A question of priorities

February 18th marked the last day on which foxhunting could legally be practised in the United Kingdom. It was a day of great rejoicing for the anti-foxhunting brigade, while for the hunting community it was one of nostalgia and sorrow mixed with defiance: many proclaimed their resolve to carry on, law or no law. Some vowed they would break the law; others said that they would operate within it while continuing to kill foxes – by shooting them instead of having them torn apart by the hounds.

For our part, we have tended on the whole to support the hunting faction. This is not because, given the choice, we would wish to engage in foxhunting ourselves. It is because the hunt is a long-established British rural tradition, and we can see that the motivation of the political left in opposing it has nothing whatever to do with compassion for animals and everything to do with a war against tradition per se. We can also see that another factor in the Left's opposition to hunting is pure class hatred – misplaced because, far from the hunt being a pastime just for the country gentry, it is engaged in by people from all social groups.

We have also supported foxhunting because, at the end of the day, we believe that its participants should have the freedom to engage in a pastime of their choice. We do not believe that individual freedom should be absolute (as do many Tory libertarians); it has to be curbed when the national interest requires. However, here there is no vital national interest that calls for the curbing of this particular freedom; hence it should have been preserved.

All this having been said, a few additional comments are called for, which some may think do not read well from the standpoint of the pro-hunting fraternity. We have to say that in the passion they have put into their cause they have shown a peculiar sense of priorities and, also, a great deal of hypocrisy.

Hunting has been defended – in some instances by quite militant means, such as the invasion of Parliament last September – on the grounds that it is an essential part of our British culture and identity. The Spectator magazine on 19th February featured a totally over-the-top headline on its front page saying 'Goodbye England'. Inside was an article by editor Boris Johnson in support of hunting and praising those who have fought, and will continue to fight, to preserve the tradition. This was, equally absurdly, titled 'The end of part of England'.

Well maybe. But does it not occur to Mr. Johnson, and indeed the whole of the hunting community, that 'England' – or to be more precise Britain – is menaced by certain other forces far more than by the anti-hunt mob? The end of England/Britain is heralded when we cast our eyes on almost any street in any major city, or on the entrances to schools in places like London, Birmingham, Leicester Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool – and more lately Glasgow. We can see it in the election literature of the mainstream parties and in police recruiting advertisements, now printed in a multitude of languages as well as English. The dire threat to our national existence posed by immigration and multi-racialism dwarfs into insignificance the legislation aimed at putting an end to foxhunting, undesirable though this legislation may be.

So why are these folk, so angry and passionate about the abolition of their right to hunt foxes, not putting some of that anger and passion into speaking out and demonstrating against the systematic destruction of their nation and all its culture and tradition that is consequential on the growth in this country of a huge and ever-burgeoning non-white population?

The answer is, of course, that a great many of them – perhaps the majority – are unhappy about the latter, but they are simply too frightened to be seen opposing it in any meaningful way. It would not fit nicely with their respectable image in their various rural communities, and in the cases of some it might jeopardise their jobs and businesses.

Far better, then, a 'safe' form of protest against all that is going on in the name of liberalism, leftism and political correctness, all that bears the stamp of New Labour.

It is for this reason that we find it rather an effort to feel great sympathy for the hunters who last month enacted their final rituals amongst much chagrin and tears.

His master's voice?

Newspaper headlines on the 15th February announced that the new Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, contrary to protestations made by Prime Minister Blair a short time earlier, had said that Britain needs more, not fewer, immigrants. This statement was regarded as highly embarrassing to Clarke's chief, as hitherto he had been desperately trying to persuade the electorate that Labour would bring out its own programme for immigration controls. Who was actually speaking for the Government, Blair or Clarke?

We suspect that there was more to this contradiction than meets the eye. It seems inconceivable that Mr. Clarke would come out with a public declaration of such momentous importance, not to say controversy, had he not first cleared it with the Premier. What is afoot? Is this Labour's way of trying to face two ways at once: Blair pitching his appeal to the British majority while his underling gives the wink to the various minorities that he (Blair) doesn't really mean what he says. Was the Clarke outburst calculated to mollify Labour's left? In the coming months perhaps more will be revealed, but we can say with fair certainty that Mr. Blair's talk of 'controls' is nothing more than hot air, and that we will see no action whatever on the matter – any more than we will, by the way, from the Tories. Remember, folks, there is an election just round the comer, and the voting proles have to be thrown a few crumbs!

Hoist with their own petard

We have always been somewhat sceptical about the usefulness of the British Council, whose job is to tell the world about Britain's virtues and achievements. A truly strong, proud and self-confident nation does not feel bound to keep on proclaiming to everyone how great it is; it lets its deeds speak for it. It seems that the less Britain has come to count among the nations the more it has felt bound to keep reminding others, at huge national expense, how much it still does count.

There was outrage in the press last month when a recent British Council promotion depicted our country in what many thought as the worst possible light, telling everyone how bad a deal ethnic minorities get (sic!) and how riddled the country is with 'racism'. Included was an illustration of an urban scene where teenagers were shown playing under an advertising hoarding showing a National Front logo beside a swastika. There were also pictures of the fenced-off entrance to the Channel Tunnel.

Apparently, a Muslim group was commissioned to produce this promotion, and its purpose was to illustrate Britain to the Islamic world. The outrage at the result was prompted by anger at how little this group seemed to appreciate the country that had opened its doors to immigrants, including Muslims, and how it was instead determined to sell us short.

Well, serve the British Council bloody well right! If it was daft enough to authorise this promotion, it deserves the opprobrium coming to it. Quite how a body, charged with promoting the best image for Britain overseas, is fulfilling that task by appointing such a gang in the first place is beyond the understanding of any sane person.

Islam threatens: will party leaders back down?

More outrage! This time it comes from Muslim leaders, who are threatening to withdraw support from the Tories and Liberal Democrats because of their opposition to the government's religious hatred bill. The bill, as readers will know, aims to make incitement to religious hatred an offence in the United Kingdom just as is incitement to racial hatred, and we publish an article on that very subject in this issue.

According to a report in The Sunday Times on 6th February:-

'The leaders, who are from some of the most influential Muslim organisations in the country, say that they may tell their communities to "take into account" the stance of the two parties on the bill when they cast their votes in the general election expected this year.'

This invites two comments. The first is that we have reached quite a pass in formerly Great Britain when a minority community feels it can apply blackmail against British political parties in the way that is evident here. Perhaps indeed it can!

The other comment is more in the way of a question. Will Messrs. Howard and Kennedy stand firm m the face of this threat? If past and present form is any guide, this is in some doubt. Neither leader is exactly made of the breed that defended Rorke's Drift (in Howard's case not his fault!). One thing can be said with certainty. Whatever the two may do, their decisions will be calculated solely in terms of electoral profit or loss and in no way influenced by any consideration for the national interest.

Anti-Semitism? No, just plain silliness

In the huge stink that the Tories and the press kicked up at the end of January over Labour's allegedly 'anti-Semitic' election posters depicting Michael Howard and Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin the real point of the issue seems to be lost.

As is known, one poster showed Howard in a Shylock-like pose holding a watch, while another portrayed Howard and Letwin as flying pigs. The national paranoia over Jewish matters inevitably burst loose, and Labour was accused of exploiting the Jewishness of the two Tories for electoral gain.

For a party so heavily in hock to Jewish interests, the suggestion was utterly absurd. What the posters demonstrated was not the sinister spectre of 'anti-Semitism' emerging in Labour's ranks but the sheer juvenile level to which contemporary British politics have now descended. This stuff was an insult, not to the Jews, but to the intelligence of the readers of schoolboy comics, who despite their tender years would probably expect something a bit more serious.

And in that regard we can expect manifestations equally infantile from the Tories and Lib-Dems as the election gets nearer.

Remembering Dresden

Last month ceremonies were held in the German city of Dresden marking the 60th anniversary of the terrible raids by British and American bombers which devastated the city in the final months of the Second World War, with a death toll variously estimated between 35,000 and ten times that number, (depending on one's viewpoint).

As on most such occasions, genuine reflection on tragedy is mixed with stupid chatter and axe-grinding. One example of the latter was a report in The Sunday Telegraph (6th February) saying that German, 'Neo-Nazis' (for whom read patriots) were going to the ceremonies to stage 'anti-British' protests. Actually, the protests were aimed, not against Britain as such, but against the British establishment, which whines about the 'Holocaust' involving Jews but tries to justify this one by citing the necessities of war.

But some Germans are just as bad. Stephan Fritz, pastor of the city's Frauenkirche, attempted to whitewash the bombing by saying that Dresden had been a 'Nazi city', like all the rest of them.