Labour Proposes anti-white male quotas

Labour’s Hariet Harman has proposed the introduction of quotas that would discriminate by race or sex to establish a politically preferred sex and ethnicity composition of the work force in a particular firm. (source) Many readers commenting on this telegraph article have argued that this move would be illegal under European rules. It probably wouldn’t be: the European Court of Justice already ruled in 1997 that sexist discrimination can be acceptable when it is undertaken with an egalitarian political motive.

Sharia in Britain: What is Dr. Rowan Williams’ Vision for Society?

The archbishop of Canterbury’s remarks on sharia have, to some degree, been simplified in public discussion. However, a full understanding of Dr. Williams’ argument does nothing to improve his message and does not weaken the conclusion that a partial adoption of sharia is unlikely to be feasible. Full knowledge of the lecture delivered at the Courts of Justice merely defines Dr. Williams’ outlook as collectivist and authoritarian.

Dr. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury has this month destroyed what little was left of his reputation by calling for the formal acceptance of parts of sharia in British law. It is worth noting that he was not the first to do so. Dr Suhaib Hasan, a Muslim Council of Britain spokesman, had done much the same thing in late January.

I will not elaborate on how and why official recognition of a separate body of religious law is incompatible with the notions of a secular state and equality before the law. Others have done so extensively and more prominently.

There are two aspects of this discussion which are worth pondering in more detail:

1. If there is a move towards the acceptance of sharia, can it remain partial in scope? and

2. What do the archbishop’s remarks imply for the social order more generally?

Positive liberty is a misleading concept: reflections on Jack Straw, Labour and Liberty

Back in October, Jack Straw demanded a ‘Bill of Rights and Responsibilities’. I anticipated at the time that positive rights would receive more emphasis in such a project –at the expense of negative rights constraining the power of the state. Straw’s recent comments in the Guardian appear to confirm this prediction.

The notion of positive rights or positive liberty is popular with many genuinely

Is Tony Blair a Religious Nutter?

As reported by the BBC, Tony Blair kept quiet about his religious beliefs while in power since doing otherwise would have led people to write him off as a nutter. Of course, religious beliefs can translate into all kinds of behaviour in politics –even within the same belief system: Camillo Torres and George Bush were both inspired by Christianity after all.

If there is one trait that religious fanaticism is most commonly associated with, this would be the true believer’s readiness to

Does the UK need a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities?

Jack Straw argued during a lecture in Cambridge, that the UK should draft its own Bill of Rights and responsibilities. In doing so it should go beyond the Human Rights Act, which co-opted the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into British law.

In the first two thirds of this lecture, Straw comments on similarities between the ECHR and the German Constitution’s Basic Rights, he also elaborates on the need to respect human rights while fighting terrorism. On the whole, this part of the lecture does not seem unreasonable. The last third of the lecture then demands a UK Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. This part of the lecture is much less specific, but for a number of reasons

Alan Duncan on Gordon Brown

“Brown is the man who has doubled your council tax and destroyed your pension. He is the man who has presided over a collapse in saving and an astronomical explosion in personal debt. He is the man whose budgets - don’t ever forget - were an exercise in trickery and deceit. He is the man who will tax anything that moves and everything that doesn’t. He is the man who has turned the Revenue & Customs into a force for nasty aggression.

Of Iain Dale, Boris and Gateway Drugs

During his recent one to one with Boris Johnson, Iain Dale stated that Marijuana was a gateway drug. According to Dale, this can be inferred from the fact that one would be unlikely to find a single Heroin addict who had not consumed Marihuana previously. Boris duly conceded that taking drugs was a stupid idea and expressed his scepticism over taking a more relaxed attitude to Marijuana.

So, is Boris loosing his libertarian instincts? Are potheads doomed? Let’s look at the gateway drug issue first.

The Liberal Democrats are having a daft idea

… well there is nothing new or original in that, but this one has to be one of the least thought through policy proposals in a while. The Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb argued:

“If you go out on a Friday or a Saturday night and get very drunk and you end up in accident and emergency, and you are foul and abusive to staff who are already overstretched, then is it right that you should get that care entirely for free, or are there consequences to your actions?

And I think there is a case for saying that someone in those circumstances should be asked to pay for their care.” (Source)

Let’s leave to one side the question of what kind of behaviour should be punished by the NHS. (Simply removing misfits from the premises clearly isn’t always feasible in healthcare.) Let’s just look at

Quote of the Day

“Pledge allegiance to Britain?! What the flying fuck is going on? This is the mindset of Nazi Germany, of Iran, of the inbred, half witted parts of the USA. Not Britain. People here should be free to be patriotic. Or free to be not patriotic. Because they are free. Pledging allegiance to the country does not make people patriotic, and actually should make us feel there is less to love about this country.”

The nameless one, in his beautifully poetic analysis of Cameron’s national service proposal.

Cameron’s National Service

Cameron announced (again) that he wants all 16 year olds to do a voluntary national service lasting six weeks. The actual proposal so far seems to amount to little more than an extra layer of work experience. So long as this is voluntary for all participants, it should be unproblematic too It is unlikely though that such a scheme, whatever the details, will do much to “mend our broken society”.

The whole project sounds less pleasant once