place.

2) No apology for tyranny. ... We draw a firm line between ourselves and those left-liberal voices today quick to offer an apologetic explanation for such political forces.

Like whom, exactly? This is just code for opponents of the Iraq War.

4) We look towards progress in relations between the sexes (until full gender equality is achieved)

What does this actually mean? It sounds like the old 1970s "interchangeability of men and women" argument that feminism itself has largely given up.

and between people of diverse sexual orientations

How "diverse", exactly? And what would such "equality" entail in practical policy terms?

we support the interests of working people everywhere and their right to organize in defence of those interests. Democratic trade unions are the bedrock organizations for the defence of workers' interests and are one of the most important forces for human rights, democracy-promotion and egalitarian internationalism. Labour rights are human rights. The universal adoption of the International Labour Organization Conventions — now routinely ignored by governments across the globe — is a priority for us. We are committed to the defence of the rights of children, and to protecting people from sexual slavery and all forms of institutionalized abuse.

Whereas this is all excellent, of course. But what about when it clashes with feminism or homosexualism? Which side are you on?

5) The current expansion of global markets and free trade must not be allowed to serve the narrow interests of a small corporate elite in the developed world and their associates in developing countries.

It has never had any other purpose, nor can it have.

The benefits of large-scale development through the expansion of global trade ought to be distributed as widely as possible in order to serve the social and economic interests of workers, farmers and consumers in all countries.

What "benefits"? What is proposed here is impossible and self-contradictory. Such is the regression of Socialism to Whiggery and Jacobinism, its archenemies far more than Toryism or any other paleoconservative tradition.

Globalization must mean global social integration and a commitment to social justice.

But it can't. It simply can't.

We support radical reform of the major institutions of global economic governance (World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank) to achieve these goals, and we support fair trade, more aid, debt cancellation and the campaign to Make Poverty History.

Thus contradicting everything that you have already said under this heading.

8) Some exploit the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people under occupation by Israel, and conceal prejudice against the Jewish people behind the formula of "anti-Zionism". We oppose this type of racism too, as should go without saying.

Then why say it? Seriously, why, exactly?

9) Terrorism inspired by Islamist ideology is widespread today. It threatens democratic values and the lives and freedoms of people in many countries. This does not justify prejudice against Muslims, who are its main victims, and amongst whom are to be found some of its most courageous opponents. But, like all terrorism, it is a menace that has to be fought, and not excused.

Islam itself is the problem. Why won't you admit that? Is it just because you don't like the obvious Western answer to Islam?

10) A new internationalism.We stand for an internationalist politics and the reform of international law — in the interests of global democratization and global development.

What does this latter mean? Based on the foregoing, it seems to mean "global capital". As for "global democratization", liberal democracy can only arise out of, and be sustained successfully by, the Biblical-Classical synthesis that is Christianity. Japan will discover that eventually. So will India, which is arguably in the throes of discovering it anyway. Later (having started later), so will Iran. And so forth. So why won't you admit it?

11) Drawing the lesson of the disastrous history of left apologetics over the crimes of Stalinism and Maoism

Your Marxist roots stand duly exposed. Those of us in the Labour tradition (not now, nor ever, the same thing as simple membership of the Labour Party) have no such history, but the very reverse. The fact that you feel any need to mention this as if it were anything to do with you speaks volumes.

We reject, similarly, the idea that there can be no opening to ideas and individuals to our right. Leftists who make common cause with, or excuses for, anti-democratic forces should be criticized in clear and forthright terms. Conversely, we pay attention to liberal and conservative voices and ideas if they contribute to strengthening democratic norms and practices and to the battle for human progress.

Whereas now you sound like Good Old Labour. Make up your minds!

12) One of the tragedies of the Left is that its own reputation was massively compromised in this regard by the international Communist movement, and some have still not learned that lesson.

Whereas some of us don't have to. Clearly, you feel that you do...

15) We stand against all claims to a total — unquestionable or unquestioning — truth.

You could have fooled me!