Unimpressed is what I am

So anyway, there I was outside Parliament when I realized that I could not either walk up Whitehall or get a bus because of another demo. A noisy demo but reasonably well organized and very well policed, followed immediately by City of Westminster street cleaning teams. A wise precaution several of us, spectators, agreed.

What was it about? Well, it was about there not being "free" education for university students, which is, according to the demonstrators, their absolute right. One of my co-spectators suggested that we should march for free shoes and I offered to join her. As it happens, I do need some shoes rather desperately and preferably before it gets any colder but, alas, I am expected to pay for them. How unfair is that?

The slogan that was being shouted in unison (more or less) was "We Deserve A Future, Too". That alone makes me think that these are not people who should go to university unless it is to do media studies. Anyone who thinks that a future is something optional that people either deserve or not deserve is clearly not capable of any kind of clear thinking, even allowing for the fact that most (not all) of them were in their late teens.

They were carrying various posters, which had been handed out to them by some well organized and well funded group, probably not a million miles from the Socialist Workers' Party. There were hardly any hand-written posters of banners, which meant that they were at least correctly spelled.

What made the whole set-up slightly curious was the fact that among the various demands for "Grants Not Fees", "Free Education" and "Tax The Rich" there were a number of large banners demanding "Free Borders". How did that get there, we wondered. More to the point, do these children understand that if we open the borders to all comers there will most definitely not be any money for what they choose to call "free" education?

Much noise about victims but very limited sympathy

Yesterday's Prom concert was Bach's St John Passion, a very fine work and a very fine performance, though I have to admit to listening to it on the radio. In the interval there was a discussion with a couple of the performers about the work and about the Gospel on which it was based. In the course of that discussion there was talk about the fact that of the four Gospels, St John's is the one that makes the Jews as a whole the guilty party. This was not the main point of the discussion but it is worth noting that, in many ways, the Mediaeval anti-Semitism grew out of that extraordinarily beautiful work, the Gospel according to St John.

We have moved on from there and over the ages anti-Semitism has changed shape and turned up in many forms. I do not think it is particularly controversial to point out that its most recent manifestation is not connected with the Christian Church or the more traditional right-wing groups: it is now almost entirely on the Left and is "justified" by horror at Israel's actions against the Palestinians who are clearly everybody's favourite victims in one way or another.

The day saw yet more anti-Israeli demonstrations, including one that brought the centre of London to a halt, though, it fell far short of the projected march of a million.

As ever we saw and heard a mixture of slogans and chants. Many carried the usual mass-produced Socialist Workers' Party posters that called for an end to the siege of Gaza. Clearly these people had not considered the possibility that if Hamas stopped spending the money it gathers from the world in the form of huge international aid on rockets that are fired into Israel day after day or tunnels through which they try to smuggle terrorists into that country, the "siege" might be lifted.

Nor do they consider that, possibly, if Hamas abandoned parts of its Charter, acknowledged Israel's right to exist, stopped using the Palestinians in Gaza as gun and propaganda fodder but started negotiating, concentrating on economic development (by which I don't mean luxurious existence for the Hamas leaders), there might be some change in the situation.

In fact, there would be some change if Hamas agreed to the various cease-fire proposals. We did have a few hours of it earlier today but Hamas has, apparently, not agreed to its extension and so fighting will resume.

Well, one cannot expect people who turn out to demonstrate for the currently most fashionable cause to do much thinking.

The other slogans, as ever, were a curious mixture: on the one hand, Israel was compared to Nazi Germany (the comparison, regardless of what one thinks about events in Gaza, is not in the slightest valid but is likely to be particularly hurtful to Jews), on the other there were, as usual, threats or promises to finish what Hitler started (an unlikely scenario). In a number of cities, Paris being one, there were attacks on Jewish premises and businesses. As in the past, what may have started as support for the people of Gaza has gone well beyond criticism of a particular country's policy and has morphed into anti-Semitism. There really is no other way of describing what is happening in this picture, taken in Paris yesterday.

This description on Breitbart gives a fair account of what was going on.

The activists were keen to avoid discussing the thorny issue of the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. Instead they chanted things like: "1,2,3,4, Occupation No More" and "5,6,7,8 Israel is the terrorist state." Then they went on to a familiar classic: "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free"; a reference to wiping out the State of Israel, and relates to the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan - better known as the Jewish state.

In the meantime, the Middle East is, indeed, burning and far worse things are happening in other countries. The media has more or less given up on events in Syria but the activities of ISIS in Iraq still merit some mention though not exactly any great horror. One wonders whether the feminist organizations that, for some reason, have ranged themselves against the only Middle Eastern country where women have equal rights think about the news that

Islamic State (Isis), the al-Qaida offshoot that seized large swathes of northern Iraq last month, has warned women in the city of Mosul to wear full-face veils or risk severe punishment.

The Sunni insurgents, who have declared a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria and have threatened to march on Baghdad, also listed guidelines on how veils and clothes should be worn, part of a campaign to violently impose their radical brand of Islam.

Mosul, let us not forget is the place where one of the world's oldest Christian communities is being destroyed through murder, rapine and what might be called religious cleansing. We hear little from the world about it.

We hear little about the fact that in Libya there is now a full scale civil war going on and the United States has evacuated its embassy (a wise precaution, given certain events in that not too distant past).

We hear little about the daily figures of dead, wounded and displaced in a number of Middle Eastern countries. If Israel is not involved, the media and the loud-mouthed "supporters of the Palestinians" don't want to know. Muslims who try to raise the issue of the far greater number of victims in other countries on various sites, get barracked.

In fact, those "supporters" do not want to know that even UNWRA, an organization that exists, against all the supposed rules on which the UN and its off-shoots are based, to aid and abet the Palestinians and their leaders, are saying that it might well have been Hamas rockets that hit the UN school in Gaza, killing several children and wounding more.

Neither they nor organizations that are supposed to be fighting for children's rights are interested in the story that Hamas used children to build the network of tunnels (though not terror tunnels as the author of the piece explains in the comments section) during which 160 of them were killed.

The conclusion one has to draw from all this is that not only do these people not care about other problems and other violence in the Middle East, they do not even care all that much about the Palestinians, unless they are under Israeli attack. Here is an excellent piece by Cranmer, written on Thursday but nothing much has changed since then.

Curiously, there is no mention of Assad's persecution of Palestinian communities or the fact that he has "starved and murdered" thousands of them.

No mention of the Palestinians in Iraq who are subject to "discrimination, sectarian violence and ruthless killing by the Iraqi government".

No mention of the mass expulsion of Palestinians by Arab Muslim countries, like Saudi Arabia, Libya and Kuwait, of which Yasser Arafat declared that "what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories".

Israel has killed some 700 Palestinians in its latest offensive in Gaza. Every death is a tragedy, especially those of children. Some of the pictures coming out of the war zone are brutal, distressing and heartbreaking. God weeps at the suffering. If He has meaning and purpose in the pain, it is lost to the world's baffled intellects.

But it is a curious that Israel should be constantly singled out for special treatment.
After all, the Palestinians have suffered far greater atrocities at the hands of their Arab brothers and co-religionists. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced; tens of thousands terrorised, persecuted and ethnically cleansed; and many hundreds summarily slaughtered.

It is, indeed, curious. One is driven to the conclusion that what motivates all these "activists" of whatever nationality is not so much sympathy for the Palestinians, which is obviously very limited, as something very different: a much older and much uglier emotion.

Last minute information

I do apologize for the shortness of this notice but I knew nothing about the event until an hour or so ago. As it happens I have to be at the Bruges Group meeting this evening but anyone who is more interested in Russian affairs than in Robin Harris and Simon Heffer talking, might like to know that there will be a demonstration outside Pushkin House starting at 18.45 (actually, people might be able to get to both events) as the fourth part of the BBC programme about Putin and the West is being previewed there.

From what I can gather even from sympathetic reviewers (no TV in my house, you see) the programmes have not gone out of their way to show various aspects of the Putin regime but then they did have to get various officials to give interviews. The fact that their main consultant Angus Roxburgh has spent some years working on PR for the Kremlin helped them to get to these people. (In parenthesis, let me add that Mr Roxburgh was a failure. The Kremlin's PR is rubbish.)

The BBC Russian Service interviewed the makers of the four-part programme and here is the text of that interview in Russian and in English. Worth a quick read if you want to see examples of true disingenuousness.

Support for Russian protesters

Christmas Eve is the worst possible time for demonstrations but it is different in Russia, where they keep Christmas according to the Julian calendar. So there will be people out again, demonstrating and demanding fair elections (though, really, what they need is regime change).

We, in the West, must try to support them. So, anyone in London on Saturday, who can spare an hour or so, please come to the demonstration outside the Russian Embassy at 12 or soon after. In fact, the demonstration will be in Bayswater Road as the Embassy is in Kensington Palace Gardens, which is private property. Nearest tube stations are Queensway and Notting Hill Gate and there are various buses that go along Bayswater Road.

Outside the Russian Consulate earlier this evening

Two pictures taken of the rally (not a very large one but not too bad for a week-day evening) outside the Russian Consulate this evening to promote Strategy-31. The slogan on the poster in the second picture says: "Obey your own Constitution". Not only is this a reference to Article 31 in the Russian Constitution that guarantees freedom of political assembly but is usually broken by, as it has been rightly pointed out to me, the local authorities who summon the police, but it also harks back to a similar slogan often displayed by Soviet dissidents, especially by Alec Esenin-Volpin, who was deemed to be mentally disturbed.

Demonstration outside the Russian Consulate in London

It is the 31st of the month and Strategy 31 will be holding its usual demonstration outside the Russian Consulate on Bayswater Road in London, nearest tube stations being Notting Hill Gate and Queensway. There are many buses as well. All the information is here.

Demonstration outside the Russian Consulate

As ever there will be a demonstration outside the Russian Consulate in Notting Hill (Bayswater Road, close to the northern edge of Kensington Gardens) on May 31. The idea is to demonstrate here in the safety of Britain in support of those who would like Russia to have the freedom of speech that is enshrined in Article 31 of the Constitution. Sadly, those demonstrations in Russia are rarely allowed, if ever, and when they take place tend to be dispersed by heavy-handed policing. And I do mean heavy-handed.

Here is the information in English:

RALLY

FOR FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY

in solidarity with «Strategy-31»

Everyone who wishes to support the Russian civic movement for the Freedom of Assembly, enshrined in Article-31 of the Russian Constitution, is invited to the rally which is going to be held at 6pm on Tuesday, May 31st, opposite the Russian Consulate in Bayswater Road.

It will soon be two years since men and women in Russia started trying to use their constitutional right at least on the 31st day of the month, but each time they have been beaten up, dragged to police buses, detained, fined and arrested. This has been happening on Triumphalnaya Square in Moscow, near Gostiny Dvor in St. Petersburg and at numerous other places in Russian cities and towns. This is going to happen again in Russia on May 31st as well.

Let us support those who fight for their rights inside their own country!

Let us attract the attention of people in Britain to what is happening in Russia!

Let us show the Russian authorities that the protest movement against their actions is spreading all over the world!

Let us gather at 6 pm on May 31st in front of the Russian Consulate!

Every person makes a difference.

And in Russian:

ДЕМОНСТРАЦИЯ

В ПОДДЕРЖКУ ДВИЖЕНИЯ ЗА СВОБОДУ СОБРАНИЙ

(«СТРАТЕГИЯ-31»)


Приглашаем всех, кто хочет поддержать гражданское движение в защиту 31-й статьи российской конституции, придти на демонстрацию, которая состоится вo вторник, 31 мая, в 6 часов вечера, напротив Консульства России на Bayswater Road..

Вот уже почти два года те, кто хотят воспользоваться своим конституционным правом на свободу собраний, пытаются это делать хотя бы по 31 числам. Каждый раз мирно собирающихся людей избивают, волокут в автозаки, задерживают, штрафуют, а иногда и арестовывают. Это происходит на Триумфальной площади в Москве, у Гостиного двора в Петербурге и во многих других российских городах. Можно с уверенностью сказать, что это призойдет и 31 мая.

Поддержим тех, кто в России отстаивает свои права!

Привлечем внимание британцев, к тому, что происходит в России!

Покажем российским властям, что протест против их действий распространяется по всему миру!

Выйдем на демонстрацию перед российским посольством 31 мая в 6 часов вечера!

Чем больше нас будет, тем лучше.

If you happen to be around and care about the issue (I know many have given up on Russia and I do not blame them), do join us.

We are not alone in having an ignorant media

It would appear that Britain is not the only country in which the media is so ignorant as to accept the self-designation of a group of pro-big-state, pro-high-taxation, anti-individual freedom campaigners such as UK Uncut as being "anarchist".

David Boaz on Cato@Liberty despairs of the descriptions of what constitutes anarchism in Greece - apparently it is people turning to violence in order to prevent cuts in social welfare and government control.

Nick Cohen talks sense

An excellent article about the Left not confronting its extremists from Nick Cohen, himself a man of the left, in the Spectator.

The TUC and Labour Party condemned the violence. But they had not warned in advance that yobs would not be welcome on the march because neither is ready for a full confrontation with the fanatics. On the march itself the TUC allowed the SWP to hand out banners and “brand” the demonstration as its own as it called in apparent seriousness for “a general strike now”.

The folly of ignoring or indulging the far left becomes apparent as soon as you realise that the similarities between the SWP and the BNP are more important than the differences. Both are hysterical totalitarian organisations that love vicious rhetoric and promote anti-Semites. The left wing press and the BBC will never acknowledge the overlap between fascism and communism, because they fear accusations of “betrayal,” and have a mental block that prevents them accepting that evil resides on the left as well as the right of British politics.

As a point of contrast, imagine how they would react if the BNP hijacked a Countryside Alliance march. The Today programme would have had a nervous breakdown on live radio.

As for the anarchists, let us be honest and acknowledge political violence is not always futile. If there isn’t violence, the media will give only perfunctory coverage to a demonstration, something that ought to worry my colleagues more than it does. Today’s proponents of breaking the law and scaring shop girls can also say that riots and a mass refusal to pay destroyed the poll tax in Mrs Thatcher's day. I am sure readers can throw the moral argument against political violence in a democracy in their faces, but for me the decisive point is that by the time of the protests against the poll tax exploded virtually everyone in Britain except Mrs Thatcher had accepted the case against it.

I do have some caveats.

In the first place the BNP is not a party of the right but, I suppose, the media and many political activists see it as such.

In the second place, as I have been pointing out ad nauseam the groups that were smashing up private property to protest against the smallest cuts in government were not anarchists.

Thirdly, though this is a gift to the Conservatives, I don't suppose they will manage to take advantage of it the way Thatcher did in the seventies and eighties. I suspect the Cameroonies will once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

But I am glad that Nick Cohen, who was on the march, confirms my impressions about the marchers and the police, though I was watching from outside.

Some decisions will have to be taken

We are to have a ring of steel for the royal wedding in a month's time. Goody-goody. Then again, what else can one expect when a few hundred spoilt brats, calling themselves anarchists can destroy quite so much property, terrorize people who are going about their business, in fact, running businesses that bring in the money badly needed by this country? In the meantime, the Met is going through its usual agonizing self-analysis. Did they know this was going to happen and when did they know it? Why did they not warn the likes of Fortnum and Mason about the impending occupation? And so on, and so on. The only cheerful aspect of it all is that there is a good deal of agonizing among those who were on that march and those who organized it. Should they support the idiotic and self-indulgent UK Uncut and other suchlike juvenile manifestations or should they actually stick to the point they were trying to make, which is that any cut in the public sector, however miniscule will reduce this country to the lowest depths of Dickensian hell? There is no possibility of them actually understanding basic economic facts, I fear. Meanwhile, Chris Blackhurst of the Evening Standard has written a couple of excellent articles. In one he doubts that "Britain is open for business" if business is going to be treated the way it was on Saturday.

The message from business after these latest riots is clear and unequivocal: the authorities must get a grip. That comes not just from those directly affected by the violence - though the voice of one of them shook with anger when I spoke to him yesterday - but from all commerce.

There is already sentiment enough that somehow in this country we're anti-business. Standing back and letting this happen reinforces the case. Whatever the argument about tax avoidance - and it is worth remembering that avoidance is entirely legal, evasion is not - the proper forum for the debate is not in Oxford Street or Piccadilly, with thugs and their sticks and cans of spray paint in attendance.

There is a feeling in the business community that the Government's response was not as condemnatory as it could have been. And bosses are not so much concerned by the loss of earnings or damage to their property - they can cope with that; what most bothers them is the trauma suffered by their staff.

Let's face it, the louts who are so upset about tax avoidance and the possible effect that might have on the "wretched of the eart" are not going to be bothered by the trauma suffered by hard-working staff. Mr Blackhurst also has a go at Miliband minor and his ridiculous pretence that people demonstrating, however peacefully and legitimately, for their salaries and pensions are, to be compared in any way with those who had fought for civil rights and against apartheid. (Or for some kind of basic freedom in Egypt or China.)

That would have been fine, Ed. Except Saturday was not caused by a revolt against discrimination but the result of squandering of the public finances by your Labour predecessors.

Not only is it not in the same league, but the very thing of which you were complaining was brought about by your party and - as a former minister in the Labour Government - your colleagues. You acknowledged as much when you said "some cuts" were necessary to balance the books.

Because he is not in power, Miliband does not have to spell out those measures. He can leave it to others to take tough decisions, hoping that every move they make bolsters his standing in the polls.

He said: "David Cameron, you wanted to create the Big Society - this is the Big Society."

Not true, Ed. Of the private sector that actually creates the wealth in this country, there was neither sight nor sound.

Of course, up the road from Hyde Park, businesses were being trashed - and not just the ones that arrange their tax affairs perfectly legally to minimise payments. Anything marked "profit-making" was fair game for the braying mob. "Class War" they sprayed on windows and doorways, while less than a mile away, Ed Miliband (son of an academic, Oxford University and virtually his entire career at the coalface of the Westminster political village) was rousing the faithful.

Apart from the academic parentage the same can be said about the Conservative and Lib-Dim leadership. No wonder business is feeling beleaguered.

Anarchists? Anarchists?

We are hearing a lot (well, a certain amount) about "anarchist groups" breaking away from the main march (which was peaceful and well organized, as I have blogged) and creating havoc in Piccadilly, Regent Street, Oxford Street and, I believe, Trafalgar Square. Blame is being flung about: it was the EDL, it was the fault of the police who dared to arrest those who were creating trouble and so on. I am told that on one Labour forum it was pointed out that most of the faces of the rioters were white but that was not reflected in the reporting or the headlines. As it happens, most of the faces of the demonstrators were white but I cannot see why that should be an issue.

The truth is that the organizers of the event exercised reasonable control over most of it but could not do so over the various fringe groups. Possibly they could do never have done so though some of their slogans of demand may well have acted in an inflammatory manner. Nevertheless, organizers of rallies and demonstrations do have a duty of care and control. It is no good blaming other people. Those in charge have to take responsibility.

All that is by the way. What I object to is the definition of those groups as anarchists. An "anarchist", according to the OED is one who advocates anarchy, which is absence of government and disorder. Some anarchists, for instance, followers of Kropotkin rather than Bakunin, are and were against violence, maintaining that the disorder that would arise from absence of government would create its own, much better order. Bakunin thought violence was essential.

There are various branches of anarchism. Anarcho-syndicalism concentrates on the labour movement, believing in co-operative ownership and production; anarcho-capitalism believes in the supremacy of individual ownership and the free market.

One can discuss these matters at length and, indeed, some people do. What they all have in common is their disdain and dislike for the state. Indeed, they all share a desire to do away with the state.

The rioters in London on Saturday shared the general view of the demonstrators of "no cuts", big state, high taxation, disdain for private enterprise and free economic activity of any kind. They were not, by any definition, anarchists. It is time to think of another name for them. How about "socialists"?