The Odd Couple of British Politics

 Well, times do change. In the picture above, we see the British political equivalent of "The Odd Couple": George Galloway (GG) and Nigel Farage (NF). Although politically poles apart, they worked smirkingly together during the EU Referendum campaign. In 2019, Galloway disgusted many left-wingers by declaring that he would be voting for the Brexit Party in the European elections. GG wrote on Twitter:

“Given the nature of Labour’s Euro-fanatic candidates list and the crucial juncture we have reached in the fight for the full implementation of the #Brexit referendum result and for one-time only I will be supporting @Nigel_Farage in next months elections."

By 2021, NF had announced that he was giving up politics and handing over leadership of the Reform UK Party, which was the new name of the Brexit Party, to Richard Tice. In his farewell address, Nigel said that he was satisfied that Brexit was here to stay, with all its benefits. However, he declared his intention to continue supporting the Reform UK Party, because: "... he wanted to campaign against "the increasing influence of the Chinese communist party over our whole way of life" and "the indoctrination of children at school", which he claimed meant many pupils were "encouraged to hate this country".

NF's mental health appears to be in a parlous state (or was it always that way?) and his subsequent career would seem to bear this out. He has one career as a financial consultant, looking very lonely in his online advertisements and another as a celebrity sender of video messages for a modest fee - £75. One such message, which was widely featured on TV, was one he sent to "Hugh Janus". Paul Merton commented that NF must have been looking in a mirror. Quite.

As for NF's partner in crime, he has continued in his efforts to be noticed. When GG stood for election in the recent Batley and Spen by-election with a party of another name (the Workers' Party), a lot of media commentators wondered at his motivation. I believe the poster above provides a simple explanation. Clearly, the GG campaign had Keir Starmer and his Labour Party leadership in its sights. GG was a keen supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and - pretty obviously - out for revenge. He sought to rally the Muslim vote by stating that Starmer is "the top supporter of Israel". He also sought to inflame tensions over sex education in schools and religious education, telling some outrageous lies, which have been exposed by Owen Jones, among others. You can learn of these falsehoods HERE (Click).

The byelection was marred by attacks on Labour Party members - some quite vicious. Tracy Brabin, the outgoing MP, said:

“The group I was with included young people and the elderly.
I witnessed them being egged, pushed and forced to the ground and kicked in the head".

 Galloway denied responsibility, but the attackers seemed to share the same agenda as him. In another unpleasant incident, Kim Leadbeater was harassed by a group of men who echoed GG's concern over sex education by shouting:

“Are you going to support Muslim parents who don’t want their children to learn about LGBT domination?” 

GG did condemn this attack, "Absolutely". he said, claiming that two of his party's senior members were gay, but he didn't say who they were. There was also the awkward fact that he had to fire one of his party workers, one Shammy Cheema, who was exposed as a Holocaust denier. GG said that:

"...he “absolutely” condemns antisemitism and Holocaust denial and “cannot be held responsible for the social media opinions of some 200 people helping his campaign”."

I doubt that Galloway would be so lenient towards political opponents whose campaign workers made similar statements on social media. It also raises the question: what attracted a Holocaust denier like Sammy Cheema to Galloway's cause in the first place?

GG was less than candid in other matters. His "friendship" with Muslims is questionable, to say the least.. If he is a friend of the Muslim Uyghurs, they need no enemies. As Ian Dunt says:

"Time and again he (Galloway) has dismissed, ignored, or actively spread disinformation about their death or mistreatment. “NO CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN CHINA,” he tweeted. “And the Muslim population is growing, there are 25,000 mosques in Xinjiang alone, more than in the entire US. FAKE NEWS PEOPLE.”

We should bear in mind that GG is on record as saying that the Tiananmen Square massacre never happened; now he tells us that the Uyghurs are not being persecuted. Nigel Farage might put this down to the increasing influence of the Chinese Communist Party (see above) - which could be why GG and NF are never seen together as a couple any more. 

Any Muslims tempted to vote for GG in future elections should bear this denial of Uyghur persecution  in mind. He has also denied chemical weapons attacks in  Syria, dismissing all contrary evidence. 

Nor is there any evidence of pro-Israeli bias in the Labour leadership. As Dunt says:

"In reality, Starmer’s Labour has maintained a much more critical approach to Israel than we saw during the New Labour years. “Reports that Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed multiple civilians, including children, are shocking. This is appalling,” Lisa Nandy said last month, during the recent outbreak in the conflict."

Nevertheless, despite the de facto joint efforts of George Galloway, Corbyn loyalists, the Conservative Party and the extreme Right, Kim Leadbeater triumphed. Yes, only by 323 votes, but it is a tribute to her dogged campaigning and faith in her local community.

Congratulations to Kim Leadbeater!

The Hancock Affair - Latest in a Long Line

 Well, I am surprised. I thought for a while that Matt Hancock, seen above with a new hairstyle and Gina Coladangelo, would try to stay in office. After all, Boris had forgiven him (no surprise there) and besides, what else could he do? Perhaps we should all be glad that he was forced to resign by media pressure, "concerned" Tory MPs and the justified condemnation of his proclivities by a cross-section of the public. It is a rebuttal of the Boris doctrine that you can brass it out, whatever your misdemeanour.

The hypocrisy of this man is indeed breathtaking, but we know this already. As The Sun, who published the photo and the video of Matt and Gina kissing, says:

"On 6 May, when the incident took place, Covid restrictions remained in place across the UK.
In England, indoor gatherings for work purposes were permitted but only if "reasonably necessary".

As has been noted, this points out the truth of the adage that there is one rule for Tory politicians and another for the rest of us. Even Piers Morgan has vilified Hancock for his hypocrisy. But this adage applies in other situations, not just pandemic strictures on association. Had these two been teachers, they would have faced disciplinary action for inappropriate behaviour - whether in the privacy of an empty classroom or not. In a church school, the fact that they were both married, and thus engaged in an adulterous relationship, would have led to parental and church pressure for their immediate resignations. In fact, one head of a school in Preston, who had a number of adulterous affairs, one David Ratcliff, was forced out back in 2001. The Guardian commented at the time:

"David Ratcliff, resigned from Broughton-in-Amounderness Church of England primary school last week after confessing to the infidelities in a letter to staff, parents and the board of governors".

As for Matt and Gina, my sympathies are for their families. Both of them have three children, and I can only hope these children, together with Hancock's wife and Coladangelo's husband, are left in peace. I also feel sorry for the whistleblower who leaked the photo and the story to The Sun. It's a safe bet that the establishment will pursue him or her with ruthless tenacity. As for Hancock, he appears to be talking about a future return to the ministerial arena. Personally, when the next general election comes, his rival candidates for election as MP should have a high old time campaigning against him, and I'd love to take part.

Now, as we know, sex scandals involving politicians - straight and gay - are nothing new. In fact, some people trace it back as far as Henry 8th and Ann Boleyn. Sticking to modern times, I can still remember the Profumo Affair, John Major's ludicrous "Back to Basics" campaign, which was not only ignored by his MPs, such as Tim Yeo and Steven Milligan, but by Major himself, having an affair with Edwina Currie. On the Labour side, John Prescott had a 2-year affair in the noughties with his diary secretary, Tracey Temple, who, according to The Sun (again):

" Temple claimed they would have sex in his Whitehall office, at a hotel while his wife was downstairs, and at his grace and favour flat in Admiralty Arch paid for by the taxpayer."

Then there was David Mellor's dalliance with Antonia de Sanchez. The list goes on, but History has some astounding examples of how the so-called "great and good" have flouted conventional morality, some of which put Hancock's little affair firmly into the shade. Here are just four:

Lord Palmerston, (1754 - 1865), twice prime minister, was accused of attempted rape of one of Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting when staying at Windsor Castle in 1839. He claimed that he had walked into the girl's room by accident - a claim that did not bear scrutiny, as he tried to barricade the door. The young lady was saved only by lusty screaming. In fact, Prince Albert said:

" "He would have consummated his fiendish scheme by violence had not the miraculous efforts of his victim, and such assistance as was attracted by her screams, saved her".

This did not seem to inhibit Palmerston's career, either in politics or the bedroom. Palmerston was cited in an adultery case at the age of 78. He is said to have died at the age of 80, having sex with a maid on a billiard table.

Herbert Henry Asquith (1852 - 1928) was PM from 1908 to 1916. The Daily Mail describes him as a "world-class" groper. He certainly worked for that title:

"Winston Churchill’s wife Clemmie complained that Asquith was always trying to look down her dress, while the socialite Lady Ottoline Morrell reported that he would ‘take a lady’s hand as she sat beside him on the sofa and make her feel his erected instrument under his trousers’."

It's a shame that there were no whistleblowers around at the time to boot this creep out of office. But times were different then. Asquith was regarded as an ineffectual war leader. His replacement was an even greater womaniser...

...David Lloyd George (1863 - 1945) the last Liberal prime minister. The Mail comments:

"Even at the time, David Lloyd George’s penchant for the ladies was very well known, earning him the nickname ‘the Goat’. As one of his own aides put it, the brilliant Welsh orator was ‘mental on matters of sex. In his view, a man and a woman could not possibly be friends without sexual intercourse"."

He carried on for decades with his secretary, Frances Stevenson, whom he forced to have at least two abortions. And there were many more women — so many that nobody has ever produced a definitive count. He even slept with his son Dick’s troubled wife, Roberta, and this when he was well into his 60s.

And lastly, from an LGBT perspective...

Robert, Baron Boothby (1900 - 86), aka Lord Boothby, is our only LGBT candidate here - though there are many more. The broadcaster, Ludovic Kennedy,  was a relative and said that Boothby's bi-sexuality was well known to his family. It was covered up effectively in his lifetime. He had an indiscreet relationship with Harold Macmillan's wife which never got into the papers; he said that she reminded him of a caddy he'd seduced on a golf course.  It seems that he was the true father of  Sarah Macmillan, who took her own life in 1970. He had an intimate homosexual connection to the London underworld , where, says the Mail:

"...Boothby had affairs with male East End gangsters, including the cat burglar Leslie Holt. This brought him into the orbit of the Krays, who used to arrange orgies for him and allegedly supplied him with compliant young men."

Nick Hancock hardly fits in to this pantheon  - although Boris might. In spite of this, we should all guard against Hancock's possible return to public life. Haven't we suffered enough?

Bashing the BBC, Bashirgate and Boris

 I don't think anyone envies Martin Bashir at the moment. I can only hope that he and his family are not looking at social media or the right-wing press, as they will feel themselves under siege. This is not to excuse Bashir's conduct 25 years ago. He has been exposed - need I tell you what you know already? - as having forged bank statements to facilitate an interview with the late Diana, Princess of Wales. When this issue surfaced last November, I was very suspicious. 25 years to expose such wrongdoing seemed very strange, and the explanations for this seemed unconvincing. It looked to me that the story had broken as a red herring to deflect pressure from the government for its handling of the pandemic and as a handy stick with which to beat the BBC.

Understandably, Diana's sons are deeply upset at the results of the Dyson Report. Prince William has made a deeply emotional speech blaming BBC bosses, as well as a "rogue reporter". Harry has blamed a toxic media culture for his mother's death.  As Jonny Diamond, BBC Royal correspondent comments: "In the past, of course, it's been Harry that's been so angry with the media, William appeared to have made his peace with it, but the second in line to the throne has launched a visceral attack on the BBC, a sign of his deep hurt and deep dismay."

It's certainly ironic that the tabloid press, which upset Harry and Meghan so much that they left the UK, are now attacking the BBC for using tricks favoured so much by those same newspapers. Have we forgotten the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone, Squidgygate and the phone call by Charles to Camilla in which he spoke of how, if reincarnated, he would like to come back as a certain intimate feminine object? And does the Bashir scandal, dating back so many years, invalidate present-day BBC reporting from around the world? Does it render BBC coverage of the Windrush scandal, the negative effects of Brexit and the disgrace of the track and trace system dishonest and fraudulent? Well, there is one man who might think so...

As if you hadn't guessed! Boris has just spoken with concern and gravity on this issue. According to the BBC (the same): 

"The BBC should take "every possible step" to ensure that nothing like its deceit of the Princess of Wales to secure an interview ever happens again, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said".

Boris Johnson, as we know, is just the man to be aware of how harmful dishonesty in journalism can be. He was sacked from The Times for fabricating a quote from his godfather. His career as a columnist for The Telegraph was somewhat spoiled by the fact that he persistently wrote untrue articles about the European Union. He received £275 000 a year for this latter job, describing his salary as "chickenfeed".  Yes, just the man to judge Martin Bashir and the BBC.

. I would be amazed, however, if he and his cronies are not looking at how they can use Bashirgate, to coin a phrase, as another stick with which they can beat the BBC. They have already made several moves in this direction. The first was the appointment of Richard Sharp as BBC chairman. This must have caused Boris great satisfaction, as The Byline Times points out: 

"The newly-appointed Chairman of the BBC has donated more than £400,000 to the Conservative Party since 2001, Electoral Commission records show.
Earlier today, it was announced that former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp is set to be appointed as the chairman of the BBC’s board of directors".

The report goes on to say that Mr Sharp will be leading negotiations with the government over the licence fee. Pensioners beware. And Mr Sharp is not the only appointee in favour with Boris and his pals...

Tim Davie, the new Director-General of the BBC, is definitely the government's man at Wogan House. The Independent rightly says that this is beyond satire:

"How, for example, do you satirise the following? The BBC appoints a new director general whose first act in the job is to tell his staff they can’t go on marches because of the threat of “perceived bias”. Not actual bias, just perceived. Oh, and what do you know, this chap who now runs the BBC and is determined to liberate it from any perception at all that it could be anything less than entirely politically neutral, also once stood for election as a Tory Party councillor and was deputy chair of his local Conservative Association".

Mr Davie has launched a crusade against what the Tories see as Leftist bias in the BBC. We all know about how the Mash Report has been axed, to the delight of the right-wing press. Another of his ventures was the sacking of the junior script editor of Peaky Blinders for unacceptable tweets. Mr Davie is a typical Tory advocate of free speech - for the political Right.

We can be in no doubt that there will be further such measures taken by the Tories at the Beeb. As said previously, the popular satirical BBC programme, "Have I Got News For You" will definitely be in the firing line. The licence fee may well be raised considerably.

To conclude, there might well be another harmful knock-on effect. If the use of forged documents and cover stories is to become banned, it will make genuine investigative journalism very difficult. It will become next to impossible to infiltrate terrorist or criminal organisations or hunt down fugitives from justice. A prime example of such an operation was the entrapment of the gangster, John "Goldfinger" Palmer, by the now-sadly-defunct programme of the 80s and 90s, The Cook Report. Roger Cook, the intrepid eponymous reporter, wrote in 2015 :

"We were initially told our proposed programme was too risky and that Palmer was too clever to get caught. But we weren’t deterred.
We asked two drug barons we had met while filming a Cook Report in Burma’s Golden Triangle to pose as opium growers who needed drug money ‘cleaned’.
It worked a treat. We had Palmer on tape offering to launder $160 million of opium profits for them twice a year, even boasting that his rates were the best in the business".

If deception is to be eliminated, sting operations like this will become impossible. Bashirgate will be a dream come true for everyone who has something to hide, be they politicians, celebrities or criminals.

Israel, Palestine and the Arndale Centre

 

It's never easy, writing about the Israel-Palestine-Gaza issue. If you try to be fair, both sides accuse you of favouring the other. Besides this, some people are prone to rebuking you for things which they believe you have said, and yet, you haven't. It's happened to me a couple of times. I remember one occasion, some years ago, when the BBC screened a programme on this conflict and received exactly the same number of complaints from both sides. "Sit on the fence and you get splinters in your bum", goes the saying.

Well, so be it. I don't mind being accused of bias by both sides as long as I know that I have made an honest effort to be fair. The recent tragic events in Gaza and Israel call for people like me to try and make an objective assessment, as far as possible. The BBC has taken the lead in this, with a "Reality Check" on some of the claims made by both sides in the conflict so far. 

Among other items, the Beeb scrutinise one claim made by an aide to President Netanyahu who posted a video on Twitter purporting to show rockets being fired at Israel from Gaza. This is a still from the video:

Fact: this footage comes from Syria, and is three years old. It shows an attack made by Syrian forces against a dissident group in the city of Deraa. The Netanyahu aide took the video down after Twitter described it as "manipulated media".

From the other side, we have the fire at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The Palestinians who made the video claimed that it showed the mosque on fire, and the Israelis were letting it happen. In the actual film, you can hear some Israelis singing an anti-Palestinian song.

Fact: the mosque was never on fire. As the BBC says: 

"The video is real, but additional footage from other angles makes it clear that a tree near to the mosque had caught fire, not the mosque itself."

What cannot be disputed is the extreme brutality of the Israeli forces against Gaza, which has been well documented. I could perhaps continue on this theme, and I am not dismissing it as irrelevant, but this outbreak of warfare follows others of its type, and will presumably develop the same way. As Paul Adams comments:

"These episodes follow a familiar pattern: Israel presses home its undoubted military advantage until the international outcry over civilian casualties, and a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, demand that the operation end. In Israel's estimation, we have not reached that point yet".

Israel might well regret that. There are indications even here that the Palestinians mean serious business this time. The Palestinian ambassador to the UK, quoted in the Daily Mirror, said:

"Husam Zumlot, Palestinian ambassador to the UK, told crowds: "This time is different. This time we will not be denied any more. We are united. We have had enough of oppression."

There are signs of this within Israel. Inter-communal violence has broken out between Arab and Jewish communities and threatens to worsen.

There are even signs of this here. Four men have been arrested following what appears to have been a pro-Palestinian mini-motorcade through a Jewish area in North London on Sunday. From a car bearing a Palestinian flag, these men allegedly shouted anti-Semitic abuse. To be fair, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign condemned the motorcade incident. On Sunday, an Essex rabbi, Rabbi Rafi Goodwin, was attacked and hospitalised outside his synagogue in Chigwell. According to the Evening Standard, his two attackers have been arrested: 

"Two men have been arrested on suspicion of GBH with intent after a rabbi was attacked in Essex. The men, 18 and 25, are being questioned on suspicion of the assault in Chigwell."

Welcome as these arrests are, they are merely part of a recent rise in anti-Semitic hate crime. According to a separate BBC report, there has been a surge in anti-Semitic incidents: 

"The Community Security Trust said there had been a fivefold increase in reports of anti-Semitic incidents since the recent escalation in tensions between Israel and Palestinians. Between 8 May and 17 May the charity recorded 86 anti-Semitic incidents, up from 16 in the previous 10 days."

I am sure the extreme Right here in the UK are pondering whether or not to join in with such endeavours, but they have a problem: they hate both sides already. They are notoriously and fanatically anti-Semitic, but are violently anti-Muslim also. We might even see the avowedly neo-Nazi groups turning out to help the Palestinians and the more anti-Muslim groups such as the remnants of the English Defence League doing the same for the pro-Israeli side. What a punch-up that will be!

Another common factor to both sides is their capacity for alienating public opinion worldwide. Israel does not seem to realise that bombing Palestinian families out of their homes does not win friends and influence people. The IDF say that they are trying to hit Hamas fighters without realising that every Hamas or civilian death creates more Hamas fighters and draws more international opprobrium. Hamas, yet again, have a propaganda victory.

Palestinians do not help themselves by firing rockets at Israel or by staging aggressive demonstrations. The main London protest rally on Sunday, supposedly attended by 130, 000 people (oh, yeah) saw nine police officers injured. The equivalent Manchester march only attracted several hundred, but turned nasty on several occasions. There was at least one scuffle in the Arndale Centre between demonstrators and members of the public that was filmed by MSN News. The pro-Palestinians targeted what they saw as pro-Israeli businesses. They protested ineffectually for a short while outside Barclays Bank in Market Street (the bank was closed). They then went on to picket Tesco, which, fortunately for staff, put up its shutters. The Manchester Evening News commented: 

"The march eventually came to a pause at the corner of Cross Street and Market Street, where city centre councillor Pat Karney tried to speak to the protesters.
But he was booed off as he attempted to ask them not to intimidate shop workers..."

Not a very edifying performance by the demonstrators.

To conclude, I think we can discern the unthinkable conclusion: there is no solution acceptable to both sides in the Israel/Palestine dispute. The only way to ensure an end to armed conflict would be one imposed by the United Nations, which would be unacceptable to both sides and, as in Bosnia, completely useless. 

Boris Johnson and the Rasputin Effect

 

As I type, Andrew Castle on LBC is holding a debate about the failure of the Labour Party in the Hartlepool byelection. This is a debate being held in all sections of the media, in homes and offices and, one hopes, in Labour Party Headquarters. What has not yet been questioned is how someone like Boris Johnson has risen to be our PM and, more pressing, is: why does he appear to an unstoppable winner?

A seemingly perceptive article in The Byline Times would have it that "...Labour appears to be a toxic brand". It goes on to say that Labour's policies in the 2019 Election were initially popular with the public, but...  

"According to polls, Labour’s headline policies were popular. 73% of voters supported increasing the minimum wage to £10, 66% supported tax rises for those earning more than £80,000 – and so on. However, pollsters found that, when these policies were attached to the Labour Party, their popularity dropped markedly".

If this is correct, then Labour has much to do. The debate has begun, and will rage for a long time. But, rather than add to what is admittedly an important controversy, I would like to examine the role of Johnson's personality in his present electoral success. To my surprise, and, no doubt, many people's incredulity, there are distinct similarities to the career of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (1869 - 1917), I am well aware that there are many differences between these two men. Some people will undoubtedly point out the more crassly obvious differences, but certain common factors are unmistakably clear.

Most people know the name of Rasputin thanks to a very potted musical history put out on record in the 70s by Boney M (if you don't remember it, click HERE). Unusually for a pop song, it contains a modicum of truth about Rasputin in the lyrics. Although never an ordained monk, as some believed at the time, he was known as a mystic and a healer who came to the attention of the Russian royal family. Remarkably, and all historians admit this, he did seem to be able to help the young Tsarevich Alexei's haemophilia. Rasputin's apparent healing skills led to his being included in the royal family's entourage. People familiar with the song, however, will best remember the chorus, where we learn that Rasputin was "Russia's greatest love machine" and the "lover of the Russian Queen". The latter claim is dismissed by historians (although Rasputin himself bragged about it), but the former has an element of truth, and that brings us to the first similarity to Boris Johnson.

Both men share what might be described as a "liking for the ladies" and an indifference to public notoriety and scandal. Rasputin exploited his status as adviser to the court to the full. As "History Collection" says:

"... many admiring women visited him simply for sex. Lots and lots of sex. Rasputin was, by all accounts, what would be considered today a sex addict, with enviable stamina and staying power. Saint Petersburg’s authorities posted plainclothes policemen at Rasputin’s building, and their reports frequently described dozens of women, from prostitutes to high ranking aristocrats, visiting his apartment".

Boris has never quite accomplished this, but has tried very hard, as many commentators and newspapers have salaciously documented, not least in one revealing article in The Sun.  From this article alone - pre Jennifer Arcuri - we learn of his two previous marriages and many known affairs (there are probably many more to be discovered). And, as with Rasputin, the widespread notoriety of his peccadilloes have done him no harm politically. It's not been noted, but Boris is the first prime minister to live in 10 Downing Street with an unmarried partner and a child born out of wedlock. And he still remains largely popular with the media. Have we become more tolerant? I have reservations about that. Had our PM been a woman with two failed marriages, a torrid sexual history and an illegitimate child, I believe the political and media fallout would have been very different.

But I digress. The other similarity between these two very different men is that they both seem unassailable, at least to themselves and their admirers. Rasputin was not well liked by everyone in Russia, even in his heyday, but he enjoyed the protection of the Tsar and Tsarina. Any court official who tried to act against Rasputin soon found themselves en route to Siberia. I have no doubt that Johnson, despite the allegations of sleaze made against him, feels himself more secure after the Hartlepool result. In fact, Labour activists phoning in to LBC this morning are saying that these accusations were of no interest to voters on the doorstep. 

Perhaps not to them, but they are to some people in the Conservative Party, and this could point to a coming similarity between Boris and Rasputin: an internal coup. Rasputin was not removed by popular unrest. He was assassinated, in a legendary long-drawn-out attack, by a group of Russian aristocrats who were concerned about the negative influence of Rasputin on the royal family. There are Remainer Conservatives who bear Boris no love for the way he sidelined them before, during and after Brexit. There are others who deplore the conduct of what they see as the Boris Johnson clique's undermining of traditional conservative values. One of these disgruntled Tories is the writer, Peter Oborne, who writes, on the Open Democracy website:  
"Brexit has mutated ... into a brutal assault on everything we stand for.
Like Paul Johnson turning his back on Labour forty years ago, there is no way that I can as a lifelong Conservative vote for Boris Johnson’s revolutionary clique..."

Besides this, there are the sleaze inquiries that may well (probably?) find incriminating evidence against the PM. Should that happen, there could be an internal revolt by dissenting Tories to remove Johnson. He may not be poisoned, shot and thrown in the nearest river like Rasputin, but his fall will be spectacular.

"Ra, Ra, Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine" - oh, sorry, wrong picture!

James Nash and a Variation on a Theme

 

I don't expect to get many readers for this post. It deals with what I have called a recurring theme: the murder of innocent people by violent mental health patients. I have written a number of posts on this issue in past years and, out of compassion for the victims and their families, highlighted the failings of the mental health care system and the lenient way in which the perpetrators are treated. This case is slightly different, in that both victim - in this case James Nash - and perpetrator, Alex Sartain,  are both now dead.

The actual murder happened on August 5 of last year in the village of Upper Enham, near Andover. Mr Nash and Sartain were neighbours, and it seems that Sartain, who had mental health issues, had developed a delusional-driven hatred of Mr Nash. The details of the murder, as in every instance, are chilling in the extreme. As the Daily Mail, in its report of the recent inquest, says: 

"James Nash, 42, was shot in the front garden of his home in the hamlet of Upper Enham, near Andover in Hampshire at 3pm on August 5, 2020. His neighbour Alex Sartain, 34, used a home-made double-barrelled shotgun and then repeatedly stamped on the parish councillor's head, causing him fatal head injuries, the Winchester inquest was told."

Added to the horror of this event was the fact that Mr Nash's widow, Dr Sarah Nash, saw most of this attack, and was lucky to escape to a neighbour's house when it seemed that Sartain was about to attack her. Sartain fled the scene on a motor bike, only to meet his end after driving his bike at a police officer sent to the scene and filling up with petrol at his father's motorcycle repair shop. He then took off and, as the BBC says:

"A police helicopter tracked Mr Sartain, who was seen waving at their camera, and recorded him reaching a speed of 161mph. Mr Sartain's motorbike clipped a car travelling in the opposite direction on the Doiley Hill stretch of the road, causing him to lose control and smash into a tree."

Once again, I am amazed at the mental health record of the killer; it has been like this for me many times before. Sartain's father said that his son had developed a fixation about James Nash: 

'He was always on about James Nash, saying that James Nash had something to do with Putin and the spread of Covid"

Last year, The Guardian reported that Tony Bennett ( a bodyshop and restoration business owner) said that he had spoken to Sartain the day before the murder: 

“I saw Alex the day before and he pointed at Mr Nash’s house and said, ‘They are trying to get me sectioned. Because Mr Nash used to work in aerospace, Alex got it in his head that this guy works for the government. He had it in his head that he was being spied on.”

Sartain had an extensive criminal record. He had convictions for theft, assault and drug use. Besides this, like others of this type, such as Thomas Mair, the killer of Jo Cox, MP, he had an interest in Nazism. As the Daily Mail says:

"Mr Sartain 'liked' various Nazi pages on his Facebook, including one dedicated to Horst Wessel, a leader of the stormtroopers in Berlin. Wessel was made Nazi martyr by propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels after he was killed in 1930."

He also wrote on social media that, "I come with a warning label". One familiar feature of this type of case rings true - the fact that Sartain was detained under the Mental Health Act in September, 2019 and released in April, 2020. John Sartain, the killer's father, said: 

"There was no hint anything like this was going to happen."

I could comment acerbically here, but there's really no need.

What's needed from me is to express sympathy for the family of James Nash; no words can compensate for their loss or comprehend what they are still going through. They are not alone, as I have commented repeatedly, too many mental health murderers have been released "cured", only to kill, as was Sartain, sometimes to kill again, like Nicola Edgington. Too many families are grieving already because of these people; too many dangerous individuals are walking free.

James Nash was a children's author and a dedicated local councillor. Perhaps the best tribute to this man was made by the council leader, Phil North, who told The Guardian: 

“James is such a kind-hearted individual who cares deeply for his community. He is also a talented children’s author and illustrator and I was extremely touched last year when one of the dedications in his latest book was to my newborn daughter.”

As for Alex Sartain, perhaps the less said the better. Two families are bereaved; only one of these families is in mourning for a worthwhile member of society.

Prince Philip, Eulogies and Idioms

 

When Teresa May resigned as prime minister - how long ago? - she resigned publicly in a live broadcast on radio and TV. This prompted an angry response from some viewers, who complained that they had missed the latest episode of "Homes Under the Hammer", which had been cancelled in favour of Mrs May's broadcast.

When Prince Philip passed away on April 9, the BBC cleared its TV schedule to "cover the news" of his passing. It received 109, 741 complaints from viewers who missed Eastenders and the Masterchef final, among other programmes. This is a record number of complaints for any BBC programmes, and the Corporation acknowledged this, issuing a statement: 

"We do not make such changes without careful consideration and the decisions made reflect the role the BBC plays as the national broadcaster, during moments of national significance."

Personally speaking, I was annoyed to miss "Have I Got News For You?", but didn't complain. Even I recognised that this was a moment of national significance. I suppose it might be expected that I'd make some ultra-leftist statement dismissing the Prince and his family as relics of the royalistic-bourgeoisie, man. Well, I'm no royalist, but that does not stop me from sympathising on a human level with a bereaved family. As Mikhail Bakunin said: "Socialism is not cruel".

What irritated me, and doubtless a lot of other people, was the repetitive and tedious regurgitating of eulogies to the Prince. The BBC morning news broadcasts made the same tributes, word for word, at the start of every hour the morning after his death. Some of the accolades were strange, also; they ranged from people who had worked closely with the Prince to people he'd waved to once from a passing car. One particularly adulatory pundit was the Prince's biographer, the ex-Tory MP, Gyles Brandreth. He seems to have featured in every studio discussion and every outside broadcast. After a while, he seemed to turn into an epithet machine with a limited programmed vocabulary, telling the same anecdotes and making the same statements of praise over and over again.

I found all this acclamation of the prince rather surprising. During his lifetime, he was the butt of criticism from media commentators. The press always focussed upon his famous gaffes and his general tactlessness; more critical commentators drew attention to his possible dalliances with society ladies and the Nazi pasts of some of his German relatives. That vanished overnight, following his passing. I was amazed to learn of his work as an eco-warrior in the World Wild Life Fund; his heroism as a naval officer; a star Polo player for 60+ years; he was an established author of 14 books. All this was suspiciously new to me, although I had heard of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme. It has been suggested that the BBC, at least, was so effusive because they had been criticised by the Palace for under-reporting the funeral of the Queen Mother. Well, perhaps, but I predict that, in a year or maybe sooner, someone will write a less-than-hagiographic biography of the prince. The repetitive reporting of the Prince's passing might lead to an idiom: "Prince Philip has died", meaning: "Tell me something I didn't know already" or "That's old news". And there is a precedent for this.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, if someone told you something well known already, a common retort was: "Queen Anne's dead". This last of the Stuart monarchs had no living heir, having tragically lost 14 children, all at an early age. Because of this, the crown of Britain was due to pass to her sister's husband, George of Hanover. During the Queen's last days, there was great apprehension as to whether or not civil war would break out between Stuarts and Hanoverians following Anne's death.. In the event, there was no war. As Stack Exchange says:

"  When Queen Anne finally died, her death was not announced until it was clear that George of Hanover would become George I of Great Britain and that there would be no war. By the time of the official announcement of the Queen's death to the public, everybody who mattered already knew that she had died."

And so "Queen Anne's dead" became the 18th century equivalent of "That's old news".

But in the late 19th/early 20th century, another such phrase came into being...

Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of the Boer War, 1899 - 1902, knows that the British Army did not perform very well at first. The government and press needed inspiring heroes to keep up public morale and they found a hero in Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the future founder of the Boy Scouts. Under his leadership, a small British garrison held out for seven months and four days in the town of Mafeking in what is now the North-West Province of South Africa. The siege caught the imagination of the British public and when the town was finally relieved on 17 May, 1900, there was wild public rejoicing in London and elsewhere, as well as extensive and repetitive reporting of the event in the newspapers,  giving rise to the word "mafficking" for wild public celebration.

It also gave rise to a new retort for the person who told you what you knew already: "Yes, I know. Mafeking's been relieved."

Will this lead to us retorting "Yes, I know, Prince Philip has died" to old news? I don't know, but I might try it.

Batley Grammar School and the Absence of Goodwill

History stood still yesterday, Friday, 26th March. At around 1pm, I made my first ever phone-in contribution to the Jeremy Vine programme on BBC Radio 2. It lasted about five minutes, but I hope I had some impact. In fact, no-one I know has commented upon it, and, in all probability, no-one I know even heard it. It doesn't matter. What is of importance is the topic I phoned about: the controversy about an image of the Prophet Mohammed shown during a lesson at Batley Grammar School. I phoned about this topic because, as I said to Jeremy Vine, I was a Religious Education (RE) Co-ordinator in a West London primary school for 11 years, and taught many pupils of different faiths: Christian, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and, of course, Muslims. Respectfully, I corrected Vine on one misapprehension common to many in the media, which is the belief that all Muslims oppose all images of the Prophet. This is true for Sunni Muslims, but not Shias. As Wikipedia says:

  "Most Sunni Muslims believe that visual depictions of all the prophets of Islam should be prohibited[19] and are particularly averse to visual representations of Muhammad.[20] The key concern is that the use of images can encourage idolatry.[21] In Shia Islam, however, images of Muhammad are quite common nowadays, even though Shia scholars historically were against such depictions.[20][22] Still, many Muslims who take a stricter view of the supplemental traditions will sometimes challenge any depiction of Muhammad, including those created and published by non-Muslims"

The picture above depicts the death of Mohammed. At the risk of seeming flippant, I would be interested to see how the pickets outside Batley Grammar School would react if they saw it. Sunnis and Shias have serious differences on many issues and this could well be one of them. The main reason why I phoned the Jeremy Vine programme was that I, while teaching, was involved in an incident broadly similar to that which has happened at Batley Grammar School. One year, about 17 years ago, I was gathering material for a corridor R.E. display. As part of the display, I thought it a good idea to include a symbol from the Koran. Instead of photocopying a page directly from the Muslim holy book, I photocopied an image, with explanatory text, from a text book. I put it up as part of the display, thinking it acceptable. I was wrong. Several days after I put up the display, two very nice Year 6 girls, both Muslim, came to see me. They explained that they were not happy at the image being photocopied and displayed. I discussed the matter with them, and they asked their mosque Arabic teacher to draw it by hand for me. I replaced the photocopy with the handwritten copy, and the matter was settled amicably. No angry parents, no calls for my suspension, no ill-will or demonstrations outside the school. I never even discussed the matter with senior management. Tensions have heightened over the years. As we know, people have been murdered over the issue of images of the Prophet. The Charlie Hebdo killings spring to mind, and the wrongly accused French teacher, Samuel Paty. Paty was killed following what has been proven to be lies by a 13-year old schoolgirl. His murder is called to mind when we hear the demands of Muslim parents for the Batley teacher's dismissal. Now, I don't know all the facts about the case at Batley Grammar, and I'm well aware that it's a different matter from the issue I had. But I do think that there could be parallels. I made a mistake in photocopying a text book page, thinking that as it was not from an actual Koran, I had done nothing offensive. It could be that the Batley teacher, as Jeremy Vine said, thought he or she was safe to use the image for a lesson on blasphemy. And Jeremy Vine agreed with me that you can't give a lecture on blasphemy without showing examples of blasphemy. This being the case, the teacher concerned might have made a mistake in not checking whether an image of Mohammed was appropriate or not. But as I found, it's only too easy to make a mistake; I meant no offence by what I did; the Batley Grammar teacher probably felt the same. We know that the teacher is now suspended and in hiding. This is a harsh punishment for what was probably human error - and I speak as a teacher who made a similar mistake. I can only wonder if prompt action by the school management could not have resolved this matter peaceably and without such rancour. Instead, we now have another divisive issue to be dealt with, and one which could spiral out of control. The saddest aspect of the Batley Grammar dispute is that battle lines are being drawn. While the Muslim demonstrators and parents may be implacable in their demands, the extreme Right are seizing upon this issue to stir up Islamophobia. As The Independent says: 

"Far-right groups including Britain First have been capitalising on the row, organising complaints to the headteacher and claiming that British schools are “being made to bow down to Sharia law”." Besides this, a petition has been launched to reinstate the teacher and, according to Yorkshire Live, is gathering thousands of signatures and has garnered moral support for the suspended teacher from Ricky Gervais.

What is needed is for cooler heads on both sides to prevail. The matter must be investigated, the teacher concerned given a chance to explain himself or herself, and a willingness must be shown by both sides to resolve this matter rationally. There have been similar incidents before, and they have been characterised all too often by a distinct lack of goodwill. We owe it to the next generation to show them that other people's points of view are worthy of respect.

Sarah Everard: A Call To Action

(Allegedly)

We'd like to think that as a society we'd do something simply because it's the right thing to do, but regrettably that is too often not the case. On the other hand, sometimes a single incident can trigger a wholly unanticipated mass response to a problem that previously hadn't been foremost in most people's minds. To give just a few examples:

    • The Dunblane school massacre, 25 years ago this month, caused around three quarters of a million people to sign the petition that ultimately led to the almost total prohibition of private ownership of hand guns in the UK - this in the days before convenient on-line petitions.
    • The murder of George Floyd by a US police officer triggered the international spread of the Black Lives Matter movement.
    • The exposure of the widespread sexual allegations against Harvey Weinstein in 2017 prompted the worldwide Me Too movement.

So it is with Sarah Everard, assaulted and murdered by (allegedly) a police officer. She was a young woman who just a fortnight ago would have had no idea that she was about to become a household name for the worst of reasons. Her brutal death and the disposal of her body in a builder's bag like unwanted rubbish has shocked many women to recount their own experiences. On Facebook alone, I have read accounts written by some of my female friends of almost routine sexual harassment, sexual assaults, domestic violence and even rape. 

Even though in my last job I was simultaneously an equal opportunities training officer for my employer and an equality and diversity spokesperson for my trade union, and while I have long been aware that such abuses occur, I've been somewhat taken aback by how prevalent they are.

Regrettably, the police response to the vigil opposing violence against women in Sarah's memory was misjudged and excessively heavy-handed. The sight of burly male police officers pinning down a young woman who had simply wanted to show solidarity with another young woman who had been assaulted and murdered was an extremely serious lapse in judgment.

Home Secretary Priti Patel expressed concern about the incident and demanded reports by the end of the day but undermined this prompt response by expressing full support for Cressida Dick, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, thereby suggesting that she had already made up her mind concerning the incident and that anything else she said was mere tokenism.

The government's immediate response includes an additional £25 million for better lighting and CCTV as well as a pilot scheme which would see plain-clothes officers in pubs and clubs. While this funding will replace only a fraction of cuts imposed upon the police over the last decade, it's welcome as far as it goes but it's really no more than a pittance and doesn't address the heart of the problem: the danger to women does not come from the streets themselves, but from some of the men in them. CCTV and plain clothes police officers will not change the thinking of a single misogynist who regards women as commodities for their pleasure and convenience rather than autonomous fellow human beings entirely deserving of respect.

That last phrase would be patronising, except for the fact that there are males who simply don't view women that way; I've heard such sexists protest that they love women but therein lies the problem - a proprietorial view of women as creatures to be 'loved' often doesn't have much to do with respect.

Some men have already reacted with the slogan 'Not All Men', which is true but entirely misses the point in much the same way as the 'All Lives Matter' hashtag missed the point about Black Lives Matter. As some women have commented, men should not expect praise for not raping women in the park: such behaviour should be normal. 

I have read a couple of comments on Facebook that men are also often in danger on the streets: to a very limited extent this is true, but since the 1970s I have usually gone to the pub several times per week, and I always walk home on my own after closing time without any fear for own safety. I don't ever recall suffering harassment or worse, which is a distinct contrast to the worries and experiences reported by many women in response to Sarah Everard's murder. 

But going on from there, the problem is not confined to stranger danger. Many women have in the last week or so been recounting casual sexist comments, usually passed off as a joke, through to sexual assaults, both in workplaces and in social and domestic situations. If a woman objects, she is often accused of having no sense of humour, exaggerating or of being a ranting Leftie Women's Libber. In other words, it's her fault. 

I don't dismiss any of the accounts that I've been reading. As a male, I myself have been on the receiving end of domestic violence, on-line harassment and actual stalking in the real world and I know how hard it is to 'come out' and recount your experiences. As I wrote on my own blog in June last year:

During the height of the 'Me Too' movement, I became sick of reading comments by people - mostly but not exclusively male - asking why it had taken so long for some of the accusers to tell their stories, with more than a few sarcastically suggesting the motive was money. I was so incensed by such stupidity that I 'came out' myself in a post on Facebook about my own experiences of being on the receiving end of sustained domestic violence. In response to anyone who questioned why it had taken some of these women perhaps 10 or 15 years to come forward, I pointed that my own 'coming out' had taken nearly 40 years.

Some of the experiences reported by female friends of mine were distinctly worse than what happened to me. 

I do not claim to have all the answers, but ultimately education must be a large part of the response, more than the money allocated for improved lighting and CCTV which, while helpful, is no more than a sticking plaster solution. Education in the broadest sense: not just in schools but across all society. It's a huge, long-term task, but then so are the problems that we're trying to address. If we wish to create a safer society for women, we have to make that substantial commitment, otherwise our sympathy is no more than lip service.

Nothing can compensate for the loss of Sarah Everard, but I do hope the vehement and heartfelt response to her death will not be a flash in the pan, forgotten as soon as the headlines diminish. It would suit the Establishment for the issue to fade away, thus letting it off the hook in terms of addressing the deep-rooted problems associated with the attitudes of too many men towards women in our society. It rests with ordinary people, women and men, to ensure that that doesn't happen.

Democracy Under Attack: From the Capitol to the Mash Report

 2021 hasn't been a good year for democracy. On January 6, we saw the appalling invasion of the US Capitol by anti-democratic demonstrators who could not accept the result of the bitterly-contested US Presidential Election. I have a lot of good friends in the US, and I know that many Americans thought this disgraceful event made them a laughing stock around the world. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing to laugh at; this attack on American democracy heralded the rise of an organised force that was willing to resort to violence for political ends. What I did not realise was that this was the beginning of an assault on democratic freedoms around the world. 

Dawn on February 1st saw an even more violent onslaught against democracy: the military takeover in Myanmar which saw the deposing of the democratically elected government headed by Aung San Suu Kyi, who was forcibly detained, along with around 400 MPs. To the credit of the people of Myanmar, there have been widespread protests, both within and outside Myanmar. The military regime has responded by using lethal force. 38 protesters were killed on one day, the BBC reported on March 3rd. So far, despite internal opposition and foreign condemnation, the regime has not relaxed its grip. As the BBC says:

"The coup and the violent suppression of protests that followed have led to international condemnation, which Myanmar's military has so far ignored."

Switching continents, we don't need to look too far to find a parallel to the Myanmar repression in the land of Venezuela. I had already been told that Christians were being victimised, but Human Rights Watch has stated this year, following a visit from the United Nations Human Rights Council in September last year:

"The government of Nicolás Maduro and its security forces are responsible for extrajudicial executions and short-term forced disappearances and have jailed opponents, prosecuted civilians in military courts, tortured detainees, and cracked down on protesters. They used a state of emergency implemented in response to Covid-19 as an excuse to punish dissent and intensify their control over the population."

Now, of course, there are many other states around the world that violate human rights. Off the cuff, I can think of far too many - starting with Iran. However, these countries have continuing histories of such violations; the three countries mentioned above were regarded as exceptions. Venezuela was celebrated as a shining example of socialist democracy; Myanmar was regarded as an emerging democratic Asian state; the USA is thought of as  the world's great home of liberty and democracy. Fortunately, the anti-democratic forces in the USA are (hopefully) held in check. We can only hope that matters improve in Myanmar and Venezuela.

If what I have written above sounds like finger-pointing, it is meant as nothing of the kind. There is a fourth country where democracy is under pressure, and that's here in the United Kingdom. We were brought up sharp over the weekend by the clumsy police action against the London vigil for the tragic young murder victim, Sarah Everard.

Unlike most commentators, I regard the events of last Monday as a PR disaster, rather than a direct assault on democratic rights per se. Unlike other vigils, the London protest was badly handled, as opposed to vigils elsewhere which went well. Nonetheless, images of the police action now stand as images of the right to protest being trampled upon.

Far more concerning for civil liberties is the Police Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament. Some of the new laws are not repressive in principle, but could well become  so in practice. As The Good Law Project says:

"Clauses 54 and 55 amend sections 12 and 14 respectively of the Public Order Act, which deal with public processions and public assemblies. These raise two grounds for concern – first, they significantly expand the police’s ability to place conditions on the right to public processions and assemblies and second they leave entirely open what those conditions can be."

My understanding of the public order sections indicates that the police will have the right to close down a protest if it becomes too noisy. Anyone who has attended a demonstration knows that this is absurd; chanting slogans is an integral part of public protest.

The interpretations of these new laws will be very much up to the police officers on the spot. The implications of this are huge:

"As Professor David Meads (who specialises in the law of protest and public order) observed: “Th(e) real problem for protesters and activists is not (always) so much the law – the legal rules and position – but how this is implemented and interpreted on the ground by officers; generally speaking the wider framed the law, even more widely used will be the operational power”.

Turning to the TV programme, "The Mash Report", which is being axed by the BBC, it might seem almost frivolous, compared to the outrages perpetrated in the Capitol and the shooting down of unarmed demonstrators in Myanmar. It might be the thin end of the wedge, but is still part of what I regard as a right-wing campaign against public dissent. The Mash report is a satirical programme, and is hated by the right-wing press. The Sun says it is:

"preachy, self-righteous [and] left-wing".

Knowing "The Sun" like we do, it is the last of those three that concerns them the most. Now, this government does not like criticism, and regards the BBC as a thorn in its side (if only it was!). The new director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, was favoured candidate for the job by Boris Johnson, and seems to be showing us why. As the "Daily Telegraph" said last year:

"The BBC’s new director-general is planning to tackle perceived Left-wing bias in the corporation's comedy".
 "Have I Got News For You", a star programme for 30 years on BBC 1, which satirises political figures of all hues, will inevitably be a future target for Johnson and Davie. It will not stop there, but will continue until the present government renders the Beeb "impartial" (aka, neutered). 

All told, then, a bad year for democracy, and we need to consider: how can we protect it?

Harry, Meghan and Elephants in the Room

 

As lockdown continues, television has become even more important for keeping us informed. Now, as the world knows, the Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan has aroused massive media activity which has divided the British public and pundits into three broad opinion groups: Harry and Meghan Partisans (HMP), Buckingham Palace Loyalists (BPL) and Not Very Interested (NVI).

I personally belong to the latter group, but am not so naïve as to ignore this matter altogether. The Harry/Meghan issue raises the problem of several elephants in the room when it comes to wider British society. At first, I thought there was just one (racism), but reflection on Meghan's words ( yes, I watched some of the interview) pointed to two more. I shall look at these three elephants in turn. It's a mistake to ignore elephants without seeking to control them...

The first is the issue of social media. The evidence of direct racism against Meghan is disputed. Piers Morgan, the now ex-presenter on Good Morning Britain, said he could find none, as has the Society of Editors. This is challenged, of course, by many journalists. As The Independent says: 

"Even before the wedding, Harry had complained in 2017 about the “racial undertones” in British media coverage of his then-girlfriend. One tabloid columnist referred to Meghan’s “exotic” DNA. A Daily Mail headline described her Los Angeles roots as ”(almost) straight outta Compton” and claimed she came from a “gang-scarred” neighbourhood. A TV host described Meghan as “uppity.”

What was not noticed by Oprah, or anyone else, was the fact that Meghan spoke of horrendous racist abuse and death threats on social media. As this type of harassment and trolling is a worldwide problem, we should remember how distressing it can be for the victim. If Meghan was stuck in a palace all day, feeling isolated, it could well have affected her mental well-being. As such, she illustrates a problem that we must deal with. Online persecution is bad for anyone's mental health.

Which leads me to the second elephant in the room; the fact that Meghan spoke of feeling suicidal. Piers Morgan, among others, said that he did not believe her claim. I find it unlikely that she would invent something as traumatic as this, but I don't have any evidence either way. Whatever we believe , this is a serious matter, which impacts upon every society, not just the UK. If a member of the Royal Family can admit to mental health problems - and suicidal feelings are just such a problem - we need to recognise that mental illness is a fact of our lives that we must stop trying to hide. It is far more common that we care to admit, and this must change. Mentalhealth.org.uk points out: 

"Mixed anxiety & depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain, with 7.8% of people meeting criteria for diagnosis.
4-10% of people in England will experience depression in their lifetime.
Common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety are distributed according to a gradient of economic disadvantage across society. The poorer and more disadvantaged are disproportionately affected by common mental health problems and their adverse consequences.
Mixed anxiety and depression has been estimated to cause one fifth of days lost from work in Britain.
One adult in six had a common mental disorder."

Meghan might have done us all a favour by owning up to problems of this kind. Hopefully, more people who suffer in silence will now feel empowered enough to talk about their problems and seek professional help.

The final elephant, as if you hadn't guessed, is racism. This, of course, is a wider issue than the racism directed against the Duchess of Sussex. The Oprah interview went out on Monday evening on ITV, but another programme went out on Monday on BBC 1 which dealt with this issue in more detail: "Let's Talk About Race", presented by BBC breakfast host, Naga Munchetty.  As a white guy in a mixed marriage, I was pretty depressed at some of the stories I heard in the programme. There was Munchetty's own experience when younger: 

"I have experienced racism. You never forget the first time you hear that painful and distressing word. I was seven, when someone I thought was a friend at school, told me we could no longer hang out. They used the P-word, making clear the reason was because of the colour of my skin".

There was a chilling contribution from a black East ender, Jason: 

"I also met Jason, a black man born and raised in east London. He remembers his mum being chased by the National Front and shot with a pellet gun in her leg. He says she still has a scar. He tells me that the racism he experiences today is different, not as overt or blatant, but more under the surface, and no better. "There's no way you can feel or live my life unless you have that shade of skin."

"The Conversation.com" points to some evidence of the persistence of racism in our society from a survey it conducted: 

"We asked whether interviewees agreed that “some races or ethnic groups are born less intelligent than others” and found that 18% of the British public agreed with the statement. We also asked whether “some races or ethnic groups are born harder working than others”, to which a substantially larger percentage – 44% – said yes".

This former statement angers me. As someone who taught for the better part of 34 years in multicultural schools, I know that the first trope is complete rubbish. As for the second, the bigots who hold this ignorant, racist view should reckon with the fact that many of our dedicated NHS staff who have behaved so magnificently during the pandemic come from BAME backgrounds.

These are the three main issues arising from the Oprah interview that I believe have relevance for us. It was interesting how Thomas Markle, Meghan's father, said that he did not believe that the Royal Family or the British people were racist (he thought that California was, but didn't say how he knew). He might be correct about the Royal Family but, as I know and the evidence shows, racism does have a presence in our society. I believe that it powered the Leave campaign  and has increased since the referendum. As one young activist said in the Naga Munchetty programme:

"It's no longer enough to be non-racist; we must all become anti-racist".

Thomas Markle - now a neighbour to Harry and Meghan. A 70-mile drive lies between them

Shamima Begum - Justice and Revenge

 

Well, I must begin by owning up to a mistake. Back in February, 2019, I was waffling away confidently about how sure I was that Shamima Begum (pictured above) would eventually return to Britain. I confidently declared that: 

"...no person can be made stateless. This, together with her family's impassioned appeals for her return, some sympathetic voices in Parliament and some of the media surely points to the probability of her return in the near future".

Well, I got that wrong. As we know, the Supreme Court has ruled that her human rights were not breached when she was refused entry to the United Kingdom and that she cannot return to fight her citizenship case. The president of the Supreme Court, Lord Reed, said: 

"The Supreme Court unanimously allows all of the home secretary's appeals and dismisses Ms Begum's cross-appeal."

Commenting upon the Court of Appeal's verdict allowing her return, he further said, according to the BBC: 

"He said the Court of Appeal's judgment "did not give the home secretary's assessment the respect which it should have received" given the role's "responsibility for making such assessments" and accountability to parliament".

So, for the time being, and perhaps for the rest of her life, Shamima Begum and her child remain in a Syrian detention camp. Now, I am well aware that many people will welcome the Supreme Court's ruling. However, to my surprise, I have found that there is a cross-section of political opinion from Right to Left that is disturbed by the court's verdict. Amanda Platell, the Daily Mail columnist , showed surprising compassion when she said: 

"Begum has now lost three babies to starvation and pneumonia. She is living under armed guard, in conditions far more squalid than she would face in any British prison. Her husband — an equally idiotic Dutch-born jihadi — is in jail. Her family cannot see her.
Lord alive, what kind of risk does this 21-year-old — who would surely be watched closely by the authorities and the country at large were she ever to come home — pose?"

Quite right - but I never expected to agree with a Daily Mail columnist! Even David Davis, M.P. (no liberal) was quoted in the Hull Daily Mail as saying on Twitter:

"Disappointing verdict in the Supreme Court. Regardless of what individuals like Shamima Begum have done, the UK cannot simply wash our hands of Brits in the Syrian camps. The correct approach would be to return them to the UK to answer for their crimes".

That statement came as another surprise to me. Perceptively, The Guardian commented:

"While the UK government believes that Ms Begum’s return would go against the public interest, the opposite is true. To prevent similar things from happening in the future, it is important to understand how a schoolgirl became radicalised..."

If Begum has violated UK law, she should be tried here. It is immoral to expect other countries to take responsibility for our criminals. In future, when we try to deport foreign criminals, their countries of origin would be perfectly entitled to deny them entry, quoting the Shamima Begum case as a precedent.

But to return to the public interest - if we refuse entry to Shamima Begum, she must go somewhere. She could rot in a refugee camp - or she could escape, as so many others have done, to rejoin ISIS and serve their vile cause once again. Her child, and others that she might have, could grow up hating Britain and actively seek revenge - as terrorists. So much for public safety being protected.

To revisit what I said two years ago, I must point out that at that time, 400 former Jihadis were thought to have returned to the UK already. I have no current figures. I also pointed out that, at the end of WW2, the UK rehabilitated 57 former traitors who had fought for Germany in what was called "The British Free Corps" (BFC). The most odious of these fascist turncoats was one Thomas Cooper. who, before joining the BFC, had actually served in the SS on the Eastern Front. In 1941, libcom.org says:

"Finishing his training in May he was posted to SS Totenkopf Wachtbatallion Oranienburg stationed near Krakow, it was here that he would later boast that he participated in massacring both Polish Jews and Russian Prisoners of War."

To be exact, he bragged of murdering 200 Poles and 80 Jews in one day in Warsaw. And yet, after being tried for treason after the war, his death sentence was commuted and he was released in 1953. Most of the BFC never faced treason charges and were allowed back into British society.

The question, then, is obvious: if we can rehabilitate an avowed murderer and war criminal like Thomas Cooper, together with his fascist comrades, why can we not do the same for Shamima Begum, whose alleged crimes bear no comparison?