“We have returned to the eighteenth-century days of state patronage

, with this difference: that the men who exercised it back then were at least men of taste and discrimination.” Theodore Dalrymple on Jonathan Ross’s interview with David Cameron.

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94 Responses to “We have returned to the eighteenth-century days of state patronage

  1. Pete_London says:

    A Lurker –

    You obviously disagree with me vehemently. That’s a relief.

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  2. Pete_London says:

    archduke –

    Yep, as I understand it there has been something of a backlash by young Americans against their parents’ crude, decadent and selfish 1960s marxist mores. For this to happen (surely?) there has to still be the semblence of a society based on a code of morality, a sense of selflessness and honour. In short, a society with fewer Leftist influences. Over here it’s a surprise when I come across a teenager with the nous to tie his own shoelaces. My only comfort is that the offspring of these baby boomers are so useless that they’ll be a burden on their pensions. My children won’t be a burden on mine, Gordon Brown got there first.

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  3. archduke says:

    a lurker -> it appears that you & pete_london have a better handle on this – than I , with a Roman Catholic Irish education. may i be kindly excused from this debate, for my background probably wont bring a lot to table.

    i can see valid points in both of your viewpoints by the way.

    but fundementally, i am of the opinion that the state should stay out of personal and family matters. i lived under a Catholic theocracy in Ireland , and it aint nice, if you value freedom.

    and may i add – to see the growth of “faith based” schools in England, fills me with a historically derived trepidation.

    it looks like the English havent learned the lessons of sectarian Ireland, unfortunately.

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  4. archduke says:

    but may i add – i am probably contributing to the sectarian divide – by aiming for my kids to go to an RC school.

    what is one to do when the state system is filled with P.C. crap and a substandard level of education?

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  5. Pete_London says:

    archduke

    My mother’s from Limerick and I also went through RC schools in London. If and when the time comes I’m pulling rank and getting any children of mine in too. There’s not a chance I’m letting the licenced nonces of the state school system get their hands on mine.

    I’m ducking out from that discussion above too. A Lurker’s words are very hurtful.

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  6. Andrew O says:

    ‘the left is populated by the perverted and the sick.They want to get their hands on the little ones to corrupt them.’

    Oh, good grief. What does this have to do with BBC bias, and what does it tell the average reader about your mind, and how rarely you engage it in rational debate?

    ‘Pete_London, on this site please use less explicit language in future.’

    What on earth did he say that was more offensive than that?

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  7. Andrew O says:

    ‘I’m ducking out from that discussion above too. A Lurker’s words are very hurtful.’

    Didums. Take your (as yet, and hopefully forever) nonexistent kids off to the Catholic school, because, as any fule nos, there are no abusers in the RC church, right?

    After the rant you posted above, you’re pleading ‘hurtful words’. My goodness.

    ‘I don’t homosexuality, heterosexuality or ANY kind of sexuality promoted, discussed oe mentioned in any classroom’

    And as a non-parent, you have a say, why, exactly?

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  8. J.G. says:

    BBC bias anyone??

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  9. Allan@Aberdeen says:

    If one reads through the thread, it is seen that Pete in London railed against ‘perverse’ beliefs being promulgated to minors in state classrooms. Alan (the other one) presumably agrees with Lurker who wrote:
    “As ever, reading these comments often leavers me with my jaw dropping to hit the keybord with the breathtaking bigotry and nonsense filled rhetoric, particualrly Pete_London’s diatribe about Clause 28 and that the left is “populated by the perverted and the sick” who want teeenage girls to give them great blowjobs.”

    The bottom line is that Archduke’s link shows that the left is indeed populated by the perverted and sick who want to teach young girls to give blow-jobs. Or are my lying eyes lying to me?

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  10. archduke says:

    indeed, i am just pointing out evidence. and that was after 10 seconds of googling.
    i am neither for or against clause 28, or any sort of “sex education” – i want kids to be filled with science.

    leave it to the parents to sort out the personal stuff. keep the State out of it.

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  11. Anonymous says:

    Was’nt it a load of lefties and gays that were out on the streets of London a few years ago, screaming and demanding that they be allowed to shag 16 year old boys????

    ….many of the protestors were from the BBC…..

    Go figure…..

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  12. AntiCitizenOne says:

    unfortunatly It’s not too hard to find supporting evidence for Pete_london’s views.

    http://www.fathercare.org/hodge-islington.htm

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  13. archduke says:

    indeed, i watched that happen and thought – “oh dear, they have set back gay rights by about 10 years, the idiots”

    their main point was that you can join the army at 16.

    of course, these dunderheads never thought that it might be more politcally viable to argue that the age of army volunteering should be raised to say, 18.

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  14. archduke says:

    anticitezenone -> you are now under my fatwa.

    you have unleashed Margaret Hodge on my browser.

    kindly warn me in future!

    😉

    errrrrgh….

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  15. Grimer says:

    What a fun debate….

    Personally, I have no problem with sex education. I think it should start a lot earlier, as they do in Holland.

    I have no problem with teenagers learning about straight sex, gay sex, fetish sex, oral sex, bestiality, incest, etc. There is a big difference between learning about something and it being actively promoted. I learned about explosives at uni, but certainly wasn’t encouraged to go out and make nail bombs (although I could make far more effective ones than these http://idisk.mac.com/jenlart/Public/nailbomb.jpg )

    Surely, one of the purposes of school is to prepare the student for adult life?

    My father attended teacher training college in the late 1950’s early 1960’s. He said that ‘half the convent girls were pregnant by Christmas’ (a slight exageration, I’m sure). He recons it was because they didn’t know when guys were spinning them a line (“of course I love you….”) or know anything about contraception.

    Children should be taught about sex – the dangers (emotional and physical) of casual sex as well as the rewards of sex within a loving relationship (straigh or gay).

    What is wrong with teaching children about ‘boundaries’ (e.g. performing oral sex, but not having full sex?). A lot of girls I know used to/still do make a distinction. If this allows people to develop at their own pace and value sexual relationships, then so much the better.

    Personally, I’d ban the promotion of any form of sexuality. Who are the government to say that one kind of sexual behaviour is right or wrong? It totally goes against my Libertarian views.

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  16. Pete_London says:

    Andrew O –

    A long time ago I queried people going way off topic in here and was told that it’s fine. Robust debate ain’t a problem. I’m just going along with the rules.

    Allan@Aberdeen –

    Thank you. While A lurker was bashing out his words further up about Lady Thatcher (from memory, she destroyed communities, allowed pensioners to be screwed, was homophobic, etc) I detected little sign of restraint. It was a post which said, in other words: “Take this, you right wing idiots.”

    Well, right back at him.

    Grimer –

    What is wrong with teaching children about ‘boundaries’ (e.g. performing oral sex, but not having full sex?). A lot of girls I know used to/still do make a distinction. If this allows people to develop at their own pace and value sexual relationships, then so much the better.

    Great. Mail me your address and I’ll pop round to take your daughter out. I promise to bring her back unpregnant but with a smile on her face. After all, there’s nothing wrong in exploring those boundaries, eh?

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  17. Eustoned says:

    No Tory I, but I fear that Gordon Brown’s economic policies will probably cast a longer shadow than Thatcher’s (sorry, slightly mixed metaphors there).

    Has any BBC interviewer ever asked Gordy if he pleasured himself over pictures of Harold Wilson when he was a wee lad? That would be very, very funny.

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  18. Anonymous says:

    I don’t have a daughter Pete. But don’t forget that NewLab have made it illegal to enter into any ‘sexual activity’ with a girl under the age of 16, no matter what the age of the boy/man (that includes kissing round the back of the bike shed).

    So, if you are planning on grooming young ladies, watch out for PC Plod.

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  19. Grimer says:

    ^ twas me ^

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  20. archduke says:

    “Surely, one of the purposes of school is to prepare the student for adult life? ”

    no it isnt.

    no amount of government education can ever replace the education of a father or a mother.

    its about time we recognised that.

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  21. pounce says:

    “But don’t forget that NewLab have made it illegal to enter into any ‘sexual activity’ with a girl under the age of 16, no matter what the age of the boy/man (that includes kissing round the back of the bike shed).”

    Well from walking down the high street on a day it seems to me that Mary wasn’t the only young virgin to give birth.

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  22. Grimer says:

    Archduke,

    Unfortunately, judging by a lot of the children at my school, some parents are totally failing in their duties.

    School really is the only place that some children get taught right from wrong. Obviously it isn’t the school’s responsibility to raise a child. However, in some cases they’re the only people doing it.

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  23. PJ says:

    Reading over the above exchanges brought back memories of a time when declaring even a qualified support for the Conservative government could earn one a stream of vitriol sometimes more than just threats of violence.
    (Bearing in mind the purpose of this site, I would add that much of this was egged on by the BBC and for that matter still is)
    I recently had the experience of listening as yet another adherent of marxist philosophy launched into a diatribe based on the evil Thatcher etc etc etc..we all know the script. It was at that point that I had the pleasure of lifting him out of his chair by his shirt front and telling him to f*** off out of my house and not come back. My remaining guests voiced no objections and we returned to enjoying a pleasant evening.

    If the lurkers jaw hitting the keyboard hurt then that’s one good thing that’s happened today.
    If the other Alan found ” Being told by government that the best I could aspire to in life was a “pretend family” was an incentive to suicide he needed to get a backbone.

    Personally, I’ve had it up to here with being told by the left that I musn’t object to their lunatic ideology because I might hurt their feelings. I’ve just enjoyed watching a Labour councillor being barracked and howled down at a public meeting. The slimy two faced little crook deserved it.
    We who find the whole socialist platform a piece of excrement have had enough in being polite about it. We’ve learnt that we can’t have a reasoned discussion with its supporters. What we’ve got for our pains has been nine years of the most incompetant mendacious government this country has suffered in living memory.(And that includes the bunch of no hopers who conned themselves into power in 1945 and caused most of our problems during the rest of that century-yes, Tony Benn I’m looking at you.)
    Now we give as good as we get.

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  24. Barker John says:

    Anyone see ‘Hardtalk’ tonight? Dan Gillerman aquitted himself superbly! The woman interviewing him( don’t know her name) asked “Is it acceptable to kill people because they are human shields?” What kind of question is that?

    Towards the end of the interview she stated ” Your bombing Mosques & civilians”, he replied that this was incorrect.

    He was so calm whilst being questioned by such a moronic idiot, I would have lost my sense of reason way beforehand!

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  25. Pete_London says:

    Grimer –

    So, if you are planning on grooming young ladies, watch out for PC Plod.

    No no no no no. No grooming at all. Whatever gave you that idea? We’d simply be exploring ‘boundaries’, that’s all. You’d have no objection I’m sure. After all, you said yourself asked what is wrong in that.

    So, is she fit?

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  26. Grimer says:

    As I said Pete, I don’t have a daughter. However, I do hope that I don’t become one of those overprotective wrapherincottonwool types, if I ever do.

    I hope any children that I do have, will grow up to be open-minded with a healthy attitude to sex (although, maybe not as open-minded as the young lady I am currently dating ;))

    I certainly won’t have any problems with their school teaching them about sex and relationships. So long as it is education and not ‘promotion’.

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  27. mick in the uk says:

    I don’t want to lower the tone. but when I was a teen , desperate for sex, I would have been grateful for even a BJ, but the girls then, would have seen that as the ultimate ‘no no’.
    It seems now that it’s the opening ‘yes yes’, thanks to liberal sex education and teen trash magazines.

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  28. Barker John says:

    Just read the above comments as regards to leftist moralities.

    My nearly four year old daughter shall be told the facts of life, by her parents & school folk too. A bit of balance never goes amiss! She can steer her own way through that particular quagmire with everyones advice on board & hopefully make a sound judgement by hearing both sides of the story.

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  29. Barker John says:

    I should have said that being a parent to a female automatically makes me a prudent sort.

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  30. Pete_London says:

    Grimer –

    My last post on the matter and then I’ll read on but I won’t add. Besides, I can be reasonable and fair minded for only so long.

    I certainly won’t have any problems with their school teaching them about sex and relationships.

    Ok, I disagree about the sex education thing. The more sex education we have, the greater the teen pregnancy rate, it seems. Granted, other aspects are involved, such as universal welfare, the war on morality and the absence of shame from our nation, but when you teach someone how to do something, don’t be surprised when they go and do it.

    My eyebrows hit the ceiling at you saying you’ll have no problems with a scholl teaching your children about relationships. Huh? You would honestly consent to the state-licenced strangers teaching your little ones about relationships? These factories of illiteracy and immorality are not fit to teach the children of Britons how to tell the time. What is left for you as a parent if you would even hand over your responsibility to pass on your wisdom, experience and values to your children, to the state? The state! No more unfitting body exists to handle children. When even relationships are left to the state, we have no hope.

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  31. Eamonn says:

    It’s camel corps time on the Today programme.

    To the backdrop of St James of Smug in Cairo doing self-flagellation over the Suez crisis, Douglas Hurd (that impressive figure who left Bosnian muslims to their fate) opines on the real reasons for the Lebanion crisis.

    It’s the occupation, stupids!

    Why do the BBC think that this politician has something important to say, when his past behaviour on foreign issues is a source of shame to us all? The answer of course is that Hurd is a former member of Government who opposed the invasion of Iraq and is not friendly towards Israel – perfect credentials for Beeboid brains.

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  32. dumbcisco says:

    Eamonn

    Yes, that is exactly why Hurd was interviewed by Naughtie.

    His supposed “relevance” was that he was in the FO at the time of Suez. So why didn’t Naughtie stick to Suez, ask about what was going on in the FO, what did Hurd think and do then ?

    But no – the questions had to be just a chance for Israel to be criticised, for Hurd to say that everything is a “disaster”. Disaster ? Hardly – there is relatively small-scale military action, and if you took aside the terrorists killed and the human shields they had with them, the numbers of civilians killed would be relatively low, albeit tragic. But hardly a disaster.

    Hurd then says that the only thing to do is settle the West Bank question, to “aim high”. What flatulence. What a turd ! (sorry).

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  33. Bryan says:

    On Naughtie ‘reporting’ from Egypt:

    Here you get a glimpse – an Arab glimpse – of how profound this crisis is for the whole Middle East.

    As if it’s a rare and precious thing for the BBC to give us the Arab point of view when they are actually shoving it down our throats 24/7.

    No doubt the John Reiths of this world would say that there Biased BBC goes again, nitpicking and seeing bias where none exists.

    What he doesn’t realise is that BBC hacks are propaganda artists, painting a carefully-constructed picture with a dab here, a brush stroke there.

    Would Naughtie talk about a ‘glimpse’ into the Jewish point of view?

    No, he would use different language entirely. The BBC spreads its bias worldwide through subtle and not-so-subtle use of words.

    Pay attention, John Reith. You may learn something.

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  34. MisterMinit says:

    Grimer: “although, maybe not as open-minded as the young lady I am currently dating”

    Now you’re just showing off 😉

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  35. D Burbage says:

    Barker John

    I saw some part of the ‘interview’. The interviewer was Sarah Montague, normally heard on the Today programme.

    She just interrupted the Israeli ambassador when he started to explain anything – just like on the radio. He was very good, never being rude or excited. He did have the skill to ask Montague a question about how many rockets were falling on Israeli towns and she clearly didn’t know…. his best line was that the difference between civilian houses in Israel was that they had bomb shelters whereas those in Lebanon had missiles in the front room.

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  36. will says:

    “Dan Gillerman was so calm whilst being questioned by such a moronic idiot, I would have lost my sense of reason way beforehand!”
    Barker John

    Leading (ie Jewish) Israeli politicians all seem capable of displaying calmness & logic in the face of hysterical quesioning from the BBC etc. Over the weekend these qualities also extended to a journalist from Israel radio, who appeared on the News24 press panel show. At the other end of the table was Bari Atwan. You will be able to imagine the difference on the calmness & logic scale.

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  37. firefox says:

    “At the other end of the table was Bari Atwan. You will be able to imagine the difference on the calmness & logic scale.”

    is he the Al-quds newspaper guy? if so, i saw that too.

    there was some seriously fascistic ranting coming from that chap – i half expected the israeli to slap him one in the face.

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  38. Pete_London says:

    Leading (ie Jewish) Israeli politicians all seem capable of displaying calmness & logic in the face of hysterical quesioning from the BBC etc. Over the weekend these qualities also extended to a journalist from Israel radio, who appeared on the News24 press panel show. At the other end of the table was Bari Atwan. You will be able to imagine the difference on the calmness & logic scale.

    Yep, I caught that also. We’re long past the point of there being any reason to introduce him as the Editor of al-Quds. They may as well say: “And we’re also joined by Bari Atwen, who’s just here to give us the usual bullshit.”

    Sadly, Benyamin Netanyahu doesn’t appear as often as I like. He never fails to fill the screen with his presence while nailing the standard BBC anti-semitic line. No doubt this has something to do with why he doesn’t appear as often as he should. But yes, the Israeli rep (when we have one) invariably answers calmly and politely. My admiration is unbound, given that in their position I’d end up being nicked for affray.

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  39. pounce says:

    Al Beeb and how it balances the acts of a terrorist with a mother;

    “Chief among those is Samir Qantar, serving five life sentences for murder after attacking a civilian apartment block in Nahariya in 1979. Danny Haran was killed in front of his four-year-old daughter; the girl’s skull was then crushed with a rifle butt. Cowering inside, Smadar Haran accidentally smothered her two-year-old daughter to death as she hid in a cupboard trying to stay silent.”

    Just a little more info on just how the above Terrorist got five life sentences from the mother and wife of 2 of those victims;

    “It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

    Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.
    They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. “This is just like what happened to my mother,” I thought.
    As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.
    By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.”

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/printable.asp?ID=687

    And before somebody laughs at my use of FP for my source . The above article was taken from the Washington Post.

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  40. Pete_London says:

    Galloway’s and the BBC’s glorious resistence.

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  41. the_camp_commandant says:

    Grimer:-

    Children should be taught about sex – the dangers (emotional and physical) of casual sex as well as the rewards of sex within a loving relationship (straigh or gay).

    Would you agree, then, that they should also be taught about any risks which are specifically higher for gays than straights? That gays have enormously greater rates of incidence and re-incidence of syphilis (they are up to 80% of sufferers according to some sources), gonorrhea, herpes, chlamydia, hepatitis, anal cancer, parasitic intestinal infections and of course AIDS?

    Basically, do you support information about homosexuality, genital warts and all, or do you want it advocated neutrally as though the risks were not there?

    Would peace break out between gays and “homophobes” if the school syllabus on gay relationships covered all the above?

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  42. Verity says:

    Grimer – I will bet a dollar to a donut that you won’t marry “the open-minded woman I’m currently dating”.

    Pete_London, with you every step of the way. Schools are for academic subjects; parents are for imparting life and values.

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  43. APL says:

    Andrew O: “And as a non-parent, you have a say, why, exactly?”

    If PinL pays tax, [some] of which go to the state education system, would that be a sufficient reason?

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