Harriet Harman, Moral Panics and the 1970s

It's all very well for Patricia Hewitt, Jack Dromey and Harriet Harman and their supporters to complain that they are being smeared by the Daily Mail regarding their role at the National Council for Civil Liberties when it was working with the Paedophile Information Exchange, but aren't these the same people who are leading the case for the prosecution of celebrities from the 1970s for sexual abuse? They are the same people who argue that it is right to prosecute historic abuse cases. The same people who want to go after those in positions of 'power' who may have commited sexual offences. The same people driving a moral panic that suggests that the 1970s were rife with the abuse of children and that we should apply the mores of today to what happened back then.

So it's OK to challenge minor celebrities and to seek evidence of paedophile abuse in every corner, but not OK to suggest that leading Labour figures were involved in supporting campaigns by paedophiles to lower the age of consent, to legalise sex with children and to seek the 'liberation' of paedophiles from negative stereotypes. The NCCL were not the only group to have flirted with paedophile rights at the time. Leading leftist figures such as Daniel Cohn-Bendit (now a leading Green politician in the European Parliament) even admitted to sexual relations with kids. And as a working class boy at school at the time I can remember that there were lefty teachers who passed out copies of the 'little red schoolbook', which was also paedo friendly if I remember correctly.

This isn't to excuse anybody, it's a reminder that the 1970s were very different and that the leftist mantra to question everything extended to things like legalising sex with children. People like the NCCL were not out on a limb as far as the left were concerned, they were very much mainstream. And for Harman and co to pretend otherwise is to lie in the face of the evidence. The decent thing to do is to admit they were wrong and to quit playing the victim here.

Gaia: Industry-funded Denialist

Professor Naomi Oreskes today revealed that Gaia is actually an industry-funded global warming denier. 'It's clear,' Professor Oreskes said, 'that Gaia is deliberately sowing the seeds of doubt and manipulating the weather in order to deny the science.'

George Monbiot, Guardian columnist and leading environmentalist agreed. 'How else do we explain the so-called pause in warming? It's out and out manipulation of weather patterns by Gaia. The science predicts a hockey stick, so what does Gaia do? It slices off the slope to flat-line the temperature rise, even in the face of continued increased in atmospheric carbon dioxide.'

These claims have been backed up by a number of leading scientists. Dr Kevin Trenbeth points out that all of the proposed drivers of the pause: volcanic activity, deep ocean heating, changes in the trade winds and more are all connected to Gaia. 'It's clear that Gaia is a flat earther in denial of the truths revealed by climate science.'

Dr Oreskes is demanding that Gaia be arrested and tried by the United Nations or the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. 'How much longer can Gaia get away with changing the weather just to make climate scientists look stupid. Gaia needs to get with the consensus or face the consequences.'

A number of climate change sceptics have disputed this new claim, adding to their list of denialist activities. Some have even suggested that Gaia is not actually a person but is just an abstract construct.

Dr Oreskes was visibly shocked when told of this allegation. 'These people are incorrigible,' she stated. 'Now, Gaia just needs to turn up the temperature again because it's freezing out here at the moment...'

Ed Militard - Climatologist

I must have missed the announcement that Ed Miliband had studied meteorology, climatology or any ology that involved physics, mathematics or joined up writing. Indeed, I was convinced until his recent statements about the flooding in the UK and climate change, that his area of expertise was wankology, a discipline that he seems to have mastered effortlessly. But now, only weeks after David Cameron showed us his expertise in the field, Militard has decisively intervened in the non-debate to tell us that 'climate change' is likely to make flooding worse. Except when it doesn't, and causes drought. Or blizzards. Or plagues of locusts.

FFS. When will these fuck-wits learn to just shut the fuck up and stick to taxing the hell out of us and intervening in our social lives, the latter being done for our own good of course.

Politicians, there is no situation they cannot make worse...

Tim Yeo Deselected

Good. A shame there's not a court case to go with the de-selection. He's another green spiv like Chris Huhne and deserves to spend some time in prison. Not that being a jail-bird has done much to dent Chris Huhne's green credentials...

Roger Harrabin Is An Irrelevant Old Hag

In discussing January's record wet weather in the UK on the BBC, so-called 'Environment Analyst' Roger Harrabin actually says this:

But consider this: we have drained bogs which used to catch rain; allowed soil to run off fields and clog rivers; built homes on our flood plains and supermarkets in our countryside; we've almost certainly heated the climate and swelled the sea level.

I kid you not. It's beyond satire. All he needed to add was that we've angered the sky gods. Is there even a coherent thought in all of that? It's just a long list of sins we humans have inflicted on Gaia and now she's pissed on a raining on us (especially on Somerset, what have you lot been doing in the West Country?)... Oh, of course, what you've been doing in the West Country is allowing the Environment Agency to get away with not draining your rivers. How come that's not on Harrabin's list of sins?

If You Want To Reduce Poverty Cut Taxes

Allister Heath, one of the few mainstream journalists worth reading, has this to say in the Telegraph today:

Voters would be shocked if they realised how much tax is levied on their labour, including on relatively low salaries, and just how complex the system has become once income tax and both kinds of National Insurance are accounted for.

Earnings above £7,717 are briefly taxed at a rate of 12.1pc; above £7,769 this jumps to 22.7pc; then the combined tax rate shoots up to 40.2pc from £9,440, briefly reaching 57.8pc above £41,450; it then falls back to 49pc from £41,558; rockets to a bonkers 66.6pc from £100,000; falls back again 49pc from £118,880 and then settles at 53.4pc from £150,000. Labour’s 5p hike would push the combined tax rate above £150,000 to 57.8pc.

Not only is this system crazy, benefiting tax lawyers and government bureaucrats primarily, it also means that people on low incomes - the ones we want to have the most benefit from their salaries - are being scalped. Forget the 'living wage' the simple solution to making poor people richer is to stop them being taxed completely. Let them keep everything they earn. And of course if you cut taxes across the board it pumps more money into the economy, with positive outcomes for all of us.

Fracking - The Next Step In The UK

Tucked away on the BBC News site is a little piece of local news that is sure to have national ramifications later. The story is about the proposal from Sinn Fein that there be a referendum in the county of Fermanagh on fracking. On the face of it this should be a good thing - for those of us of a libertarian bent local referenda are a good thing to have. The problem is of course that where the opponents of fracking are well-organised, have access to the media and can call on support from a wide range of green and leftist groups. They also have the advantage that they do not have to stick to the evidence, all they have to do is sow the usual greenist fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Who'll counter the welter of lies from the anti-fracking lobby? A few national politicians, none of whom sound like they mean it or know what they're talking about. Representatives from the smaller energy companies? They'll be accused of bias and confused with the big energy companies scalping the public. Sceptic bloggers and a few columnists like Booker and Delingpole.

It will not be a fair fight. Which is why I suspect that the greens are going to latch on to this pronto...

Cameron, Fracking and Climate Change

There are some who will rejoice in David Cameron's recent pronouncements on the joy of fracks. For those of us jealously looking at what has happened in the US, fracking has seemed like an absolute gift and have been desperately hoping that we in the UK would take advantage of shale gas and oil in the same way. For a long time we've watched the liberal establishment, including large chunks of the government, spreading lies and disinformation or else pandering to the green lobby. We've watched the manoeuvring in the EU as moves have been made to block the advance to market of shale gas. And, let's be honest, we're still a way off commercial exploitation of shale. But, that said, the fact remains that the recent announcement of additional incentives to local authorities to allow exploratory drilling is step in the right direction. The question is, however, is it the right thing to do? And, further, does this mean that David Cameron is no longer a green true-believer?

The reason for doubting the wisdom of the new incentives - allowing local authorities to keep 100% of business rates collected from shale gas schemes - is that it plays into the hands of those who portray fracking as dangerous, unhealthy, polluting, toxic and so on. If, as those of us who support fracking contend, it is safe, non-toxic and non-polluting, then why allow the extra incentives? If it's so positive, why the bribes? This is exactly what opponents will say and are saying. People will be told that they are being bribed, that they are selling out to the energy industry, that their acquiescence is being bought cheaply. Furthermore, opponents will claim that this is a subsidy and that it is yet another example of the fossil fuel industry being heavily subsidised. Yes, it's nonsense, but opponents of fossil fuels play fast and loose with things like definitions of subsidies. So, to those people and the green propagandists in the BBC and mainstream media, giving local authorities more revenues is a subsidy, but the feed-in tariffs and the panoply of schemes that hand over our money to wind and solar farms are not subsidies.

The bottom-line is that the incentives may actually back-fire in that they fuel suspicion and play into existing green narratives that seems all forms of fossil fuels - including the lower CO2 emitting shale gas - as inherently evil and to be attacked and stopped at all costs.

Now, to the question as to whether this change of heart on fracking signals that David Cameron is no longer a true believer. There are those on the left who have always assumed that Dave is really a cynical opportunist who has played the green card for political reasons alone. But the evidence doesn't stand much scrutiny. Dave may not have many principles, but he subscribes pretty much to the liberal line on most issues and particularly when it comes to environmentalism. Which is why he continues to make alarmist comments about climate change and will continue to do so no matter what the scientific evidence shows. He can justify his support for fracking because it reduces carbon emissions compared to burning coal, and because the US has shown that it can reduce overall emissions while delivering reliable power. In other words, for a pragmatic green politician fracking makes a lot of sense, and it's only the out and out fanatic like Caroline Lucas of the Green Party who cannot see that fracking makes sense even within the logic of anthropogenic global warming.

David Cameron - Prime Minister and Climatologist Speaks

Experts tell me that the recent weather we are having is completely consistent with climate change. Now I'm not a scientist, but people who know these things, the experts if you like, they tell me that weather is not climate. We all know this to be true, they're spelt differently for a start. But that technicality aside, we do know that our carbon emissions are causing warming somewhere in the world. That warming's probably jolly nice, but it's causing cold and wet elsewhere. You don't have to know anything about science to know that's true, and as someone who knows nothing about science, I can tell you from experience that it's true.

Let me elaborate a bit on this fact, because so many so-called climate change sceptics do not know this. The climate system is a bit like the economy. If I get richer, you must get poorer. If I get hotter, you must get colder. Which is why it's important that we continue to take your money in taxes and give it to people like me, who have the land to build wind and solar farms. So, please remember that if you're shivering and can't afford to have the heating on, it's because we've taken the money from you to sort out the problems your carbon emissions have caused somewhere else in the world, where's it's probably jolly hot and sticky.

Polar Ice All Gone - Just Like Gore Predicted It Would

Five years ago the Goracle himself predicted that the Arctic would be gone in five years. Yep. Five years. So on the day that even the BBC publishes a story on the spectacular rebound in Arctic ice extent and volume, here's a view of Gore in action...

 

Is anyone in the real world even listening to Gore these days?

Mandela: The Anti-Mugabe

It's hard to believe that there's anyone who isn't sick to death of the wall to wall adulation accorded to Mandela, particularly by the BBC. Now I admit that I've got a soft spot for Mandela. But I'll be honest, it's as much for what he's not done as for what he did do. I like Mandela because he didn't declare himself President for Life. Because he didn't raid South Africa's treasury and treat it like his personal bank account. Because Mandela didn't lock up his tribal and political opponents. Mandela didn't decide to blame every problem the country faced on "white settlers" or "colonial meddlers". He didn't hand power over to his children. He didn't say that Africans are too child-like to be trusted with democracy, or that Africans and elections don't mix. I like Mandela because he gave up power at the right time.

It's these non-achievements which mark him out as different and superior to most politicians. Mandela is great because he's not Robert Mugabe.

I doubt you'll see the media discuss his life and work in those terms, but it's what he didn't do that really marks him out for greatness.

Personally, I think the best thing for South Africa, and the thing to make permanent his legacy would be for the ANC to lose power at the next election. Already the corruption is endemic and there are plenty of 'liberation heroes' doing very nicely thank you, and who show no compunction in shifting the blame to other people for the problems the country is facing. A period out of power is exactly what's needed to halt the creeping Mugabism...

Now, if only we could shut the BBC up because the sycophancy and adulation have turned into aversion therapy.

Media - Stealing Material

Richard North has a piece on EU Referendum entitled 'Media: The Story Stealers', which is about the way that Christopher Booker's story about an Italian woman who was forced to have her baby by caesarean so that it could be taken from her and be put up for adoption. It's a horrific story, and it's easy to see why it has been picked up right across the media. The only thing is that Booker, who's been writing about the reign of terror that social workers and the family courts have imposed on many families, hardly gets credited with brining the story to public attention in the first place.

I've had a little taste of it here too, with the Balakrishnan and the Lambeth Slaves story. It started when I guessed the likely identity of the group involved before it had been revealed in the press. Once it was confirmed that it was Balakrishnan and his group I wrote a few pieces about my contacts with them years ago in Brixton. Not only did that lead to a massive spike in traffic, it also lead to numerous contacts from the mass media.

To date I have spoken or had email contact with the Independent, the Sunday Times, the BBC, the Huffington Post, the Sunday Telegraph, Sky News and more. I gave them information about the group, what it was like in Brixton at the time, the ins and outs of the different far Left groups active at the time and more.

And the result? Only one person has given any credit to this blog and that's Cahal Milmo of the Independent. Many of the rest have quoted verbatim from text I've given, used extracts from conversations I've had with them or else picked up facts that I supplied and have given no credit or attribution. I shouldn't be surprised, but when I've had long and detailed conversations with journalists and they've promised to give the blog a mention it's galling for them to use my material and not credit me with it.

Not only that, I see the same idiocies and errors of fact repeated again and again. Even when given correct information some newspapers seem unable to get it right. For example, the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Communist Party of England (Marxist Leninist) and the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) are not the same, and Balakrishnan was only ever involved with one of them. And the stories about Balakrishnan proclaiming himself Jesus are as idiotic as the garbage about Carlos the Jackal staying with Balakrishnan in Brixton.

Politics - Then and Now

The last few days has seen traffic to this blog shoot up massively, attracted by my posts about Ara Balakrishnan and the Lambeth 'Slavery' case. These visitors have included members of the mainstream media, many of whom have been in touch and who I've spoken to. Some, like the reporter from the Independent have credited this blog directly, others, like the Huffington Post have been happy to take what I've offered and then used it without attribution. However, that's material for a future article, for today I want to just make a few things clear about my politics as it's clear to me that some people haven't looked at anything else on this site.

Back in the days when Balakrishnan and his group were active, that is in the mid to late 1970s, my politics were far Left. I was a teenage Marxist, from an immigrant working class background. The world was clear to me. I knew that I was on the side of history and that proletarian revolution was the only solution to the poverty, racism and violence around me. I was driven by a strong sense of injustice, that people like me were excluded from society, that we were poor and would remain so. It was also clear that class society was organised to preserve the status quo and that the country was run by a political class that did everything it could to keep us down. On the streets the National Front and British Movement were active neo-Nazi movements that were acting as tools of the ruling class, and that the police were there to defend them and to fight those of us who were anti-fascists. And these views, though they may seem extreme now, were not that uncommon. Brixton, and places like Brixton, were home to numerous far Left groups, and though they differed in degree, the views I've described were common across most groups, whether they described themselves as Communist, Maoist, Trotskyist or Anarchist. And it was all so black and white - the temper of the times would not admit shades of grey. And, to be fair, being a teenager makes it easy to be certain, dogmatic and intolerant of ambiguity.

That was then. Here I am more than thirty years later, and I still believe that society is run by a political class that is intolerant of dissent and divorced from the lives of most people. I still care about poverty and racism and the struggle for economic and political justice. Only now I think that the victims of racism are as likely to be, or even more likely to be, white and working class as they are to be black. I believe that multi-culturalism is a poisonous ideology that enshrines and fetishises difference whereas I had wanted to eliminate difference and to aim for a society that was truly colour-blind. Where I wanted race to become inconsequential, todays anti-racists elevate it to a guiding principle and turn victimhood into a virtue. I now believe that you fight poverty locally and globally by economic development - and that free trade and globalisation are the best means to acheive this - whereas now it is the establishment that hates development. I believe that the green agenda is shared by our political classes and what sadly now passes for 'the left'. Rather than aiming to pull people from poverty and exclusion by giving space for them to work and to grow their economy, we instead try and shoe-horn them into 'sustainable' paths that actually means they stay poor.

And finally, where I used to see the world as black and white, I now see that it's all grey. Maybe it's the wisdom that comes with experience, maybe it's the fact that I've deliberately decided to test my assumptions repeatedly over the years and have to tried to adopt a sceptical attitude in politics, science and life in general. And perhaps, finally, it's the fact that I was so closely involved with the far Left for a number of years which means that I can be so critical of where they are now - the mind-set is familiar to me in the way that it isn't for those who've not been there.

Balakrishnan's Red Guards

The thing about Balakrishnan and his group is that they were completely inspired by the politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It was a bizarre combination of violent radicalism, self-sacrifice, utter egalitarianism and devotion to the leader - Mao or his representative here on earth. They saw themselves as Red Guards, ready to do whatever was required in the name of the Party. There could be no room for doubt, shades of grey or ambiguity. So, to make sense of what happened to Balakrishnan and his group, you have to let go of any preconceptions you might have about conventional left or far left politics.

And the spark of all this madness was the very real glamour of the Red Guards and the zeal of those who wanted to be like them. People forget that radical Maoism had quite a following in many parts of the third world (as it was then called) - and many of those attracted to Balakrishnan came from those countries. What's more, you didn't just wander into their centre and ask to be signed up. To become a member you had to work hard at it. You had to prove you could be trusted, you had to show ideological purity, exhibit devotion to the group no matter what. All this and put up with the world around you actively telling you that you're crazy. It's the ideal recipe for cultish behaviour.

Did Comrade Balakrishnan Try To Break Into Whitehall?

It's been years since I've thought about this stuff... A persistent rumour back in the late 70s, when Balakrishnan's group were at the height of their public activity, was that Balakrishnan had been arrested trying to break into government offices in Whitehall. Lots of people on the Left believed it at the time, though it's also true that it was the sort of rumour that some of the other Maoists could have spread around.

And how's this for a little historical snippet... During the Queen's 1977 Jubilee visit to Brixton, the route took her right by the Maoist centre, replete with huge red portrait of Mao Tse Tung. Balakrishnan's supporters were inside clutching copies of the little red book...

Balakrishnan In Action

How's this for Maoist style:

The Party Committee of the Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, which upholds the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao, with profound indignation and deep class hatred, denounces the British fascist state for its repeated political persecution of our worker comrade, Ekins Brome, a member of our Party Committee. Comrade Brome was arrested on February 13th, 1976 together with Comrade Najeeb Norman, another member of our Committee, when both these comrades went to Brixton Prison to visit two of our other leading comrades who were then in unjust detention from February 1st, 1976 – Comrade Ara Balakrishnan, the Secretary of the Institute and Comrade Wee Hock Seng. A surprise attack was made on Comrades Brome and Najeeb by some prison wardens who pounced on them and violently assaulted them inside the Brixton Prison compound. Both their spectacles were smashed and their faces were covered with bloody bruises. The fascist prison wardens bared their anti-communist fangs further by tearing off a badge of Chairman Mao from Comrade Najeeb’s coat! These fascist hoodlums revealed only too clearly that they were acting on the direct instructions of the panic stricken British fascist state when they turned truth upside down and hastily charged our comrades with assaulting them! From then on we witnessed yet again the mockery of the British legal system – the rubber stamp of the dictatorship of the fascist bourgeoisie of Britain. Our comrades, as soldiers of Chairman Mao and servants of the working and oppressed people, militantly resisted at every step and resolutely denounced the fascist courts and the moribund criminals who sat in “judgement” of them. They vigorously shouted the slogans: “Long live Chairman Mao!”, “Long live the Communist Party of China!”, “Death to the British fascist state!”, “Victory to World Revolution!”

Yep, that's the authentic voice of 'slave keeper' and Marxist-Leninist Aravindan Balakrishnan
in action, exactly as I remember him...

So what we have here is not anything to do with 'modern slavery' or people trafficking or anything of that ilk. What we have is a Leftist sect that has imploded and collapsed in on itself. This lot might be more extreme, but it's what we've seen again and again with the Left.

Anyone want to talk about Gerry Healey and the WRP? Or even good old Rev Jim Jones if we really want to get dramatic.

Slavery = Democratic Centralism

Earlier this morning I blogged about the Lambeth Slavery story - (for non-UK readers, the police have retrieved three women from a house in South London, alleging that the women had been held against their will for 30 years) - and guessed that this was really a case of political brainwashing. At the time I suggested that the most likely culprits were Marxist-Leninists/Maoists. I even mentioned a specific group who ran a Maoist bookshop on Acre Lane.

The police have just revealed that the couple accused of being the 'slave keepers' were Aravindan and Chanda Balakrishnan, who ran the Maoist bookshop on Acre Lane. As a curious teenager I had been in there a couple of times and it was weird. The group were spreading the line that the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army were going to invade the UK and bring the revolution to the people. They were preparing the ground by holding study groups in Mao Tse Tung (as it was spelt in those days) Thought. The rest of the time they spent in attacking all other leftist groups. In particular they hated another Maoist group called the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), now known as the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). Balakrishnan had actually been a member of the CPE(ML), but had left/been expelled and therefore hated them more than anything else in the world.

The really were the most paranoid people I ever met. On the second and last time I visited their shop a fire engine passed outside. No siren blaring or anything, it just cruised by. One of the people in the shop looked up and told me that it was an example of psychological warfare by the British government. I never went back.

So, remember where you read it first...

The Lambeth 'Slavery' Story

I'm betting that it turns out that the people involved in the Lambeth 'Slavery' story were Marxist-Leninists of some sort. I grew up on the estates of Brixton in the 70's and 80's and the place was home to every far Left sect you can think of. We locals were considered to be fertile recruitment material, which meant that every Left group in the country parachuted people into the area. Aside from the usual Trotskyite suspects, there were mutliple flavours of Marxist-Leninist/Maoists, including a Centre for Mao-Tse-Tung Thought based out of a bookshop on Acre Lane that was adorned with a 20 foot high portrait of olf Mao himself. In contrast to the largely white and middle class Trots, the Maoists were more multiracial and included a fair few local working class members. And of course, they were way more authoritarian and paranoid than some of the other Leftist groups active on the ground. Later on when the Shining Path were active, they too had a front group active in Brixton.

It wouldn't surprise me then if it doesn't turn out that rather than a case of 'modern slavery', the three women in Lambeth, and the couple accused of being the slave keepers, aren't actually just practising 'democratic centralism' they way they did in the height of the fervour of the 1970s.

Warsaw Climate Talks - Key Agreement Reached

It's in the nature of bureaucracies that self-preservation is the primary and over-riding feature. No matter what the original intention might be, once the organisation is established it will slowly evolve so that it can survive and prosper no matter what.

And so it is with so many of UN's bodies. Which is why the talks in Warsaw, which look like they'll follow tradition and 'go to the wire' and do everything to try and inject a sense of dynamism into the global warming corpse (which, like the real world, shows no signs of warming up...), has already reached the most important decision: the next stop for the roaming global circus. And the lucky winners this time are the French...

With that out of the way the pointless bickering can carry on as if it matters.

They Have No Shame

So listening to the warmists on the BBC this morning proved once again that they have no shame. Predictably the discussion with head honcho at the World Bank included an attribution of Typhoon Haiyan to man-made global warming. Sure, it was prefixed with 'scientists tell us that it's impossible to attribute a single event to climate change' but this segues into 'but we know that extreme events will become more frequent and more extreme, and this was an extreme event so...'

And so we have warmists using a natual disaster and the suffering of the people of the Philipines to continue to campaign for policies that will make such calamities worse in the future. As Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank, points out in the interview with Evan Davies, poverty makes the impact of such disasters much worse. So what does he suggest? More sustainable energy, a reduction in the use of fossil fuels and the rest of the green agenda. Access to cheap energy is essential for economic development to take place, and yet he advocates, and the BBC clearly promotes, the very policies that make energy more expensive and which hold back the development that means people can build homes that don't collapse every Typhoon season.

Of course, completely missing from the entire discussion, is any mention that warming stopped more 16 years ago. Where is the warming that is supposed to have made Haiyan more likely? The pause in warming is the most embarassing fact in climate science and yet it is routinely ignored by the warmist establishment.

Instead we get them using natural disasters as a cue to propagandise and promote failed environmental policies that actively work to keep the poor people of the world poor.

Really, they have no shame whatsoever and it's sickening.