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Monday 19 July 2010

Sarah McDermott | 12:05 UK time, Monday, 19 July 2010

Before we come on air tonight on 91Èȱ¬ Two there is a special Newsnight programme at 9pm called On The Frontline: Life with the Green Howards, in which our Diplomatic editor Mark Urban charts a year with A Company, 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment, before, during, and after their tour in Sangin, Afghanistan. It is a searing and intimate portrait of the regiment at war and at home - and not to be missed. .

And at 10.30pm we'll be joined by Green Howards soldiers and their families to debate some of the issues raised in the film.

Conservative MP Philip Hollobone has introduced a private members' bill - the Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill - which would make it illegal for people to cover their faces in public.

Tonight Glenn Campbell will be in east London with Mr Hollobone to meet women who wear the niqab and the burqa to find out what they think of his proposed bill. And as Syria bans the face-covering Islamic veil from the country's universities, we'll be examining what the issue tells us about relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Justin Rowlatt will be examining the details of the trade which saw a Mayfair-based hedge fund acquire ownership of £658m worth of cocoa beans - around 7% of global production. He will be asking if there are ever good economic reasons to speculate on commodities like food stuffs.

And as safe deposit boxes believed to contain manuscripts and drawings by the late author Franz Kafka are due to be opened at a bank in Zurich, our Culture correspondent Stephen Smith will be considering if it is ever right for works to be published posthumously. Kafka died in 1924 and, if his own last wishes had been followed, novels such as The Trial and The Castle would never have seen the light of day.

The author had asked his friend and fellow writer, Max Brod, to burn his manuscripts after his death, but Brod refused. So what should happen to these newly uncovered works?

It's Kirsty in the presenting seat tonight - so do join her at 10.30pm on 91Èȱ¬ Two.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From earlier today...

The war in Afghanistan has cost more than 300 British soldiers' lives, billions of pounds and left thousands wounded. The effects on those who serve are profound, just as they are for the loved ones who wait at home.

Newsnight's Defence editor Mark Urban has spent one year following A Company, 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment; before, during, and after their tour in Sangin, in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Tonight in a special edition of Newsnight at 2100 BST on 91Èȱ¬ Two we will be broadcasting a searing and intimate portrait of the regiment at war in Afghanistan and at home.

Later on the programme at 2230 BST we will be debating the issues raised by the film with some of the soldiers and their families.

We will also be discussing political biographies, following the publication of Peter Mandelson's memoirs The Third Man.

And we will be asking why a Mayfair-based hedge fund, Armajaro, has taken delivery of £658m worth of cocoa beans - equal to about 7% of global production.Ìý

More details later.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    QUEEN, MONEY, SAFER BRITAIN, I'S A JOB, EXTREME PAINTBALLING

    What effort has Mark Urban made to find out which of the above REALLY MOTIVATES squaddies to invade, and 'improve with arms', the life and lives of Johnnie Foreigner?

    As I remember, the Stern report calculated 'green strategy' in terms of cost now and cost later if not engaged with. Conversely, has anyone yet calculated that the cost in lives, ALREADY, is way beyond any foreseeable
    future cost, had we done no invading? Deluded Blair had an infant fear of doing nothing. Nothing sometimes takes more wisdom and courage than all the heroic rushing about ever requires.

    We are a warlike nation. Going to war will not get us liked.

    Who is the minister for getting Britain liked abroad?


  • Comment number 2.

    On the Green Howards the soldiers, and their families, have already generated great respect from the viewers.

    There is always the danger with 24 hour news and a war that it becomes a sort of soft entertainment where people don't appreciate that these are real people in exceptionally high stress environments facing the ultimate challenge.

    I have always supported the war but I am still not convinced, as an armchair general with no experience whatever, that we have the right tactics exactly.

    The Talibs have us on the back foot and we don't seem able to stop them laying out IED's even when they are very close to our bases despite all of our technology.

    It also baffles me that we still don't appear to know, and naturally our people may not want to say, whether there are constant patterns of local militias with local tactics or whether there is a high command where local forces are bolstered by better trained insurgents who probably have come across the border.

    If that is so why can't we disrupt that flow and the supply of the munitions they need for the IED's?

    I always feel that even after eight years of war we don't really understand our enemies as well as we should.

  • Comment number 3.

    Sounds like a suitably intense programme tonight for intense times.

    You should probably cover the BP well head concerns also, it was always quite likely after being open for so long that paths through the surrounding rock will have developed from the well for the oil and gas to escape and seep directly onto the sea floor.

    As for the US dragging BP into Lockerbie / Libya / megrahi now, someone should point out to the esteemed senators that megrahi was probably inncocent and would likely have won his appeal if it were not for his convenient release on compassionate grounds.

    Anything goes on the eternal quest in the US for a commercial or geopolitical advantage, human rights, torture, 'special relationships', the truth...everything is up for grabs it seems.

    They could / should be so much better than that.


  • Comment number 4.

    I wonder where the Third Man leaves Alistair Campbell as Mandy has spooned out the dirt after Campbell was suitably boring.

    Perhaps "the rabbit" Campbell was hoping that he would be starting a new career as an MP but I would have thought that none of the new leaders would be wanting to endorse somebody with such baggage from the past as Iraq and "sofa politics" and general hectoring and so on.

    So if he is not to become a new political figure perhaps he will need the silver.

    Is he the kind of man to run away from a conflict screaming? Perhaps he is on reflection.

    Meanwhile the Labour leadership candidates say Mandelson should clear off from the party scene - quite soon after he was very prominent in the party.

    Yet they fight amongst themselves as Burnham decries the smears of his competitors and Cambridge educated Abbott calls the other candidates "geeks in suits". Miliband Major expects to inherit but there are no indications where there are big new Labour, retrenched old Labour ideas or New Labour ideas.

    The lost souls of the Labour Party fighting over the tiller of the sinking ship - unless the propaganda that 700% of Lib Dem voters are now with Labour.

  • Comment number 5.

    Mistress link from Mail Friday.

    Muslim bus driver refuses Guide dog on his bus. What ever happened to borders language and culture...oh thats right, the mentalist libs destroyed them because they believe that all races and cultures are of equal value. The first to be eaten alive when this all goes pear shaped will be the leftist, something to do with their protien poor diet and not having the strength to defend themselves..which is at least some consolation for the rest of us. Watch how they go all Polly Toynbee when the bejesus hits the fan...yeah, too late Polly love, you brought it on yourself and now you what us to defend you from the threatening Muslims hoards you upset..

    This post I imagine is gonna have to jump through the usual hoops to get a chance to see the light of day. But if it was a lefty and insulting post...straight in eh moddy, the doors would be kicked off the hinges for me if i was a sick mentalist Liberial coming the 91Èȱ¬ party line.

  • Comment number 6.

    #1 barriesingelton

    "We are a warlike nation. Going to war will not get us liked. "

    Whereas if we listened to your National Socialist pal jaded_jean/statist/? and endorsed some of the racial policies Hitler endorsed would make us "liked".

    People don't go to war to be popular as a rule.

    You insult those who face absolute danger every day as "extreme paintballers".

    As you know Hitler left some seventy odd million dead and Europe in flames and that is before we consider the Holocaust and the very many atrocities against civilians.

    Some may say that is not only warlike but shows an absolute disregard for the sanctity of human life.

  • Comment number 7.

    I was reading about a vigilante group in Arizona that had started partolling the border on behalf of ... the people.

    They would claim that I suppose.

    I wondered how much they were like the English Defence League who seem to spend their time rioting and injuring police officers on a regular basis - as happened as the weekend.

    The suspicion is that the EDL are an SA in waiting that is not identified with any leadership at this time.

    But the US vigilantes are heavily armed whereas our mob are more or less football hooligans with vague BNP overtones and probably National Socialists buried deep in the still hidden leadership.

    But I did note one irony that rang true about some of the National Socialist posters who polluted this page in the past:

    --------------------------------------
    But Ready, a 37-year-old ex-Marine, is different. He and his friends are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor and gas masks, and carry assault rifles. Ready takes offense at the term "neo-Nazi," but admits he identifies with the National Socialist Movement.

    "These are explicit Nazis," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "These are people who wear swastikas on their sleeves."
    -----------------------------------

    I do so laugh when I recall that jaded_jean, a pal to the bizarre barriesingleton and the English "Nationalist" kevseywevsey and an inspiration to ecolizzy on race and IQ (though science repudiates the adolescent claims).

    This great icon of far right thinking protested "I am not a nasty Nazi" - but then carried on with explicit promotion of National Socialism and all the things you would expect.

    The allegation of Jewish hegemony with no evidence of any kind for its existence, race "realism" and the Holocaust it was "explicated" was in fact "made up to put people off statism".

    It was done by people like Stalin who was regarded by that poster as a statist.

    But then I tend to laugh at the "innocents" who are quite happy to endorse the views of jaded_jean - though they rarely break cover as explicitly.

    When kevseywevsey was the silly cookieducker he declared war on me because I was "always saying things about the BNP".

    In general in this country we don't have people wearing swastikas and the BNP "are not a Nazi party".

    But we should be vigilant about National Socialists, though they are very few in number, if we regard history as having lessons for us.

  • Comment number 8.

    WAS THAT THE FONE?

    I left it - sure to be a nuisance call.

  • Comment number 9.

    #6

    A very good answer, Gango, to singie, jj"s and 'the boy's poodle.

    mim

  • Comment number 10.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 11.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 12.

    Perhaps the latest Corporate Nazi manifesto ?

  • Comment number 13.

  • Comment number 14.

    the Third Man...scurrying around in wartime Austria selling dodgy (dossiers) penecillin, in sewers.....how apt...how very Mandelson

  • Comment number 15.

    The presence of UK troops in Afghansitan is purely to bolster the US troops that currently occupy the RHS of the pincer hold the US currently has around Iran (the LHS of course being the US occupation of Iraq).

    All the talk of building up the Afghan Army to ultimately take control of security at some point in the future is just neo-lib propaganda. I'm really sure the US has the nation building of Afghanistan at its foreign policy heart.

    US foreign policy is joined at the hip with Israeli foreign policy in this region. The ultimate target of the US and Israel has Iran (and always was, even pre 9/11).

    The post Iran election 'uprisings' last year that were fomented by the US secret services via the likes of internet technologies as Twitter ultimately failed.

    Hence, watch out for a major false flag 'incident' soon that will be blamed on Iran as an excuse for air attacks on their key nuclear facilities by the US and UK. Both airforces are already practising for such a strike.

    Read the full text of Ahmadinejad's Speech to the UN General Assembly last year.

    Read the words recorded without the interpretative spin from the western media.

    I have read the full text of Ahmadinejad's speech and can't find anything that is outrageous and/or offensive in this particular speech. Yet it was reported by the western media as being another warmongering hatefilled speech aimed at Israel.




  • Comment number 16.

    The Sun is bright high up in the sky
    Oh my, oh my, oh my, oh my.
    Some like it hot. I'm one of them
    And with the matching man it might be heaven.
    Heaven to live, heaven to share
    And at each other to stare and glare.
    Glare in the morning and glare at night
    Something akin to glowing delight.
    Breakfast together, supper as well
    Sprinkled with wine, life could be swell.

  • Comment number 17.

    I hope that the 91Èȱ¬ concentrate on the arguments about whether having British troops in Afghanistan somehow makes us safer in the UK ... after years and years of listening to the arguments about preventing terrorist training grounds in Afghanistan ... I am yet to be convinced that the British Afghan effort is worth the lives of British soldiers, Afghan civilians and immense cost to the British taxpayer.

    When the British and USA leave Afghanistan the clock will immediately turn back by 10, 20 or more years and be a living hell on earth for most people their. That is a tragedy but the Afghan situation is no more urgent than Darfur, Somalia, Ethiopia, Korea, Tibet etc.

    The British soldiers in Afghanistan would be much better deployed on UK border security and British streets and Britian needs to learn that by playing poodle to the USA and trying to be the world policeman ... that this creates many more enemies than will assemble on the dust filled fields of Afghanistan plotting terrorist attacks in Britain ... as those that seek to attack the UK are already here in the UK.

    All that is needed is an amendment to the Human Rights Act to allow the UK security forces to deal with the terrorist threat in an appropriate manner ... and all of the UK troops can and should be brought home to get on with their job in the UK.

    Only feeble politicians will keep the UK troops at unnecessary risk in Afghanistan on this futile and damaging interference with a medieval and deeply troubled country.

    There are 16 countries close by to Afghanistan with a population of 1.75 billion as having a more direct and immediate interest in Afghanistan than the UK. If all of this is because of purported links with September 11 ... we might as well also attack alleged terrorists in every Islamic nation on the planet and now leave Afghanistan alone.

  • Comment number 18.

    You have to laugh... ... or you'd cry!

    And then we worry about what's happening in Afganistan, the troops should all come home now.

  • Comment number 19.

    'RAISE OUR GAME ON CLIMATE CHANGE' (#12)

    Well - Tim got the 'game' bit right. Is he doing a Gore? I feel another uppy/downy studio red line coming.

  • Comment number 20.

    Ecolizzy

    I was beginning to enjoy our exchange of posts but I'm afraid your seeming admiration for jj has put me off, for good this time, I fear.

    mim

  • Comment number 21.

    "The author had asked his friend and fellow writer, Max Brod, to burn his manuscripts after his death, but Brod refused" ..... was that cos
    PCs hadn't yet been invented or did he not know how to 'burn' a disk?

    These documents should be made available online as a common property resource perhaps for scholars .... a bank vault in Zurich is much too
    Kafkaesque a location for such potentially important papers .....

  • Comment number 22.

    Of course Kafkas work should be looked at and admired etc, and put online for all to read, if there isn't anyone to inherit them.

    I read all his books years ago, they made quite a lasting impression on me.

  • Comment number 23.

    watch Panorama now

  • Comment number 24.

    bbc pensions

    the unions say it is robbery. yes upon the public. The bbc pension [like the state pension] is nothing but a ponzi scheme that was always was going to blow up. Those who created it and colluded in it knowing the maths would never add up unless based on fantastical rises in the licence fee should be charged.

    if the bbc charter is to produce content that informs, educates and entertains then the bbc is top heavy in entertainment and very light in education? Lots of entertainment channels but no education channel? High wages to entertainers but where are the educators? Anyone noticed in the fill ins the bbc promotes news presenters rather than news? historicals tend to be about the presenter's personality? Is the bbc focus merely on creating media idols?

  • Comment number 25.

    It's telling that thegangofone, immediately after the first NN blog post early this afternoon, immediately referred to the 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment as 'The Green Howards'. This was prior to the second NN blog posting (that was made much later), that did make reference to The Green Howards.

    There are approx 82 regiments in the British Army. To know the informal regimental name would require either extraordinary general knowledge or some military experience.

    From this, it can be deduced with reasonably high probability, that thegangofone is very likely to be a member of the NN production team.

    What a shocking programme btw. Glad to see the troops' reading material included magazines such as The Economist and Private Eye. I wonder of they wished for something different?

  • Comment number 26.

    #25 debtjuggler

    "From this, it can be deduced with reasonably high probability, that thegangofone is very likely to be a member of the NN production team."

    Its in the text at the top and if I am part of the NN production team I would quite like to get paid for my "extraordinary general knowledge".

    As I have said to you in the past increase your medication and life will get better.

  • Comment number 27.

    Britain is wasting its time in Afghanistan .... enough is enough ... if there was any doubt about that before now Mark Urban's documentary must
    surely have swayed the sceptics ...

    I agree with post #3 about BP and Lockerbie. Instead of allowing itself to be skewered by an unholy alliance of US Senators and Tory politicians
    the Scottish Government should now publish all the evidence that led the
    Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to suggest the verdict might be unsafe ...... and face down US attempts to censor that full enquiry:

    [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

    As Newsnight has followed this story from the start you should take the lead as well by commissioning a special programme.

    The SNP opposed the 'deal in the desert' between Blair, BP and Libya on 'prisoner transfer' - hence the resort to 'compassionate grounds'.

    The Libyan prisoner transfer deal always stank to high heave but that was nothing to do with Scotland and everything to do with Labour ....

    Why don't you ring up Blair's former Downing Street advisor Anji Hunter who left to join BP to check out where the bodies are buried in BP/No10?

  • Comment number 28.

    Re the Burqa Ban:

    Why aren't Muslim men/males in non-Muslim countries compelled to wear bags over their heads- or blindfolds- so as to make sure that the women-not-wearing-Burqas in non-Muslim countries are not viewed by Muslim men, that, according to many interpretations of Islam, are not to view women* who aren't wearing Burqas??

    * other than their wives/blood relatives??

    _________________
    Roderick V. Louis,
    Vancouver, BC, Canada

  • Comment number 29.

  • Comment number 30.

    'Guardian' article on Anji Hunter's departure from BP aka 'Blair Petroleum':

  • Comment number 31.

    Regarding the burqa:

    As a motorcyclist, i have to remove my helmet and balaclava (not a full face one) before entering a garage or shop; i wouldn't even consider trying to enter a bank! Why is it that others are allowed to cover their full face if they use the 'r' word?

  • Comment number 32.

    #107

    James

    May I wish you many a happy & lomg hour using your iPhone4!!!!

    Apple has been keeping me rather happy with their winning inventions, from one of which I'm posting now while listening to Miriam Makeba & Nina Simone brilliant rendition of 'I shall be released'.

    Have you used the iPhone4 camera yet? If so, is it flexible from the focus & angle point of view? I'm hoping to get it myself one day.

    mim

  • Comment number 33.

    #32

    I'm in need to upgrade from my 33Kodak camera!!!!

  • Comment number 34.

    AND THERE YOU HAVE IT

    Under Kirsty's rambling interrogation, just TWO reasons for being in Afghanistan were offered: 'A BETTER LIFE' and 'A BIT OF EXCITEMENT'. (See my post #1)

    In passing, the VT commentary said: "He had all four limbs blown off but they saved him". Rather re-defines 'the ultimate price' does it not?

    Civilisation eh.

  • Comment number 35.

    "What ever happened to borders language and culture...oh thats right, the mentalist libs destroyed them because they believe that all races and cultures are of equal value."

    If the races aren't equal then why not stop whining and gather up your evidence and take it off to court with the EHRC to get a judicial review of current legislation.

    But then the far right never will do that because despite the really quite ridiculous pretensions of many of their posters on this page it is basically anti-intellectual.

    They know that they they don't have any scientific evidence that would give their views objective legitimacy.

  • Comment number 36.

    #9 mimpromptu

    "A very good answer, Gango, to singie, jj"s and 'the boy's poodle."

    Thank you and happy to oblige.

    Its bizarre how they deftly leave out the most mind boggling details of their views really isn't it.

  • Comment number 37.

    I thought the piece on the niqab would have done very well if there had been some kind of survey so that we could get really hard evidence of the backgrounds of those who are wearing the niqab.

    I chimed with the Egyptian lady in attitudes but myself I would be reluctant to ban it.

    I assume that even now if the police want to see somebody's face they can ask for it to be temporarily removed.

    If that is the case then I personally would not want to see it but I would not ban it as it is their right to choose.

  • Comment number 38.

    FARCE ABOUT FACE?

    Am I alone in seeing a woman with a covered face as RAISING THE PROFILE OF ISLAAM in the highstreet? Now that the 'in yer face' clerics have been driven underground, surely this is the 'in yer face' replacement strategy? The confrontational face of Islaam, cunningly spliced onto 'women's rights' religious freedom, and the thick end of Feminism?

    Britain's perverse striving to be everyone's nanny other than our own (not to mention a wish to be the male equivalent of Lesbos Isle) has a lunatic quality that quite suits Medusa Spelman.

    Oh - it's all going awfully well.

  • Comment number 39.

    Yes on Kafka a tricky area.

    I loved the Trial and The Castle and as people say the paranoia chimed with the times and the Holocaust.

    Should he have had a right to destroy his own works? I guess the answer must be yes but then if I recall his relationship with his father was very difficult and perhaps it could be argued that he was not fully himself in this particular area. The world is a richer place for his works.

    Its tragic that so many others, such as Anne Frank, would never go on to contribute more to the world due to the Holocaust.

    It is also very noteworthy that despite all of the pomp there were never any great works by the National Socialists.

    They weren't really that smart or creative when you got right down to it.

  • Comment number 40.

    Newsnight/91Èȱ¬ you are unbelievable. After years of women on this blog being labelled racist for raising political and cultural objections to head covering, and after John Soper on Straight Talk virtually chastised Ayaan Hirsi Ali for daring to speak out against Islamic treatment of women, finally you invite an Egyptian feminist to speak on the subject and what happens? You give most of the air time to a man who is trying to argue that what is needed is a) a visible Islamic presence in secular Europe and b) education - but he was allowed to talk over the two invited speakers who were, not just arguing conceptually for some nebulous 'education' in the future but, actually providing the education right there and then a) the history of muslim countries shows that head covering is not considered emancipatory and b) European culture has been eroded by the lack of progessive thinking from the illiberal left over the last two decades. Now that's education.

    On a positive note - banning the burka would lead to more suicide-bombing, flag burning and further radicalisation so I think we Brits do right to try and discuss our way out of the hole we dug during our reckless fin de siecle delusion that culture is without ideology.

  • Comment number 41.

    25 debt Juggler wrote

    "From this, it can be deduced with reasonably high probability, that thegangofone is very likely to be a member of the NN production team."

    Whilst I'd like to believe that, gango - I believe -is just a precocious
    young fella who has had too much exposure of the horrors of world war 2, especially the Holocaust.
    He is, without a doubt a cut and paste merchent. Mostly from the Huffington post. Today he gave his take on the border problems of Arizona..I wonder when he last visited Arizona? What does he know about the Mexico border problems. He seems to have picked up on the new state laws but does not mention federal interference in trying to kill this law (it may already be killed, Obama don't like the Latino profiling part of the law) Very telling that gango calls the defenders of the borders a 'vigilante group'...read white supremacist/ Nazis, typical Lib speak.I wonder when was the last time gango had his ranch attacked by gun totting Mexicans? Anyhow, looking forward to the Guardian sister paper; the Gangozette giving its take on the global news. Given that its take may be from the armchair with the aid of selected websites..it does serve one purpose. it keeps its sole reporter from the real dangers of the nasty world outside.

    P:S To be fair to gango, I've never been to Arizona either, but I think I flew over it recently.

    Debt juggleryou wrote this also:

    "Hence, watch out for a major false flag 'incident' soon that will be blamed on Iran as an excuse for air attacks on their key nuclear facilities by the US and UK. Both airforces are already practising for such a strike."

    This stuff is so easy to spot, only if one is prepared to look beyond lamestream news. ..it reads just like an old book ...we know what's
    coming. The recent clinton aid suggesting Obama "needing a 9/11" was a marker for the next chess piece getting moved..yep, like i said, we know whats coming.

  • Comment number 42.

    If races are not equal, then how come perfectly healthy and well adjusted human beings get born out of mixed race love unions?

    Barack Obama, currently holding what's called the most powerful political position in the world, springs to mind here.

    mim

  • Comment number 43.

    By the way. Non of the veiled Muslim women made any coherent argument for the continuation of wearing their coverage in a non Islamic country "its my identiy", 'punks and Goths have their identity' etc. And it was difficult to hear what they said. I thought one said she would not shake hands because he was a non-Muslim, I could be wrong. Maybe she said because he was a man, I could be wrong again. The studio guest (muslim fella, no doubt an academic/scholar of this regressive religion) struggled to make any decent argument in defense of the veil.
    The veil on its base level is about men protecting their women from the eyes of other men. but like all things added to cultural thinking, it can go wrong and oppresive for some, and for others, it fills their need for belonging..a uniform for want of a better word. In the meantime the rest of us watch upon this spectacle and wonder why we ever allowed this culture to settle here, because in our hearts we know its gonna go seriously wrong in the not too far distant future. History always tells us different cultures living together will always fail...bloodily so. ah well...I could be wrong!

  • Comment number 44.

    #32 update

    Thanks to Apple I'm now blogging and loving listening to Jacques Brel while in a few moments shall switch to the 007 tune.

    In fact, it's on now, at full blast. Brill****

    mim

  • Comment number 45.

    Well the couple of eighteen year olds, totally swathed in fashionable black on a hot day, in, was that London, difficult to tell, thought it might be a market in India.

    Seemed to think it was a fashion statement, much like being a punk, or goth or somesuch, so pleased to see they take it all so seriously.

    As I read on another blog, once there are a few explosions with someone clad in a burka, those garments will soon vanish.

    Nice to see you back wappaho, I still read Caladonian Jim1 ; )

  • Comment number 46.



    Mr Damian Green, Immigration Minister said a ban would be 'rather un-British' and run contrary to the conventions of a 'tolerant and mutually respectful society'.

    ‘British tolerance’ is an overworked, abused and apparently a selective sectarian characteristic; look where it’s got us, e.g:-



    The ‘radical’ parties that stood for the preservation of English culture (as opposed to the ‘big 3’ that welcomed ‘diversity’ and jointly oversaw this non-integrated multicultural mess) were denied all 33 MPs that their 1.55 million votes would have been elected under PR. Having Nigel Farage on the NN panel was sheer tokenism as he was allowed only one brief statement compared to the 2 moslem members (another example of our British tolerance?)

    YouGov survey found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be outlawed, and the online Telegraph vote stood at 84% a few minutes ago.

    ‘Conservative MP Philip Hollobone has introduced a private members' bill - the Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill - which would make it illegal for people to cover their faces in public.’ Last week he also introduced a private members’ bill to deport foreign prisoners, so at least we have one MP looking after our interests!

    I shall continue to argue for the preservation of English culture and values. If that prompts the ‘nuisance caller’ to get on his fone he will be told ‘sorry you’ve reached Ron Number.’



  • Comment number 47.

    I've just had a worrying thought, if we don't ban face coverings, will all the muslim woman from, Spain, Netherlands, France, Italy, Syria all move to Britain, and claim asylum. And what happens when Turkey joins the EU which seems inevitable, will they be able to wear veils here but not in Turkey, hhhmm can of worms opened with this one. Nice one Damian!

  • Comment number 48.

    Brightyangthing

    I've just been listening on my iPhone to Leoanrd singing the 'Anthem', 'Light as the Breeze' and 'Tahoma Trailer' and mused around the subject of wonderful and fantastic joy and pleasure experienced during the recording of these pieces and consequently, on the whole, the elevation musicians/singers/dancers/artists/writers are bound to experience during creative times.

    mim

  • Comment number 49.

    HURRAH! AMERICA'S POODLE WILL OCCASIONALLY 'ANOINT A LEG'.

    It's official. Apparently we shall, henceforth, admit the Special Relationship is unequal, but nevertheless exert such power as we have - for the greater good.

    Why not start by pointing Obama at the realities of 9/11, and the wars that grew therefrom? That would be a lot better than a win at Crufts!

  • Comment number 50.

    #49

    Are you sure, singie, that 9/11 wasn't a thing to do with your adopted poodles?? If not the idea itself, then a lot of the actual details. I'm quite convinced of that. That's one of the reasons I'm appealing to Justice, however long it may take. My determination is unshakable. Even more so now, after my recent near to death collision with a bus at the junction
    of Cromwell and Queen's Gate.

    mim

  • Comment number 51.

    MODERN INTEGRATED BRITAIN - THE BIG FACELESS SOCIETY!

    I didn't like the way the manic Muslim professor started finger wagging at Kirsty on NN last night...he should have just told her to shut up!

    Did Farage only turn up to collect his appearance fee?

    Surely our faceless society doesn't square with this country's/govt's obsession with spying on its own people....you know, what with the millions of CCTV cameras etc. all using the latest face recognition software. Or are they just for certain types of people in our fair and multicultural society?

  • Comment number 52.

    #50

    Re. near death collision

    What a close shave...you certainly would have been a big loss to Dave and our Big Society!

  • Comment number 53.

    #46 indignantindegene

    "The ‘radical’ parties that stood for the preservation of English culture (as opposed to the ‘big 3’ that welcomed ‘diversity’ and jointly oversaw this non-integrated multicultural mess) were denied all 33 MPs that their 1.55 million votes would have been elected under PR."

    So are you talking about the BNP here?

    Like I say if there is a big mass of evidence for differences between the races at a significant level beyond the cosmteic then gather up the evidence and take it off to court.

    By the way the "radical" BNP was alleged to have a web site that got more hits than all of the other parties combined.

    Hence they got hammered at the elections and people tend to be quite dubious about their "facts" and figures.

  • Comment number 54.

    DJ

    I assume from from your post above that this is meant as a compliment but my main concern is whether Jeremy Paxman would/would have miss/missed me.

    I do know for certain that my blood family would have been devastated.

  • Comment number 55.

    More British way myth making

    the british way is not to smile and look at people otherwise you get a challenge of 'who you looking at'. go on the tube. no one looks at each other because its seen as provocative'.

    the bbc doesn't employ presenters in hijabs.


    Kafka
    israel State's character has a reputation of trying to claim something that is not theirs and not respecting laws or human rights of those owners that stand in their way?

    Big Society = big mafia society?

  • Comment number 56.

    #41 kevseywevsey

    "Whilst I'd like to believe that, gango - I believe -is just a precocious
    young fella who has had too much exposure of the horrors of world war 2, especially the Holocaust."

    Not at all though I do have family associations with some that were in the camps and some that found them.

    But then your icon jaded_jean is the one that was always wittering on that the Holocaust was "made up" and had been "refuted on the net" but would never provide these links to any war crimes trial and the Nuremburg trials were not refuted.

    So you may have some independence of mind after all if you accept the Holocaust did happen and understand the guilt of the Nazis.

    So if somebody who is revered by the far right posters on here and wants to start banging on about Hitler and National Socialism then they are fair game and in fact as a rule I generally just quote them.

    Like you complaining the other day about "mentalist libs ... saying all of the races are equal".

    You get very touchy about being described as the BNP but you are an English "nationalist" quite happy to admire the views of National Socialist jaded_jean who thinks the races are not equal so people may just form their own conclusions.

    So when you say:

    "History always tells us different cultures living together will always fail...bloodily so. ah well...I could be wrong!"

    that conflicts with your complaint about my not being prepared to have people deny or be agnostic on the Holocaust as it is an exceptionally important historical period.

    I think one of my responses got blocked the other day on racial equality but if you have lots of evidence that the races are not equal then gather it up and take it off to court with the EHRC and force a judicial review. Present it to some scientific academy that will no doubt be stunned at your brilliance and propose a Nobel.

    But that isn't going to happen because you know you could be wrong and there is no evidence so you will just whine on and on because that is the limit of your abilities.

  • Comment number 57.

    BLACKED OUT LIMOS (#55)

    Have you fixed up Power of Attorney Jaunty? There is a definite increase in 'those' limos lately, and they can't all be full of moustachioed blokes with an extra finger.

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