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Several years ago I had to discharge myself from an NHS hospital after three days of receiving no visit from anyone who could diagnose my excruciating gall stones. By the time I escaped and got to a private consultant my gall bladder had become gangrenous. Another day or two in the tender care of the NHS and I would have been dead.

This monstrous Leviathan did its level best to kill me and, even though it failed, it can’t be faulted for effort. Apparently the NHS is doing much better in thousands of other cases. Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust alone is responsible for killing 1,200 patients between 2005 and 2009, which is pretty good going for just one part of one of the UK’s 86 counties.

Desperately ill people were left in soiled sheets, unwashed, thirsty and hungry. Listing the causes of death, most sources cite such neglect, but few mention MRSA and other hospital-acquired infections – or indeed the waiting lists that must have killed many people before they even got into those murderous fleapits. Neglect and infections are often connected, though not necessarily so. My mother-in-law, for example, was neither thirsty nor hungry in her Devon hospital, but MRSA got to her anyway.

The papers are full of indignant commentary on our murderous health service, and all sorts of measures are being proposed. Sending doctors and nurses to prison for dereliction of duty is among the more radical ideas, while most others deal with removing this or that glitch.

Commentators coming out of the left political field feel that pumping more money into the NHS will turn it into a model the rest of Europe will want to follow (so far no other country has). Those more conservatively minded talk about reducing administrative staffs and building up frontline services.

No intrepid soul has come up with the only true explanation for the disgraceful state of our medical care. Which is that the NHS is so rotten because it’s based on a rotten idea.

There is a good reason this obvious fact has been overlooked, and a shortage of intelligent commentators isn’t it. It’s just that the British have been brainwashed to look upon the NHS not as a mere expediency, a purely practical way of administering medical care, but as a cult.

For even an intelligent Brit to suggest that the NHS is fundamentally flawed is akin to a Muslim saying that there is a God other than Allah and Mohammed isn’t his prophet. One may question the shaman but not the bull’s head sitting atop the totem pole.

Such inordinate worship is wrong even in theory, for no administrative setup, or for that matter no man-made institution, ought to be held as sacrosanct. People are fallible, indeed fallen, which is why we aren’t blessed with perfect institutions in this world. And imperfect ones should be open to criticism, including the kind that raises doubts about their raison d’être.

The false, destructive idea on which the NHS is based goes by the name of equality. As with all modern ideas springing from such an ideological bias, when put into practice they achieve the exact opposite of their declared aim.

‘Equality’ in education means, for all intents and purposes, no education. Equality in university admissions means degrading higher learning. ‘Gender’ and race equality at work means denying employment to the most qualified candidates and thereby damaging the economy. And equality in medical care means, well, Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust.

It ought to be clear by now that no giant government undertaking can possibly succeed in anything other than shifting more money, and therefore power, the way of the state. No modern country can afford a fully nationalised medicine – not the kind of medicine that can keep up with the advances in diagnostic technology and pharmacology, not to mention a rapidly aging population.

No other European country even tries – they have all put into effect a combined system involving tax incentives, private insurance and some state involvement. As a result, they all boast much better standards of medical care than our dear NHS can even dream about – and the gap is growing wider. Yet the NHS is already the biggest employer in Europe, so what’s the plan? Make it the only one?

Like most socialist projects, the NHS is based on a lie, in this instance that medical care is free. In fact the 12 percent of our income we shell out for National Insurance Tax makes the NHS one of the most expensive systems of medical care in the world.

True enough, you go to hospital now and pay later, through your taxes. But free at the point of purchase doesn’t mean free – this impression is illusory and therefore wrong. What is undeniably true is that, if we discount the postcode lottery, the NHS provides equal care for everyone – which in essence means rotten care for all.

Socialism in general, and all its offshoots, including the NHS, is indeed about universal equality, but only of those who don’t belong to the ruling elite. It’s in fact the most self-serving of all methods of government. That’s why we shouldn’t be surprised that the administrative staff of the NHS, along with various government agencies responsible for medicine, is growing in inverse proportion to the diminishing size of frontline medical personnel.

All those directors of diversity, optimisers of facilitation and facilitators of optimisation perform the core function of the NHS – increasing the power of the state over the individual. When all those expensive doctors, nurses and hospital beds get in the way, they’re brushed aside – in essence, they’re superfluous.

Do our MPs know this? One suspects many, perhaps most, do. But if the bill to do away with the NHS were to come up for ballot, it would be defeated well-nigh unanimously – this regardless of how persuasive and well-supported the argument in favour would be.

One may get away even with voting against one’s own party. But one votes against secular gods at one’s peril.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday’s vote on same-sex marriage puts a silver lining on Chris Huhne’s cloud. He can now marry his homosexual mistress and receive conjugal visits in prison.

For the rest of us, this perverse vote represents yet another outrage perpetrated by the revolting clique governing the country. It’s easy enough to see the destruction wreaked on yet another fundamental institution of civilised society, one that predates the state. What one fails to detect at first glance is any sizeable group that can feel better as a result.

According to the largest survey ever carried out, just over one percent of the British are homosexual. Of those only an infinitesimal minority wanted this abomination – in fact, many campaigned against it. Moreover, the homosexual activists who now have smirks on their faces won’t vote Tory anyway – and wouldn’t even it were the only party on offer.

Neither does the Tory party benefit in the long term. There are only so many clefts a body can suffer without falling apart, and this is one too many. Let’s be clear about it: no real Tory can possibly support a bill based on open contempt of tradition and animated by a destructive impulse.

Thus the party division on this issue isn’t between like-minded people who happen to disagree. It’s between Tories and non-Tories. Yesterday’s ballot showed that they simply don’t belong in the same party. Dave and his cronies will feel much more at home with their equally subversive mates across the aisle, while the real Tories – the majority of the party – will be able to break bread with the other lot only at an unacceptable cost to their conscience.

Our constitution too has suffered serious, possibly irreparable, damage. The very existence of the monarchy is brought into question, for there’s no longer a legal barrier to prevent a king from reigning with another man as his queen. I doubt that even Tory ‘modernisers’ would be able to swallow such an obscenity without gagging.

Dave personally is hardly a winner either. Those 169 Tory MPs who refused to support this abomination dwarf the 126 voting in favour – this in spite of disgraceful arm-twisting by the PM and his pinstriped thugs. And at the grassroots the party abhors the bill almost unanimously.

This leaves Dave not just as a lame duck but a sitting one. Most of his own party don’t just disagree with him but find him disgusting. This doesn’t bode well for his political future – in fact, it’s far from certain that he’ll even contest the next election. What’s guaranteed is that if he does contest it he’ll lose.

The Church of England, which is a key element of the British constitution, suffered a blow to the solar plexus. It did express its opposition to same-sex marriage but was ignored. Now the vote leaves our established religion in an ambiguous position vis-à-vis the government. Many clergymen express dismay that the bill went through in spite of the unequivocal disapproval by the Church and its new Archbishop of Canterbury.

They miss the point. Dave and his cronies have pushed the bill through not in spite of the Church’s opposition, but because of it. The Church, after all, is a factor of constitutional and cultural continuity, the keeper of the flame lit 2,000 years ago. This flame, if allowed to burn, would incinerate our whole political clique (alas, only figuratively speaking). The likes of Dave can get within mingent distance of Westminster only by trampling every tradition underfoot. They realise this and act accordingly.

Therein lies the answer to the cui bono question. For Dave et al are prepared to forgo any tactical advantages in pursuit of their strategic desiderata. Such trivia as public opinion, the feelings of their own party to say nothing of the rest of the country, respect for Western civilisation, a sense of responsibility both to history and the future, taste, indeed common decency can make no inroads on this lot’s resolve to self-perpetuate.

Their loyalty is owed not to the country, nor to the party, nor even just to themselves, but to their own utterly corrupt political class. Everything of value must die so that this gang may live.

Hence we’d search in vain for any positive aspect of this evil bill. It was introduced not to create but to destroy. The agents of the destruction, the 126 Tories especially, but also the 274 others ought to be ashamed of themselves. Except that if they were capable of such human feelings, they would have voted against.

Friends and readers know that my affection for today’s politicians in general and leftie politicians in particular isn’t without limits.

Chris Huhne falls into that category, which would normally make him an unlikely candidate for my compassion, even though he is a fellow BMW driver. And yet Huhne deserves it, not because I have anything but disdain for him, but because his accusers are even worse in their hypocrisy.

For those of you who have been on a protracted lunar holiday, here are the facts of the matter. Huhne, then one of the top LibDems, was caught by a speed camera in 2003. Since he already had nine points on his licence, the offence meant a driving ban. Mr Huhne and his wife then decided that they’d pass the points on to her, by claiming she drove the offending vehicle – a popular ploy here on earth, all you moon travellers.

So far so bad. But then things got worse. In 2010 Huhne left his long-suffering, point-bearing wife for a younger woman, a lesbian who looks like his elder brother or perhaps – choose your simile – like a drag queen. That was a bad move in more ways than just aesthetic and moral ones.

For last year Mrs Huhne, or rather Vicky Price as she now is, blew the whistle on Chris and hence on herself. This self-sacrificial woman thus vindicated William Congreve who aptly observed all those years ago that “Heav’n hath no Rage, like Love to Hatred turn’d, Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn’d.” (Shakespeare said many wise things, but he didn’t say everything.)

After months of lying denials Huhne has pleaded guilty to perverting the cause of justice, resigned his parliamentary seat and in a few days will be sentenced to prison, if his judge is to be believed. His ex-wife’s trial for the same offence begins tomorrow, with her defence team claiming marital coercion to keep her out of pokey.

Now Chris Huhne’s career, indeed life, lies in ruins as his former friends and colleagues from all parties turn into vultures circling his political corpse. Ignoring Christ’s suggestion about casting the first stone, these exemplars of honesty, who have never told a lie, nor exceeded the speed limit, are braying for his blood. They want him in prison, preferably with the key thrown away.

Now I realise that perverting the course of justice is a serious offence, but do let’s be realistic. As a politician, and a leftwing one at that, Chris lies institutionally and professionally. Moreover, in the past he was a Guardian journalist, which means lying isn’t so much second nature to him as first.

Expecting high standards of probity from him is like expecting vegetarianism, or clean language, from Gordon Ramsey. Such an expectation says more about his critics than about Chris himself. Still, ridding Parliament of his toxic presence has to be a good thing, especially if Nigel Farage stands for the seat now vacated. But a custodial sentence? This raises the question first asked in Griboyedov’s play Woe to Wit: ‘And who are the judges?’

(Note to West End producers: this play, along with Gogol’s Inspector General, is the best comedy this side of Shakespeare or, arguably, Molière, and yet neither has been performed in the 25 years that I’ve lived in London.)

Let’s keep things in perspective, shall we? Huhne’s transgression is undoubtedly a bad thing to do. But those demanding that he be punished to the full extent of the law are exactly the same people who see nothing wrong with burglars getting off scot-free. They are the same fine legal minds who claim that prison doesn’t work. Their arguments are as common as they are spurious:

Prison doesn’t make people better. Do they think that Huhne, on the other hand, will emerge from the clink as perfect and squeaky-clean as his critics obviously are?

Prison doesn’t deter. Do they think that in this instance it will? That people will never go over the speed limit, nor lie about it if they do?

Prisons are overcrowded. Does this also apply to those who lie about speed violations or just to muggers, burglars and hooligans?

Prison turns inmates into worse criminals than they were to begin with. Do they think Huhne will come out wistling a merry tune?

Perfect people in politics and journalism, forgive Chris Huhne for falling short of your impeccable moral standards. Make up your mind on the efficacy of custodial sentences. And for goodness sake, realise that a self-made millionaire is entitled to the same mercy as the tattooed plankton for whom, according to your animadversions, prison doesn’t work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to America’s VP Joe Biden, Dave’s vague promise – well, a hint at the contingent possibility of a promise – of an EU referendum puts in jeopardy world peace, prosperity and security.

According to Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov, Dave’s obliquely expressed reluctance to greet with open arms another million Balkan immigrants puts in jeopardy any chance of an EU compromise that’s supposed to precede the vaguely promised  referendum.

If I were Dave, I’d consider the sources and wonder what I’m doing right. It’s also worth pondering the likelihood that the pincer attack on Britain was coordinated.

I wonder where Joe Biden got this idea? Could it be that he’s again talking to Neil Kinnock, whose speech he famously plagiarised during his own run for US presidency? Show me a man who has to depend on Kinnock for his mots justes, and I’ll show you a man whose IQ resides way down south. Surely such a man couldn’t have come up with the usual federastic arguments on his own, without help from someone who knows the mantra by heart?

Actually, I forgot. Joe has just had talks with Angela Merkel and François Hollande who must have given him the script and taught him how to read it properly. ‘Nein, Joe, Sweden and Switzerland are not ze same country. Nicht! And neither are Slovakia and Slovenia, you dummkopf. And don’t forget to tell David zat a referendum ist ausgeschlossen.’ ‘Angie a raison, Zho, but no? She eez une femme very intelligent and very, comment vous dites? sexee.’

It’s also likely that Joe’s proximity to the original source of his wisdom involves a degree of separation. Its name is Obama, who has already enunciated all the same objections in several telephone conversations with Dave. One way or the other, no dummy can talk without the help of a ventriloquist.

‘We believe,’ says Biden, ‘that the United Kingdom is stronger as a result of its membership.’ Exactly how? By having to comply with business-stifling red tape? By destroying its own fishery industry? By having culturally alien laws stuffed down its throat? By having most power removed from its ancient parliament? By not being able to keep millions of immigrants away and off our welfare rolls?

And it takes a mind even more decayed than Joe’s to aver that the EU ‘makes critical contributions… to prosperity.’ How does it do that, at this time particularly? By pegging all eurozone currencies to the mark, thereby perpetuating Germany’s dominant position in Europe and suffocating competitiveness all over the continent? By laying trillions in cheap money on the less prosperous countries and thus ruining them with debt?

‘That is our view,’ says Biden. Fine, Joe, that’s your view. Just keep it to yourself, will you? You’ll look more intelligent that way. And don’t talk to Angie and François too often; it’s not good for you.

As to Mladenov, he comes across as God sending all those plagues on Egypt. ‘If this debate [about keeping the number of Balkan arrivals down ever so slightly] continues the way it’s heading, it will definitely dampen the enthusiasm for cooperation between the two countries,’ he warns in his good English learned at King’s College, London.

I realise that the prospect of Bulgaria’s ire must have every Briton quaking in his boots. On the other hand, tighter immigration quotas, coupled with more rigid admission standards at King’s College, might keep at bay some of the more undesirable elements disgorged by Eastern Europe.

What Mladenov is actually threatening isn’t just Bulgaria’s displeasure but her potential refusal to support the EU compromise so dear to what passes for Dave’s heart. It’s amazing how the gentlest hint at the very distant possibility that Britain might want to reclaim some of her sovereignty brings all those bullies and blackmailers out of the woodwork.

I think both Biden and Mladenov should apply for a remedial course at the Neil Kinnock Academy for Fine Rhetoric. It’s a good finishing school for those who’ve already matriculated at the Angie and François School of Bullying.

What a shame we no longer have a Prime Minister capable of standing up to such people.

 

This question is particularly puzzling because every answer hitherto provided fails to convince. After all, there’s every indication that this perverse bill was concocted recently and all of a sudden – with nary a hint of it in the Tory electoral manifesto.

So why this sudden outburst of enthusiasm? Why would even such a reasonably intelligent man as Education Secretary Michael Gove turn into a blithering idiot when the subject comes up?

He himself is happily married, Gove explains in The Mail, which proves that marriage is good. This is the short summation of several emetic paragraphs pitched at a level that would embarrass even an average writer of soap operas.

In a bit of a non sequitur, Gove concludes that hence allowing homosexuals to marry would uphold the goodness of this institution. Therefore, he writes, ‘I believe that marriage should be defended, supported and promoted in every way.’

In every way, Michael? How about allowing inter-species marriage? Or one between siblings? Mother and son? Surely Gove is intelligent enough to realise he’s talking nonsense. Before ascending to government, he would have known that, rather than upholding the institution of marriage, this outrage is destroying it. One gets a sneaky suspicion that Gove takes his cue from Dave’s Iago whispering in that poisonous way of his, ‘Want to stay on the front bench, Othello?’

But why has Dave himself suddenly jumped on this hobby horse? One explanation being bandied about is that homomarriage is for Dave a matter of conscience, of deep inner conviction. This is frankly risible.

On any other political issue Dave’s conscience is entirely shaped by focus groups – which is another way of saying he hasn’t got one. But in this instance, not just focus groups but also desperate pleas from Tory chairmen all over the country show that the bill is going to rend the party asunder. At least 20 percent of traditional Tory voters are now saying they’ll switch as a result; at least 180 Tory MPs will, according to The Telegraph, refuse to vote in favour.

Given the mood of the country, the state of the economy and his standing in the polls, Dave’s touting of homomarriage suggests a craving for political suicide, a tendency our power-hungry PM has never manifested before. So why is he pushing his party in this counterproductive direction? Is it perhaps – and this is pure conjecture – because someone is pushing him?

To shift gears, as it were, two years ago HMG was seriously mooting the possibility of increasing our motorway speed limit to 80 mph. After a brisk and unresolved debate in the press, the idea faded away. But why did it come up in the first place? After all, the measure is sensible, which fact alone ought to have nipped it in the bud, long before any public discussion.

It occurred to me then that the only reason HMG wasted its valuable time on this proposal was that it wished to harmonise UK speed limits with those on the continent, where they are generally higher than ours. In other words, it was the EU that put this, uncharacteristically sensible, idea into Dave’s shell-like.

Could it be that Dave’s newly found passion for destroying the institution Michael Gove holds so dear also has the same origin? Please say it’s not so, Dave. Please say the EU can’t yet tell a British PM to commit political hara-kiri (and do untold damage to his country in the process) just like that.

Alas, both the nature of the bill and its timing lead inexorably to this melancholy conclusion. After all, the same bill was introduced in France just two months ago. That brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets of Paris, but we don’t do this sort of thing – we’re much too civilised for that. We just bend over and take it… oops, wrong phrase, sorry.

In Germany, same-sex couples enjoy every right of marriage, including that to adoption, and in Hamburg homomarriage is already legal. Belgium, Holland, Iceland, Norway, Spain, Sweden allow homomarriage, and most other EU members are inexorably moving that way.

I’m guessing here, but could it be that Dave’s sudden and otherwise inexplicable change of heart was dictated by Brussels? The EU already provides 80 percent of our new legislation, so why not this one? No reason at all.

Another bit of circumstantial evidence comes from German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, on whose silly article in The Times I commented this week. Guido is in a didactic mood these days, and Britain isn’t the only country he feels he has to hector.

The other day he attacked the Russian ambassador to Germany Vladimir Grinin over Russia’s proposed bill to outlaw homosexual propaganda. Germany, pontificated Guido, feels that the offensive legislation would aggravate European-Russian relations and would also damage Russia’s image in Europe.

I’d suggest that if this criminal state still enjoys a good image in Europe, and Guido is a self-declared friend of Russia, then something is wrong with Europe. Routine murders of political opponents, a police force that not so much fights crime as perpetrates it, widespread torture, corruption from top to bottom, international money-laundering on an epic scale, abject poverty of most people, curtailed freedom of the press – surely these should already have got Russia into Europe’s bad books?

But no – it’s Russia’s attempt to ban Gay Day parades that has piqued Guido’s ire and, it has to be said, led him to a most undiplomatic outburst. One may detect a personal animus there, and one wouldn’t be wrong.

Like Michael Gove, Guido is a happily married man, the difference being that he is married to another man, Gove’s namesake Michael Mronz. One just wonders how he introduces his other half at diplomatic receptions. ‘This is my husband’? ‘This is my wife?’ ‘This is the love of my life?’ I’m sure his Saudi and Iranian counterparts would be all smiles.

But such prurient musings aside, it’s clear that the EU is in the middle of a homomarriage offensive. Itself a convoluted contrivance, it naturally detests, and wishes to compromise, all institutions that predate the Treaty of Rome. And if Germany sees fit to lecture a country lying outside EU jurisdiction, it’s not hard to imagine how the arms of EU members are being twisted all over the place.

Is this what lurks behind Dave’s favourite bill? I don’t know. But it’s highly likely, wouldn’t you say?

 

 

As the parliamentary vote on homomarriage draws nearer, arguments in favour are becoming ever more idiotic. But even against this background, the Equalities Minister Helen Grant can claim pride of place.

For she supports this abomination not as the ultimate authority on equality but as the Christian she claims to be. Thereby Mrs Grant has earned my gratitude by communicating in no uncertain terms that politicians can sink to an even lower intellectual and moral level than I imagined. I thought, against evidence it has to be said, there was a lower limit to their knavery, and I thank Helen for correcting this lamentable mistake.

Christians, says this self-described ‘God-fearing woman’, should support homomarriage because it upholds the Christian values of ‘justice’ and ‘fairness’. Admittedly, I can’t cite any scriptural injunction against same-sex marriage – for the simple reason that either at the time Scripture was compiled or in the subsequent two millennia this possibility never occurred to anyone this side of the lunatic asylum.

But the underlying activity receives quite a few mentions in both Testaments, from Leviticus 18, 20 to Romans 1: 24-32. Each time it’s described in wrathful, accusatory, apocalyptic terms. Thus, for example, St Paul: ‘Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.’

But then St Paul didn’t have the benefit of advice from a true Christian, our Equalities Minister. She would have explained to him what his religion was all about. Helen’s faith, she says, ‘is very fundamental to everything I do and think.’ Evidently St Paul’s faith wasn’t.

This utterly objectionable woman occupying an utterly useless, not to say subversive, post consistently confuses Christianity with the remit of a diversity consultant, or else of an Equalities Minister. Christianity to her is about ‘justice, equality, fairness, ending discrimination…’

Jesus himself saw his religion differently, but then he too was deprived of Helen’s sage counsel. Had he benefited from it, he would never have attacked the scribes and Pharisees in such demonstrably unfair, discriminatory terms. ‘Blind’, ‘fools’, ‘your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness’, ‘For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.’

Really? And there we were, thinking that the kingdom of heaven was an equal-opportunity employer subject to EU Equality Directives.

One wonders if Mrs Grant worships the same Christ who thunders, ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ Alas, the gospels stubbornly refuse to sate her hunger for a touchy-feely Jesus who wouldn’t be out of place seeking employment with the social services. Verily I say unto you, it’s not just the language of Scripture but also its content that ought to be changed to suit our infinitely more progressive needs.

A friend’s little son was recently asked at school what the name was, starting with an A, for someone who isn’t sure that God exists. After a moment’s thought, the boy, proud of knowing the answer, replied, ‘Anglican!’ I wonder if Mrs Grant, who belongs to the Church of England, would give the same answer.

One just wishes these spivocrats left Christianity alone. They’re going to push this abominable bill through Parliament anyway, what with 60 percent of the Tories supporting it and just about 100 percent of the other two parties.

Why, even those who previously opposed the bill, such as Justice Secretary Chris Grayling and Minister for Faith Baroness Warsi (which faith would that be, Sayeeda?), have now seen the light and heard the voice. Sounding amazingly like Dave, the voice said, ‘Why persecutest thou me? Art thou missing the back benches, thou infidel?’

So the spivocrats, ably led by Dave, are well justified in feeling smug about the whole thing. There’s no need to add blasphemy to their other qualities we all know and love: cynicism, cowardice, egoism, amorality, absence of principles. Leave the real Gospels alone, chaps; stick to the secular ones, the EU Charter for Fundamental Rights or something. That’s where you belong.

As to Helen Grant, you’re wrong, dear. Homomarriage isn’t ‘consistent with Christian values’, nor indeed with purely secular decency and common sense. Neither is the very existence of an equalities minister consistent with any sound definition of a free country. 

On 30 January, the 80^th anniversary of Hitler’s ascent to power, the German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle published in The Times an article with the self-explanatory title Britain’s narrow view of the EU is wrong.

Far be it from my mind to tie the two momentous events together or to suggest even obliquely that Herr Westerwelle is in any sense a direct heir to Herr Hitler or, come to that, Westerwelle’s institutional predecessor Herr Ribbentrop. However, if there is one thing they have in common, it’s a propensity for brazen effrontery, and Westerwelle’s article establishes his credentials in this area beyond any dispute.

Personally, I don’t think the Federal Republic, for all her exemplary post-war record of benign government, has yet earned the right to lecture countries whose political virtue is of rather longer standing. But even if at a weak moment we feel generous enough to listen to Germany’s views on such matters, they ought not to be conveyed in a peremptory manner that, alas, does evoke Ribbentrop circa 1938.

In common with our home-grown champions of a single European state, such as Ken Clark who in his dotage claims that leaving the EU would spell the end of Britain, Guido is long on meaningless waffle and short on meaningful arguments.

He starts out by patting Dave on the back for some parts of his epochal speech, while issuing avuncular admonishments for some others. Specifically, he agrees with Dave that Europe must stay competitive in the face of a rapidly growing Chinese economy.

Of course, if Europe were to become a single state, this desideratum would have to be on the agenda. Conversely, for this desideratum to be on the agenda Europe would have to become a single state. Otherwise, sovereign states could rely on their own efforts to sort out their economic position vis-à-vis China or any other competitor. The German motor trade, for example, ought to be able to hold its own – one doesn’t see too many people driving a Leefan, a Geely or any other Chinese vehicle, and nor does one anticipate those cars ousting Audis and BMWs in any foreseeable future.

In other words, Guido commits the widespread rhetorical fallacy of using as an argument the proposition he’s trying to prove. A lesson in rhetoric, not just in manners, is clearly in ordnung.

He then magnanimously concedes that ‘the EU does not need to set down rules on everything – only on those issues that, say, Britain, France or Poland cannot resolve better on their own.’ The choice of those three countries as an example is timed as perfectly as the whole article: after all, Britain and France last went to war with Germany when the latter helped Poland to solve the problem of Danzig.

So which problems require German (or EU) assistance this time? ‘Brussels,’ explains Guido, ‘could do better to tackle money laundering and banking transparency.’ One wonders how such problems had been tackled before the EU. Cooperation between friendly police forces springs to mind, along with such cross-border setups as Interpol. I’d like to see some evidence that the situation with money laundering was any worse then than it is now – and no one at the time suggested that member countries had to abandon their national sovereignty.

As to ‘banking transparency’, Guido clearly has in mind an arrangement that existed in Germany back in the thirties, when banks were under state control in all but name. Except that then the purpose of such bullying was to provide unlimited financing for Germany’s planned war effort. The purpose today is to close every loophole enabling Europeans to shield a little of their money from oppressive, confiscatory taxation.

Then Guido comes to the meat of his message by making an earth-shattering pronouncement that ‘there are no rights without duties. There can be no cherry-picking. Saying “You either do what I want or I’ll leave!” is not an attitude that works.’ Bend over, Britain, and take your punishment.

Dave’s hints at a certain democratic deficit in the EU didn’t sit well with Guido either. Democracy, he says, ‘should also include the European parliament.’ The ghost of Enoch Powell appears before us, informing all the Hamlets in the audience that no European democracy can exist because no European demos exists. But discussing such ideas would take Guido so far out of his depth that it would constitute cruelty to animals. (Incidentally, I bet Guido supports animal rights – his kind always does. How does that tally with rights entailing duties?)

Guido is on safer grounds when displaying a trait that many associate (wrongly!!! I hasten to add before this becomes a police matter) with the German national character: stating the blindingly obvious. ‘One thing… is not negotiable from Germany’s point of view. For us the European Union is far more than just a single market…’

But we never thought it was negotiable, Guido. We have always felt that the EU is for Germany a single state she can run in ways that would expiate her past sins and light up the path to her future grandeur. Still, thanks for reminding us.

There, Dave, you’ve been told. There will be no ‘new settlement’ on which the British public will have its say in some unspecified referendum at some unspecified time. So what are you going to do about it? Extricate the thorny European dilemma out of the long grass into which you tried to kick it in your speech? Call an immediate referendum? Fat chance.

As to Guido, one wonders if his article was translated into English or was originally written in that language. If so, he shows an enviable command of the English idiom, exceeding even that of Joachim von Ribbentrop’s. Therefore he won’t have any trouble understanding this English expression: pull the other one. 

Dave’s worried about black and Asian voters. That is, he doesn’t really worry about them as blacks or Asians. It’s their being voters that gives him sleepless nights.

To be more precise, Dave is concerned that ethnic minorities don’t vote Tory. Just 16 percent of them did the honourable thing at the last election, which just won’t do.

Being a man of action, especially when his own political future hangs in the balance, Dave gathered his advisors together and told them to come up with a list of policies that would make those stubborn ethnics have a Damascene experience on the road to the voting booths. Anything will do, chaps, anything at all. Just let your imagination go.

I wouldn’t venture a guess on what those mandarins will think up. A promise to deport enough white Brits out of London to make their proportion drop from the current 45 percent to 10? Possibly. Bar whites from government jobs? Perhaps. Forbid two white people to marry unless they’re both the same sex? Maybe. Whatever the focus groups say may work.

But enough of those wild stabs in the dark. Let’s stick to the policy that has already been announced. Big companies will be ‘urged’ to publish the ethnic breakdown of their workforce in general and their management in particular.

Alok Sharma, the Tory vice-chairman spearheading this noble undertaking, explains how the trick will work. ‘Peer pressure’ will be exerted on FTSE 100 companies to come up with ‘some sort of voluntary code’ according to which they’d release into the public domain the ethnic breakdown of those in their employ.

Presumably, what he means by peer pressure isn’t cajoling by members of the upper house, but rather pressure coming from… whom exactly? After all, those companies are in the FTSE 100 precisely because they’re peerless, and they are unlikely to pressure themselves. One has to surmise that the pressure will come from Mr Sharma and those who’re pulling his strings, Dave specifically. So we’re talking not about peer pressure but about government coercion – obviously with the aim of introducing quotas.

Quotas? Perish the thought, says our friend Alok. ‘It’s about information.’

Silly me, and there I was, thinking it was yet another attempt to hamstring businesses by dictating idiotic policies to them, thereby increasing state power and harvesting a few more votes. Nothing can be further from the truth.

It’s all about a disinterested quest for pure knowledge, the kind of healthy inquisitiveness that moves progress along. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for those who pursue information as a purely academic exercise, with no intention whatsoever of finding a practical application for it.

‘All the companies I’ve talked to are incredibly keen on having diversity in the workforce,’ says Alok. Of course they are. I can just see, as if for real, those endless AGMs, with the CEO announcing that profits are 20 percent down on last year.

‘Bugger the profits, Dan,’ says the Chairman. ‘Tell us how we’re doing on diversity.’

‘Yes, but the shareholders are threatening a revolt…’ pleads the dejected CEO.

‘Bugger the shareholders too,’ insists the Chairman. ‘Are we up to 15 percent Asians and 10 percent blacks, is what we need to know.’ ‘Well, yes we are…’ ‘Thanks, Dan. Meeting adjourned.’

‘Yes, but the shareholders…’

[THE WHOLE BOARD IN CHORUS:] Bugger the shareholders!

Those readers who have been involved in any business activity will know how perfectly realistic this vision is. My own experience may be somewhat different, but hey, this is just one man’s experience.

I do remember, however, that every company I’ve ever worked for, including those I’ve served as director, would have staffed up with dachshunds if that could increase the profits. A chance of an extra 10 percent at year’s end would have encouraged them to make the staff all-white, all-black, all-brown or all polka dot – it really wouldn’t have made one bit of difference.

What did make a lot of difference was that we hired, and could afford to hire, the best people for the job. Their race, sex or age would have been neither a primary nor a secondary nor a tertiary consideration. It wouldn’t have come into the picture at all.

Now call me a cynic, but I don’t believe Mr Sharma’s assurances that the ethnic breakdown will be requested simply for him and his jolly friends to have a good laugh at a dinner table. ‘Look Dave, Widget & Widget have no Pakistanis on the board. How about that?’ ‘Funny that, isn’t it? But look, Kaxo-Schmaxo have nothing but Indians. Isn’t that a knee-slapper?’

It’s as clear as the day is long that they’ll soon try to introduce quotas, dictating to businesses whom they should and shouldn’t hire (or fire). Now, considering the non-education system created by our political class, finding qualified candidates for any decent job is becoming progressively harder. Introducing further restrictions will make it harder still, to put it mildly.

Effectively the government makes sanctimonious noises about competitiveness, while doing what it can to stifle it. All to the accompaniment of the bleating in the press that the Tories’ poor record with ethnic voters is all Enoch Powell’s fault.

“As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’.” Powell was wrong to quote Virgil; he ought to have known that our ignorant leftie pundits would be dining on ‘rivers of blood’ for centuries. But he was right in predicting that unrestricted immigration would eventually lead to Britain not being Britain any longer. He also knew that social pressure would build up to a point where one day a fissure would occur.

What even he couldn’t anticipate was that 45 years later we’d be governed by people prepared to put a millstone around our businesses’ neck for the sake of a couple of percentage points in the polls. At least, Powell’s inept contemporaries were being subversive out of principle, however wrong.

 

 

 

 

Just four days ago I bemoaned the fact that HMG in its wisdom is cutting the strength of our armed forces to a meagre 82,000. Now you may be worried that today’s title suggests an about-face so rapid it might cause a nosebleed.

Much as I appreciate your concern for my physical, and possibly also mental, health, I hasten to allay your fears. I’m reasonably healthy and, as far as I can judge, sane. That, however, is more than I can say for our country.

For the army I’m to talk about isn’t the kind that’ll leave bodies in the field, defending God, Queen and country against attacks. My subject is the burgeoning army that not only doesn’t repel attacks on our liberties but in fact itself constitutes such an attack.

No more suspense: the army in question is that of social workers. Of these there are 87,442 currently registered with the General Social Care Council – 5,000 more than in the army that can make the difference between the nation’s life and death.

In addition to those on active duty, the real army has a certain number of reservists, but these will only be called up in case of dire emergency. Not to be outdone, the army of social workers also has reserves: 84,754 freeloaders who are currently in training and will be seeking council jobs by 2016 – with no emergency anywhere in sight.

In addition to its raison d’être, the real army performs valuable social services. It takes young men and women, typically those with bleak employment prospects, and trains them in skills that can then stand them in good stead in civilian life. 

Even more critical, the army teaches them discipline, decisiveness, the importance of mental and physical strength. A soldier also learns to be both self-reliant and unselfish, ready to help others at a great cost to himself. And, if the old adage about there being no atheists in the foxholes is true, a soldier who survives army life will learn to thank God – as useful a skill as any, if only to remind one of the existence of an entity infinitely greater than oneself.

All such qualities are as vital in civilian life as they are exceedingly rare. And one reason they are so rare is the sterling job done by the phoney army, that of social workers. This new model army is growing at a time when the real army is shrinking – a process not dissimilar to cancer, with malignant cells multiplying at the expense of the healthy ones.

Unlike the armed forces, social services don’t train youngsters to pick themselves up by the bootstraps. Quite the contrary, the lesson they teach is how to sink in the morass of idleness, dependency, moral and intellectual torpor. The whole welfare culture is busting a hole in the walls protecting the country’s ethos, and the social forces are the battering ram.

It has been amply demonstrated that neither Britain nor any other Western country can any longer afford the giant leech of a welfare state, sucking the nations’ blood with the help of social workers acting in the capacity of proboscis, jaws and teeth.

The problem isn’t just economic – as with any other social malaise, it’s primarily moral. The West in general and Britain specifically can’t absorb the corrupting effect of a society in which half the people work in the sweat of their brow to support families in which three generations have never held a job.

Society’s poison is the modern state’s meat, for each scrounger – and for that matter each social worker or anyone else who depends on the state for his livelihood – increases its power. Traditionally, this toxic effect has benefited mostly the left of the political spectrum, but these days the parliamentary right and left are converging into one amorphous blob.

That’s why the two curves, those of the army’s and the social services’ numerical strength, will continue to diverge regardless of who inhabits that Georgian semi in Downing Street. This is the lesson taught by modernity.

Now an educational convention, these days falling by the wayside, is that every lesson must be followed by some homework. So here’s the question I’d like you to ponder at your leisure: how many UKIP voters (which is to say real conservatives) are there among our 172,196 current and aspiring social workers? Here’s the multiple choice: a) None, b) None, c) None, d) What are you on, mate?

Lest you might accuse me of being overly negative, I’d like to put forth a positive proposal: instead of risking the lives of our 350 soldiers to be sent to Mali, let’s send a few thousand social workers instead. They could either kill the fanatics with kindness, or else set up a ‘social’ for the muderers, thereby rendering them perpetually weak and useless.

Admittedly, some social workers may not return home. But there are plenty more where they come from.

The British Tourist Board and the British government advertise the country in diametrically opposite ways. This is easy to understand for they pursue diametrically opposite ends: the former wants to attract visitors, the latter seeks to repel immigrants.

The second goal is rather more urgent than the first, what with millions of Romanians and Bulgarians becoming entitled to come here in a year’s time. It can be confidently predicted that sizeable numbers will take advantage of this entitlement, what with average salaries in those countries being lower than the sums our ‘social’ routinely shells out.

Thus the government’s key campaign pledge, that of limiting immigration, will bite the dust. This will offend Dave’s and Theresa’s sense of balance, for they won’t have even a single kept promise to offset the numerous ones they’ve broken.

Hence the arrival of a Balkan flood must be nipped in the bud. This task wouldn’t be unduly hard if Britain remained a sovereign nation: a simple ‘sorry, old chaps, you can’t come here’ would suffice. But should we attempt to utter this phrase now, the EU would countermand it by saying ‘oh yes, they can’, and that would be that.

That option off limits, Albion has to rely on its much publicised perfidy to seek more subtle deterrents. One such is an advertising campaign, currently in development, aimed at discouraging Bulgarians and Romanians from coming to the UK. The strategy is based on depicting Britain as a horrible place to live, mainly because it’s cold and wet.

Now I have to own up to a blot on my copybook: for about 30 years I not only believed in the power of advertising, but indeed wielded it for a variety of clients on either side of the Atlantic. During much of that period I was in a position to judge other people’s work, telling them when it went wrong. Slipping back into that shed skin, I must tell HMG to go back to the drawing board.

Is that the best you can do? The weather? Can’t you find something more effective to say about Britain? Here are, off the top, 10 ideas for possible ads:

Britain isn’t all beer and skittles – no one plays skittles anymore. Visual: the centre of any city on a Saturday night, with crowds of youngsters fighting, tossing rubbish bins through shop windows and throwing up.

The Brits say ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’. So your children will get none. The visual depicts schoolchildren beating up a teacher in the classroom.

NHS – it stands for No Hope of Survival.  Visual: at least 20 obviously abandoned men and women piled up together in a unisex hospital ward.

British medicine is the best in the world, you can buy drugs at every corner. Visual: King’s Cross at night.

Miss communism? Come to Britain. Visual: Ed Miliband.

British men are nice, they love one another. Visual: a Gay Day parade.

The Brits tolerate any religion, except Christianity. Visual: A street scene in Bradford.

Meet your future British neighbours. Visual: A heavily tattooed, facial-metalled woman with half a dozen children, all obviously by different fathers, against the background of a council estate. A variation on the same theme:

Are you dying to meet your future British neighbours? Visual: A street gang armed with baseball bats and flick knives.

Brits love dogs, but not always the other way around. Visual: close-up of a particularly ferocious rottweiler scowling at the camera.

Note to the creative team: these aren’t complete concepts, only possible avenues to explore. See what you can do, come back in a week.

Oh well, as we all know, you can’t enter the same river twice. I doubt HMG propagandists will beat a path to my door, seeking my advice on advertising. Especially since they already know that, with or without my help, they won’t be able to do anything that’ll work.