I've gone from right-wing to right-on in the space of a week
By RICHARD LITTLEJOHN who has just come back from holiday (those Guardian readers and Lefties really get on his nerves)
He always tells it like it is.
28th August 2006
They say a week is a long time in politics, but this is ridiculous. Before I went on holiday I was a beyond-the-pale, hang ’em, flog’em, send ’em all home, racist Little Englander.
It must have been true because it said so in the Guardian. A few years ago, I was described on the front page of the Independent as a BNP (British National Party)recruiting-sergeant, after I had the audacity to publish a novel set in a Britain where — amongst other things — the law was skewed in favour of the criminal and all immigration controls had been abandoned, allowing Eastern Romanian gangsters to waltz in pretending to be asylum-seekers.
I’ve only been gone for two columns, but now I discover that without writing a word I’ve been transformed into an honorary member of the bien-pensant brigade.
It can only be a matter of time before the invitations to Islington dinner parties start cascading through the letterbox and the editor of the Guardian tries to lure me away from the Daily Mail in a player-exchange deal involving Polly Toynbee and a Roman Abramovich-style signing-on fee.
Since I’ve been away, the world has seemingly turned upside down.
First, Toynbee — the Guardian’s resident madwoman (once described by Keith Waterhouse as a part-time social worker and full-time New Labour nark) — declared in print that maybe mass, unfettered immigration wasn’t such a good idea, after all.
This came shortly after a government report estimated that hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians would soon be heading our way when their countries join the EU on 1st January — among them at least 45,000 ‘undesirables’.
Then ‘communities’ minister Ruth Kelly — another product of the Guardian finishing school — announced that multi-culturalism had been a bit of a disaster.
No sooner had a squadron of flying pigs passed over Islington Green than Bill Callaghan, the head of the Health and Safety Commission, popped up to denounce Britain’s ‘cotton wool culture’ which has led to all manner of harmless, everyday activities being banned in the name of eliminating risk.
Not to be left out of this festival of self-flagellation, Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions and founder member with the Wicked Witch of the Matrix ‘human rights’ chambers, said that the law was weighted against victims of crime and admitted that the ‘liberal’ legal establishment patronised the public.
This is the stuff of show trials.
Some of us have been saying all this for years. There’s nothing in any of it which you couldn’t have read in this column or this newspaper over the past nine years.
None of it is particularly revolutionary. Anyone with half a brain could see that New Labour’s obsession with multi-culturalism, unlimited immigration and ‘human rights’ was destined to end in tears. And that the burgeoning health and safety bureaucracy was doing tremendous damage, not just to businesses, but to our way of life.
Yet we were dismissed, scorned and smeared as heartless, knee-jerk, Neanderthal Nazis. So you might think that after the amazing about-turn of the past week, we have the right to feel vindicated.
Not so fast. You have to understand that even though we were right all along, we were the ‘wrong’ kind of people, therefore our opinions were odious and illegitimate.
In New Labour’s la-la land, the Guardianistas believe that all goodness resides in them — and only them. They are our moral arbiters and they alone can decide what is right and wrong. They haven’t been persuaded by us, they have reached this conclusion all on their very own after much compassionate, rational soul-searching.
So even though they have come round to our way of thinking, it is because they are decent, intelligent people. They have ‘reclaimed’ the debate. They care. So that’s all right, then.
The obvious reaction would be to pop a couple of corks and permit ourselves a chuckle. But there’s no cause for celebration yet. They don’t mean it.
When New Labour calls for a ‘debate’ it means the opposite. When Ruth Kelly sets up her commission on multi-culturalism she doesn’t expect it to actually achieve anything. It’s a device for kicking the problem into the long grass.
OK, folks. We get the message. Now it’s time to ‘move on’.
The tens of thousands of Labour voters employed in ‘diversity’ and ‘health and safety’ aren’t suddenly going to fold their tents and retrain as plumbers. The self-important chancers on the payroll at the Muslim Council of Britain aren’t going to shut up shop and join the Rotary Club.
As far as immigration is concerned, this Government isn’t going to pull up the drawbridge, any more than it is going to ‘rebalance’ the criminal justice system to favour victims.
If they tried, Toynbee and Ken Macdonald’s mates in the ‘human rights’ racket would be all over them like a cheap suit.
Write this off to the sunshine and the silly season, but enjoy it while you can. Who knows what’s coming next.
Gordon Brown admits taxes are too high and the system is absurdly complex — so he’s scrapping all credits, allowances and restrictions on pensions and introducing a single 20 per cent flat tax on income?
This might be the season to be silly, but don’t be daft. A week might be a long time in politics — but it’s not that long.
dailymail.co.uk
By RICHARD LITTLEJOHN who has just come back from holiday (those Guardian readers and Lefties really get on his nerves)
He always tells it like it is.
28th August 2006
They say a week is a long time in politics, but this is ridiculous. Before I went on holiday I was a beyond-the-pale, hang ’em, flog’em, send ’em all home, racist Little Englander.
It must have been true because it said so in the Guardian. A few years ago, I was described on the front page of the Independent as a BNP (British National Party)recruiting-sergeant, after I had the audacity to publish a novel set in a Britain where — amongst other things — the law was skewed in favour of the criminal and all immigration controls had been abandoned, allowing Eastern Romanian gangsters to waltz in pretending to be asylum-seekers.
I’ve only been gone for two columns, but now I discover that without writing a word I’ve been transformed into an honorary member of the bien-pensant brigade.
It can only be a matter of time before the invitations to Islington dinner parties start cascading through the letterbox and the editor of the Guardian tries to lure me away from the Daily Mail in a player-exchange deal involving Polly Toynbee and a Roman Abramovich-style signing-on fee.
Since I’ve been away, the world has seemingly turned upside down.
First, Toynbee — the Guardian’s resident madwoman (once described by Keith Waterhouse as a part-time social worker and full-time New Labour nark) — declared in print that maybe mass, unfettered immigration wasn’t such a good idea, after all.
This came shortly after a government report estimated that hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians would soon be heading our way when their countries join the EU on 1st January — among them at least 45,000 ‘undesirables’.
Then ‘communities’ minister Ruth Kelly — another product of the Guardian finishing school — announced that multi-culturalism had been a bit of a disaster.
No sooner had a squadron of flying pigs passed over Islington Green than Bill Callaghan, the head of the Health and Safety Commission, popped up to denounce Britain’s ‘cotton wool culture’ which has led to all manner of harmless, everyday activities being banned in the name of eliminating risk.
Not to be left out of this festival of self-flagellation, Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions and founder member with the Wicked Witch of the Matrix ‘human rights’ chambers, said that the law was weighted against victims of crime and admitted that the ‘liberal’ legal establishment patronised the public.
This is the stuff of show trials.
Some of us have been saying all this for years. There’s nothing in any of it which you couldn’t have read in this column or this newspaper over the past nine years.
None of it is particularly revolutionary. Anyone with half a brain could see that New Labour’s obsession with multi-culturalism, unlimited immigration and ‘human rights’ was destined to end in tears. And that the burgeoning health and safety bureaucracy was doing tremendous damage, not just to businesses, but to our way of life.
Yet we were dismissed, scorned and smeared as heartless, knee-jerk, Neanderthal Nazis. So you might think that after the amazing about-turn of the past week, we have the right to feel vindicated.
Not so fast. You have to understand that even though we were right all along, we were the ‘wrong’ kind of people, therefore our opinions were odious and illegitimate.
In New Labour’s la-la land, the Guardianistas believe that all goodness resides in them — and only them. They are our moral arbiters and they alone can decide what is right and wrong. They haven’t been persuaded by us, they have reached this conclusion all on their very own after much compassionate, rational soul-searching.
So even though they have come round to our way of thinking, it is because they are decent, intelligent people. They have ‘reclaimed’ the debate. They care. So that’s all right, then.
The obvious reaction would be to pop a couple of corks and permit ourselves a chuckle. But there’s no cause for celebration yet. They don’t mean it.
When New Labour calls for a ‘debate’ it means the opposite. When Ruth Kelly sets up her commission on multi-culturalism she doesn’t expect it to actually achieve anything. It’s a device for kicking the problem into the long grass.
OK, folks. We get the message. Now it’s time to ‘move on’.
The tens of thousands of Labour voters employed in ‘diversity’ and ‘health and safety’ aren’t suddenly going to fold their tents and retrain as plumbers. The self-important chancers on the payroll at the Muslim Council of Britain aren’t going to shut up shop and join the Rotary Club.
As far as immigration is concerned, this Government isn’t going to pull up the drawbridge, any more than it is going to ‘rebalance’ the criminal justice system to favour victims.
If they tried, Toynbee and Ken Macdonald’s mates in the ‘human rights’ racket would be all over them like a cheap suit.
Write this off to the sunshine and the silly season, but enjoy it while you can. Who knows what’s coming next.
Gordon Brown admits taxes are too high and the system is absurdly complex — so he’s scrapping all credits, allowances and restrictions on pensions and introducing a single 20 per cent flat tax on income?
This might be the season to be silly, but don’t be daft. A week might be a long time in politics — but it’s not that long.
dailymail.co.uk