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"I dislike mullahs who enjoy our hospitality and tolerance and plan to slit our throats; Jacques Chirac and his latest puppy-dog camp-follower, poodle and yes-man, the Spanish Prime Minister; anti-Semites who pretend they are anti-Zionists and who really want to begin again where Hitler left off." - Paul Johnson

You can look forward, in the next issue of NR, to a piece on the recent Sikh riots by the splendid Anthony Daniels. The Sikh riots? In Birmingham, England, rioters stormed a theater, injuring policemen, breaking glass, and forcing the evacuation of the audience. The play they objected to was written by a Sikh woman, who had portrayed a rape and murder inside a temple. The theater company withdrew the play.

An interesting thing about this interesting case is that it brought forth a clash of liberal pieties: On one hand, liberals love — or say they love — "minorities," and everything about them; on the other hand, they love — or say they love — free expression. When the two clash, if they clash, which wins? Not the free-expression side, it seems. (I have other choice examples of these "clashes of pieties," but we'll save them for another day.)

Anyway, as I said, you can look forward to that splendid analysis. In the meantime, let me give you a wonderful quote from a New York Times article. It is from a Sikh leader in England. Says Mr. Singh, "We are not against freedom of speech, but there's no right to offend."

Ah, I see!

As your mother might have said, I think someone has a lot to learn.

The Wall Street Journal Europe

Oh Dear

By QUENTIN LETTS
January 14, 2005

Male members of the British royal family often dress in unusual outfits. They wear great dollops of gold braid at state occasions. They are required to master the art of the self-knotted white bow tie and the seamless silk cummerbund for official banquets.

The tail coat, peaked military cap, tweed three-piece suit and "plus-four" baggy trousers (for expeditions on to the grouse moor) are all found in the wardrobes of Buckingham Palace's sartorially resplendent peacocks.

Yesterday, however, the dressing-up games went badly wrong. Britain awoke to find, splashed on the front of its biggest-selling daily newspaper, Queen Elizabeth II's grandson Harry dressed in a German World War II uniform. "Harry the Nazi," screamed the tabloid Sun newspaper. "Prince's swastika outfit."

Alongside this astonishing headline was a picture of 20-year-old Prince Harry, younger son of Prince Charles and the late, sainted Diana. He was attired in the uniform of the late Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps and on his left arm he wore that emblem of Adolf Hitler's Germany -- a black swastika on red background.


The immediate image of the young prince in this get-up came as a shock to many of the Queen's subjects, not least to officials at Buckingham Palace. It coincided with some renewed sensitivity about the far right. Only two days earlier a popular footballer in Italy had made news across Europe by appearing to give a Mussolini-style salute during a big match. With signs of recent political resurgence by nationalist groups in Holland, France and some parts of the United Kingdom, fascism is arguably a raw matter just now on the other side of the Atlantic.

So what was young Harry doing? The prince, who is not a bookish fellow and perhaps drinks more than is good for him, was attending a private fancy dress party. For some reason he chose to go along in German military uniform. He no doubt thought this a lark. Given that he himself hopes soon to train as a British army officer, he may have been taking a gentle dig at his own martial ambitions.

What he surely did not intend to do was to portray himself as an acolyte of the evil masterplans of Messrs. Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels. Yet this was the way the media slant started to go after a fellow partygoer took the covert snapshot and passed it to Rupert Murdoch's republican-minded Sun.

Political elements made hay. A former Labour Party defense minister, Douglas Henderson, came over all righteous and demanded on BBC radio that Harry's offer of a place at the Sandhurst military academy be rescinded. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre demanded that Prince Harry's "shameful act" be followed by a trip to Auschwitz.

The leader of Britain's main opposition Conservative Party, Michael Howard, who is Jewish, suggested that Harry should say sorry in public, even though the palace had issued an immediate and effusive apology. With each hour, it seemed, the publicity crisis grew.

Few voices of moderation were given airtime to suggest, for instance, that boozy pre-college boys at a costume party might be allowed to make the occasional blunder, or that fancy dress parties are, by their very nature, an act of satire. One might also note that the Sun's "Harry the Nazi" headline comes after a month of triumph on London's West End for the Mel Brooks musical "The Producers" -- a show which makes great satirical capital out of Nazi uniforms and giant swastikas.

Usual rules of reason, however, do not apply in Britain when it comes to the Royal Family. Prince Harry's reputation, and that of his entire family, has taken a battering. Perhaps the only consolation is that the boy himself is probably too dim to comprehend the full gravity of his gaffe.

Mr. Letts is parliamentary sketch writer for London's Daily Mail.

Roger L. Simon

When I was a little boy the first verses I ever memorized were: "They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace/Christopher Robin went down with Alice." My mother used to read A. A. Milne to me at bedtime. I guess that began a life of anglophilia. Even though I was a little Jewish boy, I had no idea of the anti-Semitic history of the British ruling class so darkly and elegantly portrayed in The Remains of the Day. It took many years until I learned about that. My first trip to London at age sixteen I had no real consciousness of it. I was too busy watching Olivier and Gielgud do A School for Scandal and, yes, seeing the changing of the guard. Later when I came to live in London, I was in Belsize Park, not far from heavily-Jewish Hampstead. It seemed like a good life to me.

I think, until quite recently, I was one of those Jews who leaned to not making a fuss when young idiots like Prince Harry displayed an insensitivity (putting it mildly) to my co-religionists. No more. The epidemic is spreading again and I can only nod my head when tabloids like the Daily News refer to him as "Heil Harry." It's time for the Royal Family, everyone's favorite tourist attraction, to go.

The Wall Street Journal

About Time!

By PHILIP HOWARD
February 11, 2005

LONDON -- A second wedding is different, even a second royal wedding. Especially, a second royal wedding. Your Pilgrim Fathers sailed across the now barren fishpond partly in order to escape the religious, royal and legal restraints on our tight little island. You'd be amazed at how seriously such affairs are still taken over here.

Opinion polls indicate that two-thirds of those Brits-at-a-loose-end and on-the-end-of-a-phone disapproved of Prince Charles marrying Camilla Parker Bowles. Is this British prudery? Surely not. Our taste for reading about the "sex romps" of celebrities in the keyhole-Kate lifestyle magazines indicates otherwise. You were appalled by a flash of nipple at Superbowl. We giggle at stark naked strippers of both sexes at Twickers (our Superbowl) or Lords (sticky wicket).

Is it folk memory of Charles's great-uncle being forced to abdicate for falling for a twice-divorced woman -- American to boot? I do not believe it. In our age, Edward VIII would surely have been allowed to marry Mrs. Simpson, whom Churchill called his "cutie." Though the wedding might have had to be morganatic -- no children allowed to succeed to the throne.

The public hostility arises partly from blame of Camilla and Charles for the break-up of his first marriage with Lady Di, Diana, Princess of Wales. During their divorce, Camilla was pelted with groceries during visits to the supermarket. And Diana elected herself the People's Princess. So she became a goddess for the unfortunate, the silly and the unhappy. But that is long ago, and in another country than UK 2005.

Charles first met Camilla Shand at a polo match 34 years ago. Since then they have conducted a passionate relationship, split up, married others, had a long-running clandestine affair, endured the ignominy of public scandal, and, in recent years, led a strange and ill-defined existence in which she has been part mistress, part official consort. She has apartments in Clarence House, his official residence, and receives secretarial and financial support from him. Now they're going to marry, and I think most Brits should say: "About time. Good luck."

The etiquette of second weddings will be resolved in typical British compromise. The bride is not advised to wear white, ancient symbol of virginity, which cannot be presumed for a second nuptials. Impertinent wedding experts recommend ivory for the older bride on her second mount. Camilla should suit herself. But if she selects hunting gear, she should avoid the whip. If Charles insists on organic food from his Duchy for the reception, she should insist that at least some of the canapes are not vegetarian.

When Princess Anne, Charles's sister, took the great leap in the dark for a second time, she did so very quietly, in Scotland. This too will be a quieter affair than either of their first marriages. But at least the titles are shipshape and Cornish fashion. Titles still matter absurdly to more Britons than you'd expect. Part of the hostility was to the idea that a second Princess of Wales could usurp the title of the People's Princess. The Duchess of Cornwall -- Camilla's new handle -- is less incendiary. And when (if?) Charles were to succeed his mama on the throne, Camilla will be the Princess Consort, not Queen Camilla. Just as Victoria's Albert was titled only the Prince Consort, much to the indignation of his Queen.

Nothing is here for grief, or indignation, or surprise. Charles's great-many-greats-grandfather married no fewer than six times. He, and the Church of England that he founded, deemed them all valid marriages and splendid weddings. And that old monster, Henry VIII, still comes top of polls for the most popular British monarch. So much for polls. So much for monarchs.

Mr. Howard is an editorial writer and columnist at the London Times.


P.S. Am I missing something here? Henry VIII was Tudor and Tudors were Welshmen. Prince Charles's father is a Greek (if I'm not mistaken) and his mother's a German.

James Taranto

'Sod Off, Swampy,' Says Cockney Barrow Boy Spiv

"When 35 Greenpeace protesters stormed the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) yesterday they had planned the operation in great detail," reports the Times of London:

What they were not prepared for was the post-prandial aggression of oil traders who kicked and punched them back on to the pavement.

"We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs," one protester said, rubbing his bruised skull. "I've never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view."

Another said: "I took on a Texan Swat team at Esso last year and they were angels compared with this lot." Behind him, on the balcony of the pub opposite the IPE, a bleary-eyed trader, pint in hand, yelled: "Sod off, Swampy."

"Greenpeace had hoped to paralyse oil trading at the exchange," the Times notes. It's pretty clear who the thugs are here, and it's not the Cockney barrow boy spivs.

It's a relief to know that Anglo-Saxon spirit is well and kicking:)

haha indeed it is Those Greenpeace losers were hopefully taught a lesson, but I doubt it. Their skulls are too dense to learn anything. They'll continue and will hopefully get the same treatment.

If they DO meet again, I wonder if my bookmaker will take odds on it? I know who I'm backing.

Winston Churchill:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. "

National Review

Wrong from Head to Toe
A ridiculous and ominous decision in Britain

THEODORE DALRYMPLE

In the long annals of judicial stupidity, there can rarely have been a more idiotic judgment than that recently given by Lord Justice Brooke of the British Court of Appeal. It reads like the suicide note not of a country alone, but of an entire civilization.

A young Muslim girl, Shabina Begum, who attended a state school in Luton, England, four-fifths of whose pupils were Muslim, started a legal battle when she was 13 to be allowed the jilbab, a form of dress that leaves only her face and hands exposed. She was almost certainly put up to this by her older brother, a supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Muslim party that seeks to establish a Muslim world state, that believes democracy is blasphemy, and that denies that the Western citizenship of Muslims is real or meaningful, or confers any privileges or imposes any duties.

The school in question had, in fact, worked out a dress code for Muslim girls that satisfied almost everyone. It was extremely accommodating: Various forms of modest dress were allowed, including certain types of scarf. But, after two years of accepting the dress code, Shabina Begum suddenly started to appear in her jilbab. The school demanded that she go home and change into a costume that accorded with the dress code, but she refused. Eventually she brought a case, supported and possibly funded by the Hizb ut-Tahrir, under the U.K.’s Human Rights Act. She claimed that the school was denying her right to an education.

She lost the case, and also an appeal, but won at the last hurdle. The Guardian reported that after her victory, she said she “could scream with happiness.”

When they heard of her victory, many Muslim women around the country must have wanted to scream with quite different emotions, despair and rage prominent among them. For Lord Justice Brooke’s ruling, that Shabina Begum’s human rights had been denied, and that she had been discriminated against illegally on religious grounds, displayed a complete and invincible ignorance of the social context of the case. Lord Justice Brooke saw no evil, heard no evil, and felt no evil. In effect, therefore, he was giving succor to those Muslim men who still abuse women in a medieval fashion.

Regardless of whether Shabina Begum acted in this case without duress and of her own free will, which seems to me highly unlikely given that the traditional place of Muslim women is not the public spotlight, the fact is that substantial numbers of young Muslim women are virtually enslaved in Britain; they grow up in what can only be called a totalitarian environment. I know this from what my patients have told me. They are not allowed out of the house except under escort, and sometimes not even then; they are allowed no mail or use of the telephone; they are not allowed to contradict a male member of the household, and are automatically subject to his wishes; it is regarded as quite legitimate to beat them if they disobey in the slightest. Their brothers are often quite willing to attack anyone who speaks to the women in any informal context. They are forced to wear modes of dress that they do not wish to wear. Their schooling is quite often deliberately interrupted, so that they are not infected by Western ideas of personal liberty; ambitious for a career, they are kept at home as prisoners and domestic slaves.

Worst of all are the forced marriages to which they are subjected. They are taken by their parents, often at a young age, “back” to Pakistan, where they are told that they are getting married, often to a first cousin. Their fathers regard their British passports with all the respect Hitler accorded to treaties. The young women have possession of their passports only fleetingly, as they pass through immigration. Thereafter, they are confiscated by the father and held as ransom against their good behavior, which in this, as in every other, instance means doing as they are told.

If by any chance they should object to their marriage, they are mercilessly beaten and in some cases killed. All the young women who are taken to Pakistan are aware of such cases: Like the shooting of Admiral Byng, such cases are committed pour encourager les autres. Very occasionally, the parents do not even transport the recalcitrant girls to Pakistan to kill them: They do it in England. Recently in the prison in which I work, I met a young man of Pakistani origin who was afraid of the other young men of Pakistani origin in the prison. Why? Because he had previously given important evidence in court in a case in which a girl who had refused to marry the husband selected for her by her parents was murdered by her father and brothers. The other young men of Pakistani origin thought the man who had testified was a traitor to their religion and culture; for in fact it is a religion and culture very convenient to the young men, whom it supplies with a domestic slave and mother of children while they can entertain themselves elsewhere. The whole evil system would break down if any of the young women were allowed their freedom, which is why the men must stick together. Like any form of totalitarianism, it is strong but brittle.

I have spoken to Muslims about this, and they tell me that what I am describing is customary or cultural practice, not a religious requirement. I am not scholar enough to know whether they are right, but it is certainly customary practice over a large area of the earth’s surface. And so long as this practice, be it religious or customary, is widespread, the word of no Muslim girl who claims to want to wear increasingly “modest” dress can be taken at her word, any more than a public figure in the USSR could have been taken as expressing his own personal opinion. If the judge was aware of this, he took no notice of it.

The Muslim Council of Britain welcomed the judge’s ruling as a victory for religious freedom (of precisely the kind that the Hizb ut-Tahrir is dedicated to destroying). Yet at other times, in order to deflect criticism that Muslim modes of dress are inherently degrading, insofar as they imply that all women are nothing but temptresses and men nothing but psychopaths at the mercy of their concupiscence, it would argue that extreme covering of the body is not religiously required — in other words, that the wearing of the jilbab (as against other forms of modest dress) is actually a matter of religious indifference. One is strongly reminded of Communist tactics: to denigrate and take advantage of freedom at the same time. And having seen that British society is so weak and unwilling to defend itself against an alien culture, the fanatics will next demand that girls at school be allowed on the grounds of religious freedom to cover themselves up even more.

The obvious point is this: No expressed desire by a child or young woman to wear traditional clothing such as the jilbab can be taken as arising from free choice — even if, in any given instance, it is the result of such a choice — because of the oppressive nature of the subculture. It is precisely this point that an Iranian woman, Chahdortt Djavann, an anthropologist now living in France, made in her short book about the meaning of the veil in Islam, Bas les voiles! She wrote not only from a theoretical or abstract point of view: She had lived the experience.

A singular feature of Shabina Begum’s case was the name of the advocate acting on her behalf: none other than Mrs. Tony Blair. She obviously thought the case a very important one, for she goes into court relatively rarely these days, having so many other things to do. Could the preservation, indeed encouragement, of the culture I have described matter so very much to Cherie Blair, then, and if so, why? Why would the prime minister’s wife act for a young woman known to be supported by Muslim fundamentalists?

Two days before the judgment was announced, a would-be shoe bomber pled guilty in England; he was described as “a quiet boy who took his religious beliefs very seriously.” And a junior minister in the government, Hazel Blears, said that Muslims might have been stopped and searched by police more often than other people because some terrorists were “falsely hiding behind Islam,” and that Muslims should understand this. These remarks were hardly calculated to endear the government to Muslim voters, and there is an election coming up. However tactfully Blears tried to express herself, to most Muslim ears it must have sounded as if the government were once again accusing them all of being terrorists, or at least of supporting terrorism. Unfortunately for the government, there are substantial numbers of Muslim voters, some in constituencies the government is not certain of winning.

How was the Blair government to reconcile two apparently opposite needs: the need to appear to be dealing with Muslim terrorism in a determined, vigorous, and efficient way, and the need to capture Muslim votes?

The answer was simple and elegant: get the prime minister’s wife to defend the Muslim male’s practice of abusing women, though of course in the guise acceptable to liberal voters of defending the human rights of the women themselves. The circle was squared. In other words, there has been a quid pro quo for all the extra police surveillance of Muslims that they are bound to find irksome and humiliating. Allow us to suspect and search you, says the government, and we in turn will allow you to abuse your women to your hearts’ content, free of our interference. The price of our reelection is forced marriages.

The Wall Street Journal

Every Man's Terrorist
March 15, 2005

One of the enduring mysteries post-September 11 has been the extent to which Gerry Adams has seemed to defy gravity in a world where one man's terrorist suddenly seemed to be, well, every man's terrorist. No longer. This Thursday marks the first Saint Patrick's Day since the mid-'90s that the leader of Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's "political" wing, will not be welcome at the White House, or anywhere else in official Washington for that matter.

Instead, President Bush will host the sisters and fiancee of the late Robert McCartney, a 33-year-old Northern Irish Catholic who was disemboweled in a Belfast bar in January. Such is the strength of the Rafia's (as the locals have taken to calling the IRA) code of omerta that none of more than 70 witnesses -- including two Sinn Fein political candidates -- have been willing to finger the killers.


The IRA is also the prime suspect in the largest ever bank heist in British history, a $50 million raid that occurred this past December as British Prime Minister Tony Blair made what appears to have been a last ditch offer to restart the deadlocked Northern Ireland Assembly. That Assembly is deadlocked, mind you, in part because Mr. Blair and then-President Clinton decided as part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that it would be a good idea to write its rules so that operations require the consent of parties (i.e., Sinn Fein) representing only a small minority of the vote. No body so represents the terror-appeasing spirit of the pre-9/11 age.

It's this criminality along with Sinn Fein's political intransigence that finally has the U.S., British and Irish governments all on the verge of writing off the so-called "peace process," and it's about time. Northern Ireland has always been a fully represented province of democratic Britain, an obvious fact always overlooked by the IRA's American sympathizers.

The IRA is composed not of oppressed Catholics but of common criminals and ideological leftists who have liaised and trained with virtually every major terror group, from various Palestinian factions to the Colombian FARC. Their biggest weapons supplier was Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. Over the decades they have killed in the neighborhood of 3,000 people, including multiple attempts on the lives of British prime ministers.

Yet Sinn Fein has been allowed to raise tens of millions of dollars (anonymously) in the U.S. since Mr. Clinton lifted the ban on the group in 1995. This year the Bush Administration has revoked that allowance along with Mr. Adams's White House pass. Also suddenly shunning Mr. Adams are longtime Congressional backers Ted Kennedy and Peter King. New York Representative King, a Republican, has been the single most shameless apologist for Sinn Fein, so if even he's criticizing Mr. Adams, times have changed.

Not to be stampeded, the Council on Foreign Relations hosted Mr. Adams as an honored guest yesterday. But at least the rest of the world is finally inching toward a position of moral clarity on the IRA/Sinn Fein. That's certainly worth a toast this Saint Paddy's day.

Was about time Ted Kennedy showed some balls and refused to associate with the likes of Gerry Adams. I've never understood why they (the IRA) elicit sympathy in certain quarters. They're terrorists and should be treated as such.

God knows why the likes of Adams and McGuinness even continue to exist anyway. Surely someone can arrange an "accident" for the pair of cretins? Shouldn't be hard, those Irish Republican types aren't known for their intelligence. I'd certainly arrange it if I was in a position to do so. At the very least it would spare the world of having to listen to Adams, who sounds like he's swallowed an awful lot of helium gas every time he talks.

Good on Mr Bush for revoking Adams' White House pass.

Marko

Quite simply, the IRA sometimes elicit sympathy because ultimately their cause was sympathetic, if not their means and ends.

I have to run right now, but will explain this more tomorrow. Mind you, I don't support the IRA at all and agree with their disenfranchisement. However, I also advocate true democratic reform in Northern Ireland, letting the chips fall where the people roll them.

Given that Catholics will be a demographic majority soon enough, we shall see how Protestant radicals accept this.

Yeah, that's what I've been thinking for so many years...

So I cannot help comparing two Presidents in this regard. Bill Clinton dined Yasser Arafat at the White House more than any other statesman visiting Washington and granted the bloodiest Irish terrorist legitimacy status.

George Bush pointedly refused to deal with the bloodiest Arab murderer and now shunned Gerry Adams.

No more comments are needed.

I'll let Irish Americans contributing money to the IRA for so many years to be ashamed of themselves.

Mate, cheers for your response. I too believe it's for the people of Northern Ireland to decide where their future lies, and as you say, the populace of the province is increasingly Catholic, thus it's only a matter of time before they decide their future is away from Great Britain.

That is all fair and good, but you don't see Welsh or Scottish people behaving like terrorists, and we probably have as much claim to independence as they do. It never pleased me to see the way Clinton received Adams, knowing what he'd done.

A terrorist is a terrorist IMO, no matter how people might try to dress them up. If we're going to win the war on terror, then we must denounce ALL terrorism, not just pick and choose.

I realise this works both ways btw, and that we must do better in assisting you in the fight against Arab fundamentalism. Some of the decisions reached lately in our courts have only appeased these people and their backward ways. You probably heard about the story in my cousin's hometown of Luton, which Leonid posted recently.

Marko & Leo...On European Whore Mongering

Read the following and you can understand my consernation and exasperation with the so called EU.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... scroatiaeu




BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Union delayed the start of entry talks with Croatia due to its failure to find a key war crimes suspect, ignoring Zagreb's insistent protests that it is already doing all it can.

Gotovina, a 49-year-old retired general, is considered a war hero by many Croatians but is wanted by the UN war crimes court for the alleged murder of at least 150 ethnic Serbs during the final stages of Croatia's 1991-95 war.

I especially was disappointed with Great Britain. Unfortunately, the British too seem to be increasingly affected by leftist technocratic considerations, undermining what was once a robust promotion of western democracy and free market opportunity. Read:

"I regret that the evidence is that Croatia has not cooperated as fully as we believe it should," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose country was one of the most firmly opposed to starting talks this week.

However, the silver lining here is that Croatians indeed are begining to see Europe as the assembly of whoring interests that it is:

But at the same time it is aware of polls showing anti-EU feeling stoked up in Croatia by the Gotovina affair, raising questions about its whole strategy of offering EU ties to the still fragile-Balkan region.

Fuck Europe. Croatia won a defensive war and now we are held at gun point to satisfy a Eurocratic tribunal that, in the promotion of some quasi-egalitarianism, would seek to morally equate the victims and aggressors. This is the same Europe that stood by impotently, even tacitly aiding and abetting, a campaign of genocide.

Mate, thanks for the article. I suppose the silver lining is that Croatia can always walk away and say "thanks but no thanks" to membership of the EU. I know Boye likes to think the EU is the best thing since sliced-bread but I'm positive Croatia could survive without it.

Strikes me that the UN are as bad as the EU in this instance, though. It's their war crimes court that wants Gotovina in the first place. It certainly does seem to be based on a bizarre "tit for tat" notion that both sides are somehow equally culpable and guilty, when as you say, Croatia were only fighting a defensive war. It smacks of Political Correctness and misplaced liberal ideas. To PC types, it's never as simple as one side being guilty, even when most of the time it actually IS.

Croatia should stand its ground on this, regardless of membership of the EU. I could not imagine American or British generals being tried after WW2 as they were doing the right thing. Croatia was also doing the right thing.

Marko

I have hopes that Croatia will respond so. We really don't need the EU/UN and their requisite socialist engineering bullshit. I like to think that enough Croatians have now tasted true freedom and aren't so willing to give it away. God knows we had enough trouble by experiencing 60 years of communism in a so called federated People's Republic of Yugoslavia.

Still, trust me, we have our own domestic parasitic socialist malcontents, who always want something for nothing, especially if it can be taken from the productive.

I simply am amazed at what is happening to Europe nowadays. I cannot believe much of the continent is buying into classic doublethink and doublespeak promising bread and butter, not guns and all that jazz. You know how it goes, to each according to his need, guided by an elite bueaurocracy whom have the best interests of the people in their hearts.

It is unreal what the European screams these days...especially when it comes to war crimes, be the topic Croatia in the Balkan wars or the US in Iraq.

Mate

If the EU were honest about it, it would have much easier time finding criminals in the highest echelons of power in Russia and Ukraine. Never mind Belarus, Moldova, the whole bunch of Central Asian petty dictators and Waffen-SS veterans celebrated officially in Baltic countries.

But of course getting a steady supply of Russian gas is all Herr Schroeder cares about.

No, I don't mean to say that our kid-glove treatment of Mr.Putin is exactly moral and serves our best interests.

Leo

You are absolutely correct in noting the hypocrisy of it all. Like their Israeli counterparts, Croatians are steadily learning lessons about hypocrisy versus altruism in policy.

You know I never accepted the submission of Croatian soldiers to Hague tribunals, to the point where I blamed a decrepit Croatian society for allowing it. However, I suppose even a society impacted by 60 years of communism, especially in the freedom of a newly found democracy, can only be pushed so far.

Stand by. For, by God, Croatians may indeed have found their soul.

We shall see.

The Spectator

Smarter than the Italians
Petronella Wyatt

Ask any European what he or she associates with the British and their answers may include beer, football, yobbishness, a troubled monarchy and slavish support for President Bush. One of the replies they will not give, however, is ‘cultural life’. For it is indubitably true that we have, fairly or unfairly, the reputation as the Thick Man of Europe.

Our newspapers continually reinforce this notion with lightweight features on ‘celebs’ and mock horror tales about how few schoolchildren know who won the Battle of Trafalgar or who took part in the Battle of Hastings. Worse still, we read, many adults believe Shakespeare fought Hitler. Now an even more shocking truth has been thrust upon us.

According to a new survey, commissioned in Italy, the ignorant British are more cultured than the natives of the homeland of Michelangelo and Verdi. Commissioned by the Touring Club Italiano (TCI), the survey’s findings include the startling fact that we British go to more serious concerts, films, plays, galleries, museums and libraries than the Italians: 34.3 per cent of Britons went to the opera, ballet or theatre last year compared with just 22.7 per cent of Italians. We even visit more ruins and monuments. Indeed, we score higher than Italy in every category except sport. Almost a third of us have visited a gallery or a museum in the past year, compared with barely 20 per cent of Italians.

All this is hardly to be believed. Can our dire education system really have produced a nation of cultured thinkers? And if so, whence comes our reputation for philistinism? It is part of our national temperament, of course, to run ourselves down. George Orwell and the Bloomsbury group were scathing in their assessment of the British intellect. Sir Thomas Beecham famously remarked that the English may not like music but they love the sound it makes. Yet as H.L. Mencken pointed out, most intellectuals and artists denigrate their countrymen. They see it as their role to provoke, insult and create controversy. They exist to challenge the complacent status quo.

On the other hand, could this survey be some sort of joke? I telephoned John Julius Norwich, the historian and fund-raiser for Venice. He assured me that the Touring Club Italiano was a distinguished organisation which is responsible for all the most detailed guide books on Italy. But could he give credence to the idea that the British are more cultured than the Italians? Surprisingly, he could. ‘I’m always amazed by the number of well-dressed Italians I see in first-class train compartments reading comic strips,’ he told me.

This is not to deny that Italy is abnormally rich in culture, but it appears Italians care little for it. One of the few organisations dedicated to restoration in Italy is Fondo per l’Ambiente Italia, founded in 1975. But many people, including Guido Venturini, the director-general of TCI, argue it was all too little, too late. ‘We are sitting in the most beautiful country in the world, but the Italians appear to be wholly unaware of it.’ There is no equivalent of the National Trust. As Lord Norwich points out, Italy’s preservation bodies do not own their properties ‘which makes it difficult to make long-term plans about restoration’. Nor do they have the money. The Italians are now appealing for foreign funds to excavate artefacts buried under the ash at Heraculaneum.

So why are we British regarded as stupid? Lord Norwich believes that the British reputation for philistinism derives from the fact that most of the English tourists Europeans see are football hooligans. ‘We are the worst ambassadors for our country, when actually we do go to more museums.’ He adds, ‘Our middle classes are generally cultured. You follow your parents and your grandparents.’

This is borne out by David McNeill of the Arts Council. ‘There is a perception that we are uncultured. But it is a myth,’ he insists. ‘There is increasing participation in the arts in this country. Gallery and theatre attendences are rising. They are on the up all the time. The British are also much more open to new things.’

Since 2001 four out of five people have attended at least one arts event, compared with two out of five in Italy. Christopher Millard, the director of communications at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, points out that 326,000 people attended the opera or ballet last year. He also points to the huge success of country house opera — not only Glyndebourne, but Garsington and Grange Park.

John Allison, the editor of Opera magazine, believes Italy is going through ‘a cultural trough, Berlusconi-style’. The Royal Opera House puts on more performances than La Scala. During the 1960s Harold Wilson’s subsidising of the arts made opera a popular art form with every socio-economic class. Then there was the great opera revival of the 1980s, fuelled by a rapidly growing economy. Regional companies like Opera North and the Welsh National Opera have enjoyed a remarkable success. Outside London there is a real cultural interest in the art form, which is strangely lacking in its birthplace.

One of the foremost historians of Italy, Denis Mack Smith, believes the Italians often take their culture for granted and are ‘less educated musically than the English’. Italy’s cultural consumption is falling dramatically and is a source of concern to many Italians. Part of the problem is that Italy’s stagnant economy has caused the government to cut art subsidies to a lower level than those in Britain. Yet that is not the only reason. After the death of Puccini in 1924, many opera houses were turned into cinemas. Good films were made by Visconti, Fellini and De Sica, but Italy never created a home-grown cinematic industry. Thus the staple cinematic diet was poor Hollywood fare. More and more opera houses closed as the population turned to pop music, television and football.

Now Italians are more likely to burn down their opera houses than visit them. The destruction of La Fenice in Venice was found to be arson. The government pledged to rebuild this jewel by 2000. It failed. Other than La Scala there are 13 subsidised opera houses — the financing of which Berlusconi intends to stop. They remain dark most nights of the year, while monuments and museums are left to crumble or are turned into fast-food outlets. Not since the Renaissance have the Italians been in the cultural forefront. Cicero and his peers would not recognise the modern Romans — who are not their descendants, in any case, but the descendants of barbarians and slaves who overran an empire. They are more interested in cutting a bella figura in a new suit or a flashy car than listening to bel canto.

We British, meanwhile, read 15 per cent more books than the Italians and buy 22 per cent more classical CDs. (There is no Italian Classic FM.) Lord Norwich believes this is partly due to the proliferation of regional universities, there are 50 per cent more here than in Italy. David McNeill believes we are no longer ‘nervous about culture’. He adds that the British have been ‘too hard on ourselves and we have the tendency to take the mick out of pretension. Yet the barriers are being eroded all the time.’

But is it the case that the British have for centuries been more cultivated than our European rivals, especially the French, give us credit for? Roy Porter’s book The Enlightenment, published in 2000, claims that the British have always had their thinking caps on. In the 18th century, the British avant-garde was admired not only at home but abroad. Nor did Britain constitute a network of persecuted rebels or underground authors, as in France and Germany. Our contribution to the Enlightenment was immense, fuelled by the thoughts of such men as Newton, Hobbes, Locke, Burke, Hume, Hutton and, later, Jeremy Bentham. Not for nothing did Dr Johnson call the period ‘an age of authors’.

Culture flourished partly because formal censorship in Britain had ceased in 1695. Ambrose Philips’s magazine the Free-Thinker was launched in 1718. The French philosophes looked to us as the birthplace of contemporary culture. Voltaire in his Lettres saluted England as a ‘nation of philosophers’. Francis Bacon was the prophet of modern science, Newton had revealed the laws of the universe, Locke had demolished Descartes and rebuilt philosophy. Later, Diderot remarked, ‘In England, philosophers are honoured, respected, they rise to public offices, they are buried with kings.... In France warrants are issued against them.’

A constitutional monarchy and increasing social mobility contributed to the dissemination of culture. England in the 18th and 19th centuries experienced profound population growth, urbanisation and a commercial revolution marked by rising disposable income. Foreigners were astounded to see how the ‘quality’ mingled with the rest at places like Vauxhall and St James’s Park. The Abbé Prevost marvelled at the coffee-houses, which he called ‘the seats of English liberty and thought’. London had ten times more coffee houses than Vienna and more clubs for the cultured middle classes — such as Johnson’s Literary Club — than any other European nation. We also built more theatres and more art galleries. Founded in 1769, the Royal Academy held annual exhibitions whose appeal was enormous: 1,680 visitors jammed into Somerset House one Friday in 1769 for the RA show. In 1753, the British Museum was the first public museum in Europe intended for the use of the masses.

Nor should we forget the role of the rise in print culture. Between 1660 and 1800 over 300,000 pamphlets and book titles were published. Even the poor country people, commented James Lackington in the 1790s, ‘shorten the winter nights’ by reading Fielding and Richardson. The annual total sale of newspapers in 1801 had reached 16 million. Increase in general prosperity buoyed up the market and helped the spread of British literacy.

We must not ignore the part played, however, by the maligned English aristocrat, usually portrayed as a buffoon who preferred claret and horses to art. The British upper classes were, in fact, the best-travelled in Europe. Some, surprisingly, went abroad specifically to hear opera. In 1733 Earl Stanhope wrote from Milan, ‘Opera is the chief entertainment of all English strangers here.’

Sir Francis Dashwood, builder of one of the finest Palladian houses in England, was moved to form the Dilettante Society for the discussion of culture. Sir William Hamilton’s art collection was one of finest in Europe. Most Canaletto views of Venice were bought up by the British — among them, those now at Woburn.

It is an irony, therefore, that it is Italy that should have commissioned this survey of European culture, and an even greater irony that the country of blue-painted savages it once subjugated should come out on top. It might also have the added advantage of silencing the French un peu. The Italian embassy in London, incidentally, declined to comment. No one there even knows the name of one of their country’s cultural bodies. A case of finita la musica?

Tessa Jowell has reached a deal with the Tories to save the Gambling Bill agreeing to the creation of one regional "super casino" and not eight.

The location of the new casino will be decided by an independent panel, although the Tories say it should be a resort like Blackpool....blah blah, rest of article on BBC website..

God this really annoys me. What's happened to the Tories? IF there is a demand (which there surely must be given how many people bet on football and the horses), then have as many "super casinos" as the market desires.

Obviously the Lib Dems didn't want any at all, but that's par for the course with them. Our casinos are sturgid and outdated when compared to other countries. Large casinos make a lot of money, provide some nice jobs; I really cannot see the problem? Hotels could even be built on site to make even more.

It's a minor issue, I know, but it really pisses me off to see people blocking progress. At least the silly incitement to religious hatred thing looks likely to be dropped. I wouldn't mind, as religious hatred is not good, but that was only devised to appease Muslims, not Jewish people, Sikhs, Christians etc.

And now for something completely different....

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Bah! I make tangential comments, Bineaz :P Was still related to the thread in hand though..

What's Richard Littlejohn doing writing for The Spectator???! That guy is a vindictive little cretin who I recall used to write for the Daily Mail (don't know if he still does). I hope he's not a regular columnist. I enjoy reading that publication.

Any other British citizens here? Who the hell to vote for in the election? I don't think I've been so disillusioned with our politics for a long while. I could still form a cabinet from the best politicans from various parties (Letwin and Johnson are the only Tories I like nowadays), but I can't think of a sole party who I could possibly support at this given moment.

It was all so easy to make a choice in the 80s and early-mid 90s, but I couldn't vote then :P

Decent blog i found while looking at a few American blogs: http://ukcommentators.blogspot.com/

I can't think of a sole party who I could possibly support at this given moment

So find the party that is the lesser evil.

I only keep a half eye on British politics, but although I supported Blair's New Labour programme to begin with, my support for this election would go to the Lib Dems. That said, with this first-past-the-post system of yours, I would consider voting Labour for tactical reasons if I was in a constituency where the Tories are strong and Labour are their main opposition.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=5979&page=1

Good article but a disgusting idea that certain academics have to hold an "academic boycott of Israel". In fact, when I first read about the idea I thought it was some kinda joke, couldn't take it seriously because it's so despicable and insane.

If this was against Muslims, or anyone else, there would be complete outrage. Shameful.

The Conservatives are the "lesser evil" in my opinion, Boye. Parties like the Lib Dems penalise people for doing well; that's not my way of thinking and never will be. That 50% tax rate is pure theft.

However, bearing in mind the sheer ineptitude of the senior figures in the current Conservative party, I cannot bring myself to vote for anything. I agree with UKIP on the EU, but I'd never vote for them as they don't really have any other policies worthy of discussion and do sound a little racist at times.

As for New Labour, Blair is probably not going to serve a full third-term, and thus Brown would be PM in a few years. Absolutely no way can I vote for someone like Brown. I cannot imagine for a second why anyone would. He's old Labour through and through; something I thought we'd long gotten rid of.

Let's suppose Tories win, which I think is very unlikely to happen. Would be interesting to see how they would patch up their relations with the White House.

P.S. Lib Dems - marginal folks, who due to certain circumstances became slightly more than marginal, but will return to their well-deserved obscurity soon enough.

Marko

We've got our own share of the leftist scum in the academia who're terrorists' useful idiots. Fortunately, they aren't as influential as in Europe, yet well worth keeping our collective eye on them, for such people usually gain influence while good people don't bother.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

The election is about Gordon Brown or not Gordon Brown, if we thought Anthony Blair was bad Gordon Brown will look like a Scandinavian Social Democrat. It would be sad indeed if Europes only decent country became just another welfare fascist state.

The roads to serfdom

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_2_oh_to_be.html

The Classics in the Slums

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_4_u ... ssics.html

Excellent articles and very enjoyable reading, Leo. Thank you.

With regard to the latter article, I can certainly relate to that. I had a mixed education (both private and state) and the difference was so marked that by the time I finished High School (comprehensive state school at that time), I felt compelled and inclined to read a lot more for myself because I didn't believe they were doing a great job in educating their students.

In fact, I've learned a lot more myself than I ever did in THAT school. Christ, I can remember the reaction I got when I told a few classmates I enjoy Beethoven ) You'd have thought I was a serial killer or something equally evil. I would not send my own children to one of our state schools in the current climate.

This whole dumbing-down nonsense has concerned me for quite some time. I always thought that "leftists" were supposed to treat everyone equally, but they are sometimes more snobbish than anyone I have ever encountered. It's patronising to think that people from poorer backgrounds would not be interested in the same things everyone else is.

Alas, these kind of attitudes manifest themselves on this very forum with regard to EU issues like the constitution. Apparently, people are so ignorant they shouldn't even be able to vote on it. I know many people who don't really get involved with politics or even follow it. Perhaps they shouldn't be able to vote in general elections either? Perhaps we should just leave it to those in politics, those who apparently "know best"?

I can see where we're heading with such arrogant beliefs.

Mark:

The Conservatives are the "lesser evil" in my opinion, Boye.

OK, so don't vote then. ;)

Crazy people

The BNP has launched its election manifesto. In it, the BNP pledges to abolish multiculturalism, bring troops home from Iraq to patrol Dover and the Channel Tunnel instead, and oblige everyone to go through a national service after which they will be required to keep a rifle in their home to shoot burglars, foreign invaders and tyrannical government.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ ... 476279.stm