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“Mr Corbyn also suggested a series of proposals for the BBC, including publishing the social class of ‘all creators of BBC content, whether in-house or external'”, reports the BBC, trembling.
That would be fun to watch, but what is to stop the Beebourgeoisie, middle class to the tips of their Shiatsu-massaged toes, from foiling the plan by self-identifying as proletarians?
Watching the debate on self-identification within the Left is like watching a long fuse slowly burning down towards a time-bomb. Though nicer. As things stand this week:
Gender – completely a matter of choice and how dare you say chromosomes. Voluntary efforts to eradicate sexism having failed, compulsory quotas for females must be imposed by the power of the State. But anyone who wants to be included in the quota only has to ask.
Race – is nothing but an oppressive social construct. To cease participating in this oppressive and delusionary social construct is forbidden.
Class – They called it “Catch BBC”. You started working class, worked like mad, finally got a soft job, which made you middle class, so in the interests of social mobility they won’t hire you again. Edit: Or your kids. But their re-impoverished kids will be favoured. Social oscillation, the wave (geddit?) of the future!
What side do I take on all these controversies? None. I’m for freedom of association. It is so restful.
As all should know, cultural appropriation is Not OK. It is particularly offensive when white westerners imitate the religious practices of others despite having no belief in that religion.
So I was shocked to see pictures of Mr Corbyn assuming the characteristic posture of Islamic prayer on this solemn occasion:
Jeremy Corbyn is seen posing with a wreath under a distinctive red canopy as other politicians look on. This canopy runs alongside the graves of Salah Khalaf, Hayel Abdel-Hamid, Fakhri al-Omari and Atef Bseiso, three of whom have been linked to Black September, the group behind the 1972 atrocity at the Munich Olympic Games
That picture comes from this Daily Mail story, third picture down. The caption reads:
Jeremy Corbyn raises his hands in what appears to be an Islamic prayer position as he stands beside other politicians. A source said he was not praying but ‘copying the others out of respect’
One must also question the culturally insensitive way in which Corbyn referred to a convicted Hamas terrorist as a “brother”. From the Evening Standard:
In August 2012, Corbyn (right) appeared on Iran’s Press TV with a convicted Hamas terrorist named Dr Abdul Aziz Umar. “He got seven life sentences for helping to organise a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 2003 that killed seven people,” Rich points out. The bombing at the Café Hillel took place during the second intifada. Among the victims were Dr David Applebaum, head of the emergency room at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, and his daughter Nava, who was due to be married the next day.
Umar was charged with providing a safe house for the terrorists and guarding the property as they fitted the bomber with a suicide belt. He was released a year before his Press TV appearance as part of the prisoner swap arranged to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
“You have to ask the question why they are in prison in the first place,” said the now Labour leader. “I’m glad that those who were released were released.”
Umar was appearing on the show by video link but Corbyn pointed out the pair had met before.
“I met many of the brothers, including the brother who’s been speaking here when they came out of prison, when I was in Doha earlier this year,” he said.Rich also notes that this appearance on Press TV took place seven months after the channel lost its Ofcom licence. This followed a £100,000 fine for broadcasting the forced interrogation of a Newsweek journalist held prisoner in Iran.
You can hear Mr Corbyn saying those words at 15:55 – 16:05 in this video clip from The Muslim TV.net: [12 Aug 2012] Israeli prisons increase repression during Ramadan – English
As everyone ought to know, the use of the terms “brother” and “sister” among Muslims implies that the speaker and the person being addressed or described are both Muslims. Surah 49:10 “Al-Hujarat” says, “The believers are nothing else than brothers. So make reconciliation between your brothers, and fear Allah, that you may receive mercy.” How shocking that Mr Corbyn would crassly insert himself, a non-Muslim, into this expression of shared Muslim faith.
“Jeremy Corbyn: I was present at wreath-laying but don’t think I was involved”, reports the Guardian.
Jeremy Corbyn said he was present but not involved at a wreath-laying for individuals behind the group that carried out the Munich Olympic massacre, a partial admission that led to a row between him and Israel’s prime minister.
The Labour leader had been asked if Palestinian leaders linked to the Black September terror group were honoured at a memorial event he attended in Tunisia in 2014, at which victims of the 1985 Israeli airstrike in Tunis were remembered.
Corbyn said “a wreath was indeed laid” for “some of those who were killed in Paris in 1992” and added, in response to a question: “I was present at that wreath-laying, I don’t think I was actually involved in it.”
The Guardian picture shows Jeremy accidentally holding a great big wreath.
He added: “I was there because I wanted to see a fitting memorial to everyone who has died in every terrorist incident everywhere because we have to end it. You cannot pursue peace by a cycle of violence; the only way you can pursue peace [is] by a cycle of dialogue.”
“Boys lead slump in university applicants”, says the Times, like it’s a bad thing.
The first sign that young people are turning their backs on university education is expected next week when more than a quarter of a million A-level pupils get their results. The exodus is being led by young men, whose applications to university are at their lowest for three years.
The head of Ucas, the universities admissions service, said the number of young people winning degree course places on August 16 is expected to be “in the order of 2.5% lower” than last year.
Some of that is due to a demographic dip in the number of 18-year-olds — but universities are also being hit by a slump in older and part-time students. The total number of UK applications is down by 3.4% on last year.
Experts said Tony Blair’s vision of ever greater numbers of teenagers going to university looks outdated, with more questioning the value of £9,250-a-year degrees.
Clare Marchant, head of Ucas, said a degree was “usually worthwhile” but added that “university is not for everybody”. She said rates of 60%-70% of people going to university “would be the entirely wrong thing to do”.
The real Clare Marchant was stolen away by the elves and replaced by a changeling. There is no other explanation for the head of UCAS being so sensible. Blair’s great push to get half our young people to go to university has turned out as badly as state-mandated changes in society usually do. Practically everyone is worse off.
Those who would not have gone to university under a saner system, but do go under our system, find that when almost half of all young people have a degree they are nothing special. More than a third of recent UK graduates regret going to university. Regret it or not, if they ever earn over the threshold they will still have to pay for it. While it is true that the terms of repayment of student loans are generous and many will never have to pay them back, the mental burden of debt is still present. No wonder so many partly-educated but, er, not outstandingly bright young people support Jeremy Corbyn: they fell for his ambiguously phrased line that he would “deal with” their debt.
The young people who genuinely are academically inclined find the value of their degrees* goes down because they are now lumped in with those who spent three years studying Clownology or Gender Studies.
Worst of all, those who never did and never will go to university have to pay to benefit a group who on average are richer than they are. The non-graduates suffer other harms as well: many jobs that once would have been open to anyone with two A-Levels are now reserved for those with degrees. When I was a young teacher many of my working-class colleagues had come into the profession in just this way. It seemed to me that they were some of the most effective teachers, often more grounded than their graduate equivalents. Careers such as journalism and nursing that could be learned on the job were an avenue for social mobility that has now been blocked.
One last thing, which I think matters more than we (by which I mean the generally highly educated readers of this blog) realise, is that having each cohort of youth split down the middle into a top half and a bottom half is painful for those who don’t make the grade. When under fifteen percent of young people went to university, as was the case until around 1990, not going to university was the norm. No one thought anything of it. It still surprises me that the political grouping who once filled the Third Programme with their complaints about how cruel and divisive the Eleven-plus was felt no qualms about putting half the nation into the slow stream.
The boys have evidently cottoned on earlier than their sisters. It could be that they are smarter, or it could be that British universities show signs of following the US example and becoming places where males are scorned and treated unfairly.
*Oxford Bloody University and I still cannot decide whether it should be “degree” or “degrees”. At least if I manage to reduce everyone else in the country to the status of illiterate serfs, as is my true aim with this post, the wretches will be in no position to correct my grammar.
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”
― Obi-Wan Kenobi, sensing the destruction of Alderaan by Darth Vader
The circumstances are complicated. Lisa Graves, the satirist behind the most recent incarnation of Elfwick, was reported to Twitter for using an expletive during an exchange on her personal account with another user. The complainant additionally made the demonstrably false claim that Elfwick was an ‘alt-right account’ engaged in ‘targeted harassment’. Before long, all of Graves’ accounts had been subject to a blanket ban. Given Twitter’s curiously draconian response to such groundless accusations, it is hardly surprising that many are assuming that the punishment is politically motivated.
― Andrew Doyle, sensing the destruction of Godfrey Elfwick by Twitter
But not quite in the sense that the Telegraph‘s Brussels Correspondent, James Crisp, thinks.
He has written a piece entitled “Terrible translations of Brexit White Paper make Britain a laughing stock in Brussels”
British officials botched the translation of Theresa May’s discredited White Paper into European languages, part of a UK strategy to win concessions from Brussels, and failed to translate the document into Irish, despite being locked in fraught Brexit talks over Ireland’s border.
The paper’s executive summary, which Britain hopes to use to help solve the vexed border issue, has been translated, poorly, into 22 languages. The full 100-page document has only been translated into one other language, Welsh, which, unlike Irish, is not an official EU language.
After The Telegraph contacted the British Government, an Irish version was published on Thursday afternoon, two days after the other translations but the damage was already done. A DexEU spokeswoman said the translations were being published as they were finished.
Basic errors and amateurish negligence has not only wasted an opportunity to win hearts and minds on the Continent but will confirm Brussels’ worst suspicions about the government. It exposes, once again, how poorly the Department for Exiting the European Union understands Brussels, its priorities and its culture.
When Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, travelled to Dublin he made a point of addressing reporters in Irish. The gesture was appreciated in Dublin and left some in tears. The EU-27 governments have made it clear they will back Ireland to the hilt with senior figures insisting “we are all Irish”.
In contrast the tin-eared Brits considered the common courtesy of an Irish translation an afterthought.
We saw so many palaces and temples during our visit to Japan that they have merged in my mind. But in one of them, probably the former Imperial Palace at Kyoto, there was a fine recreation of a great daimyo awaiting an audience with the emperor. Etiquette (the sort enforced with swords) forbade him to stroll in and say, “Your Majesty, we need to talk” – even if the emperor needed and wanted to hear what he had to say. No, he had to wait for hours on his knees in a beautiful but austere anteroom, contemplating the painted screens. I thought of that daimyo with his knees aching under his perfectly arranged silk robe when I read Mr Crisp’s line, “It exposes, once again, how poorly the Department for Exiting the European Union understands Brussels, its priorities and its culture.” The priorities and culture of Tokugawa-period Kyoto required that the emperor’s symbolic importance be reinforced by making everyone wait for hours before business could be done. None of the usual reasons or excuses for being kept waiting applied. The wait was the point.
The priorities and culture of European Union-period Brussels require that every document be translated into a couple of dozen languages. I will focus on Irish in particular because for that language the divorce from the usual point of translation, to enable communication, is complete. Not one Irish parliamentarian or official actually needed the White Paper translated into Irish in order to understand it. Probably no more than a handful of them are even capable of reading it in Irish. Like the deference to the emperor in Kyoto when real power lay with the Shogun in Edo, the laborious process of translation into Irish before business can be done is all just a symbolic obeisance, a court ritual, a game.
The UK was never very good at this languages game and will drop it with relief once out of the EU. In contrast Ireland is firmly in the EU and plays the game better than anyone. (Though as I will argue later, this may not be to the advantage of the long term survival of Irish.) Although Irish has been an official language of the EU since 2007, it was only in 2015 that the the decision was taken to upgrade the language to a full working language of the European institutions. By 2022 it is hoped that the “derogation phase” during which the EU was let off the obligation to provide full translation or interpretation services for every document to and from Irish will be over.
The way things are going, the apotheosis of Irish as a full EU working language will coincide neatly with its death as a native language.
Many of the English – and even some of the Irish – shrug their shoulders at the prospect, and talk of “efficiency”. From what I have written so far you might think I was one of them. You would be wrong. I see language death as a tragedy. Quite apart from the loss of beauty, I fear a world unified under one language for the same reasons I fear a world unified under one government. If that last culture falls under the sway of a tyranny, there is nowhere else to flee, no one else to keep the flame alive.
For many reasons I would love to see the apparently inexorable slide towards extinction of more than half the languages spoken on Earth reversed. Alas, that shows no sign of happening. Naturally those who love their threatened language are moved when they hear a visiting foreigner make the effort to speak it. (Really, though, there was no need to burst into tears just because Donald Tusk memorised a few phrases. It was a nice gesture, but if that’s all it takes to get the Irish political class to fall at one’s feet, Theresa May ought to reinstate Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary and get him to do one of his linguistic party pieces.)
Naturally, too, those who love their threatened language want to see it enshrined in an official position of parity with the other languages of Europe. But “enshrined” is the word. Shrines are not raised to the living. The question comes unbidden: who actually reads the endless streams of EU documents translated so dutifully into Irish? I have a horrible suspicion that the answer is no one, no one at all. Lurking on forums discussing the future of the Irish language I have read well-argued claims that the exodus to Brussels of so many of the best-educated native Irish speakers is one of the factors causing the Gaeltachts, the Irish-speaking areas, to decline. It cements the perception – and helps make the perception fact – that for a young person with talent and ambition there is no life to be had in the Gaeltacht. What a strange life these exiles must have. They grow up in one of the few remaining parts of Ireland where the ancient tongue is still spoken in the streets. Presumably inspired by a wish to preserve that inheritance they study for many years to reach the high standards required to be a professional translator or interpreter, and their voices are no longer heard in those streets. Off to Brussels they go (plus a monthly trip to Strasbourg), where they speak beautiful Irish into headphones tuned into another channel and write less beautiful Irish about Section 6, sub-section 13, paragraph 1(a)(iv) of the Directive on This, That and The Other that not one human soul will ever read.
Things had been very boring in the rue de la Fête. Mr Benalla thought, “I think it is a good day to visit the special costume shop.” Inside the shop, as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared.
“Good morning sir,” he said. “Which costume would you like to try today?”
“That one with the visor, please,” said Mr Benalla. And he took the outfit into the fitting room. Inside the room, Mr Benalla changed into the outfit and then looked at himself in the mirror. “It looks a bit like a riot cop’s costume,” he thought. “Is that cool or what?” Then he went through the door – not the door back to the shop but the second door that could lead to an adventure!
*
So to prevent the immense coercive power of the state from being abused, said Hayek, we need to restrict its use to enforcing a strictly limited list of duties that we all accept and understand. Setting limits on how the state’s monopoly of force can be used at least spares us from arbitrary or growing coercion by other people who happen to be in authority.
– Friedrich Hayek: The ideas and influence of the Libertarian Economist by Eamonn Butler
*
For those poor souls who did not grow up with tales of Mr Benn, this post refers to the extra-curricular activities of Alexandre Benalla, formerly a senior security officer for President Macron of France:
Emmanuel Macron faces the biggest crisis of his presidency over the growing scandal of one of his closest security officials who was filmed being allowed by police to violently assault a young man and woman at the edge of a Paris demonstration while illegally dressed as an officer.
That the French riot police beat people up is not news. That they allow well-connected civilians to put on a spare uniform and join in the fun was surprising. Then again, as George Atkisson says below, “The whole point of being well-connected and exempt from everyday rules is precisely to be allowed to indulge in one’s extra-legal whims without consequences.”
July 1st 2018:
Jeremy Corbyn backs calls to decriminalise possession of cannabis
Jeremy Corbyn said he would like to see the possession of cannabis to be decriminalised as he backed calls for the drug to be used for medicinal purposes.
July 10th 2018:
Corbyn backs Nordic Model to tackle sexual exploitation
Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn declared his full support for Britain to look at changing our prostitution laws by criminalising the purchase of sex, also referred to as the ‘Nordic model’.
The Courier reports:
Scottish Government asks eight-year-olds to reveal their Brexit views
The Scottish Government is appealing to children as young as eight to share their views on Brexit.
Critics branded the Twitter plea for youngsters to “work with” the government on a Europe panel “creepy”.
But the SNP administration defended the move as giving those who will be most affected by leaving the EU a “voice in the Brexit negotiations”.
The call by the Twitter account ScotGovEurope said: “Are you aged 8 – 18? Children and young people in Scotland are going to be affected by #Brexit, so we want your views!
“Apply to join the @cisweb Children & Young People’s Panel on Europe to work with @scotgov.”
It sparked claims that SNP ministers are trying to indoctrinate children on the constitution.
…
The charity says that young people have a “right to be heard in the discussions about Brexit”, which they say is backed up by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Brexit is the single biggest threat to our economy and future prosperity, and children and young people will be most affected in the coming years.
“We are therefore supporting Children in Scotland to establish the children and young people’s panel on Europe and enable them to have a voice in the Brexit negotiations.”
Here’s where you can apply to join the Panel, but first they recommend that you ask yourself
Is the project for me?
This project might be for you if you like standing up for the things you believe in, and
talking about:
• What Brexit might mean for your family and friends
• What people in charge should be doing to help children
• What rules people in charge should follow when they make
decisions about Brexit
I think we can safely say that most Samizdata readers qualify. However this one might be more tricky:
• Why children should have their say on Brexit
The question of whether those who think that children should not have their say on Brexit could or should join the Panel is left for the reader. Oh, I nearly forgot, to be eligible you do have to be aged between eight and eighteen. Reassuringly,
You don’t need to know much about Brexit to apply. We will share information with you to
help you to take part.
There is a lot to admire about Elon Musk. I thought the space car was glorious. The whimsicality of it, which so many objected to, delighted me.
It is sad that Mr Musk has now shown that his whims can take a nastier turn.
British cave diver considering legal action over Elon Musk’s ‘pedo’ attack
A British cave diver who was instrumental in the rescue of 12 children trapped in a northern Thailand cave says he is considering legal action after the inventor Elon Musk called him a “pedo” on Twitter.
Vernon Unsworth told the Guardian on Monday he was “astonished and very angry” at the attack, for which Musk offered no evidence or basis. The billionaire initially doubled down on the comments made on social media, but has since deleted them.
Apparently it started when Mr Unsworth was rude about Mr Musk’s offer of his mini-submarine to help in the rescue:
Previously, Unsworth had described Musk’s offer to help the rescue effort as a “PR stunt”, and had told CNN Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts”.
If nothing else had been said, my sympathies would have been with Mr Musk. Even if it was something of PR stunt, I am sure Musk did genuinely want to help save lives. Still, I dare say tempers often flare in these high pressure situations. One man’s praiseworthy offer of aid can be another’s dangerous distraction from an urgent task.
However then Mr Musk went on to call Mr Unsworth a “pedo”, not just once – in which case it might have been written off as a random zero-content insult like calling someone a “bastard” when you neither know nor care whether their parents were legally married – but repeatedly. Mr Musk’s “evidence” for this allegation out a blue sky was that Mr Unsworth is a white guy living in Thailand. Musk said that that in itself was “sus”, meaning suspicious.
Angry comments are coming thick and fast to the Times article “Thai boys’ rescuer Vern Unsworth could sue Elon Musk over paedophile smear”. If even a fraction of those commenting on the Times website and those of other British newspapers who have said that they are about to cancel their Tesla order follow through with it, Musk’s UK operation could be in real trouble. That comes on top of the doubts already raised about the company by Tesla’s failure to live up to some of Musk’s earlier extravagant promises. For all the fame of the brand, the number of Tesla electric cars in the UK is still only in the low thousands, and Times subscribers are exactly the sort of people who would be most likely to buy them.
Charismatic individuals can push forward scientific innovation. They can also screw up big time.
Given the recent Brexit-related shenanigans, it seems appropriate to post this video showing what the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, said as the referendum votes were being counted but before the result was known.
“I will forgive no one who does not accept the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken, whether it is by one percent or twenty percent.”
Update: Nicholas (Unlicensed Joker) Gray very reasonably asked what Baron Ashdown is saying now. When he was asked last December if he remembered saying the words above, this was his response:
“The UK people voted for Brexit – but not this Brexit. Their vote has been hijacked by the extreme Brexiteers to support their own prejudices. This is not respecting the vote it is abusing the vote for extremist nonsense which damages the UK.”
Boris Johnson quits to add to pressure on May over Brexit
David Davis and Steve Baker had resigned earlier.
What will happen with Brexit? Will May hold on?
Don’t ask me, ‘cos I’m asking you.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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