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

It's nonsense, but its nonsense of its time

Browsing the website of the charity Global Justice Now, I happened to land on the list of its council, and the pen portraits of those who govern this campaign group.

Global Justice Now is one of the groups campaigning against a trade deal between the United States and the United Kingdom. If you want to begin to understand these bizarre times, look at what our well-meaning campaigners do, not what they say. The trajectory of Global Justice Now's Mohammed Elnaiem speaks volumes. We are told:

Mohammed is the founding director of the Decolonial Centre, a political education project of the Pluto Educational Trust. He has been involved in the struggle for democracy in Sudan, and is now based in St Albans.

We don't need to ask how the struggle for democracy turned out in Sudan. Or that it is far easier, and far nicer, to live, work and campaign in St Albans rather than there. What we need to ask however, is this. Whether that 'lived experience' should lead anyone to think that the values of St Albans needs to be challenged and dismantled, which is what'de-colonised' means in practice.

I can well understand why Mr Elnaiem, and many other campaigners of similar stripe, wish to be here. But what do we gain in return?

Happy St George's Day

For Englishmen and women, and lovers of England everywhere:

The Rotherham Grooming Scandal and the Creators of the Islamophobia Definition

This is a report I worked on back in February, with the writer and journalist Andrew Gilligan.

The text can be viewed online here, or read as a pdf below.

Download The-Rotherham-Grooming-Scandal-and-The-Creators-of-the-Islamophobia-Definition 2025

Extremely Confused? The Government's Counter-Extremism Strategy

Back in January I co-authored a report with Andrew Gilligan, entitled "Extremely Confused: The Government’s new counter-extremism review revealed."

This revealed that the Counter-Extremism sprint, under the direction of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, was heading very much in the wrong direction, moving away from a focus on Islamist terrorism to a much wider set of issues.

You can read our report online here, and download a pdf below.

Download Extremely-Confused-The-Governments-new-counter-extremism-review-revealed 2025

The Salisbury Review - Worth A Look

Coming up with the daffodils this Spring is the new issue of The Salisbury Review, which I recommend to any visitors of this blog.

It had looked as if this venerable magazine was to move to internet only, but for old fuddy-duddies like myself it has managed to maintain itself in print, and produces four issues per year.

The Spring 2025 issue has an examination of "Reverse Imperialism" by Driss Ghali, which details how countries in the developing world are dependent on the monies being sent back by their diasporas in the west "Each year, immigrants send over $600 billion to their home countries." This transfer of money from north to south has a huge impact on both, as bad governance profits elites in Africa and Asia. "Why reform institutions, why improve productivity, why improve the quality of leadership, when bad governance delivers vast and unconditional money transfers, free of auditing by the IMF or the World Bank?". Ghalli is a man to watch.

SDP leader William Clouston (a chief without sufficient Indians?) points out that anti-colonial ideology within our elites is driving the Chagos fiasco, while social historian Bill Hartley reminds us how poor our regional governance has been since at least the 1970s. Our town centres display that failure right in front of our eyes.

The magazine closes with a long piece from the late Roger Scruton, written in 2002, covering his own intellectual journey. While this would be familiar to anyone who has read Scruton's "Gentle Regrets" it remains a delight.

More please!