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The search for a new England manager is filling the papers — and not just the back sections. Meanwhile, Stuart Pearce, affectionately known as ‘Psycho’, has been appointed for just one game, a friendly against Holland on 29 February.

There are perhaps a hundred men in Britain who are truly qualified to assess Psycho’s technical qualifications for the job. But England managers aren’t selected strictly on the basis of their footballing nous. They are also expected to combine a set of qualities that seldom inhabit the same breast.

An England manager is supposed to be an orator of Cicero’s prowess. A public-relations genius on a par with Max Clifford. A monogamous man never even suspected of playing away from home. An atheist or, at a pinch, someone who keeps his mouth shut on religious subjects. A man innocent of any fiscal impropriety, or, barring that, never charged with it, or, barring that, acquitted. Above all, his views on multiculturalism and race can’t diverge one iota from those proclaimed over a glass of Chardonnay in the Georgian terraces of Islington.

If such are the selection criteria, then even his mother would probably agree that old Psycho falls short on most of them. But some of the deficits could be overlooked: we are, after all, talking about one game, a friendly.

Some deficits, yes — all, no. For even such a brief tenure demands simon-pure credentials on the last requirement, one dealing with racial issues. And — oh horror! — it’s in this vital area that Psycho fails on two counts.

First, in 1994 he insulted his England team-mate Paul Ince with the John Terry triple whammy, only replacing the first word with ‘arrogant’. Soon thereafter Pearce apologised, and anyway that incident happened 18 years ago.

Under the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, the rehabilitation period is five years for most non-custodial sentences, seven years for prison sentences of up to six months, and 10 years for those of between six and 30 months. After that the ‘previous’ can be ignored.

Now if you’re familiar with today’s length of custodial sentences, you’ll know that the last category covers most multiple burglars. They’re entitled to forgiveness after a mere 10 years, but then their crimes were committed against private property. Why would state officials be overly vindictive towards someone who is in the same business they are, redistribution of wealth? On the contrary, similarity breeds content.

It’s quite a different matter when someone encroaches on the state’s instruments of power, of which political correctness takes pride of place. Here school’s out. Use the word ‘black’ in a pejorative context, and you are blackened for ever. You can break some of the ten commandments, and not just those in the misdemeanor category, and expect compassionate understanding. But say one word that places you outside the state-enforced PC consensus, and you’re a pariah.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not condoning racial abuse. Someone insulting a man for the way he was born commits an offence not just against the victim, but also against the standards of civility and human dignity without which a decent society is impossible. All I’m suggesting is that we put things in perspective and grant the offender the same mercy we proffer to burglars and muggers.

Someone who grew up on a mean council estate, where crime was rife and violence not just the last resort but the first, can’t be realistically expected to have Dr Schweitzer’s alertness to ethnic and racial subtleties. For example, when Pearce managed Nottingham Forest years ago, he delivered a pep talk to his dressing room full of Columbians, Nigerians and Italians, telling them to toughen up because they were all English. So even without the latest revelations, Psycho would probably fail a post-graduate course on diversity.

And it gets worse: Pearce’s elder brother Dennis is a BNP member, and I don’t mean Banque National de Paris. That’s not nice but, speaking as someone who refuses to attend any conservative do at which the BNP is likely to be represented, I still don’t see the relevance of this revelation.

‘My brother’s political views are his own,’ Psycho is quoted in The Times. Quite. But the same paper points out, as proof of Dennis’s (not Stuart’s) racism, that he ‘claims that Islam is incompatible with British culture.’ If that’s all, then ipso facto Dennis is no more racist than I am. He could, for example, be a keen student of Britain’s culture, the constitutional history of the realm, and comparative religion. Anyway, what does it have to do with Stuart taking charge of England for one game?

Looking at the pristine character expected from England managers, I recall the one about a woman buying a chicken. She pulls the wings apart, sniffs under them and says, ‘This chicken smells.’ ‘Madam,’ replies the irate butcher, ‘are you sure you could pass the same test?’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the NHS were a person, he’d be an amazing polyglot. It speaks and writes every conceivable language, including some I’ve never even heard of, and I have a degree in languages. (Whether this disparity in our linguistic attainment says more about the NHS or me is a matter of opinion.)

Obviously, if the NHS were a person, he’d be paid a lot for this linguistic expertise. But we don’t have to  anthropomorphise it, for the NHS is indeed paid a lot, by us: £23 million a year to provide interpreting services for Her Majesty’s subjects who haven’t bothered to learn Her Majesty’s language. And, I suspect, much more than that to translate and print thousands of meaningless forms, questionnaires and leaflets, each easily outscoring the United Nations in the number of official languages.

Now add those millions together, multiply them by the number of the sharing-and-caring government departments, and you’ll come up with a staggering amount. I’d happily do the sums for you, but I can’t quite count so high. Whatever the sum is, it would be worth paying just to revert to English as the sole, unifying language in which the UK’s official business is transacted. Anything else is distinctly non-U. You know, ‘U’, as in ‘United’.

One of the first punishments visited by God upon mankind was to ‘…confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ In that sense our government is doing God’s work, punishing us for staying meek in the face of this multi-culti terrorism. For relegating English to the status of merely one language among many relegates England to the status of a faceless, barbaric wad of humanity — a body-strewn battleground of social engineering.

Ultimately, this multi-culti Babel will destroy our culture, what’s left of it. It’ll rip to shreds our social fabric, already riddled with holes. And it’ll do fatal damage to our wonderful language. For, if many British subjects can’t adapt enough to speak at least rudimentary English, English will have to adapt to them. That will create a myriad jargons vaguely based on English, with government translators plugging the ensuing communication gaps when push comes to shove.

And English is already suffering greviously from having become the lingua franca of the world. Many (too many) Englishmen travel abroad, confidently expecting the natives to speak English. Then they come back triumphant: ‘Everybody in Holland [Sweden, Germany, Belgium, you name it] speaks English!’ Well, I think the statement ‘Nobody in those places speaks English,’ while not exactly true, is much nearer the truth.

There’s more to a person than his skeleton; there’s more to a language than its bare bones. Using English solely as a means of communicating practical information rips its heart out. Gone are its wit, its style, its layers of meaning, its precision, its cultural references — its beauty. What remains is a brief glossary at the end of a hotel guide for the whole family.

Every lingua franca the world has ever known (Latin springs to mind) has collapsed under such an onslaught. But, as the NHS so kindly reminds us, English is under attack not only externally but also internally. If this goes on much longer, the tower of Babel will come tumbling down, burying us all under its cultural rubble.

When I lived in Texas many years ago, debates were raging on about introducing bilingual education in the state schools (just two languages, not the dozens in the NHS lexicon). Bills to that effect were passed by the legislature every year, with the governor always vetoing them. His explanation was simple: ‘If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.’

The good governor might not have been a biblical scholar, or indeed a scholar of any kind. He probably had small Aramaic and less Greek, but he had a firm grip on sociocultural realities in the West. One nation, one language. Many languages, no nation. ‘Every city or house divided against itself shall not stand’ — just as the good book says. In English.

 

 

These thoughts are inspired by the recent article by Michael Hanlon, the Daily Mail science editor, who questions, correctly, the recent findings of Canadian scientists linking conservatism with a lower IQ than that boasted by those of the leftwing persuasion.

Equally correctly he suggests that the political terms ‘right’ and ‘left’ are in need of revision. He is absolutely right. For example, Margaret Thatcher is usually described by readers (and writers) of some other newspapers as ‘extreme right’. When one examines her political beliefs (if not always things she actually did), one finds that they fall, without remainder, within the domain of traditional liberalism: free markets, personal liberty, small state and so forth. In British terms she is an out and out Whig, though she misleadingly led the Conservative party, which too is these days a misnomer.

Now, the same pejorative term, ‘extreme rightwing’, is applied by the same people to the likes of Hitler. If A equals B, and B equals C, then A equals C. Adapting this proven logic to the task at hand, we have to conclude that Hitler was a Whig too. However, even a cursory examination of his views shows that they are socialist: state control, if not outright ownership, of the economy; socialised medicine and education; cradle to grave welfare; institutionalised atheism — plus the kind of genocidal practices that in modern times are associated with socialists of either the national or international hue. And socialism is clearly leftwing.

Thus anyone who calls both Lady Thatcher and Hitler ‘extreme rightwing’ isn’t just wrong but ignorant. And any ignorant person who doesn’t mind airing his ignorance in public is stupid enough not to be aware of it. Ergo, most Guardian readers are stupid — regardless of how high or low their IQ is.

And that brings me to my areas of disagreement with Michael Hanlon. Most immediately, he seems to accept that IQ measures intelligence. It doesn’t. It measures intellectual potential, which relates to intelligence roughly the same way as musicality relates to musicianship. The former one is born with, the latter needs careful and dedicated nurtuting over a lifetime.

Real, what’s sometimes called ‘high’, intelligence is made up of multifarious elements, only one of which is measured by IQ tests. Such tests are indeed the most reliable single predictor of practical succes in life. However, neither Guardian readers nor indeed Mr Hanlon would probably equate practical success with intelligence.

IQ tests measure the ability to solve practical problems quickly, and this is essential for a businessman or advertising copywriter. However, it is more or less irrelevant to answering the seminal questions of existence, where methodical depth is much more essential than facile cleverness. Someone like Miss Vorderman no doubt has a high IQ: she solves little riddles instantly. By contrast, Thomas Aquinas was notoriously slow and ponderous in his thinking. Yet I doubt that many of those qualified to pass judgment on such matters would claim that Miss Vorderman is more intelligent.

While most successful PR consultants and stockbrokers have IQs higher than average, many great scientists, especially in theoretical fields, don’t. For example, William Stockley, who won the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics, had a modest IQ of 110. Carol Vorderman would run rings around him in any TV quiz show, but even those who design IQ tests probably wouldn’t put her up for a Nobel Prize.

Another, more important, area where Hanlon’s reasoning is suspect is his obvious belief that espousing ‘enlightened’ (as in the Age of Enlightenment) liberalism is a sign of intelligence. To me it is a sign of voguish intellectual laziness, something against which a high IQ can’t immunise.

One sign of true intelligence is an ability to analyse available evidence dispassionately. Such an analysis would show the the Enlightenment was an unmitigated disaster socially, culturally and politically. Every problem in these areas that we are experiencing now is directly traceable back to this calamitous development.

Constraints of space won’t allow as broad and deep an analysis of the Enlightenment as that which I attempted in a couple of books on the subject. So I’ll single out just one aspect: Darwinism, which most leftwingers treat with the same reverence that believers reserve for the Trinitarian God.

Yet, Genesis aside, any systematic analysis of available data, especially in biochemistry, but also in paleontology, cosmology, physics and every other relevant science, would blow Darwin’s halfbaked theory out of the water. That is not to suggest that no microevolution, a species adapting to its environment, has ever taken place. It’s just that modern science proves both empirically and theoretically that this falls far short of being the sole and universal explanation of any biological life, let alone man.

This is clearly understood by any serious scientist, regardless of his religious beliefs. For example, the late Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of the DNA double helix, was an atheist. Yet he instantly saw that his discovery invalidated Darwinism there and then. Unable to bring himself to God, Crick had to ascribe the creation of life to aliens from another planet, which in purely scientific terms amounts to the same thing: he knew that biological life could not have self-generated as a result of some accidental event not inspired by an outside influence. Crick also realised that certain mechanisms within the double helix simply could not have evolved: as they would have been unable to function in any other than their present form, they had to be created once and for all (this is called ‘irreducible complexity’ in science).

Traditionally, if a theory (and even the most strident champions of Darwin’s evolution never claim that it’s anything more than that) doesn’t become scientific fact within a generation, two at most, it’s relegated to the status of museum exhibit. That Darwinsim is still regarded as valid, and is being taught as Gospel truth (to the exclusion of Gospel truth), is due to its being consonant with the rather vulgar values of the Enlightenment. Fundamental to it is belief in predetermined progress, with man and society steadily improving with the passage of time.

Darwinism, along with other determinist theories of modernity, such as Marxism, dovetails neatly with this purely fideistic beleif. Hence unquestioning belief in the Enlightenment has to presuppose similar faith in Darwinism, regardless of how much proof to the contrary is on offer. Far be it from me to denigrate unquestioning faith. However, persevering with it against all available evidence is hardly a sign of intelligence.

The same can be applied to any tenet that has come out of the Enlightenment. They are all incompatible with deep thought and an ability to analyse evidence and draw correct inference from it.

For example, the Enlightenment belief in the primacy of economics as a sufficient social and moral regulator has been proved wrong by numerous social and cultural disasters — and even by the current economic one. Contrary to what the Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith believed, the sum total of private interests by itself doesn’t always add up to public virtue. And a deficit in public virtue will inevitably hurt private interests, even those defined in narrow monetary terms.

Proceeding along Enlightenment lines will inevitably lead a thinker into an intellectual cul-de-sac. Even if he has a genius IQ.

Why do the same medical procedures often cost three times as much in America as in British private hospitals? The answer is, malpractice litigation, much of it spurred on by lawyers’ contingency fees, ‘no win, no fee’ in common parlance.

I remember once complaining to a lawyer at a New York party that one of my numerous medical problems had at first been misdiagnosed. ‘Sue!’ he half-shouted, as New Yorkers do. ‘But I’m not sure it was their fault…’ I objected meekly. ‘Whaddaya, a lawyer?!?’ He added a few decibels. ‘It’s not YOUR job to decide whose fault it is! That’s what we’ve got JUDGES for! And JURIES!! YOUR job is to sue everyone you know when something goes WRONG!!!’

Such division of labour between ambulance chasers and those in the ambulances has effectively destroyed, or at least greatly compromised, what used to be a most effective system of medical care. Worse still, it gave President Obama an opening to indulge his socialist instincts by reviving the late Teddy Kennedy’s pet project: socialised medicine.

Obama is obviously inspired by the resounding success of our dear NHS, whose champions nowadays defend it by saying that on balance it helps more people than it kills. But it’s a two-way street: Americans learn socialism from us; we learn ambulance chasing from them.

Apparently £15.7 billion, one seventh of the NHS budget, is set aside for settling malpractice claims, many of them brought up on a no win, no fee basis. Last year the number of negligence claims went up by 30 percent on the year before, with about £1 billion paid out in settlements and God knows how many more billions outstanding. Many of these billions are a direct result of Lord Justice Jackson’s 2010 endorsement of contingency fees in Britain.

The concept has a different meaning in Britain, compared to the USA. There lawyers are allowed to receive a cut of the settlement, often as high as 60 percent. Here this practice is still banned, but no win, no fee lawyers are allowed to charge much higher fees if they win than they would do normally. The American system encourages tort lawyers to press for the highest possible award; ours encourages them to draw out the litigation as much as possible. Both are iniquitous.

Obviously victims of gross negligence, especially of the kind that leads to loss of income, ought to be entitled to compensation, and their ability to seek it shouldn’t depend on their wealth. There should exist a network of public-spirited advocates to handle such claims for small fees provided by either Legal Aid or the claimant, and much of this is already in place. Effectively, however, this means that the system is biased towards those who are either rich enough to afford legal fees or poor enough to qualify for Legal Aid.

Empirical evidence suggests that those in the second category are much more likely to sue for malpractice than those in the first. And they can do so at no risk to themselves: even if their claim is patently frivolous and they lose as a result, they bear no costs. The winners are those lawyers who are paid by Legal Aid; the losers are tax payers. You and me.

The thin-end-of-the-wedge argument doesn’t always work, but it does in this case. I’m certain that the culture of litigation will spread like brushfire here, just as it did in America decades ago. For example, it’s a foregone conclusion that sooner or later our tobacco industry, just like its American counterpart, will have to pay out billions in claim settlements — as if smokers had been unaware of the link between smoking and lung diseases.

Before long we’ll be reading about cases like the one I remember in New York, where a woman once claimed that, as a result of a bus jerking to a stop, she had become frigid. She, or rather her lawyers, estimated the monetary equivalent of that trauma at a million dollars. Given the aesthetic and legal problems involved in obtaining forensic evidence against the claimant, the City of New York settled out of court for $50,000, which was serious money back in the 1970s.

High as the amusement value of such accounts may be, I doubt many of us would like to pay for this type of entertainment out of our own pockets. But this is precisely what we do now, and will be doing on a higher scale soon, unless someone puts an end to that madness.

That will never happen, for such an action would undermine the real purpose of today’s public spending: pumping money out of private purses into those belonging to the administrative, legal and ‘help’ personnel in and around the government, with the state taking its cut off the top. This is a crying shame, and it’ll be people like you and me who’ll do the crying.

Fast food of dubious provenance. Baseball caps worn backwards. Verbs made out of nouns. And now ambulance chasing. Why is it that we borrow only bad things from Americans and never the good things, such as their industry, enterprise and good-natured equanimity towards others’ success? Admittedly those fine qualities are diminishing even in their native habitat, but that’s no reason not to learn from them.

So why do we only follow the rotten examples? Must be human nature, I suppose. And also a society that no longer suppresses the bad part of human nature, nor encourages the good.

 

 

 

 

Russia’s veto of the UN resolution on Syria is much in the news, with most commentators (of whom Ian Birrell is perhaps the most incisive) highlighting the nature of the relationship between the two countries as the explanation for this apparently subversive action.

They are right: Syria is, and for the last 60 years has been, Russia’s client state. Strategically, the Russians feel about Syria the way Americans feel about Israel: it’s their most reliable ally in the region. Moreover, it’s home to their only military base outside the erstwhile borders of the Soviet Union.

Economically, Syria is the major purchaser of Russian arms, from infantry weapons to missile systems, from sophisticated fighter-bombers to tanks. That gives the Russians a vested interest in warfare there, civil or otherwise: the more materiel is used up, the more the Syrians will buy.

And it’s not just weapons: as Russia has invested billions in the exploration, production and processing of Syria’s hydrocarbons, it’s only natural that it should want to protect its investment. After all, if Assad’s government is replaced, it’ll probably be by a revolutionary Islamist regime (I’ll let American neocons fantasise about the likelihood of Jeffersonian democracy there), and those have been known to be rather fickle in their commitment to existing treaties and contracts. Moreover, in Syria’s case, a revolutionary regime can only take over with the West’s help, so it’ll be more likely to buy F-16s than SU35s.

All these factors have been commented upon, but it’s worth mentioning a few omissions. The most important of them is that Russia has a vested interest in any Middle Eastern turmoil, regardless of the specific parties involved. This interest is again twofold, both economic and strategic, and it’s no longer easy to see where one ends and the other begins.

As far as the Russians are concerned, any Middle Eastern conflict, the more calamitous the better, will drive up the price of oil. While ruinous to the West, this would be like a Christmas present to the Russians: about 40 percent of their revenues come from hydrocarbons. That’s why, for example, Russian scientists have been working for Iran’s nuclear programme from its inception — just imagine what would happen to oil prices if NATO and Israel were to attack Iran or, conversely, Iran were to become a nuclear power equipped with ballistic missiles.

Russia also has a geopolitical or, if you will, geopsychological need to stir up trouble in the Middle East. Great-power aspirations are built into the country’s DNA regardless of its current standing in the world. This has been the case at least since Ivan III (d. 1505) married the daughter of the last Byzantine emperor and declared Russia to be the natural messianic successor to the empire, ‘third Rome’ in the words of the monk Philoteus (‘and there will not be a fourth’).

Though Russia is of course unrecognisable compared not only to the 15th century but even to 100 years ago, this aspiration has remained constant. To fulfil it these days Russia has to oppose — and to be seen to oppose — the West in any conflict brewing anywhere in the world. Whether Russia is run by a totalitarian or merely authoritarian regime (other possibilities are a pie in the sky), this will always be the case.

At times Russia will form ad hoc alliances with the West, as it did during the Second World War. Thus if we were to plot the country’s hostility to the West on a curve, it would have a jagged shape. But, for all the peaks and troughs, the overall direction is as unmistakeable as it is inexorable: up and up.

In today’s Syria, Russia’s economic and geopolitical desiderata converge: Putin and his acolytes don’t want a resolution to the conflict, one way or the other. Given the choice, they’d take Assad over the rebels, but what they really crave is a smouldering conflict, a state of dangerous-looking uncertainty.

This puts the West in an invidious position. Our politicians, backed up by much of the media and academe, feel ideologically duty-bound to be nice to the Russians. The triumphalist outburst in the wake of all those glasnosts and perestroikas is still spreading shock waves, however attenuated. The received opinion is that, certain growth pains notwithstanding, the Russians either are our friends already, or desperately wish to be. 

While a Russia run by the communist party may have been an ‘evil empire’, in Reagan’s phrase, the assumption is that a Russia run by the KGB has found religion. So, for all the friendly, ‘constructive’ criticism in our press, the KGB clique fronted by Col. Putin is having a free run in the West.

Given the history of the passionate affair between the Soviet Union and Western intellectuals, which affair reached its ecstatic stage post-1991, this situation is unlikely to change. But our general ignorance of what Russia stands for shouldn’t mean we can’t assess each situation on its merits.

In the Middle East generally and Syria in particular the situation is crystal-clear. Given the choice between a good war and a even bad peace, the West has not just a vested but a vital interest in the latter. The Russians, on the other hand, will take a bad — and preferably prolonged — war over even a good peace. That’s what they want; that’s what they are working to achieve.

And if China’s decision to go along with Russia’s veto hints at the possibility of a long-term strategic alliance between the two, we have more to fear than a steep rise in the price of oil. Russia’s military and natural resources would dovetail naturally with China’s endless supply of cannon fodder and loose cash. It’s a marriage made in heaven — or, if you are a Westerner, in hell.

 

Miss Warren hasn’t bothered to tell any of her 1,000-odd partners that she started life as a man. ‘There must be a lot of angry men out there,’ she said.

Before my wife’s wrath, in the shape of a frying pan, comes crashing down on my head, I hasten to swear that I never had sex with Miss Warren, either in her present incarnation or when she was still Christopher Snowden. The former isn’t my taste; the latter, my inclination.

It’s just that the other day I wrote a piece on Crystal without an inkling that she used to be Christopher. Had I known it then, I would have written something different, something along these lines:

Free will is one of the seminal doctrines of Christianity, which is to say our civilisation. Without complete freedom to make a choice between good and evil, man would be an automaton, with his buttons pushed by either God, if you believe in Him, or Darwin, if you believe in Richard Dawkins. And automata can’t do what the religion demands: imitatio Christi.

When our civilisation began to be shaped not by Christianity but by market transactions, the doctrine was stolen from its rightful owner, shifted into the secular realm and turned into a consumer’s freedom to choose anything he can (or even, these days, can’t) afford. At first this freedom extended to things like socks, furniture and household appliances.

But eventually, people were encouraged to exercise their free choice to refurnish not just their houses, but also their bodies. And why not? If a man recognises no authority higher than himself, then his sovereignty over his body is absolute. Out comes the scalpel, wielded by surgeons the way sculptors wield chisels. Except that the surgeons’ media aren’t marble — it’s noses and chins, eyelids and lips, breasts and buttocks.

Thousands of men and women have given a whole new meaning to ‘self-made’, redefining their bodies in search of elusive happiness, to which we are all entitled. Sometimes things go awry, as in the current case of faulty breast implants, most of them cosmetically motivated. Soldier’s chances, I’d say — the road to happiness, even when defined in this trivial way, is often thorny.

Some of the men and women, however, aren’t just unhappy about their various bits. They are unhappy about being men or women. They want to be what they aren’t, or at least weren’t born to be — and who says there’s anything wrong with this? We all believe in social mobility, so why not the sexual kind?

Since then the medics have found appropriately recondite terms to describe the urge to change one’s sex. Sometimes it’s referred to as ‘gender dysphonia’, at other times it’s described as GID (Gender Identity Disorder).

The second term is contentious: many experts deny that transsexualism is indeed a disorder. It is rather a perfectly valid desire to bring one’s body in line with one’s natural conduct. It’s not our biological sex, they claim, but our social environment that affects our behaviour. And, if a man acts in a feminine manner, then he is more of a woman; for him to be at peace with himself, his body must be altered accordingly.

Now, if professionals disagree on the background to the problem, a rank amateur like me has no chance of sorting it out. But even today’s rankest of amateurs are aware of chromosomes, XY in men, XX in women. This is the sole criterion used by, say, sports authorities to decide an athlete’s qualification to compete in women’s events.

When the chromosome test was first introduced in 1966, many female athletes from communist countries (the Soviets Tamara and Irina Press, Tatiana Shchelkanova, Klavdia Boyarskikh, the Rumanian Iolanda Balàzs, the Pole Ewa Klobukowska and many others) announced their retirement. The test was, and still is, deemed sufficient to determine a person’s sex, regardless of the putative self-perception.

We are also aware of many conclusive tests showing that testosterone is a major factor of aggressiveness in general and sexual aggressiveness in particular. When female mice are injected with large doses of the male hormone, they begin to act like males. And even in our liberated times, when women fight in pubs, any unbiased observer will notice that pugnacity comes more naturally to men. We seldom cross over to the other side of the street when a couple of girls block our path, and it’s men, not women, who tend to start wars.

This may explain Crystal-Christopher’s atypical sexual voracity. Someone born a man has testosterone coursing through his veins, and subsequent hormone treatments probably can’t quite change this.

I’ve known a few ex-men who act in a similar fashion. One chap (let’s call him Nick) converted himself to a woman (let’s call her Alexia). Unlike Crystal-Christopher, Nick, as a man, had never had sex with men. On the contrary, he was an unusually aggressive heterosexual predator, trying to drag women into the lavatory at office parties and so forth. When Nick became Alexia, he/she did take a couple of men out for a trial run, only to find them wanting. Alexia then became a lesbian, pursuing women just as ardently as before, but this time consummating the conquests differently.

Nowt as queer as folk, as they say upcountry, and I really have nothing to add to that simple statement. In fact, there is nothing to add without plunging into the depths of metaphysics, thereby branding oneself as a hopelessly uncool individual.

There is one thing though: I genuinely pity people who are so confused that they are prepared to mutilate themselves. I’m willing to pray for them — but I’m not willing to pay for them. If they wish to act out their odd urges, they ought to pay for the privilege out of their own purse.

I suspect Crystal became Christopher on the NHS. Boys will be girls and all that, but this shouldn’t be allowed. I suspect that even Richard Dawkins will agree.

 

 

The European Parliament has ruled that the football teams playing in this summer’s European Championship must display the European flag on their shirts. Once rubber-stamped by the Commission, the bill will become law, even though the federasts are claiming the decision to display the emblem or not will be left to the national federations’ discretion.

I wonder how our own dear FA is going to handle this hot Euro-potato. One suspects in roughly the same way as it did at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, just before Germany’s previous attempt to unify Europe, when England’s footballers saluted the Führer in the style to which he had become accustomed. Indirectly, they were thereby also saluting such Nazi accomplishments as the antisemitic Nuremberg laws, passed the year before. Well, perhaps ‘saluting’ is a bit harsh. Let’s agree on ‘ indirectly condoning’.

In a parallel development, the EU Parliament stated that ‘the European flag should be flown at major international sports events held on the EU territory’. Now, this is getting really interesting.

I freely admit to not following current affairs as diligently as I should, but I was still under the impression that the word ‘territory’ in this context is associated with a nation state, as in France, Italy, whatever. That impression was obviously wrong, and I apologise for having neglected a major geopolitical development.

I thought that the EU was a union of sovereign states, each with its own territory. It turns out that the EU itself is a sovereign state, and can lay a valid claim to what the 27 members erroneously regard as their own territory. This clarifies matters a lot, and I thank the EU for making them transparent, at last.

What follows is that England, her national territory no longer her own, isn’t entitled to her own national team either. The squad should instead be called EU 4, to reflect former England’s ranking in the European pecking order. Former Spain would be EU1, former Holland EU2, former Germany EU3 and so forth.

Since England will no longer have her own national team, there’s no reason not to reinstate John Terry as captain — of EU4. I’m sure he, along with his fellow players Wayne Rooney (Wazza) and Steven Gerrard (Stevie G), are more than ready to assume their new pan-European identities. Why, their habit of drawing exorbitant pay for little (and, at international level, incompetent) work would by itself qualify them for post-football careers as MEPs. The fans, however, will have a problem.

They’ll have to think up new chants, reflecting the major shift in geopolitical realities. At a pinch, ‘ere we go, ere we go, ere we go’ could become ‘ici, nous allons, nous allons, nous allons’, although somehow it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. But some of the others will need to be rethought altogether.

For example, ‘If it wasn’t for England, you’d all be krauts’ just wouldn’t work. Perhaps we ought to consider something like, ‘England or no England, you’ll all be krauts.’ No, that’s not quite right either. What about ‘Thanks to the European Union, of which Britain is a proud member, we shall all be Germans’? Much better.

‘Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be’ is already sufficiently multi-culti, no change needed there. But the common chant referring to the referee’s autoerotic tendencies needs to be amended to ‘l’arbitre, c’est un sale con’, even though some mellifluous quality will be lost along the way.

The fans must be instructed not to display emblems and slogans that might be construed as a manifestation of euroscepticism. The Union Jack on their clothing can be easily covered up with EU decals pasted over, no problem there. But ‘two world wars, one world cup, so f… off’ must be replaced altogether. May I suggest, ‘two world wars, one EU, whatever next’ as a suitable alternative?

A word of caution to England’s — pardon me, EU4’s — fans. Switching from lager to pan-European wine or, as a courtesy to the Championship’s co-hosts Poland and Ukraine, vodka will necessitate also switching from pints to glasses or, as the case may be, shots. Otherwise they just might forget what’s what and revert to their English identity. Can’t have that, the EU won’t allow it.

 

 

Alas, poor Eamonn. Every time this jolly TV presenter lets his humanity have the better of his official role, he causes a Twitter storm. Enraged viewers accuse him of crassness and demand punishments of varying severity, usually just short of evisceration.

In the past, he has suggested to a rape victim that perhaps taking a taxi would have been wiser than walking through desolate streets in the middle of the night. He has also called a stupid guest a ‘retard’, thus offending every sufferer from learning difficulties, if that’s the proper term this week. This time around he failed to recognise the seriousness of sex addiction, that pandemic and seemingly incurable disease afflicting millions.

Holmes was talking to a Miss Crystal Warren, who at age 40 realised she had been struck down by this degenerative disorder. That self-diagnosis is based on unimpeachable clinical evidence: Miss Warren has had sex with over 1,000 men, mostly strangers she picks up in pubs and coffee houses, sometimes seven in one day.

Assuming that her 1,000-odd conquests have been evenly spread over a lifetime, one wonders why it took Miss Warren so long to identify the problem. If, say, sleeping with 999 men by age 40 didn’t set off any alarm bells, then what caused the epiphany at Number 1,000? That’s the question I would have asked first, but old Eamonn is much better than me.

‘If you need this five or six times a day, have you ever thought of charging for it?’ he asked. How insensitive can one get? Sex will never, ever become Miss Warren’s profession, even though she claims that sex is the reason she can’t hold down a regular job. ‘What, becoming a prostitute?’ she demanded in a fit of moral indignation. ‘This way I’m enjoying it… I get to choose who I sleep with.’

Now, logic is clearly not one of Miss Warren’s addictions, and neither, by the sound of it, is moral philosophy. For prostitutes, unless they are sex slaves, also get to choose whom they sleep with. Their selection criteria are usually less than stringent, but, on purely arithmetical evidence, neither are Miss Warren’s. After all, it’s hard to explore the depths of emotional attachment with seven strangers a day. Also, from what one hears, some prostitutes actually enjoy their work too.

The morality of it never came up, as it hardly ever does these days, but applying such hopelessly obsolete standards, one struggles to see a clear watershed between doing it on this scale for money or for free. A distinction without a difference.

The subsequent outburst in interactive media was deafening, with doctors providing authoritative backup. Sex, they explained, is like drugs (and presumably rock’n’roll); it causes powerful chemicals to be released in the brain, making it enjoyable and therefore addictive. People can become addicted to pleasure, can’t they? Therefore, Holmes is ‘disgusting’! ‘irresponsible’! ‘crass!’. Anyway, prostitution is ‘illegal’! Actually, prostitution, as distinct from solicitation, isn’t illegal in Britain, but this hardly matters when a popular piety is offended.

What does matter is the staggeringly ignorant and morally corrupt tendency to ascribe all behavioural pathologies to medical problems. In the not-so-distant past someone like Miss Warren would have been described by a spiffy term implying opprobrium (‘value judgment’). Nowadays, she is a ‘patient’. The assumption is that her licentiousness is beyond her control — it’s explicable medically and neutral morally.

There are indeed some, exceedingly rare, physiological conditions that can lead to an increased need for sexual activity. As no evidence of such a disorder has been produced, or even mentioned, in Miss Warren’s case, one has to assume that her problem falls into the domain of counselling, rather than medical treatment. And in that realm people aren’t responsible for their actions — they are driven by some subterranean powers beyond their control.

The same arguments are applied to drug addiction. Those poor people can’t help it; they are ill, not irresponsible. In fact, even those who do believe that affection for, say, opiates is actually an addiction, rather than reckless hedonism, never claim that this ‘disease’ is contracted instantly. Typically, it takes regular and prolonged use before any hint of physiological addiction appears. And then — contrary to the horror stories one hears — withdrawal is as easy as getting over a cold.

I speak from experience, for some six years ago I became a drug addict. My ordeal was iatrogenic, caused by medical treatment. Due to a painful problem I won’t bore you with, I spent a month on an intravenous diamorphine (heroine) drip, and then a couple of months on oxycontin, an opiate that, incidentally, has acquired street cred in areas around King’s Cross.

When I decided my pain was no longer bad enough to warrant such mind-addling remedies, I went cold turkey — only to discover that I had become addicted. Since I had once researched an article on the subject, I recognised the symptoms, similar to the common cold. I then went back on oxycontin and gradually reduced the dose (titrated, in the medical parlance) over the next week. That’s it, no more addiction, no craving for those stupefying chemicals in my brain.

If I were Eamonn Holmes, I would have suggested a similar course of action to Miss Warren. Titrate, Miss Warren. Gradually reduce your daily intake to four men a day, then three, then two. Before long you could be on one a week and so forth. Why, you never know, in due course you might even discover the attendant joys of sex: human warmth, mutual affection, companionship — all those things that go beyond the friction of organs, even though they often start with it. Give it a go, love, you never know your luck.

But I’m not Eamonn Holmes. Unlike him, I don’t have to fear losing a well-paid job for yet another show of gross insensitivity. Had he suggested something like that, he’d be sending his CVs out even as we speak. If I ran a TV station, I’d hire him. Wouldn’t you?

 

 

Football violence isn’t a wholly alien phenomenon in Britain. But there is a salient difference between our homegrown scum and the Egyptian variety. These days ours have punch-ups outside the Coach & Horses. Theirs kill.

Both sets of football lovers are animalised brutes. But ours operate in a social environment that has been shaped over centuries by respect for the law in general and human life in particular. Theirs live in a country where, according to a recent Pew poll, 82% regard stoning adulterous women as just, 77% approve of chopping off thieves’ hands and 84% favour the death penalty for apostasy from Islam. Our society is rapidly frittering away the capital of institutionalised decency; theirs hasn’t yet begun to acquire it. We may be converging, but as the 74 people killed and hundred maimed in Port Said show, we haven’t converged yet.

In this context the article written a couple of months ago for Foreign Affairs magazine by Elliott Abrams, deputy national security advisor in the Bush administration, strikes me as particularly ill-advised. Mr Abrams, who is one of the flag bearers for neoconservatism, takes issue with those who find anything wrong with Arab Spring revolutions, largely inspired, if not directly abetted, by the US.

“The whole ‘experiment’ seems to some critics to be a foolish, if idealistic project that promises to do nothing but wreak havoc in the Middle East,” he sighs ruefully. As one of those diabolical critics, I agree wholeheartedly. This, however, is the only thing in the article with which I, or any other sane individual, can possibly agree. In fact, the issue wouldn’t even be worth arguing about if Abrams didn’t represent a political movement whose influence on US foreign policy is strong and, if a Republican wins in November, will become dominant.

Abrams begins by proving something that doesn’t need proof: the Middle Eastern regimes swept away by the revolutions were rather unsavoury, “kept in place solely by force”. Point conceded. And the conclusion? “Thus the neocons, democrats, and others who applauded the Arab uprisings were right, for what was the alternative? To applaud continued oppression?”

No, Mr Abrams. The alternative would be to remember the time when US foreign policy was guided by sage statesmen, not by ignorant demagogues. At that time President John Quincy Adams suggested a mindset that alone would be appropriate in the present situation: ‘[America] is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.’

Unlike Irving Kristol, the founder of the neoconservative movement, who was aware of the problematic nature of democracy even in America, never mind in countries with no historical predisposition for it, his ideological heirs have no capacity for nuanced thinking. Shrill sermonising is more up their street.

If it were otherwise, they’d know that the lofty standards of American democracy (which they don’t even understand properly) have questionable utility in most of the world. If, according to Freedom House (a largely neocon think tank), the world had not a single democracy as recently as in 1900 (an assertion that is in itself damning to neocon ideas), then which magic wand must we wave today to execute what George W. Bush described as ‘forward strategy to freedom in the Middle East’?

“The pessimists might yet be proved right,” concedes Abrams. “Any comparison of the Arab lands to Eastern Europe suggests that many positive elements are missing, not least the magnet and model of the European Union.” Yes, if only the Arab lands learned their lessons on democracy from the EU, that notorious champion of elective governments and national sovereignty, they’d be oases of political goodness.

As a result of the recent revolutions, Islamist parties (and ideologies) have become infinitely stronger in the region. In Egypt they won, in a perfectly democratic way, two thirds of the votes. That’s because, according to Abrams, such parties “do better on average in Arab than non-Arab lands.” Not being privy to the mathematical apparatus activated by Abrams to calculate the averages, I’d suggest he study the example of one non-Arab land, Iran.

In 1979 the unquestionably tyrannical rule of the Shah was overthrown with, to put it mildly, American acquiescence. Highlighting Pahlavi’s appalling record on human rights, the US press had been advocating his removal for years, and when the crunch came the Carter administration sat on its thumbs.

The assumption, one that’s clearly shared by today’s neocons, was that tyrants must be removed no matter what. Yet elementary historical knowledge should have suggested that, in some parts of the world, every tyrant is better than his successor. So it proved in Iran when the Americans, and in particular American neocons, got what they wished for.

The Shah may have been a tyrant and a thoroughly corrupt man, but one thing he wasn’t was a Muslim fundamentalist. Moreover, he was just about as pro-West as his environment allowed. What followed… well, you know what followed. What you don’t know, and neither does anyone else, is what’s going to happen next. Suffice it to say that nuclear war is one distinct possibility.

Would Iran be about average, according to Abrams’s learned calculations? Well, if the new Arab regimes are worse than average, then we know what to expect.

All this shows that “idealism”, which Abrams holds up as a virtue, is a wrong navigational tool to guide a country’s policy through the dire straits. Sober thinking, sage understanding and serious learning in history, geopolitics and cultural realities — as exemplified by John Quincy Adams — would fare much better. Abrams’s animadversions manifest none of those, and you won’t find many influential neocons who are any better.

While conservatives everywhere find it hard to wish for Obama’s victory, perhaps in this case we ought to suppress our visceral feelings. For should, say, Romney become President, the likes of Abrams won’t be writing articles about US foreign policy. They’ll be running it.

 

 

 

 

Poor Dave. All he did was put his name on a piece of paper, and now he is under a coordinated attack from every direction.

From the left, Ed the Red accuses him of inconsistency: a veto to Dave, he says, isn’t for life; it’s for Christmas. A hard-working line, that, and it would work even harder if Ed vouchsafed to us his alternative strategy vis-à-vis Europe.

Would he have signed the same document? Signed up to the FC (a more polite acronym than FU, but one that too could be deciphered in various ways)? Joined the euro? Left the EU? Restyled himself as gauleiter? What?

A word of avuncular advice to Ed: when in opposition, it isn’t enough to take cheap shots at the government. You have to offer a coherent alternative: don’t just say what you hate; say what you love.

Otherwise, look at what happened to Dave and his party when in opposition. Gnawing at the little bits of Labour policies, without devouring their eminently devourable main body, left the Tories with a severe political indigestion. Heir to Blair, yes, sure — just what grass-roots conservatives wanted to hear.

By way of reflux, the Tories lost any moral justification and, more important to them, credibility to come up with something completely different when in government. So they had to get into bed with something completely similar and call it a coalition, leaving us all at the receiving end of the ensuing action.

Who’ll be your coalition partners, Ed? The UKIP? Or are you counting on Nick to two-time Dave with you? Something to ponder there.

Just a thought, Ed: I’m not suggesting you should become a statesman overnight or, God forbid, a political thinker. You either got it or you ain’t, as Americans say. But becoming a competent practising politician shouldn’t be beyond you, anyone can do it. Talk to your speechwriters, organise a few focus groups — well, you don’t need me to tell you what to do, bright lad like you. But do something other than commissioning cute little lines.

Alas, it’s not just the left who want a piece of Dave — Ian Duncan-Smith and his 70 jolly friends in Parliament are screaming betrayal and inconsistency.

And on what grounds? That Dave vetoed that little piece of paper first because it didn’t contain any ‘safeguards for Britain’ and then, a month later, signed exactly the same document, even though no safeguards were on offer that time around either? Didn’t he tell you, in January, he wasn’t committing Britain to anything? So what’s your objection? Then why, considering the deal hadn’t changed since December, did he whip out his veto then? And you call that inconsistency?

I — and no doubt Dave, with his sherry-fuelled education — call it Hegelian dialectics. This is how it works, from Dave’s perspective.

Thesis: in December, let’s throw a small bone to Ian and his 70 jolly friends to keep them quiet for once. Antithesis: in January, let’s toss a bigger bone, with some marrow inside and meat outside, to Nick and his mates. Synthesis: I just might hang on to power beyond the next election.

Why, Dave’s the most consistent politician out there. He knows what’s important in life and goes after it. Have you got the same single-mindedness of purpose? I know I haven’t.

Like a father who spanks his little son savagely, saying it’s all for the boy’s benefit and ‘it hurts me more than it hurts you’, Dave claims he does it all for Britain. Of course he does — but again dialectically. Except that here a different syllogism is at work. Thesis: Dave is British. Antithesis: this rocking up and down on the political seesaw is good for Dave. Synthesis: it’s good for Britain. Who could possible take issue with this iron logic?

Well, the Iron Lady, otherwise known as Meryl Streep, might. But no one is going to ask her. And I’ve got news for you: no one is going to ask you either.