UKIP membership makes you unfit to raise children?

Think of where in the world belonging to a political party is enough reason for a government official to take children off of you.  That place is Rotherham in the UK.

The story goes like this:

- A couple, who have fostered over a dozen children successfully over seven years with no controversy, get to foster three others from a troubled family;

- The report appears yesterday that after a tip off to the Council that the couple are members of UKIP (UK Independence Party), that the Council decided it was better for the children to remove them.  The report in the Daily Telegraph, which broke the story, said that the parents were told that UKIP is a "racist party"

The civil servant responsible is one Joyce Thacker, the six figure sum earning Head of Childrens' Services from Rotherham Council, who has had a disastrous day with several shocking interviews, including this one on the BBC, where she claims she was protecting the children from "strong views".  She backed off from claiming they got legal advice to do this, but implied that the children's "cultural needs" wont be met by parents with such political views.

The couple were told by the person removing the children that UKIP is "racist".  They have since claimed that not only did they let the children speak their own language, but they encouraged them to teach the couple the language (the children range from a baby to a girl of adolescent age).

In other words, the Council decided it was in the best interest of the children's "cultural needs" to not be fostered by people who belong to a political party.

So what is UKIP's policy on multiculturalism?  The website says this:

End the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government and all publicly funded bodies

The party manifesto from the last election says:

UKIP believes in civic nationalism, which is open and inclusive to anyone who wishes to identify with Britain, regardless of ethnic or religious background. We reject the “blood and soil” ethnic nationalism of extremist parties. UKIP opposes multiculturalism and political correctness, and promotes uniculturalism - aiming to create a single British culture embracing all races and religions. UKIP will: 

· Recognise the numerous threats to British identity and culture · Restore British values, scrap quotas and political correctness and return to meritocratic principles

Essentially it is a view of integration, that those who migrate to Britain can bring whatever culture they wish, but should be loyal to Britain.

But so bloody what?

Does it mean that people who are members of UKIP will treat children of a non-British ethnic background differently?  What is more important?  That children needing fostering are part of a loving family or are in care, but "culturally safe"?

The response from politicians has been predictable with UKIP leader Nigel Farage understandably "appalled", Education Secretary Michael Gove saying this is "indefensible" and Labour Leader Ed Miliband wanting a review - of course he's concerned because there is a by-election in Rotherham next Thursday.  Rotherham is a safe Labour seat, with the by-election triggered by the resignation of MP Denis McShane because of the scandal of him falsifying receipts to claim expenses fraudulently (just another piggy in the trough).

It isn't a coincidence that the local authority (Rotherham) is strongly Labour holding 50 of the 63 seats on Council.  Why?  Because this scandal is a direct result of the embrace of the philosophy of cultural relativism, the post-modernist worshipping of neo-Marxist identity politics which has been propagated through the far from liberal (so-called progressive) mainstream left for decades.

It takes the view that whilst avowedly anti-racist and ultra-sensitive to being accused of racism, that people who do not belong to the dominant culture/ethnicity (i.e. white British) are automatically at a disadvantage, and that society must accommodate all other identities equally, and that there should be a positive discouragement of claims of achievement or pride of the dominant culture.  In other words, pure cultural relativism.

There is a lot that can be said about that view, but in essence it doesn't treat people as individuals, but as ethnicities.  That makes identifying those who are victims and who are with power easy.  White British = powerful,  Black = victim, Pakistani Muslim = victim, indeed even white European non-British are victims.

However, it is more than that.  In this case it is a Maoist view of those who don't share this mindset.  Consider for a moment the political and philosophical structure of the people who work for Rotherham Council and especially social workers.  Do you really think that it is a place where people who think that Britain should leave the EU, that immigration should be constrained will be working or welcome?  

You see that is behind Joyce Thacker's belief that it is actually ok to discriminate against people because they belong to the "wrong" political party with the "wrong" beliefs.  It is a world whereby she grudgingly accepts that not everyone votes Labour, but treats with utter disdain those who express views she and her ilk find wrong.

In other words, she and the management of Childrens' Services at Rotherham neither believe in liberal democracy nor believe that people can hold views on immigration that differ from them.  It is not far removed from the attitude of Chairman Mao's Red Guards who defined political correctness.  Being a member of UKIP is not Politically Correct.

They cannot even tell that what they have done is akin to actions of a totalitarian state, to remove children because the parents have implied political views deemed to be contrary to their interests.  

Who cares if UKIP wants an end to open immigration from the EU?  Who cares if UKIP believes in celebrating British culture in Britain?  It doesn't want to deny children from other ancestries their cultures or language or would even remotely advocate foster parents telling children from say Poland, that they can't speak their language or they are unwelcome.  At best such a view would be a parody of reality.  At worst it reflects the kind of gutter politics and malignant attitude to those with other political views that is exactly parallel to the Maoist absolutist view of political correctness.

It has been exacerbated by an official from Rotherham Council saying that the couple concerned can foster other children, as they are otherwise good foster parents, but only white British children.

Why, by any objective measure, it is better tonight for these children to be in care with the state in preference to a couple who would foster them, just because the parents hold the wrong political affiliation?  Why are the children at less risk being in care with the state than they would be with successful and well loved foster parents?

Only in the twisted subjectivist world of neo-Marxist identity politics based cultural relativists, who think it is more important that children have people of similar ancestry look after them, or with the right political views,  or to be looked after the state, than to be loved and appreciated as individuals.  

The right response by government should be clear.

Joyce Thacker should go, her views and philosophy are contrary to the interests of children she purports to care about, and her and her team "who thought carefully about the issues" are more closely aligned to the former Stasi, than people who should have any power over others.

Rotherham Council should be put under administration and be declared unfit for purpose.

This very council has already been found wanting by being aware of, and with the Police not acting against gangs of Pakistani and other ethnic minority men enslaving and sexually exploiting underage girls - because it didn't want to "cause offence".  A failing even admitted by Labour.   It refused to act on criminality because it didn't want to be seen to be targeting offenders who happen to not be of backgrounds they, no doubt see, as being "powerless" and "victims" in the identity politics the men who raped young girls.

Well offence has been caused.  This Council has harmed children, it has harmed adults and has been negligent in fulfilling its responsibilities towards those in its care.   It is infected by its own racism, so that it sees racism everywhere and lazily treats those who don't fit its narrow view of the world as being racist.

It should go, and the people of Rotherham should wake up and vote UKIP next Thursday, to give Labour a shock (for it has been the party that, despite Ed Miliband's protestations today, has been the conduit for such views), and to declare that it IS ok to hold views contrary to the establishment.

It isn't just UKIP supporters who should be appalled, but everyone who believes that government should not judge individuals on the basis of their political party affiliations, but on their actions and deeds.

Meanwhile, there isn't a profanity I know of that is sufficiently critical of Joyce Thacker that I can think of, but I hope her next job involves clearing tables at a UKIP conference.

oh and David Cameron can carry his small share of the blame, having called UKIP a party of closet racists... so really, how much better is he?

Guido Fawkes says it is the "progressive agenda" of Common Purpose (a leftwing charity) that Joyce Thacker is expressing.

Gaza could have chosen peace but no

You'll see lots of reports of the destruction in Gaza from the BBC and CNN and other "well-balanced" Western news networks, you might wonder about what's been going on in the other direction...

Just 115 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel - that's Israel proper, the part that Palestinians usually cite as not being occupied, in one day.

The difference is that Gaza's weapons are poorer technology and less well targeted than Israel's.

You see Palestinians in Gaza, not in the West Bank (where they are governed by Fatah, which officially recognises the state of Israel and has explicitly renounced terrorism), have chosen to wage war against Israel - which withdraw from Gaza, including dismantling all Jewish settlements.

They could have set up a free trade zone, offering to make it the Dubai on the Mediterranean, seeking its port to be a gateway to a trading hub, because they have the potential.  It could have become a sliver of land of prosperity and peace, and been an example to prove to Israel that Palestinians can shed the image of being worshippers of death, accelerating the day that Israel does grant them statehood over the Gaza and a negotiated portion of the West Bank.

No.  That was too hard.

The pathology of being young and wanting to be a politician

Having seen the oh so earnest and enthusiastic tweets from those attending the Young Labour conference in New Zealand, some thoughts came to mind.

Why would anyone ever aspire to being a leftwing politician in a modern liberal democratic state?

What sort of psychological profile inspires someone young to want to lead others?

I remember years ago Bob Jones noted how he had been asked to speak at some event for "young leaders" of the future, of what it takes to be a good leader.  His response was that this was the last thing that young people should be encouraged to do and that, at the time, the country's main problem were due to a certain chap who was only too keen to "lead others" (Rob Muldoon).  

I have some sympathy for this.  The key focus for anyone young should be to pursue their own ambitions and aspirations to achieve, not to aspire to push others about (have no bones about it, that's exactly what joining a statist political party is all about) or to aspire to take more money from those who have achieved and to spend it, as if you're somehow entitled to spend other people's money.

I understand the interest in politics and wanting to "change the world" around them.    However, it is one thing to invent, to establish a business, to raise money or work for a charity, it is another to aspire to pass new laws, to take more money from people and spend it because you know better than they how best to do so.

That is precisely what all the delegates at a Young Labour conference are saying.   

It is a pernicious belief that not only do you have confidence in yourself to live your own life, but that you know best how to run those of others.  It's a patronising belief that those less fortunate than you will only be better off if you give them more money that you've taken from others, that you organise the world by telling business, with threat of force, how they should contract with others, how they should price and sell products they make or purchase.  

It is swallowing an entire belief system that is negative about the ability of people to make their own decisions, it is suspicious of entrepreneurs, it is the belief that other people's property is everyone's and that a small group of selected adults can know best how to mould society and individuals.

It is, despite their professed belief they are supporting the disenfranchised and disadvantaged, a belief in elitism, not in the sense of being best, but in believing in the right to rule others.

At a time in life when the primary concerns should be what education to pursue, to advance a career that one gets passionate in, and to explore the world, meet people, find those who complement who you are and your passions, the idea that a key goal has to be to align with people whose main goal is to tell others what to do, is pernicious and pathological.

If you want to lead, lead yourself.  Take a risk, create something, make a business out of nothing and use your confidence to convince people to spend their money on what you sell, or on the charity you advance.

Only when you've done that, faced up to dozens upon dozens of naysayers, had to deal with the laws and the bureaucracies that enforce them, had to give up part of what you've worked hard for in tax, will you then have some perspective on those who think they know best how to run the lives of others.

While you're at it, ask yourself how many 16 and 17 year olds have done any of that, and whether you still think that counting their heads, rather than what's in them, is really going to make things any better for anyone - except the politicians who think they can sell their own brand of snakeoil most readily to that group.

Meanwhile, go into your political party seminar and advance a counter-argument to the usual predictable monologues you hear there, and see how liberal, open-minded and intellectual they really are...

oh and Young Nats?  Don't think you're that much different, given the historical record of how your leaders turn out when they get the handles of power - for they are barely distinguishable from those on the other side.

Reform of the BBC must involve abolition of the licence fee

The capabilities and impartiality of the BBC have come under serious scrutiny in the past few days.  So the question has been asked as to whether the current model of the BBC, within a coherent broadcasting policy, is valid for today.

I say no, and the fundamental reason why is that the TV licence fee is morally indefensible.

For any appliance or electrical good one buys for use at home, it isn't the state's business once you get it home.  You've coughed up a 20% surcharge in VAT and that's it.  Except for televisions.

Ownership of a TV means you are coerced to pay £145.50 for the BBC.  Want to just watch DVDs, play console games or watch channels other than the BBC provided by Sky or commercial free to air networks?  Tough. You must pay for the BBC.

It's no idle threat.  Every year over 140,000 people get criminal convictions for not paying.  If you failed to pay your Sky bill, you wouldn't face that.  The difference between the Rupert Murdoch "evil empire" so many leftwing detractors claim is BSkyB, and the BBC is palpable.  Never have Mr. Murdoch's businesses demanded you pay them for their products unsolicited, with the threat of criminal prosecution if you fail to do so.  

So the starting point has to be abolition of the TV licence fee.  Besides the lack of equity in that those who listen to BBC radio but do not own a TV don't pay for it (a tax avoidance supporters of the licence fee don't raise), it is simply unjust today to prosecute people for not paying for a public broadcaster when there is technology to allow people to opt out of paying and be denied the content supplied.

Allister Heath has suggested the licence fee become voluntary, and he is right.  It would not be technically complex to offer a subscription service, using PCM or other technology built into Freeview TVs and set top boxes to authorise access to BBC channels (except perhaps BBC Parliament) if people choose to pay.

Of course the BBC could also offer an opportunity for people and companies to donate towards the BBC running costs, like PBS stations in the US, but it could also offer packages of stations for people willing to pay for part of it.   Radio remains an issue, as this is more complex, but in the interim it could be taxpayer funded.  Bear in mind the BBC has a turnover of over £1 billion in its commercial activities, which generates a profit of nearly £150 million.  If required to, it might actually be even more clever in exploiting this.

Those who do not want the BBC could still watch all of the other Freeview channels for nothing.   However, the BBC would then need to offer a unique proposition to subscribers.  

One thing that also should be done is that its dominance, particularly in radio, should be culled.  It should not be the dominant local radio broadcaster, and so all of its local stations should be sold, even if they retain access to the BBC News resources on a commercial basis, the BBC should not be so pervasive.  Furthermore, there needs to be a review of the scale of its national radio operations.  Why maintain an urban hip-hop station, a talkback network, a mixed format adult contemporary station or a south Asian station, all of which have commercial competitors?  

The question should be asked - what role should the state have in providing content to the public in an age when digital technology no longer means broadcasting is limited by scarcity of radio spectrum?

Regardless of the answer, the BBC should be regulated by OfCom not a Trust that has proven wholly inadequate in representing the interests of viewers.

From that should be a question about Channel 4.  It is fully state owned and itself owns and operates a suite of TV channels, albeit fully commercially funded.  Should that remain state owned or be privatised?

Beyond that, questions should finally be asked about why the state regulates commercial TV at all?  Channel 5 and ITV1 both retain significant regulation by OfCom which seems increasingly anachronistic when there are dozens of Freeview commercial channels without such regulation.  

So here is my manifesto for reforming broadcasting in the UK, it is rather moderate in my view:

- Announce end of the TV licence, offer temporary taxpayer funding to the BBC equal to the licence fee minus administrative costs and an austerity factor of 10% until 2016;

- Wipe all convictions for non-payment of the licence fee from people's criminal records;

- Declare the BBC will be fully funded from a subscription service topped up by BBC Worldwide revenue and donations from 2016;

- Abolish the BBC Trust, putting OfCom in charge of regulating the BBC;

- Institute an independent review of the role of public broadcasting in the UK to report by 2015 on its continued scope and scale including options for the BBC and Channel 4;

- As of 2016, remove Channel 5 and ITV1 from all channel specific content regulation, treating them as if all other free to air commercial broadcasters.

BBC has failed to meet the moral standards it demands from others

It's gone like this...

Late TV star Jimmy Savile was a recidivist sex offender.  This was broken by ITV, following a report that the BBC chose not to broadcast a report about the very topic late last year, preferring instead to broadcast a tribute to the man.

The BBC denied it suppressed the report for any specific reasons associated with the content of the report.  The BBC also denied it had received complaints about Savile and that it had nothing on file.

Subsequently tens, then hundreds of people came forward with their stories of Savile.  One woman, who was molested on air under her dress by Savile, said she complained and was told "that's just how he is".  It is now clear that during the 1970s and 1980s, the BBC essentially had a culture of suppressing complaints of sexual abuse against high profile stars.

There are now at least two investigations into behaviour of BBC staff over this affair.  Of course, the question has been raised as to how the BBC can investigate itself.  After all, a core principle of the Leveson Inquiry is whether newspapers (which, it is important to emphasise, are not state owned, not state funded and not creatures of statute) can hold themselves accountable.   The BBC apparently can, so it thinks.

All of this did blow open the obvious questions.  Why didn't the press take on Savile when he was alive?  Why didn't the BBC?  What are the implications of the Leveson Inquiry, which may propose regulating the press in order to avoid overly aggressive behaviour in pursuing people for stories, on journalism in the UK?

Since then, the scandal widened. Labour MP Tom Watson, the MP who has been the key protagonist in taking on NewsCorp in the Leveson Inquiry and who firmly believes in regulating the press, has been alleging that there is a pedophile conspiracy involving senior Conservative politicians and officials from the Thatcher era.

The BBC didn't dare question Watson as to his motivations.

However, it did listen to one man, who told the BBC that a senior Conservative politician had sexually abused him.  The BBC reported this, without saying who it was, but the description and the internet saw Lord McAlpine identified within 48 hours of the broadcast.  The man who made the claim then withdrew it late last week because once he saw a photo of Lord McAlpine he confirmed that he had not been the abuser.  Apparently the BBC had not inquired of Lord McAlpine before issuing its report, and had not probed the man who made the claim, even though it has subsequently been revealed that the same man had made a false accusation against a policeman some years ago and has a history that should have given cause for the BBC to not proceed.

Of course some have implied that the BBC chose to jump at the chance to take the story away from its own inadequacies and cover ups, to blaming a senior Conservative ex.politician, especially after a Labour MP had talked about it.

The allegations against Lord McAlpine mean he is likely to sue for defamation, it has shown the BBC as not meeting the standards it thinks it embodies, by reporting the most damaging allegations that can be made against any man today (be clear, to be labelled a child rapist is worse than murder today) based  on the testimony of one man, without giving the accused the right of reply or even, off camera, talking to him.

Yet this is the BBC that claimed it did not broadcast a programme recorded about such allegations against a dead former BBC celebrity, because the evidence wasn't good enough.  

BBC Director General - George Entwistle - who only took on the job in September - has resigned over it all, not least because his performance when interviewed by BBC Radio 4 presenter - John Humphrys - was farcical.

Of course it isn't just the BBC that stuffs up.  On ITV, Philip Schofield handed David Cameron a list of  alleged pedophiles live on TV.  However, he's been excoriated and ITV now subject to an OfCom investigation.

Yet the BBC is not subject to scrutiny by OfCom - the regulator of the broadcasting industry.  It is subject to regulation by the BBC Trust - a body which is mean to provide oversight, but has no real sanctions against the BBC when it misbehaves.   It is hard to see how the BBC Trust can possibly address the fundamental failings of the BBC to confront Jimmy Savile, let alone be honest about what happened.

What is needed is an independent inquiry.

However, what it raises is more fundamental than the poor judgment of BBC management, which is getting to be rather too frequent.

It is the basis for the BBC's special status, as the only broadcaster completely protected from the recession, the only broadcaster legally entitled to force the public to pay for it, whether or not they consume its services.

The BBC is quite possibly the most powerful institution in the UK.  It is difficult to overestimate the pervasiveness of the BBC in British life, its profound influence on politics and culture, and its status within broadcasting and media more generally.

It holds this position because of legislation and its primarily funded through compulsion.  Indeed 140,000 people each year get criminal prosecutions for not paying the TV licence, an archaic, arbitrary poll tax for owning a TV.  A system that in itself particularly penalises the poor, those home during working hours and those who do not live behind gated homes or tower blocks.

It broadcasts 9 TV channels in the UK and 10 national radio stations with 40 local ones.  It is the dominant broadcaster and asserts impartiality and balance as central to its ethos.  It also claims scrupulous political impartiality and separation from politics.  Yet it is a creation of politics.

Those of us on the liberal right (and those on the conservative right) regularly claim this impartiality does not stand up to close scrutiny.  There are some on the left who claim the same.

The honest truth is that it is contradictory to the core for a state owned broadcaster, funded through a specific tax on TV owners to not have an institutional bias that at its core is about defending itself, and the philosophy that justifies the maintenance and growth of that broadcaster.  When did the BBC last have a programme where it invited BBC critics to put forward the view that it should be reformed, broken up or disbanded?

So how credible is the BBC in policing itself?

There needs to be a fundamental look at what the BBC exists for.  At one time it was the sole broadcaster, in part because of the scarcity of radio spectrum, but also because the state wanted to control what people heard, and later, saw.  

None of these arguments make sense today.  The classic argument for public broadcasting by supporters of it is that it can produce programming that would not be broadcast by TV and radio stations beholden to commercial imperatives.   Yet the BBC does much much more.  It produces a vast range of mass market programming that would be seen on any commercial network.  From EastEnders to Strictly Come  Dancing to live sports coverage, to Radio 1, the BBC broadcasts programming aimed for everyone.

Its competitors have to win either advertisers (audiences it can sell) or subscribers.  It need not.  It faces no financial sanction for failing to deliver what people want, indeed it would argue that unpopular programmes are proper public service broadcasting, and popular ones prove the BBC is delivering for everyone.

Yet, its role in being the leading provider of news and current affairs is never questioned.   Its regular leftwing bias in how it carries out that activity is palpable (I complained about one presenter who said stock traders don't produce anything, with a dismissive head shake, as if they didn't do anything value, and that complaint was dismissed.  I have yet to see the BBC say that about newsreaders), and is seen in how the Guardian now actively defends it.  The line it takes, and was taken on TV by Chris Patten today is that "Murdoch will cheer on the BBC being harmed", as if the News Corp empire is evil and the views expressed in the Times can be dismissed as malignant.   Yes, the impartial BBC thinks this.

A libertarian is always going to think that the idea the government should own a broadcaster and threaten criminal prosecution against any members of the public who refuse to pay for it, whether they watch it or not, is fundamentally wrong.

However, the UK hasn't even had the debate and discussion about the role of the BBC in media policy in recent years.  The Labour Party sees itself as guardian of the BBC as a national institution, not least because the existence of the BBC fits in with its philosophy that treats the state as being activist whenever politicians think it should be.  The Conservative Party has been too scared to take on the BBC, not least because it would mean the BBC had every chance to take on those wishing to reduce its role.

Those on the left who think newspaper proprietors can't police themselves should ask themselves how well the BBC can.  The difference is that people who can read are not forced to pay for newspapers, but people who own TVs are forced to pay for the BBC.

Former Labour man Dan Hodges thinks the problem is the BBC convinces itself it is the world's best, when it is not, and so surrounds itself with a culture of superiority and immunity from criticism.

What else could justify the latest report that the BBC - which has made a point of taking on celebrities and politicians who avoid tax - is now handing its outgoing Director General a golden handshake of £450,000 - more than the Prime Minister's salary - after only 45 days in the job.

Where is the moral authority in that?

Where is the moral authority in denying that it had had complaints about Jimmy Savile when he was alive?

Where is the moral authority for the BBC to ever claim it is above politics, when it is a creature of it?

In an age when more and more media is consumed online, and by mobile devices.  In an age when networks can carry over 1,000 parallel TV channels by cable and satellite, and anyone can set up Youtube channel, podcast and blog, what role can the BBC have?

Should it continue to be all pervasive, dominating local radio and competing like a commercial broadcaster but without the disciplines of one?  Should it just broadcast content that is not commercially viable?  Should it continue to be funded through a poll tax with criminal sanctions for non-payment, or should it tout for donations, should it be funded from general taxation, or should it be subscription funded (given all TV in the UK is now digital, making it feasible to do so)?

That is what should happen next. 

If not, it is time that people deliberately failed to pay the TV licence fee.

It is a complete travesty that every year hundreds of thousands of people get a criminal record because they wont pay for a TV broadcaster.

It is about time that that debate was had, on all media, and the BBC finally felt it had to carry the debate too.