Reader's Letter Of The Day

Emailed in by the author:

CAN someone explain why anyone who criticises a religion risks prosecution, while insulting a political party is OK?

The idea that religions have benefitted humanity more than political parties is very debatable.

For example, various Muslim groups in Syria are responsible for a hundred thousand deaths in recent years, and over a million refugees.

As for the Church of England, that is traditionally referred to as “the Tory Party at prayer”: i.e. the C of E has spent most of life ingratiating itself with the rich and powerful.

In contrast, it’s political parties that arguably have brought the really big benefits: e.g. the Labour Party helped give us the NHS and state pensions. Religion cannot match that achievement.

It’s the height of cheek for the anti-free speech non-entities in Westminster to tell ordinary people what they can and can’t say about religion.

Ralph Musgrave, Durham

Making a bad situation worse.

From the BBC:

Universities must protect free speech and "open minds, not close them", Universities Minister Jo Johnson will say in a speech in Birmingham later. 

He will say "no-platforming", the policy of banning controversial speakers, is stifling debate. From next April, a new regulator - the Office for Students - will have the power to fine universities that fail to uphold free speech. Universities UK has said it will not allow legitimate debate to be stifled...

"No-platforming" is the practice of banning certain groups from taking part in a debate if their views are considered to be offensive or unacceptable. "Safe space" policies are intended to protect students from views and language they find offensive, including discrimination.

In 2016, nearly two-thirds of university students believed the National Union of Students was right to have a "no-platform" policy. That approach means people or groups on a banned list for holding racist or fascist views are not given a platform to speak on student union premises.

The NUS official no-platform list contains six groups including the BNP and Al-Muhajiroun, but individual unions and student groups can decide their own. At Canterbury Christ Church University, an NUS representative refused to share a platform with LGBT activist Peter Tatchell, whom she regarded as having been racist and "transphobic".

Bloody hell, it's bad enough with the PC brigade stifling free speech/not allowing idiots to make idiots of themselves in public/be heckled by opponents* but allowing the central government to define what is and what isn't a public event, and then put pressure on universities to allow X, Y or Z to speak, whether their contributions are relevant or welcome or not is even worse IMHO.

* Delete according to taste. The Peter Tatchell incident is at the one extreme where the NUS representative made an idiot of himself/herself by refusing to 'share a platform'; people like David Irving are at the other extreme where people make idiots of themselves by turning up and opening their mouths.

Fun Online Polls: Protest marches; students and immigration targets

The results to last fortnight's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

What's the correct response if people with whom you disagree organise a march?

Ignore them, hope they get bored and perhaps organise your own event a few weeks later - 84%
Organise a violent counter-protest to ensure maximum coverage and encourage them even more - 9%
Other, please specify - 8%

Good, I was with the majority on that. People don't seem to get the "other, please specify" option, it got eight votes but only three people left comments, heck knows what the other five were voting for.

Thanks to everybody who took part (104 voters).
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Just to change the topic a bit, let's look at the whole mess that Ms T May is making of immigration targets, in particular how students from overseas fit in.

The debate seems to jumble three topics;

a) whether we should have immigration targets at all (large employers against; nationalists and low-paid Brits in favour);

b) whether overseas students should be included. One the one hand, they pay top dollar to be here and should be welcomed like any other high-spending tourists IMHO; on the other, some of them overstay their visas (again, whether that is acceptable or not depends on your point of view)

c) what the actual figure for over-stayers is. For some reason the lefties (see linked article from NS) seem to think that the fact that the true number of over-stayers is very small (allegedly) is a reason to exclude them. Logic fail - if the number is so small, it doesn't matter whether they are included or not (seeing as the official target is a made-up number to start with, which the Tories have no intention of actually delivering).

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: The Big Ship; Charlottesville

The results to last fortnight's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

When did The Big Ship sail on the Ally-ally-oh?

The Nineteenth of September - 12%
The Last Day of September - 83%
Other, please specify - 5% (3 votes)

Derek had the best answer - it sailed on the 19th of September and sank on the last day of September, source. OK, the dates are out but at least that way the words make sense.
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This week's Fun Online Poll concerns last weekend's unpleasantness:

On Saturday the president condemned hatred and violence “on many sides” in his remarks, but did not directly single out the white supremacists, whose attempt to hold a major rally in Charlottesville, Virginia resulted in the governor, Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, calling a state of emergency. Disorder including clashes with counter-protesters left more than 30 injured.

That's the key word here - counter-protestors. We observe that the president didn't single out the group who were trying to stifle other people's freedom to organise a rally/march either. Quite correctly, he remained above the fray. One wonders what sort of a frenzy The Guardian would be in if left-wingers had legitimately organised a rally/march and some right wing nutters had turned up to physically intimidate and attack them.

And so that's this week's Fun Online Poll:

"What's the correct response if people with whom you disagree organise a rally/march?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

"Attorney General Loretta Lynch has 'considered taking legal action against Santa Claus deniers'"

From The Daily Mail:

The United States' top lawyer told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the Justice Department has 'discussed' the possibility of a civil lawsuit against parents who fail to tell their children that presents are delivered by a kindly old man from the North Pole.

She said any information her office has received has been sent to the FBI in a bid to build a case. Her comments came as she was questioned by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. He compared the Father Christmas deniers to parents who do not tell their children that the Easter Bunny brought their Easter eggs - the people the Clinton administration won a racketeering case against.

Whitehouse said: "The similarities between the mischief of Santa Claus deniers pretending that Christmas gifts are purchased by parents or other family members or those who pretend that they put the dollar bill under the pillow when a child loses a tooth or hid the Easter eggs in the yard has been remarked on widely, particularly by those who accept the evidence on where toys, dollar bills and Easter eggs really come from."

The US is also to hold talks with EU officials to raise their concerns about European claims that Father Christmas has his base in Lapland.

Fun Online Polls: Donald Trump; Plastic bags.

The results to last fortnight's Fun Online Poll:

Should Donald Trump be banned from coming to the UK?

Yes - 5%
No - 95%

That's crystal clear, I would have thought. I was with the majority yet again. A good turnout on 188, but as mentioned, the poll did run for two weeks.
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Something else I've been thinking about…

From The Telegraph:

The 5p plastic bag levy has resulted in an almost 80 per cent drop in the number of bags taken home by supermarket shoppers in England, the first data since the introduction of the charge suggests.

Early figures from Britain’s biggest retailer, Tesco, suggest the levy is succeeding in its aim of drastically reducing usage of single-use carrier bags, 7.6 billion of which were handed out by major English supermarkets last year alone.

That works out at about six or seven supermarket plastic bags per household per week pre-5 October 2015, which seems 'about right' i.e. a trolley full at the weekend plus a couple of smaller shops in the week.

I ended up paying 5p once, shortly after the 'tax' was introduced, but that was it. Since then I've managed to remember to bring my own bags or I just make do without. So my plastic bag usage is, on the face of it*, down nearly 100%. Is this the same for everybody?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

* As Nessimmersion points out in the comments, perhaps people are just buying more bin liners etc.

Fun Online Polls: Moving exams for Ramadan & Banning Donald Trump

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Changing the exam timetable to accommodate Ramadan: what do you think?

It's an appalling idea - 90%
It's a great idea - 3%
Other, please specify - 6%

A good turnout with 126 votes, thank you to everybody who took part.

Bayard was in the minority and left a comment: "It's a fabrication of the press, designed to provoke just the sort of reaction below."
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Next up, Donald Trump.

Whatever you think of him, his views are widely known and publicised, so it strikes me that it makes no difference whether he makes a speech in the UK or anywhere else. People will read about it or watch it on YouTube exactly the same. And he is certainly not a threat to UK state security or anything.

Nonetheless, there are plenty who would like to ban him from coming here. Our elected representatives are debating the topic as I type.

I think he is either a buffoon or a highly sophisticated Democrat fifth columnist, neither of which is a reason to prevent him from coming here, but let's put it to the vote.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Dry January & Charlie

The responses to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

By how much will you reduce your alcohol consumption during Dry January?

A lot - 2%
A bit - 2%
Not at all - 14%
Oh, I do wish they'd **** off and leave us alone - 82%

A very good turnout of 131 voters, thanks to everybody who took part.
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This week's Fun Online Poll should be fairly self-explanatory: Êtes-vous Charlie?

Militant Atheist Pensioner Of The Week

From The Boston Standard:

A DEFIANT pensioner is planning to stand up for his beliefs by putting an atheist poster in his front window – even though police have advised him not to. John Richards was told by officers that he may face arrest if he put up the sign at his Vauxhall Road home, as it could breach the Public Order Act by distressing passers by.

But Mr Richards has decided to stand up for his beliefs, and stick the poster up, saying that such action implies a threat to free speech. The sign states ‘religions are fairy stories for adults’...

The article was then updated with a sort-of-back-pedal-but-leave-our-options-open response from the local cops.

Via APILN

Julia Tomlinson

Sign up to Unity's letter...

... over here.

Geert Wilders

Scary!

From the BBC:

The chief constable of Strathclyde Police has said his officers deal with "too many" marches and parades.

Stephen House's comments came at a meeting of the force's management body which considered two reports on the social and financial impact of parades. Strathclyde Police Authority (SPA) heard that more than 1,000 events in the last financial year took up nearly 50,000 police hours at a cost of £1.7m...

Chief Constable House said the events were stretching police resources, with officers deployed to cover marches instead of dealing with other duties. He told the meeting: "It is not our role as the police to tell communities how many parades they are to hold. That is not our role and it's not this body's role but I think it is our job to flag up to you where we feel there is disproportionate use of police time and your budget and that's what we believe is happening at the moment. We believe the hundreds that exist are too many. It's out of balance. By discussion we believe that we could reach a more reasonable number and a more reasonable settlement for everybody."

More free publicity for the BNP

From The Metro:

Union leaders have called for a ban on BNP members working in public services and called for a huge campaign to counter the threat of fascism.

The TUC Congress said urgent talks should be held with the Government about extending the current ban on BNP members working in the police and Prison Service. BNP membership was "incompatible" with jobs in teaching, the NHS and other parts of the public sector, said the TUC.

Deborah Dark

From The Telegraph:

Deborah Dark was held in a high-security prisonin Madrid after being arrested on arrival while travelling with daughter and one-year-old twin grandsons. Spanish police were acting on an extradition order from France of which Mrs Dark was unaware.

Mrs Dark, a housekeeper-secretary to a foreign diplomat based in London, eventually realised that the problem stemmed from an incident in France 20 years ago, when she was acquitted of a drugs offence – and from the controversial system of European Arrest Warrants, which were designed to make extradition easier but which have been criticised for being overused and for having no inbuilt time limits.

Now, even after judges in Britain and Spain threw out a request from France to extradite her, Mrs Dark remains too frightened to travel abroad, and Fair Trials International, the campaigning group, claims that her case highlights flaws in the arrest warrant system.

The warrants have already proved controversial in cases such as that of Dr Fredrick Toben, the Australian-based academic who was arrested at Heathrow last year on a warrant issued by German authorities over charges of Holocaust denial, which is an offence in Germany but not in Britain. He was later freed...

Chris Huhne - one word too many

From the intro to his article in The Independent, on the topic of Geert Wilders:

Freedom of speech is our most precious freedom of all, because all the other freedoms depend on it. The decision to stop people from exercising this fundamental right must never be taken...

Excellent stuff, I'm with him so far. But then he does a DoubleThink and turns the whole logic on its head by ending that second sentence with the word "... lightly" and concluding that "It is precisely the prevention of harm to minorities that justifies the restrictions to Mr Wilders' freedom of speech."

Dude, WTF? "Harm to minorities"? Wasn't Labour peer Lord Ahmed threatening to 'mobilise ten thousand Muslims' who would march, presumably armed with pitchforks and blazing torches, on the Houses of Parliament? Who's threatening to harm whom here, exactly?

H/t DK

Witch hunt! Witch hunt!

Episode one of many!

Whatever happened to David Bellamy?

... ah, the BBC declared him persona non grata about ten years ago for being a bit sceptical about MMGW.

Via Christina Speight.

"Blears attacks political bloggers"

You f***ing bitch, you have just earned yourself an extra slow and painful death.

Moving swiftly on ...

Ms Blears will also attack the "deeply unhealthy" number of government jobs given to career politicians with little experience beyond Westminster... Ms Blears, who had a career as a local government solicitor before becoming an elected politician... "

Dude, WTF?

"Police officer fired for wearing BNP badge"

The BNP has forty-six democratically elected local councillors.

As repugnant as the party's views may be to most people, should they all be sacked from their day jobs?

Or indeed struck off?