Monthly Archives: February 2019

Reminiscences and Musings, society, Stray memories of life at the English Bar, Uncategorized

An Unexpected Discovery

14 Comments

My blog, as regular readers will know, concentrates on ideas or matters of general import to society or the world. I do occasionally blog about other things, such as the less strictly legal aspects of my life at the English Bar, particularly if the story or anecdote has a humorous element or one which, to me, seems to say something about society as a whole.

When I blog about people I have known or had connection with, I usually keep them anonymous, or use initials only as identifiers. However, there are cases where the individual is either very well-known or, in my view, does not deserve the protection of anonymity.

Let us go back to December 2007, when I was beginning to have serious problems with the Revenue, problems which were not resolved until 2012. I made my last appearance in court (a truly ridiculous 3-day construction case at Central London County Court…long story, deserving a blog piece of its own some day) and left for my home in North Finistere, France (though I remained, purely nominally, a barrister in chambers, and at the practising Bar, until mid-2008).

Not long before I left for France for the last time (I had been bi-weekly commuting for 3 years via car ferry and air), a nuisance joined chambers. I had twice (successfully) opposed this barrister, one Brent McDonald, in fairly minor County Court negligence cases in the South West of England and had been frankly unimpressed by him. Though he seemed not unintelligent, he also seemed devoid of common sense: for example, insisting to a judge that a motor accident must have happened in a certain way because of the laws of kinetic energy! He was originally in the construction trade, I believe, and had a technical background. I disliked his attitude, which was very and unnecessarily confrontational. He was also a sore loser. If I am being completely honest, I thought that there was something wrong with him mentally.

That individual, I believe of Scottish origins, was, according to the senior clerk to chambers, married to an Indian (I think) woman, and they apparently had a child (in fact, if memory serves, two children). The Clerk said that he had plenty of good work, mostly legally-aided.

I was, at the time, a member of Rougemont Chambers, Exeter, which had burgeoned from a handful of people and not much work when I joined in 2002 to being a busy provincial set with a couple of dozen barristers and three clerks in 2007 (it is now merged with another set under a new name and is the largest set in Exeter and the largest in the South West outside Bristol).

The other members of chambers (it was always a surprise to me what poor judges of character many barristers are) were apparently impressed by McDonald at a reception chambers held for him, and the senior clerk was impressed by the list of solicitors supposedly willing to instruct him (and thus bring work and revenue to chambers). I abstained on accepting him into chambers, rather than voting against him, because both the Head of Chambers (who is now a Circuit Judge) and the Senior Clerk had persuaded all other members to approve him and I did not have the power to veto his acceptance.

In the first day or so, McDonald was not offensive and even remarked on how impressed he was that I was mentioned in the main legal directories (that “review” barristers and solicitors) as someone to brief on matters such as Caribbean and other offshore laws, and oil and gas questions, the latter particularly involving the Russophone jurisdictions where I had had very direct experience (including a year living in Kazakhstan).

It was not long, however, before McDonald started to buttonhole me on my political views, though only on the race question (including the Jewish Question). This was odd, because members of chambers rarely discussed anything political. McDonald was insolent and inquisitorial. To me, his attitude was unbelievable, not least because he had only just joined chambers and was in every way junior to me! Protocol is important to me. His demeanour was would-be intimidating, would-be bossy. I was fuming but courtesy also is very important to me. In fact, the bastard even remarked, half-sneeringly,  on how polite I was and how it was obvious that politeness was important to me!

McDonald effectively admitted that his antipathy toward me was based on (his kneejerk assumption about) my political views, combined with the fact that his wife and offspring (I think that he had two children) were non-European; as noted above, I believe that his wife was Indian. In the end, he grudgingly accepted that I had different views from his and we effectively agreed to avoid each other in chambers. Until he arrived, chambers had been a pleasant place. It was an object lesson in how one person can poison a whole environment very quickly.

So I left the practising Bar and my Exeter chambers and England, though not primarily (in fact, scarcely at all) because of McDonald (though his being there was certainly a disincentive to me, like the taste of a bitter piece of peel when eating a fruit).

I do not think that McDonald stayed long in those chambers before joining a larger set in Bristol, an offshoot of a London set. I noticed that he was himself now mentioned in the legal directories which he seemed to revere. They said that he “had come up through the ranks” and was well-regarded or some such.

I myself have always viewed such legal directories with skepticism, not so much because they recommended me at one time (!) but more because I had read glowing reports about people and organizations which did not chime with my direct experience of them, such as the “Emerging Markets” mini-department at Cameron McKenna (a large City of London law firm) for which I worked for 6 months in 1996-97, based for most of which time in Almaty, Kazakhstan (I later stayed on there, working with a very large American law firm).

That Cameron McKenna department was largely a Potemkin village created by an Australian woman of Russian-speaking (note speaking) origins, who would have been incapable of organizing the proverbial “piss-up in a brewery”, but who was very good at putting on an impressive front: when her department was about to be closed (when the **** hit the fan in various ways), about a year after I myself had moved on, that person not only managed to move just in time (and with a few toadies) to another large City of London law firm dealing with Russia, Kazakhstan etc, but the Times legal section and the main legal directories all (briefed by her and/or cronies, no doubt) lauded her new firm as having been “strengthened” by having this useless and devious woman and said toadies on board! (the last I heard of her, a few years ago, she had returned to the Antipodes and was an Australian trade delegate at a fairly high level, no doubt flourishing like the green bay tree…).

Anyway, returning to this McDonald character, I pretty much forgot about him for a decade, but then I started my blog and included a few reminiscences etc. So it was that I decided, recently, to see whether he was still at the Bar. To my surprise, I could not find him in the Bar Directory, or anywhere else, even by Googling. I did find some noted (i.e. appeal) cases, dating from 2008 or so. I wondered whether he had died, emigrated, even been disbarred! I drew a blank everywhere. Then I noticed that there was someone with the same surname at his last-known chambers. Not his wife at the time I knew him, because hers was a foreign, I think Indian, first name and this one was called Fran. Anyway, the Indian woman had not been at the Bar. So I thought that the surname must be co-incidence (McDonald being a fairly common name). Then, however, I noticed a few more facts.

It turned out that appeal cases from 2008 and later, proudly noted on that chambers’ website as having been done by Fran McDonald, had in fact been noted, in the law reports themselves, as having been done by Brent McDonald. I took a closer look.

The Bar Directory now has no public record for a Brent McDonald, but does now have an entry for one Lola Francesca McDonald…

Now a stranger move yet! It turns out that the barrister formerly known as Brent McDonald and now known as Fran McDonald has relocated to, of all places, the small New Zealand town of Nelson, at the top of NZ’s South Island.

What makes this move even stranger, on the face of it (and notwithstanding that Nelson seems a pleasant small town, reputedly the sunniest in New Zealand), is that McDonald (whether as Brent or Fran) was a personal injury specialist (though in Exeter he did other negligence-related and yet other work in the brief time when we were both members of Rougemont Chambers in 2007). There is, as far as I know, no personal injury legal work in New Zealand (see below for the reason for this).

The legal directories said:

“‘…rising star [Fran] McDonald continues to act on severe injury and fatal accident cases in the UK and abroad. She is very popular.’ (2012)”; and

“‘[Fran] McDonald is solely focused on personal injury and clinical negligence.’ (2014)”

(note the square brackets: looks as if Fran was still Brent in 2012 and 2014, despite the “she”; as for the Legal 500, that organization does not note McDonald’s New Zealand departure in its latest online offering: see below)

 “WORK DEPARTMENT

Personal injury; public inquiry; clinical negligence; product liability; inquests.

POSITION

Fran is a specialist barrister acting in the field of personal Injury who is recommended in both ‘Chambers & Partners’ and ‘The Legal 500’. Fran’s practice is focused on personal injury, including fatal accidents, inquests and inquiries.“

The favourable references cease after 2016. The reason is a little vague (to me at least). I have no idea how long “gender reassignment” takes (or whether Brent/Fran underwent it), though, apropos of nothing much, I did once own a copy of the memoirs of April Ashley, my copy sadly abandoned in France in 2009, along with 99% of my library of 2,000 books. The April Ashley book was rare, too, the print run having been pulped.

I presume that the apparent hiatus after 2016 may have had something to do with what must be a very trying metamorphosis for anyone.

What makes the emigration to New Zealand odd is that it is clear, on the face of it, that McDonald built up a solid reputation in England in personal injury and the related clinical negligence area, but has now relocated to a country where there is effectively no personal injury or clinical negligence work, because New Zealand has a “no-fault” system, based on universal insurance, assessment of injury etc (see Notes, below).

I notice that McDonald, despite and perhaps justly boosting his/her personal injury repertoire on the London chambers’ website (to the exclusion of almost everything else), now lists as specialisms “employment law” and, even more weirdly (to my eye), nautical matters!

“Fran’s main specialism in Nelson is issues relating to employment law. After completion of his exams in the new year he will resume practice over his full range of contentious interests including tort law (negligence, trespass etc), insurance, commercial/contractual disputes, professional liability, property disputes, medico-legal matters, engineering and construction and health and safety legislation.”

and

“Many of his cases over the years have had a nautical theme such as claims involving distraint of containerised goods, allisions or breach of contract especially where jurisdictional/conflict of laws questions arose. Fran is equally happy to bring or defend claims. For example, he acted for UK Marines injured on the battlefield at the same time as being counsel for over 1,200 Iraqis alleging they were imprisoned, tortured or had family members murdered by UK forces.“

The Nelson law firm names McDonald as Fran, as do the chambers in London (of which he/she is still, it seems, a member), but the London website refers to “she/her” whereas the New Zealand one has it as “he/his”. All very confusing… In addition, the New Zealand law firm shows McDonald as male, in a suit, shirt, tie, with short hair. The London website shows Fran as, or as if, female, with matching hair. Even more confusing…

The New Zealand law firm, Hamish Fletcher, which McDonald has joined in Nelson, has —actually not too unpleasing aesthetically, from the architectural point of view— offices on the floors above some retail outlets: Specsavers, a clothing shop and a “vape shop”, as can be seen via Google Earth.

Well, there it is. I am no psychiatrist, but it appears that the underlying motive force here is a wish for reinvention: the young man in construction or engineering becomes a barrister, marries, has children, changes sets, changes locations, changes sex, emigrates to the far side of the world and to very different circumstances, even (as it appears) metamorphosing in appearance again.

In the Russian proverb, “the soul of another is a dark wood” [чужая душа темный лес].

Does the above story tell us anything beyond the egregious McDonald’s personal odyssey? Someone seemingly rootless… is that typical of the age, typical now of UK people? I myself was once called, in jest, “the wandering Aryan”! It does reinforce my view of “legal directories”, not to mention chambers’ and law firms’ websites!

What about the “gender bender” aspect? A lady barrister I knew in London once was convinced that pollution of the water and air was leading to feminization in the males of both fish and humans (she was looking at her boyfriend at the time!). Was she wrong? I merely pose the question. When both April Ashley and (btw) a later friend of mine, Della Aleksander, had “sex change surgery” in Casablanca (April Ashley in 1960, Della Aleksander sometime in the early 1970s, I believe), such things were outrageous enough to draw down huge tabloid press interest. Now, it sometimes seems as though everyone and his dog is having a “sex change”! I do not think we can simply shrug our shoulders at all this. It may be that we are coming to the point where our whole civilization is about to experience a crisis.

Notes

https://www.barstandardsboard.org.uk/regulatory-requirements/the-barristers’-register/?ProfileID=43962

http://www.oldsquare.co.uk/our-people/profile/fran-mcdonald

http://www.legal500.com/firms/9535/offices/9534/lawyers/90812

http://www.hflaw.co.nz/our-team/fran-mcdonald/

https://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/resources/acc%E2%80%93helping-to-meet-the-costs-of-personal-injury

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accident_Compensation_Corporation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson,_New_Zealand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Ashley#Biographies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Ashley

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/when-reality-becomes-subjective/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/

Extra Note

Many readers of my blog will be aware that I ceased to be even nominally a barrister in late 2016. For those who are not, and are curious as to why, please see:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/the-slide-of-the-english-bar-and-uk-society-continues-and-accelerates/

Update, 6 May 2019

I happened to notice that the name of the subject of the blog post no longer appears in the online list of barristers belonging to his former chambers in England.

Update, 28 May 2022

Having seen that the original blog post has had a number of hits overnight, I checked out the website of that law firm in Nelson, New Zealand. It seems that the individual in question has now reverted to “Brent”.

What an unexpected and odd world we live in.

Update, 14 June 2023

Upon looking up the individual in question (on the website of the New Zealand law firm) for the first time in over a year, it appears that the individual no longer says anything about specializing either in personal injury or “wet” shipping matters, but now gives priority to business mediation etc, and even claims to have always done that kind of work. Really?

I cannot recall him ever doing that kind of work when I had the misfortune of being acquainted with him, whatever he may now claim. I should know. I did a bit myself when in the same chambers as him, and even sat as a business mediator now and then.

Oh, well, there it is…

Update, 15 July 2024

The blog post having had quite a few recent hits, I decided to see whether there was any further or better information that I should add. Turns out that the individual in question is still “Brent”, and now sports a beard. He moved on, apparently, from his former law firm a year ago and over the past year has been associated with two other law firms in turn, both on the South Island of New Zealand. He is not, however, and as of today’s date, on the websites of either.

basic income, society, The Great Reset, the Great Reset, Uncategorized

The Urgent Necessity for Basic Income (or its equivalent)

4 Comments

Preamble

I have blogged previously about the need for Basic Income (see Notes, below).

One important point is that the nexus connecting work and pay is loosening in the more developed countries. Already, computers, automation and modern business streamlining have led to the situation whereby, apart from actual unemployment, there is huge underemployment. In the UK, we see, in big picture terms, that the poorer half of the workforce is still being paid less in real terms (the latest statistics suggest about 7% less) than was paid in 2007 for equivalent work.

Now, there is a headlong rush into greater automation and, crucially, to Artificial Intelligence [AI].

Working Tax Credits as Government Subsidy to Poor-Paying Employers

Even before the financial upheaval of 2007-2008, it is clear that the “market”, as “hidden hand” mechanism, delivering adequate pay for required work, was not working properly or as old-thinking economic theory suggested that it should. Employers were unwilling or in some cases unable to offer pay high enough for employees to subsist on, let alone live decently on.

The answer of the Blair-Brown governments was to offer employees “working tax credits”, i.e. a form of “welfare”/”social security” for those in employment, the purpose of which was (and at time of writing still is) to top-up inadequate pay to a determined level. A more limited measure, Family Credit, claimable only by families, was in operation from 1986-1999.

The most obvious drawback of Working Tax Credit [WTC], i.e. that it in effect subsidizes poor and poor-paying employers out of general taxation, was either not foreseen by self-styled financial genius Gordon Brown, or was ignored by him and/or Tony Blair. Adding insult to injury was and is the fact that some of the worst-paying employing companies are also those most adept at avoiding tax liability: transnational enterprises such as Amazon in particular.

In other words, an employee is forced (by circumstances) to work for pay which is not enough for that employee to live on, even at a very basic level. That pay is then topped-up to a minimum subsistence level by Working Tax Credit, which is paid for not directly by the exploitative employer but by government, and so by general taxation. Low-paid employees pay little or no income tax now, but still pay so-called National Insurance, which is today just another or extra income tax in all but name. Put simply, the low-paid worker is paying out for his or her own Working Tax Credit, at least to some extent.

The poor-paying employer has no incentive to pay decently, because the government will stump up enough to keep the employee in place.

Real-terms pay now, for very many people, is inferior to what was paid in the 1980s and 1970s. Conditions of employment are also worse in reality (though that aspect is not part of this blog post).

At present, 5 million people in the UK receive WTC, while another 2 million are entitled to receive it but, for whatever reason, do not apply for it.

Other Government Top-Ups to Pay

In addition to basic Working Tax Credit, people in low-paying jobs and who have children can get extra money via WTC , as can disabled workers.

Persons who are disabled or unwell (including employed persons) can receive Disability Living Allowance, which is not means-tested.

Persons who have children are also entitled to Child Benefit, regardless of capital or income (up to £50,000-£60,000, tapering).

Persons of the age(s) specified can receive State Pension regardless of whether they work or not; moreover, whether or not they have ever worked.

Limited Elements of Basic Income Already Embedded in the Existing System

  • State Pension, paid whatever the individual’s capital or income, and whether or not the individual is working (employed or self-employed) or not and (if you include Pension Guarantee Credit), payable regardless of how much the pensioner has paid in via National Insurance;
  • Child Benefit, paid regardless of income (under £50,000 p.a.);
  • Disability Living Allowance (and its successor, “Personal Independence Payment” or PIP), paid regardless of capital or income to qualifying persons (and this is not the place in which to examine why politicians and Department of Work and Pensions [DWP] civil servants often choose vulgar names for State benefits and programmes: cf. “Jobseeker’s Allowance” etc).

Advantages of Basic Income

  • Simplicity. A Basic Income would mean that most of the existing DWP structure could be dispensed with: the vast edifice of “Jobcentres” (office buildings), filled with DWP staff engaged in adminstration, and the snooping upon, monitoring, “assessing” of claimants etc. The absurdity of it is that many claimants are only getting about £75 a week anyway. The present Kafka-esque set-up really should be and can be junked. Probably 90% of the present 85,000 DWP employees can be made redundant. The financial savings from that, decommissioning of buildings, running costs etc would be in the tens of billions annually; the untold billions paid by the State to useless and dishonest private contractors, such as ATOS and Capita, would also be saved;
  • Security of Citizens. It has been shown in overseas pilot studies (eg recently in Finland) that having a Basic Income, even if small, gives people a sense of security only available until now to those with an inherited private income. Yes, some people will decide to loaf all day, maybe even drink all day, but others will do paid work, start small businesses, improve their cultural level, volunteer locally or far away etc. The idle and/or useless are like that under the present system anyway and are costing the State money even now, both directly and indirectly (eg via the costs of policing, NHS, prisons etc);

Doubts Often Expressed about Basic Income

  • “People will not want to work if they get money for nothing”: well, most wealthy inheritors of capital, most of those living off trust incomes etc do seem to want to work in some way, or to set up businesses, or at least to write, paint, or other similar activity. Don’t disparage writing or other artistic activity. After all, Harry Potter, which snowballed into a huge industry employing, altogether, many thousands and even tens of thousands, came out of the mind of one lady, a single mother on State benefits; J.K. Rowling herself has said that, under the punitive present benefits regime, she would have been messed around so much that it would have been impossible for her to sit in cafes with her baby writing Harry Potter. True, some people will simply loaf. They do that under the present system. Don’t think that there are no costs to the State and society now (even if actual benefits are cut off): police costs, court and legal costs, NHS costs, too;
  • “The cost to the taxpayer”: the cost of Basic Income would be little more than the present “welfare” (social security) system, once you take into account the huge savings on DWP and HMRC bureaucracy, savings by not using useless/dishonest outsourcing organizations, the economic benefit of people spending more, stimulating the economy, setting up new small businesses;
  • “People getting Basic Income money that they do not even need”: firstly, what people “need” is, beyond the basic level, something subjective. Apart from that, there is no problem with clawing back monies paid to those above a certain income. All that need happen is that a maximum level of income (all income) for recipients be set. All persons above that income level to be taxed or super-taxed to the same level as Basic Income received. The level might be a total (including Basic Income) of £30,000, assuming Basic Income of perhaps £15,000 per year. In that case, the person would be taxed the £15,000, leaving £15,000. Yes, there would be apparent unfairness at lower income levels, whereby it might be questioned why work, when you could simply receive the (in the example given) £15,000 and not work. However, even then the recipient does gain, via extra security in case of job loss or illness; alternatively, the threshold could be set higher, say at £50,000 p.a.

Variations on the Basic Income Theme

Instead of money alone, Basic Income could include benefits paid to certain persons, such as free housing for persons receiving less than a certain income. The danger here is in the complexity and cost, as under the existing system, as well as monies wasted going to landlords charging excessive rents. It may be that the way forward is to add to the existing (in the UK) more or less “free” (at point of use) health service, free education at primary and secondary level etc. Examples:

  • free public transport, whether local or regional;
  • free car insurance;
  • free domestic utilities;
  • free NHS or similar;
  • free education.

Basic Income as Necessity

It is clear that, in the UK, relatively few people at present are purely living off what they can earn by work or by investments and/or trust income. 7 million are eligible for Working Tax Credits, millions more are children, retired people, disabled and not working, unemployed etc. For many, working for pay does not cover the basic necessities of life, let alone provide a decent human existence. The State already recognizes these facts.

The explosion in artificial intelligence and robotics will turn the screw. For example, there are at present 356,300 taxi drivers and private hire drivers in the UK. The technology already exists to replace them. It is unlikely that more than a small percentage will still be doing such work in, say, 2030. That’s just one group affected. Groups as diverse as farmers, lawyers, surgeons, pilots, security guards will all be made, as groups, largely redundant.

Basic Income is not just the right thing, but the necessary thing.

Notes

https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/what-happened-finland-scrapped-benefits-13950300

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Tax_Credit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_benefit#United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_for_Work_and_Pensions

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/07/27/what-do-people-need/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/the-revolution-of-the-robots-and-ai-means-that-basic-income-is-inevitable/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/the-general-shape-of-a-future-society/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/basic-income-and-the-welfare-state-some-ideas-and-reminiscences/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/03/29/aspects-of-the-new-society/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/09/16/priorities-in-state-funding/

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/taxi-and-private-hire-vehicles-statistics-england-2017

https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/universal-credit-basic-income-california-2563380

https://basicincome.org/news/2016/09/netherlands-debate-about-unconditional-basic-income-in-parliament/

Update, 11 March 2019

People generally are now waking up to both the desirability and the practical possibility of Basic Income:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/11/scrap-tax-free-personal-allowance-and-pay-everyone-48-a-week

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6886461/Unemployed-people-happier-income-scheme-no-likely-job-experiment-reveals.html

Update, 8 September 2019

The necessity for Basic Income is spreading, but not yet to enough people. Many still think that it is “expensive” (probably the same people who believe that the answer to a recession is to “cut spending”…). There is, however, dissent…

https://twitter.com/DerorCurrency/status/1170523619023147009?s=20

Update, 4 November 2019

Alt-Right, animal welfare, Brexit, ethnostate, free speech, historical, immigration, Reminiscences and Musings, safe zones, society, The Great Replacement, Uncategorized, white flight

White Flight in a Small Country

28 Comments

I was reminded yet again (not that I require the reminder) of the migration-invasion of the UK, having seen a Daily Telegraph article written some 6 years ago (2012), just recently tweeted or retweeted by (ironically) a Jew-Zionist extremist. To read the full article, see Notes, below.

What the article says

In that Daily Telegraph article, the authoress writes that

  • “I feel like a stranger where I live.”
  • I am living in a place where I am a stranger.”
  • “Muslims…it feels as if they have taken over.”
  • “There are, of course, other Europeans in my area who may share my feelings but I’m not able to talk to them easily about this situation as they are mostly immigrants, too.”
  • “I suspect that many white people in London and the Home Counties now move house on the basis of ethnicity, especially if they have children. Estate agents don’t advertise this self-segregation, of course. Instead there are polite codes for that kind of thing, such as the mention of “a good school”, which I believe is code for “mainly white English”. Not surprising when you learn that nearly one million pupils do not have English as a first language.”
  • “I, too, have decided to leave my area, following in the footsteps of so many of my neighbours. I don’t really want to go. I worked long and hard to get to London, to find a good job and buy a home and I’d like to stay here. But I’m a stranger on these streets and all the “good” areas, with safe streets, nice housing and pleasant cafés, are beyond my reach. I see London turning into a place almost exclusively for poor immigrants and the very rich.”
  • “…now, despite the wishful thinking of multiculturalists, wilful segregation by immigrants is increasingly echoed by the white population – the rate of white flight from our cities is soaring. According to the Office for National Statistics, 600,000 white Britons have left London in the past 10 years. The latest census data shows the breakdown in telling detail: some London boroughs have lost a quarter of their population of white, British people. The number in Redbridge, north London, for example, has fallen by 40,844 (to 96,253) in this period, while the total population has risen by more than 40,335 to 278,970. It isn’t only London boroughs. The market town of Wokingham in Berkshire has lost nearly 5 per cent of its white British population.”
  • “It’s sad that I am moving not for a positive reason, but to escape something. I wonder whether I’ll tell the truth, if I’m asked. I can’t pretend that I’m worried about local schools, so perhaps I’ll say it’s for the chance of a conversation over the garden fence. But really I no longer need an excuse: mass immigration is making reluctant racists of us all.”

So finally the authoress, obviously by nature something akin to what the Americans might term, mutatis mutandis, a “Country Club Republican” (meaning “liberal conservative”) has to concede that “I no longer need an excuse: mass immigration is making reluctant racists of us all.”

The only thing to be added to her article itself is that it is 6 years since she wrote it. The statistic given of 600,000 white British or mostly British who left (fled?) London in the decade before the article was written could probably be updated to 1M or more now.

Personal Experiences and Thoughts

The Daily Telegraph article focusses on the Muslim influx into London. Firstly, that influx has been far greater in percentage terms in some of the post-industrial Northern towns and cities; secondly, the writer says that “Of the 8.17 million people in London, one million are Muslim, with the majority of them young families. That is not, in reality, a great number.”

In what world is a million (now? God knows…) not a great number? In what world is nearly 13% (now, what?) of the population (and growing fast as those “young families” breed) not huge? The lady writer so obviously wants to be “nice”, and not to “offend” etc, but I fear that desperate times betoken desperate measures. Nice polite sentiments are, well, nice and polite, but we have to face facts with both clear thought and clear expression of thought if Western civilization is to survive.

The Daily Telegraph guest writer prefers to focus on the Muslims as a population bloc (and, though unsaid, population bomb), but effectively ignores the multitude of other races, ethnicities and nationalities that now comprise part of the London population. Africans, West Indians, Chinese etc, a giant multikulti Pandora’s Box. We hear much now about the explosion in youth “gangs” and “knife crime” etc (almost all of which is carried out by blacks and other non-whites), and the System msm and political milieu becomes ever more hysterical with calls to restrict and get rid of…knives! In the old phrase, “’nuff said”!

I once lived in London, starting in Little Venice in 1976 (at age 19; I returned intermittently and that was the main area in which I lived over the years), eventually living in a number of different areas, some good, some not so good: Blackheath, Lee, Lewisham, East Dulwich, Tulse Hill, New Cross, Holland Park. The house in which I first lived, in Little Venice, was valued at £100,000 when sold to the lessee c.1980. It was sold in 2005 (by my friend who bought the freehold c.1980) for £1.4M…That same house, or at least identical Victorian semi-detached villas with good gardens in the same road, were valued in 2018 at up to £4M! A 40x increase in “value” in less than 40 years! A low to average pay in 1976 would have been about £100 per week; similar work would today pay perhaps £400 or £500 a week. In other words, pay has increased, for most people, at a face value of perhaps 4x or 5x over those 40 years, but the cost of a house by 40x! Rent has increased similarly.

Mass immigration is only one of the factors that have driven up the cost of London housing, but it is a major one and probably the most important. The wealthier parts of London now house largely a cosmopolitan crowd of Chinese, “Russians” (many of which are in fact Jews from Russia), Israelis, Arabs, you name it. In fact, large swathes of expensive housing are owned but kept empty by absentee foreigners. The poorer parts (such as in the Daily Telegraph article) are now flooded and indeed swamped by a motley mob of blacks, browns and others (and also whites from the poorer parts of Europe).

Little Venice has changed from, in 1976, being a fairly affluent, in places wealthy, and also rather intellectual (because of the BBC studios in the outer part of Maida Vale, perhaps), inner suburb, to a now very wealthy enclave (one cannot list the famous pop stars, theatrical people, film stars, “entrepreneurs” etc who now live there, so numerous are they). However, this “island” is surrounded by a black/brown sea in all directions North and West. Even in the 1990s, if a school trip party from the nearby areas were to be encountered at Warwick Avenue Underground Station, there were few if any white children.

I myself saw what was coming, decades ago. I stayed in London (for much of the time, though I was sometimes overseas, at times resident in the country or in the USA) until I left to live in Kazakhstan on kommandirovka (work contract) for a year (1996-1997). Others I knew in London had started to leave by then.

One couple, the sister and brother in law of a lady I knew, lived in Catford, South London, in what was probably the only decent road there: a leafy enclave of large detached Victorian or perhaps Edwardian houses. They, professed Labour supporters and, I think, members, no doubt “anti-racist” etc (I was warned not to talk politics with them, and I think that they had been given a similar warning!) were able, for a while, to live there an comfortably affluent life (he a partner in a City of London law firm, she a housewife –though I daresay never accepting such a label– and Open University student) and able also to put out of mind the enveloping near-jungle that started at the end of their own road. They relocated to rural Kent in the 1990s, pleased to discover that their Catford residence could be sold to their advantage, allowing them to buy a country house complete with acres of manicured grounds, a swimming pool, tennis court, stables (and horses) etc, somewhere near Tonbridge.

I doubt that the above couple would ever have said (even between themselves, probably) that there was a racial element to their relocation (escape?); more likely to have cited fresh air, space, less noise, better schools for their two children etc (and would never have linked those factors, at least consciously, to the racial-ethnic one…).

The lady whose sister and brother in law are mentioned above also relocated out of London, in the late 1990s, having contracted a marriage or quasi-marriage. She and her “partner”, to use the contemporary word, sold their London homes (in his case in the “bandit country” of the Seven Sisters neighbourhood of North London) and bought a house in Brighton. Neither of them, I am sure, would ever mention ethnic-related crime as one reason to move (they were both strong “anti-racists” and she is the only woman ever to have walked out on me at a restaurant, the result of an ideological disagreement at the –now and sadly closed-down– Luba’s Bistro in Knightsbridge). More likely to be mentioned: sea air, a less frenetic life etc…

Thirdly, a barrister I knew, who also relocated, also to the South Coast, in the early 2000s, together with his very charming wife and then-young children: another Labour Party member (and one-time Islington councillor, who was offered but declined the chance of a safe seat in the Commons under Blair), I am sure that the reasons which he or his wife might give for having moved out of London would be fresh sea air, space, good schooling for their two children etc; certainly nothing to do with the ethnic swamping of London. They may even believe that themselves. Call me a cynic…

It may or may not be significant that in all three of the above cases, one person from each couple had to commute a considerable distance daily to London. Obviously, those people thought that the trouble and extra travel expense was worth it.

Another case: someone I had known from school, who bought a house (later two others) in South London, rented rooms, converted two houses into flats, starting around 1980. He eventually married and then, around 2000, moved out of London to what the Daily Mail might call “leafy Buckinghamshire”. I do not know whether he would say that racial or ethnic swamping was a cause of his relocation or not; he would probably cite cultural factors. Like the others above, he and his wife are bringing up their children (indeed, by now have brought them up) in a basically white English racial and cultural milieu.

There are similar relocations constantly, from London and other UK urban centres to the country, to Australasia etc. Few of those fleeing or, put less dramatically, relocating, are very “political”; if they were, there might be no need for “white flight”!

Safe Zones

I have previously blogged about the need for English (to a lesser extent, Welsh and Scottish) people to relocate to “safe zones” and in particular to the one major zone which I propose in the South West of England. This is not exclusively a racial imperative. It is also a social and cultural one.

I have been criticized by old-thinking persons who say that English people should “stay and fight” (at least politically). Such people still think in terms of starting a political party, printing leaflets (in the digital age!), holding meetings, and canvassing voters “on the doorstep” just like System party MPs and candidates pretend to do at election time as part of the meaningless flim-flam of System party politics. Well, how has that worked out? The NF tried it in the 1970s (before the Internet). Result? Nothing. The BNP tried it in the 1990s and 2000s. Result? Almost nothing (and eventually nothing). UKIP tried it and is still trying it with its few members. Result? Nothing, really.

How is it possible to fight or struggle politically for social nationalism in a city such as London which is majority non-white/non-European? A doomed struggle. That is what faces us in most UK urban concentrations.

There must be a concentration of forces, to enable a new future to be developed. Not just “white flight” away from certain ways of life, but advance to a new society.

Notes

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9831912/I-feel-like-a-stranger-where-I-live.html?fbclid=IwAR34tmPHI0Q6w1SRgZagNH-JNYNAa0p8Qnp4Ti4CuElgBSrEXFkfm_hVEx8

http://www.salisburyreview.com/author/jane-kelly/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Kelly_(artist)

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/forums/europe-uk-ireland/england/luba-s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonbury#Notable_residents

Further to the above, I saw the youtube video below, which is self-explanatory and also hilarious, as virtue-signalling Swedes tie themselves in knots trying to backtrack after lying that they would, if asked, accept a “refugee” into their homes as a staying guest. It reminded me of all those enemies of the people in the UK, who are constantly telling (other) British people to give up their living standards or even their own homes to (mostly fake) “refugees”. You know some of the worst of them: Yvette Cooper, Lily Allen, Billy Bragg, the jew “lord” Dubs etc.

Now look at these virtue-signalling Swedish morons!

and here (below) is the Peter Hitchens view. Sadly, not a social nationalist, but he does castigate mass immigration

Update, 3 June 2019

I am probably wasting my time talking about a random tweet seen, especially when it is typical of thousands, but anyway…

So here we see one Sue Woolf, who is living in France at a place called Confolens

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confolens

and

http://astrofarmfrance.com/confolens/

which is in a very pleasant and quiet (and European-race) corner of France (the village or town has fewer than 3,000 inhabitants). Hardly any non-Europeans live anywhere in the whole region.

This woman is tweeting in support of a Romanian girl who wants to stay in the UK, where the Romanian has been living for 7 years (probably at State expense in part, possibly as cheap labour in part) and who is doing a PhD (on “migrants in the UK”! You could not make it up!). Judging from the photos tweeted, the Romanian girl is at least real Romanian, not one of the horde of Roma Gypsies with Romanian or other passports.

My attitude? I have no objection to the odd (real) Romanian coming to or staying in the UK; n.b. not Roma Gypsies, not in the millions (of any kind of person). As for the tweeters supporting mass immigration, “idiots”, “bien-pensants”…..”well-meaning fools” pretty much covers it. Look at the Woolf woman, wishing yet more swamping of the UK… from her rural idyll in one of the most scenic and prosperous (and unswamped) parts of Western France!

I suppose that I should add that I myself was resident in France (Finistere-Nord, Brittany) for several years, but there again (unlike many of those who are swamping the UK) I am of European race and culture, did not use the French social security or free health system, brought money into France rather than exporting funds from France and was never in trouble with the police (save for one minor nonsense “crime”, an on-the-spot speeding ticket, when I was caught doing nearly 100 mph on a dual-carriageway with a speed-limit of about 65 mph).

These idiots tweeting their virtue-signalling tend to equate British pensioners, business owners, or expat residents (working part-time in the UK or elsewhere if working at all), with (often non-European) cheap labour, fake “refugees”, criminals, scavengers etc! Such hypocritical and (at least in their own minds) “well-meaning” idiots are some of the gravediggers of Europe’s future.

Update, 27 June 2019

A Daily Telegraph property report published this week.

“Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) said that “property prices are a big deal” and the main cause of internal migration from London. “Obviously people also want a better quality of life, but they also want access to good schools, to live in rural areas and to get away from the stabbings.”“[Daily Telegraph]

“Neil Park, head of the ONS’s population estimates unit, said: “In the last two years, population growth in the UK has been at its lowest rate since 2004.”

“For the fifth year in a row, net international migration was a bigger driver of population change than births and deaths”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/06/26/record-numbers-people-leaving-london-property-prices-drive-people/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

The racial-ethnic aspects of migration by English people out of London are not mentioned directly once in the (immediately above) Daily Telegraph report. It’s all “better schools”, “fresh air”, “leisure opportunities”, “knife crime” etc. Same old…meaning same hypocrisy and same unwillingness to face the truth.

Update, 29 September 2019

https://www.kn-online.de/Nachrichten/Hamburg/Voelkische-Siedler-Die-Bio-Nazis-von-nebenan