Pathetic Britain

Illegal immigrant demands to be flown home because Britons are 'rude and unfriendly'. Why is there ANY taxpayer support for people who have been told to leave?

An illegal immigrant has demanded to be flown home after saying he was fed up with British people - because they are "rude and unfriendly". Speaking today, Mokhtar Tabet, 30 - who has been given a home, food and free travel around London - claims his local council has breached his human rights by moving him to a place he does not like. He was refused asylum in 2004 and is set to be deported.

He said: "The council evicted me from my home in September and moved me to Streatham, which I don't like. "The new place is small, and the kitchen closes at 9pm, so I can't have anything to eat late at night. They have taken away my human rights."

Croydon Council says it has bent over backwards to help Tabet, who fled Algeria in 2002. A spokesman said: "Mr Tabet was accommodated in Norbury Crescent, with Croydon Council paying his rent, council tax and utility bills. "In July, his landlord gave him two months' notice to quit the premises, and the council offered him a flat in Anerley Road, which he refused citing its poor state of repair. "The necessary repairs were carried out and he again refused it. "He was told that refusal would amount to him making himself intentionally homeless and he would be placed in hostel-style accommodation. He agreed to this."

Mr Tabet is entitled to return to Algeria at his own expense and admits that he "does not like it here". But he refuses to do so and says Britain will have to pay for his travel if it wants him to leave. He moaned: "I miss Algeria. The English people are not helpful, they are so unfriendly and rude. "I thought I had made friends in Croydon, but when I ask them for money they don't give me it, so I know they can't be my friends."

Mr Tabet fled Algeria in 2002 after being arrested for refusing to give up his home so the army could monitor terrorist activity in his town. Released after 30 days' solitary confinement he fled to Britain, illegally entering the country on a flight from Tunisia, and sought asylum. He now receives 32 pounds a week in vouchers from Croydon Council to buy food with while he awaits deportation. Unsatisfied at this, he griped: "Croydon Council only gives me food vouchers, they won't give me cash. I want the money. "I have nothing to buy new clothes with, I have to go to a refugee centre. But if there's not anything nice there, you leave with nothing. "I want the council to give me a bigger flat and money instead of vouchers."

Mr Tabet suffers from diabetes, a retina disease and kidney failure and believes he should be allowed to stay in the country so he can continue to get free NHS care. He said: "The Home Office said I could afford the medicine back home, but I can't, I don't have a job."

The council insists he has no grounds for complaint. The spokesman explained: "He is supported by the council by way of vouchers, in accordance with the law." Mr Tabet admits that since he was refused asylum he has "stayed and no one has said anything about it".

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British pro-homosexual laws becoming unglued

Government plans to criminalise the stirring up of hatred against gays and lesbians are in disarray because of a Cabinet split over the need for such a law. The split – between Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Attorney-General, and Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary – are likely to scupper plans for a new offence. Baroness Scotland has privately expressed concern about the controversial legislation proposed by Mr Straw, The Times has learnt.

Mr Straw announced the plans last month with the backing of Harriet Harman, the Equalities Secretary. He had said that he would bring forward an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill this month to extend the law that already protects religious and racial groups, carrying up to seven years in jail. He had also said that he would listen to views about whether the incitement offence should be extended further to cover hatred against disabled and transgendered people.

But Baroness Scotland, who is also determined to crack down on the problem of homophobic behaviour, believes that there are sufficient laws on the statute book to deal with the issue. She also has concerns about the difficulities of getting the proposal through the House of Lords, which gave a rough ride to measures on incitement to religious hatred and substantially watered them down. She is understood to have told colleagues that she wants to see more successful prosecutions in this area, but is unconvinced that a new law is the way to do it and would prefer to focus on existing procedures.

It is the second time in recent weeks that ministers’ plans have failed to win the support of Baroness Scotland, the country’s senior law officer. Last week The Times reported that she believed the case had not been made for extending the time that terror suspects can be held before charge.

Mr Straw’s plan was to mirror the offence of incitement to religious hatred. The amendment would cover hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality. Ministers insist that it would not prohibit criticism of gay and bisexual people but protect them from incitement to hatred because of their sexual orientation. But, despite strong backing from bodies such as Stonewall, the campaigning group for gay rights, the proposals have caused controversy and been condemned as a threat to freedom of speech, including from some prominent homosexuals. Matthew Parris, the Times columnist, wrote that “some groups may be so weak and fragile as to need the law’s protection from hateful speech. I’d like to think that we gays are no longer among them.”

In a letter to The Times this month, Rowan Atkinson, the actor, criticised the plans, saying that society was “working things out” without the need for any “legislative interference”. He was concerned about the “extendable” nature of the legislation not just to the disabled and transsexuals but to anyone else who could claim that they could not help the way they are. “Men, for example. Or women. Or people with big ears.”

There were warnings that the move could mean that vicars would face a threat of jail for preaching from the Bible; others said that gay rights were being given priority over Christian values and would be used to silence those with strong Christian beliefs.

Most police forces now record hate crimes and the Crown Prosecution Service already deals with hate crime by scrutinising cases for a racial, religious, homophobic or transphobic element. Special “hate crime panels” are to be introduced after the success of a hate crime scrutiny panel in West Yorkshire, which two weeks ago won an award for its work. The panel, which includes members of the “hate crime partnerships” in the area such as Stop Hate UK and Bradford Hate Crime Alliance, has seen a rise in the prosecution of hate crimes in the area and a fall in the failure rate. Courts in England and Wales already have the power to impose tougher sentences for offences that are motivated or aggravated by a victim’s sexual orientation.

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Political correctness infests the pantomime

Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned British panto? Struggling under the weight of political correctness, the much-loved Christmas tradition is not what it once was, report Chris Hastings and Stephanie Plentl

"I've delivered a script?. which I hope ticks all the necessary panto boxes: transformation scene, community song, unspeakable jokes along with songs, slapstick, rewards for the good and punishment for the wicked," says Stephen Fry. "Being Cinderella, there are naturally Ugly Sisters, a Fairy Godmother, a Prince Charming, a Dandini and a Buttons. No Baron Hardup or Broker's Men, which might disappoint some hard-line traditionalists, but damn it, surely I can be allowed some leeway."

It might be seen as a long overdue coming together of two national treasures: Stephen Fry has written a pantomime. And he has certainly allowed himself some leeway. For the audiences of over-15s who attend his version of Cinderella, at the Old Vic, this Christmas will barely have settled into their seats when, in Act One, Buttons comes out as gay. By the end of the show, his journey of self-discovery is complete and he has entered into a civil partnership with the dashing valet, Dandini.

Welcome to British pantomime, 2007. The centuries-old tradition of a Christmas romp is transforming under pressure from political correctness. In Fry's case, the gag can be seen as an entertaining and relatively harmless spoof of life in modern Britain. In other cases, however, the changing nature of modern life is pushing some shows to the verge of extinction.

Traditional favourites, such as Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad, have been all but abandoned by producers, who fear that the depiction of "natives" and "cannibals" will cause offence on race grounds. At the same time, the custom of having a female star playing the Principal Boy, which goes back to the 19th century, is on the verge of extinction because of fears that modern audiences may interpret her relationship with the female lead as a lesbian one. Instead, audiences are being offered revamped versions of such favourites as Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk, which now carry loaded messages on school bullying, waste recycling and gay rights.

Cinderella is not the only festive favourite to be infected by political correctness. Several upcoming productions have been rewritten to accommodate modern sensibilities. Those versions of Robinson Crusoe that have survived tend to have the eponymous hero befriended by the pirates, rather than politically incorrect natives. The character of Man Friday is more likely to be white than black.

Producers are also wary of including anything that may be too sinister or frightening. Shows such as Hansel and Gretel and Babes in the Wood, which used to include scenes in which children were abducted, are either struggling to be shown or are being rewritten to avoid complaints from over-sensitive parents. In a production of Jack and the Beanstalk, at the Riverfront theatre, Newport, this year, the Giant will kidnap the village's livestock rather than the children.

The changes have infuriated panto veterans. Norman Robbins, an actor and director who was also Britain's most prolific contemporary writer of panto, quit the business in 2005 because of "undue interference". He said: "Political correctness, which, to my mind, is absolute stupidity, is doing a lot of damage. It is absolute rubbish to say that a female star shouldn't play the Principal Boy. It is like doing a Shakespeare play and taking away some of the characters. "By having a girl as Principal Boy, you kept the thing in the realms of fantasy. Whatever was happening to the characters, the story stayed light and fairy-like."

The consequence of this cautious climate is that audiences are left with a narrower range of productions to choose from. Tony Gibbs, the chief executive of the National Operatic and Dramatic Association, which has more than 2,500 members, said the ever-sensitive issue of race was encouraging the organisation's members to "play safe". "There is a dilemma and a tension between the need to stereotype villainous characters for ease of identification and the fear of vilifying someone because of their race," he said

Staff involved with an upcoming school pantomime production of Goldilocks and the Three Bears last week posted a message on the theatrical website Amdram, asking whether they should keep the script's reference to "those gipsies" in what the school describes as these "you gotta be careful" days. One respondent advises: "Unless you want lots of adverse publicity, I would change the script. Why not change gipsies to 'vagabonds'?".

Such attitudes would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, when panto revelled in its ability to entertain children and shock parents. In the 1970s and 1980s, established female stars, including Dame Maggie Smith, opted to play male roles in Christmas spectaculars. But Qdos Entertainment, the country's largest producer of pantomimes, says that an actress appearing in the role of the young male hero would now be a rarity.

John Conway, its director, who will oversee 19 productions this year, said lesbianism featured so frequently on television that audiences would automatically reach the wrong conclusion about a romance involving the Principal Boy. Describing the prospect of even a chaste peck on the check as "too risque", he added: "We rarely have girls playing boys now. It is not political correctness - it's awareness of trends."

If over-cautious producers are one part of the problem, the audience itself is proving another. Ian Liston, the artistic director of the Hiss and Boo theatre company, which is producing five shows this Christmas, said: "When we put on Snow White in Truro, recently, there was a serious exchange of letters in the local paper between us and an audience member who was angry that we had used dwarves in the show. He said that it was demeaning and that we should have used jockeys instead. I retorted that that would be demeaning to jockeys. There comes a limit to how much you can do."

Britain's health-and-safety culture is also making an impact with some performers who fear their on-stage slapstick could expose them to legal action. Last year, the producers of Peter Pan in Cornwall had to do battle with health and safety officers who wanted the children in the audience to wear hard hats during the flying scenes. In Preston, audiences were told that the performers couldn't throw sweets at the children in case someone got hurt.

Many panto performers are now beginning to censor themselves. Tudor Davies, a veteran writer, director and actor, said: "Aladdin is becoming one of the hardest ones to do because of Abanazar's role as an Arabian villain. I know some actors in the role are even wary of generating too many boos, because of the race issue. "

Tommy Cannon, one half of the Cannon and Ball comedy duo, is appearing in Jack and the Beanstalk this year at Hull."You are getting to the stage where you are frightened to do anything as a joke," he said. "We used to do Babes in the Wood a lot and we'd play the robbers who kidnap the children and whisk them away in a pram. But people actually believed something was happening to the kids on stage and we would get complaints. "You used to ask a kid to come on stage and give you a kiss on the cheek. You would turn around and they'd catch you on the lips and nose. But we used to get complaints over that. People forget that this is panto and that sort of censorship is so wrong. These pantos are disappearing and they are not coming back."

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The grinch who stole Christmas cards

Grade school pupils in Wales have been banned from exchanging cards in the name of saving the planet and its `wretched' Africans.

In recent years, as the festive season draws closer, stories inevitably emerge about how `political correctness has gone mad', with council officers censoring Christmas carols on the grounds of `religious preference', re-branding Christmas `Winterval' and preventing people from hanging up decorations or bringing home-made food to school Christmas parties in the name of `health and safety' (1). But for evidence that environmentalism is now overriding `PC' favourites like multiculturalism and health and safety, look no further than Evan James Primary School in Wales, which has banned Christmas cards - on environmental grounds.

`The reasons for not having cards are endless', head teacher Nicholas Daniels claims. Although one could speculate that a big motivating factor was to remove the crushing burden of handing out the cards from teachers (`We are a big school. We have 68 pupils in two classes in year six. The magnitude of cards is horrendous'), Daniels' argument was explicitly moral. `We did take a strong moral ground on the matter. We knew we would face opposition but we decided to do this on moral and environmental grounds. Cards in school cause litter problems and can become a popularity contest about who gets the most.' (2)

Evan James Primary School pupils are therefore prevented from handing out their own cards on school property. The head teacher at the neighbouring Parc Lewis Primary School has followed suit by discouraging cards and urging parents to `donate one pound (instead of cards) for Oxfam and we will send the money to purchase a goat or mosquito net (for a family in Africa)'. This was explicitly `to help us get the Eco School Gold Award-Green Flag' (3).

School kids are already regularly being fed alarmist stories about the coming climate apocalypse, not least through the dissemination of Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth to all schools, despite its well-understood inaccuracies. Now children are being told that even the simple pleasure of exchanging Christmas cards with their friends is sinful, and re-educated to redirect their desires away from warm human interactions to winning an `Eco School Gold Award-Green Flag'.

If the report earlier this year which suggested that half of children often lose sleep from worrying about climate change is anything to go by (4), rather than lying awake in excitement waiting for Santa Claus, children will be kept up by scary visions of climate catastrophe.

The Welsh schools' policies neatly express the general hectoring, moralising tone of environmentalists, and they show how firmly `green' ideas have taken hold in our public institutions. The message being conveyed here is, first, that regardless of how much pleasure we might get from it, consumption is wasteful, and, second, that it is even morally degenerate, since there is an implicit trade-off between Western consumption and the well-being of the world's poor. So parents are implored help `a family in Africa' instead of buying cards for their own kids.

The idea that it might be possible to expand consumption, and hence improve living conditions, in both the West and the developing world is simply not considered. Rather than being taught that the problems we face are social, and amenable to being overcome through concerted collective action, kids are being taught the reactionary dogma that society has limitations that cannot be transcended. The only way to deal with inequalities is for us Westerners to stop consuming and to donate pittances to the poor (in both senses of the word) Africans.

Imploring us to buy goats or mosquito nets for Africans instead of cards or gifts for each other does not just further a miserabilist attitude to the festive season over here, but a patronising attitude to Africans. As Sadhavi Sharma has pointed out before on spiked, rather than helping fulfil Africans' own aspirations for a developed society where they, too, can enjoy high levels of consumption, these `gifts' reinforce the image of the developing world as just a huge farm and subsistence farming as a `way of life' rather than an undignified activity that no one would engage in out of choice (5). Mosquito nets, too, are, at best, a second-best solution to a malaria pandemic that is killing a million Africans a year (6). If the schools really want to help Africa, why not raise money for the electricity, transport and communications infrastructure that would really lift communities out of grinding poverty?

There is one last twist to the story. One of the `countless reasons' given by Nicholas Daniels for banning cards was that not all children get the same amount'. So handing out cards `can become a popularity contest about who gets the most, with the risk some children could be left out' (7). So now even distributing Christmas cards has a potential `risk' attached to it. But schools cannot shield children from every potential threat to their self-esteem, and nor should they. Children don't all have the same number of friends, but no one is (yet) suggesting that we should ban friendships for fear of a negative impact on the self-esteem of those children who have few friends. Coddled children will never become sufficiently robust to deal with the fact that differences in personality and popularity are simply a fact of life.

It seems, that in the run-up to the festive season, children will just continue to learn all the wrong `facts of life': that consumption is bad, that the `poor little black babies' in Africa need you to sacrifice your Christmas cards so they can have a goat, that the environment poses absolute limits to human development, and that normal human interactions pose a threat to our basic sense of well-being. Merry Christmas, everyone.

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British intolerance on display: "The Oxford Union debating society faced growing calls to cancel an evening with Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, and David Irving, who was jailed in Austria for Holocaust denial. The debating society’s decision to ask the pair to speak at a forum on the limits of free speech tonight has attracted fierce criticism from MPs, antifascist groups, and Trevor Phillips, the head of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, who said the invitation was a “disgrace”. Antifascist groups said that they expected hundreds of demonstrators to descend on the city to protest against the presence of the two men, and police have warned the debate’s organisers that they fear a number of ultra-rightwing activists will stage counter-protests.


BBC bias again: "Looking at al-Beeb's website this evening, I chanced upon the news that two Bollywood stars are claiming that they had racist remarks shouted at them from a passing car, as they shot a film in Southall. This, clearly very important and newsworthy, story is currently receiving second billing on the "England" section of the BBC News website, and has had quite a lengthy, illustrated, article devoted to it. Of course, the Beeboids did not see fit to publish a single paragraph on a rather more serious recent case in which a man had his skull sliced open with a machete in a racist attack, but that's understandable: the victim was only white, after all."


Official anti-father attitudes: "A woman who became pregnant after a one-night stand has been given the right to keep the birth a secret from the father. The Court of Appeal ruling came after a county court ordered the 20-year-old to tell both her parents and the father. The three appeal judges agreed "the ultimate veto" over who is told about the birth lay with the mother. Fathers' groups said the ruling treated the child as the property of the mother "to be disposed of as she sees fit". Fathers 4 Justice barrister Michael Cox said: "This father is the victim of a wicked deceit in which the State has been complicit. "It is now clear that the Government believes children have no entitlement to a relationship with their fathers and that children are the property of their mothers and of the State."


Donation racket in Britain too: "A builder who lives in a former council house in Newcastle and "can't stand" Labour has been named as one of Gordon Brown's biggest donors - prompting fresh questions over the party's finances. Ray Ruddick, who drives a battered Transit van, is officially listed as having contributed more than 104,000 pounds to the national party's coffers since Mr Brown became Prime Minister less than five months ago. His contributions, combined with those of a woman he is linked to, make him Labour's third biggest donor under Mr Brown"