Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans!
But don’t let’s be beastly to the Hun!
– Noel Coward
Former celebrity brain tumour sufferer and Labour politician Dr Mo Mowlem reportedly believes that we need to “negotiate with Bin Laden”, along the lines of terrorism appeasement in Northern Ireland.
I agree.
In the spirit of reconciliation I propose the following gestures of good faith:
- Remove all British forces from the Middle East and Afghanistan.
- Break off diplomatic relations with all non-Islamic countries.
- Ban women from holding any educational qualifications past primary school.
- Ban women from holding any jobs other than primary school teacher, nurse or doctor in women only clinics. Especially remove all women from political office.
- Ban all Jews from holding political office, working in the public sector, the media and the legal profession.
- Prohibit the sale or consumption of alcohol between 3pm on Fridays and noon on Saturday.
- Release all Moslem terrorist suspects.
- Order the Archbishop of Canterbury to publicly abjure Christianity [Editor’s note: is this not already the case?] and exhalt the supremacy of Islam. Convert the established churches of England, Scotland and Ireland to Islam.
- Prohibit all religious education in schools, except Islam.
- Order the abdication of Her Majesty the Queen in favour of a male relative (her husband perhaps).
Obviously, we should hold back on some Islamist demands until we have some reciprocal agreements from Mr Bin Laden, for instance:
- No mass public executions of homosexuals and female adulterers.
- No public flogging of drug or alcohol addicts.
- No enforcement of the veil for non-Moslem women.
- No declaration of war on Israel and the USA.
- No handing-over of British nuclear, biological and chemical weapons technology to al-Qaeda.
After all, we must have something to bargain with!
Just an after-thought. Am I confused, or did negotiating with the IRA lead to a split with even more violent factions launching even more deadly bomb attacks?
Seems very reasonable,not even the odd flogging then,oh well.
Actually not a very good parallel to here… both sides may have been crazy but they weren’t insane…
And things are very quiet here and getting more so as each year passes.
I can’t help but remember a Hole In The Wall Gang skit where a PLO agent is meeting with the IRA and describing a new method of bombing… but the lads are having a cultural communications problem because they keep asking about the escape technique after setting it off…
Your plan will get nowhere unless we force women to wear the burka when appearing in public. And we must forbid women to leave their homes unaccompanied by a man.
I think that women, who believe we need to negotiate with Bin Laden, should immediately begin wearing the burka and stay home. This would show good faith and kick start the negotiations.
Mo Mowlam’s death would have enhanced the prospects for peace in Northern Ireland. It’s a terrible thing to say, but had her tumour rendered her hors de combat earlier than it did, there’d be people alive today who aren’t. Let the brickbats fly, and when they have fallen, tell me I’m wrong.
When I read this item in Al G’hardeey’en I was taken aback by the final sentence in the piece and suspected a sense of humour virus may have infected the editorial department. I’m sure I was wrong, but after the item detailing how we should invite bin Laden to “sit down at the negotiating table”, listen to their grievances, etc, the final sentence, a propos of nothing mentioned in the item, read: “Mowlam assures us that her brain tumour is now completely cured.”
Do you think they were having a tiny outbreak of irony?
Well I did carefully check the date…
This April Fool custom you Anglo-Saxons have is charming but dangerous for a blogger.
In France children merely stick paper fish to the back of unsuspecting passers-by.
Gustave – I read this item yesterday and when I read the final sentence, I too checked the date. It was 8 April if memory serves.
I think someone at Al-G’hardey’an was taking the Mick on Mowlam, so to speak.
Gustave
I gather Mo has already arranged with Robin Cook to earmark an office for Usama in the Palace of Westminster next door to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. This will obviate the necessity for them to use the phone; they can just drill a hole in the wall. The next phase will involve yet another office for Yasser Arafat when he eventually decides to ‘negotiate’. Why is this post listed under the humour category?
By the way, if by any chance Usama was blinded by any of the cave-clearing action in Afghanistan, he could have the soon-to-be-vacant Home Secretary’s post. Perhaps that’s why Tony is delaying the shuffle. You should create a new designation “Not only Plausible but Probable”.
BTW, the hole in the wall could be dual purpose, the secondary use similar to those you see in all the cubicle walls of gents toilets – it would save them the chore of cottaging trips. Though from what I hear about Usama, the walls would have to be very thin for him in that regard. Robin cook to note, when he is making the reservation.
Well, Mark Steyn is unshakable in his belief that OBL is a smear of DNA in a cave in Tora Bora somewhere. If he really did have severe kidney disease, he could not have lasted this long without visiting some highly advanced medical facility. That means the West.
In today’s (excellent) column in The Telelgraph, St Mark of Steyn refers to the “the awful passivity and fatalism of the Arab world” and I think this is something we don’t take sufficiently into account. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it discussed in the current context.
I think I have the solution to the war in Iraq.
We have been trying to counter their loony logic with rational argument, trying to get them to understand the benefits of democracy and freedom. But this cannot work.
Everything happens because it has been willed by Allah. It cannot be questioned. They have no control over their own fate. So, as long as they think Allah is willing them to fight a daft war, they will fight. So what we have to do, is convince them that Allah is willing them to stop fighting, order a pizza and an ice-cold Mecca Cola and settle down to building a democracy.
Verity
‘St Mark of Steyne’ – I love it!
Which religion canonised him? I wish to become a follower. Three “Hail Verity’s’ after each venial sin, I assume?
Frank P – St Mark of Steyn was canonised by the Wee Kirk o’ The Internet. Only people who can spell the sainted Mark’s name effortlessly and properly can join.
After Omagh though the rIRA and other splinters seem to have slowed down a lot, part in due, “they” say to pressure from peers in the pIRA who view this whole mass terrorism thing as being bad for business. Business being extortion, drugs and a host of other things the paramilitaries in NI also spend their time on.
In that respect at least you could, and people did, for a long time, negotiate with the various NI fractions. In the regard of negotiating with relgious nutters who seem to want the destruction of the western world; I can’t see an upside.
That said, Iraq is currently following a similar script to the British intervention in Ulster 35 years ago, which isn’t a necessarily good thing. At least there it took 4 or 5 years for the mistrust to really get settled in.
Steyn can be our saint as long as Dalrymple can be our Pope!
St Mark of Steyn was canonised by the Wee Kirk o’ The Internet
Sorry Verity, Kirks don’t go in for canonisation. All Edinburgh is scandalised at the very suggestion… I do though propose that Mr Steyn be elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at its AGM next month. It’s about time that they heard another of those “No such thing as society” speeches. (Not that Maggie actually said that of course.)
Oh, for heaven’s sake, David, I know protestants don’t go in for cannonisation! I was referring to the possibility that a kirk might use a Canon bubblejet printer and run St Mark’s name off, that’s all. Jeeeeez!
On the other hand, although anything that scandalises Edinburgh is my cup of tea, you mean my statement has more scandal avoirdupois than the fact that the cost of their absurd Parliament building has risen from £40m to £400m and still isn’t finished? Gosh, I feel strangely blessed.
It was just a little joke Verity!
The Parliament building on the other hand isn’t – it’s now up to £500m and climbing.
Verity
Shame on me – ’twas a typo that was missed by my failing eyes; a spasm of dyslexia; definitely not ignorance as I’ve read him since he first appeared in print. He kept me sane before I discovered the blogosphere. Now that I know that there are others out there on the same wavelength besides him, MP & me, I can vent my spleen daily if necessary. But he’s still a reservoir of wit and wisdom that satisfies my deepest reactionary thirst at times. Wish there was a spell check on these comment sections … I know, use MS Word then cut and paste, but sometimes you just do it! Apologies to Mark, lest he should notice, but I’m sure he’s not vain, though it is the pit of bad manners on my part. Mea culpa.
BTW, hadn’t read the article before I reacted to your apt sobriquet for him; now that I have, I agree … it’s a characteristic and riveting piece. The Niall Ferguson article was gutted last week on this blog as you no doubt remember, but Mark trumps anything that I saw during the discourse. I particularly liked the following sentence; “As radical as the Iraq ambitions of George Bush the Younger are when compared with his father’s, the son isn’t set on the British Empire.” Beautiful! Where do they come from?
David F – Gosh – a 20% hike in a month? That’s going it some, isn’t it? Even for Scots socialists? My goodness, where is George Galloway in all this? Running the Armani boutique in the lobby?
Think what you all are stepping around but are too nice to say, is this:
You don’t ask a rabid dog to fetch, or roll over, or sit. You get out the shotgun and put it down before it passes the rabies on.
A bit harsh, but then I’m a dumb murkan chock full o’ simplisme in the affairs of the world.
Verity
Returning to the canonisation of Mark, I see on page 2 of the Torygraph today that they have found a new face on the Turin shroud. In future millennia could this become known as the Stain of Mark or the Mark of Steyn, even? Okay, Okay! I’ll go to my room.
Verity:
George is strictly a Westminster chap and nothing to do with the Edinburgh parliament. But yes, a parliamentary Armani boutique would probably have done well with all those tax-consumers to cater for. Giorgio (as opposed to George) probably made a mistake in opening his new Edinburgh store in a traditional shopping area.
(It’s still not certain that the Parliament building will be ready on time.)
Or Mark’s Stain. I went to The Telegraph page and saw a further dissolution of journalistic standards worthy of the depths of the BBC. This paper badly needs a proprietor or it is dead in the water. The editor, admittedly working under the terrible handicap of no proprietor, has let standards slide on a downhill toboggan run. The Letters to The Editor are all special interest/special pleading letters, as in (I made this up, but it’s typical), “As the father of a six-year old with multiple personality disorder, I would take issue …” – and so on. Letters to the editor used to be lively and address issues which would engage everyone interested in the body politic. Now it’s a long special interest leftie whine.
Like the BBC, Telegraph journalists are now permitted to insert their personal opinions, heavily disguised as disinterested reportage, into their pieces. There is no sense of control and no sense of direction and no wonder they are shedding readers. As in Roger Highfield’s piece on the Shroud of Turin, in which he reports that [something or other, I didn’t save it] would be difficult to replicate. His final sentence is, “Difficult, but not impossible.”
Who asked for his opinion in a news story? This is reportage?
Sure send Mo Mowlem to do the negotiations. Perhaps the first item on the agenda would be the removal of all females from positions of political influence.
Oh … my …. God …. , David Farrer! It was a j-o-k-e!
I ken Galloway’s Westminster. He represents a district in Glasgow – Kelvin Grove? Kelvin Park? I can’t remember – at Westminster. He was expelled from the Labour party for using the BRITISH PARLIAMENT, at WESTMINSTER as an intro to Saddam Hussain through his Palestinian wife and her contact, who she met at university in Amman, and then doing business in Baghdad with Saddam’s regime. I knew all that.
I wasn’t serious about Mark Steyn, either.
I just had a hincky feeling he hadn’t really been made into a saint.
And I had never heard of a Protestant saint – especially one in such dour surroundings as a wee kirk (which comment I realise isn’t legitimate, so please don’t “correct” me again). It …. was … intended … to … be … lighthearted.
I liked item No 8 on the list of things to be surrendered immediately. One small problem is that English Heritage might object to the wholesale re-ordering of the interiors of a large number of traditional and hysterical – sorry – HISTORICAL – buildings.
Apart from that, sending the Saintly Mo to do the negotiations will, I am sure, facilitate the swift passage of Western Civilisation into the pages of history magnificently. I am sure that Westminster would be vastly improved by the imposition of Burkhas and tight wound turbans on its taxconsuming denizens – mind you anything would be an improvement on that lot anyway.
Oh, and the al Ghazeerha people probably haven’t spotted the unconscious irony …….
Strange that after Mo’s moment of madness, a purported missive from Mr Bin Dyin offering magnanimous truce terms to the Euros has promptly surfaced on the Arab airwaves.
Are they by any chance related?
Dave F – Mr Bin Dyin – ha ha! I too noted the strange coincidence of Mo Moron and the late OBL having the same great thought in the same week. Interesting, is it not? Do you supposed Mo’s been conducting some freelance foreign policy?
Please take note, all those who are ignorant of Islamic law. Truces are not considered permanent under Islamic law. They are really just re-arming periods, to be broken the minute the Muslim side feels it is strong enough to defeat the opponent. The maximum period for a truce with “unbelievers” is 10 years, but it can be broken unilaterally at any time.
Muhammad used this tactic of ‘hudna” very effectively in destroying Jewish and pagan Arab tribes who opposed his leadership. He would make a “truce” with them, regroup and re-arm while they grew complacement, then made up some flimsy excuse for breaking the truce and invaded.
We are called the Dar-al-Harb (those of us in non-Muslim majority lands) — the land of war. We must be fought with eternally until we lose and “submit” to the Islamic state, the Dar-al-Islam (land of peace.)
I hope Europe’s establishment is not stupid enough to fall for this ploy, but with some European governments you never know.
Susan. Chilling. And as always, you give us the inside straight. I think France is stronger than Britain, but it’s all going on under the radar.
Verity, the hudna offer is an admission of desperation and weakness. No one offers a hudna from a position of strength.
Now is the time to crush them, before they are given the chance to re-arm and regroup. We may not have this chance again.
They know that Europe is the weak link. I hope for all our sakes that Europe does not take the bait.
Susan – I hope I’m not wrong, but I don’t think they will. Proud France, which has contributed so much to civilisation, would never allow a bunch of Muslim thugs to dictate their policy. (Or anyone else, actually. It’s always “France first” with these people.) I cannot see the Germans accepting orders from a bunch of Stone Age bigots, or the Dutch. The national mood in Italy is one of anger, I read, not negotiation. The Spanish – hmmm. Don’t know. They capitulated once.
Tony Blair’s a weak link. I know Americans think he is strong, but he is not. He is allowing Jack Straw to distance Britain from Israel – a cowardly move and a stupid one. Blair and celebrity brain-tumour-sufferer (thank you Gustave!) Mo Mowlam got peace in N Ireland by giving in to all the terrorists’ demands. It cannot possibly be a coincidence that she floated her insane suggestion a few days before the late OBL floated his.
I’m with you, Susan. I say go in for the kill.
Blair and celebrity brain-tumour-sufferer (thank you Gustave!) Mo Mowlam got peace in N Ireland by giving in to all the terrorists’ demands.
So here’s a thing Verity, you said over in England’s Sword, on the subject of Northern Ireland:
I know nothing at all about Ireland and have no interest in it. Irish place names and names of politicians are a haze of meaningless drizzle to me, along the lines of Canadian policitians. I neither know nor care. To repeat: I have never commented on Ireland because A) I do not hold strong, or indeed any, feelings about Ireland and B) I know nothing about it.
And yet, here you are proclaiming that Blair and Mowlem gave in to the terrorists demands…
Would you care to explain?
No, stupid Dave Troll; you haven’t cleverly caught me out. One cannot avoid seeing headlines in newspapers. One cannot avoid hearing the news headlines on TV and radio. One cannot avoid colleagues alluding to the news of the day.
To repeat, I have never, ever, ever – not even once – read an article or even the first paragraph of an article – about Ireland, N Ireland or the other section.
As I said on England’s Sword when you impertinently demanded to know what periods of time I lived/live in England, when news about N Ireland came on TV – and it was blanket coverage at one point – that was my signal to go to the kitchen to freshen my drink, check my emails, whatever. If it came on on the car radio, I simply punched on a new station.
Unlike you – constantly caught out telling whoppers (Peter Cutherbertson caught you in a porkie about your father, if memory serves) – I have no reason to lie – especially to a bunch of people I don’t even know.
To repeat yet again, you are obsessive and delusional. When you flounced off Samizdata a couple of months back because no one would agree with you about Mel Gibson’s movie, the sigh of relief was audible. We were, as I said, going to present you with the Kodiak Memorial Blog Bore of The Year Award in absentia, but before we could get it engraved, you were back, claiming not to be the same Dave, yet making all the same grammatical errors and displaying all the same obessions.
I told you on England’s Sword that I would not be responding to further posts directed at me, and I now reiterate this on Samizdata. You’re an obsessive and a liar.
Cyberstalking Wow!