On the Up

Amidst so much gloom and doom in the UK right now, with the economy nose-diving, cold damp weather and gazing longingly across the Atlantic where so much good sense is being enacted within the USA, we need to make the best of the occasional glimmers of hope that flicker in our land. It struck me this week that we had at least three reasons to be cheerful:

An expert guide to Islamophobia

Those of us unsure how best we can express our Islamophobia, as we struggle for the most appropriate epithets and are often lost for words when we really wish to cause offence, need look no further. It seems that the government really is going to implement the APPG document on Islamophobia and, to ensure that nothing goes wrong in the process, have put this is the hands of flame-haired beauty and potential Politician of the Year winner, Angela Rayner.

This has caused many outlets, less than enthusiastic about the prospect, to revisit the APPG definition of Islamophobia, and list some of the many things that will be considered offensive by our censorious compatriots, which is very helpful. Thus, we now know that any mention, despite copious historical evidence to the contrary, that Islam is not the ‘religion of peace’ will get right up the nostrils of the bearded censors who so like to hang about school gates intimidating anyone they feel does not adhere to their 7^th century view of the world.

Even though burkas and niqabs are clearly oppressive of women and a walking – but rarely talking – testament to how disgusting some of our Muslim brothers find our society, we mustn’t advocate banning it like some of our more enlightened European neighbours have done. The barbaric practice of Halal slaughter, whereby animals are killed without stunning, is not to be criticised, even though if we did, we would be arrested.

The list of what may upset a Muslim is lengthy. We mustn’t point out that most illegal and legal immigrants are Muslims (despite the fact that it is true). We mustn’t point to the overrepresentation of Muslims in prison or the same in relation to the organised rape gangs (also true) and we must, despite the obvious absurdity, agree that Islamophobia is one of the biggest problems in our society.

That may not sound like great news, but it is. Instead of considering these things to be prohibitions, we should see them as targets to be met. We could play ‘Muslim Top Trumps’ and keep playing it until this significant minority in our country realise that is how it is going to be – especially if they don’t stop banging on about Islamophobia.

We Christians long ago lost any protection against blasphemy. Does blasphemy offend us? You can be sure it does, but we have learned that we live in a country where free speech, excluding incitement to hate or violence, should outweigh all other considerations. We learned to shut up, so should Muslims.

Slavery reparations

The Foreign Office is going to reopen talks on slavery reparations. This is brilliant news.

At last Britain could see some money coming back into its coffers for the £20 million it invested is outlawing slavery. This should be a significant injection of cash back into our economy. Especially considering that £20 million in 1883 is now worth £2,184,631,570 in today’s money.

If we really get going on this reparations business, we could consider charging our former colonies in the Caribbean for the schools, hospitals, infrastructure and industry that we established in their countries before they ungratefully kicked us out. That ought to net us a tidy sum.

Again, the government is taking no chances that anything can go wrong here and have put one of their crack negotiators in charge, David Lammy. Presumably their confidence in Mr Lammy stems from his stunning performance on BBC Mastermind where he reeled off a string of answers that left the audience and viewers speechless. Not many people except David Lammy know that Marie Antoinette discovered radium and that the regnal numbers of kings work in reverse order. Frankly, his talents are wasted in foreign affairs, they should put him in charge of education.

Immigration

According to the ONS our population will be 50% migrant sooner than we expected, sometime in the mid 2060s. This is a fantastic legacy to leave our children.

With all these highly skilled people coming here it is possible that the indigenous population will no longer have to work. The taxes paid by immigrant workers alone should be enough to prop up our health and social security systems and to keep the rest of us in the style to which we have been accustomed. Revenue in the form of corporation tax from knife manufacturers alone ought to build a few schools and hospitals.

We can look forward to the skylines of our cities being adorned with so many mosques and minarets it will almost be like visiting a foreign country. An exciting and appealing proposition as we will no longer have to spend a fortune in air travel and hotels to…er…visit a foreign country. A ‘win-win’ situation, if ever there was one.

So, you see, our government cares for us, has the best of intentions, and has our best interests at heart. On top of all that we will soon be basking in the self-righteous glow of a net zero carbon economy, and won’t that be one in the eye for the carbon guzzling countries such as China and the USA?

Tony Blair said in 1987 that ‘things can only get better’. It’s taken a while, but how right he was.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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