Bring them home!

With Iraq becoming a bigger and bigger bloodbath with almost every week that passes, we were given the depressing news last month that British forces could be in the country for at least another ten years!

This was the estimate of Brigadier Nick Carter, the garrison commander in Basra, who has said that our troops would probably have to stay in order to 'beef up' the Iraqi police force. According to the Brigadier:-

'We are in cloud-cuckoo-land if we think we are going to create overnight a police force that is accountable to the population.'

Presumably, Brigadier Carter would not have attained his rank had he been entirely without a brain, but any presence of brain power on his part is sadly without evidence in a statement such as this. Just in what way can the establishment of a police force in Iraq that is "accountable to the population" be a duty remotely connected with the role of the British armed forces? Would the Duke of Wellington have remained at his post on the day of Waterloo had his brief been to establish a police force acceptable to the population of Belgium? Or would he, as seems much more likely, have employed his famously caustic tongue telling the politicians of the day not to talk such drivel? In Wellington's time, and before and since - until in recent years Britain went completely insane - the purpose of our armed forces was the defence of the realm and the protection and furtherance of its world-wide interests.

Only last month, British forces in Basra became the targets of violent attacks as another mobs ran amok. Mercifully, none was killed but the news that our troops may have to be in the country for as long as another decade, opens up prospects of a ghastly casualty toll in a war that seems to have no end.

Right now, there is a very large and growing consensus in Britain that we were wrong to have gone into Iraq in the first place. But we still have politicians and journalists agonising about how and when we may be able to get out. All the debate seems to be about ways and means of setting up an Iraqi constitution and ruling administration that would enable us to withdraw with decorum before too long.

We do not share the view that Britain needs to keep its forces in Iraq for a moment longer. This is because we do not share the view that we have the slightest obligation to Iraq. The best possible favour we can do the Iraqis is to bring our troops home immediately. But even here it should be said that we owe Iraq no favours, only ourselves.

At present, the only reason why there is a British presence in Iraq is that, somehow, the face of Tony Blair and his lamentable Government has to be saved. But that is their problem. They got themselves into this mess, and there is no reason why further British lives should be risked just so that they may extract themselves from it with dignity.

So, no more prevarication. It's time to pull out!

The people speak

According to an opinion poll published in The Mail on Sunday on April 4th, 80 per cent of those questioned on their attitudes towards the Blair Government believe that the Government is too soft on immigration. Only four per cent think its policies are too tough, 10 per cent think they are about right and six per cent don't know.

And that's not all. As many as 16 per cent say that they would consider voting BNP - only 'consider', mind you, but we may conclude that quite a good many more would in fact 'consider' doing the same thing but would be reluctant to confess this to an opinion pollster.

This poll shows just how dramatically public opinion in Britain has hardened on the subject of immigration in just a few years - probably only since the turn of the century. Public opinion has hardened because of what the public have seen. Their experience on the streets with immigrants and their descendants is far more of a factor in determining their attitudes than pious sermons from politicians and journalists about the joys of 'diversity'. And as public opinion has moved, at least parts of the press - led by the tabloids - have had to move with it. At the end of the day, newspapers do not print what they think is 'right'; they print what they think is good for business. In this, newspaper-owners have to balance the two often conflicting pressures of circulation needs and the demands of their advertisers. The latter tend to favour editorial policies that are 'liberal' and globalist, while the man and woman in the street, who determine circulation, lean more and more towards policies that are 'right-wing' and nationalist.

An increasingly nationalist-minded reading public creates an increasing market for papers that take what at least appears to be a nationalist line on immigration and Europe. This generates an even stronger nationalist consensus, as members of the public read reports and articles in newspapers - the tabloids at least - which reinforce their own opinions.

What all this means, in the simplest terms, is that we are winning. The popular tide is flowing in our favour. The opportunities for us were never greater. May we be sure to grasp them with open arms!

Tony's 'Big Conversation' misfires

Last December, in a typical Blairite stunt, it was announced that the Prime Minister would be engaging in what he called a 'Big Conversation'. The idea was that people would e-mail to the Labour Party their views about how the Government was performing, and their views would be shown on the party's website.

Of course, the plan was that the e-mails would be carefully censored before being posted on the site, so as to ensure that Tony and his Government came out of the exercise covered with praise. One typical e-mail put on the site came from 'Kathy of Cheshire' and it said: "I have supported this Government through thick and thin, and I agree with 95 per cent of its policies." Ron, also of Cheshire, said: "I now feel there is a Labour leader I can totally identify with. His name is Tony Blair."

But the exercise hit a snag. Another website happened to have been set up with an almost identical name. This was www.bigconversation.org, operated by businessman Jamie Roy some time previously. E-mails sent to this site were uncensored and represented the 'real' views of people about the Government. The site was bombarded with scathing attacks on Tony & Co., many of them almost embarrassingly 'racist'. The Labour spin-doctors were horrified. Said Mr. Roy: "The Labour Party has hijacked our idea... Their project is a Big Con because they censor people's views. We are happy to publish all replies."

This crowd currently in charge of the country cannot even manage their own propaganda machine properly. What a bunch of no-hopers!

In vino veritas?

Poor Ron Atkinson! The extrovert football ex-manager and nowaday TV commentator made a slip while covering the Chelsea-Monaco match last month. Thinking he was off the air, he remarked to a colleague that Chelsea captain Marcel Desailly was a "f...ing lazy n...er."

All hell broke loose. Atkinson was promptly fired from his £200,000-a-year job with ITV Sport while The Guardian newspaper terminated his regular football column. There were calls for him to be banned from every football ground in the country.

'Big Ron', as he is known, immediately went into grovel mode, pleading on his hands and knees how sorry he was and what a great record he had as a 'non-racist', saying that in his management days he had done as much as anyone to bring on black players. It did him not the slightest good. The black and 'anti-racist' lobbies can never be appeased by this kind of self-flagellation; once having tasted blood, they only shriek for more. This was a lesson learned just a short time ago by former TV chat-show host Robert Kilroy Silk, whose cringing apologies for a newspaper article unflattering to Arabs did not save him his job. He too came under the 'anti-racist' axe.

It is estimated that Atkinson's yearly earnings will have suffered from this gaffe to the tune of £500,000. One wonders what possessed him. Maybe he had had a G&T too many when his heretical words went on record, and maybe the sentiments uttered were nearer to his true thoughts than those he trotted out for the media during the row following.

It is a fact only too well-known to the people in the 'race' industry that a large portion of the public figures who croon to their song-sheet only do so because they are well paid for their services. Catch them off guard for just a moment and reality and truth burst through. That's why the 'race' commissars are so frantic in their censorship. Let one blasphemer off the hook and the floodgates will come tumbling down. Hence the crucifixion of 'Big Ron'.

To some, the truth hurts

The German magazine Der Spiegel had the phoney 'patriots' of this country yelling in anger last month when it published a six-page feature on modern Britain. We are, according to the writers, a land of drunkenness, weak moral fibre, rotten hospitals and truanting children. Our social fabric is unwinding. They went on to say that there is no escape from the "brutal and brutalised images" in Britain - from pit-bull owners to junk food cartons on the streets.

This provoked a smug response in the Daily Mail of the 12th April in which a retaliatory swipe was taken against the Germans, spotlighting their high rate of unemployment - 10 per cent as against 4 per cent here - and their low economic growth, currently 0.5 per cent as against Britain's 3 per cent.

Well, many things in contemporary Germany are far from perfect, but stressing them doesn't render Der Spiegel's analysis of our own country wrong. The fact is that public services in the Bundesrepublik are still immeasurably superior to those in the UK and the quality of life there far better, as any recent tourist can attest. As for figures of economic growth, these can be grossly misleading. It is easy for an economy with a far lower rate of production to register a higher proportionate increase than a much more productive one. The fact remains that Germany's GDP per head is half as much again as our own. Her manufacturing strength puts ours almost into the third-world league by comparison. Observe how many Mercedes, Volkswagens and BMWs there are on Britain's roads and then go to Germany to find how far you have to look to see a single British car.