British Right-Wing Pundits

Which is my opinion of right-wing pundits, and my inability to post links...

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Oh read it for yrselves...

THE Rowntree report into poverty levels among Britain's ethnic minority communities is, predictably, being used by left-wingers to call for even more public spending and even more "anti-racism" initiatives.

The report reveals that poverty rates are far higher among black and Asian communities than among whites.

Bangladeshi and Pakistani families are particularly likely to live in poverty.

But there is another way to read this report.

What it actually does - though this is not what its liberal leftish authors will have intended - is to give the lie to claims that mass immigration has always been in the national economic interest.

It is common ground now among Left and Right that economic participation is the way to eliminate poverty. So a community with lots of poverty will tend to be a community in which relatively few people are making an economic contribution.

Therefore, not only are Muslim communities in the inner-cities the source of cultural and political tension with mainstream Britain, they are also revealed to be a major economic burden too.

Their economic participation rates are extremely low. If you believe, as I do, that this is primarily due to cultural factors rather than any overwhelming anti-Asian racism in Britain, then it becomes even clearer that the mass immigration of these groups with no simultaneous demand being made of them to integrate, has not so far been in the interests of Britain as a whole.

Given the large family sizes which are typical in these communities, they must also be putting a big strain on public services and social housing.

If we are to build a tolerant, successful, multi-racial Britain then people must be persuaded to stop using their ethnic origin as an excuse for underachievement or anti-social conduct. Left-wingers should be challenging members of these communities to fulfill their human potential, not giving them more excuses to view themselves as victims.

No doubt racism does still exist towards the ethnic minorities, but it is clearly not the main reason for some groups prospering and others ending up in poverty. It cannot explain why the Jews and Chinese have been economically successful and yet people from Pakistan and Bangladesh have, in general, not been. Neither can it explain why black boys and the children of Irish travellers are much more likely than average to be expelled from schools, while Indian and Chinese children are much less likely.

Is there an army of black-hating, traveller-baiting state school teachers out there which at the same time has an irrational adoration for Chinese and Indian children? I hardly think so. Different family structures are resulting in different types of behaviour across the ethnic groups.

The answer to problems of poverty and crime have to come from within the communities themselves. It is time for law-abiding Britons to stop beating themselves up about the failure of large proportions of people from some immigrant groups to succeed.

So you don't want to be poor? So learn the language, work hard at school, get a job and only bring into the world only the number of children that you can support out of your own income. So you don't want to end up in prison? Then stop breaking the law. And that applies whether you are black, white or sky-blue pink.

oh man daily mail are going down the BAN ABORTION road. well the front page yesterday was. jesus.

i was pretty shocked by the number of gps who thought it should be illegal.

I'm guessing the Daily Mail didn't mention that the reason for that is probably because of the disproportionate number of British GPs who are devoutly Hindu, huh?

They know their audience.

Jeremy Clarkson
'makes you laugh out loud and drives you incandescent with rage at
what the Blair years have done to Britain.'


Synopsis
Richard Littlejohn describes his job as sitting at the back throwing bottles. His twice-weekly columns have become an essential fix for millions of readers of the Daily Mail and the Sun over the past two decades. In "Littlejohn's Britain" he takes aim at the Blair years, lampooning New Labour with polemic, pastiche, parody, satire and savage social commentary. His cast of characters - including Two Jags, the Wicked Witch, Captain Hook and the Mad Mullah of the Traffic Taliban - have become part of the fabric of the nation. "Littlejohn" ridicules the country Britain has become over the past ten years - the barmy bureaucracy, the surveillance state, the petty interference in our lives, the suffocating regulations, policeman and judges who think they're part of the social services, the insanities of the 'elf 'n' safety industry, which have created such idiocies as forcing revellers celebrating Guy Fawkes Night to watch a bonfire on a big screen. Littlejohn has a bloodhound's nose for cant, hypocrisy and lunacy and an unparalleled talent for pouring scorn on the arrogance of the powerful, while making his readers roar with laughter. It's all here, in hilarious detail. Read The "Secret Sex Diaries of David Blunkett", sing along to "Two Jags: The Musical", take a ride on Blair Force One, play The Immigration Game and fight the Battle of Trafalgar under modern 'elf 'n' safety guidelines. 'Littlejohn has been ... a vivid exponent of a great British columnar style that stretches back five centuries or more. He's a distant, bastard cousin of Thomas Nash, Daniel Defoe and Alexander Pope. Cassandra and Bernard Levin might justly buy him a pint in the Chesire Cheese. Like or loathe him, he's the real, talented deal.' - "Observer".

2 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
It's so brilliant this site has been infested by Leftie activists!, 15 May 2007
Reviewer: Krishnamurti "K" - See all my reviews
As someone who has ACTUALLY read the book I can honestly say it is brilliant, as only the genius Littlejohn can be. That's why he is so sought after, and gets paid so much more than the other poor saps. The fundamentalist Lefties who have "contributed" so far hate him because he has given them such a pasting over the years. They really should stick to reading unpopular papers as the Guardian and The Independent. But normal grown ups will find this book a tonic and a delight.

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yeah the london eye REALLY PISSES ME OFF too

the insanities of the 'elf 'n' safety industry

i must say, though -- yesterday i was sitting in an office in a university and a health and safety person came round with an appointment, tried to do a workplace assessment of SOMEONE WHO WASN'T THERE via her co-worker, and then lectured said co-worker about minimizing mouse use + taking three breaks a day for 20-odd minutes.

you couldn't make it up

i know right.

weird blurb. i doubt many littlejohn fans have heard of thomas nashe, daniel defoe, and alexander pope, let alone read them (shit i haven't and i went to posh school); conversely doubt many pope fans dig on littlejohn's steez.

it's a quote from the observer thou.

"He's a distant, bastard cousin of Thomas Nash, Daniel Defoe and Alexander Pope."

*speechless*

"weird blurb. i doubt many littlejohn fans have heard of thomas nashe, daniel defoe, and alexander pope, let alone read them (shit i haven't and i went to posh school); conversely doubt many pope fans dig on littlejohn's steez"

you can't read pope if you're thick. his verse is some of the most densely packed of all.

it's not that the uk media is skewed to the left, it's more the case that the us has the religious right/neo-con mega buck bigots in great abundance.

it's a quote from the observer thou.

-- acrobat, Wednesday, May 16, 2007 11:48 PM (Yesterday)

holy fucking god.

because it's part of the guardian group and because of the hutton/new labour era i still instinctively think of the observer as leftish but it really isn't -- if you look at its history the observer's leftish phase was a tiny blip.

That is one shit cover. Speed cameras, the London Eye and a rubbish bin? Really tackling those difficult subjects aren't you waste of fucking space.

i like his face there. he is communicating "you couldn't make it up" via mime.

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And why do so many American books have such long titles?

james delingpole. dear god.

but mixing yr right wing polemic with charile brooker ha ha. he's clearly fighting the good fight against left wing values!

brooker wrote an anti-littlejohn thing the other day lol

because it's part of the guardian group and because of the hutton/new labour era i still instinctively think of the observer as leftish but it really isn't -- if you look at its history the observer's leftish phase was a tiny blip.

I remember back when Melanie Phillips was an Observer columnist.

mels used to be a lefty though innit.

She wasn't in her Observer column days, well not the ones I remember.

Freaky Trigger used to be hosted on the same server as her website, so every time it went down I consoled myself with the thought that it might have been due to an anti-Phillips cyber-onslaught.

"oh dear i accidentally seem to have deleted the index page..."

Brooker might not be right wing but he's part of the whole 'everything's crap, the modern world sucks' brigade. Also he's often funny though unlike everyone else mentioned here.

Plus Brooker-Littlejohn buyer could be someone who's bought the Littlejohn to gasp in horror, like I do when I feel my stress levels need to rise and read the Daily Mail.

I saw Brooker at the cinema a few weeks back. He has the most concave face ever.

One of my friends buys PJ O'Rourke books despite being a hardcore commie pinko. Know your enemy or something?

It's why I still link to Blissblog on CoM ;-)

Michael Bywater is what Brooker will eventually become.

I always assumed that lefties accounted for a pretty big chunk of O'Rourke's book sales, but it might just be me

I bought O'Rourke and am a pinko commie. But I've only kept one book. It's essentially the same joke in all the rest I discovered, and it gets tiresome.

i don't know much about pj o'rourke. i read an interview with him once thou, he didn't seem like ann coulter or rush limbaugh.

nothing can make you like the guardian more than reading another paper you pick up on the bus/at the barbers/etc

anyone see jonathan meades last night?

I AM Jonathan Meades - haven't you worked it out yet?

Nothing can make me like the Guardian less than its contents, i.e.:
(a) Beano comic;
(b) women journalists only allowed to write columns about their fluffy-wuffy bwains being too feisty-weisty to understand art/politics/music/the world/life;
(c) except P Toynbee: "VOTE GORDON HE IS THE FUTURE (C) MILLBANK PROMOTIONS PLC 2007";
(d) aforementioned Brooker modern life is all shit well come up with a better idea then or top yourself;
(e) "many over-verbose, jealous bloggers have been speculating in indigestible 3000-word tracts about the whereabouts of Maddy but I ALEXIS know the truth";
(f) what do you think about Palestine, yeah Palestine, yeah Palestine, that place that's just across the sea?

I've stopped reading the Times as well now except on Saturdays. Arrant Tory rot, as though it ever were anything else.

ps: that mugging was staged.

he seemed a lot more reactionary and dullardy than i was expecting. I enjoyed last week's show, and what i can remember of previous series, although I was possibly too young to really 'get' him then.

Apparently the Piloti guy from Private Eye is/was doing a show about the Orient Express at the moment. great days for reactionary architecture buffs.

anyone see jonathan meades last night?

i was going to mention the programme somewhere. i quite enjoyed his lecturing at first but he ruined things by being so utterly glib really.

ps: that mugging was staged.]

haha

he wasn't really reactionary. his point was flashy buildings that middle-class people like to see on "city breaks" don't actually provide much income for the inhabitants of the still pretty run-down north, and that instead of channelling money to poncey architects the money could be spent on things like, hhhhm, let's see, schools or even "subsidized jobs" -- hurrah for defense contracts! -- or other things that might make a difference.

the example of Bilbao skewed the argument a bit...unless Liverpool really does draw in as many tourists as the Basque commercial capital.

how dyou mean? that bilbao has 'worked' because it pulls in tourists?

essentially yes.

Liverpool gets loads of tourists - Beatles etc.