Friday, February 07, 2020


A glorious victory for democracy

Brendan O’Neill wrote the following on Brexit eve

We did it. Against all the odds. Against the barbs and defamations and underhand tactics of a hysterical establishment. Against a Remainer Parliament that had been hell-bent on reversing what we voted for. Against the best efforts of Remainer agitators at home and the bureaucratic machine in Brussels to prevent our democratic voice from being heard.

Against all of this, we did it: we secured the UK’s exit from the EU. And now, on Brexit Day, on this day when the Eurosceptic wishes of the British people finally become a reality, let’s be frank about what Brexit represents: it is the most significant and stirring political achievement of the postwar period.

As we approach 11pm, the moment at which the UK will no longer be a member of the EU, there is much discussion about what tone we should adopt in our celebrations of Brexit Day. Brexiteer Tory MP Steve Baker is calling for ‘magnanimity’. Have a quiet one, at home, so that you don’t upset pained Remainers, he suggests.

Remainers, for their part, are furious about all the talk of parties. We’re rubbing their noses in it, they say. Everything from the Brexit Day gathering in Parliament Square this evening to Sajid Javid’s issuing of a commemorative 50p coin is being cited by the establishment’s bruised, Remoaning anti-democrats as proof of the vile populist streak in the Brexit movement. London mayor Sadiq Khan is even fretting that tonight’s Brexit bashes could give rise to xenophobic hate crimes.

Of course he is. That’s how they see us: as a pogrom-in-waiting. As a racist blob. As an unthinking mass driven almost entirely by hatred of the Other. They’ve been hurling these insults at us, at the millions of men and women who voted for Brexit, for three-and-a-half years now.

But all sides in the Brexit Day discussion are wrong. Baker and other timid Brexiteers are wrong to suggest we should play down the significance of this day lest we offend Remainers, and the Brexitphobic wing of the elite is wrong to say these celebrations are a screech of populist arrogance against the defeated side in the referendum. No, the reason this day must be marked — loudly, firmly and colourfully — is because it represents a glorious victory for democracy. What is being celebrated today is the defence of democracy against one of the greatest threats it has faced in modern times.

One of the peculiarities of the Brexit era, and of the contemporary era more broadly, is that very small and very unrepresentative sections of society are in control of the political and moral narrative. So even as 17.4million people, the largest electoral bloc in our history, voted for Brexit, and stood by their vote for Brexit in the face of the most extraordinary campaign of demonisation that I can remember, still the Remainer elites got to write the story of Brexit.

The powers-that-be — from the business elites to more than 70 per cent of MPs to virtually the entire academy and cultural sphere — were pro-Remain. And they used their influence in the worlds of commentary, letters and culture to paint a picture of Brexit as disastrous. As toxic. As fascistic. Or, at best, as very, very difficult to enact. The disjoint between public enthusiasm for Brexit and elite disgust with it was, at times, staggering.

As a consequence, it became incredibly difficult to draw out the historic significance, the magnificence, of Brexit. Even those in public life who supported Brexit, no doubt feeling the pressure of the often deranged establishment narrative around Brexit, became defensive. Brexit was manageable, they insisted. It would be okay. ‘Get Brexit Done’, as the Boris Johnson campaign said in December — a tellingly apologetic slogan which, thankfully, was enough to win the support of vast numbers of Leave voters, but which implicitly played into the denigration of Brexit, the reduction of it to a difficult, pesky task. Hardly anywhere was there an assertion of the historic, epoch-defining nature of Brexit.

So let’s do that today. Let’s now celebrate the meaningfulness of Brexit. It really cannot be overstated. Brexit is one of the finest acts of democracy in the history of this nation. It ought to take its place in the history books alongside the Levellers’ demand for universal male suffrage in the 1640s, and the mass march for democracy in St Peter’s Field in Manchester in 1819, and the Chartists’ agitation for the right of working-class men to vote in the 1840s, and the civil disobedience of the Suffragettes in the 1910s…

Because Brexit, and, more importantly, the post-referendum battle to protect Brexit from the anti-democratic elites, shares something incredibly important in common with those democratic leaps forward in British history. Which is that it embodies the patient but determined assertion of ordinary people that they have as much right as the rich and the well-educated to determine the political fate of the nation. That belief in the rights of the people energised the men, women and children on St Peter’s Field in 1819, and the women who gathered outside parliament on Black Friday in November 1910, and also the millions of us who voted to leave the EU and take back democratic control. Brexit is in keeping, entirely, with the great democratic struggles of our history.

Brexit did not only entail the British people reprimanding and rejecting the European Union and its anti-democratic ideology, which would have been wonderful enough. No, even more importantly than that, Brexit was a revolt against the domestic elites. Against the establishment that pleaded with us to vote Remain in 2016 and which devoted so much of its moral and political energy to sabotaging our vote for Brexit after 2016. Against a political class which, alarmingly, called into question the right to vote itself after the 2016 referendum and openly suggested that this mass vote should be ignored, erased, thrown into the dustbin of history.

This is why the vote for Boris in December last year was so significant. That so many ‘Red Wall’ Labour strongholds fell to the Tories was the clearest sign that the people still wanted Brexit and that the working classes had finally broken from the Labour bureaucracy and asserted their political and moral independence. The December election was the first time in the history of the European Union that a people refused to allow their vote against the EU to be overthrown or stitched up, as tragically happened in Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Greece and elsewhere. Across Europe, under extraordinary pressure from Brussels, Eurosceptic votes have either been ignored or overridden. Not this time. The people of Britain voted against the EU and then voted against the EU and the British establishment’s attempt to crush our vote and to deny us our democratic rights. This was a genuinely stirring and determined defence of the ideal of democracy and the meaning of the vote itself. In response to the most explicit and hateful establishment campaign against democracy in living memory, the British people said: ‘No, no, no.’

If that isn’t something to celebrate, I don’t know what is. Today, we should celebrate the British people’s defence of democracy. We should celebrate their perseverance and patience. We should celebrate the electorate’s capacity to think for itself, as captured in its constant refusal to fall for Project Fear or to heed the desperate overtures of the Remainer establishment. We should celebrate that the populist moment, the Europe-wide desire for greater people power, is not going away anytime soon. And we should celebrate the seismic shock that Brexit — that is, us, the voters — have delivered to a complacent establishment. We have called into question their authority, their power, and their unilateral right to impose their eccentric values and managerial tactics on the population at large. That battle isn’t over yet, by a long shot, but the first victory belongs to the demos.

People fought and died for the right to have a real, impactful say in political life. And Brexiteers have done those people proud. I’m celebrating that.

SOURCE 






The dangerous delusions of the new anti-racists

Seeing racism everywhere, and blaming it for everything, is helping no one.

‘It’s pantomime season again’, writes Nesrine Malik in the Guardian. ‘Is Britain racist? Oh no it’s not. Oh yes it is!’ She has a point.

This January, liberal commentators have been hyperactively claiming that the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, is the victim of racism, while others have shouted that she isn’t. Oh yes she is! Oh no she’s not! And so on.

Malik is clear that Meghan is a victim of racism. She says it is because Britain has a racism problem, hence the ‘hate crime, systemic police prejudice and the dramatic disparity of opportunity between people of different ethnic backgrounds’. The bigger problem, she continues, is that too many white people are incapable of seeing this racism for what it is.

‘It is exhausting when you hear people deny that racism is at the heart of [the royal crisis]’, said lawyer and political activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu on ITVs This Morning. Meghan’s experience was merely a symptom of Britain’s ‘cultural racism’, she said, before adding: ‘White folks need to educate themselves on the racism they perpetuate.’

Perhaps Mos-Shogbamimu had historian Robert Lacey in mind. Speaking on the BBC current-affairs show Newsnight, he suggested racism in Britain was not ‘so bad as in many other countries’. At that point, pop singer Jamelia, Lacey’s fellow guest, interrupted him. ‘I can’t possibly accept that’, she said. ‘That’s a terrible way to think. As far as I’m concerned, we do live in a racist society, we have to acknowledge it and we have to be able to speak about it’, she said.

Needless to say, Brexit is never too far away in the minds of those currently condemning Britain as a racist society. Labour leadership drop-out and firm Remainer Clive Lewis announced this month that Brexit has ‘racism at its core’. Reflecting on the 2016 referendum result, he said: ‘How many black people woke up with a sense of dread after what happened?’

Little of this hyperbole is a surprise. We constantly hear of how big a problem racism is in British society. We hear of the ‘empirical evidence’ of a spike in hate crime after the Leave vote. We hear of the rise of the far right. And now, just to show how deep the problem has permeated, we hear that racism is a growing problem in schools. Or, as BBC News puts it, ‘Exclusions for racism in primary schools in England up more than 40 per cent’.

Peer a little deeper, though, and it appears the BBC had made a bad-news headline out of good news. The report itself reveals that English primary-school exclusions for racism increased from 350 (in 2006-7) to 496 (in 2017-18). This was an increase of 146 over an 11-year period – a period in which the pupil population increased by 600,000 to over 4.7 million children.

If you bear in mind not just the increase in primary-school children numbers, but also the fact that, as the Department for Education cautions, exclusions frequently involve the same individuals, then a rise of 146 exclusions is tiny. Even if every one of the 496 exclusions in 2017-18 was a different kid, it would still amount to 0.01 per cent of all the primary-school pupils in England.

Not that the statistical insignificance of the racism-based exclusions has stopped some from drawing fear-laden conclusions. As Zubaida Haque, deputy director of the Runnymede Trust, put it, schools are ‘a microcosm’ of a society in which hate crime is increasing: ‘Children will pick that up very quickly, and that is what is happening.’

We’ve been here before. Back in 2007, having worked in numerous schools since 2000, it was obvious to me that two opposing trends were emerging. On the one hand, you had an ethnically mixed cohort of children, many from mixed-race families, uniquely equipped to transcend the old racial categories. And in the world beyond the school gate in 21st-century Britain, the visceral anti-black and anti-Asian racism, so evident decades earlier, had become so rare that instances of it appeared shocking.

And, on the other hand, there was an official, state-led form of anti-racism then emerging across the public sector, and especially in schools. It sought to collect, record and report any incident that might – according to the government guidance – be perceived as racist ‘by the victim or any other person’. In many instances, school staff were adopting the same approach as the police are now doing, recording and, importantly, ‘being seen’ to be recording any incident reported as racist.

Primary schools were an easy target for the racism spotters. Kids may have been inventing an intrinsically anti-racist model of multi-ethnic, multicultural interaction. But that did not mean they had stopped being children. Then, as now, amid the fizz of playgrounds at breaktime, children who fall out throw any usable insult at one another. And it was these playground spats that were transformed into evidence of racism. And so the myth of racist kids was born.

The same obsessive search for the racism in our midst, and subsequent, spurious statistical presentation of it as such, has established ‘the rise in hate crime’ as a straightforward incontestable truth. If that wasn’t bad enough, official anti-racism places a forcefield around the contention that racism is everywhere. It means you cannot question it without being accused of being racist, or blinded by white privilege.

The dangers of the rise of this new anti-racism are already apparent. A generation of young BAME (black and minority ethnic) people are increasingly likely to believe their life chances are damaged because of their race. They risk being consumed by their sense of victimisation at the hands of the white and privileged.

Racism does exist, of course. And no doubt it plays a part in the racial disparities we see in crime rates, employment and housing (to name but a few problem areas). But the new anti-racists make a bigger claim. They claim that ‘racism’ is the exclusive explanation for all BAME adversity. The role social class plays in social inequality is erased, even though ethnic minorities are more likely to be younger, poorer and live in areas of social deprivation. ‘Racial injustice’ has become a catch-all explanation for any social problem.

The miserablist view of a society dominated by racism risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. BAME citizens could increasingly retreat inside one grievance culture, while white citizens retreat inside another. And each will loathe and resent the other.

But this assessment is too pessimistic. The racism-is-everywhere trend certainly presents a danger, but we should remember that the new anti-racism, though influential, is not as potent as it looks. Back in the world in which many British people live, a tolerant, youthful superdiversity fizzes away. The lived experience of its inhabitants allows them to see through the divisive and frequently absurd claims of anti-racist officials and shouty racism-hunters. As always, it’s the people of this world, which lies outside that of the increasingly woke political and media class, who have the capacity to expose the dangerous delusions of the new anti-racism.

SOURCE 







New dating app matches people based on INTELLIGENCE - and singles must complete an IQ test to determine how 'smart' they are

This is realistic but likely to be criticized

My Kitchen Rules finalist Olga Rogacheva and entrepreneur Gi Singhhas have launched a dating app that matches people based on intelligence.

The LoveSmart.app site has attracted more than 2,000 curious users through word-of-mouth after its Australian launch.

This new type of 'smart dating' avoids matching people who may not be on the same wavelength. 

'There is overwhelming scientific evidence that matching intelligence levels is the best foundation for long-lasting relationships,' Olga said.

The app predominantly aims to 'cut through the superficial clutter' of people by using a unique testing mechanism.

When users first log into the app a series of standardised questions similar to an IQ test are asked to determine how smart each individual is.    

Each question in the 'heimdall quiz' varies in difficulty and is picked from a range of different categories.

Once the common knowledge test is complete a second round of questions are asked to discover what type of person you are, such as if you're shy, outgoing or empathetic.

'We want smart, single people to go out and have the time of their lives, and in the process to find love in the foolproof cohort of intelligent dates,' Olga said.


Dating in the modern world is difficult enough, but the new app eliminates the fear of meeting someone who may not suit your level of intelligence.

'We made it our mission to fix the omissions of the current dating services and create a space for smart people to meet and bond without the pain of dealing with unsavoury characters,' Olga explained. 

LoveSmart.app is free to use online and hopes those who match create a successful long-lasting relationship together.

SOURCE 






No, office football chat is not excluding women

A management body has suggested conversation about VAR [Discussing referee decisions] can lead to ‘laddish behaviour’.

Today in PC nonsense we have the Chartered Management Institute, with some stern words on office sports chat. Appearing on Radio 4’s Today programme, head of the institute, Ann Francke, said watercooler talk about football or cricket can exclude women. ‘A lot of women, in particular, feel left out’, she said. ‘They don’t follow those sports and they don’t like either being forced to talk about them or not being included.’ She suggested office managers should do all they can to moderate it.

After indulging the ‘girls don’t care about football’ stereotype, and presenting women as fragile beings easily upset by conversations they have little interest in, she further castigated the men. Not only is such office chat ‘excluding’, you see; it can also be a ‘gateway to more laddish behaviour’. ‘It’s very easy’, she went on, ‘for it to escalate from VAR talk and chat to slapping each other on the back and talking about their conquests at the weekend’ – a quote so insane it sounds like it’s straight out of the pages of the Daily Mash.

Needless to say, most listeners disagreed. As the BBC notes, most of the responses to the item online were bemused by what Francke had to say. As one eminently sensible listener put it, ‘I personally think companies should not dictate what people talk about’. That such a thing even needs to be said says a lot about the cultural moment we find ourselves in.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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