Ordinary People Theodore Dalrymple Worse Than Rupert Myles Harris Horror in the Fjords Paul Gottfried Poland's Road to Brussel
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The The quarterly magazine of conservative thought Ordinary People Horror in the Fjords Arab Winter Theodore Dalrymple Paul Gottfried Pavel Stroilov Worse than Poland’s Road to Why Single Rupert Brussels Currencies Fail Myles Harris Jane Kelly Christie Davies Autumn 2011 Vol 30 No 1 £4.99 Contents 3 Editorial Articles 4 The Rape of Justice 17 God’s Atoms Stephen Baskerville Brian Ridley 6 Poland’s Road to Brussels 19 ‘Don’t Worry?’ Jane Kelly Frances Hallinan 8 Worse Than Rupert 20 The Climate of Treason Myles Harris James Bryson 9 Arab Winter 21 Horror in the Fjords Pavel Stroilov Paul Gottfried 11 How Single Currencies Fail 23 Abolish Disney Degrees Christie Davies Vernon Rogers 13 Ordinary People 26 Growing Old Disgracefully Theodore Dalrymple Henry Oliver 14 Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear? 27 The Lawyers’ Trough Mark Griffith Richard Packer 16 Machiavelli’s Influence on British Philosophy 29 No Joking at the BBC Edmund O’Toole Marc Blake Columns Arts & Books 37 John Jolliffe 31 Conservative Classic — 44 on Italy Frederick Rolfe: Hadrian the Seventh 38 Nicolai Tolstoy 33 Reputations — 33 on Lawrence of Arabia Robertson Davies 39 William Charlton 35 Roy Kerridge on Alistair McIntyre 36 Eternal Life 41 M R D Foot Peter Mullen on Italian Resistance 42 Martin Dewhirst on Borderlands 43 Nigel Jones on the Cavaliers 45 Celia Haddon on the Fur Trade 46 Anthony Hallgarten on Spin Bowlers 47 Robert Crowcroft on the Coalition 49 Penelope Tremayne on an Unknown War 50 Frank Ellis on Afghanistan 52 Will Robinson on Murder 53 M R D Foot on a Call to Arms 54 Theatre: Richard Foulkes on Tom Stoppard 56 Music: R J Stove on Widor 58 In Short Managing Editor: Merrie Cave Consulting Editors: Roger Scruton Lord Charles Cecil, Myles Harris, Mark Baillie, Christie Davies, Literary Editor: Ian Crowther 33 Canonbury Park South, London N1 2JW Tel: 020 7226 7791 Fax: 020 7354 0383 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.salisburyreview.co.uk ritain is, as usual, being undermined from itself a lie. Yet they are so powerful that the presumption some familiar quarters – the feminists, an ever of innocence, that cornerstone of justice is being eroded. Bmore intrusive State, the European Union and Yet other threats too darken our sky: the European especially our absurd and destructive Human Right Union and Islam. Despite the sliding into collapse of laws and a failing education system. Both of the latter the Euro zone, those committed to the idea are making have helped call into existence the vile rioting thugs European societies pay an ever increasing price to and unscrupulous looters who have wrecked our cities preserve the wretched single currency, which they and attacked our citizens. Why was there not a stern, see as a new version of the US dollar. Yet, as Christie indeed punitive response to the riots right at the onset, Davies shows, for most of American history having one calculated to force the rioters to desist and submit? a single currency and common monetary and tariff Sir Richard Packer, in a masterpiece of understatement, policies led to intense political conflict and secession. calls the Human Rights Act ‘a disaster.’ All systems The Russian historian Pavel Stroilov rightly declares of rights, especially when broadened and recast by that ‘This is not an “Arab spring”’, meaning that the judges, have unintended consequences, most notably current upheavals will not lead to individual freedom the unjust ‘protection of terrorists to the detriment of and market economies. Beneath the authoritarian, everyone else’. Not only terrorists but violent criminals nationalist socialism of the ‘Red Arabs’ there was much and rioters are thus protected. Yet as Mark Griffith and collusion as well as a degree of conflict with Islamism. Myles Harris indicate, the enforcers of ‘rights’ have They were and still will be united by their hatred of not stopped excessive legal hacking by the state, local Western liberty and Western values. government and 600 public bodies into the records and Other such negative sentiments were purveyed by communications of ordinary people. the British Muslim author whom James Bryson heard There is no longer any right to be left alone but oddly lecture in Cambridge, who declared that Muslims have we are told that there is ‘a right to education’. But to no need to integrate and no obligations to the local how much education? The absurd and relentless drive culture of those among whom they live. Religion, he to push or to lure more students into higher education claimed, should be independent of culture. Given that has been a disaster for everyone . Vernon Rogers has his religion was and is inexorable shaped by the culture the answer – let universities be free for only the most of old Arabia, it is a very odd claim indeed. Yet none of able 5 per cent of applicants and no nonsense about his riddled-with-liberal-guilt university audience would social justice. Many of our newest universities are firmly contradict him. clownish but as Marc Blake notes even our comedians Our hope lies in the way Theodore Dalrymple’s have become worse. ‘Alternative comedy’ is left wing ordinary people continue to resist. Government bigotry plus the boredom of the observational comedy surveillance and multiculturalism are universally of the inconsequential. disliked and rejected. No government would dare to The very institutions that have proved feeble in the hold a referendum on the powers of the European face of violent disorder seek viciously and punitively Union, which like the European Court of Human Rights to destroy justice when ideology demands. Stephen and its British equivalents, has usurped power that Baskerville has drawn our attention to the proliferation legitimately lies with our people. Let us hope that the not just of false allegations of rape but of false riots will awake us to take back that power and reverse convictions for rape in Britain and North America alike. the decades of liberal dominance that prevented the The feminists’ assertion that ‘the women never lie’ is rioters from being quickly and firmly dealt with. Contents The Salisbury Review — Autumn 2011 3 The Rape of Justice Stephen Baskerville ape seems to pervade our politics these ensures that ‘the postman always rings twice’. days: IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, The presumption of guilt against those who cannot RWikileaks’ Julian Assange, Italian Prime afford Strauss-Kahn’s seven-figure defence is apparent Minister Silvio Berlusconi – all have been accused in the attack on Clarke, who dared to hint at the of rape. Justice Minister Kenneth Clark was recently unmentionable truth that rape charges today are a pilloried for politically incorrect statements about massive miscarriage of justice. It is manifest in the ‘slut rape. The Daily Telegraph says Britain’s rape law is a walks,’ where sexual display becomes nose-thumbing ‘disgrace’ but does not say why. at men spending decades in prison on trumped-up It is not just the great and powerful who are charges. committing faux pas over rape. The words of a Dressed in sexually provocative clothing and with humble policeman were ‘insensitive’ enough to send signs proclaiming ‘Slut Pride’ and ‘Proud Slut,’ the women (or at least the feminists) of Toronto and marchers revealingly proclaim their intent to ‘take back other cities into the streets in a series of ‘slut walks.’ the word “slut”’. ‘Sluts and Allies, Unite!’ declared One woman wore a sexy outfit with the words ‘rape a speaker. These unseemly displays of sexual anger me’ written on herself. Clearly someone must be were ostensibly set off by a policeman’s incautious but punished for all this rape, even if no one has actually hardly inflammatory remarks to a handful of women been convicted of anything. that enticing clothing may be unwise. ‘While we are Conspicuously absent from all these accusations proud of our sexuality,’ one speaker declared oddly, ‘it is any presumption of innocence or recognition that is by no means an invitation to violence.’ in a free society crime is supposed to be adjudicated Of course no one ever said that it is. The policeman’s case-by-case according to due process of law, with words (at a safety forum) were no more than what a protection for the rights of the accused and weighing father might advise his daughter. Would he be ‘blaming of evidence by a jury. Instead, we see mob justice at the victim’ and deserving of feminist invective or its most incendiary, driven by political ideologues concerned about her safety? Indeed, any father of demanding arrests and convictions regardless of a daughter will recognize the adolescent sartorial evidence. The National Organization for Women called rebellion on display in Toronto and elsewhere. for Strauss-Kahn’s head on the presumption of his guilt. The harmless words became the occasion for a huge ‘NOW will closely monitor how law enforcement, the tantrum of undress in at least four countries. Far from courts, and the media handle the Strauss-Kahn case,’ suggesting that all this alleged rape might be reason the feminists warned. to encourage some sexual restraint, we see women ‘What harm can it do?’ we all asked back in the marching in their underwear, defiantly proclaiming 1960’s when the sexual revolution began and we their right to ‘be sexual,’ and celebrating sex as a virtue declared that recreational sex between ‘consenting to be indulged for its own sake with no consequences. adults’ was ‘nobody’s business’. Well, we are now As with ‘Gay Pride’ demonstrations, this public seeing precisely what harm it can do. Ideologues and exhibitionism is far out of proportion to any political the wielders of state power have turned our fun into a point such as protecting women, who in industrial crime and are using our license to destroy our freedom, countries are the safest people in history.