It's a duck - Cologne and an everyday case of equalities top trumps

I'm not really very interested in trying to turn the awful events of new Year's Eve in Cologne into some sort of geopolitical narrative. I do take the view that if, as most reports suggest, most of the men assaulting young women, robbing and generally terrorising the centre of Cologne were recent arrivals - asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants - from North Africa and the Middle East then we need to think seriously about how we have responded to the migrant crisis.

But that's for another day. What I'm concerned about is how my fellow pinko pro-immigrant liberals have responded. Not by a genuine concern about how the response to the Syrian (and other) refugee crises and especially Angela Merkel's 'let 'em all in' strategy might be part of the problem but rather by either attempting to deny that the events had anything to do with migrants or else by attacking anyone who suggested that there might be a link as 'racist', 'islamaphobic' or 'bigoted'.

This sense of denial has led to all sorts of lunatic contortions up to and including suggestions that the whole thing might have been orchestrated by sinister anti-immigrant forces looking to get the German government to close the borders. Or even by ISIS. This sort of conspiracy theorising is where the duck comes in:

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

If nearly every report - from those assaulted, from witnesses and onlookers, from the police and from German government sources - says that nearly all those involved in the rape, sexual attacks and robbery were North African or Middle Eastern men, then we should accept that this is the case. This isn't a gross slur on immigrants. Germany registered  964,574 new asylum seekers in the first 11 months of last year - even the worst descriptions of the mayhem in Cologne put the numbers at no more than a thousand. But if a minority of that million are, by these acts of sexual violence and robbery, making it harder for asylum seekers who just want to get on with a quiet decent life then that minority need to be dealt with. Not in the interests of the 'host' community but in the interests of the majority of decent immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees.

This brings us to the second response from my fellow pinko immigration fans. Best typified by this quotation from Gaby Hinsliff in the Guardian:

Young German women thankfully enjoy historically unprecedented economic and sexual freedom, with their expensive smartphones and their right to celebrate New Year’s Eve however they want. The same isn’t always true of young male migrants exchanging life under repressive regimes, where they may at least have enjoyed superiority over women, for scraping by at the bottom of Europe’s social and economic food chain. It is not madness to ask if this has anything to do with attacks that render confident, seemingly lucky young women humiliated and powerless. 

Many of us will remember the reclaim the night campaigns - now rebadged and more in-your-face as slut walks - that told us that what a woman wore, how she spoke and where she went was never under any circumstances an excuse for rape or sexual violence. And this viewpoint is quite rightly reinforced again and again as people remind us that one of the rights women fought for was a right to walk safely everywhere, to be able to go about their business without the need for a man to protect them. So when Ms Hinsliff suggests that somehow those German women with their "expensive smartphones and their right to celebrate New Year's Eve however they want" were partly to blame for their sexual assaults, she denies all of those efforts to liberate women by suggesting that their nice clothes, nice phone and fancy handbag invited an assault.

This is the worst sort of equalities top trumps - the inability to criticise immigration policy or the behaviour of a group of immigrants because that might be racism or islamaphobia trumps the properly shocked response to violent sexual assaults on women in a public square at the heart of a West European city.

“When we came out of the station, we were very surprised by the group we met, which was made up only of foreign men … We walked through the group of men, there was a tunnel through them, we walked through … I was groped everywhere. It was a nightmare. Although we shouted and hit them, the men didn’t stop. I was horrified and I think I was touched around 100 times over the 200 metres.”

We know to our cost - from places like Rotherham as well as from what happened in Cologne - that if we pretend that something isn't the case when it is, for fear of 'equalities', the result is more damaging to society and more damaging to the community from where the problem emanates. Do you really think that young Syrian men in Germany who aren't - and wouldn't consider - raping or sexually assaulting anyone wouldn't want the rapists from their community dealt with? Yet kind, caring and usually thoughtful people tiptoe round the truth as if it can't be touched. And because something has to be said and done, these same kind, caring and usually thoughtful people either come up with ridiculous conspiracy theories or else say things that sound like victim-blaming.

For my part, what we've seen challenges my support for more open immigration policies. I still believe this to be right but what we've seen in Cologne - and it's suggested in other places too - perhaps means people like me need to pause for thought and consider whether our gung ho 'let 'em all in' view is in the interests of both the communities of Europe and the immigrants themselves. If the consequence of such a huge and sudden influx is more events like those in Cologne leading to more division, more mistrust, more racism and more bad government then perhaps we need to listen more to those decent folk who say be careful what you wish for when you invite immigration.

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Quote of the day - on equalities departments

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In an otherwise pretty standard fare article about inequalities lies this observation about Birmingham's Race Equality Unit. And bear in mind this is an article telling us the we're just as unequal as we used to be:

For example, in 1984 Birmingham City Council set up a Race Equality Unit with the aim of addressing institutional racism and improving access to council services. By 1989 the Unit had 31 staff, including race relations advisers in housing, education, and social services. The Unit’s annual report for that year shows its activities included training, monitoring uptake of services, helping different departments devise race equality schemes, improving access to services (mainly by translating information), and organising outreach events. If you were to include something about community development (helping local community groups to support disadvantaged people) these activities would all be part of the Standard Six – the half a dozen key actions that have dominated equality strategies and policies over the decades.

Put simply we've spent over thirty years mithering on about race equality and levels of black unemployment in Birmingham remain three times higher that the City's overall unemployment rate. All that investment - much of it spent on 'monitoring', on counting minorities - hasn't achieved very much at all. Except provide a well-paid employment for all those equalities monitors, trainers and strategists.

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Campaign hustings and the hierarchy of equalities

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Back in 2001 I stood for parliament in the lovely constituency of Keighley and Ilkley. I didn't win but then not many Conservatives did win that year. During the course of the campaign the candidates were invited to a hustings organised by the two largest mosques in the town. This meeting, held at Victoria Hall, was segregated with women in a separate room adjacent to the main hall which was full of men - plus Anne Cryer the Labour candidate. I recall a slight discomfort at this blatant segregation but, having been involved in Bradford politics, I'd been along to many a meeting where the audience was entirely male. Added to this was a slight annoyance that Mrs Cryer could go and speak directly to the women whereas I was not permitted to do so.

I say this by way of context for talking about the Labour rally in Birmingham and about wider issues relating to campaigns in the UK's Muslim communities. In one respect the audience pictured represents progress - a decade ago it is likely that such a meeting would have had no women present (unless one or more of the candidates addressing the event was female) - but from another perspective it reveals that context is everything in political campaigns. And the context here is that Labour's success in inner city Birmingham depends, to a large extent, on the Muslim vote which means that people who would usually be quick to pounce on misogyny can wave away criticism of gender segregation because of the 'cultural' context.

Imagine what would be the response had one of those Labour candidates, instead of sitting like bored lumps on the platform, had confronted the organiser and insisted that the de facto segregation end, made the point of sitting with those women or invited men to intermingle. It may not be such an issue once the challenge is laid down - I went to the launch of a Conservative campaign in Bradford East where men and women sat intermixed (until it came to eating when they were separate again which I didn't understand).

The unconfronted truth here is that, for all the efforts of some women, too many Muslim men remain deeply uncomfortable with the reality of women's equality. I recall speech after speech from Imran Hussein, Bradford's current Council Deputy Leader, where he shouted that 'we' (by which he mean the Council leadership I guess) take equalities seriously - 'it's not just a tick box exercise' he would exclaim. Yet the truth is that, when Imran speaks of equalities, he has a hierarchy of sensitivity that has race and faith at the top and gender, disability, age and sexual preference lower down the pecking order.

This isn't because Imran is a sexist homophobe - I know him well enough to be sure he isn't - but because the realities of politics in Bradford makes some equalities issues more 'in your face' than others.

When Bradford's Corporate Scrutiny Committee looked at the Council's 'Equalities Action Plan' the most striking thing about the report was that it didn't mention LGBT issues except in the list of protected characteristics under the Equalities Act. Which isn't to say that the Council does nothing about these matters but rather that the dominant equalities issues - the priorities for our Labour politicians - relate to race and faith because this is where they are being challenged (indeed this sense of racial and religious victimhood, and especially the latter, is the absolute essence of George Galloway's pitch to voters).

None of this is to suggest that prejudice against Muslims doesn't exist - I don't know a single Muslim who hasn't experienced such attitudes - but it is to say that, if we believe sexism and homophobia to be a problem, we need to confront these too. And if such attitudes are too common in the Muslim community then it behooves politicians who position themselves as champions of equalities to challenge those prejudices - especially when they have the privilege to be from that community.

The irony here is that three of the world's biggest Muslim countries - Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia - have elected women as leaders, so there is clearly no essential obstacle to female participation. I suspect it just takes a little bit of guts to tell event organisers that there won't be any segregation. This doesn't end deeply rooted sexist views about the role of men and women within a given community - we've had fifty years of women's liberation campaigns in the UK and we still see examples of cringeworthy sexism almost daily - but it does begin to question the acceptance of gender segregation and entrenched homophobia within institutions within those communities.

And the place to start for us politicians is with those things we absolutely control - our own events, meetings and campaigns.

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Health fascism meets equalities mongering - a battle royale!

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In the USA, as 'Obamacare' rolls out, a new battle is taking place as the desire of the health fascists to charge smokers more meets the desire to provide healthcare for all:

But city officials in the District of Columbia recently decided to charge them the same rate as nonsmokers, joining Rhode Island, Vermont and Massachusetts. California is considering following suit.

Those places argue that the purpose of the health law is to insure all Americans and that includes smokers, who are disproportionately old, poor or minorities all populations that the bill is trying to make sure get coverage.

Oh dear, immovable object and irresistible force! Some folk aren't happy but most of those planning the new systems see no value at all in charging smokers more for the new insurance schemes:

Timothy S. Jost, a health policy analyst at Washington and Lee University School of Law, said charging a 50 percent smoking surcharge on premiums doesn’t make sense mathematically.

“Smokers die younger, but I have seen no evidence that they cost 50 percent more than nonsmokers,” he wrote in an email.

In truth, when it comes to lifetime healthcare costs, those smokers are probably a good sight less costly than that super healthy non-smoker. For sure, the smoker costs more now, but he's going to die young which means he won't be filling up the wards for new knees, hips and shoulders or consuming his body weight in heart drugs for 20 years.

But one has to smile while the health fascists encounter truth - and that other left liberal obsession of positive discrimination for "minorities" of one sort of another!

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Double standards?

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The racist tram lady was in court today:

A woman accused of launching a vile racist rant on a tram is to spend Christmas behind bars after she was remanded in custody for her own safety.

And the race relations industry was having its say:

What, I wonder does the response, to the YouTube clip show? Is it just prurient interest? Is it shock or is there a degree of acceptance of the validity of her comments if not actions? Twitter comments in the days after suggest all of the above and more!

Racism is still a blight on the face of Britain. Sweeping it under the carpet, failing to resource counter measures will not create cohesion but will only serve to sow discord in all our communities. As soon as we realise that racism lies everywhere then we start to tackle discrimination where someone is judged by ethnicity or nationality, by colour or by creed. That day cannot be achieved by putting our heads in the sand.

At the same time that race relations industry made no mention of a far worse case of racism – this time accompanied by violent assault:

A gang of Muslim girls who repeatedly kicked a young woman in the head walked free from court after a judge heard they were 'not used to being drunk' because of their religion.

The group screamed 'kill the white slag' while kicks raining in on 22-year-old Rhea Page as she lay motionless on the ground, the court heard.

The attackers - three sisters and their cousin - were told by a judge that normally they would have been sent to jail.

However, he handed the girls - all Somalian Muslims - suspended sentences after hearing that they were not used to alcohol because their religion does not allow it.

There is no doubt at all that this was racially aggravated – possibly racially motivated – assault unless “kill the white slag” has taken on a different meaning recently. Yet not a word from the “Equalities & Human Rights Commission”, no endless condemnation from the regular horde of left wing commentators on diversity matters.

But then, officially it wasn’t racially aggravated:

The women, who are all Somalian Muslims, were not charged with racial aggravation.

One wonders, had this been say four white skinheads wrapped in union jacks beating up a black youth while crying “kill the black bastard”, would the CPS have charged them with mere assault? I doubt it, those white skinheads would have got the full set of racial crimes laid on them (and quite rightly).

So why not these Somali women?

And why are the Runnymede Trust, the Equalities & Human Rights Commission and the usual collection of righteous MPs, columnists and "charities" more interested in that stupid woman on the tram (who hurt nothing other than feelings) than this violent racial assault?

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Look, it was a mistake. It was quite funny. Why all the fuss?

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I thought Liverpudlians prided themselves on a sense of humour, on an appreciation of the ridiculous. Well I guess that the Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen University Hospital isn't managed by scousers - although it seems to employ them:

The advert, on the Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen University Hospital's website, invited applications for a trainee anaesthetist.

But it concluded by stating: "Usual rubbish about equal opportunities employer etc".

Any one who's worked in HR (or in advertising) will know exactly how this came about. And the person responsible will get a bollocking and will bore friends, colleagues and relations for ever with the story (suitably embellished).

However the management have got all po-faced. Rather than have a laugh, say "it's a mistake, sorry folks", they had this to say:

"The wording on this advert in no way reflects the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust's position in relation to equal opportunities, to which it is fully committed.

"The trust is conscious of its duty to promote equality and is a Stonewall Diversity Champion employer.

"The trust will be conducting an investigation into this incident to ensure that this cannot happen again."

For heaven's sake, grow a sense of humour will you.
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Equalities Stakeholders. Yes, they're out there messing up your health service again!

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My meanderings brought me to this blog post entitled, "Where do equality stakeholders fit in the new NHS Landscape." Not sure whether it should have had a question mark at the end or not but it reminded me just how distant from normal understanding of common sense the 'diversity' and 'equalities' agenda has got:

According to Minister, Andrew Lansley, the changes he proposes to bring about in the NHS will put patients at the centre of everything the NHS does.

That's a bold claim, which should be seen in the context that NHS organisations like the 152 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and the ten (regional) Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) have specific statutory obligations to consult with the public, plus obligations (as public sector bodies) under the past and future Public Sector Equality Duties.

This is followed by a jolly diagram showing us how the new system operates - with different colours, arrows and fine names. But - so far as anything within this jargon-laden and confusing little piece is clear - the writer's argument is that "equalities stakeholders" (creatures the writer doesn't describe or define) are pushed to the edges of the current system because we've scrapped PCTs and SHAs thereby removing all the equalities and diversity monitoring that's going on in the NHS at the moment.

And the new system won't be accountable "to local stakeholders" - as if the current NHS organisation is remotely accountable to anyone locally! Or rather it is but in a different way from the way we - as ordinary folk - understand. The accountability - a cosy, all-mates-together kind of accountability - exists between those who the government fund to provide 'voice' and 'advocacy' and the agents of the NHS itself. What the writer is bemoaning isn't that the result will be a less "fair" NHS but that these mostly self-appointed representatives of "equalities groups" will be pushed to the margins.

I welcome this as a very positive step - hopefully to be replaced by the development of personalised service for individuals, as individuals. The present 'equalities' arrangement single out specific groups as worthy of 'representation' and fail to see real people with real concerns about the health support they receive. Although we seem lumbered with the Equalities Act - with all its basis in groupthink and special pleading - making sure that our care systems respond to individual need rather that meaningless group needs moderated by professional advocates must be a positive step.

Patients are now put at the centre of the NHS by employing professional "equalities stakeholders" to moderate the interface between the individual and health providers - that's what we have now. We get to the heart of the NHS by being given power - and power over suppliers comes from choice not the bureaucracy of equalities and diversity.

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Sometimes it's a tough life...

We don't all get to start in the best place. Sometimes the soil's a bit lacking and the ground rather stony. And that's the way it is - we can sit there and moan about what a hard life it is and how others have a much better deal. We can shout, "it's not fair" at our masters - and watch as they take away our freedoms in the name of a false equality.

Or we can be strong. We can make the most of what we've got. We can get pleasure from growing in the hard ground and the poor soil. And when we're set and strong, we can look around us, smile and tell the world...

...we did it ourselves.

Don't be fooled - that false equality is about them controlling you, not you getting a better (let alone a fairer) chance. Take the cards you get, play them well and thank the world. But please don't cry foul if someone else is more successful, taller, smarter, faster or braver. And stop asking the government to make it fair - it can't.

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On changing one's mind (and removing beams from one's eyes)...

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I’ve changed my mind on a great deal of things over the years – I’m not going to list them but they are many. Yet, somehow people seem rather unwilling to accept that, when somebody says they’ve changed their mind, generally speaking it does actually mean that they have done just that!

Which rather brings us to the matter of politics and the game of using past statements, whipped votes under an old regime and guilt by association as the basis for accusation – even when the person stands there and says, “I’ve changed my mind on that.” And sadly the equalities lobby is among the worst offenders in this respect.

Now it seems to me that a matter such as gay rights is one area where more folk than average have changed their opinions. I’m not saying that the new views accord with the further flung boundaries of the equalities agenda but that people have changed – folk accept gay people in a way that would be a great surprise to the majority back in, say, 1980. There are still areas –sport and especially football, for example – where being gay is a real barrier but attacking someone for their views 10, 20 or even 30 years ago is not a helpful contribution. Particularly where that person has said they’ve changed their mind.

Indeed, I would go as far as to say that those who attack a person on the basis of past actions where they say clearly they would act differently today are guilty of bigotry and prejudice. And behaving so reprehensibly while clutching hypocritically to the moral high ground on an issue is, to this humble sinner, an act of monumental offence.

So to all those people attacking Theresa May for what she did in 1998 I say this:

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye

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Free speech: some lessons on politeness from the 18th Century

Free speech is a pretty simple concept. It means I can say what I like, doesn’t it? Perhaps it does but what about deliberate offence? Bullying language? Prejudicial language? Where does the limit to free speech lie? Today we have become less worried about sexual swearwords or blasphemy that would have been the case with our forebears. But where they worried greatly about “fuck”, “shit” and “Jesus Christ”, we now obsess about “nigger”, “poofter” and even “paddy”.

Perhaps we are right, maybe making such prejudicial words beyond the pale is correct. For sure, using them is rather asking for a smack in the gob but we do appear to have lost – among all the legislative frenzy – the idea of politeness. Yes, politeness is often a deception – a white lie (are we still allowed to say that). But is its loss making it harder for us to justify the defence of free speech?

In his magnificent examination of English culture in the 18th Century, “The Pleasure of Imagination”; John Brewer looks at the conflict between politeness and sensibility:

“Many of the ideals of sensibility seem to contrast with those of politeness – authenticity rather than show, spontaneous feeling rather than artifice, private retreat rather than urban sociability, the virtues of humble rank rather than high station. They appear to stand in opposition to the values of polite London society.” (Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination, Pg 115)

Such a comment reminds us of the explosion of “spontaneous” feeling at the death of Diana, of Oscar winner bursting into tears and rambling about their inspiration and of the slight discomfort some of us feel at the seeming need for every comedy to have at least three swear words in every sentence.

However, politeness was not enforced by statute. There were no laws requiring polite behaviour in the 18th Century. People were polite because it was expected of them and for them to play any role in society failing at such expectation was to risk being rejected. Today we have begun to seek legal remedy to the enforcement of selected standards of behaviour – these may be the vast collection of law and case around so-called “equalities” or the growing judgmentalism of “standards boards”.

If we are to rescue free speech from its emasculation by self-interested groups and their public agents, then we have at some point to challenge the regulation of language that supports the interventions of these agencies. Conservatives should ask whether it is better to regulate politeness through society rather than through the law. It is incredibly rude to call someone a “paki” but is it really any ruder than calling that person a “cunt”? The law says it is since it privileges one word as a special condition subject to the possibility to punishment under the criminal law while the other remains just very rude.

I am not one of those people who think that the entire edifice of “equalities” should go. But I do think that the regulation of language through the criminal law is wrong and that those aspects of equalities legislation should be repealed. And the growing collection of “standards” applied to councillors, doctors, public servants and the like are also attempts to use the law to control speech – breeching the principle of liberty.

Free speech comes at a price – that of offence. But since we cannot ban or bar every possible word or combination of words it cannot work to select a few words for special treatment. However, I would point out that using offensive language has a societal price – getting thumped is part of that price but the other part is to colour our view of that person to their detriment.

So – as a good Tory – let’s look to our history. And teach our children this:

“Politeness created a complete system of manners and conduct based on the art of conversation. It places the arts and imaginative literature at the centre of its aim to produce people of taste and morality because they were considered a means of achieving a polite and virtuous character.” (Brewer, Pg 111)

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Sue the BNP? How stupid are the Equalities & Human Rights Commission?

The airwaves are full of the news that Trevor Philips' equalities super-quango are to sue the BNP because they only let white people join the party.

Excuse me? What are you thinking equalicrats?

As if we didn't know the BNP didn't like black people. They're racists you know! And trying to use equalities rules to shut them down is pouring high octane racing fuel on a fire - bloody stupid.

Using the courts to "beat the fascists" is using their methods - so what if they only want white members. So what if they break the assorted equalities laws with every breath.

We'll only defeat them by persuading the voters that they are idiots - and we don't do that by being total idiots ourselves now do we?