"Lock 'er up!"

Discrimination will have nowhere to hide, says Mrs May (BBC Radio 4 "Today") about her "ethnicity audit" (as though public money couldn't be better spent!) This is a smokescreen to hide the two BIG inequalities she's responsible for: (1) Allowing the UK to be occupied by other peoples; (2) Allowing those same people to deprive (because of "equality" laws) Britons of work, housing, etc. It should be possible to use the laws that govern the Equality and Human Rights Commission (more public money!) to prosecute the Prime Minister. But the system discriminates - unfairly. In 1980 I had legal aid for my divorce, so I applied for legal aid to bring a case against Mrs. Thatcher - but the Law Society refused it. Good luck to anyone who tries to bring a case against Mrs. May. "Lock 'er up!" (For the dual meaning in English of "discrimination" please see "Language Traduces Thought".)

Language Traduces Thought

Much is said about:- Democracy: The people who campaigned successfully against Mrs. Thatcher's 1979 election manifesto policy to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK clearly didn't give a fig about democracy (unless it suits them); Human Rights: "Rights" is a device that gives a law, or required law, imperative. The European Convention on Human Rights was drawn up in response to the atrocities suffered by Jews and others during the Second World War. It has been used to enable people from outside Europe to take up permanent residence inside Europe. That is surely the very opposite of what was intended. There is nothing in the Convention about immigration control, but lawyers argue that an Article "can be interpreted to mean...." The word "interpreted" is usually used to render meaning from one language to another, but in this case it is the same language! I believe my 1977 Complaint about foreign men being able to live & work in the UK through marriage, while I & other British men can't live in their countries, was exactly the kind of Complaint the European Commission of Human Rights was intended to investigate - but it didn't. The Rule of Law: This is the third pillar on which the European Union is based. Not only are people illegally in the UK not deported (about a million), but people work, with public money, specifically to prevent them being deported. In the 1970s the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, had amnesties for illegals, and he also refrained from deporting illegals "so as not to harm community relations". The same reason was given for not investigating the death of pensioner Albert White who was killed while on a National Front march; Equality: It is clearly unequal that foreign men can live in the UK through marriage if British men cannot live in their countries through marriage, and that people in a transnational marriage (outside the EU) have the privilege of being able to live in two countries while other people cannot. It is also clearly unequal that "equality" laws entitle foreign and Commonwealth people to deprive Britons of work and promotion if they marry a British citizen or British resident; Discrimination: This word has two meanings in English. One is good - judgement. The other is bad - unfairness. There should be more discrimination, not less. More judgement would reveal that what is said to be unfair isn't really unfair. Please see this blog "Cultural and Linguistic Relativism", 24 November 2010. Don't knock discrimination. We would almost none of us be here without it; Liberal: "Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle". That graffito in London's Covent Garden sums up well those who campaigned against Mrs Thatcher's 1979 policy to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK; Prejudice: This implies pre-judging; not giving a fair hearing. My only time in court was about my not being able to live in Hong Kong (or anywhere else in Asia). The judge gave me no opportunity to state my case. He was truly prejudiced. Nothing is more important than the occupation of territory ... so he dismissed my case as "frivolous". Please see this blog "Sauce for the Gander" in 2013; Tolerance: "Arsonists hit Le Pen's party HQ and say more attacks will follow" (London Evening Standard, 13 April 2017, page 24). The Left can be peculiarly intolerant; Treatment: How the British treat each other, that is the question. Since 1965 foreigners are entitled by law to deprive Britons of work and promotion. (The Race Relations Act says "nationality".) Since 1975 women are entitled to deprive men of work and promotion. And the Sex Discrimination Act was used to enable foreign men to live and work in the UK (through marriage), even though the Act does not apply to immigration! Misogyny: This word is used to portray men who don't like feminism as anti-female, while the truth is it's just the feminists they don't like - not the same thing at all; Xenophobia: This word is used to criticise people for not liking foreigners, while the truth is those people don't dislike foreigners who stay in their own country or are visiting; Migrant: This should mean someone who legitimately expects to spend his life away from his native place. Applying it to people who may have to return to their own country gives them a legitimacy they don't deserve. It is also misleading to apply it to people who can stay permanently (e.g. EU citizens, transnational marriages) but don't intend to. British Values: Please see this blog of 7 January 2017 "Much is made of British Values - they need to be looked at". Slavery: Euripedes said in the 5th c. B.C that the only thing wrong with slavery was the word "slavery" (farmers whose crops failed sold themselves into slavery). Not much is said about:- Ramifications: Rights Require Responsibility. Enabling foreign men to live in the UK through marriage results in a surplus of young men. Which results in some men marrying when they don't really want to. Which results in untold conflict and misery.... ("The Times" had a Leader on this theme c. 1978.) 5 November 2017: Never mind Brexit or immigration, the scandal that pervades Parliament now is middle-aged male MPs being attracted to younger female staff. What is said to make this so appalling is the abuse of power. While I firmly believe that this is (partly) a result of abuse of power by those (feminists) who prevented Mrs Thatcher keeping her 1979 election manifesto promise to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK. This has resulted in at least 300,000 men living in these islands. "The Abuse of Power" was the title of a 1982 book by Patricia Hewitt, who, before becoming Tony Blair's Equality Minister, was a protagonist in the campaign to defeat Mrs. Thatcher's 1979 policy to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK. Hewitt had power. And the effect of her abuse of it is still with us today. Everywhere. Even in Parliament.

More British Muddle (Please see this blog of 13 August 2016)

The Supreme Court today ruled the financial requirement (£18,600 income) for people wanting to live in the UK through marriage is not unlawful. But they watered it down by saying that children's welfare should be taken into account. The requirement has its roots in the European Court of Human Rights' finding in favour of three women whose husbands weren't allowed to live in the UK. The Government's response was to make it harder for foreign wives to live here. ("The Times", 29 May 1985, page 1.) Yes, that's right! Foreign wives now separated from their husbands owe their predicament to those people who successfully campaigned against Mrs. Thatcher's election manifesto promise to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK. Another result of Mrs. T.'s Government not keeping its promise is that at least 300,000 men are now living in these islands. I believe the Courts could have been employed to ensure the democratic promise was kept. After all, British women can live in their husband's country. But the Law Society refused me legal aid (I qualified on financial grounds). Immigration laws keep changing, and judges meddle endlessly. However, there is a serious imbalance: they only weigh-in on one side in immigration cases, never on the side of Britons who want to prevent further immigration.

Burke

Edmund Burke, Irish MP for Bristol, was famous for writing a criticism of the French Revolution which inspired Thomas Paine to write "The Rights of Man". (We now say "human rights" because of Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt.) Burke established the principle that an MP is a free agent. This enables him to cross the floor of the House, even contrary to the wishes of his constituents. Today this principle is particularly pertinent because MPs are debating Brexit. Many MPs voted Remain in the Referendum on the European Union on 23 June 2016, while a majority of their constituents voted Leave. This is a conundrum big time! Burke also came up with the saying "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Enoch Powell MP called immigration to the UK "a preventable evil"....

Trump

An epetition to keep President Trump out of the UK was signed by over half a million people. My epetition to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK got 735 signatures. Please see this blog of 11 November 2016. I'm grateful to those who signed but appalled by the disparity! The British are good at criticising other people but are not so good at putting their own house in order. Immigration caused Trump's election; immigration caused Brexit and now Northern Ireland's crisis. (A Sinn Fein spokesman - 16 Nov. BBC Radio 4 "Today" - specifically referred to Brexit as a major cause for Sinn Fein bringing down the Northern Ireland Government.) Strange that the Minister for Immigration at the time of the EU Referendum and now the Minister for Northern Ireland is a Mr. Brokenshire! The British fabled sense of humour (notably admired by Britons) is no substitute for solving problems rather than creating them. The UK's problems could have been avoided: Please see this blog of 10 June 2016 "Kamikaze Saga". Thanks! BBC Radio 4 "In Business" (8 Jan.) reported that during President Obama's tenure "at least 2.4 million people were deported" from the US. So President Trump won't be doing anything new if he keeps his promise and deports people who are in the US illegally.

Directions of Travel

"Sayonara" (Goodbye in Japanese) was a famous novel by James Michener, made into a film starring Marlon Brando. It tells of 2 American airmen who fall in love with Japanese women. Because of pressure by some American women they can't live together in the US if they marry. It ends with one couple committing suicide. In contrast to the UK, which had a lax approach to immigration until the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act, the US and Japan had very strict controls. President Johnson radically changed the US system in 1965. And Japan has been undergoing change. E.g., since 1983 foreign students have been allowed to work part-time; before then they couldn't. In 1977 I read in the Press the Conservatives' policy to stop foreign men using marriage to live in the UK would never succeed because it would be contested by the European Convention on Human Rights. I thought someone else would complain to the European Commission of Human Rights that foreign & Commonwealth men can live in the UK through marriage even though British men often cannot live in their countries through marriage. I didn't want to. But time passed & on 10 June, I did. There is nothing in the Convention about immigration. I cited Article 3, "cruel and inhuman treatment". My complaint was not investigated on the grounds I had not been the subject of a Government decision. This means, of course, that while everyone else in the world potentially has "rights" about living in the UK an Englishman doesn't. On 12 May 1982 (during the Falklands Conflict!) the ECHR determined in favour of 3 (non-British) women whose husbands weren't allowed to live in the UK. On 28 May 1985 the European Court of Human Rights endorsed this. In Japan the decision was taken in 1982 to allow foreign men to live & work in Japan through marriage. The law came into effect on 1 January 1985. Clearly Japan's activities in this area were in tandem with the Council of Europe's. Brexit shows that an enormous number of people in the UK are unhappy about immigration. Enabling people to have a choice of 2 countries in which to live does nothing to ease this unhappiness. On the contrary, the prospect of being able to live in 2 countries is an incentive for transnational marriages. So clearly applying pressure on Japan about this issue is counter-productive from a British perspective. Nor does it do any favour to Japan. The average Japanese woman has 1.4 babies. For many years, decades in fact, boys have substantially out-numbered girls....

Much is made of British Values - They need to be looked at....

1) When the Prime Minister was Home Secretary she talked about reducing the number of immigration appeals from 17 to 4.(!) Britons abroad can't avail themselves of such appeals. And these appeals assume a mistake on behalf of immigration officers. They are only one-way: if officers make a mistake by allowing someone to live in the UK there is no appeal against that! Plus, think of the bureaucracy (= public money) involved in all these appeals! (2) Other countries have ID cards. Britain's Parliament debated having ID cards back in the 1980s. The latest scheme involved having ID cards that would be voluntary! Barmy! There's no point in having them! No wonder (some 30 years later!) David Cameron finally scrapped the idea. So this served as a sign to potential illegals they can continue to know the best country in which to live undetected.... (3) Britain's much-vaunted National Health Service (our pride & joy!) is exploited by foreigners who come here to avail themselves of free health care and even to give birth (a great way to obtain British nationality!) No wonder the NHS is collapsing under the strain! The problem is recognised, but is dealt with by nurses (who have enough to do as it is!) traipsing along corridors carrying forms backwards and forwards, and asking questions the answers to which they have no means of checking. Other countries have ID cards for people who are entitled to medical care. That's so simple, but it's beyond the scope of British Values.... (4) Nurses trained in Britain can't get jobs because the NHS recruits from abroad. This was called "looting the Third World" by the former leader of the British National Party. The increasing demand for carers means that it's necessary to recruit from abroad. But many find work in old folks' homes to be onerous and so leave to find more congenial work. This is contrary to their visa, and so is illegal. It also means that more foreign & Commonwealth people come to the UK with a visa to work as a carer. (5) "We don't dispense justice; we dispense the law," so said a judge recently. It's clearly unjust that "nationality" is included in the Race Relations Act - it empowers foreigners to deprive Britons of work & promotion (an unnatural privilege). Judges enforce the law at the behest of Parliament. But lawyers prevent deportations contrary to the wishes of politicians! Our own Prime Minister complained about this when she was Home Secretary - famously citing the case of a man who, she said, couldn't be deported because he once had a cat! (6) Skill at compromise oiled the wheels of the British Empire; that has now transmuted to a Great British Muddle (would it were instead just a Great British Bake-off). Please see this blog "An Abnormal British Muddle (includes lavatory humour)" at 13 August 2016 Many thanks!

A Notorious Aversion to War

Sparta is in Lakonia. Spartans didn't talk much, hence the English word "laconic". One scholar curiously described Spartans as "notoriously" reluctant to go to war. The reason for their reluctance was because they had come from northern Greece, enslaved the locals in the 8th. century B.C. and were fearful of a slave revolt. The Olympics, also founded in the 8th c. (776 B.C.), were religious occasions dedicated to Zeus. The women's to his wife, Hera. Spartans avoided the wrestling because hardly anyone can always win, and Spartans didn't surrender. Sparta is in the news of late because of Thucydides who wrote "The Peloponnesian War" in the 5th c. B.C. Sparta was the established power facing the rising power of Athens. Sparta's King Archidamus was cited on 18 March 2003 in the House of Commons urging restraint over the invasion of Iraq. Athens was defeated in 404 B.C. following a calamitous war. Thucydides believed future wars would be caused by similar circumstances. In 1914 Britain and her allies were faced by the rising power of Germany. Now the US, soon to have a new (no shrinking violet) President has to cope with the rising power of China.... P.S. Sparta went into decline in the 4th c. B.C. and was defeated by her erstwhile ally Thebes.

The Passmore Paradox (Happy New Year!)

You want your country to have Peace & Prosperity; and you want people from other countries to like your country. And they do; not a few; too bad for you!