One chapter of the book covered specifically the affect of society on the accepted morality of the time. One example he gave was a quote of Abraham Lincoln.

Before I share it with you though, I should point out the parallels that observers are making between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln (even before he takes office tomorrow!).

But if a parallel is to be drawn we should be careful of viewing historical figures through rose-tinted glasses:

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything.”

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that Lincoln didn’t do some great things for the slaves of America, and I’m not suggesting he was anything but a moral man by his day’s standards, but we must know the person before we can claim to be following in his footsteps (not that Obama is).

I hope Obama lives up to America’s, and the world’s, hopes. But I hope he is a moral man by today’s judgement, and not moral as Lincoln would be judged by today’s standards!

Howe had written that the election of Johnson might trigger a mass exodus of older African-Caribbean migrants back to the West Indies.
Wadsworth wrote on his blog that McGrath responded: “Well, let them go if they don’t like it here.”

How sensitive we have become. It is not racist to respond to a particular question in this way. Would it be considered racist if a Labour Minister had responded to questions about the net emmigration of people born in the UK to places like France and Spain “well let them go”? I imagine such a conversation has been had, and I cannot believe anyone would get upset about it.

I respect Johnson very much, but he should have stood by his man; otherwise we are all at risk for making innocuous and non-racist comments.

If people who immigrated then choose to emmigrate because of the result of a democratic election, that’s not really the business of the electee. Especially one who has made it clear he is working for all Londoners.

I believe we should always attempt to reverse all aspects of a proposition to decide whether or not it is fair. And if the colour of the people, or the direction of flow were reversed, there would be no accusation of racism. None.

It is particularly concerning as an atheist because it appears that the security services are not arresting people based upon their religious beliefs or lack thereof.

To understand my point here, see this BBC News article.

The poisoned mind of the majority of the population is not fueled by we-are-the-victim whining, but by getting on with it and, when appropriate, condemning the actions of those who share the same religion (in whose name attrocities are being committed in this country).

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?

BBC News

When will the Tories start being the party of merit?

Why is this message considered too sensitive?

I have known for a couple of years that the government doesn’t give free training to white people (only to ‘ethnic minorities’). I wrote to the lady in charge of the free training a while ago and published the answers here.
But it seems it now goes further than the cost of training, now it extends to the provision of training at all according to This is London.
David Cameron’s walking a dangerous tightrope between public opinion, the leftwing media and his party — I understand that. But when will he say that things like that article are wrong?

Suicide bombers, assuming they’ve got it right, are at least assured a quick death. But apparently one of the ‘South Asian’ chaps who attempted to attack Glasgow airport lit himself on fire before attempting to access the terminal.

Absolute madness.

I am not reassured, either, by the apparent good luck (from our point of view) and incompetence (from the would-be murderers’ point of view) as these are learning exercises.

Finally, if anyone says “Community Relations” again I will scream.

Message to stupid people: People with brown skin are not terrorists or even necessarily Islamic or sympathetic to terrorists.
Message to everyone else: Resist the urge to throw your cup of tea at the television next time a member of the ‘Muslim community’ is consulted.

So if you don’t have, for example, a Lancashire accent, if you’re not white, if you’re not an agnostic Christian, if you don’t think pantomime is the purest form of comedy, you are still English.

But no-one’s told the (typically useless) Home Office that. They thought that someone with a Lancashire accent, a Blackburn birth certificate and a European Union, United Kingdom passport was more than likely Pakistani. You can see why: they had a Lancashire accent and everyone knows that’s the one you learn when you join Pakistani spy school; they had a British passport, and we all know how trustworthy government databases and identity-verification documents are… So why not think that?

But then thinking that someone’s from a different country is a bit different to trying to deport them. Worse, imrprisoning them for two months while you try to find evidence that said English person is actually Pakistani.

I think the Guardian, in their low-key article a couple of months ago has done an injustice to this story. If we cannot trust our governors in this case not to abuse their powers when it comes to depriving people of their liberty, why do we entrust them with so much power?

And if this was an isolated case it would be slightly more tolerable, but the Guardian reassures us that it is not!

I have just one question: Why did the Guardian say “British Asian”? Surely the fact that he was British was key? The British Asian label is as bad as saying ‘nigger’ in my opinion. The relevance is clearly there — and could be highlighted in the story — but the fundamental point of this whole story is that the government is imprisoning its own people without justification.

The fact that his parents (or, by the “British Asian” definition that, frankly, the BNP would be pleased with, any one of his earlier ancestors) were Pakistani must not take away any of the horror or shock that any reader of that article should feel.