𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Our society is paying a savage price for the State’s vast experiment in cultural change. Innocent lives are now sacrificed on the altar of woke dogma, just as the toxic obsession with identity politics erodes compassion and common sense. Warped priorities ultimately lead to depraved crimes like the Southport atrocity of July 2024, when deranged knifeman Axel Rudakubana went on a blood-soaked rampage at a dance class for youngsters, killing three children and leaving another 10 with life-changing injuries. This week saw the publication of the first report from Sir Adrian Fulford, the retired judge who chaired the public inquiry into the massacre. Backed up by a wealth of evidence, Sir Adrian argued that the carnage could have been prevented if key agencies had shown greater urgency and responsibility to tackle Rudakubana, whose addiction to violence was already clear by his mid-teens.

A central reason for this inertia lies in the takeover of officialdom by politically correct ideology. In recent decades, the governing class has been engaged in a massive exercise in indoctrination, where staff are fed the pernicious doctrines like “critical race theory” and “white privilege” with ethnic minorities painted as the eternal victims of discrimination. Encouraged to feel guilt about their heritage and their identity, ordinary Britons are taught that they can only achieve atonement for their collective sins of oppression and prejudice by embracing the creed of diversity.

Such brainwashing means that, when they are confronted with anything that contradicts their cherished narrative of diversity’s success, the instinct of many is to go into denial or even throw around accusations of racism.

As Sir Adrian’s report highlighted, that is exactly what happened in Rudakubana’s case. After one headteacher described him as “sinister, cold and calculating” and urged that he regularly be searched for weapons because of recent record of possession, a mental health social worker said that she was “racially stereotyping a black boy with a knife”.

Since his Rwandan parents – who were severely criticised in Sir Adrian’s report – also failed to act, there were no restraints on Radakubana.

Tragically, this pattern is now regularly seen in crime-ridden Britain, such as in the case of paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane, who killed three people in Nottingham in June 2023.

After a previous violent incident in May 2020, Calocane should have been sectioned but, as the current inquiry into his case was recently told, mental health professionals rejected this step because they were “concerned about the over-representation of young black men in detention”.

In the same vein, security guard Kyle Lawler told the inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017 that he had become suspicious about the “sweating and fidgeting” of terror plotter Salman Abedi. Yet, because of all the wokery in his education and training, Lawler was reluctant to act.

“I did not want people to think I am stereotyping him because of his race. I was scared of being wrong,” he said. Abedi’s murderous action claimed the lives of 22 people.

A fear of speaking out is not conducive to security or harmony. Equality demands that all should be treated fairly before the law, regardless of race.

But Labour’s two-tier Britain is a place of favouritism and inconsistency. Many Britons now feel like second-class citizens, in their own land. Hounded over speeding charges in 20 mph zones or spicy comments made on social media, they see how illegal migrants are not treated as lawbreakers but given lavish support by the state.

Similarly, antisemitic, pro-Palestinian demonstrations are met with indifference while devout Christians silently praying near abortion clinics are arrested.

The contrast between the ruthless treatment of football hooligans and the disgraceful cover-up of Pakistani grooming gangs is equally indicative of this double standard. It can only be hoped that the legacy of Southport might be the start of a mission to bring back integrity to our legal system.

Defence Secretary John Healey is occasionally talked of as a potential leadership contender, which says more about the dismal calibre of the Labour frontbench than his own stellar qualities.

He does not exude a natural air of authority, nor does he bring any military experience – apart from some flying with the Cambridge University Air Squadron – to his current position, although that need not necessarily be a disadvantage.

Harold Alexander was one of the greatest Allied generals of the Second World war, yet he turned out to be a poor Defence Minister when Churchill appointed him to the Cabinet in 1951, partly because he had no grasp of politics. “It was terribly difficult to get anything done,” complained one junior Minister.

More accomplished was George Robertson, the granite-hard Scotsman who became Defence Secretary in Tony Blair’s first government and confounded Labour’s reputation for weakness on national security.

Indeed, he was so successful that, in 1999, he was elevated to the prestigious role of Nato Secretary-General. Robertson’s own toughness was reflected in his recovery from the extensive injuries he suffered in a near-fatal traffic accident in 1976 when a Royal Navy Land Rover smashed into his car.

His impressive records added weight to the scathing attack he launched this week on his party’s “corrosive complacency” on defence. Britain is “under-prepared, underinsured and under attack,” he warned, adding that Labour was wrong to prioritise welfare over defence.

He was certainly right to highlight Britain’s vulnerability but it is not just a question of cash. After all, the present defence budget at £66billion is a substantial sum but far too much money is squandered through mismanagement, low productivity, flawed procurement and misguided strategic decisions, like the construction of two useless aircraft carriers. That has to change. If not, any extra funds will just disappear into a black hole.

Quintessential Cockney?

Carry On star Sid James, who died 50 years ago this month on stage at the Sunderland Empire, always seemed like the quintessential Cockney. But he was actually a South African called Solomon Joel Cohen, born to Jewish parents, and he started his working life as a hairdresser in Johannesburg before he decided not to carry on crimping.

Our MPs need to get a grip

A masterpiece of Victorian architectural glory, the Palace of Westminster is badly in need of major repairs. But MPs – who held yet another debate on the issue yesterday – have dithered because of the huge potential costs.

Their anxiety has only encouraged further exploitation by consultants, who keep coming up with ever more extravagant restoration schemes. One ridiculous project has a price tag of £40billion and a schedule that would take 61 years to complete. It’s time for the MPs to get a grip, and set out a reasonable programme without the expensive, gold-plated features. Parliament is a place of work, not a luxury period hotel.

Greatest UK sportsman ever?

I confess that as an Ulsterman, I shed a tear when Rory McIlroy sank the putt that won him his second successive Masters title and his sixth major. Some of my own family live near the Holywood club where he first emerged as a child prodigy in the mid-90s.

He now takes his place among golf’s all-time greats. Indeed it could be argued that he is not just the finest European golfer in history but also the greatest sportsman ever from the British Isles.