Pax Americana has hollowed out our sense of duty
The year I was born, one of the most famous New Wave songs of all time was released: Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army”. It was written after Costello visited Northern Ireland during the Troubles. There, he described seeing “mere boys walking around in battle dress with automatic weapons” — the soldiers, often recruited from Britain’s working class, that make up the United Kingdom’s standing army.
Scandalous Indoctrination: Inside a Kings College Counter-Terrorism Course for UK Civil Servants
… The danger of understanding terrorism with cultural relativism is that it breeds moral apathy; the kind that says ‘Who are we, mere democratic, liberal Westerners to impose our morality onto others? Who are we to say our culture is superior to others?’
These are luxury attitudes. It is easy to be sat in Kings College London and feel that all cultures are equal, when you haven’t been anally raped at a peace festival by someone shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and held hostage. In the introduction to the course, labeling an organisation as terrorist was described as a problem because it ‘implies a moral judgment’. Nothing was said about why a moral judgment might be appropriate.
Five years after it was discovered in a Scottish auction house in Glasgow, a long wooden box of about 80 glass negatives is now in Canada, where it is putting a spotlight on the heart-breaking history of the British Home Children.
The child migration scheme sent a group of 100,000 impoverished children from Britain to overseas colonies between 1869 and the 1940s. The images discovered inside this humble wooden box in 2018 – now seen for the first time – reveal much about a difficult history shared by the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
“This box is a critical part of our history,” Lori Oschefski, president of the charity Home Children Canada who has just purchased the box for the foundation’s archives, said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. By far, it’s the most complete box that I have ever seen.”
By shelving talks over a free trade deal, Biden has confirmed all our worst fears about the Democrats
There have been plenty of disappointments since the Brexit vote of 2016. Disappointment over the behaviour of the political class in Britain; disappointment at the Conservative Party; disappointment at all those people who agreed to a democratic vote and then promptly refused to accept its results.
But if there is one disappointment that most rankles with me, it is the US-UK relationship, and what has not happened since 2016.
In practice, voting means choosing between two parties which can’t, or won’t, reduce migration – though at every turn voters have expressed an overwhelming desire to do so.
There is a certain type of commentator – generally with an inexplicable book deal – who delights in telling the British just how much better things are on the Continent. WS Gilbert described them as “the idiot who praises in enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own”. Though around for centuries, they’ve been particularly active since 2016, keen to portray the European landmass as an enlightened haven of liberal values compared to “rainy Brexit island”.
This is a well written piece that mirrors our Canadian experience. Unfortunately our Mainstream media would recoil in terror at offending Justin for telling such truths.
Most Britons will have seen a life-size cutout of a police officer ‘standing’ in a shop window (as pictured above). Far fewer, especially those below the age of 30, are likely to have seen the real thing. Despite evidence that it works, proper preventative police foot patrols have effectively been put to bed.
The effects of this on businesses, for example, are clear; criminals now feel as though they have a “licence to shoplift.” So rather than wait for police to respond to crime once it has already been committed, those who can afford it are turning to private forces.
This sort of thing has been going on in France for a long time. This here is apparently happening outside Downing Street.
Islam is highly territorial. Claiming public spaces as Muslim is very important. (Think of the Hagia Sophia. And when Caliph Omar took Jerusalem in the 7th century, he is said to have refused to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher because he knew that that would designate it forever as a mosque. [He was being considerate.]) (For all I know Downing Street is now technically a mosque. You think I’m kidding.)
Look at the size of this. Where are the police? Probably checking out your social media. You try inviting hundreds of your friends around to block a metropolitan square in support of a terrorist massacre and see how that works out.
— Adit (@IndicSocietee) October 18, 2023
A man who was once linked to an Islamic State cell nicknamed the Beatles has pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a firearm for terrorist purposes and funding terrorism.
Aine Davis, 39, appeared at the Old Bailey via video link from Belmarsh Prison on Monday.
He has already served a prison sentence in Turkey for being a member of the Islamic State group and was arrested on arrival back in the UK last August.
Davis will be sentenced on 13 November.
A researcher at the UK Parliament has been arrested under the Official Secrets Act, amid claims he was spying for China.
Police have confirmed two men, one in his 20s and another in his 30s, were arrested under the act in March.
Sources have told the BBC one of them was a parliamentary researcher involved in international affairs issues.
From schools to prisons, our state is crumbling
I’ve always suspected that Europeans are incapable of understanding South Africa, the strange and complicated nation where I was born and often return. At bottom, the issue is this: how can people so accustomed to safety, stability and a well-functioning state really grasp the nature of a place where none of these things can be taken for granted?
During the pandemic, you weren’t allowed to enter a supermarket without a mask. These days, of course, there’s no need for that. Instead, you need a stab vest, a riot shield and a bulletproof helmet.
Alright, so that’s possibly an exaggeration. But not by much. Our supermarkets really do seem perilously close to anarchy. Shoplifting is surging – and staff are terrified.
It’s got so bad that Tesco is getting staff to wear body-cams, to help catch shoplifters who assault them. This is more and more common: incidents of violent behaviour towards retail employees have doubled since before the pandemic. Sainsbury’s, meanwhile, has started carrying out bag searches at its self-service tills.
A manhunt has been launched for a soldier suspected of terror offences who escaped from prison on Wednesday morning.
Daniel Abed Khalife, 21, was awaiting trial after being accused of leaving fake bombs at a military base.
He escaped from HMP Wandsworth, London, and is thought to still be in the city.
In Canada, something that would be unthinkable in UK politics is occurring. Young people are voting centre-right, with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party (CPC) enjoying a seven-point lead among 18-29 year-olds, rising to 19 points among 30-44 year-olds. By contrast, in the UK the Tories trail Labour by 44 points among 18-24 year-olds, and by 43 points among 25-49 year-olds.
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Home Secretary Suella Braverman has refused to rule out fitting illegal migrants with electronic and GPS tags.
Her department is reportedly mulling the idea as a way to ensure that migrants awaiting asylum decisions—and who cannot be housed in the network of immigration detention centers around the country—do not pick up and leave unmonitored.
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Anthony Stevens had retweeted a video showing police arrest of a Christian street preacher
A Conservative councillor was arrested for an alleged hate crime after re-tweeting a video criticising how the police treated a Christian street preacher.
Cllr Anthony Stevens, 50, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, told The Telegraph he was arrested at his home this month and escorted to a police station for questioning about tweets from his personal account, which has 76 followers.
One tweet involved a video showing how police had treated the arrest of Christian preacher Oluwole Ilisanmi in Southgate, London, in 2019.
Perfect example of police appeasement.
Yes, you read that right – POLICE APPEASEMENT pic.twitter.com/kSuhFLNTOc
— Andy Plumb (@AndyPlumb4) August 27, 2023
