Commentariat

Times Rod Liddle

What do you suppose causes the greater amount of global warming: genetically
modified crops or his royal highness, Prince Charles?

Like many of you, I suspect, I have been wondering who Jesus Christ would have
liked least, Africans or homosexuals. Most of the available evidence
suggests He would have found it a pretty close call, all things considered.
By “available evidence”, I mean the most eminently flexible of texts, the
Bible.

Here’s a tip. If you’re thinking of faking your own death so you can trouser
the life insurance payment and flee to somewhere more agreeable, don’t
subsequently pose for a photograph grinning like a jackass. It’s what we
call a hostage to fortune.

A victory against those damnable forces of political correctness – an
employment tribunal decided last week that Lillian Ladele, a marriage
registrar, should not be forced to officiate at gay civil partnerships,
despite the fact that it was precisely her job to do so.

It is good to see a bit of passion back in British politics. Too often, these
days, our elected representatives come across as a collection of devious,
underachieving middle managers, unfettered by principle and unmoved by the
issues on which they vote. So it was heartening to see the real fervour and
commitment in last Thursday’s debate, when our MPs courageously voted to
give themselves lots more money and keep their extremely generous expense
allowances. That took some guts.

Have you noticed how on children’s television the presenters never actually
come into contact with the kids? They beam at them like half-wits, while
showing them how to build simple wind farms or recycling plants or mosques
out of crepe paper and organic yoghurt pots – but they never touch them. I
suppose this is because parents across the country might take them for wrong
’uns and immediately phone Esther Rantzen’s hugely successful ChildLine.
Apparently there are paedophiles lurking behind every privet hedge. It thus
follows that anyone who wants to work in children’s TV must be a bit
suspect, not quite right. Ditto Scout leaders, all youth workers, teachers,
parents and so on. There’s a fine study out last week from the think tank
Civitas, written by the reformed commie Frank Furedi, called Licensed to
Hug, which makes the excellent point that this overprotectiveness is
“poisoning” the relationship between adults and children. Furedi says that
11.3m people in this country will need to be vetted by the Criminal Records
Bureau if they intend to work with children – a staggering invasion of
privacy and personal liberty. However, this bureaucratic mechanism doesn’t
work because it removes the crucial element of personal judgment. If someone
turns up for a job working with children, he will be taken on so long as he
has the requisite piece of paper from the CRB – even if he is wearing a
stained raincoat, concealing a bag of lemon bonbons in his right hand and
sweating slightly. Voluntary groups say many fewer people wish to involve
themselves in children’s activities as a result.

Slainte, Ireland – the only country in the European Union which had enough
moral spine and commitment to democracy to allow its people a vote on the
Lisbon treaty. And of course its people voted “no” – as the people of Europe
inevitably do when given the chance. Slainte once again, then.

I’m not sure how I’d feel if I were a black man watching Barack Obama win the
Democratic presidential nomination and reading the eulogies pouring in from
whitey. I have the suspicion that I would take myself off to the bathroom
sharpish. Obama’s victory has been cheered much as one might cheer a
labrador that can balance rich tea biscuits on its nose – and with that
slightly sickly tone you get from news reports of the Paralympic Games. Oh, didn’t
he do well! And he’s, you know, black! Bless him!

In 2000 little Victoria Climbié, eight years old, was murdered by her
guardians, having endured months of appalling abuse and cruelty. You may
remember the harrowing court case, Lord Laming’s subsequent inquiry, the
trenchant criticisms of Haringey social services for their “blinding
incompetence”. Victoria came from the Ivory Coast and arrived here in the
custody of her “great-aunt”.

You would think that by now Allah’s message might be getting through. Time
after time Muslim fanatics attempt to wreak devastation in Britain – and
succeed only in blowing themselves up, or setting themselves on fire, or
their explosives refuse to do the decent thing and explode – while we
infidel cockroaches look on in bemusement, quite unharmed.

THERE was a caller to David Mellor’s Radio 5 phone-in show a few years ago who
chatted about one of the weekend’s games and then said, apropos of nothing:
“By the way, David - you’re a ****.” He was quickly taken off the air and
the BBC issued a magnificent apology, the first words of which I still
remember clearly to this day: “We are very sorry that your enjoyment of the
programme was spoiled . . .”

What shall we do with our young women, do you suppose? Two surveys out last
week suggest they are increasingly prone to acts of criminal violence and,
worse, have become among fattest girls in Europe. This follows earlier
surveys which indicated that they are also the most stupid, ill-mannered,
flatulent, drug-addicted and sexually incontinent girls in Europe. Perhaps
as a consequence of this, they are the girls with whom Europe’s men would
least like to have sexual intercourse. Also perhaps as a consequence, the
girls with whom most of Europe’s men have already enjoyed sexual congress.
British girls are a cinch, although not, it would seem, a very desirable
cinch.

At Boris Johnson’s celebration party last weekend there were, apparently,
loads of oysters and rich public-school boys. You could tell the difference
between them because the public-school boys did not need to be opened with a
shucking knife, gratifying though that might have been to see. There was
also caviar, served by cowering piccaninnies and “Champagne! Champagne!” for
everybody.

An estimated half of the eastern European immigrants who came here since 2004
have now returned home because they find Great Britain unremittingly
ghastly. Some 200,000 packed their bags in despair having watched Des Browne
and Polly Toynbee jabbering on the BBC’s Question Time last week. Thousands
more booked their easyJet flights to Lodz and Bratislava when it was
announced that another season of The Catherine Tate Show had been
commissioned. The lousy weather, the stabbings, the congestion charge they
could all put up with. But some things just drive you over the edge.

What have the bastards – the spin doctors, the media management monkeys – done
to Boris? I watched him on BBC’s Question Time London mayoral debate and,
after a while, began to weep.

I’ve tried to remember if there was some occurrence over the past two or three
years that gave me more intense pleasure than Ronaldo missing that penalty
against Barcelona on Wednesday night.

Gordon Brown, with that terrifying, unearthly smile of his, has been wooing
the American public, telling them that he loves them, while they shiver
before the television and then quickly check that the kids are safe.