Category: Blog

Their gun attacks on kosher supermarkets, non-stop desecrations of Jewish cemeteries, along with regular oral or physical assaults on conspicuously Jewish passers-by, have made me think that French Muslims have channelled their passions into a single, anti-Semitic conduit.

That saddened me, for such narrow-mindedness betokens discrimination, which – in whatever meaning we use the word – has not only universally risen to the rank of an eighth deadly sin but has in fact trumped the other seven.

Hence I am glad to see that our Muslim friends are keen to absolve themselves of that irredeemable vice. Seems like they’ve set out to prove they hate Christians too, and one tips one’s hat at such broadening of their horizons.

On Sunday French police arrested an Algerian national who was planning an attack on churches, presumably Catholic. The young man was in France to study computer science, but was en route to Syria, where there is open season on Christians (and Jews, let’s not forget them).

Since these days few Muslims go to Syria solely to admire the Roman ruins, one would think that the only reason French police have so far ignored the youngster’s travel plans is that they were unaware of them.

This, however, isn’t the case. Les flics knew all about the young man and had ample reasons to regard him as a security risk. But there was nothing they could do preventively for fear of being accused… well, you know what they could have been accused of.

That dread word ‘discrimination’ again, plus inciting religious and racial hatred, violating proper legal procedure, along with prejudice against the socio-economically disadvantaged, or whatever linguistic monstrosity the French use to describe that other cardinal sin of modernity.

The chap was thus free to plan a few French rehearsals for his Syrian adventure. To begin with, last Sunday he shot dead (well, is charged with having shot) a lovely young mother of a little girl, in a suburb of Paris.

He then set her car on fire and fled the suburb, serendipitously called Villejuif (Jewish Town). Yet judging by her name, Aurélie Châtelain, the victim wasn’t Jewish, which gives a clue to the multi-directional hatred consuming the Algerian.

Either in the commission of that crime or shortly thereafter, he proved his urgent need for further training – and I’m not talking about computer science – by accidentally shooting himself. Understandably he called for an ambulance and, just as understandably, the medics arrived in the company of policemen.

The trail of blood led les agents to the Algerian’s car, where they found “several war weapons” (presumably assault rifles and explosives) and detailed notes, proving “beyond doubt” that he was planning to take out a couple of churches.

Forgive the hackneyed phrase, but when it rains it pours, doesn’t it? Such incidents are coming thick and fast in France, yet, rather than handcuffing every known Muslim firebrand, the police find themselves shackled by the politiquement correct tethers.

As they are, to be fair, in Britain, Germany, Italy, Holland and so forth. Today’s Europeans are allowed to protect themselves against Muslim hate crimes only after these have been committed, which rather defeats the purpose of protection.

And there I was, thinking that hatred of Israel – sorry, I mean the noble cause of establishing a Palestinian state – was the only grievance uniting Muslims of the world. Seems like they have other causes too, such as killing Christians, other Muslims, Indians, Indonesians and whomever else they don’t like very much.

The synthesiser in me refuses to see each such incident as being strictly isolated. One can’t help detecting a tendency here, especially since the last 1,400 years have provided innumerable precedents.

So here’s that lapidary English question: what are we going to do about it? After all, the law of self-preservation has never been repealed.

It’s clear that the diktats of political correctness, along with our peacetime laws, will prevent us from doing anything that could make a difference.

Hence at the risk of boring myself, not to mention my readers, I have to repeat what I’ve said many times before: we are not in peacetime.

There is every evidence that Islam is waging war not only on Israel but also on the West at large. Us, in other words, which pronoun should, for old times’ sake, include everyone worshipping the God of the two Testaments.

So far this has been a war of small-scale skirmishes, but then you don’t need me to give you a list of full-scale wars that started that way. For example, exactly a century ago everyone was only talking about a conflict between Austria and Serbia, and we know what happened next.

We are already at war, and peacetime laws must be modified – as they were by all combatants during all major wars of the past. Deciding exactly how to do that should be left to experts, and one likes to hope relevant expertise still exists in what used to be called Christendom.

All we must do is tell the experts: “Boys, there’s a war on, and we’ve decided to win it. Now do your best.” That too takes courage, of the civic variety. Alas, this quality has become rarer than the bravery it takes to lead a bayonet charge.

 

Putin has finally decided to supply the S-300s to Iran, thereby expecting gratitude from the aytollahs and indignation from… well, just about everyone else.

Both his expectations have been fulfilled, but the ayatollahs have reasons to be upset too.

Fair enough, the S-300, the world’s first fully automated AA missile system, is a fine weapon. But it was developed in 1979, when the Soviet Union was still alive and kicking.

At that time the S-300 was the best such system in the world. But it no longer is. For in 2004 the Russians developed a significant upgrade, the S-400.

And just as the S-300 supplies to Iran were horrifying the Israelis, Egyptians, Saudis, Americans and Europeans, the Russians agreed to arm China with the S-400.

Both transactions will make Putin and his gang a few billion richer. But no one, not even Putin and his gang, exports strategic armaments just for the money. Strategic exports always pursue strategic objectives.

In China’s hands, the S-400 will nullify Taiwan’s capability of striking back at China’s targets should the communists decide to act on their threat to reclaim the island.

That would practically guarantee America’s entry into the fray, with unpredictable consequences, of which nuclear war could be one. Even barring cataclysms, Russia stands to gain immensely from China and the US becoming bitter enemies.

China is busily colonising Russia’s Far East, de facto if not yet de jure. Russia’s vital natural resources, both current and future, are under threat.

Yet China’s army is so powerful that there’s precious little Russia can do about this, short of a preventive nuclear strike. China, however, is eminently capable of responding in kind, so the nuclear option isn’t really an option.

At the same time, Putin desperately needs, and is working towards, a global confrontation with the US. The need isn’t so much strategic as political and existential.

During the Cold War both countries were recognised as global powers. America still enjoys that status, but Russia doesn’t, and the burr under Putin’s blanket is getting sharper and sharper.

The little KGB monster needs to be the big man on the block, and he knows that unless he plays that role convincingly he won’t stay in power (and possibly alive).

Vlad isn’t Peter Hitchens – he knows how little his notorious 84 per cent support means in a country like Russia.

His personality was formed in the organisation that specialised in making the masses wildly enthusiastic – or else. Nor does he forget that Ceausescu’s support stood at 95 per cent two days before he was shot and all of Romania jubilantly danced in the streets.

Vlad’s political and possibly physical life depends on the image of power he projects. The Russians love power – and pounce on those perceived as lacking it. Hence the numerous photos of his muscular torso. Hence his judo. Hence his shows of strength in Chechnya, Georgia and the Ukraine.

And hence also his strategic vision of having China and America bang heads over Taiwan. Vlad doesn’t want Taiwan to have her own deterrent. He wants America to get into the act.

When it comes to Iran, Putin’s benefit is even more immediate. Russia doesn’t just want the Middle East to be destabilised – thanks to the US aggression in which we so lamentably participated, it’s destabilised already.

What Putin desperately needs in the Middle East is a full-blown war. It’s in this context that the S-300 transfer must be viewed.

Thanks to Nato’s criminal acquiescence, the aytollahs, whose sanity isn’t indisputable, are but a few months away from acquiring nuclear weapons. What with the delivery systems already in place, they’ll be able to hit most of Western Europe and all of the Middle East – including the country they wish to “puke out of the region”, in their poetic phrase.

Granted, they’ve just signed a treaty with America promising not to make the bomb for 10 years, in exchange for sanctions being lifted. Yet it takes credulity that’s nothing short of touching to believe that they’ll comply.

After all, Iran has broken every previous agreement related to weaponising uranium enrichment. That’s why the country is now several months away from having enough radioactive matter to build nuclear warheads.

Obama was perfectly nonchalant about all that. If Iran doesn’t comply, he explained, America will consider every response, including the military one.

The military response he clearly had in mind was that America would let Israel off the leash, encouraging her to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities in the same manner in which she once took out Iraq’s.

Now Israel can’t afford the luxury of thinking on a long-term scale. A nuclear bomb in the ayatollah’s hands would endanger the country’s very survival.

Moreover, considering the rather, how shall I put it kindly, tense situation between the Shiite and Sunni brands of Islam, the Israelis aren’t the only Middle Easterners scared to death. The Arabs, especially the Egyptians and Saudis, are quaking in their sandals too.

Consequently, when America made her overtures to the aytollahs, the current president of Egypt, who clearly doesn’t share Obama’s trust in their good nature, begged Netanyahu to bomb Iran’s nuclear plant at Bushehr straight away.

“Please, Bibi,” he pleaded. “We’ll make it worth your while. You need more fuel? We’ll give it to you. But for Allah’s sake, do something. Those Allah-awful S-300s will be operational in three months!”

There’s the rub. The S-300s will greatly reduce Israel’s ability to do what Bibi’s friend Abdel asked, possibly nullify it. Israel would need Stealth bombers to do that, but Obama won’t sell them to her.

That’s why Bibi rang Putin, explaining the situation and asking Vlad to keep the S-300 in his pocket. “Don’t be such an alarmist, Bibi,” replied the KGB colonel. “The S-300 is a purely defensive weapon.”

So it is. That’s why Iran will use it to defend its Bushehr plant and other facilities as nuclear warheads roll off the assembly line. The S-300 is defensive. The nuclear warheads aren’t.

This is something Israel simply can’t afford. Obama or no Obama, she has to fight or die. And she has a window of about three months to do so.

A full-scale war in the Middle East would be a godsend to Putin. Economically, the price of oil would probably quadruple, enriching Vlad and his gang way beyond the lousy couple of billion they’ll get for their S-300s and S-400s.

Strategically, Russia will again act as both peacemaker and king maker in the Middle East. More important, just as the 1956 Suez crisis made the West forget what Russia was doing to Hungary, a massive war in the Middle East will give Vlad a green light in the Ukraine, the Baltics and anywhere else he fancies.

What price appeasement, Mr Obama? On the credit side, there may be another Nobel in it for you. On the debit side, the world may go up in flames. How do you like what Americans call the bottom line?

 

 

 

 

 

 

My problems with Lord Neuberger start with his title, President of the Supreme Court. Next we’ll call our MPs congressmen, our Lords senators and let our defendants take the Fifth.

The Supreme Court was created in 2005, when it usurped the judicial functions of the House of Lords, a system that had worked perfectly well for half a millennium at least. But hey, what’s a few centuries of tradition among friends? Life would be dull without a spot of constitutional vandalism.

Even those of our institutions that have kept their old names have lost their old meaning. This used to be to protect Britain as Britain, not as an ideological contraption beholden to foreign bodies and alien ideas.

These days their function seems to be to whip Britain into a shape outlined in foreign lands, where our idiosyncratic constitution used to be admired but is now despised.

The Supreme Court was one of the bodies created for this purpose, and its head Lord Neuberger has got into the spirit.

His Lordship has suggested that Muslim women should be allowed to cover their faces – which is to say to conceal their identity – when appearing in court.

We must “show, and be seen to show” respect for other people’s customs, explained the judge, who probably has never read ‘the Father of History’ Herodotus but is acting on his prescriptions.

Herodotus too suggested that other people’s customs must command respect. A few pages later in the same book he wrote: “The ancient Persian custom is to bury people alive.”

Obviously the Greek’s book didn’t get the benefit of rigorous editing, for otherwise this logical inconsistency would have been pointed out to him.

“Look, Herodotus,” the editor might have said. “I appreciate the sentiment and all that, but surely you must qualify it. Why not say something like ‘we must respect other people’s customs as long as they don’t threaten our own’?”

One can respect only what’s respectable, and not all foreign customs fall into that category. Among those that don’t automatically merit respect one could name cannibalism, suttee, female genital mutilation, the stoning of adulterers.

Killing Christians is another ancient Muslim custom, and Mediterranean boat people uphold it by throwing Christian refugees overboard. Should this too be given as much respect as the wearing of a full-face veil in a country where people like to know who’s talking to them?

Out of curiosity, how would Lord Neuberger know that the defendant actually is the alleged transgressor and not her grandmother (or grandfather with a particularly high-pitched voice)?

Yes, I know, such crude practical considerations are outweighed by the lofty ideals of share, care, be aware. Not hurting the defendant’s feelings is more important than serving justice, as His Lordship explained:

“Would you feel that you have given of your best if you had been forced to give evidence in unfamiliar surroundings, with lots of strangers watching, in an intimidating court, with lawyers in funny clothes asking questions…?”

One could suggest that a person who is so traumatised by the sight of non-Muslims shouldn’t live in a non-Muslim country. If she does, she should be prepared to accept the local mores. And in any case, a certain degree of discomfort is to be expected when a person is being tried for a crime.

I can only wish that our top judge could be as sensitive to his own country’s customs as to those of the people who come here from cultures not only different from ours, but aggressively hostile to it.

Peter Hitchens went even further down the same path by claiming he “was moved by the picture of two Muslims praying at a football match…”

If I were a Muslim, I’d feel that praying to Allah for your team to win is the height of blasphemous vulgarity. As an infidel, I only hope that the two chaps indeed prayed for something as innocent as that, and not, say, for a nuclear device to go off in Knightsbridge.

Peter here lets his febrile mind be guided by the same non sequitur logic I mocked the other day. Yes, it’s most lamentable that the West has gone secular. But I’d rather it remained secular than became Muslim.

Much as I hate seeing the West’s traditional religion going to pot, I’d still rather be spared shows of Islamic piety. If that’s the sole alternative, give me atheism any day. At least godless criminals don’t hide their identity behind Halloween garments.

Peter wouldn’t be Peter if he also didn’t apply the same crepuscular logic to his favourite subject: the glorification of fascismo Putinesco.

In the same blog he gloats over two supposedly political murders committed in the Ukraine: “…the belief that Russia is the heart of darkness, and Ukraine is a law-governed, clean Utopia, is ridiculous and silly.”

Quite. That’s why no one I know, including the Ukrainians among my friends, holds this belief. However, decent people realise that, whatever her failings, the Ukraine is a sovereign country and, as such, must be protected by international law.

Even assuming for the sake of argument that the Ukraine is diabolical, it doesn’t logically follow that Russia is angelic. And whatever alleged political crimes are committed in the Ukraine don’t justify Russia’s predatory aggression.

For Hitchens two wrongs can make a right, provided one of the wrongs is committed by the strong leader he self-admittedly wishes we had.

My argument would be the same as above: yes, our own government is craven, self-serving, intellectually feeble, morally deficient and generally risible. But fascism, Russian or homespun, doesn’t offer a viable alternative – any more than Islam offers one to our deplorable atheism.

At a weak moment, however, one does wish that our politicians, judges and, come to think of it, pundits had a bit more sense. Otherwise we may not muster the will to resist alien perversions, religious, political or any other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A friend of mine has forwarded an e-mail he received from a Ukip supporter of Putin.

This saddened me, since enthusiasm for perverse Russian regimes reflects the kind of moral and intellectual failure that traditionally has been the preserve of the left.

Now Ukip, the flag-bearer of conservatism in Britain, is trying to encroach on the territory signposted by several generations of ‘useful idiots’.

My friend’s correspondent claims that RT is a “plausible and reliable” source of news because the BBC isn’t. Yes, and I love tomatoes because I hate pop music. Any sane person would smell a non sequitur there a mile away.

Getting one’s news from RT today is the same as using Der Stürmer for that purpose 80 years ago (which some British nationalists did, come to think of it – but sorry, I forgot, nationalism seems to be a term of praise these days).

Both organs fall into the category of a propaganda mouthpiece, not a news medium. Someone who doesn’t realise this suffers from moral deafness, intellectual deficit or, possibly in this case, ideology-induced blindness, with an underpinning of lamentable ignorance.

Reliance on Der Stürmer couldn’t have been logically justified by the left-wing bias of The Manchester Guardian. Similarly, it’s a logical solecism to justify reliance on RT by the left-wing slant of the BBC.

How can I explain this so that my friend’s correspondent will understand? The Da Vinci Code is a bad book, but that doesn’t make Fifty Shades of Grey good.

Or Guildford’s being an awful place doesn’t make Crawley lovely. Or theft isn’t a virtue because murder is a vice. Does this work as a lesson in rudimentary logic?

“In Syria alone an estimated 10 million people have lost their homes and personal property as a direct result of UK/USA/Saudi meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign country…” continues the missive.

The poor chap seems to think, with the same lapse of logic, that because of that lamentable situation Putin is justified in his rape of the Ukraine.

Another likeminded Ukipper spells it out: the pro-Western coup in the Ukraine was illegal and therefore the KGB colonel is striking a blow for international law.

Not having the same sterling legal credentials, I’m not prepared to argue the legality of the Ukrainian independence movement. However, aware of this educational lacuna, I am prepared to accept that it was as illegal as, say, every national liberation movement in Africa and Asia over the last 70 years.

So how about France using her superior military might to reclaim Algeria, Britain to recolonise Nigeria or Spain to recapture her part of Morocco? Would my friend’s correspondent support any such action? And there I was, thinking that nationalism was a good thing.

My dear Ukip friends: good, bad or indifferent, the Ukraine is a sovereign country. Hence how she manages her affairs is her business, unless she threatens others.

I can’t for the life of me see how Poroshenko’s regime threatens Britain or any of our allies. Nor, for all of RT’s lying claims, does it threaten Russia. Yes, for 70-odd years the Ukraine belonged to the Soviet Union. But she doesn’t any longer.

Similarly, India used to belong to the British Empire, but she doesn’t now. In fact, the British Empire no longer exists, and neither does the Soviet Union.

Hence for Putin to annex a part of the Ukraine on the pretext that many people speak Russian there would be exactly equivalent to Britain annexing a part of India because so many local denizens are Anglophone.

It gets worse. Putin is our friend, continues the Ukipper, because America is our enemy: “Enoch Powell correctly identified the USA as No. 1 threat to British interests and he has largely been vindicated.”

That’s the same dull logical sabre unsheathed and swung without hitting anybody. St Enoch was right on most things, although his affection for Wagner makes his mental health suspect in my eyes.

Yet he sometimes laid it on a bit too thick (like Wagner, actually). I don’t think the US has our best interests at heart, and I make this point at length in my book Democracy As a Neocon Trick. But No. 1 threat? I don’t think so.

Obama isn’t threatening us with nuclear weapons – Putin is. America did drag us into an unfortunate foray into the Middle East, but she isn’t likely to drag us into a world war. Putin is. Let’s keep things in perspective, shall we?

Anything else? Oh yes, Vlad is a Christian, which is why he treats his co-religionists better than they are treated by “the UK media and the UK prime minister himself.” Oh dear.

It’s true that Vlad is mouthing Christian slogans, of the Third Rome variety. However, it takes ignorance of both Christianity and Russia to take such pronouncements at face value.

Vlad is a proud alumnus of an organisation that murdered tens of thousands of priests along with millions of parishioners, and destroyed tens of thousands of churches.

One of such churches was the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, blown up in 1931 by orders of Vlad’s idol Stalin. The cathedral was rebuilt (albeit with cheaper materials) and, in the year 2,000, re-consecrated.

Its basement now houses several conference rooms and a huge banquet hall, where Putin’s cronies hold their liberally lubricated orgies, thereby blowing up the cathedral again, this time metaphorically.

Another Christian argument one hears in Vlad’s favour is that he doesn’t favour homomarriage. This, I agree, is a necessary condition for good government. But to regard it as a sufficient one is cloud cuckoo land. One may end up admiring Hitler, Stalin and Ayatollah Khomeini for the same reason.

Chaps, I’m second to none in my affection for Christianity and contempt of the European Union. I doubt America’s virtue as much as you do. My disdain for Dave, Nick, Ed et al trumps, or at least equals, yours any day.

But for God’s sake stop blabbering about “demonising Putin”. His cleptofascist clique can’t possibly be demonised for one simple reason: they already are the demons.

Carry on so, and no one who combines decency with brains will ever support you. That, I believe, would be a shame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Our non-conservative Conservatives (otherwise known as the Tory party) can sense that the gravy train of power may just depart without them on board.

Why-oh-why, they wring their hands, does every poll point at a hung parliament and a likely Labour-SNP coalition? Haven’t the Tories done well for the economy? Doesn’t the public – even Labour public! – find Miliband to be an unfunny joke? So why?!?

It’s so simple, chaps, that even you should be able to understand it. British conservatives feel no kinship with today’s Conservative party.

A thinking person pledges his loyalty not to a particular political party but to particular political principles. He’ll then vote for the party whose professed principles and proposed polices are close to those he favours.

For many decades the Tory party was the only choice for conservatives, even those who had to pinch their nostrils when voting blue. Now there is another option: Ukip, whose manifesto is the only conservative document on offer in this election.

Predictably, many traditional Tory voters are moving the Ukip way, which weakens Tory chances. And, with their characteristic political incompetence, the blue ones don’t have a clue how to respond.

Their first reaction was personal invective. Ukip, screamed Dave, are a party of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”. And while we are at it, added Dave’s close ally, Tory activists who really are conservative are “mad, swivel-eyed loons.”

No wonder then that such people began to gravitate towards Ukip, with the party eventually acquiring two MPs and threatening to get more or at least to siphon support away from the Tories.

With the election drawing nearer, Dave et al switched from vinegar to honey, hoping to draw the bee out of the conservatives’ bonnet. “Come home to Papa,” pleaded Dave. “Daddy promises not to abuse you any more. Please, please, don’t split the right.”

But Ukip doesn’t split the right, chaps. It is the right.

With every day falling off the calendar before 7 May, the pleas are becoming more grovelling, but none so grovelling as that by Tim Montgomerie in today’s Times.

It was less than a year ago that Tim called Farage “a lout” and contemptuously referred to his supporters as “the nimbys in Ukip”. Now they are “dear Ukippers”, begged to quit while they are ahead.

According to Tim, being ahead means that Ukip has exerted a telling influence on the Tory side of the political debate, which influence has grown stronger as the election draws nearer.

This same influence was well-nigh negligible when Dave was looking forward to years, rather than possibly weeks, at 10 Downing Street. Wouldn’t it then be possible to suggest that, should he gain another five years at his favourite address, Ukip’s influence is likely to attenuate?

Perish the thought. Dave has had a real change of heart. And Tim himself is a closet Ukipper who agrees with the party on, well, most things. But now it’s time for Ukip supporters to prove they aren’t ‘fruitcakes’ – by abandoning Ukip in favour of the blue brigade.

Logically speaking, and the ability to speak logically isn’t among Tim’s most salient traits, should they remain loyal to their party they will remain fruitcakes. That means that at heart Tim agrees with Dave: Ukippers and disenchanted Tories are fruitcakes.

It also means that he doesn’t even know how to dissemble properly, no matter how hard he tries. In effect he is saying, “You are crazed idiots only able to redeem yourselves by voting Tory.” A sure way of winning friends, that.

At the beginning of his article Tim acknowledges that Dave isn’t a real conservative, which presumably Tim himself is: “In his earliest days in charge of the Conservatives he… talked only about women candidates, civil liberties and climate change.”

However, then Tim undoes all his good work: “Personally, I’ll be on David Cameron’s side if there’s any attempt to reduce foreign aid spending or roll back on gay equality.”

I don’t know how many Tories are abandoning the party because of their opposition to Dave’s perversions mentioned by Tim, and how many do so because of the policies Tim self-admittedly advocates.

I suspect the split is about even – or even that there is no split. A real conservative would flee from this whole lot at an Olympic-calibre speed. The stench emanating from this Tory party can no longer be blocked off by pinching one’s nostrils, and even a gas mask would fail.

To his credit Tim doesn’t even attempt to make a substantive argument. His whole plea is based on voting tactics: a vote for Nigel is a vote for Ed and Nicola.

And should those demons take over, none of the wonderful things Dave is promising will ever be done. No EU referendum, no tax reductions, no right to buy – no nothing. Just doom and gloom.

For once I agree with Tim: a Labour-led government would be disastrous. However, tactically speaking, Ukip support has halved in the last week or so, and the two main parties are still neck and neck in every poll I’ve seen, give or take the expected statistical error.

Hence going against their conscience wouldn’t even score a tactical victory for real conservatives. And even if it did, and the ruling coalition were again blue and yellow rather than red, does anyone seriously think that the new government would deliver, say, an EU referendum and campaign for the Out vote?

Effectively Tim, Dave et al are begging people to abandon their principles for political gain. True enough, this is the stock in trade for today’s politicians, regardless of the colour of their rosette. That is exactly the trouble with today’s politics.

But an average voter can’t be expected to be the same kind of unprincipled spiv as our ‘leaders’. If a decent conservative feels that Ukip is close to his heart, then that’s how he should vote, and tactics be damned. Britain can survive five years of red madness, but she may not survive the absence of real conservatism.

There’s an outside chance, and I’m not holding my breath, that a defeat on 7 May might bring the Tories to their senses. A sure sign of such a welcome shift would be drumming Dave and his ilk out – with Tim bringing up the rear.

A good friend has solicited my opinion on David Starkey, and for once I had none to offer.

I never watch ‘serious’ programmes on TV, precisely because the modifier invariably requires quotation commas. Moreover, frequent presence on TV tends to put me off a chap’s other activities, such as his books.

Hence my ignorance of Dr Starkey’s work and life story, beyond the more salient details that even those who don’t watch much TV can’t fail to absorb from ambient air.

But my friend’s wish is my command, and it so happens that Dr Starkey has just given an extensive interview to The Telegraph. Normally I’d give it a miss, but this time I didn’t, against what I thought was my best judgement.

The judgement has turned out closer to worst than best, for I was quite impressed. Though Dr Starkey didn’t plumb any unexplored depths (one can’t be expected to do that in a newspaper anyway), he displayed much of that most uncommon of commodities misnamed common sense.

What struck me, among other things, is the inference I’ve put in the title. Dr Starkey isn’t a real ‘poofter’ (his own word) in the same sense in which Margaret Thatcher or, say, Jeane Kirkpatrick, weren’t real women.

These days womanhood isn’t just a sex, homoeroticism isn’t just sexuality and negritude isn’t just a race. They have become so politicised as to become, above all, forms of political self-expression.

I remember talking to a proper English gentleman years ago, when I had just moved to London from New York. My interlocutor opined that most black people in America were leftwing specifically because they were black.

“It’s the other way around,” I countered. “They are black because they are leftwing.”

That was obviously a joke, but one based on reality. At the time there were countless black people prominent in politics, law, journalism, philosophy, science and the arts who weren’t recognised as fellow blacks by activists like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

To be really black one had to turn race into a political career. Getting ahead simply because one was intelligent, talented and hard-working wasn’t good enough – one had to devote one’s life to making sure blacks would advance simply because of their race.

Also at that time Margaret Thatcher was British PM and Jeane Kirkpatrick was the driving force behind US foreign policy. Yet militant feminists rejected them as examples of women in power because both ladies eschewed feminist activism, advancing instead on the strength of qualities not specific to either sex.

Similarly I’m sure Peter Tatchell types don’t recognise Dr Starkey as a fellow homosexual. Not only does he express conservative views in general, but he specifically refuses to accept the mantras of Peter Tatchell types.

For example, in common with other sensible homosexuals like Brian Sewell, he rejects homomarriage: “I see no reason… why a gay relationship should be the subject of public rules.” This, in spite of living with another man for 21 years.

Dr Starkey shares my contempt for the culture of liberation and victimhood: “I find it very, very sad the way there is now this perpetual procession of people – group after group – wanting to assume the status of victim. It’s catastrophic.”

It is indeed, and Dr Starkey extends this observation to blacks and women. He bemoans, for example, the negrification of our popular culture (“the whites have become black”), a development driven by the message of hatred and violence communicated by black rap and lapped up by our burgeoning white underclass.

Do blacks have a propensity for violence? “It would appear so,” says Dr Starkey, and amazingly no lightning came down from the sky to smite him. “If you look at muggings, shootings and stabbings. The figures I’m afraid are unchallengeable.”

Yes, but they aren’t uninterpretable. And Dr Starkey interprets them correctly, rejecting any possible accusation of racism. “The term has become totally without meaning. I think there are cultural differences, there are all sorts of differences.”

Quite. And the differences are indeed cultural, not biological. Which is more than Dr Starkey can say about women’s intelligence:

“The genders are different. And the whole thing is not just the result of wicked gender grooming… It is the result of biology.” And further:

“I think that the evidence suggests that there are different distributions of intelligence between men and women, that women tend to cluster more around the mean, [while] men are either very, very bright or very thick.”

I haven’t seen such evidence, but my empirical observation tallies with it. I’d also be tempted to add that women’s thinking tends to be more intuitive and less sequential than men’s, which to me doesn’t mean that women are less intelligent – quite the opposite.

Yet citing evidence of any kind on race or sex (unlike Dr Starkey, I refuse to use the word ‘gender’ in any other than a grammatical context) places Dr Starkey into the dwindling minority of sensible and increasingly marginalised people.

He goes on to reinforce this impression by delivering himself of forthright – and correct – views on a variety of subjects.

Miliband is ‘poison’ and “after our last experience of what a Labour government did, I cannot possibly see how anybody could vote for him.”

Easily, I’d suggest. All it takes is an electorate corrupted by socialist propaganda and dumbed-down by socialist education – exactly the kind of electorate we have now.

The Tories aren’t much better, feels Dr Starkey. They are just the lesser evil, a campaign slogan I once proposed as a guaranteed election winner.

“We are borrowing the equivalent of the cost of the NHS every year. It is totally unsustainable,” he laments. Quite. But our spivs know that if they stop doing it they’ll never stay in power, which means they’ll go on spending us into an economic grave.

Our politicians’ thinking is “muddled and sentimental”, but then again, “I don’t see anybody around with any prime ministerial qualifications at all.”

Neither do I, I’m afraid. In fact, I agree with Dr Starkey on just about everything he says, except the purely economic case he makes for leaving the European Union.

It’s not that I feel that the economic case isn’t strong – it is. But I’d expect a prominent constitutional historian to make the much stronger historical and constitutional case instead, or at least in addition.

Still, all in all a good man. Perhaps I ought to get around to reading his books.

Pope Francis described the 1915 slaughter of Armenians in Turkey as genocide, which is exactly the right word to use.

Yet the Turks are up in arms, screaming spurious objections to their little peccadillo being described that way. The number of 1.5 million victims on which most historians agree is an overestimate, they claim in their defence.

Actually, the lowest number any historian has ever suggested is 300,000, which is admittedly low by the standards of the 20^th century. It is, however, plenty high enough to qualify as genocide, which renders the objection as false as it sounds,.

In any case the issue is long since settled – by the Turks themselves, when they tried to repudiate their Ottoman past. In the 1920s the post-Ottoman nationalist government of Turkey held two trials that put paid to any doubts.

In one, on the basis of much evidence, the Young Turks government was found guilty of genocide. In the other, a young Armenian’s assassination of the wartime Interior Minister Talaat was ruled to be justifiable homicide because Talaat was one of the main culprits in the Armenian genocide.

Of the many pieces of juicy evidence presented in both trials, one stands out: Talaat’s wartime telegram stating the Young Turks’ intent with lucid clarity: “…the government by the order of the Assembly (Jemiet) has decided to exterminate entirely all the Armenians living in Turkey [about 2,000,000 at the time]. Those who oppose this order can no longer function as part of the government. With regard to women, children and invalids, however tragic may be the means of transportation, an end must be put to their existence.”

If there is a difference between this document and the Wansee Protocol, it escapes me, and few people this side of David Irving argue that the later document didn’t adumbrate genocide.

Actually, there is one difference. Germany, the nation that issued the Protocol and faithfully carried out its prescriptions, has since repented her crimes and compensated the victims’ families as best she could. Too little, too late and all that, but at least it’s something. Turkey, on the other hand, responds to accusations of genocide with the ‘who, me?’ indignation of wounded innocence – as demonstrated by her reaction to His Holiness’s statement.

Anticipating just such a response, the Pope pre-empted it by saying that “Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it.” Just so.

Muslims in general, and Turks in particular, seem to think that they have a God-given right to murder en masse those who differ from them on anything, be it religion, race or political views. They may have a point, considering that they can effortlessly find much scriptural support for this belief both in the Koran and in history, what with the sort of behaviour this book has inspired over centuries.

But if the Turks insist on making this point when talking to the civilised world, they ought to be prepared for strong rebukes from those whose God frowns on genocide. Just as the Turks seem to think they were within their right to murder all those Armenians, His Holiness was certainly entitled to call that evil deed by its proper name.

The Turks responded by recalling their envoy to the Vatican, which will doubtless give the Pope many sleepless nights. I can just see him tossing and turning as he tries to contain his tears at the thought of having one less Muslim diplomat in Rome.

All I can do is admire the boldfaced effrontery of Erdoğan and his government. They don’t seem to realise that acting in this manner makes them accomplices in the crime, if only after the fact. Or perhaps they simply don’t care what Western infidels think, especially when they digress from multi-culti platitudes.

One wonders if Tony Blair still thinks Turkey should be summarily admitted to the European Union. He probably does – our Tony is a man of principle.

 

 

 

 

 

At the risk of sounding immodest, this unquestionably trustworthy poll is conducted by me – and on me.

The lamentably narrow sample admittedly discourages any far-reaching generalisations, but at least the poll’s reliability can’t be faulted.

Hence it’s on unimpeachable authority that I can announce the changing fortunes of Ukip, if only within this limited group of one.

If not so long ago Ukip polled 100 per cent among me, it’s now losing ground to a most dangerous opponent: ‘none of the above’.

Ukip still is in a winning position, but the party can ill-afford another statement like the one made the other day by Diane James, MEP, who is generally regarded as the successor to Nigel Farage.

The need for succession may arise if the sainted one fails to gain a parliamentary seat and then acts on his promise to resign as a result. Since polls less reliable than mine, but somewhat more representative, suggest that such a development is likely, Miss James may well be the next Ukip leader destined to contest many elections to come.

And I am not entirely sure that I’m prepared to vote for a party whose leader-to-be professes unbridled admiration for Col. Putin, as Miss James evidently does.

“I admire him from the point of view that he’s standing up for his country. He is very nationalist,” she said. “He is a very strong leader, and he has issues with the way the EU encouraged a change of government in the Ukraine which he felt put at risk a Russian population in that country.”

True enough, every party has a certain number of utterly disagreeable individuals among its leaders. The only exception to this general observation is the Labour Party, in which all its leaders aren’t just disagreeable but downright evil.

However, even within that party the leadership has enough street smarts to discourage the lunatic fringe from airing its views in public.

Labour, especially under the two Eds, doesn’t mind coming across as socialist, but that’s as far left as it’s willing to go. Under no circumstances does it wish to come across as the communist party in disguise.

By the same token, Ukip, if it’s to have the faintest chance of electoral success, can’t afford to look like a BNP in disguise. Yet that’s the area into which the views expressed by the party’s supposed future leader have placed it.

First, Miss James doesn’t seem to realise that the word ‘nationalist’, as distinct from ‘patriotic’, is pejorative in most languages, including English. A patriot loves his country, a nationalist wants her to trample over every other land.

Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle were patriots; Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were nationalists.

Hence using the word ‘nationalist’ as an accolade for my friend Vlad may suggest only three things: 1) the speaker is unaware of the semantic distinction, 2) hence she thinks ‘nationalist’ is a synonym of ‘patriotic’, and probably believes that Putin is typologically closer to Churchill and de Gaulle than to Hitler and Mussolini, 3) she is aware of the difference but nevertheless thinks nationalist is a good thing to be, even if this puts Putin in the same bracket as Hitler and Mussolini.

In the first instance, Miss James is stupid. In the second, she is stupid and ignorant. In the third, she is stupid, ignorant and immoral. If there is any other possible interpretation, I’d like to know what it is.

Now I number many Ukip supporters, members and even some of its leaders, among my friends. Generally speaking, they are all visceral conservatives like me, who have chosen Ukip by default, what with the Conservative party under Dave having nothing conservative about it other than its name.

None of them would ever dream of saying something as idiotic as Miss James’s pronouncement, for the simple reason that they are neither idiots nor ignoramuses.

Yet one is aware that outside the coterie of my friends Ukip attracts many followers who are more BNP than Tory in their intuitive inclination. That’s fair enough – as I said before, every party is allowed its own lunatic fringe.

But when Farage and James begin to express views that no real conservative would recognise as his own, the party is in danger of alienating its core support.

It was only a few months ago that Farage himself declared that he admired Putin as “a brilliant operator”. He then realised what he had said and backtracked promptly: “Not that I approve of him politically. How many journalists in jail now?”

Actually, not that many, Nigel. Putin’s preferred way of dealing with dissidents isn’t putting them in jail but putting them six feet under, by such methods as shooting in a dark alley, defenestration, torture or poisoning with radioactive isotopes.

Anyway, Miss James hasn’t been around for as long as Mr Farage, and nor is she obviously as shrewd as he is, so she felt no need for disclaimers.

Nonetheless, accepting for the sake of argument that Putin is indeed nationalist in the sense of patriotic, that he indeed “puts his country first”, and that he indeed detests the EU as much as your normal Ukipper does (I count myself in that category), do Nigel and Diane feel this is a sufficient recommendation?

Well, in that case they must also admire Hitler, Mosley, Mussolini, Ivan the Terrible, Stalin and Nasser, who all had impeccable nationalist credentials. And if any enemy of the EU is a friend of Ukip, will the party come out in support of Isis, who clearly aren’t well disposed towards European federalism?

Chaps, you are on your last notice. Since I not only take my reliable poll but also determine its findings, one more pronouncement along the same lines from your leaders, and ‘none of the above’ will get my vote.

As clearly no other party deserves it, my vote is yours to lose. And you are teetering on the verge of losing it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday this venerable newspaper published an article claiming that that Nick Clegg’s Russian great-aunt, of whom he is notoriously proud, was a whore in the employ of the Bolshevik secret police: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3030339/Revealed-Nick-Clegg-s-femme-fatale-ancestor-Moura-Budberg-DID-spy-Soviet-secret-police-chief-Genrikh-Yagoda-notorious-Gulag-prison-camps.html

The article is full of such turns of phrase as ‘we can now reveal’ and ‘as we have found out’. Well, I wrote on the same subject on 14 December 2011, which you can find on this blog.

To save you the trouble, here it is:

Does Nick Clegg love the EU so much because he carries it within himself? The English, German and Dutch rivers intermingle with the as yet non-EU Russian brook in his bloodstream. Add to this his Spanish wife, and verily I say unto you: the mix is explosive.

Now far be it from me to suggest that one’s personality, or much less behaviour, is solely, or indeed mainly, attributable to one’s ethnicity. This isn’t a bed we made for ourselves, even though we have to lie in it. Genes, ethnic or otherwise, may give a bias to one’s life, but they don’t determine it. We make our own free choices throughout, some good, some bad. It’s perfectly acceptable to be proud of the former and ashamed of the latter. It’s wrong to attribute either to our ancestry.

Logically then, one’s ethnicity by itself is nothing to be either proud or ashamed of. We are what we are. However, one can legitimately be either proud or ashamed of a specific ancestor. A German descending from Heinrich Heine can be forgiven a spot of familial pride. The same emotion in a descendant of Heinrich Himmler is cause for summoning the men in white coats. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?

Nick Clegg, however, defies reason by claiming that he is proud of the Russian part of him. If he means this in general, it doesn’t make much sense, and Nick isn’t a stupid man (he’s many other things, but we won’t talk about it now). So he has to imply a particular affection for his great-great aunt, who put those Russian drops into the family barrel. Well, let me tell you, there’s nothing to be proud of.

When those muscular, leather-jerkined Bolsheviks took over in 1917, they immediately began to murder, torture and rob millions, often for no reason other than wrong class origins. That, no doubt, was most satisfying, but the trouble was that the West had some misgivings about that sort of thing. And Lenin’s gang couldn’t have survived without the West’s support.

This meant they had to offset the bad press they were receiving, by countering it with some good press. That could only come from those Western cultural and political figures whose sympathy the murderers could court.

Some of those, such as the American communists John Reed and Louise Bryant, didn’t need to be asked. Many others required inducements. These were provided by the Soviet secret police, known at the time first as VCheKa and then as OGPU, an organisation that could be commended for its deviousness, but never accused of subtlety. The very unsubtle ‘honey trap’ figured prominently in their bag of tricks.

But, even if westerners could be initially trapped by the ‘kitchen maids’ who, according to Lenin, would one day form the government, they would soon spring the trap out of sheer boredom. No, to taste really sweet the honey had to be provided by the fragrant, multilingual, cultured ladies from the same classes the OGPU was busily exterminating.

There was no shortage of them, young girls prepared to prostitute themselves to redeem their unfortunate nativity. A spate of famous Westerners went on to acquire OGPU wives or mistresses (list available on request). One of the busiest WAGs was Clegg’s great-great aunt, Moura Budberg, née Zakrevskaya. A life-long Bolshevik agent, she was particularly good at her job, first bagging R.H. Bruce Lockhart, the British envoy who played an ambivalent role in the post-revolutionary events.

Then on to Maxim Gorky, who was at the time feeling queasy at the sight of freely flowing blood. Then, or rather in parallel, on to H.G. Wells, who described Lenin as ‘the dreamer in the Kremlin’ at the time the dreamer was outdoing  the later nightmarish exploits of Hitler.

In due course Moura moved to England, and was free to travel back and forth to Russia any time she wished – the NKVD, as it had become, was sure of her loyalty and grateful for her service. It was in England that Moura gave her descendant Nick something to be proud of by marrying Baron Budberg.

As I said, I don’t believe that Clegg’s double-dealing, self-serving behaviour over the last few weeks is in any way attributable to Moura’s genes. But perhaps one could suggest that, even if he has little else to be proud of, this particular pride is misplaced.

Still, better late than never, and I congratulate The Mail on its incisive reporting and expert fact gathering. And yes, I do know that ‘I told you so’ are the most despised words in the English language.

As to my friend Nick, perhaps on second thoughts his take on the morality of politics does run in the family.

Since 2006, when Alexander Litvinenko died of polonium poisoning, the case has been treated as murder.

And not just any old murder but one commissioned by my friend Vlad, who, if Peter Hitchens is to be believed, represents the world’s last bulwark of conservative, Christian values.

Conversely, anyone who denies that Vlad is any such thing can only do so out of malignant Russophobia, and that goes for some Russians as well.

After all, as Putin’s press secretary Peskov explained recently, Putin is Russia and Russia is Putin. Hence anyone casting aspersion on Vlad has to hate Russia. Unassailable logic, as far as I am concerned.

The polonium that killed Litvinenko is believed to have been administered by two of Vlad’s KGB colleagues who were having tea with Litvinenko at a London hotel.

Hours after the London Tea Party, the two gentlemen remembered they had to attend to some urgent business in Russia and left for Moscow in a huff. Since then they have maintained Trappist-like silence on the matter, flatly refusing to testify either by video link or especially in person.

In its turn, Vlad’s government turned down every British request for extradition, no matter how politely phrased.

Just in case, the key suspect Andrei Lugovoi was hastily elected into Russia’s parliament, the Duma.

It has to be said mournfully that some Russophobes suggest with their characteristic malice that providing parliamentary immunity for criminals is the Duma’s main, not to say sole, function. They point out that its legislative activity boils down to rubber-stamping Putin’s diktats.

All I can reply to those naysayers is a resounding ‘so what?’. Putin is Russia, is he not? And isn’t it the job of Russia’s parliament to do what Russia wants? Of course it is. That’s what democracy is all about.

Because the key suspects have been unavailable for questioning, the inquiry into the death of Litvinenko has proceeded in stops and starts, with nothing much to establish beyond the obvious fact that he was poisoned with polonium-210, which experts maintain can only be obtained in such quantities from a government installation.

All this changed dramatically the other day. Dmitri Kovtun, the other suspect, has called a press conference in Moscow. There he explained what happened to his unfortunate ex-colleague, shedding blinding light on the case.

Reading his revelations I felt like an intellectually challenged Scotland Yard inspector put to shame by Sherlock Holmes’s brilliance. Why didn’t I think of that, I moaned, tearing what’s left of my hair out.

Like so many discoveries of genius, Mr Kovtun’s version of the incident is deceptively simple, self-evident even. But detecting self-evident explanations that escape others is what genius is, isn’t it?

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. Litvinenko’s death, revealed Mr Kovtun, was suicide. It may have been deliberate or accidental, but suicide none the less.

Either possibility makes sense, if we discount as a venomous lie any suggestion that a man of Putin’s angelic character could have ordered such a heinous act.

Mr Kovtun was marginally more in favour of the accident hypothesis, and he made a believer out of me.

Apparently, Litvinenko always carried large amounts of polonium on his person, constantly coming into contact with the poisonous substance. It’s also possible that he habitually put some of the isotope into his tea, preferring it to such orthodox additives as milk, sugar or lemon.

Can’t you just see it? “Gizza cuppa Rosie, dahlin,” Litvinenko would say to his wife Marina (he had lived in London long enough to pick up the patois). “Milk and sugar, love?” Marina would enquire. “Nah, you dozy cow,” Litvinenko would retort. “Giz some polonium, jahmean?”

A perfectly realistic situation, if you ask me. Yet Mr Kovtun generously offered an alternative version. It’s also possible, he opined, that Litvinenko ingested polonium from ambient air, and we all know how polluted London is.

He didn’t explain why Litvinenko was, and so far remains, the sole victim of the incipient pandemic of polonium poisoning, but then someone has to lead the way. A stroke of bad luck, that’s all.

Mr Kovtun didn’t enlarge on the possibility of deliberate suicide, which is unfortunate because I for one can see a clear motive, especially during this paschal season.

Litvinenko killed himself for the same reason Judas did: repentance. Like the Gospel villain, he had betrayed his God and benefactor, and the unbearable shame of that deed drove him over the edge.

After all, Litvinenko had already published one book libelling Putin (Blowing Up Russia). There he showed that Putin had some Russian blocks of flats blown up as a pretext for starting another Chechen war.

Rumour has it that in his next volume Litvinenko was planning to document Vlad’s personal links with organised crime, ignoring the real, utterly plausible explanations for Vlad’s $40-billion wealth (they escape me for the moment, but I’ll get back to you).

Not only that, but Litvinenko is said to have found documentary evidence for the rumours making the rounds in Russia about the reason for Vlad’s rather sluggish career path in the KGB (I’ll spare you the naughty details).

At some point, Litvinenko must have realised the abysmal depth of his moral fall. Unable to live with his vile deeds, he passed the death sentence on himself and executed it with polonium.

Admittedly, this version of events leaves a few questions unanswered. Such as, where exactly did Litvinenko get polonium? Last time I looked, it wasn’t sold OTC at London pharmacies or DIY shops.

Another question is, why did he choose such an agonising way of killing himself? A gun is much easier to find in London than a radioactive isotope, and wouldn’t it have been easier just to point and shoot?

Still, it’s not Mr Kovtun’s job to provide all the answers. That’s what we have police for. His job was to utter the magic word ‘suicide’.

Suddenly everything clicked into place, leaving but a few i’s to dot and t’s to cross. After all, our investigators have to do something to earn their keep.

Now I wonder if Mr Kovtun would still put forth the suicide version if Litvinenko had been shot in the back a few times? Probably. We all know that truth, especially Putin’s truth, can be stranger than fiction.