Axel Rudakubana failings point to massive problems in British society
The slaughter of the innocents has exposed a brutal malaise at the heart of our society. Violence is now inflicted on young people in a way that would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago. That frightening descent into carnage was encapsulated by the actions of Axel Rudakubana, convicted this week of murdering three girls at holiday dance class in Southport last summer.
Rudakubana’s behaviour is part of a worrying pattern of random and maniacal butchery. On the very day he pled guilty in court to the Southport massacre, in Birmingham 12-year-old Leo Ross was knifed to death on his way home from school by another boy.
None of this is normal, certainly not in Britain which used to be one of the most well-ordered, tranquil countries in the world. Anyone who thinks such a claim is just rose-tinted nostalgia should read the comments of contemporary writers.
In 1944, for instance, George Orwell said that “there is very little crime or violence” in England. During the 1950s, when the offending rate was ten times lower than today, the anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer wrote that “the English are among the most peaceful, gentle, courteous and orderly populations that the civilised world has ever seen”.
That civic system, built on mutual trust, is vanishing, replaced by a climate of fear, aggression and suspicion. Britain’s ethos has changed because the make-up of our society has changed dramatically, driven by uncontrolled immigration on a revolutionary scale and the import of cultures whose values are alien to our own.
Yet instead of facing up candidly to this reality, our rulers and so-called experts indulge distraction, deceit, denial and delusion. Typical was the response of the Government to the Rudakubana case.
As well as debating the semantics of the term terrorism and launching yet another public inquiry, senior Ministers proposed tighter rules to stop under-18 olds from buying knives online. But such a measure would have made no difference in the Southport horror.
After all, Rudakubana was known to be a serious risk to public safety, regularly carrying a knife and displaying such violent anger that he was not only expelled from school but was also reported three times to the Prevent deradicalisation programme.
Yet nothing was done to curtail his liberty. As a result, three girls lost their lives.
It is shameful of the authorities to shift the responsibility for their own failings onto web retailers. The police, courts, politicians and officials, whose first duty is the protection of the public, are far bigger culprits than Amazon.
But just as reprehensible is the warped thinking of too many policy-makers and academics. Desperate to maintain the illusion of multi-cultural success, they resort to endless excuse-making for urban criminality.
So we are told that inner-city poverty is to blame, an argument that cannot explain why previous generations of Britons were law-abiding. Others parrot the cry for education, though such a call, far from being virtuous, implies that our society is so morally depraved that teenagers have to be taught not to stab each other.
Just as flawed is the noisy bleat about the “lack of resources” for youth services. It is an assertion that does not stand up to scrutiny, since complaints about municipal underfunding ignore the colossal sums that now go into youth provision from charities and the private sector.
A search on the Charity Commission’s website lists over 15,000 organisations that aim to deter young people from crime. Some are small, localized anti-knife schemes, others are major institutions like the Onside Youth Zones, which has an income of £8million or the £53million Catch 22 initiative that aims to promote “safer, crime-free communities”.
But together they comprehensively demolish the fashionable, handwringing narrative of neglect. The eagerness to absolve dangerous criminals from migrant backgrounds, to promote sympathy for knife-wielders and to explain away gangland violence reveals that spirit of decadent self-loathing which is destroying British civilisation.
Excessive cultural sensitivities, far from promoting tolerance, have fuelled social division and paralysed the justice system. We should be moving in precisely the opposite direction. That means upholding the law, imposing tough jail terms, deporting foreign offenders and strengthening our borders. Only by learning the lessons from Britain’s more gentle past can we embrace a brighter future.
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Rachel Reeves is under the cosh
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is under the cosh at present, but probably the hardest job in Cabinet belongs to her colleague Liz Kendall. As the Work and Pensions Secretary, she has the unenviable task of trying to bring the gargantuan benefits bill under control.
One of the prime obstacles she faces is the nexus of lobbyists, campaigners and pressure groupies who cynically deploy emotional blackmail to fight any reform, no matter how justified. They have been at it again this week. The charity Turn2Us, which provides financial advice, wailed that Kendall’s proposed crackdown on fraud “risked fuelling stigma and deterring people from claiming the support they need”. If only there was such hesitancy. The recent explosion in both benefit claims and abuses shows that much of the public feels that the taxpayer owes them a living.
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The charity Oxfam was founded in 1942 with the purpose of supplying food to war-torn Greece. But the ultra-woke outfit now has a loftier goal, namely the destruction of Britain. This week Oxfam produced an outlandish report which stated that our nation owes India no less than £53trillion in reparations for its alleged plunder of its former colony.
One Oxford don rightly described the proposal as “the corruption and weaponisation of history”. But the woke mob cares nothing for historical facts. The triumph of dogma is what matters to them.
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This week, 78-year-old became the oldest person ever in US history to be sworn in as President. Despite his age, he has set a blistering pace for the start of his second term, full of optimistic dynamism.
The contrast with our Labour Government is striking. In their first months in office, Sir Keir and his team preached a gospel of gloom, warning of black holes in the public finances and grim times ahead.
The contrast between Washington and London is particularly stark on the issue of environmental policy. Trump talks of a new “golden age” for America of plummeting prices and energy independence, whereas here in Britain, Ed Miliband, the green ideologue in charge of the eco agenda, seems determined to sacrifice jobs, livelihoods and enterprise in his doctrinaire pursuit of net zero emissions.
The irony of Miliband’s approach is that he is making us more dependent on expensive foreign energy imports. On Wednesday, windfarms in Britain were supplying less than 1% of our electricity, fulfilling Trump’s complaint that such turbines are “inefficient, ugly and a threat to wildlife”.
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According to legend, a werewolf can only be killed with a silver bullet.
But even that choice of ballistics might not be enough to finish off ’s addiction to the creature. Yet another reformulation of the tale has just been released to mixed reviews and disappointing sales. Amid all the revivals, the best version remains the 1941 original from Universal Studios.
Its two most memorable features are the brilliant make-up for the lycanthrope by Jack Pierce, who also created the iconic Frankenstein, and the poignant, agonised performance by Lon Chaney Junior as the Wolf Man.
The son of actor Lon Chaney Senior, he had initially been reluctant to follow his celebrated father into the horror genre. But the timeless classic turned out to be the making of him.