James Delingpole's Blog, page 30

Britain's state school system is a conspiracy against the public

The other day Girl's class found themselves with time to spare in the vast play area behind the Imperial War Museum. The children looked wistfully at the swings, roundabouts and climbing frames. 'I'm not sure we can go there,' said the teacher. 'I haven't filled in a risk assessment form.'

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Our island story

I vividly remember the moment when I saw my first black person. It was December in either '68 or '69, so I would have been three or four at the time, and my father's works had arranged some kind of coach outing to meet Father Christmas. Seated near me was a black child a bit older than me, and I recall gazing fascinated at the blackness of his skin and noticing that it had white blotches on it like a mirror image of the dark freckles and moles on my skin. 'Daddy, what are those white things?' I asked, pointing at the boy's skin. 'Pigment,' my father explained.

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Simon Singh: is there anything he doesn't know?

Congratulations to Simon Singh. Not only is he Britain's third most famous celebrity mathematician after Carol Vordermann and Johnny Ball but he is also, it seems, a supremely persuasive debater. His fluent performance in last week's Spectator global warming debate was adjudged by both Andrew Neil and Spectator editor Fraser Nelson to be the best of the evening.

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'Climate Change': the new Eugenics

Civilization – Niall Ferguson's brilliant, impeccably right-wing analysis of why it is that the West is going to hell in a handcart just gets better and better. (H/T Phantom Skier)

In the latest episode, he explored how the roots of the Holocaust lay in a dry run genocide carried out by the Germans (who else?) in German South-West Africa (now Namibia) in the 1900s against the Herero and Namaqua natives. Around 80 per cent of the former tribe and 50 per cent of the latter were brutally massacred with many of the survivors sent to concentration camps where their racial characteristics were studied by proto-Dr-Mengeles as part of the fashionable new scientific field popularised by Francis Galton – eugenics.

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10 Reasons Why We Shouldn't Be In Libya

"It is one of those times when I feel estranged from the country and not comprehending of what we are doing and why everyone is so gung-ho for it all." Rod Liddle on the Anglo-French/American Libyan intervention Spectator May 26

"One can only gape in stunned amazement at the extent of the idiocy being displayed by the leaders of America, Britain and Europe over the 'Arab Spring' – which should surely be renamed 'the Arab Boomerang'." Melanie Phillips on Libya in her Spectator blog.

Is this the first time Rod Liddle and Melanie Phillips have agreed so strongly on any subject, ever? I think it just might be. Which gives a pretty fair indication, I think, of how stupid, misguided, wrongheaded, counterproductive and suicidally dumb our current intervention in Libya is. It's the war which no one outside the political class wants to wage because almost no one outside…

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Simon Singh's for the joy of solar energy

Tonight, as I'm sure you're all aware Simon Singh – Britain's third most famous celebrity mathematician after Carol Vorderman and Johnny Ball – appears at the Spectator debate speaking in defence of the great AGW meme.

I do hope his spirits haven't been dampened by the recent news that the government is planning to slash subsidies for large-scale solar installations.

The proposals would reduce the tariff for roof-mounted schemes of more than 50 kilowatts by 39pc to 49pc and the tariff for stand-alone schemes may be reduced by more than 70pc.

The reason I mention this is that Simon's entrepreneur brother Tom – who runs the Tom Singh Family Trusts – appears to be quite heavily exposed to the solar industry.

Entrepreneur and retailer Tom Singh has purchased a stake in solar power developer and producer mO3 Power.

Singh, who is the founder of high…

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George Osborne's New Eco-Bullingdon Club

Imagine if a cabal of privately wealthy upper middle class and lower upper class public schoolboys got into power and began using taxpayers' money to dole out special favours to all their rich friends: cushy sinecures for their banking and management consultancy chums from Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Logica and the Oliver Wyman Group; subsidies for landowners like Sir Reginald Sheffield (father-in-law of one D. Cameron, Esq) to blight their local countryside; investments in companies almost 100 per cent guaranteed not to make a profit but nice, all the same, for those plutocratic rent-seekers who've been tipped the wink by their chums in government. (H/T Barrie James)

Imagine if this were found out. There'd be riots on the street, right?

WRONG!

This is exactly what happened in chancellor George Osborne's latest budget. And almost no one noticed. So thank heavens for Andrew Orlowski…

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How the TUC's day of innocent family fun was destroyed by evil, fascist media

They came in their thousands from across the land – babies, pensioners, Ed Miliband, both the people who still watch 10 O'Clock Live. Their aims were simple, their intentions pure. They were marching against INJUSTICE. They were yearning for a Better Britain.

They were campaigning for a brighter, nobler, fairer world where:

Britain's economy can compete on almost equal terms with those of Albania and Burkina Faso.

Media studies, golf course management and windsurfing technology students can watch Bully, Countdown and Fifteen to One, down 15 pints, a couple of special K and a pack of plant growth stimulant in the subsidised Mandela bar before retiring for a night's gaming on their PS3s unencumbered by the fear of ever having to pay for their vital, economy-boosting education.

All those selfish greedy bastards who work for a living can have more of their money taken by the government and spent on worthwhile causes like million-pound-a-throw bombs to drop on Libya, diversity outreach consultants and communitarian think tanks run by Will Hutton.

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'Budget for growth'? Wot budget for growth?

When George Osborne and I briefly had children at the same inner London primary school, I used to harangue him every morning over the limp-wristed uselessness of his faux-Tory party.

"Just you wait till we get into power," Osborne used to reply to me, eyes agleam. "Then you'll see what real Conservatives we are!"

I'm still waiting. Sorry to disagree with Lord Tebbit on this but I really don't see how the Chancellor's bold decision to remove 50p from the (still-rising) price of a tank of petrol (by stealing £2 billion from oil company shareholders), give very small businesses a brief holiday from the insane equality legislation (but not EU legislation) which in opposition the Tories were too cowardly to oppose, and driving up the cost of energy through carbon taxes in any way represents a "budget…

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Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth

George Monbiot on Japan:

"You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Some greens have wildly exaggerated the…"

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