Very good news…..

I suspect that some of the drivers of this escapade were

1. Police and BBC guilt over covering up the Jimmy Savile stuff for so long
2. Sir Cliff’s insistence that his sexuality is a private matter
3. Sir Cliff’s very unfashionable public stance as a Christian

Points 2 & 3 do not appear to fit easily into the world view of the 21st century BBC…..indeed the beeb seems positively antagonistic to such sentiments as discretion about sexuality and declarations of Christian faith.

Hence an almost fanatical determination to use the naming of Sir Cliff as a suspect in an underage sexual abuse investigation and the resultant police search as a golden opportunity to publicly humiliate the man.

Naturally the BBC and the rest of the media are bloviating about “press freedom” and “the public’s right to know.

Pure bollocks.

The BBC didn’t post the report discreetly on the TV equivalent of page 15 – it was not only given a front page splash but also subsequently entered for a “scoop of the year” competition. They probably saw it as an opportunity to humiliate someone whose slightly old fashioned views just didn’t resonate with their own “liberated”, progressive outlook.

Strangely my Facebook timeline (usually full of anti Trump, anti Brexit, pro Corbyn bloviations) is almost silent over the judge’s damning indictment. Imagine. however, the cacophony from certain quarters if it had been the Mail or The Sun “wot done it”….

Evangelical Protestant preacher Pastor James McConnell from Belfast is, unlike many 21^st century public figures, not a man given to nuance. Such a character, naturally, fits awkwardly with the modern state which increasingly seeks to discourage vigorous and robust debate. Hand in hand with the legions of the easily offended who patrol social media to hunt out and silence anyone who upsets their sensibilities our political and judicial masters are happy to enact and enforce laws to metaphorically cut out the tongues of those refuse to avoid giving “offence”

Thus Pastor McConnell, as a result of a sermon he preached to his congregation in May 2014 that was also streamed over the internet was charged with improper use of a public electronic communications network and causing a grossly offensive message to be sent by means of a public electronic communications network.

The state sought to punish him for making this statement.

‘Today we see powerful evidence that more and more Muslims are putting the Koran’s hatred of Christians and Jews alike into practice. ‘Now people say there are good Muslims in Britain, that may be so but I don’t trust them. Enoch Powell was right and he lost his career because of it. ‘Enoch Powell was a prophet and he told us that blood would flow in the streets and it has happened.

‘Fifteen years ago Britain was concerned of IRA cells, right throughout the nation they done a deal with the IRA because they were frightened of being bombed. Today a new evil has arisen. There are cells of Muslims right throughout Britain. Can I hear an Amen?

‘Right throughout Britain and this nation is going to enter a great tribulation and a great trial. To judge by some of what I have heard in the past few months you would think that Islam was a little more than a variation of Christianity and Judaism, not so. 

‘Islam’s ideas about God about humanity, about salvation are vastly different from the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Islam is heathen, Islam is satanic, Islam is a doctrine spawned in hell.’ 

Words, claimed the prosecution, deliberately designed to offend Muslims.

Not so, said the Pastor.

no way I was out to hurt them – I wouldn’t hurt a hair on their head. But what I am against is their theology and what they believe in.

But, from the moment he was charged he remained defiant and said that he would not stop preaching the Christian gospel even if the price was finding himself behind bars.

Certainly there were expectations that the state’s aim of shutting him away in a cell would come to pass in this age of tender feelings. But a miracle happened – or rather an equally unexpected manifestation – a justice with common sense in the person of District Judge Liam McNally.

‘The courts need to be very careful not to criminalise speech which, however contemptible, is no more than offensive. ‘It is not the task of the criminal law to censor offensive utterances. ‘Accordingly I find Pastor McConnell not guilty of both charges.’

I rejoiced at that judgement. I might or might not agree with the Pastor on what he said. But I would be outside the courthouse clapping the verdict. Not because I supported his sermon – but because I supported his right to preach it. Just as I would be perfectly entitled to then stand up on a soapbox and rip into everything he said.

It is incredibly illiberal for the state to police hatred. Hatred might not be big or clever, but it’s only an emotion. And officialdom has no business telling us what we may feel — or think, or say, or write. Allowing the state to monitor belief represents a brutal reversal of the Enlightenment itself. John Locke, in his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), set the tone for the Enlightenment as an attempt to ‘settle the bounds’ between the business of government and the business of morality. ‘The business of laws is not to provide for the truth of opinions, but for the safety and security of every particular man’s goods and person’, he wrote. That ideal is now turned on its head. Across Europe, governments ‘provide for the truth of opinions’, and in the process they silence those they don’t like and patronise the rest of us, reducing us to imbeciles incapable of working out what is right and wrong, and of speaking out against the wrong.

A small but significant victory in the fightback against a censorship being imposed by those who consider themselves morally superior to the rest of us. But we must resist the temptation to sheathe our swords.

There will be many more Pastor McConnells to defend…..

The Police Federation and several senior officers do not appear to be emerging from the Andrew Mitchell “Plebgate” affair in a particularly savoury light. Peter Oborne in the Daily Telegraph has launched a blistering attack on the Police over this and other issues. He talks of lies, cover ups and weak leadership

It is time to acknowledge that the police force faces a crisis of such gravity that it can only be solved by setting up a Royal Commission.

The Independent Police complaints Commission (IPCC) has criticised three Chief Constables for not taking any action over quite well substantiated accusations that three officers had lied about a discussion they had with Andrew Mitchell.

Three police officers have been criticised for apparently giving a false account of a meeting with the former cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell, which the MP had secretly recorded.

What makes this affair so troubling for the police service is less that individual officers may have lied – although that is clearly toxic in itself – but the suggestion that when entrusted with investigating wrong-doing, chief constables did not take appropriate action.

Now David Cameron and Theresa May have made statements deploring what appears to be a stitch up of Mitchell orchestrated by several police officers.

But it appears to me that Cameron is shedding crocodile tears. His behaviour during the whole episode has been rather half hearted. He asked a senior mandarin to investigate the whole incident but the subsequent probe was desultory and rather amateurish. Cameron knew of the CCTV evidence (subsequently used by Channel4 News to undermine the police case) yet did not choose to take it seriously.

As a comment on this post pointed out

Hmmm strange how it took that hotbed of left wing subversion C4news to go carefully through the CCTV footage, and those two well known lefties Jon Snow and Michael Crick to present it to the public and show that Mitchell was being stitched up. It does make you wonder why the Cabinet office and the PM in particular didn’t take the time to do exactly the same thing: I’m sure they must have been aware that the whole area was monitored by CCTV.

Something smells about this whole affair and it’s just not emanating from the boys in blue – it’s also coming out of Number 10 Downing Street

A deeply unpleasant and worrying story emanating from Burnley and Lancashire County Council.

Receptionist Mahdiya Khan accessed a computer database 60 times to get details of a child sex victim. She was jailed for eight months, but details have only just emerged. Three men have also been found guilty of interfering in the case.

She happened to be the “girl friend” of Mohammed Imran Amjad, 26, who was under investigation for grooming and abusing a 14 year old girl and lending her out for others in his circle to sexually assault.It’s a shocking story but merely the latest in a whole series of cases where Muslim men, usually of Pakistani descent, have groomed underage white schoolgirls and turned them into sex slaves.

However, apart from the obvious tragedy of a serious sex crime  there are a number of other issues arising from this story that give cause for concern.

This case was decided quite a while ago but the details have only come out in the last few days – now why would that be?

It also appears that of the national media only The Daily Mail and BBC published the story – did the others think it of less importance than Simon Cowell’s “lovechild” or Miley Cyrus’s “twerking?

Apart from Amjad several other men were brought to trial but they were freed after the girl said the sex was consensual. But by definition children under 16 cannot give their consent for sex –  it is automatically a form of rape. So why did the courts allow these men to walk away?

A receptionist (not a social worker) can access highly sensitive data sixty times with nothing being flagged? Why were there no safeguards in place – and what does this tell us about all the other databases used by public services? No wonder people are getting so concerned about who will have access to our files.

This information was then used to intimidate the girl and her family into keeping their mouths shut.

Three other people connected to Amjad had also attempted to interfere with the case.His cousin Waqas Khalid threatened to rape the victim and her mother. His friend Qasim Hussain persuaded her to change her statement. His brother, Furqan Amjad, contacted the victim 350 times

Attempting to pervert the course of justice by intimidation and/or bribery show a contempt for the law that deserves exemplary punishment – yet Furqan Amjad was jailed for 15 months, Khalid was fined £300 and Hussain will be sentenced next week.

Oh, and remember receptionist Mahdiya Khan was given eight months in prison – which means she is probably out already.

There is a nasty smell about this whole affair….

A free and open world increasingly depends on a free and open internet. The internet empowers everyone — anyone can blog, create, learn, and share. It is controlled by no one — no single organisation, individual, or government. It connects the world. Today, more than two billion people are online — about a third of the planet

Guido Fawkes is convinced that  a sinister cartel of shady politicians, third rate academics and sleazy celebrities is not just out to handcuff  the press but is also  on a mission to emasculate the wild untamed blogosphere and bring the “free and open world” of the internet under the control of the new “Ministry of Truth” so he has launched a call to arms to fight against this threat.

Tell them to BLOG OFF by signing your support here

After a decade of denials former Liberal Democrat minister and champion of wind farms Chris Huhne has confessed to being a serial liar

Chris Huhne, the former energy secretary, has quit politics and is facing a possible jail sentence after he pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice by asking his ex-wife to take speeding points for him.

Once seen as a serious alternative to current Lb Dem leader Nick Clegg the now disgraced politician is facing a probable prison sentence. But it only came about because maverick blogger Guido Fawkes clung to his case like a terrier. True, a couple of newspapers took an interest but it was Guido who kept his eye on this ball month after month.

Of course we would never have known anything if this rather seedy little man had not suddenly ditched his wife for his mistress in 2010 – yet another example of beware the fury of a woman scorned.

Schadenfreude – always a delight when a smug, liberal global warming fanatic who ticks every box for the BBC/Guardian chattering classes bites the dust….

News that all 800 members of SO6, the armed police unit guarding the UK’s political elite, are to be questioned over suggestions that – shock horror – some of them were a little economical with the truth over the Andrew Mitchell “Plebgate” affair has caused a bit of a ripple in the media.

The Met helpfully added that this investigation will cost about £64.000 and occupy 3,000 hours of police time.

Naturally Labour Party mouthpiece Daily Mirror found a rentaquote MP to sound off about wasting resources at a time of “cuts” and “police sources” (AKA the Police Federation) muttered about “witch hunts”……Labour politicians and Police Federation agitprop activists, of course, had previously milked the whole incident until the arrest of the SO6 officer when they then became strangely silent.

Some might suggest that the details of this police investigation and the accompanying press release have been deliberately designed to stir the pot again and paint the current government (which coincidentally is attempting to reform the police service) in an unfavourable light.

But that cannot be the case for we all know that every police officer is absolutely “wonderful”………

Three of the most vocal supporters of the Leveson proposals to impose statutory control of the press are actors Hugh Grant & Steve Coogan and former motor racing supremo Max Mosley – each of whom has an axe to grind about press reports of some of their more lively activities. Fighting alongside them are two Labour MPs, Tom Watson and Chris Bryant whose names figured large in the MPs expenses scandal.

Perhaps it was to these five individuals that Sara Payne, whose daughter was raped and murdered by a paedophile in 2000, was referring when she recently stated her opposition to the Leveson proposals despite having been a victim of press intrusion herself

It is important that celebrities and MPs, whose own moral shortcomings may have been exposed by the Press, are not allowed to hijack this vital overhaul.

Time, I think, to recall the words of John Milton who in 1644 penned the magnificent and majestic Areopagitica, still the most impressive defence of a press free from government censorship and licensing ever written

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?

Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopolized and traded in by tickets and statutes and standards. We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark and license it like our broadcloth and our woolpacks

Or maybe we should just echo Wordsworth’s famous plea

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee

A controversy is brewing in Rhode Island after four police officers seemingly made a group of young men do push-ups as immediate punishment for vandalizing mailboxes.

The mayor and the police chief of North Providence are apparently up in arms. There is talk of the officers being punished. Probably at this very moment regiments of lawyers are flooding into the town to snap up a juicy “human rights” case.

So perhaps it’s just the right moment for Katy Bourne to phone the four officers and offer them a job here in the UK with the Sussex police or, if that isn’t possible, at least show her officers the video.

No lawyers, no court process ending up months later with nil result, zero paperwork – a bunch of idiots have their time wasted (which irritates them) and victims see something being done….. now that’s what I call a great example of “community policing”!!!

Remember how the soon to be installed CEO of “The New York Times” said he knew nothing about widespread long lived rumours of the sexual abuse of underage children committed by one of the BBC’s biggest stars, some of the abuse taking place on BBC premises?

Even when an item on a BBC current affairs programme investigating these rumours was pulled at the last minute…

Even when the go ahead was given a few days later to air a TV special celebrating the star’s life and saying what a wonderful wonderful guy he was…

Well, the plot thickens….

But yesterday Lord Patten – who said he himself first heard about the Savile allegations less than two weeks ago when he read about them in a newspaper – insisted Mr Thompson had been made aware of the Newsnight investigation last December by director of news Helen Boaden.
When asked to confirm that the former director-general knew about the investigation, he said: ‘Yes’.
His comments were later retracted by the BBC Trust, which said he ‘misspoke’ on the matter.

I wonder if any of those brilliant, sophisticated, right on, politically correct lovers of investigative journalism at the NYT will want to have a quiet word with Mr Thompson next time they are sipping their dry martinis?