Britain is a nation that stood up to, and defeated, tyranny in the form of the Spanish Armada, Old Boney, the Kaiser and Adolf Hitler.
Yet it seems to be terrified of a few flakes of snow, with whole cities grinding to a halt after a light dusting.
Does this mean the British are just too risk-averse nowadays? Or is the case that because snow is much rarer in Britain than it is in places such as Canada, Scandinavia, Alaska and Switzerland that we just aren't used to it?
Snow surrender - I saw no roaming polar bears or ravening timber wolves, just the final proof that our nation is now as soft as slush
07th February 2009
Peter Hitchens
Daily Maik
If the Taliban really want to seize control of Britain (though why would they?), all they need to do is wait till the next time it snows in London.
They’ll be in control of the capital by sunset, and we’ll all be wearing beards or burkas within a week or so.
Who’s to stop them?
Losing our grip: A few inches of frozen water brought safety-obsessed Britain to a grinding halt
Most of our soldiers are wasting their time in Afghanistan, fighting an unwinnable war to save the faces of our politicians, a war that seems to consist of taking, leaving and then retaking the same town over and over again.
The police, who recently ‘walked backwards’ for nearly a mile when confronted with Islamist demonstrators, are now so multi-cultural and diverse that they would hesitate to act against Muslims for fear of being accused of Islamophobia (much easier to hurl themselves bravely at small, female pro-Tibet protesters).
And, as we showed on Monday, we really have gone soft.
As I walked through the snow to my Home Counties railway station, I expected to be a little late reaching my final destination.
But when I arrived at the station I was assailed with dark warnings about ‘extreme weather conditions’, and advice not to travel unless it was absolutely necessary.
It didn’t seem too bad to me. I’ve genuinely seen heavier snow in Jerusalem.
But perhaps it was worse down the line.
I was forced to change trains at a halfway point. But at last a train appeared whose courageous driver was prepared to take it into the White Hell that was London.
As we rolled towards the paralysed capital, so stricken that even the buses couldn’t run, I pressed my nose against the window, looking out for roaming polar bears, packs of ravening timber wolves and 10ft snowdrifts.
Of course there were none, just a few inches of frozen water.
It was not the weather that had caused this panic. It was the feebleness, the terror of risk and the obsession with total safety, which grip the official classes in this country after half a century of the Welfare State.
Who needs the Taliban to bring us down? We will do it ourselves.
The nation that defeated the Armada, Bonaparte, the Kaiser and Hitler is now frightened of a snowflake.
**********************************************
NHS has a nasty dose of slow-motion Stalinism
This has been a bad week for freedom.
Nurse Caroline Petrie has now been let off, after at first being suspended, for offering to pray for a patient. But that is only because of the publicity.
The important thing is that Mrs Petrie was not just punished for her Christianity, a faith regarded with increasing official suspicion and dislike.
She was ordered to believe in another creed, or risk her career.
After an earlier incident she was told that the ‘Nursing & Midwifery Council code’ states that ‘you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity’ and ‘you must not use your professional status to promote causes not related to health’.
These are amazing statements, both sinister and self-contradictory.
She must promote Left-wing politics, but she must not mention Christianity.
Equality (alias Marxism) and Diversity (alias political correctness) are contentious and highly political aims, not at all ‘related to health’.
Yet she ‘must’ be personally and professionally committed to them.
I am surprised that so little fuss has been made about this totalitarian rubbish.
Who wrote it? I can’t find out.
How did it get there? By some anonymous ‘process’, apparently.
Chirpy commissars known as ‘Code Champions’ are even now being recruited to enforce it in every hospital.
This is slow-motion Stalinism, and by the time it has throttled free thought in this country it will be too late to stop it.
Which brings me with some woe to the case of the dingbat Carol Thatcher.
If she really doesn’t know that it’s crude bad manners to call black people ‘golliwogs’, then she’s even stupider than she looks.
And yet despite all this, I have to say that her sacking is a creepy and disgraceful thing.
It’s creepy because of the Stasi-type informer who reported her, when an upturned glass of red wine over the Thatcher blonde locks would have been more honest and a better lesson.
And it’s disgraceful because of the BBC’s feigned outrage, when it shelters in its studios great regiments of Left-wing bigots and hate-mongers who can say what they like.
___________________________________________________________________
Doesn't this embrace of Michelle Obama by Anthony Blair look so completely natural?
Of course it does. The Obamas are America’s Blairs, as the USA
is slowly finding out.
And I suspect that Michelle will be Washington’s Cherie.
By the way, I am struck by the thought that Barack could easily be The Last Black President, as well as the First.
Having done their multi-racial duty once, voters in the West’s most segregated society won’t feel under any pressure to do it again - and Hispanics are now a much more significant minority.
_______________________________
The Health Protection Agency has been trying to crank up a scare about measles for some time, in the hope of frightening doubters into letting their children have the MMR vaccine.
We’re also now told that the vaccine is proven to be safe.
Well, tell that to Heather Edwards, whose son Josh developed severe bowel problems and autism after his first MMR, and then suffered the same thing redoubled after the second jab.
Coincidence? Twice? Maybe. We’ll never know.
Poor Josh, though much-loved, is now in a terrible way, desperately thin and missing much of his insides.
Are the authorities really so sure the MMR is completely safe?
Well, listen to Vivienne Parry, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, who candidly admitted back in 2007: ‘There’s a small risk with all vaccines.
'No one has ever said that any vaccine is completely without side effects. But we have to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
'If we had measles, it would kill lots of children. If you have a vaccine, it will damage some children, but a very small number.’
Will measles kill lots of children? I doubt it.
In very rare cases, it can lead to fatal complications but in general it doesn’t.
It is precisely because the authorities insist on exaggerating the threat that I continue to mistrust them.
___________________________________________________________________
The body which last week called for lots of sex education and for non-religious naming ceremonies likes to call itself ‘The Children’s Society’.
Actually, it is the Church of England Children’s Society, but like so many other once-great charities it is embarrassed by its fine Victorian heritage, and has turned to PC political campaigning since it handed over its main function to the State.
___________________________________________________________________
A big thank you to all the homosexual militants who wrote to me or my blog last week, demanding that I be sacked or investigated by the police.
My alleged crime? I had accused them of... intolerance.
Kind of them to make my point so well.
dailymail.co.uk
Yet it seems to be terrified of a few flakes of snow, with whole cities grinding to a halt after a light dusting.
Does this mean the British are just too risk-averse nowadays? Or is the case that because snow is much rarer in Britain than it is in places such as Canada, Scandinavia, Alaska and Switzerland that we just aren't used to it?
Snow surrender - I saw no roaming polar bears or ravening timber wolves, just the final proof that our nation is now as soft as slush
07th February 2009
Peter Hitchens
Daily Maik
If the Taliban really want to seize control of Britain (though why would they?), all they need to do is wait till the next time it snows in London.
They’ll be in control of the capital by sunset, and we’ll all be wearing beards or burkas within a week or so.
Who’s to stop them?
Losing our grip: A few inches of frozen water brought safety-obsessed Britain to a grinding halt
Most of our soldiers are wasting their time in Afghanistan, fighting an unwinnable war to save the faces of our politicians, a war that seems to consist of taking, leaving and then retaking the same town over and over again.
The police, who recently ‘walked backwards’ for nearly a mile when confronted with Islamist demonstrators, are now so multi-cultural and diverse that they would hesitate to act against Muslims for fear of being accused of Islamophobia (much easier to hurl themselves bravely at small, female pro-Tibet protesters).
And, as we showed on Monday, we really have gone soft.
As I walked through the snow to my Home Counties railway station, I expected to be a little late reaching my final destination.
But when I arrived at the station I was assailed with dark warnings about ‘extreme weather conditions’, and advice not to travel unless it was absolutely necessary.
It didn’t seem too bad to me. I’ve genuinely seen heavier snow in Jerusalem.
But perhaps it was worse down the line.
I was forced to change trains at a halfway point. But at last a train appeared whose courageous driver was prepared to take it into the White Hell that was London.
As we rolled towards the paralysed capital, so stricken that even the buses couldn’t run, I pressed my nose against the window, looking out for roaming polar bears, packs of ravening timber wolves and 10ft snowdrifts.
Of course there were none, just a few inches of frozen water.
It was not the weather that had caused this panic. It was the feebleness, the terror of risk and the obsession with total safety, which grip the official classes in this country after half a century of the Welfare State.
Who needs the Taliban to bring us down? We will do it ourselves.
The nation that defeated the Armada, Bonaparte, the Kaiser and Hitler is now frightened of a snowflake.
**********************************************
NHS has a nasty dose of slow-motion Stalinism
This has been a bad week for freedom.
Nurse Caroline Petrie has now been let off, after at first being suspended, for offering to pray for a patient. But that is only because of the publicity.
The important thing is that Mrs Petrie was not just punished for her Christianity, a faith regarded with increasing official suspicion and dislike.
She was ordered to believe in another creed, or risk her career.
After an earlier incident she was told that the ‘Nursing & Midwifery Council code’ states that ‘you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity’ and ‘you must not use your professional status to promote causes not related to health’.
These are amazing statements, both sinister and self-contradictory.
She must promote Left-wing politics, but she must not mention Christianity.
Equality (alias Marxism) and Diversity (alias political correctness) are contentious and highly political aims, not at all ‘related to health’.
Yet she ‘must’ be personally and professionally committed to them.
I am surprised that so little fuss has been made about this totalitarian rubbish.
Who wrote it? I can’t find out.
How did it get there? By some anonymous ‘process’, apparently.
Chirpy commissars known as ‘Code Champions’ are even now being recruited to enforce it in every hospital.
This is slow-motion Stalinism, and by the time it has throttled free thought in this country it will be too late to stop it.
Which brings me with some woe to the case of the dingbat Carol Thatcher.
If she really doesn’t know that it’s crude bad manners to call black people ‘golliwogs’, then she’s even stupider than she looks.
And yet despite all this, I have to say that her sacking is a creepy and disgraceful thing.
It’s creepy because of the Stasi-type informer who reported her, when an upturned glass of red wine over the Thatcher blonde locks would have been more honest and a better lesson.
And it’s disgraceful because of the BBC’s feigned outrage, when it shelters in its studios great regiments of Left-wing bigots and hate-mongers who can say what they like.
___________________________________________________________________
Doesn't this embrace of Michelle Obama by Anthony Blair look so completely natural?
Of course it does. The Obamas are America’s Blairs, as the USA
is slowly finding out.
And I suspect that Michelle will be Washington’s Cherie.
By the way, I am struck by the thought that Barack could easily be The Last Black President, as well as the First.
Having done their multi-racial duty once, voters in the West’s most segregated society won’t feel under any pressure to do it again - and Hispanics are now a much more significant minority.
_______________________________
The Health Protection Agency has been trying to crank up a scare about measles for some time, in the hope of frightening doubters into letting their children have the MMR vaccine.
We’re also now told that the vaccine is proven to be safe.
Well, tell that to Heather Edwards, whose son Josh developed severe bowel problems and autism after his first MMR, and then suffered the same thing redoubled after the second jab.
Coincidence? Twice? Maybe. We’ll never know.
Poor Josh, though much-loved, is now in a terrible way, desperately thin and missing much of his insides.
Are the authorities really so sure the MMR is completely safe?
Well, listen to Vivienne Parry, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, who candidly admitted back in 2007: ‘There’s a small risk with all vaccines.
'No one has ever said that any vaccine is completely without side effects. But we have to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
'If we had measles, it would kill lots of children. If you have a vaccine, it will damage some children, but a very small number.’
Will measles kill lots of children? I doubt it.
In very rare cases, it can lead to fatal complications but in general it doesn’t.
It is precisely because the authorities insist on exaggerating the threat that I continue to mistrust them.
___________________________________________________________________
The body which last week called for lots of sex education and for non-religious naming ceremonies likes to call itself ‘The Children’s Society’.
Actually, it is the Church of England Children’s Society, but like so many other once-great charities it is embarrassed by its fine Victorian heritage, and has turned to PC political campaigning since it handed over its main function to the State.
___________________________________________________________________
A big thank you to all the homosexual militants who wrote to me or my blog last week, demanding that I be sacked or investigated by the police.
My alleged crime? I had accused them of... intolerance.
Kind of them to make my point so well.
dailymail.co.uk
