Cllr. Gavin Ayling

The BBC and ITV have been accused of attempting to stymie political debate. They objected to part of the content of this video by the Christian Choice Mayoral candidate about a mosque in London:

Now, watch the first half of that video (and don’t get suckered in — religion and politics are separate things and I cannot condone the Christian parties that are united behind this candidate) and tell me whether you see anything offensive. I don’t.

Now, back on message:

Vote Boris in London
Vote Kennard in Buckingham Ward
Vote Conservative in Adur

He may not be a nice man, he may even be a terrorist. But if he is, lets prove it in court. And if we won’t prove it in court, bloody release him.

I feel sick just thinking about how complacent the British have become.

Some of my friends tell me that the incremental steps towards a facist state that V for Vendetta so excellently illustrated, is my imagination run away with me.

So why does the law now stop Chris Eubank from behaving as he wishes (harming no-one) and resulting in a warrant issue for his arrest?

When will it be time to resist these steady erosions of our… Well, I was going to say liberty, but that is now definitely gone.

Diego Garcia is an island in the Indian Ocean claimed by Mauritius, ‘owned’ by the United Kingdom and leased to the United States.

When the UK gave independence to Mauritius in 1968, Diego Garcia was not included in the group of islands that was granted that independence. However, worse than that, the formerly-inhabited, islands were purged of their people.

This is clearly morally wrong, but now that they have been allowed to reside in the UK, we’re refusing to treat them as British citizens! Surely, having committed such an atrocity, we should (as a caring, compassionate and just nation) be bending over backwards to make the rest of their lives better.

Wandering slightly off topic, it has long been my belief that victims of miscarriages of justice — those people who are not just found to have ‘unsafe’ convictions, but those people who are fully acquitted — should be given more than enough money to live on for the rest of their lives. If you have had your liberty taken, potentially other horrendous things happen to you, you should not then be required to return to the grindstone and continue to pay taxes to the state that wronged you so heinously.

Staggering back to the topic in hand, this is far more sinister than a miscarriage of justice; this is a meditated act by the State and should be resolved with humility, generousity and apology. Act Mr Brown, act like a liberal rather than a left-wing facist.

Instead, we are denying these people the basic rights a citizen is afforded by other taxpayers: benefits. See today’s BBC News article on the Diego Garcians.

I was described, not inaccurately I believe, as a right-wing anarchist last night.

But what’s so wrong with that? I believe that the law should provide protection for people from the cruel twists of fate that life brings and from those members of society who do not act with consideration for others — to use religious parlance those who do not “treat others as they would wish to be treated”.

And that should be the end of it.

If I want to drive without a seat belt and potentially injure myself, if I want to take mind altering drugs in the privacy of my own home, if I want to do anything at all that harms no-one else, I should be allowed.

And who would object? Actually, the answer is surprising to my naive mind!

There are several groups of people who would object. There are those Tories who supported Section 28, the Road Traffic Act 1991 and the Single European Act. There are those socialists who believe in positive discrimination, redistribution of wealth and behaviour modification (state-funded anti-smoking adverts for example).

But worst of all are the so-called ‘centrists’. These people believe that because there are large-ish numbers of people on the ‘right’ and ‘left’ of them that they represent some form of better political ideology. Of course, they are wrong.

There is nothing admirable about sitting on a fence but when the fence means that you believe in ‘modest’ redistribution of wealth, ‘minor’ racist treatment of the indigenous population and when you believe only in legislating in behaviour management some of the time you are not helping anyone. Small steps towards a police state are worse than large steps because people notice them less. Being between a clear, well thought through ideology of socialist equality and the clear, well thought through (and superior) ideology of libertarianism (classical liberalism or right-wing anarchy — call it what you will), then you are standing for nothing at all.

For once I am ranting about political ideology without complaining about religion in politics. And I think this is not because religion in politics has become less of a problem (as Cllr. Eade well knows), but because right now our political leaders are being made aware, through polls, that policy-theft is no longer to be tolerated.

Policy-theft is a symptom of being ‘centrist’. You cannot hold a clear, respectable ideolological position and find any benefit in the opposition’s policies. The truth is, if you feel able to steal policies (or believe it is likely your policies could be stolen, actually) then you’re not sticking to your ideology and, by default, you are suffocating democratic choice.

Say 50% of people want a government that does not interfere, does not impose behaviour-modifying legislation and does not support so-called ‘good racism’, who should those people choose? A-list Cameron? Ethnic-training-programmes Brown? God-forbid Mr Campbell?

If we want to have a healthy democracy then we need fewer people to vote ‘the way their Dad did’, more people to be adventurous in their voting, and more people to care what the politicians do with their vote. And this from a people’s representative.

But the blame is not only the electorate’s. It’s massively the media’s fault obviously, but it is mostly the fluff-spined politicians. Stand up for what you believe in, and stand for election on that too. Don’t change your opinions because there’s been a change in leader, and don’t change your opinions as a result of opinion polls. Please.

Okay, so two things tonight would cause me to be described as a bigot. One will remain a wink between me and one new reader who I believe may be reading this tonight.

The second is in our next Housing and Central Services Committee (HCSC) Agenda (Item 8). By the way, here’s the HCSC minutes and agenda index.

Okay, so before we read it (like you were going to!), let’s discuss some background.

There are two types of racist in my humble opinion:

There is the stereotype (who is hard to find, actually) who believes that black people are inferior, that they shouldn’t be employed if they come to an interview, that they should not be allowed to use the same buses etc, etc. Let us call them ‘old Tories’.

Then there is the more common type: the do-gooder. They say “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you are less able to obtain training than a white person” or “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you need more careful treatment” or “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you must need help speaking English” (Hands up those who thought I should have copied and pasted some of that.). Let us call this, more common and thoroughly more underhand and manipulative racist ’socialists’.

So socialists (read Ken Livingstone or the person who introduced the legislation allowing this) are the ones responsible for some of the measures that our Council must make.

In Item 8, then, there is a survey of Council Tenants in Adur District Council. Apparently ‘ethnic minorities’ (you know, the ones the socialists believe are less intelligent) answered the survey differently to white people. Just to be clear an ethnic minority can only be non-white — the proper definition of the type of respondent the government required us to identify is “black and ethnic minorities (BEM) (excluding white minorities)”.

Scroll to the last page and you will find the bit that has got my goat. This is the ‘Action Plan’ as a result of the survey’s findings:

Black Minority and Ethnic groups are less satisfied with opportunities for involvement in management and decision making. Action – further investigation is required and efforts made to include members of BME groups in tenant participation.

So, basically, a statistical anomaly that should never have been measured throws up something vaguely interesting and the answer is to ’solve it’? Erm no.

I am quite sure no-one is sending letters to white tenants only. I am quite sure no-one is turning black people away when they offer to participate. And even if they were, I’m positive a survey is not the best way to find that out!

To put it to a test I telephoned a tame ‘ethnic minority’ and asked them what they thought.

Warning, the next paragraph contains swearing that is necessary because it is a verbatim quote. If you don’t like it, skip it, okay?

When asked whether we should do this the tame (tame because socialists tell me they are less intelligent etc.) EM said “Why are we collecting that information? Like anyone gives a shit.”

And why did I quote an EM? Because in this ultra PC (but we took their great, great, great grandfather’s land to grow sugar plantations on, sob) modern era, I couldn’t say that myself without being described as an ‘old Tory’. And let’s be honest, if I was one of those, how could I have tamed that stupid (the socialist’s intimation, not mine) EM in the first place?

I have a frequent debate with one particular person about large companies. Her argument is that where they behave in an unethical way or in a way which, were it an individual, would be illegal, they should be rebuked somehow (our discussions never extend to what form that rebuke should take).

And now the Trade Unions, having failed at ruining domestic businesses thanks mostly to Mrs Thatcher (for all her social-engineering faults) are going to try to destroy multinationals instead in a new form of traditional socialism: TUC on multinational businesses.

But I remain confused by this attitude. The trade unions, even now domestically, believe that in private companies where there is genuine competition (and not oligopolies) direct action is a reasonable response to poor behaviour by companies. Surely, actually, companies are the greatest examples of genuine free democracy? Information about publicly listed companies is available to all and, just like Acts of Parliament or decisions made at local government, the people do not read them — they have better things to be doing. But they have access.

So, when people choose to shop at Evil Corp. plc, they are choosing to support exactly what that company is doing. When people boycotted Nestle in the mid-90s, they were reacting, democratically, to what they considered unacceptable behaviour by that company. I am proud to admit I joined in with that boycott and evangelised too.

Trying to react, from within, and unilaterally against a company (as Trade Unions might) is to defeat the general will of the buying public who are exercising their democractic beliefs. Much like terrorism or violent protest (as opposed to civil disobedience, voting and peaceful protest) trade union action is a disproportionate response against what the majority want. And, hopefully, the tyranny of the majority will be avoided by the twin impactors of minor intervention by the State (regulation) and the empathy of that majority acting in the interests of all.

I was appalled, incidentally, to read in Scientific American a while ago (and it came back to me as I wrote today) an article which stated as fact that pure libertarianism was an outdated and simply wrong ideology. I intend to tell you not only why it is not wrong, but also what impact it has on speed limits, in a future post. Please keep comments related to speed limits for that post.