Tuesday, October 22, 2013




Multiculturalism comes to Ireland

A [black] mob went on a wave of random race violence on Temple Bar, which left five Dubliners with horrific injuries.

One man—a Dublin DJ—was almost killed in the attack as he suffered serious head injuries when he was set upon by the gang.

The level of violence has shocked gardai and the many witnesses to the race hate orgy—believed to be the first of its kind in the city.

One member of the African gang was arrested today in pre-dawn raids by detectives across the capital.

Five Dubliners, all aged in their 20s, were left with horrific injuries in the October 2010 attacks, which have only come to light now.

The gang—all aged in their late teens—savagely attacked six Irish people in the Temple Bar area of the capital in the early hours of October 10 last.

The gang, who are heavily involved in other street robberies and beatings, are all expected to appear in court.

Sources say that even seasoned detectives were left “horrified and shocked” by the extreme level of violence used in the attacks which occurred in the Eustace Street and Curved Street areas of Temple Bar at around 3.30am on the date in question.

A senior source explained: “We believe that what happened on the night was motivated by racism—that is racism against white people.

“When the suspects were first questioned they tried to use racism as a defence—they tried to say that they had been racially abused by the victims for being black.  “But absolutely no evidence of that was ever uncovered and gardai are satisfied that the culprits were not racially abused.”

Dozens of people witnessed the shocking chain of events which started when two young men and a woman were randomly attacked at Eustace Street.

In the space of less than three minutes, five people were left with terrible injuries as bottles, punches and kicks were used to hurt the victims. 

In the most serious incident, a DJ who was standing on Curved Street was set-upon and almost killed by the gang of thugs.  A source explained: “The DJ was standing outside a premises while other assaults were going on around him. His DJ bag—with records in it—was on the ground beside him.

“One of the gang picked up the DJ’s bag and ran off, with the victim running after him. Then the attacker turned around and punched the victim, knocking him unconscious.  “When the DJ hit the floor, the culprit stamped on the man’s head in what was a ferocious display of violence.

“This victim is very lucky to be alive—the entire left side of his head was broken because of that stamping incident. The victim ended up having to have a metal plate inserted into his head—if this did not happen he would have lost his eyesight.”

Sources have revealed that another victim suffered a fractured skull in an incident in which gardai believe a glass bottle was used.

The gang are now expected to face a huge number of charges, including multiple serious assault charges, violent disorder, theft and production of an offensive weapon.

The mother of one of the suspects has a conviction and served jail time for trafficking children into France from Nigeria.

The gang is suspected of being involved in other street assaults and have links to a criminal who was involved in robbing head shops and has been convicted of hijacking a Dublin taxi.

SOURCE






Another welfare crackdown works wonders in Britain

One in ten claimants stripped of the £15-a-week spare room subsidy have come off benefits altogether, figures show.

The scrapping of the subsidy caused protests by Left-wing activists, who called it ‘the bedroom tax’ and claimed it would inflict misery on less well-off families.

But Freedom of Information requests show that, in tens of thousands of cases, the move encouraged people to find a job.

As a result, they no longer require any state support – delivering a huge saving for the taxpayer.

Ministers had estimated that by removing the subsidy, paid to social housing tenants who have a spare room, the bill would be cut by around £500million a year.

But, by encouraging people to stop claiming benefits such as jobseekers’ allowance altogether, this figure doubles to around £1billion-a-year.

The new rules apply to housing benefit, typically worth between £50 and £100 a week. Since April, claimants of working age with a spare bedroom have received a reduced payment.

The figures were revealed by Harry Phibbs, a Tory councillor, in an investigation for the ConservativeHome website. He surveyed councils across the UK and 141 responded.

In their areas, 25,238 of the 233,732 people stripped of the spare bedroom subsidy – or nearly 11 per cent – were no longer claiming any benefits.

Mr Phibbs said that extended across the UK, it would be the equivalent of 71,000 out of the 660,000 claimants predicted to be affected stopping claiming benefits.

‘Before this change it wasn’t rewarding for people to work,’ he said. ‘This is giving people a reward for working – they are able to stay in their homes rather than downsizing into a smaller home.

‘Because work is now being rewarded, many people are coming off benefits altogether and getting full time jobs.

‘I would expect you will see far more people coming in to jobs in the coming months.’

The ending of the subsidy means that if tenants have one spare room, the amount of rent eligible for housing benefit is cut by 14 per cent. If they have two or more spare rooms, the reduction is 25 per cent.

On average, claimants receive £15 a week less from the taxpayer. Council tenants get about £14 a week less, while those in housing association properties get £16 a week less.

The savings to the taxpayer from removing the subsidy are an estimated £505million in 2013-14, and £540million the year after.

Figures obtained by Mr Phibbs show that in Tower Hamlets, East London, 948 out of 3,000 people (32 per cent) stopped claiming housing benefit, but in Liverpool only 300 claimants came off, out of 11,600.

Bromsgrove in Worcestershire saw 178 out of 605 come off benefits (29 per cent).

The responses do not give the reasons why individuals came off housing benefit, but any suggestion that the policy is helping families back into work is a huge boost for the Government.

Left-wing politicians and campaign groups repeatedly said the ‘bedroom tax’ would inflict misery on thousands.

Labour leader Ed Miliband pledged to reintroduce the subsidy, claiming its withdrawal was ‘unfair’ and would force families into real hardship.

SOURCE





The rise of 'motherism': Stay-at-home mothers face prejudice assuming they are lazy, stupid and unattractive, expert warns

Many would say that bringing up children is the most important job there is.  But according to experts, stay-at-home mothers are facing an increasingly vicious backlash by those who think they are lazy, stupid and unattractive.

A top academic has said full-time mothers are now subjected to ‘motherism’ - a prejudice which in many circles was unspoken but highly damaging.

Dr Aric Sigman attacked the clichés which shape derogatory attitudes towards women at home and said they should be treated as seriously as racism and sexism.

The leading child development expert told a conference that the rise of prejudice had helped make it socially unacceptable to argue that children benefit from ‘full-time’ parenting.

He added that evidence from biosciences showed that mothers provided ‘unrivalled benefits’ to young children that other people, including fathers, cannot.

Dr Sigman said: ‘You should take on “motherism” - the prejudice against stay-at-home mothers - a prejudice that expresses itself in derogatory clichés like: “You gain a baby and lose a brain” and comments that refer to “schoolgate mother mentality”, or to being “willingly self-lobotomised”.

‘The implication is that by being a full-time mother you are “subjugated and servile” and even sexually unattractive once you are a mother - a quality only associated with women who return to work with their high heels and clipboards.’

He added: ‘Motherhood must not hide its light under a bushel. Greater maternal contact in the early years, especially during infancy, is greatly advantageous to the child.  ‘Society must be asked why this could possibly be construed as contentious.’

The event was organised by the Mothers At Home Matter group, which has campaigned against taxpayer-funded child care support for parents who both work, reported The Sunday Telegraph.

The group recently challenged the Chancellor George Osborne over his remark that being a full-time mother was a ‘lifestyle choice’.

Recent figures show the majority of mothers now work, with many seeing full-time parenting as something confined to the rich or those on benefits.

Experts disagree over whether having a mother go out to work impacts on a child’s development.

Some studies show those who go to good nurseries or childminders can be better prepared for school and are able to communicate more efficiently.

But Dr Sigman, a fellow of the Society of Biology and associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, has argued in the past that there may be long-term effects of sending toddlers to full-time day care.

The academic, who has four children, said that the derogatory attitudes towards stay-at-home mothers appeared to be the result of a political and economic agenda.

Sally Goddard Blythe, an expert in child development at the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology, agreed.

She said: ‘We are the only mammal that deliberately separates its young from its mother for economic and social reasons before it is physically able to fend for itself.’

SOURCE






MAURICE SAATCHI says that real-life capitalism in Britain is not much like the theory  -- so Conservatives should stress individual liberty more

I recently had the most extraordinary conversation with Ed Miliband.  There was I – the man who helped propel Margaret Thatcher to power in 1979 and a former chairman of the Conservative party – debating the merits of The Communist Manifesto with the leader of the Labour Party.

Asked what should be his priority as leader, I answered: ‘Read your father’s books.’  Apparently he has. He looks forward to startling the House of Commons as Sir William Harcourt did more than 100 years ago by announcing: ‘We are all socialists now.’

Many Conservatives rejoice at this news, that Labour is again about to sign ‘the longest suicide note in history’. Is that true?

It’s been 21 years since the Conservative Party won an Election. You hear it said that the party was unlucky to have a succession of five leaders with insufficient appeal to voters. That seems statistically unlikely.

A more plausible explanation is that the party has lacked a marching tune people can respond to.

This might be because it has underestimated the power of socialism. Isaiah Berlin described socialism as ‘the greatest organised social movement of all time’.

But we went off socialism because it didn’t produce any money. The central Thatcher/Reagan critique of Marxist socialism was that it didn’t create wealth for its citizens.

So then we liked capitalism. But now we have gone off that too because it seems to produce too much worship of the golden calf. So now we don’t know what we like. That is probably why, on so many key political issues, when the public is asked which party has the best policies, the answer is often ‘neither’.

The fatal flaw of capitalism is said to be greed. But greed is part of the system – more politely known as rational self-interest.

The central mechanism by which capitalism is said to work is competition, best described by Professor Lionel Robbins: ‘Every day thousands of people cast their votes for the hundreds of products and services on offer, and from the competition to win their votes better and better products and services arise.’

That is said to be how the capitalist system brings the best outcome for all.

But that is not how things have worked out in recent years. On the contrary, there has been a dramatic widening of inequality. As Ed Miliband put it, the rising tide lifted only the yachts.

Some blame the ‘lone gunman’ – the rogue trader who wreaks havoc in the whole system. This Bad Apple Theory is popular with Conservatives because it is easier to blame one rotten apple than the whole barrel.

Another possibility, much less attractive, is that after all Marx was right: ‘The end result of competition is the end of competition.’  He described the outcome: ‘After years of internecine warfare amongst capitalists there would be fewer and fewer capitalists controlling vaster and vaster empires.’

Who can doubt the accuracy of that prediction when considering the banks, the trains, electricity, gas, water, oil, or any other large global industry?

The unintended consequence of globalisation is the creation  of global cartels in which there is a huge imbalance of power between the individual customer and the giant corporation; a sense of powerlessness and unfairness that results from a world of global corporations whose governance (and maybe tax payments) are beyond the reach of national governments.

The overwhelming power of money in such a climate is a dangerous moment for Conservatism. What scares people most is soon money will talk in health as well as everything else.  As a New York investment banker explained to me: ‘Money means a better car, a bigger house and, in time, a longer life.’

People may conclude they need someone to protect them from that kind of ‘free market’, such as, perhaps, the state. This is why Labour thinks they have struck gold with a state price freeze on energy.

Conservatives like to say state socialism is a return to 1970s failure. But will that do? Perhaps not. Because one thing has changed radically since the 1970s, which is that the new economic superpower of the world is itself a socialist state.

China calls its own system ‘state capitalism, or capitalism with Chinese characteristics’.  The particular characteristic they have in mind is that the state owns 100 per cent of all large companies.

According to the text books, this is a road  to ruin, but the bosses of these Chinese companies (mostly good Harvard or Princeton men), are encouraged to compete with each other vigorously, just like American bosses. If they hit their profit targets, they stay. If they don’t, they get fired.

According to research by the Russian Government, the Russian people can’t tell whether  the state owns 100 per cent or zero per cent of a company.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor fully appreciate the intellectual challenge of this new world order, and will not stubbornly insist on the existing version of free-market capitalism as the only way forward.

That would open the door for Labour to access millions of people, especially young people, who do not accept the status quo. Studies show that many people are not sure what’s worse – big companies or big government.

For Conservatism, there is only one answer – to remind people of the connection between money and the most heartfelt Conservative value of all – freedom. As Professor J. K. Galbraith understood: ‘The greatest restriction on the liberty of the citizen is a complete absence of money.’

The Conservative Party does not need to shy away from its understanding of the importance of money in people’s lives. It  can be proud of its economics and what it can do for personal freedom, independence and individuality. To shy away from that is to try to row the Conservative boat with one oar.
Critics say Conservatism is ‘money-obsessed’, and has a heart of stone. But that is only because, as Mrs Thatcher wisely put it: ‘Caring that works costs cash.’

The Labour leader says the tide has lifted only the yachts, but Conservatives know that whatever kind of boat you have, the most important thing is that an individual can say: ‘I am the captain of my ship.’

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, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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