UKIP racism row: latest

The Lincolnshire Echo has breaking news about UKIP Councillor Chris Pain, leader of the opposition on Lincolnshire County Council, who has been accused of posting “racist rants” on Facebook:

Chris Pain has stepped down as East Midlands chairman of UKIP amid a police investigation into racist remarks on Facebook.

He is still protesting is innocence, insisting his Facebook account was hacked. Meanwhile, police investigations continue.

We should not be complacent and assume that such rows will necessarily damage UKIP. The party has been embroiled in various scandals before. Two UKIP MEPs, Ashley Mote and Tom Wise, were jailed for fraud but this appeared to have no effect on their party’s reputation.

Indeed, the prosecution of Councillor Pain may even win support among the sort of people who believe this is “political correctness gone mad” and that UKIP is telling you what the establishment “doesn’t want you to hear”.

UKIP: Police probe ‘racist’ councillors

The front-page headline in today’s Lincolnshire Echo: “Police probe ‘racist’ councillors in Lincolnshire”.

This news follows last Sunday’s post about the UKIP group leader’s comments on Facebook.

Three councillors are under investigation but all insist that their Facebook accounts were hacked:

Cllr Pain, leader of the opposition at Lincolnshire County Council, insists his Facebook account had been hacked into at least three times.

At least three times? If that were the case, did it ever occur to Councillor Pain to change his password?

UKIP’s new councillors: the revelations continue...

More sordid details of UKIP councillors have come to light.

Following the resignation of “race-ranter” Eric Kitson from Worcestershire County Council, today’s Sunday Mirror has unearthed more racist rants on Facebook.

The Mirror reports several nasty outbursts but pride of place must go to Chris Pain, UKIP leader of the opposition on Lincolnshire County Council and the party’s East Midlands regional chairman. He wrote:

“Have you noticed that if you ­rearrange the letters in ‘illegal ­immigrants’, and add just a few more letters, it spells, ‘Go home you free-loading, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, baby-making, non-English-speaking ********* and take those other hairy-faced, sandal-wearing, bomb-making, camel-riding, goat-********, raghead ******** with you.’”

Councillor Pain came up with a predictable excuse:

Mr Pain said the comments on his Facebook pages were “not my original posts or writings”, claiming his ­account had been hacked.

What Councillor Pain cannot deny is a report in the Lincolnshire Echo that his group made a unanimous decision to refuse to sign an anti-racism declaration.

The UKIP group took this decision in a week when, just a few miles from the county council offices, there were commemorations at RAF Scampton to mark the sacrifices of the Dambusters who died fighting the Nazis. It is probably safe to assume that Councillor Pain failed to notice the irony.

Postscript: Three UKIP councillors in Lincolnshire are now being investigated by the police.

Seventy years ago tonight...

Seventy years ago this evening, nineteen Lancaster bombers of the RAF’s 617 Squadron took off from RAF Scampton near Lincoln to bomb the Ruhr dams in Germany. The anniversary has been marked by events at Scampton and over the Derwent reservoir.

The Dambusters raid was an extraordinary act of bravery and a remarkable technical achievement for its time. The military usefulness of the raid was probably limited, but the propaganda value was immense.

The casualty rate was high, even by the standards of RAF Bomber Command. 53 of the 133 aircrew who participated in the attack were killed, a casualty rate of almost 40%.

During the Second World War, the casualty rate on individual RAF bombing raids was usually no more than 5% but the overall casualty rate was still very high. Wikipedia’s page on Bomber Command records:

Bomber Command crews also suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4% death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war. This covered all Bomber Command operations including tactical support for ground operations and mining of sea lanes. A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I.

Only 27% of all bomber aircrew who served during the war avoided death, injury or capture. The Wikipedia page adds:

Statistically there was little prospect of surviving a tour of 30 operations and by 1943 the odds against survival were pretty grim with only one in six expected to survive their first tour, while a slim one in forty would survive their second tour.

Pupils at my school in Lincoln had a sobering reminder of this. In the entrance hall was a glass case containing a book of remembrance to all the old boys who had died in the two world wars. Each day, the book would be opened to a different page, displaying portrait photos and brief descriptions of two of the dead. The casualties of the First World War were mostly infantry. Those of the Second World War were mostly bomber aircrew.

The controversy over the RAF’s area bombing campaign meant that wartime bomber aircrew were never issued with a campaign medal and had no memorial (apart from the Airmen’s Chapel in Lincoln Cathedral) until one was unveiled in London last year.

With perfect hindsight, it is possible to question the efficacy and ethics of the bombing. At the time, Britain faced an existential threat from the Nazis and did what seemed best to defend itself, when the final outcome of the war was by no means certain. It is right that we remember the self-sacrifice of people who put their lives on the line for the rest of us. In the case of RAF bomber aircrew, that means people who were effectively on a suicide mission and knew it.

Why can’t we cope with good news?

You may have noticed news reports last weekend about the steady fall in crime in the UK. I say “may” because the news achieved nothing like the prominence it would have if the crime rate had increased.

There is no shortage of explanations for why the level of crime is decreasing. The likeliest answer is that there is no single or dominant cause but that, in any case, nobody really knows.

The explanation for the muted news coverage is simpler. Not only do the British media not like good news, the Tory press in particular does not like news that refutes tired old right-wing tropes, and none of those tropes is more tired than “the country is going to the dogs”.

The press persists because it knows its market. Last week, I was standing at a bus stop listening to a group of local elderly people moan about how crime was getting worse. The evidence appeared to consist of nothing more than an observation that local teenagers were more cheeky. The bus stop in question was in the district of North Kesteven, which the crime survey reported as the 15th most peaceful in England and Wales. There’s no pleasing some folk.

Why drone on about drones?

Last weekend, the British media suddenly discovered that the RAF is flying American-built drones. They made this discovery because, on Saturday, there was a march from Lincoln to nearby RAF Waddington to protest about the use of these drones.

The demonstration was not that large (estimates vary between 200 and 600 people), but it has at least served the purpose of raising awareness of the issue. The puzzle is why it was not until this demonstration that the media realised the RAF had any drones at all.

The RAF operates a fleet of ten Reaper drones. The aircraft are all based in Afghanistan but are operated remotely. The first five have been operated since 2007 by the RAF’s No.39 Squadron, which is based at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada but is due to relocate to RAF Waddington. The second five entered service this week, and are operated by No.13 Squadron based at Waddington.

The Guardian claimed on Saturday that it had “revealed” this news last Thursday. It did no such thing. Britain’s ownership of drones is not a state secret but has been in the public domain from the beginning.

The media’s belated realisation that Britain has drones is not the only puzzle. The other mystery is why drones are considered an issue at all.

The objections to drones boil down to the following:

• No pilots are risking their lives – a good thing, surely?
• The risk of civilian casualties – no greater a risk than with conventional aircraft. In both cases, the point is to use such weapons accurately and within clear rules of engagement.
• The use of drones for targeted assassinations – no moral difference to any other method of assassination. In any case, unlike American drones, the RAF’s are not being used for this purpose.
• The use of drones by the security services rather than the military – again, something that America does but not Britain.
• The use of drones to continue the ‘War on Terror’ – well, yes, but so are all the other armed forces. The problem is the strategy, not the weapons systems.
• The risk that RAF Waddington will become a ‘target’ – far less risk than during the cold war, when nuclear-armed Vulcan bombers were based at Waddington. Unlike during the cold war, however, a sturdy wire fence should provide ample protection.
• The use of drones avoids public scrutiny or accountability – how? Political decisions on military matters are subject to the same scrutiny and accountability regardless of the weapons systems. This scrutiny and accountability may well be deficient but, if so, there is no evidence that the problem is unique to drones.

The point is not drones per se but that, like any other weapons system, they should be used legitimately and properly. Saturday’s demonstration missed this point and diverted attention away from the main issue, which is the counter-productive strategy of the ‘War on Terror’. Rather ironic, is it not, that the demonstrators missed the target?

Grantham keeps calm and carries on

I visited Margaret Thatcher’s hometown of Grantham yesterday, not to sign the book of condolences but to do the weekly shopping at Morrisons.

There was no outward sign of any mourning. There was no makeshift shrine of flowers and teddy bears outside the corner shop where Thatcher grew up (the shop is now occupied by a chiropractic business called Living Health).

Why the local stoicism? Following the Lincolnshire earthquake of 2008, the Guardian noted:

Stoicism is in keeping with the character of a county which, despite being England’s second-biggest, does not like to make a fuss.

In the 1983 general election, I was Liberal candidate for Grantham and, in the course of canvassing, met several local people who knew Margaret Roberts (as she then was) before she left for Oxford University, never to return. None of them had a good word to say for her. They still gave the Tories a big majority, though (the sitting MP was Douglas Hogg before he bought the infamous manor house with the moat).

One of the more bizarre occurrences during the campaign was at a house meeting one evening. In those days, Grantham’s local cinema (the Paragon) was an independent family-run business. The manager went out and about with a Super 8 camera and made his own newsreels. He asked if he could film the meeting. I prepared to conduct an interview, only to discover when the manager turned up that he made his newsreels with no sound. Had I known in advance this was to be a silent film, I could have organised a custard pie fight or tied the Tory agent to a railway track. In any event, I am probably the last Liberal candidate in British political history to feature in a silent newsreel.

PS: The title of this post is a cliché but it seemed only appropriate, given that almost every shop in Grantham still appears to be selling “Keep Calm and Carry On” coffee mugs. This slogan has rapidly become the “You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps” de nos jours.

Independence for everyone

The secret courts controversy was not the only item on the agenda of last weekend’s Scottish Liberal Democrat conference in Dundee.

Today’s Guardian reports that the conference also called for greater independence for Shetland and Orkney:

Activists at the Scottish Lib Dems’ spring conference in Dundee agreed unanimously that the islands should develop their own relationship with central government – regardless of the outcome of the independence referendum next year.

They also agreed that Shetland and Orkney had a separate right to self-determination.

This decision is a reminder that demands for independence and self-determination are more complex than is generally imagined. People’s identities cannot always be accommodated within neatly drawn national borders. Most people have multiple identities and their local identities are usually more powerful than national ones.

If Scotland wins independence, there will be consequences south of the border. It is usually assumed these will be increased demands for Welsh independence and an English parliament. But in England, is it not more probable that demands for county autonomy will be boosted? Outside Greater London, the English tend to identify most strongly with their county. They are unlikely to feel much enthusiasm for an English parliament (a parliament in London – no change there) or the contrived ‘English regions’. They are more likely to prefer greater autonomy for Cornwall or Yorkshire or any other county with a strong identity that feels hard done by.

In England over the past decade, there has been a noticeable resurgence in county pride, with a revival of local food specialities and folk customs. If this trend continues, it will eventually find political expression.

In my home county of Lincolnshire, latent demands for autonomy could be unleashed by a trend to independence. An independent country? Think about it. Lincolnshire is rich in resources. It has more top-grade agricultural land than any other county in the UK and produces 20% of Britain’s food. The Grimsby-Immingham port complex is Britain’s largest in terms of tonnage (more than 10% of the UK total), which in turn generates about 25% of all Britain’s rail freight. The county is energy-rich, with two of England’s five oil refineries, the UK’s second-largest onshore oil field, a major North Sea gas terminal and a large offshore wind farm. It is militarily important, home to more RAF bases than any other county (Lincolnshire is to the RAF what Aldershot is to the British Army or Portsmouth to the Royal Navy). Yet average income levels are among the lowest in the country. This means that the county’s wealth is leaching out. The more the locals realise this, the greater the effect on their political consciousness.

We should remember that the movement for Scottish independence took off only in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the boom in North Sea oil and a resentment that this windfall would be enjoyed elsewhere. If Scotland wins independence, other parts of the UK may look at their local balance sheets and reach similar conclusions.

This trend is not unique to the UK but can be seen throughout Europe. The European Union will probably be boosted as home to an increasing number of autonomous regions and big cities that no longer identify with their nation states but have a greater need for the solidarity and protection offered by a European federation. (There are already two EU member states with a smaller population than Lincolnshire: Luxembourg and Malta).

Nation states and nationalism have not existed forever but are relatively recent concepts. They are essentially nineteenth-century inventions and the logic behind them is disappearing. Even when the nation state was at its zenith, national borders were not inviolable. In an essay on nationalism and our sense of belonging, Michael Meadowcroft quoted the late Rabbi Hugo Gryn, a holocaust survivor, who told a wry anecdote to demonstrate the absurdity of nationalism:

A man from Berehovo/Beregszász arrives in heaven and they say to him that before you can come in you have to tell us your life story.

“Well”, he says, “I was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, educated in Czechoslovakia, started work in Hungary and was for a time in Germany, spent most of my adult life in the Soviet Union and the end of my retirement, just before coming here, in the Ukrainian Republic.”

“My goodness,” they said, “You must have done a lot of travelling in your lifetime.”

“Not at all,” says the man, “I never left Berehovo.”

So my advice is to familiarise yourself with this flag, the flag of Lincolnshire. It might one day be flying from an embassy in your local county town capital city.

Later... News that the US Department of Justice received a 68-page report last week on the possibility of independence in Catalonia, Scotland and Flanders, and a discussion of how the EU will change to accommodate this trend.