Farage: hoist once again with his own petard

It is reported that UKIP MEP Nigel Farage is being sued for libel by the organisation Hope Not Hate.  Another UKIP MEP has recently been successfully sued for libel by three Labour MPs, apparently with regard to remarks she made about Muslim paedophile gangs.

I have just looked at the website of Hope Not Hate.  Its front page asserts that it is opposed to what it calls the politics of hate, for which no definition is offered, but it appears to be tolerant of immigration and Islam.

Its front page also states that it will be campaigning against UKIP at the forthcoming general election, while another page details how it used to campaign against the British National Party - until presumably they decided that that party was no longer a serious threat to whatever HNH hold dear.

It is curious, but I cannot recall HNH ever campaigning against UKIP prior to a few years ago.  (If anyone can provide evidence to the contrary, then please leave a comment.)

Also, I cannot recall Nigel Farage - or any other member of UKIP - complaining about HNH when it was campaigning against the BNP. (Again, please leave a comment if you have any evidence to the contrary.)

I have a question for Nigel Farage.  Did he ever speak out against HNH before it began targetting UKIP?  If not, then why not?

Enjoy your libel trial, Nigel.

Farage: hoist with his own petard
Demon words aimed at UKIP
Of Jews and paedophiles

Theresa May's election gamble

The big news item this week is that the Prime Minister is to call a general election to take place on 8 June 2017.  On this day she will have been Prime Minister for less than eleven months.

In the past fifty years, four people have become Prime Minister without first winning a general election: James Callaghan, John Major, Gordon Brown, and Theresa May.  When Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister, there was a lot of talk in the press about calling an early general election.  Many commentators felt that he had a duty to call an election so as to provide himself with a clear mandate to rule; however I cannot recall any similar reaction to either James Callaghan or John Major becoming Prime Minister.  Of the three, John Major alone went on to win a general election as Prime Minister.

Theresa May had not planned to go to the country this soon, but apparently she now wants to make clear that the public is on her side as the Brexit process unfolds.  Many opponents of Brexit have been demanding a second referendum, but instead we are getting a general election.  Mrs May will be campaigning on Brexit, as well as on her many failings as Prime Minister, whereas the Liberal Democrats are hoping to clean up on the anti-Brexit vote.  As a result, some commentators are predicting a poor outcome for the Labour Party.

It is also reported that a lot of people object to having another general election so soon after the last one, and will not be voting as a result.

There have been fifteen general elections in the past sixty years.  Nine of these have seen an increase in turnout over the preceding general election, and six have seen a decrease in turnout.  Two of these – in 1966 and 1974 - took place shortly after the preceding general election, and both saw a reduction in turnout, but not a large reduction.

Every general election between 1955 and 1997 saw a turnout of between seventy-one and seventy-nine percent.  The 2001 general election saw a much lower turnout of below sixty percent; and while each of the subsequent three general elections have seen an increase in turnout, it remained below two thirds of the electorate in 2015.

This will undoubtedly be an unusual general election, largely owing to Brexit.  If the comments sections of the national press are to be believed, then many people will be voting Conservative for the first time, presumably to show support for Brexit.  UKIP has lost by defection its one remaining MP, and is probably heading for oblivion.  Meanwhile, a lot of tactical voting is expected in the Brexit camp.

I will not be voting.  A vote for the Conservative Party may be a vote for Brexit, but it is also a vote for another five years of Tory misrule.

Related previous posts include:
The post-referendum political landscape
The Labour Party is far from dead

Global warming: it's all about the money.

Life used to be so much simpler in the old days, but then everything changed.  A key date is 15 June 1989, on which day the Green Party polled more than two million votes in the European Parliament elections.  This was widely interpreted as the British electorate indicating that they wanted the major parties to focus more on environmental issues.

The two major issues which were gaining a lot of attention at the time were global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer, and those issues are still with us today, except that there is now a high level of public scepticism – especially where global warming is concerned.

Many years ago I was discussing this topic with a man who was very much into the green scaremongering.  I mentioned to him that I had read an essay in a magazine which argued that the scaremongering was not based on good science.  If I remember rightly, it observed among other things that the hole in the ozone layer was merely seasonal.

I was then taken aback when the man retorted to the effect that big business would want to hide the truth.  He did not enlarge on that, probably because there was very little substance in what he was saying.

I concede that any company which is in the business of making money may be tempted to conceal the truth on occasions, but it is also fair to say that businesses can often make money out of environmental scaremongering.  Before 15 June 1989, the only way to sell washing powder was to argue that it cleaned your clothes.  Afterwards you could also argue that it contained fewer chemicals, and so was less harmful to the environment – and I can recall at least one television commercial which took that exact line.

Suppose you run a company which manufactures wind turbines.  Generally speaking, wind turbines are ugly and useless, and the only reason they are prolific is because they attract generous subsidies.  These subsidies are justified by environmental scaremongering, and so your company’s fortunes depend heavily upon the acceptance of the scare stories – even if they are completely untrue.

Suppose also that you are the director of an environmental lobby organisation.  Your income derives largely from membership dues paid by ordinary members of the public.  It is therefore vital that at least some people believe the latest environmental scare stories, because otherwise your organisation would probably have to close owing to a lack of money.

Global warming has kept many people on the gravy train, and I don’t expect that to change any time soon.

Some readers may accuse me of overlooking the compelling scientific evidence, and yes I’m sure the evidence is compelling to anyone whose place on the gravy train depends on us believing in scare stories.

Related previous posts include:

BBC bias: criminal law and global warming

Jews matter, but only if they agree

In recent years I have come to the conclusion that we do not matter for who we are, but rather for what we believe.  At the time of writing, Ken Livingstone – formerly the mayor of London – has been suspended for a year by the Labour Party to punish him for remarks he made which supposedly brought the party into disrepute.

A lot of people have alleged that his remarks were anti-semitic, whereas Livingstone has replied – and I believe him – that at least one Jewish woman has told him that what he said was true.

It is widely reported that he called Adolf Hitler a Zionist, which he denies.  I am not sure exactly what he said, but so far as I can make out he asserted that Hitler struck a deal with Zionists in the 1930s.  I believe it is true that during the 1930s Hitler encouraged Jews to leave Germany and settle in Palestine.

If Ken Livingstone’s crime is merely to state a fact, then we might expect the furore to be short-lived, and yet he continues to make the headlines.  At least one newspaper comment writer has argued that nowadays you can find a historian who will support almost any point of view, which may be a fair comment, but does any historian of the 1930s deny that Hitler’s national socialist regime encouraged Jewish emigration?

I have just read another comment by Dan Hodges (who is the son of a former Labour MP).  He rants that:

Where once they [the Labour Party] raged against intolerance and prejudice, now they shrug it off.

He continues: Labour is now a racist party ... But it’s not just a racist party; it’s an apartheid one. Jews are tolerated, but only as second-class citizens.

He fails to explain how any rational person – whether Jewish or gentile – could possibly be offended by Livingstone’s remarks.  This is presumably because he knows perfectly well that the remarks were not offensive.

He concludes with an allusion to Niemoeller’s prayer, but fails to explain in what sense anyone in the Labour Party is coming for the Jews.  They are not, and I wonder how many Jewish people actually agree with him on this point.

So far as I can make out, Dan Hodges is not Jewish.  He is however a typical establishment figure.  In Britain today, Jews matter if they are offended by whatever the likes of Hodges consider to be anti-semitic.  If they are not offended, then they must expect to be ignored.
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Related previous posts include:
The politics of denial
Jeremy Corbyn is close to the truth

Churchill versus Hitler

A national newspaper is reporting that a new film about Winston Churchill contains many errors.  I do not know and do not care whether or not this is true.

Recently the political party Britain First organised a protest march in London which met with a violent counter-protest.  The march was protesting about Islamic terror attacks, and so presumably the counter-protest was largely made up of people who support Islamic terror attacks.

It was not at all surprising to see many of the counter-protest group holding placards bearing slogans expressing opposition to Hitler’s national socialist regime.  Then again, perhaps it ought to be surprising, given that Paul Golding of Britain First has said publicly that he admires Winston Churchill.

It is perhaps important to note that Paul Golding is aware of something which many people either do not know, or else try to conceal – and that is that Winston Churchill compared Islam with rabies.

I find it curious that many people – whatever their view of Adolf Hitler might be – are reluctant to admit the fact that he was tolerant of Islam.  In fact many thousands of Muslims fought in Hitler’s armies, and at least some of them are known to have fought tenaciously.

Related previous posts include:

Blame the establishment for the march of Islam