The Polite, University Educated Racism of Novara Media

A few days ago I found a video posted on YouTube by Laurence Fox’s Reclaim the Media. This was a short piece of part of a debate he’d had about racism with Ash Sarkar, one of the women of the left-wing internet news and comment channel, Novara Media. This was about whether Whites could experience racism. Sarkar denied that they could, because they enjoyed White privilege. She maintained this stance even when Fox raised the issue of White working class boys, who perform worse academically than Blacks and other ethnic minorities and girls. I’m not surprised Sarkar continued to maintain this view. Novara have posted a couple of videos denying that White working class boys are underprivileged compared to other ethnic groups, and even that the White working class constitutes an ethnic group at all. Sarkar has said very proudly that she’s a communist, particularly when she was exasperated by the attitude of one of the TV hosts interviewing her. But it’s not entirely the Communism of classical Marxism, which saw class as the motor of history and oppression. It’s partly the postmodernist revision of Marxism of Critical Race Theory. This replaces class with race, declaring that Whiteness is a bourgeois quality that ensures that Whites enjoy a privileged position denied to people of colour. This attitude comes partly from the intersectional Marxism of Herbert Marcuse, a member of the Frankfurt School. Frustrated by the failure of the American working class to rise up against capitalist, Marcuse instead urged radicals to look to the ‘people of the ghetto’, groups traditionally confined to the margins of American society. This included Blacks, gays and feminists. CRT denies that Whites can experience racism through a highly contrived redefinition of the term. In their view, racism = prejudice + power. In bourgeois western society, Whites have a power denied to Blacks. Therefore they cannot suffer racism. This is profoundly wrong and in itself deeply racist. It also has highly dangerous implications that may encourage, or at least demand that a blind eye be turned to real racist violence against Whites.

The term ‘privilege’ suggests aristocratic ease, of the type enjoyed by David Cameron. Before he became prime minister, this Eton-educated aristo certainly didn’t have to worry about getting a job. He was actually approached by the Crown to work for it. But the vast majority of White Brits don’t have this privilege, and especially not those at the very bottom of society. One of my old schools had an annex for its first year pupils in a run-down area of Bristol. This was in a grimy back street called Boot Lane, at one end of which was a public toilet frequented by tramps. These were men who enjoyed absolutely no social advantages at all, and their life expectancy was no doubt extremely limited. The life-expectancy of the homeless, I’ve heard, is about three years. Sarkar, by contrast, is middle class and university educated, as is her fellow presenter Dalia Gabreal. Gabreal, who also promotes the nonsense of White privilege, is the co-editor of an anthology of postcolonialist texts. They enjoy a privilege denied to the White underclass, but it’s a privilege that they, imprisoned by Critical Race Theory, cannot acknowledge.

The idea of White privilege also glosses over and ignores the fact that previous generations of working class Whites could be victims of grinding poverty until very recently. Examples of this can be found on YouTube in a series of videos about poverty in Britain in the 1970s. Whether Sarkar, Gebreal and the others of Novara realise it or not, the idea White privilege plays down this poverty, which could be extreme with the bland attitude that however tough it could be for Whites, it’s worse for Blacks. On average, this is true, but not always. While Novara has shown a deep concern for working class poverty and exploitation, the constraints of Critical Race and Postcolonial Theory means that it is unable to recognise or accept the fact of anti-White racism nor that Whites do not uniformly enjoy privilege.

While it comes from the Marxist left, Critical Race Theory’s view that whiteness is intrinsically oppressive is very much of the same type of ideological racism as fascism. This divides society into the race or nation and its oppressors. In the case of the Italian fascists, the true nation was that of Italy and its people. In Nazism it was Germany, and the enemies were the Jews. This binary opposition Noel O’Sullivan, a Conservative historian of fascism, traces back to the new style of political activism that began with the French Revolution. This divided France into the authentic nation of the ‘tiers etat’, the third estate – the common French people, and their oppressors, the aristocracy and clergy. He quotes one French revolutionary who made this very plain, as well as his intention to shoot the country’s noble oppressors. O’Sullivan makes the point that this opposition can be applied to other groups, as demonstrated in the magazine of a radical feminist group, Medusa. This declared that only women were human, and men were an inferior species. Critical Race Theory revises this racism so that the authentic, oppressed nation are Blacks and other people of colour, while the racial oppressors are White.

This attitude is extremely dangerous. The critics of Critical Race Theory and other postmodernist ‘isms’, Peter Boghossian, James Lindsey and Helen Pluckrose, submitted a number of spoof papers making extreme claims to various postmodernist academic journals. One of these incorporated quotes from Mein Kampf, but with ‘Whiteness’ substituted for Jews. This was accepted. There have been a series of controversies over the other side of the Pond in which Black academics have announced on TV programmes or internet meetings that they want Whites to become extinct. And there has been real racial violence against Whites. Thomas Sowell describes a few in his book, Race and Culture, noting that the mainstream media either does not cover them, or if it does, the report is framed so as to exonerate the attackers. They acted as they did as a result of the oppression of White America. Racial violence against Whites isn’t confined to America. Over twenty years ago the number of racist murders of Whites was nearly equal to that of ethnic minorities, and the level of racist abuse and attacks against Whites exceeded those against other demographics. This was covered by the mainstream media until the BNP sought to exploit it. But many Black and ethnic minority activists do not want racism against Whites recognised. At a conference of Black and ethnic minority activists a few years ago, three of them criticised the government for including anti-White racism in official statistics. In their view, only racial abuse and violence against ethnic minorities deserved to be counted. Critical Race Theory’s contrived redefinition of racism does the same: it is intended to deny that Blacks can be racist.

Critical Race Theory is also dangerously defective in its Eurocentricismt It assumes that only White Europeans and their descendants in America and the New World can be racist. It ignores the fact that other cultures have also traditions of racial hierarchies and ingrained prejudice. For example, Muslim Arabs also developed ideas of the inferiority of Black Africans on the one hand and White Europeans on the other. India and China also have their own ideas of racial superiority and inferiority. Western Blacks have also developed a distinct racist ideology in Afrocentrism. There is a series of Afrocentric works promoting the idea of White inferiority in vicious, splenetic terms. At the same time, Black Muslim sects like the Nation of Islam and Ansaaru Allah also hold that Whites are racially inferior oppressors, who are due to be annihilated by God at the coming apocalypse. I’ve also come across British Muslim texts that are explicitly colonialist. One of these argued that just as the British allowed other peoples to enter their colonies and keep their laws and customs as a way of populating their territories in North America, so Muslims should be allowed to form autonomous communities in America and Europe. These forms of Black and extra-European racism are largely unknown to most western people, and there is real opposition to discussing them. The Labour politician, Diane Abbott, has said several times that discussing the different forms of racism amongst ethnic minorities would allow ‘them’ to ‘divide and rule’. But these tensions between different ethnic groups in Britain outside the Black/White dichotomy exist and have led to riots. A few months ago, there was rioting in the north of England between Muslims and Hindus. The acceptance of the idea that only Whites can be racist among liberal Whites has also been assisted by the idea of the Noble Savage. This goes back to the 17^th century, and views primitive, non-European societies as somehow nobler and more virtuous than western civilisation. It is also a product of the tradition of European and indigenous opposition to imperialism. This concentrates on the horrors of western imperialism but similarly ignores those of other imperialist regimes, such as the Ottoman Empire. The refusal to accept that other peoples are also capable of terrible racism, and the idea that only White racism is to be tackled, led to the police and authorities turning a blind eye for twenty years to the Pakistani grooming gangs.

I find the denial of anti-White racism, and the bitter racism of some Black activists deeply worrying. Because Critical Race Theory declares that all Whites enjoy such privilege and that the level of racism in society remains constant, it comes very close to the old accusation that all Whites are racist. While I doubt very much that it’s supporters would see it as such, it is very close to racial essentialism of the type that causes anti-Semites as intrinsically hostile to Whites. I am very much afraid that this will encourage anti-White attacks and pogroms, but there will be no action taken or condemnation of these because of the racial attitudes promoted by CRT. Sarkar, Gebreal and the rest of Novara doubtless believe that they are sincerely anti-racist and they probably are so in their personal relationship with Whites. But they, along with numberless others of the same views, hold a twisted redefinition of racism that legitimises racism and violence against Whites, while denying that this is possible at all.

Starmer’s Five Missions for Improving Britain – Sounds Good, But Where’s the Substance

I got a round robin email from Starmer yesterday, announcing that he had declared his five missions for building a better Britain in Manchester. He set them out, along with the usual requests for donations. Sorry, not sorry, Starmer – I’m not going to donate. You have my membership fee and that should be enough. It was under Corbyn, when millions joined because of his inspiring, socialist vision. Now you’ve purged the party of those people and driven the rest away through phoney accusations of anti-Semitism designed to placate the Israel lobby rather than do anything against real anti-Jewish hatred. You’ve also lost the contributions of many trade unions because of your anti-working class policies. As a result, you’ve shrunk the party, lost the confidence of ordinary, traditional Labour voters and supporters, and placed it in a dire financial strait. All to ingratiate yourself with the Tory voting right and their press. I am not going to donate until you reverse these policies, and especially not until you readmit and apologise to everyone you’ve smeared as a Jew-hater. And especially to the Jewish victims of the witch hunt.

‘David, this is an important moment for the Labour Party as we prepare for government.

Today in Manchester, I set out how my Labour government will be driven by five missions:

1. Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7
2. Build an NHS fit for the future
3. Make Britain’s streets safe
4. Break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage
5. Make Britain a clean energy superpower

I believe that delivering on these five bold missions is how we will restore Britain’s pride and purpose, giving our country its future back.

To do it, we must win the next general election. We must be ready to show the country that Labour will build a better Britain. That there is light at the end of the tunnel.

David, donate to win today:

……

No more sticking plaster politics.

Mission driven government is a different way of doing things. It sets the direction, a clear plan for the years ahead and spells out the fully costed steps to achieving them.  

It requires everyone to play their part, in every community, in every part of the country. A real partnership between government, national and local, businesses, trade unions and civil society.

With missions comes greater stability and certainty – instead of a government chopping and changing all the time, blowing with the wind. 

Step by step, we will show how each mission will be achieved. So that everyone, in every part of the country, feels that they are moving forward, and that life is getting better.

But without reforming the role of government, we will achieve nothing. That is why Labour must win. Together, delivering on our five missions, we can build a better Britain.

 ….

Thank you,  

Keir Starmer

Leader of the Labour Party‘

Let’s go through them.

1. Secure the highest sustained growth in the G7.

A good promise, but nothing any other party wouldn’t promise. The Tories promised that Brexit, more cuts to the welfare state and further privatisation would deliver economic growth and prosperity. That hasn’t happened. The only way to do it would be to reverse the Tory policies, including the wage restraint that is pushing so many working people into poverty and starvation. But there are no promises by Starmer how he intends to deliver this mission. Possibly because, like his hero Blair, he intends to take over the Tory policies and try to implement them better.

2.Build an NHS fit for the future

Again, every politico would promise this. The Tories have been doing so, even while privatising it. The madder of them have even stood up in parliament to demand its privatisation quite openly, or the introduction of charges, thus violating its founding principle that it should be free at the point of delivery. Blair did nothing about privatisation, except to push it through even further. The only way to restore the NHS is to reverse its privatisation. But Starmer does not promise that, and I suspect he really wants further private involvement in the health service.

3. Make Britain’s streets safe

Again, a great promise. The Tories cut the number of police drastically, and as a result crime has massively increased. The Labour party seem to be serious about tackling the issue, as a few weeks ago I got another round robin email from them, this time from Angela Rayner, laying out their intentions and including a questionnaire so the party could get suggestions and feedback about their concerns from their members. The seriousness with which they take this mission might be because law and order are a particular concern of the right. But it isn’t just a question of more coppers. It also means launching social programmes to deter kids from crime and tackle some of the underlying causes, which include poverty, lack of opportunities and the glamour of gangsta culture among young men in some communities. The police have also been criticised for apparently being more concerned with appealing to gays through appearing at Pride marches and dressing up as rainbow-coloured bumblebees rather than tackle crime. Some of those making that criticism are gay themselves. Will this also be tackled, while making sure gays are protected, and are confident that they are being protected like every other citizen?

4. Break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage

Again, sounds good, but it’s something that would also come from the Tories despite all the evidence to the contrary. And Blair’s record on social mobility is not good. It was already declining under Major, and stopped completely under Blair. A key method for restoring social mobility would be to start investing in schools and giving them the proper funding to buy equipment, pay teachers a proper wage, and restore state school buildings. And state education would be greatly improved by returning the academies to state or local authority control. But the academies are a failed Tory idea that Blair took over and promoted, so that’s not going to happen.

It also means creating jobs in areas like manufacturing, which have been decimated by the focus on the financial sector, and which have traditionally employed the working class, along with proper work training schemes. Not everyone is suited to academia, and there is quite a high drop-out rate according to friends of mine who worked on such policies. For those in higher education, tuition fees need to be cut, especially for poor and working class students, who are worried about being able to afford their education. Student loans are not good enough. It also means inspiring and opening up the professions to White working class boys as well as other traditionally marginalised and underperforming groups, such as Blacks and women. But I suspect this will be ignored and the traditional exclusive focus on BAME and women will continue, ignoring working class Whites.

5. Make Britain a clean energy superpower

This is possible. Labour certainly come across as far more serious about this than the Tories, who have consistently opposed it while boasting about their Green credentials. Remember Cameron’s boast that his would be the Greenest government ever? That lasted right up until he got his rear end through the door of No. 10. Then the windmill he had on his house came off, and it was back to promoting fracking.

Will Starmer go the same way? I don’t know. It’s possible. He’s broken every promise he’s made so far, and Blair attracted the same lobbying groups and companies who funded the Tories and guided Tory policy, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the same polluting industries sidle up to Starmer and he goes the same way.

Looking at them, two of the three missions look like they are being seriously tackled by Labour, at least at the moment. But I have little confidence in the rest as this would mean tackling Thatcher and her legacy head on. And that’s the very last thing the Blairites want.

Professional Therapist Stephanie Winn Interviewed by Trans-Critical Author Helen Joyce about the Myth of Gender Conversion Therapy

On Saturday I posted a piece about the email I received from the chair of LGBTQ+ Labour and Anneliese Dodds about the Labour party’s proposed policies for gay and trans people and their intention to give them greater protection under the Equality legislation. I have no problem with gay equality. What does concern me is the pair’s proposals to ban trans conversion therapy alongside gay conversion therapy. Gay conversion was a brutal form of what can only be described as medicalised torture. Clive Simpson, a gay YouTuber, has described its horrors in one of the videos I put up yesterday to support some of the points I made in my reply to the Labour party. Gay conversion therapy used aversion therapy to try to ‘cure’ gay men of their sexual attraction to other men. They were given electric shocks while being shown pictures of naked men. Alternatively, they were given drugs that made them sick. They were also locked in their rooms for three days at a time, not allowed out even to go to the toilet. They were also deprived of food and water as this was also believed to make the process more effective. I have absolutely no hesitation in describing this treatment as hell, and that the people inflicting it on their patients were sadists. Such procedures have, however, been mercifully illegal since the 1970s.

There is a profound difference between gay conversion therapy and supposed trans conversion therapy. The activists demanding a ban on trans conversion therapy do not say what they consider trans conversion therapy to be. There’s thus a real fear that any such ban will mean that the only legally permitted form of treatment for gender-confused and trouble children and adults will be the affirmative model. This form of states mandates the therapist to agree with the patient that they really are of a different gender than their biological body, and must set them on the path for medical transition. This may be appropriate for some, but not all, as many sufferers who believed they were trans had underlying mental health or emotional issues which were the real sources of their confusion, and which should have received treatment instead. There is a growing community of detransitioners who believed they were trans, underwent clinical transition, but now believe they were wrong and are trying to get back, as far as possible, to their birth gender. There is an online community of 20,000 of them and its seems some of them are considering legal action against the therapists who put them on the trans pathway.

Stephanie Winn is a licensed therapist and councillor in Oregon in the US. She is also the host of this, the ‘You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist’ podcast. In this edition of the podcast, she’s interviewed by former Economist journo and anti-trans author Helen Joyce about how she came to be opposed to the affirmation-only model while treating confused teens. She speaks about the dangers of the laws in America as enacted in individual states, which seek to outlaw gender conversion therapy, as a result of which she stopped treating children and moved instead to setting up help groups for adults with children experiencing these problems. Because of this and her social media presence, she was targeted by trans rights activists and a former member of one these support groups, who complained to the board about her. She describes her struggle to combat these false allegations and her eventual success. She also goes through the specific Oregon legislation banning gay and trans conversion therapy, showing that it’s unnecessary and actually harmful in the case of trans people. She also foresees a time when the ban on trans conversion therapy will be seen in its way as savage and barbarous as lobotomy and other discredited and deeply unethical medical practices.

The blurb for the podcast reads

’11. ”Helen Joyce: Debunking the Myth of Conversion Therapy’, I recently emerged victorious from a harrowing battle and successfully defended myself against false allegations of “conversion therapy.” Part of how I got through the stress of it all was envisioning that some day I would be able to use my story to encourage and inspire others. But what I couldn’t have imagined was that I’d share it with the illustrious Helen Joyce. Under any other circumstances I would have loved to interview Helen. But in this conversation, she actually interviewed me, in the hopes that my story could help her organization demonstrate to UK officials how including “gender identity change efforts” in its “conversion therapy bans” could backfire. So today, this is my story: where I started off; my experiences as a gender-affirming therapist; what brought me around to seeing matters differently; why I decided to take a stand against gender ideology and medicalization; how I found the courage to share my views publicly; who targeted me, and why; how I defeated them; and what I want lawmakers around the world to understand about these proposed “conversion therapy bans” (hint: they’re not what they seem.) This is a very timely conversation, so I bumped it to the front of the queue and am publishing it right away. I hope to have Helen back another time to discuss her own ideas. But for now, I really appreciate this opportunity to share my story with Helen, and the world. If I do say so myself, this is an important conversation for therapists, governing bodies, lawmakers, those seeking therapy, and anyone who cares about the treatment of gender issues in today’s society. Helen Joyce is author of “TRANS: When Ideology Meets Reality”, published in July 2021 by OneWorld and in paperback since May 2022. A Times of London and Spectator book of the year, it is a UK and Amazon top ten bestseller. It received rave reviews in publications ranging from the Telegraph to the New York Times, and endorsements from, among others, Daniel Dennett (“A sane, humane book”), Lionel Shriver (“Utterly unintimidated by extremist orthodoxy”) and Richard Dawkins (“Thoroughly researched, passionate and very brave”). Helen now works as Director of Advocacy for Sex Matters, a human-rights organization that campaigns for sex-based rights. Her journalism can be found on her website: thehelenjoyce.com’.

In the podcast, Winn makes the point that the barbarous methods of gay conversion therapy are now illegal. Sexual orientation is fixed, and these methods were absolutely failures. They could not prevent gay men from still being attracted to other men, and certainly couldn’t make them attracted to women. All they could do is destroy their self-esteem. Gender-identity, on the other hand, is, in her words, incredibly mercurial. She makes the point that there are underlying mental issues with many of the teenagers experiencing difficulties with their birth gender. Sometimes these are mental health problems or mental conditions like autism, which can give some of the symptoms that may be interpreted as trans. Sometimes they’re internalised misogyny or homophobia. She talks about instances where the sufferer or their families believe it’s preferable to have a live daughter than a dead gay son. She also saw many lesbian girls, who seemed to want to transition partly out of loneliness. As lesbians they were in a narrower pool of potential romantic and sexual partners than if they were men. Part of the process of treating them involved reconciling them to the fact that as lesbians, they would have more difficulty finding partners, but that it was all right to be gay.

She makes it very clear that she’s opposed to gay conversion therapy, and that there’s nothing wrong with being gay. It doesn’t hurt anyone, except where there’s homophobia, and doesn’t cost anything. The affirmative-only model, however, sets gender confused people on a long medical process of puberty blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and finally surgery. This has profoundly detrimental effects on the patients’ lives and health. The drugs and hormones actually shorten their lives and the treatment as whole sterilises them and leads them unable to experience orgasm, an important part of sexual relationships. She is afraid that the poor health many trans people therefore suffer will leave them vulnerable to suicide.

She also believes very strongly that the contemporary explosion of Rapid Onset Dysmorphia amongst girls is a social contagion. Previously there was only a small number of people seeking treatment as trans, and they were mostly boys. Now its a large number of girls. It looks very much to her like a social contagion, passed on by teenagers and young people reading about it on the internet. She is also concerned about children using the threat of committing suicide to force their parents and therapists into accepting that they are really of the desired opposite gender. This is another tactic kids have picked up from the Net. She talks about how she set up her support group for the parents of trans-identifying kids to reassure them that they were right and not the bigots their children and trans activists accused them of being. This, however, allowed one woman, who only attended the group once, to accuse her of malpractice. She was able to seek very capable legal advice, and the case was eventually dismissed. She also pre-empted the trans activists attack on her for what she was posting about on the Net by informing the ethics board first, resulting in their accusations also being dismissed.

She states very clearly that the affirmative-only model is not the sole method of treatment. For the majority of gender confused kids it is only a phase they go through before emerging as gay adults. And that’s fine by her. There are also plenty of other therapies and forms of counselling that can effectively treat the condition so that the sufferers do not have to transition. What therapists should not be doing is giving in to children who insist they are of different gender. These are teenagers, and no-one makes sensible decisions or knows what’s really best for them as a teenager. Many of them are uncomfortable going through puberty, and Winn asks if anyone was ever comfortable with this period in their lives. Unfortunately, the law has given these children a terrible weapon to use against those therapists who disagree with them and believe it is more appropriate to use alternative forms of therapy. She also states that if all the therapists were like her and stood up against the affirmation model, then the laws banning gender conversion would be struck down. But they’re not. Many are afraid of their patients suing them if they don’t agree with them. She concludes by saying that people must stand up as the responsible adults to this oppressive, harmful attitude. She compares it to an incident when her 13 year old son accidentally drilled into his hand. This caused a lot of pain and distress, but the injury wasn’t serious. And so, she says, into gender confusion. But she is very critical of the passage in Oregonian legislation that states that gender confusion is not a mental disorder. She states that according to the accepted medical definitions, a mental disorder is a condition that causes distress so extreme that the person experiencing it is unable to get on with their lives properly. And most trans people do indeed spend their time consumed with this problem to their great distress. She also observes that there has been a mental change in young people generally. While previous generations were more outward-oriented, geared towards others, this one has become more inward-oriented, obsessed with how they present and what others will think of them. She states that when she started off, she believed that most of the issues she would experience with girls would be about crushes. But it isn’t. She therefore spent her time treating girls by telling them that not everyone would like them, and some would even actively dislike them, but that this was normal and natural.

The pair discuss what the proposed legislation about banning gender conversion therapy may mean in England. Winn tries to answer the question by citing her experience as a therapist in Oregon. Winn states that gay conversion therapy is already banned, and all trans conversion therapy means is that someone questioned whether the patient really was a member of the opposite sex to that of their birth. She is also expresses the same scepticism towards the statistics cited in the Oregon legislation, though she accepts that some of the people cited as having experienced gay conversion therapy are probably older men, who really did go through such horrific maltreatment. When it comes to England, the pair hope that such legislation banning gender conversion will be rejected by MPs and voted down.

This is a fascinating video, as a proper, licensed therapist Winn is well worth listening to for her criticisms of the trans ideology, the affirmative-care model of treatment, and the misguided laws that mandate and support this. The podcast is, however, 2 hours and four minutes long, so if you listen to it, you may wish to do so in sections.

History Debunked Attacks Racially Segregated Schools, Demolishes Free School System

Here’s another video from another Conservative youtuber, Simon Webb. Webb’s channel, History Debunked, specialises in attacking various myths and pseudo-history being pushed as authentic Black history. In this video he attacks the call from supporters of Critical Race Theory that there should be separate schools for Black pupils, and particularly for boys. He has seen for himself how such schools actually lead to worse academic performance and behaviour in such a school in Tottenham in Haringey. But some of the reasons for its failure – management by parents, instead of qualified teaching staff – are also a major problem for the Thatcherite free school project, which was intended to allow parents to break out of the state education system.

Webb begins by quoting a passage describing how one Black activist, Derek Ball, urged Blacks to abandon their demands for integrated schooling during the Civil Rights struggle, and instead concentrate on building good, all-Black schools to boost Black educational achievement. The argument for these is that, despite attending the same schools as Whites and Asians, Blacks, and particularly Black boys, still fall behind because of the lack of suitable role-models.

Webb describes how the Seventh Day Adventists in Haringey in 1980 set up their own, all-Black school as part of this ideology. Staff at the school, John Loughborough, were good, moral, upstanding people. Unfortunately, they had a problem recruiting proper teaching staff, so they were being taught by the friends and relatives of the people who founded it, who wanted a job. Webb states he noticed how the academic achievement and basic behaviour of the children of friends, who sent their kids there, progressively decline. Their interest in and performance in vital subjects like maths and physics declined. At the same time, their interests narrowed to Black music, culture and politics. The teaching staff were unable to keep discipline, and so their behaviour became worse, instead of better. By the 1990s, when Haringey closed it down, it was the worse school in the borough.

Webb states that he has heard similar stories from across the Pond, and there are also similar stories about Muslim and Orthodox Jewish schools in this country. In the case of the Orthodox Jewish school, the educational curriculum was extremely narrow, so that its former pupils were left unprepared for life in wider British society. The same is true of the Muslim schools, while many of the pupils at the former John Loughborough school have a chip on their shoulder about how poor their schooling was, and its inability to prepare them for mainstream British society. He states that the problem with schools is that their management requires a very specific set of skills, which most parents don’t have. He states that in all the similar schools of which he knows, Black, Muslim, Orthodox Jewish, there are similar problems – a narrow curriculum, safeguarding issues and poor discipline.

The demand for racially segregated schools to benefit Blacks goes back several decades. I can remember the idea being debated in the 1990s. Round about the time Bristol City Museum was setting up its ‘A Respectable Trade’ exhibition about the city’s role in the slave trade, a women wrote into the local paper, then the Bristol Evening Post, calling for such schools. There were similar moves before then. After the riots in the St. Paul’s area in 1981/2, the council sent into schools various teams and advisors to teach the children not to be racist. This included the school at which my mother taught. This was accepted by staff and parents, though I do remember that the headmaster at the time refusing to allow the same anti-racist educators to take Black children out of the school to have special lessons on their Black identity, or something like that, as he was firmly against any kind of segregation.

I also recall Thatcher’s attempt to break up the state education system. As well as the City Academies, which were so terrible she and her education secretary, Norman Fowler, were actually winding up before Blair later relaunched them as academies when he came into power, she also announced she was passing legislation for free schools outside Local Education Authority Control. No longer would parents have to tolerate sub-standard education as the hands of evil lefty teachers and local councils. No! Parents would now have the power to break free and found their own schools, run how they wished. Which would undoubtedly do well due to market forces. All absolutely tripe, of course. Teaching really is a skilled profession, which not everyone can do. But right-wing governments like those of the Tories and Blair have been able to use it as a political football and partially privatise it by playing on the general belief that ordinary people know how to teach and manage a class better than the professionals. I remember back in the 1980s how the right-wing press, including the Bristol Evening Post, was constantly attacking teachers with scare stories about Communist teachers indoctrinating children. Thatcher herself, in one of her wretched speeches, was scathing about ‘anti-racist mathematics’, while her lapdog paper, the Scum, ran the story about children in Brent or Lambeth being taught to sing ‘Ba Ba Green Sheep’ because the original nursery rhyme, ‘Ba Ba Black Sheep’, was supposedly racist.

And the concerns about the narrowness of the curriculum in some of the free schools and academies run by religious organisations are perfectly justified. A few years ago there were concerns about the Muslim schools up north, with allegations that they were being run very strictly in accordance with traditional Islamic practice. The sexes were segregated, discipline harsh, and the curriculum narrowly religious. There have been allegations since that this wasn’t the case, and such concerns were the result of Islamophobia. The Christian schools set up by a the evangelical Christian head of a haulage company have also been criticised for their severe and humiliating discipline, as well as teaching Creationism as science. As for Orthodox Jewish schools, the French academic, Alfred Kepel, in his book about the rise of religious fundamentalism, The Revenge of God, describes one such school in Paris where the only secular subject was maths.

I am certainly not against faith-based schools. Both Mike and I went to an Anglican church school and got a Christian education. But the school also strongly condemned sectarian and racial prejudice, and did take children to other, non-Christian places of worship, like the local mosque, as a way of teaching them about those faiths.

Nevertheless, the very narrow focus of some religious or racial organisations in the education they wish to provide should be of concern. Whatever their faith or none, children need and deserve a broad education which promotes their personal achievement and growth and prepares them for wider British society rather than isolating them in self-imposed ghettoes. And they also need to be taught by properly qualified, experienced and skilled staff, rather than ordinary people, who wrongly think they can teach thanks to decades of being told so by the right-wing press.

The free schools and academies may not provide this, and in many cases they certainly don’t. But they make profits for the academy chains and support the Tory ideology of attacking the state provision of education.

I’ve no doubt that racially segregated education is a failure, regardless of whether it is intended to benefit Blacks or other ethnic minorities. So are the free schools and academies generally.

All of them should be wound up, and schooling returned to the state and control of local authorities.

Scared Alex Belfield Mockingly Rants about Diane Abbott Leading the Labour Party

Yesterday right-wing YouTuber and internet radio host Alex Belfield put up a video expressing his surprise and horror over a discussion on Twitter about the Labour party. The peeps there were saying that Keir Starmer had finally had enough of leading the party and was about to stand down. Ready to take over from him was Diane Abbott. The rest of the video was just Belfield doing a very unfunny impression of the veteran Black MP making some kind of acceptance speech for the leadership. Abbott is one of the most vilified MPs in parliament. She receives half of all the misogynistic letters received by female parliamentarians. Belfield appears to be one of the people, who has a singular dislike of her. He’s been presenting her as thick as ever since she made a stupid maths mistake talking to one of the presenters of Talk Radio about Labour party policy and how it would be funded a year or so ago. He’s also played up the fact that Abbott has been extremely critical of the police, who I think she feels are racist, but had to call them for help when she was threatened by her privately educated, drug addict son.

I can’t say that Abbott is my favourite MP, and while I can see her being many things, stupid is not one of them. Plenty of Tories have been caught out being unable to do basic Maths as well, but Belfield and the Tories are obviously determined to push the idea of Abbott being massively thick in the hope that it will colour public perception of her. This says to me that they’re afraid, desperately afraid of her. Belfield put up a video a month ago ranting against Abbott’s nomination as MP of the year. I think he may have been one of the right-wingers, who was outraged at a similar vote by a sizable number of the British public in favour of Jeremy Corbyn for the same award a year or so ago.

Last week the Groan published an article from one of the leaders of Operation Black Vote arguing that the Tories were trying to set the working class against Blacks. This is absolutely correct. Belfield constantly harps on about how White working class boys are the most disadvantaged group in the UK. He has a personal chip on his should about this, as he is also constantly talking about how he is a working class lad without a degree from a pit community, in contrast to the ‘woke’ leftie snowflakes at the BBC, who are over-promoting Black performers and drag queens. I’ve no doubt that Belfield is right that about the disadvantaged condition of working class White boys. But he is definitely using it as a weapon for party political purposes by placing them in opposition of Blacks. Part of the reason White British youths are disadvantaged is due not to affirmative action programmes for Blacks and other minorities, although these have played their part, but to Tory policies that have devastated working class White communities. This included the closure of the mines which supported villages like Belfield’s. The Tories have absolutely no interest in helping the working class, whether White, Black, Asian or whatever. They’re only interested in using their underprivileged condition to generate hatred against the Labour party and programmes designed to improve the situation of Blacks in the UK.

As for Starmer giving it all up and deciding to pack it as leader of the Labour party, oh! If only! He’s been a disaster as leader. He has no policies, no real opposition to the Tories and, I would argue, no morals. He’s a typical Blairite. His only real opposition is not to neoliberalism and the Conservatives – he seems to be following Blair’s example of adopting Tory policies while trying to present Labour as better able to carry them out – but to the real socialists in his own party. He and Rayner have been doing everything they can to carry on the witch hunt against true Labour centrists – the peeps who want a return to proper Labour policies and values – by smearing and expelling them as anti-Semites. He has done everything he seemingly can to protect the plotters and intriguers, who conspired to sabotage Labour’s chances at last year’s elections and in 2017. These individuals were also guilty of real racism towards BAME MPs and activists. But no action has been taken against them, to the disgust of the party’s Black members and supporters. His leadership is also becoming a personal autocracy, as he and the new head of the NEC impose rules silencing local parties from voicing their criticisms of his leadership. Local leaders and officials have been suspended for breaking these rules.

I and many, many other Labour members and supporters would be delighted if Starmer went. And while I have problems with Abbott – I think she does go too far in her accusations of racism – I would certainly rather have her as leader of the Labour party.

And that, I think, is what’s behind Belfield’s constant mocking and pillorying of the MP. He’s afraid. Afraid that others like me would also prefer to have her as leader of the Labour party. White peeps from working class families. The same people he and the Tories are trying to turn against Blacks.

As far as I know, Starmer isn’t planning to retire from the leadership anytime soon. But I’d be highly delighted if he did. He has done nothing for the working class. And the Tories aren’t going to do anything for them either, except make them poorer and even more desperate. Only the Labour left is going to do this, and that includes Diane Abbott. I don’t think she’d be popular with the general public, as Tory propaganda has probably gone too far.

But I think intellectually she’s more than a match for right-wing loudmouths, and has and will do more for working class peeps than he and the Tories ever will.

Belfield Bashes BBC Diversity in Name of White Working Class

A days or so ago, internet radio host and Youtuber Alex Belfield posted yet another video tearing into the Beeb. He’s a man of the right, who regularly attacks immigration, Black Lives Matter, forced diversity and ‘wokeness’ – what used to be called ‘political correctness’ not so long ago. He’s posted videos supporting actor Laurence Fox and his ‘Reclaim’ party, though now Fox is being sued by people he’s called ‘paedophiles’ on Twitter, and a small charity which works with disadvantaged working class young people in Manchester over the name. They’re also called ‘Reclaim’, and obviously really don’t want to have it, or their charity, associated with Fox’s outfit.

Belfield himself is also a bitter critic of the BBC and very definitely wants it defunded, if not actually wiped out altogether. He’s got some kind of personal feud with the Corporation. He was one of their presenters, but seems to have been in some kind of trouble for which m’learned friends are now involved. This seems also to have involved Jeremy Vine, as he’s posted a series of videos attacking him.

Class Attitudes at the Beeb and the Favouring of Ethnic Minorities

Belfield believes that he was looked down upon at the Beeb because of his class origins. He was a working class lad from a pit village, and this did not sit easily with the other members of the corporation, whom he lambasts as rich ex-public schoolboys, who all read the Guardian, wear chinos, sip lattes and hold lefty views and sneer at ordinary people like him. He’s also criticised June Sarpong, the head of diverse creativity at the Beeb, for demanding that there should be more Black and Asian figures in front of the camera. His view is that, according to official stats, BAME performers and presenters are already slightly overrepresent at the Beeb. The proportion of BAME actors, presenters and broadcasters at the Corporation is 15 per cent. But Blacks, Asians and other ethnic minorities only constitute 13 per cent of the British population. The real problem, according to him, is that Blacks and other ethnic minorities aren’t properly represented in the Beeb hierarchy and management.

At the same time, he rails against the Beeb lefties because White working class boys are the least privileged group in society. They underperform other demographic groups in school and jobs. At the same time, automatic ‘positive discrimination’ is not appropriate for all ethnic minorities. Indians and Chinese outperform Whites, have better jobs and higher salaries. They do not need extra help from the state, which should be target at those groups that really need it.

I think he has a point, but as with everything the right says, it’s not the whole point and more often than not its articulated with the ulterior motive of depriving everyone of state aid even when they genuinely need it. I believe he’s correct when he states that at present Britain’s minority ethnic population is 13 per cent of the total. I can also remember Private Eye attacking an anti-racist organisation for the same thing June Sarpong’s done: demanding even more representation of BAME people in excess of their real numbers as a percentage of the population.

Possible Reasons for Sarpong’s Call for More Diversity in Excess of True BAME Population Numbers

In Sarpong’s case, I think there are a number of reasons for it. The first is that she is herself Black, and seems to have automatically assumed that in this issue Blacks and Asians are suffering racial discrimination. Everyone wants the best for people like them, and so she wants more to be done for Blacks and ethnic minorities. I also think self-interest may also be involved. She’s head of Diverse Creativity, but if she admits that Blacks and Asians are already well-represented on our TV screens, then she’s contradicted some of the need for her post. And I also believe that much of it is due to the metropolitan media bubble. London, as the capital, has a very large Black, Asian and ethnic minority population. It’s well over a third, and I think it may be just under half. Black activists like Sarpong and White liberals see the high BAME population of London and automatically assume that the rest of the country must be the same. Some Black performers have described their shock on visiting parts of the country where there are very few peoples of ethnic minority background. Nearly a decade ago, the late actor and comedian Felix Dexter was a guest on an edition of the News Quiz from Scotland. Dexter, who was Black, expressed his surprise at going through some areas of Scotland where there was hardly another Black face to be seen. Which reminded me at the time of the stereotypical comments of White British explorers that they were going through regions of Africa or wherever which no White man had seen before. I doubt very much that this observation would go down at all well with racially sensitive Black activists and militantly anti-racist Whites, but it is there. I think Sarpong, and those like her, have assumed that everywhere else in Britain must be like London, and so demand the same proportion of Black stars.

All Broadcasters Dominated by Middle Class Public School Boys and Girls, Not Just Beeb

At the same time, White working class are the most underprivileged part of the population. This has been reported not just in the parts of the press you’d expect it, like the Heil, but also allegedly liberal papers like the I. The Heil has also published official statistics showing that Indians and Chinese also outperform everyone else in education and work.

I’ve also little doubt he’s correct about the lack of working class people in the Beeb, and that it’s dominated by public school boys and girls, who look down upon on peeps from more modest backgrounds. But I think that’s common throughout broadcasting. Terry Christian, whose Manc tones graced the ’90s Channel 4 yoof programme, The Word, apparently describes how he was driven mad by much the same attitude there. He was the only working class lad amongst a group of people, who all went to Winchester public school. Which no doubt explains why he wanted public schoolboys put in Room 101 when he appeared on it all those years ago.

And here’s where we get to what is not being said: how many of the staff and the performers on the other, private networks come from working or lower middle class backgrounds. How many of the faces you see on Sky and who work behind the scenes are lads and lasses who went to state comprehensives, and whose parents worked as factory workers, bus drivers, cleaners, dustmen and so on. Very few, I expect. But Belfield deliberately avoids mentioning it. Because as a right-winger he hates the BBC for its ostensible ethic of impartiality and wants it to be replaced by private networks that can feed the British public the equivalent of Fox News. Like the Times would like to do with its new channel, Times News or whatever it is, which will present news with what they claim will be an objective slant against the ‘woke’, ‘wet’ BBC. Well, the Times ain’t be a source of objective news since the departure of the late Harold Evans as editor at the end of the ’70s, so this is especially risible.

White Working Class Despised Not By Labour or Democrat Left, But Blairite and Clintonite Neocons

As for the concern for White, working class boys, I think he’s right that a certain section of the left does look down on the working class. But this isn’t the Labour left. It’s the neoliberal, corporatist right of the Democrats in America and the Labour party. There’s a very interesting book, Confronting the New Conservatism, which attacks the Neo-Conservatives and particularly their warmongering and the illegal war in Iraq. It’s mostly written from a left-wing perspective, but some of those interviewed are traditional Conservatives. One of these is a female American colonel, who bitterly attacks Bush’s grotty administration as a bunch of chickenhawks who never served in the armed forces and hated and forced out experienced senior military staff, who knew far more about the Middle East and told them directly that they were wrong. The book argues that both American parties, Republicans and Democrats, have been infected with the Neocon virus. Part of this is the bilateral support by the White middle class for affirmative action policies, provided they don’t affect their children.

Right-wing Pseudo-Feminist Attacks on Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn Shows Contempt for Working Class

You can see that in the sociological origins of the Blairites. They’re very middle class, very public school. They support affirmative action policies for women and ethnic minorities, but really don’t have any time for the working class as a whole. And especially not working class men. One of the claims that was used to attack Jeremy Corbyn over here and the awesome Bernie Sanders in America was that, somehow, they were misogynist anti-feminists. Remember all the furore about ‘Bernie Bros’ and their attacks on Hillary Clinton? This was despite Sanders’ strong support for feminist groups and his appearance as an ‘honorary woman’ at feminist rallies. Because of his support for an expanded welfare system and Medicare for All, Sanders supports policies that would benefit blue collar and lower middle class workers far more than Clinton. She was a member of the corporate elite. She has done things that have benefited women and children, but in general she supports the grotty neoliberal, corporatism that are impoverishing working folks for the benefit of the very rich.

The I and the Groaniad launched the self-same attack on Corbyn. He was a male chauvinist, who would drag the party back to the days of old Labour when it was under the patriarchal control of the trade unions. I don’t believe for a single minute that Corbyn could ever be remotely properly described as any kind of misogynist. As a member of the Labour left, which was attacked in the ’80s for its support for Black, gay, and women’s rights, I think he’s the complete opposite. As for the trade unions, I don’t doubt that they were male dominated. The strongest unions were those in mining and heavy industry, which are traditionally male jobs. Women tend to work in the service industries, which are often poorly unionised. This is because employees in those sectors are in a weaker position regarding employers. But this isn’t an argument for weakening the unions. Rather it’s an argument for strengthening them so that they can enrol and protect women workers. My mother was a teacher, and I remember that during the teachers’ strike of the 1980s banners appeared with the slogan ‘A Woman’s Place Is In Her Union’. Too right. Feminism isn’t just for middle class Thatcherite girls.

Tories Claiming To Support White Working Class In Order to Exploit Them and Destroy Welfare State Even Further

The Tories have always attack the Labour party on behalf of disadvantaged Whites. The Daily Heil ran stories from the 1980s onwards, for example, denouncing various Labour councils for giving priority for council housing to non-White immigrants. But this conveniently omits the facts that the reason there was a shortage of council housing was because of the Tories: Thatcher had sold it off, and passed legislation forbidding councils from building any more. The Tories make a great show of standing up for the White working class because of their patriotism and traditional values. By which they mean the type of working class Conservatives on whom Johnny Speight based the monstrous Alf Garnet in Til Death Us Do Part. These were people, who lived in dingy homes with cracked windows, for whom the Tories had done absolutely nothing but who somehow lionised them.

Only Labour Left Really Standing Up for Working Class Whites, as Concerned for All Working People

The people who are really standing up for the White working class are the Labour left, people like Richard Burgon and in Bristol, mayor Marvin Rees. They’re standing up for the White working class as part of their mission to defend all working Brits regardless of race and colour, Black, Asian, White or whatever. Marvin Rees is Black, but he’s Bristol through and through and has said that he intends to stand up for the White working class as well as underprivileged BAME peeps. He has said that he wants more Bristolians to know about the city’s past as a major centre of the slave trade, but he doesn’t want to demonise the White working class, because they didn’t profit from it. They also suffered, according to him. Clearly he supports Black pride, but he also genuinely support the White working class and is reaching out to them.

Blairites and Tories Exactly Same in Contempt for White Working Class

But you will not hear about these initiatives, especially from the Corbynite left, from the lamestream media or the Tories. Because it contradicts their narrative that the Labour party is racist towards White working class folks. And they have a point when it comes to the Blairites, who are geared towards picking up middle class, Tory swing voters and have ignored or scorned their working class base. Their view of what counts as correct left-wing activism is feminism and anti-racism. Both of which have their place, but they concentrate on them while going along with the Tory destruction of the economy and British industry in the name of market forces, the privatisation of the NHS, because private enterprise is always better, and the dismantlement of the welfare state and workers’ rights, because the poor, the starving, the disabled and the unemployed are scroungers who could get a proper job if only they were properly incentivised. It’s the same view of the working class the Tories hold, except that they cynically exploit the petty jealousies and vindictiveness of sections of the working class to hold them down, while all the while claiming that it’s Labour’s fault. They’re cynically exploiting White working class resentment in order to maintain the British class system and the power and authority of the traditional ruling elites. All the while risible declaring that they’re not elite at all. As Tweezer did so with her cabinet, who were almost public school educated millionaires to a man and woman.

Don’t believe right-wing shills like Alex Belfield. The Tories despise ordinary working people. The only people who are really serious about doing anything for working people – including White working people – are the true Labour centrists. People like Richard Corbyn, Dawn Butler, and the other Corbynites.

Private Schools Turn Down Bursaries for White Working Class Boys

This is a very interesting story from last weekend’s I. A retired Maths professor, Sir Bryan Thwaites, offered two private schools bursaries for White working class boys. They both turned it down. Their refusal, and the fact that these bursaries are needed, says much about class and race in the early 21st century. The report contained the observation that ‘inverted snobbery and liberal guilt neglect the white poor’. Which is true, but it’s also true that such bursaries wouldn’t quite be so necessary if it weren’t for Thatcherism. Thatcher promised that her reforms would turn Britain into a meritocracy, where everyone could succeed, regardless of class background, provided they had the talent. This has spectacularly not happened. Class mobility was at a standstill during Blair’s administration. Now it seems to have gone into reverse. And at the bottom are the working class that Thatcher and the Tories despise, and Blair neglected.

Thwaites was a working class lad, who had gone to Dulwich and Winchester Colleges on scholarships. He therefore wanted to award them bursaries amounting to £1.2m to set up scholarships for lads from his background. He said he wanted to address the ‘severe national problem of the underperforming white cohort in schools’. The donations amounted to £400,000 for Dulwich and £800,000 for Winchester. They turned them down because they were afraid that the donations broke equality rules. Winchester said that they ‘did not see how discrimination on the grounds of a boy’s colour could ever be compatible with its values’. Dulwich simply said bursaries were available to everyone who passed their entrance exam, ‘regardless of their background.’

Thwaites, who is himself a former college head, told the Times, ‘If [the colleges] were to say ‘We are helping these deprived cohorts of children,’ that would do a hell of a lot for their reputation and show that the independent sector is taking some notice of what’s going on in the world at large. The implication of their refusal… is that they couldn’t give a damn.’

Poor White Educational Underperformance

The newspaper then printed some stats to show why Thwaites believed such bursaries were necessary. Only 15 per cent of White boys receiving free school meals achieve a grade 5 or higher in English and Maths at GCSE in 2018 compared with 33.6 per cent of Asian boys and 23.4 per cent of Black boys.

It also noted that four years ago universities were told to recruit more working class students – particularly boys – after statistics showed that just 10 per cent of young men from the poorest areas went into higher education.

Thwaites therefore said he was turning his attention to state schools and academies would be only too glad to accept his money. Referring to Stormzy’s decision to set up two scholarships for Black undergrads at Cambridge, he asked ‘If Cambridge University can accept a much larger donation in support of Black students, why cannot I do the same for under-privileged White British?’

Trevor Phillips Attacks ‘Inverted Snobbery’ over White Children

The I commented that ‘it is these barriers – of structural inequality and the intersection of race and class – that society tends to tiptoe around in order to avoid honey-yet-difficult conversations.

However, in last month’s Standpoint, Trevor Phillips, the broadcaster and former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, attacked the ‘inverted snobbery’ which held by poor White boys. He claimed that modern society had made institutions ridiculously squeamish about accepting that their treatment of Whites as a ‘non-race’ was itself racist, and added ‘They have become so confused in these ‘woke’ times that a lethal cocktail of inverted snobbery, racial victimhood, and liberal guilt ends up rewarding schools for favouring the Black and Brown rich while neglecting the White poor.”

Comments from Other Academics

The report then said that campaigners have long tried to level the playing field so that every child, regardless of its race, gender or background, was given the best possible start in life. They then quoted Dr Lee Elliot Major, the professor of social mobility at Exeter Uni. He said

Philanthropists want to help people similar to them and, of course, that is their prerogative,. But often the bigger issue is help people who are not like them.

Success comes in many forms. Social mobility is not just about getting those magical tickets to the top schools, because that’s not for everyone. State schools cater to all sorts of potential – some students will be high-flyers, so will need support in applying for prestigious universities. Others will seek out an apprenticeship or attend a local college.

I think it’s great that [Sir Bryan’s donations} could be used to support many pupils going through different routes – not just academic study.

However, Major also pointed out the differences between Stormzy’s and Thwaites’ donations. Major said that he had many conversations with Black undergraduates at Cambridge, who were the first in their families to go to university, and who felt isolated there. He remarked

There are very specific issues around highly selective, very academic universities, because they are quintessentially middle-class and very White and I think [Stormzy’s scholarship] was a legitimate move to address this.

He said that there were discussions leading universities could have to make their campuses more inclusive, continuing

If you’re looking at achievement in schools, I would argue taht this comes down to culture in the home, to class and [household] income.

It’s often the case that White working-class boys are [products of] those backgrounds-but equally there are children from all sorts of backgrounds who live in poverty and aren’t getting as much support as they deserve. And the reason I’m anxious about it is that social mobility is an issue that should bring us together.

Of course there are lots of white working-class boys living in areas of deprivation – but the very fact they’re deprived is glossed over. We’re wasting talent in this country – talent from all backgrounds. (pp. 33-4).

Finally, there was a report in one of the papers that the donation had been accepted by a charity run by a Black man, which had been successful in combating low educational achievement amongst Black lads. He was looking forward to turning around the lives of White boys as he had done with Black.

Looking through the newspaper reports, it’s clear that some people are very uncomfortable with a grant being set up for poor White boys. It’s understandable. British politics and society is dominated by White men, and so a bursary aimed at raising the achievements of White boys seems reactionary, an attack on the feminist and anti-racism campaigns.

Which is why it needed the support of Trevor Phillips and a Black educationalist. 

Winchester College’s excuse for turning down the bursary because it was ‘incompatible with their values’ seems very fake to me, however. A friend of mine was privately educated. He once told me that these schools don’t exist to teach children so much as to give them the network of personal contacts to open careers and other opportunities. They exist to preserve middle and upper class privilege. Rich Blacks and Asians are welcome, but not the poor generally, although they may well accept working class BAME pupils as a gesture towards meritocracy.

Lee Elliot Major’s comment about Black students finding themselves very isolated at Cambridge university is true, but I also know White academics from a working/ lower-middle class background, who intensely resented what they felt was the entitled, patronising attitude of wealthier students from the Oxbridge set. He is right about funding being made available for academic and training paths that are more suitable to students’ aptitudes. There was also a recent report in the I about the massive drop out rate at university. Some of this is no doubt due to the real financial struggles some students face now that tuition fees have been introduced and raised, and they are expected to become massively indebted to fund their education. But some of it is also due to university education now being promoted as the only academic route. A friend of mine, who worked in university administration told me that this wasn’t working and was leading to people dropping out over ten years or more ago.

And I completely accept his observation about the role class, income and background play in academic aspiration. In my experience, this also naturally includes those from Black and Asian backgrounds.

But Blacks, Asians and girls have had much attention focused on improving their academic performance and improving their opportunities, that have not been directed towards White boys from poor backgrounds. And this needs to be addressed.

Doing so does not undermine, or shouldn’t, the efforts to improve performance and opportunities for women and minorities, however.

But if we are serious about improving poor and working class academic performance, whether White, Black or Asian, it will mean rejecting Blairism and its rejection of the working class in order to concentrate on copying the Tories.

Conservative MP to Attend Misogynist Men’s Rights Conference

Yesterday, Saturday 27th April 2019, the I carried a piece on page 11 reporting that the Tory MP Philip Davies was planning to attend a men’s rights conference in the US, alongside other far right notables like Mark ‘Nazi pug’ Meechan and Carl ‘Sargon of Akkad’ Benjamin. But he denied it was a misogynist event. The article, entitled ‘MP to attend ‘misogynist’ gathering, by Andrew Woodcock, ran

A Conservative MP has defended his decision to speak at a men’s rights conference in the US on the same platform as controversial figures.

Philip Davies said he intends to raise issues such as male suicides, boys’ performance in school, and the treatment of fathers in family break-ups at the Chicago conference in August. Other speakers listed for the International Conference on Men’s Issues include the Ukip MEP candidates Carl Benjamin and Mark Meechan, as well as Paul Elam, leader of the US group A Voice for Men.

Mr Benjamin has refused to apologise for tweeting “I wouldn’t even rape you” to Labour MP Jess Phillips. Mr Elam’s group, which once announced an “Annual Bash a Violent Bitch Month”, has been branded migosynist and male supremacist.

Confirming his plans to speak at the conference, Mr Davies said it was “nonsense” to suggest that his presence amounted to an endorsement of other participants’ opinions.

“I’m responsible for what I say. I’m not there to defend what anyone else says,” he said. “I’ve never heard of many of these people and I’m not responsible for their views.”

Philip Davies has been accused of misogyny himself. Apart from being a bog-standard, anti-welfare, tax the poor for the benefit of the rich Conservative, I seem to remember that a little while ago he caused controversy himself for his antics in parliament. If memory serves me correctly, he talked out a piece of legislation intended to protect women either from rape or FGM. Or both. As for the Men’s Rights Conference, one of them was held over here a couple of years ago, and was extensively critiqued by Kevin Logan. Logan’s a male feminist with a degree in 20th century history and politics, and puts up a series of videos attacking the denizens of the men’s rights movement, ‘The Descent of the Manosphere’. He states that the people – some of them are women, surprisingly – are attempting to reverse evolution and drag us all back into the sea. And it’s hard to dispute the fact.

These conferences aren’t really about men’s rights. Despite the accusations of activists like Paul Elam that men’s issues aren’t discussed by mainstream politicians, male suicide, boys’ performance in schools and so on have been debated in parliament. Logan even put up on one of his videos excerpts from the parliamentary journal, Hansard, to show that they were. He has also refuted Sargon’s claim that he sent his infamous tweet to Jess Philips because she was laughing at male suicide. She wasn’t. She was laughing at the claim that it wasn’t debated in the House, and replied to him informing him that she is consulting m’learned friends. Moreover, some of these issues could actually be solved by introducing left wing policies, that would benefit working people across the board. One of the issues is the low pay earned by certain types of male worker. But this could, as Logan states, be solved by strengthening trade unions and employees’ rights. But the people attending these conferences and those, who comprise the ‘manosphere’ generally, are on the right, very often the far right. And the mens’ rights movement itself will ignore these issues when it suits them. These conferences really are all about attacking feminism and trying to preserve the traditional male domination of society. Which can very clearly be seen by the hashtags used by Sargon when he sent his infamous tweet to Philips: #feminismiscancer.

Logan has also pointed out that some of the mens’ issues that Davies intends to present have even been discussed by feminists, citing a number of academic articles in feminist and gender-studies journals. I think part of the problem here is that most people have no contact with academic feminism, and depend for what they know about it from the press and public figures, some of whom are unsympathetic. I can remember reading a newspaper article a decade or so ago, where one of the female politicos – I think it may have been Baroness Blackstone or someone like her, but I’m not sure – was asked about boys’ declining performance in school. I can’t remember what her precise words were, but she more or less said that it was all the boys’ own fault. She simply wasn’t interested. Now it was probably unfair to expect the good lady to be concerned about this, as she had been talking about her campaign to improve girls’ performance in school and career prospects. But it and other comments like it leaves the deep impression that avowedly feminist politicians are deeply hostile to men.

Quite apart from changes in gender roles, and the demands for greater equality and opportunities for women in society, jobs and politics, the economic structure of society has changed so that traditionally male jobs in heavy industry and manufacturing have declined. The result has been an increased sense of threat and insecurity among some men, who have burned to the ultra-traditional, misogynist far right. The core support for the Republican party in America is angry White men, who feel under attack from women and ethnic minorities. This is the electoral base that turned to Trump and other politicos like him.

Issues like male suicide, the decline in boys’ performance in schools and greater access to children for fathers in marital break-up do need to be addressed. And there are some extremely violent women out there, as well. But the men’s rights movement and its members and activists behind this and similar gatherings aren’t interested in these issues so much as keeping women firmly in their places as subordinates to men. They are deeply misogynist, and deserve to be attacked and criticised. Just like Davies and the other politicos, who attend them.

Here are a few videos by Kevin Logan attacking the men’s rights conferences and some of the individuals mentioned above.

Carl Benjamin, alias Sargon of Akkad.

Paul Elam

The 2018 International Conference on Men’s Issues

Be warned that some of the views of these men’s rights activists are extremely unpleasant. Some of them do justify rape, or at least try to excuse it, and they also hold very racist views.

Secular Talk on Iran’s Execution of Children as Young as 9

I’ve made it clear on this blog that I’m neither an atheist nor a secularist. I’ve reblogged quite a bit of material from the atheist news show, Secular Talk, because I’ve agreed with their political comments. This is another such piece about the judicial murder of children in Iran. And I agree absolutely.

Kyle Kulinski reports that Amnesty International have said that Iran has executed about 160 children this year. This includes girls as young as 9 and boys as young as 15. In one case, a thirteen year old boy was sentenced to death for raping two other boys. In court, however, he retracted his confession, stating he had been coerced into giving it by the police. Two of his victims also retracted their statements, saying they two had been forced to make them by the cops. Children have been executed by the state because of drug smuggling. Many were denied legal representation during their trials. He recognises that while this is horrific and wrong, other countries also apply the death penalty, including Yemen and Saudi Arabia, where they use beheading, a particularly horrific method.

Kulinski states he believes there should be a global ban on the death penalty, because of the dangers of executing the wrong people. He states that there are some people, who are so heinous that he doesn’t feel there’s anything wrong in executing them. I’m sure most people understand the sentiments. Looking at the monsters tried a Nuremberg, most people would probably say they deserved to dance Jack Ketch’s jig. But too many other people, who were innocent, or whose crime did not warrant the severity of the death penalty, have also been sent to the gallows.

And children should not be executed, as they’re still growing and developing. It’s still possible to rehabilitate them. There’s also the argument that some young offenders may genuinely not know what they’ve done, or be as responsible for their actions as a grown adult.

Kulinski makes it clear that he includes America in this global ban. And he is clearly appalled at the horrific botched executions in his homeland, which have taken place when the new ‘humane’ poison has not worked. He describes instances where men have died in agony, frothing at the mouth, after living on for about half an hour, long enough for their hangmen to have called the execution off. And he makes it very clear that he regards the executions for sorcery and witchcraft stupid.