The Global Doomsday Cult

The two week long climate alarmism farce in Glasgow has finally ended in the usual manner, with all countries promising to do something about their emissions, but few of them willing to take any meaningful steps to actually reduce them. So COP 26 has followed the same pattern as the previous 25.

This can only be good news as it will signal to a global audience that the carbon net zero fantasy can never be achieved. The reason for this is quite simple, that for the foreseeable future all countries will continue to be heavily dependent on fossil fuels for their energy. Coal, gas and electricity are all reliable, relatively cheap sources of energy, whereas the renewable alternatives such a solar and wind can be intermittent and unreliable, and are generally more expensive, requiring subsidy. This position will continue until such time as more effective and economical battery power becomes available, or baseload nuclear energy can be delivered on a large scale.

Britain is probably the most fanatical country in the world in its attempt to decarbonise its economy. Most of the low hanging fruit such as wind farms and solar panels are getting close to their likely peak, if the lights are to remain on. Moreover, a significant amount of our industrial production has been lost to China and other countries, thus artificially reducing the UK carbon footprint, as those products previously produced here are now imported.

It is claimed that opinion polls show that a large majority of the public support the government’s target of achieving net zero by 2050. This is probably unsurprising as all the major political parties currently share this objective, which has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of alarmism by many media outlets, particularly the BBC, which continually portrays extreme weather events as ‘evidence’ of climate change.

In reality the climate is exactly the same as it was over 200 years ago, since the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’, as anyone can confirm just by walking outside their door. During this period extreme weather such as floods, droughts, storms and heat waves have occurred on a regular basis. Previously these were rightly ascribed to unusual weather conditions, not as now, the default group think that pins the blame on ‘climate change’.

Since the relatively easy steps to reduce CO2 emissions have already been taken, it means that future plans to achieve the net zero target will have a much more direct impact on the public. COP 26 was an attempt to create a putative world government in which all countries can be coerced into signing up to a menu of restrictions such as approved energy sources, heating systems, type of car purchases, reduced air travel and how much meat and dairy produce they may consume, etc.

It is likely that only rich western nations will make any serious attempt to implement this agenda. They may however discover that this top down policy, adopted to appease zealous vocal minorities, may not have the wider public support which opinion polls currently show. Once the general public start to discover the extra cost and practical difficulties of electric cars, the huge expense and relatively poor performance of heat pumps, the unreliability of wind and solar power without the back up of coal leading to power cuts, the petty restrictions on travelling by air, and incessant government propaganda and interference in their lifestyle and the food they consume, their resistance will start to grow. If additional controls such as rationing through carbon allowances are added to the mix their disenchantment will be complete.

Currently all parties support this madcap climate obsession, but the weakest link appears to be the Conservative Party. Several backbenchers are beginning to voice their scepticism, supported by the right wing media. Once the net zero policies start to bite these rebels are likely to start causing trouble, just like what happened over the European Union, another issue where the electorate had become disenfranchised, following a stitch up by the major parties. Let us hope that we do not have to wait as long for the climate lunacy to be abandoned.

ITV Savile mendacity part 2

To mark the tenth anniversary of his death ITV have broadcast another gratuitous ‘documentary’ about Jimmy Savile, Portrait of a Predator. Needless to say, it is very light on evidence and facts, but has no shame in peddling numerous smears, disinformation and exaggeration, still considered necessary to bolster the ongoing societal demonisation of Savile, an agenda shared in equal measure by the authorities, mainstream media and general public.

ITV were of course responsible for the original source of the Savile deceit with the broadcast of the Exposure programme in October 2012 fronted by the former Surrey detective and self styled ‘child protection expert’ Mark Williams-Thomas. A summary of the extensive fabrications included in this travesty are outlined in this earlier post http://bit.ly/2dybGYs compiled from extensive research carried out by several indefatigable internet bloggers, most notably Moor Larkin and the late Anna Raccoon.

The main focus in this latest programme featured what appear to be the personal opinions of detective Gary Pankhurst, who was one of the team involved in the Metropolitan Police Operation Yewtree, which co-ordinated the accusations against Savile. Pankhurst’s default position is invariably to always accept the claims of any Savile accuser without having to go to the bother of carrying out any investigation into their allegations. He additionally never misses an opportunity to present all of Savile’s activities in the worst possible light, whether as manager of a dance hall, disc jockey, TV and radio presenter, voluntary hospital porter, fundraiser for Stoke Mandeville hospital, his role at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, and his close association with royalty and politicians. Pankhurst maintains that all of these activities were a front for Savile’s ‘predatory behaviour’ which allowed him a cover to present himself in a favourable light to deflect attention from his nefarious behaviour and thus render him ‘untouchable’ through his ‘controlling and coercive’ character.

It should be remembered that (apart from the convicted false accuser Carl Beech) none of the allegations received by the Metropolitan Police in Operation Yewtree were investigated, as it was considered that since he was deceased such investigations would serve little purpose. Once this knowledge became known it allowed several hundred claimants to come forward with accusations against the safely dead Savile, aware that they would receive little scrutiny from the police, whilst at the same time rightly believing that their claims would be assiduously promoted by the NSPCC and compensation seeking lawyers. As a result the Savile estate of several millions was emptied by these compensation claimants as were the coffers of the BBC and NHS.

Another contributor was the ‘investigative journalist’ Meirion Jones and former producer for the BBC Newsnight current affairs programme, in which role he was responsible for investigating claims made against Savile by former Duncroft approved school pupils. However, the proposed programme was shelved when it was discovered that the claims involving the police included a forged letter. Jones strongly disagreed with this decision and later colluded with Mark Williams-Thomas in the preparation of the ITV Exposure programme. So he is hardly a neutral witness, since he continues to parrot fabrications arising from the Exposure programme.

The programme first turned its attention to Top of the Pops. A member of the 1970s pop group Sparks claimed that back stage Savile strutted around in a ‘menacing’ manner with his ‘heavies’. Another witness was a woman who as a young girl in the audience claimed that Savile ‘inappropriately’ touched her when he was presenting the programme. When she complained to the floor manager he brushed her concerns aside. For once, this claim has the ring of truth as Savile was undoubtedly a touchy-feely person in the presence of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, this was commonplace behaviour at the time and was not regarded as particularly unusual by many people, although it is of course invasive. It should be remembered that many women also engaged in this practice at the time and some probably still do so, with little public censure. More seriously, the programme alleged that Savile ‘sexually abused’ many of the teen girls on Top of the Pops, without providing a shred of evidence to back up this claim, other than the Dame Janet Smith BBC report whose ‘findings’ were comprehensively debunked in this previous post http://bit.ly/2mMrQza, again with research provided by the aforementioned intrepid internet bloggers.

The programme then moved on to a new witness Kelly who was a regular dancer at Top of the Pops from the age of fourteen. She clearly enjoyed her time there, being invited to bars at BBC Television Centre where she was ‘plied with champagne’. Later the girls would be invited back to Savile’s dressing room, which according to Pankhurst provided an opportunity for Savile to ‘groom’ them. Kelly claimed that Savile made advances to her but she rebuffed him and left. Pankhurst interpreted this as Savile ‘testing’ the girls to discover who was ‘compliant’, and example of the mind reading of which he appears to have quite a talent.

Although Pankhurst’s ‘insight’ is pure speculation, we can be sure there was never any shortage of teen girls willing to enter Savile’s dressing room, and they would all have been old enough to be well aware of why he might be seeking them out. It was common knowledge that these ‘groupies’ were only too willing to throw themselves at popular DJs and pop bands (excepting Sparks of course). This would have attracted little censure from BBC management at a time when sexually permissiveness was at the vanguard of the ‘progressive’ counter culture, to the consternation of ‘conservative reactionaries’ such as Mary Whitehouse who was regularly lampooned as a repressed prude by BBC top brass.

Dame Janet’s report into the BBC speaks of the ‘moral danger’ faced by the teen girls, in language little different to the outlook of Mary Whitehouse. A self flagellating BBC management accepted the Smith report in its entirety, and so have u-turned completely from ridiculing the anti permissiveness of Mary Whitehouse to fanatically embracing the ‘moral danger’ espoused by Dame Janet. So which of these two outlooks is correct, both adopted in different eras by self styled ‘progressive’ liberals.

Kelly was friendly with another Top of the Pops dancer Claire McAlpine, claiming that Claire went back to Savile’s dressing room on several occasions. Kelly became aware that Claire was pregnant, suggesting that Savile was responsible. A picture of Claire standing next to Savile is juxtaposed with the revelation that Claire had committed suicide. The clear implication behind this disgusting smear is that Savile was the culprit responsible for her death. However, as revealed in the Dame Janet report the individual concerned was another DJ. This segment demonstrates the depth the programme was prepared to sink in order to mislead viewers.

The programme then moved on to Jim’ll Fix It with Pankhurst again repeating his trope that this was done to allow Savile access to children with the connivance of BBC management. However, as the investigative blogger Moor Larkin has revealed in some depth, Savile’s involvement in the programme was normally kept to the bare minimum, confined mostly to the show’s presentation. Once again Pankhurst is given free rein to make the most outrageous evidence free assumptions about Savile’s motivations and behaviour. The programme then goes on to cite various opportunities Savile supposedly had to continue his ‘offending’ all of which are pure speculation without evidence. As one former BBC employee said ‘everybody knew what Savile was up to but nobody knew what to do about it’. So there we have it, all you needed was rumour and hearsay to condemn and convict Savile as a sexual predator. For the record the BBC never received any complaints about Savile’s behaviour during his lifetime.

The programme then moved on to denounce his charity work with the smear that it ‘protected him from suspicion’. According to Pankhurst ‘Savile’s association with hospitals was particularly concerning because of the vulnerability of people he preyed upon’. A former Stoke Mandeville patient called ‘Pauline’ (shown only in silhouette) was confined to a wheelchair. She claimed that Savile entered her room, put his hand up her skirt and indecently assaulted her. She froze and was unable to scream, realised she could do nothing about it as Savile was widely regarded as some ‘God sent angel’ and then ludicrously blamed herself for what he had done. She claimed that this incident had ruined her life and that she could no longer stand people touching her. It was then suggested that nobody would believe ‘victims’ but would instead believe Savile, a position incidentally which has now been completely reversed.

It seems beyond belief that ‘Pauline’ would have failed to mention a violation such as this at the time, either to nurses or to her family. If it had such a devastating impact as she claims her change in behaviour would have been noted by her parents who would have sought an explanation. There were over sixty complaints made about Savile in the NHS report relating to Stoke Mandeville hospital authored by Kate Lampard, all of them having one thing in common, they were made as a consequence of trawling after the ITV Exposure broadcast. It should be noted that Sylvia Nichol, who worked for over forty years at the Stoke Mandeville Trust, stated that in the many years she had known Savile, she had never seen anything but ‘good honest behaviour’ from him, and confirmed that nobody else working there had mentioned anything being amiss. Janet Cope was Savile’s secretary at Stoke Mandeville for twenty eight years until he sacked her. Although admitting he was not always an easy man to work with, she also refutes all the claims made in the Lampard report, insisting that they could not be true.

Next up is Savile’s association with the royals. A clip of Prince Charles visiting Savile’s Glencoe cottage in Scotland is shown, dismissed as a ‘publicity stunt’. Predictably Pankhurst condemns Savile’s relationship with the royal family as ‘giving him a veneer of respectability’, thus providing him with a high degree of protection since ‘if you attacked Savile you would be attacking those who surrounded him’. His strategy was ‘to latch on to powerful people, including politicians, to hide the dark secrets that surrounded him’ so that ‘those with suspicions were powerless to challenge him’. Because of these high profile connections Pankhurst claimed that this prevented the police from investigating him. The reason that all of this shameless nonsense can be repeated unchallenged is a result of the collective groupthink arising from the original Exposure programme, which has been swallowed by the mainstream media without investigation. In reality, nobody at the time thought that Savile’s behaviour was in any way untoward, despite being sometimes eccentric. It is only in retrospect, through the prism of his continual demonisation as a predator, that his behaviour can be presented in these twisted terms.

The programme ended with the allegations relating to Duncroft approved school with Meirion Jones falsely claiming that Savile had regularly spent the night there, that he had abused girls, and that he was allowed to get away with his ‘predatory behaviour’ by inviting girls to his TV show. None of this has any basis in fact as explained in detail by the former pupil Susan on the Anna Raccoon blog. She was the Duncroft girl who was responsible for Savile being invited to the school in the first place. She has debunked all of Meirion Jones’ false claims, which demonstrates again how desperate this programme was to mislead viewers about Savile. Additionally these claims were investigated by the Surrey Police who found no evidence to back them up. Moreover, Margaret Jones (Meiron Jones aunt), the headmistress at the time confirmed that neither she, nor any of her staff, had received any complaints about Savile arising from his visits.

The programme finished by demonising Savile ‘for casting a long shadow over the nation’ and who had ‘a catastrophic effect on the lives of hundreds of people through his offending’, concluding that Savile ‘was a prolific sexual predatory offender’. All of this without a shred of evidence, or any pretence of carrying out even the most cursory investigation into any of the claims or accusations. All the evidence obtained by those who (unlike this programme) have researched this matter suggests that Savile was careful to restrict his sexual advances to those over the age of consent (and with their consent), since to do otherwise would risk destroying his reputation and celebrity status.

Serious Charge

Another interesting film shown recently on Talking Pictures was the drama Serious Charge starring Anthony Quayle as a newly arrived vicar in a suburban parish. Released in 1959 it maintains the conservative outlook of the time, but boldly addressed the controversial themes of false sex crime accusation and what is now termed homophobia.

The newly arrived vicar is a handsome, earnest and sensitive man in his early thirties. Before too long his high mindedness creates a couple of dangerous enemies who come together to bring about his downfall. The first is a spinster, also in her early thirties, who is the daughter of the previous vicar, and a pillar of the local church community. She is conscious that time is passing and that if she is not married soon she will be left on the shelf. She forms a strong attraction to the new vicar, and very quickly she impetuously throws herself at him declaring that she loves him. Alas for her, the feelings are not reciprocated, and the vicar rebuffs her advances, albeit with some sensitivity. The spinster considers that she has been scorned and is on the lookout for a means of revenge.

The second enemy is a loutish youth in his late teens, the ringleader of a bunch of local delinquents. He has been dating a girl who has become pregnant by him. He evades his responsibilities towards her, and the girl becomes fearful about what will happen if her father finds out. She informs the vicar about the situation, but in a rather contrived situation she is then hit and killed by a car, distracted when she observes her boyfriend canoodling with another young woman.

The vicar is aware that the youth is responsible for the pregnancy, and after the inquest they both attended, the vicar accuses him of being responsible for the death of his girlfriend through his selfish and inconsiderate behaviour. The youth takes great offence at this, and observing that the spinster has just entered the vicarage on parish business, he rips open his shirt and runs to the spinster maliciously accusing the vicar of ‘interfering’ with him.

The police become involved and, as the only witness, the spinster backs up the youth’s accusation. The vicar soon starts to receive poison pen letters, rocks thrown through his window, his parishioners desert him, and he gets into a brawl with the father of the youth, vociferously encouraged by his braying pub mates.

The vicar’s mother returns to the vicarage after a few days away and is shocked by what has happened. She is sure that her son must be innocent of what he is accused of, and confronts the spinster as to what really happened. After this emotional encounter the spinster gets some pangs of conscience and she contrives a situation whereby the youth’s lies are exposed. Hypocritically, the parishioners all start to return, and the film ends with the vicar agreeing to stay on, with a strong hint that he will probably marry the spinster, as in reality they are well suited.

The film was released at a time when traditional morality was still upheld. Nevertheless, the first stirrings of the new permissiveness were beginning to emerge, and so it must have been a novel experience for cinemagoers to be confronted with the previously taboo subject of homosexuality.

In a sense the film was more progressive and open minded compared to what would be permitted today, since we are now all subject to the straitjacket of the broad PC commitment to ‘believe the victim’. Additionally, it would now be considered judgemental to portray a non-consensual homosexual encounter. There would not be a happy ending either, the vicar would be denounced as a paedophile (a term now very broadly defined), using his respected position in society as a cover for his predatory behaviour. His guilt would be assumed since it is an article of faith that children and young people would never lie to gain revenge.

The story line was happy to confirm society’s then abhorrence of homosexuals, particularly those who tried to corrupt youths into entering what was then regarded as a deviant lifestyle. None of the characters questioned the consensus as to whether homosexual activity was acceptable, and in the brawl scene involving the vicar the pub regulars voiced their contempt towards him in no uncertain terms.

It should be remembered that during this era the now saintly Alan Turing was convicted of the same offence as the fictional vicar was accused of, namely propositioning a teen youth to engage in what society considered to be deviant sexual activity. This was a crime which until the early nineties was regarded as sufficiently serious to warrant a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment, until it was suddenly decided that such behaviour should no longer be a crime at all. However, this law was not repealed in a new wave of permissiveness, since the same cohort who brought about this change was more than happy to start jailing men for a variety of sexual activities which had previously never been criminal.

This all goes to show that what constitutes a sexual offence can be highly subjective. So involving the law minutely in the sexual behaviour of its citizens is dangerous for both individual liberty and personal responsibility. Thus the use of the criminal justice system in this area should be confined to instances where genuine harm has occurred, which is most certainly not the case at present.

Flame In The Streets

An interesting film Flame In The Streets has recently been shown on the TV channel Talking Pictures. This relatively obscure British release starred John Mills as a trade union representative in a London furniture factory. Also starring is Sylvia Syms as his daughter, who is a teacher in a relationship with a Jamaican, a recently arrived supply teacher in her school. It dates from 1961 and has racial prejudice as its main theme, covering much the same ground as the later and much better known Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner starring Sidney Poitier (reviewed here http://bit.ly/1XFhUnV).

This film is both entertaining, thought provoking and allows different perspectives to be voiced. Nevertheless it is a piece of liberal propaganda, albeit one that communicates its message in a much more subtle way than the TV dramas of today, which all signal their virtuous politically correct message in a more blatant and heavy handed manner.

The film begins with another West Indian, who is acting as a temporary foreman in the factory. His promotion has caused some trouble among some of the white workmen who resent being ordered around by a ‘spade’ (in the parlance of the time). The factory owner has some reservations about giving him the foreman role on a permanent basis as he fears that it might provoke some unrest amongst the mostly white workers. He discusses the matter with the union rep John Mills who assures him that he can convince the workers to accept the West Indian’s permanent promotion at a branch meeting that is to be held to discuss the issue that evening.

During the well attended branch meeting a number of workers question the West Indian’s suitability for the supervisory role, claiming that it would cause resentment amongst ‘our people’, by having to take orders from a ‘coloured’. There is clearly an undercurrent of bigotry here as none of them could argue that he had not fulfilled the temporary position competently. In a barnstorming response John Mills calls out their prejudice by correctly identifying what they are unwilling to admit openly, that their objections are motivated by ‘nothing more than skin colour’, thus shaming them for their unwarranted prejudice against a well respected workmate. As a result, the opposition collapses and the meeting votes to confirm the West Indian as the permanent replacement foreman.

After the meeting John Mills is informed by his wife that his daughter has just announced her intention to marry the Jamaican teacher. She is absolutely horrified by this turn of events and urges her husband to fulfil his role as father by persuading the daughter to abandon her plans as it would bring disgrace on her family through such an unsuitable match. Some of the language which the mother employs to express her outraged feelings are clearly offensive and are based on generalised stereotypes which would hardly be likely to apply to an educated teacher. Hearing such ignorant and prejudiced opinions, as being representative of what many white people might be thinking about them, must have worried many black people watching the film at the time it was released.

John Mills is much more restrained than his wife in condemning the daughter, but he is nevertheless very concerned about the situation, being torn between his desire to avoid racial prejudice to ensure fair play, and his clear distaste for such a marriage. They return home to discuss the matter with the daughter, pointing out all the problems and societal pressures she would face that would likely last for the rest of her life. However, the daughter rejects all of their arguments and states categorically that as she loves the Jamaican she is happy to face whatever the future might bring. The film ends when the parents enter the room to meet the Jamaican suitor for the first time.

This is a rather ambivalent ending but it suggests that the parents have reconciled themselves to the inevitable despite their clear distaste for their daughter’s relationship. The underlying message however is that racial prejudice, whether in the workplace or in the family, is something which is always wrong and must be faced up to.

As in the Sidney Poitier film the Jamaican teacher is presented as a paragon of virtue. He is well mannered, polite, sensitive and caring, normally just the kind of man parents would be happy for their daughter to marry. However, in comparison with the white characters he appears a little two dimensional with no real personality or apparent sense of humour. These are the kind of characteristics one might expect a young professional woman to look for in a potential suitor. So it is highly improbable that rationally, she would have chosen a black man, when there are so many white men available on her cultural wavelength, many of whom have the added advantage of possessing the kind of personal qualities more likely to make the relationship a success.

The film also raises some deeper concerns. At the branch union meeting the workers raised the issue of ‘our people’, by which they meant the white British. Governments of the time had defended the introduction of immigrant labour on the grounds that during a period of labour shortage British people were unwilling to accept the kind of menial jobs that black immigrants were happy to take. By promoting one of them to a supervisory role over white people the goalposts suddenly appear to have been moved decisively against the interests of the white workers.

One of the arguments used by the mother to dissuade her daughter against the proposed marriage was to point out that her children would be black. This raises the issue of whether racial identity is something that should be cherished and preserved, or whether it is evidence of odious bigotry. It is a debate that has never openly been allowed to take place in this country, despite it being a matter that many people have an instinctive view about. Another interesting point is that none of the characters in the film gave any thought to what the West Indian community might think about such a mixed marriage, the assumption being that they could not possibly have any objection, an attitude that demonstrates a rather condescending double standard. Liberals are invariably hyper sensitive about the feelings of black people but they are not necessarily always well tuned in to their real opinions.