Politics

To replace one thing for another involves the matter of trust. Who or what is responsible for the changes that have and are occurring in the present age? Most of those experienced over the last decade or so have resulted from pressure groups: climate change and trans lobbies provide two vivid examples. I look around the world today and I see a changed world. Nobody as far as I am aware ever asked anyone about the wisdom or desirability of the ongoing changes which are not trivial: on the contrary they are foundational. They fall into a category titled Post Modernism which is really nothing more than an updated radical version of how reality is viewed. It involves dismantling the framework which supported the principles upon which the modern world was based. It began with a sneering hatred and revulsion for the version of history I was taught as a child to both love and admire. Our history is based on the development of Western Civilisation and founded on the Christian Faith. Britain;s history as seen through modern eyes has become a shameful spectre, an aberration called the British Empire. A stain which must be apologised for and erased. This is a subject I have written about in an article titled The Stigma of Empire. Today we are taught to turn our faces away in shame from what was done by our ancestors. The faith, principles and laws which defined the modern age into which I was born in 1944 are being systematically pulled down and stigmatised. Once such an act of vandalism has been activated it becomes easy to teach and inspire a new generation with a new vision. Living with justified shame is hard enough, but to have undeserved shame placed on the shoulders of a generation is to breed one lost to the truth. Which just happens in my opinion to be the primary objective of postmodernists. Truth has been erased and facts are things of the past. The facts of life which were once a guide to adolescents is now seen as a false creed. Self proclaimed identities are the modern thing, consequently you and I must bow before proclamations of self which can leave a penis hanging between the legs of a person who self identifies as a female. A feature of modern life which has outraged feminists. Everybody is enraged by everyone else as each extreme sub section of society seeks a safe haven for their crusade.

The prophet Isaiah wrote this: “So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter.”

Principles from the past, in case you have forgotten them or never knew them are as follows: the list on the left. What has arisen to replace them are on the right.

There is a huge difference between the two, and the former has morphed into the latter with amazing speed and finality. If you felt the world of your parents or grandparents was like walking with a stone in your shoe, then this new version of reality gets rid of the stone. Life gets easier to live; your personal freedoms are enhanced and any consequences for getting it wrong are lessened. This alternative theory is a broad belief system tied to philosophical and humanist thought. Political Correctness is one result of this philosophy. One that elevates contemporary and heavily interpreted truth-claims to levels high enough to attain political acceptance. It can suggest the meaning of words can be better represented by the reader than the author. If you are a Christian, you will have seen this applied to the Bible.

In brief, postmodern theory sees reality as what individuals or social groups like it to be and if possible, politically make it to be. This is a modern concoction that can take in almost anything and rearrange its content to make it digestible. Its thinking has entered us and as far as I can understand it is acting like a virus. Aspiring elites form around protest movements, and then like three years old’s use their perceived victim-hood against those they accuse of misusing their authority through discrimination and oppression. As with the tyrannically minded three year old child, every time the parent or authority figure gives way they take the vacated ground and cry for for more room in order to express themselves. This is true of all those groups usurping the rights of the majority, and because the majority are an ill defined mass without a coherent voice it folds before each advance. Movements pursuing narrow agendas against those groups and individual to which have the word phobia can be attached are almost guaranteed to have their demands enacted. To be accused of homo or Islamophobia, or opposed to feminism or trans rights to do whatever they want is to be found guilty of grievous offences against the new order of society. Harbouring thoughts of traditional values and fixed beliefs regarding normal and natural is to be seen as aberrant, a stain on society. Veganism has been awarded equal rights to those of a religion. Presumably veganophobia will be added to the growing list of protest movements guarded by the threats of hate crime legislation. Our government has enshrined the rights of minorities above those of the majority. They have written these rights into the law and are very willing to prosecute offenders.

British Values, Diversity, Equality and Political Correctness. Are they the way ahead or a dead end.

This is the battle ground, and the war is between a secular society seeking its own way and two religions it has to deal with: Christianity and Islam; neither of which can ever live altogether comfortably with each other, or with a state that chooses to follow a Post Truth, Post Modern way of life. Post Truth and Post Modernism are not benign ideologies, not if you disagree with their core principles. Now State Laws are as doctrinaire as any religion. Political Correctness is a vicious device which encourages conformity while ensuring that opposition is seen as a reactionary response deserving censure. In my view protest groups like the English Defence League would not exist if the huge right wing of society had a voice in the centre of our political arena. Many in the Labour Party have moved far to the Marxist left, the Tories have regrouped and chosen to occupy territory once covered by Tony Blair’s New Labour. The once called right wing of politics has been shoved into a category that even the modern Conservative Party would reject as a label. Right wing is becoming or has already become a toxic brand wrapped in the Union Jack and illustrated by the worst of our society, racist and homophobic. No political party can afford being tarnished by this partial caricature.

Speaking of Political Correctness gone wrong you can watch a really disturbing video shown below. It is an interview between the Private Eye editor and Have I Got News For You panellist Ian Hislop, and the once disgraced Apprentice star and Sun journalist Katie Hopkins. Hislop is questioning Hopkins about remarks made in one of her articles. The language she has used in this article is shocking and in my view rightly condemned. But, and its a big BUT she has a point, one which only becomes clear at the close of this videoed encounter between left and right wings. As you will see in this interview is deadly serious. To Hopkins her accuser is a representative of the Establishment: a preening, self satisfied, self righteous liberal who thinks himself sat opposite a right wing bigot. Hopkins to her credit has not just sat around pontificating about subjects like immigration. She has put herself in danger, she has seen the threatening effects of immigration face to face in a very dangerous area of Stockholm. At the close of the interview she makes an utterly chilling comment. It really is worth hearing and seeing, it left me with much to think about. One of the great problems of our age is that public concerns which do not meet with the approval of the state are not addressed.

Here is another view on the subject of Post Modernism.

The realm of the extreme left and the scars it has engraved into history is all but ignored by documentary makers, the media in general and in the education system. The hard right is a constant theme and rightly red-flagged as a real and present danger to the West. But so is one of equal malignancy on the extreme left, one which still exists and poses a threat to our way of life. It produced something very different to anything which had preceded it: Communism. The masterpiece of the nineteenth century thinkers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. And despite its history about which it is difficult to find anything to admire, it remains a very modern, up to date and future blight on peace in the West. 

Communism and its history gets very little coverage, but its aims and ambitions were well understood during the cold war, but perhaps forgotten by most today. However it is well remembered by those of us who lived through the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties. Who watched from a safe distance the courageous struggle to escape its grip by nations seeking to break the rule imposed by Communist Russia. Leaders like Lech Wałęsa, a retired Polish political leader, pro-democracy activist and union organiser. An electrician by trade, he was a leading dissident in the Polish People’s Republic and became the leader of Solidarity, an independent trade union and freedom-oriented social movement, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. He led a successful nonviolent struggle which eventually brought the end to communism in Europe. He later served as the first democratically elected President of Poland from 1990 to 1995. Other movements of dissent were crushed. On August 21, 1968 the citizens of Czechoslovakia woke to learn that their country had overnight been invaded by Soviet led troops, deployed to crush the Prague Spring reform movement: the invasion began a two-decade long occupation. 

All of this history is largely forgotten, unrecorded or just never known. This maybe because intellectuals of the West, largely left leaning in their views, tend to want to excuse the excesses of the extreme Left. Those of the Far right, especially that of Hitler and the Nazis are relayed on documentaries as if on permanent loop system, taught in schools and colleges as if this was the one and only major source of evil to have scarred the face of modern times. Far Right evil spotlit, far left given far less attention. Ask our youth or almost anyone about 6 million deaths and they will all point to the terrors and concentration camps built by the Nazis whose primary purpose was the extermination by genocide of undefended innocents, sheep for the slaughter: the Jews.

But there is another story, by awful coincidence also of six million innocents. The deaths of peasants and farm workers in Ukraine by Stalin in 1932 / 33. And yet scarcely anyone knows anything about this mass kill. The Terror-Famine and Famine-Genocide or the Ukrainian Genocide was part of the wider Soviet famine which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country. Millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians. Since 2006, this death by starvation has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government under the rule and orders of Stalin. During the Russian revolution, the label of kulak was used as an epithet for any peasant who resisted handing over his grain to requisitions from the Bolshevik / Stalinist government. During 1929–1933, Joseph Stalin‘s all-out campaign to collectivise the peasantry meant that “peasants with a couple of cows or five or six acres more than their neighbours” were labelled kulaks. That label was as good as a death sentence. Stalin’s policy targeted these  farmers who were the most efficient and productive in the Ukraine.Under the dekulakization policy, government officials violently seized kulak farms and killed those who resisted and deported these to labour camps in Siberia. According to the political theory of Marxism–Leninism of the early 20th century, the kulaks were class enemies of the poorer peasants. Vladimir Lenin described them as “bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine”, and he proclaimed the revolution against such class enemies to liberate poor peasants and farm labourers as well as the proletariat: the much smaller class of urban and industrial workers. 

There are many good reasons why the Holocaust dominates any other tragedy, and it should, being the greatest crime against humanity ever envisaged, and one carried out with a savagery that is unequalled. But this famine is at least comparable and of interest for this reason. Why is one long and appalling stain on mankind well remembered and the other scarce known about? The answer may well be that the Right when it becomes maddened by an insane, politically, racially, ethnically motivated hatred is thought to be one thing, a horror never to be forgotten, while those atrocities enacted by the Left are buried and allowed to be forgotten. How? By failing to teach recent history. Why? Is it because the media and our intelligentsia is to a great extent protective of and approving of the Left to such an extent that blame is shifted and in part excused. Has it occurred to you that this memory loss and its failure to be flagged up as the product of the extreme left is caused not by good intentions, but rather the instinct to deceive and whitewash history relevant to the rise of the extreme political left. The question is, do we notice, does the lopsided nature of what is reported and what is not matter, and do we care?

Signs of the extreme left are not difficult to discern, not even in the good old safe haven of the UK. The extreme socialist pressure group Momentum has this to say about itself.

‘Momentum is a people-powered, grassroots movement working to transform Britain in the interests of the many, not the few. Together, we’re campaigning locally and nationally to build power in our communities, strengthen our rights at work and elect a socialist Labour government.’

The Interests of Many Not the Few is a Labour Party slogan. It could equally well have been a Stalinist slogan during the purge of the Kulaks and the wreckage of an economy, The Ukraine before Stalin’s Terror was the bread basket of much of Eastern Europe.

Momentum is the power base which holds Jeremy Corbyn in place as leader of the Labour Party. He and they are Communist / Marxist / in their thinking. And where their thinking goes, so will their actions should they find themselves holding the levers of power. At Corbyn’s side is his equally leftist and Stalinist colleague, John McDonnell. The Labour Party is in my view mostly filled by members of Parliament who are decent, moderate men and women wanting to serve the best interests of the country and their constituents. They hold a thin line, and on them may depend how the future of our country works out. If you look at the history of extreme left wing activists when in power, then fear and anxiety are natural responses. This history is not difficult to uncover, but for some reason the media in this country seem reluctant to open up this particular can of worms. Just check out the counties that have fallen under a Soviet type of government. China under Mao, Russia and its empire under the influences of Marx, Lenin. Trotsky and Stalin and all those lesser monsters up to and including Putin. Then there is Cambodia under Pol Pot. Cuba under Castro and North Korea under Kim Jong-un; a country in which some 120,000 people are believed to be imprisoned without due process for political reasons, according to the US-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. 

Finally, Venezuela is a current regime in the news under leadership disputed between Juan Guaido and Nicolás Maduro. Here is a report on this country, one admired and supported by Jeremy Corbyn. In the statement below, the organisations involved detail why a UN Commission of Inquiry is the best answer the international community can offer to victims of Venezuela’s spiralling human rights and humanitarian emergency:

“A UN Commission of Inquiry would play a crucial role in addressing the rights to justice, truth and reparation for victims of rights abuses in Venezuela, advancing accountability, and encouraging rights-respecting policies. Such an effort could have an important deterrent effect to prevent additional serious human rights violations and possible mass atrocity crimes during the country’s ongoing crisis”.

That is Corbyn’s example of a Socialist State he admires. But this is nothing in comparison to a really big example, such as that illustrated by the mother of all evils; the rise of the Soviet Union and the teachings of Communism.

Left-wing activists and apologists have a great influence throughout the media and they seem to near inhabit the humanities curriculum in the universities. They hammer a message which warns against the rise of the Far Right. The noise of the Left Wing cabals that largely run our media and lecture our sons and daughters in universities ensure that such warnings as I give are dumped in an incinerator; labelled as far right fantasies. They drown out the few respected voices who do warn us. People like Jordan Peterson, Andrew Murray, Roger Scruton and others, but they are few and far between.This threat is never far away because ideologies do not easily give ground . When forced to, they tend to rise again under a new form: post modernism is one candidate you might like to investigate. If you wonder what is happening to our society you might chance peering under this stone. The video below is a harrowing example of Communism when applied without restraint, as it was under the rule of the dictator Joseph Stalin.

This is a warning to us from the twentieth century. All free peoples should know about, if they did we might value our freedoms more and watch carefully for any indications that these freedoms are coming under threat. Why we do not seem much concerned by the rise in State control of our rights and freedoms is a question worth asking? Communism when seen in the light of history and when implemented without restrain by an ideologue is a death cult. It twists and perverts every human good into evil. The toll? Up to sixty million died in the Soviet Union. Well over a hundred million in China and around six million in Cambodia. The other lesser examples are well established basket cases, there are no cases of Communism enacted in the real world that has not been an example of the worst way imaginable to organise and govern a country. And the UK has never been closer to such a government taking power. The rhetoric will sound progressive, look after the left behind, the poor and the disadvantaged. Government for the many, not the few. The few will be persecuted, and it will not just be the great financiers and investors and the filthy rich and those who have misused power, it could you or me or anyone who stands in the way. 

This article seems like a repeat of an earlier one. It takes a slightly different slant on the topic of hate crime and digs a little deeper.

The fragile broken egg shells and the vulnerable yolk represent the vanishing right to hold an opinion disapproved of by State Law. Hate Law hovers like a  threatening raised hammer over free speech and any robust dissent from the prevailing consensus. It is a threat which has not eradicated hate speech; it merely selects between those granted permission to use hate filled language and those who are not. It has not reduced objects of hate, it has increased them. Any dissident voices are effectively silenced by the legal threats imposed by the State. People who oppose this imposition on what can and cannot be said or written are often faced with being labelled, misogynistic, racist, sexist, homophobic or Islamophobic, often with words like “scum” prefacing whomever has become the chosen target. They are to all intents and purposes hated. Many of those who make the above accusations are aggressive left wing activists. These hate filled individuals are allowed to hate their opponents and are protected while doing so as if they were officially employed: like a paramilitary arm of the state machinery. These untouchables and the groups to which they belong have an innate hatred of anything remotely right wing, evangelically Christian or Jewish. Equality is the very last thing we have in this country.

The State apparatus has taken upon itself the right to decide what is to be esteemed and raised up and what it is permissible to loathe and pull down. The ultimate endgame may still be under discussion, but the framework is in place and working to the detriment of those prepared to speak out in opposition. To challenge either the advances of LGBT rights or Islamic culture or religion is to risk severe censure. There seems no realisation that the spread of LGBT rights and their legal enforcement has had a huge effect on the rights of others who are unprotected: those who think this cause is contrary to the limits on variety imposed by nature. That it is a cause with the potential to destabilise the peace of mind of children as they progress through the normal process which affirms their gender is simply ignored.

In our blind rush to abandon the guidance of our former religion, Christianity, we have fallen foul of another much more legalistic and dictatorial. A religion at odds with all our natural instincts and culture. Protections for one religion to follow religious laws abhorrent to even our secular law books, and open season on the one that defined those moral virtues our nation once lived by. As I stated earlier, if you dislike Christian views on homosexuality then at least face the reality that they were, even at their most extreme, comparatively mild in comparison to those that apply under Sharia law in Islamic states.

So how to separate this single word hate from dislike or aversion? If there is little difference, then how can a member of the public expressing an opinion differentiate between them? The accuser in any hate crime issue has every advantage. An accusation once accepted as a legal complaint will be prosecuted by the CPS without cost to the plaintiff. Presumably the accused will have to bear the cost of the defence plus any further financial penalties upon losing the case. This would weigh heavily on anyone contemplating defending against a charge of hate crime. How heavy in terms of financial loss, worry and loss of reputation and embarrassment at becoming an icon of homophobia? An example is the famous Irish bakers case: the Ashers. A Christian married couple who refused to decorate a pro-homosexual message on a cake. This dispute went through a number of court trials, every one of which they lost until finally the Supreme Court ruled in their favour. They endured four-and-a-half years of this pressure and it cost them around £500,000. Proof that a defendant is a sitting duck waiting for the bullet, unless they have a result such as this, which is a rarity. How does anyone with less faith, guts and means than the Ashers mount a defence against a crime based on the perception of the offended person? If I said in the presence of a transgendered individual, that I did not like the idea of going through such surgery when the results were so uncertain, how could I defend myself if that person took it as an extreme comment and declared it a hate crime? Words matter, but in a post truth world, one where the word truth has undergone the same metamorphosis as the words sex and gender, they either lose their true meanings, or in cases of hate crime, assume heightened meaning. Hate can now be construed as a prosecutable criminal act. Gender choice becomes a faux fact in this brave new world. This is astonishing, because hatred for something false, loathsome or unjust is natural and good. Hatred of slavery by a Christian reformer brought it to an end as an officially sanctioned trade. William Wilberforce fought the Good Fight. However, in the current environment hatred by the politically correct of those who hold opposing views is perfectly acceptable, probably even righteous. This is dangerous because it places the doctrine of free speech in a compromised position. It is Orwellian and has the Marxism of Animal Farm written all over it. Yes, you are free to speak, but some are freer than others. You are free to protest until the state police catch up with you, then, in a not so far future world a Gulag or concentration camp may await.

A definition of the word hate is to loathe, detest, dislike greatly, abhor, abominate, despise, execrate, feel aversion towards, feel revulsion towards, feel hostile towards, be repelled by, be revolted by, regard with disgust, not be able to bear/stand, be unable to stomach, find intolerable, shudder at, recoil from, shrink from…. Dare the state tell us what is to be hated and admired, disposed of or protected? Where does its moral authority come from?  The modern secular state is nothing more than a great committee when it comes to opinions. A change of state governance or a change of century may well see many of the established opinions vanish overnight. Why is the new true, and the old false when in another few decades what is new today will very likely have become old and false? The binary nature of sex, accepted for millennia as a truth endorsed by both nature and science, along with the rule of marriage as a union between male and female for the purpose of nurturing children and propagating the species overturned! And by what and whom? A rainbow coloured coalition of ideologues who bullied a craven legislature into submission. Who cares about facts when a person can look at himself and proclaim that today I have become female.

It would be good to find an advocate of political correctness and ask why a so called progressive move is being made to change society out of all recognition. A remorseless drive from a source very difficult to identify. It speaks and directs and commands as if it had divine knowledge and authority. It does not accept any counter beliefs or arguments as having validity. Stand against these modern truisms such as gender choice and you will be howled down by Twitter storms long before any government agency has its say. Until recently we had a better foundation on which to stand, but we are rejecting and replacing it without any apparent thought as to the consequences. Western civilisation was based on idea of the transcendent: something beyond and above us. Those beliefs which stated that we humans are not the summit of all things is being lost and buried without so much as a headstone. Hence the title of this blog / website: Here Lies the Truth. We once believed a Creator God had given us intrinsic value, one so high that no individual or state could just take a human life without judging that individuals case in a court of law that upheld high standards of justice and impartiality. It Hitler had been arrested and faced his accusers he would have had every opportunity to defend himself and have legal representation. His chances would have been close to as good as the Ashers in this crazy upturned world in which we live.

The video below illustrates the point. The speaker is not a Christian, but he believes a society or state is in deep trouble if it ever forgets the transcendent foundations which underpin our Western Civilisation.

This article highlights two areas of confusion and both are problematic.

The LGBTQ issue is a problem. People of my generation find it difficult to adapt because it transgresses every concept of normality we were taught both at home and at school. Primarily by people we trusted: those in authority, parents and teachers. To many of us this confusion over sexual identity is madness in the truest sense of the word. A partly contrived problem, concerning a tiny minority of the population who have gathered a prominence and momentum, hyped up and out of all proportion to its real significance. In saying that I am not attempting to minimise the impact this has on individuals. I think that should be taken seriously. Those enduring gender confusion must be treated with the same respect and kindness and skill as any other person finding life difficult. But if a largely psychological problem, gender confusion was designated a medical disorder before changed by political pressure to the less loaded term: dysphoria. When I see it driven to near the top of our political and social concerns by ideologues who distort reality, I along with many others get concerned. I will not go on about it as other articles deal with the matter in more detail. This is just a curtain raiser and an introduction. The issue I believe is one of identification, and not so much of gender. We have a problem that ought to be faced head on, but we cannot do that for reasons which are close to applying gagging orders against those of us who would say stop.  Look at the whole thing again from the beginning. Examine its roots and its history and ask real questions about whether or not gender reassignment therapy, puberty blocking chemicals for adolescents, and surgery when requested are appropriate responses to what may well be, as suggested above,caused by other factors which may even be as shallow as peer pressure or the latest celebrity endorsed fashion. It is now known that all sorts of pressures are being applied, pushing troubled young people, some autistic, into taking life changing decisions.

Hate crimes have been introduced to the political and social arena, and they pose a threat to anyone brave or stupid enough to express concern, criticism or just plain old fashioned opinions. Two thousand years ago these new laws would have had a different appearance. Like a pride of hungry lions circling a huddled group of persecuted dissidents. Those who would not fall to their knees and bow to the craziness and corruption of imperial rule. Today those who want to protest against so called progressive trends feel afraid. And that is not an exaggerated fear and nor is it unwarranted.

Below is a talk given to a gathering of the concerned in Canada. The speaker lays out the issue clearly, calmly and with authority.

The second issue, also elaborated on in other articles is that of Islam. A religion which has supporters far removed from the fanatics, and this makes confronting the matter all the more difficult. These advocates are intelligent, in positions of power and influence and argue their case cogently. Their objective is to put a positive impression on Islam along with invoking a sense that it needs legal protections and oppressed victim status. Those who see Islam as a problem are quickly stigmatised as Islamophobes. In 2015 a conservative councillor tweeted the following.

“Islam is like alcoholism. The first step to recovery is admit you have a problem.”

That surprisingly incendiary remark caused the perpetrator, Mr Lamb, first to apologise for his misdemeanour and later resign as a member of the Conservative Party. There is according to Baroness Warsi growing signs of Islamophobia in her party. She was the first Muslim woman to have a seat at the Cabinet table, and claimed there was a “deep-rooted problem” in the party. Well if the above remark is a sign of Islamophobia, then how would any kind of remark expressing negative concern about the Muslim community avoid being called Islamophobic? Mr Lamb’s comment was essentially mild in tone, saying nothing more than there is a problem which needs addressing. An observation which is obviously true. Opinion Polls confirm this fact.

One of the reasons is that the Quran preaches jihad against the kafir: the infidel. That is anyone who is not a Muslim: an unbeliever, a pagan, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Christian or a Jew. And Europe knows from experience it is a target of Jihad. Why is the preaching of that creed, which is based in Islam’s holy book, not hate speech? The Bible has been similarly accused, but is much the more likely candidate under current political opinion to be formally classified as hate literature. Jihad of whatever sort, peaceful or violent, covert or open, is according to the Quran an essential part of Islamic teaching. If that is accepted as a fact then there is a problem. Ignoring it will only serve as a short term solution. The sensible option is to face the issue. Face Muslim leaders with the issues and try to negotiate a solution. Expressing this concern  as Mr Lamb did, in terms of alcoholism may not have been the most diplomatic way of opening a debate; but it at least opens it up for discussion. And it needs opening up because a large proportion of the British public are concerned.  According to a recent report in the Guardian newspaper, polling of more than 10,000 people in July 2018, found 32% of people believed there were Muslim “no-go areas” in Britain governed by Sharia law. That supposed reality is officially denied, but the view from people living in deprived areas of the UK should be listened to, primarily because they probably know better than any official what is actually going on in these communities. They may know a good deal more than official authorities who tend to tow the politically correct line. Officials who could well represent the same councils, police and social workers who denied the scale and religious background of the sex grooming gangs. A scandal which became such a big issue it hit the media and front pages of every national newspaper. Another Guardian report of a recent poll indicated a shocking figure. That three-quarters of non-Muslims believe Islam has provided a negative contribution to British society. In the face of that information surely some initiative must be taken. Perhaps the government should take this vast number of self confessed Islamophobes, the majority of the general public, into a prolonged training scheme. Its the kind of re-education project that appealed to Marxist dictatorships. And that is what should scare us the most. That if a decision must be taken, in whose favour would that decision be made?

I will conclude by returning to Mr Lamb and his reference to an alcoholic who has a problem which has to be faced. If it is not, how will he or she be enabled to function well in society? There are remedies, of course, and the first is to recognise that there is a problem. If you cannot even say that there is a problem without being accused of hate thoughts or speech, then the only option is to kick the problem down the road. And there it sits in the long grass and festers, becoming increasingly unstable; a potential grenade placed into the hands of the people you least want to deal with it: the far right. No-one in their right mind wants that to happen, but failure to face what most people in this country know to be a growing problem seems to be the favoured answer. Wait, hope and make concessions, appears to be the only solution on offer. It is the hopeless, clueless response of the coward. The video below is a conversation on the issue. Its title is alarming to anyone who cares about the future of our country. And that will include large numbers of moderate, mostly I imagine less religiously inclined Muslims or apostates; those who are happy to live in the West alongside all the other minorities. even with small c conservative white indigenous citizens like myself. Most people want to live in peace with one another, and I share that feeling. I also fear that as Douglas Murray says in the video below, there may not be a soft landing on Islam. It is not always the moderate majorities who hold the power when things begin to go wrong.

This was written before the terrible mass killing of 49 innocent Muslims in and around two mosques in Christchurch New Zealand. This tragedy was reported today: the 16th of March 2019. On this website I have written a lot about the dangers of the extreme left, but this appalling act demonstrates that the far right is equally repugnant. An insane hatred driven by fanatics incapable of drawing the distinction between good and evil and what can be done and what cannot be done under any circumstances.

How do you go about giving an age old society a complete makeover? If you were wise and cared about majority opinion you would make your decisions in the same way a planner sets about the layout of public pathways in a country park. The old advice was to do nothing for a while. Just observe the routes people naturally took as they meandered over the landscape. The main preferred tracks soon become apparent, and permanent paths and amenities would be laid down over and around those well trodden areas. A natural and simple process which made the great majority very happy. This kind of procedure  has been happening to us as a society, but not in the natural way mentioned above. In modern times the reverse method has been applied. Since the nineteen nineties governments of whatever party seem to have been of one mind in seeking to impose a new sense of what society should be. The method has been to lay down paths in heavy duty concrete all over areas which have never before been considered; and never in areas any sizeable majorities would have chosen.

A multicultural and multi-faith society became the new idea, and questions as how to best assimilate these changes into a once stable society has never been satisfactorily solved. Consequently change has been underway for sometime, but the paths being laid have not been decided by the general public. They have been laid down by the government and those the government are listening to; and those they are listening to are in my view dangerous; being influenced by highly motivated pressure groups. Stonewall, the LGBT pressure group advises the government on many issues, including the education of our youth. Ofsted has become the muscle enforcing some of Stonewall’s agenda on schools. Many Christian denominations have given way seemingly in anticipation of public censure and state reprimands. Feminists have also gained a huge amount of political traction. Religions other than Christianity have impacted as well, and in ways perhaps not anticipated. These very varied groups with very different agendas are troubling due to the power they seem to exercise over government agencies. You only need to examine the legislation passed by parliament over recent decades. Ethics and moral standards are now in the hands of those, in my view, least qualified to make judgements. Some of them are ideologues. A definition is: an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology. An ideology is a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. This includes beliefs, ideas, ideals, principles, creeds, theories. I admit this accusation could, in the past, when it had influence on government, be laid at the door of the Christian Church. Nevertheless sixty years ago this country still welcomed eccentrics, people who bucked the system and challenged convention. That happy state has been closed down. Take care about what you say or do, or else, learn to conform to the new reality. If not, be prepared for a quick lesson in State compliance.

Society has been transformed and it is I think helpful to look at what has happened, is happening and to consider what may come in the near future. The pressure to conform to the new prospectus is increasing year on year. Protest is encouraged on one side and repressed on the other. This process feels like it is planned. It is vicious towards opponents, even unconscious opponents in the sense they may be unaware it is happening until it happens. Coercion is in the air, and the coercive means being used are not difficult to discern once you begin to look for them. A society which has at its root a plan to change the past and usher in a new form of society is something which can never be done other than through covert control of mind and body. This is how dictatorships are formed. Think in unison with the leader’s thoughts or else! We are a society seeking to encourage diversity, equality and acceptance of all, when every instinct in humanity is known to want to gather around those with whom we feel most comfortable. Which is in part why the immigration issue was so influential in the Brexit vote. Political correctness seeks to end hate when hate is often nothing more in reality than a heated expression of judgement against something we find odious or intolerable. What those of a politically correct nature find odious and intolerable and unnatural many other people think of as reasonable, acceptable, good and even holy. The PC agenda is impossible to achieve without creating an extremely sophisticated system to police it, something which is developing apace. Since coercion and indoctrination are becoming part of daily life, isn’t it time to take a look back at what has been lost and into the future to understand what may be coming.

It is well established that behind the facade of every government office and agency down to county, district and local councils and all their employees, there is a vast bureaucracy. This ensures that the minutiae of legislation is fully enacted and that non compliance is ruled out as an option. It is not just the fact of these departments existence, but their empowering of all members of staff to an intimidating and seemingly unchallengeable level of authority. They have been taken through processes of training steeped in politically correct ideals. The doctrines associated with this training are held to be absolute values: challenging them will achieve nothing unless you follow the procedures they have established. Try complaining with any degree of annoyance and you are likely to be quickly closed down, your attitude considered unacceptable and probably documented and remembered. This, regardless of what is often the hard face of officialdom. The lack of flexibility in the systems is one of the reasons people get upset.

I remember very well my only experience of such training: a two hour session, one of a series given to staff at one of Her Majesty’s Prisons. I was involved in an art teaching course and was offered the opportunity to attend these instructive seminars. Staff, even temporary, were paid to attend, so needing money I decided to give it a try. I sat near the back of the room and listened with growing unease. Afterwards I swore, never again. Those attending were to be trained to accept principles dictated by PC procedures and attitudes which ideally should be followed to the letter. A failure in any small regard was not recommended. The whole session emphasised the seriousness of it all. Humour was altogether absent and I came to the conclusion it would be rare for human errors to be considered an excuse for any perceived failure. And that is the truth, there is little sympathy for those who make mistakes. All it needs is a word or two out of place. Here is an example; it hit the headlines and made a point. Do not offend against political correctness.

“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry,” he told delegates.”

The story was told by Sir Tim Hunt. This is a man who had been a government adviser. He won the 2001 Nobel prize in physiology for his work on cell division. And yet over a mild joke he was brought down; within 24 hours he had lost his position at University College London. Hunt knew the consequences: he is quoted as saying “I am finished.” His hopes of promoting science in this country and beyond ended. He had become toxic and his connections  to academic institutes were closed down without a chance given to defend himself. The story of his remark went viral through the “hang em high” mobs who use Twitter like kangaroo courts.

A small joke aimed at getting a laugh rather than making a strike at feminism caused a representative section of academia to fold like pastry. Why? Because it could no longer stand on principle. Political Correctness is no laughing matter, it has power and bite and is enforced by a corrupt application of the Law. These incidents can occur to anyone in any kind of work place anywhere at anytime. This is just one demonstration of PC dogmas in action, and how fast they can operate when linked to a very loud, remorseless section of the public. Twitter approval or disapproval carries terrifying weight. In a situation like that of Tim Hunt it acted like a mercenary force, undisciplined and uncaring of the damage it causes. In fact it glories in the damage it can cause. As you will hear, this phenomena is sometimes the decisive factor in decision making, particularly it seems among universities. Students are so alert to any offence, and the heads of universities so concerned by the consequences that they surrender sometimes even before a complaint is made; a perceived threat is sufficient. Twitter encourages mob action and while mobs are useful if cleverly deployed,  managing them has always been difficult, almost an art form. Serving them a constant and varied diet of victims works well and political correctness provides plenty of targets to gnaw at and spew out. This is one area where the real world of good old common sense gradually fades from view to be replaced by the theatre of the absurd.

Can you imagine the process of endless twaddle that went on before this particular set of guidelines was sent out to the appropriate departments.

It concerns the equality and diversity team at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust. A set of guidelines had been distributed to staff,. The intention was to avoid any legal action by  employees claiming discrimination due to the choice of timing, the venue, and even the catering of  their Christmas events. The briefing suggested choosing a time for the office Christmas party that was suitable for mothers so as to avoid the accusation of sex discrimination. Care should be taken about providing food that would be suitable for guests of all religions. That is just one example among the many that could be chosen. At face value this looks pathetic and small fry, an annoyance like a wasp at a picnic. But something more substantial is being built. If we have as a society become so sensitive that the slightest disturbance to our equilibrium causes uproar, then how are we to cope if something serious happens? Not so long ago we were robust: give and take was the rule, someone has a dig at you, you gave a dig back and we laugh it off. I worked in the Post Office for fourteen years and grew some backbone while there, in the sense that I learned how to take a joke and give it back. It was very rare if anyone took it hard, let alone complained. And the women gave it out just as good as the men. It was to me, at the time of a rather nervous disposition, the most enjoyable working experience I ever encountered and by far the least politically correct. I left the P.O. in 2000.

So how did this humourless, litigious, vengeful spirit arise in a people once so easy going? How were we changed so greatly and in such a short time? I think this remains a mystery. There seemed nothing obvious, it just crept in like a damp draught chilling the entire atmosphere. Laws from the EU, seemingly petty and ridiculous, came to us from across the Channel. These had to be implemented by parliament and obeyed, so we grumbled as the British do and did very little beyond laughing it off and grumbling some more. But we got used to it, and learned to endure while the received absurdities became the new reality. In the famous book Animal Farm the animals, with the exception of the pigs, watched with doe eyed docility as their freedoms disappeared one by one. The old idea of an Englishman’s home being his castle disappeared as it became plain that officialdom had multiple rights of intrusion trumping any individual rights to keep them out. We were introduced to a new mission, to save the planet. Green Taxes were imposed and we became more and more used to doing what we were told for idealistic reasons. Climate change made us think in global terms: fear of global catastrophes were constantly shoved in our face along with the insistent message that we must do something. The imperative to change was in the air. Every breath we take, every move we make should be done with this realisation in mind. Our survival was at stake. Tiny details mattered, household rubbish had to be sorted exactly as prescribed by the local council. We became used to using the blue bag for papers, black bin, green bin, whatever bloody bin and get it all correct or else expect some kind of reprimand from the council. Suddenly our lives, once easygoing and largely free of officialdom, became rule bound. In my view we are being trained like you might a potentially dangerous animal. The danger to the State are those prepared to says things or do things that are disapproved of, free speech needs managing, coercion is becoming the rule.

Watch out, speak out, and refuse to be influenced by the enforcement of decrees from above or by packs of Twitter fed mobs as to what the Truth is; because of one thing you can be certain, the Truth is far removed from the doctrines of Political Correctness. So, are we losing our bearings?  The speaker in the video below speaks of some of the issues raised in the article. He is American and is speaking about American issues, particularly in universities, however exactly the same things are happening in the UK and all across the Western World, from Scandinavia to Australia.

The following was said about the knife crime epidemic that is becoming the shame of London. This was written in 2018.

“So the forlorn attempts by politicians and media to ignore this truth…to avoid ‘stigmatising’ minority communities…has been counterproductive, a hand-wringing dereliction of responsibility.”

“It might make ‘right-on’ white liberals feel better. But the price of their smugness is an ongoing bloody massacre of black children with a casualty list that seems to lengthen by the day.”

These are observations made by the former Equality Commissioner Trevor Phillips. He was also head of the European Convention of Human Rights. Trevor Phillips is a black man, the son of poor immigrant parents and one of the few people close to government brave enough to speak out. He states that most of the recent crime waves involving violence and knife crime are black on black. These youths, many of them children have come from war torn countries having been brutalised by their experiences. Some of these have been either victims or perpetrators of violence who grew up to see other ethnic groups as enemies. They are continuing their wars and hatreds in our capital city and in other major cities around the country. This information comes from a man of high status and impeccable reputation for honesty. He is alarmed that our government and its agencies refuse to face the issue. He describes these children as living in ghettos. He blames “white liberals” describing them as “hand-wringing” rather than doing anything. They do this not because they are unaware, but to avoid facing the racial connection. They do not want to be perceived as stigmatising minorities. Phillips says there is a black massacre going on. What do the white liberal elites do? They continue to bury embarrassing and shaming data.

We have developed a cowardly politically correct attitude to abject failures in our society. It seems to pervade the corridors of power and have infected the bureaucrats who, rather than serve the interests of the public, are instead protective of our legislators. They cover up the mess. We have created a society based not on morality and self-discipline, but on avoiding the consequences of cause and effect. Successive governments cannot face what they have done, which was to restructure our society in ways that are proving to be catastrophic. In 2011 our former Prime Minister David Cameron told us that multiculturalism had failed. He launched an attack on 30 years of multiculturalism in Britain, warning it fostered extremist ideology and directly contributed to home-grown Islamic terrorism. He urged that we in Britain must adopt a policy of “muscular liberalism” to enforce the values of equality, law and freedom of speech across all parts of society.

What did Cameron do other than make the statement? Arguably he made the situation much worse. The bureaucrats in the CPS, Police and local councils and others ensured that the issues identified were dealt with by ignoring them if possible, or hiding the evidence whenever a conscientious official became a whistle-blower. He or she would be effectively silenced; one labour MP suggested keeping critics mouths shut would contribute to the advance of diversity. This was all horribly exposed in the media and in recent Parliamentary Committees looking into the Sex Grooming cases involving men from that most protected of minority groups: Islam. Cameron and others representing the establishment then set sail in the direction of imposing British Values. To what effect? To muffle the sounds of free speech. Terrorism continued and extremism has not decreased. Muscular liberalism has ensured the very problems he highlighted would be kicked into the long grass. If it were not for people of principle like Trevor Phillips we would hear very few honest assessments.

Multiculturalism may have failed, but it has admittedly provided us with many benefits: not least in staffing the NHS and care industries. Immigrants have brightened our lives not least with different foods and tastes and restaurants. Livened us up in many ways, including meeting and interacting with foreigners from all parts of the world. That all these have enriched us culturally is hard to deny, and personally I have no desire to deny it. These benefits have entered my own family. However this is experienced against a black backdrop of terrorism, failures to integrate, a hatred of democracy and free speech, and caused an increase in crime. Major and continued terrorism from a non Islamic source was last experienced during the Irish Troubles. It was caused by two separate communities seemingly incapable of coming together. The reasons were political, cultural and religious. This was a British problem which has been in large part solved.

Islam is unique among the world’s major religions; there is no separation between religion and state, which is unlike the relationship in the West between church and state. Islam is a religion and culture of an evangelistic type, historically based on force and conquest. It holds fast to a characteristic which cannot be circumvented. Islamic countries are theocracies; they are ruled not by only by secular politicians but by their faith and their clergy. When push comes to shove the rule of Allah given through his prophet Muhammad and written in the Quran, is their law. It reigns above the secular authourities in Islamic States, and in the minds of devout Muslims above those of a host nation like ours. British Muslims who care little for their faith are no problem, but those that do adhere closely to their faith, or become through radicalisation extremely devout can be, and often are a problem. Which is a major reason why multiculturalism has failed throughout Europe. Allah will always hold the loyalty of practising Muslims and will do so against any form of coercion. How to solve it? Ask me another question. I do not have a clue other than to slow Islamic immigration to a trickle. As that would seem to be picking on a protected minority and therefore be non PC, I think this would be unlikely to happen.  Our politicians are tied hand and fist by their own blighted and cock-eyed legislation to anything beyond mouthing platitudes, and that is why they obfuscate: (obscure, confuse, blur, muddle, complicate, garble, muddy, cloud), hide from the truth and bury the negative data.

The video below is a conversation relating to the book The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray. He is a British author, journalist, and political commentator. He is the founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion and is the associate director of the Henry Jackson Society and associate editor of the British political and cultural magazine The Spectator. As we are part of Europe everything said applies equally to us, and what is said is scary.

The impacts of Islamic culture upon our own has been graphically demonstrated in the strangest of ways. How British Values and a culture of Political Correctness protected sexual abusers.

The sex scandals involving huge numbers of troubled white girls being groomed into sexual slavery by Muslim men became public when this trade in so called ‘white trash’ was first exposed in Rotherham and Rochdale. 1400 girls forced into sexual slavery by ruthless vicious pimps. On the 23rd of February 2018 the headline news was that the sex scandals were continuing in Newcastle, with women as well as girls being preyed upon. The comment was made that there is reason to believe this is ongoing not just in Newcastle but nationally. Sex crime will never end but if the causes can be identified a start can be made. But what has happened here is more complex. A culture exists which seems to think this treatment of white girls is not as offensive as it seems to others. That if true is bad enough, what actually happened was perhaps even worse in the sense that authorities set up to protect the vulnerable became blind to their fate for politically correct reasons. The fear of being accused of racism against a protected minority.

Before going further it needs to be said that sexual predators can be found in any group, and paedophilia, perhaps the ugliest of all sexual crimes is in the UK most associated with men in the white population. Sexual predators have been protected before, causing national scandals and shame within Christian denominations. Serious efforts have, centuries late, been made within Christianity to correct the appalling abuse of the young, both male and female by teachers and clerics and nuns. These terrible crimes are a result of the evil instincts which inhabit humankind. One of the reasons they got away with it for so long is due to protected groups operating under their own supervisory authorities. In a nation for so long long under clerical rule like Ireland, the abuse became almost institutionalised with cover-ups becoming part of the state and church at the highest levels. Wherever authority reaches levels of control that cannot be easily challenged then violent sexual abuse seems almost certain. Mankind has a streak of malignancy which feeds upon vulnerability. That Political Correctness would be used in the same manner, to protect sexual predators should I suppose not shock us. This instinct to cover up and excuse is an ugly human reflex. The tick box, rule bound, I know all kind of statutory law birthed into Political Correctness, Hate, Equality and Diversity legislation provided the perfect cover for a prolonged scandal that should have been met head on twenty years previously.

The sex scandals which first came to prominence in Rochdale and Rotherham are a little different, because this time the cover up was not by a group protecting their own. It was the law which conspired to ensure that prosecutions were rare and those raising the alarm were silenced. I have no evidence to suggest Mosques in this country any more than Churches teach that a class or group of women are authorised targets of men wanting sex outside marriage. But something was wrong and these cases began to be linked to that of culture. If a culture was prepared to condone this trade then the problem became slightly different, how to prosecute cases without seeming as if a culture was being attacked. How to avoid being accused of Islamophobia and racism?

Eventually the problem became too large to contain because the grim stories kept on coming. It was like an epidemic. In 2018, an investigation revealed that the Telford grooming gang had 1,000 girl victims. The crimes involved trafficking, drugging, beatings, rapes and even murder. The scale of these crimes went off the chart. Douglas Murray has said of this that most people in positions of authority in this country never wanted stories like these to see the light of day. With regard to these crimes the former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw made some allowance for the role played by followers of Islam: denying any religious link while admitting a cultural problem. He admitted some Muslim men think of these girls as white trash and easy meat but refused to lay the blame with religion. These remarks were made on the Daily Politics programme in March 2018.

I think the its a cultural problem remark is a smokescreen behind which all kinds of problems have arisen. Pakistan’s culture is formed almost entirely by its religion which is Islam. Pakistan’s very existence was brought about by the cause of Islam. It is an Islamic state; to deny its culture is not a result of its religion would be like saying the culture of Tudor England was not shaped by Christianity. It was not just a religious dimension, it was the fundamental cause. Religion is not confined to mosques or churches or synagogues or temples; faith on this scale creates cultures. Jack Straw’s flimsy apologetic on behalf of Islam would not I believe survive examination by a historian. He appeared on this TV programme with another person concerned with these subjects: Nazir Afzal. He was one of the few to take on the issue of these gangs of sexual predators and prosecute the guilty. Nazir Afzal is a Muslim, and thank God for him, a good and courageous man who must have found it difficult to say what he did about fellow Muslims. He readily acknowledges that his cultural heritage played a part in getting convictions. He reopened a case against the gang of Asian men that groomed young girls for sex and suggested being an Asian made it easier to do so. He added that over sensitivity to political correctness hampered justice being done, claiming his Pakistani heritage helped. If he had failed to stand up to the politically correct dogma that seemed to rule over the ability to convict then these men may have got away with it all. Political Correctness ensured that the thousands of girls groomed into sexual slavery were kept in that condition for years. The brave few in the police and child care hammering away at their superiors, were silenced by a ruling elite, maybe including the CPS, who until the advent of Nazir Afzal had failed to act. It took a man of moral courage who could not easily be accused of racism or Islamophobia to take up the cause of these girls. Most of whom are now young women burdened with memories that can never be erased.

The following is a documentary about a police operation in Telford. It is traumatic to watch made more so when you realise that many police and other authorities failed to act, sometimes for more than a decade, you begin to understand that the guilt extents far beyond the rapists. This was an institutional cover up in the cause of maintaining social harmony. Telford police seem to have acted as should be expected in a law abiding society.

While the above is good work, it is at least a decade late for some police forces and the political elites still give the impression of  having failed to get the point.  It may never have occurred to our governing classes that we have to face an imported problem. I mean by that we invited, left the door open for decade upon decade to those of a culture who see females as lower than the males. A culture having no moral or religious code that puts an effective brake on either their lusts or their sense, if any, of right and wrong. Males, no doubt a small depraved, criminal minority of the Pakistani immigrant population, seem to feel entitled to traffic and violate children they designate as “white trash”. Doing this to serve their dual  interests in sex and money. They make a business mixed with pleasure out of enticing poor white girls, through drugs and drink, and then by grooming, threats, rapes, enslavement, sell them into lives of unimaginable terror and humiliation. That is bad enough on one side, but perhaps even worse they have been protected from the upholders of the law, by the law. Protecting minorities from race crime and Islamophobia while also protecting  the law breakers, who come from these same minorities. How perverse is that? What kind of insanity is this? We shield some of the worst of humanity from our laws which once worked, at least in theory, without fear or favour against any perpetrator: white or black, high reputation or low, saint or sinner. Only the scale of these crimes has forced the police and CPS to act. This is the madness of hate crime legislation which has shielded the guilty and left the innocent to be violated long term and under the noses of those whose work is to protect. This is a type of racism that cannot be acknowledged: black on white. We have created a worldview which is blind to the truth, colour blind. A view that will not, cannot cope with these appalling injustices because it turns political correctness on its head. If these men had not felt a sense of invulnerability due to political correctness making it difficult to look at any minority for fear of repercussions, then it would have been simpler to act in defence of the innocent. The establishment should hang its head in shame. They created this evil protective blanket under which depraved gangs could act with something close to immunity. Parliamentary groups spent a great deal of time investigating the cover ups by councils and police. That’s corruption on a huge scale. Who has been prosecuted, how many senior figure have lost their jobs and gold plated pensions? I have not heard of anything beyond some resignations. Its going to take a figure of the stature of William Wilberforce to change and fully expose the culture which has permitted this to happen. God speed his or her’s coming to the forefront of politics.

There is at this time a noticeable hostility towards the Christian Faith. A demonstration of this was realised at the last General Election. The then leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron found himself under unbearable pressure to compromise his Christian principles. Having first given way to this pressure he later repented that decision, choosing instead to follow his conscience and resign from his leadership role. He is an honourable man who chose Christ over his political ambitions and cares about his reputation. He made a stand for his faith when he could have lived the lie and fulfilled his political ambitions. Tim Farron has made many remarks since and a speech. Here are a few extracts which are hard-hitting and to the point. The speech was made to an audience at the Theos Think Tank. It was titled: What Kind of Liberal Society Do We Want?

“….Christianity is disliked by the public. If you actively hold a faith that is more than an expression of cultural identity … you are deemed to be far worse than eccentric. You are dangerous. You are offensive.”

“People talk about shared values today. “But when they do, what they mean is ‘These are my values – and I’m going to act as though they are also yours and will demonstrate contempt for you if you depart from them’…

“John Stuart Mill is the father of modern liberalism. He spoke of many threats to liberty. Amongst the greatest that he identified, is the tyranny of opinion. In ‘on Liberty’, he says the following. In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.’

Written in 1859. Spine–tinglingly relevant to 2017.

Mill says that the quality of our ideas and of our society is enhanced by free expression of competing world views. Society is stale without that. He is clear that our liberty is at risk when we all feel a pressure to start thinking the same things. Even more at risk when it is the express intention of those who hold those views to encourage this universal assimilation. Social media feeds this. Maybe ten years ago we thought social media would lead to a greater democracy, greater individual empowerment, the flowering of thousands of unmediated, unfiltered, unspun viewpoints and opinions. How naïve does that sound now? Today social media fuels groupthink, pack mentality and depressing conformity – not to mention a disgraceful lack of civility and decency. The tyrants of opinion have their secret police behind millions of keyboards.’ “Christians have more reason than most to be alarmed.”

The above is quoted with the kind permission of Tim Farron MP. That permission does not mean that he agrees with all that is written on this blog site, or even in this article. But in regard to this matter of how the Christian faith is seen we are I believe united in the conviction that Christianity is under sustained attack.

That last paragraph of the passage quoted by Farron is as neat and accurate a description of what is faced today by dissident voices as I have ever heard or read. No free society should feel comfortable in the face of such a testimony. And in case you suspect otherwise, I am not a supporter of the Liberal Democrats nor have I ever voted for them. But we ought I think consider what kind of society is content to see this happen; and then shrug it off as if it matters not at all. Why should a conscientious objector to those who seek to impose their mindset on others be pulled down because of their beliefs? These comments and quotes from a top liberal politician give some idea of the level of threat there is to Christians brave enough to speak out. Tim Farron may not be a Thomas Cranmer, a true martyr. An archbishop who was executed for his faith in the 16th century, having recanted of previous remarks spoken against his conscience. I tend to believe that sometime not so very far advanced someone in a Western country will be called upon to fulfil a similar destiny, although under current laws, not capital punishment. Unless at some future point Sharia Law is imposed upon some sufficiently weakened European country.

Tim Farron has shown the courage to stand up for his faith in a land hostile to evangelical Christianity. That lone act has ensured that high office will never be his. In the present age he is a rarity in this country, a man who sacrificed his reputation and ambitions for his faith. On the basis of this evidence he upholds the truth that God created this world and set commandments, statutes and decrees in place to ensure its safekeeping, very much like a manufacturer’s terms and conditions. Break them and any guarantees associated with that product working well, safely, or at all, become null and void. I believe we have broken many if not most of these conditions. So, the threat of the consequences, even retribution becomes real. God is not mocked without consequences.

Farron was asked a question, caught off guard and made a reply he regretted. We Christians are not so far removed from persecution. The West is the only part of the world where Christians are free to speak and live out our faith. But those freedoms are becoming narrowed down in one sphere after another. There is something called a tipping point when an expression of disfavour becomes something else. While writing this my thoughts turned to the Jewish girl Anne Frank. She was born in Frankfurt Germany in 1929 and grew up a happy child full of life. In 1933 Hitler became leader of Germany. Anne’s family realising the threat moved to the Netherlands in 1934, and she continued her contented life. She made new friends, was speaking Dutch and  going to school in her new country. Anne and her family felt safe once again. In 1940 Hitler invaded the Netherlands. Anne who had written her famous diary while in hiding was discovered and eventually died of typhus in a concentration camp. This was in March 1945. Sixteen years passed between her birth and and a life filled with reasonable expectations, and her tragic death. That is a measure of how fast change can happen. History seems to meander slowly along until suddenly, without much warning you get a violent acceleration and everything changes. We are experiencing an accelerating change towards whatever the future holds. But if Post Modernism is a form of Marxism, which some people think it is, then realise that persecutions from the extremes on the left of politics have in the past created gulags, labour camps, and mass killings on a scale which dwarf Hitler’s fascism. We rarely hear about the atrocities of the left; of Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot in Cambodia. Stalin caused the deaths by starvation of between  5.7 to perhaps to 7 million people in the 1932–1933 Ukrainian famine caused by the collectivisation of agriculture policy. And that was just the beginning of the horrors.

It might be a good idea if these regimes were highlighted in our schools and universities as a warning to a generation such as ours. We are totally unprepared for such a change. Why? Because we are for the most part clueless about history, which makes the present all the more scary. Look around you and see what is happening. We have a care for refugees, and rightly so, but what about others who are for the most part starved of notice. Please watch the video below.