Mick Hartley

Burnley 1970s

More from the extensive Café Royal Books catalogue. This time we're in Lancashire, with Dragan Novaković:

[Photos © Cafe Royal Books/Dragan Novaković]

This crappy sequel

Arty Morty - The Hole Where Gay Rights Used to Be:

Comparing yesterday’s gay rights movement to today’s trans rights movement is like comparing Jaws to Jaws 2: the first was an unprecedented phenomenon, a masterpiece, and a blockbuster. The second is a cheap knockoff greedily churned out to exploit the market the first one created. [...]

Progressives have walked into a trap: they got so addicted to feeling morally superior to conservatives over gay rights, they became easy marks for the cheapest scam in the books: opportunists posing as persecuted victims. Now the progressives are discovering that they were duped, and they’ve been made to look like moral cowards, so they’re panicking and doubling down, and they will keep on doing so, becoming more and more deluded and unhinged, until the entire system collapses.

This crappy sequel is a flop, and the reckoning is going to bite, hard.

Worth a read.

A philosophical and moral approach

An interesting article in today's Sunday Times from Dominic Lawson, who comes to his late father Nigel's defence after the man's record as chancellor was trashed by Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves in her recent Mais lecture (here).

Reeves, though, extolled one figure above all, who was associated with that period: the Cambridge economist Joan Robinson (1903-83). This undoubtedly brilliant woman was praised by Reeves for understanding — allegedly in contrast to Nigel Lawson — that economics “is about values, rooted in political, philosophical and moral questions, about human nature and the good society”.

My father was of a generation that knew something of where Robinson’s “philosophical and moral” outlook had led, and perhaps it is because of that age difference that no one commenting on the shadow chancellor’s lecture has made the points he almost certainly would have done. So I will.

Ms Reeves’s idol was this country’s most influential advocate of the economic policies and practice of Mao Zedong, not just the Great Leap Forward — the forced collectivisation of agriculture, which caused a famine that killed an estimated 50 million Chinese people — but also the Cultural Revolution. Robinson declared of the former period that “the rationing system worked”. She was — as Evan Osborne sets out in his essay “Captive of One’s Own Theory: Joan Robinson and Maoist China” — even dismissive of official toleration of desperate individual efforts to grow food during the Great Leap Forward. Robinson had written of the “many concessions [that] had to be made to individualistic sentiment among the peasants; some communes actually disintegrated into private household cultivation”. Tut-tut.

As for the barbarous Cultural Revolution, Robinson praised it at the time as “the first example of a new kind of class war” and condoned the violence by the Red Guards against the “rightists”, observing: “Perhaps they are still wondering what hit them.” She even enthused about the North Korean model, describing it as a “nation without poverty … all the economic miracles of the postwar world are put in the shade by these achievements”.

Leave aside that Robinson had fallen abjectly for the propaganda of her hosts (she went to North Korea and was a frequent guest of Mao’s regime): it was her very “philosophical and moral approach”, eulogised by Reeves, that led her into such blindness.

From Robinson's Wiki entry:

In October 1964, Robinson also visited North Korea, which was effectively a single-party Communist state, and wrote in her report "Korean Miracle" that the country's success was due to "the intense concentration of the Koreans on national pride" under Kim Il Sung, "a messiah rather than a dictator." She also stated in reference to the division of Korea that "[o]bviously, sooner or later the country must be reunited by absorbing the South into socialism."

Hmm.

Clean coal

John Collier, November 1942. "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (vicinity). Champion No. 1 coal cleaning plant. Loading cars with clean coal."

[Photo: Shorpy/John Collier, Office of War Information]

A holy war

An Easter message from Pravda:

The World Russian People's Council led by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has adopted an "order" that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a "holy war" and states that "the entire territory of present-day Ukraine should be included in the area of Russia's exclusive influence".

Easter greetings from Moscow: Declaration of holy war on the West that “has fallen into Satanism.” https://t.co/KPle0v6BSh

— Serhii Plokhy (@SPlokhy) March 30, 2024

Banksy revisited

It's almost two weeks now since the neighbourhood made the news, to much excitement, with our very own Banksy mural.

Things, alas, have not gone well. Someone sploshed some white paint over it a couple of days later, and now...

All fenced in, "CCTV in operation", and barely visible behind all the panels.

The tree, meanwhile, which looked so bare and brutalised two weeks back, is now showing spring shoots, and should soon be in blossom.

There's a moral in there somewhere...

What institutional capture looks like

The Office for National Statistics made the news last year when they “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people in the UK. The finding that the numbers were particularly high in London boroughs like Newham and Brent, where large numbers of non-English speakers reside, was suspected to be less because of the number of trans Muslims, more the bafflement caused by the question, “is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”.

And now:

Women working for the Office for National Statistics face disciplinary action if they object to male-born colleagues using single-sex lavatories and changing rooms, documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph reveal.

A cache of HR policies, internal communications and posts from the ONS intranet show that the statistics body has been subject to “institutional capture” by trans activists, gender-critical campaigners have alleged....

A set of ONS resources on “Gender Identity and Transitioning at Work” includes a manager’s checklist for supporting a transitioning employee with a section headed “use of single-sex facilities”.

It says: “Have you agreed when the employee will start to use single-sex facilities, such as toilets and changing rooms, appropriate to their acquired gender? This will usually be on the first day of transition.”

The document says that “if colleagues object to sharing facilities with employees going through transition, the situation should be dealt with through communication, discussion and education.

“If colleagues persist with unreasonable objections you may need to manage the situation via grievance or disciplinary procedures.”...

The policy states that “all trans people should be treated according to the gender in which they identify, irrespective of their legal gender status under the Gender Recognition Act 2004” and that “although not covered by the Gender Recognition Act (2004), ONS accepts that it is good practice to treat a transgender person who does not hold a GRC in the same way as a person who does”.

Sex Matters said both points “go far beyond the law, disregarding the impact on other employees”.

It also said that leaked posts from the ONS intranet showed “an organisation that has put transgender identities and feelings before everything – including accuracy”....

Fiona McAnena, Sex Matters’ director of campaigns, said: “The ONS staff documents that have been leaked are inaccurate, ideologically driven and inflammatory. This is what institutional capture looks like.”

Another London Saturday

The same old story:

"Zionist scum off our streets" pic.twitter.com/vW8zEczGek

— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) March 30, 2024

Right down to the arrest of the Iranian "Hamas is Terrorist" counter-protestor:

INCOMING

Police have arrested Iranian anti Hamas activist Niyak Ghorbani AGAIN!!

His previous arrest while holding an anti Hamas banner caused outrage @metpoliceuk what are you doing?? pic.twitter.com/NtDUKjLOPl

— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) March 30, 2024

Also:

The day after an Iranian dissident is stabbed multiple times outside his own home it's shameful that the flag of the regime is still welcome on these anti Zionist demonstrations. pic.twitter.com/4ZukXyQyHd

— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) March 30, 2024

Palestine is just the veneer for something far more insidious taking place in British society right now pic.twitter.com/jCdQjUAyGU

— Harry's Place (@hurryupharry) March 30, 2024

Teaching the intifada

Predictable, but still depressing:

Britain’s biggest teaching union is to blame Israel for the war in Gaza and publish “educational resources” about the conflict for teachers.

Leaders of the National Education Union (NEU) are calling on their 300,000 members to actively campaign for Palestine and “increase understanding” of the conflict.

The union’s executive board has backed a motion, to be discussed at the annual conference next week, which declares that “Israel’s hard-right, racist government is the main driver of conflict, violence and war in Palestine and Israel”.

Nothing to do with the October 7th pogrom, then? With Hamas using all the resources in Gaza to build up a terror network of tunnels, with weapons hidden in hospitals and schools, in pursuit of their explicit aim of killing Jews and destroying the state of Israel? No - as ever, it's the fault of the Jews.

The motion, which also calls for the NEU to support the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition, will be debated despite laws that forbid teachers from pushing their political views in classrooms.

Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, said the motion was “wholly inappropriate” and “completely ignore[s] the horrific terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on October 7”.

She added: “Teachers have a duty to remain politically impartial and to ensure all sides of contested views are presented fairly and without bias or prejudice.

“These proposals will cause significant hurt to members of the Jewish community and the thousands of Jewish children and parents in British schools.”

I'm not a Keegan fan, but she's absolutely right here.

The motion comes after Daniel Kebede, a militant trade unionist and pro-Palestine campaigner took over as general secretary of the union last year.

Mr Kebede, a former teacher in the North East of England, was embroiled in an anti-Semitism row last year when a clip emerged of him speaking at a rally in Newcastle, where participants were heard calling to “globalise the intifada”.

Sinister parallels to the Stasi in East Germany

The Telegraph sums it up - Scotland’s Hate Crime Act will make opinions dangerous – and play into the trans lobby’s hands:

Imagine living in a world where sitting in your own living room and saying “men can’t be women” could result in the police logging a “hate incident” against your name.

Imagine, too, that your legally protected right to express such an opinion counted for nothing because all that mattered was whether the person who heard you perceived it to be offensive.

If you live in Scotland, this is the world you will be living in as of Monday. And no, it’s not an April Fool’s prank by the Scottish Government, despite the date when it comes into force.

The Hate and Public Order (Scotland) Act will, according to its critics, be a state-sponsored assault on free speech with sinister parallels to the Stasi in East Germany.

Billed as a necessary legislative update to a hotch-potch of anti-hate laws (it finally abolishes the offence of blasphemy, last prosecuted in 1843) it extends the offence of stirring up hatred to cover not only race and religion but also age, disability, sexual orientation, transgender identity and “variations in sex characteristics”.

Politicians have warned that the new law will be “weaponised” by the radical trans lobby to criminalise anyone who states their belief in the immutability of someone’s birth sex.

Meanwhile, The Telegraph has been told that Police Scotland – which has just announced it will no longer investigate certain low-level crimes – is diverting resources so it can investigate the expected influx of accusatory phone calls it will receive from those offended by other people’s opinions.

The force has promised to investigate every hate crime complaint it receives, and if the complainant (or victim, as they are officially referred to) insists they were upset by something they perceived to be a hate crime, it will be logged as a non-crime hate incident (NCHI) even if there is not a shred of evidence of any crime being committed.

Little wonder that women’s rights campaigners fear that the new law will be used by trans radicals to settle scores and silence anyone who dares to challenge their world view.

If George Orwell was still around, he could perhaps write a book about it and call it Twenty Twenty-Four.

Ooh, clever.

Calum Steele, former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, is among those who fear that the police will be swamped.

He says: “I know from colleagues that they are reallocating resources from elsewhere to be able to deal with the influx of reported hate speech.”

Part of the problem, he says, is that there is nothing to deter malicious complaints made by people wanting to settle scores with each other, because: “It’s difficult to imagine how you could prove someone was wasting police time when the whole thing is based entirely on their perception rather than evidence.”

In other words, it's a charter for vexatious claims - for people with an ideological axe to grind to silence and punish their critics. In that respect it's basically a blasphemy law - as seen for instance in Pakistan, where anyone with a score to settle just accuses their enemy of insulting Islam and it's game over. Nothing to do with crime as we understand it; everything to do with blasphemy against a particular religious/ideological belief. And I think we all know which particular adherents of a religious/ideological belief are going to be making maximum use of this. Gender-critical women, beware.