Today Tony Blair says that extreme Islamism “distorts and warps Islam’s true message and it is spreading across the world. It is destabilising communities and even nations. It is undermining the possibility of peaceful co-existence in an era of globalisation. And in the face of this threat we seem curiously reluctant to acknowledge it and powerless to counter it effectively.”

It is a bit late in the day to issue such a warning. Ten years ago , Professor Marcello Pera, former President of the Italian Senate, said that it is this extremist insurgency which has declared, preached, promised and repeated many times its intention to fight a holy war against the West. And in a more recent lecture Relativism, Christianity and the West Professor Pera, said,

“Is there a war? I answer, yes there is a war and I believe the responsible thing is to recognise it and to say so, regardless of whether the politically-correct thing to do is to keep our mouths shut.

“In Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Dagestan, Ossetia, the Phillipines, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Morocco and much of the Islamic and Arab world, large groups of fundamentalists, radicals, extremists – the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brothers, Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Armed Group and many more have declared a holy war on the West. This is not my imagination. It is a message they have proclaimed, written, preached, communicated and circulated in black and white. Why should I not take note of it?”

But Mr Blair is mistaken when he says that extreme Islamism is a warped form of Islam. From the start the prophet Mahomet urged Muslimisation of the world at the point of the sword. Many times in the past – thank God – Christians rose up to defend the faith against militant Islam: At Tours, Charles Martel saved northern Europe from Muslim conquest and Don John of Austria and the papal states triumphed at Lepanto. Three hundred years ago Muslim armies were at the gates of Vienna where they were resisted and finally turned back by Christian forces. We must pray and so nerve ourselves that such courage will not be found wanting in us to repel the threats we are facing today.

Those with their eyes open have understood the true nature of the Muslim ideology all along, As long ago as 1831 Samuel Coleridge – a man with his eyes wide open if ever there was one – said:

“That erection of a temporal monarch under the pretence of a spiritual authority was effected in full by Mahomet to the establishment of the most extensive and complete despotism that ever warred against civilisation and the interests of humanity.”

That’s why I used the phrase “Muslim ideology.” As Coleridge pointed out, its supposed “spiritual authority” is “a pretence.”

But Mr Blair is to be commended for recognising at least part of the danger, even when he falls over backwards to be nice to the encroaching barbarism. He is right too to notice that we seem “powerless” to counter the threat – though “unwilling” would be a more accurate description and account for our torpor in the face of extinction.  Unfortunately, the West is unlikely to take any notice and, as Marcello Pera conjectures, the destiny of our civilisation will be to die from political-correctness.

Cameron’s poor judgment throughout the Maria Miller fiasco is only the latest episode in a whole series which has underscored the prime minister’s reputation for weakness. The fact that (it appears) Miller’s sacking was orchestrated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer – and from Brazil, at that! – makes Cameron’s dithering look even worse. It looks as if Cameron’s ambitions have become irrecoverable and there are multiple causes of his unpopularity. First, as the leader of a government which has been in office for the last four years, he is the politician most associated with the recession. Secondly, despite appearances, there is still a sizeable rump of traditional Tories who will never again vote for the party after the introduction of homosexual marriage. And then there is the rise of UKIP and its burgeoning popularity among the white working class. This class must be differentiated from the underclass. And workers’ annoyance at receiving less through their wages than many denizens of the underclass receive in benefits is palpable.

We do deserve the underclass – after all we are paying for it.

I think that the near future – next month’s European elections and the general election next year – will see the biggest political upheaval in Britain since Maggie. The crucial question is of who will benefit more from Cameron’s discomfiture: Ed Miliband or Nigel Farage. Just now it looks as if the likely outcome will be that UKIP will split support for the so called “right” and let Labour in. If that happens then the consequences will be worse even than they would have been in 1992 had Kinnock won. For the sort of government we should expect from Miliband, we must look to the European politician he most admires: the doctrinaire socialist Francois Hollande who has been busy these last few years ruining France.

The future looks very interesting – and very painful.

Maria Miller has resigned after relentless pressure from the Tory machine. Dave praised her competence which, being interpreted, meant that he was grateful for all her support with the homosexual marriage Bill. Well, now she’s gone and the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail are jubilant.

The controversy over MPs’ expenses will not die down though and there is renewed talk about how they should be regulated. This is to miss the point. I don’t care whether they are self-regulated or they appoint some external umpires to do the job. It will amount to the same and those who want to bend the rules will always find ways of bending the rules. The truly shocking realisation is that so many of our political representatives have proved themselves to be dishonest and untrustworthy. This should not be. But my friends tell me I shouldn’t be surprised. they say there’s no public morality left and the prevailing  ambition is just to look after number one, by fair means or foul. I suppose I must belatedly grow up and get used to the idea that people are no longer guided in their conduct by what they were taught in Sunday School. A shame. Besides, I think that getting used to the present public squalor is as bad if not worse than the squalor itself.

One thing will prove inescapable: the public will punish MPs at the election. However, this is scant consolation because they will punish them all indiscriminately, without regard for this party or that. And so, even if MPS will be elected by ever-decreasing numbers of voters, they will still get themselves elected.

That, you might say, is the trouble. We are governed by a corrupt and self-serving political class. They say the people get the government they deserve. That is our true darkness.

The Welsh go in for some exotic pastimes. They’re known for it – especially the hill farmers. But this one beats sheep-shearing any day…

Mark Drakeford, Welsh health minister, is introducing a Bill which will ban the smoking of electronic cigarettes in public places. His attempted justification for this amounts to a private ambition to occupy the highest of the moral high ground. He says:

“Taking concerted, collective action to address public health concerns remains one of the most powerful contributions any government can make to the welfare and wellbeing of its population. Alcohol and tobacco contribute to many life-threatening illnesses and are major causes of persistent inequalities in health. I have concerns about the impact of e-cigarettes on the enforcement of Wales’ smoking ban. That’s why we are proposing restricting their use in enclosed public places.” He added that he fears e-cigs “normalise smoking.”

There’s the socialist mantra for you: he’s not even talking about ill-health, but about “inequalities” in health. Indeed, in the ideal socialist state everyone of whatever class or income bracket would be required to just as healthy – or just as sick – as everyone else.

Well, Mr Drakeford, smoking is normal: it’s one of the things that normal people do – despite your lofty disdain and disapproval. Besides being outrageous, his proposal to ban these e-cigs is irrational, for, unlike passive smoking, they do not harm anyone’s health. I notice he mentions booze as well. Using the same argument, he might as well propose to ban lemonade because drinking non-alcoholic drinks could encourage some to take to the gin bottle. “I have concerns about the impact of e-cigarettes…” But is such a snooty personal prejudice an excuse to embark on a programme of state-sponsored puritanism. This is the sort of thing that went on under the dictator Oliver Cromwell.

If ever we could want to ban something, we might choose pompous statist nannying – starting with the Welsh 

I thought it was an April Fool joke. North Korea is crashing its military drones on disputed islands; Boko Haram are slaughtering thousands in Nigeria; Putin is playing soldiers to the east of Ukraine there are wars and rumours of wars innumerable, earthquakes and famines in divers places – so the first item on the news is that the Commissar for Bananas has announced that five portions of fruit and veg each day are not enough and we should up it to seven or even ten. Will this generate better health? My suspicion is that it will merely generate more wind than a forest of off shore turbines.

A nannying professional lady came on the wireless and told us that she would like to eat seven carrots. She is a “researcher” – of which there are specimens without number. She told us she had researched 65.000 people and asked them what they eat. Poor lady! What a way to spend your life! Though I suppose it’s marginally more purposeful than being Nick Clegg.

These things are a parable. And the meaning of the parable is that everyone these days thinks the government ought to micromanage our lives. For heaven’s sake, what has it to do with the government what or how much we eat? James Naughtie joined in the nannying and chided that many of us “are not managing to eat five or more portions of fruit and veg each day.” Not managing, Jim? Most of us are not even trying!

I have a dream… I have a dream that one day every man will be free to eat his own banana – or not to eat it, if his banana pleaseth him not. And behold, let the researcher eat her seven carrots and turn into a rabbit if that’s what she desires. I have a dream that the great and notable day will dawn when the government gets out of our hair; when grown men and women stop being infantilised; when we all choose for ourselves what we shall eat and what we shall drink; when we are all once again at liberty to go to hell in our own personal handcarts, if that’s what we want to do.

Take no thought for what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink… Consider the lilies of the field. But please don’t eat the daisies.

Lord Norman Warner, a former Labour health minister, has suggested that we all pay a £10 per month membership fee to save the NHS from financial catastrophe. The suggestion has provoked the usual excoriating shrieks from the metro-political elite who predict that this will mean an end to free health care. But “free health care” is just a lying slogan, like something out of 1984 or Animal Farm: “four legs good; two legs bad,” for instance. We all pay massively, from the cradle to the grave you might say, for the failed, neglectful (and sometimes murderous) NHS through taxes and national insurance. Why?

Because, say the propagandists of the corporate state, “The NHS is the envy of the world.” The laughing-stock of the world, more like and a national disgrace. There was a time when the NHS was admired: in the 1940s and 50s when it was a lean organisation run with military efficiency. This happy condition began its demise in the 1960s when the NHS embarked upon its relentless bureaucratisation. And we all know what always happens to socialist bureaucracies, especially in the public services: there comes a point when they no longer exist for the benefit of those they were appointed to serve, but for the nomenclature of highly paid bureaucrats in their ever-expanding numbers and the highly-unionised people who are employed in it. But “employed” is not the right word, suggesting, as it does, people put to some useful purpose.

Dr James Le Fanu has produced the awful statistic that, whereas as late as the 1970s the NHS was run by 500 senior managers, now their number is 70,000. And that’s the senior managers, mind you. Add to that the assorted multitude of hangers-on, box-tickers and jobsworths appointed by a statist ideology which is always dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. And that’s the root of it: socialism, for all its vile sentimentality, replaces heart with system. Why do socialist governments – and we are all socialists now, including Mr Cameron – do this? Not, dear reader, because they care but because they love to be in charge and control

The Labour party used to be a workers’ party. Now it has decayed and diseased itself into a sullen, over-weaning politburo which bribes an increasingly docile and moronic underclass by paying them to be idle. The “intelligentsia” supports them because so many of the intelligentsia make a good – one is tempted to say – entrepreneurial living out of it. And the big lie is that public health is so important that its securing must not be left to private individuals and groups. It was not always so. The truth is the very opposite. The rot started in 1948.  Things were better before the creation of the NHS. Just look at the signature vocabulary of health care: nurses called “sisters;” hospitals named after saints; “hospital” and “hospice” themselves creations of medieval Christianity. But now that most excellent gift “charity” is just a dirty word and so must be improved upon by bureaucratic diktat

Do you have to be told that such attainments as we can boast in way of polite society will hardly survive the faith to which they owe their significance? Do you have to be told that what once was can be again? I should like, please, extensively to quote James Bartholomew who understands the details of all this better than anyone:

“Many people would think it quite impossible that a medical system worthy of the name could possibly be based to a significant degree on charitable donations and unpaid work. The pre-NHS system was not based just on that, but, before 1948, charity was indeed a major part of it.Think of the major London teaching hospitals of today, such as Guys and St Bart’s. Every one was set up prior to the NHS. Every one was a charitable – or “voluntary” – hospital, set up specifically to treat anyone, whether they could afford it or not.

“Charitable giving came from all sorts of people, those of modest means as well as the rich. Celebrities such as Handel and Reynolds contributed to earlier hospitals. The Royal Family was instrumental in stimulating charity, notably through the King’s Fund, which was established by Edward VII. There were Sunday collections in churches and Saturday collections in workplaces.Increasingly, people contributed to regular hospital care plans. In 1938, 52% of the income of the voluntary sector came from paying patients and the proportion was rising fast. There were also the municipal hospitals, in which local people took some pride.

“But the voluntary hospitals were gaining in importance as the 20th century progressed. By 1936, the voluntary hospitals took 60 per cent of those requiring acute care. British medicine was widely admired around the world. It was a leader in medical innovation, its greatest triumph being the discovery and development of penicillin. This was just in time to save thousands of lives during the liberation of Europe and subsequently has saved millions of lives around the world.

“Healthcare in Britain was very substantial and impressive prior to 1948. Even the Labour Party pamphlet, which recommended a “National Service for Health” in 1943, could find little to criticise. There is mention of only one waiting list, for “rheumatic diseases”. That implies that there were no waiting lists for all the other specialties and no waiting lists to see consultants. There was no mention of any shortage of doctors (which is so chronic now) or, indeed, of nurses. There was no complaint either, about the quality of care.

“Why, then, was this system thrown out, to be replaced by a socialist model? Because, said the pamphlet, a good medical service should be “planned as a whole”.

“It is certainly true that pre-NHS medical care was not ‘planned as a whole.’ On the other hand, it worked.”

The true indication of our descent into the totalitarian state is that discussion of these matters has become impossible.

You might say my today;’s blog is the archetypal example of the Thought Crime

Please forgive me for  banging on so loudly about our incipient decadence. I have been challenged by kind readers of this blog concerning my representation of the Frankfurt School of cultural Marxists who, by their policy of undermining and destroying western society not by armed revolution but by “infiltrating and corrupting western institutions from within” determined to destroy our civilisation.

I am accused by my readers – at least there are some readers – which is more than the prophet Jeremiah could boast – that I am indulging in cliche and conspiracy theory.

Have I been a philosopher for sixty years for nothing?

The anarchic-nihilistic agenda has penetrated and taken over all our institutions and we are dead in the water. Not just the Christian Church and the national polity, but little companies such as the Girl Guides…

Here, if I can manage to download the bloody thing, I will repeat:

It goes like this: “Free to be me….free to be me….free to be me…” The song is spin off from the new “Free to be me” badge just introduced for Girl Guides. There is in-depth training to be gone through before the award of this prized emblem. Candidates are instructed to “value their bodies” – I do hope this is not with the idea of selling them – and to “celebrate diversity.”

I read on the Guides’ website that the new badge is designed to increase girls’ “self-esteem.” These blind Chief Guides have forgotten that it is oneself that precisely one is not meant to esteem. Another word for self-esteem is phariseeism.

Here are a few more of the recently-introduced Guides’ badges:

Confectioner (“Know how to make three kinds of icing; know how to melt chocolate successfully….”)

Healthy Lifestyle (“Make up a TV or magazine advert that shows why it is important to look after your feet…”)

Discovering Faith (“With your Patrol or other Guides, take part in a ‘Reflections’ or ‘Thought for the Moment’ in your unit. Use songs, drama, mime, music and so on. You should use at least one story from your own faith.”)

World Issues (“Find out about as many peace symbols as you can. Why were things like the olive branch and the dove chosen? Design and make a mobile using peace symbols.”)

Music Zone (” Listen to pieces of music from other countries or cultures. Share them with your Patrol and explain what you like about them.”)

Culture (“Learn ten words and their meanings from your chosen culture’s language or dialect. Teach them to your Patrol.”)

Personal Safety (“Be able to describe three things that might cause you harm or make you feel unsafe, while (…) heating up baked beans on the stove and toasting two pieces of bread in the toaster”)

That noise in your ear  is Lady Baden-Powell spinning in her grave,

The point is that this fight against our destroyers – well-represented in all out debased institutions , especially the church – is a fight to the death. It is not a hobby. I am not in it for the frisson. Of course we (no less than the nihilists and Stalinists) have our useful fools and fellow travellers. There are so many who will nod and pay lip service to what I am saying all the time – but then will be very happy to douse themselves in Downton Abbey and Strictly Come Whatsit; or, worse, the Veronese exhibition at the National Gallery.

Brute beasts with no understanding

Now then, my dears, I seek your advice: should I grow up and become more liberated , more accommodating, more sophisticated, emancipated, diversified… and any of the other sickening adjectives you can conjure; or should I struggle however feebly to preserve what’s let of anything that was ever any good?

I guess what some might say: “But who’s to say what is good?” Easy: Sophocles, Plato, the Lord Jesus Christ. Bach Mozart, Giotto told us.

Why are those who say they are our friends really members of the other side by their acceptance of the values which the other side proclaims? You don’t need to say anything…

I won’t give up. But the certainty is that I shall fail

Cheer up! – there;’s another exhibition of human Renaissance anthropomorphic art coming up at the Nat Gal any minute now.

And may God have mercy on your souls – if you are allowed to have souls

peter