It has been an interesting week for the Establishment. And a bad one for the Republicans.
The Republicans lost an election because there are too many Hispanic, black and female voters and too few white, working and lower middle class men. The so called Rainbow coalition will continue to grow. That is the nature of “the American Demographic” and it is irreversible. This is the nature of history.
History progresses inexorably driven not simply by economics as Marx assumed, but by demographics and economics. For example, I would argue that anyone taking a proper perspective on the fall of the Roman Empire and the eventual creation of what we call the Dark Ages – the forerunner of modern Europe – would have to put as number one factor the simple demographic fact of a population explosion amongst tribes of eastern Europe and indeed the Steppes, all surging towards the richer lands of the West. That is a brief exposition, but it is essentially correct. The Hun, the Visigoths, the Vandals, all shoved west. The Angles shoved west too, and created “Angle Land”: England.
And what of the Establishment? By the Establishment I mean the cadre of self appointed left of centre and largely atheist intellectuals who tend to dominate the public life and have laid down the agenda for social policy since after World War II. The discerning characteristics of this class have to my mind been along the following lines:
- • An abiding hatred of any sense of national pride and self respect.
- • An attitude towards the working classes of something between paternalistic distain and dismissive disgust.
- • A deep seated love of wealth and high living: see under this heading the Blairs.
- • A lack of spine.
- • Defeatism. How the Falklands war irked!
- • A voracious capacity to obtain very well paid and secure employment in the higher echelons of the public services – including and perhaps especially the BBC.
- • Ignorance of history. This is an indication of both distain for the story of one’s own people and land, and also absence of intellectual rigour. No, scrub that – it is an indication of stupidity. History is the great teacher. The names, the clothes and the technology change, but the human condition remains exactly the same as it was in 15,000 years BC.
And this week has not been a good week for Auntie Beeb. In the curious case of the Cancelled Documentary the Beeb seems to have canned an important investigation into the nefarious activities of a former employee of the BBC. Then the Beeb broadcasts a documentary which suggests a senior conservative politician was a peadophile, when it is clear that is wholly untrue, based on deficient research – they had not even shown the victim (who also seems a genuine man, by the way) a picture to check if it was the right man. The Director General doesn’t know what has been going on. And he is toast. For the moment Chris Patten – a man who appears to have no significant use in life at all, but who is great at obtaining sinecures – hangs on. We shall see. Hmmm…..
Meanwhile inquiries abound. We now have an inquiry into an inquiry, as I understand it. The Establishment loves inquiries, but is always obsessed by process and form, not substance. It does not the truth, it likes agendas. So terms of reference are imposed and “senior independent persons” (i.e. people who are not independent minded and who know the game, and depend on the state for their salary and lavish pension) are appointed. They provide the expedient result for the day, acutely sensitive to political agenda. It is their default position. Who remembers Lord Hutton? I do!
Whilst all this has been going on other people outside the media firestorm have carried on their ordinary lives, paying taxes, struggling along, being murdered…
One case which has been brought to my attention by the always informed (and well researched) Yorkshire Post is that of Mr. Ahmad Otak. It seems to have slipped under the mainstream media a bit this week, what with all the attention on the BBC and the hapless ex Director General, although after a brief bit of googling did find a short report in the “Daily Fail”
Mr. Otak is from Afghanistan. That is the place which we are trying to convert into Islington by the cunning strategy of having many hundreds of our young men and woman being killed and maimed. Although history would suggest that any attempt to impose an external culture on Afghanistan will fail. But then there is that history word again…
Be that as it may, Mr. Otak turned up in This Sceptered Isle in 2006. He claimed to be 16, but he was not; he was older but he knew “the system”, and how it worked. Remarkably, I know of a very good and kind person – British born and bred – who fled an unhappy marriage and an “expat” lifestyle in the Gulf to come back to Britain with the children in tow. She has had the devil of a job getting any help or benefits from “The system” and has really struggled. Not unsympathetic officials have explained that it would be so much easier if she had been claiming asylum. The system is all set up and kicks in with a benefit package once the magic word is uttered…
But I digress….
Anyway, he got in, and owing to his alleged age he was placed in a children’s unit run by social services. There he met a vulnerable young girl called Elisa Frank and formed an “on off” and rather controlling and threatening relationship with her.
Remarkably, his claim to asylum was rejected. Praise be! Notwithstanding that, he remained in this country, and was granted “humanitarian protection” until November 2013. I have no record of Mr. Otak doing any work. I have all the researching tenacity of a Newsnight reporter, you see. So I haven’t asked…
However Elisa seems sensibly to have tired of his affections and decided to finish with him. This caused Mr. Otak to become very angry. Perhaps he felt his Human Rights had been violated by this slight. Who can say? In any event he threatened to kill Elisa’s family if she did not take him back. Elisa’s friend, a very pretty girl called Samantha Sykes, reported his disturbing behaviour to the UK Border Agency, but when Elisa Frank was too scared to make a formal complaint nothing was done.
He then decided to take some direct action. On the pretext of arranging to return some clothes and a pet kitten he arranged to meet Elisa at her flat in Wakefield. He came bearing not a kitten, but a carving knife.
First of all he killed her sister Kimberly, repeatedly stabbing and slashing her in front of Elisa before, as the prosecuting QC told the court, licking the blood from his knife and spitting on the body. The description of the wounds in the newspaper report is graphic and very upsetting and I will not set out the detail here.
He then tied up Elisa with some electrical flex and made her send a text message luring her friend Samantha to the flat, and I am sad to report she received the same treatment. Again the details are too distressing to repeat.
He then forced Elisa to flee with him. He headed to Dover, in an attempt to board a lorry and head to France. There he was disarmed and arrested. Then at Leeds Crown Court week he was handed a life term with a minimum of 34 years.
As a story it is depressing and alarming on so many fronts. I suppose one may say that in a sense it shows that the system was working; Otak had been scheduled for deportation, albeit at some date in the future…
But does anyone think he would have ever gone?
Before I am accused of some sort of raging anti asylum seeker rant, there is an ironic detail in the case. When he was in Dover it was another illegal immigrant who bravely disarmed him, allowing Elisa to escape. Well done that man or woman!
But there is not doubt in my mind that Britain’s policy and practice on asylum seeker is weak and ineffective. The problem with people like Otak is not just that they are raving psychopaths, but that they share absolutely no cultural values with the country that gives them shelter. These are people that for the moment the Establishment does not have to deal with; vulnerable and poor people like Elisa do. I say for the moment, because the problem of lack of affinity with the values of a mature Western democracy will not go away. I have the feeling that it will grow. And one day it may grow so large as to come to haunt even those who live their cosseted and cosy life with the house in Hampstead and the villa in Tuscany.
It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s the demographics, stupid.
©Sigillum
A Knights Templar
{ 35 comments }
Excellent.
A question that never seems to be answered by our political masters is “why do we let them in in the first place?”.
I always found my experiences with US immigration officials quite stressful – the default ‘official’ position being that all immigrants/visitors really intend to stay permanently and it was your job to persuade them that you didn’t, always mindful that if you failed you would be on the next plane back.
Yet in the UK we appear to have lost any sense of sovereignty – it is easier for a foreign power to extract our own nationals than it is to eject the proven undesirable alien.
As you say there seems to be a desire to destroy the nation from within. Is it a desire to emulate the USA? But there they felt the need to build a nation, to fill the empty spaces; Europe has its nations and essentially no empty spaces so why? The ‘American Dream’ is falling apart now anyway, new immigrants arrive in greater numbers than before and see little need to adapt. Numbers and the Internet mean they can retain their own culture and don’t need to become American-Americans. Similarly when Russian Jews were allowed to emigrate to Israel they pointed their satellite dishes towards Russia, retaining their national culture within a Jewish state.
Is there a deliberate plan to destroy nations? I like to use the analogy of the Club and the Hotel. People joined the Club to, say, play cricket. The youngsters played about behind the stand, they went on to play the game, they retired and kept score. Everyone had common cause. With the Hotel everyone is welcome. You stay for as short or long a time as you wish. The Hotel provides a service, you pay the bill. You owe the Hotel no loyalty; its obligations are strictly contractual. You can stay at other Hotels, they can take in other ‘guests’. You care nothing for the other guests; they care nothing for you. It certainly is a different way of doing things. Is it better? Were you asked? But then, as Andrew Marr called you the other day you are probably just one of “the longer-settled British”, with no culture and no homeland of your own.
The reason we “let them in” is to provide cheap labour, to drive down workers wages, and to deliberately alter the balance of voters in favour of one particular political party.
What can we do? Nothing. We are on a path to our own destruction. Either emigrate yourself or live with it. No political party wants to fix it – well none that anyone sane would vote for. So perhaps we should just not bother getting upset by these stories. C’est La Vie – as they say in the Dordogne….
The Pigs at the Public Trough issue is far and away out of hand. Whilst the BBC fiaso is ongoing, Guido Fawkes has pointed out… Between January and July £110,000-a-year Patten attended his Great Portland Street office on just 56 days. The BBC have told Guido that Patten is expected to work on Beeb business for three to four days a week, and is required to be on call seven days a week. Overall twelve-job Patten was recorded as working for just 78 days during the period, with the BBC noting that 22 of those were merely attending the odd meeting or answering phone calls from home.
He is but one of thousands who are fat on the earning coerced with the threat of force from the taxpayer.
The republicans lost the election because their public utterances on any non-whites were almost entirely about stopping ‘them’ getting in or making ‘them’ self-deport – the overall impression being ‘we don’t want their sort here’. Anytime newer immigrant groups were mentioned in was in the same sentence as tightening immigration policy and kicking them out. Rather ironic given America’s development as a nation and the Statue of Liberty inscription about all those huddled masses. But then, America also has a history of older immigrant groups rioting against the influx of the next immigrant group in line: the germans rioted about the irish, the irish and the germans rioted about the freed slaves… and so on.
The social and fiscal conservatism of the Republicans would appeal to significant sections of the new demographics and they could have won that election. Certainly if they’d paid the slightest bit of attention to Jeb Bush. But they didn’t. Romney went on and on about the economy and other, shall we say tea-partyish, candidates hit the headlines with some barking nonsense from the further reaches of luddite-land. And although they don’t operate like the party system here those barking nutjobs tainted the Republican message. And that was enough; Nate Silver’s analysis always showed the election wasn’t as close as Republicans wished it to be.
So it’s not as simple as all lefties hate nationhood and the working class……. all righties are for nationhood and the huddled masses. Not in America and not here. Entertaining as your rant is, disgraceful as the case you quoted is there are plenty of horrible british born, white men who kill their partners in dreadful ways. I agree we don’t need to import any more but they don’t exactly come with a warning label. You make legitimate points about asylum seekers being integrated into the principles of our country but I have to say this just comes across as a generalised ideological rant based around stereotypes ( the shiftless immigrant, the luvvie Islington set, patronising lefties, I started to lose count!).
The problem with people like Otak is not just that they are raving psychopaths, but that they share absolutely no cultural values with the country that gives them shelter.
Eh!!!
Do you mean those cultural values that mean we don’t hack people to pieces?
Really?
I was under the impression that we had plenty of psychopaths here.
As a libertarian, I am in favour of the free and unrestricted movement of people across state borders. This is a very sad tale but the problem with “people like Otak” is not that they have come from Afghanistan but that they are violent criminals.
And if you want to talk about morality, at least we allowed this man into the country of our own volition, he did not have to enter by force. The Afghans didn’t have the same choice when we sent them our young men.
As a libertarian, I am in favour of the free and unrestricted movement of people across state borders.
And as a libertarian are you in favour of self-determination? If, suppose, the populations of China and India decided to go in for a bit of ‘unrestricted movement’ should the overwhelmed ‘host’ nations just accept that they are now de facto colonies of China or India?
The ‘Hampstead’ set can guilt-trip out over the elimination of the Aztec, ‘First Nation’ peoples, Australian Aboriginals and New Zealand Maori yet revel in the destruction of their own culture (‘we’ deserve it). But then, if it gets too much our Hampstead ‘Libertarians’ will just pick up their UN paid for air ticket, (taxed or rationed out of the reach of the white, racist, swivelled-eyed, Daily Mail-reading scum that pick up the bill). Utopia is a lovely place.
And as a libertarian are you in favour of self-determination?
Yes. For individuals, not for nation states.
Criticising immigration because of the actions of one violent person is like criticising the NHS because it employed Harold Shipman. Now we can have an excellent debate about the relative merits of immigration (or the NHS) but not based on the argument made here.
There are plenty of places on the net and elsewhere that give exposure to irrational right wing nonsense like this, I just don’t expect to see it on this blog.
As a libertarian, I am in favour of the free and unrestricted movement of people across state borders. This is a very sad tale but the problem with “people like Otak” is not that they have come from Afghanistan but that they are violent criminals.
Wirh respect Ken, thats a very wooly form of Libertarianism you have there and one which I feel is unlikely to impress the many Libertarians who hang their hats in the snug at the Racoon Arms.
Leaving aside the little local dificulty of the entire population of Africa and most of SE Asia wishing to move to Europe as economic migrants, I would venture to suggest that you delve a little deeper into the actions and thought processes of those brought up under the tenents of the ‘religion of peace’, before you attempt to defend their actions.
Wirh respect Ken, thats a very wooly form of Libertarianism you have there and one which I feel is unlikely to impress the many Libertarians who hang their hats in the snug at the Racoon Arms.
On the contrary, it is the very opposite of a “wooly” form of libertarianism- it is absolutely clear and principled.
Libertarians believe in open borders and if anyone hanging their hat here is self-defining as a libertarian whilst opposing immigration because Muslims are more likely to be terrorists, blacks are more likely to be gangsters and Afghan asylum seekers are more likely to be murderers they are not only self-defining, they are self-deluding.
Problems with all criminality should, of course, be tackled by a rigid application of the rule of law.
Economic migrants? Excellent – and the more the merrier. If we must keep the welfare state going then we need their tax money.
India and China are economically on the up compared to Britain and areas of Europe. Do you really think the populations of China and India would need to go in for a bit of ‘unrestricted movement’ in current times? I doubt it if they read the papers.
Those who do turn up end up, if lucky, in the care / hospitality industry because their chances of earning even as much as commanded in these low paid jobs in Britain is decidedly more than they could command in China or India. And the care industry needs people because it is a growth area not enticing the indigenous. History tells us much- the immigration of the 1950′s had a similar picture.The others live under bridges it seems.
I like to think I am of a libertarian persuasion, but… mixed with common sense.
I can see no virtue at all in allowing this young man to remain, as he has abused our hospitality most greviously and will now cost the taxpayer approximately 64,000 pounds per annum (the cost of housing a Category ‘A’ prisoner) and still less reason that loveable Abu Qatada should remain here a millisecond longer, claiming benefits, living in a taxpayer funded house, not contributing anything to the country he has adopted, fulminating terror and preaching hatred and intolerance and then having the unmitigated gall and brass neck to challenge our right to fire him off back whence he came, by using yet more taxpayers money and the system of law he so obviously despises to thwart those attempts to get him to answer for his behaviour. No wonder he’s smiling!! The whole situation is a bloody farce! If he didn’t want to land in the ‘poo’ with the Jordanians, he should have kept his big gob shut. He is the author of his own misfortune. Time to face up.
I am of the opinion that the country is all the richer for so much diversity now resident here. Its wonderful to see that so many people want to make the UK their home and I like to see and speak to as many of the different people that we now have on our shores and sample their culture. Think, for example, how appallingly awful our standard British cuisine would be without all the marvelous and exotic food we can now sample, or the massively diverse music that we are now exposed to BUT… let’s get rid of the wasters, the scroungers, the non-contributors, the detractors, the trouble makers. We have enough of our own workshy home bred dross that were born here… We don’t need any more foreign imports who have no intention of either integrating or contributing or trying to ferment trouble and division.
Come if you want to make the UK a great place. If you don’t want to work and want to live off others and want to make trouble, then don’t.
“Is there a deliberate plan to destroy nations?”
I think it is the inevitable effect of modern transport and communications. People whose illiterate peasant ancestors never travelled further than the nearest market town can now hop on a plane and take a holiday in another continent. We can now read blogs by people from all over the world and join in the discussions.
The whole world is getting mixed.
I actually posted this elsewhere yesterday, but the trains of thought seem to run on parallel lines.
“The performance of the DG was incredibly mirrored by the boss of another public organisation, whom I saw being grilled on BBC Parliament last night. He had spent 12 years in post, as opposed to 55 days, and claimed to have the most perfect “system” in place to communicate upwards to him, through all the layers of his organisation. The MP’s Committee seemed incredulous that in those 12 years he had never heard a whisper about events that had led to criminal arrests and a massive scandal in his area of operations. He explained that he could only conclude that the reason he did not know about what had been going on was because his “people” did not tell him. The supreme irony was that this was the ex-Head of Rochdale Council where children in care have been being prostituted for several years.
I guess that if the British are all watching MP’s in the Jungle, rather than in Parliament, it’s hardly surprising that they believe everything they read in the newspapers, and equally unsurprising that the newspapers continue to tell them what the newspapers want them to hear. Silence of the Lambs.”
I should explain for those on the wider world web that the “MP’s in the jungle” comment relates to this
http://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/news/local/nadine-in-the-jungle-episode-2-1-4470896
But the even funnier part of that article is the responsible politician who supports her.
It’s easy to see why Nero took comfort in his fiddling.
The most concerning demographic factor in the US election was in the split of the African/American vote – it was 94/6 in favour of Obama.
In any two-party, nationwide political system, you would reasonably expect any sector’s vote-split range to be more modest, based on the voters’ natural split of political preferences. 60/40 is probably the limit of the natural range nationwide – even in the UK’s deepest working-class areas, there are still many people who vote against type, just as there are in the ‘true-blue’ areas, meaning 80/20 can occur at most, but only in small zones.
For 94% of a national population group to vote one way betrays the fact that they were mostly only voting for colour – black folks voting for a black candidate simply because he is black, not from any reasoned sharing of his political direction. That has potentially huge implications on future electoral strategies for parties.
In Britain we may think it less likely because we vote in small consituencies rather than for a single national leader, but the same effect can be seen at work in areas with high densities of particular ethnic groups. There is a marked tendency to vote for the same ethnic group, regardless of party-label or policies, hence some very strange local election results in the likes of Bradford and Rochdale – basically, any white candidate standing in a very ethnic area is wasting his/her time, whatever party rosette is worn or policies offered. Voting can often reflect historic village and family issues, rather than anything applying to the UK. And that is a perversion of democracy, it is thoughtless voting and often results in awarding seats to inadequate candidates. Extrapolate that onto the national stage and the impact may become alarming.
I have no problem with any Black, Asian, Latino, female, gay, disabled or any other breed of candidate being elected by a thoughtful electorate having analysed the policies on offer, but I am concerned that the increasingly ‘tribal’ nature of voting, both in the USA and here, will have consequences for our democracies which do not feel positive.
‘ being elected by a thoughtful electorate having analysed the policies on offer,’
In the history of democracy in this country and any other the thoughtful electorate as you’ve defined them has always been a minority. Am not saying that to be fashionably cynical – it’s simply human nature. People tend to vote for the same party as their parents, they tend to vote for teh same party through their lives – unless something happens to seriously hack them off – and they tend to get more conservative as they get older.
Oh come on, black voters in the USA have always been almost exclusively Democrat, regardless of the colour of the Prez. If Obama had any effect it was just to get more black people to vote. 40% of Hispanics voted for Dubbya I believe, so again the Republicans have just alienated a group of people scared to death of the Mad Hatter’s tea-party. If the Republicans have any sense they’ll persuade Condoleeza to stand next time and get a grip of themselves.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em…? What the hell happened to principles?
Personally, I think Condi would be a brilliant pick. For who she is, though. Not for what colour she is.
Seconded – I’d vote for Condi, whatever her politics!
Thirded!! Condi is the greatest US President never to take office…
It’s the fact that she’s a woman that makes her ideal. Being black too is just a nice coincidence. I’m half-expecting both parties to have a woman candidate next time around. Having the next president guaranteed to be the first woman would be a Win Win so far as I can see. Having someone like Condoleezza, who actually knows somehting about what to expect, makes her seem a perfect fit to me and a perfect “first lady” in the proper sense of the term. Anyhow, there’s four more years first. Lots to happen in the meantime.
I think it’s more likely that Governor Christie may get (and accept) the Republican nomination next time, because when his state, New Jersey, was hit with a storm as devastating in its own way as Katrina, he had the good sense to stop playing partisan politics and work with Obama for the good of the people. Imo, it was this one example of elected officials working together without any reliance on party politics that changed the tide of the election at the last minute. Christie endorsed Obama without actually endorsing him, and it was very clear to the American public exactly the character of both men. I hope Elizabeth Warren gets the nomination for the Democrats. Condoleeza is old news, part of the Bush administration, and wouldn’t get support just because she’s an African-American. Obama may have gotten the first election with the fact he is of African and American descent, but he held the job because he is the right person to be President and he’s proved it.
Whilst the assumption of blacks voting Democrat generally holds, it has always struck me as strange given that they have reason to be thankful to Lincoln and Eisenhower (both Republicans) for the ending* slavery and segregation respectively.
* Yes, this is simplistic but those were the guys in charge at the time.
Very good post Sigillum.
Unfortunately, as regards: “…even those who live their cosseted and cosy life with the house in Hampstead and the villa in Tuscany.”
‘They’ will have long since fled these sceptic isles & retired to said Tuscan villa.
Why is the immigration of British people to Tuscany OK, while immigration of Rumanians to Britain is not OK ?
Don Cox November 13, 2012 at 18:30
Why is the immigration of British people to Tuscany OK, while immigration of Rumanians to Britain is not OK ?
Come on Don, engage brain before keyboard. Brits don’t go to Tuscany to sponge off the system or rob the local people.
‘… a genuine man’
Hardly, if being NOT genuine is defined by:
1. Being determined to be an ‘unreliable witness’ by a judge
2. Being a convicted benefit fraudster (pleading guilty, and thus in this soft system, escaping punishment)
3. Being someone who punches a barrister in open court when being cross-examined by said barrister
4. Being a ‘victim’ whose sexual abusers rise progressively by stages (it increases on each interrogation/allegation) from 1 to 49(!)
Have you seen a photograph of him?
I know, I know … one shoudn’t judge by appearances, but sometimes …
shouldn’t
A more unreliable witness would be difficult to imagine… What on earth were the BBC doing? His antecedents were well known enough to check without much effort. Astonishing!
Checking my Twitter stream from last night, I see he’s tried the old ‘Goodbye, cruel world!’ tactic, prompting lots of outpourings of attention by his followers (and those who like to take vicarious part in other people’s drama) and another wasted callout for the poor, truly long suffering ambulance staff.
Getting back to Otak, it occurs to me that he may have fled his homeland to escape the consequences of a previous murder.
BTW – everything else: +1
This US election was the most important in the last 50 years
The republicans are finished if they do not move back to the center. Groups like Hispanics, single mothers, Blacks, Asians are rapidly growing in size.
The ‘angry old white man’ group is diminishing. If the Republicans ignore these facts they are finished.
Nor could a hand full of billionaires buy the election.
More importantly- I believe the tales I am hearing : that Annonymous ‘fixed’ a patch that was meant to swing the Ohio and Florida votes to republicans as they have in the past 10 years. That explains Karl Rove’s dismay as the truth dawned.
the only grip I have with your fascinating piece is your belief the McAlpine accuser was a ‘genuine’ man. I say the opposite and Richard Webster gave conclusive proof that he has seemingly made a good living out of being the victim and has falsely accused someone before. Also i do not believe for a minute that he himself could not have sought out photographs of McAlpine. And I abhor this concept that somehow a victim of abuse(which I believe he is) should somehow be forgiven for what he does.
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