The sinister reason they're robbing the Guides of God

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column

If this country still had any spirit, tens of thousands of families would this weekend be resigning from the Girl Guides  (or ‘Girlguiding’ as it is now modishly known) and setting up a pro-British, pro-Christian breakaway.
An important youth movement, in which young minds are formed, has been taken over by radical revolutionaries, who plan to cut references to nation and God from the Guide ‘promise’ – a pledge they themselves describe as the organisation’s ‘beating heart’.
They know what they are doing. The same people long ago captured the schools and universities, which are now factories of Left-wing conformism. Now they want the youth movements as well.
But there will be no revolt. This is partly because the New Left are masters of a technique known as ‘salami-slicing’, by which they slowly change the country into somewhere else.
Each individual action is so thin a slice that only a few people will mind, and most will jeer at them for caring. ‘Moral panic!’ they will squawk.
But once enough of these slices have been taken, it is clear that a deep and lasting change has happened. By then it will be too late. People will quickly forget that Girl Guides were ever Christian or patriotic. And the pledge to honour the Queen – which has been kept for now – will go later.
As one of nature’s stroppy non-joiners, I’ve never been a Boy Scout. For me, the joys of the outdoors are overrated.
But I can’t help noticing that youth movements have been hugely important in the political struggles of our age. The Russian Communists and the German National Socialists both banned the Scouts and Guides.
And both Hitler Youth and Communist Pioneers had one thing very much in common – recruits were urged and even ordered to attack the Church. Pioneers jeered at priests in the street and even campaigned against Christmas trees.
Hitler Youths (whose meetings were held at the same time as church services) spied on priests and denounced them for the slightest criticism of the regime.
Hitler knew well what he was up to. To those many German adults who refused to follow him, he sneered: ‘When an opponent declares “I will not come over to your side”, I say calmly, “Your child belongs to us already .  .  . what are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community”.’
Or, as the brainwashed Hitler Youth sings in the film Cabaret, ‘tomorrow belongs to me’.
Parents who struggle to bring up children to love God and country know already how true this is, how their young come home from school stuffed with politically correct equality and diversity rubbish and ignorant of our history and tradition. Now the same process will affect the Guides.
Why should this happen? For those who think the Scouts and Guides are too patriotic or too religious, a Left-wing scout movement, the Woodcraft Folk, has long been available. I rather admire them for their independent-minded guts.
Long may the Woodcraft Folk flourish in our free, Christian country, but why should the Girl Guides copy them, and introduce this sickly little pledge of selfishness and squidgy loyalty to their ‘community’?
You’ll have to ask those who appointed Julia Bentley as the organisation’s chief executive. Ms Bentley is a zealous sexual liberationist, condom outreach worker, Blairite commissar and abortion apologist, so what did they expect?
But who, apart from her, actually wants this change? A few months after she was appointed, the Guides sent out a ‘Consultation’ questionnaire. Questions 7, 8 9 and 10 are all about the wording of the promise. I asked, and asked and asked ‘Girlguiding’ to give me figures on how respondents actually answered these questions. They flatly refused to tell me. Draw your own conclusions.

***
 

Putin told the truth about Syria

When Vladimir Putin pointed out that our supposed allies in Syria include people who cut their dead foes open and bite into their entrails, many media organisations treated this as an allegation or rumour, using words such as ‘reportedly’.
Why? Existence of a film of the event was first reported by Time magazine on May 12.
Time interviewed two colleagues of the man involved, whose name is Khalid Hamad and who also calls himself Abu Sakkar.
They confirmed the story. Then Abu Sakkar was interviewed on video.
Far from denying the action, he tried to justify it by saying he had found pictures of atrocities on the dead Syrian soldier’s phone.
The organisation Human Rights Watch is also reliably reported  to have authenticated the film.
Sakkar belongs to the Farouq Brigades, a so-called ‘moderate Islamist’ group of the type David Cameron wants to arm.
So, as Mrs Merton might ask, why do the largely pro-intervention British media hesitate to accept that the story is true?

***
 

It's no use police standing guard AFTER the crime

Though I have no real idea who she is, I am sorry that Helen Flanagan, apparently a soap opera actress, has been burgled.
But what possible use was the police officer who was posted outside  Ms Flanagan’s Cheshire home?
This comically pointless deployment is typical of the new, useless police.
They wouldn’t do it for people who aren’t TV stars, and it doesn’t help solve the crime or stop a future one.
It just rubs in the awkward fact that, once a crime is committed, a police officer isn’t really much use.
Prevention is their job, and they won’t do it.

***

What are prisons for? I suspect that those who run them don’t believe they should exist.
They certainly don’t believe in punishment, and without that moral purpose jails are just so many human warehouses.
The latest Chief Inspector’s report on Lindholme in Doncaster – available online – is a thing of horror.
Prisoners live in fear amid freely-circulating drugs and alcohol. There is more of this than we hear about.

***

As we are now going to talk to the Taliban, will all those who incited, supported and demanded the continuation of a war we were bound to lose please apologise to the families of the dead – especially the families of the British servicemen and women, lions sent by donkeys into pointless danger?
Talks were available from the start, but George W. Bush and the Blair creature (donkeys if ever I saw them) were too anxious to conceal their own weakness and ignorance of international affairs to listen.
These men should be living out the rest of their lives in penitential Trappist monasteries, praying for  forgiveness and cleaning lavatories.
Yet they still dare to show their faces in public (and in the case of Blair, are paid for it). They would not dig. They dared not rob. And so they lied to please the mob.

***

The Met Office says we are in for a chain of cold, wet summers? Buy barbecue shares. These warmist zealots long ago lost all contact with reality.

If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down

If this country still had any spirit,
tens of thousands of families would this weekend be resigning from the
Girl Guides  (or ‘Girlguiding’ as it is now modishly known) and setting
up a pro-British, pro-Christian breakaway.

An
important youth movement, in which young minds are formed, has been
taken over by radical revolutionaries, who plan to cut references to
nation and God from the Guide ‘promise’ – a pledge they themselves
describe as the organisation’s ‘beating heart’.

They
know what they are doing. The same people long ago captured the schools
and universities, which are now factories of Left-wing conformism. Now
they want the youth movements as well.

Girlguiding plan to cut references to nation and God from the Guide 'promise'

Institution admits that the pledge is the 'beating heart' of the traditional Girl Guides

But there will be no revolt.
This is partly because the New Left are masters of a technique known as
‘salami-slicing’, by which they slowly change the country into somewhere
else.

Each individual
action is so thin a slice that only a few people will mind, and most
will jeer at them for caring. ‘Moral panic!’ they will squawk.

But
once enough of these slices have been taken, it is clear that a deep
and lasting change has happened. By then it will be too late. People
will quickly forget that Girl Guides were ever Christian or patriotic.
And the pledge to honour the Queen – which has been kept for now – will
go later.

 



 
 
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VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

As one of nature’s stroppy non-joiners, I’ve never been a Boy Scout. For me, the joys of the outdoors are overrated.

But
I can’t help noticing that youth movements have been hugely important
in the political struggles of our age. The Russian Communists and the
German National Socialists both banned the Scouts and Guides.

And both Hitler Youth and Communist
Pioneers had one thing very much in common – recruits were urged and
even ordered to attack the Church. Pioneers jeered at priests in the
street and even campaigned against Christmas trees.

Hitler
Youths (whose meetings were held at the same time as church services)
spied on priests and denounced them for the slightest criticism of the
regime.

Hitler knew well
what he was up to. To those many German adults who refused to follow
him, he sneered: ‘When an opponent declares “I will not come over to
your side”, I say calmly, “Your child belongs to us already .  .  . what
are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the
new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new
community”.’

Or, as the brainwashed Hitler Youth sings in the film Cabaret, ‘tomorrow belongs to me’.

Parents
who struggle to bring up children to love God and country know already
how true this is, how their young come home from school stuffed with
politically correct equality and diversity rubbish and ignorant of our
history and tradition. Now the same process will affect the Guides.

Why
should this happen? For those who think the Scouts and Guides are too
patriotic or too religious, a Left-wing scout movement, the Woodcraft
Folk, has long been available. I rather admire them for their
independent-minded guts.

Long
may the Woodcraft Folk flourish in our free, Christian country, but why
should the Girl Guides copy them, and introduce this sickly little
pledge of selfishness and squidgy loyalty to their ‘community’?

You’ll
have to ask those who appointed Julia Bentley as the organisation’s
chief executive. Ms Bentley is a zealous sexual liberationist, condom
outreach worker, Blairite commissar and abortion apologist, so what did
they expect?

But who,
apart from her, actually wants this change? A few months after she was
appointed, the Guides sent out a ‘Consultation’ questionnaire. Questions
7, 8 9 and 10 are all about the wording of the promise. I asked, and
asked and asked ‘Girlguiding’ to give me figures on how respondents
actually answered these questions. They flatly refused to tell me. Draw
your own conclusions.

 
Putin told the truth about Syria

Vladimir Putin told the truth about Syria

When Vladimir Putin pointed out that
our supposed allies in Syria include people who cut their dead foes open
and bite into their entrails, many media organisations treated this as
an allegation or rumour, using words such as ‘reportedly’.

Why? Existence of a film of the event was first reported by Time magazine on May 12.

Time interviewed two colleagues of the man involved, whose name is Khalid Hamad and who also calls himself Abu Sakkar.

They confirmed the story. Then Abu Sakkar was interviewed on video.

Far
from denying the action, he tried to justify it by saying he had found
pictures of atrocities on the dead Syrian soldier’s phone.

The organisation Human Rights Watch is also reliably reported  to have authenticated the film.

Sakkar belongs to the Farouq Brigades, a so-called ‘moderate Islamist’ group of the type David Cameron wants to arm.

So, as Mrs Merton might ask, why do the largely pro-intervention British media hesitate to accept that the story is true?

 

 
It's no use police standing guard AFTER the crime

Though I have no real idea who she is, I am sorry that Helen Flanagan, apparently a soap opera actress, has been burgled.

But what possible use was the police officer who was posted outside  Ms Flanagan’s Cheshire home?

This comically pointless deployment is typical of the new, useless police.

They wouldn’t do it for people who aren’t TV stars, and it doesn’t help solve the crime or stop a future one.

It just rubs in the awkward fact that, once a crime is committed, a police officer isn’t really much use.

Prevention is their job, and they won’t do it.

Helen Flanagn emerges from her home in Prestbury, Cheshire, days after she was burgled

This comically pointless deployment of an officer outside Flanagan's house is typical of the new, useless police

 

What are prisons for? I suspect that those who run them don’t believe they should exist.

They certainly don’t believe in punishment, and without that moral purpose jails are just so many human warehouses.

The latest Chief Inspector’s report on Lindholme in Doncaster – available online – is a thing of horror

Prisoners live in fear amid freely-circulating drugs and alcohol. There is more of this than we hear about.

 

As we are
now going to talk to the Taliban, will all those who incited, supported
and demanded the continuation of a war we were bound to lose please
apologise to the families of the dead – especially the families of the
British servicemen and women, lions sent by donkeys into pointless
danger?

Talks
were available from the start, but George W. Bush and the Blair
creature (donkeys if ever I saw them) were too anxious to conceal their
own weakness and ignorance of international affairs to listen.

These
men should be living out the rest of their lives in penitential
Trappist monasteries, praying for  forgiveness and cleaning lavatories.

Yet
they still dare to show their faces in public (and in the case of
Blair, are paid for it). They would not dig. They dared not rob. And so
they lied to please the mob.

The Met Office says we are in for a chain of cold, wet summers? Buy barbecue shares. These warmist zealots long ago lost all contact with reality.


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