From The Brussels Journal

By A. MILLAR

Nearly a month into Britain’s new coalition government and perhaps the defining image of Prime Minister David Cameron shows him strolling casually along Westminster, without security, mingling with the crowd. At other times he has eschewed his motorcade, and sent away his police motorbike escort. We – and perhaps more especially those who despise Britain – are supposed to believe that he is a man of the people. He is like us, and we are like him. In the cold light of day, however, Cameron’s actions reveal only that he is disconnected from reality:

Lest we forget, Cameron is the leader of a wartime nation – a nation fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, and facing terrorism at home.

Islamist terrorists have often stepped up their activity during the first twelve months of a new government, and there has already been some activity since the May 6 election. In what is now being treated as a terrorist attack, the Labour MP for East Ham, Stephen Timms, was stabbed by a Muslim woman, who had been “radicalized.” Since then, the names of four other MPs have been discovered on a terrorist hit list, and security for all MPs has been put under review.

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From The Brussels Journal

By A. MILLAR

With a general election set for May 6, the two main parties have, as Peter Goodspeed notes in Canada’s busied themselves “adopting U.S. policies, personnel and practices.” The British press, too, is full of talk about “presidential-style” TV debates and “first lady politics”. The Americanizing of the British election becomes even more evident if one listens to Conservative party leader David Cameron, who routinely references president Barack Obama – as an apparent inspiration – and who has even, on a few occasions, cited John F. Kennedy as “a great American president.”

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From The Brussels Journal

By A. MILLAR

David Cameron has made it clear that the Conservative party, of which he is the head, has changed. Win or lose the upcoming election, there is no going back. The Tory “dinosaurs” are out. The party is now “progressive,” “bold” and “radical” – a party of “ideas.”

Yet, its ideas were mostly thought up by Tony Blair’s New Labour party. Issues of importance are off the table:

- In his Spring conference speech on Feb. 28, Cameron failed to mention uncontrolled immigration even though the island nation (smaller then the state of Oregon) is on track to hit 70 million by 2030.

- There was no mention of the damage done to society by political correctness.

- No mention of the European Union, which makes 75-80 percent of laws enacted in Britain.

- And the “bold” and “radical” Cameron did not address the issue of political Islam in Britain – an issue that is hardly out of the news these days.

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From The Brussels Journal

By A. MILLAR

Top Conservative Party members have donated thousands of pounds to an organization that has hosted speakers known for their hard line Islamic views.

In August, and Lord Sheikh, chairman of the Conservative Muslim Forum (CMF), and Mohammed Amin, the CMF’s vice chairman, attended the launch of Iqra TV, founded by Al-Khair. According to the CMF website, after he had had made a presentation, Lord Sheikh gave a check for 5,000 pounds (approximately 8,000 US dollars) to Al-Khair for the establishment a library. Al-Khair runs Islamic schools (in Britain and Kashmir), a prison outreach program, and hosts speaking and cultural events, including some that are “interfaith.”

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By NANCY MORGAN

Joseph Romero, a 6 year-old Arizona boy, was diagnosed as transgender last October and is beginning his/her transition to becoming a female. When he/she reaches the age of 12, he will be given female hormones containing estrogen and plans to undergo surgery when she is an adult in order to become a full woman.

In the UK last September, a 12 year-old boy turned up at school as a girl. Over the summer holidays his parents changed his name to a female one and allowed him to don female garb and wear his hair in pigtails. The youngster is now preparing to undergo hormone treatment and surgery – and could become the world’s youngest sex-swap patient in the coming years. His school has graciously provided him/her a separate toilet and changing room.

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Geert Wilders: On Trial for Having an Opinion

From The Brussels Journal

By A. MILLAR

A few years ago Britain’s Channel 4 TV broadcast a documentary exposing a number of hate preachers. These were shown variously praising Osama bin Laden, denouncing non-Muslims, or “kuffar,” calling women “deficient,” and inciting violence, including the murder of Jews and homosexuals. Much of what was said, and broadcast in Undercover Mosque, was patently illegal under British law. Instead of acting against the preachers, the police filed a complaint against the filmmakers, who they accused of taking things “out of context” – it’s just that easy to do, when imams call for murder, apparently.

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From The Brussels Journal

By A. MILLAR

Britain will hold a general election within the next five months. And after more than a decade of the Left-wing Labour party, the Conservatives are expected to win. Party leader David Cameron is a likeable if nondescript man, in sync with the fashionable concerns of the media, and out of touch with the electorate.

Labour is loathed in Britain. So much so that there has even been talk of it being cast into the political “wilderness” for a decade, if not of its total destruction. It’s not difficult to grasp why. In the last decade Labour has encouraged uncontrolled immigration, in an attempt to change the country once and for all. It has presided over the growth of radical Islam. It has surrendered British sovereignty to the EU without so much as giving the people a vote on the matter. And, perhaps, most importantly, it has made political correctness the norm, stifling dissent, and silencing even the most reasonable objections to its project. Only “extremists” and “racists” would worry about such things, has been the message given out at every opportunity.

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From The Brussels Journal

By A. MILLAR

What is the future of the Western democracy? A look at Britain over the last 12 months seems to provide some clues. In one way or another Islamism was a constant theme, though party politics were volatile by almost any standards. Having long ignored the will of the people in every area – from law and order to immigration – and demonizing those brave enough to raise uncomfortable, but important issues, the political class began to feel the heat of the nation’s boiling anger. Pressure from the top had kept a lid on things, but in 2009 politics began to spill onto the streets, with “anti-Islamization” protests emerging up and down the country. The response was to give more money to tackling the “far-Right.” However, most of the protestors appear to have been ordinary citizens.

Anti-Israel protests have been held over the last few years, though these exploded across Britain in January. In September a London march in support of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah attracted a few thousand, though it did not attract any condemnation from the political class or mainstream media. But, then, double standards and contradiction was a theme in itself in 2009. David Miliband condemned Geert Wilders’ film Fitna as “hate-filled,” but he had not seen it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer – responsible for the nation’s taxes – claimed for assistance with his tax return. Sir John Chilcot said the legality of the Iraq war would be central to his investigation, though the investigating committee would have no legal expert. And so on, and so on.

Truth itself seems a casualty of modern Britain. Instead an ideology, a zeitgeist, is apparent, with politicians and the cultural “elite” seeming merely to repackage, in more sober language, the prejudices of a fascistic-Left: Take, for example, the support for Hamas by socialist street protestors, and the interview of Hamas’ leader in the New Statesman; or George Galloway’s call for protestors to “shut down Israel shops” and the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs new labeling guidelines for Israeli products that would make them easier to boycott, and the open political propaganda that accompanied its labeling advice.

Below we have listed some of the most important events of the year, with particular attention paid to Islamism (and the backlash against it) and to party politics. Although I have listed events by month, some, such as protests, naturally reemerge at different time.

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