The Rhymes & Routes Christmas Message 2015

By the time we reach December, it seems as though Christmas has already been around for months. That's because it has: I saw my first Christmas merchandise in September. In 1956, the science fiction writer Frederik Pohl published a short story called “Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus.” It's set in a future when September is the height of the Christmas season, and the shopping frenzy has only another three months to go. On Christmas night, everyone removes all traces of Christmas to prepare for the next selling season, unaware, or perhaps uncaring, of the fact that Christmas Day is meant to be the beginning of the holiday, not the end. It's a tale that seems increasingly prescient as time goes by.

Religious types sometimes complain that all the shopping and partying detracts from what they call the true meaning of Christmas, but even they know that Jesus wasn't really born in December and that his year of birth is variously estimated between 2 BC and 5 BC. It's a bit rich of them to complain about Christmas being hijacked when the early Fathers of the Church themselves decided to claim pagan winter festivals, such as Saturnalia and Yule, as their own. Christians are fully entitled to celebrate at this time of year, but they cannot claim exclusive rights.

This is all by the by. There are nasty elements in our society who can only see this time of year, irrespective of whether it's a time of religious celebration or of parties and materialism, as an opportunity to further their own malicious ends. They surreptitiously spread the message that it is politically incorrect to celebrate Christmas in case it offends people with other religions, and many ordinary people fall into the trap of believing it. We hear stories of Christmas being “banned” by local councils and schools; such tales are almost always a deliberate misinterpretation of the facts, which are usually quite innocent when properly examined.

This is a complete lie

In recent years, we see people posting Christmas pictures, such as nativity scenes, on Facebook with messages stating that Facebook is trying to get such scenes removed because they are offensive, so let's keep posting them to prove them wrong. This is a malicious falsehood without the slightest basis in fact and is a deliberate attempt to make people think that the symbols of their culture and their celebrations are under attack. Why would anyone tell such lies? Because they wish to stir up ill-feeling against religious minorities in this country. They are extreme right-wing racists who aim to get ordinary people unnecessarily worried so that they become unwitting allies by making them think that everything that defines their way of life is under attack. Unfortunately, I've seen too many ordinary decent people fall for this malevolent nonsense.

The truth is entirely different.

Ten years ago, in my capacity of union rep, I visited one of my members at his home in December to discuss his personal case. In the corner of the living room there was what I took to be the family Hindu shrine, and while we were talking, his younger sisters were decorating a Christmas tree, and doing a really good job too: it was all looking very festive. Inspired by the sight of young Hindu girls putting up Christmas decorations, I said to him as I left, “Happy Christmas”, and he replied similarly. No offence intended, or taken.

In 2013, the Muslim Council of Britain produced two cards wishing everyone a HappyChristmas, along with a statement that said: "Who wants to ban Christmas? Not Muslims. So put up the Christmas tree, prepare the roast, wrap the presents and spread the Yuletide joy. None of us will be offended if you go ahead and enjoy the Christmas cheer. We'll remember too the blessings Jesus gave to all of us. He was, after all, an important Prophet to Muslims.”

There you have it: it is not politically incorrect to celebrate Christmas, and no one really minds if you do. Living in a multicultural society doesn't mean anyone has to surrender their own way of life. It simply means we have various different cultures living side by side, and there is absolutely no reason why, with good will, we can't do that in peace and harmony. Surely that is at the heart of the Christmas message.

So whatever your religious beliefs, or if you have none at all, I sincerely wish you a Happy Christmas, however you choose to enjoy it!

RedNev

alias Nev Grundy

OFSTED, Standards and the Pantomime Season

As Christmas approaches, the pantomime season begins. Pantomime was once regarded with scorn by serious actors, but it has grown in esteem among the acting fraternity, and it is now common to see thespian luminaries such as Sir Ian McKellen, Jo Brand, David Hasselhoff and even Anne Widdicombe (she was a Fairy Godmother) tread the boards in productions such as Aladdin, Puss in Boots, Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk. I think it a good idea, then, to continue the trend by casting a pantomime with leading figures from politics and education. No better candidates for pantomime can be found than the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, who has recently been passing comments and judgements on secondary schools in the North West and the Midlands.
In the annual OFSTED report (a sort of round robin Christmas card), the BBC comments:
"... the report highlights concerns about a north-south gap - with stronger GCSE results in London and the South and weaker results in parts of the North and Midlands.
"This gap is a worrying one. We don't want to see a divided country after the age of 11," Sir Michael said.
More than 400,000 pupils in the North and Midlands go to a school that is "less than good", and the Ofsted chief said this could not be "explained away" by higher levels of deprivation.
Primary schools were much more successful than secondary, Sir Michael said, despite facing similar problems of social disadvantage".
Sir Michael, you see, has anticipated the obvious criticism: the fact that many areas in the North and Midlands are areas of severe poverty and social deprivation. This grossly obvious point, please note, is regarded as merely "explaining away" the situation.
Now, in my casting of the OFSTED panto, my initial casting for Sir Michael was as the rear end of a pantomime horse. This is because his apparently logical conclusions are not as accurate as might at first be believed.
Firstly, schools in areas of deprivation tend not to be as well resourced as those in more prosperous areas. I have personal experience of this. As a Religious Education (R.E.) co-ordinator in a Liverpool primary school in the 90s, I was allotted an annual budget of about £50. When I took on the same role in a West London primary school in the noughties, I was allowed nearly a thousand pounds! And, please remember, R.E. is generally regarded as a Cinderella subject in primary schools (no irony intended). Core subjects received much more funding. Resources are vital to all schools in order to help in the delivery of the curriculum, and this is a factor that OFSTED should have accounted for in their report.
Another point missed by Sir Michael and his acolytes is the fact that many secondary schools in deprived areas find it difficult to motivate pupils to work for examination success when they can see no job at the end of it. It may be argued that there are deprived areas in the South, but that does not hold water - in the South, and London especially, there is always the chance of some kind of a job. This is not the case in Skelmersdale, Toxteth or Rotherham.
There is also the fact (ignored by Sir Michael) that teaching is increasingly becoming a good profession to leave. As the BBC article says:
"Head teachers' leader Brian Lightman linked the north-south gap to the "very serious difficulties" that schools faced in recruiting teachers.
Mr Lightman, head of the ASCL head teachers' union, said schools in challenging areas were finding it "incredibly hard" to find teachers in some shortage subjects, particularly affecting schools in some parts of the North...
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said: "More needs to be done to deliver educational excellence everywhere."
Mrs Morgan, significantly, shows no recognition of the obvious problem, and perforce offers no solution to it - the fact that hazards such as classroom violence, OFSTED pressure and a pay freeze are making teaching an unpleasant job, leading to a teacher exodus and grave difficulties in teacher recruitment. Max Fischel, an assistant headteacher, said in a letter to the Guardian:
" Anyone (like me) who has tried to recruit teaching staff over the past couple of years knows there is already a desperate shortage of qualified teachers out there...
Headteachers’ and governors’ relentless pursuit of “outstanding” ratings from Ofsted is a major factor in driving teachers away; pressure on classroom teachers to churn out data which Ofsted will like is not only pointless but anti-education, yet it is the mantra across the country. In the 20-odd years since its invention, Ofsted has cost hundreds of millions, but has done nothing to improve education."
So - where does this leave my OFSTED pantomime? Well, I have chosen Aladdin as a suitable play. The role of Aladdin goes to Mrs Nicky Morgan, Abanazar can be played by Michael Gove, and Sir Michael Wilshaw can be Widow Twankey. The role of Wishy Washy, Aladdin's brother who works devotedly in the laundry without reward or recognition, can go to any ordinary teacher who gets treated in their jobs in exactly the same way. I have yet to cast someone to play the Genie of the Lamp, though. Can anyone suggest a suitable candidate?

Syria, Bombing and Avoiding the Terrorist Trap

I think it fair to say, that if there is one issue that we have heard enough about this week, it's the House of Commons vote to bomb Syria.  Not that it has been uninteresting - far from it. The marathon debate on Tuesday made for riveting viewing, with many good speeches made by proponents of both sides of the argument. There is no point in my revisiting the arguments here, except to express my own view on the vote and its consequences.
For me, the crucial question is: how effective are the RAF bombing attacks going to be? After all, many other countries have been bombing ISIS in Syria for months, and it has not stopped attacks in Tunisia, Paris and, now, San Bernardino, California. Even President Assad has said that the bombing raids have had a nugatory effect on ISIS, who have continued to advance in Syria. There has been much discussion on how to deal ISIS a severe economic blow, and the RAF has joined in the attacks on oil installations with gusto and, I'm sure, with great skill. But knocking out oil production is not as simple as it sounds - especially since ISIS have scattered oil production over a wide area, with many small oil pumps that will be impossible to eliminate.
There is also the risk of alienating civilians. This is so obvious now, that I won't bang on about it too much. All I will say is that ISIS must be looking forward to an influx of new recruits, rather like the IRA experienced after Bloody Sunday in 1972.
The only benefit from the Commons' decision will be to reassure our allies that we will support them if they are attacked - and we can now feel free to ask for their co-operation if we suffer terrorist atrocities. However, as Gerald Kaufman MP said, our bombing runs will be little more than a gesture, as we, the nation that launched 1000-bomber raids against Nazi Germany in WW2, will be providing less than 15 planes. And, as some anti-bombing Tory MPs pointed out, bombing alone, unaccompanied by ground troops, will be largely ineffective.
Reading the above, you might think that I am opposed to the bombing of ISIS in Syria. It will come as a surprise to some people to learn that I am not against bombing ISIS - it is a vile organisation that must be extirpated from the face of the earth. I listened with sympathy to the anti-bombing lobby, but they failed to present a viable alternative strategy. Whether we like it or not, we are at war with ISIS, and we must take decisive action against them. The key word, for me, then, is decisive. I believe that we must assess where bombing has been effective, and that the RAF would be better employed in these areas. There is one area where bombing has been successful, and that is ground support for ground troops - especially the Kurds. With air support, the Kurds have gallantly taken the war to ISIS, recapturing much ground and many villages. I support bombing if it is to be used effectively; had I been an MP on Tuesday, I would have voted for it.
At this point, someone might well be looking at my previous posts about terrorism and terrorist strategy and saying: "Hang on - aren't you falling into the trap of doing what the terrorists want us to do?" Well, no, I'm not. ISIS are counting on indiscriminate bombing in Syria/Iraq and a rise in Islamophobia in Europe and the USA. The former would be a huge blunder and the latter, totally wrong (even though there are worrying signs of an increase here). Nevertheless, ISIS must be destroyed intellectually, strategically and physically, even if we have to make alliances with detestable states and individuals. After all, we've done it before.

UK Bombs Syria? - a Ridiculous Mouse

There is a Latin proverb: "Parturiant montes, nascetur ridiculus mus" - "The mountains are in labour, and a ridiculous mouse will be born". More prosaically put, "Big fuss, small result". No better example of the truth of this can be found than the present controversy over the projected UK bombing of ISIS targets in Syria. Despite argument and counter-argument, the fact remains that UK involvement in this campaign would be very limited; we do not have the aircraft to make more than a token contribution. There also is the fact that such actions are not proving very successful. When France promised retaliation for the hideous Paris atrocities and launched air strikes against ISIS bases, ISIS simply evacuated their bases. They are not going to sit in static positions, waiting for us to bomb them. They have been bombed relentlessly for a long time and still control large swathes of territory. Nor have they been prevented from launching attacks against innocent people in Europe and North Africa.

This is not to say that air strikes have been pointless; they have certainly helped to stop the ISIS advance and supported anti-ISIS offensives, particularly by the gallant Kurds. It does, however, point to the limitations of what can be achieved by air power alone. As a US military adviser said during the Viet-Nam War:
"Trying to win a guerrilla war by aerial bombing is like trying to delouse yourself with a club"
Even in conventional war, it can prove controversial. There is a strange convergence of opinion on the Allied bombing of Germany in WW2. The pacifist Left and neo-Nazi revisionist "historians" howl with condemnation of this offensive, conveniently forgetting the fact that the German Luftwaffe were every bit as merciless wherever their invading forces went. But the ruthlessness of both sides failed in one crucial aim: they did not succeed in destroying the morale of the enemy civilian populations, despite many thousands on both sides being killed. The USA bombed North Viet-Nam for years during the Viet-Nam War, only to fail in the same way. As a North Vietnamese officer said after the war:
“The Americans thought that the more bombs they dropped, the quicker we would fall to our knees and surrender. But the bombs heightened rather than dampened our spirit.”
The fanatics of ISIS are unlikely to be any different, and the killing of innocent non-ISIS civilians could well be counter-productive.
The only way out of this, I think, is to co-ordinate air power with ground offensives. As ISIS has succeeded in alienating all the major nations. It ought to be possible now for united action against ISIS, with or without the deployment of ground troops (special forces are already there). How possible is it? Well, the shooting down of a Russian aircraft by the Turks does not bode well for unity. ISIS must be dancing around in glee.

The Paris Massacres - Triumph Through the Tears?

My mind, like that of every sane person, is still in a state of shock following last Friday's atrocities in Paris. For so long now, I have been commenting upon terrorism, terrorists and their methods. This year alone, we have seen innocents slaughtered in Paris, Tunisia, Egypt and finally Paris again. Yet again, I find myself struggling to analyse the aims and intentions of Jihadi killers - usually fanatics from ISIS. I shall do so again here, as I feel I owe it to the victims of these attacks to try and make some sense of such despicable crimes. So much has been said already in the media, but I shall make an attempt to bring a personal perspective .
I was pleased, if by no means happy, to see a terrorism expert recognise that the Paris attacks are meant as a provocation. He rightly said that ISIS want to bait France into a violent retaliation, either militarily in Syria, or by attacks on the Muslim community in France. This strategy, which I have written about before, is intended to further resentment against French society among already alienated Muslim youth, and thus bring Jihadi groups more recruits.
These crimes are also attacks upon European culture. Isis hate the very idea of people enjoying themselves on beaches, in concerts, restaurants, sports fixtures and concert halls, most of which were viciously assaulted on Friday evening. As Billy Bragg said on Twitter:
"This is an attack on anyone who goes to a bar, to a restaurant, to a gig or a game. Abhorrent."
When David Cameron talks of ISIS being an existential threat to us, this is what he means. Their aim is to create a miserable, joyless existence for all humanity, and they are prepared to inhumanly slaughter innocent people of all ages to do it. They are also prepared to die to bring this about; only one terrorist was shot dead on Friday evening, while the other seven committed suicide. This is because, like Hitler's Einsatzgruppen or Stalin's NKVD, they believed they were doing the right thing. We must not lose sight of that. You cannot change beliefs unless you understand them - especially fanatical beliefs.
These, I believe, are the main aims of ISIS strategy, but there is also the question of their tactics. As has been noted, ISIS are slowly giving ground militarily in Syria and Iraq, and as a tactic, and perhaps also a morale raiser, are launching increasingly bloody attacks on the European mainland. As we have seen, they like "soft" targets, where there is little or no chance of effective resistance. By massacring unarmed civilians, they are baiting European governments, effectively saying:
"See how weak you are. Despite your military muscle, you cannot protect your own citizens from us."
To their (twisted) minds, last Friday in Paris will be a great achievement. For the loss of just eight "martyrs", they have killed 129 "infidels", and wounded hundreds more. They might be losing on one front, but they will seek victory on other "fronts". It is not too far-fetched to say that all of us in Europe are on the front line against terrorism.
One aspect of these crimes puzzled me: how is it possible for terrorists in France to acquire AK-47 rifles so easily? The AK-47 has been a favourite with guerilla and terror groups for some time - the IRA called it "the widowmaker". France, like the UK, has strict gun laws. As Al-Jazeera says:
"In France individuals, except for certified collectors, are prohibited from owning military-class arms. Those hoping to possess a handgun or hunting rifle in France must pass a stringent background check and a mental health evaluation and must obtain a license."
The answer would appear to be: smuggling and the Internet. It is only too easy to move illegal goods and weapons around Europe. I am reliably informed, for example, that it is possible to drive from Brussels to Paris without any customs checks. The source of these weapons appears to be so-called "failed states" and conflict zones. Again, as Al-Jazeera says:
" Weapons left over from wars are also often trafficked across borders, which was the case after the Libyan revolution in 2011. The New York–based nonprofit Foreign Policy Association says that there are millions of weapons from the conflict and there is little regulation by government officials. "
The "dark internet" is also a means to an end of buying illegal guns. But this is not a French problem; it is a European problem, and we must unite to deal with it.
Personally, I see no alternative now other than to eradicate ISIS by all means necessary - even if we have to forge alliances with Russia and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Iran. Even then, we are in for a long, hard battle, and ISIS will fight like cornered rats on steroids. Nonetheless, they must be defeated, despite tragedies like that in Paris on Friday evening. I suppose people will object to this view by pointing out, correctly, that ISIS only came into being because of the invasion of Iraq. That does not preclude action by us now - if we caused the problem, then we should help to solve it.
I don't know if anyone in Paris or France will get to read this blog, but, should they do so, I wish to send my condolences and those of my regular contributors and readers. Our hearts are with you, and we know that the City of Light will be victorious over the forces of darkness. Through your tears, you will triumph. As your national hymn says:
"Aux armes, citoyens !
Formez vos bataillons !
Marchons ! Marchons !
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons !"

Gaffes, Netanyahu and the Duke of Edinburgh

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has recently made one of the hugest gaffes imaginable. As everyone knows, he recently told the World Zionist Congress that Hitler did not want to exterminate the Jews of Europe; he wanted to deport them, but was talked into the Holocaust by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, has a reputation for gross tactlessness. Here are two of his classic gaffes, taken from a Daily Telegraph article:
""If it doesn't fart or eat hay then she isn't interested"- speaking about his daughter, Princess Anne.
"Can you tell the difference between them?"- The Duke's question after President Barack Obama said he met with the leaders of the UK, China and Russia. "
We can laugh at gaffes such as this, but Netanyahu's blunder has had far more serious consequences. He has been condemned for this statement by just about every one, even within Israel itself. Apparently, he has made this claim before, in 2012, but now appears to have done some further reading on the subject. As today's Haaretz says:
"The argument concerning Husseini's role was recently mentioned in a book by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, "Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East." The authors, like Netanyahu, draw a straight line between the mufti's support of Hitler and the policy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization under Yasser Arafat.
                                                                 
                   But even these two researchers do not claim that the dialogue described by Netanyahu ever took place. They say Hitler reached the conclusion to exterminate the Jews because of his desire to nurture Husseini, who opposed the transfer of Jews to pre-state Israel."
Netanyahu's faux pas has led some to say that he is letting Hitler off the hook by putting the blame on the Grand Mufti; he has also given Israel's opponents some excellent propaganda.
More seriously, I think, is that this blunder appears to be unfair to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and he is a man who deserves no sympathy. The Grand Mufti under discussion here, who met Hitler in WW2, was Mohammed Effendi Amin al-Husseini, (lived 1897 to 1974). Husseini was an active campaigner against the British pre-war mandate in Palestine, and a bitter opponent of Jewish immigration. He fled an arrest warrant in 1937, eventually arriving in Nazi Germany. While there, he actually did meet Adolf Hitler and made pro-Nazi propaganda broadcasts. He was known as "The Arabian Lord Haw-Haw", and was paid the equivalent in today's money of 12 million US dollars. He also played a key role in recruiting Bosnian Muslims into the Waffen SS. These units waged war against Yugoslav partisans (and civilians), gaining a grim reputation for atrocities. Some survivors of these units are said to have fought against the new Israeli state in 1948. Some authorities say that the Muslim SS were responsible for the deaths of 90% of all murdered Yugoslav Jews. Husseini eluded capture after the war, dying in Beirut in 1974. It hardly needs to be pointed out that even if he was not responsible for the Holocaust, he was unlikely to have opposed it.
Now, when I have had disagreements with the Pro-Palestinian Lobby (PPL) - my invented term - as distinct from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign - they emphatically maintain that they are anti-Zionist and not anti- Semitic. Any suggestion of similarity with the aims of the far right is met with righteous indignation (or is it self-righteous?). I accept this, and know that most PPL people are sincere in their beliefs, but, like it or not, there are anti-Semites in the PPL. Searchlight magazine has documented Neo-Nazis among Palestinian demonstrators in the UK, and even anti-Zionist Jews have been attacked by the far right on Gaza demos in Germany. This is not confined to neo-Nazi infiltrators, either. There are many PPL members (for want of a better word) who conceal their anti-Semitism. Occasionally, however, they let their mask slip, and I have experience of this. Pro-Palestinians often appear on my Facebook page, making swingeing attacks on Israel - and I never make any comment. But on one occasion, I did. Someone with an Arabic name made the comment "Crazy Jews". I was angered by this. Had he said "Israelis" or "Zionists", I would have said nothing. This time, I spoke out against it, to be answered by the comment: "Once a shithead, always a shithead". I congratulated this man with an Arabic name on his self-knowledge, and told him to take his self-analysis elsewhere.
To be fair, another PPL person did correct the Arabic man, suggesting that his unguarded utterance should be modified to "Crazy Zionists". This brings me back to the issue of gaffes - PPL members with Arabic names make them, the Israeli PM makes them and the Duke of Edinburgh makes them. Well, it's nice to know they have something in common.

Crime in Schools and Teacher Exodus - Many Causes and the Same Effect

I think we would agree that not all daytime television programmes are stimulating and informative (try watching the Jeremy Kyle programme). One honourable exception is the Victoria Derbyshire programme on BBC 2. One reporter working for the programme, Nicola Beckford, recently investigated the extent of crime in schools, both primary and secondary. 
The statistics that she received from 32 police forces make grim reading. The horrific murder of Anne Maguire does not appear to be so out of the ordinary as might be expected; in fact, it is a wonder that there have not been even more deaths of teachers, teaching assistants and pupils. As the BBC say:
"A total of 30,394 crimes were reported place at primary schools, secondary schools and further education establishments - excluding universities - in 2014, according to the data of 32 forces. In 2013, there were 28,444 crime reports.
Theft, burglary or robbery was the most common offence, with 13,003 incidents reported. There were 9,319 reports of violent crime, 4,106 reports of criminal damage or arson, and 754 reported drugs offences."
 So, although no-one is claiming that UK schools are danger zones, there is an increase of criminal behaviour that should be of deep concern to all of us. And, please remember, not all police forces revealed school crime statistics to the programme, which means that the true figure of school crime will be considerably higher.
Yet even these statistics are inadequate - as a retired teacher with more than 30 years experience, I can attest that there will be many more crimes committed in schools which never get reported as such. This happens for two reasons: firstly, the naïve and sentimental belief in childhood innocence that persists, despite the Mary Bell, James Bulger and Anne Maguire murders. Secondly, the fact that some Heads (not all) are reluctant to take appropriate action against violent and disruptive pupils because they believe it reflects badly on the school (and on them!). OFSTED, of which I have written many times before, takes a dim view of pupil exclusions for the same reasons.
Can I prove this? Well, yes, I can, but, as I do not have Parliamentary Privilege like  Tom Watson and other MPs, I must be circumspect in my revelations. Nevertheless, I know of many examples of Head teacher inaction, of which I offer a few here, taken from several decades:
1. In the 1970s, I knew of a London teacher who was attacked in the street by an irate parent, following a playground incident in school. The Head of the school threatened to give the teacher poor references if she prosecuted the parent, as it would besmirch the good name of the school.
2. In the 1980s, I knew of an incident at a primary school where a secondary school boy, the son of a parent governor at the same primary school, walked into a Year 6 class, attacked a pupil, then calmly walked out. Again, the Head took no action. The police were not informed, despite this clearly being a criminal assault.
3. In the "noughties", I  was told of a very small minority of pupils at one school who repeatedly abused, threatened and, occasionally, struck teachers and teaching assistants (other pupils suffered far worse). The Head took no decisive action against them because the school was in Special Measures, and any permanent exclusions (i.e. expulsions) would hinder the school's getting out of said Measures. Yet again, the school's reputation was regarded as being of more importance than the welfare of pupils and staff. In fact, the Head, on one occasion, refused to take action against a violent parent who had damaged school property because of the risk of adverse personal publicity.
I am well aware that other teachers, reading this, will know of far worse incidents, but I wanted to illustrate how Head teacher indifference/callousness/cowardice, call it what you will, has been a common factor in school crime for a great number of years. An extreme example of this can be found on the BBC page above, in the harrowing case of the ex-teacher Ian Corcoran, who was repeatedly and viciously attacked by a violent pupil over a lengthy period - again, no action was taken in his school by the powers-that-be to deal with this pupil.
I believe that if we are to tackle this problem, the attitude of the educational establishment must change drastically. In the USA, when a school gets into difficulties, the troubleshooting school principals always expel troublemakers, sometimes in scores - and are applauded for it. Zero tolerance, I am convinced, is the only way to deal with growing crime in UK schools. This is especially the case in primary schools, where troublesome pupils are treated with kid gloves in a number of ways. These children then go on to secondary school, where they are treated very differently. I know of many cases where such pupils continue with their antics when they arrive at secondary school, only to be summarily excluded.
It hardly needs to be said that facing violence, with no support from gutless Heads, is one reason for teachers leaving the profession. There are many others, as Michael Rosen has set out on his blog. To save clicking on a link, I provide them here (Thanks, Michael):

Tips for govt: how to guarantee teacher shortage

On the Guardian thread about teacher shortages and how they could possibly have come about, I posted some government policies to keep teaching recruitment and retention down:




1. Encourage the press to run stories saying that teachers are lazy and that there are thousands of bad ones.

2. Get the head of Ofsted to say the same.

3. Keep this up for decades. (both main parties)

4. Bring in hundreds of measuring and assessment systems, levels, targets, tests, exams, which then breed more 'rehearsal' tests and exams.

5. Bring in a punitive, rapid, unsupportive inspection system which ignores the fact that scores are attached to children so that if you're in a school where there has been turnover the inspectorate say that has nothing to do with us.

6. Run a new kind of school where the salaries of management are not open to public scrutiny.

7. Allow interest groups to open schools which take on proportionally fewer SEN, EAL and FSM pupils than nearby LA schools.

8 Allow covert selection and exclusion process to take place around these new kinds of schools because the LA schools have to pick up the pieces.

9. Use international data as if it is holy writ and ignore evidence that suggests that comparing countries does not compare like with like, that some countries which are 'top' are selecting. Obscure the differences between the countries by only talking about 'places' in the table, without ever making clear whether these differences are 'significant' or not.

10. Use China as an example of utopia in education without making a comparison between the two societies - as if education exists separately from the societies that produce the respective education systems.

11. Make sure that very nearly all the people running the state education system from government have no, or very little, state education experience themselves."

 That is very well said, but it omits the risk of day-to-day indiscipline and, as seen above, violence. Now, we may wonder why the government are not acting to deal with this worsening situation. Just how much worse can be found in a Guardian article of March 31:

"Almost four out of 10 teachers quit within a year of qualifying, with 11,000 leaving the profession before they have really begun their career and record numbers of those who remain giving up mid-career, according to analysis of government figures.
The exodus of new recruits has almost tripled in six years, resulting in a crisis in teacher supply in a profession that has become “incompatible with normal life”, according to Mary Bousted, the general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers."

Unfortunately for teachers, this Tory government has one powerful factor working in its favour: The Recession. As job opportunities are restricted for graduates, many train as teachers. There are so many that it matters not how many teachers leave the profession, there is a ready supply of newly qualified teachers to replace them. Roll on the end of the recession?

Jeremy Corbyn and a Question for the Political Parties

Well, Jeremy Corbyn seems to be settling very well into his new role as Labour leader, despite the vitriolic and downright scurrilous attacks upon him, which have ranged from describing him as a security risk, to astonishing
ad hominem assaults in print, which have focussed upon his personal life. To his credit, Corbyn has weathered this somewhat hysterical campaign against him with commendable aplomb.His conduct in Parliament and at the Labour Party Conference has been measured and well balanced. All this is to his credit.
As a committed Labour voter, I cannot remember one Labour Party leader with whom I have been in complete agreement in all the years I have been eligible to vote. Corbyn has a number of policies which I support, and some that I don't. I am in complete agreement with him over the need to combat austerity, re-nationalise the railways and protect our welfare state - especially the NHS. I am also glad that, unlike the other parties, he recognises the importance of the Arts in our cultural life.
I part company with him over his apparent links to Hamas and Hezbollah via the Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Stop the War Coalition, both organisations with which he is in close contact. Nor do I agree with his view that we should restrict (or abandon) military activities against ISIS. But - as I said, I have disagreed with Labour leaders in the past. None of these disagreements stopped me voting Labour then, and I shall vote Labour in the future.
Of course, we need to keep a sense of proportion here. We still have a Tory government which, prior to Corbyn's victory, was gloating at the prospect of an unelectable Labour leader who they could rout in the Commons and at Election time. The disgusting character assassinations made against Corbyn in the right-wing press though, seem to point to a change of mind. Perhaps they have suddenly recognised that Corbyn has been able to mobilise more popular support than they expected? As the International Business Times said:
"Tens of thousands of people have joined Labour after Jeremy Corbyn won almost 60% of the vote in the party's leadership contest on the back of a left-wing surge in support. The party has claimed now more than 352,000 people are full members of the reds after more than 40,000 people signed up on the back of the Islington North MP's victory on 12 September."
And this, surely, is the main achievement of Jeremy Corbyn: the fact that he has drawn in thousands of new supporters for his party. Some, undoubtedly, are ultra-left "entrists", but the majority, I am convinced, are sincere young people with ideals - in other words, the very kind of people who felt there was no future for them in organised politics. Full marks to Corbyn for that, and for making David Cameron jealous. As "The Spectator" said in 2013:
"134,000. That’s how many members the Conservative Party now has, according to Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome. Despite months of campaigning from the site, the only figure Conservative HQ would release is that 253,600 people voted for David Cameron as leader in 2005. Today’s number means that membership has nearly halved throughout Cameron’s eight-year term as party leader."
So, it looks as if Corbyn is set for a honeymoon period as Labour Leader - for how long, no-one can say. His problems with the right-wing press will doubtless continue, although I foresee problems with the minority of "ultras" who have slipped into the party, despite efforts to screen them out. They will doubtless create problems if Corbyn is seen to be compromising (as he will have to) on some issues ("No sell-out!"... I can hear it now). The pro-Palestinian elements might seek for a stronger stance on Gaza, etc, perhaps even calling for all pro-Israeli Labour Party members and MPs, such as the Labour Friends of Israel, to be expelled. If Corbyn does not meet their expectations, "No sell-out!" will ring out loud and clear. If he compromises on Rail renationalisation, I'll be displeased - but I'll just write a letter of disapproval.
 All this is for the future. I conclude with the question alluded to in the title. I would like to ask the Conservatives, LibDems and New Labourites (SNP, Plaids and Greens are exempt): "If Jeremy Corbyn is able to interest and involve young, idealistic people in mainstream politics, what are YOU doing wrong?"

ISIS and the Khmer Rouge - Hooray for "Our Side"

A friend of mine recently posted, on Facebook, an article from the Independent by Robert Fisk - one of the greatest journalists writing today. The thrust of the article (click on the link for the full text) is criticism of our western belief that Right is on our side, and will always triumph over all manifestations of Evil, which in this case is ISIS. He says: "Isis is evil. It massacres its opponents, slaughters civilians, beheads the innocent, rapes children and enslaves women. It is “apocalyptic”, according to the Americans, and therefore it is doomed. Better still, Ash Carter – the US Secretary of Defence who accused the Iraqis of running away from Isis – lectured the Iraqi Prime Minister last week. His message – I could hardly believe this naivety – was Hollywood-clear. “Civilisation always wins over barbarism".
Fisk next proceeds to point out, correctly, that while Hitler (bad guy) was defeated, it was only with the help of the USSR under Stalin (bad guy who became a good guy and then a bad guy again). Evil (or barbarism) is not always eliminated and, like the USSR, can reign unchallenged and undefeated for many years. He also points out that barbarism/evil is not always the province of one side: "The Romans kept “barbarism” at bay for almost a thousand years, but in the end the Goths, Ostrogoths and Visigoths – the Isis of their time – won. Unless you were opposed to Rome, in which case Roman barbarism – crucifixion, slavery, torture, massacre (the whole Isis gamut minus the videotapes) – was victorious for almost a thousand years."
Fisk then goes on to predict that, eventually, the West will come to terms with ISIS and seek to do deals with "moderate" elements among them. Fisk, again, concludes: " Then we’ll have a new, liberal Isis – people we can do business with, the sort of chaps we can get along with, sins forgotten – and we can then establish relations with them as cosy as those the Americans maintained with Hitler’s murderous rocket scientists after “civilisation” conquered “barbarism” in the Second World War".
The chilling aspect of this is that such compromises have been reached before. As another great journalist, John Pilger, has said: "As a witness to the human consequences of aerial savagery - including the beheading of victims, their parts festooning trees and fields - I am not surprised by the disregard of memory and history, yet again. A telling example is the rise to power of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, who had much in common with today's Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They, too, were ruthless medievalists who began as a small sect. They, too, were the product of an American-made apocalypse, this time in Asia."
Pilger speaks with authority, as he was one of the first journalists to enter Cambodia, following the defeat of the Khmer Rouge by the Vietnamese Army (Guess whose bad guys they were!) in 1979. I well remember his impassioned film about the sufferings of Cambodia at that time. You can watch it here. I also remember his later articles and films, which detailed the not-so-covert help given to the Khmer Rouge (KR) by Western governments and China, after the KR established themselves in bases across the Thai border, in order to exert military and terroristic pressure upon the bête noir of the US and Western Right - Viet-Nam.  Margaret Thatcher's government was an enthusiastic supporter of this strategy, even sending in SAS teams to pass on their combat skills to Pol Pot's murderous merry men. Pilger again:
"I reported this at the time, and more than 16,000 people wrote to Thatcher in protest. "I confirm," she replied to opposition leader Neil Kinnock, "that there is no British government involvement of any kind in training, equipping or co-operating with the Khmer Rouge or those allied to them." The lie was breathtaking. In 1991, the government of John Major admitted to parliament that the SAS had indeed trained the "coalition".  "We liked the British," a Khmer Rouge fighter later told me. "They were very good at teaching us to set booby traps. Unsuspecting people, like children in paddy fields, were the main victims."
Admirers of the late Mrs T did not mention this in their obituaries. To cut short a long and sordid story, the Khmer Rouge have been rehabilitated to a large extent, despite having been responsible for the deaths of up to two million people - ISIS must be jealous. There have been token war crimes trials, but many "moderate" ex - KR walk free. All of which goes to show one thing - that even the most evil murderers can be forgiven - provided they are our murderers.
My thanks are due to two fine journalists, both of whom have spoken out fearlessly for the truth over the past few decades. I find it impossible to refute Pilger's assertion that the US bombing of Cambodia led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, as well as the (surely obvious?) fact that the invasion of Iraq was the main cause for the rise of ISIS and Jihadism in general. However, there is one major difference between ISIS and the Khmer Rouge, and that is the avowed mission of the former to spread their terror abroad. We face a choice: do we go on to confront ISIS militarily (risky) or, as Pilger and Fisk suggest,do we do business with them (dishonourable)? A referendum is unlikely.

Anti-Abortion Violence - is it Christian Terrorism?

An anti-abortion activist, proclaiming that abortion is a crime against the unborn, i.e. murder.

Looking through my Amnesty International traffic the other day, I noticed a report that anti-abortion campaigners had forced the closure of an abortion clinic in the UK for the first time. When I tried to find the name of the clinic mentioned, I found that the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) were not disclosing the name or location of the clinic. I found this curious, so I checked the website of Abort67, one of the most militant anti-abortion movements in the UK. After gagging with horror at some of the images on their website, I looked at their "News" section of July 21. They say:

"It was announced on the British Pregnancy Advisory service (Bpas) website that an abortion clinic is to close "as a direct result of protest activity". According to an article on politics.co.uk, the clinic is Blackfriars Medical Practice, where anti-abortion group, Abort67, have been staging peaceful ‘public education displays’ weekly since October 2014, days before the BPAS clinic opened there. However, BPAS deny that this clinic is to close, despite making available private notes from the GP management to the journalist who claimed closure. Both BPAS and Marie Stopes deny that it is one of their clinics closing, yet BPAS refuses to make public which clinic is closing, despite using this information to gain support from MPs in an EDM tabled by Dianne Abbott."
Do I detect a slightly gloating note here? Perhaps not, but they go on to say that they are concerned about a possible threat to their freedom to protest peacefully outside abortion clinics. Ruth Rawlins, of Abort67, says:
"BPAS is a business which promotes abortion but it does not give women the full facts about the consequences of killing their babies and our peaceful display outside clinics are intended to give expectant mothers a clear understanding of the horrific nature of abortion – the destruction of human life - so they can make an informed choice...Our volunteers hand out leaflets and have conversations with passers-by. No one is pressed to engage with us and no one is obstructed from entering the abortion clinic. We simply present educational displays outside clinics to show women the results of abortion procedures.”
I do not wish to enter the discussion about the rights and wrongs of abortion itself - that goes on all the time. What concerns me is the fact that protest groups like Abort67 will see an abortion clinic's closure as a victory, and will try to close down more. To be fair to anti-abortion groups in the UK, they do seek to remain within the law (so far). Abroad, however, some elements of the anti-abortion movement have been much less restrained.
In the USA, there have been eight murders of abortion clinic staff, seven of which took place in the 90s. The victims included four doctors, two clinic employees, a security guard, and a clinic escort. The most recent of these murders happened on May 31, 2009, when Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder as Tiller served as an usher at a church in Wichita, Kansas.
Besides these murders, there have been 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings and over 100 assaults on abortion clinic staff since 1977. Attacks of this nature have also occurred in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Again, in the USA, there is even an underground anti-abortion terror group known as "The Army of God". We can only hope that the tentacles of this organisation do not spread over here.
The remarkable fact about the perpetrators of these acts is that they consider themselves to be Christians. Now, I am not suggesting for a minute that all Christians who oppose abortion are terrorists; every Christian I know who believes in the sanctity of life (which is all of them) would totally condemn these crimes. So then, no, I do not believe anti - abortion violence is Christian Terrorism; it is the province of a small, bigoted minority. In which case, then, should we not stop talking about "Muslim Terrorism", when only a minority of Muslims - aka Jihadi militants- carry it out?

Scott Roeder, anti-abortion activist who saw no crime in committing the murder of an adult.

Heathrow and a Sense of Insecurity

On Saturday evening (11th July), I went to meet my wife off an inbound flight from Europe at Terminal Five, Heathrow. As her plane was delayed, I sat with a cup of coffee in the Arrivals section branch of Costa, reading a magazine. At about 19.25,I turned to find an unattended green suitcase behind me. After recovering from my surprise, I told a cleaner that this was not my bag. The cleaner mentioned it to the staff behind the counter, who said that it was "probably" the property of someone in the queue. No attempt was made to ask the people in the queue. More interest was shown by a taxi driver waiting for a fare from an inbound flight. I finished my coffee, and went to the barrier to see if my wife had arrived. I turned around to see the taxi driver shaking his head in disbelief. The bag had not been collected, and there was a fresh set of customers in the queue. It was now about 19.35, so the taxi driver and I spoke to a female BA flight attendant, who questioned the café staff about the bag. Incredibly, they gave her the same story - it "probably" belonged to someone in the customer queue. I pointed out that this was a completely new set of customers and the same unlikely explanation had been given to me 10 minutes before. The flight attendant promised to report the matter at once. At about 19.50, an embarrassed looking passenger appeared and took the bag away (he'd forgotten it). I did not see him, but the taxi driver sent the passenger on his way with a well-deserved flea in his ear. No-one from airport security came to investigate.
 What do the posters say? "If you find an unattended bag, report it at once"? Well, reported it was, but none of the staff I encountered seemed to take it seriously. I suppose it could be argued that this whole episode took "only" half an hour, but it was a long half hour. Besides which, it only takes a second for a bomb to explode. It could also be said that everything turned out all right in the end, but it could just as easily have turned out badly. At a time when the risk of a terrorist attack on the UK is rated as "severe", when British families are mourning the loss of loved ones murdered in Tunisia and on 7/7, when ISIS fanatics boast to the "Mail on Sunday" of Jihadi terrorists in the UK itching to launch attacks, there is no room for complacency.
With hindsight, I have to admit that I could have done more. I have since complained online to Heathrow authorities, and await their response. However, I realise that I should have made a lot more fuss about that unattended suitcase than I did. If it happens again, I know what to do. So do all of us - the next unattended bag you see might not be so harmless.

A Poem for 7/7

I have to declare from the outset that I have previously posted this poem below (7th May, 2011). With the 10th anniversary of 7/7 upon us, and given the recent atrocity in Tunisia, I believe my words of July, 2005, to be as appropriate now as they were then. The memory of the day after the attack remains fresh in my mind; equally fresh is the pain and grief of the relatives of those who were killed, maimed and traumatised. For all those murdered, injured and maimed in mind and body by the bomb attacks in London on 7/7, I post this poem yet again:

ON ALPERTON STATION

(July 8^th, 2005)

I stood on Alperton Station,

“Uncertain and afraid”

Of sudden, unseen terror –

My train was undelayed.

I left the silent platform

To start my working day,

When, on the darkened staircase,

A young girl barred my way.

She shimmered like the summer dawn.

“Please stay, my friend”, she said.

Her face was bright with metal shards

That garlanded her head.

“For you still have the working day,

The breakfast and the train,

The coffee break, the journey home

That I won’t make again.

My laughter lit the London skies;

I loved, and I was loved.

I filled a hole in many hearts

Till Hate had me removed.

If you’re in town at Christmas –

A time that I won’t see –

Please find my favourite wine bar

And raise one glass for me”.

Before I spoke – she vanished.

I slumped against a wall,

Shivered like a windblown leaf

And hoped I’d dreamed it all.

I walked from Alperton Station

And wondered what was real –

So glad for hands that trembled,

So glad for nerves that feel.

ISIS, Tunisia and Very Simple Logic

Among the 38 innocent victims of last Friday's massacre in Sousse, Tunisia, were a recently retired Scottish couple, Jim and Ann McQuire. On the BBC list of victims today, it reads:
Mr McQuire had been due to attend a royal garden party at Edinburgh on his return from Tunisia.
His friend Andrew Eadie, who was preparing to attend the event with him, said: "I can't make sense of it, I just can't understand the logic of what they have done."
With all due respect to Mr Eadie, whose feelings are quite understandable, and although I share the shock that all of us are feeling in the aftermath of this horrible atrocity, I'm afraid that there is a logic behind what happened. It is sickening, brutal and inhuman, but logic nonetheless.
ISIS might be monsters, but they are calculating monsters; very few of their outrages are committed without some underlying rationale. In the case of last Friday's slaughter, I believe I can discern some purposes for this action. This is not to deny that Seifeddine Rezgui derived sadistic pleasure from his monstrous actions; I am sure he did. However, I think that ISIS had their wider evil eye on the economic harm they could do by mass killing and, at the same time, were seeking to send a message to us, the people of Britain. And they will be drawing their own sinister conclusions from last Friday's events...
But let's talk about that later. 15.2% of Tunisia's GDP comes from Tourism, providing 473 000 jobs.  ISIS must have been counting on the adverse effect to the Tunisian economy that would result from terrorist activity, and we are seeing this happen already. Apart from a hardy minority, most tourists are leaving Tunisia as fast as they can. ISIS will be banking upon an increase in jobless, disaffected young people, many of whom will become sympathetic to ISIS. Besides this, Tunisia has shown signs of drawing closer to the West, and the jihadis do not like that. We can only hope that tourism recovers quickly in Tunisia.
Next, I believe that ISIS have their eye upon the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, and staged this attack by way of sending us - the people of Britain - a message. I am taking liberties here (as do ISIS, but in a more deadly way), but it seems to me that they are saying:
"Happy Anniversary! 10 years ago, we Jihadis showed you that we could kill you in the safety of your own capital city. Now, despite all the military might and resources you have, and despite all you throw at us, we can still kill you in large numbers where you think you are safe. You are safe nowhere".
It is up to us now to respond to that "message", and ask ourselves if we are going to be intimidated. Until ISIS is defeated, we will have to revive the spirit of the Blitz and carry on regardless. If we give in to ISIS on anything, the more they will attack.
And they have promised more attacks. As I said, they are a calculating organisation, and will be drawing their own conclusions about last Friday's atrocity. They will be doing some simple mathematics. For the loss of one man and one captured AK-47, they have traumatised Britain by the slaughter of 30 of our citizens (and eight other people from five different countries), dealing a massive blow to the Tunisian economy. They must be very pleased with their "result". What will make them even happier is that they claim to have infiltrated 4000 operatives into Europe. Now, if that is correct, and if every one of those infiltrators accounts for as many Europeans as Rezgui, that means the deaths of 152 000 people. That almost certainly won't happen, but I believe that ISIS are thinking this way. They have shown us they are capable of such things; they have cauterised consciences, impervious to normal human considerations. Lest we forget this, and if the Tunisian beach massacre was insufficient evidence of ISIS depravity, I refer you to an article in yesterday's Independent which quotes the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights as saying:
"– in an audit of the year since the declaration of the ‘caliphate’ – that Isis had executed 3,000 people in the past 12 months, 1,800 of them civilians, 86 of them women and 74 of them children."
 I never thought that I would share the opinion of David Cameron on anything, but I think him correct when he describes ISIS as an existential threat. Even if ISIS cannot destroy Britain as a nation, they will certainly be hoping to end the existence of as many of us as possible.
The only "positive" aspect of the massacre is the way ordinary Tunisians responded to the attack by sheltering fleeing European tourists, saving many lives. Some even tried to help by stoning Rezgui, and it was a Tunisian policeman who ended Rezgui's killing spree. If any further proof was needed that ordinary Muslims do not support Jihadi terrorism, then we have it now.

Narrow Thoughts on a Deep Issue

Having tried reviewing films, I'd like to try reviewing a novel - and a Man Booker Prize winning novel at that. For Christmas, a friend gave me a copy of "The Narrow Road to the Deep North", by the Australian writer, Richard Flanagan. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2014, impressing the judges greatly: "...this year a masterpiece has won it" (A. C. Grayling, Chair of judges).  I was prepared to be sceptical after reading that, but I need not have been. The book is a fascinating account of an Australian doctor, Dorrigo Evans, who is captured after the fall of Singapore in 1942, and becomes a hero to the Australian public after the end of the war because of the care he gives to his patients and fellow prisoners on the infamous "Death Railway" in Burma, on which so many POWs laboured, suffered and died under a brutal Japanese prison regime. Flanagan's own father was a survivor of this protracted atrocity.  Arifa Akbar commented in "The Independent":
"The anguish that Flanagan felt over the PoW experience, and the need for emotional catharsis, was not solely rooted in his father's trauma. (His father in a tragic twist of fate, died aged 98, on the day the novel was completed). Flanagan also drew on his own anguish: "I felt I carried something within me as a consequence of growing up as a child of the death railway. People come back from cosmic trauma but the wound does not end with them. It passes on to others."
Reading the sections of the book that deal with Dorrigo Evans' horrific experiences in Japanese captivity, I was struck by their vividness and capacity to shock, even after having spent decades reading of War and its attendant evils. This shows that Flanagan listened long and attentively to his father and other survivors of Japanese captivity. In fact, these sections of the book bear a strong resemblance to a book by another Australian author, Russell Braddon - "The Naked Island". Braddon, like Flanagan's father and Dorrigo Evans, was captured at Singapore and endured the same treatment from the Japanese. At times, I thought I was reading the same book. Susan Lever, in the "Sydney Review of Books" notes of Flanagan's book:
"Evans’s memories are triggered by the task of writing the foreword for a collection of sketches done by Guy ‘Rabbit’ Hendricks, one of the men who died in the camps."
I wonder if Flanagan had Braddon's book in mind when he invented this character, as the cartoonist Ronald Searle was a fellow-prisoner with Braddon on the Death Railway and, after liberation, published a book of sketches about "life" in Japanese captivity. Searle, unlike Hendricks, survived.
Dorrigo Evans conducts himself heroically in the camps, treating his patients with care, skill and pitifully inadequate resources, doing his best to provide comfort for the surviving and the dying (of whom there are plenty). No wonder post-war Australia treats him as a hero.
Evans, however, is not without his faults. Before going to war, he has a passionate affair with his uncle's wife, and hundreds more adulterous affairs after he becomes famous. Flanagan is moralising here, consciously or otherwise. At least, he is telling us that light and shade exist in all people, and that good men can serve bad causes and vice versa.
He further exemplifies this by his portrayal of his Japanese and Korean guard characters, and their fates after the war. Akbar again:
"Flanagan's book does not just trace Dorrigo's inner world, but gives his Japanese "torturers" and camp commanders a voice, and a subjectivity, that incorporates humanity and tenderness, rather than a black-and-white evil."
Flanagan also points towards the post-war readiness of Allied commanders to forgive and forget some hideous Japanese atrocities, which rival any Nazi atrocities for sheer horror - the vivisection of living American airmen without anaesthetic at Kyushu University.  As Sato, one of these criminals, says in the book:
"...neither our government nor the Americans want to dig up the past. The Americans are interested in our biological warfare work; it helps them prepare for war against the Soviets".
Flanagan even visited the commander of his father's prison camp, describing him as a "gentle, gracious old man". His father too:
""He brought us up not to hate, never to judge. He had no hate [for the Japanese]. What my father took out of the camps was this extraordinary sense that everything is an illusion except for what you are like with other people, and to never think other people are in any way lesser than you."
I find that very noble, and admit that I could not be like that. Nor was this view common among other ex-prisoners of the Japanese after the war. Many, if not most, soldiers of all Allied armies belonging to the nations who fought the Japanese in the front lines felt an enduring, visceral hatred. In his book on the Battle of Kohima, "Road of Bones - The Siege of Kohima 1944", Feargal Keane tells of a British veteran who could not rid himself of his loathing for the Japanese until, years later, as an ordained clergyman, he baptised an Anglo-Japanese baby.
If I have a major criticism of the book, it is that it does seem to tend towards a type of moral relativism of the "We're all as bad as one another" or"There's good and bad in all kinds" type of cliché. This is especially prevalent in "revisionist" historians of World War Two, who like to point out Allied excesses as being "as bad as" those of the Axis powers - all of which is completely wrong. As Herbert Marcuse pointed out in another context: "There is a difference between Red Terror and White Terror". Further - there is a difference between the Allied aerial bombing of Germany and the Holocaust; between the sinking of convoys to Britain and the sinking of U-Boats; between the multitudinous atrocities of the Japanese and the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In fairness to Richard Flanagan, he has not stated the moral relativist case explicitly, but the implication seems to be there.
I realise that this is not a "normal" book review, but the fact remains that, as George Orwell, Mao Zedong and Leon Trotsky said : "All art is propaganda" - and every artist of every medium has a "message". For a more literary type of critique, I point the reader to a review by Michael Hoffman in the London Review of Books. Here is a flavour of it:
"The Narrow Road to the Deep North is the novel in an advanced and showy state of dissolution. It is as though the contemporary novel – like film (4-D, coming soon to a cinema near you), like theatre, like so much else – is in competition with itself, falling over itself to offer you more interiority, more action, more understanding, more vision. But the form, the vessel, is an exploded form; it is basically rubble, fragmentary junk, debris. It’s not even leaky anymore; it can hold nothing"
Happy reading for those who like this kind of thing! Personally, I think it should be sent to "Pseud's Corner" in "Private Eye".
No, "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" is an important and moving book, well worth reading, despite its flaws (or my criticisms).

Heysel 30 years on

A few days ago, I heard a documentary on the BBC World Service commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Heysel Stadium disaster. It was something of a shock to realise how much time had elapsed since I'd watched that terrible event on television, but it also brought back some personal memories.

I'm not much interested in football, but my father was a lifelong fan of Liverpool FC. He'd go to every home match and away game that his job and circumstances permitted, and when his work took him abroad, as it did a lot, he'd listen to crackly commentaries on the short wave radio.

In 1985, he was seriously ill, but was still looking forward to watching the European Cup Final between Juventus and Liverpool. My mother and I decided to watch the match with him. The horrendous events began to unfold before our eyes: bodies being carried away on makeshift stretchers, a Juventus fan brandishing a pistol, crowds swirling and hostile fans facing each other, or fleeing from each other. Watching it on the TV, I found it impossible to work out who was to blame.

As the situation went from bad to worse, sports commentators found themselves having to report and comment on something way outside their field of expertise. They came out with all the insights and clichés you'd expect from an opinionated pub bore. Asked what they thought should be done, one replied that we should bring back corporal punishment, another said national service. Some felt more aggressive methods of crowd control should be brought in to deal with the 70s and 80s scourge of football hooliganism. All to a man condemned Liverpool fans out of hand. When a group of Juventus fans displayed a large banner stating "Liverpool animals", one said something to the effect that they were showing what they thought of the behaviour of the Liverpool fans. It occurred to none of them that you cannot conjure up such a banner out of nothing: it must have been prepared before the match with the aim of being provocative. None of them at the time ever mentioned the Juventus fan with the pistol whom I had clearly seen on the TV. So intent were they on blaming Liverpool fans that they ignored or failed to notice any fault in the opposing supporters. One even mourned the damage to the "beautiful Heysel stadium".

Then came the most extraordinary event of the whole night: UEFA ordered the teams to play the game. In a stadium from which they were still removing 39 dead bodies and tending to hundreds of the the injured, they had to play a game of football. I felt it was the most extreme example of getting your priorities wrong that I'd ever witnessed, and I still do. Although disgusted with the decision, I watched the match, willing Liverpool to win for my father's sake, but the final score was 1-0 to Juventus.

It was the last football match my father ever watched, and he died in the following month. I still regret that my father's lifelong support for Liverpool FC should end this way.

Aftermath: for several years, English football fans, Liverpool fans in particular, were pariahs in Europe. Then gradually, it was recognised that the Liverpool fans were not wholly to blame. The "beautiful" stadium turned out to decrepit, two police officers and the head of the Belgian FA were prosecuted as well as 26 Liverpool fans and gradually a slightly more balanced view of the disaster emerged. The selling of tickets in the Liverpool part of the stadium to Juventus fans had been the height of irresponsibility, but oddly enough, in their haste to condemn Liverpool fans, none of our sports commentators had thought it worth mentioning on the night.

Unfortunately, the view of football fans as drunken, out-of-control, feral hooligans led to increasingly oppressive methods of crowd control, and fans being caged in to keep rival supporters apart. And that directly takes us to the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989 where those very cages led to 96 more deaths. Because of the low opinion of football supporters, and so powerful were the voices of the politicians, the police, the football authorities and - the biggest culprit of all - the Sun that the official lies were accepted for years afterwards.

And what were moronic sports journalists saying? I clearly recall reading suggestions that Hillsborough was some kind of retribution for Heysel: I didn't think my opinion of sports commentators could sink any lower, but I was wrong.

I'm still not much interested in football, but I feel strongly about both of these disasters because of the terrible injustices imposed upon ordinary people. Yes, some Liverpool fans behaved disgracefully at Heysel, but many of the deaths were caused by the collapse of walls that were already crumbling. I've seen no evidence that any fan arrived in that stadium with murder in mind. The wholesale vilification of Liverpool fans after Heysel paved the way for the swallowing of the lies told about Hillsborough, which is how one disaster paved the way for the cover-ups and injustices of another. Only now, 26 years later, is the truth - of Hillsborough at least - finally coming out.

A Reflection on the Election

As you might expect, I am not happy at the result of the General Election. I felt a sense of foreboding at Thursday's return of David Cameron and his merry men and women. They have already shown what they intend for the future of this country, and now have the means to do it - despite not having as large a majority as they would have liked. For the worst-off in Britain, a lot of pain is on the way.
But - more of that later. So much has been said and sung about the Election that it is difficult to find anything original to say, but I still think there are areas worthy of comment.
One blindingly obvious aspect to comment upon is the remarkable failure of the pollsters and the pundits to predict the Tory victory. Only a week ago, we were being assured of a minority government. Oh, dear... Nevertheless, they were proven to be only too accurate in their predictions for Scotland. It appears that the polling companies are deeply embarrassed at what happened, and are going to hold their own enquiry into why they got it so wrong. Peter Kellner, the YouGov president says that the public have been deceitful with their voting intentions. He has said that politicians  "should campaign on what they believe, they should not listen to people like me and the figures we produce".
That makes very good sense. Too much sensitivity to opinion polls can lead to vacillation and abandonment of principle, if carried too far. Still, perhaps we should be glad that we are still capable, as an electorate and as people, of surprising our politicians. It shows that winning elections is not simply a matter of manipulating people, but a matter of winning them over by persuasion, argument and sincere conviction.
Another area of interest is the soul searching that is starting to happen in all the other parties except the Conservatives and the SNP. Labour, LibDems, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party and UKIP seem to be settling down to furious internal  investigations and, as we all know, three party leaders have resigned. Well, Plaid Cymru, the Greens and UKIP need look no further than the electoral system itself; if we had PR, these parties would have more MPs. As for the LibDems, now reduced to a rump, the obvious answer to the question: "What went wrong?"was their coalition with the Tories. Their recent decimation was predicted five years ago after their notorious U-turn on tuition fees, but they did not listen. It shows the truth of the old saying: "He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon". In this case, no supping at all would have been the best course of action. It's easy to be right with hindsight, I suppose, but the Lib Dems now face a huge uphill task to restore their electoral fortunes. I hope they do, as some of their ousted MPs were fine workers for their constituencies - and I would never vote LibDem.
As for Labour, the explanations are already being floated. I agree with David Blunkett, who told the Guardian:
 “If we have lost this election, we lost it from 2010 when in the six months from 2010 we failed to nail the lie that the Labour government had been responsible for the global meltdown and everything that happened in the US, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, was the Labour government’s fault.”
He is right - Labour was far too passive in the face of such attacks, and should have refuted this accusation decisively.
But there was another type of attack which, in my opinion, Labour could have used, and the Conservatives certainly did, and that is what Social Europe calls "Negative Campaigning". One early, nasty, example of this happened back in 2013 when the Daily Mail tried smearing Ed Miliband's father by saying Ralph Miliband was a Marxist who hated Britain. This scurrilous article in the Mail, more appropriate to anti-Semitic Nazi newspapers of the 1930s than any British newspaper of any period, only just stopped short of accusing the whole Miliband family of being Jewish Communists.
A less nasty, but equally negative attack by the Tories was their poster campaign warning us of how, essentially, Labour was about to sell out England by going into coalition with the SNP.
Whatever the truth of this, and other accusations, they seem to have had considerable impact, perhaps even influencing some voters to change their voting preference.
I think that Labour should have reacted to the Tory campaign by focussing upon the depredations  that Tory policies have already had upon the lives of ordinary people. The growth in the use of food banks, for example, as well as the rise in homelessness caused by the Bedroom tax and other factors, the use of unqualified teachers in schools, all could have provided material for a very effective "negative" campaign. The implication these things could get worse might have made a significant impact.
Lastly, Mr Cameron and his party might not be smirking for long. As "Spiked" has commented:
"Yet what does the Tory victory amount to? The party has increased its share of the vote since 2010 by just over half of one per cent – from an unspectacular 36.05 per cent to 36.7 per cent. Some polls had the Tories on that sort of mark during the campaign, while the ‘poll of polls’ tended to have them hovering around an average of 34 per cent. That extra couple of points hardly looks like any dramatic ‘late breakthrough’."
Besides this, Mr Cameron will almost certainly find the pressure of his restored role more intense than he seems to expect. He must reshuffle his cabinet, and all the issues mentioned above - the ones that Labour did not, with mistaken chivalry, exploit - not to mention a rampant SNP presence in Parliament,will start to crowd in upon him. In about a year or so, if the non-governing parties regroup, Messrs Miliband, Clegg, Balls and Farage might have something to smile about. The poor, of course, the people who go to food banks, who lose their homes because of the bedroom tax or because of rent increases, who work on zero hours contracts, will not be smiling at all. Like I said earlier, a lot of pain is on the way.