Support for the UN - a baseless, secular faith?

POLLY TOYNBEE CONCLUDED her column today by expressing opposition to the war on Iraq, but urging her readers to support it if it is backed by the United Nations with a second Security Council resolution.

Without a UN resolution, the rightness of the cause is clear cut. Only the UN confers legitimacy on any invasion and afterwards the UN will be essential during a long and difficult occupation. Even when liberated Iraqis are dancing in the streets revealing the full horror of the Saddam era, the future will look dauntingly dangerous - and unthinkable without the UN sharing that responsibility. If Tony Blair takes Britain to war without the UN, he is sunk.

But for the same reasons, if the UN does ordain this war, then its authority has to be supported even by those of us who deeply doubt its wisdom. UN or bust.

As ever, the same familiar argument that somehow the United Nations has the power to make a war right or wrong. I decided to fire off an email to her asking her to defend this reasoning.

Dear Miss Toynbee,

I read your column today with interest, especially as it concluded with an exhortation to judge the case for war not on its own merits, but based on what the UN decides. You say that this organisation alone can provide the moral legitimacy for war, and I want to understand where you think this legitimacy comes from.

I can appreciate the argument of anyone who believes that a particular war is unjust and unnecessary whatever the UN might think, and equally the case made by anyone who argues that a war is just and necessary whatever the UN might think. What I don't see is how the UN's approval alone can tip the balance, turning a just war unjust or making an unnecessary war necessary.

The United Nations is revered in some circles as a sort of secular Pope, infallible in its judgements and possessing of moral powers unapproached by anyone else. But this is an organisation about as respectable and moral as the Axis powers during World War II. As you will know, its Human Rights Commission is headed by Libya and its next Disarmament Conference will be hosted by Iraq (it is currently run by Iran). The UN's Durban Conference in September 2001 declared even support for a Jewish state as racist, and voted in favour of every anti-Semitic measure short of asking Jews to wear a Star of David. To any objective observer, the UN should appear a fallible, flawed organisation that gives a platform and a position of respectability to the world's most wicked tyrants.

As we live in a world in which tyranny, human rights violations, anti-Semitism and the like are frighteningly common, it is to be expected that any platform for discussion between all the countries of the world would include such unpleasantness. That is fine, so long as the organisation is not then invoked as the supreme ethical authority. But that is what you happily do, treating the judgements of the UN and its Security Council as morally binding on us all. Does the political and economic horse-trading of the people who brought the world Tiananmen Square - and a French President who would be in jail were he not in the Fifth Republic's highest office - really deserve this accolade?

Perhaps you think the mere fact that a majority of world leaders supports something makes it right automatically, as if people who were in a minority have never been right. I ask you where this sort of thinking stops. If the UN can determine for you the rightness or wrongness of war, why not slavery? If for example, the UN Security Council had given two resolutions in favour of South African apartheid, would you equally be writing columns urging people to grit their teeth and lend their support to oppression of black Africans? At what point can people think for themselves and wrestle with their own consciences, rather than merely defer moral judgement to Jacques Chirac?

You have written quite a lot about the damage you feel is done by religious faith in unproven concepts and beliefs. But faith in the moral judgement of the United Nations seems at least as irrational, for no informed person can on a serious evaluation of the evidence conclude that the UN has some sort of moral authority that is not held by the leaders of peace-loving, freedom loving governments, or indeed by anyone who reads your columns and cares about right and wrong. I am reminded strongly of Orwell's condemnation of the nationalist: he decides the rights and wrongs of an act not on its own merits, but based on whether or not their own country did it. In your final two paragraphs today, you made clear that this anti-evidence, unreasoned attitude is exactly your own position - only you apply this reasoning to the UN rather than to the UK.

So discarding unreasoned faith, why do you think we should defer judgement to the United Nations rather than make up our own minds about the morality of war? I would really like to hear a reason.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Cuthbertson.

So there was the challenge. Give some reason to believe in the UN - supply an argument for its moral legitimacy. Unlike the rest of her Guardian colleagues, she did at least reply:

War without the Un is unthinkable - if the Us can't even opeursuade the rest of the world with all its powerful cajolery - War with the UN will liberate teh deeply oppressed people of iraq, with some guarentees for future nation-building. It's not a perfect argument. But nor is no war and leave the Iraqi's to suffer, depsite UN supprt for liberating them..

Well, there we are. We should do what the UN says because to do otherwise is "unthinkable". Why, why, why? No answer given. She says that no attack on Iraq despite a UN resolution would leave the Iraqis to suffer. Surely it is obvious that the Iraqis would suffer in any case so long as Saddam is left in power, UN resolution or not? How does the Security Council's view change things? No answer given. If a UN resolution can determine the rights and wrongs even of war, can it do the same for apartheid? No answer given. Where does the UN's moral authority come from, and why should we decide the rights and wrongs of foreign policy questions based on its rulings? No attempt at an answer.

Well, I still await a proper answer to the email above. Send them in, folks. If the UN's support is what will make your mind up for you on this war, explain why you think this way. In the interests of good debate, I'll put up the best one, though I can't promise it will be without a good fisking. ®

Guilt is good

LIKE A LOT of the anti-war lobby, I am fearful of the proposed anti-guilt pill, though perhaps not for the same reasons. The idea of it is that those who feel "traumatised" by the necessities of war can take tablets that will make them forget what they have done.

I fear that it would become widely available, a response to the incessant demands of pop psychology. The idea that anyone should have a good reason to feel guilty is curiously out of step with the modern age, almost puritanical and political. Guilt, as the enlightened know, is bad. Almost irrespective of the cause, it must be purged, as though a conscience is a character flaw. The other side of this self-obsessed mentality is reverence of self-esteem. I don't remember the last time I saw the word esteem written without "self-" in front of it. And indeed, self-esteem matters intensely, far more than doing something to earn it. If you feel guilty or low in self-esteem, the idea that it is a problem to be rectified by a change in behaviour rather than psychiatry is now quite revolutionary, the sort of thing you just can't say in polite company any more.

The release of these psychiatric "solutions" in pill form would make this change complete. The concept of the moral problem would die out, few any longer even capable of improvement, depriving themselves even of the feelings that could motivate them to strive to be better. In this banal, self-obsessed age, we need to remind ourselves that there is more to existence than instant gratification and our own happiness. This pill can only lock us for ever in the carnal, self-indulgent mindset of the animal. ®

France frog-marches Germany down the path Petain walked

PERHAPS ATYPICALLY FOR A CONSERVATIVE EUROSCEPTIC, I am quite strongly pro-German, so it pains me to see the country acting as it now does, smashing NATO and putting Turkey at risk in response to America's justified destruction of the United Nations.

Andrew Roberts writes worriedly that for France this is just a matter of course, but that for Germany this is a quite radical step, and a step in the wrong direction.

[The Franco-German] plan is to redraw the global balance of power in such a way as to circumscribe Washington and London's freedom of action in the Middle East, North Korea and elsewhere. George W Bush has made it more than plain that this cannot be done in the UN, since America will act unilaterally in defence of what it perceives as its national interest if need be, so the chosen forum is Nato.

Hence the present, despicable, Franco-Belgo-German moves to deny fellow Nato member Turkey the relatively modest provision of wholly defensive materials such as Patriot air defence missiles, early warning planes and anti-chemical and biological units.

Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence secretary, has rightly described this effective denuding of the Nato ally geographically closest to Iraq as "inexcusable" and "shameful", but another adjective could simply be: "French". Throughout its complex love-hate relationship with Nato, France has shown itself willing to put its own self-interest first and the concept of collective security nowhere at all.

But it is not France whose behaviour should truly trouble friends of the most effective peace-keeping organisation since the Middle Ages. Rather it is the attitude of Germany, a loyal member of Nato since 1955, that is of far greater moment.

Read the whole thing. It's an acerbic and convincing analysis.

We are back

AT THE END OF LAST MONTH, I wrote optimistically of the slow and steady progress the Tories are making, resulting in a Labour lead of just 4% in the opinion polls. That lead is now just 1%, Labour being at 35% to the Tories' 34%. These positive polls aren't insignificant, and they confirm each other. Labour's honeymoon period is well and truly over, and the British public will soon be willing to listen to what we have to offer. I believe that when that time comes, they will like what they hear. The days are rapidly coming to an end when people will put up with being given all the choice the market has to offer when they book a holiday, but having no choice at all when it comes to the hospitals and schools their family uses. Only the Tory Party offers something better, and people will soon be ready to acknowledge that and vote accordingly.

But even now, the Conservatives are getting poll ratings we haven't attained since before Britain left the ERM, and Labour has hit its worst ratings in ten years. Let's hear no more talk about a moribund Tory Party. The Conservatives are back.

IAIN MURRAY NOTES in his comments on the same poll that the Liberal Democrats are clearly not benefiting greatly from their anti-war stance. If there was ever a time for the Lib Dems to pick up lots of support, it is now, with the leadership of both main parties supporting a war to which the majority of the British people are opposed. That they have not shows the limits of their type of vicious, dishonest, puerile campaigning and policy-making, and is a credit to the people of this country. ®

Libraries must be about books

IT'S TYPICALLY NEW LABOUR to say that the definition of books includes "talking books, videos and CDs". Even sadder is their definition of the role of a public library: to offer "neutral welcoming community space and support active citizenship". Apparently those who think their role is supplying the written word in hardback or paperback format fail to see the bigger picture.

The Telegraph concludes that this amounts to a hatred of books. I would not go so far. It is really just about the same thing as always: sacrificing culture and learning in an attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator and capture a mass audience in an age when those leaving schools able to read properly are barely the majority.

When public libraries first began, they were inspired by the noblest of intentions: ensuring that the greatest works of literature and civilised thought would not be available only to those who could afford to buy the book, but also granting the poor access, producing a more cultured and educated people. Now we see not the aspiration that the uncultured can improve themselves, but the lowering of libraries down to the level of the Big Brother-watching Eminem fan.

I believe strongly in the free market, but I am not one of those libertarians who opposes any government effort that doesn't either secure the realm against invaders or fight crime. So I strongly support the library system. Yes, because the institution is state owned and run, there is rationing in the form of waiting and available books, but this is not at the expense of a thriving private sector in books for sale. The only cost is in tax money. Consequently, the way to ration is obvious: you offer in libraries the reading matter that will educate and hopefully entertain. It is still in every taxpayer's interests to have a literate, well read populace, whose skills and learning are sure to be of benefit.

Quite how loaning out anything else but books aids the taxpayer in this way I do not understand. Sure, they may lend video tapes at a rental cost to make up funds. But if a library can make a lot of money from a video tapes section and nothing but fine payments from a hardback fiction section, then the pressure will always be to take up more and more of the library's space and budget with the money-making part of the enterprise. There comes a point when it turns into nothing more than a nationalised Blockbuster Video with a few books for hire. The state shouldn't be involved in such things. The private sector can handle it more than adequately.

In the meantime, the neglect is in the sector that matters - that which has something to offer the ever-declining literate and intellectually curious section of the population. As ever, the decent, silent majority who keep this country afloat lose out to the rest. For as long as there are politics, it seems that will be the way.

If a headteacher wants to expel a school thug, no bureaucrat should stand in the way

DAMIEN GREEN'S PROMISE to abolish Labour's bureaucratic appeals panels on school expulsions was supported by one of those Conservative arguments so sensible and irrefutable that the media and government simply ignored it. The suggestion that the headteacher of a school is not the best person to determine whether a young lout is fit to be taught there is exactly the sort of command management that is ruining our public services.

It has been said that as the appeals panels only overturn 3% of expulsions, they are hardly a thorn in the side of every teacher. To me this only suggests their redundancy. If 97% of the work any group did only confirmed that the person who made the original decision got it right, then you would ask questions about the necessity of keeping them on. But when it comes to school bullies and hooligans, the case against such panels is greater still, for although that 3% may be negligible in terms of the total, even one aggressive and vicious pupil can do much harm to a school. Take the latest successful appeal, which returned to school a lout of 11 who shot his teacher in the neck with the pictured gun. His return will be a signal to every other lout in the school that you can get away with almost anything, and will doubtless instill fear in every pupil and teacher the boy deals with.

A 2.9% wage increase for teachers may be too small. But a more important way to help teachers do their job and show respect for their decisions would be to bring an end to the appeals panels that second guess and overturn even the most justified of expulsions. This isn't an isolated incident, but just another outrageous example of the incomprehensible decisions that these people regularly make. It's only a few months since some children expelled for sending death threats to a teacher were returned to their school by the same process.

This isn't about politics as much as a basic respect for the profession of the teacher and the decisions taken by people working in schools. It's about a little common sense. The school appeals panels should be scrapped, certainly for the good of every decent teacher and pupil, and ultimately for the sake of the louts too, whose only hope of change may be the sudden sharp shock of realising that such behaviour is not acceptable. ®

Let's accept Brussels' offer to be in Europe, not run by Europe

ON 5 DECEMBER, I welcomed the suggestion of an associate membership option for EU states as the solution for all concerned. For Britain, it would mean we can continue trading freely with the rest of Europe without fear of political dominance from others. For the majority of the EU, it would mean they could progress with the superstate they so desire without the people of this country for ever dragged their heels.

Responding to the clearly federal draft EU constitution, the Sunday Telegraph argues the same, convincingly. It's not only easier for the government, but it's what the people of this country voted for.

For a sense of the document produced by Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who presides over the drafting body, consider just one clause: "The Constitution, and law adopted by the Union institutions in exercising competences conferred on it by the Constitution, shall have primacy over the law of the Member States" (Article 9). For the avoidance of doubt, the draft goes on to list the areas of policy where EU jurisdiction will pertain: transport, agriculture, energy, employment policy, the environment, trade, competition and home affairs among others. No wonder Tony Blair keeps talking about "schools'n'hospitals": under these plans, they are about all he would have left.

... [Faced with some nations' concerns] the Convention is discussing a rather intriguing solution. If most of the member states ratify the constitution, but one or two baulk - perhaps because their populations vote "No" in referendums - the non-signatories might become "associate members" of the EU. What this means has not yet been clearly defined; and it is fair to say that many of those proposing the idea envisage it chiefly as a threat to cow potential recalcitrants into voting "Yes".

Yet a form of what in London clubland would be called country membership - participation in a common market but exclusion from political union - almost perfectly describes the aspiration of British voters, many of whom believed that this was what they were voting for in the 1975 referendum. Such a deal would of course be anathema to Mr Blair, who is driven by the conviction that Britain must lead in Europe. But not even he can hold out forever against an idea whose time has come.

So long as the people of this country are given a say, they will not accept dominance by Brussels. We want to trade and ally with those European countries that desire the same, but we value our democracy and independence too much to wish to be governed by Europe. Blair cannot get what he wants, so his duty is to fight for what is best for Britain. Let's grab associate membership of the EU with both hands, letting full members go ahead with their plans, and ensuring for our country both self-government and free trade with Europe - the best of both worlds. ®

Have the courage to stand up and say what your true pacificism means

IN AN INTERESTING COLUMN on modern Irish pacifism, Henry McDonald refers back to Orwell (always a good idea at times like this), and what he said against pacifists who felt compelled to disguise what it was they stood for.

While Allied forces were fighting and dying to liberate Europe in the summer of 1944 Orwell took the pacifist tendency in Britain to task. He said that he judged pacifists by the subjects they avoided: 'A courageous pacifist would not simply say that "Britain ought not to bomb Germany". Anyone can say that. He would say, "The Russians should let the Germans have the Ukraine, the Chinese should not defend themselves against Japan, the European peoples should submit to the Nazis, the Indians should not try to drive out the British." Real pacifism would involve all of that...'

As a logical consequence of pacifist doctrine, this is undeniable. But it was so monstrous that few would admit that they stood for it, not even to themselves. Today, I wonder if anyone opposed to the war is willing to admit the same. It is very easy to express opposition. But as Estelle Morris pointed out on Thursday, it almost seems as though people believe the choice is between war with Saddam on the one hand and no harm coming to anyone on the other, as though there will be no adverse consequences if we do not enforce resolution 1441. This is of course nonsense, and a genuinely courageous pacifist would admit this. The honest opponent of war would confess to a willingness to see Saddam Hussein develop a nuclear bomb, that he should not be stopped in his quest to dominate the region, that it is better that the people of Iraq live under the tyranny of Saddam and then his son than be liberated by war, that the threat of Iraqi weapons being given to Al-Qaida and others does not justify acting in self-defence, that every Briton, American, Israeli, Frenchman, Iranian and Kuwaiti who gave their lives fighting to contain Saddam died for nothing.

Admit it or not, though, this is the standard anti-war position now. It is hard to think of a more selfish, wilfully blind and morally bankrupt view. The only perspective I can imagine that is worse is the view that a second UN resolution makes an unjust war just and that the lack of one makes a just war unjust. This warped position states that one should not wrestle with his own conscience on this issue, but instead defer moral judgement to a man who would likely be in jail were he not French President, and to the dictators who brought you Tiananmen Square. Sadly this is a view held to vigorously by an even larger chunk of the anti-war brigade. ®

Bliar

AS THE DAILY MAIL fearlessly exposed every sordid detail of the Cheriegate scandal, the Guardian and BBC and other snooty newsmakers were unrestrained in their contempt for anyone who felt let down by what happened or saw it as a serious issue. The Prime Minister's wife getting Downing Street employees paid for by our tax money to lie to the people of this country? What a trivial and silly thing to get all worked up about.

With the disgraceful Iraq dossier now exposed as having been largely plagiarised from a one time Californian student's thirteen year old post-graduate thesis, we see the real effect. When the Mail warned that once we lost trust in Downing Street officials in one area, we could not trust them properly in any other, the enlightened response was scoffing. Now we see how right this was.

I support a war to liberate Iraq, but I want to win people over with the facts, with the moral and security based case for stopping Saddam before it is too late. This sort of outdated, exaggerated propaganda only serves to support the wildest conspiracy theories of the pro-Saddam lobby. Even when it gets things right, as with Iraq, this is a crooked, unscrupulous government, basing its every operation around spin and manipulation. I'd love to be able to trust it completely on this issue, but I cannot, and no one should. For whatever achievements Blair may be remembered, I am starting to wonder if the first thing that will enter people's minds when he is mentioned ten years hence will be sleaze and cheating. As Damien Green has warned, whatever its other achievements, this is largely true of the Nixon (and indeed Clinton) administration now, and could easily be the case for Blair, too. More than any of his predecessors in living memory, this Prime Minister just cannot be trusted.

Lies, damned lies and the Guardian

AS THE ZIMBABWEAN DESPOT Robert Mugabe continues to starve millions of his own people for supporting the opposition, the Guardian allows his wicked supporters to lie in his defence. The people producing the paper must know that the columns they print are packed with lies, but they neither correct them nor tell people they are untrue. This is not about free speech but wilful misleading of the Guardian's readers, presumably to serve "anti-colonialist" political objectives. This cannot be excused, and only serves the interests of those who murder and seek the starvation of so many millions of innocent Africans.

A few of the derisory lies they printed today in one column:

Contrary to hostile western media reporting - and its often racist overtones - there is no total breakdown of the rule of law; nor is there a record of extreme human rights violations or the degree of violence routinely claimed.

There is also no evidence of any institutional attempt to divert distribution of food.

The fast-track land acquisition programme has been completed; law and order has returned on the farms. ®

It may be Blair's opportunity, but is it our salvation?

MATTHEW PARRIS' SOLUTION TO TONY BLAIR'S WOES is typically imaginative and adventurous: he should join the Conservatives and await appointment as their leader. It's not actually as far-fetched as it sounds, and Parris' case is interesting, although I certainly wouldn't like to see Clarke restored as Chancellor, the Tories' European divisions resurfacing dreadfully if both the PM and Chancellor were europhiles.

But it must be admitted that Blair would not be a bad Tory leader by any means. For a start, he could implement all the public service reforms that he favours but the Chancellor, Cabinet and Labour Party oppose. He could stop worrying about pleasing the unions, the Labour left and so on, or justifying his crushing of the fireman's strike.

And just think of the way he would be remembered by history: victor in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq and the man who brought back two political parties from the brink of destruction. Parris doesn't say in his defence that Churchill and Gladstone, two of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers by any measure, were in both main parties for considerable chunks of their career. Is it so far fetched that Blair could follow their example? I don't know any more.

Watching the hideous Newsnight Special yesterday, I felt nothing but sympathy for the Prime Minister. Faced with a very articulate and well-informed audience, so many of their questions hit right home, and he just couldn't answer satisfactorily. This was partly his own fault for framing his defence in terms of upholding the UN rather than defending the national interest. But nonetheless, the shocking thing for me was how much sympathy I felt for the Prime Minister. I am ashamed to say that when I heard a few years ago that the Serbs had planned to assassinate Blair as he flew into the region by helicopter during the Kosovo War, a small part of me felt disappointed that he had survived. The same old utilitarian calculations ran through my head - better than one man die than the whole country be sucked into euro-slavery, his pro-crime policies will have cost many innocent lives already etc. - but of course this was wicked thinking.

I mention this only as an illustration of how much my attitude to Blair has changed. Yesterday I watched in despair, hoping desperately that the PM could land a punch and make a good case. There was a moment when he began a speech about how strongly he believed what he did, how he was desperate to solve this problem, how he sometimes had to say what he believed to be true no matter how unpopular it was, how sometimes people had to put their trust in their leaders. The cameras focused in on his emotional face as he explained all this. But as he finished, just one person applauding, another tough question came straight away and it became clear that no one was enchanted by him any more.

I could probably stomach Blair as Tory Leader, but I'm not so sure if he would be much use to us any longer. In the last Conservative Leadership campaign, IDS repeated a wonderful phrase, coined by his campaign manager Bernard Jenkin to be used against Portillo: "My concern would be if we launch off on pashmina politics, where we wind up adopting the fad just about to go out of fashion." It seems as though pashmina, Clintonite, Diana-esque politics is dead, so far as it had much power over the British people. Blair's personal influence and popularity are waning, and people seem to want something different, now. And beyond this personal appeal, what does he have to offer? What Parris suggests may be logical for Blair, but I don't know if it will be in the interests of the Conservative Party. ®

Withdraw from the ICC now

"This is not a court set up to bring to book Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom or Presidents of the United States."
- Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on the International Criminal Court, Newsnight, September 2000

With plans already being hatched to have Tony Blair tried for war crimes at the International Criminal Court in advance of the liberation of Iraq, it seems all the sceptics' gravest warnings about the court are coming true long before any of us expected.

Every ethical person believes that someone has basic human and civil rights wherever they are in the world. But the jump from that shared belief to an assertion that the new ICC is the best way to protect those rights is a big one to make, and should be too big a jump for those wise enough to see where it could lead - where it is already leading.

In her overwhelmingly comprehensive book on foreign policy and the world in the twenty-first century, Margaret Thatcher shows with skill the fatal flaws of the court. First, it will offer no protection to the people in the countries which murder and torture the most. They will not sign up to any Court that will put them on trial, and if they do, they will ignore its demands. The Court will instead be used only on the democratic countries who work to defend liberty. It could very well be the case that the Court would deliberately bring prosecutions against the US, Spain, the UK etc. to prove it was not biased against the East.

Second, the only way to ensure proper jurisdiction is the use of force against countries that refuse to sign up. This would inevitably mean anti-democratic pressures on individual nations and their own courts and judicial judgements, smashing national sovereignty.

Third, the Court would act overwhelmingly against those countries who took military action, as in Kosovo or the Gulf, ensuring less of the selfless action to save others that has so characterised the last decade.

Like the United Nations, the ICC is ultimately about restraining anyone who will submit to its will. And if Mugabe, Saddam and Castro won't do this, then that means punishing Bush, Blair or Clinton instead. The US has wisely refused to sign up to the ICC for this very reason, and we should follow their example. We have done more for the world than any other country, and we deserve better than to be its punchbag. Whatever Blair may have got wrong, he is not a criminal and our leaders must not be treated in that way. If we permit this, democracy as we know it will cease to exist, our governments subject to the arbitrary authority of foreign dictators and fanatical human rights groups who believe shooting an armed terrorist bomber is a war crime. To support the ICC is not only anti-British but contrary to all the well placed instincts of those who believe in international justice and in standing up for the liberty of others.

Foot firmly in mouth

PAUL FOOT, nephew of the great Michael, writes in the Guardian that there "isn't the slightest sign that anyone in Iraq is clamouring for liberation by armies from America or from Britain, Iraq's former colonial conqueror".

Stephen Pollard strongly agrees.

100% of Iraqis voted for Saddam. They all love him. They really do. The fact that anyone voicing the slightest, mildest criticism of anything ever done by Saddam is immediately killed is, of course, irrelevant to there being not "the slightest sign that anyone in Iraq is clamouring for liberation".

What a shameful piece. What a shameful man.

'nuff said.

Whatever use they may be, computers cannot teach

EXCELLENT INVESTIGATION INTO the effect of technology on school teaching in today's Telegraph. Sadly not available online, the article reveals what John Clare saw as he went into a rapidly improving school for a day to observe lessons involving the computers for which the headmaster and many of his teachers expressed such enthusiasm. What he reports is depressingly similar to all that I experienced in such lessons when I was at school.

The topic was Shakespeare. John Kennedy, the head of English, had spent an hour selecting web sites. They included one on the Globe theatre and another on Scottish witchcraft. The children's task was to look through them and transfer the bits they found interesting into their computer folders. Most spent the 35-minute lesson scrolling through the sites, pausing occasionally at the pictures. Whenever Mr Kennedy was not looking, one played a video game.

At the end, I asked him what the pupils had learned about Shakespeare. "Good question", he said, as if the idea had not occurred to him.

... The pupils [in the following lesson] were designing web pages, which meant writing something - typically about cars, pop stars or sport - and illustrating it with pictures downloaded from the internet. Although it was their fifth double lesson on the subject - each lasting an hour and 10 minutes - few had written more than a poorly spelt paragraph or two, and some nothing at all.

Throughout the day, the same story emerges - lessons barely if at all related to the subject supposedly being taught wasted on somehow involving computers. He concludes:

In all five lessons, the subject had become subservient to the technology. Far from motivating the children, it distracted them. Small wonder, then, that computers - despite the £2 billion spent on them - have done so little to raise educational standards.

I remember whole terms of almost zero work done in some subjects in my old school, which has an extremely good reputation for a comprehensive. As soon as we were put on computers, the alternative ways of using our time were chosen by nearly everyone. A friend and I would use Epop to take over others' computers manually from our own, and view what they were doing (or move their mouse pointer from our computers across the room, their baffled reactions really enlivened a pointless Mickey Mouse subject). It would range from homework from other lessons to searching for pictures of Britney Spears. Rarely would any real work for the subject in question be done.

Part of this relates to the way teachers are for the moment unfamiliar with the technology of today. They have no idea how little time some things take, and you can hardly rely on the class to tell you when they would far rather be messing about than listening and working properly. Hopefully, as teachers become more informed about technology, they will be more wise to time wasting, though of course they cannot watch computer screens anywhere near as easily as they could watch an ordinary class.

But the more important factor, I feel, is the way in which use of computers undermines the true role of a teacher, converting him from someone who passes on knowledge and involves the class with what he says and writes to a sort of technical repair-man, to be called on if something goes wrong and for occasional queries, but far from the central source of facts and ideas. Knowledge is instead gained through the computer. Of course, without the superior skill and experience of a teacher, how are the pupils to know what parts of the infinite information they can gather online is relevant? How are they to be sure of finding all the necessary parts? How does mere gathering of knowledge help the pupil to understand it, or think it through?

Computers may have their place in English, Science or French lessons, but I think the problem John Clare highlights is a significant and growing one. Computers are not a shortcut to learning and thinking, and overuse of them at the expense of ordinary lessons can do a great deal of harm. I hope it does not take a generation's experience of wasted lessons for educationalists to become fully aware of this. ®

Rupert Murdoch to be a father once again

AS NEWS INTERNATIONAL HEAD, Murdoch is very productive for a 72 year old. He is clearly keen to prove that in other ways, too. The age gap between the new baby and Murdoch's eldest will be 44 years.

Reason #5,789 why child-rapists should get life sentences

PAEDOPHILE BRIAN CALABRESE has made clear his intention to rape four to six year olds again. He has been identified as having homocidal tendencies and has identified 44 different people for rape. In prison, he kept pictures of small girls under his mattress and made clear his disappointment that he could not commit more rapes in jail. The Pennsylvanian is to be released on his birthday, the 7th of February. The state has no legal way of preventing this, nor any way to warn parents in the area he moves into of his past. Britain's laws are identical of course, the News of the World's 'Sarah's Law' campaign to allow such warnings sneered at relentlessly by our liberal elite.

It goes without saying that if any man who raped a child automatically received a life sentence, and that for them life must mean life, there would be no tragedies like this just waiting to happen. Let us remember that Sarah Paine herself was murdered by a paedophile who was released because of liberal attitudes to sexual deviance and criminality. His continued imprisonment would have prevented this murder. This alone justifies locking up every child molestor in the country for as long as they shall live. You often hear people say that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than one innocent man be jailed. Maybe so, but let's also recognise that it's better that every convicted paedophile be kept in jail until the day they die than one innocent child be killed or raped.

Life imprisonment with no possibility of release should be the minimum sentence for anyone who would have sex with a young child. If this were implemented, we wouldn't any longer have to worry about such cases as Brian Calabrese's, nor fear what any kiddie-fiddler would do once released. Most of all, we could prevent some truly tragic murders and many life-ruining sexual assaults. That convicted paedophiles have a right to be free at all is a warped notion. To further assert that this right should trump the right of children to be safe from them is just monstrous. In a civilised society, this can never be the case. ®

Saddam helps show Tony Benn's true colours

THE PRIME MINISTER just cracked a rare joke in the Commons at Tony Benn's expense, suggesting that Jeremy Paxman and John Humphries have nothing to fear from the Bennatollah's probing interviewing skills. I must say I agree, and found the whole transcript of his questioning of Saddam laughable. It was reminiscent of the pre-Robin Day political interview: "Do you have anything further to tell your loyal people, Prime Minister?". Paul Reynolds of the BBC noted that the tone was so deferential and the questions so soft that for any real journalist they "would have ensured the reporter was not employed in this fashion again".

It really was extraordinary to see a man who in his time self-righteously used the terms Thatcherism and fascism interchangeably look up in quiet awe at probably the most evil national leader alive. Apart from helping create the impression that Saddam Hussein is the sort of man who can be questioned and negotiated with, the interview's sheer pointlessness was startingly. For example, he began:

Mr President, may I ask you some questions. The first is, does Iraq have any weapons of mass destruction?

Now just what did Tony Benn expect the answer to be?

War hinges on proving that I have such weapons, and I've kept them secret, kept them hidden, kept them moving from place to place away from the inspectors now for so long. But you have come along and asked me in such a polite way that I feel forced to be honest: yes, I do. I have them, and if you want to stop me getting enough to kill all my enemies, you'll have to do it soon.

Quite how he could have entertained such an answer is beyond me - that he would deny it goes without saying. So why ask it? Why not tell him that he has proved himself a liar on this issue and as someone willing to use chemical weapons? Why not say that consequently the world is terrified of what he will do next, and that if he wants to celebrate his 25th anniversary in power next year, he had better hand over all the weapons not accounted for at once, because that is the only way he can preserve peace and stop Bush from invading?

Surprise, surprise, Saddam answered:

A few minutes ago when you asked me if I wanted to look at the questions beforehand I told you I didn't feel the need so that we don't waste time, and I gave you the freedom to ask me any question directly so that my reply would be direct.

This is an opportunity to reach the British people and the forces of peace in the world. There is only one truth and therefore I tell you as I have said on many occasions before that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever.

The interview continued in this vein, with Benn's final question outrageously aimed not against Saddam but against those who do not trust the Butcher of Baghdad with history's most dangerous weapons.

There are tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of people in Britain and America, in Europe and worldwide, who want to see a peaceful outcome to this problem , and they are the real Americans in my opinion, the real British, the real French, the real Germans, because they think of the world in terms of their children.

Saddam thankfully gave a wonderful answer to this:

First of all we admire the development of the peace movement around the world in the last few years. We pray to God to empower all those working against war and for the cause of peace and security based on just peace for all.

Every word must be a dagger in the heart of those lefties who claim to despise Saddam and everything he stands for. Let this quote be used against such people from now until the day Iraq is liberated. I will myself keep it at the top of this blog until then.

Harry Steele, who has always respected and admired the Bennatollah, is sad at all the criticism Benn will now receive. I am not. Everyone loves Tony Benn's lispy, upper class accent, and he so often gets across his message in such a courteous, sweet way, that it is hard not to be fond of him. But like Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela, Benn rarely meets a murderous dictator he doesn't like. He has praised Chairman Mao, defended IRA criminals as POWs, spoken well of the Soviet Union and predicted defeat for British forces on the eve of the Falklands War. Behind his naivety and innocence are the dangerous pacifistic socialist ideals that led to the murders of so many millions. It is for them that he can aid Saddam so easily, for them that he can excuse Maoism, the Russian Revolution and IRA bombings, and for them that he could exercise his freedom of speech in predicting death and bloodshed for the men who fight for it. However respected and sweet a statesman he seems to have become in old age, let us neither forget this sinister side of him nor fail to realise how monstrous it would be for the likes of him ever to seize the reigns of government. ®

Both parties are coming to see the need to bring an end to a lunatic's asylum, race relations and immigration policy

AS LABOUR'S PHIL WOOLAS condemned the race relations industry for not taking racist attacks on whites seriously, Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin yesterday described the fears of many people regarding immigration as "legitimate concerns". Calling for a cool-headed approach to the whole asylum and immigration debate, he defended plans to detain all asylum seekers until it had been confirmed they were not terrorists.

I think prominent figures in both parties are now coming to realise that the stance on asylum and immigration of the three main parties has for a considerable period been far to the left of the British people. The BNP has gained of late simply because their own approach to this issue is marginally closer to the views of most ordinary people. The only way to defeat the party on this issue is for the main parties to move back to the centre ground and appeal to the concerns and fears of ordinary people, showing them that they don't have to vote for Neo-Nazis to get a better and fairer asylum system and a more controlled immigration system. This isn't about appeasement of fascism, but about politicians paying attention to the people who put them in power in the first place. The BNP's recent success is testament to what happens when the mainstream political establishment stops listening. ®

The nonsense the world wants to hear

DENNIS PRAGER WRITES the satirical speech that most of the world seems to want to hear from President Bush. As he hands over power to Al Gore, the President explains his failings, regrets his simplicities and apologises for his outlook on the world, on justice and on democracy.

I now realize that the most important goal America and its president can pursue is to be liked, hopefully loved, by mankind, and especially by France, Germany, China, and the Arab world.

I now realize that we Americans who think in terms of good and evil are simpletons. We should think, as the professors do, in multicultural terms and, therefore, render no moral judgment over Iraq or any other nation except Israel. ®

Mandela - an inspiration as a speaker, but a failure as a leader

MICHAEL LEDEEN WRITES a fair-minded and richly deserved denunciation of Nelson Mandela in the National Review, pointing to the good sides of the man - that he turned his back on terrorism, forgave those who had been cruellest to him, and inspired so many - but also recognising that he has ultimately been a failure as a national leader.

Instead of taking the opportunity to shut down the vast networks of corruption put in place by the white leaders of the country, he permitted his own cohorts from the Africa National Congress to wallow in the same troughs. Instead of insisting on the creation of a first-class educational system for all South Africans, he simply presided over the installation of a quota program that gave most of the slots in the best schools to the majority black population.

... Mandela had a great opportunity to lead a democratic revolution in Africa, but he never even gave voice to cries for freedom for all Africans. Indeed, he lavished grotesque praise on many of the world's dictators, from Castro to Khadaffi, and repeatedly failed to intervene decisively at major potential turning points in countries like Zaire and Zimbabwe.

... Now he has unburdened himself of the accusation that President Bush is a megalomaniacal racist, about to unleash a new holocaust on the Arabs, and opposed to any U.N. role because Kofi Annan is a black man.

... It's a pathetic spectacle, but entirely in keeping with the monumental failure of a man who could have been a great leader and world figure. Instead, he's failed his own country and his own destiny. He's become yet another African loudmouth, giving moral lessons to the world and tolerating corruption and misery on his own continent. ®

The only asylum hysteria comes from the Left

WRITING A COLUMN condemning the press or the Conservative Party or the British people for their attitude to asylum really is easy as pie. They are much like those Dave Spart pieces in Private Eye - without real content, and just hurling random disjoined phrases and insults.

"Coming from terrible conditions ... valued contribution to our culture ... racist press ... Daily Mail ... mindless xenophobia .... hysteria sweeping our country."

Well, some things never change. Roy Greenslade returns to form, attacking all who take a different view as blind followers of the newspapers they read, newspapers whose "vile racist agenda" is fermenting hysteria across the land. He deliberately blurs the distinction between those using the asylum system to escape with their lives and those abusing the asylum system as a means of economic migration.

It is just beyond such people that someone could have legitimate, logical reasons to oppose the turfing of pensioners off hospital waiting lists in favour of someone who got off a boat three days ago because the British benefits system is more generous. They are the only hysterical ones I can see. Every argument, every reasonable, sensible proposition given in favour of an asylum system that is fairer to the genuine asylum seeker and to the people living here already, is not met by counter-argument, but by smear, by name-calling and vicious accusations. Does Roy Greenslade never ask himself why one-third of the EU's asylum seekers end up in this country, or why every genuine refugee should have to put up with conditions diluted nine times over by bogus asylum seekers? Apparently not.

Thankfully, newspapers people actually buy, like the Mail, Sun, Daily Express and Telegraph, are more in touch with reality and are willing to cover the asylum issue rationally and fairly. People like Greenslade are losing this battle, and people who care about this country and the way ordinary people live are winning the fight for a better asylum system - one that will help the genuine refugee while thwarting the Left's desire that the people living in our country have no say in the numbers coming here. We aren't going to be silenced any longer by smears and name-calling, and everyone is beginning to recognise that a government's first duty is to the people already living here, not to all those who want to come here because the state benefits are better. ®

Pilger and Mandela - Dumb and Dumber

EXCELLENT COVERAGE FROM Right Wing News on Nelson Mandela's latest absurd and dishonest rant. Just about everyone not on the far-left would be ashamed to speak well of John Pilger. But just about everyone not on the far-right would be afraid to condemn Mandela. Yet just compare their recent statements.

1 - "Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are undermining past work of the United Nations. They do not care. Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man?"

2 - "Like those in the dock at Nuremberg, [Bush] has no democratic cover."

3 - "Iraq produces 64 percent of the oil in the world. What Bush wants is to get hold of that oil."

4 - "All the world knows their names: Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Perle, and Powell, the false liberal. Bush's State of the Union speech last night was reminiscent of that other great moment in 1938 when Hitler called his generals together and told them: 'I must have war.' He then had it."

5 - "[I]f there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America."

6 - "The current American elite is the Third Reich of our times, although this distinction ought not to let us forget that they have merely accelerated more than half a century of unrelenting American state terrorism"

7 - "[O]ne power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

In fact, the odd numbered quotes were from Mandela. This "great man" seriously believes that Kofi Annan's skin colour could be the deciding factor that ensures Bush and Blair will go to war with Iraq. This apparently doesn't contradict his belief in the absurd "war for oil" conspiracy theory, backed up by fantastically false statistic that the country produces 64% of the world's oil.

Finally, Mandela says that this war would "plunge the world into a holocaust". A sick comparison by any measure. But unbelievably, CNN reports that Mandela is strongly supportive of plunging the world into holocaust so long as the UN authorises it. Even John Pilger at least sticks to his guns that this war is wrong. Mandela is quite happy either to lie about holocausts or support them rather than disagree with the UN.

Now you could be kind and say the man is senile. But if not, then he is either a liar, or morally corrupt by even the most basic sane ethical standards. Whichever one it is, let no one call on Nelson Mandela as a moral authority in the future. ®

If Labour won't reform the Lords, we will - and better

ROBIN COOK MAY resign in anger at Blair's admission that he favours a 100% appointed Upper Chamber at PMQ on Wednesday. No doubt war with Iraq could also encourage the Leader of the Commons to take this decision. This could be quite harmful to the government, so I hope it does happen.

I also hope Blair doesn't properly reform the House of Lords. The Conservatives could do it far better than Labour. I would like a revising chamber that can force the Commons to think again - and again and again, if necessary - but ultimately can never win. This would prevent parliamentary deadlock while giving the House of Lords an important role. As Richard Dawkins has suggested, it would ideally be composed of learned academics and the like, whose ability cannot be denied, but who do not have the democratic legitimacy of MPs. This would ensure the Commons retains its supremacy, while restoring the Lords as a skilled and varied, non-partisan, revising chamber.

Slow but steady progress is being made

EXTREMELY ENCOURAGING OPINION POLL RESULTS in today's Telegraph. Labour's lead over the Conservatives has fallen to +4%, and its lead on economic trust is only +1%. On the issues of Europe, Taxation, Law and Order and Asylum and Immigration, the Tories are in the lead, with Labour's lead on Education, Inflation and the NHS in single figures. Only on the currently peripheral issue of Unemployment does the government show a strong lead, and this is likely to change if many jobs are lost and the issue becomes important once again to a lot of people.

Best of all, the numbers approving of the Government's record to date have almost halved since the last election, from 52% to 28%, while the numbers disapproving have risen from 40% to 62%.

Fate was on England's side

	Wallis Simpson, Edward VIII and a close friend

WALLIS SIMPSON, the woman for whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne, was involved in an affair with a Yorkshire car salesman during her relationship with Edward. Special Branch had been watching both the then Prince of Wales and Wallis Simpson, and the release of their files now reveals this affair. Had Edward known, some speculate, the course of history could have been very different, with Edward remaining King until his death, and passing on the throne to his own first son.

This certainly seems a strong possibility. If it is true, then we can all be infinitely glad that Special Branch did keep this affair secret. Had the worthless Edward VIII remained on the throne, he would have deprived this country of the reigns both of his brother and his niece, two truly great monarchs whose devotion to duty could have been topped by no one, least of all him. And all of this can be said against Edward without even beginning to delve into his Nazi sympathies!

Aborting our culture

ABORTION IS AN ISSUE on which minds are extremely hard to change. Quite simply, if you are wilfully ignorant scientifically to the extent that you believe the baby in the womb is not a unique human life, or ideologically committed enough to accept this but believe that ending this life for convenience is somehow still justifiable, then your mind is most likely made up for good. Equally, if do accept the humanity and life of the unborn, and think this confers certain rights, utilitarian and rival rights arguments are going to be equally ineffective, as a right does not need to be justified on grounds of utility, and there can be no right which takes precedence over the right to life.

Mark Steyn perhaps sees this in his own recent piece on the issue, and ignores the traditional focus of the debate, focusing more on what society in general has to lose or gain from legalised abortion. His warnings regarding declining populations are not only deadly accurate, but contrast sharply with the received wisdom that someone's social duty is to have fewer children.

[T]he state needs a birth rate of 2.1 children to maintain a stable population. In Italy, it's now 1.2. Twenty years ago, a million babies were born there each year. Now it's half a million. And the fewer babies you have today, the fewer babies are around to have babies in 20 years. Once you're as far down the death spiral as Italy is, it's hard to reverse. Most European races are going to be out of business in a couple more generations.

If you think that a nation is no more than (in our Booker Prize-winning novelist's famous phrase) a great "hotel," you can always slash rates and fill the empty rooms. But, if you think a nation is the collective, accumulated wisdom of a shared past, then a dependence on immigration alone for population replenishment will leave you lost and diminished. ®

Let Wagner's music be heard

I AM NORMALLY a defender of taboos, seeing them and the traditions they uphold as generally containing an inherited wisdom that people alive today alone cannot match. Those relating to sexual privacy and respect for the dead seem under much attack, but they protect us all, and so they are worth fighting for.

In the case of Israel's taboo against the music of Richard Wagner, however, I am pleased to see it finally breaking down, with one conductor having just performed Tristan und Isolde in Jerusalem. Wagner's anti-Semitism is well-known - it was not merely a gutter prejudice, but an obsessive, violent part of the man. But none of this, logically, should detract from the brilliance of his music. If some Israelis want to hear it in concerts, I will be pleased if soon they no longer have to leave the country to do so.

Wagner seems less controversial for his own views on the Jews than for being Adolf Hitler's favourite composer. The trouble is the two men never met, Wagner dying six years before Hitler was born. The idea that Richard Wagner can be held responsible for the actions of a fan long after he has himself died is positively perverse. Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was in fact the Fuhrer's favourite film. Surely we cannot claim that is some sort of stain on Walt Disney, or make a case for banning Disney films in Israel on those grounds.

In a good column, Julian Baggini recently noted the way guilt by association has become a staple method of argument for some, no matter how illogical this might be. This has never been truer or sillier than in cases of associations with the Nazis.

The Nazis were very keen on ecology, compulsory gym classes and keep fit, forests, eugenics and public rallies. If you yourself object to any of these, then slip in a mention of Nazi policy next time you want your criticisms to pack an added rhetorical punch. And if you're being bothered by a vegetarian while you're trying to enjoy your T-bone steak, just remind your critic that Hitler too eschewed meat.

The problem with guilt by association is that it fails to do what any genuine criticism must do: show what is wrong with the thing being criticised. The fact that some bad people like or support it, or that it can be mentioned in the same breath as something bad, does not add up to a criticism.

If anyone can come up with a reason to attack Wagner's music on grounds beyond guilt by association, perhaps this issue should be examined critically once again. But until then, I think the irrational prejudice against it is barely more sensible than the composer's own prejudice against Jews. If we are to condemn Wagner for what he got wrong, let us also recognise what he got right, and admire the music he produced without anyone feeling this entails the making of a political or racial statement of some sort. I hope that before long this can occur in Israel as much as anywhere else.

Dead, dead, dead! The UN is dead

IMAGINE ZIMBABWE HOSTING a United Nations conference on ending racism, or Syria holding an international meeting on bringing an end to terrorism, or maybe even the Third Reich playing host to rival nations on the importance of fighting anti-Semitism. Somehow, none of these things would be quite as perversely astonishing as the reality.

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