The Leveson Inquiry are refusing to use my evidence of press, PCC and police misdoing. They will not even take up the matter of Piers Morgan’s perjury before them despite the fact that I have given them a letter from Morgan to the PCC  in which he writes “ The   police  source of our article (whose  identity  we have  a  moral obligation to protect) gave  us  the  detail of the  letters  that  we  then published.”  (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/piers-morgan-lied-to-the-leveson-inquiry/) . My  latest exchange of emails with the Inquiry is below.

I am in contact with a published  author who intends to expose such behaviour by the Leveson Inquiry.  He would like to hear from anyone else who has submitted evidence to the Inquiry and believes that it has been excluded for illegitimate reasons, for example, because   it would cause political embarrassment or require criminal proceedings to be taken against those with power, wealth or influence.

Anyone who wishes to expose such refusals should email me on anywhere156@gmail.com and I will forward them to the writer.

RE: FTAO Kim Brudenell - UrgentWednesday, 15 February, 2012 13:02

Dear Mr Henderson

I write to confirm that your submissions are currently being considered by the Inquiry.  In relation to the letter from Mr Morgan, I would be grateful if you would confirm if you have a signed copy, and if so, please send a signed hard copy to the Inquiry.

Sharron Hiles

In November a 34-old woman Emma West was recorded on a tram in Croydon (near to London) expressing her very no-pc views of  the effects of immigration on England even though she was surrounded by ethnic minorities.   Since her public complaints were recorded by a passenger and put on YouTube other instances of such behaviour have come to light, the most recent to hit the national media being another youngish white woman (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097142/Woman-filmed-hurling-racist-abuse-Tube-passengers-ANOTHER-video-rant-London-transport.html#ixzz1lgvuUjuO).  I put a few URLs for videos of such behaviour  from England at the end of the article. The examples are all of people who are under the age of 40. Nor does it take long for instances of such behaviour in the USA to be found on media hosting sites.  This goes against the oft made claims by liberals that what they term racial prejudice is restricted to the older generation,  who it is implied “don’t know any better”, while the young are race-blind.

Such outbursts are surprising  because of the risk they carry of assault by the ethnic minorities listening to them. They are doubly unexpected because present day England (and Britain)  is rigid with political correctness.  As  Emma West’s case vividly shows, the authorities are ever more penal in their  repression of dissent.  After her arrest in December 2011  Miss West was kept for weeks on remand in a high security prison for what the authorities coyly called “her own protection” http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state-part-2/) . She  has since been charged but not as yet tried (she appears at Croydon Crown Court on 17 2 2012) with a serious criminal offences  which carry a potential jail sentence of two years. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state-part-3/).  All of that for simply expressing her anger at the consequences of mass immigration.

But even if people are not charged with criminal offences, to be publicly labelled a racist in England is to risk the loss of a job or accommodation if rented, a campaign of media abuse and social ostracism.  The risk of losing a job is particularly high for public service employees.  In extreme cases such as those accused of  the murder of Stephen Lawrence the persecution may be officially generated and sustained and  last indefinitely and include  the holding of trials which are manifestly unfair because of  hate-campaigns conducted against the accused by both politicians and the mainstream media. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/stephen-lawrence-gary-dobson-david-norris-and-a-political-trial/).

With these very considerable disincentives to expressing honest views about race and immigration under any circumstances, what is it that drives people to express them uninhibitedly in situations which objectively place them in physical as well as legal danger?  After all the instinct for self-preservation lies at the core of human behaviour   and people are generally media savvy enough these days to realise that  anything they say in public is likely to be recorded and placed on sites such as YouTube.  So why do people like Emma West ignore all these formidable barriers to behaving in this way? Drink or drugs you may think, yet the noteworthy thing about most of the examples caught on mobile phones is that they  show no signs of being seriously intoxicated by either.  These are people who are doing it in the full knowledge of what they are doing and its likely effects. But  even if they were intoxicated with drink or drugs all that would mean is that the brakes of sobriety were removed and the true feelings of the person released.

A clue to what is happening can be found in the fact that their complaints gather around the same theme: that England is being invaded and colonised to the point where, in places such as parts of London,  it  scarcely seems to be England in anything in name.  Their  complaints are not about the particular ethnic minorities with which  they are surrounded when they make their public complaints or against individual immigrants generally,  but the general effects of mass immigration.

These people are suffering from what I call the  claustrophobia of diversity.  They feel that they are being oppressed by immigrants, that the land which is ancestrally theirs  is being colonised to the extent that parts of the country seem no longer to belong to England. Worst of all they see themselves as helpless to prevent it because the colonisation is being facilitated and encouraged by their own elite who  all, whatever their ostensible political colour,  subscribe to the treason and viciously support the suppression of  dissent to the betrayal.  This mixture of the act of elite-sponsored colonisation by foreigners, the failure of democracy through the tacit conspiracy of the political elite  to ensure that no meaningful alternative policy on  immigration is offered by any party capable of forming a government and the inability of the native population to even voice their  protest at this betrayal of their most pressing interests  in the mainstream media produces an ever growing sense of rage, a rage made all the more terrible and onerous  by  the feelings of impotence engendered by the ever more oppressive  restrictions on public expression which British governments have imposed.

These feelings are with the English all the time. If someone  English lives  in an area which  does not have a large ethnic minority population the anger and frustration may  remain bubbling below the surface most of the time, although they will be exacerbated by reports of their fellow county men and women elsewhere being harassed and bullied by the liberal elite into towing the multiculturalist line while ethnic minorities are pandered to ever more grotesquely  with bizarre interpretations of what constitutes a human right and  the constant growth of  interest groups which cater solely for ethnic minorities, for example,  the Refugee Council (http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/about/board).

But those who live in an area which is heavily populated  by ethnic minorities  will face constant triggers for the anger and frustration to come to the forefront of their minds. Every time someone in such an area walks the streets they will be reminded of how the demographic balance has changed and is changing. Every time a native  English  parent seeks a school for their children they will be faced often enough with choices of schools where many, quite often a majority, of the pupils are from ethnic minorities.  A visit to their GP or hospital will find them sitting in waiting rooms outnumbered by ethnic minorities.  When they go for a job, especially if it is low-skilled or unskilled, they are likely to find themselves being asked to work, if they can get such work at all,  in a situation where they are in the ethnic minority and English is  not the common workplace language.  If they go into a shop, cinema or café they are increasing likely to find themselves being served by foreigners with inadequate English for the job.

Everywhere the white English man or woman in an area with a large ethnic minority population looks  it seems that their world is being changed utterly and that they can do nothing about it because of the elite complicity in what has happened and is happening. That is why the public outbursts of frustration such as that of Emma West occur.  They are the bursting of the emotional  dam.  The fact that the episodes recorded so often occur on  public transport  is  unsurprising because it is here that the proximity with those who trigger the feelings of rage and  betrayal is greatest and there is the  least opportunity to escape from these reminders of the surreptitious elite-sponsored conquest of England. The physical claustrophobia of being on a crowded train or bus marries with the social claustrophobia of diversity.

The people recorded in the urls at the end of this essay are white  working class Englishwomen. They of course are  from the class  who had to and have to suffer the main brunt of  mass immigration. They live cheek-by-jowl with the immigrants and their descendants. They send their children to schools where their child may be the only white English child in their class. They live in the tower blocks where they are the only white English family in the block. Not for them the middle class white liberals escape through white flight to the suburbs or countryside or the gentrification of once working class areas such as Islington. It is small wonder that people such as Emma West should feel deserted and betrayed and eventually lose all patience with public silence.

But uninhibited racial language and complaint is not restricted to those without status, wealth, influence and power. Two well know and recent examples are the fashion designer John Galliano  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CQO8q3FSH0) and the actor and director Mel Gibson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50_qMJSPtqY&feature=relatedso – go in at 1 minute 17 sec). There is far more to these public displays of anger at the fact of mass immigration and the behaviour of the political elite  than simple desperation. It is entirely natural behaviour.  Public expression of dissent can be  partially successful but it will never be entirely complete. Even in extreme autocracies such as the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany there were still voices raised in  opposition. The English have been subject several generations of ever greater elite propaganda and censorship of dissent about immigration and its effects but this has not made them race or ethnicity blind, merely increasingly reticent, fearful and stressed  about immigration and its consequences.  Not only that, but the oppression arising from mass immigration is different in quality from the oppression  of a native  elite which merely tries to enforce its will on the masses. The effects of mass migration are around people all the time. There is no respite.

When people are asked to  suppress their normal feelings  stress occurs. Where the suppression of feelings relates to the most fundamental social and psychological structures  stress is at its greatest. That is what happens when an elite tries to  recreate society by asking the population to override the behaviour which makes a society strong and stable.

Social animals have two universal features: they form discrete groups and within the group produce hierarchies – although both the group and the hierarchy vary considerably in form and intensity.  Why they do this is a matter of debate but it is a fact that this what invariably happens.  Human beings are no exception; whether they are hunter-gatherers or people populating a great modern city they all have a need to form groups in which they feel naturally comfortable and within that group form hierarchies.

But the sense of being separate, of belonging to a discrete group with identifiable characteristics is of a different order of complexity than it is for any other social animal because homo sapiens is high intelligence, self-awareness and most importantly language.  Where an animal may simply accept another member of the species as part of the group through simple and obvious triggers such as scent, markings or imprinting, human beings judge by wide variety of criteria who is and is not part of the group, the most potent of which are racial characteristics and cultural differences. In some ways that makes acceptance of the outsider easier – at least in theory –  but in  others much more difficult than it might be for an animal,  for there are  many more reasons for human beings to accept or not accept someone into the group than there are for a non-human social animal.

Social animals form hierarchies  almost certainly because otherwise there would be no way of the society organising itself to accommodate the differing qualities and abilities  of individuals which arise in any species. Societies which consist of various human groups that  see themselves as separate  from each other disrupt the creation of a healthy hierarchy. Instead of there being a single hierarchy within an homogenous group (defining homogenous as a population in a discrete territory  which sees itself as a group), there are  hierarchies formed within each group and a further overarching hierarchy formed from the various groups themselves with  each group hierarchy competing within the population as a whole.

Man is also a territorial being.  Homo sapiens  need the security of a homeland. Remove that and insecurity is perpetual.  That is why mass immigration is the most fundamental of treasons.  That which  is called racism by liberals and their ethnic minority auxiliaries is simply  political protest of the most fundamental kind. When someone resorts to complaint  based on race, ethnicity or nationality  in their own country they are saying “This is my land, you will not steal it from me without a fight”.  The time to worry is when there are no public demonstrations of dissent to the policy of mass immigration and its consequences.

The package of emotion transmuted into conscious thought we call  patriotism is an essential part of maintaining a society (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/patriotism-is-not-an-optional-extra/).  A society which forgets that is doomed.

———————————————————————————————–

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pONVYjAd1wc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTocvGIEqOU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfGqwtn3GZY

A Daily Telegraph report  of 27 January 2012  ”Nuclear subs will stay in Scotland”  ( James Kirkup -http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9043092/Nuclear-subs-will-stay-in-Scotland-Royal-Navy-chiefs-decide.html) is most disturbing. The essence of the story is that should  Scotland votes for independence the  UK nuclear deterrent would for years have to remain  in what would then be  a foreign country.

Why could the subs, warheads and missiles not be brought to England?  Kirkup claims  the Ministry of Defence (MoD)  believes  the  provision of  new facilities for the nuclear deterrent  in England could take up to ten years to build.

The Trident missiles carrying  Vanguard-class submarines are  based at Faslane on the Gare Loch; the missiles and warheads are stored and loaded from  the nearby Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport, on Loch Long.  Kirkup quotes an unnamed source:  “Berths would not be a problem – there are docks on the south coast that could be used without too much fuss. But there simply isn’t anywhere else where we can do what we do at Coulport, and without that, there is no deterrent.” In other words, the subs could be accommodated immediately in England but the storing and arming facilities of Coulport could not.

The official description of Coulport is:

The Royal Armaments Depot at Coulport, eight miles from Faslane, is responsible for the storage, processing, maintenance and issue of key elements of the UK’s Trident Deterrent Missile System and the ammunitioning of all submarine-embarked weapons.

It also stores conventional armaments for Royal Navy vessels.

Because of the nature of its work, the site is subject to the most stringent external security regulators who authorise the depot to process nuclear weapons and provide support to nuclear submarines berthed at the Explosive Handling Jetty. (http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/The-Fleet/Naval-Bases/Clyde/RNAD-Coulport

The claim that there is and will be the “most stringent external security” is questionable because the site has fallen prey to the privatisation mania with the day-to-day management moving in February 2012 from the MoD to  a commercial consortium led by the Atomic Weapons Establishment in alliance with  Babcock and Lockheed Martin (http://wmcnd.org.uk/news/nuclear-power-fukushima-and-chernobyl and http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/lockheed-group-to-manage-uk-nuke-installation/).

Kirkup reports an unnamed source saying “Maintaining the deterrent is the first priority for any UK government, so ministers in London would have to pay Salmond any price to ensure we kept access to [the Clyde bases]…It would be an unbelievable nightmare.”

The idea that it would take ten years to replace the  facilities Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport is surely absurd. We know how quickly things can be done in wartime. This should be treated as a situation of equivalent urgency. Salmond must not be allowed to use it as a bargaining chip on the conditions of either independence or DEVOMAX.

Even if the referendum vote goes against independence, you may be sure that something like DEVOMAX will  be granted to Scotland by the current Westminster Government  which appears to have no sense of  protecting English interests. That will simply be a stepping stone to full independence.  If the nuclear facilities are left in Scotland in such circumstances they would ever be a hostage to fortune. The Government should not wait for a referendum, but begin the process of removing the nuclear deterrent facilities to England now.

If the nuclear deterrent was left in Scotland for years after independence it is almost certainly going to cause problems, not least with the Americans who supply the UK with the delivery system to for  the British made and owned warheads.  They might well be reluctant to allow their technology to be sited in what would then be a foreign   country with all the security implications that carries. (Amazingly, you may think, the UK only leases the missiles and they are pooled with the Atlantic squadron of the USN Ohio SSBNs at King’s Bay, Georgia).

In addition, there could be no certainty about what a future government of  an independent Scotland would do, or indeed how resolute a future Westminster government would be. The example of the three  Irish  Free State “treaty ports”  the Royal Navy continued to use  after the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty  is not encouraging. This agreement was abruptly terminated in 1938, a year before the feared  U-Boat menace to British shipping became a reality. The most dismaying thing with that episode was that the British government behaved in the most supine way – they gave and the Free State took – simply to end  a long-standing trade war with the Free State.

The worst case scenario would be to do nothing before the referendum, the vote is  for independence and Salmond  then insists  on the removal of the deterrent immediately because of the Scotch Numpty Party’s long-standing commitment to a nuclear free Scotland.

The MoD declined to discuss details of Kirkup’s story but a spokesman said  “The UK government position is clear and we are arguing the case for Scotland to remain within the Union. However, any decisions on Scotland’s future are for people in Scotland to decide.” This points to the coalition taking the Micawber strategy of waiting for something to turn. That will be unreservedly to England’s (and the British Isles) disadvantage.

The leader of the Scots Numpty Party  (SNP) Alex Salmond has a secret love. He has a long-time partner Independence , but also  a burgeoning  affair with  the siren Devomax.    No, this not a relative of the cyber personality Max Headroom, although  it is just as artificial and improbable a creation.

Like all lovers with two mistresses who know of the others existence the SNP leader has been drifting into a fevered incoherence as he tries to keep both the objects of his affection satisfied. Only the other day he said that if Scotland votes for independence  it will still be part of the UK:  “That union, that United Kingdom if you like, would be maintained after Scottish political independence.”  (http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/i_still_want_to_be_in_uk_says_alex_salmond_1_ 2085533)

Exactly what finery  Miss Devomax   should be clothed in when he finally presents her to the world, Master Salmond  has not crystallised  even in his own mind, but he knows that her garb would indubitably involve a skirt of full fiscal autonomy.  As Scotland under the reign of Mistress Devomax would be technically part of the UK,  her political clothes  would also mean  keeping the Queen as head of state, continuing to use the Pound and  sharing defence,  foreign affairs,  EU membership   and the servicing of the  National Debt and all other financial obligations in the UK  including Foreign Aid.   (Strangely,  when speaking of his ever less secret love,  the SNP leader  always omits to mention the  “servicing of the  National Debt and all other financial obligations in the UK”).  In short , it would be Home Rule more or less.

The biggest fly in the Devomax   ointment  is fiscal autonomy which  would mean Scotland raising all its government revenue from taxes which it imposed and collected itself. Some of those  taxes would have to be used to pay a share  proportionate  to Scotland’s fraction of the UK population (around 9%) of the UK defence budget, the foreign affairs budget and the servicing of the  National Debt and all other accrued financial obligations in the UK.   (Devomax would also mean that Scotland would have to fund the  cost in Scotland of  welfare, education,  housing,  the arts, the NHS , transport,  roads, the environment, PFI and PPP projects in Scotland, policing and  justice .  Some of this is already funded from the Treasury disbursement to Scotland but much is not, for example, most of Scottish welfare. )

A fiscally independent  Scotland would radically change the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the UK.  If  the Scots were  paying part of  the expenditure on UK projects such as defence  and Foreign Aid  they would expect to have some say in those projects.  This would cause immense difficulty both in terms of the level of expenditure and  how the UK project  expenditure was deployed.

How much would Scotland have to contribute to the UK budget under Devomax?  It would be a substantial. Let us have a look at the financial year 2011/12. The UK defence budget for  2011/12 is £40 billion,  National Debt interest is £50 billion,  http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/2011budget_complete.pdf p6), Foreign Aid is £8.7 billion (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1391334/Britain-doles-aid-country-despite-savage-cutbacks-home.html ), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is £1,6 billion (go to http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/publications-and-documents/publications1/annual-reports/business-plan and click on Business Plan).  The net UK contribution to the EU in 2010 (the latest figure available) was £9.2 billion with the gross contribution being a whopping £19.7 billion. (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100081949/britains-net-contribution-to-the-eu-budget-has-risen-by-74-per-cent-in-one-year/).   The total (taking only the net contribution to the EU into account)  is £110 billion. That would mean Scotland’s share would have been £10 billion. If the accrued liabilities of UK taxpayer funded pensions  at the point of fiscal separation were dealt with at the UK level  as well that would add billions more Scotland would have to put into the UK pot.  In addition, there is the question of how much of the financial chaos created by the Scottish banks RBS and HBOS should be laid at the Scotland’s door.  The headline amounts involved in rescuing the banks are large enough (£45 billion for RBS and £20 billion  for HBOS via the Lloyds Banking Group rescue (http://money.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=152384309), but the  true figure runs into hundreds of billions (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/nov/12/bank-bailouts-uk-credit-crunch and http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/the-wages-of-scottish-independence-public-debt/.)

That is the position now. By the time a referendum is likely to be held and a decision made, it is likely to be 2015. By then the national debt is projected to be around £1.4 billion as against £1 trillion in 2012. That would add something like £45 billion for Scotland to service.  Foreign Aid is due to increase to £11.5 billion by 2014 (http://www.dfid.gov.uk/news/latest-news/2010/spending-review-2010/).  The EU net contribution is also due to rise after 2013.

Although it is impossible to give more than a rough  approximation of what a Scottish government would have to be handing over to the UK Treasury under Devomax,   realistically it would  be in the region of £20 billion per annum, a sum which would probably represent  at least a quarter of the total Scottish budget by the time Devomax was a fact.  That would  put great pressure on domestic Scottish government spending and heighten the already natural desire of a Devomax Scottish government to demand a strong say in the UK’s affairs.

The general difficulty with UK projects is obvious. Scotland would expect a say on the amount spent and the nature of the spending ,  but the rest of the UK  – which is 91% of the UK population – would overwhelmingly outweigh the Scots  in any democratic procedure to make decisions.  It is impossible have an arrangement which did not have one of two outcomes that  would be unpalatable to one of the two parties. Either Scottish wishes  would be ignored  or the Scottish tail would  wag the rest of the UK dog by giving them a disproportionately powerful  say.

The situation would be exceptionally sharp in the case of defence. The SNP is ideologically against a nuclear deterrent.  There is probably a  majority of the Scottish public who support this view.  Any likely Scottish government for the foreseeable future  will  have the SNP as at least a strong partner in a coalition. This state of affairs has three possible consequences.  If things stay as they are  with the  nuclear facilities  in Scotland continuing,   they would be a  high value bargaining chip for a Scottish government to extract substantial concessions  from  Westminster on other subjects, for example, the servicing of the UK national debt.  Alternatively, if the  nuclear deterrent facilities were placed entirely in England  the Scots will  cavil at paying a proportionate share of its costs even though they would  benefit from the protection it offers.  More generally, a Scottish government ideologically opposed to a nuclear deterrent might try to refuse to  pay anything towards it.

The other great military problem  would be action overseas which would have profound foreign policy implications.   It would clearly be absurd to get into a situation where  Westminster decided on foreign action and the  Scottish government  could  veto the deployment.   There would  also be occasions where even if a fighting role was not being contemplated  disputes could arise, for example,  over the military being used in policing roles such as those in the Balkans or substantial amounts of the military budget being used to defend the Falklands. In addition,  Scotland might well  try to engineer a situation where there were military assets  such as Scottish regiments which,  while they were not formally under the control of the Scottish government,  were in practice always stationed in Scotland or at least in the UK , with an understanding that they were not to be deployed overseas .

The second  immediate and pressing problem would be  foreign policy in general and the EU in particular. Apart from foreign policy relating to the armed forces,  there would also be many points of potential conflict  between Scotland and the rest of the UK.  For example, Scotland might object to funding  or facilitating the British arms trade while the UK government was in favour or the  UK government could be in favour of restricting immigration and Scotland for increasing it.

But those problems would be nothing compared to the  perpetual wrangles over the EU.  Assuming  the UK remains a member of the EU and the EU is not dissolved by the economic acid bath which is the Euro collapse, how would the UK’s relations with the EU be decided with a quasi-independent  Scotland  paying part of the annual membership fee?   Scotland would undoubtedly ask for some form of official representation and however that was delivered it would weaken the hand of the UK government because it would seem to the rest of the EU that the UK was speaking with two voices.  That could provide a lever for the EU to weaken the UK by playing Scotland off against the rest of the UK.

In any discussions of new policy or bargaining over such things as the UK rebate,  fishing  quotas  or the disbursement of that part of the money from the UK EU budget contribution which is returned to the UK in various ways, the UK could find itself in a similar position  to that UK domestic politics is presently in with the coalition government:  no clear  public voice but one perpetually moving as deals are done behind the scenes. Most dramatically, imagine a situation where there is a new EU treaty which greatly increases the move towards a United States of Europe.   Scotland would be in favour: the UK government probably would oppose such a treaty.  Even if the decision  was left to a UK referendum would a quasi-independent Scotland  accept  such a referendum? Would they not seek a referendum for Scotland only?  In the medium term the likely response by the EU would be to try to expand their  long-held regionalist  plan to dissolve the power of nation states  within the EU to allow places such as Scotland  a large and ever increasing autonomy within  the EU while  Scotland  remain legally part of a member state.

The other great immediate Devomax  problem would be the management of the Pound. Many of the problems associated with a supposedly  independent Scotland continuing  to use the pound also apply to Devomax– see  http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/an-independent-scotland-must-not-be-allowed-to-have-the-pound-as-their-official-currency/. Foreigners at both the business and government levels would  begin to see the UK not as single economic sphere but  as two separate economies.  That would create uncertainty which would  of itself weaken the Pound.

If Scotland had a much weaker economy than the rest of the UK under Devomax,  which is probable because of the dangerous narrowness of the Scottish  economy and its massive public sector,  something similar to the Euro situation  would arise. The  value of the Pound against other currencies would be suppressed, just as the Euro  has not reflected the strength of the German economy because of the other weaker vessels such as Greece and Italy.     An artificially low Pound might sound attractive for exports,  but it also means more expensive imports and creates a risk that the currency may slip into the dangerous territory of precipitously devaluing until the credibility of the  currency itself is in danger.   At the very least a Pound dependent on  two separate fiscal policies would mean that the massively larger entity  – the UK minus Scotland – would  to some degree be dependent on the behaviour of the much smaller entity – Scotland.

Fiscal autonomy also means, in theory at least,  no transfer of money from the rest of the UK (in practice from England)  to Scotland if the Scottish economy runs into serious  trouble.   This could easily happen because of the size of the tax take Scotland would have to generate to meet their present  obligations under Devomax.

The quick way of getting a quick approximation of the  amount of money a Scottish government under Devomax would have to raise to fund present expenditure . The total budget projection for £2011/12 is £710 billion (http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/2011budget_complete.pdf p6). 9% of that is £64 billion.

In 2009/10 – the last year for which there are official Scottish government figures for public expenditure in Scotland : Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland ( GERS)  -  Scottish tax revenues were  £42,201 billion excluding North Sea oil and £48,132 billion with what are coyly called “an illustrative geographical share “ of North Sea oil revenues  with expenditure for the year of  £62.086 billion (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/06/21144516/1). Even with the Oil revenues included there was a shortfall of £14 billion in  tax revenue.

But there  are problems with GERS which could well substantially understate public expenditure in Scotland.  For many items there are no official statistics collected for Scotland alone. Consequently, the GERS figures are often based on extrapolations from UK statistics with methodologies which even the GERS compilers warn do not produce objective data:  “… these methodologies are subjective and therefore the figures should be viewed accordingly” (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/06/21144516/2).  The other  problem is the treatment of North Sea Oil revenues.  The “illustrative geographical share  of North Sea oil revenues”   are based on a study by the University of Aberdeen (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/06/21144516/7).

The fact that both the GERS estimates and the North Sea oil revenue estimate have been made in Scotland rather than by non-Scottish bodies puts a large question mark against their impartiality.   If there is partiality favouring Scotland in the GERS  estimates it does not have to be conscious.  It is human nature to always put the best appearance on things from the individual’s point of view.  That is particularly true when a study is commissioned by those with political power.

Even if there is no overestimating of the bare figures they would not tell the whole story.  Scotland’s GDP is dangerously  dependent on public spending.  By 2012 it will be in the region of 67% of Scottish GDP (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/4217793/Scotlands-dependence-on-state-increasing.html). The important thing to understand about  tax collection is that tax collected from those drawing their pay from the public purse is that it is simply recycled taxpayers’ money. It is only the money derived from private enterprise which drives an economy.  We can see this graphically in the present UK financial position. Only the private sector can grow the economy to allow larger tax receipts to reduce the deficit.  To have two thirds of an economy dependent on public expenditure is profoundly precarious because the tax base can shrink radically very rapidly. It is doubly dangerous for a small country of only 5 million people which does not have much diversity in in the little there is of a private sector.

Even if 90% of the oil tax revenues were allocated to Scotland this would not, on average,  compensate for the loss of a subsidy of some £8 billion pa which Scotland presently receives from the UK treasury through higher per capita funding  resulting from the Barnett Formula.   Not only that but revenues veer about wildly. In 1991/2 they were a paltry £647 million; in 2008/9 £13 billion; in 2009/10 they dropped dramatically to £6.4 billion.   (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/06/21144516/7).  The remaining oil in Scottish waters is also declining  rapidly and becoming more expensive to extract as the major oil discoveries run down (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/the-truth-about-uk-oil-and-gas/).  While it is true that overall oil consumption is rising because of the countries such as China and India,  which might be expected to keep the price of oil high, there are also dramatic developments around shale oil and gas so there is no guarantee that the price of oil will remain high or continue to rise.  In any event it would be a rash government to base its future on a single crock of gold.

There is also the strong possibility under Devomax of  the English public sector jobs exported to Scotland being repatriated (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/scottish-independence-yes-but-only-on-these-terms/)  and of  companies in Scotland moving out of Scotland if a Scottish government cannot afford to offer them financial incentives to say.

There would also be a problem  with new  national debt. With a  fiscally independent Scotland  neither England nor Scotland would  wish to run up new UK National Debt.  After Devomax Scotland would have to take sole responsibility for any new finance raised by the Scottish government, while the rest of the UK would assume responsibility for any new post Devomax  debt it incurred. There is the risk of Scotland being unwilling to cut its public financial cloth much closer because it has become substantially poorer and running up unsustainable Scottish debt.

It is only to easy to imagine Scotland getting into the same mess that the Republic of Ireland and Iceland got into by a mixture of reckless spending and a failure to control credit or risky financial operations generally.   The rest of the UK (essentially England for reasons already given) would either have to bail out the Scots or see Scotland go effectively bust with the dire  effect that would have on the Pound  and the UK international financial and political credibility. The latter  would also bring large numbers of Scots to England after jobs, housing, schools and welfare which their own government could no longer afford.  Which option would a UK government take? Almost certainly the bailing out of Scotland with English money because of the damage anything else might do.   This might be done as a supposed loan, but there would be no guarantee that  it would be repaid.

The best that could be hoped for from Devomax  from an English perspective would be that Scotland would not be reckless and would pay their share of UK projects such as defence.  But along with that would come a perpetual uneasiness and clashing of democratic wills. It would be, as mentioned previously, akin to the situation we have with the coalition government  with no clear position on anything.  Unlike the coalition government there would be no end to it.   If Scotland is to leave the UK, it must be as a fully independent state asking no favours from England.

Robert Henderson

I attended a directions hearing  for the decision on whether I would be designated  a Core Participant.  I shall not be Core Participant (unless I can somehow persuade Lord Leveson  otherwise), but I could be a witness.

Regardless of whether or not I end up as a witness, the hearing was far from being a waste of time.   I was able to put my case  before a sizeable number of people (probably 50), including  lawyers  representing various people  who have been mistreated by the media, other applicants for core participant status and members of the public, some of whom were  mediafolk.  In addition, the negligent  and superficial way the applications for core participant status were treated showed the Inquiry in a bad light.

Leveson began the proceedings by blithely announcing that he had not read any of the submissions  for core participant status.  Consequently, he made his decisions purely on the oral testimony given at the hearing by the applicants for core participant status.   This was not only odd in itself,  but became doubly so when placed in the context of the advice given to Core Participant applicants before the directions hearing:

“Dear Sir
You have made an application for Core Participant status for module 2. The Chairman will consider your application at the directions hearing which is listed for 2pm on Wednesday 25th January.  It is not necessary for you to attend the hearing, but you may do so if you wish.  If you do propose to attend, please let me know by 2pm on Tuesday 24th January.
Regards
Sharron “

If an applicant had chosen not to appear, it is probable their application would have been dismissed without their submission being considered.

Leveson  further hamstrung  the applicants by saying that he would not get into the detail of individual cases. I did manage to overcome this restriction  but as a method of proceeding it was absurd for an inquiry into press misbehaviour. The final shackle he  put around the applicants was the  danger of  jeopardising   legal action outside of the Inquiry.  Although there was no question of sub judice  because no charges had been brought, I decided not to name  the ex-editor who had committed perjury before the Inquiry by denying any knowledge of receiving information illicitly from the police.  I did this because  I wish Leveson to refer  to the police the perjury, the receipt of information illicitly from the police and the failure of the police to investigate meaningfully the receipt of information illicitly given by a police officer and illicitly received by the ex-editor and his staff.   If I submit the complaints the likelihood is that the police will repeat their behaviour and refuse to investigate meaningfully or at all.  Nonetheless, if I do not get a positive indication from Leveson I shall submit the complaints.

Despite all these seeming grave handicaps to free expression I managed to get a good deal of embarrassing material  into my testimony.  This included the Blairs’ attempt to have me prosecuted in 1997 (that produced a real murmur); the Mirror’s libelling of me and failure to offer me any right of reply and  the PCC’s abject failure to deal with my complaints honestly .  I also, without giving names,  described the perjury of the ex-editor, his admission of having received information illicitly from the police and the police’s refusal to meaningfully investigate the ex-editor’s admission that he had received information illicitly from  the police.  I emphasised that the Inquiry had been in possession of all these facts for more than a month and that if I was not to be a core participant I certainly wished to be a witness.

All that ensured that there are now substantial numbers of people who know that the Leveson Inquiry  has facts which by definition must fall within  the ambit of the Inquiry. Leveson himself acknowledged that  the receiving of illicit information from the police was  indisputably pertinent.

After the hearing  I discussed my situation with the Chief Solicitor to the Inquiry Miss Kim Brudenell.  I got her to agree to a number of actions.  These are:

1. to ensure that my submissions are brought to the notice of Lord Leveson.

2.  to advise me if a formal witness statement  is required after you have reviewed what I have already submitted.

3. to advise me  when and  how  the evidence I have of  the ex-editor receiving  information illicitly and his subsequent perjury before the Inquiry should be  reported to the Metropolitan Police.  I am  willing to make the complaint myself, but  I think it would be most appropriate for the this to be done  under the auspices of the Inquiry, not least because the perjury was committed at the Inquiry. (I wrote to the Inquiry on 22 December advising Lord Leveson of the perjury).

4.  to  advise me when and  how the failure of the Metropolitan Police to meaningfully investigate my complaint to them that the ex-editor had admitted receiving information illicitly from the police – the investigating officer told me that no one at the paper  had been interviewed – should be reported to the Metropolitan Police as a complaint of a perversion of the course of justice.

The question is biased because it is (1) asking people to positively agree not merely choose from neutral options and (2) it would require a positive yes or no by the voter. It is well established that humans are predisposed to agree and say yes rather than disagree and say no, because both of the latter seem negative and confrontational.

A neutral question, as far as any can be devised, would be something like this:

Scotland to remain within the UK?

Scotland to be independent ?

With a box against each question  and a cross put in one box. That would remove the need to vote Yes or No directly.

There would still be the problem of putting one question before the other which tends to make more people go for the first question. This could be obviated by printing half the ballot papers  with one of the questions first and the other half of the  ballot papers with the other question first. 

A question in the form  proposed  by Salmond would never be used by a mainstream  polling company or in academic research because of its slanted nature.

The Scottish Numpty Party leader Alex Salmond desperately wants to have his independence cake and eat it. He wishes to have DEVOMAX as well as independence on the “independence” ballot and, if the vote is for independence, he blithely imagines that the Queen will remain head of state, defence will be shared with the remainder of the UK (henceforth the UK) and , most tellingly because of his constant boasts about the robustness of an independent Scotland’s economy , that the pound Sterling will continue to be currency used by Scotland. It is the last which I shall concern myself with here.

It is vital that Scotland should not continue to use the Pound as their national currency whilst pretending to be independent, because of the potential and probable damage it could do to Pound and the UK economy .

If an independent Scotland was allowed to retain the Pound the situation would not be like that of a heavily devolved country such as the USA , a single state where general monetary and fiscal policy is set at national level and, most importantly, money can be transferred from richer to poorer parts of the country. Rather, the position of the UK and Scotland split into two independent states would be akin to that of the Eurozone where there is no shared fiscal policy and no ability to move money from richer states to poorer states and chaos currently reigns. Chaos could well be the state the UK and an independent Scotland arrived at and probably sooner than later.

The situation with a UK/Scotland currency grouping could be more extreme than that of the Eurozone, because the Eurozone at least has theoretical rules to prevent member states from debauching the currency. If Scotland simply used the Pound without any rules the situation could deteriorate much more rapidly than the Eurozone, a likelihood reinforced by the much smaller size of the economic grouping UK/Scotland compared with the Eurozone. Whether an independent Scotland would agree to restraints on what they could do with stringent rules designed to protect the Pound is dubious: even more dubious is whether, if they agreed to such rules, they would abide by them when shove came to push .

If there is one thing which international traders and markets do not respond well to it is uncertainty. That is what the sharing of a currency between two independent states would guarantee. At present the Pound is freely traded currency which still has enough international credibility to be held widely as part of national reserves. Foreign investors and traders would rapidly begin to harbour doubts about who was exercising control over a currency being used by two supposedly independent states. Nor would international investors be reassured by the idea that whatever form control took, there would be two economies almost certainly being driven by seriously different political agendas. Without Scottish MPs, the House of Commons would have, at least for quite some time, a Tory majority with a strong free market agenda, an agenda which it is improbable that any likely Scottish Parliament and government would follow. This international uncertainty would extend to British based industry and commerce.

Whether an independent Scotland had no control over the pound or whether it exercised some control there would be serious difficulties. If the Scots had no control over the monetary and fiscal policy set at Westminster, these policies might be directly at odds with the wishes and needs of Scotland. Should that be the case you may be sure that a continuous barrage of complaint would come from north of the Tweed with pleas for monetary and fiscal policies to suit Scotland which might well disadvantage the rest of the UK. These pleas could of course be ignored at Westminster, but that would come at a cost because any serious financial or economic crisis in Scotland would result in a weakening of foreign confidence in the Pound and the general economic performance of not Scotland alone but of the UK and Scotland. This would again create uncertainty at home and abroad.

If the UK and an independent Scotland shared the pound, its fortunes would be judged by those who matter on the economic prospects and performance of the UK and Scotland combined, not as two separate economies. That would leave the UK and Scotland with many new disadvantages and precious few if any of the advantages which the Pound currently enjoys as a currency used by a single nation state with a long history of meeting its obligations.

The worst case scenario would be an independent Scotland which became another Republic of Ireland or Iceland through reckless spending and/or lax credit controls. The Pound would suffer severe consequences no matter how prudently and successfully the economy of the rest of the UK, was managed just as the German economy is suffering because of the less disciplined countries in the Eurozone. In such circumstances the rest of the UK would be faced with a choice between a rapidly depreciating and unstable pound if nothing was done or the provision of vast amounts of English taxpayers’ money to bail out Scotland.

The splitting of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 is instructive. The official division took place on 1 January. Initially both countries retained the old Czechoslovak currency the koruna, but by 8 February they had set up separate national currencies (each also called the koruna) because the Czech Republic was substantially richer than Slovakia and having the same currency made no sense because she could only be a loser. In effect, the Czech Republic would have been subsidising Slovakia if they had continued to share a currency. (Once the new national currencies were established the Czech koruna traded at a substantially higher value than the new Slovakian koruna.)

In the case of an independent Scotland and UK sharing the Pound the UK (in effect England because Wales and Northern Ireland receive far more from the Treasury than they raise in tax) would be subsiding Scotland. This is because England is by population ten times the size of Scotland, has a much broader based economy and that economy is nowhere near as dependent on public money than Scotland. Even with Wales and Northern Ireland (both heavily dependent on public money) to support England is in far better economic shape than Scotland.

The Scottish private sector is very heavily dependent on a few industries: tourism, whisky, financial services and oil ; the proportion of Scottish GDP derived from public spending is above 60% (http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/edinburgh-east-fife/60_of_gdp_comes_from_public_sector_1_1412305) and a substantial part of the GDP is derived from the higher per capita Treasury payment to Scotland compared with England – the Scots currently get around £1,600 per head more than the English which gives them around £8 billion more pa than they would get if they were paid the same as the English. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2031543/UK-government-spending-Scots-1-600-year-spent-English.html).

What would there be to stop people in Scotland using the pound as currency regardless of the agreement of Westminster? Nothing in the sense that any Sterling held in Scotland could be used by those living in Scotland just as using the dollar or the Euro in England could be done if people were willing to accept it. But an independent Scotland would have no means of printing Sterling notes or minting Sterling coins, so it would be impractical to run an economy in that way because it would have no means of readily expanding the money supply. In addition, if the Scottish economy deteriorated badly holders of Sterling in Scotland could rapidly shrink the money supply by moving it out of the country.

That brings us to the matter of the three banks in Scotland which at present have the authority to issue sterling bank notes: Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland. If the Pound was denied to Scotland by Westminster or the Scots did not choose to use it, their issuing powers would be removed.

If the Pound was shared between the UK and an independent Scotland the Sterling banknote issuing rights of Scottish banks would either have to be rescinded or strictly limited. If this was not done Scotland could print as much money as they chose. Such controls over banknote issue would not be difficult for Westminster to enforce regardless of the wishes of a Scottish government. As things stand Scottish banknotes are legal currency as authorised by the Westminster Parliament but not legal tender .(http://www.scotbanks.org.uk/legal_position.php). Not being legal tender means amongst other things that no one is obliged to accept them in payment. That alone would prevent an independent Scotland having carte blanche to issue as many notes as they wanted , because although they could issue them they would be worthless outside Scotland if no one would accept them as they certainly would not. In addition, the note issuing banks are effectively beyond an independent Scotland’s control. RBS is more than 80% owned by the UK taxpayer, the Bank of Scotland is part of the Lloyds group which is 43% owned by the UK taxpayer and the Clydesdale Bank is part of National Australia Bank Group.

But the issuing of banknotes and coins is only a part of the money supply, and a diminishing one at that because of the ever increasing use of credit cards, direct debits and other non-physical money means of payment (http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/files/payments_council/future_of_cash2.pdf).   In addition there is the ability of financial institutions to expand the money supply by making loans directly to individuals and corporations, the use of state power to “print money” through procedures such as quantitative easing and the general fiscal tenor of a government in terms of such things as credit controls, taxation policy and regulation of the economy, especially the regulation of the banks and their ilk.

If all or any of these matters were left for the UK and an independent Scotland to decide each for themselves there would be inevitably serious political clashes. More fundamentally the effect of clashing policy decisions would be to undermine the Pound and by extension the economy of one or both countries. For example, if the UK introduced credit controls and Scotland did not, Scotland could run into the type of trouble created by the pre-2008 bubble while the UK did not, but the Pound would be weakened by the Scottish behaviour. If the Pound was shared between the UK and Scotland there would have to be very strict rules to ensure that reckless financial and fiscal behaviour was not possible. As mentioned previously, it is very doubtful that an independent Scotland would agree to such rules or observe them if they did officially accept them.

Allowing Scotland to use the Pound would have only disadvantages for England and would carry with it the risk of a sudden and drastic failure if Scotland became another Republic of Ireland or Iceland. For Scotland it would be all benefit because they would gain the advantage of using a recognised currency and know that the rest of the UK would have to bail them out if the Scottish economy went down the pan. Westminster should make it clear now that there is no question of an independent Scotland continuing to use the Pound.
The SNP are peddling a bogus independence .

If they really wanted Scotland to be its own master they would be seeking to establish their own currency not remain with the Pound or become enmeshed in the Euro.

American liberals have a problem. They wish to remove the constitutional right to bear arms from the American people.  Their problem is the Second Amendment. To honestly achieve their aim they would have to amend the Constitution. But such amendments are difficult going on impossible.

To initiate amendments, either two thirds of both houses of Congress must vote for them or two thirds of the State legislatures must call for a convention for proposing amendments. That is just the proposal process. This is followed by acceptance by the individual States. In the former case, three quarters of the States must ratify the amendment individually: in the latter three quarters of the convention must vote for the amendment.

Those are stringent terms to meet in any political system, but particularly so in a state as vast and diverse as the USA and with such a strong tradition of regional government. Add to those structural difficulties the existence of widespread gun ownership and powerful lobbies such as the National Rifle Association and the mountain becomes practically  insurmountable by honest means. So what does the liberal do? What he always does when he wants to ban something which is permitted by the Constitution: he pretends that the Constitution does not mean what it manifestly says.

In the case of the Second Amendment the attack takes the form of pretending that the Amendment was merely meant to provide for a militia rather than affirming and protecting the right of people to arm themselves individually. Happily, there is plenty of ammunition with which to shoot down this claim: in the Constitution itself, in the historical circumstances in which the Constitution and Amendment were drafted, in the very logic of a militia.

The claim that the amendment is simply to safeguard the right of America’s military forces to keep and bear arms is self-evidently absurd. If true all the amendment would mean is that the federal government could not disarm the militia soldiers who represented the majority of its armed forces. It would be practically a redundant clause.

The fact that the Amendment states that the right is not merely to bear but to keep arms might be thought by most honest folk to be a pretty clear indication that the private
ownership of weapons was what the framers of the Amendment had in mind. Moreover, what would be the point of the Amendment if it was not to confer such a right to the
individual? Any other permission to keep and bear arms must of necessity be dependent upon permission from those with political power and authority. It would thus again be a futile and redundant clause. It is noteworthy that nowhere in the Constitution, amended or otherwise, is any instruction on the exercise of such state power given or hinted at.

When judging the intent of the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (which contains the Second Amendment) it is necessary to know the general social and intellectual backcloth against which they worked. They were heir to the English tradition of liberty and government by consent rather than pure tyranny. The Americans who rose against the England of King George 111 did so because they considered themselves part of the tradition of English liberty. In seeking independence, they were not repudiating that tradition but in their own minds returning to what they imagined was the true path of English liberty which had become corrupted in England. It is against this ancient English tradition that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be set.

What does the unamended Constitution of 1787 say about the protection of the newly formed United States? Section 8 of Article 1 grants to Congress the right:

To raise and support Armies, but no appropriation of Money for that Use shall be for a longer term than two years.

“To provide and maintain a Navy.

“To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.

“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.

“To provide for organising, arming and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

The first point to note is that the Army and the militias are clearly distinguished as separate entities. The second is the time limit on the power to raise money for armies. This is highly significant. There was a very long tradition in England of professional standing armies being heartily mistrusted as the tool of despots. It was the attempt to
institute a standing army of thirty thousand men which was one of the main reasons why King James 11 was overthrown in 1688. Armies were raised for wars, but in peacetime militias were the order of the day. Indeed, until the first world war England never had a great standing army. (The English tradition is also echoed in the absence of any time restriction placed on the funding of a navy by the Founding Fathers. The English never feared a strong navy as such because it could not be used against them).

With this English mistrust of standing armies and reliance on militias went a tradition of not merely allowing weapons to be generally held, but of such a practice being  positively encouraged to ensure the defence of the country. Feudal military obligation was in fact built on the private provision not merely of men but of arms and equipment. In late medieval times statutes were enacted to encourage long bow practice. The Spanish Armada which attempted to invade England in 1588 was repulsed by a mixed English fleet of private and Royal ships.

Perhaps the strongest single circumstantial reason for dismissing the liberal’s interpretation of the Second Amendment are the well attested motives for those promoting
the Bill of Rights. Those who pushed for the first ten Amendments did so because they believed that the rights and liberties of the individual were not guarded explicitly
enough by the original Constitution. Thus ,if we are to believe the liberal, we must accept the truly fantastic explanation that in the case of the Second Amendment the
protection of individual liberty was utterly cast aside without reason, public acknowledgement or, most compellingly, any contemporary comment, adverse or otherwise.

There is also a question of simple practicality. When the Amendment was passed (December 1791), the infant federal government simply did not have the means to finance the arming of militias. Thus, they can only have envisaged private arms being put to the service of the state, a tradition which as previously mentioned had a long history in
both England and the Thirteen Colonies. Moreover, subsequent history bore this out, for the greater number of troops employed by the American Union in its wars against Britain and Mexico in the first half of the 19th century came from militias. In an age of minimal government, the Second Amendment underpinned the whole scheme of national defence.

Does the Second Amendment allow for any government abridgement of the right to keep and bear arms? It might just be possible to sustain an argument that a register of guns would not breach the Second Amendment provided there was no restriction on the right to own and bear weapons, that is no person could be denied the right either to appear on the register or bear arms. But even here it could be argued with some force that the registration of weapons – particularly if it required complicated bureaucratic procedures – was an interference with the general right to bear arms. Moreover, if a right is general and absolute, it is by no means clear how any procedure initiated by and insisted upon by the state could be legitimate because by definition there can be no legitimate restriction of the right.

Americans produce a multitude of reasons for retaining their guns. They argue on the grounds of personal liberty. They argue on the grounds of deterring crime. They argue on the grounds of personal protection. They argue on a dozen and one grounds. This to my mind is a mistake. Good causes do not need to be bolstered by a battery of  arguments. Good causes need but one argument. The only necessary argument for private gun ownership is in the Second Amendment: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.” The key words here are “a free state”. That phrase cannot mean solely to maintain the state in its independence from other states, because that could as well apply to a dictatorship as well as a democracy. In the context of the reasons for the American War of Independence ”a free state” must also mean the maintenance of the freedom of the citizens from the oppressive power of the state. That after all was what the whole breach with England was about. Moreover, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are written in a manner which actively extols the individual over the state, viz: “We the people of the United States in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (preamble to the Constitution).

The general motivation for demanding gun control is not the saving of lives. (Its only effect in England has been to leave guns predominately in the hands of criminals and the state). Liberals wish to remove the general right of gun ownership in America for the same reason that they wish to interfere with peoples’ lives generally: they are natural authoritarians. They know that their philosophy (such as it is) conflicts utterly with human nature and are thus driven to suppress any resistance or dissent through the intimidation of political correctness and the practical control of public life. The disarming of the American people is part of this oppressive strategy.

The desire to restrict the holding of arms has always come from those who wished to not only monopolise power but to do so on their own terms. When the crossbow was invented, the medieval nobility attempted to ban it because it reduced the effectiveness of the armoured and mounted knight. Failing in that, they attempted to restrict, with some success, its ownership to people they could control. The Samurai in Japan enforced ruthlessly their rule that only Samurai should carry swords. When the demobbed conscripts of British Army returned to Britain after the First World War, the British government passed the first serious laws regulating gun ownership not because they feared that the British would begin to murder one another in great numbers but because they feared Red revolution.

If Americans wish to retain what is left of their freedom, they will do well to keep the Second Amendment intact. This means not merely retaining the status quo, but the mounting of legal challenges to every restriction on the holding and bearing of arms in the United States. The plain and hideously inescapable fact is that every attempt to restrict both gun ownership (or indeed any other weapon) and the bearing of arms made since the inauguration of the United States has been illegal. That applies whether or not the interference with the Constitutional right was undertaken at the federal or the state level. I suggest that legal action should consist not merely of Constitutional challenges, but civil actions for damages against the federal and appropriate state governments by those actively and personally denied the right to bear arms.

The black shadow minister and  Labour MP for Hackney Diane Abbott has  been up to her racist tricks again labelling whites as being those who wish to keep blacks down through a policy of divide and rule.  Replying  on Twitter  to a black correspondent  who complained about the lumping together of all blacks  in Britain with phrases such as “the black community”  Ms Abbott replied that wicked ol’ whitey  just loves playing “divide and rule” and that was why a united black front should be presented:

This immediately prompted cries for her to resign from conservatives on the grounds that she was obnoxiously stereotyping whites (http://www.mirror.co.uk/2012/01/05/labour-mp-diane-abbott-faces-calls-to-resign-over-racist-tweet-storm-115875-23681033/). But white liberals and their non-white auxiliaries were strangely tolerant of her racism.  Her fellow black Labour MP David Lammy was positively outraged that  anyone should have accused Abbott of racism when her  mistake was simply “ Forgetting to add the word “some” [before white in her offending tweet]  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8999638/Posturing-and-indignation-do-nothing-to-curb-racism.html).  To put the cherry on the top of the forgiveness cake,  the leader of the Labour Party  not only failed to withdraw the Labour whip from  Ms Abbott but allowed her to remain in his shadow cabinet as his spokesperson for Public Health.

All this liberal forgiveness meant Ms Abbott  was consequently allowed to escape with no more  than a non-apology   -“I apologise for any offence caused. I understand people have interpreted my comments as making generalisations about white people.”  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8998430/Diane-Abbott-and-Luis-Suarez-are-not-really-apologising.html )- and,  unlike so many white people these days,  she escaped the attention of the Metropolitan Police whose representative  dutifully said  “The service was contacted by members of the public in relation to the comments made by Diane Abbott.”

“We reviewed the circumstances of the comments and having considered all of those circumstances and the information available to us, we do not believe a criminal offence has been committed.” “http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9001757/Diane-Abbott-will-not-face-police-action-over-racist-tweet.html

To add insult to injury, after the storm broke  Ms Abbott offered a  gross misrepresentation of what she had tweeted.  She tried to claim that the offending  remark referred  to the distant colonial past.   ”Tweet taken out of context. Refers to nature of 19th century European colonialism. Bit much to get into 140 characters.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/05/diane-abbott-accused-racism-twitter). As can be seen from the tweet I reproduced above this is nonsense.   “White people love playing “divide and rule”   is a simple unqualified statement  which refers to whites generally and in the present.   The hash tag “tactic as old  as colonialism”  merely states that whites have used the tactic from the time  they gained colonies. In short, Ms Abbott was making a statement attributing a quality and mentality to whites as a group throughout the centuries up to and including the present.  Moreover, even if the statement had been made about the colonial past,  it would still have been racist because it assumed that all white people had felt the same during colonial times. Clearly they did not,  as the British anti-slavery movement and the  later critics of Empire show.    It is also worth noting that she did not use her full 140 characters in the original tweet.

Ms Abbott has “previous” on the hating whitey front.  In 1988, a year after being elected an MP, she claimed Britain invented racism (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082527/Diane-Abbott-Twitter-race-row-MP-faces-calls-resign-racist-tweet.html ).

In 1996 she delicately  said that she disapproved of her local hospital employing “blonde, blue-eyed” Finnish nurses’ rather than  black West Indian ones (John Rentoul Independent Friday, 29 November 1996  Diane Abbott is sorry (For the record Miss Finland is also black – go to  http://www.theapricity.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-20066.html and scroll down), which elicited another feeble apology but no withdrawal of the Labour whip.

In that fracas she received the robust support of her now dead fellow black MP Bernie Grant ,  a man who came to public prominence in 1985 when he greeted the murder of Pc Keith Blakelock  by near decapitation during the  Broadwater Farm  estate  black riot  with a jolly “The police got a good hiding “ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/706403.stm).  In the matter of the “blonde, blue-eyed” Finnish nurses’ Mr Grant offered a judicious  “”She [Abbott]  is quite right… Bringing someone here from Finland who has never seen a black person before and expecting them to have some empathy with black people is nonsense. Scandinavian people don’t know black people – they probably don’t know how to take their temperature.”   (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-20066.html). Mr Grant, like Ms Abbott, did not have the Labour whip removed from him.

In 2010 Ms Abbott had  further bites  at the racist cherry. She was having a little local difficulty on the BBC Late Night show with the political commentator Andrew Neil. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1289868/Diane-Abbott-fumes-branded-racist-TV-This-Week-host-Andrew-Neill.html#ixzz1iQ5ZvyRW). The subject was her son’s education. Ms Abbott had always been a strident critic of private education and frequently publicly criticised  Labour politicians who sent their children to private schools or even worked the state system, like the Blairs, to send their children to state schools which offered a similar educational experience.  In 2010 she suddenly announced that her son would attend the £12,000-a-year City of London School.

Neil attacked her hypocrisy.  Abbott defended herself  with : ‘West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children.’  This led to the following exchange:

“Mr Neil hit back by demanding: ‘So black mums love their kids more than white mums, do they?’

Furious Ms Abbott said: ‘I have said everything I am going to say about where I send my son to school.’

Mr Neil persisted: ‘Supposing Michael said white mums will go to the wall for their children. Why did you say that? Isn’t it a racist remark?

‘If West Indian mums are as wonderful as you say, why are there so many dysfunctional West Indian families in this country? And why do so many young West Indian men end up in a life of crime and gangs?

‘You didn’t want your son to go to a school full of kids who have been brought up by West Indian mums.’

As Ms Abbott repeatedly refused to reply, Mr Neil asked: ‘Would you like to make it clear that West Indian mums are no better than white mums or Asian mums?’

When Ms Abbott, squirming in her seat, replied, ‘I have nothing to say,’ Mr Neil taunted her:

‘You don’t want to do that – you still think West Indian mums are the best?’” (ibid)

Ms Abbott also referred to David Cameron and George Osborne as ‘two posh white boys’ in 2010 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280358/Diane-Abbott-race-row-calling-Cameron-Clegg-posh-white-boys.html).

Since her “divide and rule” tweet  Ms Abbott has been working hard on her  “hate whitey” credentials .  Again on Twitter she  accused tax drivers of routinely ignoring black people hailing cabs ‘Dubious of black people claiming they’ve never experienced racism.  ‘Ever tried hailing a taxi I always wonder?’  (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083252/Diane-Abbott-sparks-ANOTHER-Twitter-race-row-branding-taxi-drivers-racist.html).

A 25-year-old black politics graduate Jade Knight has also added to our knowledge of  Ms Abbott’s attitude towards Britain and its white population. Miss Knight   had the temerity to approach Ms Abbott  in a Boots store and engage her in conversation. After describing her conservative with a small c politics and saying  she admired Abbott and  desperately wanted to work for her , Ms Knight encountered this response :

‘She [Abbott]  said, “You’d be better off working for a white Conservative. You’re a black conservative, you don’t do the black thing.” I couldn’t believe she had said it.

‘She was basically accusing me of selling out, which is not true. I told her being a conservative wasn’t going against my heritage. Anyone who understands black culture knows black culture can be very conservative. I thought she would understand that as she is educated.’  (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086722/Work-white-Conservative-What-Abbott-told-Tory-voting-graduate-asked-job.html#ixzz1jYOlQf4K).  Note  the reference to “white” rather than just conservative.

There are several things interesting  about  Diane Abbott’s frequent and casual racism. She clearly sees herself as living as in a country  divided into “them and us” with her  ‘us’ being the black population and her ‘them’ is the white population.   She has no sense of being part of a society entitled British or English. Her world is black “us” and  white  “them”.  Her use of “blonde, blue-eyed Finnish girls”  suggests that she has an  active hostility to white physical attributes.  Had she wished to merely complain about cultural differences between Finns and West Indian nurses there would have been no reason to mention the physical differences between the two.  It is rather  difficult to see how someone with  her mentality could represent her constituents or the interest of  British society generally without racial fear or favour.

An anti-white racist she may be, but if  other things were equal I would enthusiastically defend Ms Abbott’s right to say whatever she wants  because  I truly believe in free expression for everyone except those who would deny it to others.  But in politically correct modern Britain others things are not equal.  Whites who made the sort of statements that Ms Abbott has made would have been treated very differently.  If they were politicians the media would have bayed unceasingly for their blood.  They would have lost any position held within the government or on the opposition front bench. They would probably have had the whip withdrawn or,  if that did not happen, been deselected as a candidate by their party before the next election.   Indeed, they could have suffered such things for far less obviously racist than any of Abbott’s remarks. The Tory MP Patrick Mercer was sacked from his shadow cabinet post by simply being  honest about his experience of black soldiers when he was a serving army officer: “”I came across a lot of ethnic minority soldiers who were idle and useless, but who used racism as cover for their misdemeanours “  (http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2007/03/patrick_mercer.html).

More generally, any white person who made similar statements to Ms Abbott could expect to  be the subject of disciplinary action by their employer up to and including the sack; suffer  media vilification and,   increasingly,  find themselves involved in a criminal prosecution, for example,  the England football captain John Terry (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/dec/21/john-terry-racism-case-cps).     Even putting golliwogs for sale in a shop window can result in a visit from the boys in blue (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-452477/Police-order-shopkeeper-remove-golliwogs-window.html).

Racist blacks and Asians generally are treated very leniently .  Even where the racism is violent and unambiguously  directed at whites,  it is treated very different to racism by whites against non-whites.   Recently four Somali Muslim girls  – Ambaro and Hibo Maxamed, both 24, their sister Ayan, 28, and cousin Ifrah Nur  28 – viciously attacked a white British girl Rhea Page, 22.  They  were charged with Assault occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (ABH),  having torn part of Miss Page’s  scalp away, knocked her to the ground and repeatedly kicked her, including kicks to the head  and repeatedly screamed racist abuse at her (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070562/Muslim-girl-gang-kicked-Rhea-Page-head-yelling-kill-white-slag-FREED.html#ixzz1flw8TY6p). The Somali girls were not only not convicted of a racist attack but were given non-custodial c sentences.

There is a strong argument for disregarding the  motivation for a crime in sentencing. A crime is a crime. Allowing motive to intrude provides a lever for subjective likes and dislikes to be given the force of law. However, as with the prosecutions for “inciting racial hatred”  and their ilk, while such laws are on the statute book they must be applied even handedly to preserve the rule of law.

The ideal thing would be for all criminal restrictions on speech  to be lifted  and motivation to be ignored when prosecuting.

Diane Abbott and Cambridge

The special treatment Ms Abbott  has received extends to other aspects of her life.  She is a history graduate having studied at Newnham College, Cambridge.  In 2003 she  wrote a piece for the BBC’s Black History Month  entitled Multi-racial Britain. It  contained this gem:

“From the days when the Norman French invaded Anglo-Saxon Britain, we have been a culturally diverse nation. But because the different nationalities shared a common skin colour, it was possible to ignore the racial diversity which always existed in the British Isles. And even if you take race to mean what it is often commonly meant to imply – skin colour- there have been black people in Britain for centuries. The earliest blacks in Britain were probably black Roman centurions that came over hundreds of years before Christ.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/dabbott_01.shtml).

For any educated person brought up in Britain the belief that the Roman legions came to Britain “hundreds of years before Christ”  would be to put it mildly surprising for the dates of 55 and 54 BC for Julius Caesar’s  two expeditions  to Britain (the first Roman military action in Britain) and  43 AD for the Roman conquest of Britain are iconic  dates in British history. For a history graduate from one of the two leading British universities to make such a howler is astonishing for it  shows a disturbing  lack of historical perspective and absence of very basic general historical knowledge.

But that is not the only startling part of the passage. Ms Abbott also says  “The earliest blacks in Britain were probably black Roman centurions”.  Why on earth should she imagine that if blacks did come to Roman Britain they would all be centurions?  That is not only historically dubious in terms of blacks coming to Roman Britain in ant guise, but absurd in its conception that the blacks were  probably all drawn from the centurion class.  That is a simple failure of intellect.

In the light of  the mental capacity revealed in  Multi-racial Britain, it   would be interesting to know exactly how and why Ms Abbott was selected for a much sort after place on a popular degree course at one of the two most prestigious British universities and once there how she managed to take a history degree. Could it be that an informal “positive discrimination”  was exercised in both the granting of the place at Newham and her completion of her degree course?

Diane Abbott and Is it in the blood?

In 1995 I wrote an article for a specialist  cricket magazine Wisden Cricket Monthly. This dealt with the use by the England cricket team of many black and white immigrants. In the article I argued that this made a mockery of the very idea of national sporting teams.  This created a vast media outcry. Ms Abbott sent me an unsolicited letter which I reproduce below together with my reply to which Ms Abbott did not reply.

Her comments  “You show no appreciation of acceptable terminology or mores” and “I believe that we have a duty to write on subject we know about”  prompt a smile at her lack of self-knowledge, but the most important aspect of her letter is the quiet desperation of her “Black and Asian culture is now an integral element of British society. I have always thought that the best thing about British culture is its diversity and receptiveness to new, creative influences.”    Of course, if that were the case there would be no need to say it.

————————————

DIANE ABBOTT, M.P.

Labour Member of Parliament for Hackney North & Stoke Newington

Our ref: DPV/Rcm

Date: 3 August 1995

HOUSE OF COMMONS LONDON SW1A 0AA

Tel: 0171 219 4426 Fax: 0171 219 4964

Dear Mr Henderson

A constituent of mine has sent me a copy of the article you wrote for Wisden Cricket Monthly entitled, “Is it in the Blood?”

I was rather saddened by your article. You show no appreciation of acceptable terminology or mores. I know that your article was focusing on cricket. But it shows a level of ignorance which is pervasive in many walks of British life. Imagine a young white man born in England, one parent English, one parent Spanish. Is it unnatural for him to express an interest in his Spanish origins. Does it make him any less British? No.

Black and Asian culture is now an integral element of British society. I have always thought that the best thing about British culture is its diversity and receptiveness to new, creative influences.

As an ex-journalist, and someone who still dabbles, I believe that we have a duty to write on subject we know about. And if we are not fully conversant with the topic to undertake the necessary research. I believe that if you had undertaken the appropriate research you would find that your assertions are flawed.

I hope that you will give my comments some thought.

Yours sincerely

DIANE ABBOTT MP

————————————

Miss Diane Abbott MP

House of Commons, London SW1

13/08/95

Dear Miss Abbott,

If you take the trouble to read the enclosures you will see  that I am more than ordinarily qualified to deal with the  subject of coloured alienation. (I wonder if you could claim  such a comprehensive experience of white or indeed Asian  society?) Moreover, even the proverbial visiting Martian  could see the illogic in the claim (incessantly made by ”anti-racists”) that English bred blacks and Asians are both  alienated from and unquestioningly loyal to England.

The evidence of coloured alienation is mountainous. The tape  I enclose of the BBC Radio 5 programme “Word Up” is of  particular interest for it contains both the visceral hatred  and irredeemable resentment of your colleague Bernie Grant  and the uncommitted  internationalism of self-described black  professionals, whose adamantine smugness achieved what I  would have thought impossible, a fleeting moment of sympathy  in me for Mr Grant when he railed against their selfishness  and lack of concern for the working class. You might also  wish to note Mr Grant’s comments about the House of Commons.

I am undecided as to whether you were disingenuous or naive  in your example of the white man with a Spanish father. It is  true that such a person might have some feelings for his  father’s homeland. However, his potential circumstances are  vastly different from those of the son of a coloured  immigrant, for if he chooses the white man may be accepted  without question by the host people. Do you seriously wish  to maintain that there is no difference in the lots of a  white and a coloured person in this country? If so, why do  you join in with the “anti-racist” shouting?

The most disturbing message of your letter is your rejection  of the right to free expression. Both “You show no appreciation of acceptable terminology or mores” and “I  believe we have a duty to write on subject (sic) we know  about” are attempts to suppress my right to free expression. This is a supremely dangerous thing for once you try to take  away my right you have no moral argument to repel those who  would suppress your right. I suggest that you study the short  essay ‘The fulcrum of freedom’ to see exactly how dangerous  the absence of free expression can be to a society. Free  expression is not merely a civil right designed to improve  the amenity of a man’s life, it is the surest guard against  tyranny. You might also wish to reflect on the fact that you  are willing to sit in the Commons with a colleague who  gloated over the near decapitation of a white policeman by a  black mob which had shed every vestige of civilised  behaviour. I presume Mr Grant’s behaviour after that event  comes within your definition of “acceptable terminology or  mores”.

You, Miss Abbott, have been sold a most monstrous pup by the  white liberal establishment. All your life (or at least your  adult life) you have allowed yourself to believe that the  liberal view of Race was the only reasonable view on Race.  You have luxuriated in the fool’s paradise of believing that  the remarkable international security and stability enjoyed  by Europe since the war – the only circumstances in which  liberals could have held such sway – was the natural order of  things. In fact, it has been an abnormality.

The age of liberal internationalism is drawing to a close,  perhaps in five years, perhaps in ten. Nothing anyone does  will prevent this process. What we do have is the choice  between a benign nationalism and authoritarian government,  probably fascism. If we are to save ourselves from fascism  all races must begin to talk honestly. That is what I am trying to achieve, the honest discussion of Race. (Do not  think, incidentally, that Britain can live in a cocoon  shielded from the racial events on the continent,  particularly in Germany – within ten years Germany will be  displaying all her old racial arrogance. You are, I presume,  aware that de facto black and Asian British citizens already cannot travel freely throughout the EU).

Your friend, Darcus Howe, recently wrote to me offering a  chance to discuss the subject of coloured loyalties. This I  have turned down for the moment because of my health.

However, I may well be cured within the next six to nine  months through a revolutionary treatment. I have written to  Mr Howe suggesting that in the event of my recovery I would  be willing to take part in a programme debating the subject  of black and Asian commitment with one other. I enclose a  copy of my letter to Mr Howe detailing the conditions under  which I would take part. If you are interested, why not  suggest to Mr Howe that you be my protagonist?

You asked me to think about your comments. I would ask you to  do the same with mine. In particular ask yourself whether if  racial shove comes to racial push you can imagine the likes  of Tony Blair risking anything substantial for blacks and  Asians. Remember Blair has overturned one of the main planks  of Labour policy simply to serve his own petty convenience in  the choice of his children’s schools. Do you think such a man  would risk his life for blacks and Asians? He would not even  risk his comfort.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

The conviction of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence is a savage and sinister travesty of justice. That is not because the defendants are necessarily innocent . What is profoundly worrying is the decision to prosecute regardless of the feeble quality of the new  evidence,  the placing in double jeopardy of Dobson (who had been formally acquitted in 1996 of the murder  when a private prosecution was brought) ,   the general  difficulties of a trial held 18 years after the event, the all too perniciously potent legacy of the Macpherson Report  and the almost continuous media circus which has accompanied the Lawrence killing for nearly 19 years and repeatedly savaged the reputation of the defendants .

The impossibility of a fair trial

The question of whether Dobson and Norris could get a fair trial should have been tested before the case was heard.   Despite assiduous attempts, I can find no  media reports that either Dobson or Norris’ lawyers applied to have the trial struck down on those grounds.  If no application was made by their lawyers ,the defendants would have every reason to feel cheated  because if ever there was a case where a fair trial would have been impossible this is it.

To understand exactly how outlandishly contaminating the circumstances surrounding the defendants were  it is necessary to  know of the  previous attempts at prosecution,  the scandalous behaviour tolerated at the Macpherson Inquiry, especially the behaviour towards the suspects,  and the virulent and extended  hate campaign waged by the British media against Dobson and Norris (and other  suspects).

The police originally had five  white  youths in the frame  for the murder, Dobson and Norris plus  Luke Knight and the brothers Neil and  Jamie Acourt.  The CPS refused to prosecute in 1994. The parents of Stephen Lawrence  then initiated a private prosecution   against  the five suspects, but only Jamie Acourt, Gary Dobson and Luke Knight  stood trial. The granting of a private prosecution is rare for any crime because the Attorney-General has to sanction such prosecutions; for a charge of murder it is unprecedented at least  in modern times( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/first-private-prosecution-for-murder-3-held-1616684.html.)

The trial collapsed when the judge ruled that the identification evidence of  Lawrence’s friend Duwayne Brooks, who had been with him on the night, was inadmissible (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-41.htm#41.3). That was scarcely surprising as Brooks originally told  the police he could not positively identify any of the attackers then later changed his story and said he could and picked out Neil Acourt and Luke Knight. As by his own story, Brooks ran away as fast he could when the attack happened and the  attack took place at night (around 10.30 pm on 22 April), it would seem improbable that he could have identified  the attackers with any certainty.  It is worth adding that (1) identification evidence is notoriously unreliable, especially where strangers are involved, and (2) the three independent witnesses to the attack were unable to identify any of the attackers.  The attack was also over very quickly.

Despite the failure to mount a criminal prosecution by the CPS and the abject failure of the private prosecution, the British media continued their campaign against those suspected of the murder. In 1997 the Daily Mail ran a front page which accused the five suspects of murder and challenged them to sue for libel (http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/frontpage/lawrence.html).    This was an act of outright cowardice by the Mail because they knew none of those they accused could afford to sue them.  A libel case against a the Daily Mail would have probably  have cost, at 2012 prices,  £1m to fund  because the Mail were determined to take it to court. But even if  the case was  won,  the judge would probably not have awarded  the plaintiff their  costs in full or even at all  and any  award would certainly be far less than the plaintiff’s  costs and probably derisory. If  the case was lost the plaintiff  would have to bear his  own costs and those of the Mail which would mean at least £2 million at today’s values.

The one family amongst the accused which had some degree of affluence at the time of  murder was that of David Norris, whose father Clifford was reputedly running  the drug trade in South London.  But Clifford Norris was jailed for nine years in 1994 and served seven years which reduced him to penury. In 2006 the Guardian found him living in a bedsit (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/aug/06/politics.lawrence).

But  even if a libel suit  had by some miracle been mounted, it is dubious if it would have succeeded because of the public demolition of the suspects’  characters over years. That would almost certainly have seriously biased any jury against them and  it could have been argued that the plaintiff(s) had no reputation to lose. Even if  a suit was successful, any damages would probably have been derisory on the same grounds of little reputation to lose.   It is worth mentioning that the editor of the Mail, Paul Dacre, knew Stephen Lawrence’s father  Neville, because Neville  had done some plastering work for him.

In 1998, through a combination of the more or less perpetual  media campaign and the religiously  politically correct  Blair Government,    the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry began presided over by a   senior judge,   Sir William Macpherson. This contained truly amazing scenes. In what was  a quasi-judicial proceeding there was an atmosphere close to mob rule.  Within the Inquiry  frequent interruption occurred in the public galleries, especially when the police were giving evidence.  At one point members of the Nation of Islam invaded the building and fought with the police (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/stephen_lawrence/282378.stm).

When the five suspects left the Inquiry after giving evidence  they were met by a mob and were physically attacked  by missiles and  directly assaulted by members of the mob (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/123608.stm).  Why they were expected to walk  through a mob when they left the building is a mystery because the police must have realised the crowd was likely to attack. Nor did the police show any urgency to either protect the suspects or arrest their assailants.

The publication of the Macpherson Report  in 1999 on the evidence given at the  Inquiry ensured the  Lawrence murder remained in the mainstream media throughout the eleven years leading up to the recent trial.   In addition, Macpherson’s  “anti-racist” recommendations, which included a dangerously broad definition of a racial incident as ” any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person” (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-47.htm),  were adopted throughout public service and then by private and not-for-profit  employers, especially the larger ones, many of which rely heavily on public contracts.

Politicians  of all mainstream parties competed to be the most enthusiastic  about this new quasi-Maoist “anti-racist” regimen under which  to make any comment which could be construed as “racist”,   however absurdly,  would probably mean the end of a career of a politician or public servant.  Unsurprisingly, public servants at all levels became eager to demonstrate how politically correct they were, both to advance their careers and to protect themselves.

Perhaps the single  most sinister  consequence of Macpherson  was the institutionalising of “anti-racism” – extremely crude  propaganda in practice – within the British state education system (http://www.schools-out.org.uk/teachingpack/stephenlawrence.htm), but the effect on  the police and justice system runs it close.

Macpherson did not believe that  racism did not  have to be consciously motivated.  He labelled the Metropolitan Police “institutionally racist”  (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-06.htm#6.6) ,  by which he meant, as far as he meant anything, unwitting racism arising from the general culture of  a corporate body.  The Metropolitan police at first rejected the tag of institutional racism but eventually  caved in, after which the other police forces in Britain followed suit.

To attack police racism, whether  deliberate or unintentional, Macpherson recommended that the police be directly placed under race laws:   “47/11That the full force of the Race Relations legislation should apply to all police officers, and that Chief Officers of Police should be made vicariously liable for the acts and omissions of their officers relevant to that legislation.” (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-47.htm).   This was enshrined in law in the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/34/contents)

The effect of Macpherson on  the police was to render them, and especially the most senior officers,  rigid with political correctness – the toxic fruits of which  can be starkly  seen in the police statement that the recent killing of the Indian student Anuj Bidve by a white attacker in Salford was a “hate crime” despite the fact that  the police admitted  there is no evidence for this  (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/white-attackernon-white-victim-racist-motive-non-white-attackerwhite-victim-no-racist-motive/).   This mentality has continued to drive the Stephen Lawrence case.

The publication of the Macpherson Report provided the mainstream media with a never ending stream of stories related to the Lawrence killing. He became the lead icon for “anti-racism”. No area of life escaped. Not only schools and the police but every workplace was directly or indirectly affected by the consequences of the Lawrence murder.  Stephen’s mother Doreen ceaselessly  campaigned for further investigations  into the death . The ever expanding band of “anti-racist” interest groups were ready at the drop of a hat to use his death as a lever to get other perceived racist affronts into the public eye.    The mainstream media, without exception dominated  by enthusiastic “anti-racists” and “multiculturalists”, was  always willing to run another Stephen Lawrence story and only too eager to seize on any claimed example of racism and give it an airing, frequently with reference to the Lawrence murder.

Because of the constant media’s constant return to the Lawrence story there was never any chance that it would fade in the public mind.  Any trouble the  five suspect got into, including criminal convictions,  was given great prominence in the media.   The period after 1993 was also the time when the Internet took off so that no mainstream  story is ever really taken from the public fold.  Details of Norris and Dobson’s criminal past may not have been allowed into evidence at their trial, but anyone googling their names would have soon discovered the material.

With all that history,  is it conceivable that a jury could be empanelled which  was not aware of the defendants’ past  and was not influenced by the massive amount of adverse and often crudely abusive media coverage they would have inevitably experienced just in the normal course of living? To not be aware of the media’s  representation of the Stephen Lawrence case and Dobson and Norris’ involvement in it, the jurors would not  have read newspapers or listened or watched news bulletins or current affairs programmes over the past 18 years;  not found such information when using the Internet; not attended  “antiracist” courses in their workplace  and not been at school (and probably university)  after 1999  because of the institutionalisation of “antiracism” propaganda  (with Stephen Lawrence at its centre)  in British schools following the recommendation  that this be done in the Macpherson Report (Recommendation 67 – http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-47.htm).  .

Even  if by some miracle twelve people could be found who were unaware of the Lawrence case and the reputation of  Dobson and Norris,  there would still be the hurdle to overcome of the intensely politically correct atmosphere that has been gradually  created by the British elite over the past forty years.   Whites in Britain have been conditioned to believe that  it is dangerous not to play the multiculturalist game. To fail to accept the Lawrence case narrative presented to them and find Dobson and Norris not guilty would expose them to the dreaded charge of racism.  At the same time non-whites have developed a tremendous sense of victimhood  which leaves them unlikely to approach a trial such as this in disinterested fashion.

However the jury was comprised the jurors would have had good cause to return a guilty verdict regardless of the evidence.  If the jury was all white they could, and almost certainly would have been,  be portrayed, at best,  as whites  looking after their own. If the jury was racially mixed it would be very difficult for the white members to argue for a not guilty verdict if the non-white members were against it.  Conversely, a non-white member on the jury who did not believe guilt had been proved would be nervous – for fear of being seen as an uncle Tom – about voting  for not guilty, if such a vote would mean there was a unanimous  verdict and consequently it would be known that they had voted that way.

(I have not been able to  discover any details about the composition of the  jury other than that it was comprised of 8 men and 4 women  and people from the locality of the killing were excluded (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15735026). If anybody has details of the age, class, race and ethnicity of the jurors please let me know. )

If there is an equivalent case  in terms of sustained adverse  media coverage which has gone to trial I would glad to know of it.

The racist video

A video made secretly by the police of some of   the suspects including,  Dobson and Norris, during the original investigation   into the murder shows Dobson and Norris (and the others) engaging in extremely crude racist talk. Here is an example:

Neil Acourt. Sequence 11. “I reckon that every nigger should be chopped up mate and they should be left with nothing but fucking stumps….”

David Norris. Sequence 50. “If I was going to kill myself do you know what I’d do? I’d go and kill every black cunt, every paki, every copper, every mug that I know..

I’d go down to Catford and places like that I’m telling you now with two sub-machine guns and I’m telling you I’d take one of them, skin the black cunt alive mate, torture him, set him alight …. I’d blow their two legs and arms off and say go on you can swim home now …. (laughs).”

Gary Dobson. Sequence 27. “He said the fucking black bastard I am going to kill him. I cracked up laughing. I went what black geezer. He went the Wimpy one the fucking black nigger cunt, fucking black bastard. I went what the Paki……”

Luke Knight. Sequence 11. “…. it was Cameroon, a fucking nigger country… Fucking our presenters saying oh yeah we want Cameroon to win this, why the fuck should he want niggers to win it when they’re playing something fucking like Italy…..”  (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-07.htm#7.11)

It is astonishing that the video was allowed in evidence because there is a principle in English law  that  nothing can be introduced into evidence if it is not direct evidence of the crime and  would be likely to serious  bias jurors. The prime example of this is the long-standing refusal to allow evidence of previous convictions into evidence (this has been weakened as a principle too,  but still obtains in most criminal cases).  The video clearly falls into this  category because there is no admission in the recording that the suspects had committed the crime.

It has been suggested that those involved suspected or even knew they were being bugged,  and deliberately went over the top with their language to taunt the police.  But there is no hard evidence that this is the case.  Moreover, if the prosecution seriously believed that  the recording was made  when those recorded knew or suspected they were being recorded, that would have been another reason for  excluding it from evidence because it did not represent Dobson and Norris’ normal behaviour.   Because of the  conditioning to the “antiracist” mindset  outlined above, it is difficult to believe the playing of the recording to the jury followed by the evidence given by Dobson and Norris about the recording would not have had an adverse effect on the jury.

The fact that no admission of having killed Lawrence was made in the secret recording is  a pointer to their innocence.   To build on that instance there is a considerable  amount of surveillance over the years which failed to catch any of the suspects  making any admission of involvement in the murder:

“ Just weeks before the Macpherson report was published in February 1999, then Met Deputy Commissioner John Stevens asked one of his top detectives  John Grieve, to launch a no-expense spared new probe.

Career detective Mr Stevens told Mr Grieve, a deputy assistant commissioner, he could recruit the best detectives in the force.

At its peak, 120 officers were working on Operation Athena Tower, which lasted four years.

Yard chiefs were in constant contact with the then Home Secretary Jack Straw, the only person who could authorise telephone intercepts on the suspects.

Yard Assistant Commissioner David Veness approved dozens of bugging operations on the gang’s cars, homes and workplaces, while a surveillance team was constantly on their trail.

A source said: ‘It was run like a big anti-terror operation. The team had every piece of kit you have ever heard of. It was pure James Bond.’

It was during this phase that a house was purchased in the same street as one of the murder suspects, and an undercover officer tasked with infiltrating the gang.

TV INTERVIEW AND A SPY HELICOPTER

Two months after the Grieve probe started, the five suspects agreed to be interviewed by Martin Bashir on ITV’s Tonight With Trevor McDonald.

Programme makers were in close contact with the Met before the programme was recorded but for legal reasons, detectives ruled out suggesting the line of questioning.

Had they done so, defence lawyers could have argued they had used Bashir as ‘an agent of the police’ – scuppering the possibility of using it as evidence at any future trial.

Bedrooms and other pre-selected rooms in the secret house in Scotland where the interview was filmed had recording devices installed.

Scotland Yard even had a helicopter hover over the group as they played golf nearby, recording their comments, relayed by satellite from tiny microphones hidden in their golf trolleys. But the ‘bugged golf buggies’ did not provide any vital new leads – and neither did the TV show.

In May 2004, the CPS announced there was insufficient evidence to bring murder charges. One detective remarked at the time that the Yard’s best hope was if one of the suspects ‘became a vicar’ and gave a true account of what happened”. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081901/Stephen-Lawrence-trial-Police-bugged-killers-homes-cars-pubs.html  - this Mail article is worth reading in its entirety).

The fact that, despite the immense surveillance efforts made over a long period, no admission was ever recorded or heard by undercover officers pretending to be their friend strongly points to their innocence.  The temptation for young  men, adolescents when the crime happened,  to boast  amongst themselves about the crime if they had committed it would have been very strong because that is the way of young men.  Imagine keeping quiet about it for years on end even when you are drunk and  amongst people you think are your friends. It would argue for an iron self-discipline that few could muster and would be vanishingly  unlikely  to be found in every one of a group of five or more.

The breaching of double jeopardy

The ancient English law principle of no double jeopardy  – that there should be no more than one trial on the same offence or evidence after an acquittal  has been gained – was diluted by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. This provided for  more than twenty offences  to attract the possibility of a second trial on the same charge after being acquitted previously.  Murder is one of the qualifying offences. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/44/part/10).   The breaching of double jeopardy was one of the Macpherson  recommendations – no 28  – although he was making the suggestion only in relation to racist crimes. (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-47.htm).

The removal of double jeopardy is dangerously wrong  in itself,  because of the opportunity it gives to the state to behave in an oppressive manner. To that  ill  is added that of de facto retrospection, for it is not only crimes committed after the 2003 Act which are caught by it but any crime committed before the Act was passed. Dobson was acquitted during  the private prosecution  and  until the 2003 Act was passed could not have been retried.   He is also a victim of retrospection.

There are supposedly strong safeguards against the abuse of power built into the 2003 Act.  The court of Appeal  has to quash the original acquittal and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP)  has to give the go ahead for a new prosecution.  There is also a seemingly stern test for the new evidence on which a fresh trial will be based. Section 78 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 requires that the new evidence must meet the following tests:

78 New and compelling evidence

(1)The requirements of this section are met if there is new and compelling evidence against the acquitted person in relation to the qualifying offence.

(2)Evidence is new if it was not adduced in the proceedings in which the person was acquitted (nor, if those were appeal proceedings, in earlier proceedings to which the appeal related).

(3)Evidence is compelling if—

(a)it is reliable,

(b)it is substantial, and

(c)in the context of the outstanding issues, it appears highly probative [Having the effect of proof, tending to prove, or actually proving] of the case against the acquitted person.

(4)The outstanding issues are the issues in dispute in the proceedings in which the person was acquitted and, if those were appeal proceedings, any other issues remaining in dispute from earlier proceedings to which the appeal related.

(5)For the purposes of this section, it is irrelevant whether any evidence would have been admissible in earlier proceedings against the acquitted person. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/44/part/10).

The problem with such putative safeguards is that they  allow a great deal of latitude in their interpretation and the decisions,  whether or not to quash the original acquittal or mount a fresh prosecution, are made by members of the  elite who are often associated with politicians.  For example, the present DPP,  Keir Starmer, is a member of the Labour Party (he was named after Keir Hardie) and was  appointed by a Labour government.   Consequently , there is also a  “Who shall guard the guards” element to fret over.    But I shall leave that  question  to the judgement of the reader. What I shall go into in some detail is the question of the “New and compelling evidence” on which the re-trial was based.

The new forensic evidence

This consists of a minute blood stain identified as Lawrence’s blood, two human hairs of 1mm and 2mm  respectively (which could only be tested for maternal DNA because the hairs had no root) and a small amount of fibre identified as coming from Lawrence’s clothes which was found on clothing taken from  the defendants’ homes after the murder.   Technology was not advanced enough in 1993 to have extracted a complete DNA profile from the blood stain, but that is irrelevant because, according to media reports,  the blood stain was not spotted in 1993. The stain was tiny but not invisible being 0.25mm by 0.5mm (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081758/Stephen-Lawrence-verdict-The-evidence-convicted-David-Norris-Gary-Dobson.html).  

In the 1990s two separate forensic examinations were made of the clothes and other items gathered by the police in 1993 as possible evidence.  The first was conducted by Adam Wain  who was working with the police. The second  by Dr Angela Gallop who acted for the Lawrence family in 1995 when the private prosecution was being prepared.  Both found blood and textile fibres; both came to the same conclusions: that there was too little blood to test and  the connection between Lawrence and any of the suspects’  clothing was thin,  in Dr Gallop’s words  “Even in combination these fibres provide only very weak evidence of any association between Lawrence’s and Dobson’s clothing.” (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-25.htm – this is section 25 of the Macpherson Report)

But there were  fibres which had some similarity with the garments worn by Dobson and Lawrence:

“ 25.7 In summary, the conclusions of Mr Wain were really as follows: First, amongst the extraneous fibres removed from the bag from the right hand were two brown wool fibres that had the same microscopic and colour characteristics as those from Mr Dobson’s cardigan. One of these had similar dye components as those from the cardigan. The other one was too small for dye testing. 

Also he found that one grey cotton fibre from Stephen Lawrence’s jacket had the same microscopic characteristics as fibres from Mr Dobson’s jacket. That discovery was made in June 1994. Also a single white polyester fibre found in the bag from Stephen Lawrence’s right hand had the same microscopic characteristics as those from Mr Dobson’s jacket. As that fibre was white no further relevant tests could be carried out.”

25.8 The report of Mr Wain continued as follows … “Evaluation conclusions … where fibres are found to match the component fibres of a garment, this does not mean that they necessarily came from that garment. They could have come from another garment of the same type or another source of similar fibres. Therefore, in my opinion, there is weak support for the assertion that the two brown wool fibres recovered from the bag that was covering Stephen Lawrence’s right hand came from an exhibit ASR/2, namely a cardigan recovered from Dobson’s home”, and that, “there is very weak support for the assertion that the single grey cotton and white polyester fibres that were recovered from Lawrence’s jacket and right hand bag came from item LA/5, namely a jacket found at Dobson’s home.” (Ibid)

The importance of these early findings on the fibres are twofold: (1) it shows that extensive searches for fibres and their extended  testing was undertaken when the evidence was fresh and less likely to be contaminated (2) that  similarity of fibre was weak evidence of  where the fibre came from.

It is rather difficult to see how two highly experienced forensic scientists could have missed the fibres which were presented as evidence in the trial just concluded.  More to the point, even if they did miss them,  why are these putatively new  fibres any more potent as evidence now than those  found and tested in between 1993-1995? There would seem to be no ready answer to that because a fibre is just a fibre, a dye is just a dye.  There has not been  technological advance which will identify the  particular garment from which a fibre has come.

Even if there was other evidence, forensic or otherwise,  the new  fibre evidence  would add little to it simply because of its uncertainty.  If there was a great deal of evidence which pointed to Dobson and Norris being involved with the killing it might add a small  circumstantial something  but that is all. But there was not a great mass of strong evidence in this trial. The two hairs  found on Norris’ clothing could have been simple contamination as the evidence bags nestled together, unwitting transferred during other tests or even transferred by the officers initially  collecting evidence who also visited the Lawrence home.  It is worth adding that the clothes from which fibres were taken were not  collected for several weeks after the murder and the police themselves thought it unlikely that any fibres  from Lawrence would have been left on the clothes after that time(http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-25.htm) .

The only really  important new evidence put forward was the microscopic blood sample on Dobson’s jacket collar (http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16141534) and the two hairs.   The fibre and hair evidence really added nothing to this. The DNA evidence either stood or fell on its own merits. As  there was no blood evidence against Norris (only inconclusive  fibres and the two tiny hairs). He should have been acquitted because there was no meaningful evidence against him.

The blood evidence against Dobson presents more complex problems.   The defence did not question the blood  DNA analysis. Instead they attacked its veracity as evidence by claiming contamination.  There were solid grounds for doing this.   The blood stain was not seen  by the two forensic scientists who had examined the jacket in the 1990s. The evidence  had been stored for 18 years.  The clothes were stored in paper  evidence bags sealed only with sellotape - the original forensic scientist  Adam Wain warned of the  dangers of contamination as the bags and sellotape seals degraded (http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2011/11/24/stephen-lawrence-murder-trial-forensic-expert-had-concerns-about-contamination-of-evidence-old-bailey-hears-86908-23585745)  Evidence bags containing Lawrence’s clothes and effects were stored with those containing the Dobson and Norris evidence.   Detective Sergeant John Bevan and Detective Constable Linda Holden, two of the officers involved in the initial investigation,  visited the Lawrence home as well as taking raids on the suspects homes (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8908314/Officers-may-have-contaminated-Stephen-Lawrence-evidence.html).  An officer on the case  DC Paul Steed  deliberately  sabotaged his records relating to the forensic  evidence (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/09/stephen-lawrence-trial_n_1139000.html . A forensic worker Yvonne Turner  mislabelled evidence in 1993, including the garments at issue in the Dobson/Norris trial (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/23/stephen-lawrence-trial-evidence-mislabelled)  It is also true that contamination of forensic evidence is a not uncommon problem in many cases which heavily rely on it.  (http://www.impactnottingham.com/2012/01/can-we-really-rely-on-forensic-science/).

Having said all that there is the question of how the blood soaked into the Dobson jacket collar. Three other flakes of blood which tested as being that of Lawrence were found loose in the evidence bag, although again these had been missed in the earlier forensic examination.  They could plausibly have been in the bag as  the result of contamination by a simple mechanical transfer of material.  Dobson’s defence rested on the fact that the blood on the collar could have been caused by the liquid with which the jacket was sprayed to test for saliva. This could have softened another scrap of dried blood which allowed the blood to soak into the collar.

The prosecution brought Rosalyn Hammond as an expert forensic witness to say this was “practically impossible” (http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2011/12/08/stephen-lawrence-murder-trial-contamination-not-to-blame-for-bloodstain-on-accused-s-jacket-says-expert-86908-23620646/).   Prosecuting counsel in his final speech to the jury said the blood on the collar could not “realistically be caused by contamination”. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16271736). Note that neither the witness or the prosecutor say it was actually  impossible. In fact, they used  the sort of phrases that people use when they are trying to paper over the cracks in an argument. Nor  is the spraying for saliva the only plausible way the blood could have got onto the collar. For example, someone opening the bag which had been contaminated with loose tiny flakes of blood could have had water or another liquid on their hands and without knowing it transferred both blood and liquid to the Dobson jacket.  It is also rather curious that only a tiny amount of blood would have soaked into  the Dobson jacket if it had been transferred during the attack or conceivably after the attack with blood from the knife or hands.  The fact that the blood was on the collar makes it even less probable because staining elsewhere – the sleeve or front of jacket would have been more likely  than the collar, especially if the blood was transferred in the attack. It should also be remembered that the blood stain and the three other loose flakes in the evidence bag were missed by both forensic investigations in the 1990s.

There are further strong circumstantial reasons to doubt the blood sample. Much was made in the Macpherson report of the failure to arrest any of the suspects for two weeks  after the killing and the fact that on two occasions before any arrests were made Dobson and Jamie Acourt  were seen leaving their homes carrying black plastic refuse sacks which might have contained items of clothing (http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/sli-18.htm).  The Macpherson report concluded that  this might have been clothes worn at the killing which were being disposed of to destroy any potential forensic evidence, a rather large assumption to say the least.   But If that was indeed the case why would they have kept any of the clothes? Common sense would have told anyone who had been involved in the killing to get rid of everything. . In  addition,  it should be remembered that David Norris’ father Clifford was a heavyweight villain who reputedly ran the drugs trade in South London at that time.  If he knew  his son and others had been involved with the murder  it is difficult to believe he would not have told his son  to make sure all those involved got  rid of any clothing or anything else they were carrying or wearing in case  these  provided  forensic evidence.

Exactly how the Court of Appeal and the DPP concluded this was “New and compelling evidence” I am at a loss to understand.   As for the jury, the judge warned them they had to accept the forensic evidence as being beyond reasonable doubt before moving to the question of whether Dobson and Norris were guilty.   Whether the jury understood the full ramifications and complexity of the forensic evidence we shall never know, but it is difficult to see how they could have met the steep test of “beyond a reasonable doubt”  on any rational basis.

The viciousness of the  white liberal

Nothing I have written is meant to suggest  that Dobson and Norris (or the other suspects) are  admirable human beings.  However, it is interesting to see the hypocrisy and viciousness of   modern day liberals as they respond to this case.

If this had been black defendants from similar backgrounds to those of the five accused the mainstream media would have been full of broadcasts and articles saying their environment was responsible for their misbehaviour, how disadvantaged they were and so on.    Nor has any meaningful  allowance has been  made by the mainstream media for the youth of  Dobson (17) and Norris (16) at the time of the attack or the fact that Norris had a father who was a serious criminal. It should also be borne in mind that the suspects lived in an area of heavy non-white immigration, unlike the regulation issue white liberal who,  curiously you may think for those putative worshippers of diversity, so often manage to  arrange their affairs so that they live in very white worlds.

As they are white working class men,   white liberals (and their black and Asian auxiliaries) feel free to casually vilify them in the crudest manner which demolishes any pretence they have to actually believing in the “liberal internationalist, be understanding, don’t blame anyone”  credo they continuously promote.

That bastion of liberal sanctimony the Guardian greeted the convictions with the tabloid worthy headline Monsters in the dock (http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/06/1?newsfeed=true) while the Daily Telegraph from supposedly the other side of the political spectrum  thought it relevant to comment on the physical appearance of the three members of the original five suspects not charged in this trial – The Acourt brothers and Luke Knight – and to sneer at the difficulties which the all but Jamie Acourt have experienced since the Lawrence murder (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8974918/Stephen-Lawrence-murder-Jamie-Acourt-Neil-Acourt-and-Luke-Knight-profiles.html).

The vindictiveness of the liberal can be seen in their howling for longer sentences for Dobson and Norris – despite the fact that they were aged 17 and 16 at the time of the murder –  and the willingness of those with power to pander to the public cries. The Attorney-General  – a politician in the British government – has already agreed to review the sentences to see if they are “unduly lenient”  because one or more “members of the public” have requested that he do so  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8994957/Stephen-Lawrence-murder-Attorney-General-to-review-sentences.html)

It might be thought that the liberal dominated media would at least have been disturbed by the diluting of double jeopardy, but with a few honourable exceptions such as Peter Hitchens  (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2083636/Stephen-Lawrence-murder-I-dont-believe-man-stand-trial-twice-crime.html#ixzz1irbOpuHd) there has been a ghastly silence.

The unpleasant truth (for liberals) is that modern liberals, far from being interested in truth and fairness and  treating all human beings alike, are just like every other human being: they favour those they approve of and attack those they deem beyond the Pale.  In fact, liberals today are more likely to behave viciously towards those of whom they disapprove than the general run of Britons because they are rigid ideologues and like all ideologues they carry their beliefs to any length of sinister absurdity.

Shades of the Barry George conviction

When Barry George was convicted  of the murder of the  television presenter Jill Dando in 2001 I  wrote a pamphlet for the Libertarian Alliance entitled  Barry George and the celebrity effect  [http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/barry-george-and-the-celebrity-effect/ ]. In it I argued  that the evidence  was very weak and entirely circumstantial and the conviction palpably wrong.   The prosecution case, like that in the Dobson/Norris trial, also rested on dubious  forensic evidence.

I attributed the jury’s willingness to convict on such feeble evidence  to  Dando’s  celebrity and the massive amount of irrelevant character assignation of George which occurred during the trial, character assassination which  was then gleefully amplified  by the media. Barry George was acquitted on appeal in 2008 when the weakness of the case against him was finally officially recognised.

Something similar seems to have  happened in the case of Dobson and Norris.   The police, the DPP, the  Court of Appeal  had obvious reason not to bring the case to trial or, in the case of the jury, to reach a verdict of guilty. Dobson should not have tried again because of the breach of double jeopardy and even under the new rules on second trials after an acquittal,  neither Dobson nor Norris should have been retried because of the patent impossibility that they would get a fair trial because of all that had occurred in the previous 18 years.  In addition, the new forensic  evidence was seriously compromised by the very real risk of contamination. This should have caused the case to fail to meet the “new and compelling” criteria for a new trial. The jury should have come to a not guilty verdict because clearly the “beyond a reasonable doubt”  standard was not met because of the risk of contamination.   The only plausible explanation for all of these things not happening is the creation by the media, politicians and interest groups of an atmosphere in which none of those involved in the process from gathering evidence to giving a verdict felt it possible to do anything other than allow the process of re-trial to proceed.

It is not necessary for those involved to have consciously made a decision not to do what circumstances and facts said they should do. All that it required is for those involved to have been in effect brainwashed by the coverage of the Lawrence case over 18 years and the ever increasing grip which  “antiracist” propaganda has on Britain which makes many white Britons believe that in some curious way whites are always in the wrong when black complaints of abuse by whites are involved.

This was a political trial pure and simple.  The desire for a conviction became part of the “anti-racist” crusade which the murder generated.  No expense has been spared  with an estimated £50 million having been spent on it  (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081901/Stephen-Lawrence-trial-Police-bugged- killers-homes-cars-pubs.htm). At its height 120 officers were employed on the case full time (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081901/Stephen-Lawrence-trial-Police-bugged-killers-homes-cars-pubs.html). Even today there are 25 officers doing the same and suggestions that they should be re-deployed to other duties is causing media uproar.  The squad may well continue, viz.: ‘ Scotland Yard has denied reports that the team investigating the murder of Stephen Lawrence is being disbanded but it admitted the case is currently “dormant”’. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-16435790)

Compare the Lawrence case with the investigation of  the murder of a fifteen year old white boy Richard Everitt by Asians in 1994. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/the-deaths-of-richard-everitt-and-stephen-lawrence-compare-and-contrast/). One person was convicted of the murder  and released after 11 years. Upwards of ten were in the gang which killed him who went looking for a white boy to attack. Unlike the Lawrence case there has been no sustained  median campaign to bring the others to justice, no Public Inquiry like that of Macpherson, no ongoing massive police  squad devoted to a continuing investigation, no outcry by the media at the release of the convicted killer after only 11 years.  This was a murder which the British elite wished to sweep under the carpet as quickly as possible.  The double standards of the British elite are howlingly obvious and disturbing.  The British public can see what is happening and are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the “white, wrong; black,  right”  policies and mentality of those with power and influence in this country. That could be the ultimate legacy of the Stephen Lawrence circus: the straw which broke the grip of the “antiracist” multicultural propagandists on British life.

Stephen Lawrence’s murder was just that, a murder.  It was as grave a crime as any other murder arising from the similar circumstances of a gang attack. No more, no less.