Show me a lefty "progressive", and I'll show you home wrecker...

...the forthcoming referendum on Sue Bradford's anti-smacking bill is a custard pie in the face of the left. It's not so much that the general public are aggrieved over the attempted criminalisation of smacking, it's simply the fact that they recognise in Sue Bradford a true subversive, and see in her ham fisted attempts at law making an attempt to subvert the traditional Mum, Dad and the kids family.

Melanie Phillips reports that the UK Tories are about to announce a far reaching policy that will develop and respect and not subvert, the family...

...The family is the building block of society. If the institution of the family is broken, society breaks with it.
That is what has happened in Britain over the past four decades as part of a deliberate attempt by the ‘progressive’ intelligentsia to reshape society around the unrestrained gratification of adult sexual desire under the banners of ‘liberation’, ‘equality’ and ‘rights’.
As a result, nearly half of all babies are now born outside marriage; Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe; and women and children are at far greater risk of sexual and physical abuse.
Children from fractured homes do worse in general in every single area of their lives. As the High Court judge Sir Paul Coleridge recently observed, the family courts are overwhelmed with cases involving damaged, miserable or disturbed children...more here...

...every word of Melanie Phillips' article is applicable to NZ. Our statistics are every bit as shameful and horrifying, and even more shameful is that "progressive" politicians like Sue Bradford have helped create the misery, and now want to extend it further...

Is a free country possible under Labour ?

...a legacy of left wing government is increased bureaucracy and decreased freedom. As Ronald Reagan said "Man is not free unless government is limited." The nadir of NZ's last Labour government and probably the turning point for many voters, was the so-called anti-smacking bill, where parents faced arrest for smacking their children. In NZ, the institution we tend to bow to under Labour is the UN, in the UK, the voters are increasingly ruled by Europe, and according to Melanie Philips, corruption is the inevitable outcome...

...For more than three decades, Parliament has become increasingly powerless. In recent years, this was the result of the Labour Government deliberately outsourcing its powers — to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembliy; to quangos, management consultancies or unelected advisers; or to the courts through human rights law.
But above all, the British Parliament has progressively surrendered its powers of national self-government to Europe, which has reduced the cradle of democracy to the status of little more than Westminster Regional Council.
This whole process was summed up in 1998 by Peter Mandelson, who observed with menacing perspicacity that ‘the era of pure representative government is coming slowly to an end’.

...Paradoxically, the diminution of Britain’s place in the world has gone hand in hand with an increase in the power of the State over its own citizens. Determined to ram through its agenda for a new world order of which the EU is an important part, the Labour Government increasingly concentrated power in itself while it steadily took it away from Parliament...more here...

Winter in London...

Two venerable British institutions, The UK Meteorological Office, and the BBC have been shown to be inept and economical with the truth...

...The UK Met Office forecast last Autumn “the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average... ” Well, we've now passed the 2/3 mark of the meteorological winter, and it is time for another report card to send home. Yesterday’s press release was titled “Wintry start to February” which stated “So far, the UK winter has been the coldest for over a decade” and “Met Office forecasters expect the cold theme to the weather to continue well into next week with the chance of further snow.”
The UK is expecting the heaviest snow in about 20 years tomorrow. “Snow and freezing weather threaten to shut down Britain;Arctic blizzards are set to cause a national shutdown on Monday as forecasters warn of the most widespread snowfall for almost 20 years.” “Now is the time you’d expect to see the daffodils coming out but we’re not expecting them for two or three weeks at best if it warms up.“
So why is this important? Climate is not weather, after all. The Met Office is one of the most vocal advocates of human induced global warming, and they have gotten into a consistent pattern of warm seasonal forecasts which seemingly fall in line with that belief system. Is it possible that their forecasts are unduly influenced by preconceived notions about the climate? It is worth remembering that London had it’s first October snow in 70 years this past autumn...more, from WattsupwithThat, here...

...and within the BBC, once an international paragon of broadcasting impartiality, an unashamed alarmist bias has taken hold to the extent of splicing/editing President Obama's inaugural speech to distort his message...more here...

...comment from Melanie Phillips...
...As Britain shivers in its harshest winter for 13 years, atmospheric data shows that the earth is getting colder, not hotter, the ice caps are increasing not disappearing and the rise in sea level has slowed and is nothing out of the ordinary.
Yet despite the patent absurdity of these predictions of environmental doom, this thinking now dominates political life.
The reason is undoubtedly the grip upon politics of those who want to control our lives in order to reshape society.
In all corners of everyday life, from state interference in parenting to telling people what to eat or what not to drink, from council snoopers to idiotic health and safety rules, the aim is to control and change the way we behave.
The green movement camouflages this sinister tendency under cover of the urgent necessity of saving the planet. But with people like Jonathon Porritt apparently believing that the only thing wrong with the planet is the human race, the big question must be just who he will be saving it for. More, here...

What multiculturalism really means...

...and how PC speak has shut down debate...

Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail, 29 September 2008

On the eve of the Tory Party conference, the shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve issued a blunt warning.

In the name of multiculturalism, he said, Britain had done something terrible to itself. It had downplayed British cultural identity, leaving long-standing inhabitants fearful and new immigrants alienated, creating a vacuum ripe for exploitation by extremists.

His warning could not be more timely or appropriate. Multiculturalism and its allied doctrines of human rights and anti-discrimination are acting as a kind of corrosive acid eating away at our institutions, values and national identity. More, here...