I am not alone in thinking that, with the issue of ‘political correctness’, the pendulum has swung much too far from free speech and towards repression. The potential is now seriously there to see it operating as an insidious erosion of our civil liberties, through legal precedents created by court decisions and loaded new legislation.   

Not the least part of this is likely to be the stifling of the great British sense of humour that has been a part of our cultural heritage for centuries and is the envy of the civilised world. Satire, both in the street and in the media, has always been a line of defence against absurdity and coercive overreaching in government. That is why tyrants can’t stand to be made into figures of fun.

Racial discrimination is not the issue here, though its application is. A case in point has arisen within the last few days, with the ITV news reader, Liza Aziz, bringing a lawsuit for 5 million against her employers, alleging race, sex and age discrimination. To support her case for asserting the existence of institutional racism, she has cited how an erstwhile colleague ‘regularly mimicked’ the voice of the respected newscaster, Sir Trevor McDonald. I have had lunch with Sir Trevor and found him a sensible, congenial fellow. I cannot think he would regard such an impersonation as anything but flattery. It points up the silliness that ensues when political correctness goes mad, especially when several million pounds hinges on it.

The rights of women have fallen into the same category. The enforcement of such rights, as these have come to be formulated today, tend to place a question mark over the very principle of the rule of law as a force to protect society from irrational tendencies among legislators. When it comes to emphasising equality between the sexes, a patronising tone that seems quite unnecessary often comes into the debate. Ignorance is no longer a scourge that afflicts us. We live in an age of enlightenment, where modern technology plays a vital role in our continuing evolution. The youth of today is more in tune with their surroundings on every level, and far more informed, than their elders ever were. The problems we face today have mostly to do with corruption in high places and the manipulation of the masses by those in power.

We may add to this the sly orchestration to encourage women as a dominant power, to rally them for political advantage, with the original aspirations of the Women’s Liberation movement having been denigrated and marginalised. Women really do not need the kind of twaddle that emanates from Harriet Harman in the House of Commons. I can only assume that she has an eye on expanding her power base within New Labour, whether in government or opposition.

Women are not to be herded like a flock of sheep to satisfy the ambitions of our political masters. During the last twenty years I have interviewed more than five hundred successful women from all walks of life. To my great amazement I have found them as individualistic as men, perhaps even more so. Each has her own philosophy and vision that can never be classed as ‘typical of women’. Whatever the issue being considered, it is impossible to define something that could be called ‘a woman’s perspective’. They guard their individual viewpoints with a fierce passion and courage that is uniquely refreshing and are rarely to be diverted from their principled beliefs in ultimate objectives.

Recently Quartet Books published A World According to Women: An End to Thinking by Jane McLoughlin, a former Women’s Editor on the Guardian, who has written several other books, including seven novels. In this she postulates her belief that women have indeed become the most dominant force in our society, the way being paved by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. The marginalisation of men has followed on in particular from Blair’s blatant manipulation of government and popular culture, creating a political dialogue where the trivial, emotional and irrational seem to have taken centre stage, bringing about crucial changes that threaten the democratic system itself.

Against this background, we have had the latest political farce: the appointment of Baroness Ashton to be the EU Foreign Minister. Who had ever heard of her before this promotion was made? Certainly Gordon Brown will have done. Is she a Labour crony, or is this a ploy to win the women’s vote by stretching political correctness to the limits? The Europeans will be happy. They have been able to approve this inconsequential appointment  to make Britain look silly and diminish our influence where it really matters. Nothing in politics is surprising any more. The standard has dropped so low as to make it the pariah of professions.

‘A World According to Women,’ said Fay Weldon, is ‘the most extraordinarily interesting and stimulating book, written with the passion of conviction…this book will change the way you think.’ The implications are chilling for our next generation of professional administrators and the quality of political debate. Could it be that an ‘emotionally literate political class’ will become a greater threat than the bankers? 

The road to this state of affairs is clearly delineated by the author:

‘The old traditional “masculine” systems and hierarchies have been almost entirely subsumed in a new “feminine” political agenda which already prevails throughout society and is enshrined in law. Women’s new agenda has imposed new feminine-oriented criteria about what is important in society as a whole, and it is to the popular culture which empowered them that they refer in calling the tune.’   

‘The new popular culture,’ she adds, ‘gave ordinary women the means to communicate with each other without putting each other down… In the end the feminists failed as a mass movement because they did not engage with ordinary women…   But where the feminists failed, popular culture only too comprehensively triumphed.’

In the United States this very trend is becoming alarmingly manifest today. In the wake of the Sarah Palin phenomenon and the broken-backed finish of the George Bush administration, a section of the Republican Party is seeing the bright hope of revival in a new generation of female politicians prepared to embrace the extreme political and religious right wing and tap into its voting power by promulgating the most outrageous distortions on the emotive issues of the day, from creationism to healthcare reform.

Here in Britain, where political correctness has infiltrated not only politics but also established laws, judges have begun to award ridiculous sums of money in divorce cases, thus indirectly encouraging the dissolution of marriage. These judgements have often seemed flawed. Time and time again we have instances where someone has apparently used a temporary bonding to make themselves eligible for easy rewards, reducing marriage to the status of another branch of the lottery. There we have the legacy of political correctness as all those in authority go overboard to prove an exaggerated sense of fairness, which ultimately has the opposite effect. Even people from abroad are coming to Britain to use our courts to seek for divorce and libel settlements. We seem to have become a paradise for seekers of easy money, out to exploit the loopholes in our legal system and its application.

In the old days, the majority of scandals that occurred in Parliament were of a sexual nature. There was Tom Driberg, newspaper columnist and Labour Member of Parliament, whose homosexual antics were notoriously gossiped about, and Lord Boothby, who not only made Harold Macmillan’s wife his mistress but also had a liaison with one of the Kray twins. Tony Lambton and Lord Jellicoe were all victims of newspaper headlines concerning their indiscretions, and the Profumo case, with its links with call girl Christine Keeler and a Russian military attach, put John Major’s later canoodlings with Edwina Curry in the shade.

Now, however, it is money, or its misuse, that grabs the headlines, thanks to Mrs Thatcher’s revolution. In her ten years in office, she changed the very fabric of our society by channelling all our energies into the pursuit of money and wealth. Her tentacles spread across the political divide and gained momentum as our politicos became used to the high life and tried to emulate the very rich, as in the case of Tony Blair. So we have New Labour masquerading as the party inheriting the banner of Old Labour, whose primary ideals were directed towards the eradication of poverty and being the guardian of the lame and elderly. But New Labour is also a child of the Thatcherite revolution, and under its rule the focus on money, and the urge to gain it by whatever means, has continued apace. The ‘trickle-down’ effect that Mrs Thatcher assured the country would be the result of the creation of wealth has never happened in practice to any degree that would be noticed by those who live at the lower levels of society.

The getting of wealth has, by contrast, grown almost like a plague that is ravaging our most noble institutions and reducing us to a nation motivated by greed and self-preservation. A case in point comes forward within the arena of popular entertainment (and hence culture) in the phenomenal success of the ‘Belle de Jour’ blogger, a call girl who placed her diary on the internet, where it drew such attention that it became a couple of books and a television series. Belle de Jour’s identity remained undisclosed till this November, when the author, fearing personal treachery, revealed herself to be a research scientist who had worked as a call girl for two years to support herself while writing her doctoral thesis. The disclosure has caused a sensation, not, I am sorry to say, on the grounds of disapproval of the principle of selling one’s body, but as what is almost a promotional campaign to extoll the virtues of money-making whatever the means.

Jane McLoughlin takes apart the Thatcher legacy with stimulating sharp-eyed comment.

She ‘rolled back the frontiers of state intervention in people’s personal lives’, but ‘left behind a floundering social system based on an obsolete framework of distorted male-oriented institutions and practices…’

‘John Major’s premiership as Margaret Thatcher’s successor only underlined how ineffectual the male establishment had become. What Thatcher left behind was dysfunctional government. It was, though, a feminised government…. Feminised government is short-termist government.’

‘Margaret Thatcher may have given women the chance to dominate our political and social life for years to come, but she gave this to ordinary women, the women empowered by popular culture…’

‘In effect, she allowed popular culture to manipulate political power in the land.’

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Political Correctness Survives The End of the World…
• Political freedom for women
• “The Maternal Is Political”

Notorious London gangster asks me if I know who he is…

Do you know who I am? If someone asks that question normally it’s rhetorical and the answer is ‘no’. You wouldn’t have to ask me if I did. Often this question will be delivered in haughty tones, the questioner piqued by not being known. Frequently it’s adopted by snobby types hoping to get a better table in a restaurant or to avoid queueing – as if they are somehow superior. 

I had it asked to me once by one of Britain’s most notorious and dangerous gangsters. Do you know who I am talking about? Who is Britain’s most notorious living gangster? Well I won’t leave you guessing as that would be boring. ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser once asked me if I knew who he was? When he asked I didn’t.

‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser has spent more than half of his life in prison for numerous violent offences. He was certified insane by prison authorities – whilst in prison he would frequently get his term increased for repeat offending whilst inside. On one occasion he stabbed a prison warder in the eye with a needle he was using to stitch post office satchels. In the 60s he ran with the Richardson’s – at that time the Kray twins main rivals. He has committed murder and bank robbery, in one incident he pulled out the teeth of a victim with a pair of pliers, he was one of the main instigators of the famous 1969 Parkhurst prison riots. In 1991 he survived being shot in the head in Clerkenwell. It seems he has well and truly earned his moniker ‘Mad’. This geezer is well and truly out of his nut.

I met him – accidentally – in 1997. I was studying a postgraduate diploma in journalism at City University in London. One of the exercises was finding news stories on the streets. We had an afternoon to wonder into the environs of Islington and to report back later with a story ready to file.  Hmm. Where to start?

I walked up to Angel and then into Alfredo’s Cafe at the bottom of Essex Road. Alfredo’s was a beautifully preserved 1920s cafe – it has been used as a location in numerous films. All vintage fittings, chrome taps and art deco bar stools. And a nice cup of tea. I sat there supping trying to devise a plan of action. I noticed an old man sitting next to me reading a newspaper. I thought he looked like a bit of a character and I hoped I could extract some local colour or news from him. I leant over to him and explained my assignment. He seemed interested and leaned in closer.

‘Do you know who I am?’

He said it in a low growl. His eyes turned cold, menacing – rat like as I realised how close together they were. At that instant as I stared into his old face I felt a wave of recognition come over me. I didn’t know who he was but felt as if I should. It was exhilerating, like an electric surge.

‘I’m ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser,’ he said, in a thick South London accent. No mockney Guy Ritchie faux-gangsta character – this was the real deal. Just like the period fittings in the cafe we sat in, this man was authentic. He made Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels seem like The Muppets.

“Wow, pleased to meet ya Frankie.’ I replied and we shook hands. I felt slightly giddy. 

‘Can I call you ‘Mad’ for short?’, I thought to myself. We started to chatting. As I stared at him I thought of all the things this man had seen and done. The necks those hands had wrung. Countless triggers pulled by those bony fingers. The sore sights those eyes had seen. Eyes that had looked into victims eyes in the moments before death. I didn’t feel afraid – he seemed like a frail man into his 70s. Although there was no guessing what might be hiding under his long overcoat – pliers, needles, a sawn off shotgun? 

I told him my dad was from Islington. We chatted about his latest projects. At that time he had become a minor celebrity. Appearing in the theatre, writing a book, guesting on songs etc. He was very friendly, helpful – and seemed sane.

I rushed back to the college excited with my afternoons work. The teacher – a notorious hard ex-hack – wasn’t very impressed and deemed it not strictly news. It was news for me – and still is.

Lucinda Cowell

David Garner – This Fell Sergeant (NEL 1974)

Blurb:

Gordon Summers ran a very respectable security form – or so it seemed. In reality he was the toughest hood in London. Intelligent, capable and highly sexed he manipulated people as he pleased – his price for betrayal was death. And Summers liked to kill. But his organization had one weak link, his slow-witted brother Maurice. And because Maurice made one small, very stupid mistake, Summers was able to do all the killing he liked – only this time it was in order to save his own skin.

Ok, so This Fell Sergeant isn’t strictly horror fiction either, but it’s been the cause of much excitement since friend H. P. Saucecraft first introduced it to on the Vault forum, and that due in no small part to Lucinda Cowell’s striking (not to mention a little daring!) artwork. We like Lucinda’s stuff!

Thanks to H. P. Saucecraft for posting the cover and Franklin ‘Master of the Macabre’ Marsh for saving me the job of transcribing the blurb!

see also the This Fell Sergeant thread on the Vault Forum. Now includes Vault roving reporter Franklin Marsh’s exclusive interview with Lucinda Cowell!

Roberta Kray

ASPIRING authors are often advised to write about what they know. For Roberta Kray, this led to a successful career as a crime novelist. As the widow of one of the most notorious gangsters in the world, she knows a bit about the criminal underworld.

The Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie, ruled 1960s London with a brutal combination of violence, protection rackets and murder

London is a very big town and you have to spend quite a lot of time there to see it properly. I’m quite shocked to see a reviewer posting such (thankfully brief) venom about this place, so am glad to be able to review my own stay there. I stayed in July 2009 for two nights, and I can’t imagine they would have let the place fall to ruin so soon after I left! They are so very proud of the place, and of making guests comfortable – Really excellent hosts who enjoy opening their home up to their paying guests. As well as a really comfortable night’s sleep in a clean a quiet room, I enjoyed a friendly welcome, pointers on what to do in the area, and a lovely breakfast both mornings. The shared bathroom is presumably because you don’t go installing four new bathrooms in a Georgian Townhouse you’re trying to restore!! And I have to say, never once did I have to wait for the bathroom, or experience anyone waiting for me. The shower was a dream – huge and powerful. I didn’t have a bath, but it looked also huge and inviting. The bathroom was large london, airy and absolutely spotless on every occasion. I felt very comfortable there. This place is a gem, one I hope to return to. It doesn’t pretend to be a ‘hotel’ – it is something more special than that, and will be best appreciated by guests who have the sensibility and respect to be able to appreciate the wonderful character of the place and their stay in a couple’s home.

by http://travel.yahoo.com/p-reviews-191501822-prod-travelguide-action-read-ratings_and_reviews-i

The outspoken former Head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt — who doubtless caused Gordon Brown many sleepless nights with his caustic comments about aspects of the adequacy of provision for British soldiers in Afghanistan — has been sent to the Tower of London. All my O-level history came flooding back to me when I heard that. For many inhabitants of the Tower, it was the ultimate punishment, leading to death. But of course, Sir Richard has not been sent to the Tower as a prisoner (the last people reportedly to suffer that indignity were the Kray twins, for refusing to do military service). Instead, he has been named Constable at the Tower — the person theoretically overseeing the prisoners held there. I don’t know if the Queen was responsible for this appointment, but if so, ‘Nice one, your Maj!’

The Constable historically holds the keys of the Tower of London and to celebrate the arrival of the new incumbent, Tower Hamlets Council is encouraging borough residents to go to their local library or Idea Store (the meedja centres that have replaced many of the old libraries) and hand over unwanted keys, with a tag attached on which they have written a story or some detail of significance relating to each key; these will then form the central feature of an exhibition.  I have a whole drawer full of them; so many memories, but also so many totally forgotten places and objects, even people. Tower Hamlets lead councillor for Culture, Rofique U Ahmed, comments, ‘The keys to the Tower of London have unlocked the secrets of Britain’s most notable historic figures, so this exhibition is sure to interest everybody.’ I am not always flattering about what my local, Labour-controlled Tower Hamlets council gets up to, but this I think is a really neat idea.

          The Kink’s

  Top  Mobsters  “The   Krays”

To the outsider, Pimlico seems to be as calm as ever. But the underlying mood is one of dignified panic. Passports are being issued under the counter. Muted whisperings in a Burgundian dialect can be heard at the local patisserie. Yes, it’s Swine Flu fever again…

Is that a flying pig?

As you well know dear reader, Britain is the best prepared country in the world to deal with swine flu. None of your strict Chinese authoritarian quarantine rules here. No sir. That is why outside of Mexico and the United States, we have the highest incidence of swine flu on the planet. In our international news reports we see a group of British foreign exchange students whooping, waving and acting the fool from behind their protective glass screens. Wearing their protective face masks – it’s all a bit of a laugh, a jape to them. The Chinese are taking the possibility of a deadly airborne spreading killer virus infecting one billion of their fellow countrymen rather seriously; they don’t seem to be amused by the prospect.

Interestingly, I have been reading the swine flu advice for high-risk groups, including pregnant women and children, being underlined by the Government ahead of the launch of a new pandemic service. What’s this, a new pandemic service? The old one has been and gone? Let me tell you, the pandemic is already with us, so don’t wait too long to close the stable door.

The Department of Health said separate pieces of guidance were pulled together in a section of the NHS website because it “made sense to clarify existing advice and put it in one place“. What? You mean that isn’t already done? What exactly did they mean by “We are the best prepared country”?

Once again, we are reacting to situations rather than anticipating situations. The former, is the British way. The latter, favoured by others, is known as planning. Ho hum…

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it had not yet decided how the vaccines, which are expected to become available from next month, would be prioritised. Next month? Perhaps she should have said that we are going to wait and see how many people collapse and die before we can assess the dangers. Thank God somebody is on the case with all this, that’s all I can say. Anyway, enough ranting about such trifling matters… Instead, I propose a hand-picked team of experts should be created to deal with all national emergencies, and here is my dream team:

Norris, Doris, Boris and Horace

Given a free hand and an unlimited budget, I don’t think you realise what these four could accomplish.

I would love to hear any comments from you readers out there. I am recoiling at the thought of me talking to myself, so go on, and give it a go. It’s easy to do – simply click the “Leave A Comment” link.

Apropos absolutely nothing – Is it just me, or does Isambard Kingdom Brunel look harder than the Kray twins ever did?

Are you looking at me?

Threatening: Ronnie Kray wears a towering quiff in the mugshot, taken when he was about 19     

Reggie Kray stares arrogantly at the camera in his police mugshot from the same age       

Is it just me or is the auction of the Kray Brother’s stuff wrong and rather sick?! I mean I don’t know that much about them, but what I do know doesn’t exactly lead me to think I would like to pay nearly £15,000 for their cuff-links. Are we so obsessed with celebrity now that it doesn’t matter whether they killed someone or were horrifically violent  (from the footage of the film I’ve seen on them) and brutally misogynist as well. The fact is their very notoriety and the fact, according to auctioneer Tom Keane, that they knew people like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Muhammed Ali, Barbara Streisand and Francis Bacon is enough for them to have a cult following. As fictional characters such as Scarface have or real-life crminals such as Jack the Ripper or Al Capone has. I guess people just can’t get enough of the old rags to riches stories even if it does involve exploiting and killing along the way.

the Kray twins

Photo by David Bailey

Some years ago I read the book Profession of Violence: Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins by John Pearson. At the time I read a lot of books in true crime literature genre. This and Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing by Lewis E. Lawes are two favourite.

There is something intriguing with the Kray twins who represent another type of organized crime than the mafia in Italy and in the USA. The Kray twins are more raw and primal in their desire to climb the ladder to power. With brute force and insane behavior mixed with street smarts, and to some extent lack of competitors, they ruled the East End during the 50’s and 60’s. The myth has also probably a lot to do the cool slick style portrayed in many of the photos of the Krays, showing them in smart three-piece suits; looking more the part of stars than thugs.

The Krays were the identical twins Reginald “Reggie” Kray (1933 – 2000) and Ronald “Ronnie” Kray (1933 -1995) commonly referred to as Ron or Ronnie. The Kray twins were nice guys, though the myth claims the streets of East End never been safer than during the mob rule of the Krays, they were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, torture, murders among other things. In 1968 they were finally arrested and convicted (1969), and sentenced to life imprisonment.

I had more or less forgotten about the Krays until the other day when I found this documentary on youtube.com, it’s a few years old but still interesting and including a lot of people who were either in the gang or were part of bringing them down.

By the way I think that I’ll re read the book again as soon as I find it somewhere in my bookshelves.

The Kray Story Part 1

The Kray Story Part 2

The Kray Story Part 3

The Kray Story Part 4

The Kray Story Part 5

Magnus Reuterdahl