If the Devil had to invent a game, it would be this one

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail On Sunday column

If the
Devil had his own bible, it would probably take the form of a computer
game. It would be sly and witty, enjoyable and slick. It would start with
small, almost funny misdeeds.

It would
offer the player the joys of money, successful violence and easy,
responsibility-free sex. There would be drugs which didn’t  fry your brain
or burn holes in your nose.

You would
be made to feel brave, while not actually needing to be. None of your pleasures
would be paid for in coin, pain or grief.

Everyone
else in the game would be disposable and forgettable. And it would contain one
big lie. You would come out at the end happy and unharmed, and wanting more.

As I
understand it, this is roughly what happens in the new, much-praised Grand
Theft Auto V, now being played by thousands of 14-year-old boys in bedrooms
near you.

Officially
it’s for those aged 18 and over, but nobody takes that seriously in modern,
child-hating Britain. If you haven’t got it, you’re not cool.

The shops
were ready for the rush with great stacks of it. Parents who refuse to buy it
for their sons can expect ballistic rage, stamping and sulking. Perhaps it will
turn out to be a human right.

Would
anyone care to say that this doesn’t matter?

It’s a
curious coincidence that Aaron Alexis, the man who massacred 12 people in
Washington DC last week, liked to play such games for hours on end (Call Of
Duty was apparently his favourite).

As usual,
the liberal media are more interested in the fact that he had guns than in what
was in his head. Oh, quite – lots of people do this and don’t go out and murder
their school-fellows or workmates.

I
strongly suspect that the wretched Alexis (who was plainly unhinged in other
ways, with voices in his head) was yet another victim of supposedly harmless
and ‘soft’ cannabis, now virtually legal in much of the USA. And plenty of
British 14-year-olds are playing that game, too – often with the connivance of
their parents.

But these
increasingly frequent incidents seem to me to suggest that what you put into
someone’s mind makes a difference to the way he behaves.

For every
one who goes on a rampage shooting, there are thousands whose school work goes
off the rails, thousands who treat girls like toys, thousands who consider
callousness, dishonesty and bad manners as normal.

Many
years ago in a French seaport town, I saw what I still think was a vision of
evil. In a grubby cafe a boy of about 11 or 12 was ceaselessly feeding coins
into one of the crude gaming machines then available. His eyes were blank, the
skin of his face was dry and horribly pale. He looked as if he rarely ate. He
was (this was, after all, France) smoking a cigarette. I swore at that moment
that I would protect any child under my authority from this influence.

Around
the same time I found myself in a famine-stricken country – Somalia – and saw
for the first time the great round eyes and swollen stomachs of children dying
of hunger. In many ways the worst thing was that I was not shocked or moved
enough. I had seen this too many times on TV.

I have
known ever since that seeing things on screens desensitises us. There is no
doubt. If evil is familiar, it is easier to bear and easier to do. It is in our
imaginations that we use our consciences and work out how our actions will
affect ourselves and others. Conversation, storytelling and reading strengthen
our imaginations.

These
games kill our imaginations, which help us to be kind, and replace them with
the liquid manure of pure selfishness, which helps us to be cruel.

The police deserved their drubbing  

Are we
allowed to criticise the police? My article on the subject last week was
followed by squawks of outrage, to which I have replied at length on my blog.

Some
claimed that I know nothing of the subject, when I have researched and written
a substantial book about it. Some urged me to go out on patrol with officers (as
if I haven’t done so here and abroad).

Many
claimed – without a scrap of evidence – that my motives were low and greedy.
Some sought to use emotional blackmail by mentioning the many officers who have
died in the course of duty.

I grieve
for these brave, much-missed men and women as much as anyone, and revere their
memory. But their sacrifice doesn’t mean I cannot criticise the police or their
methods.

Some
journalists have died bravely too, but that does not put my trade above
criticism. Far from it. And heaven forbid that it ever should be.

A welcome
few of those who commented were thoughtful and reasonable. But to  the
others I say that they sound very like the BBC, another nationalised industry
trading on a reputation  gained many years ago and no longer entirely
deserved.

Both
these bodies need to remember that they serve the public, not the other way
round.

Britain will continue to vanish behind the veil

Not many
years ahead, the full Islamic face-veil, the niqab, will be as common here as
the headscarf (the hijab) is now.

And quite
a lot of non-Muslim women will probably have adopted the hijab too, as they
will find it wise to do so in the areas in which they live.

This is
going to happen. Nothing can stop it.

Islam is
at home in this country and grows stronger every week.

When we
replaced Christianity with ‘Equality and Diversity’ as our official belief, we
abandoned the only argument we might have had against it.

I
couldn't care less which of the three Left-wing parties is in government.

I doubt
if Labour would ever have dared smash up the Armed Forces as the Coalition has
done, but that’s the only difference I can see, and it’s happened now.

But my
sense of fairness compels me to defend Ed Miliband against the babyish attacks
now being made on him, mainly by media folk who bought shares in his Blairite
brother David, and are still furious that their man was beaten in a fair fight.

Actually
Ed’s shown real guts. He was the first party leader for years to refuse to
toady to Rupert Murdoch’s papers.

He wants
to get rid of the iniquitous political levy – something Margaret Thatcher tried
and gave up because she was too scared. And whether he meant to or not, he
stopped the Prime Minister taking us into a wholly idiotic war.

As far as
I can work out from the feminist sisterhood, it’s not sexist to kill girls in
the womb because they are girls. Beats me, but these people are a lot cleverer
than poor old medieval  me, stuck with my certainty that such killing is murder,
and wrong.

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