Ed West

Didn’t Nick Griffin behave weirdly last night? He sniggered his way through Question Time, perhaps out of nerves; it made him resemble a fat man laughing at a crude joke while stuffing his face full of crisps. (For God’s sake, can’t he cut down on the pies? If there’s anything worse than a racist, surely it’s a fat racist). That’s when he wasn’t shaking his head, denying everything every panelist said about him, while scribbling furiously. At one point I expected him to shake his head and mutter “not true” when someone said his name was Nick Griffin.

I can’t blame Bonnie Greer for laughing with derision when Griffin said the Ku Klux Klan members he had dealings with was “almost entirely non-violent”. It reminding me of an Irish friend of a friend who told a magistrate’s court in Kilburn “that since the incident, your honour, I have given up crime,… Read More

Dumped and despised: skinheads at a BNP fair

Pardon me for not joining in the hysteria about Nick Griffin being on Question Time, but what is everyone worried about? Griffin is only a cry for help from a disenfranchised, despised post-working working class, a group dumped and betrayed by a Labour Party who see them as weaker players in their version of Victim Top Trumps.

The Twitterati – and if you want to see the most stupid collection of things ever written by anyone, ever, type “BNP” into Twitter – and the Guardian miss the issue. Sunny Hundal has a piece here that focuses almost entirely on Griffin’s neo-Nazi past, but that’s beside the point – most of the million or so people who voted for the BNP… Read More

Another reason to abolish all of London’s local councils and make all schools independent of them: two East End councils are to force schools to close for Eid, Diwali and Guru Nanak’s birthday. As the Telegraph reports:
The directive, by Waltham Forest and Newham councils, in east London, even affects schools where few pupils are Muslim, Hindu or Sikh.

After concerns were raised, a review of the policy has been launched in Waltham Forest, with some criticising the closures as inappropriate, unnecessary and “political”.

Headteachers have argued that they should be given discretion in deciding which days to mark, as happens in big multi-ethnic cities including Manchester, Birmingham and Bradford.

Whereas one in six Waltham Forest residents is Muslim, according to the last census, Hindus make up only 1.8 per cent of the borough’s population, and Sikhs only 0.6 per cent. Jews outnumber Sikh… Read More

While the media castigate the “far-Right” Geert Wilders for daring to speak up for fascistic ideas like freedom of speech, gay rights and parliamentary democracy, this event in London seems to cause barely a ripple – the March for Sharia to be held in Trafalgar Square on October 31. As the group Islam4UK says:
Undoubtedly, Islam and the Shari’ah have reached new heights in the United Kingdom, Muslim communities up and down the country have brought forth a culture and system that is not only superior to the British way of life but also a shining example of what true subservience to Almighty God can bring to a society  drowning in disbelief and oppression.

Recent months have been particularly debilitating for the British population who have struggled to get by as basic necessities such as food, clothing… Read More

On Radio 4 yesterday morning there was an alarming report which stated that, while the number of abortions worldwide has decreased in the past decade, unsafe abortions kill an amazing 70,000 women a year. You can find the Radio 4 link on their website but this is from the news site:
Restricting the availability of legal abortion does not appear to reduce the number of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies, a major report suggests.

The Guttmacher Institute’s survey found abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is legal and regions where it is highly restricted.

Every year, an estimated 70,000 women die as a result of unsafe abortions – leaving nearly a quarter of a million children without a mother – and 5m develop complications.

In the developed world, legal restrictions did not stop abortion but just meant it was “exported”, with Irish women for instance simply… Read More

I gave up using the Tube on an everyday basis years ago – why spend a fiver a day to be crowded onto cattle trucks on an unreliable, knackered-out old line when I could get on my bike and experience the joy that is cycling in London – taxis trying to kill you, buses trying to kill you, other cyclists trying to kill you, etc…

So today’s news that Tube fares will go up by 3.9 per cent won’t affect me as much as these annual announcements once did, nor the news that the loser cruiser will also cost an extra 12.7 per cent.

But it’s still a slap in the face for all of us, and whether it’s Boris’s or Ken’s fault, the fact remains that the British already pay far, far more for transport than other Europeans, on average twice that of our continental cousins – and a Tube ticket… Read More

If Geert Wilders does visit Britain in the  next few days, as is being reported, I hope he takes up Ed Husain’s offer of a public debate.

Husain, the co-director of the pro-liberal democracy Muslim think tank, the Quilliam foundation, has said:

“The Home Office was wrong to try to ban Geert Wilders from the UK given that he has not directly incited violence. We welcome the fact that this key principle of free speech has now been defended by the British courts.

However, it is also vital that Wilders’ undoubtedly bigoted views are firmly challenged and subjected to proper critical scrutiny. No religion is monolithic and Wilders has evidently been convinced by the words and actions of Islamists and jihadists that Islam is inherently violent and intolerant.

“We therefore challenge Geert Wilders to an open debate in which we will argue that Islam i… Read More

The ever-excellent Biased BBC notes that Jo Brand has been explaining the meaning of racism on Radio Five Live:
Jo Brand: My personal opinion is that you can’t be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced about them but being prejudiced isn’t an illegal act whereas being racist can be.

Phil Williams: Don’t you think racism is just being derogatory about a race, regardless of the colour?

Jo Brand: No I don’t. I think the definition of racism also encompasses political power. So you can’t be racist towards a race that’s politically more powerful than a minority. That to me is the correct definition of racism. I think you can be prejudiced towards a group of people who are more powerful than you, but I don’t think you can be racist towards them.
Ignoring the fact that it isn’t illegal to be racist as far a… Read More

It’s being reported that Dutch MP Geert Wilders has won his appeal against being banned from the UK. According to Radio Netherlands:
The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in London has ruled that the British government was wrong to deny populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders entry to the United Kingdom. Mr Wilders planned to show his film Fitna to the British parliament. The government refused to allow him to enter the UK on the grounds that he represented a threat to public order. It is not clear whether the tribunal’s decision means that Mr Wilders is now free to travel to the UK. The British government has not yet reacted to the ruling.
Whether or not one agrees with Wilders’ views on Islam, which make me look like “Koran” Armstrong in comparison, the ban was outrageous. Britain allows all sorts of shady and colourful foreigners to use… Read More

Fear no more, you poor British plebs, your days of fear and misery are over. According to the BBC, Alan Johnson is “to get tough” over anti-social behaviour, the everyday thuggery that makes life in England a depressing experience.

Well, no he’s not. Nothing will happen – he has to pretend to do something, because the public are worried about low-level criminality and they can see that the Crime and Disorder Act, which introduced the Anti-Social Behaviour Order, has failed. More than half of Asbos are breached and most people who breach them are not sent to prison, as they should be. The orders are simply worthless scraps of paper, as effective as a written agreement flourished by Neville Chamberlain.

The thing about Asbos is that they’re extremely authoritarian in theory: someone can go to jail for up to five years without breaking a single… Read More