An Advent Message

I shall not be posting - apart from my Mail on Sunday column - until some days after the Feast of the Nativity (commonly called Christmas Day). In fact I doubt if I shall be posting until after the Holy Innocents' Day, on which I hope as many of you as possible will recall with sorrow the continuing massacre of innocent unborn babies, our society's greatest and deepest shame, and the one of which it most hates to be reminded.

As it's not yet Christmas, but still the penitential season of Advent, I'll save any Christmas greetings for when the twelve days have actually begun.

I hope that the coming months will see a continuing rise in the standard of discussion here. Work has begun on the promised index, which will enable us to avoid re-teaching new pupils various simple lessons, from which most contributors to this site have already benefited. I'm grateful to those who have stepped up to repeat the simple position on drugs which I have so often stated, and to rebut the 'wot abaht alcohol, then?' drivel, presumably taught these days in PSHE classes by dope-smoker teachers, which so many pro-cannabis contributors wearisomely repeat.

None of my critics has grasped the simple point I make about crime statistics - that by their nature they simply do not cover all matters which most sensible people regard as crimes. Therefore their claims that 'crime has fallen' cannot be taken as a rebuttal of my counter-claim that the general level of lawbreaking and disorder is far too high (immensely higher than at any time in modern British history), and continues to rise. Both sides here are working in the dark. Both have opinions and are entitled to them. The mistake is to claim that the opinion of the state is a fact, when it's not. Oh, and of course I 'have an agenda'. Who could doubt it, as I am utterly clear about it? But doesn't the state have an agenda? Doesn't the BBC? Doesn't the Academy? Would that they were as clear about their 'agenda' as I am about mine.


Meanwhile a short message to Mr MacDougall. He may well be right that the government is very hard on car owners. But this is simply because of its unceasing desire for tax revenue, not because it wishes to discourage car use and encourage people to use other forms of transport. On the contrary, it continues in its planning to assume ever-increasing car use. If it really wanted to persecute the motorist out of his car and on to his feet, or his bicycle, or the bust, train or tram, I'd support it. But he should believe me when I say that the lot of the railway user (and the bus user, come to that) is no better. As for us cyclists, we are not fooled by a few miles of cycle lanes, so brightly painted that they are visible from the Moon, but which function mainly as car parks and which end abruptly where they are most needed.