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Capitol Ideas
The Decline of British Politics
No Tea Party could ever get off the ground in Britain.
Peter Hitchens is Christopher’s brother and works in London for the Mail on Sunday. He is the journalist in England I most enjoy reading and I had arranged to have lunch with him. But I had to call it off because my 98-year-old mother was going into a home. Side trips seemed a luxury. I’ll quote something from his blog instead.
Background: After the general election in May, in which no party won a majority, the Conservatives (David Cameron) and the Liberal Democrats (Nick Clegg) formed a coalition — Hitchens has suggested it should be called “Con-Dem” — and then strolled into No. 10 Downing Street arm in arm. Gordon Brown, the unpopular Labour prime minister, has disappeared from public life, while Tony Blair, Britain’s Bill Clinton, has been on the public stage playing the game of charades called Middle East Peace Process.
Some people in Britain — my sister’s husband, for example — voted for the Lib Dems because they were campaigning to the left of Labour. Anyway, here is Peter Hitchens, who has been inveighing against Cameron ever since he became party leader in 2005. Some Tories, he wrote,
weirdly imagine that David Cameron is some sort of conservative. In the golf clubs they bray that he is using the Liberal Democrats. In Left-wing covens they complain that the Liberal Democrats have been swallowed by the Tories.
This is drivel. The blazing truth is that Mr Cameron is the smiling, willing prisoner of the Sixties Leftists who run the Liberal Democrats, and with whom he agrees about almost everything from cannabis to wind farms. His coalition with them enables him to trample on the remaining proper conservatives in his party, in the name of necessity. But actually he much prefers it to the majority Tory government he couldn’t achieve.
One evening I had a beer with my dear brother. A few years ago he was elected as a councilman in a conservative stronghold (near Gatwick Airport). Why he ran for that unpaid office, I’ll never know, but he does learn things. We were joined by an old friend who volunteers for the local Citizens Advice Bureau. This seems to consist mostly of coping with immigrants who walk in and hope to qualify for “benefits” so they can live at the taxpayers’ expense.
While we were still on our first pint my brother told me something that would confirm Peter Hitchens’s worst fears. Before the recent election, the incumbent member of Parliament in this safe Tory district, East Surrey, decided not to run. So the seat was vacant. In America that would mean a primary, the essential feature of which is that the voters themselves decide who the candidates will be.
But in Britain the Conservative Central Office can select the candidates, and in this instance they decreed that the choice would be: three women, a gay man, a Muslim, and a black man. Pick one.
A retired local Tory councilor expressed his outrage in the Daily Mail. “We are all very disappointed,” he said. “We have had only two MPs here in the past 35 years. It should have been a privilege for us to choose our next one, but that right has now been taken away from us. Why does Mr. Cameron think he knows better than us what we want for our constituency? He doesn’t live here!”
A local committee selected the black man, who lives in north London. Then he won the general election, quite easily. My brother says he’s a good fellow, and I’m sure he is. But one thing is clear. He will be Cameron’s man in Parliament.
In short, Cameron is centralizing power and using it to impose political correctness on the party.
Imagine what U.S. elections would be like if a committee of liberal Republicans in Washington could make up lists from which GOP candidates would have to be selected all over the country. Here’s some gays, feminists, blacks, and Muslims: pick one. It’s not quite that bad, but the point I want to make is that democracy in Britain is not what it is here. No Tea Party could ever get off the ground in Britain.
Peter Hitchens’s most recent assessment of British politics: “The Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour Parties are all on the left, signed up to the sexual revolution, the moral revolution, the cultural revolution, comprehensive education, EU membership…”
The culture war? As Irving Kristol said years ago, we lost it. The economy? That is still in contention.
Britain has a budget deficit larger than America’s, in percentage terms. The Con-Dems have already accepted a top tax rate of 50 percent (up from 40 percent) put in place last year by Labour. Now the coalition government is talking about big spending cuts (details to be announced October 20).
About the Author
Tom Bethell is a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages, and most recently Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary? (2009).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (104) | Leave a comment
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Expat Brit| 11.23.10 @ 7:01AM
Yes I am afraid its true. It is very sad to see the slow death of a nation but that is what is happening. There is no one in Britain who has both the power to save the nation and the willingness to do so. All the people with the power are happy to preside over the destruction of the nation, and those with the willingness to save the nation are outsiders. Other nations can learn if they are wise, and will emulate if they are foolish.
Alan Brooks| 11.29.10 @ 7:03PM
Are you all sure the Tea Party will ever "get off the ground" in America? this isn't 1985, and you have no Reagan. Everyone senses this obvious fact, except you.
Doctor Right| 11.23.10 @ 7:46AM
Looks like the Sun is about to set on the British Empire.
The decline that began in the 50's was briefly halted by the ascendancy of the great Margaret Thatcher, but since her exit from #10, it returned with a vengeance.
Cameron is a clown. In the USA, he'd probably be a Democrat. At best, he's a CINO (or a "TINO"?) who talks right but governs for his own political expediency. Think Mike Castle, Lisa Murkowski, John McCain, or any other Republican preferred by the type of people who read "Frum Forum", and you'll get the idea.
We need to take a long, hard look at Britain because unless we do something about it, that's our future.
RCV| 11.23.10 @ 12:55PM
The sun long ago set on the British Empire, as it does on all "empires". Except for a brief period of foolishness at the end of the 19th century, we have never aspired to empire, and that God for that. Freedom and empire are incompatible concepts.
Ken in People's Republic of MD| 11.23.10 @ 8:23AM
And what is wrong with gays, blacks, feminists, and Muslims? Sounds pretty myopic and racsist to me.
What I don't understand is how a country that at one time was the world's greatest power, a country that stood alone against Nazi tyranny, while its "ally" across the pond stood idle, a country that produced James Bond, Robert Shaw, Richard Burton, and Archibald Leach, among so many others, how can such a country have allowed itself to devolve into such a mess?
Is the same in store form Great Britain's most successful colony?
Louis Jenkins| 11.23.10 @ 8:35AM
No! We're already there. Just look at who occupies the White House. Yes, Britain produced a lot of famous folks, but no more. That country will be the first to bow its head to the Muslims, and if we are not careful, we will too.
Christopher Holland| 11.23.10 @ 5:51PM
The difference between the British and the Americans is that the former are gutless and have no ideas and no convictions, and the Americans choose to fight back, they have had a gutfull of big government, big debt and big taxes. The British sneer at Sarah Palin, Americans vote for her. America has a future it is willing to fight for, the British have a past they want to forget.
I put my money on America any day of the week. Thank God for American exceptionalism, it works much better than anything else.
Will| 11.23.10 @ 9:28PM
No, you don't have to bail out the Greeks and Irish, you bail out Wall Street and the car companies. We only have to pay around $10 billion to the Irish, the automobile industry bailout alone was $17 billion.
US unemployment is significantly higher than British unemployment (9.8% vs 7.5%), US debt is higher than British debt (88% of GDP vs 68% of GDP), our economy is growing at 2.8% compared to America's 2.5%. America's balance of payments deficit is massive, compared even to ours. What else?
Oh yes, fewer Brits are below the poverty line than Americans, Britain recently came higher than the US on the Ease of Doing Business survey, we have better life expectancy despite paying only 8% of GDP on healthcare, compared to 16% in the US. Average American has to pay just around $8,000 dollars a year on healthcare, average Brit just under $3,000. And we have better child mortality, and better literacy, and a better sense of humour and better beer. And we can see that Sarah Palin is a joke.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 12:02AM
If America is such a basket case there why did 20 million illegal immigrants go there? If that is not voting with your feet, then what is. Surely they would have gone to Britain and lived on social security and used the wonderful NHS?
The beer is warm and the humor is drier than the bath mats.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 12:40AM
Actually 8.7% of the British population was born abroad, and thats just the legal ones, as we have an estimate 1 million illegal migrants here as well. London is now the world's 6th biggest French city because of all the young, talented French people who prefer working here to their country of origin.
The beer has taste (which I know will come as a shock to Americans), and the humour is sophisticated.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 1:09AM
So London is now a large home for cheese eating surrender monkeys? I am not surprised, but it is not something that I would boast about.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 1:10AM
Its silly to bash the French when you wouldn't be an independent nation without them.
The point is that Britain is such a good place to work that all the French come to London instead of Paris
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 1:22AM
With friends like the French then you don't need enemies. The time when America had a debt to the French expired a very long time ago.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 1:29AM
I'm always reminded of the time in WW2 when Churchill held a party for some senior allied generals and politicians, during a period when De Gaulle was being particuarly irritating. Churchill's wife Clementine said to De Gaulle, "General, you must learn to treat your friends better than your enemies". De Gaulle is said to have replied, "Madame, France has no friends, she has only interests". Pretty ungrateful given that large numbers of British and American troops were dying to liberate his country!
darcy| 11.24.10 @ 12:11AM
How many Britains even attend church each Sunday? Moreover, with the Church of England's Archbishop voicing his approval of Sharia, it's only a matter of time before the church is silenced for good. There's no life in your Christianity, only dead formalism -- except for a very small minority of your people. There may be more true Christians in Baghdad than there are in all of Britain.
How many Britains are Muslim?
After the Chinese military and the Indian Railway service, what country's industry employs the third highest number of workers in the world? And that, with a population of only around 60 million.
It's the British Health service. That might explain the employment differential vis a vis the US.
Britain is lost. You're in denial. Even Daniel Hannan, among your most solid conservatives, sings the praises of his Muslim constituency and refuses to see the handwriting on the wall. You're in slow motion decline; I wish it weren't so.
You need a hundred Geert Wilders and three million followers to turn the tide, and a Christian revival while you're at it. Do you have it in you?
Will| 11.24.10 @ 12:51AM
Britain has low rates of church attendance, it is true, though I don't see how that makes us less virtuous than Americans. There are a few US policies (capital punishment, for example) which do not exist in Britain which hardly seem conducive to Christian teaching. We do actually have religious fundamentalists in the UK- in Northern Ireland. We have seen how much damage they course, so that's part of the reason why so few people go to church.
1 million Britons are Muslim, which is around 300,000 less than the USA. 60 million Britons are not Muslim. The idea that Britain is being "swamped" with Muslims is a nonsense, put about my extremist right-wing newspapers to pander to racists.
Far more people are employed in healthcare in the USA than the UK- as I stated earlier, 16% of US GDP is spent on health, as opposed to 8% in Britain. The difference is that in the UK 95% of them work for one of the NHSs (there are actually 4, one each for England, Scotland, Wales & NI), whereas in the US they work for private companies.
Your 3rd paragraph is racist propaganda which conveniently ignores all the facts stated in my original post. Yes Britain is declining relative to India & China (as it has been since the 1880s, long before we developed a proper welfare state), but now so is the USA!
And finally, Geert Wilders is a nutter (like you), and we don't need a Christian revival thank you very much, since what you mean by "Christian revival" is presumably Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Ian Paisley.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 1:29AM
So you are soft on crime, you don't have any religious or moral convictions unless you are a Moslem, you let millions of foreigners who do not approve of your culture, traditions or way of life into the country, you have a bloated welfare state, and you think that anybody who opposes these things is a racist and a lunatic? If you are trying to sell liberal ideas then I don't think you are doing a very good job. Unless of course this is the famous sophisticated British sense of humour at work.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 1:42AM
Pope Benedict is clearly soft on crime, as he hates the death penalty too. The Muslims whom you so despise, however, are almost unanimously in favour of the death penalty. I will also point out that the US is one of only 4 countries in the world which executes under-18s, the others being (I think) Pakistan, Nigeria and Iran. As I have pointed out, the US has considerably more Muslims than Britain, and far more people born abroad, many of whom have no love for the US of A.
And given that you use the word "Muslim" as an insult, I'd say that you are a racist.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 3:14AM
Conservatives get this all the time - if you disagree with a liberal then the only possible explanation is that you are a racist, or stupid, or both. My opposition to Islam is formed by their terrible treatment of women, the stoning of gays, acceptance of polygamy, the absence of democracy and learning, the condoning of violence and terrorism against women and children and the hatred of Jews, Christians and Hindus. Opposition to these makes me a racist - the Pope is one too because he does not agree with this either. Be sure to let him know that he got it all wrong. He lives in the Vatican so it is easy to get hold of him.
By your standards, because you are not a racist then you are in favour of all these things. Good luck explaining your support for polygamy and female genital mutilation to your girlfriend - I have no trouble explaining my thoughts to mine.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 3:35AM
No, I hate that fundamentalist, ultra-conservative brand of Islam, and you've neatly avoided answering the charge that so much of what American conservatives love (death penalty, unrestricted capitalism, Margaret Thatcher's belief that "there is no such thing as society") are hardly in line with the compassion and love of Christ.
And I was saying you were racist because you use "Muslim" as a dirty word, not because you legitimately hate fundamentalist Islam, which is to Islam what the KKK is to Christianity.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 4:39AM
Your powers of divination are truly remarkable - you can see that I meant Muslim as a dirty word even though I had no such intention. The perception is all yours. Now, who are lecturing on the benefits of objectivity, now that you claim to know my mind better than I do myself?
Will| 11.24.10 @ 5:24AM
Fair enough, most people don't admit to being racists, but you do and I admire your honesty. Sorry for any offence caused.
Pelligrino| 11.24.10 @ 1:30AM
Will, please help me out here....you seem to be choosing your stats. I've been living on both continents and a visitor in GB frequently over the past two decades.
I'll take the USA with all its ills and warts over anything in Middlesbrough, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, or Ipswich any day.
Please tell me a British mainstream media source that is doing what American Spectator is doing in both print and online services? Anything like this being done there? (Why is this not the case?)
At least in the US readers and subscribers can still openly discuss and (vigorously-honestly) debate. The range of social-political nationwide major media sources in the USA is unparalleled in the world.
How's the Talk Radio over there in Britain? (Yes, I know all about the midnight to 4 a.m. football radio shows where listeners obsess about Man United, FC Chelsea, and what Fabio Cappello will do for the Three Lions….But how about substantive radio that openly discusses and debates the issues of the day and permits everyday listeners interaction?)
See, in America, the truth comes out in volumes when the “little guy” speaks. And the “little guys and gals” are speaking loudly across the nation on government excesses, runaway debt, unprincipled politicians, crooked judges, wayward schools, failed inner-cities, the absence of Judeo-Christian values in everyday decisions, and Washington, D.C. leadership failures.
Who is candidly printing and speaking these words in Britain?
Presently I'll take the integrity and coverage of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times over anything printed in London.
Look to the web to see the open, free blogging that thrives on US shores.
Or...please share with those of us here in this forum large media sources in Britain that are fearlessly telling the truth.
I await your reply. (If you indeed have such national radio shows, national online news 'truthtellers,' gutsy bloggers, etc., let's hear it. I hope you do. But personal experience told/tells me otherwise.)
And this is the lively, honest, open discussion that the modern republic requires to not only stay afloat but to have a shot at thriving in the future.
Yes, America has its problems. Some really big ones. Some huge ones. But truth telling and open, frank confrontation is the first step. That is occurring daily in the US. In Britain?
In the US, this ‘new media’ and its ever-growing number of participants are flourishing. And the winner is the normal citizen. In Britain?
I think I can safely say that ALL real Americans want a strong and solid Great Britain.
Our grave concern is that our cousins (land of my forefathers) are going under rapidly.
And no Christian faith and national immorality on the grand scale are at the core of the problem.
I wish it were not so.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 1:58AM
Our broadcast media is bound within strict laws of impartiality, so no political party can be favoured over any other. That's why we don't have lunatics like Fox enthusiastically canvassing for one party (or, to be fair, MSNBC for another). A few years ago Sky News, to great fanfare, set up a show for Richard Littlejohn (very very very right wing Daily Mail columnist) based on the Beck/O'Reilly/Olbermann etc. shows, and it failed miserably because nobody watched it, because nobody wants that kind of simplistic, overtly political reportage over here. If you want a comparison, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_amyJCLmMY8
Britain has the most diverse print media in the developed world, from the very right wing Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph (though I suspect the people who read AmSpec would see them as nowhere near right wing enough), through the more centrist Times and FT to the lefty-liberals at the Independent, Guardian and Daily Mirror.
We don't have nutty talk radio, we have intelligent and balance BBC radio (and TalkSport! And Five Live). We have Jon Gaunt, who is a readily available right wing motormouth, but nobody listens to him because nobody wants that kind of extremism over here.
As for "new media", firstly check out the BBC news website, which is probably the best news website in the world. All the big papers have their own website. Now, this is a list of new media bloggers & website from "The New Statesman" website. This is by no means exhaustive, there are many others I could name:
Alastair Campbell
Benedict Brogan
Coffee House
Comment Central
Conservative Home
Dave's Part
Gary Gibbon
Guardian Politics
Hopi Sen
Iain Dale
Labour List
Labour Uncut
Left Foot Forward
Liberal Conspiracy
Liberal Democrat Voice
Luke Akehurst
Neil Clark
Next Left
Our Kingdom
Paul Waugh
Penny Red
Pickled Politics
Political Betting
Political Scrapbook
Simon Fletcher
The Bleeding Heart Show
Think Politics
UK Polling Report
We have extensive discussion over what to do about our manifold problems, and it is democratic- the BBC, after all, is ultimately accountable to the electorate, whereas FOX is accountable to nobody but its shareholders, and so long as Beck is pulling in the ratings, it doesn't matter that he's an ill-informed, anti-semitic moron.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 2:05AM
Oh yeah, I forgot our excellent news magazines, particuarly the Spectator (Conservative), the New Statesman (Socialist) and the Economist (free market liberal)
Will| 11.24.10 @ 2:06AM
Oh yes, and Guido Fawkes is a prolific right wing blogger. Forgot about him. Sorry.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 3:21AM
You are really stretching now - you get your ideas from the BBC, and you are proud of it. The words 'impartial' and 'BBC' have been mutually exclusive for a long, long time.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 3:45AM
Clearly no source of news can be entirely impartial. The BBC is run by middle class arts graduates in one of the world's most tolerant and liberal cities. It's workers are younger and more likely to be Asian, Black or homosexual than Britain outside of London. Clearly, then, there is an inbuilt liberal culture within the Beeb. Very occasionally, this asserts itself.
However, 99% of the time, the Beeb is entirely impartial. I can tell you this as someone who actually watches and listens to it all the time. The political reporting is stringently fair and balance (not in the FOX news sense!), gets both sides of the argument, and lacks the kind of ego-driven, flagrantly biased shows like Glenn Beck and O'Reilly. BBC journalists never imagine that their slant on the story is more important than the story itself.
As a case in point, look at the BBC's political editor- the most senior political journalist in Britain, on the news every day giving his view on the political stories of the day, watched by 10s of millions. The current incumbent, Nick Robinson, was a member of the Conservative Party, while his predecessor, Andrew Marr, was so left-wing in his youth that he was known as "Red Andy". After years of watching both of them, I can tell you that I cannot remember a single example of bias in their reportage, despite their radically different political views. The Beeb's top interviewers, like Jeremy Paxman and Jonathon Humphries, are strident in their impartiality. "Newsnight" is in a different class to American political reporting, and "Question Time" provides a genuine forum for debate and variation.
For a man from the nation of Fox News to call any news institution biased is quite incredible.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 4:45AM
Sorry to rain on your parade now that you have jumped to conclusions about me, but I live in Australia and my father is English - he migrated years ago because he hated the class system there. Now, you were saying something about being more objective. Can you repeat that comment please.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 5:26AM
Whatever your family history, you're still talking shit about the BBC.
Impeach Don't Wait| 11.24.10 @ 12:54AM
"America has a future it is willing to fight for, the British have a past they want to forget."
Good point. Maybe the future America is willing to fight for is really the past it would like to regain... a past based precisely on ideas and convictions borne out of escape from tyranny. It's in our "DNA"--we don't want to go back! (At least those of us who paid attention and don't confuse "fairness" with ideas of material "equality".)
Will| 11.24.10 @ 12:57AM
Escape from tyranny. Fair enough, so long as you acknowledge that the men who led that escape from tyranny owned slaves, and spent the next century busily wiping out Native Americans in the name of "Manifest Destiny" and, no doubt, "American Exceptionalism".
British history is pretty brutal too, but let's please have some objectivity here!
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 1:14AM
I think that saving your sorry arses in two world wars puts the thing into perspective quite well. Americans don't have to grovel for approval from anyone - the blood on Omaha beach wiped the slate clean for a long time to come.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 1:25AM
I do no dispute the amazing sacrifices made by US troops in World War Two, but I am simply pointing out that too many on the American right completely ignore the bad points of American history.
And I don't want to start a debate over the World Wars, but to say that the US saved us in WW1 is total fiction, and in WW2 the most important allied nation was the USSR.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 1:33AM
You can always go and live in Russia if you prefer Russians to Americans. I have been to Russia and I can tell you, I would much rather be a poor American than a wealthy Russian, or anything else for that matter, any day of the week.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 2:01AM
Once again, misrepresenting what I am saying. I have also been to Russia, and I am profoundly glad that it is the US, and not China or Russia, that is the world's most powerful country.
However, you started insulting my country, so I am putting up a robust defence of it, and all you can come up with is, essentially, "go back to Russia". Learn a little objectivity.
Pelligrino| 11.24.10 @ 2:34AM
Will, no one here is insulting England, Scotland, Wales or anyting modern-day Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
In fact, it is the opposite. Most posters here enjoy different levels of a long-term love affair with things British.
And we are sorry to see it fading rapidly. Just as I am for things on the European continent from Oslo to Athens.
Americans are dismayed to see a weak-kneed modern Britain (where is the once always famous "stiff upper lip?") in the face of today's regional and global concerns?
Where is the honesty in London and Edinborough to state that apart from God we fail?
It really comes down to that.
Britain has fully jettisoned the Bible and all things Christian. A man with a personal faith is now mocked in the street, at the university, in the marketplace, in the media workplace, and has no business in parliament.
Americans and America still has some hope because 16-20% honestly believe and seek to make their beliefs deeds in daily living.
That's the telling difference.
The death spiral for Britain has its inception in shunning and lampooning God Almighty.
(we wish you had some modern day Wesley brothers)
In two days America celebrates Thanksgiving.
It is not giving thanks to one another or to one's grandparents or favorite uncle or best neighbor.
It is giving thanks to the God of the Bible.
While many Americans do prefer to ignore this and think only to stuff their faces with turkey and all the trimmings, what national day in the UK is set aside to thank God Almighty?
And is it really done?
Will| 11.24.10 @ 2:50AM
Well, Christmas and Easter. And I refuse to see any kind of correlation between national greatness and Christianity. Just look at the two rising powers- China and India- how Christian are they?
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 3:31AM
This conclusion is flawed. Great empires that were not Christian have disappeared throughout history. How can you say that the rise of India and China is because they are not Christian, while ignoring the non- Christian empires that disappeared. You are cherry picking the evidence that suits you and that is not an intelligent approach to debate
Will| 11.24.10 @ 3:49AM
Well, for 17 of the last 20 centuries China and India have been much more powerful than Western Europe or North America. The Roman Empire, meanwhile, began to decline precipitously immediately after adopting Christianity! The great Christian Empires of Britain, France, Spain and Portugal are all gone. The greatest land empire in history was the Mongol Empire of the 13th century, and it was hardly Christian.
My point is that there is no correlation between the long-term success of a nation and its religion.
D. Singh| 11.25.10 @ 4:38AM
Will says:
'Well, for 17 of the last 20 centuries China and India have been much more powerful than Western Europe or North America. '
That is non-sense. India did not exsit as India until the British came. Prior to that the land mass was a collection of small states.
Will| 11.25.10 @ 7:38AM
I know, but American did not exist as American before the British came either. For much of its history, China was also disunited. What I'm saying is that China and the Indian predecessor states were much richer and more advanced than their counterparts in North America and Europe.
D. Singh| 11.25.10 @ 4:40AM
Will apears to measure 'national greatness' on the same basis as Stalin who once asked: how many divisions does the Pope have?
Further, it seems that on his criteria Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia were great.
Will| 11.25.10 @ 7:39AM
No I don't, I'm just pointing out the facts of economic life here.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 3:27AM
Anybody who accepts the opinions of the BBC without question, as you do, is in no position to give lectures on objectivity. It does not strike you as obtuse that you feel free to question my objectivity while defending your right to a robust defence of your own views? This is a typical liberal response to criticism from conservatives
Will| 11.24.10 @ 3:52AM
When the Conservatives were in power in the 80s, they kept making noise about how biased against them the BBC was. Labour got into office in 1997 expecting the BBC to roll over and be its poodle, yet within weeks the Beeb was slamming Blair over taking money from dodgy billionaire Bernie Ecclestone, and forced the resignation of Peter Mandelson from the Cabinet in 1999. In 2004, the government declared war on the BBC after it revealed that the government's "evidence" for Iraq having WMD was "sexed up". Labour people now complain about "BBC bias" just as much as the Tories did 20 years ago. The BBC has a very healthy suspicion of authority, in the classic liberal tradition.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 4:56AM
The BBC may well have a healthy suspicion of authority, in the classic liberal tradition, but unfortunately for conservatives the healthy suspicion extends to America, Israel, Christian religions (especially the Catholic Church), marriage, the role of the family, education, the role of the law, the protection of private property rights, the protection of the unborn. There is scarcely an institution in western society that has not be treated with ridicule and contempt by the BBC and by liberals. For people who claim to be open minded and tolerate, you sure show a lot of hate and intolerance to anybody who dares question your self righteous view of the world. You destroy everything of value and leave nothing behind that is worthy or memorable. You are the vandals and goths, sacking the empire and reducing everything to rubble. And you think this makes you clever!
Will| 11.24.10 @ 5:31AM
Nonsense. Last night I watched a Panorama documentary exposing the fundamentalism taught in some Saudi-backed Muslim faith schools in this country. During the bombing of Gaza the BBC refused to broadcast the charity helpline for dying Palestinians in Gaza because it thought that even that could be interpreted as bias. As I said earlier, the BBC has a liberal culture, but its liberalism has been driven by the people, it has not driven them. This country has changed so much that the new Labour leader is a Jewish atheist son of immigrants who has just had his second child out of wedlock. The BBC has reacted to that change in culture, it has not driven it.
Oh, and you need only see the slaveringly deferential coverage of the royal wedding, and of the Papal visit earlier in the year, to show the Beeb's respect for authority.
Believer| 11.24.10 @ 9:56AM
will- I forgot to mention that the USSR's fighter planes came from, you guessed it America. Your comments are a great argument for those who believe that history is being rewritten.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 10:07AM
It is true that large numbers of Bell P-39s and P-60s, plus a few mustangs and p-40s were sent over. By the way, large numbers of Spitfires and Hurricanes were also donated by Britain. However, these were dwarfed by the quantities of domestically-produced Lavochkins, Polikarpovs, Yakovlevs et al being churned out by the Russians.
Believer| 11.24.10 @ 9:49AM
Will- "The most important allied Nation in WW2 was the USSR", They were totally supplied by the U.S., took no part in the invasion of North Africa or Italy, didnt participate in the bombing campaigns of Germany and didnt send so much as loaf of bread to England. Your either a Red or your heads up your ass, forgive the language.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 10:01AM
As late as 1945 80% of German strength was tied up fighting the Russians in the East. Compared to this Italy was a sideshow, and although D-Day took the heat off the Red Army to a degree, by that point Russian victory was inevitable, D-Day merely shortened the war by a few months. It is true that the Russians were supplied from Britain and the US (showing how both realised how vital it was that Russian kept fighting), and these were very important, but the fact remains that had Operation Barbarossa succeeded, the liberation of Europe would have been utterly impossible- we were facing just 400,000 Germans then, while ten times that number were engaged in Russia. Indeed, had the USSR been defeated by the end of 1941 Hitler could have sent his armies just about anywhere. Britain would have carried on for a while, but in the end a peace with Hitler would have been inevitable. Had the Western Front never been opened, the Red Army would still have rolled into Berlin.
I'm paraphrasing a section from a book I've just finished by the excellent US historian John Louis Gaddes, by the way.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 10:11AM
I was in St. Petersburg a few months ago. Over 3 million civilians in the city died during the siege- 10 times the number of American, or British, war dead. In all 27 million Soviet people lost their lives during the war.
The reason the people of Leningrad (as it then was) could not send any bread, was because they had none themselves. A Russian lady told me about her parents, who lived during the siege. The greatest fear of the people of the city throughout the siege was simple- slipping on the ice and falling over. Because they were so malnourished, they lacked the strength to get back up again, and everybody else lacked the strength to help them up. The inhumanity and awfulness of the Eastern Front dwarfed anything in the West, or even in the Pacific.
darcy| 11.24.10 @ 11:55PM
Your sick drivel about America's past demands a reckoning. If we lived in dualing days, I would slap your supercilious face and challenge you to put up or shut.
Britain's in decline because of nitwits like you, you pompous phony.
Will| 11.25.10 @ 7:42AM
I can't see how any of it is drivel. I've talked about slavery and treatment of Native Americans, of which Americans should be ashamed. And I said that the USSR was the most important of the 3 allies- also true.
I recognise the dark points in British history- the slave trade, famine in India, centuries of oppressing the Irish. Unlike you, I recognise that every country has parts of its past of which is should be ashamed, and parts of which it should be proud.
Buckeyeman| 11.23.10 @ 10:55AM
An Aside:
Just to be fair, while the US had not been attacked and wasn't in the war, it did not stand completely idle. Remember lend lease, where the US funded and supplied the British war effort. Where would they have been without this aid?
It wasn't just financial aid. My father served on the USS Texas in the North Atlantic performing convoy duty to help protect British shipping beginning in September, 1939. The Texas was stalked by U-203 but not fired upon.
The USS Greer was indeed fired upon twice by U-652 in September 1941 but not hit. In July, 1941 US forces occupied Iceland to relieve the British garrison and established a naval base in Hvalfjordur. US Naval ships based in Hvalfjordur patrolled the North Atlantic to help protect British ships from German U-boats.
On October 23, 1941 the USS Reuben James was struck in the bow by a torpedo from U-552, exploded, and sank, with the loss of 115 US sailors.
Christopher Holland| 11.23.10 @ 5:55PM
Australia is a successful colony too. We still have our own money, we don't have to bail out the Greeks and the Irish, our banks are sound, the economy is booming and we don't take any bullshit from the EU. Maybe there are more important things in the world to aspire to, but in Euroland, this is paradise.
Mimi| 11.23.10 @ 8:38AM
Heh..Doc, Cameron comes off to me like a " Charlie Crist...menza, menza { a little this way,..a little that way}....That Daniel Hannan sounds like a good British bet for a Conservative.
Don't forget Doc... we here in the states have the ever growing "TEA PARTY"...By 2012 it will be a powerful force....A return to the BOLD ideas, and concepts, plus PRINCIPLES. Conservative journalists and AUTHORS are exploding...Americans are soaking it up like a dry sponge..thirsting for God saving WATER of LIFE& LIBERTY.....to me a very hopeful time!!!
darcy| 11.24.10 @ 12:17AM
"Americans are soaking it up like a dry sponge."
I really like that image, Mimi. And not too far down the road we're going to give George Soros and his gang of subversives the walking papers they so richly deserve.
Or die in the effort, ala Patrick Henry: Give me Liberty or Give me Death.
TKP| 11.23.10 @ 8:41AM
Spent about 50% of my 2010 in the UK split between London and the Midlands. The eye openner for me was just how far left the center of gravity has shifted, rarely did i hear about (even from Cons) individual freedom and the word entrepreneur seem more rare that Jesus.
When people ask me about Europe my standard quip is - "...more people believe in global warming than god...".
Climate change is the perfect self flogging, hand wringing, elitiest cuase you could ever invent and Europe, especially the UK have bought it hook line an sinker.
What is reall amazing is they somehow think the morally superior pan euro windmill will some how influence the 2 billion + new consumers in India and China to be green - who will be the "green police" outside of the well groomed households of Westminster, Paris, Stuggard???
With all its' past excesses ( I say that as my Irish grandfather so hated the English he wanted the Germans to win before Pearl Harbor), it is trurley a shame to see the country that spawned both free market capitalism and modern representative democracy so abandon the very principles that made her great - the welfare state is accepted, intractable, and unsustainable - America, want to see your future?
Sheila| 11.23.10 @ 10:04AM
" . . . it is truly a shame to see the country that spawned both free-market capitalism and modern representative democracy so abandon the very principles that made her great . . . " - Amen and well said, TKP. For those cretins who have yet to comprehend my oft-stated beliefs, it is watching the devolution of the language, church, and system of government we received as a rich inheritance from England that leads me to mourn the already completed "Decline and fall."
Pelligrino| 11.24.10 @ 2:00AM
TKP,
You've nailed it. You used this year 2010 abroad in the UK well. You saw with "open eyes" the ills and folly of a once strong nation.
You are correct: All of Europe is more ready to talk Climate Change, they cannot talk about Almighty God. They don’t know Him.
They'll proudly tell you how self-Green they are (or soon aspire to be!) yet they cannot talk one passage of the Bible.
You also nailed it with the word "entrepreneur." Want to see a German or Frenchman break out into an uncontrollable case of the shakes and visible sweat? Just talk a start-up, a small business venture, true entrepreneurialism.
And they're all so morose and downcast all the time (except when they've boozed themselves into a fake state of "faux-joie de vivre.")
The sun never set on the former British Empire. Now it never shines at all -- well, hardly, anyway.
Thank goodness for Australians.
Petronius| 11.23.10 @ 8:43AM
The average Brit is like the average american; fat, dumb, and clings to his belief that he lives in Never-never Land, where mommy government holds his hand and changes his nappies until he pulls his last worthless breath. British and European politicians like it that way. Read the lead essay in the Spectator of London, 15 July, 2000 titled Rank Ignorance. Then look at what is happening on this side of the ditch. Cognimus magna!
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.23.10 @ 9:15AM
Fortunately,
a hundred million of us "cling to our religion and our guns..."
I won't budge! How about you guys?
Louis Jenkins| 11.23.10 @ 1:04PM
Aye, Aye, Old Texican. Keep the sword as shiney and clean as your Christianity. When I am dead there will be another million or two to walk in my place. Funny, no one remembered that England borrowed and received guns from freedom loving Americans during their darkest WW II days. And where are they now?
Petronius| 11.23.10 @ 8:36PM
After VE Day when Churchill was voted out, the incoming Labour government gathered up most of the small arms and ammunition and dumped the lot in the Thames estuary.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 12:22AM
Probably the best place for an English gun - at the bottom of the river. Guns are only useful if you have a backbone to use it and the British got rid of their backbones a long time ago. There is no fight left in them. People who have pride fight with their bare hands if they have too - the Jews of Warsaw had only their bare hands and it took the Germans a month to clear them out of a few city blocks in the middle of occupied Europe in 1943. Guns are wasted on the British, you may as well give bicycles to fish.
darcy| 11.24.10 @ 12:27AM
Truly, Petronius? Dumped them in the Thames estuary?
So very different that when at the end of WWI Winston Churchill ordered all the ammo and weapons cleaned and stored for future use -- and boy did they need them later.
When you discard your weapons, you've already surrendered and admitted there is nothing you will fight for; you signal your ascent to submission. Is it any wonder the armies of Islam smelled the blood in Britain and have descended upon it.
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 11:39AM
Should a country running a holocaust be an ally? Why isnt England our enemy?
England has legal abortion. 7,000,000 of them. A holocaust. Zero respect for the equality of man or of inalienable rights.
Remember Blair, boo-hooing about 9-11. While Blair promoted abortion. 3000, a 9-11, every week. A Barbarian.
You want a good ally. Try Saudi Arabia. Abortion is illegal. They behead terrorists. They respect human life, unlike England.
Seek| 11.23.10 @ 6:23PM
Utterly insane.
First of all, abortion always has been commonplace, whether legal or not. Mere criminalization did not stop millions of women in this country from seeking abortion long before Roe v. Wade ever was decided. Indeed, no country in history has successfully eliminated abortion. Mexico, for example, for decades had outlawed abortion, and the practice actually was more common there than here. Their government eventually legalized it. Tolerating abortion under law isn't the same thing as "promoting" it.
Second, the governments most restrictive in abortion tend to be police states. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, among others, outlawed abortion. Or maybe killing lots of walking people isn't so bad.
Third, Saudi Arabia is about the last place on earth to find respect for human life. They cut off the hands of common thieves, not exactly in line with our 8th Amendment's cruel and unusual punishments clause. If that country is so appealing, go ahead. Move there and tell us what you think. We won't miss you.
John| 11.23.10 @ 12:02PM
But Chris Haynes, more children have died from abortion in America than in Britain. Surely the US is guilty of a greater holocaust? Is not then the federal government the enemy of the people?
chris haynes| 11.23.10 @ 12:38PM
Yes, America's own holocaust is greater. 45,000,000 abortions. Backed by our entire elite. Ever go to a holocaust museum? "Never Again, blah blah blah". I mean, what a hoot.
But the Brits. Small country, but dont count them out. Their own holocaust, 7 million, peanuts comapred to us, but still bigger than the Fuhrer's.
Our elite, they call for war against the Moslems. And look at what our elite say we're fighting for, "uplifting Afghan women". Here's what that means. Abortion. Nice. Our brave military, fighting for barbarism.
Believer| 11.23.10 @ 4:30PM
Chris- If delivering middle eastern women means to give them the same freedoms we have here, count me out. Having two teenage granddaughters who run wild with the sex, and drug scene. I heard the actor Jackie Chan say one time that too much freedom is not a good thing, America was great when she had Biblical morality now our kids are uncontrollable. Maybe countrys who control their kids arent so bad after all.
darcy| 11.24.10 @ 12:32AM
A people who cannot control themselves, who give vent to every vice, are incapable of political self-governance -- and they will always be in need of a nanny state to support their dysfunctional society. One would almost think that the government, in it efforts to amass ever-greater central authority, actually enacts policy that deliberately weakens the character of its citizens.
Imagine that.
SCM| 11.23.10 @ 2:37PM
It looks like it may be time for the Argentinians to strike again. I doubt that Cameron has the stones that Maggie had.
Too bad for (once) Great Britain.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 5:33AM
It could never happen today. In 1982 the Falklands were guarded by 80 royal marines and an icebreaker. Today we have a full infantry battalion down there along with a destroyer, a frigate, a modern air defence system and 4 Tornado fighter jets, which could take down Argentina's pathetic Air Force on their own. The Argentine military has barely been updated in the last 30 years- they may posture, but attack is completely out of the question.
Believer| 11.23.10 @ 4:16PM
Englands troubles are not political but spiritual, This once great Nation sent missionarys to every corner of the globe, now her churchs are empty and her greatest achievement seems to be her boast of being the birthplace of Charles Darwin. The Bible states that" Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord", when a people are decieved there is only one solution, Repentence, and thats not going to happen. We can only weep for them and America as well.
Dan| 11.23.10 @ 4:37PM
The British, due to their enslavement to Political Correctness, do not have to worry about politics. In less than 50 years the country will be renamed and Sharia will be the law. All because Britain's leaders didn't have the nerve to stop the invading Muslims. After all, they may be offended.
A.C.Guard| 11.23.10 @ 4:48PM
What ever happened to the British people of WWII? They cared about their island and were tough as nails. Now they are led by the likes of girliemen while their country is being invaded, without a shot being fired, by Muslims. These Muslims do not want to learn about British history, nor integrate themselves into British society. The want only to be left alone, have babies, and live off the dole until they are enough to take over the government in a bloodless coup. Open your eyes. Itis happening all around you and unless you find a Churchill in your country the battle will be lost in the blink of an eye
Christopher Holland| 11.23.10 @ 6:05PM
Churchill would never get elected in Britain today - he would not stand a chance. The media and the party establishment would turn on him and treat him the same way as Christine O'Donnell - with scorn and contempt. The British simply are not interested in the things that Churchill stood for, they lost their guts and their convictions and pride a long time ago. They don't know or understand their own history and what they do know, they despise. It is a waste of time expecting them to change, they do not want to change, they are happy being where they are. The British are losers.
darcy| 11.24.10 @ 12:36AM
The head of the BBC religion department, who directs and approves what Britains learn about in regard to religion -- on the radio and TV
IS A MUSLIM.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 8:01AM
Tell the families of the 344 British servicemen who have died for America in Afghanistan that they were "girliemen".
Twat.
RebeccaH| 11.23.10 @ 8:44PM
There is no answer to this conundrum until those who have abdicated responsibility decide that they are, after all, the only ones who can turn things around. It takes a measure of minor sacrifice of personal comfort, a major sacrifice in some cases of comfortable, unquestioned viewpoints (attitude), and a very uncomfortable (even painful) recognition that the real, functional world requires all of these adjustments if one, and one's whole society, is to survive and prevail.
Believer| 11.24.10 @ 10:11AM
RebeccaH- The ones who are responsible for the condition of England and America are the last ones who will take responsibility for it, ultimatly the voters have to be held acountable as they have continually voted in Liberal politicians.
Jack in the Midwest| 11.23.10 @ 8:58PM
Churchill is part of the problem. His warmongering in both world wars is part of what brought about Britain down. The best policy for Britain was to never get involved in WW1. Churchill was one of the biggest jingo's in the cabinet, and helped push the war.
Christopher Holland| 11.24.10 @ 12:13AM
This is not true. Churchill thought a war might happen and wanted to be ready for it, especially by having a strong navy, but that is not the same as wanting a war to happen. The man was not a war monger - the early part of his career was largely devoted to domestic reforms, where he was enough of a radical to be called a traitor to his class (the family home was Blenheim Palace). He opposed spending on the army because he thought that a British army would be big enough to get into trouble but not strong enough to fight its way out of it. He was English and proud of it, but that does not mean that he thought that the rest of the world should be like that.
darcy| 11.24.10 @ 12:46AM
Oh yes, and didn't you know that he plotted with Hitler to invade the Rhineland in May 1936 in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles?
And didn't you know that Churchill plotted with Hitler to burn the Reichstag? Or to kill more than 5,000 German police and politicians on Crystal Nacht -- all of them his political enemies?
And didn't you know that he secretly worked with Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia and to seize Austria? And Poland, don't you remember Churchill's part in spurring Hitler on to march into Poland in Sept. 1939?
Of course you don't. Because Churchill had zip to do with Hitler's megalomania and zeal to create a thousand year Reich, incorporating all of Europe.
Your comments on WWI are equally inane.
I'm telling you, the schools are doing a piss poor job if the garbage you spout is any indication.
led display | 11.23.10 @ 9:53PM
just see see!!
Will| 11.23.10 @ 10:12PM
No, you don't have to bail out the Greeks and Irish, you bail out Wall Street and the car companies. We only have to pay around $10 billion to the Irish, the automobile industry bailout alone was $17 billion.
US unemployment is significantly higher than British unemployment (9.8% vs 7.5%), US debt is higher than British debt (88% of GDP vs 68% of GDP), our economy is growing at 2.8% compared to America's 2.5%. America's balance of payments deficit is massive, compared even to ours. What else?
Oh yes, fewer Brits are below the poverty line than Americans, Britain recently came higher than the US on the Ease of Doing Business survey, we have better life expectancy despite paying only 8% of GDP on healthcare, compared to 16% in the US. Average American has to pay just around $8,000 dollars a year on healthcare, average Brit just under $3,000. And we have better child mortality, and better literacy, and a better sense of humour and better beer. And we can see that Sarah Palin is a joke.
Roy| 11.24.10 @ 2:39AM
I'm one of the many who left that country many moons ago and so follow its demise with special interest. David Cameron could have won the last election for conservatives with ease but he chose to ignore the people. He chose to ignore the many native Britishers with their myriads of complaints of the late Labour government, of their flooding their overcrowded country with yet more people. More people with no public scrutiny or referendum. Worse even is the fact the new crowd often declare themselves enemies of the people they came to live amongst. The political scene in Britain seems to be submission to the powers of the devil and self obliteration to their cultural identity.
darcy| 11.25.10 @ 12:21AM
It is exactly that, Roy.
From the 1215 Magna Carta to the Britain of David Cameron, what a fall.
You let the socialists soften you up only to deliver you over to Islam. Where is your Charlemagne? Wake up! More than your temporal safety is at stake here, and you're too blind to see it.
Listen to Tommy Robinson, at the very least. As he says, "It's a two-tiered system. It's kid gloves for their community [law enforcement in Muslim community] and iron fists in our community."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2VrK8EAHuU
darcy| 11.25.10 @ 12:24AM
Britain’s War on Christianity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_muwtwIMb3A
audio converter for mac | 11.24.10 @ 3:40AM
ah ah mthank you for sharing the post
doctorluger| 11.24.10 @ 1:59PM
Chris,
Give it up. "Will" is a lost cause. Leftist like him will never wake up. When his Moslem friends put the knife to his throat, and as the blood gurggles out of his mouth the last thing he will say is: what did I do to offend you? I was open minded a politically correct. And they will respond, yes but you are not a Moslem.
Will| 11.24.10 @ 3:32PM
Doctorluger, its time for your pills now...
Doctorluger| 11.24.10 @ 2:05PM
The supreme irony is that the "Left" eschews traditional Christianity because they hated the moral restritions about sex, yet they openly embrace a religion and cater to a religion that much more severe, Islam.
darcy| 11.24.10 @ 11:59PM
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Doctorluger. I'm sure you get my drift.
D. Singh| 11.25.10 @ 4:29AM
Sir
‘Conservatives seem unable to weaken the influence of the idea [Equality]. Why? One explanation is the general godlessness of the West. Once upon a time, the reigning idea was not simply how well you do in this life. That was not the real test, "for what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"’
In my opinion it is one of the fundamental explanations. The Conservative Party and the Church of England were regarded as synonymous. Once the Church doubted belief in God that doubt seeped into the Conservative Party and both declined. Doubt damages intellectual confidence.
Nature abhors a vacuum. The vacuum was filled by Left-liberal ideas, a principal one being Equality (which is entirely different to the conservative idea of Fairness).
doctorluger| 11.25.10 @ 11:16AM
Years ago as a young man here in the U.S. I was taught the history of my country and it's special relationship with the British People and our mother country. I love Britain and the British people. I have travelled there and seen it;s great wonders and met it's people. It is with great sadness that I watch such a great people and nation die. With their eyes wide open yet the cannot see, they have been blinded by years of propaganda under their socalist, leftist lords. I watch their return to serfdom under the iron fist of the EU and a political philosophy communists and globalists. I have always held the the U.S. was one generation behind the U.K. in its state of decay. Here in America we are still just one generation behind Britain. We have an empty suit for president elected by a population who have proved that as it was in Germany in the 1930's the same is true today, one man with the ability to speak well in great swelling words can still hood-wink a nation. Hitler was correct, the majority of people can be motivated my mere rhetoric if it is packaged well.
My dear British friends, wake up, your nation is being destroyed. Your liberty, your faith you have forsaken for the illusion of equality and security. Soon in another short generation you will loose your lives under the iron fist of others.
There is an evil nexus between socalism, communism and Islam
God bless and long live Nigel Farage!
D. Singh| 11.26.10 @ 9:19AM
Sir
You are right. America is just one generation behind us.
Have a little faith and say a prayer to the Good Lord for us.
The British lion is at this moment malnourished, its coat mangy and flea infested, and its once great roar a mere whine, and its eyes swell with tears behind the bars of the Left-liberal cage.
But take heart. Be of good courage and cheer: the British lion's roar will once more be heard across the oceans and the american eagle will fly overhead.
God speed.
peterike| 11.26.10 @ 11:05AM
It would take a very long time to deconstruct all the piffle from Mr. Will. Let's take one point however. He blithely notes that 1 million Britons are Muslim. Really? This from the Sunday Times (one of those great British press organs Will loves):
"The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years, according to official research collated for The Times.
The population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, the research by the Office for National Statistics reveals. In the same period the number of Christians in the country fell by more than 2 million. "
This was published in 2009. So Mr. Will's numbers are, well, sheer nonsense. And I suspect as in most of these things, the numbers are probably far lower than the reality. And let's not even get into the subject of birth rates and aging white populations. Ok, let's.
"But while the biggest Christian population is among over-70s bracket, for Muslims it is the under-4s."
In other words, there is your future. A rapidly aging and dying white population, and a booming Muslim youth contingent, that grows more by the day. And soon those youngsters will also be procreating, six or seven kids each. Do the math. In the blink of an eye Britain will be majority Muslim.
peterike| 11.26.10 @ 11:18AM
Will may also want to take a cold, harsh bath in reality by reading this four part report on Muslim crime in the UK. This is your future.
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot......art-4.html