Longrider

There’s something about a kitten…

Marsha Singh wants the Conservatives to heed the petition from some people in Bradford to ban a proposed EDL march. What they should do, of course is ignore it.

The EDL is a racist, anti-Muslim organisation that is coming to Bradford with the sole intention of whipping up tensions and trying to provoke a riot. It is made up of football hooligans, racists and even former loyalist paramilitaries who are now living in England.

Well, they are certainly anti-Muslim and what is wrong with that? What is wrong with being anti a crackpot religion? It hurts no one to openly dislike a daft belief system and in a liberal democracy, we should be allowed to openly express our opprobrium. Or can people not be anti-Scientology now, either?

I don’t know about the rest of Marsha’s list, though. Even if true, so what? Do we now ban freedom of speech because we don’t like the people saying it? As for a riot, the event will be policed. If people break the law, then they will (one hopes) be arrested, charged and face the courts for any riotous behaviour.

The call for a ban has not been taken lightly. We live in a democracy where the right to protest is fundamental but with rights come responsibilities and there has to be limits on people who set out to terrorise, frighten and provoke trouble.

Um… So far, all we have is a plan to march. There is not, so far as I am aware, a plan to riot. If it develops into a riot, then those responsible may be arrested, charged and prosecuted. That 10,000 people in Bradford are nasty little authoritarian bansturbators is not justification for a ban. Yes, we live in a democracy. We live in a democracy that has at its heart, basic civil liberties; the right of assembly, the right of free speech, freedom of association, the right to practice whatever religion one pleases (or no religion) and the right to protest.

If these 10,000 people do not want the march (around 5% of the adult population, Marsha tells us – which means that 95% presumably don’t care enough to sign the petition), then stay away from the route and exhort others to do likewise. Indeed, ignoring it on a grand scale is the best approach to these silly marches anyway. Unfortunately, there are enough immature idiots looking for a scrap who will do their best to turn it onto a rout. The anti-fascist fascists in the UAF being first among such equals.

Apparently Mecca should eclipse Greenwich.

But now the supremacy of Greenwich Mean Time is being challenged by a gargantuan new clock being built in Mecca, by which the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims could soon be setting their watches.

Due to start ticking on Thursday as the faithful begin fasting during the month of Ramadan, the timepiece sits atop the Royal Mecca Clock Tower which dominates Islam’s holiest city.

So much so what, frankly.

But Islamic scholars hope the clock’s influence will stretch far further than the sands of Saudi Arabia, as part of a plan for Mecca to eclipse the Greenwich Observatory as the “true centre of the earth”.

Except that, Greenwich has never claimed to be the centre of the Earth. It is on the meridian, 0^o longitude.

You have to have a measurement from somewhere and this is as good as any.

For the past 125 years, the international community has accepted that the start of each day should be measured from the prime meridian, representing 0 degrees longitude, which passes through the Greenwich Observatory.

A standard time by which other clocks were set was needed to organise global travel and communications…

So what’s the problem?

…but in the Islamic world the idea that it should be centred on a part of London is seen as a colonial anachronism.

Oh, please!

As Mohammed al-Arkubi, manager of one of the hotels in the complex, put it: “Putting Mecca time in the face of Greenwich Mean Time. This is the goal.”

Along with a global caliphate, no doubt. Well they can stick that one where the sun don’t shine. I’ll be sticking with GMT thanks very much.

According to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric known around the Muslim world for his popular television show “Sharia and Life”, Mecca has a greater claim to being the prime meridian because it is “in perfect alignment with the magnetic north.”

Go on… You made that up, didn’t you?

Western scientists have challenged such assertions, noting that the Magnetic North Pole is in actual fact on a line of longitude that passes through Canada, the United States, Mexico and Antarctica.

Islam, the religion of idiocy.

A radio advert urging people to dob in their neighbours has been banned.

A radio advert urging listeners to report suspected terrorists has been banned by a watchdog for potentially offending law-abiding people.

The anti-terrorist hotline ad lists “suspicious” behaviour to look out for from quiet neighbours such as paying by cash and keeping curtains drawn.

I guess this was similar to those poster campaigns that listed among others, photography as suspicious behaviour. I am reminded of the early days of the Gestapo, where almost identical behaviours were deemed suspicious and the population exhorted to report people to the authorities. And they did.

Has this ad been scrapped because it was the most repugnant piece of stasi-like behaviour? Has it been scrapped because it encouraged snooping and spying on perfectly innocent people?

No. It has been banned because it is offensive.

The Advertising Standards Authority ruled it could cause “serious offence”.

Well, yes, it is offensive, offensive because of what it seeks to do – to cause us all to suspect and report our neighbours for perfectly innocent behaviour, because it is indulging in the divide and rule philosophy. I am not offended by this advert, I am outraged and not specifically by the advertisement, but by the scum who commissioned it. This advert is not so much offensive as it is insidious wickedness.

Some 18 listeners who heard the advert, broadcast on Talksport, complained to the watchdog.

Of those, 10 said it could be offensive to law-abiding citizens, while the rest said it could encourage people to harass or victimise their neighbours and was appealing to people’s fear.

Those remaining eight people have got it right.

In the advert, a man says: “The man at the end of the street doesn’t talk to his neighbours much, because he likes to keep himself to himself.”

“He pays with cash because he doesn’t have a bank card, and he keeps his curtains closed because his house is on a bus route.”

It then says: “If you suspect it, report it.”

This is not, by any stretch of the fevered imagination, suspicious behaviour and what you should do is mind your own business, like that man at the end of the street, frankly. Indeed, this man at the end of the street is much like my erstwhile neighbours in Bristol. A bit like me, too. A bit like many of us. And ACPO want our nosy neighbours to report us for minding our own business so that the police can call round to investigate that which is none of their business on the basis of tittle-tattle, gossip and petty score settling.

The campaign by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) was aimed at promoting the confidential anti-terrorist hotline.

So, an unaccountable private business has been zapped by an unaccountable quango. There’s a delicious irony in there somewhere.