HOOD ROBIN

There has been a view that the credit crunch has done wonders for Gordon Brown’s standing with the public and this was temporarily reflected in Labour’s standing in the opinion polls. It appeared that they might regain sufficient support that they could even win the next election - especially given all the vote rigging tricks they have pulled.

Labour at some stage in the 1990s decided to develop Marx’s concept of false consciousness and rely upon spin. Solving a problem was not the issue, convincing the public that the problem was being solved was all that mattered. Whether the problem was actually being solved or not was irrelevant. Managing the news headlines were all that counted and the Labour spin machine concentrated on that with policy gimmicks and spin.

Labours’ attempt to con the public with a £20billion giveaway package, the centrepiece of which was a piffling 2.5% cut in VAT - albeit costing the taxpayer £12billion - to lure shoppers into spending once again. Plain commonsense, it seems, played no part in Labour’s economic policymaking. When prices are being slashed by 20% and more already, then what relevance is another 2.5% cut in prices - even assuming the cut is actually passed on.

This £20billion package comes at the same time as Labour is showering £100billions on the same greedy bankers who are responsible for the economic crisis. Labour’s largesse towards these bankers has simply allowed them to increase their profit margins. Interest base rate cuts are not being passed on and mortgage rates are actually increasing. One rule for the bankers and another for everyone else. The banks can call in overdrafts with only a few hours notice, before appointing receivers. Neither they nor the receivers can be sued for negligence. They have their own special judges [often those who have been employed by them as barristers], who are very helpful in ensuring that they remain above the law.

The wave of closures and redundancies which we are now experiencing is in contrast to the never-ending expansion of the growth of the quangos. The quangocrats enjoy high salaries and inflation proof pensions unavailable to the taxpayers who have to fund all these non-jobs.

Meanwhile, the looming tidal wave of tax increases and government debt [forecast to reach £1trillion] is there for all to see.

The 2.5% cut in VAT is the gimmick that will cost Labour the next general election.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH [bonus]

'Given a choice in the matter (which I am not), I would rather have my descendants educated by someone who professes to have a soft spot for people of British descent and ancestral origins than by a supercillious, sanctimonious, incongruously God-denying, history-rewriting, mass media-manipulating, illiberal elitist, international socialist armchair agitator who has devoted his/her entire adult life to the destruction of the British nation state from within.'

A letter to the Daily Mail.

And well said for him!

IMMIGRATION

Below is an article published on eurofacts in May [this refers to the EU, but is just as applicable to Labour]:

Demography is destiny: why mass immigration assists the European project

In seeking to vary the continent's demographic make-up in pursuit of power the architects of the new political order are following in well-trodden footsteps

Anthony Scholefield, a valued contributor to these columns, recently caused an embarrassed silence and a stiffening of the intellectual muscles when speaking at a London seminar on immigration. The remark which produced the chorus of in-drawn breaths was to the effect that the EU had a similar interest in managing large-scale movements of population to Hitler and Stalin.

Scholefield was not, of course, suggesting that Mr Barroso is as brutal or inhumane as the German and Russian dictators or that he displays an identical caste of totalitarian mind.

Political Order

His argument was that all rising political orders have an interest in managing demographic change because democracy is the ultimate determinant of the political order. In the words of August Comte: "Demography is Destiny".

In Scholefield's view the long term objective of EU policy is clean a uniform political order and a generation of loyal Homo Europeanus. Residual national loyalties will be allowed to survive: it will still be possible to drink beer in pint mugs and to run the mile, although the potency of such cultural symbols of identity will fade. But power will have moved away from the ordinary voter and from national politicians.

All rising political orders have taken an interest in the demographic realities of their day. It is the natural pre¬occupation for those bent on establishing and maintaining a political order.

As an unpublished paper by Scholefield points out, the Romans famously settled demobilised legionnaires with land holdings in frontier areas in order to stiffen their defences. The Protestant plantations in Ireland, the movement of the French Acadians to Louisiana after 1763, the arrival of British settlers in the Eastern Cape in the 1820s are all examples of emerging empires which sought to establish themselves by changing the demographics.

In the eighteenth century the Austrian empire was busy settling its 'military frontier' in Croatia with loyal Catholics while the Russian Empire was filling up the lands conquered from the Muslim Khans with ethnic Russians. In the nineteenth century the pace of Russian and Christian Balkan expansion pushed back the Ottomans from a large part of Eastern Europe.

China's policy in Tibet and Sinkiang in modern times follows the precedents of the European empires. Unnoticed by the world, there is a similar, flow of Indian nationals from the Ganges valley into the immense tribal areas of North Eastern India - nor has this been without conflict in Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur.

National Identity

The biggest demographic re-organisation to have occurred outside the USSR in recent times was, of course, the mass movement carried out by the Allies at the end of the Second World War, the last gasp of Wilsonian and Lloyd Georgian national identity politics.

In this case, the national identity basis of the nation state required demographic change, as outlined by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, 15th December 1944:

"The transference of several millions of people would have to be effected from the east to the west or the north, and the expulsion of the Germans, because that is what is proposed - the total expulsion of the Germans - from the areas to be acquired by Poland in the west and the north. For expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting".

He then commended the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey after 1923.

The Potsdam Declaration stated, "The three governments recognise that the transfer to Germany of German populations, or elements thereof, remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have to be undertaken. They agree any transfers that take place should be affected in an orderly and humane manner". In fact, it is thought that at least hundreds of thousands of Germans died as a result of this policy - a policy of removing all Germans, not only those who were considered hostile. Of course, many Germans had, indeed, committed crimes in these countries but it is a fact that this mass expulsion was widely welcomed and no politician from any party in Britain dissented during the 1944-1946 period.

Necessary Sacrifice

Most people who contemplate Europe's political future are more concerned about the mass transfer of Muslim people into Europe than about terrorist threats. Terrorism is a nuisance and has the power to shock but it can only become a potential major threat if the terrorists obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. The steady build-up of a minority clearly at odds with its host culture is far more significant and a far more intractable challenge to the national identity in the long term. This is, of course, not a problem when seen through EU eyes. Any weakening of national identity is a necessary sacrifice.

When Mr Barroso declared: "Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire", British politicians expressed indignation and some even demanded retractions. But his words were entirely apt.

The main instrument in the creation of the new order is the 'free movement of people', a policy usually enunciated with misty-eyes by europhiles while its presumed economic benefits have been accepted even by eurosceptics.

The idea of free movement of persons surfaced in the Treaty of Rome as a means to allow EU-native workers to work outside their native EU countries. It has now been massively extended, not only by conferring 'rights' on intra-EU movement but also by widening the benefits to include the right to start businesses, and the right to study at the British taxpayers' expense. Nevertheless, the number of these movements is still quite small in relation to the total EU population.

The EU believes that those EU nationals who work or study in their non-native country are likely to be supportive of the EU political order -and the more of them the better. A new idea has now taken hold among EU policy makers which is that immigrants from outside the EU will become special supporters of the EU ideas as they will have no conflicting national loyalty. So Barroso is now proposing an intake of twenty million workers (plus dependents) with the right to 'circular migration', that is to move freely from one EU country to another. If the nations of the EU are not changing into Homo Europeanus fast enough, ready-made imports will accelerate the process.

Lack of Policy

Demography is destiny and if the firm intention is to establish a political order a demographic policy is vital. Britain's lack of policy in relation to the inflows and outflows of population shows that the political elite regards demographic destiny as less important than 'human rights' and the needs of business for low-paid labour; this in turn is evidence that it has already surrendered real political power to the emerging political order, and no maidenly aversion of eurosceptic eyes can conceal this.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

'This non-stop recruitment drive at our expense has gone through a number of different phases. There was the great Aids scare, when no self-respecting council could bear to be without an army of HIV prevention workers. At one stage, I worked out there were more people in Britain earning a good living from Aids than were actually dying from it.

That was followed by the crazy multiculturalism obsession, which could be satisfied only by hiring thousands of equality and diversity commissars.

Today's driving force is the great global warming scam, entailing the recruitment of legions of eco-warriers and enviro-crime fighters, on salaries commensurate with their self-righteousness.

In between, we've had such lunacy as real nappy co-ordinators, tasked with encouraging women to use washable nappies instead of disposable - until someone worked out that all the detergent being used to wash dirty nappies was actually doing more harm to the environment than throwing them away.

The NHS is just as bad. For every doctor, nurse and ancillary worker doing a valuable job, there's a supernumerary cluttering up the offices. I've written about all sorts over the years - from condom commandos to advisers hired to address the very special needs of gay alcoholics.

In yesterday's Guardian, for instance, Nottinghamshire NHS was advertising for an assistant director of equality and human rights, salary up to £77,179 a year.

"Acting as our champions on equality, diversity and human rights, you will work in collaboration with our external partners to develop and co-ordinate strategic policies." After that, I lost the will to live.

But you have to ask why the NHS needs equalities and human rights "champions". We're talking about the NHS, not the United Nations. All most of us want from the health service is easy access to a GP and a dentist and fulfilment of the reasonable expectation that in the event of our having to go into hospital for a routine operation, we won't die from a superbug we have contracted on the ward.

Barnet Council, in North London, is desperately seeking a Head of Internal Audit and Ethical Governance, on £80,000 a year, plus the usual perks. How on earth have they managed without one all these years?

Back in Nottingham, the police are looking for a Performance, Partnership and Business Development Manager, just shy of £40,000 a year. The successful applicant will be responsible for "delivery of programme capabilities and business results and strategic development of a comprehensive ..." You get the gist.

Now you know what happens to all the money they save closing down police stations and taking policemen off the beat.

These are just three examples of utterly unnecessary spending on jobs which didn't exist until now and serve no real purpose. That's the point about most of the adverts in the Guardian - they're all new positions.

It's not just the social workers' bible either. Local papers are full of these recruitment ads every week. I could fill my column with daft job titles sent to me by exasperated readers, dismayed at the cavalier fashion in which their council taxes are frittered away.

None of these new public servants is providing anything most people would remotely consider to be a public service. Local government, in particular, is increasingly a conspiracy against the paying public, extracting ever more taxes in exchange for an ever-worsening level of provision.

They're more interested in dreaming up exciting new rules, fines and punishments and finding elaborate excuses for not doing what we pay them for - such as emptying the dustbins once a week.

Only this week, we learned that Guildford Council, in Surrey, is threatening to close down burger vans which don't offer "healthy eating options". What gives them the right to do that? It's none of their damn business what people eat.

Time was that I used to fun with some of the more insane jobs - lesbian self-defence instructors, transgender policy co-ordinators, nuclear-free zone inspectors.

Now I tend towards rage when the Guardian drops on the doormat, its news pages bringing more gloom about job losses in the private sector on page one, while the recruitment section promises a paradise of gold-plated, recession-proof public sector employment opportunities.'

Richard Littlejohn, writing in the Daily Mail.