Bruges Group Blog

The cult of Wokeism, like Japanese knotweed is growing relentlessly and without radical surgery will consume all before it. The Marxist, identitarian left, unable to win at the ballot box, has instead hijacked British institutions with devastating results. The culture wars are real but largely only one side is fighting. Social conservatives must fi...

Most law abiding people are aware than the criminal justice system is failing to apply to the guilty the sort of sentences which are deserved, and which are a deterrent to others. Too many escape with suspended sentences, and even those who are incarcerated may expect the actual time served to be significantly less than that handed out in the first place, while the frequent redefinition of murder as manslaughter is clearly intended to keep the extent of the former hidden from the electorate, as the liberals who have dominated the system for decades do not want it to be clear just how damaging the abolition of capital punishment has been. The number of youngsters stabbed to death in London in recent years is proof of this.

However there is another side to the coin, which is equally reprehensible, and that is the manner in which people are being subjected to totally unjustified sanctions, as one of the most fundamental principles of British law is that one is innocent until proved guilty, something that is being weakened on several fronts.

The justice system is being subverted by changes, emanating largely from too much attention being paid to the uneducated emoters of social media, and their so called Twitter storms. It should be obvious that accusations are proof of nothing, unless backed by some sort of genuine evidence, but we now have those accused being treated as guilty, in particular in relation to sexual matters.

Of course rapists should be punished, but there have been many cases where the complainant is proved to have lied, or which rely on ‘He said, She said’, without any substantiating evidence. We have seen instances of men being sent to prison, only to be released later, when it becomes clear that the complainant had consented to sex, only to regret doing so in retrospect.

Even worse, how on earth is someone supposed to defend themselves against assertions that they did something decades ago, as seems to happen far too regularly. Most of us can’t remember what we did a week ago last Tuesday, let alone decades ago. That employers punish the accused without waiting for a conviction is a disgrace, and failure to reverse such actions when the person is shown to be innocent utterly deplorable.

(One ridiculous anomaly involving those actually being guilty is that, in the UK, if a lad of seventeen has consensual sex with his fifteen year old girlfriend then not only is he convicted of a crime, but must sign the sex offenders register, which will blight him for life. He is also frequently referred to as a pervert by the self appointed moralists of social media. However if the couple lived in Japan, where the age of consent is thirteen, no crime would have occurred, and clearly normal heterosexual acts between those just past the age of puberty, while inadvisable for other reasons, are not perverted. There are many of us who would not approve of his actions, but, although breaking the law should be sanctioned, the punishment meted out is excessive, and too long lasting).

Those who are actually guilty should be punished, but no accused person, who is not found to be so by a court, should be left in a worse position than that they were in before the accusation was made, in relation to employment, residence or indeed anything else. We have seen Hollywood film producers drop actors because of such unproven allegations, while recent cases have also involved loss of reputation and worse suffered by those who have done nothing wrong. The often heard claim that “there is no smoke without fire” is nonsense, as anyone, even anonymously, can accuse another of wrongdoing without it appears the need to justify such claims. It is reminiscent of the Great Terror which followed the 1789 French Revolution when anonymous accusations of being an enemy of the people resulted in many being guillotined when they were actually the objects of sexual or business jealousy, or even just of personal dislike.

This sort of trial by public opinion, not facts, is made worse by the attitude of the police, who now seem to consider themselves a Thought Police, permitted to pursue people for their opinions. That one member of a force told a member of the public that he was speaking to him “to check on his thinking” proves this, while the way the police went on a fishing expedition to find anyone willing to corroborate the loathsome pedophile, Carl Beech, who accused Sir Edward Heath and others of crimes they did not commit was despicable. One police spokesman stated that the there was substance to the charges, and actually invited anyone with any further claims to come forward. That other liars then did so merely proves that accusations without evidence should be treated with utter contempt. Incidentally the supposed need for policeman to have attended university is yet another nail in the coffin of common-sense policing, as experience is a better guide to human nature than book learning.

The only way to stop these offences to natural justice continuing to hold sway is to ensure that those who make false accusations are held accountable. In the end Beech did go to prison, but how many others have enjoyed their fifteen minutes of fame at the expense of the innocent, and never been punished for doing so?

Material girls: why reality matters for feminism, by Kathleen Stock, hardback, 312 pages, ISBN 978-0-349-72660-1, Little Brown, 2021, £16.99. This is a splendid critique of the vexed theory of gender identity and of the unfortunate practices to which it gives rise. This theory is that we all have an inner feeling known as a gender identity and that...

Trans: when ideology meets reality, by Helen Joyce, hardback, 311 pages, ISBN 978-0-86154-049-5, Oneworld, 2021, £16.99. This is a very fine book, which puts the case for an objective, scientific and humane approach to the vexed questions of gender, sex and identity. Helen Joyce is Britain editor at The Economist. She observes that science shows th...

Amid all the disruption caused by Covid a few truths have become obvious, that up to now have either been denied, or ignored.

The constant warnings issued by NHS trusts about the health service being overwhelmed by demand have finally made clear to many just how dysfunctional the organisation has become. Those of us who for years have pointed out that in fact this bureaucratic monster has an insatiable need for funds, due to the ridiculous numbers of box ticking bureaucrats involved, whose every response to a problem is to expand their administrative empire, while creating evermore absurd rules which must be followed by front line staff. Retired nurses and GPS, who have offered their aid in the campaign to vaccinate the population have reported that, thanks to bureaucratic intransigence, they have been rejected due to a supposed failure to meet the requirements of these pen pushers, even though the issues involved are irrelevant. No one doubts the commitment, and expertise of the doctors and nurses, but, thanks to the aforementioned facts, comments in the press, and by friends and acquaintances indicate that the myth that the NHS is above criticism has been debunked.

It has also begun to become clear to ordinary people that, at a time when many are losing loved ones, or suffering prolonged periods of serious illness, the constant harping on nonsense by the so called ‘woke’ is no longer a source of amusement, but is something which much be opposed, and indeed crushed. This rag tag alliance of sexual neurotics, supposed intelligent undergraduates, ignorant of history, and the plain deranged have had a good run of being taken seriously when they have rejected all sense, and denied historical reality in pursuit of their insane agendas, but more and more people are reacting with anger, not laughter. That they receive support from individuals in the entertainment profession, organisations such as the National Trust, and unfortunately even some errant members of the Royal family merely indicates that such irrationality can affect anyone, however eminent.

The bias of the broadcast media, in particular the BBC has also been exposed, as everything the government has tried to do in the face of an unprecedented crisis has been derided, criticised, and ridiculed. Whatever course is followed the BBC will oppose, making Boris damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t. There is much that the Prime Minister may have done wrong, for instance in his embracing of the Green agenda, but there is no doubt that the left liberal agenda followed by these so called unbiased commentators ensures that he will receive no credit for those things which he has done right. These people, and I include those such as commentators on Sky News who choose to advise the Americans to transfer their support from the UK to the EU, think that they are there to make the news, not report it. The number of people who have stated that they will no longer watch the BBC makes clear that the latter has been rumbled.

However perhaps the most significant instance of realisation dawning is that, following the wide variety of predictions, modelling, and general advice, concerning the pandemic offered by experts, it is obvious that following the science is not as easy as first thought, and that scientists are not quite as infallible as their reputation suggests. Far from them being like Plato’s Philosopher Kings, dispensing absolute wisdom, they are more like the Gods of Olympus, squabbling among themselves, and pursuing their own agendas. While most are well intentioned some are also influenced by the desire for reputation, sometimes a liking for their fifteen minutes of fame, and occasionally by their connections with commercial organisations.

That the public have now become aware that their lives may be disrupted to no purpose should ensure that expert scientific pronouncements in general should be taken with a large pinch of salt, and actions taken only if the issues are examined dispassionately, and not subject to subjective factors arising from the fact that scientists are only human. It is to be hoped that the prospect of massive rises to domestic energy bills will awaken people to the fact that uncritical acceptance of the dubious theories of the vociferous Green lobby comes at a significant cost. While it may make some feel virtuous to airily talk of saving the planet the reality is that, unless the absurd demands of the climate extremists are rejected we shall all be very much poorer, with a standard of living permanently lower than that which we have known in the past.

Many scientists disagree with the claims that the theory of anthropological global warming is beyond dispute but, thanks to the craven action by politicians who have merely bowed before the environmentalists, we have closed coal mines, ignored the large reserves of energy available from fracking, and allowed substantial reserves of gas below the North Sea to remain unexploited. The fact that we are thereby reduced to buying gas from Russia, at a greatly increased cost, and forcing a greater dependence on those who wish us ill, does not seem to have occurred to the fanatics from dear Greta downwards.

If millions are not to be either reduced to poverty, or frozen in their own homes, the real cost of passively yielding to the clamour of an aggressive minority must be made clear, and a major change made to the direction of travel on energy policy, based on objective science, not on a supposed consensus that does not exist, except in the minds of those such as the BBC. As the public finds that the very real consequences of going Green involve losing their cars, and living in freezing homes, while paying through the nose for their energy, we may expect the uncritical approval of the environmentalists to disappear like the morning dew.

Every time I sit down to write an article I feel like the main character in the 1993 film 'Groundhog Day', who was doomed to repeat the same day time and time again, as I must keep returning to the same issues, not because I wish to, but because nothing has changed, and not to take up the cudgels would be to grant victory to our enemies. I am sure that those intelligent enough to read the Bruges Group blog are already convinced by the arguments put forward, but they must continue to be made. In this I find myself in the company of many sensible political columnists, who are also returning to these subjects time and again.

The most significant matters upon which the future of this country depends remain, inter alia: the necessity to turn back the tide of political correctness which is allowing the Thought Police to become a reality; the objective to stop the lunatics of the Green movement from destroying our way of life in the name of an unproven theory; the defeat of the Marxists who seek to subvert a genuine desire to end racial inequality through their use of a undemocratic, and anti Semitic, political movement; the removal of the liberal elite whose loyalties lie with our enemies; the need to honour the result of the EU referendum.

This time I am concentrating on the cesspit into which our universities have fallen, where free speech and debate are being overridden by leftist fascists, who are determined that any views opposing their own must not be allowed to be voiced.

One major university which is at the epicentre of a political storm is Durham. Professor Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, is being investigated by university authorities about a speech given by Spectator columnist Rod Liddle on the theme of tolerating other people’s points of view. A small number of students walked-out of the event, an action which Professor Luckhurst called pathetic. Students complained about being “hurt” by Rod Liddle’s words, although they hadn’t actually listened to him, and the university then started a formal investigation into Professor Luckhurst, and banned him from engaging with students, including a planned talk in favour of free speech at the Durham Union.

This pathetic bunch of so called students have threatened a rent strike unless Professor Tim Luckhurst is ousted, and have said that “nothing is off the table” in terms of their tactics, suggesting that they will submit mass requests to transfer out of South College unless Luckhurst is fired. One student said: “Students aren’t giving up this fight because they are yet to feel safe again in South College. We won’t rest until we feel safe in our homes.” Following the talk, the presidents of Durham student associations called for “content warnings” ahead of future guest lectures, and hundreds of students protested and gave speeches demanding Luckhurst’s resignation. One wonders what from what sort of background these gutless wimps have emerged if they don’t feel ‘safe’ hearing a speech about the need for toleration of all points of view, as they retire to their rooms, no doubt in tears, over someone daring to suggest that free speech is a fundamental right. They clearly have absolutely no idea of what the real world is like if they think that listening to a different view to their own is somehow dangerous.

Perhaps they might like to think about inmates at Auschwitz who, on hearing screams one night, found that the Germans having run low on poison gas, were throwing small children directly into the ovens to be burnt to death. Think about what those children, true innocents suffered, and their little lives ending in such horror! The feeble inadequates at Durham seeking to destroy free speech should consider the real terrors in the world, before cowering from the views of others. Their threat to leave their courses should be enthusiastically seized upon, and they should be thrown out of the university immediately, as they clearly have no idea of the real function of a university, which should be opening minds, and encouraging debate, rather than closing it down. However at least thirteen of the university’s college principals have issued statements expressing sympathy with the student protestors, one saying that she stood in “solidarity with all those targeted in Rod Liddle’s speech”, while four departments have backed student demonstrators. Obviously it is not only the contemptible students who should be on the first train home!

The Durham branch of the University and College Union called for the University “to consider the full range of appropriate disciplinary action”, claiming that Professor Luckhurst had not “addressed the behaviour of his wife”, who was filmed remonstrating with students after Liddle’s speech, one of whom had called her a “bitch”. This Union supposedly represents lecturers, administrators, researchers, librarians, computing staff and postgraduates employed in teaching or related duties, which speaks volumes about the current lamentable state of universities.

The Wolfson College Student Association (WCSA) at Cambridge has instigated a witch-hunt after several students leaked images of compulsory “anti-racism” training to the media. The mandatory training included the standard woke rubbish about Britain being a cesspit of ‘white supremacy’, ‘microaggressions’ to be reported to the university authorities, heteronormative students needing to do ‘the work’ to become ‘allies’ of trans students, etc., etc. The president of the WCSA said the leakers wanted “to sow division, uncertainty, and distrust amongst their peers” and that it was “frankly cowardly” to defy the Association. Well how dare anyone resist their diktats! What this hunt for heretics proves is that a student mob, not the college authorities are now in charge.

Unfortunately the undermining of higher education seems to be prevalent throughout the English speaking world. In the USA they have begone beyond parody, and are wrecking their society, while even what was once regarded as staid old New Zealand is infected. Professor Garth Cooper of Auckland university, and colleagues, signed an open letter opposing the introduction of Maori mythology into science lessons. The Vice-Chancellor of the University initially said the letter had caused “caused considerable hurt and dismay among our staff, students and alumni”, although she has now stated that “our seven academics were free to express their views on Maori mythology and science. Others in our community were free to disagree, and to present the logic of their objections. There is no contradiction in the University’s support for the rights of our academics to disagree on matters that can be considered controversial, while at the same time acknowledging and being respectful in any debate that might follow”. A common-sense reaction for once!

The spread of this fascist ideology is also undermining the Open University, whose Professor Jo Phoenix has resigned after being “harassed and vilified” by her colleagues over her gender critical views, including being compared to a “racist uncle at Christmas”. She said: “The university has allowed things to escalate to a point beyond repair. My trust and heart have been broken.” She launched an employment tribunal case against the university, stating that it had failed to protect her from a campaign of “vicious bullying” by those who opposed her views, including her position that male-bodied prisoners should not be in female prison, and her criticism of Stonewall’s influence in universities, opinions which I have no doubt are shared by the vast majority of ordinary people.

When my wife was at Manchester University in the 1960s the students frequently held sit-ins and demonstrations about a variety of issues, but they did not attempt to close down debate, and certainly did not have a fit of the vapours at the thought that their views might be open to question. The question now must be why are the hard working taxpayers of this country subsidising thousands of imbecilic cretins infesting these institutions, both as students and staff? We need science graduates, and a limited number of those from valid humanity subjects, but we could save millions by returning the universities to the size they were sixty years ago, and sacking large numbers of the parasitic Maoist morons masquerading as lecturers.

As relentless as Boris Johnson's demise, the boundaries of the ridiculousness of Wokeism continue to be pushed. At Durham University, the Chancellor faced calls to resign or be sacked by a tiny minority of students for allowing Rod Liddle a platform, despite him receiving a standing ovation for his speech, which leant substantially towards inclusiv...

I have been lucky enough to enjoy a 57-year successful career in business. I was also a board member of Business for Sterling and of Vote Leave and before coming to the UK I had some experience in USA politics. One of the things I have learned over the years is that when things are not going well, you might be working on the wrong thing! Another va...

Those who know the Bible will have been horrified by the massacre of the innocents, which took place when Herod the Great, King of Judea, orders the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem, in an attempt to kill the infant Messiah. Today we see a different sort of slaughter which targets the innocent.

As a Catholic I naturally abhor the killing of so many unborn babies, as every excuse is made to allow this to happen, despite all the promises made at the time abortion was made legal. However, for the moment I will reserve that argument for a different occasion, and concentrate on the deaths of those already born.

I am sure that I am not alone in feeling a sick anger at the murder of poor little Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. As so often the authorities, despite warnings from concerned relatives, ignored the obvious abuse, but no one should forget that it was the evil perpetrators who are fully responsible for this terrible crime. When I think that this little boy is recorded as saying “Nobody loves me, no one is going to feed me” I am consumed with fury that an innocent should die convinced that this was true.

Now we have the equally awful case of the sweet little girl Star Hobson, who was murdered at the age of 16 months by her mother’s female ‘partner’ while the mother herself stood by and did nothing. Indeed, while any normal person would, if they heard a child crying, try to help them, these two sub humans just laughed. As usual the useless social workers allowed these scum to talk their way out of it, but this time it is reported that, because they were lesbians, decided to treat the warnings from the family as being motivated by an anti-gay prejudice.

When my late mother was in her fifties, and after having raised two sons, she, as a convinced Christian, volunteered to work as a social worker looking after the less fortunate, including children. Many of her colleagues had a similar background. Suddenly they were all told that their services were no longer required, as all social workers were now required to have a university degree, so they were all dismissed, to be replaced by bits of kids, who had no practical knowledge of bringing up children, and, worse, had been through left wing indoctrination by the so called lecturers in the so called subject of sociology, so they were obsessed with applying the nostrums of the Left, rather than dealing with the real world. As a consequence middle class white parents are treated as guilty until proved innocent, while those whom the Left love to consider victims by virtue of their ethnicity or sexual orientation are excused time and time again.

However, despite the deserved condemnation of these useless ideologues one must reserve one’s true detestation for the actual perpetrators. I wonder if those liberals, from Sydney Silverman, and Roy Jenkins, onwards, who liked to virtue signal by opposing the death penalty, ever thought of the blameless victims, who might have been saved if vile criminals, such as these killers, knew that they would pay the ultimate penalty for their actions. Even if in some cases it would not be a deterrent, it would nevertheless be just what they deserve.

I anticipate that such liberals will respond by raising the danger of executing the wrong person as has happened in the past, but of course one must be absolutely sure that the conviction is sound, and in these days of advanced forensic science, with DNA testing etc., this is likely to be true. Any doubt should ensure that the death penalty would not apply. From all that we know about these particular cases, from previous cases such as Victoria Climbie, and from those of many other children murdered by those who should be caring from them, no such doubt exists.

This is all part of the wider crisis we face regarding law and order. I recall that, when capital punishment was abolished, we were promised that 'life will mean life' for murderers, yet this has proved to be a lie. On a daily basis we hear of fatal stabbing, and even shootings, in London and other urban centres, and while the liberals try and conceal the extent of the carnage by redefining murders as manslaughter whenever they can, the true scale is obvious to anyone who examines the daily reports. Additionally, so often when innocent children are killed by those who should be caring for them, or left to die of starvation by feckless adults, the perpetrators frequently get away with reduced charges, and pathetic sentences. When one adds to all this the fact that jail sentences are rarely completed in full, most criminals being released after only half has been served, it is certain that lawbreakers are being appeased, not punished. The principle to follow should be that advocated by Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado "make the punishment fit the crime", as deprivation of liberty is not the only sanction that can be applied. Of course much more severe punishments must also be applied to those whose actions aid the criminals, such as middle class cocaine users.

I recall seeing a cartoon in the late 1950s in which a woman was being beaten to the ground by a group of teddy boys, and a psychologist was rushing over saying “there are some young men here in need of help”. This sums up the pathetic attitude of those who have been allowed to dominate the justice system for decades. Although they no longer do so, at one time opinion polls were held on the subject of capital punishment, always showing large majorities in favour of its use, but still the ‘we know better’ brigade has had their way. The blood of countless innocents is on their head.

Perhaps one day we will have a true populist government, which will replace the current set of social workers with those who can recognize evil when they encounter it, and heed the demand that the merciless killers of innocents pay the ultimate penalty, but I am not holding my breath.

"We were the 28 MPs who saved Britain, we saved our nation and this is the inside story of how we did it." The Rt. Hon. Mark Francois MP The Bruges Group led the intellectual debate for Britain to leave the European Union and now we have the story from within, the story of the ERG from an MP who was at the heart of Brexit. 28 Members of Parliament ...

As Boris hatred reaches yet another crescendo the media, opposition parties and remainers in the Civil Service and assorted Quangos hugged their self perceived purity. Like a pack of crazed Wolves scenting blood, they moved in for the kill. The impending power disaster. Possible wars in Ukraine and Taiwan. The woke destruction of culture and free s...

Well that escalated quickly. I have felt for a long time and said for a while that the Conservative & Unionist Party is now misnomered. Even I am staggered by the depths now being plumbed. The globalist, green, high tax, high spend, manifesto breaking agenda is not conservatism. It is now a CONINO party (Conservative in Name Only). Jeremy Corby...

As the sclerosis of wokeism spreads globally ever further and wider, let's take a whistle stop tour of some of the latest ridiculousness served up on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. US Democrats hate their own country, UK left follows The left of the American Democratic Party hates its own country. Where once it directed its ire at Donald Trump, ...

How many times have you been told, thought, heard or said "you can't say that"? As a minimum, with every passing month it will happen more and more to many of us. Comedians and authors are increasingly self censoring for fear of "offending" their audience. When did we lose the right to be offended? We rail against politicians not giving a straight ...

The very concept of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is multinational. As with any "coalition", there are tensions between states, not least due to historical disagreements but fundamentally the commonality of historic Anglo-Saxon Judeo-Christian values has made for a tolerant, inclusive nation. The United Kingdom...

After the 2016 referendum, when did people stop just holding a firm or ambiguous position in a debate and become formed into parties? Whereas people were expected to move forward for the common good, following the result, they continued to believe their 'side' was for the common good and the other 'side' the opposite. As a consequence, some of thos...

The sun had shone all day, the people we had been meeting every time the Brexit battle bus stopped all of us anti EU, pro-Brexit campaigners, would pile out and meet mostly receptive people who were declaring they were going to vote to leave the EU in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum. We had spent an hour or so on Worcester market and were on t...

Introduction The purpose of these notes is to present some facts about the campaign to stop global warming and climate change. The climate has changed in the past, is probably changing now, and will change in the future. The campaign is trying to stop the unstoppable. The natural factors affecting global temperature are very powerful: terrestrial, ...

How refreshing to return from Party Conference which was held in a state of near normality. The only element which was not completely normal was that there were less people. That I think was due to the fact potential attendees were worried it would in the end be cancelled or that vaccine passports would be demanded in some form. This in a nutshell ...

Recently, we moved home. I advised all the utilities and services by phone or online. I did so well in advance, so that no last minute hitch would add to a naturally stressful time. Everything worked perfectly, except the TV licence. At first, I was encouraged by what seemed an easy notification system. "Advise us three months before you move" the ...

A few days ago my wife and I were walking across the local supermarket car park when we met one of our teammates from our bowls club. After a few minutes conversation about the new season, and complaining about the dilatory manner in which the local council is dealing with the renewal of the club’s lease, we went to the shops, while he strode off towards the club. Nothing remarkable about any of that, except that just over 77 years ago, on 6th June 1944, he was landing on the D-Day beaches, and is now over 100 years old.

I reflected how heroic were the men and women of his generation, and also how modest. He refuses to say much about his wartime experiences, as they bring back too many memories of fallen comrades. One of our other fellow bowlers, who sadly recently died at the age of 96, spent the Second War in submarines, even being depth charged, while my parents, living in south east London were bombed in two wars, losing their house in 1940.

What a contrast we see as we contemplate the current scene, where pusillanimous weaklings abound, particularly in our so called universities. The fragile snowflakes who now infest these institutions are unable to endure ideas which conflict with their own, demanding trigger warnings, no platforming and safe spaces in case their sensibilities are offended. I suppose they burst into tears if anyone tells them that they might be wrong about something!

Of course this absurd state of affairs would not exist if it were not for the politically motivated, frequently Marxist, lecturers and university administrators who, instead of telling the students that they are there to learn, not impose ridiculous, and neurotic, ideas, actively encourage them.

As I write St Andrews University is reported as enforcing diversity modules before students are accepted on courses, involving the acceptance of being obliged to accept 'personal guilt' and only pass by giving acceptable answers to compulsory questions on sustainability, consent and good academic practice, as determined by the fascists setting the tests.

The applicants are told that acknowledging personal guilt is a starting point in overcoming unconscious bias, and, if the latter disagree, they are told that they are incorrect, and are forced to redo the course if they get too many wrong in the opinion of the arrogant dictators setting the questions. Students are told that equality does not mean treating everyone the same but that in fact ‘equality may mean treating people differently and in a way that is appropriate to their needs so that they have fair outcomes and equal opportunity’. Obviously how you determine such parameters is at the behest of the ‘woke’.

Some students, obvious insufficiently brainwashed by the Marxists at the secondary schools, have rightly objected, pointing out that this process is contrary to academic freedom and freedom of thought, but this is not the first university to move towards these courses, with Kent also making students complete bizarre induction training. Emeritus professor of sociology Frank Furedi, said it was 'a corrosive form of indoctrination’, while Professor of Education at Derby University Dennis Hayes said such courses are 'reducing universities to training institutions in woke ideology'.

How, and why, starting with a nation of heroes, have we reached this point, where so many of the younger generation seem frightened of their own shadow, and have no appreciation of free speech and democracy?

As far as the how is concerned one can hardly offer a better answer than that given, in that excellent film ‘The Lion in Winter’, by Henry II, when asked by his estranged wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, “How, from where we started, did we reach this?” answered “Step by step, step by step”.

The why is also clear, although vigorously denied by those who are seeking to undermine our society, and that is the burrowing away by the termites of Marxism, as they prosecute their ‘long march through the institutions’, corrupting everything, but in particular the education system. They know that the ordinary, sensible electorates of the West will never let them win at the ballot box, so they have sought a different method of achieving their ends. To brainwash the young, both at the level of at secondary, and tertiary education, has been their aim, and in this they have succeeded, convincing many that the West, and Britain in particular, has been the source of most of the wickedness in the world.

Marxists, despite many of them being apparently intelligent, are for the most part, morons, who refuse to recognize that, wherever Marxism has been tried, it has been a disaster, resulting in economic collapse, and dictatorship by monsters such as Stalin and Mao. Of course they always claim that this result is due to the fact that it was not implemented properly, but the millions who have died thanks to this insane philosophy would, if they could, attest to its fundamental evil.

Much more sinister are those who are aware only too well of the reality of Marxism, but are using it to try to achieve power for themselves. I was astounded to learn that there are Marxists, or their fellow travellers among imbecilic ‘woke’, who are now claiming that 2 plus 2 does not necessarily equal 4. This is of course the claim made by O’Brien of Orwell’s Inner Party in 1984, when he says “Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party”. To use the Labour Party approved vocabulary Marxists are scum.

So what can be done about it? A full return to selective education, with competitive exams providing the means by which those suitable for university can be identified, should be reinstated, while the ludicrous changes to the university system implemented by Blair must be reversed, with only a minority being sent to a much reduced number of institutions, with the whole system of fee paying and student loans abolished. The latter is unfair to the youngsters, and wasteful of taxpayer funded resources. It has also led to the ridiculous idea that policemen and nurses must have degrees, thus excluding those who have a genuine vocation, but lack formal qualifications in often irrelevant subjects. The scientific side of university education should be retained, but the vast bulk of the humanity courses, resulting in Mickey Mouse degrees in absurd subjects, should be abolished. The Marxist teachers and lecturers should be sacked, and told to do something more useful than corrupting young minds, like digging roads, while being excluded from any further involvement with education.

What will actually be done? I can say it in one word: Nothing. The chattering classes, and the majority of politicians are graduates, and clearly believe that if you do not have a degree it is surprising that you can walk and chew gum at the same time. The destruction of our society will continue, until a nation which is not in hock to these lunatics takes over. A nation of heroes will have been replaced by a population of snowflakes, who will be so surprised when they find that their fantasy world will not survive contact with reality.

This government's refusal to plan for Britain to be self-reliant in energy has produced a perfect storm of soaring prices, disrupted gas supplies and domestic steel and other essential manufacturing output compromised. Years of inertia have been the consequence of a near-religious belief that "the market will provide" alongside an unfounded fixatio...

The claim that a dark and heaving nightclub delivers the perfect breeding ground for Covid isn't particularly contentious. Lots of people packed tightly together, snogging, singing and shouting in a confined space with poor ventilation is perhaps the Department of Health's worst nightmare. Now, if you want to keep clubbing in Britain, the governmen...

Is America's precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan just a temporary setback, or does it signal a strategic retreat, an abdication from its role as world leader? If so, it will leave a gaping void, a vacuum that others will want to step in and fill. To be a world leader a country needs not only muscle (economic, military, demographic) but also a m...

The failure of the SNP to gain a majority in the elections to the Scottish parliament has forced them into a huddle with the equally separatist Greens – and into a series of increasingly unpopular policies. Dubbed a 'coalition of chaos', the new alliance in August between the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party has been born out of...

At the beginning of Act V, scene 3, of the First Part of Henry the Fourth (Folio 1, 1623), prior to the entry of the King, the Prince, Lord John of Lancaster, and Earl of Westmorland, Shakespeare gives the stage directions “Alarum, excursions”. There is no doubt about what is meant and now, with a different spelling, and a non military connotation, we understand the word alarm to mean the sudden sharp apprehension and fear resulting from the perception of imminent danger, but clearly this is not the understanding of the ‘woke’ snowflakes now dominant in our police force.

No better illustration of this attitude can be found than in the Suffolk police investigating a potential hate crime because one anonymous local neurotic had complained about a pensioner, who, as an enthusiast for American Indian culture had installed a totem pole in his garden, which contained the image of a black person. The snowflake concerned claimed that this had ‘racist overtones’, but even the police decided that there was no case to answer. However the incident was recorded as “a possible public order offence, due to the visual representation which caused alarm and distress to members of the public”. To prevent further argument the pensioner concerned painted the black face white. I feel alarm as I contemplate the rise of China, and the fall of the USA, while I am distressed by reports of young children being murdered by their own parents, but I find the complaints of the idiots on Twitter to generate either amusement or nausea. I am sure that ninety per cent of normal people feel the same way.

What a pathetic, paranoid phobic anyone offended by such a representation must be, and how truly wretched the response from the police. This sort of waste of police time is occurring when violent crime is on the rise, when young girls continue to be abused by organised gangs of those the police are afraid to name, and ordinary members of the public find their interests ignored because the police claim to be over stretched. However it should be noted that, on the same day, the police are congratulating themselves on devising gender neutral uniforms, thus bowing to the demands of the liberal left.

I do not for one moment blame the ordinary copper who I am sure is disgusted as is everyone else by these displays of political correctness, but the senior ranks must be full of those with a very different agenda. Should this continue some of our favourite dramas of the past would need changing. Regan and Carter would be leading the Sweeney to arrest veterans at war memorials who were daring to wave union flags, and engendering hate against our ‘friends and partners’ the Germans, while DCI Gene Hunt would be raiding addresses where copies of Churchill’s war memoirs were believed to have escaped the ritual book burnings.

We have endured scenes of police ‘taking the knee’ in support of the Marxists, anarchists and nihilists of Black Lives Matter, while standing by to allow similar supporters of Extinction Rebellion to disrupt the lives of the public in the name of a cause based upon false premises. Unfortunately, if the liberal Left get their way, in future the police will only recruit those with degrees, so brainwashed products of our ‘woke’ universities will come to outnumber the real coppers. The majority of the lecturers and professors in humanities in these latter institutions are nothing but propagandists for those who hate our society, and desire to see it replaced by a politically correct dictatorship of those who think just like them.

All this political distortion of values is an insult to the brave men and women who form the thin blue line, and on whom we rely to protect us, and our democratic society. In the USA the lunatics of the Left have been advocating the defunding of the police, and should such people triumph in the UK, and fully undermine the ethos of policing, then the only way decent people will obtain justice is by the rise of vigilantism, a recipe for disaster. The timid middle class might do nothing, but one can be sure that the more assertive working class will not lie down forever as their daughters are violated, and their right to freedom of expression, crushed at the behest of these ideologues.

To destroy the police will first lead to anarchy, and then, as sure as night follows day, to some sort of dictatorship, with terrible consequences for all of us. Now is the time to reverse the direction in which the woke are taking us, and restore respect for the rule of law, not of the diktats of the morons of the liberal Left.

Although we celebrated when European Communism collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, it has proved not to be ‘The End of History’ as predicted by Francis Fukuyama, but more of a poisoned chalice, whose effects are becoming clearer day by day.

The Cold War has the advantage of simplicity as everyone, except the idealistic idiots of CND, and the traitorous fellow travellers who sought a Soviet triumph, were able to see that our most fundamental liberties were under threat from a totalitarian ideology, with ambitions to snuff out our democracy. We stood firm, and eventually the Soviets collapsed because of what Marxists would have referred to as their internal contradictions.

In the years that followed we came under came under attack from terrorists inspired by a mediaeval theology, and basically succeeded in driving them back. However the lack of a clearly identified enemy has led to the fragmentation of Western nations from within, as those who do not have a real foe have decided that they must find their opponents within their own society.

The Marxist organisations of Black Lives Matter, Stop the War and Extinction Rebellion have used reasonable causes to advocate extremist solutions, and have spread discord throughout society. The complete lunatics of ‘woke’ continue their campaign to denigrate our past, demonise all white people as ‘privileged’, and destroy free speech. Incidentally they might like to explain how my parents, who lived through the Great Depression, and saw a friend die of malnutrition in an English home, were ‘privileged’.

The absurd obsession of the American political class with these gender and cultural wars, to the exclusion of issues of real import, has led to probably the worst administration since the disastrous days of Herbert Hoover, with both the Presidency and Congress dominated by those who are consumed with the desire to argue about the inconsequential, while ignoring the truly significant. Not only has this already led to the betrayal of the people of Afghanistan, especially the women, but it has cast into doubt the future of the American place in the world, and to the future of NATO.

I am disgusted by the manner in which Western governments have scuttled out of Afghanistan, leaving the people to their fate. The inevitable result will be a resurgence of terrorist activity around the world, while the decent people of Afghanistan will once again be subjected to a mediaeval regime of bigots. It will embolden China, Iran and Russia, and make the world a more dangerous place for democracy. I dread to think of how of our troops those maimed in the conflict must now feel, while the loved ones of those killed must believe that they died in vain. In 1939 Leo Amery uttered his famous admonition “Speak for England” during the critical Commons debate on the German invasion of Poland and we in Tonbridge applaud our MP, Tom Tugendhat, for his similarly powerful speech on the debacle in Afghanistan.

I tremble for the future of those nations, such as Israel and Taiwan, for whom the retreat of the US to Fortress America will spell doom. For us the lesson must be that as America apparently reverts to inter war isolationism we must look to our defences. The most fundamental concept for any government should be patriotism, and the desire to put the interests of the people first, and its first duty, as is true of all governments, is the defence of the realm. We now face a world where Russia and China are hostile, Iran and associated Muslim states utterly opposed to our way of life, and, following the retreat from Afghanistan, America apparently reverting to inter war isolationism.

Obviously we are no longer the paramount military power in the world, as we were for over a century, but we are nevertheless, along with France, the only European nation which could, in the absence of American forces, resist an onslaught from the East. We must ensure that we are like a nest of hornets, sufficiently strong to make attacking us not worthwhile. This will entail immense cost, but, if American involvement in Western defences is to be curtailed, then it will be the only way to preserve our liberties.

To do this we need to double the size of the Army, and the RAF, while building a great many more Naval warships, including a large number of smaller frigates to guard our coasts, not least from the tide of illegal immigration crossing the Channel. In addition our military hardware should be built in the UK, necessitating reopening shipyards, and steelworks, while the insane policy of selling our most vital armament manufacturers to foreign owners must be stopped, and reversed. Importantly we must have a larger nuclear deterrent, which is fully independent of American control, while our capabilities in the realm of cyber space must be enhanced. All this would involve great expense, but that is the price of liberty.

Those who deride our martial abilities should remember that the UK’s DNA contains warlike Vikings, Saxons, Celts and Romans, that the British beat Philip II, Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler, and that when our freedoms are threatened we have always been a formidable opponent. I don’t believe that we have fundamentally changed, despite all the noise from those on the Left who hate their own country!

National elections are never far away in the United States, and while even the most disinterested of foreign observers is aware that Presidents are elected on a quadrennial basis, fewer may grasp the significance of the 'Midterms' - in which, every two years, one third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives must submit to the verdict...

 It is sad that of all the members of the House of Lords, only two had the guts to make a stance against the enforced anti-bullying and sexual harassment training course which has been inflicted on all Peers. For the powers that be in the House of Lords, to insist all our Peers take part in this training, is presuming that all 800 or so member...

Xi Jinping's acceleration of the shift towards an increasingly jingoistic Chinese foreign policy reflects a strengthening of Xi's position in China. Throughout the past 12 months, Chinese foreign policy has changed course in an aggressive manner. China spread propaganda about Australian soldiers committing war crimes in the Middle East and lashed o...

In 1988 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London described itself as: "An ace caff, with quite a nice museum attached." Today we seemed to have reached the point where the NHS would describe itself as “a great Health Service, with quite a nice country attached”.

Although there was some reason for the early panic about overwhelming health care this concern has now been extended by some of the more vociferous scientific advisors to a warning that a winter flu epidemic could overwhelm the NHS, so consequently we must all continue to live under strict regulations. Of course this begs the question of whether the NHS exists to protect our health, or whether the country exists to protect the NHS.

Unfortunately, rather as is the case with Remainers worshipping at the shrine of Brussels, many people treat the NHS as some sort secular religion, which must not be criticised, and whose demands for more and more resources must be met, whatever the cost.

The reality is somewhat different.

I yield to no one in my respect and admiration for the front line workers in the NHS, nor in my gratitude to them. However, as I, and others, including many doctors and nurses, have pointed out, the effectiveness of the NHS has been undermined by asinine changes made in the past few decades.

The ever expanding NHS bureaucracy, with its ridiculous number of so called managers, has absorbed a vast number of resources, which should have been utilised to improve front line services, without in any way helping patients. These pen pushers are absurdly overpaid, and overstaffed, resulting in the creation of pointless levels of administration. One nurse of my acquaintance tells me that she once had one level of management above her, which has become seven, the vast majority of whom do nothing but pass paper up and down to each other.

Another front line worker told me that, while they were constantly being told that money was short, Human Resources opened a suite of offices, which they could use for their endless, and fruitless meetings.

In my years as chairman of our office union, I encountered this non profession of HR, which converted personnel departments, who existed to assist staff, into an arm of management which rode roughshod over them, at the same time justifying their own existence by producing countless absurd policies which actually subverted the efficiency of the organisations involved.

The malignant effect of all this has been thrown into sharp relief by the fact that retired medical professionals had their applications to help out with vaccinations refused on the bureaucratic grounds that they may not have attended nonsensical courses on diversity, or even fire training. Bureaucrats put their preposterous concerns ahead of effective action. Many of these schemes arose because of the bureaucratic regulations emanating from Brussels, so are now no longer relevant.

In addition, in the past, nursing was a vocation, recruiting from a wide spectrum of society, yet now we are told that one must be a graduate to be employed. This is as ridiculous as is the need for policeman to have degrees. Fifty years ago a large number of professions were staffed by those who learnt through apprenticeships, and on the job training, yet now those who do not attend university are regarded as unfit for the very same jobs. When I was last in hospital in 1955 they were run efficiently by the matron and the ward sisters, but now they groan under the weight of useless jumped up clerks, while willing and capable nurses are lost due to unreasonable demands that they attend university.

We are all aware of the failures in basic hygiene in hospitals, which have led to the deaths, or serious illness of many people. One friend of mine went through six years of active service in the war without a scratch, but died a couple of years ago, when he caught MRSA in a ward, although he was otherwise recovering well. The manner in which fundamental tasks, such as cleaning wards, has been outsourced, has replaced those who were direct employees, taking a pride in their work, with frequently exploited casual staff, who are expected to do the minimum necessary for their employer to justify their fees.

I have personal experience of health care in Switzerland, which was exemplary, while I know from friends that the French system is also very efficient, and easy to access. No one wants the American system, where one’s treatment is based almost solely on one’s ability to pay. but the aforementioned systems are available on a sensible insurance basis, without excluding the poorest citizens.

To even venture the opinion that something is rotten in this particular State of Denmark is to invite opprobrium, but we cannot go on pouring more and more money into something that is not able to deliver. It is time that the whole NHS was reformed to meet the requirements of the 21st Century. However, given that the Left regard the organisation as a sacred cow, and that the Conservatives lack the courage to take action, no doubt it will continue just as before.

 With more scandal and sleaze gushing out of Westminster than the Sussexes press office, one could be pardoned for glossing over the government's latest flirtation with the supercilious head of nanny statism. Last week, the Department of Health confirmed plans are going ahead to restrict paid junk food advertising, in order to curb childhood o...

In Exodus Moses describes himself as a “Stranger in a Strange Land”, and, after nearly three quarters of a century living in England, I sometimes feel that way, as the country I was born into recedes into the past, and an ugly reality takes its place.

I am well aware that of the existence of many social problems in the England of the 1940s, and that the economic situation was dire, the struggle with the Axis powers having virtually bankrupted the country. Nevertheless, although we had the most left wing government in our history, it was led by men who were true democratic socialists. Among others of his colleagues the Prime Minister Clement Attlee had fought for the country, while his cabinet included patriots such as Ernest Bevin, who stood up for the working class, unlike the modern Labour Party, which represents a coalition of minorities, and social democrats, not workers. The national broadcaster was still basking in the glory it won during the war, and was unafraid to speak for Britain, a complete contrast to the modern BBC, most of whose commentators support anyone rather than their own nation. The recent advent of GB news, which seeks to put forward the views of ordinary people, not, as the BBC does, those of the metropolitan elite, is the target of a left wing pressure group “Stop Funding Hate”, which is attempting to undermine its finances by pressurising companies into withdrawing advertising. Some have done so, and I for one will never buy their products again, as I prefer to deal with those who believe in free speech, and thought, not censorship.

In the 1950s working class children, such as my wife and myself benefited from the schools system, which, via the grammar schools, provided a ladder to a decent education, and career. The universities were centres of excellence, unlike today, when even an inability to formulate grammatical sentences seems to be no bar to a degree, the latter obtained at a massive cost to youngsters who have been deceived into believing that they are receiving value for money. The education system is dominated by the Left and every day we see the evidence of cancel culture being applied at all levels. When I was a lad the churches were a centre of life for many, Sunday schools being well attended, while voluntary organisations such as the Boy’s Brigade, the Cadets, and of course the Scouts and Guides, gave young people both pleasure and the moral compass so sadly lacking now.

One issue which has been addressed over the years is of course greater equality for women, yet all the justifiable gains they made are now at risk. Thanks to the lunacy of so called sexual self identification women now face defeat across the whole sporting arena, as such men are being allowed to compete against them, when their previous physical development ensures that they will inevitably win. They are expected to tolerate the closure of toilets specifically designated for female use, and the absurd situation is arising whereby abusive men could gain access to women’s refuges merely by announcing that they have self identified as women. In addition feminine icons such as Germaine Greer and J K Rowling are subject to constant vilification for asserting that one cannot change sex merely by claiming that one has done so.

Of course the aberration of over forty years of membership of the undemocratic European union has damaged our democracy, as is obvious from the fact that, following the 2016 referendum, the establishment, backed by those who refuse to recognize that the losers of a democratic vote should accept the result, prevented the will of the people being implemented for five years. After winning the war the vast majority of the British people in the 1940s would never have believed that, within thirty years, the independence of their country would have been compromised by the politicians voluntarily handing the governance of the county over to unelected bureaucrats in a foreign country. The continuing refusal by Remainers to accept the verdict is disgusting, but now seems a normal reaction by so many.

The rise of self righteous protest groups, who claim the right to disrupt civic life regardless of the misery caused, is poisoning democratic debate. “Extinction Rebellion” activists block roads, interfere with the journeys of rail commuters, attack commercial buildings, and even attempt to censor our daily newspapers. Ostensibly they do this in the name of a theory that the planet is undergoing a dangerous episode of warming, brought about by the emissions emanating from human activity. They claim that they are either ‘drawing attention’ to the problem, something hardly required, given that we have all been exposed to their views ad nauseam, or that they are taking direct action aimed at stopping those activities which they deem unacceptable. However it is noticeable that these gestures are all directed at Western enterprises. While many of their supporters are gullible idealists, who think that they are responding to a higher moral imperative, the driving force behind this organisation, just as it is behind other such protest groups such as “Black Lives Matter”, and “Stop the War”, is an ingrained hatred of Western civilisation, arising from the anarchistic and nihilistic philosophies which have always inspired such people. I remember when, at a time when Labour was devoted to democratic socialism, it issued lists of proscribed undemocratic organisations, whose members sought to infiltrate the party in order to subvert its aims. I have no doubt that had groups such as these existed in those days, they would have been included in such lists.

However these people are a symptom of a deeper malaise, which is a threat to everything we hold dear, as the British public is largely unaware of the fact that the country is sleepwalking into the kind of dystopia described by Orwell in 1984. Left wing organisations are constantly promoting the idea that anyone who dares to suggest that they love their country, that they do not wish to see its history rewritten, that they do not admit guilt for the crime of being white, or heterosexual, or do not hang their heads in shame because they want to own cars, is committing a Thoughtcrime, and must be silenced. While for the moment individuals may be able to reject these accusations with the contempt they deserve, it is becoming clear that pusillanimous commercial enterprises are choosing to take the knee to these fascists, and change their policies accordingly. That these people are able to use social media platforms, which are dominated by technology giants run by those with similar views, is a disgrace, and yet another reason for closing down these vile cesspits of abuse and hate. If these vociferous extremists are able to achieve their aims then the day of the Thought Police will truly be with us.

Naturally the Covid pandemic has thrown everything up into the air, as, not merely Britain, but the world, have faced a threat requiring a massive response. Despite the constant carping by those such as the BBC, and ridiculous claims made by supporters of the Left, it is obvious than Bori and his ministers, when faced such an emergency have done as well as anyone could have done in the circumstances, particularly by implementing the successful vaccine programme.

Wash your hands; observe the speed limit; keep six feet apart; eat this, not that; don’t drink; wear a mask; get rid of your car, and walk; don’t smoke; keep off the grass; live in a cold home; oppose separate lavatories for the sexes; allow men self identifying as women to dominate female sports; don’t say that; don’t think that. As a reasonably intelligent, mature adult I try to take a responsible attitude to social norms, obeying sensible laws as I have always done, but I will not take a knee to those demanding that their every whim be satisfied, nor to climate change obsessives. However I am sick to death of being harassed, hectored, harangued and lectured by those who are determined to close down free speech, and force society into a straightjacket which conforms to their own views, and none other.

Many people are suffering the loss of reputation, employment, or even of liberty, for daring to stand against the tide of political correctness, indeed arrant nonsense, infesting our country. The persecution of academics, and students, at a number of universities, for daring to defy the fashionable dogmas is evidence enough of this.

It is this destruction of free speech, and thought, which, if allowed to continue, will truly tear this country away from its past, and will make it, for those of us who grew up believing in our basic freedoms for which millions died, an alien place. A fightback is being mounted by those such as the Free Speech Union, and Laurence Fox, but will it be enough? If not then it will be a Strange Land indeed.

Today marks 34 years since one of the most memorable and historic speeches ever made by a US President, and one that changed the course of history, it is of course when President Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and told General Secretary Gorbachev to "tear down this wall". Now as we face today's challenges, our leaders shoul...

All socially aware people know of the political, and cultural, nonsense peddled by the intelligentsia, whose loyalties lie anywhere but with their own country, or the interests of ordinary people, but who like to regard themselves as so superior to those they regard as plebs. Show them a union flag, and they sneer, the National Anthem gives them a fit of the vapours, dare to suggest that perhaps this country is already too crowded to accommodate the millions of the third world who would like to move here, and they cry racism, while a male merely expressing a healthy interest in a member of the opposite sex, invites being treated as some sort of predator.

Of course these people do not limit themselves to the above but also infest the world of the arts, and it is this aspect of their malign influence which I would like to address, as it illustrates both their perverted view of the world, and also offers a hope that they are finally being rumbled by normal, sane people.

During the course of our holidays my wife and I have visited numerous galleries, inter alia the Uffizi in Florence, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Louvre, and Musee d’Orsay in Paris, the Belvedere in Vienna, the Frick Collection in New York, cultural icons such as the Vatican, and of course our own National Gallery, Tate Britain, the Queen’s Gallery, plus many others. We have stood in awe before such masterpieces as Michelangelo’s David, his Pieta, and the Sistine Chapel, the great works of the Neo Classicists and the Romantics in Paris, the Impressionists, and the beautiful pictures of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Probably unwisely we have also visited the galleries at the Arch at La Defence, and the Pompidou Centre, in Paris, MOMA in New York, Tate Modern and several other similar institutions, which specialise in modern, and abstract art. This is where one encounters what I can only describe as pretentious rubbish, produced by those who only talents are to think up absurd titles, and to write the utterly idiotic descriptions attached to the pieces. For the most part the nearer to our time one approaches, the worse the pictures on offer become. I know that it is often said that in the past the public in some of the totalitarian states states ignored their masters in order to visit such galleries in preference to those containing Soviet realism, or Nazi propaganda, but I suspect it was more an act of political defiance than any great interest in the actual exhibitions.

I have seen visitors discussing the great significance of what is no more than a blob in the centre of the paper, one rectangle on top of another, or one looking like which that my cat produces when disposing of a fur ball. The output of Jackson Pollock, who considered using a technique of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto the canvases a valid means of creation, are known as Pollocks, but my assessment would replace the ‘P’ with a ‘B’. We are asked to believe that unmade beds, piles of bricks, and elephant dung are great art. Nevertheless I know that those such as myself would be dismissed as philistines by the great and the good of the art world, whose livelihoods depend on offering positive comments on such nonsense.

The same affectations infest the world of opera. My wife has worked both for the ENO and the ROH, and we have attended performances at both houses, in Vienna, Prague, even Glyndebourne, seeing such iconic performers as Domingo, Carreras, Pavarotti and Kaufman live, as they appeared in great operas by those composers such as Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. However we have also endured, and in fact walked out of, insults to the paying public perpetrated by arrogant directors, who think that their insane concepts add to the performances, rather than ruining them. Beds halfway up the wall, scenes set on the M25, conductors accessing the orchestra pit by climbing over the dividing wall, and at least one Glyndebourne production which I can only describe as repulsive. Once again the so called experts wax lyrical over these aberrations, brushing off those who point out that the ‘King Has No Clothes’ as vulgarians, who are incapable of understanding the real value of such offerings.

The point of all this is that the sort of people who help to inflict these perversions of art upon us are part of that wider intelligentsia who think themselves so superior, not realising that the reaction of many normal earthy types is ‘you’re having a laugh’. Common-sense is a good guide to detecting what is no more than a confidence trick. Unfortunately for the country this elite does not limit itself to matters of taste, but also hold antithetical views to those held by the majority on such matters as patriotism, even democracy. They have become accustomed to their opinions on cultural and political issues being treated as holy writ, so were astounded when the vote on Brexit went against them. It is my hope that the fact that so many ordinary people having gradually had their eyes opened to the malign influence of these self important and opinionated snobs will cause their removal from sensible public debate. Their have enjoyed many years of receiving approbation, but their arrogance may now lead to their downfall. After all nemesis follows hubris.

For most of our history the ruling class was variously referred to as the nobility, or the aristocracy, selected by birth, not merit. Although lacking what we would call self awareness, or any concern for the views of the ordinary people (actually peasantry), it was normally, although not always, patriotic, and, particularly in the early days, quite prepared to enforce its will by clumping a mace around the head of any dissenters. This somewhat basic method of control was later replaced by less violent, although similarly uncompromising means of enforcing obedience.

Eventually the people decided that they had had enough of this, embraced democracy, and the old aristocracy lost power, although they usually retained their titles, and wealth. Our American cousins went further, and rejected the entire shebang, replacing the old constitutional system with a written constitution.

However, as is the way with such things (really everything), nature abhors a vacuum, and things did not go as hoped, and a new ruling class developed, not as thuggish as the old barons, but, for those who love liberty, equally abhorrent. In the USA the reliance on a legal document gave rise to a pestilence of lawyers, who now dominant much of American life, replacing common-sense with the sort of quibbles comparable to Saint Thomas Aquinas apocryphal questioning of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, while in the UK we have replaced Lords and Ladies with a layer of parasitic, condescending, arrogant, pretentious, narcissistic, know-it-alls (I am sure other adjectives could be added as required). These people know each other, generally go to the same universities to study the same fashionable, some would say, poncy, subjects, migrate to the top positions in all fields of life, largely by appointing their mates to them, and have only contempt for ordinary people who reject their stupid ideas. They lack patriotism, regarding those who love their country as deluded imbeciles. Even as I write this I can hear, from where my wife is watching the BBC downstairs, an interview with some superannuated ex Ambassador or the like, who is deriding the idea of a new Royal yacht, describing it as outmoded, old fashioned, and jingoistic. This is just the sort of person who hate the Last Night of the Proms. Those who can watch the band of the Royal marines play the Queen on board without feeling a swell of pride in Britain have no soul. It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, that almost all such people are Remainers, or Rejoiners, as they now like to be known. I have a different name for them but I will forbear to utter it.

Unfortunately in recent years these people have become acolytes of the extreme politically correct philosophy which goes under the name of ‘woke’. For a long time I disliked the articles written by Julie Birchall, but somewhere along the line she seems to have had a Road to Damascus, and now writes almost nothing but good sense. She recently coined the phrase ‘Woke versus Bloke’, which I believe sums up the division we now see in our society, provided of course that we are good little supporters of gender fluidity, and include females as blokes, much as we now seem to include them under the general heading guys.

Norman Tebbitt produced his famous cricket test, but a have a more pertinent proposal. Once football crowds are back to normal I suggest that we select one hundred at random from a combination of the Den (Millwall), and the Shed (Chelsea), and ask them to vote upon the basic tenets of the woke movement.

I might be wrong but I suspect that, when asked if they would give up their affordable cars, and heated homes, because the child saint Greta tells them to, or take a knee as an apology for their ethnicity, due to the actions of a foreign police force, the answer would be a resounding No. If expected to restrict their language so as not to offend some vanishingly small sexual minority, using only gender free conveniences, I imagine the response would be in the negative, as Sir Humphrey might have said. They probably would not even have heard of the high priestesses of woke such as that queen of condescension the Guardian’s Polly Toynbee, or the homosexual group Stonewall’s Nancy Kelley, although they will in all likelihood know of the patroniser-in-chief Dianne Abbott, but let us say I doubt that these ladies would be at the top of the list for the next dinner party they throw.

In particular I doubt that the ordinary working person realises just how much of the taxes they pay goes towards the obscene salaries paid to the wokists (crazy name, even crazier people) who infest so much of public life. While workers may get up at unearthly hours to drive trains, staff hospitals or respond to emergencies, often for very poor wages, this army of parasites rake in enormous salaries for sitting in nice offices, producing directives and policies, written in impenetrable bureaucratese. The diversity consultants, human resource advisors and vociferous, paid climate change obsessives, rely upon the nonsense promoted by the politically correct to feather their own nests.

The absolute rubbish being inflicted upon us would be laughable, were it not also so serious, as it is exacerbating divides in society, which were not previously significant, costing the economy billions, and undermining future hopes for prosperity, as they put their absurd philosophy above any other consideration.

It is hard to see how this tide of gibberish can be reversed, given that these drones and leeches have inveigled themselves into so many areas of influence. It is not possible to overthrow this new ruling class in the manner previous autocrats have been disposed of, as we do not have the equivalent of marching from Paris to Versailles, or storming the Bastille, when the despots now are an oligarchy, rather than a few identifiable, albeit royal, individuals. However we must do so if we are to have a bearable future. This should be the aim of all decent people who believe in democracy, and the battle can be won, just as we won freedom from the bureaucrats of Brussels.

A Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate. The three degrees which are considered a must have for a career in academia. Any person who knows the hard work and discipline it takes to receive a degree, will acknowledge how intense it is to gain all three. I am myself in my seventh year of university and in the second year of my doctorate. It really hasn't b...

Recently I bought a new car which came with all the contemporary bells and whistles concerning safety. However it nags so badly that, had it been a wife in the middle ages, it would have been a candidate for the ducking stool. It is petulant to the point that, unless I confirm every time I turn it on that I accept responsibility for driving, it won’t let me access the radio. I know that without being told, as I didn’t think it was the cat.

I can turn off most of the inconsequential complaints, but unfortunately that is not the case when it comes to the barrage of whingeing daily afflicting us from the combination of busybodies, scaremongers and politically correct fanatics, many of whom would have been willing Stasi informants in the old days of the GDR. They call themselves liberals, and spend their time virtue signalling, but in reality they are either stupid, or malign, or both. There are so many fields in which we encounter these imbeciles, whether it be sexual politics, historical facts, race or merely in our choice of words, or thoughts.

I am tired of those of us who are heterosexual being treated as giving offence if saying that we find the opposite sex attractive, while vanishingly small minorities are permitted to dominate debate. In many organisations these latter have succeeded in forcing the abolition of single sex toilets, completely against the wishes of women, although thankfully the government has declared that his process will not be permitted in public buildings. Those of us who have faith have been attacked for daring to say that marriage is between a man and a woman, while insane claims of there being over one hundred genders are allowed to pass unchallenged by a pusillanimous media.

Those such as myself who regard Winston Churchill as the greatest ever Englishman, and look upon our history with pride, are treated as being some sort of closet supporters of slavery, and while much is made of the reprehensible involvement of Western nations in the latter, no credit is given to the Royal Navy, which lost thousands of men driving the trade off the high seas. It seems to have passed these activists by that slavery has been a feature of human society for thousands of years, that its practice was never restricted to just white races, or that no one today with any intelligence would defend it.

The mere fact of being Caucasian is regarded as being a crime, and we must all be patronised by so called training in unconscious bias, again thankfully now rejected by the government. This is not to say that I would ever be deliberately unkind, or rude, to anyone because of their race, sex etc. as such behaviour is not part of my makeup, or of that of the vast majority of ordinary people.

The imposition of the left liberal version of Newspeak is intended to limit our use of our own language, and to regulate our thoughts, to accord with the wishes of these pseudo fascists, as if using the English language we have known for our whole lives is meant to indicate some hidden antipathy towards others. The lunatics of the environmental movement are seeking to deprive us of our cars, of our heated homes and of so many of the things that our forefathers spent so much effort to create, in the name of an unproven theory, supported for the most part by idiots whose scientific credentials are non existent.

I am not going to limit my use of language, apologise for my race or sexual preference, cease to express my love of Britain and her history, forgo the simple pleasure of driving the family to the coast, sit in a freezing house, nor ‘take the knee’ to a Marxist organisation because of the deplorable behaviour of a foreign police force, however much these various activists may complain. The late, great, Tony Hancock had the perfect answer when confronted by similar cretins, which was ‘Get Knotted”, while Sid James would have bopped them one. I trust any left liberal reading the last sentence will realise that it is intended humorously, not as an incentive to violence, but as they seem to lack any sense of humour one has to spell it out for them!

It is time we fought back against these extremists. On truism attributed to Churchill among others is that “a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”, which describes so many of those bossing us about these days. When told that, in relation to some inoffensive remark, “you can’t say that”, we should respond “I can, and I will”, while the demand that we police ourselves concerning our innermost thoughts should be dismissed with contempt. Just tell these boneheaded nitwits to shut up. Finally leave the morons of social media to shout at each other, and lead our lives as adults, not the infantilised victims of arrogant know it all bigots. Those of us who have spent years on the football terraces can respond to those trolls who think that they can win by abusing opponents by replying in kind, without backing down like pathetic snowflakes. Perhaps not the course of action recommended in “Debrett's New Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners”, but much more effective. Stop nagging us!

There are some things in life that should never mix, pineapple and pizza, baking soda and vinegar, but perhaps more than both of those examples is sport and politics! This last year has emphasised that more than anything, from taking the knee before every single sporting event to the supposedly controversial opinion of male athletes competing in wo...

The main character and inventor in the H.G. Wells book, 'The time Machine', decided to travel through time to 800,000 years into the future looking for a period without conflict. If I was given the opportunity to travel through time it would be into the past as the future looks increasingly to be a very unpleasant place to be. The way things are go...

We live in a peculiar new age of safe spaces and censorship. A world where the act of not adequately challenging somebody else's opinion can get you in trouble with the Metropolitan Police. We ended last year with a civic witch hunt (pun intended) against a writer of young adult fiction, for sharing her subjective feminine experience. We began this...

Deep as we are into the new age of wokeism, one may easily forget that the first wave of what can only be described as political correctness gone bonkers actually started much earlier - and met its sharp end in May 2012. For those who need a reminder, it was in May 2012 that the nine British-Pakistani men who formed the Rochdale child sex abuse rin...

Many conservatives tired of having their views/content removed by Big Tech companies are advocating for more regulation in the hopes of coercing these companies to stop removing conservative content. Others advocate for using anti-trust to break up these companies. Conservatives have always stood for limited government and freedom. Now is not the t...

Back in the late 1990's my then regular watering hole was closed for a full refurbishment, which was received with much dismay by the regulars as pub refurbishments always meant a complete revamp and the ruination of a favourite place to meet friends over a pint or two. During this period all the regulars set up home in the bar of a local hotel nea...

As we approach December 31st and our exit from the EU, anti democrats are using the COVID pandemic as their last ditch assault on democracy. We should not be surprised. The so-called liberal left both here and in the USA have damaged democracy and restoring it is a monumental task. In the US the Democrats waged a four-year guerrilla war against Tru...

This book, written between March and May, during 'lockdown' in the UK, is a spontaneous analysis of a disturbing global drama that continues to disrupt normal standards of science, public health, human rights and medical ethics in ways few people thought possible at the start of 2020. Civil liberties have been cast aside by a handful of people obse...

How we live today was shaped in the past over the course of our long history and the outcomes of various events. Had we lost World War Two life now would be very different indeed.If Winston Churchill had not become our Prime Minister at such a vital time and instead the Nazi appeaser, Lord Halifax, he would have made a peace deal with Hitler who wo...

Initial article on The Bow Group By Robert Oulds and Dr Niall McCrae  "You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy" (World Economic Forum, 18 November 2016). Covid-19 is a crisis too good to waste for UN agencies and other transnational bodies. The coronavirus pandemic has led to governments around the world signing up to the 'Great Reset' designe...

President Trump will win big since Republican voters are super energised and are turning out in massive numbers to vote for him, on the other hand Democrat voters are not enthused by the incompetent and senile 'Sleepy' Joe Biden. The polls that predict Biden is winning the US election so far, which is already underway, assume that there's...

As the US general election approaches, it is very much in our interests on who wins, there are some people in the Conservative Party suggesting it would be beneficial for Joe Biden to be inaugurated and to walk into the White House on 20th January, following the US general election next week. However, I think there'd be nothing worse than Mr B...

When all the numbers flipped noisily to zeros, at midnight 1999/2000, something happened away from the celebrations – plotted, prepared and planned. This was not the building of a New Jerusalem, but a distillation of chaos as a monstrous assembly of competing flawed visions, social experiments and technological expectations manifested as a darkness...

It is a quintessential British bonding experience to enjoy a joke at the expense of the French. In many ways, it has become an entrenched part of our national identity. However, even the truly gallophobic among us couldn't possibly believe that those who leave France for the United Kingdom should be classed as refugees. Refugees are displaced peopl...

Moralitis, A Cultural Virus - these films are an antidote to the collective malady that is woke ideology. Moralitis is at the centre of the culture war and cancel culture, its the cause of deluded social justice warriors. Watch and read about how we can treat and prevent this disease, a mental pathogen; so that we can save our civilisation, freedom...

For too long tradition and common sense have been marginalised by an illiberal elite, whose supposedly progressive ideology has degenerated into a collective mental malady. This treatise describes the virulent spread of 'woke' groupthink as Moralitis - a cultural virus. The symptoms of this disease include "corrupted rationalism, infantile reasonin...

By Robert Oulds and Dr Niall McCrae, originally published on The Salisbury Review - https://www.salisburyreview.com/blog/chiswick-takes-the-knee/ On a sunny Saturday morning, the queue outside Waitrose on the main thoroughfare in Chiswick basked in a glow of self-satisfaction. Dozens of casually-dressed, trendy urbanites displayed their social...

The intolerance for right-wing values at British schools and on university campuses is well-documented and growing. Sadly, classroom bias is no new occurrence, but has become gradually more profound over the last 40 years, partly as a result of the mainstream political right's apathy towards challenging it. Needless to say, the Conservatives have g...

It has long been said that if you aren't a socialist when you're young, you've got no heart; if you're still a socialist when you're old, you've got no head. Young people turn out in spades to support the Labour party at every local, regional and national election. There are many contributing factors; however, the politics of their teachers is the ...

University for me was my ultimate goal, I from an early age knew that University is where I wanted to end up, I had great expectations for it, particularly my course which was naturally for me, politics. What I ended up seeing was roughly what I expected, but still shocked me, nonetheless. My first semester as a politics student was essentially spe...

For years Labour have made a great show of championing equality, yet there is a vicious breed of left-winger that reacts negatively toward people of colour who dare to believe in something other than socialism. Sajid Javid's appointment as the first ethnic minority Briton to a Great Office of State should have been universally celebrated. Instead, ...

The Defund The BBC campaign launched last month with the aim of decriminalising failure to pay the TV licence fee by the end of 2020 and reducing its remit to cover BBC content only, rather than all Live channels. The campaign has enabled a much-needed debate about the BBC's role in modern Britain and, should it succeed, we can expect to see a much...

There is a strange thing when it comes to the politics of the right and left, many on the moderate right believe strongly in democracy, freedom of speech and little state control allowing people to get on with their lives without interference, as long as they do not break the law and do no harm to others and their property. However, those on the le...

Black lives matter, so do white lives, Chinese, Asian and the lives of every indigenous population on our planet, they all matter equally, no one race should say their lives matter more than any other. Sadly, the Marxists who have organised the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign and those alleged celebrities who like to jump on any trendy, political...

In this enlightening new book, Robert Oulds and Niall McCrae examine the causes, symptoms and methods of prevention and treatment of 'moralitis', a delusional condition caused by cultural Marxism.The body politic has become infected. Like the growth of bacteria in a Petri dish, the subversive tenets of cultural Marxism have spread as a pinking of t...

The phenomenon of fake news has become a major story in itself. CNN constantly dishing the dirt on Donald Trump with no pretence of impartiality; the Guardian blaming Russian interference for Brexit; conspiracy theories abound. Economy of truth and sensationalism are not new, but undoubtedly the problem has worsened with the internet, which has spa...

The 'silly season', they call it - when Parliament has closed for the summer holidays, and the newspapers scramble for titbits. Last week the media pounced on a commentary by the recently-resigned Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, the flaxen-haired politician pretending to be an essayist (or is it the other way round?). Don't ban the burqa, Boris wr...