Elsewhere on the web - Post of the Day 2 - Utopia?

Anna Raccoon tells the tale of Utopia, Villeneuve in Grenoble, which is now anything but utopian. Here's an extended extract but do go and read the whole article:

'3 weeks ago, there was an armed robbery at a Casino in a nearby town. Karim Boudouda, a 27 year old of North African descent, allegedly one of the robbers, was killed in an exchange of gun fire after he opened fire on the police.

The Maghreb ‘Mafia’ didn’t take kindly to one of their sons being killed by a police force whose legitimacy they do not recognise. The town of Villeneuve exploded in an orgy of ‘car-B-ques’ and rioting youths. During the riots, the registration numbers, addresses, and telephone numbers of some of the local riot police, were stencilled on walls all over town, accompanied by an exhortation to ‘kill them’. Evidence was posted in the town of the possession by the Maghreb youth of a rocket launcher.

The police were forced to withdraw all the resident police, their wives and children, and replace them with elite CRS police from other departments, so seriously was the threat taken. The police station was surrounded by sandbags and barbed wire. Patrolling police wore ‘Robocop’ type headgear to protect their identity. Helicopters constantly patrol overhead. It is more like a warzone than a French city.

Only one of the suspects came from Villeneuve, the other hailed from the notorious suburb of Saint-Denis in Paris. Residents there were awoken at 2am by the sound of automatic gunfire thudding into the walls of their apartments – not the police trying to arrest someone, but fired from cars in the street in an effort to impress the neighbourhood that it was the drug dealers who controlled these streets, not the police.'

Sounds pleasant? Did you notice any coverage on the BBC of these riots so close to us? No, the BBC have to concentrate on villyfying Israel, attacking the Conservatives, promoting the global warming agenda and reporting every twist and turn of Naomi Campbell's evidence.

This great social experiment in France seems dead, how long before the larger social experiment in the UK falls apart? 30 years, 20 years, 10 years or sooner?

Creating an American "client state"

Just as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown used public spending to create a Labour voting client state, Barack Obama is trying the same trick in America. As Mark Steyn writes:

"If you expand the bureaucratic class and you expand the dependent class, you can put together a permanent electoral majority. By “dependent”, I don’t mean merely welfare, although that’s a good illustration of the general principle. In political terms, a welfare check is a twofer: you’re assuring the votes both of the welfare recipient and of the vast bureaucracy required to process his welfare. But extend that principle further, to the point where government intrudes into everything: a vast population is receiving more from government (in the form of health care or education subventions) than it thinks it contributes, while another vast population is managing the ever expanding regulatory regime (a federal energy-efficiency code, a government health bureaucracy) and another vast population remains, nominally, in the private sector but, de facto, dependent on government patronage of one form or another – say, the privately owned franchisee of a government automobile company, or the designated “community assistance” organization for helping poor families understand what programs they’re eligible for. Either way, what you get from government – whether in the form of a government paycheck, a government benefit or a government contract – is a central fact of your life."

The land of the free is about to become the land of state dependency; welcome to socialism America.

Are there any more ways that I can be discriminated against by this "equality" obsessed Labour government?

I only ask because as well as being white, male and middle class, I know find that I am also hideously Southern English and that Harriet Harman seems to believe that it should be illegal for public bodies to discriminate against Northerners. I presume that this is just the Labour government frantically trying to shore up its core vote or Northerners, public sector workers and ethnic minorities, but I am getting really fed-up with the Labour government's obsession with "equality" that is nothing of the sort.

The thirty-fourth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award goes to the House of Commons' health select committee for reaching the staggeringly unsurprising conclusion that (in the words of The Telegraph:

"Ministers stand accused of spending vast sums of money on "ineffective and possibly damaging" interventions which they hope will force lifestyle changes on the public, without carrying out elementary research to see if the programmes make any difference."

"No shit, Sherlock"


The Telegraph's article on this select committee report is full of "No shit, Sherlock" moments, here's a few more:

"The inquiry says projects were designed so badly that it was impossible for them to be properly evaluated, reporting the views of one expert that documents which passed for research often amounted to "little more than propaganda". "

"No shit, Sherlock"

"It concludes that ministers have "spent large sums of money on social experiments to reduce health inequalities – but we do not know whether these experiments have worked or whether the money has been well spent." "

"No shit, Sherlock"

"Liberal Democrat Health Spokesman Norman Lamb said ... "Ministers have been flailing around implementing policies left, right and centre with no way of analysing how effective they were and without any idea of what was actually being done on the ground.""

"No shit, Sherlock"

Social engineering alert

The class warriors at the BBC are reporting that

"The Equality and Human Rights Commission must be given the power to fight the class divide in Britain, its chairman has said.

Trevor Phillips told BBC Radio 4's World at One he would launch a "new assault" on inequality and wanted an extension to the organisation's remit.

...

A report by the commission says there is too much "vertical" division in Britain between social classes.

It states: "We are not just limiting our description [of inequality] by gender or race but we are also looking at this extremely important issue of class."

Mr Phillips said: "We have to tackle the causes that drive inequality in our society and I think, to be honest, the public is very, very keen on this at the present time.

"People can see the economic slowdown coming. Everyone is happy to take some of the pain as long as that pain is shared fairly and what we want to do is to make sure that the burden doesn't fall unfairly on some groups rather than others."

BBC home affairs editor Mark Easton said this was "a radical departure which is likely to be criticised by some as an implicitly political policy from a statutory body that must remain independent of party ideology".

It would "mean taking on the wealthy and educated middle class who are adept at playing the system to the advantage of their families", he added.

The commission was established in 2007, replacing the Equal Opportunities Commission."

Social engineering alert...

Sexist teens

The National Children's Bureau are at it again, as well as their worries about racist toddlers they have issued another report. This time according to This is London :

"The changing face of young love is outlined in a new schools' sex education manual.

The words 'boyfriend' and ' girlfriend' must be banned from the classroom, teachers are told, because they are not inclusive enough.

'Partner' must be used because it doesn't discriminate against homosexual relationships... Other everyday terms are outlawed by the manual, which is targeted at parents as well as teachers of 14 to 16-year-olds.

Words such as 'foreplay' and 'sex' are also not thought to be adequately inclusive.

Teachers are told: 'Be inclusive and affirm diversity. Use language such as partner instead of boyfriend and girlfriend.

'The terms foreplay and sex imply that everyone has sex in the same way. Instead use the terms vaginal, oral and anal sex.' "

And the social engineering project moves on apace.

Racist toddlers

The National Children's Bureau have issued a guide, Young Children and Racial Justice, all 336 pages of it. This government sponsored report warns, amongst other things, that: "A child may react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying, 'Yuck!"'. That may indicate a lack of familiarity with that particular food, or "more seriously a reaction to a food associated with people from a particular ethnic or cultural community".

Oh well done, a toddler can be branded as a "racist" for not liking spicy food and saying so. What rubbish; there are plenty of racists who enjoy going out for a curry on a Friday night and making their waiter's life hell, just as there are plenty of people I know who just can't tolerate spicy food but are definitely not racists. The totalitarian thought-police inexorably advance. Education is no longer about education it is about social engineering.

Of course it should come as no surprise that "targets" are involved as I learnt elsewhere that

"Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council."

The more instances reported, the more racism support officers and re-education consultants will be required in each local council, all with their own targets to reduce re-offending and .... I am sorry but I can write no more about this matter, it is just too depressing.

Thirteenth winner of the weekly "No shit, Serlock" award

The Telegraph reports that:

"Schools used for 'social engineering', claims headteacher"

Apparently:

"A leading headmaster who is leaving one of the most popular schools in the state system to work in the private sector has accused the Government of turning teachers into "social workers and surrogate parents".

Rod MacKinnon, the head of Bexley Grammar School, south-east London, said schools were being forced to shun traditional lessons as ministers manipulated the education system for the purposes of "social engineering"."

"No shit, Sherlock"

Social engineering

Apparently a plan is being put to Gordon Brown for universities to give entrance preference to students with results above the average for their poorly performing schools, this would reduce the number of pupils from better performing schools going to University and so increase fairness. Bollocks it will, it is just another attempt at social engineering and Ed Balls and Gordon Brown are quite blinkered enough to fall for it.

Equivalence

I haveblogged before about the government's attempts to a) fiddle the GCSE exam results and b) carry out a bit of social engineering by making one GNVQ equal in "value" to four A-grade GCSE passes - "in 2005 GCSE results again improved but only because this statistic fiddling government decided that a GNVQ was equivalent to four A-C GCSE passes. Where the figure of four comes from we are not told and I doubt that one GNVQ is equal to one A-C GCSE pass. If you exclude GCSE equivalents from the pass rates in 2005 then according to... Telegraph report the magnificent results start to look less magnificent; "The inexorable rise in the five or more A*-C pass rate looks less impressive once vocational qualifications are taken out of the calculation. The GCSE pass rate on its own has remained almost stagnant for the last five years, hovering around 50 per cent.". Take a look at that article of mine it has quite a lot of interesting information.

It was reported yesterday that this fiddling Labour government plans to make their new Diploma equivalent to three and a half A-levels. "The decision by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service means students may find it easier to get into university by taking the new courses, which will combine vocational and academic studies.

It could lead to a sharp increase in the number of pupils going to university, particularly those from poor backgrounds who are often turned off by purely academic study.

However, there are fears the diploma - which will include subjects such as hospitality and hair and beauty - may be less rigorous than A-levels.

Although universities will not be obliged to admit teenagers with a diploma, it is thought the move will pile pressure on admissions tutors to look favourably on the new qualifications.

Ministers believe they will become the "qualification of choice" over GCSEs and A-levels.

Head teachers admitted that the A-level equivalent value of the diploma - coupled with the promise of extra cash for pupils taking the qualification - would increase the number of institutions offering it.

But critics suggested the untested qualification may have been pitched too high.

Michael Gove, the shadow children's secretary, said: "The A-level is a tried and tested examination which the world's leading universities recognise.

"It is jumping the gun to say that an exam which hasn't even been rigorously tested should be worth more than three A-levels.""

So more social engineering and a "dumbing down" of educational standards from this Labour government, this time associated with a bribe to educational establishments. Has this government no shame? I think we all know the answer to that question.