Mental

MELANIE Phillips has written an incisive article about the scandal of murders committed by those receiving 'Care in the Community' here.

Brown and the Pre-Budget Report

A GOOD, though characteristically foul-mouthed, general summing up may be found here.

Christian Game Draws Fire

THE imminent release of a new computer game in the UK is causing an uproar. Not because you can run over policemen at 140mph in a stolen car or gun down innocent passers-by in torrents of crimson gore, but because – heaven forbid – the good guys are Christians. 'The game is irresponsible… It demonises every other religion which isn't Christianity. People must boycott this violent game,' gibbered a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain. Indeed, all the more reason to buy Left Behind: Eternal Forces for yourself or a loved one here (read the hysterical reviews, too).

Eh?

ACCORDING to a report entitled Refugees and other new Migrants:

'White and black minority ethnic respondents displayed similar [negative] attitudes towards recent migrants which corresponds to reports that tensions do not necessarily arise along racial lines.'

Or maybe that white Britons aren't the only racists.
Also, Hazel Blears voices her concern that the issue of immigration could adversely effect New Labour's chances at the next General Election here

Inhuman Rights Act

THE logic behind the introduction of the Human Rights Act by New Labour back in heady 1998 remains something of an enigma; its sole purpose still seemingly to be to urinate liberally upon the face of every upstanding British citizen by adding an incredibly potent tool to the already impressive legal arsenal available to the 'aggrieved' wrongdoer.
Many will recall that back in mid-November the Home Office was forced to cough up £689,500 in an out-of-court settlement to 198 Heroin-addicted criminals, who claimed that the robust detoxification programs they underwent in gaol amounted to clinical negligence and a breach of articles 3, 4 and 14 of the
European Convention on Human Rights (introduced under the Human Rights Act) by the Prison Service. Each claimant received around £3,800 in damages.
Of course there are numerous such examples, each desperately vying with the previous to transcend mere absurdity, littering the act's six-year existence (it came into force in 2000); each occasion representing the crucifixion of justice and rationality alongside the contorted, infernal road that leads us on our shuffling death-march through ashen wastes to the ultimate completion of the New Labour project.
The contention that the act primarily serves the iniquitous was yet again aptly demonstrated on Thursday at the culmination of a case which caused a considerable disquiet throughout those civilised portions of the nation. Obviously, if Mr 'A' (see previous link) had wanted to remain in this country he should have considered that before committing his heinous act, but then such hideous people are incapable of rational thought; being propelled through life purely by a volatile mixture of narcissism and testosterone. As long as our emasculated criminal justice system continues to prostrate itself before imported and home-grown filth like this it is only inevitable that our decline into lawlessness will escalate and the more foreign dregs, encouraged by our feebleness, will be attracted to our benighted shores.

Somali Shenanigans

ANOTHER instance highlighting just what a peace-loving, tolerant religion Islam is has come to light. A proclamation in the southern Somali town of Bulo Burto calls for all shops and public places to be closed during prayer time to ensure religious observance. Those who do not comply, 'will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law [Sharia],' according to Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, chairman of the town's Islamic court. And critics have the audacity to call us Christians 'intolerant'?

All together now:

Bismillah ar-rahmaan ar-raheem
Al-hamdu lillahi rabb al-alameen
Ar-rahmaan ar-raheem'
Ma[a]liki yawm ad-deen
Et cetera

So... Diversity's not so great, Mr Blair?

CAN Blair's unusually severe and (equally uncommonly) sensible comments about the divisive effects of immigration and non-integration at the close of last week be genuine or are they, like most of what he emits, just so much hot air, let off in order to persuade the alienated electorate he does actually give a damn?

'But when it comes to our essential values - belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage - then that is where we come together, it is what we hold in common; it is what gives us the right to call ourselves British. At that point no distinctive culture or religion supercedes our duty to be part of an integrated United Kingdom,'

doesn't really sound much like the UK the majority of us would recognise and Blair's motley crew can hardly be said to have done much to encourage it; in fact they seem to have done much to discourage it. Decide for yourself whether the PM's merely being a supreme hypocrite here.

More Lawlessness and Disorder

HOME Office figures have revealed that 614 serious offences have been committed in the last two years by criminals on probation. These included 98 murders, 106 rapes, 37 manslaughters and 32 attempted murders. Under New Labour those given non-mandatory life sentences are being released after an average of only six years, contrasting with an average of 9 years in 2004 and 14 years in 1998.
It also disclosed that 990 prisoners released on parole were recalled to gaol for breaching their terms or re-offending, an increase of 30 per cent and that 111 prisoners with 'life sentences' on parole were recalled in the same period, a rise of 56 per cent.
A chronic lack of prison spaces, bought about by the government's socialist views on criminality, has lead to softer sentencing and pressure on the Parole Board to release potentially dangerous criminals early, resulting in this sorry state of affairs. Where will it all end?

Lawlessness and Disorder

IF any further conclusive evidence were required to demonstrate that Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) really aren't worth the paper they're printed on, here it is. An exhaustive study conducted by the National Audit Office (NAO) has discovered that in 55 per cent of cases examined the provisos of ASBOs had been breached, with 35 per cent of those wrongdoers breaching them five times or more. In an extreme instance one delinquent breached the conditions of his ASBO an astounding 25 times; the average number of violations amongst those surveyed being four.
Of the 893 cases scrutinised, some 20 per cent received almost 60 per cent of all warning letters, Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs) and ASBOs issued. This fifth of criminals were found to have an average of 50 previous convictions each, compared with an average of 24 for the remainder. A spokesman for the NAO said that there is, '…a hard core of perpetrators for whom interventions had limited impact.' If they are so 'hard core' one might be forgiven for enquiring as to why they aren't behind bars, or breaking rocks in a quarry somewhere, or – better still - in a pit being liberally sprinkled with calcium oxide?
In refusing to build extra prison places and plumping instead for electronic tagging, ASBOs, ABCs, and shorter sentencing, this government is itself guilty of breaching a contract which any democratically elected administration has with its law-abiding citizens: that it is their obligation to provide a force – not a 'service' – that will guard us from the ravages of the criminal classes so that we are not obliged to 'take the law into our hands', a road that would eventually to anarchy. In this obligation they have utterly failed, in large part because of their continuing attachment to the incoherent socialistic dogma that criminals are themselves the wretched victims of a societal disease, which is seen to derive from economic privation and social inequity, instead of any inborn wickedness. This demented creed demands treatment instead of punishment and compassion instead of retribution. In the operation of this foolish, compassionate policing the ASBO is just another characteristic New Labour gimmick simultaneously calculated to make the government appear to be alert to crime whilst keeping wrongdoers out of gaol.
As Bill Bratton, former Commissioner of the NYPD under Mayor Giuliani, said of the UK earlier this year: 'You can do something about crime. You can control it. … You need smart policing, intelligence-led policing, you need resources. This is not rocket science. Fighting crime is not the most difficult thing in the world.' This is, of course, obvious, but the major problem facing effective crime fighting in the UK is of an ideological nature: it is the pandering attitudes of our politicians and police chiefs towards criminals that has unleashed an epidemic of lawlessness onto our streets and unless these notions are relinquished the situation will undoubtedly get worse.
Regarding these findings Home Office minister Anthony McNulty made this extraordinary response: 'The breach of an ASBO is not the failure of the ASBO but the failure of the individual to abide by its conditions.' And why shouldn't the individual abide by its conditions, Mr McNulty? Is it because he has absolutely nothing to fear from our inadequate criminal 'justice' system?

By Our Courts Divided

ON Wednesday The Daily Telegraph reported on a somewhat disturbing comment made by one Aydarus Yusuf, a 29-year old Somali immigrant, on the BBC radio programme Law in Action. Mr Yusuf, who has lived in Britain for 15 years, said: 'Us Somalis, wherever we are in the world, we have our own law. It's not Islamic, it's not religious - it's just a cultural thing.' He then admitted that he is involved in just such an unofficial law court - or 'gar' - which convenes in south-east London and has in the past presided over a dispute involving a stabbing. A sobering piece on the usurpation of British law by foreign imports – particularly Sharia law - can be accessed here.

Buy-to-Lets Cells?

THE way Britain's going this one could prove a real money-spinner. Invest now!

Riotous Fun

A LARGE-SCALE riot broke out last Tuesday at Britain's biggest 'Immigration Removal Centre' (IRC) in West London. It took specialist anti-riot officers some 18 hours to bring the rebellious inmates of Harmondsworth IRC to heel, during which time fire ravaged much of the structure. Apparently the disturbance started following the publication on the same day of a report by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers which criticised the management of the facility.
Operational since October 2001 the £70 million complex, which is privately owned and run by Kalyx (previously UKDS), can hold some 550 deportees, although 482 were being detained at the time of the unrest, and comprises four wings, providing the inmates with satellite television, game consoles, basket and volleyball courts, and five-a-side pitches. They reside in 'cells' with en-suite facilities, dine in a canteen providing six different meals a day and can worship in a variety of prayer rooms. VPL could not confirm whether or not there was Krug on tap.
HMCIP's report revealed that some 60 per cent of detainees said they had felt unsafe and that they found some custody officers to be 'intimidating' and 'unhelpful'. Telephoning his British partner Joanne Bean during the riot, Diyako Rasul, 20, who is awaiting deportation to northern Iraq, told her that, 'officers there have an attitude problem and they don't treat any of the detainees with respect.'
Okay, so the regime might be a little rigid and the guards insensitive, but please do remember that this is, after all, a detention facility for people who aren't even meant to be in this country in the first place. Considering about a third of the population of Harmondsworth is comprised of foreign nationals who have committed crimes in the UK, and are awaiting deportation alongside the illegal immigrants and sham asylum seekers, the administration doesn't sound too bad. Satellite? Games pitches? Champagne on tap (ahem)? Come on, this place isn't exactly Buchenwald and these people are wrongdoers.
As usual the situation soon descended into total farce when perennial 'tough-man' and Stalinist boot-licker John Reid was 'forced' (obviously his Communist conscience was holding a gun to his head) to release on bail 150 deportees from other IRCs in order to house those more dangerous inmates made homeless by the extensive damage they caused at Harmondsworth. Was that really necessary? Would not a large barn in the vicinity, a hefty padlock and a dozen armed officers have sufficed instead? Okay, conditions would be somewhat Spartan, but, hey, that's what you get for burning your IRC down, friends! Of course, and despite 'orders' to report regularly to local authorities, there is little doubt that any of the 150 bailed illegals will ever be seen again.
And if this all sounds strangely familiar, you're right.

Reid: Full of the Proverbial

'THE Home Secretary, John Reid, yesterday said that he wanted to see an "optimum level of immigration" set for Britain in an attempt to prevent migrant numbers being used as a party political football.' – The Guardian, 07/08/06

Really? Link

Laugh? I nearly Cried…

Link

The Balkanisation Continues: CRE Admits Segregation is Increasing

CHAIRMAN of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips OBE, gave a speech at the CRE Race Convention on Monday last week, which had convened to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the organisation. In it he reiterated his belief that: 'As a nation we are becoming more ethnically segregated by residence; and inequality is being amplified by our separate lives', a point he originally made back in September 2005 in his notorious 'Sleepwalking into Segregation' speech. Again his oration appeared to support the notion that a 'white flight' from Britain's most ethnically diverse cities is underway and that division along racial lines is an actuality in many of our conurbations. In making such a controversial yet discerning proclamation about the state of ethnic and social cohesion in 21st Century Britain, Mr Phillips proves himself to be probably the only Chairman of the CRE in recent memory to actually have something other than excrement slopping about between his ears (anybody remember the fragrant Gurbux 'Fuck off! Don't you know who I am?' Singh?) and, naturally, anybody who manages to earn the enmity of Kenneth R. Livingstone gets a shiny gold star for outstanding achievement from VPL.

Of course it is patently obvious to anybody with eyes and even a modicum of intelligence that the multicultural project is failing fast and that many white people who are financially able are hastily jumping ship; abandoning the reeking, grey cities for destinations in the countryside or overseas. Indeed, this unsettling reality was conclusively demonstrated in a MigrationwatchUK report nearly two years ago. This may not be pleasant for the deluded egalitarian crowd to accept, but nevertheless it is the unquestionable truth.
Living in the West Country the author finds it impossible not to notice the endless trickle of white families, typically from the Midlands, seeping into the area. These are not just middle class business-types either; the majority seems to be tradesmen aged 30-55 and their families. When pressed as to why they left, their answer is always depressingly the same the same: they feel marginalised, threatened and increasingly isolated.

Oh, I'm sooo SOR, Next Time I'll remember the Poppers…

THE outcry from religious leaders over the scheduled introduction of the controversial Sexual Orientation Regulations (SOR), which will prevent homosexuals from being discriminated against in the 'provision of goods and services', is growing. The regulations are set to come into force in the UK on 01/04/07, but a toughened-up version of the SOR legislation has already been fast-tracked in Northern Ireland and is due to come into force there on the 01/01/07, probably in an attempt to gage workability (NI seems to be a test-ground for contentious new laws these days).
On Monday Roman Catholic Archbishop Vincent Nichols waded into the fray with this pointed admonition: 'those who are elected to fashion our laws are not elected to be our moral tutors. They have no mandate or competence to be so.' His Grace added that government ministers are, 'engaged in an intense and at times aggressive reshaping of our moral framework.' But then, your Excellency, what else do you expect from such a shower of unrepentant socialists set on their self-ordained mission to transform (shh, who said disfigure?) Britain into a liberal wonderland where everybody can live in peace and plenty forevermore?
On Tuesday the Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, concurred with his colleague, stating, 'In the proposed regulations there is no clear exemption for religious belief, even though it is widely known that several of the faiths in this country will have serious difficulty. These regulations will certainly affect a great deal of charitable work done by churches and others.' Pastor Ade Amooba, of Christian Voice, South London, was even more explicit: 'Homosexuals are set at liberty to enjoy their way of life. Why does the government want to take away ours? We will shut down the youth clubs and welfare projects rather than obey these laws.'
We won't even ask what the Muslims and Jews think, but it'd be an understatement to say that they ain't happy.

So, all this upset simply so that homosexuals can claim the right to hold knitting mornings in the vestry and stay in B&Bs run by homophobes? Some commentators have suggested that the above reactions of these and other religious leaders to the proposed legislation - threatening to disband their charity networks and so forth - has been rather infantile, and that they should accept that society is a-changin' and simply abandon tenants that have been a central part of their faith for, oh, 2,000-years or so. But hasn't this ancient creed - including it's more orthodox branches - jumped through enough hoops already for the progressive milieu? Surely, in order to preserve what little integrity it still possesses true Christianity – and not the happy-clappy nonsense that abounds these days - must remain diametrically opposed to the practice of homosexuality, just as it should be opposed to abortion; surely anything else is just Christianity lite and its hippy practitioners are headed straight for the hot place with the rest of the infidels.
Over the last forty-or-so years ineffaceable damage has already been done to Christianity of all denominations in the name of modernisation, particularly to the CofE, to the extent that the general public no longer perceives it as a serious institution (although there are of course other, more complex, reasons for the present faithlessness of the British public). In her 2000 book C of E: The State It's In Monica Furlong outlines the scale of the collapse of Christianity: 'In the twenty years between 1980 and 2000 the Church of England suffered a 27 per cent decline in church membership. The Roman Catholic Church suffered a similar decline in the same period in mass attendance. Methodists, Baptists and others suffered decline too…' A BBC article reports that, 'In 2000, 60 per cent of the population claimed to belong to a specific religion with 55 per cent being Christian. However, half of all adults aged 18 and over who belonged to a religion have never attended a religious service.' But has essentially swapping the rigid morality of the King James Bible for the loose 'ideals' conjured up in Lennon's vapid Imagine made Britain a better country to live in? If you're a transgender, heroin-smoking socialist clown then the answer's going to be in the affirmative; but that's not the majority of us, is it? The lack of a rigid morality imposed on the populace at school, at home and from the pulpit might go someway to explaining the current immorality and lawlessness which besets the UK. So not only is Christianity fighting for its own life, but in this current battle it is also fighting for the preservation of a morality and way of life that most decent people still ascribe to.

Because the SOR will not just affect religious groups: the proposed legislation will make it illegal for anyone who provides goods, services, facilities and education et cetera to discriminate against somebody on the grounds of their sexual orientation. Naturally, business-wise many people will and do not discriminate anyway; a customer is, after all, a customer, but people should at least be given the option. This lack of choice could lead to some unpleasant situations and will, obviously, add to resentment about supposed preferential treatment.
The issue of most concern is that the regulations will oblige schools to teach homosexual education alongside and as equal to heterosexual education, a development that will affect and disturb many parents. Even if you accept that those of a homo- and bisexual orientation represent six percent of the overall UK population then the high profile already afforded these people by the mass media and our political elite is disproportionate to say the least. It goes without saying that if people feel the urge to engage in homosexual acts, that's entirely their choice; just as it is with people who feel the urge to 'get it on' with animals or get intimate with corpses – but I, and the majority of the British population, don't want to have it smeared in our, or our children's, faces 24/7. Even veteran homosexual rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, speaking in a Dispatches episode earlier this year, posited of homophobic views that, 'In a free and democratic society, we [homosexuals] sometimes have to put up with views we disagree with, we find offensive, perhaps even insulting, because that is the price of freedom'. People are fed up with this 'pink bombardment' and have been sorely provoked in the recent past when, for instance, the government abolished Section28 despite widespread condemnation. We Brits can be an intolerant bunch if pushed and repeated exposure to lifestyles which, to be frank, makes the majority of us want to regurgitate the contents of our stomach, is simply going to make us even more intolerant. If this tiresome circus carries on I'm emigrating to Poland .

The UN: Just Can't Stop Interfering

AS many have long suspected it appears that Kofi Annan is just a front-man for that monolithic nonentity, the United Nations. Find out the true identity of the Secretary-General, apparently an expert on South-East Asian 'affairs', here.

Permissive Culture Claims another Casualty

ON Tuesday night Gavin Britton, an 18-year-old Student studying business and economics at Exeter University, was found dead from suspected alcohol poisoning near the city centre after what must have been a particularly heavy drinking session. On his MySpace account his headline reads 'If your not living life on the edge you're taking up to much space[sic]' – looks like that attitude did the poor fellow a lot of good. The myopic and self-indulgent 'live for the moment, man' attitude so prevalent amongst youngsters these days really does have much to answer for, as do its progenitors in the hedonistic sixties.

A Sad, Sad State of Affairs

VERY few could failed to have been moved by the harrowing climax to the trial of the two young men accused of the brutal murder of London lawyer Tom ap Rhys Price at the Old Bailey this week (full story here). On Monday his attackers Donnel Carty,19, and Delanio Brown, 18, were both found guilty of his murder and sentenced the following day to a minimum of 21 and 17-years in the slammer respectively. Prior to the sentencing a 'victim impact statement' composed by the deceased's fiancée, Adele Eastman, 32, was read out to the court by Richard Horwell QC; a treatise in which the young lady made painfully clear in heart-rending prose the dreadful impact this bloody and senseless loss has had upon her life. The full text of this statement can be read here. In the course of the recitation the two offenders slouched, rolled their eyes and yawned, with all the retarded, ignorant derision one would expect from such base creatures. Neither made any declaration of remorse for the act.

Aside from the obvious human interest the trial also revealed a rather disconcerting truth regarding the lethal duo which speaks volumes about the pathetic state of crime and punishment on the streets of our metropolises in the twenty-first century. It transpired that Mr Brown had no prior convictions and that Mr Carty had previously received a conditional discharge for assaulting a police officer and a caution for the possession of cannabis; hardly the records of hardcore criminals, one might be forgiven for thinking, yet they belie the shocking criminality that characterised the depraved world which the pair inhabited.
The two were members of the 'KG (Kensal Green) Tribe' which operated in north-west London and specialised in 'steaming' trains on the Underground - that is running through the passenger cars, mugging as many commuters as possible before alighting at the next station. The gang appeared untouchable and, doubtless spurred on by police inaction, went on to rob an astonishing 90 people in this manner during the closing months of 2005. In one of their more brutal attacks, carried out on 23/12/05 some three weeks before the fatal stabbing, the gang went on a two-hour rampage through commuter-laden carriages. Two men who resisted were stabbed in the thigh for their 'disrespect'.
Indeed, the violent propensities of young Mr Carty, also known by his street names of 'Armani' and 'G Rock', were amply demonstrated in a set of obnoxiously belligerent Hip-Hop lyrics - or 'poignant street poetry', as many cretinous Guardianistas seem to regard this sort of thing – recorded on a youth training course (don't ask) a year before the slaying. A portion of the deranged rap went as follows: 'I draw for a shank/You boys will get poked/We do not pet to do murders/Come 'round here, you'll get bored/That don't work out, draw your sword.' (Key: Shank: knife, Poked: stabbed, Pet: fear, Bored: stabbed). There cannot be any doubt that those who attempt to equate coarse and bellicose Hip-Hop lyrics with the measured beauty of wordsmiths like Milton or Keats are at least deluded or, worse, mentally ill, but this is not the place to discuss the baleful influence of this particular tentacle of popular culture in the UK.

Most would agree that it was incredibly charitable of the victim's mother, Estella ap Rhys Price, to say of the killers: 'If they had been educated properly, given the right moral training, they would not have done this. I don't know their circumstances but no doubt there is some reason for what they did. I feel very sorry for them.' Mrs ap Rhys Price's comment about morality (or, rather, lack of it) are perceptive and naturally if we live in a culture that is no longer able to provide its youngsters with sturdy moral instruction then we must expect dreadful consequences.
By way of explanation for the deed, many of the papers also pointed to the fact that the men came from 'dysfunctional families', that 'neither boy had a father figure in his life', or that - and this is my favorite – according to Miss Camila Batmanghelidjh, an expert speaking on the BBC, the two had poor 'self-soothing repertories' (really); as if all these various deficiencies somehow rationalise the callous act that was perpetrated. Again in these theories we hear the same old socialist platitudes that 'deprivation' and a 'lack of education' (although Mr Brown even managed to acquire some GCSEs and complete a one-year sports course at Uxbridge College) must invariably lead to crime; that in our 'progressive' society criminality is a social and economic disease and as such criminals are somehow the helpless victims of happenstance; annulled of individual responsibility for their actions. This ideology is fallacious because, as with poor Mrs ap Rhys Price, it leads us to pity the criminal and seek to 'understand' and 'treat' them instead of meting out severe punishment; an example which may act as a deterrent to those of a similar persuasion.
Does the belief that such wicked behaviour can be blamed on mere 'inequality' seem so credible when a recent study has revealed that for many criminals mugging and other forms of street crime are 'fun' and that the proceeds from such actions are often spent on 'non-essential, status-enhancing' goods? Professor Trevor Bennett, one of the authors of the report said,

'The decision to commit street robbery can be explained in part by particular characteristics of the street culture. This finding is important, because British research has tended to explain robbery in terms of rational choice and to focus instead on the role of cost-reward calculations. Our research suggests that any explanation must primarily take into account cultural factors associated with life on the street.'

Kwasi Kwarteng, a friend of Mr ap Rhys Price, does not agree with the bereaved mother's assessment either and hits the nail rather squarely on the head writing in The Daily Mail:

'To suggest that this pair's utter disregard for human life was the result of their deprived background is patronizing and insulting. Such a suggestion implies that they can't help behaving like mindless thugs.
'…To suggest that mindless violence is the only possible outcome of being raised on an inner-city estate by a single mother offends the law-abiding majority of people who are brought up in similar circumstances.'

He also identified the law and order issues raised by this case:

'These tearaways had absolutely no fear of being caught. They thought they were invincible. They lived in a world beyond good and evil.
'In their own view, they could do whatever they wanted. The more people they attacked without being caught, the more confident they became of being able to get away with it.'

Indeed, without fear of facing justice just what limitations might such animals set for themselves? This sorry killing provides the clear answer; one might almost say that police ineffectiveness provoked their heinous act. Such people, possessing grossly defective moral compasses and whose only motivations are that of avarice, antagonism and the protection of their own overblown egotism, will behave in the most barbaric of ways if the barrier of law enforcement, which should serve to separate the law-abiding majority from such hoodlums, is broken down. And, because of the withering of formerly robust policing and sentencing, due to the prevalence of the above-mentioned perceptions of criminality as a social ailment amongst the political elite, it has been broken down in a most reckless manner.
In his polemic Mr Kwarteng goes on to invoke Thomas Hobbes' vision of anarchy, where there is an unending war of all against all and morality is nonexistent (sounds appealing, eh Commander Paddick?). Whilst the situation might not be quite as dire as that on our streets, the grim truth is that unless politicians and the police hierarchy stop regarding criminals as victims of circumstance in need of therapy and becomes more draconian in their approach to dealing with them, then Hobbes' nightmare vision may soon become a reality in many of our blighted cities.

Until then Tom ap Rhys Price, like Damilola Taylor, John Monckton, Daisy Fenton, Timothy Robinson and the countless others, becomes yet another indelible blood-stain on Blair's multicultural dystopia.