I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

A few links and bits and pieces of interest

This blog mostly serves as a repository for my own writing, but I thought if worthwhile to post a few links here to groups and causes I support or have sympathy for. Here goes.

Like many others I lean to the left on economic questions, and to the right on issues like the family, immigration and social cohesion. I am therefore happy to be a supporter of the small but perfectly formed SDP, under the leadership of William Clouston.

Below I list several other websites that I would encourage others to dip into.

Firstly spiked, which has achieved an enormous amount in recent years, especially in flying the flag for freedom of speech. Working perhaps from a similar commitment is the Free Speech Union, which performs a vital role in supporting those the mob come for. Elsewhere, I am a subscriber to the monthly magazine Fortean Times, which is so eclectic its perhaps hard to describe in a sentence. Perhaps the best way to do so is to say is that it takes issues often dismissed, seriously, and therefore expands our understanding? Staying in that area, for many years I ran a blog devoted to 9/11 conspiracy theories - 9/11 Cultwatch. Its a bit dated, but you can still see its posts here.

During Covid I read Henry Williamson's superb series of novels - A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight. To me, Williamson is our greatest twentieth century author. The Henry Williamson Society's website can be viewed here.

Finally, for many years I have enjoyed the company and insights of Larry O'Hara, perhaps the UK's foremost expert on the far-right. Do visit the website of his magazine, Notes from the Borderland.

On Iran, The Hijab and Freedom of Choice

My 22 September Talk TV interview with Peter Cardwell is available to watch, here, and below.

The concert for Bangladesh 1971

Part of my summer reading was a short book by Abu Sayed and Priyajit Debsarkar on the 1971 concert for Banglagesh, one of a series of momentous events in the period which saw east Pakistan break away from West Pakistan, in a bloody conflict marked by outrageous crimes on the part of the Pakistani military and its supporters, to become the independent nation of Bangladesh.

"The concert for Bangladesh: United friends of Bangladesh" is a 112 page work which first appeared in Bangla last year, followed by an English translation in 2023. It is beautifully produced with a colour cover, and excellent quality black and white photographs throughout. This is history poorly known to British readers, and is all the more valuable for that. Some of the baddies however, are all too familiar - the Chinese government and Henry Kissinger for example, had few concerns about Pakistani atrocities, as they sought a balance of power in the region which weakened India.

This work will also be of interest to Beatles completists motivated to buy anything and everything with George Harrison (and indeed Ravi Shankar) on the front cover. As for the Madison Square garden concert, the concept of cultural diplomacy is now one that is very familiar - less so in 1971. As Sayed and Debsarkar record, by 1985 some $12 million had been raised for Bangladesh - the impact on later interventions, such as Live Aid and Ethiopia, is clear.

Gripes? The text needed a tighter spell and grammar check, and as yet, the book does not appear to be available on some of the main online book sales sites?

Looking Critically at the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP)

Back in January I contributed to a Policy Exchange report on police staff associations.

Blurred Lines: Police staff networks politics or policing? has a marvelous front cover, and a small section on the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) which I was keen to write as it may be the first critical examination of this grouping.

You can download the full report from the Policy Exchange website here.

I attach as a pdf, below, my section on NAMP, which focuses on their interventions on the language of counter-terrorism, and their associations.

Download Case Study NAMP p 24-27

A Britain without coal?

The picture below is from the Isle of Wight Steam railway. I took it during a visit to the railway sheds earlier this week.

For pretty obvious reasons, heritage railways rely on coal, as that is what steam trains used. The Isle of Wight Steam railway long had a choice, if it wishes to continue operating, between using coal from this country, or using imported stocks from overseas. If the UK completely abolishes any coal production, the only option is to import coal, bringing it thousands of miles by sea, and likely from countries with lower environmental and labour standards than ours.

The examples given here are Kazakhstan or Colombia.

Britain clearly needs coal mines - for energy independence, for heritage facilities like this, and as a reserve fuel whilst other alternatives are developed. The noise of campaign groups like Just Stop Oil should not drown this reality out.

The CONTEST review: Incels, LASIT – and the changing threat from Islamists and the far right

This week saw the government announce its update to the UK's counter-terrorism strategy, known as CONTEST. It is from CONTEST that we get the 4 Ps of Protect, Prepare, Pursue and Prevent - the later of course being the bit anyone has ever heard of!

Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced the review on Tuesday at Westminster Hall, and the strategy itself has been published online here.

Yesterday I had a short piece published on Conservative Home analysing the review and offering some broader comment on counter-terrorism. For all the froth and fuss, in reality the two threats that really count are Islamist terrorism, and to a much lesser extent, the far-right. The Home Secretary does, I think, get this. You can read it here, or as a pdf below.

Download The counter-terror review. Incels LASIT - and the changing threat from islamists and the far right Con Home 20 07 2023

No the government should not do God

Earlier this year the Bloom report called for a greater relationship between government and faith. It argued government should recognise faith groups as a force for good. You can read Colin Bloom's report here.

I see things as much more complicated, and in May put pen to paper with the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, discussing both Bloom's report and the wider dangers it's suggestions signpost. You can view our article on the spiked website here, or as a pdf below.

Download No the government should not do God 09 05 2023

London's housing crisis

This story was the lead in the Evening Standard's business section today - foreigners own £55bn of London homes as buying spree set to climb.

The second paragraph is breathtaking:

"There are 103,425 homes in the capital, including houses and flats, that are currently registered with an overseas correspondence address or an overseas company."

This is nearly 13% of the stock in Westminster, 10% in Kensington and Chelsea, and 2.76% of London's overall stock.

How difficult would it be to limit multiple home ownership in the UK by foreign nationals? Or to prohibit ownership by overseas companies?

Are there any political parties willing to take a stand on these issues?

The phoney war? Radical environmentalists, animal rights activists and direct action

Earlier this year Routledge, who seem to dominate academic output when it comes to the political fringe, published the Routledge Handbook of Non-Violent Extremism.

Edited by Elisa Orofino and William Allchorn, it is a pretty hefty piece of work, with 32 separate articles.

One of them is from me, 'The phoney war,' which charts radical environmental and animal rights activism across five decades. I argue direct action leads to a conversation between protestors and the authorities, and in the case of the animal rights movement, militant activism faded as many of the protestors core demands (such as the abolition of hunting) were won. The present era is significantly different, in that activists propagate arguments of imminent environmental collapse, a position that is to at least some degree accepted, and even echoed, by ruling elites.

What happens though, to this movement, as we get potentially closer to the environmental point of no return (2030?) that they insist is approaching? When does the conversation stop?

Two short comments on the handbook itself. It is a substantial piece of work, covering differing types of extremism, from religious actors to the far-right, far-left and environmentalists. Unfortunately the nature of academic publishing means that for all the sterling work put into the project, few will seriously study it. The cheapest price - £178.18 - guarantees that. Although you can read it via a Kindle for £38. Academic publishing appears content to phase out actual books, and to sell at a high price to universities and similar institutions, leaving out the man and woman in the street. In the long-term that strategy is unsustainable - it is taxation which of course funds the universities. The relevance of academic research, especially in the social sciences, needs to be debated far more than it is. Secondly, I salute the enormous amount of work the editors have put in to tie this project together. It is much appreciated by this author.

Techno Cynics of the World Unite, You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains

Every time I go on Twitter, there is a thread along the lines of 'this is how AI can work for you' or 'AI will change the world'. I'm sure it will, but will it change the world for the better?

As I see it, there are two problems with technology. The first is that some of the time it does not work. As a society we tend to blame the user rather than the developer or the manufacturer when this happens. One of the greatest miscarriages of justice this century - the Royal Mail subpostmasters scandal - occurred because it was easier to send people to prison for crimes they had not committed, than to admit the computer system, Horizon, was faulty.
The second problem is that technology creates new elites - think Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, Microsoft, Google. As we saw in the last US elections, by 2020 America had reached the stage whereby Facebook and Twitter considered themselves bigger than the President of the United States. Indeed as Niall Ferguson wrote in a masterful article for the Spectator in 2017, the battle between tech and Trump was one for the ages. Having won the first fight, Trump was to be decisively beaten in the second.

The power of Big Tech also reproduces itself, in more minor but irritating ways, at the local level. When I studied at Wolverhampton Polytechnic in the late 1980s, lecturers started on the hour, and you took handwritten notes. By the time I was lecturing myself a quarter of a century later, arrangements were in the style illustrated by Prof Stuart Wilks-Heeg:

And remember, these are all labour saving devices being used!

With this tech comes the rise of IT departments who replicate power in a distinct way. Staff at the University of Leicester, where I taught for a decade, were required to change their IT passwords every 90 days for security purposes. Students did not. It was no coincidence that students were paying lots of money to be at the university, whilst hourly paid lecturers like myself were employees expected to do as they were told.
One year the IT department had the bright idea of moving some staff to a new email system in exam marking week. This backfired spectacularly, and I had no access to the system for 36 hours. As an early career academic on a fixed term contract, if I was late doing my marking, the chances of me getting further contracts were zero. When I asked the IT department why they did not wait until the summer holidays to make such a major change, I was firmly put in my place; 'We have to be ready for new students coming from August'. In the new academic hierarchy, the IT department's convenience sat higher than those they provided a service too.

Forgive me therefore if I do not feel Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to liberate us for the better. Indeed, the most logical response appears to be to draw the curtains, carry on as before, using technology we are comfortable with and ignoring that which is too much trouble. And to always push back whenever change is imposed upon us.

A fund exists for those effected by the Horizon scandal, to allow subpostmasters to rebuild their lives. Donations can be made here.

How the Abedi brothers slipped through the net

Earlier this month I wrote a short piece for spiked on the third and final part of the Manchester Arena inquiry.

It details some of the sorry revelations to emerge, and highlights the reluctance of sections of the British state to really get into the weeds and the dirt when it comes to Islamist extremism.

You can read the article online here, and a pdf can be viewed below.

Download How the Abedi brothers slipped through the next spiked 09 03 2023

Two interventions on the independent review of Prevent

I neglected to post on her two articles I had published last month, discussing the long overdue independent review of Prevent, by William Shawcross.

For Con Home I asked whether anything will really be different this time - an attitude which rather percolates the response to many government initiatives, including the approach to immigration. You can read the article online here, and download a pdf below.

Download The Prevent Scheme will it be different this time Conservative Home 16 02 2023

The run up to last months Prevent review saw a series of leaks and counter leaks. For the Telegraph I asked whether the government would allow the various bureaucrats and civil servants control, or whether it would see the Prevent review process through to the end. Time will tell. The article is on the Telegraph website here. The pdf is below.

Download The Tories cant let naive bureaucrats take back control of counter terror strategy Telegraph 08 02 2023

The Trojan Horse Affair: A Documentary Record

Last month I was co-author, along with my colleague Damon Perry, of a report into the Trojan Horse Affair in Birmingham Schools.

You can read The Trojan Horse Affair: A Documentary Record online here. A pdf of the report can also be downloaded below.

Download The Trojan Horse Affair A Documentary Record

Qatar: Two Contributions to Debate

During November we saw the opening of a World Cup that, for the first time in the modern history of football, was not greeted with universal enthusiasm by supporters. Why? The host, and the methods used to win the hosting of the tournament.

I was involved in two contributions which attempted to provide a little more background to Qatar, and in particular Britain's relationship with it. The first was supplying some additional information, along with Dr Damon Perry, to a report by Sir John Jenkins for Policy Exchange. A pdf is below.

Secondly, I wrote a short piece for the Conservative Home which argued that in our dealings with Qatar, the UK's social cohesion must come first. Again, a pdf is below.

Download Qatar-Friend-or-Frenemy 2022

Download Its time that British elites had a reality check about our relationship with Qatar Con Home 23 11 2022

The Just Stop Oil Protests: Some analysis

October saw a series of protests across London and the south east, by the Just Stop Oil organisation.

Who are they, what do they seek to achieve, and why do they get away with things other political campaigns, do not?

I am one of three authors of a report by Policy Exchange which seeks to answer those questions. You may read the report online, or download a pdf, here.

A pdf of the report can also be viewed on the link below.

Download The-‘Just-Stop-Oil-protests

The Personal Is Perhaps Not Political

A couple of years after everyone else, I have just finished reading 'The Madness of crowds: Gender, Race and Identity' by Douglas Murray.

It is very good, indeed the only one of his books which has missed the mark is probably the one no one talks about now - the 2006 text 'Neoconservatism: Why we need it'. The truth of course is that we didn't!

In the conclusion to the Madness of Crowds, Murray writes beautifully of the effort people put into politics, and how identity politics in particular becomes all-consuming. It is worth quoting in full:

But of all the ways in which people can find meaning in their lives, politics - let alone politics on such a scale - is one of the unhappiest. Politics may be an important aspect of our lives, but as a source of personal meaning it is disastrous. Not just because the ambitions it strives after nearly always go unachieved, but because finding purpose in politics laces politics with a passion - including rage - that perverts the whole enterprise.

For anyone who has ever been involved in, or observed a political split within an organisation, these words hit home:

If two people are in disagreement about something important, they may disagree as amicably as they like if it is just a matter of getting to the truth or the most amenable option. But if one party finds their whole purpose in life to reside in some aspect of that disagreement, then the chances of amicability fade fast and the likelihood of reaching any truth recedes.

The quotes are on p.255-56 of the 2020 paperback edition.

The Islamist Attack on Salman Rushdie: Comment

On Friday 12 August an attempt was made to murder the writer Salman Rushdie at a public event in New York State.

I was quoted on the issue of Rushdie's security, and the wider threat from terrorism in the Sunday Post newspaper on 14 August. As the article does not appear to be online, I attach it as a pdf below.

Download Sunday Post Peter Swindon on Rushdie attack p 8-9 14 08 2022

Research Note: The Lady of Heaven Protests

The protests against The Lady of Heaven movie have ended in a complete victory for the protestors.

England and Wales abolished laws against blasphemy under the last Labour government in 2008. As at Batley Grammar School in 2021 however, it appears possible for Islamist protestors to enforce blasphemy codes by taking to the streets.

This research note, published yesterday by Policy Exchange, considers events this month, and traces the opposition to The Lady of Heaven movie back to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

You can read the research note online here, and download a pdf below.

Download ‘The-Lady-of-Heaven Research note 20 06 2022

Extremism review must take a tough stance on Islamism

My take on the Shawcross review on Prevent, currently sitting in the Home Secretary's in tray.

Published in the Times on Tuesday 17 May.

You can view a pdf of the article below.

Download Extremism review must take a tough stance on Islamism 17 05 2022

Why is Extinction Rebellion protesting against gender-critical feminists?

Yesterday spiked were good enough to publish an article I wrote on the Bristol Extinction Rebellion FB page calling a protest against a feminist meeting at Bristol University.

A link to the article on the spiked website is here. A pdf of the piece may be read below.

Download Why is Extinction Rebellion protesting against gender-critical feminists_ - spiked 08 05 2022

Delegitimising Counter-Terrorism: The activist campaign to demonise Prevent

Last month I was one of three authors of a new report for Policy Exchange, looking at the Islamist campaign against the prevent policy.

You can find a link to the report here. And download a pdf of the report below.

Download Delegitimising-Counter-Terrorism 2022