British Labour demands end of "white male" control of councils

New Labour's ceaseless quest for the unattainable utopia of equality and diversity ensures that "race" and "culture" are topics never far from the news headlines. The latest diktat from Blair's regime emanates from Labour Community Secretary Ruth Kelly who wants to reduce the numbers of aging white males in town halls in a bid to make councils more "representative".

New figures from the government reveal that the "average councilor" is a 58-year-old white male and Ministers have today unveiled an initiative to attract more young, ethnic minority and female citizens into town halls. A survey for the government's Improvement & Development Agency (IDA) found that only one in 200 councillors was black, and only 2.7% Asian.

Dismissive of the fundamentally democratic idea that voters in borough and district councils currently cast their mark for the best party and/or the best personality to represent their local concerns, Labour's latest diktat implies that political parties contesting elections will need to draw up short lists based on the demographics of the borough/ward or constituency.

In so doing Labour is meddling, not only in the internal election procedures of political parties, but the wider issue of local council representation. The proposals can be seen as an attack on all political parties and on the thousands of thoroughly decent and hard working councillors from the Old Gang trio of Labour-Conservative-Liberal Democrats and other smaller parties who are doing what they can for their constituents under circumstances which are made increasingly difficult as a direct consequence of Treasury demands.

Given the current far-reaching review into funding of political parties it is not beyond the bounds of devious Labour thinking that political parties contesting local elections must draw up lists based on gender, age and ethnicity rather than the best person for the job, as a condition of State funding.

It is of course possible that this meddling could be another attempt to halt the inexorable rise of the BNP in council chambers the length and breath of Britain....

There is considerable suspicion within the majority community that the investigation will not examine those councils where there happens to be a disproportionate number of councilors from ethnic minority backgrounds. Take for example Tower Hamlets - a London borough with a population that is 51% white, 33% Bangladeshi, 6% Afro-Caribbean. The number of Bangladeshi councillors is an astonishing 61% (31 out of 51)....

There is no logical explanation why having a "diverse range" of councillors automatically means an improvement in the quality of services provided by the council, greater accountability or value for money for long-suffering and over-fleeced council tax payers but in these days or Orwellian political correctness rational explanations are never forthcoming by the liberal-leftists in Westminster and Whitehall.

To paraphrase the words first coined by former BBC boss Greg Dyke it will only be those "hideously white" dominated councils which will be subject to New Labour's latest diktat to further the transformation of Britain which is aimed at reducing the native indigenous majority to second class status. The politically correct bullies of the Labour hierarchy will not flinch at removing the slightly balding, slightly overweight and hideously white aged 50-plus males who, according to the IDA report dominate municipal life (even if those key players are life-long Labour members) to make way for the trendy, young, raceless, sexless new citizens of New Labour's idea of New Britain.

Source





WHY THE IPCC CONSENSUS IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME

A response by Benny Peiser [b.h.peiser@livjm.ac.uk] to the many Greenies who are disappointed with the latest IPCC Summary -- in particular, the editors of "New Religion" (aka "New Scientist")

That the editors of New Scientist would be incensed by the IPCC AR4 report was to be expected. Most of the worst-case disaster scenarios they have peddled, pushed and published over the last few years have been either debunked altogether or are widely regarded as highly unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. The apparent disgruntlement voiced in today's editorial is thus a clear indication that climate alarmists are beginning to worry about the new, moderate mood within the IPCC.

Despite media campaigns, false leaks and antechambering, the SPM has thrown out the more extreme scenarios regarding sea level and temperature rise, polar ice melting, hurricane activity, the Gulf-Stream-collapse-ice-age, etc. Not surprisingly, this has come as a huge disappointment to many dogmatic neo-catastrophists. After all, these extreme scenarios have been carefully advanced by the disaster lobby since the notorious Met Office conference in Exeter ("Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change") exactly 2 years ago. Now they bitterly complain that "last week's [IPCC] summary report virtually ignored most of the Exeter findings.

One only has to compare the SPM with the Stern Review to appreciate just how much the IPCC has softened its assessment and estimates of core issues. Many doom merchants are fuming about the new moderate temper. Others are simply denying that any moderation has actually occurred. To make matters worse, every single government has now signed on to the IPCC consensus.

Some bloggers are seething about President Bush's conversion as this newfangled consensus deprives campaigners of a natural target in the "science wars." Now, that no government is disagreeing with the basic science, campaigners are forced to engage in the much more complex issues of climate policy and economic analysis. The issue is no longer about action versus inaction. Quite the opposite. The real debate about the most cost-effective ways of dealing with climate change: revolutionary change as advocated by climate alarmists, or gradual adjustment as suggested by climate moderates.

Nonetheless, I don't expect that the prophets of doom will surrender that easily and accept the IPCC consensus. In fact, I expect the stream of disaster predictions, catastrophe scenarios and hyped media alarmism to go on as usual, in the hope that -never mind the set back - the next IPCC report will, for sure, be more alarmist!

Indeed, the editors of New Scientists are as certain as true believers that this will happen in the end: "[The AR4] omits some very real risks either because we have not yet pinned down their full scale or because we do not yet know how likely they are... It's a fair bet that much of what we do not yet know for sure will turn out to be scarier than most of us like to imagine."

In sharp contrast to such statements of complete belief, I keep an open mind and will adjust my views on the potential risks of climate change as new data and observations emerge. Nevertheless, I will always defend the editors of New Scientist against accusations that they are too sceptical of the IPCC consensus and that they focus too much on minority positions among climate researchers [sarcasm]. Tolerance cuts both ways, doesn't it?




BNP becoming the conservative alternative in Britain? "In a council by-election in Nuneaton & Bedworth yesterday, the "extreme right wing" BNP came in second with 31.15 percent of the vote, only narrowly beaten by the incumbent Labour, which took the seat with 37.54 percent. One should never draw conclusions from one set of results - especially from local by-elections. But this was a hard-fought contest, where the turnout was 36.08 percent despite the heavy snow, compared with the 20 percent that might have been expected. The Conservatives managed a mere 17.17 percent, the Lib-Dems 6.79 percent and UKIP a pathetic 0.45 percent, accounting for exactly eight votes. They were even beaten by the English Democrats, who pulled 75 votes. BNP's vote compares favourably with its share of the vote in Bradford during last May's local authority elections, when it achieved 27.5 percent of the vote in the wards which they contested." More here