This is another short video of AI art from the @ClassicDanceTracks channel on YouTube, imagining what a rave at Hogwarts would be like. Slytherin House is the rival to whichever house Potter and his friends are in, and contain snobbish villains like Draco Malfoy and his father. This video shows Malfoy and the evil lord Voldemort raving, dancing and playing electric guitars, as well as plenty of Hogwarts pupils wearing witches’ hats. The background music isn’t the Prodigy this time. It’s Rage Against the Machine. It all reminds me of some of the Goth nights at the nightclubs in Cheltenham back in the ’90s.
Some of the images in this set of videos shows Harry and his mates getting drunk and smoking spliffs. They’re funny, but just for the record I don’t condone underage drinking or drug abuse. Drinks are expensive, drugs are illegal and some of them, like Molly and Spice, do apparently wreck people’s brains and turn them into zombies. You can find videos of the victims of these drugs staggering around various districts in cities in America and over here. And you can have just as much fun dancing the night away when you’re sober. That’s the sermon over, enjoy the video.
I’ve very strong reservations about A.I. art and the way it threatens to replace real human artists, as well as issues of plagiarism of the work the images are based on. That said, I do like this video. It’s a short from @ClassicDanceTracks channel on YouTube, and is entitled ‘Getting Mashed at Hogwarts’. This has Harry Potter, Hermione, Severus Snape, Dumbledore and co getting thoroughly smashed and dancing the night away. Dumbledore and Snape throw some funky shapes, Dumbledore plays the drums in his undies (viewer discretion advised), Potter and Hermione drink booze and smoke dope and the place gets raided by the Fuzz. Snape runs away and Dumbledore is arrested. The video is accompanied by The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’, which isn’t the most laid-back track you could choose for a rave. It’s about an arsonist, after all. Keith, the Prodigy’s main man, sadly passed away a little while ago. The surviving members of the band showed he was with them in spirit at a recent gig by having his outline broadcast in the night’s sky by laser. As Wayne of ‘Wayne’s World’ would say, ‘Party on!’
I’ve put a few videos in the past about the infamous Asian grooming gangs, who terrorised and raped White girls in places like Rotherham and Telford. The abuse wasn’t confined just to Whites, however. They also used to prey on Asian Women and girls, and so I feel that I absolutely have to put this video up as well. It was put up nine days ago by Black British YouTuber Shady Shae, who seems to have put up a number of videos about the grooming gangs and other racial issues. Some people may understandably find this difficult to watch, and I don’t blame them if they do.
The video simply consists of Shae watching a report from WION, which I believe is an Indian news agency, reporting on the grooming gangs preying on British Asian girls. The report says that they’re mainly Pakistani Muslims, and interviews one of their victims. She was in what first appeared to be a loving relationship with the man who became her abuser after accidentally literally bumping into him in the street. Then he started to abuse her, pimping her out as a prostitute to others like himself. The report states that the victims are mostly Sikhs, and because virginity is highly valued in Asian culture there is immense pressure on these women not to come forward with their accounts of their rape and exploitation. The anonymous lady was able to come forward with hers after hearing Mohan Singh of the Sikh Awareness Society speak at her local gurdwara (temple). Singh is an activist campaigning against the gangs and their exploitation of the women of his faith. The victim was thus able to come forward, to to the police and have the men arrested and jailed. However, they received lenient sentences and have since been released. She states that they still torment her by ringing her up to abuse and laugh at her. Her only solution to this has been to change her phone number. Like many victims of trauma, particularly women, she has self-harmed and talks about the scars left on her stomach and arms, though she hasn’t done this for quite some months now.
The video also talks to a man, who is described as a defender of Islam. He states that the abuse does not come from the religion of Islam, because Islam is against rape and child abuse. This is true. Iran certainly has a legal age of consent for marriage and so on. As far as I know, this is 16, but they were considering lowering it to 14 because of the problem of randy teenagers. Rape is punishable by death. A few years ago they executed a monster, a taxi driver dubbed ‘the vampire’ for his crimes against women and girls. He had raped and murder seven women. The man was flogged by the fathers of the murdered girls. The number of lashes were limited, but one dad had to be held back from giving this creature a few more stripes. The rapist was then publicly hanged with a crane. British rapists and child abusers should be glad they’re in Britain, where they only get sent to Britain, rather than an Islamic country. However, back to the Muslim talking about what he believes is behind the gangs. He states that there are issues present in the other south Asian religions, like Hinduism and Sikhism, and not just Islam. These include forced marriages and honour killings. In the case of the Pakistani grooming gangs, it was the culture. There was an attitude in Pakistani Islam that the women of other religions were worthless, and so could be abused and exploited.
I’ve come across allegations that Sikhs were also being abused by the grooming gangs before, and the report, and Shae’s video, make it clear that there is a problem here. A problem that doesn’t seem to be reported in the mainstream media. Mind you, there was particular reluctance by the media to report the abuse of White girls, and the police and local authorities really didn’t want to act against them, fearing riots and allegations of racism. But these Asian girls are British, and as we are a multicultural society, their suffering and abuse needs to be told and combated as well. It occurs to me that some of this reluctance to cover the story in the lamestream British media may come from Diane Abbott’s demand that inter-ethnic racism and abuse should not be made an issue otherwise ‘they will use it to divide and rule’. Well, we’ve got Rishi Sunak, an Asian, as our Prime Minister here, Hamza Yousaf as First Minister in Scotland, and other people of colour like Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman in government, not to mention Sajid Javid and David Cleverly still popping up from time to time, so that argument won’t wash.
As for the composition of the grooming gangs themselves, they were mainly Pakistani Muslim men, but they also included people of other religions and ethnicities, like Whites and Sikhs. The Muslim spokesman strikes me as correct. These men weren’t Muslims, as they drank and did drugs, which is definitely haram. I doubt that they had ever put their face inside a mosque for years. But yes, it does seem that there is this attitude in parts of Pakistani Muslim culture. One of the Labour councillors, who helped expose the gangs and have them prosecuted, was a Muslim woman and she stated very clearly, against the denials of the police, that racism was involved.
One of the allegations from the Islamophobes is that the Pakistani grooming gangs were simply following the medieval Muslim laws that allowed sex slavery. There’s a very good book on slavery in Islam by a White American Muslim academic, that makes it very clear they aren’t doing it because of Islam. These are just like rapists and child abusers everywhere. They’re simply evil men preying on vulnerable women and girls.
It’s an interesting and chilling video, and one which shows very clearly that these gangs aren’t just racist against Whites. I do have a problem with it in that Shae seems to be impressed with Tommy Robinson for his long pursuit and campaigning on this issue. I’m not. The grooming gangs were exposed by a number of people, many of them Labour MPs and councillors. Robinson has come late to the party. He’s struck me and some of the commentators on this blog as exploiting the issue as part of his hatred of Islam. He has lied and smeared his opponents, and has had no qualms about appealing to his fans for donations. There are plenty of better people talking about this issue.
Rape and sexual abuse is repugnant and needs to be exposed and fought no matter who the abuser and the victims are. Every women needs to protected from exploitation regardless of whether they’re White, Black, Asian or whatever. And everyone fighting against it needs the fullest support from all Brits, regardless of creed and colour.
I’ve also received this petition from 38 Degrees against Prince Andrew getting his security team back. This is the prince, who’s been credibly accused of abusing underage girls with Jeffrey Epstein, although he claims that on the day it’s supposed to happen he was at Pizza Express in Woking. I’ve signed it, as I definitely do not believe that someone with those allegations over his head should be in receipt of public funding, no matter how high up in the social hierarchy they are.
‘Content warning: This email contains mentions of sexual assault.
Dear David,
It’s been reported that disgraced former royal Prince Andrew is lobbying behind the scenes to get his £3 million taxpayer funded security team back, with the help of disgraced former Home Secretary Priti Patel. [1] Andrew lost his security detail after he forked out millions settling a sexual assault case. [2]
Spending £3 million on Prince Andrew would be disgusting. This money should be used to help fund our NHS and schools, rather than on a Prince who had to step back from Royal duties in disgrace. [3] The fact that he is reported to have recruited Priti Patel to help his cause, shows just how out of touch the both of them are on what we, the British public, are going through.
The story has just broken, and those in charge don’t know what the public think. If hundreds and thousands of people demand that Prince Andrew’s request is rejected, it will show the Home Office and Buckingham Palace they need to act quickly and turn Andrew and Priti down.
“Why should the public pay £3 million a year to protect a man who rarely leaves his home?” [4]Royal expert Ingrid Seward From subsidised alcohol in Parliament to tax breaks for private schools, 38 Degrees supporters up and down the country have been campaigning for tax money to be used wisely in recent weeks. [5] Spending £3 million on security for Prince Andrew would be yet another example of tax money being spent in ways that do not benefit the British public.
‘David, thank you for being one of over 60,000 of us who have signed the petition asking for taxpayer funded alcohol to be banned in parliament. Last year, the subsidised alcohol bill cost us £500,000 including 2,800 bottles of bubbly and over 46,000 pints. [1]
During a cost of living crisis, it’s outrageous that we’re subsidising luxuries for politicians. The Westminster ethics chief has said that the sale of alcohol in Parliament is being kept “under review”. [2] It’s money that could be used to help our NHS and schools, not for rounds of drinks, so let’s tell them what we think.
Thousands of people have signed the petition. [3] But to make sure the Prime Minister listens, we need to show him what the public thinks. If each of us reading this gets one other person to sign this petition, we could pass 100,000 signatures by the end of the day. It could be enough to end of subsidised alcohol for MPs and Lords.
So, David, will you share the petition with your friends and family today? It will only take 30 seconds.
Sarah Champion was the Labour MP for Rochdale, who was forced to resign from the front bench after writing a piece in the Scum stating that the grooming gangs were made up of Pakistani men. Which they largely have been, though not exclusively. Champion was, however, defended by Sara Rowbotham, the council whistleblower who exposed the gangs and there was a letter in the Times by members of the Sikh, Hindu and British Pakistani communities defending her and applauding a female Muslim councillor, who also worked to bring these scumbags to justice. I found this report from the Huffington Post UK by Owen Bennett from the 5th September 2017. It begins
‘Religious Groups Defend Sarah Champion For Claim UK Has A ‘Problem’ With Pakistani Rapists
‘Victims are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.’
A number of Sikh, Hindu and British Parkistani groups have come to the defence of a Labour MP who claimed “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.”
In a letter to The Times today, representatives of the groups – including Lord Singh of Wimbledon – praised Sarah Champion for taking a “courageous stand” in highlighting “a clear trend in criminality.”
The letter also accused the Labour leadership of having a “weak response” to the issue of grooming gangs.
In a letter today, representatives of groups including the Network of Sikh Organisations, the British Pakistani Christian Association and Hindu Council UK, said: “We commend Sarah Champion and the Muslim councillor Amina Lone for speaking up on a clear trend in criminality: the conviction of men of largely Pakistani Muslim heritage in sexual grooming cases.
“Despite being sacked from the shadow cabinet, Champion continues to make a courageous stand.”
The letter argues that it’s not just “white girls who fall victim” to grooming gangs, but youngsters from their respective communities.
“The common denominator is that victims almost always tend to be non-Muslim girls,” the letter reads , adding: “We are dismayed by the Labour leadership’s weak response.
“We are not willing to see the betrayal of victims, who are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.
“It’s not racist or Islamophobic to raise a matter of significant public concern. Smearing those speaking an inconvenient truth is unacceptable.”’
This does indicate that there’s a religious component to the grooming gangs predations. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten either that whatever Tommy Robinson, Britain First or whoever else says, these men were definitely not practicing Muslims. Not when they were into drugs and alcohol, which are definitely forbidden to Muslims, and their crimes have nothing to do with Muslim sex slavery. They were just evil men, preying on the vulnerable, as rapists and child abusers among all races and religions do.
And despite the Tories’ divide and rule strategy, it was Labour MPs who stood up for these girls and who had the backing of a wide section of the Asian community.
One of the fascinating articles Mike put up yesterday was about an article in the British Medical Journal that reported that Institute of Economic Affairs, a right-wing think tank that funds the Tories and which demands the privatisation of the NHS, is funded by all the industries that actively damage people’s health: tobacco, gambling, alcohol, sugar and fast food. One of the major donors to this secretive think tank is British-American Tobacco. The report noted that the IEA had attacked campaigns against smoking, drinking and the obesity academic, and raised concerns that a future leader of the Tories would side with these industries against the interests of the British people.
Well, as Bill Hicks used to say ironically, ‘Colour me surprised!’
I don’t wish to sneer at the doctors and medical professionals behind this article, and am absolutely fully behind its publication. But I’m not remotely surprised. It’s almost to be expected that a think tank that demands absolute privatisation and deregulation in the interests of complete free trade, should be funded by those industries, which have the most to lose from government regulation. And in the case of the Tories, that has always included tobacco, alcohol and gambling. Way back in the early ’90s under John Major, when Brits were just beginning to get into the habit of binge drinking and the government was considering allowing pubs and nightclubs all day licences, there were concerns about the damaging effects of alcohol. People were demanding greater regulation of the drinks industry. But this was being blocked by the Tories, because so many Tory MPs has links to these companies. This was so marked that Private Eye actually published the names of these MPs, and the positions they held in various drinks companies.
As for gambling, the Labour government after the War tried to crack down on this, but it was the Tories under MacMillan, who legalised the betting shops. Later on, Tony Blair, taking his ideas from them, had plans to expand the British gambling industry further with the opening of ‘super-casinos’, one of which was to be in Blackpool, I believe. But fortunately that never got off the ground. Unfortunately, there has been a massive rise in gambling addiction, despite all the warnings on the the adverts for online casinos.
The Tories have also had a long relationship too with the tobacco industry, resisting calls for bans on tobacco advertising. Private Eye also reported how, after Major lost the election to Blair, former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke then got a job with British-American Tobacco. As did, I believe, Saint Maggie of Grantham herself. BAT was employing him to open up markets in the former Soviet central Asian republics. The Eye duly satirised him as ‘BATman’, driving around in a car shaped like a giant cigarette, shoving ciggies into people’s, mostly children’s, mouths.
The Institute of Economic Affairs is a particularly nasty outfit that’s been around since the mid-70s. For a long time, I think it was the only think tank of its type pushing extreme free market ideas. A couple of years ago I found a tranche of their booklets in one of the secondhand bookshops in Cheltenham. One was on how the state couldn’t manage industry. This looked at four examples of state industrial projects, which it claimed were incompetently run and a waste of money. One was the Anglo-French supersonic airliner, Concorde. The booklet had a point, as many of the industries they pointed to, like British Leyland, were failing badly. Concorde when it started out was a massive white elephant. It was hugely expensive and for some time there were no orders for it. But now it is celebrate as a major aerospace achievement. While the British aircraft industry has decline, the French used the opportunities and expertise they developed on the project to expand their own aerospace industry.
Looking at the booklet, it struck me how selective these examples were. Just four, out of the many other nationalised industries that existed at the time. And I doubt the pamphlet has worn well with age. Ha Joon Chang’s 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism and John Quiggin’s Zombie Economics have very effectively demolished their shoddy and shopworn free market capitalism, and shown how, rather than encouraging industry and prosperity, it has effectively ruined them. Read these books, and you’ll see just why we need Corbyn, whatever the champions of free market capitalism scream to the contrary.
Oh yes, and ladies, particularly, be warned. This is an anti-feminist organisation. Mike mentions in his article that it has a spokeswoman, Kate Andrews, who turns up regularly on Question Time to push for the privatisation of the NHS. Or rather, its reform, as they don’t want to alarm the populace by being too open about what they want to do. Despite this feminine face, this is an organisation that has very traditional views about gender roles. One of the pamphlets I found had the jaunty title Liberating Women – From Feminism. The booklet was written by women, and I know that some women would prefer to be able to stay home and raise their children rather than go to work. And that’s fine if it’s their choice. But this outfit would like to stop women having a choice. Rather than enabling women, who choose to stay home, to do so, they would actively like to discourage women from pursuing careers.
The IEA really is a grubby organisation, and the sooner it’s discredited everywhere, the better. Like the Tories.
Looking through next week’s Radio Times for 9th-15th February 2019 I found a number of programmes which might be of interest to some people following this blog.
On Monday, 11th February at 8.00 pm on Radio 4 there’s Beyond Tara and George, about rough sleepers. The blurb for this programme reads
Last year there were nearly 600 deaths on the streets of the UK. In this follow-up to last summer’s Radio 4 series on east London rough sleepers Tara and George, presenter Audrey Gilan catches up with the pair to ask what it would take to prevent the unnecessary deaths of homeless people. (p. 137).
Then a half hour later at 8.30 on the same channel, Analysis covers conspiracy theories. The Radio Times says of this
Professor James Tilley explores the current spate of political conspiracy theories, and examines what belief in them tells us about voters and politicians.
The next day, Tuesday 12th February, at 1.30 pm on the Beeb’s World Service there’s Documentary: So Where Are the Aliens?, which the Radio Times describes thus
Space, to quote the late, great Douglas Adams, is mindboggling big. So huge, in fact, that the probability of there being civilized life elsewhere in the universe is almost a mathematical certainty. This begs an obvious question, to which Seth Shostak – chief astronomer of the Seti institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has devoted his career. He speaks with fellow scientists Frank Drake and Jill Tarter about their pioneering work chasing extraterrestrial radio signals as well as the new listening and light-based techniques designed to open up the sky like never before. Last year’s tantalizing fly-by of the mysterious cigar-shaped Oumuamua has revived interest in this topic, although in 2019 ET could be forgiven for giving Earth a wide berth. (p. 138).
Regarding the programme on preventing the homeless dying, one way to stop it would be to fix the welfare state so that poor and vulnerable people didn’t become homeless in the first place. Giving more funding and expanding the number of homeless shelters so that they were safe and able to provide accommodation for rough sleepers would also be very good. As would support schemes for those with drug, alcohol or mental health problems. And as Mike’s pointed out in his reports on attacks on the homeless, it would also be very good idea for the right-wing media to stop portraying the homeless, as well as the disabled, the unemployed and those on benefits generally all as scroungers committing welfare fraud and generally demonizing them. But as the Tory party, the Scum, Express and Fail all depend on this for votes and sales, it isn’t going to happen.
The prgramme on conspiracy theories could be interesting, but I doubt it will actually face up to the fact that some conspiracies are real. Not the malign and bogus myths about a Jewish plot to destroy the White race, or that the business and political elite are really evil Reptoid aliens, a la David Icke, or have made a demonic pact with grey aliens from Zeti Reticuli to allow them to abduct us for experimentation while giving them the benefits of alien technology. Or similar myths about the Illuminati, Freemasons or Satanists.
The real conspiracies that exist are about the manipulation of politics by the world’s secret services, and secret big business think tanks and right-wing pressure groups. Such as the various front organisations set up by the CIA during the Cold War, the smears concocted by MI5 during the 1970s presenting Harold Wilson as a KGB agent, and the contemporary smears by the Integrity Initiative, funded by the Tory government, claiming that Corbyn and other left-wing figures across Europe and America were agents of Putin. And, of course, the real conspiracy by Shai Masot at the Israeli embassy to have Tory cabinet ministers, who didn’t support Israel, removed from government. As well as the embassy’s role in making fake accusations of anti-Semitism against entirely decent people in the Labour party.
But I’ve no doubt that the Beeb will shy well away from these real conspiracies, not least because of Britain’s sordid role in the West’s history of regime change in Developing nations that dared to defy the Americans and ourselves. The Beeb has put on similar programmes before, and the person being interviewed or presenting the argument was former Independent journo David Aaronovitch. And his line has always been to ignore these real conspiracies, and concentrate on all the mythical rubbish, which he presents as typical of the conspiracy milieu as a whole. Which you’d expect from an establishment broadcaster, that now seems to see itself very much as the propaganda arm of the Conservative British state.
Moving on to the programme on SETI, Shostak, Tarter and Drake are veterans not only of the search for intelligent alien life, but also of programmes and documentaries on the search. Drake was the creator of the now famous equation which bears his name, which is supposed to tell you how many alien civilisations we can expect to exist in the galaxy. He was one of the brains behind Project Ozma, alias ‘Project Little Green Men’ in the 1960s to listen for alien signals from two nearby, roughly sun-like stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. Which found zilch, unfortunately. Shostak and Tarter were two of the leaders of the new wave of SETI researchers in the 1990s, and Shostak wrote a book about the possibility of alien life and what they would possibly be like. This concluded that they wouldn’t be anything like us, ruling out aliens like Mr Spock in Star Trek. In size they would probably be the same as Labradors.
It’s been known now that the Galaxy is old enough and big enough, with the right kind of stars and an increasing multitude of known planets, some of them possibly suitable for life, for alien civilisations to have emerged several times. And if they only advanced at the speed of light, they should be here by now. But they’re not. So far we’ve detected no sign of them. Or no absolutely indisputable signs. So where are they? This problem is called the Fermi paradox after the Italian-American physicist, Enrico Fermi. Suggested answers are that life, or perhaps just intelligent life, is extremely rare in the universe. Space travel may be extremely difficult. Aliens may exist, but they may be completely uninterested in talking to us. In this respect, we may even be a ‘protected species’ considered too fragile at our current level of civilization for contact with the rest of the Galaxy. Or perhaps there really are predatory alien intelligences and civilisations out there, who automatically attack any culture naïve and trusting enough to announce their presence. In which case, all the alien civilisations out there are paranoid and keeping their heads well down. One of SF writer even wrote a collection of short stories, each of which gave one solution to the Paradox.
Here’s another piece of cheering news for those on the Left. Milo Yiannopolis, a leading figure in the Alt Right, has declared that he’s leaving these shores and applying for asylum in America. Why? because he’s a gay man, and does not feel safe in an Islamized Britain. Or at least this is what he’s told the American right-wing Front Page magazine. According to Zelo Street’s article about this world-shattering event, Yiannopolis went on
“In 2015, I wrote the column that secured my place in the pantheon of Right-wing hate figures: ‘I’m A Gay Man And Mass Muslim Immigration Terrifies Me.’ Shortly afterwards, I left London, disturbed by the state of my capital city and hoping that with a megaphone in America I could sound the alarm about European Islamization”.
Like the rest of us, Zelo Street doesn’t remotely accept his claim that Britain has been Islamized, saying that they blinked and missed it. They also call bullsh*t on his tale that he left Blighty for America to warn them about the threat of Islam. The truth was that Yiannopolis was hired by Steve Bannon for the extreme right-wing news organization, Breitbart. They also pour scorn on his claim that he’s a member of any pantheon, on the grounds that he simply isn’t important enough to be one. And this same reason applies to his other claim, that despite being married to an American, he’s applying for asylum because, as a gay man, so many people want him dead. And so he goes on about friends of his having been assaulted by Bangladeshis in public parks simply for letting their dogs void their bowels. In east London, he says, you can’t buy booze after a certain time because it will cause the Muslim minority to start a letter writing campaign against anyone selling alcohol. A Muslim minority, he says, who are disproportionately unemployed and living in affordable housing paid for by the taxpayer. He also claims that
“Muslims with extreme, hateful views about gays and horrible opinions about women would be an irritant and not a menace but for the fact that they are routinely insulated from criticism by a politically-correct media elite that scoffs whenever you mention the appalling social problems that spring up, as night follows day, whenever the area hits a certain percentage of Islamic residents”.
Zelo Street is skeptical about these claims as well, noting that he gives no corroborating proof of Bangladeshi Muslims attacking people, nor that there are any Muslim letter-writing campaigns against shops selling alcohol. The commenters on this piece are also highly skeptical about Islam being the sole reason his unnamed friends have been met with anger because of their dogs. Many people get angry when dogs foul the pavement or public parks, not just Muslims. They also have met with zero problems while buying alcohol from Muslim owned shops. A couple of comments say that if Yiannopolis can’t buy booze after a certain time, it’s because of Lloyd George and the licensing laws than angry Muslims. Also, some of those shopkeeper rightly want to go to bed at 11 O’clock. As for living at taxpayer’s expense in ‘affordable housing’, well, no, they’re not. Affordable housing is not social housing.
Yiannopolis also rants about shariah courts and parallel justice systems, which also don’t exist. He also says that he looks forward to Tommy Robinson, formerly of the EDL and Pegida UK, and his ‘army of brave lads to topple the government and close the border themselves’. Zelo Streets says of this statement that it makes grifters heroic. Which is absolutely true. Robinson, unfortunately, has very many fans and followers, but they’re hardly so many that they’re a threat to democracy by organizing a coup or close the border on their own. And Robinson himself is a grifter. According to a recent hang-out between Kevin Logan and Mike Stuchbery, Robinson is raking in about 900,000 pounds a year in donations from his followers, and his house in Luton reflects that. He is not a poor soldier battling valiantly with limited funds against the well-funded hordes of Islam. The Zelo Street article concludes that Yiannopolis’ piece is a ‘crock of crap’, and that Yiannopolis himself wants a drip-feed of money, if only to pay the lawyer for his asylum claim.
In fact, Zelo Street is entirely correct in calling Yiannopolis’ article a pile of ordure. I doubt very much if it is militant, intolerant Muslims forcing him to live to leave London and Blighty. The real reason is that Yiannopolis is spectacularly broke. A week or so ago he released a video on the Net from Australia laughing at the fact that he was not 2 million pounds or dollars in debt, as people were claiming but four million.
Well, if he is broke, it’s all his own fault. For a moment it did look as if he was going to be a major figure politically, until he spectacularly managed to torpedo his career with some very disturbing remarks he made on the Joe Rogan Experience, an internet news discussion show.
Yiannopolis is a half-Jewish gay man, whose husband is Black. There’s nothing wrong with that, but he uses his identity as a shield to deny accusations of prejudice when he makes racist, bigoted comments about Blacks, gays and women and feminism. He can’t be prejudiced, the line runs, because he’s gay and attracted to Black men. He’s just telling the truth, which Liberals are determined to silence through accusations of racism and homophobia. As a controversialist for the Alt Right, he was becoming increasingly popular. The other year he launched a tour of American college campuses entitled his ‘Dangerous Faggot’ tour. Obviously and unsurprisingly, this was also met with protests from college feminists and anti-racist protesters. He was so popular that he was offered a very lucrative book deal by the right-wing imprint of Simon and Schuster.
This collapsed with the rest of his career as a political pundit, after he made comments justifying, or appearing to justify, paedophilia on the Joe Rogan show. Milo said that he had been molested when he was 14 by a Roman Catholic priest. However, the priest, who he refused to name, was not the instigator of the relationship. He claimed instead that it had been him, as he was desperate to provoke outrage through relationships with older, adult men. He then went on to claim that such relationships with older men helped gay boys come to terms with their sexuality.
Rogan and his co-host were, like the rest of us, not impressed. They called it was it was: child-abuse. Or at least that’s what it was over in America. They didn’t know about Britain. Well, we can reassure them on that point. It’s called paedophilia over here, where it is also illegal. Yiannopolis also claimed that he had been on boat parties in Hollywood where ‘young boys, very young boys’ were there as prostitutes. He would not, however, say how young, nor who the Hollywood personalities using them were. Commenting on this part of the interview, Kevin Logan stated that it made him feel cold wondering how young these boys were, if Yiannopolis himself was 13 or 14 when he was molested by the priest.
This stopped Yiannopolis’ burgeoning career cold. Simon and Schuster withdrew their promise to publish his book. He had been invited to attend C-SPAN, the big American Conservative gathering. This was also withdrawn. He also found himself sacked from Breitbart, although he claims that he resigned. Apparently several of the staff objected to working with him, and said that they’d leave if he didn’t.
Yiannopolis then made a public apology, stating that he now realized that he was the victim of child abuse. He also denied that his comments support the abuse of children, claiming that gays use the word ‘boy’ to describe other gay men, and he was sorry for not being more careful about using the word to a heterosexual audience, who would not grasp its meaning within gay culture. Kevin Logan, commenting on this part of is apology, stated that Yiannopolis wasn’t telling the truth, as he had clearly talked about ‘boys’, meaning precisely ‘boys’, not adult men.
Yiannopolis had also gone to Australia this winter to do a speaking tour there. This too, however, was a failure, as no-one turned up. And so it seems very much to me that Yiannopolis is leaving the country, not because he’s afraid of homophobic Muslims, but because he’s dead broke and thinks that he might be able to salvage something of his career amongst the American Far Right.
Sweary male feminist and anti-racist vlogger, Kevin Logan, made this video about the collapse of Yiannopolis’ career, which includes clips from the Joe Rogan video.
In another video, Logan says that he was keen to ask Yiannopolis if he had ever acted on his conviction that sex with underage boys was beneficial. Because if he had, then he should just go to the nearest police station and hand himself in. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons he’s really leaving London. Other people have also found out about his vile comments, and don’t want him around. Logan himself doesn’t have much sympathy for Yiannopolis’ treatment after he made his vile remarks on the Joe Rogan show either, despite Yiannopolis recognition that he was a victim of child abuse. This was for the simple reason that Yiannopolis had himself made it abundantly clear that he didn’t care about his opponents’ feelings either, even when they were a woman, who had been raped.
And Yiannopolis is another person, who has exploited his fans and followers for his own greed. When he was touring America, he announced he was setting up a fund to provide money for young white men to go to university, and appealed for donations. It was part of his attack on ‘political correctness’ and affirmative action to get more underprivileged Blacks in higher education. Except that it wasn’t. Yiannopolis didn’t set up a separate account, and all the donations went directly to his normal bank account. To date there have been no disbursements. It all looks very much like it was just another money-making scam.
Yiannopolis’ departure across the Atlantic is not that of a persecuted gay man fleeing Muslim persecution in a Britain overrun and dominated by militant Islam. It’s simply a far right propagandist going to try to get rich again after wrecking his career with vile and disgusting comments about the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
Zelo Street is right that few people here know about him, or care that he’s going. And given his squalid views and behavior, this country has lost zilch from his departure.
Heavens, and what is the world coming to! I’ve just read something by Jeffrey Archer that actually made sense, and with which I agreed. The scribe of Weston-Super-Mud is in the ‘Viewpoint’ column of the Radio Times today, for the week 3-9 November 2018. His piece is titled ‘We have a gambling epidemic’ and has the subheading ‘Cigarette advertising is banned – so why not ads for betting?’
Archer begins by talking about how the Beeb has lost much of its sport coverage to the commercial channels, and so he has his enjoyment of the footie, rugger, golf and cricket ruined by advertising for gambling. He describes how these try to tempt you into having a flutter, even though the odds are stacked against you. You may win occasionally, but in the long term you’ll lose. He then goes to compare this with tobacco advertising, which also took many years to ban because powerful commercial interests were involved, which also heavily sponsored sport. He also claims that the NHS wouldn’t be in crisis if no-one smoked, because the money thus saved would vastly outweigh the tax revenue tobacco brings in. He then writes
Fast forward: we now have a gambling epidemic. More than 400,000 punters have become addicts, 26,000 of them aged 16 or younger. So how long will it take the Government to ban gambling advertising on television? Far too long, I suspect. A good start was made at the Labour party conference in September by deputy leader Tom Watson, who promised immediate legislation to dealwith the problem if a Labour government were elected. Watson pointed out that several experts had shown that unfettered gambling causes impoverishment for the least fortunate in our society, and this often results in abusive behavior towards young children and partners,, and all too often ends in bankruptcy, imprisonment and even suicide.
Rewind: successive governments took years to acknowledge that “Smoking damages your health”, and even longer to admit that “Smoking kills” should be printed on every cigarette packet; and it took even more time before they finally stamped out all forms of smoking advertising. Please don’t let’s take another 20 years before the Government bans gambling advertising, and wastes a generation of young people simply because of the tax revenue.
He then recommends that Tweezer’s new Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, should steal Watson’s clothes and bring in tough legislation dealing with gambling addiction before the next election, because ‘No one ever remembers whose idea it was, only the party person who passed the law.’
His piece ends ‘The slogan ‘When the fun stops stop’ is pathetic, and will reman so until it’s stopped.’ (p. 15).
Archer and Watson are absolutely right about the damage tobacco advertising has done, and which gambling and the advertising for it is continuing to do. And obviously a disagree with his recommendation that the Tories should appropriate Labour’s policy. If they did, it would only be token gesture of actually doing something for ordinary people, like Hammond’s wretched budget. A cosmetic improvement designed to get them re-elected so they can continue wrecking people’s lives in other ways, through destroying what remains of the welfare state and privatizing the health service.
But I’ve absolutely no fear whatsoever that the Tories will ban gambling advertising, for the same reason that they’ve never banned advertising for alcohol. There are heavy restrictions on the way booze is advertised, but not an outright ban. Which the European Union wished to bring in, according to Private Eye a few years ago.
The contemporary Tory party is a creature of its corporate donors. Always has been, to a certain extent. The Tories have always boasted that they represent business, and their MPs, like MPs generally in a political culture dominated by corporate cash, include the heads and managing directors of companies. Indeed, this is one of the reasons the Tories are dying at grassroots level. Ordinary party members in the constituencies are annoyed at the way they’re being ignored in favour of the donors from big business.
Going back 30 years to Major’s government, there was a demand in the early 1990s for an end to alcohol advertising. Major’s government was firmly against it. And one of the reasons was that very many Tory MPs had links to the drinks industry. Which Private Eye exposed, giving a list of those MPs and their links to particular companies.
I’m very confident that the Tory party now has very strong connections to the gambling industry, and so will very definitely not want to risk losing their cash. Just as it wouldn’t surprise me that if Labour did try to ban gambling advertising, the Thatcherite entryists in the party would turn against it. One of Tony Blair’s grotty schemes was the establishment of megacasinos in this country, modelled on America, of course. One of the ideas being kicked around was to turn Blackpool into a British Las Vegas. It’s a very good thing it failed.
Archer’s absolutely right to want gambling advertising to be banned. But the Tories are the last party that’s going to do it. If any party will, it will be Labour under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
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