Selfless courage shines a light of hope in the war on terror

As its few survivors commemorate the Battle of the Atlantic 70 years ago, I cannot help wondering how they would have felt if Churchill had gone to “chillax” in Ibiza while they were facing the German U-boats.

The “war on terror”, clearly, is played by different rules.

Still, at least our glorious leader will have leisure to reflect that the real swivel-eyed loons he needs to worry about are not those in his local Conservative associations.

They are the ones out on the streets quoting the Old Testament under the apparent delusion that it is the Koran, and wielding meat cleavers and butchers’ knives.

I have asked myself what steps I would take if I were ever confronted by such fanatics, and regret to say that they would almost certainly be very large and fast ones in the opposite direction.

Hence my boundless admiration for those brave women in Woolwich who stopped to try and reason with the killers and to comfort their victim.

I have read suggestions elsewhere that this marks the critical difference between the male and female of our species, but I do not believe that to be strictly true. Yes, men may be statistically more susceptible to murderous lunacy, but there are also women who claim to hear voices in their heads telling them to kill. One female was jailed only last year for the random knife murder of a 13-year-old girl in a Doncaster park.

The only difference is that those behind last week’s killing appear to think themselves motivated by some monstrous perversion of religion, and our response occasionally seems to be hamstrung by hand-wringing concerns to avoid giving offence.

It is fortunate that the Conquistadores took a more robust approach to Aztec human sacrifice, and the British to the Indian customs of thuggee and suttee, or we would still have widows flinging themselves (or being flung) onto their husbands’ funeral pyres and no doubt be warned not to judgemental about the customs of other faiths.

Now, let's not be judgemental here ...

Though oddly enough it is fine to offend many Christians, whether through legislating on gay marriage or banning the display of their symbols, because with any luck they will have read enough of their Bible to know that the line about “an eye for an eye” is updated in the Gospel with advice to “turn the other cheek”.

The good news is that madness can be defeated, just as the apparently unstoppable forces of Nazism and Soviet communism were. Only last week I rejoiced as the European Commission hurriedly withdrew its proposed ban on olive oil jugs and dipping bowls in restaurants, in the face of a positive tsunami of ridicule from across the continent.

True, on past form this may prove to have been a tactical retreat by the Commission, rather than an outright defeat, but it is at least a sign that the forces of sanity may occasionally bring even the European juggernaut shuddering to a halt.

We must now aim for a similar and much more important triumph against those forces that prey on the vulnerable and frankly thick to convince them that they have grievances that are worth killing and being killed for.

Because no offshoot of any religion that preaches this deserves to survive even for a nanosecond, and should be stamped out with all the forces of logical argument and ridicule at our disposal.

Faith surely only has value when it makes the inevitability of our own deaths seem a little more bearable and reinforces in us a desire “to do the right thing”, as Ibiza Dave likes to say.

Whenever a natural disaster, major accident or horrible murder comes along, perfectly ordinary people emerge from the shadows displaying quite exceptional reserves of selflessness, decency and eloquence. 

Illustrating that there are ultimately only two kinds of people on this planet: those who always put themselves first and those who care about others.

Some of the good among us may be motivated by a religious upbringing or teaching, but many of no faith at all display equally outstanding selflessness and courage. Let us thank God for that (if we believe in Him) and wish that more of us could be like them. I know I do.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

How the world looks this week to a swivel-eyed loon

Despite the denials, I feel sure that David Cameron and his Cabinet cronies would have no hesitation in categorising me as a “mad, swivel-eyed loon.”

The face and voice of sanity

And I must swiftly concede that they may well have a point, as I was mad enough to vote for their party at the last election. Though I foolishly thought of it at the time, as for the previous 40 years or so, as MY party: the one most closely aligned to my interests and ideas.

In much the same way, I suppose, as thousands of ex-miners and former shipyard workers across the North East kept voting for the Labour party of Tony Blair under the delusion that it might be on their side, rather than that of the international bankers.

David Cameron truly is the fabled “heir to Blair” in his belief that the way to get and cling onto power is to stick up two fingers at his natural supporters. At least it can be argued in his defence that the energetic pursuit of gay marriage is doing rather less practical damage than cynically engineering mass immigration or invading foreign countries on contrived evidence of wrongdoing.

And who can blame him? The focus groups make clear that “the young”, after the benefit of years of state school brainwashing on the merits of diversity, are all for homosexuals gaily tripping down the aisle together. And “the young” equal “the future”, while all the old fogies like me will soon be dead.

The only snag being that the elderly will, in the meantime, probably go on voting, while the young will be far too busy with their Xboxes (or whatever the 2013 equivalent of those may be). The traditional argument that we have nowhere else to turn also looks a bit threadbare when the affably blokeish Nigel Farage seems to pop up every time we turn on the news.

Now I, as it happens, am a libertarian, who could not personally care less about gay marriage unless they decide to make it compulsory. But I find it surprising that a supposedly Conservative administration should be expending so much political capital on a contentious piece of modernisation that was not proposed in their manifesto.

I would be equally surprised if they suddenly brought forward a Bill to abolish the monarchy, because it would not fit with what I consider to be a “conservative” view of the world. Making the schoolboy error of confusing the word, which accurately describes what I am, with the radical party of professional politicians that has usurped the name.

But if you really want to see swivel-eyed lunacy, take a look at last week’s EU directive banning olive oil bottles and dipping bowls from our restaurants. Observe the views you have cherished all your life being wrecked by all but useless wind turbines, or watch HMS Ark Royal being towed off to a Turkish scrapyard.

Consider the fact that we cannot afford to fill the potholes or repair the landslips on our roads, subsidise rural buses or provide adequate seating capacity on local trains. But we can apparently find £35 billion to build a new high speed railway that will suck yet more economic vigour out of the English regions by bringing more of them within the London commuter belt.

The worst of all this is the feeling of impotence: that “nothing can be done” because “they’re all the same”. As, in truth, the pole-climbing lifelong political monkeys of our major parties appear to be.

Change must come. I shall welcome the chance to vote “no” to European Union membership if a referendum ever comes, which I very much doubt, but why waste yet more time legislating for that theoretical possibility?

Focus on the needs of the people that elected you. Get on with fixing the economy and the infrastructure we have already got. Forget about huge vanity projects. Try treating ridiculous EU directives with the same contempt that you currently reserve for your own most loyal supporters.

Unless you do that, Mr Cameron, you certainly will not deserve to be re-elected in 2015. And if you really want to take a close look at swivel-eyed lunacy, you’ll just need to invest in a mirror.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.