You never shut up - why should we?

A letter in our local paper stated that "those calling for referendum mark two are talking nonsense" [mark three, surely?]. The writer asserted that, after we leave the EU, we will still be able to trade with the EU and with the Commonwealth. I appreciate the his upbeat wishful thinking, and the interesting suggestion that Commonwealth members have spent 41 years waiting for us to leave the EU so they can trade with us again. In reality, they have in the intervening decades forged other trading links and I cannot see how we'd be able to stroll in and pick up where we left off.

The EU vote was an enormous gamble that certain politicians chose to take with our future: David Cameron held the referendum, which he fully expected to win, not to give us a say, but to try to silence his Euro-sceptic backbenchers once and for all, a foolish tactic that disastrously backfired. Boris Johnson supported the leave side to further his own ambition to be prime minister, but you don't have to take my word for that: senior Tories such as Anna Soubry and Alan Duncan will tell you exactly the same thing.

Because Cameron anticipated a victory, no plans were made about what to do if the 'leave' side won; so confident was he that government departments were specifically instructed not to make any contingency plans, which to me seems the height of irresponsibility. Having engineered this vote, Messrs Cameron, Farage and Johnson all stepped away from leadership roles. To put it another way, having started the fire, they all simply ran away leaving others to deal with the consequences.

Those who are happy with the result keep on telling those who voted to stay in to get over it. Just like they did? We have had 41 years of constant whingeing and complaining by them about the EEC/EC/EU since the first referendum in 1975. They did not 'get over it' then, so why should anyone else now?

The first referendum did not close down the debate; I strongly doubt that the second one will either.

Nice, Jo Cox - Explanations and Excuses

Last Friday, July 15, saw two seemingly unconnected events: we woke to the news of the previous night's slaughter of 84 innocent people in Nice, France and, during the day, the burial of Jo Cox, M.P. in her Yorkshire constituency of Batley and Spen. These two events happened hundreds of miles apart, but there are a number of similarities between the perpetrators of what I believe to have been two terrorist acts - the shooting and stabbing of Jo Cox by Thomas Mair, and the massacre by truck carried out by Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel in France.
To me, there are several obvious similarities between Mair and Bouhlel. They both carried out their attacks alone, even though evidence of support for Mair may yet emerge, and Bouhlel's last text message before he set out to commit mass murder does seem to point to the involvement of others.
Bouhlel's final text message read: "Bring more weapons. Bringing in 5," while an earlier text said:"It's good. I have the equipment."
Both appear to have been loners. Mair was regarded by his neighbours as a quiet man, if somewhat eccentric. Bouhlel was regarded as being anti- social by his neighbours, even though he was married with three children. Whereas Mair helped his elderly neighbours with their gardens, Bouhlel showed the nasty side of his nature by beating his wife, who left him. As one of his long-suffering neighbours said: “He was rude and bit weird. We would hold the door open for him and he would just blank him...He kept himself to himself but would always rant about his wife. He had marital problems and would tell people in the local cafe. He scared my children though.”
Significantly, both had a history of mental health problems, which, in the context of terrorism, I have discussed before, on June 17th. The question of mental instability and terrorism is a thorny one, but it has now become more topical and, in my opinion, deserves urgent attention. After all, terrorism is not a rational activity, so should not all terrorists be judged insane? Counterpoint to that, as has been pointed out previously, MIND has said that one in every four Britons will suffer mental health problems in their lifetime, so can these problems really be regarded as legitimate excuses, or even explanations, for terrorist actions? We are told that Bouhlel suffered from depression, but so do tens of thousands of people who do not go out to commit mass murder.
Now, Mair and Bouhlel have one outstanding difference, and that is in their ideological beliefs, which inspired them on to carry out their atrocities. Mair, as I have said before, is a racist and a fascist, who appears to have had links to the far-right outfit, Britain First, while Bouhlel is thought to have been a radical Islamist. With Bouhlel, however, some people, including his lawyer, doubt that he was a Jihadi. As his wife's cousin, Walid Hamou, said of him:
“Bouhlel was not religious. He did not go to the mosque, he did not pray, he did not observe Ramadan. He drank alcohol, ate pork and took drugs. This is all forbidden under Islam.

‘He was not a Muslim, he was a shit. He beat his wife, my cousin, he was a nasty piece of work.”

Well, I am sure he was, but that does not mean he could not have been radicalized in some way. He was a known violent criminal, last convicted in the spring of this year. As the Huffington Post says:
"His latest conviction was in March, when he received a six-month suspended sentence for violence with a weapon, having used a wooden pallet against another driver during a traffic incident."
Far from Bouhlel not fitting a Jihadi terrorist profile, I believe he fits it only too well. Most of the attackers in the Paris massacres had criminal backgrounds and became radicalized very quickly. The same thing could well have happened with Bouhlel. The fact that he sent the  text messages (see above), and seems to have researched the murderous route he took, points to his having some tactical and logistical support. It also shows him to have been capable of forward planning, which, again, calls into question the view that he was mentally deranged.
The link between Jihadi radicalism and crime is borne out by a local youth worker, who told the BBC:
Kamel, a youth worker in the Nice area, says one of the reasons for the recent success of the Salafist ideology that has inspired jihad, is that it provides a ready and easy way of justifying the actions of petty criminals.
"The kids are told that they are in a land of unbelievers, so when they steal and attack people it is justifiable; the petty criminal is turned into a holy warrior, and is promised status, sexual gratification and eternal life."
Bouhlel's sudden radicalization, which many doubt, is not so unlikely after all. Both Bouhlel and Mair knew what they were doing, and acted according to their beliefs and (lack of) consciences. The killing of innocent people they perceive as enemies is rational behaviour to both neo-Nazis and Jihadis. Mair goes on trial in November, and, hopefully, will be judged accordingly.
To conclude, I know that we all have felt helpless in the face of what happened in Nice last Thursday. Lives have been ruined, 84 people have died, 202 injured and many others traumatized. We tend to feel helpless - I know that I did - when such things happen, but I would like to close with a positive suggestion that I offer to all who read this post. You may wish, as I did, to send a message of support and sympathy to the French people, and here is a link to the email address of the French Embassy in London - CLICK HERE. It is better to light a candle than complain about the darkness.

Trident Nuclear Weapons

Letter to my Member of Parliament

I am writing to ask you to vote against renewal or replacement of our nuclear weapons. These are my reasons:

1. The possession of nuclear weapons did not save us from being involved in conflicts in Cyprus, Suez, Malaya, Kenya, the Falklands, the Gulf War, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. It did not save us from years of terrorism by the IRA or by Islamic extremists on 7.7.05, Al Qaeda or ISIL.
2. In Europe, only the UK, France and Russia have nuclear weapons. This leaves more than 40 European countries that do not consider they need such weapons to ensure their security. If they don't need them, we can do without them as well.
3. The cost is unaffordable: at least £205,000,000,000 at a time when all our public services are being attacked, including health, social care, social services, benefits, education and public transport. Local authorities are cutting services, not to the bone, but into the bone. Our border forces are lamentably inadequate: 3 boats as against Italy's 600, even though their coast line is shorter.
4. Once a nuclear war begins, both sides lose, no matter who was the aggressor. A system of deterrence that would ensure our own nation's destruction if it were ever employed is in reality a form of national suicide.
5. Submarine-based technology is already obsolescent. Its strategic value derives from the fact that, even today, submarines are not as easy to track as land-based installations and vehicles. Unmanned underwater drones will remove that advantage forever, and such drones are currently under development. There would be no way of compensating for the loss of that tactical advantage. In the event of a conflict that ends up going nuclear, our subs, previously almost untraceable, would be easily located and destroyed before we deploy them.
6. The only reason why the UK retains Trident is because our leaders want our country to be seen as a major player on the international scene, thus justifying our permanent seat on the UN Security Council. This is a spectacularly bad reason, and it is definitely not a priority for most ordinary citizens in this country. It is simply using weapons of mass destruction as a global status symbol.
7. Mass murder by nuclear weapons would not be war: it would be genocide. Leaders who used them, or agreed to their use, would be war criminals.

Even if one has previously accepted the argument that we need nuclear weapons in the past, the rationale behind retaining or replacing them is ceasing to exist. I am reminded of how during the First World War, the generals maintained cavalry units and looked for opportunities to deploy them, ignoring the fact that military technology had rendered them obsolete. The repeated full frontal assaults by infantry units against entrenched machine guns was a refusal to adapt methods to changed circumstances; the generals eventually learnt to modify their tactics only after horrendous and pointless losses of lives caused by this bloody-minded obstinacy. The consequence was carnage on an industrial scale.

To renew our Trident weapons system is to employ the same blinkered thinking. There is no moral or financial logic to nuclear weapons. There is increasingly no tactical value in them either.

I therefore urge you to vote against renewal or replacement of our nuclear weapons systems.

Thank you.

Enoch Powell, Nigel Farage and Genies Out of the Bottle

Surprisingly, although there has been some media comment, no-one seems to have looked at the similarities between the late Enoch Powell and (still with us) Nigel Farage. This is all the more remarkable when we learn, according to the Daily Mail, Farage was, at one stage, desperately trying to get Powell to join UKIP, even acting as Powell's chauffeur on one occasion. Farage was certainly persistent, as the Mail says:

"Mr Powell, who died in 1998, turned down Mr Farage’s request after giving the matter ‘very serious consideration’.

The following year, Mr Powell was invited to stand as a Ukip candidate in the 1995 European Parliament election, and then in the 1997 general election. 

He rejected both requests. But he did go on to give his backing to three Ukip candidates in the mid-1990s.

Mr Farage has described Mr Powell as a ‘political hero’".

(It should be mentioned here that Russell Brand described Farage as a "Poundshop Enoch Powell").

It is not clear why Powell would not join UKIP, but there is one issue which united Farage and himself: Immigration - with one important difference. Powell, in his public statements, especially his infamous so-called "Rivers of Blood" (Powell never actually used the term) speech of April 20, 1968, focused upon immigrants from the former British colonies, who happened to have different coloured skin. Farage, on the other hand, has targeted EC migrants, who are predominantly white. Another difference between the two is that Powell's speech, and later ones, led to him being banished to the political wilderness. As Wikipedia points out:

" The Conservative leader, Edward Heath, sacked Powell from his post as Shadow Defence Secretary, telling him on the telephone that Sunday evening (it was the last conversation they would have). Heath said of the speech in public that it was "racialist in tone and liable to exacerbate racial tensions". Powell's later political career was spent in a sort of noisy obscurity.

 Farage is still glowing with the success of the "Leave" campaign in the referendum, for which he takes a good deal of credit. If Powell were alive today, he would probably be wringing Farage's hand in congratulation. Unlike Powell, though, Farage does not seem to be heading for obscurity, even if he has resigned as the leader of UKIP. He is headed for a presenter's job with LBC and has been offered a huge amount of money to appear on "I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here". He will thus avoid having to answer criticism for the imminent adverse effects of Brexit. 

The major similarity between the two, in my opinion, is the way they both appealed to what can only be described as the racist section of the British electorate. This is not to say that Powell was, or Farage is, a racist. Powell explicitly denied it on a number of occasions, most famously to David Frost. As for Farage, even Ken Livingstone  has defended him on this charge.

However, the racists among us, who lack subtle intelligence, have listened to the cunningly measured statements of both men, and heard something different. After Powell's speech of 20/4/68, dockers and Smithfield porters marched in support of him. Significantly, one march was led by Big Dan Harmston, a Smithfield market porter and lifelong member of Oswald Moseley's fascist Union Movement. Opinion polls showed a 74% approval of Powell's speech by white Britons, and for a time, Powell had a bodyguard squad of skinheads. For immigrant communities, it led to a heightened sense of insecurity and fear. Admiration of Powell persists on the far right to this day. He even has his own Facebook page (I refuse to provide a link), run by the "Traditional Britain Group."

Any casual observer can see that Farage has learned a lot from Powell. As the Guardian said in 2014:

"Farage has long openly admired Powell, once calling him his political hero. While acknowledging that Powell got it wrong about people of different nationalities and races being unable to mix, the Ukip leader has said the central thrust of Powell’s arguments about immigration hold true".

And Farage has not been slow to demonise EC migrants in much the same insidious way that Powell attacked coloured immigrant communities. As he himself said:

" It's about mass immigration at a time when 21% of young people can't find work. It's about giving £50 million a day to the EU when the public finances are under great strain."

That neatly implies that EC migrants are causing youth unemployment and cuts in public spending. It also lets the government and bankers off the hook. Worse, it sums up the way in which Farage and all the "Leave" big noises depicted EC migrants as invading parasites and enemies within. It comes as no surprise then, that post Brexit, racist hate crime has increased (a 50% increase in London alone) - and Farage has not said one word in condemnation. Powell never denounced the racist violence that followed his speeches, either. Farage has learned well from his hero. Ok, so you can't put released genies back in their bottles, but you could at least pretend to care about their misdeeds.

Nigel smiles; his hero hangs.

The First Day on the Somme - Remembrance and Revision

Back in the 1980s, I bought and read "The First Day on the Somme", by Martin Middlebrook. I found it such a distressing experience that I could not bring myself to read it again, and it stayed on my bookshelf for more years than I care to remember. However, as the 100th anniversary of the start of the Somme battle approaches on July 1st, I am reading it again, and finding it as moving as I did so long ago.
The facts of the battle are indisputable. The attack on July 1st, 1916, saw the worst day in British military history. An intense week-long artillery bombardment had failed to destroy the German barbed wire in front of most of the German front line. Most British troops were ordered to walk toward the enemy trenches and were cut down by machine gun and artillery fire. By the end of that terrible day, 57, 940 British soldiers were casualties, of which 19, 240 were dead. Half of these men were killed and wounded in the first hour of the battle. One man fell for about every 18 inches of the attack frontage. The Battle of the Somme continued for 141 days, ending on November 18. On average, 893 men died on each of those days; the total of Allied and German casualties came to about 1000 000. The Allied front line advanced five miles. By contrast, the British military serving in Afghanistan from 1st January, 2006, to 31st March, 2013 suffered 454 dead and 2, 116 wounded and injured.
Statistics are cold and impersonal; Middlebrook's book brings us the voices, thoughts and feelings of the men who fought and died on that day. A recent Daily Mail article, which features many of the men mentioned in Middlebrook's book, gives one such example: At 0400 hours...
"Many soldiers start writing last letters home. Second Lieutenant Ronald Grundy, 19, of the Middlesex Regiment tells his mother, ‘Please always look on the bright side. Only 5 per cent of the army is killed.’ He will be shot in the throat by a sniper at 7.30am (H-Hour)".
There are many such poignant moments in Middlebrook's book taken from the duration of the battle, but perhaps the most affecting statements are those of some of the men who survived July 1st, 1916 and, luckily, the rest of the war. Here are a couple:
"It was pure bloody murder. Douglas Haig should have been hung, drawn and quartered for what he did on the Somme. The cream of British manhood was shattered in less than six hours" - Pte. P. Smith, Border Regiment.
"More than anything I hated to see war-crippled men standing in the gutter selling matches...I'd never fight for my country again" - Pte. F. W. A. Turner, Sherwood Foresters.
The post-war bitterness of these survivors is understandable - and I have every sympathy for it. However, we have to take into account the fact that not all ex-servicemen from WW1 felt this way. Lyn MacDonald, who wrote some excellent books about the conflict, said in one of her prefaces that many veterans felt hurt by the view of them as dupes and donkeys - although some agreed with it. Nevertheless, the slaughter of the Somme's first day has become emblematic of the prevailing view of  WW1, depicted and expressed in "Oh, What a Lovely War", the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon and "Blackadder Goes Forth".
I have a lot of sympathy with this view, but am concerned that it has become, for many people, an unchallengeable orthodoxy. Two historians who have expressed an alternative point of view, Professor Gary Sheffield and Dan Snow, have been greeted with near-violent hostility. So what have they said? Sheffield wrote a book called "Forgotten Victory", in which he advanced the view that the Somme was part of a necessary "learning curve" that the British Army went through to adapt to modern warfare, and led on to the "year of victories" in 1918. Snow simply pointed out that the British generals, like those of all other armies, were plagued by poor communications and needed to be located in a safe central position. He also, in 2014, debunked what he saw as 10 myths about WW1 (see link). For this, he received a good deal of abuse (and some vigorous criticism, bordering on invective). While Private Smith, quoted above, might have had no respect for Douglas Haig, the fact remains that when Haig died, in 1928, 12000 ex-servicemen travelled to Scotland to line the route of his funeral procession. The writing of history should never become the preserve of emotionalism and intolerance.
And yet - on Friday, when we remember the sacrifice of so many who died on the Somme, we must remember it as the human tragedy that it was. As my contribution to the commemoration of the Somme battle, I have donated a short poem by me on the back of a British Legion laminated poppy that will be planted among others along the route to the Thiepval Visitors' Centre, on the old Somme battlefield. I have 19, 240 good reasons for doing so. Here is the poem:

Lines Written for the Somme Battle Centenary

On the fire step,

First of July.

Birds soar,

 Bullets fly.

Men fall,

Widows cry.

Grief and glory

Never die.

Cameron's Demise and a Victory for the Racist Right

I could not believe the news this morning. For me, a "Leave" vote was out of the question, and it just couldn't happen. Well, it happened, and I have had to adjust to the sight of the triumphalist rantings of Brexit politicians, all of whom are right of centre. What a crew! There is the effervescently gloating Nigel Farrage, as well as Boris Johnson, Chris Grayling, and other stars in the Tory firmament. Interestingly, all the smiling faces are either UKIP or Tory pundits - I have seen no Labour Brexiters as of yet. This political imbalance, as well as the fact that Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen have welcomed the referendum result, is highly significant.
As for David Cameron's falling on his sword, he reminds me of the "upper class twit of the year" in the famous Monty Python sketch who ran himself over with his own car. As Owen Jones says in today's "Guardian": "He called a referendum not because he thought it was in the national interest, but because it was useful to manage internal Conservative divisions. The referendum was inevitably framed as a struggle between two Conservative factions."
Cameron miscalculated disastrously, for himself as well as those of us who did not buy into the Brexit side's "case". I would have been delighted to see him leave his post after losing a General Election, but I am not happy to watch his departure from office in this way. As I said yesterday (it seems a different world today!),he should have shown some personal steel (and common sense) in resisting the pressure to hold the referendum in the first place. In actual fact, the referendum result is not legally binding, and if Cameron had been braver, he could have disregarded it. As Haroon Siddique has written:
"The simple answer to the question as to whether the EU referendum is legally binding is “no”. In theory, in the event of a vote to leave the EU, David Cameron, who opposes Brexit, could decide to ignore the will of the people and put the question to MPs banking on a majority deciding to remain.
This is because parliament is sovereign and referendums are generally not binding in the UK."
Some hopes of that...
So, where are we now? Well, we all know about the run on the pound, the unrest in the Stock market and rumblings of nationalist discontent in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We know, also, that  Nigel Farage has disowned a pledge to spend £350 million of European Union cash on the NHS after Brexit. As Jon Stone says in "The Independent":
"Nigel Farage has disowned a pledge to spend £350 million of European Union cash on the NHS after Brexit."
In fact, "Barrage" denies having made such a pledge. For a man who has condemned so many other politicians for being slippery and evasive, Nigel seems to have learned from them.
Like I said yesterday, so long ago now, this referendum has created divisions across the political spectrum. The result has caused turmoil in our political life, having already led to the removal of David Cameron from office, and the possible sacking of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. But of particular concern, to me at least, is the nasty racist undercurrent that has accompanied the Brexit campaign. As one young Spanish lady said in a TV debate to Michael Gove:
"You are talking about us (EC migrants) as if we are enemies. I love this country".
Now, I accept that not all Brexit supporters are racists, but, as others besides me have pointed out, all racists are Brexit supporters. London voted to Remain yesterday, and some media pundits have given the misleading impression that the rest of the country voted to Leave. This is not the case, as many constituencies elsewhere in Britain (all in Scotland) voted Remain. The problem is that there was not enough of them. In many areas, including traditional Labour Party areas, the vote appears to have been swung by an antipathy to immigration. I do not believe that Nigel Farrage and his ilk are all racists, but they have shown that they know how to manipulate the racist vote. Brexit did particularly well in some depressed and disadvantaged areas, where there is a feeling that the native population (whoever they are) have been passed over in favour of immigrants.
This is a Europe-wide problem, and the Europe's far-right parties have been delighted at the victory for the Leave campaign. French National Front (FN) leader, Marine Le Pen tweeted: “Victory for freedom! As I have been asking for years, now we need to have the same referendum in France and in the countries of the EU.”
Presumably, the French equivalent will be called "Frexit". The FN's equivalents in the Netherlands, Germany (Alternative für Deutschland), the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People's Party and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece are equally jubilant. The dogs of Europe are beginning to bark in unison. Donald Trump, who arrived in the UK today, the Daily Telegraph says:
 "Asked if he took heart from the result for his own campaign, Mr Trump said: “We're doing very well in the United States and essentially the same thing is happening in the United States."
We have been warned. Labour politicians who were misguided enough to support the Leave campaign should take note: they have helped the cause of the Right, in the USA, Europe and Britain immeasurably.
I conclude by looking at the impact this result is having upon the people that the Brexit campaign has targeted: EU migrants. This morning on TV, I saw a Polish couple who run a shop in Peterborough looking distinctly apprehensive about the fact that the town where they had lived for so long had voted decisively for Brexit. And not just EC migrants have cause to feel apprehensive. Joseph Harker, in the Guardian, says:
"Yes, the immigration issue has been about numbers coming from eastern Europe, and about people who don’t have English as their first language. But as anyone with a black or brown face knows, our nationality is regularly questioned, even when we’re born here: we are spoken about in phrases such as “immigrant communities”, and immigration stories carried in the media are commonly accompanied by images of black or Asian people, implicitly assuming they arrived from overseas."
The Brexit campaign, then, has potentially turned the clock back several decades to the days when Enoch Powell was the darling of the racist right, and the National Front (NF) appeared on our streets. That is David Cameron's final contribution to British politics. Thanks, Dave.

Today, I Voted Remain...

Well, yes, I did vote to remain in the EU, but not for the reasons many people are giving for voting either way. I voted Remain, because it is my view that David Cameron should not have called this referendum in the first place. Had he not allowed it, we would be remaining in the EU, and avoided one of the most divisive events in British political history. I believed this referendum to have been a bad idea from the very beginning, and it got worse.
In the first place, I think it has seriously undermined Cameron's own position, and the office he holds. My view is that, as elected leader of this country, and someone who supports the EU, he should have been tough enough to stick to that position, and not hazarded his future (and ours) by going to referendum. He is Prime Minister and believes passionately that the UK belongs in Europe. Why, then, has he risked losing the vote? In my opinion, he has made himself look weak, and, if the country votes Leave, his career in politics is finished.
Referenda, to use one choice of plural, are not always progressive and beneficial for society. They are used frequently in Switzerland (180 in the last 20 years, 9 this year alone), and have produced some very strange results in the past. Not until 1971 were women given the vote; not until the same year could women hold seats in parliament. Only in 2004 did a referendum grant Swiss women paid maternity leave. The Leave campaign in the present referendum campaign has seen some ugly racist and nationalist vapourings, which has done them little credit in the eyes of all but the most bigoted.
I think, though, that the most damaging aspect of the referendum campaign has been the divisions it has created between the supporters of either camp in all political parties. Even the extreme Left has been divided on this issue. The ill-will between Remainers and Leavers, sometimes between members of the cabinet, has been astonishing at times. To give but one example from many, Amber Rudd, the Energy Secretary, said of her fellow-Tory, Boris Johnson, in an ITV debate:“As for Boris, he is the life and soul of the party but he’s not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening,”
Such invective can only leave a legacy of ill-will which could last well into the future. Instead of a house divided, we might see every political party (except the LibDems) divided into sections that have bad feelings towards each other, poisoning our political life. When the results of this referendum are declared tomorrow morning, a lot of people are going to be very unhappy, all of which adds up to an unhealthy legacy for David Cameron's misconceived referendum idea.

Terrorism, Mental Health Homicide and the Murder of Jo Cox

In 1939, W. H. Auden penned these lines in one of his poems:
"In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark".
Well, as we know, one of those dogs came out of the dark yesterday and took the life of Jo Cox, M.P. We, as a nation, are reeling from this; the feelings of Jo Cox's family are unimaginable. All flags are at half-mast, and tributes are ringing out in the media. At the moment, I am listening to the Jeremy Vine programme on Radio 2, and a listener has just emailed asking:
"...what has happened to our beautiful, civilized country?"
That person's feelings are understandable, but, sadly, Jo Cox's horrible murder is not without precedent in this country or any other. As regular readers of this blog know, terrorism and mental health homicide are frequent themes of mine (some would say obsessions). The killing of Jo Cox brings these two themes together, and I think we need to look a little more closely at them here.
As for precedents, there have been a number of murders of serving M.P.s. Wikipedia lists eight, beginning with the assassination of the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, in 1812, and now updated with the killing of Jo Cox. Six of the MPs murdered were killed by Irish republicans, but Percival and Jo Cox were slain by people with a history of mental illness. There have, of course, been a number of murder attempts by political and religious extremists against M.P.s in recent years. There was the stabbing of Steven Timms, M.P. by the Islamist fanatic Roshonara Chaudry, which I wrote about in 2010. 2000 saw the murder attempt by a  mental health patient, Robert Ashman, upon Nigel Jones, M.P. (now Lord Jones), in which Jones' aide Andrew Pennington was killed by Ashman, who was wielding a sword. Incredibly, but in line with everything I have featured on Rhymes and Routes about released mental health patients, Ashman was released in 2008.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that terrorist organisations find people with mental health problems very useful. In 1975, members of the German Red Army Faction (aka "The Baader-Meinhof Gang") took over the West German Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. This group, grandiosely  named "The Holger Mains Commando", was composed mainly of violent mental health patients. After the occupation of Iraq, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of Daesh, used mentally handicapped individuals as suicide bombers, and Daesh has continued the practice. Here in the UK in 2008, Nicky Reilly, a mentally handicapped young man with the mental age of ten, tried to blow himself up in an Exeter restaurant after being radicalized online.
Thomas Mair, the man arrested for the murder of Jo Cox, appears to tick both boxes - political extremism and mental health problems. He seems to have had links with far-right organisations in the USA and South Africa. During the attack on Jo Cox, he is alleged to have shouted "Put Britain first", or "Britain First", it is not clear which. Unsurprisingly, Britain First, the extreme right wing  group has denied all connection with Thomas Mair. It may even be true.
Mair also seems to have had mental health issues in the past, but, to be fair to the mental health mandarins, he does not appear to have exhibited any dangerous traits. One of his neighbours has said:  "He is just a quiet bloke who keeps himself to himself. "He is very helpful and he helps local people with their gardens. There is one neighbour who is a bit frail and he keeps her garden tidy. He has helped me cut my hedge a couple of times." In 2011, Mair volunteered to work as a groundsman at the nearby Oakwell Hall County Park, which he claimed helped ease his mental health problems, according to the Daily Telegraph.
It is my view that Mair was not an openly active member of any extreme right-wing party. Rather, I believe that we will learn how he nurtured his extremism in secret for years, watching neo-Nazi videos on the internet, as well as reading terrorist weapons manuals and extremist literature in preparation for an unspecified atrocity. One such book might well be "The Turner Diaries" by William Luther Pierce, written in 1978. Given the fact that Pierce was the founder of the neo-Nazi Nationalist Alliance in the USA, and the fact that Mair has been found to be in possession of National Alliance reading matter, it is more than likely he has read "The Turner Diaries".
This evil book, which tells the story of a white supremacist psychopath, Earl Turner, who launches a terror campaign against the US Federal Government, liquidating all non-white groups and launching a nuclear strike against Israel, has proven to be an inspirational text for aspiring fascist terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. McVeigh was found to have pages of this book on him when arrested. Another neo-Nazi seeking to emulate Earl Turner's example was David Copeland, who killed three people in a bombing campaign against London's black, Asian and gay communities in April 1999, and quoted from The Turner Diaries while being interviewed by police. Unbelievably, this hate-filled book is on sale at Amazon.
In the nightmare of the dark, the dogs of political and religious terrorism are still barking, and we will be very lucky indeed if they never bite again. There's nothing like hoping against hope, but that is what we do. We must at least ensure that our M.P.s are valued more, and provided with greater protection. This Fascist, Mair - for that is what I believe him to be - must not be allowed to undermine our democracy.
To conclude, I know I speak for all contributors and readers of Rhymes and Routes in sending our deepest condolences to Jo Cox's family, friends and constituents, should they happen upon this post. For a number of years, there has been a lot of cynicism directed at M.P.s, but Jo Cox was an outstanding young politician, who should have gone on to a fine career. For her husband and children, an empty space has appeared in their lives. Brendan Cox, her husband, has said:  "Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. More difficult, more painful, less joyful, less full of love."
I wish them peace, and time to grieve.

The UK, Corruption and the Peaky Blinders

Corruption, and those who practise it, is in the news at the moment. This is the best place for the problem, as the practitioners do not like scrutiny. It is remarkable, however, that when corruption is discussed, it is at a national level. David Cameron, when he made his famous gaffe, told the Queen that Nigeria and Afghanistan are two of the world's most "fantastically corrupt" countries. The Afghan delegate to the Anti-Corruption Summit responded by pointing out that:
 "...clumsy Western intervention in Afghanistan allowed corruption to flourish...We inherited...a fantastically corrupt system...".
 Even more remarkable, in the light of Cameron's remarks, is the fact that an Anti-Mafia Italian journalist, Roberto Saviano, has told an audience at the book festival in Hay-on-Wye that Britain is the most corrupt country in the world. He said:
“If I asked you what is the most corrupt place on Earth you might tell me well it’s Afghanistan, maybe Greece, Nigeria, the South of Italy and I will tell you it’s the UK...It’s not the bureaucracy, it’s not the police, it’s not the politics but what is corrupt is the financial capital. 90 per cent of the owners of capital in London have their headquarters offshore".
For me, though, the greatest surprise was to find that there is actually a league table of corruption, but without divisions,  as in the Football League. Run by Transparency International, its Corruption Perception Index of 2015 lists 168 countries in order of least corruption down to the worst. Denmark ranks at Number 1, while the bottom ranking of joint 167 is held by North Korea and Somalia. Britain ranks 10th and the USA 16th. As might be expected, countries at war feature heavily in the lower rankings, and to be fair to David Cameron, Nigeria ranks 136th and Afghanistan 166th. It would be grossly unfair to suggest that the populations of these countries are happy with this situation. There is a weary resignation to the fact that corruption is rife. As Raymond Bonner has said of the Philippines (number 95 in the table):
"The Philippines is a country in which a man of morals can't be president, in which a politician who hasn't been linked to any wrongdoing isn't assumed to be honest, but merely better at hiding his corruption."
The CPI was compiled by experts, but the Global Corruption Barometer of 2013 was compiled from direct research in 95 countries by asking samples of people: "Have you paid a bribe in 2013?". Australia, Denmark, Finland and Japan scored lowest, with only 1% of interviewees admitting to bribery, while in the UK, 5% replied "Yes", below Georgia and the Maldives. Sierra Leone was bottom of the table, with 95% of their sample owning up to bribery. 7% answered "Yes" in the USA; Russia is strangely absent. David Cameron was no doubt gratified to see that 44% of Nigerians and 45% of Afghans replied in the affirmative, and I was happy to see that only 12% of Filipinos confessed to greasing palms. Just how honest the responders were in these countries is open to question.
Corruption on  the scale it exists in so many countries is unbelievably harmful, as it deprives native populations of desperately needed resources. Remarkably, though, corruption is seen by many people as being entertaining. We see this in the success of scandal-raking tabloid newspapers, and some very successful TV series. The Sopranos, Spiral, and many other crime series are immensely popular with a worldwide public, even if the "good guys" are really only the lesser of a number of evils. One such series as this is the BBC series "The Peaky Blinders", where you are hard put to it to find a single honest, upright character. The writer, Stephen Knight, himself a "Brummie", based his programme on a Birmingham street gang of the early 20th century. The hard core of the gang - in the TV series - is the Shelby family. The head of the gang, and undisputed mastermind, is Tommy Shelby, a decorated WW1 hero who welds his rabble of street scruffs and psychopaths into a highly efficient organized crime unit over the first two series, using all manner of violence, bribery and intimidation to dominate Birmingham and London. The third, and current, series sees them involved in a vicious gang war with an Italian gang (who kill Tommy's wife) and Tommy's involvement in a plot to arm Russian anti-Bolsheviks, which brings him into conflict with dark, unseen, sections of the security services. The Blinders have now become so strong that they can force the sacking of Socialist and Communist trade union officials. They may rob from the rich, but never seem to get round to giving to the poor, even if Tommy scores a victory for the working class by becoming intimate with an exiled Russian countess.
I have to say that the programme is very entertaining, with authentic scenery, convincing plots (fortunately fictional), red-hot sex scenes and sparkling dialogue, even though the heroes are anti-heroes who seem to want to join the ruling class. "The Peaky Blinders" is a "Threepenny Opera" for the 21st century, with Tommy Shelby as an up-to-date Captain Macheath.
So what is it about corruption that entertains? Is it a secret yearning on the part of the viewer to engage in such activities, or is it a kind of catharsis? I know that I feel glad to return to normal after watching such programmes - even if I do watch the next episode!

Donald Lock: Another Innocent Victim

There are some subjects to which I hope never to return, but, somehow, I always find my way back to them. One such subject is mental health homicide, which I first commented upon in March 2013, when I wrote about the murders of Sally Hodkin by Nicola Edgington in 2011 and that of 16-year old Christina Edkins by Philip Simelane in 2013. In 2015, I wrote about the murder in Croydon of Andrew Else and the savage killing of 60-year old Jennifer Mills-Westley in Spain. All four were killed by mental health patients; all are now forgotten by everyone but their grieving families. The murder of Andrew Else was not even reported on the national news. It was almost as if these horrible events were becoming a matter of routine.
This week, however, saw a trial which has catapulted the mental health homicide issue into the headlines: the sickening murder of Donald Lock, a 79-year old retired solicitor stabbed to death by Matthew Daley in July of last year. Daley, like all the other killers mentioned in the cases above, is a mental health patient. There are depressingly familiar features in Donald Lock's murder to all the other cases mentioned above (and hundreds of others not mentioned): the brutal randomness of the attacks; the perpetrators' pleading of diminished responsibility; the baffled anguish of the victims' families; the failure of the mental health authorities to assess the dangerous nature of the perpetrators and their needs.
In this case, I am happy to say, the mental health authority has been publicly called to account by the national media. The Chief Executive of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Colm Donaghy has said, under questioning, that they "got things wrong". This grossly obvious fact was followed up by his telling the BBC: "On behalf of the trust, I apologise unreservedly because the care we provided to Matthew Daley should have been better. I also want to offer my sincere condolences to the family of Don Lock and everyone else affected by this tragic, devastating incident."
The timing of his apology is interesting. Mr Lock's son, Andrew, said outside the court after the trial that the Lock family had not, up until that point, received an apology from the trust. This echoes the treatment of Julian Hendy, founder of the "100 Families" website, whose father was killed by a mental health patient in 2007. Mr Hendy received no apology from the relevant NHS authority; all official sympathy was directed to the family of the perpetrator. Until the end of the trial, the same thing seems to have happened in this case. Andrew Lock went on to say:'As a consequence of the failings of the NHS and this verdict, it is clear that Dad would still be here today if they had done their job properly..."
So, at last, this dreadful issue has attained national prominence. The Daily Mail points out:

"It was revealed that Daley's desperate parents warned doctors at least four times he could kill and begged them to section him – but nothing was done; NHS England has been brought in to investigate potential failings in ten killings involving patients of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust over the past five years; in an extraordinary admission, the trust's chief executive apologised 'unreservedly' to the families of Mr Lock and his killer".

Relatives of the hundreds of families whose loved ones have been murdered by released mental health patients will doubtless be thinking that it is about time this issue was given greater prominence. The 100 families website has details of 1232 such killings across Britain between 1993-2016, but regards this as an underestimate: " They are a considerable underestimate of the total as not every case is reported or known publicly."
There is also the fact that the mental health problems of violent or murderous offenders are not always made public.
So, while the critical publicity of Sussex Partnership is welcome, it is premature to expect much of an improvement in the situation. Colm Donaghy, under questioning by an admirably persistent Channel 5 reporter, said that he could not rule out a similar killing happening again in his area of responsibility. Presumably this applies to other areas in the UK, so no-one should feel reassured.
Finally, there could be a nasty twist in the tail to this story. Matthew Daley will, presumably, be sentenced to a long period of incarceration - but it might not be too lengthy. If he responds well to treatment, he could be released early. This, hopefully, will be reported by the mass media, but the official response will be that every effort has been made by dedicated medical staff to treat him, and that he will be released under supervision. It may turn out well, or it may not. Nicola Edgington, mentioned above, stabbed her mother to death in 2005 and pleaded diminished responsibility at her  trial. In 2009, her secure unit psychiatrist recommended her release, as she was "mostly stable". In 2011, she murdered 58-year old Sally Hodkin. Another case, taken here from the "100 Families" homepage, gives one more example:
"In February 2004, on the day he was due to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, mentally ill Leslie Gadsby killed his father Arthur with a hammer. Less then two years later, in December 2006, he was conditionally discharged from hospital by a mental health review tribunal, with the agreement of hospital managers and Mersey Care NHS Trust.
In March 2010 he fatally stabbed his mother."
I am sure that all readers and contributors to Rhymes and Routes will join me in sending the deepest condolences to the family of Donald Lock, should they happen upon this posting. I fervently hope that Mr Lock's relatives will not have to face up to the galling but possible release of Matthew Daley - perhaps to kill again. I also hope that the whole of society and the media will continue to take this matter more seriously.

The Titanic, an Approaching Crisis and Supply Teachers

When it comes to problems in education, the present government reminds me sometimes of Captain E. J. Smith, captain of the Titanic, who is supposed to have said, after his doomed ship struck the iceberg: "Don't worry; we're only stopping to take on a little ice". Whether he said this or not, the same complacency and disregard for the facts is typical of government ministers and the DFE when confronted with evidence of an approaching crisis in education: a growing teacher shortage.
Today's BBC website spells out the best indicator of the problem, which is the amount of money schools are spending on supply staff:

"Primary and secondary schools in England struggling to recruit teachers spent £821m on supply staff last year, it has emerged.

Analysis by BBC News shows the equivalent of £168 was spent on each child in order to hire in extra staff to cover vacancies and absences.
Teachers unions say the amount of money spent reflects a "serious teacher recruitment and retention crisis".
Yet, a DFE spokesman says:
"The number and quality of teachers is at a record high, with over 1,000 more graduates training to teach secondary subjects now than a year ago. The overall teacher vacancy rate is 0.3% and has remained around or below 1% for the past 15 years."
Oh, so that's all right then. Of course, it is not; only by willfully ignoring and distorting the facts can the anonymous DFE spokesman be so complacent. Five months ago, the Labour Party shadow education secretary, Lucy Powell, told the Guardian:
"...half of all schools had unfilled positions at the start of this year and are being forced to turn to unqualified staff, temporary supply teachers, non-specialists and larger class sizes to try and plug the gaps".
The BBC quotes the head of a supply teacher agency:
"Becca Morgan, who set up the supply agency Principal Teachers in Catterick 16 years ago, said her company was currently experiencing its busiest ever period.
"We start dealing with schools looking for supply teachers at 6.30 in the morning and I often stop answering calls at midnight. To put it bluntly: without companies like mine the reality is that the education system would grind to a halt."
If Ms Morgan sounds a tad defensive, that is because supply agencies have been accused of putting profit before the provision of suitable staff. There is some justification for this charge. When supply teaching was farmed out to private tender, some agencies were providing some highly unsuitable staff, but this is not relevant here. Perhaps more relevant is to point out that the figures for the cost of supply teaching would be even higher were it not for the fact that Headteachers use Teaching Assistants to cover teaching absences and vacancies, which they are not supposed to do. This is borne out by the example of the Robert Clack School in Dagenham who, says the BBC:
 "... spent the most on supply teachers in England. According to the government's data the school spent £953,807 on extra staff - the equivalent of £526 per child.
Dr Neil Geach, the school's chair of governors, said:
"The figures as reported do not reflect reality... We do not use unqualified staff or cover supervisors to cover teaching groups - our children's education is too important."
It follows, then, that the reason most schools do not spend as much money as this is due to their deployment of Teaching Assistants (and others!) to plug the gaps.
One category of people being left out of this discussion is one to which I so recently belonged: the supply teachers. The figures quoted by the BBC might give the impression that supply teaching is a highly lucrative occupation. For the individual supply teacher, this is not the case, and I can attest to this from personal experience. In 2000, I worked as a local education authority (LEA) supply teacher for two terms. After stoppages, I received £120 a day. When I retired in 2011 and went to work as a supply teacher for an agency, I eventually received, after stoppages, £110 a day. This drop in income is explained by the fact that the agency takes a large cut out of what the supply teacher would once have been paid by the LEA. Whoever is doing well out of the present crisis, it is not the ordinary supply teacher.
What of the future? I think it depends on teacher recruitment. If the recession recedes, the government improves teacher pay and conditions and sufficient teachers are recruited and retained, supply agencies might be much less busy. If things continue to deteriorate, thanks to government complacency, the agencies could be busier than ever.They might even improve the pay of the teachers who work for them.

SATs and the Education Factories

For most of us who were at primary school in the 1950s and early 1960s, our memories are generally happy. This is not to say things were easy. Post-war British schools were obviously poorly resourced compared to those of today, and, for all 11-year olds in the state sector, there was the dreaded 11-Plus exam, which was supposed to determine our abilities and future educational (and life) prospects. There was also corporal punishment, meted out in various forms and remembered with feeling by those who received it to the present day.
But, by and large, there was no pressure on us as youngsters to sit, revise for, or pass as many tests as children face today. Memory plays tricks, but I can remember sunny afternoons when we abandoned lessons to play games outside while being supervised. School life, viewed admittedly through lenses of nostalgic hindsight, seemed to be more relaxed and somehow happier then. No school would dare give its pupils free time like that nowadays, as well I know.
For this reason, I have some sympathy for the parents who kept their children off school yesterday as a protest against excessive SATs testing, even though, like shadow education secretary Lucy Powell has said, I cannot condone children being taken out of school. Anyway, 40 000 parents have signed a petition calling for a boycott of SATs tests to be held later this month. The Children's Laureate, Chris Liddell, said yesterday:
"We should be turning children into readers with the pleasure that gives, rather than relying on a testing culture".
Pleasure is distinctly lacking in today's primary schools, and I speak from experience, having taught in many, both as a supply teacher and a permanent member of staff. This is not to say that every primary school I have been in has been a dismal, joyless place (some were), but the pressure of preparing children for SATs exams is ever present, even in the pleasantest of schools, and that pressure can be intense, for pupils, parents and staff. As Michael Rosen wrote in yesterday's Guardian, in an open letter to the Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan:
" We have now reached a point in English primary education where children will be locked into a sequence of “reliable” tests at four, at the end of year 1, end of year 2 and end of year 6...One vehicle for this “reliability” is based on a lie: that questions about spelling, punctuation and grammar have only right and wrong answers."
On his blog,he states: " It's not really the children being tested. Their results are being used to test the teachers and the schools."
The BBC website sums up the argument against SATs testing very well, saying:
"In an open letter to the education secretary, campaigners have warned of schools becoming "exam factories" and that testing causes stress and can make young children feel like "failures"."
Now, as might be expected, the educational establishment have reacted to yesterday's events with extreme displeasure. The first reaction to consider is that of (Hello again!) Sir Michael Wilshaw, OFSTED chief:
"The government is right to introduce greater structure and rigour into the assessment process. Those who oppose this testing need to consider England's mediocre position in the OECD education rankings," said Sir Michael.
The OECD stands for "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ", which has a mission to: "...to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world." All very laudable, but when it places countries in an educational ranking system, it does not allow for cultural or educational differences between countries. Chris McGovern, head of the Campaign for Real Education, would do well to be aware of this. According to McGovern:
"The importance of testing was emphasised by Chris McGovern...
He said that any short-term stress was worth it if in the longer term it meant that children finished school with better results...We're three years behind the Chinese at the age of 15. We are a bit of a basket case internationally."
He is clearly unaware of the fact that Chinese children do not learn in the same way as UK children, relying heavily on rote learning and that Chinese and Japanese schools are even more regimented and exam-oriented than ours, so far at least. Sir Michael Wilshaw, as ever, fails to explain why OFSTED has not dealt with this problem before, despite being in existence since the 1990s.
Nick Glibb, Education Minister, provided an unintentional lighter moment, saying:
"Schools should not be putting pressure on young people when taking these assessments.
"I've been to many schools where the children don't even know they're taking the tests," said Mr Gibb."
I suppose this is possible. I had forgotten Mr Glibb's existence; I didn't even know he was still Education Minister. I think I see pigs flying in formation over Hounslow...
As I have previously observed, Mrs Nicky Morgan and the educational establishment seem to spend so much time reading "Alice Through the Looking-Glass" that they seem to have passed through the looking-glass themselves. I myself have seen the results of SATs and parental pressure upon children, especially the 11-year olds taking their pre-secondary school SATs. I have seen children in tears because they have not gained the highest grades in their results and feared their parents' reaction. I even knew of a case where one child was threatened with violence by her father if she failed to get three Level Five grades in her three exams. These are extreme reactions, but not uncommon. Many parents see good SATs results as necessary for their child's future secondary school place, unaware that most secondary schools administer their own tests for new pupils on arrival, calling the need for Primary SATs at 11 years of age into question. In fact, I have been told by some secondary teachers that they test children in Year 7 because they have no confidence in the Year 6 SATs results! The real reason for the Year 6 SATs tests is to check on primary school teachers and their schools, as Michael Rosen has said. Schools that do not do well in their SATs are penalized by OFSTED, which explains the pressure on teachers, who in turn pressurize their pupils.
Interestingly enough, private schools (and academies) do not have to implement SATs. A Daily Telegraph article of 2012 spelt out the reason for this:
"Less than a fifth of independent preparatory schools now voluntarily stage exams in the three-Rs for 11-year-olds – half the number in the late-90s. David Hanson, chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, said the tests – compulsory in the state sector – were increasingly seen as a “minority sport” among private headmasters.

He also criticised the “obsession” with literacy and numeracy in state schools, claiming that a national drive to improve standards in the basics was actually damaging pupils’ education, particularly among boys."
I wonder if Nicky Morgan sends her children to an independent school?

Anyway, it looks as if more tests are on the way for our primary schools and, despite Nick Glibb's delusions, will lead to more teaching to the test, and our schools becoming more like education factories than ever. I wonder: will children and staff need to clock on and clock off at the beginning and end of the school day?