Do they know it's Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month?

I'm delighted to report that a new blow has been struck for racial equality, with the introduction of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month (just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?). As the name suggests, this is the latest bright idea from some parasitic do-gooder doughty warrior against injustice: a celebration of the enormous cultural contribution of gypsies! It follows in the footsteps of the equally worthwhile Black History Month, and LGBT History Month, and is already making its presence felt.

For example, the government has provided £70,000 to "the gypsy, Roma and traveller community" (for which read, a small number of self-appointed representatives of the said community), which has been used to fund a magazine, snappily entitled Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month Magazine (GRTHMM), 23,000 copies of which were distributed to schoolchildren across the UK last month. Like many such "anti-racist" politico-historical publications, it makes a number of rather questionable claims about the ethnicity of well-known figures, attempting to draw them into the ethnic group that is being "celebrated", whether the facts like it or not. However, while the website, 100 Great Black Britons, only claimed that a queen, Philippa of Hainault, was, contrary to all the evidence, of African descent, GRTHMM has gone further, and claimed that the King was a gypsy. Yes, apparently Elvis Presley was a gypsy, as were Charlie Chaplin and Rita Hayworth. Now, call me a bigot if you will, but, from the summary of the arguments used in justification of this assertion, it seems that its truth is questionable, to put it mildly:

Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month magazine also suggests that Elvis’s ancestors were Sinti – German gypsies who emigrated to America in the 18th century.

It goes on to claim that Elvis’s mother Gladys’s maiden name was Smith, a common Romany name.

Riiiiight. Elvis's mother was indeed called Smith, and that may well be a common gypsy name. But, well, it has been known to be held by people who weren't gypsies. All I'll say is, that if being called Smith is proof of gypsy origins, then there are a lot more gypsies in the UK than I'd previously thought.

Actually, it is a matter of supreme indifference to me whether Elvis was or was not a gypsy. And, since he's already been claimed as one of their own by the Scots, the Jews, and the Cherokee Indians, I see no reason why the gypsies shouldn't stake a claim as well. However, while people are entirely at liberty to believe whatever they like about anyone's ancestry, I do rather object to them being given large amounts of money to promote their pseudo-genealogy in the nation's schools.

But the education system is not the only part of the establishment which has embraced Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month. The Metropolitan Police are getting into the spirit of the event (by which I mean, extreme political correctness matched with tokenistic gestures) too:

...in a move which has caused disbelief amongst rank and file officers, Scotland Yard has asked staff to 'celebrate' the contribution of Roma gipsies to 'London's culture and diversity.'

In a notice posted on the force's intranet website, Denise Milani, director of the Met's 'Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate', urges officers to observe the first ever 'Gipsy Roma Traveller History Month.'

Ignoring the huge drain on resources caused by Romanian pickpockets who target commuters and tourists in the West End, Miss Milani - a protege of Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair - says Roma gipsies are welcome in the capital.

She says: 'We welcome the celebration of the community's history and contributions to London's culture and diversity.

'The Met Police works to make London a safer city for all and we are committed to understanding and working with all communities, including the Gipsy Roma Traveller community.'

I wouldn't mind betting that many officers have rather a lot of experience of working with the gypsy community...

'The Gipsy Roma Traveller History month celebrates their history, culture and contributions to the rich tapestry of Britain's diversity.'

The mother-of-two's comments were described as 'political correctness off the Richter scale' by one furious detective. He added: 'What planet is this lady living on? We have been run ragged by gangs of Romanian gipsies who are targeting innocent people in the West End.

'How is that enhancing the rich tapestry of cultural life in Britain?'

Quite aside from the fact that the job of the police is not to celebrate anyone's cultural heritage, but to prevent crime, I have to ask what officers are supposed to do in order to "'celebrate' the contribution of Roma gipsies to 'London's culture and diversity'"? Sell pegs and heather? Tell fortunes? Camp out on people's lawns? It sounds to me like Miss Milani's command is simply (thankfully) an empty gesture, albeit one that serves to illustrate the extent to which political correctness has corrupted the police force, just as the very existence of Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month serves to illustrate the extent to which political correctness has corrupted the public sector generally.

Return to Alum Rock

I see that the pressure group, Christian Voice, have announced plans to descend on the Alum Rock area of Birmingham, where two Christian preachers were recently threatened with arrest by a PCSO. As Christian Voice have often been described as "Christian fundamentalists" by left-wing secularists who wish to imply that they are some Christian equivalent of al-Qaeda, we can presumably expect to see them engage in a vengeful orgy of violent destruction? Astonishingly enough, no. Rather, they will be restricting their activities to the handing-out of leaflets, the same heinous act that Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham committed.

The protest will take place next Saturday, the 14th June. According to the Christian Voice website, the organisation's director, Stephen Green (who has himself previously been arrested and prosecuted for handing out leaflets), had this to say:

The case also raises concerns about the association of Islam and the Police. If people like Naguthney are using the British Police as a launching ground for Muslim activism, whether in the National Association of Muslim Police or in day-to-day police activities, then they should be expelled.

It is less than two years ago when the then Home Secretary John Reid was asked by Abu Izzadeen at a meeting in Leyton, East London : "How dare you come to a Muslim area when over 1,000 Muslims have been arrested?" There was an outcry, but now we find a Muslim police employee, someone his Chief Constable probably regards as a 'moderate', clearly has the same mind-set as a convicted terrorist.

By the grace of God, this no-go area for the Gospel will be challenged. West Midlands Police Chief Constable Sir Paul Scott-Lee has an odd sense of humour creating a post of counter-terrorism and cohesion for Anil Patani to be in charge of. But with people like that at the top, and with its tarnished record, we need to ask how far up West Midlands Police the peculiar bias to Islam demonstrated by the Dispatches affair and Naeem Naguthney's attitude actually goes.

N.B. Anil Patani is the officer responsible for the Undercover Mosque debacle.

It is to be hoped that the West Midlands Police will manage to resist the temptation to arrest, or otherwise impede, Mr Green and his supporters. After all, you'd think that they might have learnt their lesson by now! But then again, it is the West Midlands Police we're talking about: who knows how far their ability to make complete fools of themselves goes?

The reaction of the local Muslims will also be interesting to see. Will the "moderate majority" behave with the same restraint as the "Christian fundamentalists", I wonder?

Hat-tip: Pub Philosopher

Promoting Christianity is now a hate crime

What is wrong with the West Midlands Police? Just last month they had to pay out £100,000 over their handling of the Undercover Mosque fiasco, and now they are being taken to court by two Christian evangelists who were threatened with arrest for handing out leaflets in a Muslim area of Birmingham.

Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, both of whom are American, were talking to a group of young men in the Alum Rock Road area of the city when they were approached by a PCSO, who began questioning them about their beliefs. When he discovered their nationality, he, displaying the professionalism for which PCSOs are justly renowned, favoured them with a lengthy diatribe against George Bush, before telling them that as the area was a Muslim one, they were not allowed to preach Christianity there, that doing so constituted a "hate crime", and that if they did not desist they would be arrested. He also told them not to return to the area, saying, "you have been warned. If you come back here and get beaten up, well you have been warned".

As I've remarked before, it seems that incidents like this are happening on a weekly basis, if not more frequently. The West Midlands force has a particularly poor record, but officers from all police forces seem quite happy to use threats and intimidation in order to silence politically-incorrect views, and prevent politically-incorrect behaviour, a category within which promulgating Christian doctrine apparently now falls. I particularly note that, rather than make an effort to ensure that all people are safe to go anywhere in the country without getting beaten up, the PCSO in this case evidently feels that if Messrs Cunningham and Abraham were to get attacked, it would be their own fault, and no concern of his. No wonder dissatisfaction with the police is at record levels!

The PCSO's comments also indicate that, when Michael Nazir-Ali made his famous remarks about "no go areas", he was absolutely right. After all, the PCSO - who I rather suspect may have been a Muslim himself (update: he was) - made no bones about telling the men that if they preached Christianity in a Muslim area they were at risk of being assaulted. If that doesn't make an area a "no go area", then what does?

This, then, is Britain in 2008: a country in which Muslim preachers can incite murder with impunity, while Christian preachers are threatened with arrest for peacefully handing out leaflets; a country in which free speech is stifled to appease favoured minorities; a country in which certain areas become unsafe for non-Muslims, and our political and religious leaders turn a blind eye. And liberals still can't understand why we don't all embrace multiculturalism and "diversity"!

Hat-tip: Anon, in the comments

Even a stopped clock...

The police force that issued a teenager with a court summons for calling Scientology a cult could face a judicial review over the legality of its policing guidelines.

Although prosecutors last week declined to take the 16-year-old to court, freedom of speech campaigners are to ask City of London police to explain how the initial decision to issue the summons was made.

Campaigners said they would call for a judicial review if it is found that the force's guidelines for policing demonstrations led officers to confront the schoolboy.

If it emerges that the policy relates only to anti-Scientology demonstrations, a complaint could be lodged with the Independent Police Complaints Commission instead.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the civil liberties organisation Liberty, which spearheaded the teenager's defence, said: "We want to know who gave the instruction to issue this summons.

"Curtailing people's freedom of speech is a very serious issue and it's important to know whether this is part of the force's policy or a decision relating specifically to the Church of Scientology. There is the possibility of a complaint to the IPCC or a judicial review."

Chakrabarti said she was concerned the police action could have a "chilling effect" on other protesters who wanted to express their opinions.

"Some people are very easily intimidated and will be put off exercising their right to free speech by the thought that they may face court action over it. We have to defend that right and show how wrong the police were in issuing this summons," she said.

Well, on this occasion, Chakrabarti's right, and it is good that Liberty (indeed, that anyone) is challenging the police's handling of this matter. Although I'm not quite certain of the manner in which Liberty "spearheaded the teenager's defence", other than by the lovely and fragrant Ms Chakrabarti describing the summons as "barmy", and thereby getting herself in the papers.

But, while on this occasion Chakrabarti's organisation is doing the right thing, it's worth pointing out that she seems to take a remarkably selective approach to the question of free speech, and its suppression. After all, in recent years we have seen, inter alia, the leader of the BNP twice prosecuted for calling Islam a "wicked, vicious faith", an anti-Islamic blogger arrested for the content of his postings, a schoolgirl arrested for complaining that fellow pupils did not speak English, an academic forced out of his job for expressing politically incorrect views about the link between race and IQ, and measures passed banning BNP members from certain jobs. Yet on all these issues, and many more, Shami Chakrabarti has, notwithstanding her abundantly evident love of the media spotlight, maintained a strict silence. Maybe she was on holiday when they happened.

'Straight' added to the List of Banned Words

I see that the Crown Prosecution Service has decided that prosecuting the teenager who called Scientology a cult would not be in the public interest. I suppose that we should be thankful that the CPS have, on this occasion, demonstrated a modicum of good sense. However, the fact remains that the police attempted to stifle free speech, purely on the grounds that that speech was, or might be, "offensive".

On Tuesday, I noted that cases such as the above - innocuous conduct being treated as criminal by an overbearing police force - seemed to be happening on a weekly basis. Well, I may have underestimated the frequency with which it occurs, for here is yet another instance of this phenomenon:

A complaint has been made to police over a banner declaring a former gay bar in Sunderland city centre has now gone "straight".

The sign outside the Retox bar, in High Street West, read: "Retox under new management! Now Straight! Top totty dancers on match days!"

A police inquiry is under way into a complaint that the sign, which has now been taken down, was offensive.

The bar owners said it was never their intention to offend.

Assistant manager Carl Lovett said: "We admit it was not the best banner but there was never any intention to cause offence."

I assume, from the way in which this is reported, that the "offensive" part of the sign was the word 'straight', although I suppose that it might just possibly have been the "top totty dancers" bit that did it. Either way, while the sign might have been slightly crude, I fail to see what, precisely, was so upsetting to the complainant. Is mentioning the very existence of heterosexuality now deemed "homophobic"? This bar had changed its commercial direction, to one which it presumably hopes will prove more profitable: is it to be prohibited from announcing that fact to the world?

In any event, as I have repeated time after time, the fact that something is offensive to someone is not in itself sufficient reason for banning it. After all, the right to free speech would have precious little meaning if it was restricted in scope to speech which no one would ever want to silence. But, as we see time and again, that is the road down which this country is heading, at a pretty rapid rate. And, as the behaviour of the complainant in this case demonstrates, there is no shortage of people who not only support the suppression of free speech, but are also willing to assist in it, by becoming informers against those who transgress against the state's notion of acceptable language.

Undercover Mosque vindicated

An update on these stories:

West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have apologised for accusing the makers of a Channel 4 documentary of distortion.

The apology and the promise of £100,000 were made at the High Court on Thursday.

It follows comments made about a Dispatches programme, Undercover Mosque, which tackled claims of Islamic extremism in the West Midlands.

The police statement said the force was wrong to make the allegations.

[...]

The statement, released to the media after the High Court hearing by West Midlands Police, said they accepted there had been no evidence that Channel 4 or the documentary makers had "misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or incite criminal activity".

It added that the Ofcom report showed the documentary had "accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context".

The police statement concluded: "We accept, without reservation, the conclusions of Ofcom and apologise to the programme makers for the damage and distress caused by our original press release."

So, if the police now accept that the programme was wholly accurate, what are we to make of the force's earlier claim that the programme makers - Hardcash Productions - were guilty of "completely distorting" what was said? Or, indeed, of their long-running vendetta against Hardcash, which included attempting to have them prosecuted for "inciting racial hatred", and, when this plan was frustrated, making an official complaint about the documentary to the communications regulator?
Presumably the police have not seen any new footage which might have explained their change of heart. As such, their original claim that the programme distorted what was said must surely be no more or less tenable than it was when they first made it. Why, then, have they now performed a complete U-turn, and accepted that it was untenable? I suspect that it is because they always knew that the accusations they were making were utterly unfounded, but that they hoped that, by making them, they could intimidate the programme makers, and anyone else who might be tempted to criticise Islam (or, indeed, any Muslims), into silence. As with so much else that the police do these days, their conduct in this matter really does beg the question, whose side are they on?

Thought Policeman of the Day: PC Paul Hughes

Here is a short video which really sums up the extent to which free speech is being suppressed in Britain today. A man is arrested on suspicion of a "racially aggravated public order offence", for singing the words "I'd rather wear a turban":



The speed with which PC Hughes pounced on the man as soon as he heard the "racist" words was really rather impressive. And am I being utterly paranoid, or did a slight smirk, as of a bully exulting in his own power, briefly leap across his face as he told his victim what his "crime" was (at 14 seconds in)?

Still, I'm sure we can all agree that arresting people like the heinous (and totally unrepentant) evildoer seen in this video is a far more valuable use of police time than such petty trivialities as, for example, stopping axe wielding burglars. Thank Heavens the police have their priorities straight!

Hat-tip: John Trenchard

"Stop being a crusader"

A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.

Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a British human rights organisation whose president is the former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, is calling on the UN and the international community to take action against nations and communities that punish apostasy.

Its report, No Place to Call Home, claims that apostates from Islam are subject to “gross and wideranging human rights abuses”. It adds that in countries such as Britain, with large Muslim populations in a Westernised culture, the demand to maintain a Muslim identity is intense. “When identities are precarious, their enforcement will take an aggressive form.”

As, indeed, it does in many overwhelmingly Muslim nations, where such identities are presumably not quite so "precarious"!

If the allegations in this report are accurate - and there is no reason to suppose that they are not - then the conduct of the police really was disgusting. Not only did they fail to take action against the people making the threats of violence (a response which, given their track record, is hardly surprising), but they treated the victim as if he himself were at fault. Moreover, in condemning Mr Hussein for having the temerity to live as a Christian in a neighbourhood full of Muslims, and expect not to have his house firebombed (!), the police used terminology straight out of the Islamist lexicon, condemning him for "being a crusader". Still, given that the police tried to have the makers of the documentary "Undercover Mosque" prosecuted for accurately reporting extremist comments by Muslim preachers, we shouldn't be too shocked by their response to Mr Hussein's complaint. Although I do wonder what it is about Muslims that leads the police to treat them in so favourable a manner!

More generally, the treatment meted out to Mr Hussein, and other Islamic apostates, by their erstwhile coreligionists serves to demonstrate the complete incompatibility of Western and Islamic culture. It is quite some time since I last heard of anyone being threatened with death for converting away from Christianity, and I don't recall ever meeting anyone who favoured executing apostate Christians. By contrast, 36% of young Muslims in Britain believe that converting away from Islam is an act meriting the death penalty. As I have noted before, the threats and attacks that Nissar Hussein endured were far from unique.

Answer: he's white

The Daily Mail has the story of eighteen year-old Jamie Bauld, who recently had a charge of racially-aggravated assault against him dropped, following a seven month police investigation. So, what sort of person is Jamie Bauld? The kind of thug who goes out "Paki-bashing" at weekends, perhaps? Well, no. He's actually a Down's Syndrome sufferer, with a mental age of five.

The incident that led to the police investigation occurred last September, at the special needs department of his school, Motherwell College. Jamie had an altercation with an Asian girl, who also had special needs, during the course of which he pushed her. Hardly the most heinous of crimes in any context, you might think, and particularly not when both participants have the mental age of primary school children. However, some unknown person clearly felt otherwise. They placed an advertisement in the local paper, asking for witnesses to the "racial assault", after which the eminently sensible gentlemen of the police force decided that it was worth their while to get involved, and questioned Jamie, prior to charging him with assault. According to his mother, Jamie did not understand the questions that the police were asking him, and simply agreed with every accusation put to him, out of a desire to please his interrogators. She adds that, like many children, he does not actually notice racial differences.

A fortnight ago the prosecution was finally dropped, and Jamie's parents have received an apology from the Crown Office - Scotland's equivalent of the Crown Prosecution Service. At least that's something.
But it really is astounding that matters were taken this far. Or at least, it ought to be. However, given that recent years have also seen a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl arrested for complaining that her (Asian) fellow pupils were not speaking English, and three ten-year-old boys respectively questioned by police for using the word 'gay' in an e-mail, threatened with prosecution for throwing a berry at a Slovak immigrant, and prosecuted over a playground scuffle with an Asian child (a decision that even the judge condemned as "political correctness gone mad"), my response to Jamie Bauld's case was not so much amazement, as resignation. Our country, and, particularly, it seems, our police and our public prosecution services, are infested with censorious liberal thought police, always on the lookout for new victims to persecute, harass, and vilify. What can drive any human being to seek the prosecution of someone like Jamie Bauld is totally beyond me, unless they do it for the bully's thrill that some derive from victimising someone who is utterly incapable of fighting back.

Jamie's mother asks "how can my son be racist"? A valid question, particularly given that there appears to have been no suggestion that the altercation in the classroom was accompanied by anything indicative of racist attitudes, on the part of either Jamie, or the Asian girl. The answer, of course, is that he is white. As such, he is, in "anti-racist" ideology, presumed guilty of racism, and nothing can prove him innocent. Even though there was no racial element in this incident, the fact that he had a conflict with a non-white person, while being himself guilty of being white, proves, to the "anti-racist" thought policeman, that he had a racist motive for his actions. Because those white devils are all evil racists, you know...

Ali Dizaei in race hustling shock

A senior Muslim policeman has said the Metropolitan Police's (Met) recruitment process is putting off young Muslims.

National Black Police Association President and Met Police Commander Ali Dizaei said the process should be "non- biased and fair".

He said some recruits were discouraged because they come under suspicion if they frequently visited some countries.

A Met Police spokesman said all staff regardless of background underwent the same vigorous security procedures.

Speaking to BBC London, Commander Dizaei said: "Just because someone visits a country several times does not necessarily make them a risk.

"We have to be quite careful to ensure our vetting process is non-biased and are fair and get the best people for the jobs without compromising national security."

BBC London's Home Affairs Correspondent Guy Smith said the National Association of Muslim Police told him another concern was that Muslim officers found it difficult to join SO15, the Met's counter-terrorism command, for which you need to be a detective.

Of the 300 current Muslim officers serving in the Met, half have less than three years experience.

This figure suggests that rather a lot of Muslims have been joining up recently, doesn't it? Or at least, that they've been joining up at a faster rate in the last couple of years than they had done previously. Which somewhat undermines Dizaei's claim that young Muslims are being discouraged from joining the force.

One should also note that the alleged "discrimination" consists, not in Muslims receiving inferior treatment, but rather, in the fact that all potential recruits are treated exactly the same. Dizaei claims that Muslim applicants are more likely to come under suspicion because of the countries they visit. But, had I been in the habit of making regular journeys to, say, Afghanistan, then, were I to apply for a job with the police, it is likely that they would look rather askance at me too. Perhaps Dizaei feels that visiting dodgy countries run or populated by large numbers of terrorists or terrorist supporters should not count against an individual's application to join the Met. But if this is what he thinks, then he should come out and make that case, rather than throwing around unsubstantiated accusations of discrimination. Still, I suppose he's just doing what he does best.

In a similar vein, the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) appears, from this BBC report, to be complaining that Muslim officers are not being recruited into SO15, because they are not meeting a requirement that applies to all applicants equally - i.e. being detectives. This is clearly related to the fact that Muslim officers are disproportionately likely to be new or recent recruits. In order to demonstrate actual discrimination, it would need to be shown that Muslim detectives were being denied positions in SO15, wholly or partly because of their religion. The NAMP has not done this. Of course, certain recent stories suggest that it is not unreasonable to question whether it would be wholly desirable to put large numbers of Muslims in a counter-(Islamic) terrorism force anyway.

When Ali Dizaei talks about making the recruitment process "non-biased and fair", he, like most race hustlers, actually means that it should be unfair and biased in favour of his special interest group - in this case, Muslims. He seems to believe that police vetting procedures should be relaxed in cases where the applicant is a Muslim, while his allies in the NAMP apparently feel that it should be easier for Muslims to enter SO15 than for the rest of us. Either that, or they're both in favour of a general lowering of standards for entry to both the police, and SO15, which might help some Muslim, career-wise, but which certainly won't make the police more effective. Either way, they're wrong.

Of course, while there is no evidence whatsoever that Muslims are being discriminated against, one should not imagine that police recruitment procedures are entirely fair. Members of that entirely legal political party, the BNP, are subject to an absolute ban on joining the police. But they're thought criminals, so it doesn't matter, right?

A Brush with the law

You would hardly put him in the risque category when it comes to entertainment.

But these days, it seems that even Basil Brush is classed as controversial.

The wisecracking puppet, who has been on children's TV since the Sixties, is being investigated by the police for racism, after his show featured a gipsy selling pegs and heather.

Members of the gipsy community complained to the Northamptonshire force, saying this was racial abuse.

And although the episode was first shown on the BBC six years ago, and has been repeated eight times since, officers now plan to study it for evidence.

Hey: that's quicker than their usual response time!

The programme features Basil's friend Mr Stephen, played by Christopher Pizzey, falling under a gipsy spell which makes him attractive to women.

Dame Rosie Fortune, who lives above the pair, tries to sell Basil pegs and heather – but he turns her down.

She then offers to tell Basil's fortune, but he says: "I went to a fortune teller once and he said I was going on a long journey."

Mr Stephen then asks him what happened, to which Basil replies "He stole my wallet and I had to walk all the way home."

The episode, also on a DVD called Basil Unleashed, was last shown on the digital channel CBBC, last month.

Critics believe that the investigation is a waste of police time.

You don't say!

But Joseph Jones, vice chairman of the Southern England Romany Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network, said: "This sort of thing happens quite regularly and we are fed up with making complaints about stereotypical comments about us in words that we find racist or offensive."

Don't do it then.

"Racist abuse of black people is quite rightly no longer deemed acceptable, but when a comedian makes a joke on TV about pikeys or gippos, there's no comeback.

"Travellers have historically sold heather and pegs, but they don't do it anymore for a living. It could be that someone thought this was a kind of stereotyping."

Possibly. Stereotyping isn't illegal, though. Inciting racial hatred is, but I doubt that any child is going to sit watching Basil Brush, and say to themselves "I hate those gypsies, they sell heather and pegs". I really can't see this unusually deranged complaint going any further, and assume that even the police will eventually be able to work out that the complainant is either a nutter, or, just possibly, someone exposing, rather effectively, the ludicrous extent to which "anti-racism" has now been taken, by the police themselves, among others.

But what this demonstrates more than anything else is the juvenilisation of modern society, and the extent to which increasing numbers of people are now willing to go running to the police every time their delicate little feelings get hurt, seeking to have the offending party punished and silenced. It's a phenomenon we also see exhibited by those individuals who contact the police to complain about shops selling golliwogs, and by Muslims on a regular basis, and in response to a variety of causes (they often bypass the police altogether, though, and attempt to silence their critics themselves). Such people - adults who have never got over the fact that they aren't at school any longer, and can't go crying to teacher demanding that other pupils be put in detention for some petty slight - have always existed, albeit only in limited numbers. It's just a shame that, so long as they can present their offence as one suffered by some "oppressed minority" generally (whether or not they actually belong to such a minority - a lot of these informers are white liberals taking offence on behalf of the designated victims), their childish whinings are increasingly given credence by those in authority, including the police.

Innocent until proven naughty

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,' said Pugh. 'You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won't. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.'

Pugh admitted that the deeply controversial suggestion raised issues of parental consent, potential stigmatisation and the role of teachers in identifying future offenders, but said society needed an open, mature discussion on how best to tackle crime before it took place. There are currently 4.5 million genetic samples on the UK database - the largest in Europe - but police believe more are required to reduce crime further. 'The number of unsolved crimes says we are not sampling enough of the right people,' Pugh told The Observer. However, he said the notion of universal sampling - everyone being forced to give their genetic samples to the database - is currently prohibited by cost and logistics.

Civil liberty groups condemned his comments last night by likening them to an excerpt from a 'science fiction novel'. One teaching union warned that it was a step towards a 'police state'.

And, on this issue, I agree 100%. It is bad enough that adults are having their details permanently stored on this database, simply because they were once arrested, regardless of whether they actually committed the crime, or whether they were ever convicted of anything. The notion that children below the age of criminal responsibility should have their DNA taken and kept forever for crimes that they might commit in the future is downright sinister. As, indeed, is the idea that adults who have never had so much as a parking ticket could nonetheless have their DNA kept on a database, simply because when they were seven or eight years old someone decided that they might one day become a criminal.

I say "someone" because it's not made clear who will actually be taking the decision. Will all children who are sent to the headmistress now be swabbed as a matter of course? I assume not, but it would be interesting to know who, if Gary Pugh ever gets his way, will decide that a child is a potential "threat to society", and on what basis they will make this decision.

Pugh says that "we have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society". Well, I would have thought that the answer to this question could be determined with greater accuracy by paying attention to those teenagers who are actually convicted of committing crimes. Surely proven fact is a better indicator of a tendency to commit crime, than even the most well-informed speculation? I would also point out that Pugh is not simply interesting in "finding out" which children are more likely to commit crime as adults, but he is also interested in forcibly taking their DNA, with or without the consent of their parents, and keeping it on a database for the remainder of their lives. There's rather a big difference between that, and simply "finding out".

I do not have any great objection to convicted criminals being obliged to provide DNA samples, but it is a severe violation of our civil liberties to compel the rest of us to do so. This does not cease to be the case, simply because doing so assists the police in solving crimes. It is quite clear that at least some senior police officers want, ultimately, to see the establishment of a compulsory nationwide DNA database, even if they regard the costs or logistical problems as being too great to allow such a programme to be implemented at present. The gradual growth of the database, the gradual increase in the types of people who can be forced to give up their DNA, and the consequent gradual acceptance of compulsory DNA testing, can only serve to hasten the day when all of us are ordered to submit to such testing by the state. As I have noted several times before, that is a day that I for one hope never to see.

As a final thought, it occurs to me that many people homeschool their children - as many as 100,000 British children are educated in this manner. Clearly, the agents of the state have far fewer opportunities to observe these children on a day-to-day basis, and are consequently far less able to identify potential evildoers among this group - the next Shipman could be out there, for Heaven's sake! I wonder what kind of (no doubt authoritarian) measures Pugh and his ilk would like to see put in place, to root out any potential criminals from among the ranks of the home educated?

The latest immigration triumph

Nine illegal immigrants disappeared after they were given free train tickets by police and told to make their own way to a detention centre more than 60 miles away.

The move was described as "ludicrous", but police have defended their actions, saying they were acting on the advice of immigration authorities.

The men, who are from Afghanistan, were discovered by Cambridgeshire police under the back of a lorry in Fordham, near Newmarket.

They were apprehended by officers before being given train tickets and told by police to make their own way to an immigration facility in Croydon, Surrey.

But none of the men arrived at the centre and they have not been seen since.

Well, who would ever have thought that people who break the law in order to enter the country would be anything other than 100% keen to follow the rules once they got here? Not any of the bunglers in charge of managing (ha!) immigration, certainly.

Cambridgeshire police say they were acting under instruction from officials at the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), a Home Office department.

But officials at the BIA denied such guidance was issued and insisted they had asked for the nine men to be held in custody so that they could be interviewed.

Frankly, I couldn't care less who screwed up this time. The fact is, that for all the efforts to pass the buck that the petty jobsworths in the police and the BIA seem to be engaging in, they are both government agencies, and specifically Home Office agencies. And it doesn't really matter to me whether Home Office Agency A was at fault, or whether the blame instead lies with Home Office Agency B - the end result is the same either way.
The fact is, that there have been far, far, far too many Home Office cock-ups over immigration already (see here, here, here, here, here, and here), with today's example just the latest in a very long line of blunders. The sheer incompetence that the government and its agencies have consistently demonstrated in their management of immigration is what really bothers me, not the question of which government agency was to blame for each specific cock-up. But, having said that, the lack of anyone willing, on this occasion or any other, to come out and admit that they got it wrong, rather than always pathetically trying to shift responsibility onto someone else, does serve to add insult to injury.

Piss off and Dizaei

As Lee Jasper vanishes, at least temporarily, from public view, an equally obnoxious race hustler may be in for a bit of luck. The Telegraph reports that Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent, and president of the National Black Police Association, Ali Dizaei, is one of several candidates for promotion to the rank of Commander.
The report also notes that Dizaei "once accused his colleagues of racism". In fact he has done so on at least four separate occasions, and, perhaps in an effort to broaden his repertoire, has also recently accused the Solicitors Regulation Authority of being "institutionally racist". He doesn't exactly have a track record of scrupulous honesty in his accusations, either: last year, he admitted to having libelled both his ex-boss, and another officer, and was obliged to pay "substantial" damages to both men.
His latest allegations against his colleagues were made almost exactly a year ago, when an earlier application for promotion to Commander was rejected. Apparently, Sir Ian Blair fears that Dizaei will cry "racism", should he once again fail to get promoted. Now, what on Earth could have given him that idea?

Even among race hustlers, Dizaei is a particularly unpleasant and dangerous specimen. Unlike the likes of Lee Jasper, he does not remain in the dank recesses of the "race relations" swamp, but slithers into the general public realm to spread his slime. As a senior police officer (his stated ambition is to rise to the rank of chief constable, and if he cries "racism" enough, he just might get there), his decisions and actions can have a direct impact upon the lives of ordinary people, in a way that Jasper's generally cannot. But, Dizaei, just as much as other race hustlers, appears to be motivated by a deep-seated grudge, bordering on hatred, against all white people; like all other race hustlers, he seems to see racist conspiracies everywhere, or at least, everywhere where white people are found. The fact that he has twice admitted to libel suggests that he is rather dishonest, as well. As I have written before, such a man is unfit to wear police uniform at all, let alone the uniform of a senior officer. It is to be hoped that the Met will reject his application for promotion, even if it does mean that he cries "racism" once again. After all, he does it so often, that I doubt anyone really bats an eyelid anymore...

More database fun

Thousands of DNA samples taken from criminals have been filed under the names of innocent people, it was revealed yesterday.

There are 550,000 false, misspelt or incorrect names on the Government's vast DNA database, which contains more than 4million samples.

That means one in every eight records is thought to be inaccurate.

[...]

Most alarming is the revelation that many criminals are using other people's names if they are caught.

Home Office Minister Meg Hillier gave the example of somebody who was arrested, and gave their sister's name.

"That data would be on the database," she told MPs.

Politicians are worried that people could be charged with crimes they have not committed if DNA belonging to a criminal who gave their name later turned up at a crime scene.

It was stressed that innocent people could provide an authentic sample of their own DNA to prove it did not match.

However, they would still be forced to undergo the stress and humiliation of a criminal investigation.

Presumably, the police could easily verify someone's identity, simply by searching them. After all, they managed it when they arrested Euan Blair.

But, in over half a million cases, they simply haven't bothered, but have stored the DNA, without knowing for sure whether it actually belongs to the person they think it does.

And some among us want to give these idiots a database containing the DNA of every man, woman, and child in this country! Still, we shouldn't be too worried: on the basis of this showing, the Plods would struggle to organise a piss-up in a brewery, let alone a DDR-style police state...

Hat-tip: House of Dumb

The subtle advance of the police state

The government has rejected demands for the introduction of a compulsory national DNA database, on the grounds that such a database "would raise significant practical and ethical issues". Senior police officers have also declared that they remain unconvinced of the need for such a database.

Of course, this is good news. The idea of compelling every British citizen to provide the police with a sample of their DNA, to be kept on file in perpetuity, is deeply sinister in itself, is a huge violation of our privacy and freedom, and is particularly unnerving when you consider the rather cavalier attitude that the government has shown towards the security of our personal records. Besides which, I think that a slippery slope argument is valid here: give the police a database of all our DNA, and it will make it that bit easier for the advocates of compulsory ID cards, and other authoritarian measures, to persuade the public to accept them.

But the news that the government will not (yet) be imposing a nationwide DNA database masks the very worrying fact that the police already have a vast DNA database. Because whenever anyone is arrested, the police take their DNA - and keep it. In 2001 the law was changed to allow the police to keep the DNA of people who had been acquitted, and they now have a database containing DNA samples from approximately 4 million people, hundreds of thousands of whom have never been convicted of any criminal offence. Per head of population, this is by far the largest such database in the world.

Other manifestations of a burgeoning police state are all around us, most notably the government's plan to force us all to carry ID cards, which the Home Office minister Liam Byrne assures us "will soon become part of the fabric of British life" and "another great British institution without which modern life...would be quite unthinkable". I don't know about you, but I don't find that possibility to be all that alluring. But that's the way the future is looking: databases and ID cards for all.

Persecuted saint update

Hot on the heels of his suspension as Ken Livingstone's advisor (not to mention the impending police investigation into his financial dealings), the Blessed Lee Jasper suffers another setback:

Lee Jasper has resigned from a group that advises Scotland Yard on how it tackles gun crime within the black community.

The aide to London Mayor Ken Livingstone has stepped down from his position as chairman of the Trident Independent Advisory Group.

Mr Jasper is currently fighting to clear his name after accusations that he is linked to the misuse of public funds.

Writing to members of the group, he said the media's "politically-motivated racist smear campaign" had forced his resignation.

It's a racist conspiracy, I tells ya!

Hat-tip: Battle for Britain

Our friends the police

A policeman who helped in a fatal attack on a pensioner's home can be unmasked today.

Stephen Smith, 49, used the police national computer to find Bernard Gilbert's address on behalf of an assailant hell-bent on revenge after a row over a parking space.

The officer's involvement in the tragedy can be revealed after two brothers were found guilty of manslaughter by a jury yesterday at the end of a two-week trial at Nottingham Crown Court.

PC Smith, a police officer for 24 years, resigned from the Derbyshire force before he could be sacked.

A police source said Smith had kept his pension, but it was frozen at the point he resigned.

Yeah, that'll teach him!

The court heard that 79-year-old Mr Gilbert, of Spondon, near Derby, argued with Zoe Forbes, 26, after she "nipped into" the parking space he was intending to use at their local Asda in January last year.

She wrote down his car number and passed it to her husband Mark, who gave it to a friend, Dale Phillips, who knew Smith.

The court heard that the following day, 40-year-old Forbes texted his wife, assuring her: "I've got someone on to it.

"Fingers crossed, I'll get an address. Then we'll smash his car to bits - and then his hire car and then whatever he gets after that until he dies."

Smith traced the pensioner's address and it was passed back to Forbes, who sent another text reading: "Bingo! Number 17, your time is up!"

Days later, armed with the information supplied by Smith, Forbes and his brother Steven drove to the pensioner's bungalow and Steven, 22, hurled a half-brick through the window while Mr Gilbert was watching television.

The former Rolls Royce aero worker collapsed in front of his wife Betty.

By the time a paramedic arrived, he was already dead. He was later found to have been suffering from angina.

Smith, of Oakerthorpe, Derbyshire, admitted disclosing personal data contrary to the Data Protection Act 1988 at Derby Magistrates' Court in March last year and was fined £1,200.

[...]

Smith was living with a girlfriend and their children but the couple recently split up and he now stays with his mother, Joan.

He refused to comment yesterday but his mother said he had been under stress at work at the time of the incident.

She said: "It has affected him immensely. Steve had been suffering from stress and depression - and still is - and I have been left to pick up the pieces.

"He has found a new job, but he is still suffering because of all this. Why won't people leave him alone?"

I know how she feels. You commit one tiny little violation of your duty to the public, one person - only one - gets killed because of it, and suddenly, you're the bad guy.

Cases like this provide one of the reasons why we should all be extremely wary about the ever-increasing number of databases held by various agencies of the state. Because it only takes one bad apple for the records to end up in the wrong hands. Or indeed, one government cock-up of the kind we've seen rather a lot of recently.

Postscript: In other Plod news, there's a rather entertaining argument going on between the author of the Devil's Kitchen blog, and the members of the Police Oracle forum. The comments at the Police Oracle forum, and those left by policemen in the comments section of this post (the one which started the whole thing off) are especially interesting, in illustrating the contempt with which many police officers view the general public (something which I, for one, am more than willing to reciprocate), as well as their self-righteous detachment from reality. They're rather reminiscent of our social worker friends in that respect...

The Police are not on our side

Another day, another display of unadulterated cretinism from Her Majesty's police. Their latest heroic exploit? Arresting a seventy-three year-old pensioner for confronting a gang of teenage thugs.

When William Marshall, a retired miner with a heart condition, saw the group throwing bricks at ducks on a canal in Worksop, he, rather bravely, told them to stop. They responded with a barrage of abuse, and after a shouting match, he retreated. As you do, when you're a lone septuagenarian, confronted with several potentially violent men much younger than you.

This was not the first time Mr Marshall had had problems with the gang, and he had made a number of complaints to the police. Accordingly, when two police officers showed up on his doorstep, he naively assumed that they had come in response to his complaints. But he was sadly mistaken, as he swiftly found out, when an officer informed him that he was being arrested on suspicion of assault. One of the young thugs had, it seemed, contacted the police to accuse Mr Marshall of hitting him. And while the police did not see fit to respond to any of Mr Marshall's numerous complaints, they were swift to respond to the first accusation made against him.

Having been arrested, Mr Marshall, who has a previously unblemished record, was kept in a police cell for two hours, before being formally interviewed, and released pending further enquiries. After Mr Marshall's local councillor took up his case, the police have apologised, explaining that the officer in question was "young in service", and, apparently, in need of further training. Personally, I would have hoped that he would get appropriate training before being sent out to harass pensioners. But obviously not...

This is far from being the first time that the police have allowed themselves to be used as, in effect, the enforcers for petty thugs and vandals. Last month I wrote about the case of Julie Lake, who was arrested after slapping a thug who was vandalising a war memorial. In March, I wrote about Fred Brown, who was arrested and charged with assault for giving a clip round the ear to a piece of scum who was vandalising the machines in his launderette. In both these cases, as in Mr Marshall's, the police had failed to respond to repeated complaints about the behaviour of the thugs, but had snapped into action the moment the thugs themselves saw fit to complain that someone had had the effrontery to challenge them. One has to ask what kind of police force responds with such alacrity to the whinings of low-life thugs, while ignoring the justified complaints of law-abiding citizens? A police force, I would suggest, with serious problems, and one which, so far from deserving the substantial pay rise that its members believe to be their due, merits nothing so much as a sizable collective pay cut, as the fitting reward for its uselessness.

Hat-tip: The Green Arrow

Scumwatch Special: Scum on the Run

With convicted murderer Daniel Driscoll still on the loose after absconding from Sudbury open prison a month ago, you'd think that the prison service would be keen to, you know, prevent any more killers from escaping into society. Yes, you might very well think that, but you would be wrong:

A police manhunt has been launched after the convicted murderer of a disabled man escaped from a hospital.

Lee Nevins, 24, gave prison guards the slip while being treated at Sunderland Royal Hospital on Tuesday.

He is serving a minimum 17-year term at a top-security Frankland Prison, in Durham for killing Lee Jobling, 20.

I think that the correct word there was 'was'. He was serving a minimum 17-year term at Frankland Prison. He is no longer serving it, because he has escaped.

Supt Gordon Milward said Nevins was taken to hospital with a hand injury and escaped after asking to go to the toilet.

He added: "I am still looking at, as part of the inquiry, the exact security measures that were in place by the Prison Service.

"My understanding is that he had a pair of handcuffs on, keeping his wrists secured and he was also secured to a guard."

Unless he's taken the guard with him, he clearly isn't secured to him anymore. Obviously I'm not an ace detective like the superintendent, but I might hazard a guess that Nevins becoming detached from the guard is not unconnected with his ultimate disappearance. Well done, that guard!

Mind you, the police aren't all that much better themselves:

A paedophile named on a list of the UK's "most wanted" was arrested but later released after police failed to recognise him.

An inquiry is under way after South Yorkshire Police officers only realised who Joshua Karney was after he was fined for being drunk and released.

Karney, 30, is one of five of the UK's most wanted sex offenders after going missing from Lancashire in 2005.

[...]

The hunt for Karney has appeared on BBC One's Crimewatch and he is on the Child Exploitation and Online Protection "most wanted" list.

When he was arrested for being drunk and disorderly in Barnsley on 24 November he gave false details and was given a fixed penalty notice.

Karney was released and it was only later that officers checked his fingerprints and realised he was wanted.

A spokesman for South Yorkshire Police said: "We regret greatly that Joshua Karney was released from custody after he gave false details."

Well, as long as you're really sorry. Don't let it happen again, though...

Update: Karney was caught in Hove at about six this evening. So it's just the two murderers we have to worry about now...