I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

A welcome and an introduction

This blog mostly serves as a repository for my own writing, but I thought it worthwhile to post a few links here to groups and causes I support, have sympathy for or find of enduring interest. Here goes.

Like many others I lean to the left on economic questions, and to the right on issues like the family, immigration and social cohesion. I am therefore happy to be a supporter of the small but perfectly formed SDP, under the leadership of William Clouston.

Below I list several other websites that I would encourage others to dip into.

Firstly spiked, which has achieved an enormous amount in recent years, especially in flying the flag for freedom of speech. Working perhaps from a similar commitment is the Free Speech Union, which performs a vital role in supporting those the mob come for. Elsewhere, I am a subscriber to the monthly magazine Fortean Times, which is so eclectic its perhaps hard to describe in a sentence. Perhaps the best way to do so is to say is that it takes issues often dismissed, seriously, and therefore expands our understanding? Staying in that area, for many years I ran a blog devoted to 9/11 conspiracy theories - 9/11 Cultwatch. Its a bit dated, but you can still see its posts here.

During Covid I read Henry Williamson's superb series of novels - A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight. To me, Williamson is our greatest twentieth century author. The Henry Williamson Society's website can be viewed here. Growing up in the north west of England in the 1970s and 1980s introduced me to a great musical heritage - I still spend a lot of time listening to Joy Division, The Smiths, and of course Morrissey, who has not been forgiven for aging with his audience. This year I have tried to broaden my listening to enjoying Boards of Canada, trying to get my head around various martial industrial bands, and similarly Muslimgauze, the project of the late Bryn Jones.

Finally, for many years I have enjoyed the company and insights of Larry O'Hara, perhaps the UK's foremost expert on the far-right. Do visit the website of his magazine, Notes from the Borderland.

Notes from the Borderland: Back and sizzling at the table

After a very considerable hiatus, the parapolitical magazine Notes from the Borderland is back. Issue 12 is out now, and covers an eclectic range of issues. The magazine is available in bookshops like Housmans in Kings Cross and stores stocked by Central distribution, and also via the Magazine Heaven chain.

The front cover shows the disastrous National Action rally in 2015, where the far-right's finest ended up hiding in the left luggage facility at Liverpool Lime Street station, besieged by anti-fascists and surrounded by rather nervous looking coppers. Larry O'Hara and Dave Hughes question the state response to far-right terrorism in recent years, not least when it is a phenomenon so significantly dwarfed by its jihadist rivals. A significant player in the trials involving neo-Nazis has been academic Matthew Feldman - O'Hara dissects just how low the bar may be when it comes to academic 'expertise' in some of these cases. The sorry collapse of CARR - the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right - an organisation Feldman founded, features as a perhaps classic example of the ability of some of those on the left of politics (as they would see themselves) to eat their own. The questions this debacle raises illustrate that even within an academia where it has the pitch to itself, the left's iconoclasm ensures that it is more interested in smashing up, than building institutions.

NFB is perhaps the only parapolitical magazine in the UK now appearing in print form. Old rival Lobster moved to online only many years ago, and if there are any new kids on the block (Declassified UK perhaps?) they have been born and will no doubt only ever breathe and toddle online. I think that's a shame - I don't believe the human brain can read detail or theory online for a significant amount of time. Its pleasing therefore to see Verona Silenda pick up her stiletto and wield it in the direction of artificial intelligence and the threat technology poses to both our politics and our personal freedoms. Technology of course, makes hypocrites of us all, and it was a delight to be reminded once more of Steve Booth's old cartoon, on page 50 about the primitivist CD-Rom.

One book I don't have from my days in the Anarchist movement is the Anarchist Cookbook. Heidi Svenson covers recent terrorism trials involving this text, and some of the curious specimens caught up in them - none more so than Mr Logic lookalike Oliver Bel. I have contributed a short piece on the environmental movement and its giddy approach to fascism, which it seems to see virtually everywhere, but most certainly in the production of the fossil fuels that we, for now at least, cannot do without. Comments on my article are welcome.

In general terms the magazine, while detailed, sustains a humourous tone, is well produced and is perhaps best read in chunks. As Brian Clough once said of televised football - you don't want Sunday roast every day of the week. Notes from the Borderland is a roast dinner, not a sandwich at your desk. As with any roast however, some parts are perhaps better than others. If there is a rubbery carrot served it is Dave Hughes's article 'It isn't just them.' This is almost teenage in its naiveté about pro-Palestinian marches, and the wider Gaza conflict. Contrary to Mr Hughes's rose tinted spectacles, the reason the arrest rate at these marches is 'lower than Glastonbury' is because the authorities (including the very spooks NFB is supposedly watching) have treated them as a safety valve, broadly allowing extreme behaviour, threats and support for terrorism to occur on the streets, rather than force it underground. Indeed the point is made by Neil Basu, former head of counter-terrorism policing and Sir Keir Starmer's newest buddy, that the marches are important for that very reason. Bear in mind though, that those people calling for jihad here or anywhere else are not your friend........

And there's more. There is also an NFB special issue on the 1999 London nail bombings, an outrage for which we have just seen the twenty-fifth anniversary. Details of that publication and where to order it, are here.

Its not who you vote for, but what you vote for

Is democracy in good health following the May elections?

One thing that struck me was the defeat of the likeable Jamie Driscoll, formerly Labour's North of Tyne mayor and latterly an independent after being purged by Sir Keir. Driscoll stood and lost to Labour in the first election for the much bigger position of North East Mayor. This covers Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham.

What's interesting about this exercise in devolved power is that it looks remarkably similar to one rejected previously by the electorate. Katie Balls wrote in the 20 April issue of The Spectator:

"Metro mayors were created in 2017, not necessarily by popular demand. In fact, Newcastle, Sunderland and Gateshead all rejected mayors. They're now getting what no one really asked for: a single elected figure to cover all their areas, along with North and South Tyneside. The new North East Mayoral Combined Authority arrives 20 years after the idea of a devolved assembly for the north-east was rejected by voters by a three-to-one margin. The new authority was created in a direct deal with the councils: this time the public was not consulted."

There is of course a pattern here. Back in 2012, Prime Minister David Cameron wanted to see Mayors replacing council cabinets across the country. That was until nine cities voted no - Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Wakefield, Coventry, Leeds and Bradford. These election results were in many ways a mere hiccup - by 2017 Manchester had an elected Mayor anyway. Birmingham went even bigger with a Mayor for the whole West Midlands, and Newcastle, as outlined above, is now stuck in a very similar regional structure.

One of the things which should interest us more in politics is how things happen without anyone directly voting for it, or even being fully aware it is happening until it happens. I would much prefer to see, wherever possible, power devolved to as local a level as it can be. That gives the public more connection with those who are running things. Better Corby council, than North Northamptonshire. Better North Northamptonshire than Northamptonshire. And better Northamptonshire than any future East Midlands combined authority of Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland, Leicestershire and whoever else.

Now - how do I vote for that?

The Conservatives have failed to conserve our environment

One of themes which dominates my thinking is decline, and the signs of decline that are all around. One of the most obvious, especially when you get out of the city, is in our rivers.

"I began to realise that this country is peppered with thousands of little community groups comprised of decent, ordinary people who know their river is not the way it was in their childhood. Decent people who put their trust in the Environment Agency and the water regulators , and trusted that they would nurture, protect and conserve these rivers. And the system's been doing none of that for decades."

Feargal Sharkey interviewed by Chris Packham in the Radio Times, 20 April 2024, p. 14.

I find Packham tedious, but his interview with Sharkey is important for these very arguments.

Recognising the Islamic Republic of Iran's threat to the UK

Last month Policy Exchange published the report I have worked on for some time - 'Tehran Calling: The Iranian Threat to the UK'.

This takes the view that the Iran poses a unique challenge to both the security and social cohesion of the United Kingdom.

Iran is a hostile state in the style of Russia or China: it seeks to interfere with our online systems and takes British citizens hostage. Yet Iran also seeks to wield social and cultural influence in this country, declaring and imposing blasphemy codes, and creating institutions that project power and influence.

You can read the report online here. A pdf can be downloaded below.

Download Tehran Calling The Iranian Threat to the UK 2024

For St George's Day

It sometimes takes an Irishman to remind us of our greatness. Discussing books, the Count states:

"Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her."

Bram Stoker, Dracula.

Call 999 - I need a hijab and a prayer mat!

In Carry On Again Doctor, Dr Ernest Stoppidge (Charles Hawtrey) famously stated that he did not object to jiggery, but takes exception to pokery! I do not object to either, but I draw the line at wokery, and unfortunately there is a lot of it about.

On Wednesday the Daily Express published my latest on that bastion of wokeness, the police force, and in particular the pride West Midlands police take in officers driving around Birmingham with prayer mats and hijabs in their patrol vehicles (?).
While citizens of Gotham City used to put up the bat signal at times of distress in order to alert Batman and Robin, perhaps in Moseley the West Midlands Police logo will be projected in the skies when someone needs a hijab to be urgently delivered?

You can read the article online here, and a pdf is available below.

Download The police are taking the public for granted by indulging in wokery _ Express Comment 10 04 2024

When football was football

I always rather liked Joe Kinnear, who died at the weekend aged 77.

For an insight into football from another era, his obituary in The Telegraph discussed the bonus he got for winning the 1967 FA Cup final with Tottenham:

"His Cup bonus came to £2,500: he gave his mother £500, his sisters £30 and a new outfit each, bought his grandmother in Dublin a TV and an armchair, and himself a new Ford Corsair for £600. He then took his extended family for a six-week holiday in Ireland until the money ran out. “I couldn’t get rid of it quick enough,” he recalled."

While it is easy to dismiss the Kinnear of his Newcastle period as a buffoon, he managed Wimbledon to sixth spot in the top division, and two top ten finishes. Well anyone ever do that again?

An overlooked aspect of the pro-Palestinian marches

Andrew Murray had a big piece in the Morning Star last Wednesday entitled 'Rochdale has shown what can be done'.

In it Murray raised something that was in many ways obvious, but I and many others had certainly missed concerning the London protests. Jointly organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, CND, Muslim Association of Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa and Palestinian Forum in Britain, Murray writes of the marches:

"For one thing, the exclusion of Galloway from the platform at the national rallies for Palestine is not tenable. It would perversely echo the disdain for the masses of Rochdale expressed by the Prime Minister".

Well, there was still no room for George Galloway's fedora in London this weekend, and the man himself was instead to be found speaking alongside Arthur Scargill at a miners strike commemoration in Doncaster. I am guessing Galloway's exclusion, while perhaps down to personal issues, is most likely because his position on Syria rubs up some of the Islamists in the pro-Palestinian marches, the wrong way.

If so, its an interesting test of the size and nature of this coalition? Is there room for Galloway and the Workers Party of Britain, or not?

George Galloway: What next?

As George Galloway heads to Westminster, it is important to consider what comes next.

The piece below was first published, yesterday evening, by Policy Exchange. it is also saved as a pdf below.

There are three big take-aways from events in Rochdale.

Firstly George Galloway’s victory will inspire a series of challenges to Labour from pro-Palestinian candidates. This was happening anyway with Leanne Mohamad committed to standing against Wes Streeting in Ilford North, and Tasnime Akunjee taking on Rushanara Ali in Bethnal Green and Stepney. Those activists will have an extra spring in their step today, while Galloway claims to have been approached by a series of potential candidates from neighbouring constituencies. Keir Starmer’s consolidation of power within the Labour party also left at least two big beasts growling outside the tent – Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott. Both are yet to declare their intentions.

Prior to the October 7th attacks on Israel, all looked rosy for Sir Keir Starmer. Opinion polls had him a mile ahead, and bar a few Corbynista malcontents, the party appeared broadly united, as those about to win power often are. That has now changed. Just as the war in Iraq removed the air of invincibility from Tony Blair, so the conflict between Israel and Hamas has re-divided Labour. Starmer has responded in two distinct ways. The first has been to recognise that Israel was going to wage war in Gaza, regardless of anything the leader of the opposition in the United Kingdom said or did. Labour calls for a ceasefire have appeared only gradually. But it is the second element in Labour’s approach which may have the greatest ramifications for the country. Labour has opted to go hard at the Conservatives ‘Islamophobia,’ concentrating their big guns at Suella Braverman, Lee Anderson and Liz Truss, and in turn asking Rishi Sunak to move against all three.

This approach deftly pivoted attention away from the Speaker of the Commons’ admission that he broke parliamentary procedure to allow a Labour motion on Gaza, due to threats being made to MPs. Not only did the Islamophobia furore move debate on from the issue of Islamist threats,

it raises significant questions about how a future Labour government will approach the issue. In 2019 the Conservatives rejected as unworkable an All-Party Group of British Muslims definition of Islamophobia. Would Prime Minister Starmer? Accepting such a definition, which would have serious ramifications for both freedom of speech and the 2010 Equality Act, currently looks like a convenient olive branch to Muslim activists.

The third takeaway from Rochdale is the question of what Galloway’s success tells us about British politics, and where our society is heading. His current vehicle, the Workers Party of Britain, evokes little love on the Left who dislike Galloway’s support for Brexit, his flurries of social conservatism and the party’s origins. Galloway has become the public face of the Workers Party, while other founders such as Joti Brar, of the Stalinist Communist Party Great Britain (Marxist Leninist), and Galloway’s former deputy, have fallen by the wayside.

Galloway’s pitch in Bethnal Green in 2005, Bradford West in 2012 and Rochdale in 2024 was directed primarily at one section of the community – Muslim voters. In Rochdale his campaign placards were in the colours of the Palestinian flag, and Galloway declared the intention of being a voice for Gaza in parliament. Some ugly rhetoric also emerged with Galloway referring to the Labour Friends of Israel as the ‘Labour Fiends of Israel.’

Separate letters appear to have been distributed in predominantly ‘white’ and predominantly ‘Muslim’ areas of the town, the latter stating “I have fought for Muslims at home and abroad all of my life.” A very different letter for non-Muslims stressed Galloway’s support for Britain, small businesses and law and order, even down to offering to arrest grooming gangs himself. Neither script mentioned the Workers Party of Britain.

Translating pro-Palestinian activism into political victories in a general election is however, a much bigger task than the one George Galloway has managed in Rochdale. A general election is about who is Prime Minister – and that means it is largely Rishi Sunak versus Keir Starmer. National issues such as the economy, the health service and the criminal justice system are likely to predominate, and the turnout (which was 37% in Rochdale) will be far higher at a likely 65-70%. Small parties and independent candidates are easily squeezed to such a backdrop, more so if this is a transformative election in the style of 1979 or 1997.

Much therefore depends on the extent to which activists from different traditions – primarily the Far-Left and Muslim representative organisations – can plan and co-ordinate their activities and produce a programme credible to voters. A Red-Green alliance anyone? This weekend in London and next month in Blackburn independent councillors, Muslim representatives and anti-war activists are meeting for ‘No ceasefire, no vote’ conferences. The ball is now in their court. Here attention also turns to The Muslim Vote, a campaign organisation whose backers include the Muslim Association of Britain, MEND, Prevent Watch and the Muslim Council’s of Scotland and Wales. The Muslim Vote’s platform is clear “This election signals a shift – Muslim issues at the forefront. We will no longer tolerate being taken for granted. We are a powerful, united force of 4 million acting in unison.”

What does this mean for the UK? Comparatively small political parties can impact beyond their numbers, even if they fail electorally. Consider the Communist Party of Great Britain in the trade union movement during the Cold War, or the National Front on the streets of London in the 1970s. The idea of voting in terms of faith – as opposed to economic interest or ideological affiliation, is unusual but not unique in the United Kingdom. It contributed to the sectarian nature of Northern Ireland politics and flared in the past on the west coast of Scotland and until the 1960s, in Liverpool. Nor is this era immune to sectarianism – consider the divisions between Hindus and Muslims in Leicester, and the violence which followed.

There is little doubt that some within the leadership of Muslim representative organisations would be very happy to lead and direct a Muslim ‘block vote’ this year. We simply do not know what impact this will have on the United Kingdom. As George Galloway made his acceptance speech in Rochdale, a heckler from Just Stop Oil began shouting, and one of the independent candidates, climate activist Mark Coleman, threw orange confetti in Galloway’s direction. No one seemed to care. Much bigger issues are afoot.

Dr Paul Stott is the Head of Security and Extremism at Policy Exchange.

Download George Galloway scores his electoral hat trick what next PX 02 03 2024

A short note on an aspect of fatherhood

At the weekend my sons football team won only their second point of the season. They came back from 3-0 down at half time, away from home, to get a 3-3 draw against a team fourth in the league.

It was a phenomenal achievement.

Son number one scored twice, the second a superb shot from outside the box. Son number two was resolute in defence.

Such events got me thinking about matches I had played in as a child, usually poorly. But it also made me feel proud. And then I wondered - has any father ever felt proud because their child did well in a computer game? Or on their play station? There is a reality about the football pitch - or the cricket field, or rugby - that does not extend to the virtual world.

Accuracy is not the left's strong point

It seems any old rubbish will do, when you are a 'good' person writing about 'bad' people.

My attention has just been drawn to the artist Attila the Stockbroker, and his end of year column in the Morning Star of 30-31 December 2023. Mr Baine reflects on the 40th anniversary of his anti-nuclear song 'Airstrip one', before stating "And even Reagan and Thatcher pale in the age of Trump and Braverman. It's been a horrible, horrible year."

Perhaps, but we are hardly in the age of Trump and Braverman. Donald Trump left office on 20 January 2021, having lost the Presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. Suella Braverman was sacked as Home Secretary on 13 November 2023. In office Braverman in particular struggled to deliver on her mandate, and wrestled with officials who either could not, or perhaps would not, do what she wanted.

It's hardly their time, is it?

By Satan's Hand? Perhaps...........

Behind as ever in my reading, I am just catching up with the December 2023 issue of Fortean Times (no 438, p. 10). It has a short piece on Angel Almeida who the FBI consider a dangerous figure in a Satanic organisation called 764. This we are told is an offshoot of the satanist Order of Nine Angles (O9A) and the related Tempel ov Blood.

The article 'By Satan's Hand' lacks a named author but is online here, although I would encourage anyone interested to take out a subscription to Fortean Times. FT ranges across a number of different genres, but does manage to do what John Peel famously said of The Fall, being 'always different, always the same'.

This article, is however flawed. Anything to do with the O9A is it seems contested territory, not least as some circles in UK counter-extremism, most notably the anti-fascist group Hope not Hate, wish to see the O9A proscribed as a neo-Nazi Satanic group. This gained some impetus after Danyal Hussain, allegedly influenced by the group, was convicted of murdering two women in 2021. As horrible as his actions were, and 09A is, something here does not quite add up - why would someone who is demonstrably not white, and is called Hussain, be operating in neo-Nazi circles?

Rather like Hussain, American Angel Almeida, appears to have created a blood covenant, an image of which appears both in the Fortean Times article, and below.

This drawing was smeared in blood, and Almeida is accused of coercing a girl to cut herself, and encouraging a teenage girl into sexual relations with an older man. But have a closer look at the drawing . That image is certainly familiar to me, and ought to have been recognised in the editorial process at FT. The image is of one of America's most infamous serial killers of the late 1960s, California's Zodiac Killer, about whom countless books have written. He was never caught, and his identity remains a matter of dispute. Ciphers which the Zodiac wrote have challenged experts ever since. Below is an image of the Zodiac:

Angel Almeida has one of the most notorious serial killers in history as his covenant, but Fortean Times seem to have missed it. A Guardian US report, by Ali Winston of 28 September 2023 covers the Almeida case in some detail, but does not reproduce the covenant, instead referring to "The most telling item was an O9A “blood covenant” featuring a blood-smeared drawing of a hooded figure with glowing red eyes surrounded with sigils for four O9A deities and the caption Vindex, Nythra, Satan and Abatu."

Important yes, but surely that the covenant features the Zodiac Killer was worth a mention by someone?

One region where change will come in 2024

As the stalemate in Ukraine continues, it is hard to imagine the public will tolerate a repeat of 2023 throughout the whole of the new year.

Zelensky, and Ukraine, cannot win. There needs to be a deal. The alternative is maintaining a conflict whereby taxpayers keep throwing tens of millions of pounds to US arms companies, something as obscene as it is pointless.

In his 17 December Mail on Sunday column, Peter Hitchens wrote:

"At last it is becoming possible to say relatively sane things about Ukraine. After Russia's stupid and lawless invasion, many people reacted by developing a strange admiration for Ukraine. But it is in fact a corrupt, ill-governed and increasingly unfree country, not all that different from Russia in many ways. This enthusiasm prevented them from thinking, and so millions in the West placed huge hopes in Ukraine's offensive against entrenched Russian positions during the summer. I kept my mouth shut because apparently impossible things can sometimes happen, but it seemed to me more likely that the attack would stall. It has duly done so."

Hitchens goes on to add:

"The general refusal to admit that this was so has cost vast numbers of young men's lives on both sides. Many, do not forget, have also been permanently maimed or disfigured, perhaps the worst such aftermath since the horrors of the First World War."

Lacking both an independent security or an independent foreign policy, the UK is unlikely to act upon such lessons wrought by experience, until Washington decides for us. With US Republicans underwhelmed by the war in Ukraine, and Trump the Presidential front runner, that decision could come quicker than many realise.

Way back in 1971, the then US serviceman, later Democrat politician, John Kerry, famously asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee how you could ask a man to be the last man who dies in Vietman?The last man to die in the Ukraine conflict is perhaps in the Russian or Ukrainian trenches as we speak, or waiting to celebrate New Year in Kiev or St Petersburg.

Hitchens finishes his article with a poignant question 'And what have we gained by these deaths, exactly?'

On Iran, The Hijab and Freedom of Choice

My 22 September Talk TV interview with Peter Cardwell is available to watch, here, and below.

The concert for Bangladesh 1971

Part of my summer reading was a short book by Abu Sayed and Priyajit Debsarkar on the 1971 concert for Banglagesh, one of a series of momentous events in the period which saw east Pakistan break away from West Pakistan, in a bloody conflict marked by outrageous crimes on the part of the Pakistani military and its supporters, to become the independent nation of Bangladesh.

"The concert for Bangladesh: United friends of Bangladesh" is a 112 page work which first appeared in Bangla last year, followed by an English translation in 2023. It is beautifully produced with a colour cover, and excellent quality black and white photographs throughout. This is history poorly known to British readers, and is all the more valuable for that. Some of the baddies however, are all too familiar - the Chinese government and Henry Kissinger for example, had few concerns about Pakistani atrocities, as they sought a balance of power in the region which weakened India.

This work will also be of interest to Beatles completists motivated to buy anything and everything with George Harrison (and indeed Ravi Shankar) on the front cover. As for the Madison Square garden concert, the concept of cultural diplomacy is now one that is very familiar - less so in 1971. As Sayed and Debsarkar record, by 1985 some $12 million had been raised for Bangladesh - the impact on later interventions, such as Live Aid and Ethiopia, is clear.

Gripes? The text needed a tighter spell and grammar check, and as yet, the book does not appear to be available on some of the main online book sales sites?

Looking Critically at the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP)

Back in January I contributed to a Policy Exchange report on police staff associations.

Blurred Lines: Police staff networks politics or policing? has a marvelous front cover, and a small section on the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) which I was keen to write as it may be the first critical examination of this grouping.

You can download the full report from the Policy Exchange website here.

I attach as a pdf, below, my section on NAMP, which focuses on their interventions on the language of counter-terrorism, and their associations.

Download Case Study NAMP p 24-27

A Britain without coal?

The picture below is from the Isle of Wight Steam railway. I took it during a visit to the railway sheds earlier this week.

For pretty obvious reasons, heritage railways rely on coal, as that is what steam trains used. The Isle of Wight Steam railway long had a choice, if it wishes to continue operating, between using coal from this country, or using imported stocks from overseas. If the UK completely abolishes any coal production, the only option is to import coal, bringing it thousands of miles by sea, and likely from countries with lower environmental and labour standards than ours.

The examples given here are Kazakhstan or Colombia.

Britain clearly needs coal mines - for energy independence, for heritage facilities like this, and as a reserve fuel whilst other alternatives are developed. The noise of campaign groups like Just Stop Oil should not drown this reality out.

The CONTEST review: Incels, LASIT – and the changing threat from Islamists and the far right

This week saw the government announce its update to the UK's counter-terrorism strategy, known as CONTEST. It is from CONTEST that we get the 4 Ps of Protect, Prepare, Pursue and Prevent - the later of course being the bit anyone has ever heard of!

Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced the review on Tuesday at Westminster Hall, and the strategy itself has been published online here.

Yesterday I had a short piece published on Conservative Home analysing the review and offering some broader comment on counter-terrorism. For all the froth and fuss, in reality the two threats that really count are Islamist terrorism, and to a much lesser extent, the far-right. The Home Secretary does, I think, get this. You can read it here, or as a pdf below.

Download The counter-terror review. Incels LASIT - and the changing threat from islamists and the far right Con Home 20 07 2023

No the government should not do God

Earlier this year the Bloom report called for a greater relationship between government and faith. It argued government should recognise faith groups as a force for good. You can read Colin Bloom's report here.

I see things as much more complicated, and in May put pen to paper with the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, discussing both Bloom's report and the wider dangers it's suggestions signpost. You can view our article on the spiked website here, or as a pdf below.

Download No the government should not do God 09 05 2023

London's housing crisis

This story was the lead in the Evening Standard's business section today - foreigners own £55bn of London homes as buying spree set to climb.

The second paragraph is breathtaking:

"There are 103,425 homes in the capital, including houses and flats, that are currently registered with an overseas correspondence address or an overseas company."

This is nearly 13% of the stock in Westminster, 10% in Kensington and Chelsea, and 2.76% of London's overall stock.

How difficult would it be to limit multiple home ownership in the UK by foreign nationals? Or to prohibit ownership by overseas companies?

Are there any political parties willing to take a stand on these issues?