UDA Superfan

Snowy: Replaced his pipe for a flute

This is the far right English extremist who’s aligning his gang of thugs to the UDA.

Self-styled anti-Muslim fanatic John ‘Snowy’ Shaw is seen here posing for snaps in Derry during a recent Orange march. The former English Defence League leader – who has formed a breakaway group called ‘The Infidels’ is also seen posing in front of a UDA mural in north Antrim.

“Shaw went to Northern Ireland to try and get his photo taken with as many UDA and UVF men as possible to try and big-up his loyalist credentials,” says a loyalist source. “He went to the Apprentice Boys Parade in Londonderry, telling friends in England that he had the backing of the terror-groups in his bid to take over the EDL. He even plays the flute in an English loyalist ‘kick-the-pope’ flute band.”

Shaw is desperate to recruit Ulster based loyalists into his rag-tag bunch of football hooligans. But we can reveal the 40-year-old fascist has a bizarre background – he’s a former crack addict who runs a llama farm in Yorkshire.

The pathetic hate campaigner split from the notorious EDL after a fall out with leader Tommy Robinson.

Shaw was once charged along with Ulster’s run-away EDL leader Leon McCreery for a bizarre anti-Muslim rooftop protest in Dudley, West Midlands but the charges were later dropped.

The Sunday World can reveal that Shaw is desperately trying to get loyalist paramilitary groups involved in his violent anti-immigration campaign. And Shaw showed his true colours in a letter to far-right followers when he described EDL leader Robinson as a “little Fenian bastard” a “ginger fenian c***” and a “leprechaun ****”.

The EDL has recently been linked to the Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik, the man who murdered 76 people in Oslo in a campaign against Muslims in July. Breivik cited the EDL in his “manifesto”, describing the English group as an “inspiration”.

The EDL is an anti-Islam group that has courted controversy for its provocative and violent protests in England. It was formed after a counter protest by Muslim extremists, “Jihadists”, against a homecoming parade by British soldiers returning from Afghanistan in Luton in 2009 gained headlines around the world.

The EDL’s controversial leader Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), is a recently convicted football hooligan with a previous conviction for assaulting an off duty police officer.

Robinson formed the EDL to protest against what he saw as a growing Muslim influence in England and the group quickly snowballed into a pressure group that could put thousands of “counter Jihadists”, mainly ageing football hooligans, onto English streets to whip up tensions against Muslims.

In desperation, former crack addict Shaw, who patrols his desolate farm in rural North Yorkshire dressed in combat fatigues while brandishing an air gun, has turned to Loyalism and sectarianism to drive a wedge among the predominately football hooligan membership.

Interviewed in 2010 before he left the EDL, Shaw told how he had wanted to previously come to Northern Ireland as a member of the British army as a teenager, but the “hard man’s” mother had stopped him joining the army as she was scared he would be hurt if he came to Northern Ireland.

Not long after the interview, Shaw was ejected from the group after a minor power struggle and reinvented himself as a self-style paramilitary “anti-Jihadist” and rival to the EDL’s leadership. Since then Shaw has been playing on the fact that the EDL leader has Irish roots to plant sectarian tensions in the bully boy outfit.

Shaw has even started playing the drums in the Yorkshire based “Leeds Crown Defenders” loyalist flute band and now rubs shoulders with English UDA chief Frank Portinari. Portanari has even taken to counselling the former crack addict as his 50- strong gang of fascists gain a more and more notorious reputation for violence not just against Muslims, but also against EDL members.

Not surprisingly, the EDL has already allegedly rebuffed the advances of Johnny Adair and his close friend, the German neo-Nazi bomber Nick Greiger who also wanted to take over the group.

EDL leader Robinson at the time cited his Irish ancestry as a reason why he wanted nothing to do with the disgraced former Loyalist leader.

A spokesman for the antifascist organisation Hope Not Hate that monitors the far-right described Shaw’s sudden conversion from anti-Jihadist to hard-line Loyalism as “part of a longstanding pattern” that sees English extremists turn up in Belfast “looking for kudos, a pint of beer and a new tattoo”.

Sunday World via Hope not hate

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Oh the irony!

Oh dear Adam...

Troubled BNP party manager Adam Walker attended a protest outside Shrewsbury Crown Court on Tuesday to call for the retrial of nine Telford men accused of being involved in sexual exploitation and child prostitution after their initial trail collapsed due to legal issues.

In their own report, the BNP claimed that 40 BNP activists gathered in the pouring rain to mount their protest. A quick look at their finances makes it abundantly clear that the BNP aren’t too hot when it comes to maths but there is a big difference between their figure of forty and the real and actual figure of 18 activists who did actually show up outside court.

No protest would be complete without the obligatory placards.Most of the BNP rabble had one on the day including Adam Walker, but he failed to realise the irony of the message painted on his. On it was painted the legend “Leave our kids alone” a message no right minded person could argue with. In fact, it reminds one of the famous Pink Floyd song, which actually begins with “Hey teacher”.

The difficulty for Walker is that he appeared at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates court in August after allegedly driving his car at a group of youngsters before brandishing a knife and threatening a child. The court heard Walker, a former school teacher, allegedly chased the children who were riding bicycles over a village green in his Land Rover car having asked them to leave a St George’s Day celebration.

Alison Nunn, prosecuting, told the court that in police interview, the children aged 11 and 12, described being “terrified” during the alleged incident and that “One of the children is clear in his police interview that Adam Walker put that knife to his face and made a threat.”

Walker was charged with affray, driving a motor vehicle dangerously and criminal damage and will reappear back in court in October.

In the BNP footage of the event we couldn’t see if Mark Walker, brother of Adam was present in Shrewsbury. Mark Walker, a former teacher was the subject of an enquiry by the NSPCC in 2008 that uncovered a large number of emails indicating a sexual relationship with a former pupil.

The report, produced by the children’s welfare charity says: “Mr Walker was suspended… following allegations that he and a colleague had accessed adult pornography during the school day, using school equipment.”

It continued “A substantial amount of emails indicating a sexual relationship between himself and a 17-year-old former Sunnydale student have been recovered from Mr Walker’s school laptop and the school server”

The report concluded “The NSPCC believes that there is sufficient evidence from the emails and from previous matters concerning his professional conduct to conclude that Mr Walker’s behaviour has resulted in his conduct being less than one would expect of a teacher placed in a position of trust.”

We wonder what his placard might have said?

Hope not hate

Oxymoron of the month

Click on image for full-size

Enough said.

Cheers to Everything EDL for the pic

Fish supper and a dry sherry?

Trent: Not waving - saluting!

Invites have gone out for this year's BNP AGM. I'm pleased to inform one and all that I have my invite here in front of me, but it does cause such a dilemma.

I used to go to the BNP's Red, White & Blue festivals and report back on the drunken fights, threats and Nazi songs around the camp fire. Heavens, one year I even had to report how one of the BNP's councillors attacked another member with a broken glass.

It was never quite the highlight of my social calendar, but it got me out of the house and it caused no end of upset to the BNP knowing that I had been there. One year they even stopped proceedings to demand I stand up and reveal myself. I declined, obviously.

So this year, the question is whether I should risk it all by having one last sneaky look into the party's near defunct machinery. But there is another problem, too: I'm allowed to bring a guest with me!!

Normally on boring functions I take Matthew Collins with me. He tends to liven the event, sometimes I even just send him in my place. But to a BNP AGM I don't think that would get past even the BNP's radar. Plus, Matty has been to a few of his own. His book talks about them all Nazi saluting and brawling in the bar at York Hall in London in the early nineties so I don't see him as being much use in sitting quietly at the back munching on his meal deal from Boots the chemist-no matter how much he does like the sandwich combo.

No, for this year it has to be someone quite special. if I'm going to make a weekend of it at £50 per head including a buffet lunch and a gala dinner it will need to be someone who can sit quietly and not ask any questions during the advertised Q&A session. The BNP describe it as an opportunity to "hone your political skills" but everyone knows that asking questions is a sure fire way to get yourself thrown out of the party. And we wouldn't want that. Here's what normally happens when people ask difficult questions at BNP meetings.

I'll be interested particularly in the presentation by "Operation Fightback" currently led by Adam Walker, the BNP officer who is probably more likely to be presenting "giving my car back" given his latest legal difficulties. "Operation Fightback" is, according to the BNP a "counter-attack measures against the enemies of our country, our heritage and our people".

This presentation should be good as we also have the opportunity to meet "charismatic Carlos" the BNP's London candidate for the GLA. Carlos Cortiglia, who is Uruguayan (don't ask me!) spoke out in favour of Argentina during the Falklands war. Translated from an interview given in Spanish, Carlos once said "I am Argentine East, in other words, Uruguayan by birth, and I feel very emotionally linked to Argentina. In 1982 I volunteered to go to the Falkland Islands”. Should be fun...

Then there is the update from the BNP's "number one" MEP (i.e. the only one that still talks to them). That MEP, Nick Griffin, will give an update on the "fight to take Britain out of the EU". Maybe I should take a bookmaker with me? I'll be quids in if I bet that Griffin is out of the European Parliament long before this country is. Of course, I can't take the BNP's very own bookmaker Martin Wingfield, he seems to have also fallen from favour with the party too. Bad Martin, no Argentine corned beef for you!

The real treat will be for me and many others I'm sure, the presentation by "Resistance" the BNP's "militant youth wing" who seem to have a logo very similar to that of the EDL. What with Carlos being "charismatic", I'm sure Kieren Trent will be going all out to beat Carlos with his own presentation skills. Usually these involve Nazi saluting and long winded speeches against homosexuals. I know there will be some at the AGM wanting to have a word in his ear about his other "talents", particularly after his recent attempted foray into the world of Irish republicanism from where he was apparently given short shrift.

So there you have it. Dress down for the occasion and whatever you do, do not ask difficult questions. It's not the great "British" affair of yesterday as the BNP would like to have it, but that says more (thankfully) about Britain than it does about the BNP. This year's AGM is going to be less about talk (well it would be, wouldn't it), and more about "action".

The chances are it will be court action.

Hope not hate

Griffin at Hebburn tomorrow...

A short time ago, the BNP advertised a meeting that was due to take place in the near future - a 'special' meeting, to be held tomorrow on Thursday September 22nd at the Highlane Social Club in Hebburn.

And what makes it special? Nick Griffin is going to be there, that's what! Yes, the crooked liar and thief that runs the British National Party is going to be at the Highlane Social Club NE31 1SW at 7.30pm tomorrow. Do Highlane know about this? I doubt it. Though if you phone up and object, they certainly will. The number is 0191 4240044.

The meeting begins at 7.30pm. If you want to know more about the meeting, I'm sure Chris Thornton, the North East Regional Organiser, will appreciate a call directly on 07779 728743.

Remember, be polite and calm but insistent. I'm sure Highlane will be interested to know that they are about to host the crooked bastard Nick Griffin in their club, despite the fact that they haven't been told. What a political party, eh? Afraid to say who they are inviting because he's a confirmed nazi and Holocaust-denier. Sad or what?

Thanks to Mr Smith for the heads-up

BNP talk up links with Ireland ahead of Griffin visit

Simon Darby, the BNP’s media spokesman, spoke to The University Times about his party’s connections with Ireland ahead of Nick Griffin MEP’s visit to the College in October.

Mr. Darby highlighted the “great deal of concern” he felt existed in Ireland at the moment over the issue of immigration. The number of recent radio interviews Nick Griffin had done with Irish broadcasters, he said, evidenced “the interest the Irish people have in the issue”.

He was also keen to point out the “considerable amount of people of Irish extraction” who had voted for Nick Griffin in the recent European elections. Mr. Griffin MEP represents the North-West England constituency, which includes Manchester and Liverpool, two towns with long-standing connections to Ireland. Mr. Griffin finished fifth in 2009’s election, behind Britain’s three largest parties and a UKIP candidate, polling 8% of the vote.

The BNP have traditionally included the Irish among their classification of the “indigenous British”. In an interview with the BBC in May of 2010 Mr. Griffin said, “We are certainly not going to shut the doors to the Irish, because the Irish, as far as we are concerned, are part of Britain and fully entitled to come here.”

This drew a rebuke from Jennie McShannon, chief executive of the Federation of Irish Societies in Britain. “We do not recognise the portrait of ‘White Britain’ painted by the British National Party,” she said. “When the Irish arrived in Britain in the 1950s alongside immigrants from the West Indies, we were met by boarding house signs reading ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No dogs’. The racism stirred up by Nick Griffin’s predecessors created a climate of fear with lasting damage to the physical and mental health of both communities. In today’s Britain, we recognise the contribution of generations of migrants to the diversity of our shared culture. As Irish people we wish to be included and our Irishness celebrated, and so, too, we extend this support to other communities.”

Mr. Darby was keen to clarify the BNP’s position on the ethnicity of the Irish, saying that they “did not regard them as British as such.” He also sought to tackle the “quasi-imperialist” impression he felt had been given by the reporting of the BNP’s suggestion that Ireland be re-incorporated into a union with Britain.

“We don’t want British rule in Ireland. What we mean is a loose federation, a loose collection. It would be rather like an emasculated version of the European Union, but just for the British Isles.”

Speaking about the possibility of the BNP hosting a rally in Ireland or seeking to make contact with similarly minded Irish political groups Mr. Darby said that this was “another matter” that was best “not confused” with the debate.

“We are aware of the existence of a number of groups. But there simply isn’t anything tangible there at the moment. There is nothing I would like to see more than an Irish National Party representing the interests of the Irish people.”

The University Times

We won’t hold our breath

Paul Prodromou aka Pitt

It seems the EDL may owe us a few words of gratitude, but we won’t hold our breath

Last week we pointed out that the Essex EDL organiser Paul Prodromou aka Paul Pitt had found a new bosom buddy, well known neo Nazi Eddie Stamton.Eddie has become a regular at EDL events and is particularly close to Prodromou and other leading members of the EDL.

Stamton, who has also gone by the names of Stampton and Stanton during a long and positively criminal lifetime, has been involved with far-right politics since he was a teenager. As well as the hard line, Hitler worshipping British Movement and Combat 18, Eddie was also once the National Activities Organiser and London organiser with the miniscule British People’s Party (BPP) which turned out a plethora of paedophiles and wannabe terrorists when they were not updating their “Redwatch” website.

Well thanks to our article it seems the EDL have actually taken some notice and declared Stamton persona non grata.

In a long and tedious posting on the EDL website they explained “On September 11th, a group of EDL supporters went to pay their respects outside the US Embassy, and demonstrate against the presence of a group of Muslim extremists who, within earshot of victims’ families, were mocking those who died in the attack on the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, we have learned that amongst the group was an individual named Eddie Stamton, a relatively well-known neo-Nazi, tied to organisations which, amongst other things, have called for homosexuality to made illegal and have made a point of denying the Holocaust.”

They continued “We do not usually like to name individuals,but given Stamton’s known association with the Redwatch website, we believe that this time it is justified. Eddie Stamton, and any other neo-Nazis, are not welcome at EDL demonstrations, and will be ejected whenever they are identified.”

The EDL have a track record however of not carrying out their threats when it comes to the banning of their own members. The organisation is overflowing with a menagerie of neo Nazis, pub racists and rank and file bigots so it is doubtful that this sentiment which is little more than window dressing will stick.

There are already rumblings within Essex EDL that Stamton is a trusted and loyal friend and that he will be allowed to attend EDL events despite what the EDL leadership say.

The only way is Essex apparently.

Hope not hate

Racist taunts spark knife chase in Gillingham

Two English Defence League protesters "bit off more than they could chew" when they caused a racist scene in a kebab shop.

Turkish staff armed themselves with long knives used to carve meat and chased brothers Wayne and Darren Edwards out into the street. Wayne Edwards came off the worst and needed five stitches in a wound to his head. The 36-year-old former soldier and his brother, 34, were each jailed for 14 months after a judge told them such racist aggression would not be tolerated.

An Orange Order march in Gillingham on the day of a match at Gillingham FC had passed peacefully when the brothers and other EDL supporters went into Town Kebab House in the High Street.

Judge Philip Statman was shown CCTV film showing the drunk brothers banging on the counter and chanting "EDL". Trouble then erupted with some of the staff vaulting over the counter and others emerging with knives and steels used for preparing food.

Prosecutor Anne Phillips told Maidstone Crown Court the troublemakers were chased out but they returned with others. Darren Edwards got hold of a steel and smashed a display fridge. He also smashed a window as he fled.

Staff in the shop at the time included owner Ianer Timustekin, his brothers Orhan and Murat, father Abdulbaki and cousin Habib Taycur.

Darren Edwards, of Alpha Road, Woking, Surrey, and Wayne Edwards, of Holly Gardens, West Drayton, west London, admitted affray. Darren Edwards also admitted destroying property.

Kent Online

Thanks to Zaahid for the heads-up

Debate invite to BNP chief prompts major row at TCD society

A planned debate at Trinity College’s Philosophical Society has divided its committee and been thrown into disarray following a decision to invite British National Party MEP Nick Griffin to take part.

The debate, on the motion that This House Believes Immigration Has Gone Too Far , is scheduled for October 20th next. Mr Griffin has agreed to speak in favour of the motion. Another speaker who had agreed to oppose the motion withdrew at the weekend on discovering that Nick Griffin was to take part.

John Palmer, who is on the governing board of the European Policy Centre and deputy chairman of its Political Europe programme, told The Irish Times last night he found it “totally unacceptable” that Mr Griffin should take part in such a debate, and had told the organisers he would not take part if Mr Griffin’s invitation was not withdrawn.

Former European correspondent at the Guardian , Mr Palmer said: “The BNP’s roots are in Nazism, and it is very clear those roots remain strongly Nazi.” He had “no problem taking part in debates with people who had racist or reactionary views on immigration”, but he would not do so “with a party rooted in support for the Holocaust and all that represents”. The BNP also had “extreme anti-Muslim policies”, he said.

TCD’s Socialist Party Society has also opposed the invitation to Mr Griffin, as has the Union of Jewish Students in Britain. They called on the Philosophical Society to withdraw its invitation to Mr Griffin, pointing out that “as was witnessed at Durham and Oxford universities, publicity stunts such as these tear apart student communities and contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus”.

In a brief statement last night, the Philosophical Society said: “The Phil is a neutral forum for discussion. We do not endorse the views of any of our speakers. Nick Griffin has been invited to speak solely on immigration. He is a prominent speaker on this issue. The debate will be balanced, with two guest speakers on each side of the motion.”

When asked who those guest speakers would be, society president Eoin Ó Liatháin said he did not wish to comment further.

According to Trinity News, the story about Nick Griffin’s participation in the debate first leaked on the blog of the BNP’s press officer, Simon Darby.

Mr Palmer said last night he had been first contacted by the Trinity society about taking part in a debate “some months ago, and had agreed in principle”. He was presented with the motion “a couple of weeks ago, but no further information”.

He believes he was sent another message in the middle of last week indicating Mr Griffin would be taking part, but as he was abroad at the time he did not receive it until Saturday evening last. He then contacted the society to say that “unless the invitation to Nick Griffin was withdrawn I would not participate”.

He also believed the debate had divided the Phil committee, some of whom had told him they “strongly opposed” the Griffin invitation.

Irish Times

Is The Party Over

This video has has been doing the rounds on Facebook and I thought I would share it here on LU. It's a very entertaining and informative rant about the current situation within the EDl and the BNP by Dick Coughlan. It is a bit sweary in places but very funny

Call for public inquiry into policing of English Defence League rally

A group of antifascist protesters are calling for a public inquiry into the policing of last year’s English Defence League rally in Bolton.

Justice4bolton claim Unite Against Fascist members, who were protesting against the EDL in Victoria Square last March, were “mistreated” by police. The group is now calling for a public inquiry into the policing of the event, with particular focus on the arrest of protestor Alan Clough.

Alan Clough, of Ainsworth Road, Radcliffe, was due to stand trial at Bolton Magistrates’ Court accused of threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour at the rally, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to proceed after viewing video footage of the rally. Justice4bolton alleges that the footage shows Mr Clough being pushed by police officers and hit on the head with a baton before being pushed to the ground and arrested.

An independent investigation into the day’s events, which is being led by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, is already underway, including the circumstances of Mr Clough’s arrest.

Justice4bolton also wants the government to create “enforceable procedures” on how to police protests and is asking the trade unions to fund their list of demands, or action plan.

A spokesman for the group said: “In light of all of these incidents, and the treatment of many others who have chosen not to pursue their treatment through legal means but have expressed very serious concerns to Justice4bolton, it is plain the policing of the demonstration was blighted not only by the misconduct of individual rogue officers but by organisational failings on the part of Greater Manchester Police.

“Such failings must be addressed at an organisational level and the lessons learned from this — and other — protests so the police change the way they police protests.”

The group held a meeting in the Houses of Parliament last week in which they agreed their list of demands. Bolton MPs David Crausby and Julie Hilling have backed the group’s action plan, and said it was proper for the day’s events to be investigated.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said it would be inappropriate to comment until the IPCC investigation had concluded.

Bolton News

justice4bolton

Was Kelis right about British racism?

Things are not "disgusting" in Britain, as the American singer Kelis
pronounced this week, but we do seem to be moving towards a new normal

Racism in Britain is not 'disgusting' as the singer Kelis proclaimed this week, but for the first time in a decade it is on the rise

Let's start with the good stuff. Britain is one of the most liberal, most tolerant countries in the world. Given the challenges it faces from diverse, ever-changing communities in the major conurbations, it manages its affairs with a remarkable degree of harmony. We live, indigenous and non-indigenous, in relative proximity. Generally speaking, we don't much like extremism or extremists. For less good examples, look to bits of Europe that don't cope so well: look at France, look at Germany; look at Italy. No, don't look at Italy – well, not directly. The soul can only take so much horror.

But for all that, something is happening, and it isn't good. We're drifting back. Hard to gauge these things exactly, but look at the web postings, listen to the radio phone-ins, read the newspapers, cup an ear outside a playground. Talk to young black men or Muslims about their recent experiences with the police; go to Dale Farm and talk to the Travellers facing eviction; witness how sexual attention towards women frequently escalates into aggression and obscenities when young men are rebuffed.

Things are not "disgusting", as the American singer Kelis pronounced this week, but we do seem to be moving towards a new normal. Britain feels that bit harsher, a little bit meaner, less considerate; indeed, the opposite of everything the prime minister promises in his "big society". The inevitable consequence, you say, of a society facing unemployment, contraction, scarcity and recession. Perhaps. But I don't think we are here by accident. This is a course that was set.

A remarkable thing happened in 1999 in the aftermath of the death of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Pretty much against the advice of Tony Blair, Jack Straw set up the Macpherson inquiry. It was a judicial investigation that prodded and probed the workings of the Metropolitan police; but more importantly it also had a hard look at our institutions.

As it pulled away at the many layers, we saw we had become accustomed to levels of discriminatory behaviour that did us no credit. The police, as always, took the first hit, but their failings were merely the failings of our society in microcosm: the racism, the sexism; the distaste for, and often hostility to, difference; the arrogance that characterised encounters between those in the majority endowed with authority, and those of a different race and gender and social background who had none.

Macpherson made us look again at it all. And we were the better for it. But we didn't all feel better. Sections of the police hated Macpherson because they lost the ability to offend who they pleased, to stop who they wanted, and had to talk to the minorities they felt they should have been policing. By the time the ripples spread to the NHS, the civil service and private firms terrified of being exposed for being out of step in terms of equalities, Macpherson gained more enemies. Those who have power don't surrender it easily.

The "ludicrous Macpherson report of 1999", wrote Peter Hitchens in one of his many assaults. A "sub-marxist analysis of the institutions of contemporary Britain", railed the Express's Leo McKinstry. It's all a "McCarthyite witch hunt spawned by Stephen's death", said the Mail's Richard Littlejohn. Yes, it spawned "a kind of McCarthyism," added his colleague Melanie Phillips. We're too politically correct, says the much-quoted Campaign Against Political Correctness. We're wasting money, says the TaxPayers' Alliance. They articulate the backlash.

Over time, the kickback has worked. When it emerges that once again some school pupils, no doubt echoing their parents, throw words such as Jew and gay and Paki and Chink around like so much plasticine, the reaction from the Mail and the Express is to criticise the teachers who make a note of it. When the Dale Farm Travellers say they are being unfairly treated and refuse to move, the Sun suggests the council should "let the locals loose on the site". When community advisers exercise their policing function in Tottenham, as envisaged by Macpherson, and warn tensions are high after the shooting of Mark Duggan, those warnings go unheeded, for once again they are no longer seen as people worth listening to. Next stop, riot shields.

There is no longer political pressure for equality or even civility. This week, the home secretary, Theresa May, who has been ripping up equality regulations as fast as she can find them, trumpeted her decision to walk away from plans to help women rise in industry.

There was a healthier mindset for a decade after Macpherson, but there was never buy-in from the establishment – the politicians, the mandarins and the media moguls – and so those changes were never woven into the fabric. The right huffed and puffed and lobbied about political correctness gone mad. And they got what they wanted. This is the post-Macpherson world they wanted, and it's meaner and harsher and less equitable and more divisive. This is a creature of their design; they may as well celebrate it. And if just occasionally they have to suffer its ill-effects, they really shouldn't complain.

Hugh Muir at Comment is free

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up