Dr Kenneth Zucker was fired for rejecting the fasionable ‘gender affirmation’ approach.
Fifteen years ago it was middle-aged men, very often fathers, deciding they should have been women all along, who formed the backbone of the miniscule transgender movement. They were so few, and so off-the-wall, they were a mere add-on to the homosexual network. Even bisexuals took precedence among ‘LGBT’ activists.
But now the focus has shifted to the school. Four year-olds are coming out with the ‘trapped in the wrong body’ mantra. Last night (12th January 2017), a BBC2 documentary explored the culture war between the ‘gender affirmative’ mainstream and the traditionalist dissidents. The iplayer version of ‘Transgender kids who knows best‘ is available for 29 days.
Gender Affirmative
‘Gender affirmative’ blindly accepts what the child is saying. It objects to any idea of a psychological or emotional root to the child’s gender dysphoria. It objects to there being any parallel dysfunction in the child’s mind. It allows the child to progess to hormone treatment which blocks the onset of puberty and from thence to full hormone treatment and ‘sex reassignment’ surgery, which is irreversible.
Ontario MPP Cheri di Novo
Crucially, ‘gender affirmative’ holds the levers of power in the UK and in Canada, the focus of the documentary.
But the film also gave a welcome platform to Dr Kenneth Zucker. He ran Toronto’s Child Gender Clinic for thirty years and helped many children accept their God-given biological gender. In the documentary he said a “whole range of psychological issues can manifest themselves in a child’s desire to change their gender”. Dr Zucker said a majority of the children he had treated also had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or were on the autism spectrum, or had other psychological problems. One girl he treated had seen her mother murdered and began to think if she had been a boy she could have prevented it. So she then hated being a girl.
Female-to-male transsexual and psychoanalyst Hershel Russell. The whiskers are the result of all the male hormones she had to take.
There was a heartbreaking moment when a girl described how she had undergone a double mastectomy as part of gender reassignment surgery before realising she wanted to remain as a woman.
A creepy activist, female-to-male transsexual and psychotherapist called Hershel Russel made light of the case. ‘There are very few,’ she said.
Furious transgender activists
Activists were furious, according to the Guardian. Susie Green own son wanted to be a girl. She is now chief executive officer of the ‘trans’ agitators Mermaids Foundation. She told the paper: “We’ve had real concern that this is going to cause them to be targeted, because it supports this idea of trans children being mentally disturbed or that they can be cured. Parents are very afraid.”
But parents outside activist groups are relieved someone is sticking up for them. There was an uplifting story in the documentary of a family who resisted their daughter’s claims that she was a boy. They attended Dr Zucker’s clinic. Showing her she could play ball games and take part in rough sports transformed her life. She is now a happy adolescent girl.
In 2015 Dr Zucker was sacked and his clinic closed when his approach fell foul of the spirit of the age. His work was “not in step with the latest thinking”. the BBC defended his inclusion in the programme. They said: ‘He believes he was fired for challenging the gender affirmative approach.’ Five hundred of his colleagues signed a letter supporting him.
‘Trans’ activists on the march
At the very end of the programme, ‘Warner’, a small boy dressing up as girl with the full approval of his misguided parents, said he thought there were ‘a couple of pieces missing’ in his brain.
But surely our whole society is now a few sandwiches short of a picnic. We sack doctors trying to help young people. We browbeat parents into ‘gender affirmation’. We allow adult activists to impose damaging hormone treatments designed to block puberty on children who know no better. We allow surgeons to mutilate bodies and physicians to interfere with young people’s biochemistry. And we do all this because it is politically correct.
Have you been on the receiving end?
Be watchful. Gender affirmation is coming to a school, a church or a family near you.
If you have a story to tell about how ‘gender affirmation’ messed up your life, or how you overcame it, please get in touch.
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It says: “That this House notes the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the impact of the conflict on civilians; condemns any breach of International Humanitarian Law; and calls for an urgent independent investigation into reports of breaches of International Humanitarian Law on both sides of the conflict.”
Saudi Arabia bombed a funeral in Yemen
Al Jazeera’s map shows the areas held by the Houthi rebels in green and those controlled by the government in red.
It amounts to a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia and neither side has been particularly scrupulous about observing human rights.
However, Saudi Arabia, which backs the government, has the advantage of air power. There have been many well-documented instances of Saudi air strikes causing great devastation in the Houthi areas. One of the more notorious caused 140 deaths at a funeral. But the aircraft and arms used by Saudi Arabi are supplied by the US and the UK. That makes the UK complicit. For that reason, MP’s have been calling for over a year for arms sales to Saudi Arabia to be curtailed.
EDM’s call for an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia
In November 2015, Early Day Motion 665, tabled by Margaret Ferrier, called for an end to military exports to and military cooperation with Saudi Arabia. The motion described it as ‘one of the most repressive regimes in the world’. The motion has just thirty-three signatories to date. No Conservative has signed.
The Saudi attack on a funeral in Sanaa left 140 dead.
On 1st March last year (2016) Tom Brake tabled Early Day Motion 1170, again calling for an ’embargo’ on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. It also asked for the UK government to condemn the use of cluster munitions against the Huthi rebels. These were sold to the Saudis by the UK in the 1980s (see below). This motion has 59 signatories, again drawn solely from the ranks of Labour, LIbDems, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party’s MP.
In February 2016, the International Development Committee wrote to the Secretary of State for International Development, who was Rt Hon Justine Greening MP at the time. They too asked the government to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia, noting these were worth £3 billion since the start of the conflict.
(The actual figure, according to Middle East Eye, is £3.3 billion during the first twelve months of the Yemen conflict.)
Opposition called debate on Yemen last year
Emily Thornberry MP
This is not the first debate in the House of Commons on Yemen. On Wednesday 26th October 2016 the Opposition tabled a debate. They called for a ‘UN-led investigation … into alleged violations of international humanitarian law in the conflict in Yemen’. Labour’s Emily Thornberry also called ‘on the Government to suspend its support for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition forces in Yemen until it has been determined whether they have been responsible for any such violations’.
Naturally the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, objected to all of that and tabled an anodyne amendment. This was carried, according to the Hansard record of the debate, by 283 votes to 193.
Labour tabled the debate, as Peter Oborne reported in Middle East Eye, ‘ in the wake of a recent Saudi coalition attack on a funeral in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, which killed more than 140 mourners’.
UK does not know where arms end up
In answer to a Freedom of Information request by Christian Voice, the Department for International Trade admitted it does not know how many armaments sold to Saudi Arabia have been passed on by the Saudis to their client jihadis in Syria. These include Al-Nusra Front (as was) and of course Islamic State.
CAAT’s Andrew Smith spoke at this conference on Yemen last year. It is not just the US which supplies Saudi Arabia. The UK sold them £3.3 billion worth of arms in the first year of the Yemen conflict. These have been used against civilians in Houthi rebel-held areas.
Legal action is being taken by the Campaign against the Arms Trade to have the UK’s sales of arms to Saudi Arabia ruled unlawful. This appears timely and with the political prevailing wind.
The sale of arms is worth staggering amounts of money to the UK’s manufacturers. One year ago, the Independent reported CAAT’s figures that since David Cameron came to power in 2010, licenses worth £5.6 billion had been granted for arms sale to Saudi Arabia. They are our biggest armaments customer worldwide.
It is legitimate to ask if the UK should be supplying arms to Saudi Arabia and other despots. In practical terms, if we do not know and cannot control where they end up, they could be used against us. But we can also ask if these are the actions of a constitutionally Christian nation.
We should remember Judah’s king Jehoshaphat was condemned for forming a military alliance with the Ahab regime in Israel:
2Chron 19:2 And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the LORD? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the LORD
Meanwhile, the House of Commons International Relations Committee is taking evidence today. They are asking witnesses ‘How can the UK assist political reforms and stability across the Middle East?’ Many of our readers would respond: ‘By ending ‘Responsibility to Protect’, stop destabilising sovereign states, cease activities aimed at ‘regime change’ and spend the money on the NHS or Transport, or Broadband. Or anything else at home.’
It is worth remembering that Saudi Arabia was, for most of the twentieth century, a client state of the United Kingdom. The UK financially supported the Saud family. (Please remember when pronouncing Arabic that each vowel is enunciated separately.) The UK set up the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
The discovery of oil in 1938 altered the dynamics of the relationship somewhat. But how do matters stand today? Is the House of Saud merely an ally of the UK? Dan Glazebrook suggests it goes further than that. He claims Saudi Arabia does the Middle Eastern dirty work for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Christ Church Aden during reconstruction in 1994/1996. Sadly, as a result of the violence, the church is now closed again.
Christians in Yemen
Whatever the truth of the UK/Saudi relationship, life for the estimated 40,000 Christians in Yemen is now particularly harsh, with the Sunni jihadists and Islamic State elements who are active in the south and east of the country taking a particularly hard line. Christian books including Bibles are being burned and churches have been damaged or destroyed.
Pray for today’s Committee meeting, tomorrow’s debate, for an end to arms sales to anti-Christian despots, for CAAT’s court case and for the UK to stand up for Christians in Yemen and across the world.
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Christians Celebrating Christmas in liberated Aleppo December 2016.
‘O hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the angels sing’.
(From the carol: ‘It came upon the Midnight Clear’)
Celebrating Christmas in Aleppo last month.
We thank God for the liberation of Aleppo last month (December 2016) by the Syrian Government, supported as they were by Russia and Iran (and opposed by Boris Johnson and the British Government), and for the eviction of Western- and Saudi-supported jihadists from the east of that historic city.
The reunification of the city was a triumph for peace. Christians in Aleppo were able to celebrate Christmas in their churches for the first time in five years!
But now, as we pray for a cease-fire and a political solution, the British Government should recognise it is time to help rebuild Syria.
For the first time in five years Christmas was celebrated in Aleppo. Most British MPs seemed to think the liberation of the east of the city from Al-Nusra Front jihadists was a bad thing.
4 If we have to spend as much as £12.2 billion on foreign aid, send some of it, in fact, a lot of it, to Syria to help rebuild that country and its infrastructure, especially helping its Christians to re-establish their homes and their businesses, and
5 Never again interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, under the pretext of ‘Responsibility to Protect‘ or with any other excuse.
It’s time for bricks, not bullets.
PRAY for the UK Government to stand for peace in Syria. PRAY they understand that further support for rebel groups will only add to the bloodshed and destruction. PRAY for them to accept reality and bring war to an end.
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‘White Helmets’ as they like to be seen, rescuing children from ‘Assad’s bombs’.
With the liberation of Aleppo, we have heard much about the so-called ‘White Helmets’ in Syria.
Last month, ‘Avaaz’, a group of George-Soros-funded globalists in the US, ran a campaign to raise a “people’s million” in dollars for the ‘White Helmets’.
The campaign was started after the group was unaccountably overlooked for this year’s Nobel Peace prize.
The message went far and wide, with the UK contingent on the Avaaz emailing list invited to donate from £2 to £32 to the ‘White Helmets’ to ensure ‘the recognition they deserve and the funding they desperately need’.
JUST ORDINARY SYRIANS?
Syria’s ‘White Helmets’, Avaaz claims, have saved ‘70,280 lives … rushing to the scene of bombings to pull people from the rubble and carry them to safety’. ‘For their heroic efforts’, it goes on, ‘White Helmets volunteers are often targeted — Russian and Syrian regime planes bomb civilians, then circle back to bomb the rescue workers who scramble to help’.
White Helmets celebrating with Al Nusra Front fighters in a video on YouTube.
‘These heroes’, it gushes, ‘are just ordinary Syrians – bakers, teachers, tailors – who felt they couldn’t do nothing, and threw themselves right into the line of fire’. ‘The White Helmets aren’t from an international aid organization, and they need every dollar they can get’, it goes on.
CASH-STARVED AND LOCALLY-GROWN?
So are the ‘White Helmets’ really a cash-starved locally-grown humanitarian group of peacemakers and para-medics as Avaaz claim?
Well, actually, no, they aren’t. They are a foreign-inspired and foreign-funded partisan force working against the Syrian government. As can be gathered from the comment about ‘Russian and Syrian regime planes’ bombing them, they only work in rebel-held areas.
There is footage online of ‘White Helmets’ waiting while jihadists execute people they disagree with before carrying the bodies away. They have been briefed in advance. Also online are videos of ‘White Helmet’ persons celebrating with Al Nusra jihadists firing guns in the air (see picture above).
White Helmets founder British insider James Le Mesurier. We discovered the background is the Eminonu docks in Istanbul, Turkey, where the UK-funded Syrian National Council is based and where he trained the ‘White Helmets’
‘White Helmets’ are also called ‘Syria Civil Defence’, perhaps to engender confusion with the genuine Syrian government ‘Syria Civil Defence’ or even to claim to be locally-inspired.
But they are actually a Western-Arab import. The ‘White Helmets’ was started in 2013 by insider James Le Mesurier. He claims to have been a British Army Officer, but does not give his rank.
He also claims to have been on the staff of the United Nations and to have been a consultant for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) as well as private security companies.
‘The organizational underpinnings of the White Helmets can be sourced to a March 2013 meeting in Istanbul between a retired British military officer, James Le Mesurier—who had experience in the murky world of private security companies and the shadowy confluence between national security and intelligence operations and international organizations—and representatives of the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the Qatari Red Crescent Society.’
Naturally, the Syrian National Council is an anti-Assad opposition group based in Istanbul and just as naturally, it is funded by the British Foreign Office. Earlier in March 2013, the SNC was given Syria’s seat in the Arab League at a meeting of the league held in Qatar. Scott Ritter continues in ‘TruthDig‘:
‘At that meeting, the SNC assumed Syria’s seat, and the Arab League authorized member states to actively provide support, including arms and ammunition, to the Syrian rebels. The Qataris, working through the SNC, helped assemble for Le Mesurier $300,000 in seed money from Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom for a seven- day course designed to train and equip a 25- person rescue team, recruited by the SNC, for duty in so called “liberated areas” of Syria. The SNC made available a pair of Syrian activists – Raed Saleh and Farouq Habib – to assist Le Mesurier in this work.’
The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, under Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Simon MacDonald (seen here welcoming his new Foreign Secretary in July) funds the ‘White Helmets’.
$30m Budget
GlobalResearch.ca says the ‘White Helmets seems to have an annual budget of US$30 million and has raised a total support of well over $100 million’ in its three years of operation.
A White Helmets’ briefing page says: ’funding for their humanitarian relief work is received from the aid budgets of Japan, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.’
‘The United Kingdom has provided support to Syria Civil Defence (also known as the White Helmets) through the cross departmental Conflict Pool and its successor, the Conflict Stability and Security Fund. Our assistance has been delivered through trusted third party implementers. The total value of funds committed between June 2013 and the end of the current financial year (31 March 2016) is £19.7m.’
Naturally, photos abound of men wearing white helmets carrying wounded infants out of bombed sites presumably in Syria. But journalist Vanessa Beeley told RT the ‘White Helmets’ are ‘terrorist support group & Western propaganda tool’.
Syrian women have spoken out against the ‘White Helmets’
‘This organization is a fraudulent shadow state construct created by NATO to simply propagate the propaganda that will demonize Assad’s government and also demonize Russian legal intervention in Syria,’ said the journalist, who recently returned from Syria.
While there, she was told by an emergency worker with the legitimate Syrian Civil Defense that the White Helmets are ‘very poorly trained in paramedic work.’ Beeley went on: ‘He claimed that they drive around with guns in the back of their car, like every other terrorist there. They carry out and facilitate criminal activities in Eastern Aleppo.’
A woman named Rana from Damascus said: ‘they are an armed force [which has] covered themselves under the wing of ‘humanitarian’ organization. In rural Idlib they did so many executions against Syrian civilians that don’t support the fake revolution’.
DUAL-PURPOSE ORGANISATION
So which is it? ‘White Helmets’, good or bad? Jan Oberg of GlobalResearch suggests a both/and approach. He suggests the White Helmets is ‘a dual purpose organisation. They claim to be ordinary Syrian volunteers who came together around the idea of saving lives and are truly altruistic ‘bakers, tailors, engineers, pharmacists, painters, carpenters, students and many more, the White Helmets are volunteers from all walks of life.’ It could well be that some of them actually are, even a majority.
‘That doesn’t preclude that other elements – not the least those operating outside Syria such as foundations, PR and marketing firms, change organisations, NATO government and NGOs are in it with less noble, war -promoting purposes.’
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A row has broken out on the left following a headline yesterday in the Morning Star (in red opposite) saying ‘Final liberation of Aleppo is within sight’.
Many were from the disgruntled Blairite wing, like John Woodcock MP who fumed about the paper: ‘They sponsored the Momentum conference. If you associate with this traitorous scum after this front page you’ve no place in our politics.’
There. If you question the Establishment line, you are a traitor.
Tom Blenkinsop MP called the paper an ‘absolute disgrace’, while Stephen Doughty thought they were ‘vile and disgusting’. Angela Smith, a Remoaner of expenses scandal fame, asked ‘How can anyone claim what is happening in Aleppo is ‘liberation’?’
House of Commons Debate on Syria
Jeremy Corbyn reportedly reads the Morning Star but his team missed an open goal in the Syria debate.
During the two-hour debate not one Member of Parliament condemned the UK for funding and encouraging jihadists in Syria. Not one mentioned that whatever his faults, President Assad had protected religious minorities including Christians in Syria. Not one mentioned that the Western-funded terrorists in Syria had torched churches and murdered Christians. Not one asked to which groups the UK’s money had gone or where what it had bought was now.
The fault was especially bad in Labour’s ranks. They are supposed to be an Opposition. By cosying up to the Conservatives, allying themselves with the Establishment’s new ‘Cold War’ stance and blindly following the ‘Rebels Good, Assad Bad’ line the Labour front bench missed any number of available shots at an open goal.
Donald Trump will end ‘Responsibility to Protect’ or ‘Excuse to Interfere’ as it should be known.
‘Responsibility to Protect’ is dying
Mitchell himself used the debate to try to breathe life into the doctrine of ‘Responsibility to Protect’. This is the line invented by financier George Soros to give legitimacy to the US and its allies to destabilise the countries of national leaders whose faces do not fit, fund opposition groups, run fake news and try to effect ‘regime change.’
By the grace of God, ‘Responsibility to Protect’ is now on its death-bed. Donald Trump has said the days of the US interfering in countries around the world is coming to an end. With Trump as Presidenta new era of US co-operation with Russia could begin.
An Islamic State militant urging people to fight against President Assad in Aleppo (The Guardian)
That would leave the likes of Messrs Mitchell, George Osborne and Michael Fallon up a creek without a boat, let alone a paddle.
Aleppo is being liberated from jihadists
But to answer Angela Smith’s question, yes, east Aleppo is being liberated. How can we claim that? Because those holding the people there hostage were and are a bunch of hard-line jihadists. Or, as the Morning Star’s Ben Chacko put it in an editorial, ‘murderous religious extremists’.
The paper went on: ‘The insurgents being driven from East Aleppo after a four-year occupation are still being lionised as freedom fighters in the press and Parliament. Their defeat by the Syrian army is being treated as a tragedy. They are not and it is not.
‘The occupiers of East Aleppo are terrorists, who have deliberately targeted civilians in their regular bombardment of government-held West Aleppo — a bombardment that, in contrast to the Russian and Syrian bombardment of the eastern parts of the city, does not appear to bother Western governments.
‘They are tyrants, who have held the civilian population hostage. Families who have managed to flee have spoken of the use of civilians as human shields; the massacre of people who sought to leave the city by insurgent militias; the execution of family members of those who successfully got away, as a warning to others to stay put. And they are fighting for a brutal, medievalist vision.’
‘Civilians’ or jihadists?
We should also be sceptical of reports of actions taken by the Syrians against ‘civilians’. The terrorists are not above disguising themselves as civilians to escape and begin actions elsewhere. As the Morning Star’s James Tweedie put itin a post about the retaking of Aleppo:
‘Hidden among the refugees Syrian authorities found Yousef Fahd Deeb, who confessed to being head of the “sharia tribunal” office of the al-Jabha al-Chamiya terrorist organisation which sentenced 25 civilians to death by public firing squad.
‘He said that insurgent factions included numerous foreign jihadists from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Russia’s Chechnya region.’
Odd politics
Politics is truly in a odd state in this country when the Morning Star and Christian Voice, not normally found on the same page, are the only ones trying to call the Government to account over its support of jihadists, its sense-defying ‘Assad must go’ Syria policy and actually celebrating the defeat of terrorists in Aleppo.
Syria has a long way to go and its remaining Christians need our prayers. But at last the people of Aleppo can start getting back to some kind of normality after four years of oppression by UK-sponsored jihadists.
Acts 15:23 And they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia: 41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. (KJV)
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A Student body is urging the use of ‘gender neutral pronouns’ at Oxford University, reports the Oxford Mail.
The National Union of Students is apparently behind the move, which will see ‘he’ and ‘she’ replaced with the silly gender-neutral ‘ze’.
But the ‘ze’ pronoun will only be used if the person requests it. It is unlikely to be preferred by ‘transgender’ students, if there are any, since these are determined to use the sex-specific pronoun of their gender of choice.
Pronoun card from the University of Milwaukee. You are meant to put the appropriate pronouns in from the respective columns.
Indeed, deliberately using the wrong pronoun for a transgender person is an offence under Oxford’s behaviour code, the newspaper has said.
Instead, ‘ze’ will be used by those who decide they are neither male nor female. Those who are genuinely neither male nor female, or possess conflicting sexual organs, are know as ‘intersex’.
This condition is rare, but it afflicts the South African runner Caster Semenya, who has decided to identify, and run, as a woman despite having internal testes. There is at present no ‘ze’ gender classification at the Olympics. Athletes are male, or female.
Christian Voice was first with ‘Gender Neutral Pronouns’
Christian Voice first reported on this matter two months ago, so Oxford University and the Oxford Mail are somewhat behind the times. In an article in our October Newsletter, ‘Brighton Bell’ wrote:
‘At the University of Sussex in Brighton, students from the school of History, Art History, and Philosophy were sent an email with regards to pronouns. More precisely, the use of ‘gender neutral’ and ‘gender non-binary’ pronouns.
‘The email states that it has come to the attention of the university that a number of students don’t wish to be referred to by ‘traditional’ pronouns such as he or she, but instead prefer gender neutral pronouns such as they and their.
‘It goes on to say that students should notify the university if they wish to be addressed by such pronouns by their lecturers or fellow students. It may be tempting to put this down to an isolated incident at a radical university, but as we shall see in this article, this issue has become increasingly widespread.
‘Before looking at how widespread the debate over the use of pronouns is, let us first consider how the issue came to be in the first place.
MASCULINITY IS ‘TOXIC’
‘The ‘traditional’ view that there are two genders is going out of fashion among today’s young people. Especially in academic circles, people are taught to accept that gender is not a binary. Instead of there being two genders, an endless number of genders exist. Many students today are taught that gender is not an immutable characteristic, but instead merely a social construct. The term for this is the ‘gender non-binary’. People identify as new ‘non-binary genders’ which most outside the hallowed halls have never heard of before.
‘Feminists have for a long time been seeking to blur the lines between male and female, especially with reference to attacking masculinity. Masculinity is denounced as ‘toxic’, and feminists argue that men who act like men are expected to act are wrong to do so. Changing gender from a binary of male and female to a spectrum in which one can choose from a menu of options is one way in which to attack maleness. If you can convince people, and especially men, not to identify with the gender they were born with, it will lead to a decline in masculinity.
‘Effectively, feminists seek to make the heterosexual male a dying breed, as it were.
400 GENDER OPTIONS
‘So, just how many new genders are there? According to a recent count on the website Tumblr, which is the home of the online feminist, there are over 400 gender options now to choose from. From the more popular ‘genderqueer’ and ‘genderfluid’, to far more obscure options, all are to be accepted without question, unless one wishes to be called ‘transphobic’ or ‘transmisogynist’.
From someone called ‘sykochica’ on a website entitled ‘steemit.com’. The comments show how seriously the contributors take this issue. The leading comment says: ’The perfectly binary gender is a social construct, not a biological construct ’ to which ‘sykochica’ replies: ‘I completely agree.’
‘These options aren’t mutually exclusive either, so one can choose to identify with more than one of these new ‘genders’. Let’s take a look at a couple of these new ‘genders’ to see just how ridiculous they are (the definitions are from ‘Tumblr’):
‘Abimegender: “A gender which is profound, deep, and infinite”.
‘Genderflora: “A gender that blooms and evolves depending on the weather and atmosphere; similar to genderfluid but more plant-like”.
‘Polygender: “Identifying as multiple genders; may be static or fluid”.
‘In addition to the above terms, a word has even been invented for normal people who identify with the gender they were born with – cisgender. Society is said to be ‘cisnormative’, meaning that those who identify with trans and non-binary genders are an oppressed group.
‘It’s interesting to note how proponents of the gender non-binary see gender as a fluid, social construct one can choose whilst simultaneously seeing sexuality as immutable and unchangeable; something one is born with and cannot choose.
BLURRING LINE BETWEEN MALE AND FEMALE
‘Universities across the UK and America are now accepting the new gender theory as if it were proven fact. This has resulted in an increasing number of students identifying with a gender other than male or female. It has also raised the issue of by which pronouns they would like to be addressed. In addition to gender neutral pronouns such as ‘they, them, and their’, completely new pronouns are now also being made up to protect these poor students’ feelings. For example, the pronouns ‘ze, zie, and xe’ are just three of the many sets of pronouns one can now choose as an identity. The more that the gender binary can be deconstructed in these ways, the more the lines will blur between male and female.
‘How widespread is the issue of pronouns? It’s difficult to know just how many universities are implementing new policies on them, but there are certainly a number of examples of universities doing just that. This certainly isn’t an issue confined to the University of Sussex.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN PRONOUNS
‘For example, the University of Michigan in the USA have recently implemented a new policy to allow students to choose their own preferred pronouns. These pronouns must be respected by professors and fellow students on threat of disciplinary action. In a rather amusing twist, one student who found the policy to be ridiculous decided to change his pronoun to ‘his majesty’ in an effort to highlight just how insane the policy is.
‘At American University in Washington DC, students in an induction session were asked to introduce themselves by their name and preferred pronouns.
‘Meanwhile, at the University of Vermont, students are allowed to change their pronouns on the university’s computer system, having the choice between ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, and ‘ze’, along with ‘name only’ if they wish to have no pronoun at all.
‘PUTTING PRONOUNS ON THE CARDS’
‘Back home here in the UK, our very own National Union of Students seems to have a serious problem with the use of pronouns. Last year, the NUS LGBT committee submitted a motion to the NUS women’s conference called ‘putting pronouns on the cards’. The motion complained that as current name badges used at conferences only state the person’s name and educational institute they attend. That was discriminatory as non-binary students then have to also write their pronouns on these badges so they are addressed correctly. Apparently, having to write a pronoun on a name badge can make one feel ‘uncomfortable, othered, or outed as trans’. The solution the NUS women’s conference came to is that all students will now be asked their preferred pronouns when registering for conference. These pronouns will then be printed on all name badges.
‘Interestingly, the NUS women’s conference also declares that it is open to “all who self-define as women, including those with complex gender identities which include ‘woman’, and those who experience oppression as women.”
‘BORN IN THE WRONG SPECIES’ IS NEXT
‘As you can see, the issue of gender is now at the forefront of what is going on in the academic world, and is a new battleground which must be fought. We cannot allow for traditional genders and gender roles to be eroded further in the name of ‘progress’ or political correctness. First it was sexuality, now it’s gender. What next? A ‘trans-species’ movement? Sadly, that is an idea also starting to gain some momentum. A number of people now not only believe they were born with the wrong gender, but they were also born in the wrong species.
‘Of course, all this ignores the clear words of scripture:
‘Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
‘1Corinthians 14:33a: God is not the author of confusion.
‘Indeed, God is not the author of confusion, and he created a binary of genders which are not social constructs. They are ordained by God himself. So the confusion of genders and blurring of gender lines has not come from God but from the world. It is a corrupting influence on today’s youth and society as a whole. Along with the blurring of gender lines comes an increase in experimenting with different sexuality, and the ever growing embrace of homosexuality as an acceptable, alternative lifestyle.
‘PRAY for Christian young people at university. It takes courage to oppose the militants and faith to persevere. Pastors and parents should be aware of this issue in order to be able to pray with and support our young people.’
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Peter Tatchell addressing LGBT Humanists at the Conway Hall
Homosexuals and Muslims must unite in solidarity against ‘oppression’, Peter Tatchell has urged.
The veteran gay activist issued his clarion call at a meeting of LGBT Humanists at London’s Conway Hall on Friday night (11th November 2016).
Ethics and Tango
Over fifty attended the meeting deep in the bowels of the bastion of anti-Christian thinking. Conway Hall is the headquarters of what was the South Place Ethical Society. Incongruously, a tango-dancing club was meeting in the main hall.
Only about a quarter of those attending were women. Around half of those were clad in Islamic dress.
Peter Tatchell firstly tried to draw an artificial distinction between Muslims, Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion and Islamism a political system, he suggested. Muslims, he appeared to say, were innocent, powerless bystanders to the excesses of the one and the atrocities of the other.
The Conway Hall, bastion of ‘humanist ethics,’ if there is such a thing.
The Quran, he declared, said nothing derogatory against sodomy. It was only in the Hadith where homosexuality was outlawed and penalties prescribed. The Hadith were the sayings of Mohammed, ‘a mortal man’, whereas the Quran was divinely-inspired. One presumes he meant ‘divinely-inspired according to Muslims’. The thought of something being inspired by someone or something supernatural does not immediately appear to be a secularist concept.
Peter Tatchell does not get Islam
Therefore, what Mr Tatchell tries to tell those Muslims he comes across, and it seems he comes across many, is that homosexuality is just fine if you will only go to the roots of Islamic faith.
This is wrong for two reasons. Firstly, the Hadith are not the ‘sayings’ of Mohammed, they are accounts of Mohammed’s life. The word ‘hadith’ is Arabic for ‘story’. Secondly, the Hadith carry equal authority with the Quran. Mr Tatchell was thinking along Christian indeed along Protestant lines, where the Bible is the sole authority in matters of doctrine. It isn’t like that in Islam. You cannot appeal to the silence of the Quran in matters where the Hadith wax eloquent.
As to his central premise that both homosexuality and being a Muslim are oppressed in Britain today, Mr Tatchell offered no evidence. But he wanted to give his audience hope that gays and Muslims could indeed unite against the imaginary oppression. Therefore he told us that 17% of Iranian students claim to be homosexual. The figure is of course ludicrous and has been rubbished online.
Seven of the Muslim family of twelve wore burkas on their trip to Skegness, then complained when people were negative about them.
Love in the Quran!
However, his relentless lobbying of the Muslim Council of Britain bore fruit in 2007 when they did not oppose the Sexual Orientation Regulations. Inevitably the change of heart was fleeting. MCB reverted to type in 2012, when they opposed same-sex marriage.
Although some homosexuals had experienced hatred from Muslims, Muslim hearts and minds were changing, Peter Tatchell claimed. Young Muslims in schools had been positive about gays, citing some imaginary ‘love and compassion in the Quran’. He was working with ‘British Muslims for Secular Democracy’, a fringe group if ever there was one, founded by the notorious ex-Muslim secularist and talking head Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. He was also proud to be a patron of ‘Tell Mama’. This grievance group never stops looking around for real – or imaginary – discrimination against Muslims. A recent ludicrous non-example was that experienced by the Skegness twelve.
Asia Bibi: still facing execution on a trumped-up charge of blasphemy in Pakistan
So last year his Peter Tatchell Foundation launched ‘LGBT-Muslim Solidarity – Fight All Hate’. You really would need a heart of stone not to laugh at the infantile way ‘progressive’ people cast their political opponents as motivated by ‘hate’ – as if they themselves aren’t. On the other hand, Peter Tatchell is an intelligent guy. Maybe he is sending them up.
Demographic reality
Now to demographic reality. Atheists and Christians alike in the United Kingdom are barely replacing their population. Homosexuals, without outside intervention, do not have children. Because they cannot procreate they have to recruit or adopt, but that is another story. The only group in the British population who are growing is Muslims, whose women are simply doing what their bodies were created to do. It may be only a matter of some thirty years before Muslims, and that means Islam and Islamists, gain political control in this country. The best advice for Christians and homosexuals alike is: ‘keep your passports up to date.’
On a positive note, those assembled did allow me to ask a question. In response Peter Tatchell was gracious enough to concede, to the dismay of sections of his audience, that Christians rather than homosexuals or Muslims are indeed the most persecuted group around the globe. He spoke in particular of Pakistan and the ordeal of Asai Bibi, who cannot find a judge with the courage simply to release her. Judges in Pakistan are all in fear of their lives. From Islamists, not Muslims, no doubt.
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NatWest told its London office: “We have recently undertaken a review of your banking arrangements with us and reached the conclusion that we will no longer provide these facilities.”
The bank said its decision was final and it is “not prepared to enter into any discussion in relation to it.”
Nor does it seem to have been prepared for any media questions about the decision. More about that and the bank’s embarrassing u-turn below.
RT has been a thorn in the side of the UK Government for some time. The Russian government-owned station, broadcasting on Freeview channel 135, gives a pro-Russian slant in a UK media atmosphere dominated by a constant diet of anti-Russian stories from ‘official’ Western sources.
Recently, with the Russian-backed Syrian Government taking ground from UK and US client jihadist groups, the Foreign Office and US State Department have started to panic.
NatWest’s parent is RBS, itself 70% owned by the UK Government.
The bank gave no explanation to RT. But then they couldn’t tell the media the reasoning either, adding shambles to injustice. The whole RBS group will refuse to service RT, and if other banks follow suit, it will effectively make its UK operation untenable.
All through Monday the RBS press office was struggling to put together some kind of reasonable spin on the matter. But what can they say? RT is a legitimate media channel. It’s places like Turkey which close down media outlets because their slant doesn’t agree with the government line, isn’t it?
Downing Street has of course denied any involvement of the government in the NatWest decision.
“It’s a matter for the bank and it’s for them to decide who they offer services to, based on their own risk appetite,” a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May told reporters, as cited by Reuters.
The fact that RBS is 70% owned by the taxpayer raises suspicion that someone has had a quiet word with Sir Howard Davies, the Chairman of RBS, and its Group Chief Executive Ross McEwan. We know how the establishment works in this country.
Dramatically, after waiting all day, at 6:15pm on Monday evening, NatWest appeared to back-track. A statement from Sarah Hinton-Smith at RBS was issued. It said:
“These decisions are not taken lightly. We are reviewing the situation and are contacting the customer to discuss this further. The bank accounts remain open and are still operative.”
We still do not know what was RT’s sin against political correctness. At least the RBS media machine has managed to string a few words together to express something coherent. But it contradicts what NatWest said earlier.
Earlier, the bank said its decision was final and it was “not prepared to enter into any discussion in relation to it.” Now, at the end of a trying day, the decision is suddenly open to discussion and under review.
The NatWest/RT case may yet be resolved. In the meantime, RT, welcome to the Club of the Outsiders!
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Permanent Under-Secretary Simon McDonald welcomed Boris Johnson to the Foreign Office last night.
Last night, new Prime Minister Theresa May made six senior appointments, covering the three great offices of state (Chancellor, Home Office, Foreign Office), and created two new post-Brexit positions. Continue to pray for her appointments today.
BORIS JOHNSON
The most astonishing appointment last night was that of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary. Mr Johnson is said to have had wide experience dealing with foreign governments promoting the capital city as Mayor of London. He is much better disposed to Russia than his predecessor and apparently speaks five languages fluently, including German and Russian.
The latter will be especially useful as he pursues what we pray will be a more positive engagement with Russia than that taken by his predecessor. (Although never under-estimate the power of the PUS – see the picture. Sir Simon Fraser, Mr McDonald’s predecessor, has already said “highly professional people” will surround Mr Johnson as he takes on the role. Sir Humphrey?
Mr Johnson, like Theresa May, is pro-Israel. The BBC reports: ‘In 2015, Mr Johnson had to cancel planned public events in the West Bank because of security fears after he criticised backers of a boycott on Israeli goods, and he has previously described Hilary Clinton – US presidential hopeful – as having “a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital.”‘
British sanctions against trade with Russia must be ended and Russian efforts to bring stability to Syria supported. We can pray that Boris, with a great-grand-father from Moscow, will have nothing to do with the posturing of the world elite which needs to see Russia as the big enemy and President Vladimir Putin as an aggressor and a threat.
A more positive engagement will help as Mr Johnson tries, as we hope he will, to find the reasons behind Russia’s new anti-evangelism law and argue against it from an informed and friendly position.
Write to your MP. Ask him/her to congratulate the new Foreign Secretary on your behalf and to ask him to pursue a positive engagement with Russia, lift sanctions and let you know what discussions he has with Russian officials about Russia’s new anti-evangelism law, which, of course, concerns you.
PHILIP HAMMOND
I prayed yesterday and I am still praying that Philip Hammond would leave the government completely, because of his stance on Syria and Russia (see below). Mr Johnson taking his place at the Foreign Office was a spectacular and unexpected part-answer to that prayer.
Mr Hammond, with his ‘Assad must go’ rhetoric, showed himself both ignorant of reality in Syria, and in thrall to the US-driven elites of this world. I made a video on this topic last October with an emphasis on Syrian Christians: Syria – Sense and Compassion. Do take a look – it’s less than 4 minutes.
Mr Hammond was also part of ‘Project Fear’ with his view that it would take longer than World War II to leave the European Union.
In the event, he has been made Chancellor of the Exchequer, which is a promotion. Pray for him to have the great wisdom and vision that job needs at any time, but especially at this time. I still pray that the Lord will intervene and that he will not be there long.
MICHAEL FALLON
Mr Fallon retains the post of Secretary of State for Defence. He was part of the ‘Assad must go’ triumverate (with Mr Cameron and Mr Hammond) and the same arguments apply to him as apply to Mr Hammond. It was a spectacularly ignorant and stupid line originated by William, Lord, Hague, totally driven by the desire of the US to destablise that country for financial and strategic reasons – Russia has bases in Syria.
It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and drove the migration disaster of last summer, in which thousands of Islamic State activists were able to infiltrate European Union nations.
The United Kingdom needs a Defence Secretary able to stand up to the US in NATO and end the current policy of military build-ups and sabre-rattling at the Russian border. Make no mistake, such things are planned by the elite for their benefit, not ours. A top insider, Craig Breedlove, former head of NATO, was at the Bilderberg meeting in Dresden last month. And a series of leaked emails published in RT show how keen he has been to push the Obama administration into agitating in Ukraine and aggression against Russia.
I am praying that Mr Fallon has a change of heart and becomes a man of peace, whose strength is in the Lord. His voting record is good on the issues that matter. He voted against ‘gay marriage’ and against doctor-assisted dying, for instance. But he voted for military intervention against President Assad’s forces in Syria. if the Lord will not change his heart, will the Lord replace Mr Fallon as well.
Write to your MP (a separate letter with a different date will be best) and ask him/her to ask the Secretary of State for Defence to pull British forces out of NATO’s aggressive current confrontation with Russia.
AMBER RUDD
The new Home Secretary was, like Mr Hammond and Mr Fallon, a ‘Remainer’ who voted against having a referendum at all. She also voted for ‘gay marriage’ and, like Mr Fallon, for military action in Syria. That vote, mercifully, was lost. She abstained on doctor-assisted dying. Her voting record goes back no further than 2010, because that was when she first became MP for Hastings and Rye.
Amber Rudd stands in need of our prayer as she takes charge of this vital office of state. We should especially pray against the introduction of intrusive surveillance measures and the use of real or imagined threats to curtail civil liberties.
DAVID DAVIS
Thank the Lord that the veteran parliamentarian has become the new Secretary of State for Brexit, or whatever it will be called. This is an inspired appointment, as apart from a lapse when he voted for Masstrict, Mr Davis has been constantly opposed to the EU, as he has to measures like ‘gay marriage’.
So Mr Davis will need much prayer as he negotiates the UK’s exit with the European Unions’s Commission and/or Council of Ministers (they are currently fighting a turf war over which will handle the talks). He will need to invoke Article 50 quickly and be unafraid to pull out of the Single Market completely if that requires accepting freedom of movement.
Freedom of movement was perhaps the biggest factor persuading people to leave the EU, because of the problems it brings. It is not a matter of hospitality, it is a matter of social cohesion and security, as I showed in this video.
Mr Davis should remember the four reasons why the Germans will back down: Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagon and BMW. Other countries trade with the EU without being in the Single Market, the USA and India, to name just two.
Write to your MP (separate letter!) and ask him/her to congratulate the Secretary of State for Brexit on his appointment and wish him well. Ask your MP to ask him to invoke Article 50 immediately and to be ready to leave the Single Market completely if freedom of movement is demanded as a condition of remaining in it.
Dr Fox will be responding to nations across the world who are now queuing up to do trade deals with the UK. He reputedly knows the United States very well, but Commonwealth countries are obvious new trading partners. It was encouraging to see Ghana preparing a trade delegation. The European Union has caused much hardship across Africa and developing countries in other parts of the world by dumping food aid, knowingly depressing prices and impoverishing local farmers.
There is an opportunity here for us to do more for fair trade than just buying tea and coffee. We should also pray that overseas aid becomes much smarter. I’m anxious to be in touch with those who know best how fair trade principles could form the bedrock of Dr Fox’s approach, and let us pray that he will have great success. Let us pray that Brexit re-establishes Britain as a newly-free, global, outward-looking trading nation, one built this time on fairness and justice, not on deception and exploitation.
Write to your MP (yet another separate letter!) and ask him/her to congratulate the Secretary of State for International Trade on his appointment and wish him well in it. Ask your MP to ask the Secretary of State how fair trade principles will inform his dealings with developing nations.
LASTLY
Lastly, look out for chattering classes and the Twitter-sphere expressing ‘alarm’ and ‘concern’ over the elevation of Boris, David Davis and Dr Fox. Such will mean they are good appointments! We should never put our trust in princes, but Theresa May (be sure to put an ‘h’ in her name) has shown she was true when she said ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Those of our readers who supported Remain should also be praying the Lord uses the Brexit vote and this new administration for his glory and to advance his Kingdom on earth.
Mrs May will be familiar with these two prayers from the Anglican Morning Prayer service in the Book of Common Prayer. They can apply to an individual or a nation and they spoke to me vividly this morning:
A Collect for Peace.
O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom; Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A Collect for Grace.
O Lord, our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day; Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our doings, being ordered by thy governance, may be righteous in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Chaired by Henri de Castries, Chairman and CEO of the giant AXA insurance group, it was the first time for a while that the men with the money were seriously worried.
Henry Kissinger speaking (of course) at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2008
Bilderberg, named after the Dutch hotel where the group first met in 1954, says it was ‘designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America’. Its website is a recent innovation. Up until ten years ago journalists had to find out the annual guest list from staff at the latest venue. Leading members have included Dennis Healey, Kenneth Clarke, Peter, Lord Carrington, the Irishman Peter Sutherland and Henry Kissinger.
The website says of its meetings: ‘There is no desired outcome, no minutes are taken and no report is written. Furthermore, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.’
Bilderberg is the primary concentrated gathering of the world’s elite. The annual meetings take place under what is known as the ‘Chatham House rule’ which was invented by London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs. This says ‘Participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.’
1 Current events, 2 China, 3 Europe: migration, growth, reform, vision, unity, 4 Middle East, 5 Russia, 6 US political landscape, economy: growth, debt, reform, 7 Cyber security, 8 Geo politics of energy and commodity prices, 9 Precariat and middle class, 10 Technological innovation.
WORRIES ABOUT BREXIT AND TRUMP
Jim Messina, advisor to the Democratic Party’s Hilary Clinton, attended Bilderberg last year.
Behind (3) were worries about the UK’s Brexit vote. All of a sudden, the elite had realised that the European Union needed reform, vision and unity. Were they concerned about migration? Or is flooding Europe with jihadists part of the plan for greater restrictions on freedom? As for ‘growth’, there you have it, from the horse’s mouth. The EU is an empire which must keep expanding.
Their other big worry is Donald Trump. He may not be a very nice man, but he is anti-establishment. He is not an insider, not ‘one of us’. Unlike Hilary Clinton (Bill was chosen as US President by Bilderberg and Hilary’s chief adviser Jim Messina was at the conference last year) Trump is not someone they can control. The ‘US political landscape’ has really put the wind up them. How can they stop Trump?
Russia was on the agenda, because presenting President Vladimir Putin as an aggressor and a threat is a key part of the game right now. But then, the disadvantaged ‘precariat’ and the middle class could spoil the whole globalist project.
Delegates came only from Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States and world bodies. There was no-one from Central or South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle or Far East, the Antipodes or Africa. Bilderberg is exclusively trans-Atlantic.
US Secretary of State John Kerry will tour the world telling the lesser beings what the elite expect.
After it has deliberated, US Secretary of State John Kerry will be sent around the world to tell the leaders of lesser nations what to do. After the 2002 meeting, his predecessor Colin Powell was despatched to India and Pakistan to tell them not to go to war over Kashmir. Both backed down immediately. The June 2002 Bilderberg meeting was the turning point. Welcome to the New World Order.
Present this year were Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, ex CIA chief David Petraeus, the King of the Netherlands, the IMF’s Christine Lagarde, Philip Breedlove (Former Supreme Commander of NATO), Benoît Coeuré of the European Central Bank and Kristalina Georgieva, Vice President of the European Commission, the EU’s foreign minister.
There were current or former ministers of finance from Canada, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Sweden. Money is important to the group. There were prime ministers from Belgium and Holland and the deputy PM of Turkey. In total, perhaps a couple of dozen politicians, a handful of academics and half-a dozen journalists and editors came to hear what the bankers and industrialists want to happen.
British academic Guy Standing thinks ‘the precariat’ are ‘dangerous’. ‘To whom?’ one may ask.
GB CONTINGENT
The GB contingent illustrates the point. Present were Marcus Agius, Chairman of PA Consulting Group (formerly chairman of Barclays), Douglas Flint, Group Chairman of HSBC Holdings plc, Dido Harding, CEO of TalkTalk Telecom Group plc, Demis Hassabis, Co Founder and CEO of DeepMind, the artificial intelligence company, John, Lord Kerr, Deputy Chairman of Scottish Power, and John Sawers, former head of MI6, now Chairman and Partner of Macro Advisory (the ‘strategic insight’ people).
Guy Standing, Co President of the Basic Income Earth Network and Research Professor at the University of London was the academic. He has written on the ’precariat’, describing them as ‘dangerous’. ‘Political populism’ which appeals to them ‘must be challenged’, he writes, in words every Bilderberger would approve. His views recently became a book.
Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor in Chief of The Economist and Martin H. Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times were the GB media contingent. Don’t expect them to write anything about it, although Wolf is very concerned that ‘nativist populists’ must not win. The only GB politician this year was Labour MP Helen Goodman, a minister under Gordon Brown and now a member of the Treasury Select Committee.
We can be certain of one thing:: whatever the Bilderbergers have discussed, their schemes will benefit them first and the rest of us a long way second. But also be certain of this: the Lord will have the final word.
READ: Psalm 2:1-4, 48:7, 64, 76:12, 149; Isaiah 24::21; Luke 8:17; John 15:18; 2Cor 10:3-5; Rev 19:19-20.
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(Update 22nd November 2016: At the latest hearing yesterday, instead of agreeing to a plan to return the children forthwith, the local authority opposed it. There will now be a contested hearing in early March 2017. So the injustice and the emotional harm being done to the children by Bexley continues, at least until then.)
In an astonishing development, a London Borough Council has told four children unjustly taken into care that they are opposing their parents’ court application to have them returned.
The news, delivered by a Bexley Council social worker last month, resulted in the couple’s eldest daughter trying to commit suicide.
The case is due to be heard on Friday 24th June 2016 at Bromley County Court.
CHRISTMAS RUINED BY SOCIAL SERVICES
The distressing case of how these children came to be in care was the subject of a video we published on YouTube on Christmas Day 2015, entitled Christmas Ruined by Social Services. To date the video (linked above) has had over 93,000 views. It is the second-most-viewed UK YouTube video about injustice by social services endorsed by the family courts.
The family’s nightmare started when their eldest boy, in his mid-teens, ran off after being caught out in a lie about his whereabouts.
Upon being picked up by the police, he reported his parents for child cruelty. All four children were instantly taken into care and the parents were charged and sent to the Crown Court. The only corroborating evidence was that of a doctor who saw a photo of a mark on the eldest boy’s body and concluded it could have been made by a metal implement. He never examined the boy himself, and none of the other children made any similar accusation. The police found nothing resembling such an alleged item in the family’s home.
PLEAD GUILTY, SAID JUDGE
Bexley social worker Judy Simon even contacted the mother’s place of work, a care home, resulting in her being laid off, and the father’s employers, British Transport Police. He was laid off on full pay and was later dismissed in another miscarriage of justice. He is appealing that dismissal.
Judge Diane Redgrave sitting in Bromley Family Court gave the astonishing advice to the parents to plead guilty in the Crown Court. She said this would help them have their children returned. The system, it appears, cannot cope with parents who are innocent. If they admit guilt, ‘experts’ can ‘work’ with them to ensure their parenting lines up with white middle-class prejudices, which crucially, and in flat contradiction to the law of the land, insist on no forms of physical chastisement whatever.
But these parents had not done what was alleged, and on the eve of the Crown Court case, their eldest son admitted he had made it all up. Despite the social worker screaming at him to attend court, he refused to go. In July 2015 his parents were duly acquitted. Lest anyone be in any doubt of what this means, it means they were found not guilty and left the court without a stain on their character.
BEXLEY SHOULD HAVE APOLOGISED
A reasonable man would expect two things to happen. Firstly, he would expect Bexley’s Judy Simon to contact both parents’ place of work at once to tell them all suspicion was lifted.
Secondly, he would expect an apologetic Bexley immediately to reunite the children with their parents. All the children have told the Children’s Guardian they want to return home.
But none of that occurred. Instead, Bexley’s head of child protection, Jacqui Tiotto, threatened this author with contempt of court and told him it was up to the parents to make an application to the court.
That they have now done, but Bexley Social Workers are unaccountably sticking to their line and refusing to let the children go. Such callousness by a public authority resulting in continuing serious emotional harm to the children is nothing short of a national disgrace.
READ: Gen 1:28; Psalm 127:3-5, 128:6; Mal 4:6. PRAY: That the children are returned, the father reinstated and that the mother gets her job back. Thank God that we have been able to help the parents by letting them tell their story. Pray now for a positive outcome to the hearing on Friday 24th June. WATCH: The video: https://youtu.be/CaBczpK7HOM WRITE or Email The Mayor of the London Borough of Bexley, Councillor Sybil Camsey, Civic Offices, 2 Watling Street, Bexleyheath, Kent, DA6 7AT. Phone 020 3045 5280. Email: councillor.sybil.camsey@bexley.gov.uk Stress that Mr & Mrs M have done nothing wrong; they were acquitted last July in the Crown Court. Ask her why Bexley did not return their children last July? Why they did not immediately inform Mr & Mrs M’s places of work that there is not a stain on their character? Ask what possible reason there can be for Bexley still to be causing harm to the children by opposing their return.
Milton Keynes Magistrates Court, where the case was heard.
A Family Court judge has ruled two children should go home after criticising a local authority for failing to admit that they were suffering emotional harm in its care.
District Judge Patrick Perusko made the order on Friday 26th February 2016 in Milton Keynes Family Court.
A series of exchanges between the judge and Mr Shaw, representing Buckinghamshire County Council, served to illustrate the extent to which local authorities go to build a case against parents while denying all responsibility themselves.
Mr Shaw contended that the children, girls aged twelve and fourteen, were at significant risk of harm at home. The Local Authority, he said, wanted to keep the girls in care.
Bucks County Council were not ‘considering the other side of the coin’, said the judge.
The eldest girl had emailed the judge pleading to go home, and her views and those of her sister must be taken into account, he said.
Mr Shaw said the parents needed to recognise that they had harmed their children, even though the girls had subsequently challenged what the social worker wrote down, which was the Council’s only basis for keeping them. He was incensed that the children had refused to give social workers the pins to their mobile phones and annoyed that there appeared to be ‘collusion’ between the children and their parents. He contended there was fear in the home of the Christian family, physical chastisement, and a belief in satanic forces.
But the judge insisted that there was no analysis by the local authority of the harm being suffered now and therefore no possible assessment of a ‘balance of harm’.
He had no need to hear from the parents’ barrister, he said, and then explained ‘why the children are going home’.
The District Judge said: ‘Children should be at home if possible and should only be removed when there is a real risk of harm.’ He said the risks about which the local authority was concerned ‘have not gone but can be safely managed with the children returned home’.
Mr Shaw said the children would return home after school that same afternoon.
Afterwards, the court-appointed children’s guardian said she was ‘very pleased’ with the outcome.
The parents, devout Christians, were praising God outside the courtroom after the verdict.
Mr Shaw refused to comment.
On the train home, this writer received a call to report that the girls had indeed returned home.
This might not be the end of the matter. Bucks County Council seem determined to try to get the children back, but the case has shown that prayer and hope can prevail. Dear reader, give God the glory. The presence of the Press in a courtroom probably does no harm either. And after the debacle of the week before, this time there was no objection to the presence of a journalist in the courtroom from Buckinghamshire County Council.
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Press Release from Christian Voice – Immediate: 12.20 hrs 20th January 2016
The Head of Children’s Services at a local authority has threatened a journalist over a video claiming her department ‘visited injustice’ on a family in her borough.
Jacky Tiotto, Head of Children’s Services at the London Borough of Bexley, has written to Stephen Green of Christian Voice demanding he take down a YouTube video in which he interviewed the parents of four children taken by Bexley and kept in care.
Ms Tiotto says a section in which the parents talk about advice given to them by a family court judge to plead guilty to child abuse in the Crown Court is a contempt of court. So, she says, are three other occasions where the parents say judges and social workers would not listen to the children.
The parents were actually charged by police with abuse following a foolish and false allegation from the eldest son. They were acquitted in July 2015 in the Crown Court when their son vehemently retracted his allegation.
A section in which the parents claim the social worker in the case acted out of religious hatred escapes Ms Tiotto’s wrath.
Despite neither the case nor the children and not even the parents being identified, and despite contesting the accuracy of the information in the video, the highly-paid Children’s Services boss claims Green is contravening Section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960. This prohibits ‘publication of information relating to proceedings before any court sitting in private’ under the Children Act 1989.
Stephen Green, said today, ‘Rather then waste her precious time and council tax on frivolous legal action, Jacky Tiotto should be calling her staff to account over this case and reuniting this family.
‘A section in her letter where she says it is up to the parents to make a court application for return of their children, rather than for Bexley to do the decent and honourable thing and return them voluntarily, displays a callous disregard for justice, for ordinary families and for the emotional harm being done to these children on her watch.
‘In addition, the parents have been punished for doing nothing wrong. Other parents are now contacting me and it seems this case is by no means unique.
‘Jacky Tiotto is responsible for a massive, continuing injustice and it is obviously embarrassing to her and Bexley’s administration that it has come to light.
‘I’ll take legal advice, but my inclination is not to be deterred from giving the victims of injustice a voice by threats from uncaring bureaucrats’.
ENDS
For further information, phone Stephen Green on 07931 490050.
Happy New Year. At this festive season, please spare a prayer for one Christian family who are spending their second Christmas divided. I traveled to Bexley on Monday 21st December 2015 to interview the parents.
Following a foolish and false allegation from their eldest son, who has since vehemently retracted it, all four children are now ‘in care’. You will scarcely believe their story, but it needed to be told – and it needs to be heard.
Someone in your family or in your church could be on the receiving end of similar treatment, so please find a moment to view our video and pray for this family.
May God bless you and draw close to you this day and always.
If you have a story to tell us about Social Services Child Protection people, please get in touch.
Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isa 9:7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this. (KJV)
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Michael Overd appealed to Taunton Crown Court. A group of us last Friday (11th December 2015) watched as the Crown’s case collapsed like a house of cards.
Witness Darren Chalmers told the Court that on Saturday 7th June 2014 he was working on a market stall in Taunton. He said he was gay and active in a church. He said he could hear a preacher half-way up the High Street and walked down to hear the views being expressed.
‘Someone asked the preacher a question about homosexuality,’ said Chalmers. ‘The preacher said that homosexuals are sinners and that God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve. Being gay and and an openly gay Christian, I accept Adam and Eve but I felt intimidated because in my church I am accepted,’ he went on. ‘It made me question my faith.’
Darren Chalmers – not a sinner
Not a sinner
Judge David Ticehurst asked Chalmers, ”Don’t you question your faith on a daily basis?’
Chalmers replied: ‘Yes, but my faith is strong. I have my prayer support.’ He said he told Mr Overd he was misinterpreting what he believed in. But the judge asked him, ‘Are we not all sinners? Christ said “We have all fallen short …”‘
Chalmers retorted, ‘That’s true from time to time. I’m not a sinner. Then I walked away and was told I was a sinner and had to repent of my sins. On the microphone. And that was it. I felt intimidated and it made me question my faith. It made me feel as a small minority with no place in society.’
Prosecutor Miss Charley Pattison asked the small minority with no place in society: ‘What did you do?’
His Honour Judge David Ticehurst – ‘We have all fallen short …’
Chalmers replied: ‘I prayed hard and realised I’m still accepted. Then I rung the police and reported what happened to do with homophobic remarks.’ Of course he did. Later, in cross-examination, we learnt that he added the lie that Mr Overd was being racist just to make sure he would be arrested.
Witness in knots
Chalmers’ evidence intrigued His Honour, who had not yet seen that the Crown’s case that abusive or threatening words with a ‘homophobic’ element to them had been uttered had much substance. ‘Did he say you were a sinner because you were a homosexual?’
‘Yes’, replied Chalmers, ‘he said I was a sinner and had to repent of my sins because I was homosexual.’
Defence advocate Michael Phillips
‘That’s not what you said before,’ His Honour retorted.
Defence Counsel Michael Philips then stood up to cross-examine Darren Chalmers, pointing out that the addition of ‘because I was homosexual’ was not in his statement to the police, was not mentioned at the earlier magistrate’s hearing and was not spoken off initially in this hearing either.
Eventually, Chalmers had to admit that It was just his feeling, and the words ‘because you are homosexual’ were never uttered.
Sir Stephen Sedley – ‘Freedom of speech to say the inoffensive is not worth having’.
Equalities in the Workplace
The second prosecution wItness Nigel James Marley was in Taunton for a training session on ‘Equalities in the Workplace’. He heard someone with an amplified voice, it was obviously a preacher, he said, making some ‘pretty nasty remarks’.
The judge wanted to know what he said precisely, but Marley could not remember.
His Honour asked ‘What was the gist?’ To this Marley said,’ The homosexual lifestyle was against the Bible and they were not fit persons’.
‘Fit for what?’ asked His Honour. Marley: ‘I cannot remember’.
There were also exchanges about freedom of expression and its limits. It seemed both prosecution witnesses believed that freedom of speech extended only to the inoffensive.
But Lord Justice Sedley, in his famous 1999 ‘Remond-Bate’ ruling, said, ‘Freedom to say the inoffensive is not worth having’. Speech can include ‘the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and provocative’, said his Lordship.
Where are the words?
Prosecuting Barrister Charley Pattison is also a ‘national justice’ spokesman for the Green Party.
But Judge Ticehurst was not concerned with any of that. In order for Michael Overd to be convicted the prosecution needed to prove he had used threatening or abusive words or behaviour. ‘Where are they?’ he asked Miss Pattison. ‘He said Mr Chalmers was a sinner and needed to repent. You need more than that.’
His Honour was not finished: ‘Mr Chalmers was made to feel bad. Mr Marley cannot remember any words. You have to prove that the appellant had used words. What were they?’
Miss Pattison, who has been practicing as a barrister for just two years, did her best, but the writing was on the wall. After a lunch break she threw in the towel.
Neither do I condemn thee
Like the Lord Jesus oversaw in the matter of the woman in adultery, the prosecution had withdrawn its case. And like the Lord Jesus, His Honour had no option but to find the accused not guilty. Michael Overd was duly acquitted.
Then, like the Lord Jesus, David Ticehurst offered some advice. In this case it was not ‘go and sin no more’ but invite homeless people in for tea and cake and preach the Gospel to them indoors.
Michael Overd is not likely to follow that advice. But he is likely to sue the police for wrongful arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. Yes, we are to forgive our enemies, but if we do not take the poilice to court and make them pay damages, they will never learn and they will just go out and arrest someone else.
If you are in trouble with the police for preaching at Speakers’ Corner or anywhere in the UK, get in touch right now. No-one need be convicted.
Are you in trouble for preaching? Get in touch!
I have heard in recent days of Christian preachers at Speakers’ Corner among other places being arrested, charged, convicted and fined for sharing the Gospel. That is an outrage but it will not happen if they simply contact us as soon as they are arrested or even if they have already been convicted.
The fact is, no preacher, properly represented in court, has ever been convicted of an offence in Britain under the Public Order Act 1986. Not a single one. If you have been arrested for preaching, get in touch with us right now. If you know of someone who has, put them in touch with us right now. Time is always of the essence.
In the alternative, contact Christian Concern, who supported Michael Overd. Just please understand defending a public order charge is not a time for DIY.
Money, or the lack of it, is not a problem. The Lord’s people are not going to stand by and see street preachers convicted. This ministry will fund your defence. Email me on Stephen @ this website or ring me on 07931 490050.
Praise God for this outcome and please pray for Michael and Rachel Overd who have been through a lot and have stood strong by the grace of God.
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Northampton Magistrates Court where evangelist Bill Edwards is on trial twice this month: on 19th and 20th November 2015
STOP PRESS 20/11/2015:
CASE ON THURSDAY 19th DROPPED!
CASE ON FRIDAY 20th DROPPED IN RETURN FOR BIND-OVER ORDER!
PRAISE THE LORD!
BUT WHY WERE THESE CASES EVER BROUGHT?
Article continues:
Another Christian evangelist is in court on alleged public order offences.
Bill Edwards, well-known to this ministry for his tireless efforts for the Gospel, is to face magistrates in Northampton twice this month, on 19th November and then again the following day, 20th November. The cases will both be heard at 10.00am at Northampton Magistrates Court, Campbell Square, Northampton, NN1 3EB. Both charges have been laid under the Public Order Act 1986.
PRAYER IMPORTANT
Mr Edwards has told Christian Voice he values prayer more than actual physical presence. He said: ‘Obviously I will be glad of support by Christians at either of the court cases but it is a very long way for folk like you to come and prayer for the Lord’s help is, of course, more important.’
Despite that, members local to Northampton will surely want to support him, and those who can reach the court will wish to demonstrate how serious their prayers are by being there in person.
LOCAL MP COMPLAINED
The first charge relates to a peaceful protest Bill Edwards carried out outside the house of local MP Andrea Leadsom (Conservative) in the village of Slapton on 18th July.
Mr Edwards said: ‘I did not expect to be arrested and planned after an hour to move to another village for door to door evangelism. I did try to inform Northamptonshire Police beforehand about the protest but was unable to get through in time before I left home. I told Mrs. Leadsom why I was there and spoke to her husband and children and their friends.’ He is charged under Sections 4A and 5 of the Public Order Act.
ARRESTED AT SCHOOL
The following day the evangelist is charged under Sections 5 and 6 of the Act. Mr Edwards told us: ‘The second arrest and charge occurred after I carried a banner against homosexuals outside a primary school in Brackley on July 21st. There was a great deal of anger and physical opposition from certain people and again I was surprised with the outcome. Both of my banners employed words of Scripture.’
A personal note:
Evangelists like Bill Edwards are rare. They often do things others of us wouldn’t. I should probably content myself with writing to my MP or asking to lobby him at the House of Commons. I am not sure, even if he refused to meet me, that I should protest outside his home. If I did, of course, I should expect him to have a thicker and more avuncular skin than the average person and should be extremely surprised if he were to call the police.
As for the school, I know how liberal many parents are these days and have myself been shouted at when trying to encourage parents to protect their children from homosexual propaganda. In that situation, one really would expect the school’s head teacher to call the police, but would expect the police to defuse the situation on their arrival rather than start arresting people.
On the other hand, for some years now the police have been arresting evangelists for so-called ‘homophobic’ language, to the extent that even the National Secular Society became embarrassed by the negative publicity around assaults on our freedom of speech and joined the Christian Institute to call for a change in the law.
But despite that high-profile joint campaign by the National Secular Society and the Christian Institute to draw the teeth of the Public Order Act by removing the word ‘insulting’ from the list of behaviours it made illegal, nothing has actually changed. The police appear to carrying on with ‘business as usual’.
That is why, although Bill Edwards’ approach might differ from my own (although I too was arrested under the same Act of Parliament for witnessing outside Cardiff ‘Mardi Gras’ in 2006), I am honoured to stand with him and to show the magistrates that at least one of his brothers in Christ supports him enough to turn up on the day.
READ: Deut 31:6; Psalm 103:6; Jer 1:17, 5:14; Luke 12:11-12; Acts 4:18-20; Rom 10:8; 3John 1:17.
PRAY: Thank the Lord for evangelists who are prepared to risk arrest for preaching the Gospel. Pray that Bill Edwards finds favour with the magistrates. Pray for his solicitor, Michael Phillips, to be a good and effective advocate. Pray for much support from local Christians. Pray for Bill Edwards, as he says, ‘that the Lord will be glorified whatever the outcomes … and that I may witness a good confession against the homofascism and antichrist attitude of the authorities of our country.’
SUPPPORT: Come to Northampton Magistrates Court, Campbell Square, Northampton, NN1 3EB at 10.00am on Thursday 19th and Friday 20th November.
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Andrew Parker, head of MI5, the UK Security Service.
The head of Britain’s Security Service has said that the ‘situation in Syria’ affects the threat of terrorism in the UK.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on 17th September 2015, MI5 Director General Andrew Parker said terrorism is ‘a threat which is continuing to grow largely because of the situation in Syria and how that affects our security.’
It follows that President Assad is essential not just to defeat Islamic State, but his presence and a victory for the Syrian armed forces is necessary to minimise the threat to domestic UK security.
DRIVEN FROM CONFLICT ZONES
‘The shape of the threat we face today has changed in some ways because it is driven from conflict zones and the way people react to that,’ continued Mr Parker.
UK border police at Heathrow. But what of the militants who have slipped in unknown to them, or those entering illegally?
‘Because of the internet and the way terrorists use social media, including from Syria and the way we all live our lives using the smart phones in our pockets – the terrorists do the same.’
In answer to a question about the likelihood of extremists among ‘the migrants and refugees who are coming into Europe at the moment’, Mr Parker said guardedly he was ‘aware’ of that threat, but said he was concentrating at the moment on returning UK-based Islamic State fighters, who are probably already on MI5’s radar:
‘Of course it’s MI5’s job with others to monitor where the terrorists may be and how they are operating and how they are moving … we take an interest in those who have been to Syria and are coming back. So as far as the flow of migrants and refugees go of course it’s something we are aware of, it isn’t as we speak today the main focus of where the threat is coming from’.
ASSAD OR THE DELUGE
Professor Eugene Rogan
Either way, the unrest in Syria, which was encouraged by the United Kingdom, specifically by then-Foreign Secretary, the recently-ennobled William Hague, is putting at risk the safety of the people of the United Kingdom.
Foreign Affairs Select Committee member Mark Hendrick MP asked witnesses about what he described as ‘the so-called Arab Spring, that seems to have gone totally out of direction in a way that nobody would have predicted.’ Professor Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre in Oxford, gave this response:
Professor Rogan: ‘I say this with a shared distaste for Bashar al-Assad and his methods of government, but I do believe he is an essential man. The policies based around the idea that Bashar al-Assad must go are ill-advised. They are unrealistic because those who advocate them do not have a champion they would put forward in his place and because recent history has shown us that when the state collapses you get a failed state.
Julien Barnes-Dacey appearing before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
‘State-building in the context of a failed state has given us Afghanistan and Somalia, and great difficulties in Iraq—and Libya and Yemen right now. Seeing Syria go the route of another failed state seems to me to be the greatest threat to our interests, as an American, and to yours as Britons, because when the state is gone in Syria the Islamic State will take its place, and it will then be a reality as an Islamic state—we will not quibble over Daesh, and so on. It will be the caliphate that they declare it to be. I think that it is now Bashar al-Assad or the deluge.’
Julien Barnes-Dacey, Senior Policy Fellow, Middle East and North Africa programme, European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed: ‘He is a guarantor. I think that is analytically correct. With Assad going, there are no guarantees of what comes next. … If (the question) remains pivoted on the person of Assad, it will continue to fail.’
OPPOSITION IN SYRIA ‘DOMINATED BY IS AND AL-QAEDA
Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent, The Independent
The Foreign Affairs Select Committee also heard from Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent of The Independent, and freelance reporter James Harkin.
In an exchange which contradicted all the UK Government would have us believe, Mr Cockburn told a stunned Michael Gapes MP that there are no longer ‘numerous fighting groups’ in Syria, as Mr Gapes believed:
‘The armed opposition in Syria is dominated by Islamic State, which now holds more than half the country, and al-Qaeda type movements such as the official representative of al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, or Ahrar al-Sham and the others are now dominant in the armed opposition, and there are not too many others. The Free Syrian Army and others that people used to talk about are very weak these days,’ said Mr Cockburn.
Al Jazeera reports that the United State’s plan to train thousands of ‘moderate’ Syrians to fight Islamic State is in shambles, with only sixty having been trained and only four or five of them left.
Freelance journalist and Syria expert James Harkin.
Nadhim Zahawi MP asked James Harkin: ‘Very briefly, what secular or moderate groups have any major role now in the fighting or in the political arena (in Syria)?’
This was Mr Harkin’s response: ‘As I see it, the secular or moderate groups that we support are still ensconced in hotels in Istanbul, having nice lunches three or four years later. These people are largely meaningless to any political settlement, and that really should not be the question we are asking. We should be asking what Syrian people want, rather than who can be our friends’.
CONSEQUENCES OF SYRIAN REGIME COLLAPSE
The Committee chairman, Crispin Blunt MP, asked, ‘if the regime did collapse, what would be the consequences?’
Patrick Cockburn responded: ‘Well, we’ve got 4 million refugees already. I think you would probably have about the same number coming out, or trying to get out if they could. Most of the minorities would cut and run. So too would people associated with the army or with the Government, and a lot of the Sunni. You would have mass panic. Can you imagine what it would be like if Daesh entered Damascus or started taking other cities? I think you would have mass population movements. I think it would be very bad.’
James Harkin added: ‘As Patrick says, whether you are an Alawite or a Christian or a Shi’a, the people I speak to there do not particularly hold great store by analytic detail about hundreds and hundreds of different factions, they just see that these people are out to kill them, because they are heretics.’
UK GOVERNMENT AT ODDS
Astonishingly, even as the committee was hearing this evidence, David Cameron was preparing to tell the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s questions that ‘Assad must go’. Does the UK government have no access to anyone who knows anything about Syria?
Former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford.
Even back in April, the UK’s former ambassador to Syria Peter Ford denounced Mr Cameron’s attitude as ‘arrogant’ and ‘reckless’ in the Guardian saying that, ‘If David Cameron had had his way, we could have been embroiled by now, more than we already are, in yet another Middle East war. As it is, his Syria policy has still backfired, contributing to the rise of jihadism in our own back yard. If (he) had had his way, the jihadis could be in control of Damascus by now. Where is the accountability?’
The fact is, the more the UK and the US have undermined President Assad, the worse the situation in Syria has become, and the more refugees have been generated, not just from the Christian, Shi’a, Alawite, Druze and Kurdish minorities that the President has protected from the Syrian Sunni Muslim majority down the years, but also from newly radicalised but now displaced Syrian Sunnis, who threaten UK security.
More encouraging than Mr Cameron’s bluster was the contradictory evidence his new Foreign Secretary gave to the Select Committee as Mr Cameron was speaking. Rt Hon Philip Hammond signalled that the UK had actually retreated from its position of demanding that President Assad should relinquish power as a pre-requisite for UK assistance, according to this report in the Times of Israel.
The Foreign Secretary told the Committee that the solution of the crisis in Syria should be political rather than military, adding that London had sent a message to Russia and Iran, two countries backing the Assad regime, that it would be willing to consider a plan that sees Assad stay in power temporarily.
UK MUST WORK WITH SYRIA
Author and ex-SAS sergeant Chris Ryan
The policy shift came as Ex-SAS and writer Chris Ryan has said that the UK must work with Syria, Russia and Iran if there is to be any hope of defeating Islamic State.
“The best idea would be to hit them both sides with Europe and the United States one side and Russia on the other. The longer we wait, the stronger ISIS will get.”
Russia and Iran are President Assad’s strongest Allies. The Russians and Chinese have repeatedly blocked UN resolutions critical of the Syrian regime and have consistently opposed ‘regime change’.
It may be difficult to see how matters could be worse in Syria, and yet, as the Professor Rogan said, it President Assad were to be toppled, Syria would descend into the mayhem of Libya and the situation, especially for the Christians who remain there would be even worse and the refugee crisis unimaginable. Patrick Cockburn said ‘You would have mass panic … it would be very bad.’
We must give thanks to Almighty God for the stance taken by Russia and China and for the support Syria has received from Iran. Not least, we must thank God for the vote in the House of Commons in August 2013 in which MPs refused to allow the UK Government to bomb President Assad’s forces.
BRICKS NOT BOMBS
As to whether the UK should now enter into a bombing campaign against Islamic State in Syria, there was agreement among the witnesses that bombing alone would do little against Islamic State.
Mr Cockburn observed: ‘Where the Americans are supporting the Syrian Kurds and their militia, who are well disciplined and well organised, with air strikes, that is where Daesh (Islamic State) have suffered defeats. At Kobane, they lost about 2,000 men in a four-and-a-half-month siege. At another place, called Hasaka, also in the north-east, they also suffered a defeat, but there was a combination of efficient ground troops and American air strikes.’
He went on: ‘a lot of air missions by the Americans do not find a target. But above all, what you need is people on the ground who are calling in air strikes and who can see ISIS. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t really work very effectively. For the air strikes to work, you need people on the ground, giving the co-ordinates of exactly where Daesh is, and then they can hit those targets immediately.’
But Professor Rogan had a different and important take, telling Yasmin Qureshi MP:
‘Ms Qureshi, if I could put one plea forward, it would be to prioritise the sending of bricks rather than bombs to Syria, because I do not see how further air strikes or military action is going to do anything except further destroy the urban fabric of Syria. I tried to find some figures before coming to this meeting, and the most recent I could find suggest that 1.4 million Syrian homes have been destroyed. It is not West London prices—say it is £50,000 a unit—but that is £60 billion to rebuild the houses Syrians need to go home.
Prof. Raymond Hinnebusch.
‘You were asking previously what Syrians want. They don’t want to be in Europe. They don’t want to be in England, Germany or Hungary. They want to be home. The sooner we adopt policies that prioritise the needs of Syrians and provide not a safe haven but a safe habitat for them, with schools, hospitals and homes, the better, but that takes bricks, not bombs.’
NO NEGOTIATION
There will have to be a rebuilding effort when this conflict is over, but while Professor Raymond Hinnebusch, Professor of International Relations and Middle East Politics and Director of the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews agreed with Professor Rogan’s plea for a political settlement, it is difficult to see how that might happen.
Patrick Cockburn said: ‘… unfortunately the armed opposition is controlled at this stage by people who do not really want to talk, but want to win’.
There can be little prospect of negotiation with Al-Nusra and none at all with Islamic State, so even though bombing their positions might run the risk of radicalising even more Sunnis against those they will see as infidel invaders, there is no choice but to embark on smart bombing backed up by ground forces if Islamic State is to be defeated. Then, and only then, can those genuinely sympathetic to Syria and its people begin to discuss a long-term settlement in that country.
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In the wake of David Cameron’s ridiculous assertion, made on 26th June 2015 in the wake of the Tunisia beach shooting, carried out by a Muslim gunman, that ‘Islam is a religion of peace’, how many Muslims actually support Islamic State?
An ICM poll carried out for the Daily Mirror has some shocking findings.
They found that 3% of respondents in Britain were very favourable towards the Muslim terrorist group (which they called ISIS) and 6% were somewhat favourable. Female and male respondents had similar attitudes.
The pollsters did not ask people their religious affiliations, but when you consider that around 5% of the population is actually Muslim, rising to 10% of the under-25’s, this must mean that the Mirror’s claim that ‘around half of Britain’s three million Muslims could be ISIS sympathisers’ could be an understatement.
Daniel Greenfield is even saying that in London it could be as high as 80% of Muslims supporting IS.
Women and men are fairly equal in their support for the self-styled ‘Islamic State’.
Muslim leaders in the Mirror article above are quick to blame the Government for disenfranchising Muslim youth, and some are saying that the generally fed-up may admit to a sneaking admiration for the terrorists when asked by pollsters.
But still, 9% of the general public in Britain having some kind of favourable feelings to a group butchering non-Muslims, or to be more precise, non-Sunni-Muslims, all over Iraq and Syria?
How much this story could be a political hot potato may be judged from the fact that the Daily Express ran the story as ‘half of British Muslims support ISIS‘ and then deleted it. If you click on the link now it will come up as ‘page not found’.
The last time we checked, there was still a link to the story on the Express article about Hani Al-Sibai, a Muslim preacher alleged to be associated with the Muslim group behind the gunman. Al-Sibai rakes in around £48,000 per year in benefits, according to the paper. It said:
We should ask our Members of Parliament to ask Mr Cameron if Islam is such a religion of peace, why did it start by Mohammed slaughtering 900 Jews of the Banu Qurayza in 627 AD? Mohammed is the example for Muslims to follow. And the Quran endorses his actions:
Surah 33:26. And those of the People of the Book who aided (the Unbelievers) – Allah did take them down from theirstrongholds and cast terror into their hearts. (So that) some ye slew, and some ye made prisoners.27. And He made you heirs of their lands, their houses, and their goods, and of a land which ye had not frequented (before). And Allah has power over all things.
Yazidi refugees displaced by Islamic State
As to Islam being a ‘religion of peace’, where do Muslims get their idea that it is acceptable to take over the towns and farms of the Yazidi, capture and kill 300 of them, pursue and murder them in the mountains? From the Quran:
Surah 13: 41. See they not that We gradually reduce the land (in their control) from its outlying borders? (Where) Allah commands, there is none to put back His Command: and He is swift in calling to account.
Surah 47:4. Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly (on them): thereafter (is the time for) either generosity or ransom: Until the war lays down its burdens. Thus (are ye commanded): … But those who are slain in the Way of Allah,- He will never let their deeds be lost.
In May of this year, IS took over the Syrian city of Palmyra, slaughtering and mutilating 400 souls, mostly women and children. Where did they find the idea that it is acceptable to mutilate captives? Why do they think it is acceptable to crucify those with whom they disagree? (Just search ‘Islamic State crucifixion’) Where does their fondness for executing non-believers come from? From the Quran again:
Pro-IS Muslims celebrate the anniversary of the capture of Mosul. Christians were forced to flee the town.
Surah 5:33. The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;
Where did the IS fighters who terrorised the people of Mosul or those who came across foreign workers trying to scrape a living in Libya get the idea of demanding protection money from them, the so-called ‘Jizya’ tax? Well, that’s from the Quran as well:
Surah 9:29. Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
Religion of peace, Mr Cameron?
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Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State of Education, the one with a gay activist from Stonewall (Conservative activist Luke Tryll) as her first appointed advisor, is in the news again.
She is telling teachers to report children who exhibit negative attitudes to homosexuality to the thought police.
They are going to grow up to be terrorists, apparently.
Even the teachers’ unions, so often bastions of progressive attitudes, are not amused by this new imposition of subjective workload.
The BBC reported:
‘The education secretary was speaking as schools in England and Wales were issued with a guide to identifying pupils in danger of radicalisation.
‘She said attacking core British values or being extremely intolerant of homosexuality were examples of behaviour that could raise the alarm.
‘Ms Morgan said it was “a safeguarding” issue comparable to protecting children at risk from gangs or sexual abuse.’ Yes, really. Homophobia is that bad.
Asked on BBC’s Radio 4 Today Programme to come up with an example of behaviour that might be a cause for concern, she said: “Sadly, Isis are extremely intolerant of homosexuality.”
‘Sadly?’ Is Nicky Morgan carrying a bit of a candle for ISIS? Would she love them better if, despite all their land-grabbing, slaughter, extortion and rape they had applied for a float in the London Gay Pride parade?
As it happens, Muslims in general are ‘extremely intolerant of homosexuality’.
Is the Government with this initiative taking the first tentative steps to rounding up all Muslim children and sending them and their families off to the Muslim land of their heritage? I doubt that.
What instead we are seeing is a desire to grab hold of Christian children and force some politically-correct attitudes into them. The Trojan Horse affair, which started with a Muslim takeover of schools in Birmingham has been used to give Ofsted new guidelines which are now being used against Christian schools.
It will be the same here. There is already a drive to sneak homosexual propaganda into schools on the pretext of ‘tackling homophobic bullying’. This counter-terrorism slant is just a bit of window-dressing to make pro-sodomy indoctrination a bit more acceptable.
In reality, it won’t be a Muslim child who will be picked on. Instead, look out for the first story of a child of Christian or working-class parents being reported to the police for ‘homophobia’ and then taken into ‘care’ by Social Services.
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The Politically-motivated cake was baked by another firm.
A judge in Belfast has found that a bakery discriminated against a homosexual by refusing to bake a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage.
Ashers Baking Company, which is owned and run by the McArthur family, who are Christians, declined an order from a gay rights activist asking for a cake featuring the Sesame Street puppets Bert and Ernie with a slogan saying ‘Support Gay Marriage’.
Marriage between people of the same sex is illegal in Northern Ireland. In April 2014 the Stormont Assembly rejected a Sinn Fein motion to change the definition of marriage for the third time in eighteen months. In April 2015 the Assembly rejected yet another Sinn Fein motionfor ‘gay marriage’.
Gareth Lee
Despite that, the judge found Ashers Bakery had discriminated against one Gareth Lee on the grounds of sexual orientation as well as his political beliefs.
The cake was baked and iced by another firm. Cllr Andrew Muir (Alliance Party) cut the cake in an event held by ‘QueerSpace’ last year.
Damages of £500 have already been agreed between the law firms representing Ashers and Mr Lee.
The case was brought by Northern Ireland’s Equality Commission.
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuiness tweeted: “Asher’s bakery judgement a good result for equality, gay people have for far too long been discriminated against. We and the law on their side.”
But unionist politicians disagreed.
DUP MLA Paul Givan, who has proposed that lawmakers in the Northern Ireland Assembly introduce a “conscience clause” as a result of the Ashers case, said many Christians would view the ruling as “an attack” on their religious convictions.
Jim Allister MLA has condemned the ruling along with Democratic Unionist Party politicians.
“What we cannot have is a hierarchy of rights, and today there’s a clear hierarchy being established that gay rights are more important than the rights of people to hold religious beliefs,” Mr Givan added.
His party colleague David McIlveen tweeted: “Utterly sickened that a Christian owned business has been hauled over the coals for refusing to promote something that is not legal in NI.”
Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister said it was “a dark day for justice and religious freedom in Northern Ireland”.
Speaking outside Belfast County Court ahead of the ruling, Ashers general manager Daniel McArthur said: “We happily serve everyone but we cannot promote a cause that goes against what the Bible says about marriage.
“We have tried to be guided in our actions by our Christian beliefs.”
Christian campaigners will be looking not just to the Stormont Assembly but also to the UK Government to ensure business peoples’ Christian conscience is supported.
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