Author Archives: Tim Newman

Pinko and the Wain

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This amused:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jeremy Corbyn have a fair bit in common. Both offer dingbat socialist solutions to genuine problems and have an army of fanatical supporters, most of whom are deranged. Other than the fact Corbyn is an old, white male (albeit one sufficiently cowed), my guess is their respective supporters are pretty much interchangeable. The trouble is, whereas Corbyn’s brand can’t possibly suffer any more damage than has already been sustained, AOC’s can. Her political career lies ahead of her, whereas what passes for Corbyn’s is almost over. If she were as media-savvy as people claim, she’d know Corbyn is a loser who stumbled into the post by accident and in three years of opposition has barely laid a glove on the most pathetic, dysfunctional Tory government in living memory. Inevitably:


Her response is unlikely to satisfy American Jews, particularly considering her much-publicised friendship with two openly antisemitic, newly-elected congresswomen. At some point, if she wants a full career in politics, AOC is going to have to broaden her appeal beyond the fanatics. Being young she has time, but she’d do well learn to spot liabilities like Corbyn and give them a wide berth.

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Back in Black

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Last week, the Democrat governor of Virginia Ralph Northam went on the radio defending an abortion bill which appeared to legalise infanticide:

The paediatric neurologist said the measure allowed termination “in cases where there may be severe deformities” or when there is a “foetus that’s not viable” outside the womb.

“So in this particular example, if a mother’s in labour, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” he told WTOP’s Ask the Governor programme Wednesday.

“The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

This generated outrage in conservative circles and a dismissive shrug among liberals. It wasn’t until a picture emerged in the 1984 East Virginia Medical School yearbook a day or two later that the left went into meltdown:

Quite why there is a picture of a man in blackface beside someone dressed as a KKK member in a medical school yearbook I don’t know. Northam hasn’t provided much clarity either: first he apologised without saying whether he was Mr Blackface or Mr KKK, then he backtracked and said he isn’t in the photo but he did black up on another occasion, but only to impersonate Michael Jackson.

Here’s my take. As everyone here knows I went to Manchester University, which has a large medical school. I knew a handful of medics and they were all nuts. Their philosophy was to work hard and play hard. You’d not see them during much of the semester as they were in various placements or putting in stupid hours somewhere, then one night the student bars would be invaded by a horde of them wearing white gowns and stethoscopes. They’d dance like maniacs, drink themselves into oblivion, and would often be open to taking someone home before hooking themselves up to a saline drip to stave off the inevitable hangover. Having spoken to several medics who went to other schools around the UK, this behaviour seems typical. Also common are tales of pranks and acts of stupidity medical students get up to, especially around cadavers. All of this is a way of coping with a job which is usually difficult and often unpleasant. So if a bizarre photo turns up in a medical yearbook from 1984, I’m not going to be very surprised.

Do I think such a photo is in itself proof that Northam is, or was, racist? No I don’t. Insensitive maybe, but medical students aren’t the most delicate of people as I’ve already explained and I’m old-fashioned in that I think there’s a big difference between offensive humour in your twenties which you later realise was in rather poor taste, and genuine racism. But in the last few years blackface – which is something I’d never heard of until recently – is now up there with child sacrifice as something for which you can never be forgiven. Actually, that’s a poor comparison: American liberals don’t appear to mind child sacrifice as the reaction to Northam’s radio appearance showed, but blackface is really beyond the pale. Ahem.

As such, we’ve seen all the white grannies of the Democrat party – Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi – queuing up to denounce him and demand his resignation. At some point they’ll be held to account over their hideous whiteness, and they’re doing all they can to burnish their anti-racist credentials while bashing someone from the rival sex. Naturally, any Democrat or liberal duskier than Keira Knightley is not only looking to throw Northam under the bus, but to reverse back over him and apply the handbrake. Equally naturally, you have a bunch of Republicans furrowing their brows and saying “we’re better than them” and “we shouldn’t stoop to their level” when contemplating calling for his resignation.

In actual fact, the Republicans shouldn’t call for his resignation over this photo. Not because of principles – this is a war to the knife in which anything goes – but because it’s unnecessary. As we’ve seen, the Democrats are tearing him apart for them. They’d be better off keeping their mouths shut and asking themselves why, when Northam was running campaign adverts depicting Republicans running down Latinos in pickup trucks, they didn’t unearth this photo. What was Ed Gillespie’s research team doing? And, redundantly, what were the press doing? How long have they known about this photo?

So there’s no need for Republicans to pretend to be upset over a dumb photo, especially given Northam has a 35 year track record on which to judge him instead. Republicans, and sane liberals, need to prepare themselves for inevitable attacks which will come from unearthing dodgy photos and yearbook scribblings in future. They should do this by poking their opponents in the eye and refusing to play the game.

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The Desert Sun Podcast #011

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This week I’m joined by another Mike, this one in Taiwan. We talk about life on that island, teaching English as a foreign language (again!), the importance of professional translations, Taiwanese politics, and – most importantly – reservoirs.

You can listen to it on iTunes here, Player FM here, download it here, or listen on the blog by clicking the link below:

The video of the landslide we talk about can be found here (pay attention to the top centre of the screen for the first few seconds).

If you liked this podcast, please consider supporting me on my Patreon page.

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Fruit of the Loon

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This is what happens when you stop marrying your blue-blooded cousins from Europe and get involved with divorced American actresses:

The Duchess of Sussex wrote empowering messages of support on bananas as she joined husband Prince Harry on a visit to a sex worker charity today.

Meghan and Harry were making up food parcels to be handed out to female sex workers when the duchess was struck by the idea to add her own personal touch.

Declaring herself ‘in charge of the banana messaging’, the royal took the time to write individual messages of encouragement and empowerment like ‘you are special’, ‘you are brave’ and ‘you are strong’ on the fruit.

At some point even the most staunch of monarchists are going to start questioning the divine right of rule of this current crop.

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Beers Plowman

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I was doing some research and I came across this piece of news, which I’d missed:

A Russian court on Friday freed on amnesty two men accused of causing the death of the head of French oil giant Total in 2014 when his jet crashed on takeoff from a Moscow airport.

Christophe de Margerie was killed along with two pilots and a flight attendant when his private jet crashed into a snowplough at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport.

The principal suspect Vladimir Martynenko who was accused of driving the snowplough while drunk and engineer Vladimir Ledenev, who was in charge of the snow-clearing, pleaded guilty.

…

Judge Yelena Vereshchagina of the Solntsevo district court in Moscow sentenced Martynenko and Ledenev to four and three and a half years in prison respectively but freed them under a 2015 amnesty law and dropped all charges.

The Russian parliament in 2015 adopted a general amnesty to mark the 70th anniversary of Russia’s WWII victory.

It exempted from punishment several categories of people convicted for the first time on light charges as well as people sentenced to up to five years for crimes done unintentionally.

I don’t know what role the engineer Ledenev played, but at the time of the accident I felt desperately sorry for the snowplough driver Martynenko. He was 60 years old and I remember him cutting a pitiful figure on television, clearly shaken and staring down the barrel of a lengthy prison sentence. Sure, he shouldn’t have been drunk but that’s a way of life for men of his age and social standing, especially among those who go to work in overalls (I wrote about this in more detail at the time). Whatever reasons he had for driving his machine onto the runway at that moment, I’m sure it was neither deliberate nor because he had alcohol in his system. As I also said at the time:

Obviously there was a huge communication and systems failure here.  A snowplough should be nowhere near a working runway, especially at night, and there should be robust controls in place to ensure this sort of accident does not occur.  Most likely such controls were in place – once – but as is so common in Russia a combination of complacency, bad management, laziness, poor incentives, and general incompetence has meant the controls were circumvented and the safeguards failed.  The snowplough driver said he got lost, which I can well believe is true – if the visibility was a bad as he says it is.  Guaranteed the equipment he was operating would have been from the 1980s or before with no system of indicating to the control tower where it is at any time.  And with the speed snowploughs move even if he got lost he should have been nowhere near a working runway.

I don’t know if the Russian authorities prosecuted the owners of the airport and the managers who presided over this mess – the airport’s CEO and deputy resigned immediately – but normally in such cases those at the top have enough connections to get the charges dropped, and some poor sod at the bottom gets blamed.

Martynenko earlier on Friday confirmed his guilty plea.

“I am guilty, I understand 100 percent it’s my fault. I ask forgiveness of all who have suffered,” he told the judge before the verdict.

Speaking to journalists later, Ledenev said his sense of guilt would remain.

“I don’t feel any relief, only guilt.”

So he’s done a couple of years inside, which he may not have deserved but then again he was driving about in a snowplough drunk. At least he’s out now and he’ll not die in jail. Perhaps justice hasn’t been done, but at least a grave injustice has been avoided. I’m glad about that.

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Aisle see you in court

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I’m sure this will result in unforeseen consequences:

Supermarket giant Asda has lost an appeal in the latest development in a long-running legal dispute with staff over equal pay.

The decision means that lower paid shop staff, who are mostly women, can compare themselves with higher paid warehouse workers, who are mostly men.

…

The Employment Tribunal first ruled against Asda in October 2016. It said shop workers, who mainly work at check-outs or stacking shelves, could compare themselves with staff who work at warehouses.

It’s not over yet, though:

A ruling over whether the work is of equal value is likely to be in May.

…

There are three key stages in an equal pay case

– Are the jobs comparable?

– If the jobs are comparable, are they of equal value?

– If they are of equal value, is there a reason why the roles should not be paid equally?

I’ve worked on a shop floor and in a warehouse, and I’ve got to say I preferred the warehouse. Although the work is more physical, colder, and you have to dodge forklifts and reversing lorries, you don’t have to mind your language nor deal with idiotic members of the public. You can also goof off more easily: one of the worst things about working a shop floor is you can’t start loafing in the quiet times. Warehouse work tends to be peaks and troughs.

I expect there are women who work in Asda’s warehouses, just as there are men who work their shop floors. As Asda says:

“Our hourly rates of pay in stores are the same for female and male colleagues and this is equally true in our depots.”

The myth of the gender pay gap has long been debunked, and all but the dimmest of feminists are beginning to realise the differences in pay are down to the choices men and women make. Across the population, men are more likely to do dangerous jobs, work nights, work outside, and do deeply unpleasant jobs which women avoid – all of which attract a wage premium. So what we’re seeing now are campaigns for those jobs women choose being recognised by law as of “equal value” to those men opt for. It is quite easy to determine whether working in a warehouse carries equal value as working on the till – see which role requires the higher salary to attract suitable applicants – but this is producing the wrong result. Enter the ambulance chasers:

Leigh Day represents more 30,000 shop floor staff from the big four supermarkets – Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Morrisons – in similar cases.

This is the law firm which leads witch hunts against British soldiers who fought in Iraq. They believe the courts – rather than the market – is the true arbiter of a job’s value, and will be hoping to follow up on the success of this case, which they also brought:

A group of female workers in the West Midlands have won a Court of Appeal decision on equal pay claims.

The case involves 174 former employees of Birmingham City Council.

The women, who worked as cooks, cleaners, caterers and care staff, claimed they were excluded from getting the bonuses handed out to employees in traditionally male-dominated jobs.

Then there’s this:

It took more than six years and a hard-fought court battle for Joan Clulow, 72, and Pamela Saunders, 67, to finally receive compensation for the years they had been underpaid as home care workers.

“The pay was diabolical for what we did,” said Saunders, a carer employed by Birmingham council for 30 years.

When the council finally graded jobs, it put theirs on a par with mainly male road cleaners and refuse collectors whose wages were boosted by bonuses, shift payments and attendance allowances. “We were gutted,” said Clulow, a home carer for 25 years.

“It hurt because we worked that hard. Christmas Day, Boxing Day, night time if they needed us. We never refused,” she added.

Saunders said: “We couldn’t believe it. Don’t get me wrong, the men do work hard, but we did work hard. And I couldn’t see a lot of them doing what we do. Would they empty a commode, wash somebody down covered in mess, go into a house full of maggots and clean it up? But I’ll tell you what, I would have gone and done a dustman’s job for the day.”

Her remarks reminds me of this post, in which I noted some women don’t seem to understand exactly what “male” jobs entail. Does this Saunders really think men who clean streets and run garbage trucks couldn’t go into a house full of maggots and clean it up, or empty a commode? I think this Asda case might stem in part from the fact supermarket warehouses are no longer situated beside the retail outlets, leaving staff with little idea of what sort of work their colleagues are doing.

What will be interesting to see is how Asda and the other supermarkets handle this. If the courts rule that shop floor and warehouse work are comparable and of equal value, is there any reason why employees couldn’t be required to rotate between them? If Mrs Saunders would gladly have done a dustman’s job for a day (but for some reason didn’t switch to this more lucrative line of employment), would Janet from the deli mind humping boxes in the warehouse at 5am when the first lorry-load of vegetables comes in? I’m sure Barry who normally stacks pallets wouldn’t mind a turn on the till when the temperature drops below freezing in the yard.

We’re going to see a lot more of this, as progressives attempt to close the wage gap by equating wholly different jobs, supported by idiot judges and politicians. It will be interesting to see how the market responds, and what the unintended consequences are.

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Sunshite

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This is an interesting article highlighting yet another example of health advice promoted by governments worldwide which may turn out to be causing people harm:

[W]e’ve been taught to protect ourselves from dangerous UV rays, which can cause skin cancer. Sunscreen also blocks our skin from making vitamin D, but that’s OK, says the American Academy of Dermatology, which takes a zero-tolerance stance on sun exposure: “You need to protect your skin from the sun every day, even when it’s cloudy,” it advises on its website. Better to slather on sunblock, we’ve all been told, and compensate with vitamin D pills.

 

Yet vitamin D supplementation has failed spectacularly in clinical trials. Five years ago, researchers were already warning that it showed zero benefit, and the evidence has only grown stronger. In November, one of the largest and most rigorous trials of the vitamin ever conducted—in which 25,871 participants received high doses for five years—found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke.

 

How did we get it so wrong? How could people with low vitamin D levels clearly suffer higher rates of so many diseases and yet not be helped by supplementation?

As it turns out, a rogue band of researchers has had an explanation all along. And if they’re right, it means that once again we have been epically misled.

 

These rebels argue that what made the people with high vitamin D levels so healthy was not the vitamin itself. That was just a marker. Their vitamin D levels were high because they were getting plenty of exposure to the thing that was really responsible for their good health—that big orange ball shining down from above.

I can’t help thinking we’d see less of this sort of thing if the health “experts” advising governments showed a little less gluttony for power and a lot more humility. The same goes for the politicians who listen to them.

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Ranks Defiled

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A common response to stories demonstrating the moral corruption infesting the British police forces is that the attitudes of the leadership do not reflect those of the rank and file. While I am sure this is true in many cases, I’ve seen enough large organisations to know that corrupt leaders quickly find willing enablers among the workforce, who take to their new-found duties with enthusiasm. Before long anyone who isn’t on board with management directives is threatened, demoted, or ostracised while the quislings advance their careers in positions of ever-increasing importance.

Supporting this theory are examples of British citizens who have encountered rank and file policemen and discovered they’re less dealing with Dixon of Dock Green than state apparatchiks of middling intelligence burdened with a childlike vanity. Back in March I wrote about this story:

A van driver was arrested by a group of police officers after challenging them because they were parked on a double yellow line. Andy Mayfield, 53, was held in custody for 12 hours and strip searched under anti-terror laws after he started filming the cops, who were parked illegally outside their own police station in Ashton-on-Ribble, Lancashire in January. He was detained under the Terrorism Act and submitted to a rigorous questioning at the Newton Heath terrorism centre in Manchester before eventually being released.

Yesterday I read this one:

Mr Warner was charged with an offence under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, namely that he used threatening or abusive words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress as a result. This is a summary offence, which can only be dealt with in the Magistrates’ Court, and the maximum penalty is a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale (currently £1,000).

The charge arose from an incident that took place outside the school where Mr Warner was picking up his young daughter. There appeared to be some confusion over where his daughter actually was, which understandably caused him to become agitated.

A nearby police officer, who could see Mr Warner’s agitation, approached to enquire what the problem was. During the conversation the police officer said “I can see you’re angry”, to which the concerned father replied “no sh*t I’m angry”. It is important to stress that the comment was a response directed at the police officer. Nobody else expressed any concern about the casual remark at the time.

Mr Warner’s daughter was located and he left the scene thinking nothing more about it.

Three weeks later the 45 year-old received a letter from the same police officer, inviting him to attend the police station to discuss an alleged public order offence.

…

At the recent trial the police officer recounted events exactly as described above, including the “no sh*t I’m angry” comment. When questioned about whether anyone else had been offended by the comment the officer suggested that members of the public had voiced their concerns, but the prosecution had offered no evidence to that effect.

It is quite clear that in many instances, should certain, non-protected members of the public fail to adopt the correct stance of cowed submission and deference before a police officer, they will have you arrested. Given the process is the punishment, it matters little to them that you may not be found guilty (as this man was) should you choose to contest the charges and it goes to court: you will have a file, your DNA will be on record, and you will have to declare the arrest on job application and visa forms for the rest of your days. While your life is being turned upside down through court appearances and lawyer’s fees, the officers concerned carry on with theirs as normal. They rarely face any penalty, even for lying in court.

That the British police should behave in this way is not surprising; this is how the police behave in much of the world. This is why in most countries you avoid the police at all costs, do not engage them in conversation, and most certainly do not view them as people who are on your side. As I’ve said on many occasions, the quicker the British public realise the police are not their friends and are best avoided, the better off they’ll be.

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Straight Flush

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Regular readers will know I like to watch games of victimhood poker being played out in the wild. We already established that being homosexual beats being a black man. But what beats being gay? Ah:

Andrew Moffat MBE, assistant headteacher at Parkfield Community School in Saltley, has been criticised by parents for piloting No Outsiders – a programme run alongside sex and relationship education (SRE) lessons.

Its ethos promotes LGBT equality and challenges homophobia in primary schools.

Books now being read by pupils at Parkfield Community School include Mommy, Mama and Me and King & King – stories about same-sex relationships and marriages.

But Mr Moffat and the No Outsiders programme have come under fire from some Muslim parents who condemn such teachings, as homosexuality is strictly forbidden in Islam.

Mr Moffat, who is openly gay, and the school have defended the programme, which they said had been fully explained to parents. They added: “No Outsiders allows us to raise awareness of these differences so that children are able to tolerate and accept differences in our society.”

But outraged mum Fatima Shah, who has taken her 10-year-old daughter out of the school, told BirminghamLive: “It’s inappropriate, totally wrong.

“Children are being told it’s OK to be gay yet 98 per cent of children at this school are Muslim. It’s a Muslim community.

Personally I think the protesters have a point – primary school children should not be indoctrinated with sexual identity politics – but if anyone who wasn’t a member of a top-ranking protected class brought this complaint they’d be hounded from public life and likely facing criminal prosecution for hate crimes. As for Mr Moffat, he should have read the rulebook he himself helped write.

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Troublesome Priests

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A couple of weeks ago I speculated that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be more of a thorn in the side of the Democrats than Republicans. Yesterday I read this:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has infuriated colleagues by aligning with a progressive outside group that’s threatening to primary entrenched Democrats. Now some of those lawmakers are turning the tables on her and are discussing recruiting a primary challenger to run against the social media sensation.

At least one House Democrat has been privately urging members of the New York delegation to recruit a local politician from the Bronx or Queens to challenge Ocasio-Cortez.

“What I have recommended to the New York delegation is that you find her a primary opponent and make her a one-term congressperson,” the Democratic lawmaker, who requested anonymity, told The Hill. “You’ve got numerous council people and state legislators who’ve been waiting 20 years for that seat. I’m sure they can find numerous people who want that seat in that district.”

She poses problems to the Democrats on two fronts. Firstly, she is drawing attention to real, existing social and economic problems that both parties have ignored for years. She has a habit of taking to Twitter and discussing things with her 2.7m followers that establishment Democrats would rather stay buried:


Which party do you think the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos support? Which candidate do you think Google and Twitter favour in a presidential election? I suspect a few establishment Democrats have received sharp words from powerful donors with respect to putting a leash on this Latina upstart, and she’s having none of it. On the contrary, she seems bent on unseating some of her party colleagues.

It goes without saying that AOC’s solutions to problems either real or imagined are insane. When it comes to actual policy she’s about as well-informed as you’d expect for any product of the American education system, but that doesn’t matter. Bernie Sanders thought socialism was a cure for America’s ills, but that didn’t mean he was wrong when he criticised the corrupt, crony capitalism that underpins corporate America and the difficulty millions face finding decent work. This so dented Hillary’s run for Democrat party nominee she had to resort to skulduggery to secure it (which in her case is a bit like saying a career thief had to resort to stealing in order to make a living). When a socialist candidate appears on the political left and starts pointing out obvious problems and the hypocrisy of those who occupy the centre, it’s not the opposition party which feels the heat but the establishment left. On whom has Corbyn’s Momentum wrought more damage: the Conservatives or New Labourites?

The second problem is the Democrats desperately need a presidential candidate who is not a raving lunatic. Thus far we have Elizabeth Warren who is laughably inept, and Kamala Harris who has staked out her stall way over on the left, probably to outflank Warren and Sanders. The only centre-left candidates on the horizon are Joe Biden (who is my father’s age) and Tulsi Gabbard who has been ostracised for wrongthink. Any sensible Democrat candidate who puts themselves forward will have to contend with AOC’s Twitter army trashing them in favour of (probably) Harris. And woe betide them if they happen to be a white man with greying hair; he’ll be trying to talk about economics, foreign policy, and compromise while AOC and Harris will be shrieking about white supremacy, misogyny, and Nazis. He’ll not get a word in edgeways, and will receive the same treatment as McCain and Romney when they dared run against the Messiah. For this reason I’d be surprised if we see any white men putting themselves forward. Aside from being a rather large handicap going into the race, I’m not sure wealthy Democrat donors will like what they’re seeing. If the Democrats don’t rein in AOC and her fellow travelers soon, chequebooks will start closing.

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