Justin Welby – a victim of safeguarding overreach

This blog does not normally concern itself with the Christian religion as it considers it to be a distortion of true spiritual reality as outlined at this website http://bit.ly/41sjNfx Nor does it have much time for Archbishop Welby as an individual since he has invariably been an enthusiast supporter of whatever woke nostrums are currently in vogue with the ruling politically correct elite. However, having read the Makin report into the activities of John Smyth, it is extremely difficult to understand why he felt the need to resign as Archbishop.

John Smyth was an eminent barrister and QC at the time the events outlined in the report took place in England. He was a pillar of society as well as a committed Christian, lay reader and preacher in the Church of England. Unlike the accusations against Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, Cyril Smith and Greville Janner (see earlier blogposts) which were all credulously accepted by the mainstream media and general public, this time there is compelling evidence that the activities Smyth is accused of did definitely take place.

As accurately reported in the media, during a period from 1978 to early 1982, Smyth inflicted savage beatings on a considerable number of young men attending Christian summer camps (organised by a trust chaired by Smyth) and also pupils of Winchester public school. These beatings were inflicted as ‘punishment’ for behaviour and sometimes thoughts which Smyth deemed to be ‘sinful’. It appears that the young men shared the same mindset as Smyth on the spiritual benefits that the beatings would bring by making them better Christians in the sight of God.

At the time corporal punishment was still legal in schools, and it could be argued that in the summer camps Smyth was acting ‘in loco parentis’ when the young men were away from home. Normally, this practice was used to discipline unruly boys for misbehaviour, and was usually confined to no more than six strokes of the cane. However, the beatings Smyth inflicted far exceeded this number to the extent that appreciable bleeding would often occur and, with one exception involving a short beating, were not for misbehaviour but instead for religious indoctrination objectives. No overt sexual activity occurred during these beatings although Smyth and the young men were sometimes naked.

So it is not entirely clear whether the beatings met the threshold of criminality, although it is probable that most people would think that they should have done had they been reported. However, this is beside the point as no criminal complaint was made before Smyth emigrated to Africa in 1984. What is almost incomprehensible is that there are no reports that any of the victims notified their parents or anyone in authority in the church or elsewhere about the beatings, and that time after time they voluntarily came back for more doses of this savage chastisement. The only explanation is that they were so brainwashed by the fundamentalist evangelical indoctrination that Smyth promoted, namely that these beatings were necessary to make them better Christians and to purge themselves of sin.

In 1982 a report was circulated to the summer camp trustees and the headmaster of Winchester school detailing the extent and nature of the beatings that Smyth was inflicting on the young men. The trustees included six ordained clergy of the Church of England. However, partly to protect the reputation of the trust, and knowing that the victims were unwilling to act as witnesses in a criminal prosecution, the police were not informed at that time. There appears to be no evidence that any of the clergy acting as trustees disclosed the report’s findings more widely with colleagues in the Church of England. Their decision not to inform the police was made in their capacity as Christian summer camp trustees, and not as clergy in the Church of England. The headmaster of Winchester school banned Smyth from any further contact with pupils, and agreed to the request of some parents not to inform the police. These decisions to keep the police and Church of England authorities in the dark enabled Smyth to continue with more beatings when he moved to Zimbabwe and later South Africa.

So how does Justin Welby fit into all of this? Well, as a young man in his late teens and early twenties he attended the Christian summer camps and became acquainted with Smyth. Welby never experienced any beatings himself and claims not to have heard any rumours about Smyth on this matter while attending the camps. Although they both came into contact with one another at this time it appears that they were not particularly close.

The pair briefly met up again in 1981 in Paris where Welby was working for an oil company. Smyth and a group of boys called on him on the way to a skiing holiday in Switzerland . A few weeks later a clerical friend also visited him, and was told that he had recently met Smyth, a mutual acquaintance of both. The clerical friend advised him to stay away from Smyth, but gave no further details or reasons, and nothing was said about the beatings.

Justin Welby was appointed Archbishop in 2013 and a few months later was formally informed of Smyth’s beatings and that the police had been made aware of the allegations against him. By this time Smyth was living in South Africa and died there in August 2018, but was never charged with any offence despite a Channel 4 programme broadcast in 2017 that featured the claims of some victims. Welby in 2013 was given to believe that the police were investigating Smyth and thus concluded that there was no need to become personally involved in this matter, especially as he appears to have no authority to intervene in a police enquiry. For this ‘lack of curiosity’ he is criticised in the Makin report which Welby unwisely commissioned.

All the main authors of the report are involved in child safeguarding and thus it may be reasonable to assume that they strongly subscribe to the current ‘believe the victim’ narrative, which places in an invidious position anyone questioning or challenging the accounts of those presenting themselves as victims. It is clear that all the sympathies in the report are with those claiming victimhood and very little with those facing accusations, including the Archbishop. So the whole report is severely one sided, taking minimal account of the behaviour and beliefs held by the victims at the time.

The Makin report repeatedly raises the issue of child abuse. There appears to be no evidence that any of those beaten at the summer camps were under the age of eighteen, although some of those beaten at Winchester school were aged seventeen. Child abuse is a somewhat tendentious and overused term among safeguarding activists who invariably interpret both ‘child’ and ‘abuse’ in the broadest possible terms. It is perverse to apply it to the young men who were victims of Smyth. They were all clearly sufficiently adult to have been in a position to personally judge whether Smyth’s vicious methods were the best way to liberate themselves from the effect of sin.

The beatings took place in a garden shed located in residences occupied by Smyth and his family. The victims were never coerced to visit Smyth’s home, to accept his hospitality, to agree to walk through his garden and enter the shed, and finally to make themselves available for a beating which most of them had experienced several times before. There is no point decades later blaming the Church of England for not taking any action, when these young men were complicit in keeping the church authorities in ignorance of Smyth’s brutal behaviour at the time. No safeguarding system would have caught Smyth, since there was no record of abuse against him at the time, and nobody reported his behaviour to those with any authority in the church until some years afterwards. Although occupying lay posts in the Church of England all his beatings were carried out in locations or at events over which the Church had no remit.

Given that Welby only knew Smyth very slightly decades before he became Archbishop, and that there were innumerable current issues of greater priority relating to the church which he would have needed to give his attention, the conclusion of the Makin report appears bizarre, taking into account the length of time since the beatings had taken place, the complicit behaviour of the victims, that the abuse took place at venues outside the control of the Church of England, and the very peripheral involvement of the Archbishop. It is impossible for any person however eminent to micromanage everything that comes across their desk, and the Makin report authors’ assumption that this outcome could have been achieved, in a matter rightly considered of low priority at the time, is absurd.

It is ironic that Welby has done considerably more than any previous holder of his office to improve the safeguarding of children in the church. Those writing the report seem to have framed their conclusions with the sole aim of triggering Welby’s resignation and, with the publicity generated, to further embed their extreme safeguarding regime into broader society. This promotes an agenda which seeks to portray all men as potential child molesters who need to be kept away from all children unless it is absolutely unavoidable. It is in effect a system in which all men are treated with suspicion and kept under surveillance by the authorities, one that has destroyed the hitherto normal healthy relationship of trust which previously existed between adults and children. The Makin report recommends that this authoritarian system of control should be further extended and enlarged, demonising men still more, thus preventing young people building resilience to the obstacles and difficulties they may face in society.

Only one bishop called on Welby to resign, and the senior colleagues he discussed this with advised him not to do so. He should have heeded their advice and thus avoided the loss of reputation, both to himself and the Church of England, which followed his foolish and difficult to comprehend decision to quit.

A fantasy far right thought experiment

The far right has been in the news quite a lot recently. The Labour government, the BBC and much of the British mainstream media have claimed that the recent disturbances, mainly involving working class white males, have been inspired and orchestrated by the far right. So it is worth examining what constitutes the main concerns of the far right?

What appears to primarily motivate those who are attracted to the far right is a concern about the detrimental impact on British society of the open ended, apparently unending, immigration from around the world that has taken place since World War II. They fear that the ever increasing presence of culturally different and racially distinct residents in their towns and cities will seriously degrade the cohesion of their communities and traditional British society.

Thus their motivation is clearly one that is racist, so on this point their opponents the political left are correct, although cultural factors also play an important part. Left wing activists consider that the far right’s hostility towards racial minorities and immigration is not merely wrong-headed but positively wicked, claiming that it is motivated by hatred against people who do not look like themselves. The activist left take the opposite view to the far right, declaring that third world immigration has brought much needed diversity and enrichment to our society. So again, it is worth examining the evidence to discover which of these viewpoints is correct.

The far right is clearly correct in concluding that the huge level of third world immigration has had an enormous impact on many neighbourhoods. To begin with these would have been almost entirely white, but gradually many became populated by people of different races and cultures from around the globe. If these numbers were small and evenly distributed there would be no problem. The newcomers would have no choice but to integrate as best they could with the existing majority. But this is not what has been happening; the new arrivals soon started to congregate in their own ethnic enclaves, and when this occurs many of the existing white residents prefer to move away to a more congenial neighbourhood where they will be surrounded by their own kind, a process known as ‘white flight’. This response has been continuing for decades and is clearly motivated by racial and cultural identity, both by whites and also the immigrant communities.

Governments of all political parties have presided over the continuing inflow of ethnic minority immigrants. The Tories have occasionally tried to sound tough about restricting the flow, but in reality have never taken the measures needed to realistically address the problem. The other political parties believe that immigration of this kind brings enrichment and diversity, and so delivers their positive vision of a multicultural society, and thus is a desirable end in itself. The British public has never been consulted on this matter, and opinion polls have consistently shown that a significant proportion of the white population are strongly opposed to the immigration that has taken place.

For governments to allow the inflow of ethnic minorities in such numbers, one might reasonably assume that there must have been clearly identifiable reasons to justify it. However, these have never been clearly stated although some commentators have suggested that they were originally encouraged to come to fill the low paid low skilled disagreeable jobs that it is claimed the white population were no longer prepared to do. However, this is not the case; the immigrants came of their own volition in the hope of improving their material circumstances compared with what they might expect in their home countries. They could do this because the British Nationality Act 1948, introduced by the Labour Attlee government, granted British citizenship to everyone born in the British Commonwealth and colonies.

So what are the benefits that ethnic minorities bring to Britain confidently proclaimed to be ‘enrichment’ by leftist activists? Well, to begin with it appears reasonable to conclude that the contribution of different ethnic groups may vary, so it is necessary to assess each of them individually. Those that seem to attract the fewest problems are the Hindu, Sikh and Far East Asian (Chinese) communities. Although they mostly congregate in their own ethnic enclaves, there is no evidence to suggest that they differ much from the host population in terms of criminal activity and educational achievement. However, for the most part they seem reluctant to become involved in traditional British social and cultural activities, preferring instead to remain loyal to the familiar customs of their countries of ancestry. Moreover, significant numbers of both Hindus and Sikhs marry partners from their country of ancestry, thus contributing to chain migration.

Muslims demonstrate some of the same upsides and downsides as Sikhs and Hindus; a different cuisine that is very popular, but also chain migration due to marriage, social, cultural and religious attachment to their countries of ancestry, together with an even greater sense of separateness from mainstream British social and cultural life. Whilst the majority as individuals cause no serious problems, and some make a positive contribution such as doctors, a vocal and more radical minority have created widespread concern and fear in the white population.

There are a number of reasons for this. The first is terrorism. Islamists, in the name of their religion, have been responsible for several outrages which have killed and injured British people. One issue which has aroused the fury of the white working class has been the grooming gangs of Muslim Asian men targeting young white girls. The treatment and control of women by Muslim men is another area which offends modern mainstream values. So it must be concluded that the continuing growth of the Muslim population presents a serious threat to the cohesion and stability of British society.

The final group to be considered are people of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. Those who follow a religion are mostly Christian, so there is no real problem here, even though many of them prefer to attend their own ‘black led’ churches. Compared with other immigrant groups, there is more social and cultural integration through sport and popular music, although again black people mostly prefer to live within their own racial and cultural communities.

One area where black people have made a positive contribution has been through popular music although most of the best acts are American. Artists such as Nat King Cole and The Platters were immensely popular in the 1950s, although they were heavily dependant on a white music industry. But from the 1950s to the 1970s black performers were able to take full control as shown by Chuck Berry, Motown artists such as The Four Tops and The Supremes, and later the Philly sound of The Stylistics. These were all extremely popular in the white market. But from the mid 1970s onwards the music began to change appealing more to black tastes. This has led in more recent decades to a degradation of black music that mostly ranges from the forgettably bland to the seriously degenerate.

On the downside the principal concern is the level of crime committed by the black population. The political establishment is remarkably coy about providing the public with accurate statistics on this. However, the same establishment is vocal in condemning the ‘disproportionate’ level of black people stopped and searched, those who are in prison, and those who are convicted in the courts. So despite debate on this matter in the mainstream media being discouraged, anecdotal evidence inescapably leads to the conclusion that black criminal activity is considerably disproportionate to their numbers. There is also the problem of fatherless families leading to family breakdown and lack of discipline and adult role models.

Many white people have worked with those of ethnic ancestry and in the experience of this blog the most problematic colleagues are invariably other whites. So it is worth following the advice of Martin Luther King that a person should be judged on their character, not the colour of their skin. The problem is less with minorities as individuals, but more the fear of a collective group threat over which the indigenous population has no control, principally the transformation of neighbourhoods, the greater level of crime and the creation of parallel societies.

So the difficulty for mainstream politicians, parroting their ‘diversity is strength’ delusion, is that the far right include many more people than the ‘thugs’ involved in the recent disturbances. Evidence for this is the over four million votes cast for Reform UK which was achieved from a standing start, despite being denounced by the other parties for its focus on immigration. Although self selecting, the public comments on websites discussing the issue of immigration show almost unanimous resentment about the current level of migrants entering the country, and there is particular hostility to the illegal immigrants crossing the channel. So it appears that huge swathes of British people reject the establishment line that immigration brings enrichment and that diversity is somehow beneficial to our society.

It is not just the level of immigration that is causing anger, but several other factors also. The politically correct establishment that controls nearly all our institutions has an obsessive concern for the rights of minorities, perniciously coupled with a disdain for Britain, its culture, history and traditional values. They flagellate themselves over the evils of slavery, colonialism and empire. They stigmatise white achievement through ‘critical race theory’, they take the knee over ‘black lives matter’, lecture employees on the iniquity of ‘white privilege’, indoctrinate school children with a fantasy narrative in ‘black history month’, fill our screens with black actors masquerading as middle class whites in TV programmes and advertisements, which now extends to the rewriting of history through dramas about the past.

So for all these reasons there is mounting anger in the broader white population, who are becoming increasingly aware that they are being controlled and manipulated by a hard left virtue signalling elite. Although these activists form a relatively small proportion of the population they have over several decades, gradually and incrementally taken over the levers of power in most of our institutions, including universities, schools, most of the media, public sector unions, advertising, and the public sector generally, and this influence is now extending to the private sector. So anyone entering these sectors now has to publicly conform to a woke set of values, or face hostility that can be career damaging. Thus we are living in a form of soft totalitarianism that is being imposed on the majority by a vocal and determined ideological elite minority.

Electorates throughout Europe have started to wake up to what has being going on and an increasing number are voting for right wing ‘populist’ parties. This is the only legitimate response that citizens can make, given the entrenched position held by highly motivated, hard left activists exercising power and influence over society. They try to insinuate guilt by promoting slogans such as ‘white privilege’ and attempt to silence opposition through accusations of ‘white supremacy’. In this respect it is worth remembering that the overwhelming number scientific inventions and discoveries have been made by people of European ancestry, and virtually none by Afro-Caribbeans. There is also no reason why anyone should need to apologise for being white or for promoting the interests of their race.

So what measures would a future far right government be likely to introduce in order to roll back the woke policies that they would face. To begin with a far right government would have to identify precisely what is the source of public concern. It is not immigration itself which gives rise to public fears, but the nature and number of the immigrants. Recently tens of thousands of white Ukrainian women have been welcomed into the homes of British families. This contrasts with the response to the illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, who are overwhelmingly young dark skinned males from outside Europe.

So there appears to be little concern about the arrival of those who are racially and culturally similar to the white majority, but much concern about those who appear alien by reason of their different race or culture. This is where the problem lies and there is no point in pretending otherwise. So for much of the British public, the introduction of racial and cultural diversity is considered to be a most unwelcome development, especially to those belonging to the working class. This explains the existence of parallel communities in the more diversely populated towns and cities.

Given that race and culture are the source of the problem this is where the focus needs to be. In his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech Enoch Powell identified the remedy namely ‘stopping the further inflow and promoting the maximum outflow, of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population’. This is what a far right government would seek to implement. It would be achieved by a variety of policies involving both carrot and stick. This could involve generous resettlement grants coupled with measures to directly favour the white indigenous population. Given that (as outlined in the previous post), the political establishment has been rigging the system to benefit the ethnic population over many decades, this would merely reverse the beneficiaries of an already accepted policy. There would no doubt be howls of protests against these measures by the activist left , but if their demonstrations turned violent those responsible could be treated in the same way as the recent ‘far right louts’ through the handing down of stiff prison sentences.

If a far right government ever did come to power in Britain these are the kinds of policies that are likely to be implemented in order to prevent the cultural and racial destruction of the country.

Recent protests in England

England has recently experienced the worst outbreak of street disturbances for over a decade. In contrast to previous occurrences those participating were almost entirely working class white males. The trigger was the shocking killing and stabbing of several young girls at a dance class in Southport. False social media reports suggested that the alleged perpetrator was a recent Muslim immigrant arrival. However, the person charged was later revealed to be a 17 year old youth born in Wales to Rwandan immigrants.

The new Prime Minister and Home Secretary have denounced those involved in the riots as ‘thugs’, and the courts have imposed heavy prison sentences on some of those taking part. Mosques and buildings housing asylum seekers have been targeted. The harsh response of the authorities has prompted some commentators on the political right to complain of two tier policing and a double standard response to the rioting. There appears to be some justification for these claims.

At the time of the Black Lives Matter disturbances in 2020 Keir Starmer and his deputy were photographed taking the knee in support of these protests. The trigger for this was the killing of a black career criminal and intoxicated illegal drug user by a white policeman in the USA. Thus these protests had nothing to do with the British legal or political system, or the behaviour of the British police. Nevertheless they attracted widespread support on the left of British politics, and their overwhelming sympathy lay with the black population who were deemed to be the victims of racist policing.

During the past few years there have been innumerable protests carried out by the Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil campaigns. Although peaceful they have been enormously disruptive causing widespread inconvenience to the public. These protests were clearly intended to intimidate ordinary people going about their daily activities. Again the left wholeheartedly supported this strategy on the grounds that it focussed public and media attention on what they considered to be the urgent issue of ‘climate change’, a major obsession of today’s ‘progressives’. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn praised these protests as ‘inspiring climate activism’ and ‘a wake up call’.

Politicians and activists are of course entitled to express their opinions, but it is no surprise that they voice their approval of protests on subjects they support, whilst at the same time denouncing those engaged in protests for causes for which they have no sympathy. The police however are supposed to be impartial and thus should treat all protesters in an equal manner. In recent years this has not been happening. The police treated the Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter disruption indulgently, but were happy to use indiscriminate violence against the covid lockdown protesters, and now again with the latest protests deemed to have been carried out by the ‘far right’. So this explains why the accusation of two tier policing has gained such traction.

One benefit of the heavy crackdown on these protestors is that it has revealed the degree to which Labour politicians now despise ordinary working class people. This is unsurprising as their activists now almost entirely comprise middle class virtue signallers, whose primary concern is advancing the interests of vocal minority groups at the expense of the majority white population. Keir Starmer was happy to denounce the protesters as ‘thugs’ but appeared to show little interest in what caused the protests in the first place. The rallying cry repeatedly made by the protesters was that they ‘wanted their country back’ and an end to the continuing huge levels of immigration which has destroyed the cohesion of their communities and neighbourhoods. In treating their fears with such contempt Keir Starmer will have lost a significant amount of what remains of working class support for Labour, many of whom will now be persuaded by the more sympathetic response of Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

Reverse racism

The previous post described the extent to which white woke liberals have invested in the fight against racism. This follow up examines the reverse racism these same activists engage in, which targets their own race, white Europeans. They shamelessly participate in an orchestrated campaign to denigrate their own race, and to praise and promote the culture, history, lifestyle and behaviour of people belonging to other races and ethnic groups, most notably Afro-Caribbeans and Muslims.

This open discrimination is practiced in a number of areas: in employment, in the indoctrination of children, in the broadcast media, in advertising and in cultural activities such as the theatre, cinema and museums. This is imposed and regulated in an opaque yet pervasive manner, and thus it is difficult for those on the outside affected, the powerless silent white majority, to challenge the virtue signalling elite manipulators pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Legislation with the aim of achieving equal opportunities in employment was introduced because it was widely believed that ethnic minorities were being discriminated against on racial grounds. At the same time, to reassure the white population, it was made clear that quotas for non whites would be illegal, and that employers would legally be allowed to choose the best candidate for a job regardless of skin colour.

However, this did not satisfy the race activists who claimed that non whites were still being discriminated against, and so the rules were changed to allow preferential recruitment of ethnic minorities in areas were they were considered to be ‘under represented’. To further this process schemes to coach ethnic minorities were introduced in many public bodies to improve their chances of success. This was the start of the slippery slope to replace equality of opportunity with equality of outcome, now known as equity. The power of the state would be used to require that any business seeking government contracts must first provide evidence that their workforce met ethnic diversity targets. As a consequence, white people began to be openly discriminated against, since employers hired more black applicants in order to meet the demands of the state’s diversity agenda.

The government describes Black History Month as ‘a time to celebrate the contribution black people have made over the centuries in shaping the dynamic and diverse country we have today’. It is claim that is wilfully deceitful, as expressed in the statement ‘from Roman times black people have been an integral part of our country’. This is pernicious nonsense since Britain was 99.9% white European prior to the arrival of the Windrush generation in 1948. This is a flagrant attempt to brainwash schoolchildren by presenting them with a wholly false narrative. The reality is that since their arrival black people have provided very little of benefit to British history or culture, with the possible exception of a handful of musicians some decades ago.

The broadcast media, particularly the BBC, has been in the vanguard of presenting black people in a positive light, regardless of their actual individual merits. In more recent times their on screen representation has become hugely disproportionate to their real numbers. This is reflected in discussion programmes where minority pundits are invited to participate on the basis of their skin colour, rather than their expertise. Black people are overrepresented in TV drama, invariably occupying positions of responsibility, seniority or integrity, with whites playing the roles of subordinates or villains. A more recent insidious trend is the increasing inclusion of black actors in historic dramas, thereby presenting a wholly misleading portrayal of the country’s past. Many long standing BBC programmes have been hijacked by ethnic presenters such as, The Weakest Link, Mastermind and University Challenge, and Doctor Who is now played by an actor of African origin. The mainstream media remains silent about this racial and cultural capitulation.

For many years non whites were almost invisible in advertising, companies suspecting that the inclusion of black people would alienate a predominantly white consumer market and so view their products negatively. However, public bodies, in particular left wing councils, started to feature black people in their publicity. This was during the time when ‘progressive’ activists started to proclaim the benefits of diversity. For some time private companies resisted this change, but gradually they too would start to include a few black faces in their advertising. This would incrementally continue to increase until about two thirds of today’s advertisements feature Afro-Caribbeans. Again, this development occurred without any response from the mainstream media. Recently, women wearing hijabs have started to appear in advertising and so it quite possible that before long these images will start to multiply and so normalise the extreme ‘modesty’ promoted by this Islamic female garment, which is seen as a symbol of oppression by most Iranian women.

Both the theatre and cinema now appear to have quotas and targets for the inclusion of black actors in prominent roles. It is to be hoped that the British public responds by refusing to attend such top down attempts at cultural indoctrination. Museums today seem far more interested in denouncing slavery and colonialism, for which nobody today is responsible, than in portraying a more balanced and appealing representation of British history.

Given the current open discrimination in favour of ethnic minorities outlined above, any future ‘far right’ government would be provided with the justification and motivation to openly discriminate in favour of the white majority. Woke liberals should have no grounds for complaint about behaviour they were happy to practice themselves.

What is racism?

One of the main obsessions of the British politically correct class over the past half century has been the fight against racism. Until the 1950s this was a non issue since virtually everyone living in this country belonged to the white European race. Since that time open ended chain migration of people from around the world has resulted in the presence of millions of non white residents, a process that took place without the consent of the British people.

So what is racism? There is no meaningful definition since it can cover a wide range of situations ranging from the creation of extermination camps to wrong body language in interviews. The fight against it can never be won since ever more subtle examples of racism can be unearthed to keep the issue on the boil and the jobs secure for those tasked with rooting it out.

The accusation of racism can only be made against white people, thus giving black people a free pass to openly support and promote the interests of their own race without risking any criticism or condemnation. They are aided and abetted by vocal white liberals, motivated by a guilt complex that subconsciously recognises white society’s greater advancement, combined with an urge to parade their moral superiority by projecting a paternalistic concern for the interests of ethnic minorities. In contrast black people can openly claim to belong to the ‘black community’; a similar comment by white people would be denounced as racist.

It is sometimes suggested that Britain is becoming less racist. Examples of this are the greater acceptance of mixed marriages and willingness to live next door to people of a different race. But the reality is rather different, mixed marriages are relatively rare and the phenomenon of ‘white flight’ demonstrates a preference for living in a more racially homogeneous community.

The problem is that people of all races instinctively identify with their own kind, and prefer to live in their own geographical communities which exclude outsiders. Outside the workplace there is relatively little social interaction between people of different races, an outcome which affects committed anti-racists just as much as those they condemn as racist.

So the truth is that racism is intrinsic to the human condition and at best can only be contained, not eradicated. Mass immigration is only fuelling the fire of an intractable problem.

Change of management UK

So the people have spoken, the interminable election campaign has finally ended, and we now have a Labour government with a massive majority. This will make little difference as the new government is wedded to the same managerial approach to politics as were the Conservatives. So we have to ask whether there will be any meaningful changes under the new regime.

It is to be expected that Labour will be more willing to fund public services and the NHS, possibly discovering some extra sources of taxation to achieve this end. They will be more zealous in implementing the Net Zero project, so we can expect our electricity bills to rise, with possible power cuts due to the greater dependence on unreliable sources of power. The promotion of woke policies will continue unabated, so expect further denigration of our culture and history, and capitulation to ever more grotesque demands of favoured minorities at the expense of the rights and interests of the majority. Given Labour’s obsessive enthusiasm for more ‘diversity’ it is inevitable that immigration, both legal and illegal, will continue at a very high level.

It was to be hoped that Reform UK would succeed in providing an alternative parliamentary political platform to the consensus embraced by the traditional parties. With over four million votes received, they came out in third place but achieved only five MPs. However, this was still significantly better than their predecessors, and will allow a much needed challenge to the prevailing political orthodoxy to be voiced in parliament for the first time.

One surprise outcome was the election of four MPs, operating as a front for a somewhat shadowy and previously little known group, Muslim Vote. Their platform was entirely based on the conflict in the Middle East, and totally ignored domestic issues. It is likely that their objectives will soon broaden to promote exclusively Islamic interests and values, previously a regressive and partisan agenda cynically and opportunistically pursued by the Labour Party. They came very close to winning several more Labour held seats, so militant Islamists will now conclude they can achieve their aims without the assistance and support of virtue signalling leftist agitators.

It is hoped that during the next few years the British electorate finally wake up to the threat they face from the subversives within the political establishment.

UK General Election 2024

We are currently over halfway through what has been described as the most boring general election campaign that anyone can remember. The reason for this is that the Conservative government has lost all credibility, and yet there is only shallow support and little real enthusiasm for the Labour alternative. Nevertheless, all the opinion polls indicate that Sir Keir Starmer will achieve a huge parliamentary majority.

Another factor dampening any enthusiasm is that there appears to be very little difference between the major political parties. They are now ideologically very similar, stressing their managerial competence in delivering near identical policy objectives. The TV debates seem to be dominated by the exchange of simplistic slogans and parroting questionable taxation claims against their opponents. In contrast the party manifestos provide a comprehensive and highly detailed description of the objectives each party hopes to achieve in the next five years. So some scrutiny is necessary to discover if there are any policies on offer that might stand out sufficiently to motivate an apparently apathetic electorate to turn out and vote.

It has to be acknowledged that as far as the two major parties are concerned there is no obvious stand out policy that differentiates them. So the electorate is left to judge which of these two fake opponents can best deliver the consensus agenda they both appear to share. However, it is the case that there are still many issues which the public believes are not being properly addressed due to the deliberate and wilful disregard of the political establishment.

Fortunately, one party, Reform UK, does appear to offer a genuine alternative which might appeal to a significant number of voters. They take a hard line on the open ended chain immigration that has transformed many town and cities. They openly dismiss the obsession with Net Zero, the enormous costs it will incur and the meddling and intrusion in the life of citizens that will result. They oppose the widespread woke indoctrination imposed on an uncomprehending and irritated public. They denounce the self flagellation of the virtue signalling and guilt tripping ‘progressive’ class who appear to hate their country, race, culture and history, whilst at the same time abjectly capitulating to the demands of a ragbag of favoured vocal minority groups, who gradually and incrementally have been undermining the cohesiveness of British society.

So the electorate have at last been given the opportunity to clear out the treacherous cabal intent on destroying the fabric of our society, and replace them with those who can carry out the necessary reforms to reverse the deleterious and damaging agenda imposed on the British public by an out of touch and entitled political elite.

Trans fanaticism takes a hit

The recent Cass Review into gender identity services for children and young people has delivered a severe blow to the delusional transgender campaign. This had been gathering pace for several years, often accompanied by virulent expressions of hate against those who questioned the clearly deranged assumptions underpinning this agenda.

It should be remembered that in the past there was no discrimination towards any individual claiming that they belonged to the opposite sex into which they were born, or to prevent them from dressing accordingly. But it was for the wider public to decide for themselves whether or not to accept their claims and to address such individuals in a manner as they thought fit. Thus their relationship towards society was an entirely private matter and there was absolutely no need for the state or the law to become involved.

Foolishly, governments have given transgender people specific legal rights which have caused unnecessary conflict and dissension within society. Women are concerned that ‘transgender women’ can invade female only spaces such as changing rooms. Biological women athletes and swimmers face wholly unfair competition from men masquerading as women. Many companies have imposed unnecessary speech codes and compulsory pronoun use on their employees, with the threat of disciplinary action against them if they refuse to conform. Women have faced abuse and insults, and sometimes threats from their employers, if they question transgender ideology. So in granting legal rights to those claiming to be transgender, the rights of the rest of society have been seriously impinged.

The most pernicious aspect of the trans mania has been the indoctrination faced by children and adolescents in schools. This has occurred because of the ideological capture of much of the teaching establishment by transgender agitators. This has led to significant numbers of children, mainly girls, to claim that they are transgender. The catastrophic consequences for the young people involved are that they have been placed on puberty blockers, the start of a pathway to irreversible hormone treatment and bodily mutilation, imposed in the delusional belief that this will result in them changing their sex.

The main conclusions of the Cass review were that there was a lack of evidence of the efficacy of the medical interventions, that there was a toxicity of debate creating a climate of fear that prevented the open expression of dissenting opinions, and that many of the children presenting as transgender had other difficulties such as mental health and autism which were not properly investigated.

NHS has welcomed the Cass review and has made a commitment to implement the recommended changes, including the cessation of prescribing puberty blockers. Thus children will no longer be placed on a pathway to irreversible hormone treatment and bodily mutilation. So the removal of this option should lead to a significant reduction in the number of children claiming to be transgender, since the deleterious physical consequences of their delusion beliefs will no longer be on the agenda.

More still needs to be done. Private clinics are not affected and thus could continue to prescribe puberty blockers. So this loophole needs to be closed. Action will also be needed to end transgender propaganda and indoctrination in schools. All legislation relating to transgender people will need to be repealed. Finally, it should be a serious criminal offence for any medical practitioner to provide hormone treatment or bodily mutilation to any patient attempting to change their sex or gender.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion dishonesty

The management objective known as Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) has in recent years been enthusiastically adopted by many British organisations, in both the public and private sectors.

Wikipedia has defined DEI as an organizational framework which ‘seeks to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject to discrimination’. Diversity refers to the presence of variety within the workforce. Equity refers to ‘concepts of fairness and justice, with a focus on societal disparities and allocating resources and decision making authority to groups that have historically been disadvantaged’. Finally, inclusion refers to ‘an organizational culture where all employees feel their voices will be heard with a sense of belonging and integration.’

Although, all this on first glance appears to be only fair and reasonable, the reality is that this innovation is a top down agenda to impose radical identity politics on employees and which in most cases is contrary to their best interests. This high minded rhetoric is intended to conceal the true purpose of DEI, which is primarily to promote the interests of ethnic minorities in the workplace, particularly Afro-Caribbeans and Muslims, and to openly discriminate against white people, but particularly white men.

The promotion of diversity has been around for some time in management jargon, and if it genuinely meant the encouragement of a diversity of viewpoints it would be welcome. But the objective is quite the reverse, since the intention is to police any dissent from prevailing orthodoxies, such response to which can lead to disciplinary action, sometimes even dismissal, for anyone failing to support the approved, fake consensual, group identity agenda. The declared benefits of diversity are of course illusionary. There is no evidence that employing workers from more favoured minorities will improve the operational efficiency of an organisation, since it would be at the expense of appointing the best person for the job, based on merit.

Inclusion in the workplace is a concept without any real meaning. Whilst it is certainly important for management to ensure that the opinions of all staff are taken into consideration, it should not mean that vocal favoured minorities are handed an influence out of all proportion to their numbers, which is what this clandestine agenda is intended to achieve.

The concept of equity is of more recent origin and appears to be the most pernicious of this trio of management promoted buzzwords designed to deceive and obfuscate. At least in principle it could be argued that for both diversity and inclusion there may be a possible tenuous intention to support equality of opportunity. But the intention of equity is quite different; it is to enforce an equality of outcome between different identity groups regardless of merit or talent.

Equality of opportunity can never be fully realised given the widely different backgrounds experienced by individuals. But it is not an unreasonable objective for management to aim for when recruiting staff, as it means that all applicants have the same chance of success based on their own merits. However, it has been noticed that despite all the bending of the rules to promote the favoured identity groups mentioned above, they are still not achieving the same outcome as other groups. So with the inclusion of ‘equity’ the intention is to rig the recruitment system still further to ensure that these identities will no longer be underrepresented in the workforce.

In practice this means that white people, particularly men are openly discriminated against to ensure that the quota for ethnic minorities, particularly Afro Carribbeans and Muslims is achieved. This is reverse discrimination which virtue signalling employers are happy to sign up to demonstrate their woke credentials, despite it being against their best interests as they can no longer appoint the most suitable candidates for posts they wish to fill.

There appears to be an invisible hand in operation here. Behind the scenes there seems to be an obsessive yet influential cohort of self-flagellating, guilt tripping white liberals, in cahoots with vocal ethnic activist agitators, to impose the DEI objectives. The majority of people in the workforce never sought this system of underhand favouritism, which has been imposed upon them through weak management colluding with hard left employees’ representatives who are hijacking the recruitment system by imposing their woke agenda on workforces, which they are wilfully and cynically failing to properly represent.

This has mainly occurred under a supposedly Conservative government which is just as enthusiastic as the opposition parties in imposing this agenda on their own workforce, and furthermore ensuring compliance in the private sector through mandating quotas when awarding contracts. Thus there is a conspiracy by all concerned against the true interests of the majority of British workers.

The woke ratchet effect

The distinctive feature of the current cultural and social revolution, in which we are all guinea pigs, is that it is gradualist and incremental, and thus is much less visible to the average citizen than one where a regime change takes place overnight. So it is worth examining the trajectory in which this revolution is taking place.

The premise underpinning this revolution is that Western European civilisation is fundamentally malignant, and that it must be destroyed from within. This is not a view shared by a large majority of the people in the countries affected, but it is one that motivates the leftist woke activists who have seized the levers of power and influence in many western societies. In short, these activists are traitors to their race, their class, their country, their history and their traditions. They are involved in an orgy of group self loathing, for which everybody else must pay the price.

So when and how did all this begin. Well, there has always been class envy in which the poorer and less educated resented the success and wealth of their betters. Until the 1960s a relatively small cohort, the product of public and grammar schools, formed a governing elite, one that was confident in the rightness of their entitlement to rule society. Their outlook was a conservative one, seeking to preserve the best traditions, but not so resistant to change that new ideas were never adopted.

So there was a clear divide in society, both economic and cultural, between the educated elite and the majority of the population who had to accept a lower standard of living, and who additionally did not necessarily share the cultural outlook, interests or values of their superiors. So Britain faced a fairly strong class divide between the elite minority and the less educated majority.

Not all of the educated elite shared the conservative outlook of their group. They felt uneasy about their privileged position and sought to change society so as to improve the condition of the majority. The vehicle for this change was the Labour Party which was established to further the interests of the working class. During the 1950s the leadership was a partnership between working class members who had risen through the ranks of the trade unions, and academic and better educated middle class members who shared the same objectives as their working class colleagues.

During this period the principal concern of left wing middle class radicals was to identify with, and support, the cause of the working class, about whom they formed an idealised image, one that was often widely removed from reality. From the 1970s onwards this class based sympathy would be gradually replaced by identity politics, as radical leftists discovered that too many of their working class comrades continued to hold unreconstructed views about race, immigration, multiculturalism and homosexual rights.

From a cultural perspective, the first evidence of the coming social revolution was the support given by the Labour Party to the establishment of comprehensive schools that would admit pupils regardless of academic ability. Their introduction would lead to the abandonment of the 1944 Butler Education Act which created a two tiered selective system; grammar schools for the more academically gifted children and secondary modern schools for the remainder of pupils, the latter outnumbering the former by roughly three to one.

In adopting a policy supporting comprehensive schools Labour placed egalitarianism and social engineering ahead of educational attainment. However, the Conservatives continued to support the retention of grammar schools but in what would become a trend of capitulation the Tories soon started to waver and before long they too would start to favour comprehensive schools. As a consequence educational excellence in the state sector would start to weaken, with the most visible manifestation being the decline in social mobility.

This was the start of a pattern where the forces of the Left would take the initiative on a favoured subject and the Right would be placed on the defensive, eventually resulting in growing appeasement followed by a craven surrender on a wide range of issues. But instead of being class based as with comprehensive education, from the 1970s onwards the focus would change to one of identity. Left wing radicals would increasingly start to promote the interests of racial minorities, and the rights of homosexuals, over the concerns of the Labour Party’s working class base. This agenda was given the disparaging name ‘political correctness’ by critics of the Right, which in more recent years has morphed into the term ‘woke’.

The first identity politics cause that attracted the attention of leftist agitators was that of race. However, in the immediate post war years this was a non issue as 99.9% of the British population were White European. But with the introduction of the British Nationality Act 1948 all citizens of the Commonwealth were given the right to enter and live in Britain. The same year saw the arrival of the SS Empire Windrush with over 500 Jamaican men seeking work. Before very long, increasing numbers of people from the West Indies and the Indian sub continent started to arrive in Britain in search of employment. There was absolutely no benefit to the indigenous British people from this large influx of culturally and racially diverse people, who were unlikely to be easily assimilated into British society.

To begin with Labour MPs and trade unionists were those most opposed to this development. The latter were concerned that the new arrivals would form a cheap source of labour undercutting their members’ wages or even displacing them altogether. Some Labour MPs feared the impact on social cohesion, claiming that 'an influx of coloured people domiciled here is likely to impair the harmony, strength and cohesion of our public and social life.' The Conservative government accepted that social problems and white resentment might arise if large numbers of these immigrants did settle in Britain, but did not consider the issue to be then sufficiently serious to warrant taking the necessary legislative action.

Until the end of the fifties the issue of Commonwealth immigration received relatively little media publicity. This was to change with the Notting Hill riots in August 1958 which brought the subject centre stage and into the national spotlight. The clashes brought home to an alarmed British public just how easily racial conflict could spread in Britain, as had happened in some US cities. As a consequence of the riots the government came under increased public pressure to end the 'open door' policy on Commonwealth immigration and to introduce controls.

So this increasing public concern eventually convinced the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan to finally take some action. The result was the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962 which placed some restrictions on non white immigration. However, this measure was clearly too little, too late, and failed to tackle either the scale or nature of the problem. By this time the outlook of the Labour Party was beginning to change and the new legislation was denounced by Hugh Gaitskell, the Labour opposition leader, as 'miserable, shameful and shabby'. This was the time when hard left activists started to flagellate themselves over the newly discovered original sin of ‘racism’.

Instead of taking firm action to control the growth of the non-white population Governments would start to vilify those who warned of the dangerous consequences. This came into sharp focus when senior Conservative MP Enoch Powell delivered his explosive ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. He warned in stark terms, the consequences of continuing mass third world immigration into Britain. He accurately predicted that over 5 million would have settled here by the 21st century, and that they would mostly choose to live in ghettos with their own kind, separate from mainstream society. He voiced the concerns of the white population who found ‘their neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition’ and mocked the unreality of the then current liberal fad for 'integration'. He then went on to accurately predict a multi-cultural Britain in which there would be a 'growth of positive forces’ seeking to exploit racial and religious differences, so as to ‘agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens’.

Powell identified the disproportionate concern given to allegations of discrimination against the ethnic population, contrasted this with the near complete disregard of the fears of the indigenous population on the 'open ended' nature of immigration, exposed the naiveté of policy on integration and anticipated the cultural separation of much of the ethnic population from mainstream society. The result of his speech was a chorus of self-righteous indignation from virtually the entire political and media establishment.

So most unfortunately, the legacy of Powell’s speech has been the complete opposite of what he hoped to achieve. The uproar it caused galvanised liberals into the creation of the vast race relations industry with intrusive new initiatives to oversee public thought and behaviour, such as the Commission for Racial Equality, race equality officers in the public sector, race monitoring by local councils, ‘diversity’ officials, 'hate' crimes, public funding of ethnic organizations, all overseen by the self righteous cant of the politically correct obsessives, which has created a stifling climate in which the majority of white people have been silenced from publicly expressing their true feelings about large scale immigration. Powell accurately predicted race riots, ethnic ghettos, civil disturbances, the open ended increase in the numbers of ethnic people, and the ever expanding state apparatus to force race 'equality' on an unwilling population. However, even he failed to anticipate the rise of British born terrorists and the extent of 'parallel lives' which form a gulf between the different races and cultures in some British towns and cities.

To manage the problem an increasingly powerful politically correct elite has incrementally introduced intrusive laws and bureaucratic interference into the personal affairs of ordinary citizens and businesses, which should have no place in a free society. The 'fight against racism' can never be won since it is largely contrary to human nature. Moreover, the publicly funded bureaucracy established to combat it has a vested interest in discovering more subtle forms of 'racism' to keep the issue on the boil and their jobs secure. The liberal multicultural and diversity agenda is centred on insinuating feelings of guilt into the white population. Children and young people have been brought up in an educational ethos where it is normal to denigrate their own history and culture, but to be uncritical of all others. Public concern about the level of immigration, and the changes it is causing to our communities and neighbourhoods, has for decades been suppressed and ignored.

As a consequence Britain is losing its sense of shared cultural history and identity. We have now reached the stage where whiteness itself is under attack as reflected in the grotesque pejorative term ‘white privilege’. There is now an endless campaign to insinuate guilt in the white population on the evils of slavery, despite none of them alive today being in any way responsible for this. In practical terms, the true extent of black crime is being concealed by the police and a compliant media, and the threat from militant Islamism is downplayed for fear of accusations of ‘Islamophobia’.

Turning to another woke obsession, today, after decades of political correctness, a climate has been created in which any criticism or questioning of the homosexual agenda, however mild, rational or well argued, is denounced as 'homophobic' bigotry. This has not always been the case; back in the early 1960s both the political establishment and wider society took a very different viewpoint. At that time there was little public clamour to repeal the laws against male homosexual activity. Instead, there was a general revulsion at such behaviour, which was considered to be unnatural, sinful and disgusting.

There were widespread fears that homosexuals would corrupt the nation’s youth, and that the law should be there to protect vulnerable young men from the perceived threat of supposedly predatory homosexuals. It should be remembered that juries were happy to convict men found to have engaged in homosexual activities. Nobody at the time appeared to consider whether the criminalization of male homosexuality might be contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, or whether it dented Britain's supposed reputation for tolerance and fair play.

The Wolfenden Report of 1957 recommended decriminalizing homosexual acts involving adult males over 21. However, it was shelved by the Tory government, fearing a public backlash if it was implemented. The Report made it clear that, although in favour of law reform, it was in no way suggesting that society should condone or approve of homosexual behaviour. It also flagged up concern that the decriminalising of homosexual acts could result in 'large-scale proselytising' by homosexuals, which is indeed what would happen.

The arrival of Roy Jenkins as Labour Home Secretary in 1965, with an agenda for social reform, set the scene for the liberalisation of the law against homosexuality. However, when Parliament debated the Sexual Offences Bill which sought to decriminalise homosexual activities, all those who expressed their support prefaced their comments with a condemnation of the practice of homosexuality. They considered that the law should be changed, not because they considered such activity morally acceptable, but for more humane reasons, principally to remove the fear of blackmail. They also considered that the law should no longer police private activity of this kind. The measure was generally perceived as a gesture of tolerance to a persecuted minority who many now thought posed little threat to mainstream society.

Unquestionably, at that time homosexuals were persecuted for their personal sexual behaviour. This was a gross and unwarranted intrusion by the state into their private affairs as citizens. Moreover, the police shamelessly abused their position by such means as trawling through address books to frame individuals, and by the use of agent provocateurs to facilitate entrapment. The Labour government was right to allow the implementation of the Wolfenden Report recommendations in 1967, since the state should have no place in policing the private consensual sexual activities of its adult citizens.

Following the decriminalisation of homosexual relations between adult males over 21 it came as an unwelcome surprise to many, when homosexuals, or 'gays' as they now chose to describe themselves, quickly started to openly parade what many considered to be a deviant lifestyle and to claim further rights and 'equality'. Events moved at such a pace that that by the late 1970s appeasing the gay lobby became one of the main planks of the politically correct agenda. 'Gay Pride' marches, gay council committees and gay propaganda in schools were all introduced with relatively little resistance. Such has been the extent of the liberal takeover on this subject that we have moved from a situation where homosexual practices were criminalised to one where criticisms of homosexuals can trigger police action.

The self-inflicted tragedy of AIDS, caused by grotesquely high levels of promiscuity, did nothing to curb the advancement of their cause. Liberals (and many conservatives) failed to condemn their outrageous and destructive lifestyle – to do so was considered to be too 'judgemental'. Instead, homosexuals portrayed themselves as unfortunate, but blameless, victims of an unexpected deadly disease.

This may have been a contributory factor in the decision of the Thatcher government in the late 1980s to introduce what became known as the 'Section 28' regulation, which prevented local authorities from promoting homosexuality, particularly in schools. Although no prosecutions followed as a result, it probably acted as a brake on some of the more pernicious 'gay' propaganda that was then beginning to be targeted at young people. Section 28 was intensely loathed by liberals, but the public largely supported it, as was shown by the results of an unofficial referendum held in Scotland some years ago. Needless to say, now that Section 28 has been lifted, the gay propaganda machine has gone into overdrive and we now have a gay history month in schools.

Since a large proportion of homosexuals appear to be highly promiscuous, and a hugely disproportionate number of them suffer from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) to the detriment of, and cost to, wider society, it would be entirely appropriate to tightly circumscribe the promotion of homosexuality. There is absolutely no justification for brainwashing children into believing that homosexuality is normal, let alone commendable. This should not prevent sex education classes pointing out that a very small minority of people are attracted to their own sex, or to mention in this context that sexual promiscuity greatly increases the risk of catching STIs. Thus there are sound reasons to reintroduce a Section 28 style regulation, proscribing the promotion in schools of homosexuality as a supposedly normal form of sexual expression, and preventing local authorities spending public money on the promotion of homosexuality and lesbianism.

These examples show how the woke ratchet effect operates. First there is concern about a supposedly victimised majority. Fairly uncontroversial measures are then introduced to alleviate these concerns. But this response is never enough as the activist Left continues to demand further action to address the supposed victimhood from which their favoured minorities are alleged to suffer. So further intrusive laws are introduced to control the actions and behaviour of private citizens and businesses, the effect of which is firstly to openly discriminate against the majority, and then to demonise that majority for its supposedly privileged position, and so it goes on with no limit in sight. It is worth noting that those most engaged in woke activism often turn out to be distinctly unpleasant individuals, full of bile, and fond of expressing the kind of hatred they accuse their opponents of. They are primarily motivated by desire to parade their own questionable virtue, and to claim an unwarranted moral superiority over the rest of society, who are seriously concerned about the destructive consequences of this dangerous, one sided zealotry.

Woke agitators employ intimidation through a range of pejorative terms such as’ racist’, ‘homophobic’ and ‘Islamophobic’ to demonise and denounce their critics. Regrettably, due to the pusillanimous appeasement of the political Right, it has been a successful strategy, as all the mainstream parties have embraced the woke policies outlined above, as well as more recent ones such as the transgender lunacy and climate change pseudoscience alarmism. The end result has been a form of soft totalitarianism where dissidents can be threatened with dismissal from employment if they fail to support the woke agenda. The evidence of history has shown that left wing zealots are quite happy to introduce increasingly dictatorial and tyrannical measures to achieve their objectives. So it is likely that we have not yet reached the end of this ratchet effect, which means that there will be many additional unwelcome surprises to come for those engaged in the resistance to the woke agenda.