Where is Dick Whittington, and where is his cat, when you need them?

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2004 8:35 AM

Ken Livingston is going the way of George Galloway; though on the left he is getting into bed with Islamofacists whose ideas would be considered very far right if they came from Christians.

(Of course he isn't literally getting into bed with Dr Qaradawi, that would be punishable by flogging to death!)

Sooner or later this may backfire. Outrage the gay activist group, normally associated with left wing politics have protested about this, as have some women's groups.

'The Sun', a rather tacky tabloid, but one very much in tune with public opinion in Britain had this to say:

'Ken Livingstone’s finally taken leave of what few senses he had.

Yesterday he told hate-preaching Muslim cleric Sheik al-Qaradawi that it would be “an honour” to welcome him back to London.

And the capital’s mayor added: “I imagine The Sun will get very excited about this.”

You bet. And London’s voters will be excited about it, too.

Livingstone doesn’t speak for them when he sucks up to people who encourage suicide bombers.

They see no “honour” in glad-handing a man who should never be here in the first place.

Once again, Livingstone’s a lone voice.'

Couldn't agree more. For a more intelligent newspaper's outlook, try this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/07/11/do1102.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/07/11/ixop.html

and this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/07/13/do1302.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/07/13/ixop.html

Posted by: Interestd at July 13, 2004 10:04 AM

Ken Livingstone, who presumes, has always despised America (which does not keep him from hiring an American expert to make those underground trains run on time), and of course he is also a great beater-upper -- ca va sans dire -- of Israel. Like "Gorgeous George" Galloway, the Glaswegian hireling of Saddam Hussein (whose money helped Galloway buy his modest vacation retreat in Spain), Ken Livingstone has earned his own moniker: Red Ken.

Red Ken, or Redken as some prefer to call him, when not being mayor of London, is also a well-known shampoo. One can only wish that London voters will wash that particular shampoo right out of their hair. And then vigorously apply some anti-Jihad conditioner.

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2004 10:41 AM

What is it with leftists and theocratic fascists? Livingstone was always the far leftist, but endorsing mass-murder of children by children, flogging of homosexuals to death and beating of women into submission? (Doesn't this kind of put the lie to the claim that a secular Saddam regime would not have consorted with islamist terrorists?)

I am trying really hard to keep a cool head about all the murderous insanity that is rampant in the West these days. Was it always this bad, or do we, paraphrasing an ancient curse, just live in interesting times?

Posted by: Jaakko Haapasalo at July 13, 2004 2:13 PM

To continue the theme adumbrated above. I just bought shampoo (the brand is “Marc Anthony”—it was not so much the reduced price as the hint of Shakespeare’s paraleptic Roman, that clinched the sale), and the bottle promises that its contents will, like a passing beauty who leaves one hot and bothered, “soulève, gonfle, et épaissit” (lift, volumize, thicken). And this brings relevantly to mind, in regard to that not-so-odd couple, the Mayor and the Muslim, those unforgettable lingerie ads that line the walls circumjacent to the escalators – those that go up, and those that come down -- of the London Underground.

Now as Ken Livingstone proudly showed his honored guest round and about old Londinium, did he by any chance show off that Underground, and therefore those lingerie ads, or was it limousines all the way for the Salon Bolshevik and the Quran-quoting Qaradawi? If Red Ken, in the same spirit as the Commissars who in the 1930s liked to bring Western tourists to view the gleaming Moscow Metro (“But where are the trains!” those tourists would ungratefully point out), did offer Q. such a tour, one would like to know how Monsieur Q. reacted to those advertisements, which can leave even an unaccustomed American blushing and flustered. Perhaps if his furious reaction were to have been translated, Red Ken might have looked a bit more closely into the previous protests of women’s groups, might have found out more about Qaradawi’s strictures on women’s dress, and women’s behavior, and the need for women to submit to their Qur’an-designated superiors, that is to say -- men.

And even if R. K. and Q.-q. Q. did not visit the Underground together, possibly they had a chance to take in the National Gallery. It would have been fascinating to hear Q. explain to K. through a seamlessly-bowdlerizing translator why all the statues needed to be broken or defaced if they were even to be permitted to continue to exist at all, and why, under Islam, all the paintings other than landscapes, all the depictions of famous personages, and of course anything that had a Madonna, with or without a bambino in her lap, would have to go, along with all paintings showing a saint, or a Biblical figure, or a king, or a general, or a nobleman, or any historical personage, or any non-historical figure not being held up to ridicule, because such depictions are haram, haram, haram, and don't you forget it. Perhaps Q. could then have given K. a copy of his own guide to righteous Quran’ic living, What is Halal and What Haram, even pointing out the passages that explain this unassuagable hostility toward sculpture and portrait paintings in great detail). Of course, Ken, you dimly recall what happened to the Bamiyan Buddhas, and to the frescoes formerly on the walls of the Byzantine churches of Constantinople, and to those tens of thousands of Hindu temples, and to churches all over North Africa, and Mesopotamia, and Syria -- or do you? Perhaps Ken Livingstone, a compleat homo politicus (which makes any Jack a dull boy) is not fond of art himself; he may see it as a luxury item, after all. And much of Western art, as the Kens of this world see things, corresponds to the taste of rich patrons only trying to immortalize or flatter themselves, in their commissioning of paintings and sculpture and furniture and garden follies, all paid for with the loot, as seen through the narrow lens of a narrow Ken Livingstone, accumulated through the exploitation of the working class, or the exploited colonials beyond the seas. Just look at that arch-connoisseur Kenneth Clark’s family fortune, no doubt the result of Lancashire girls spinning thread from dawn to dusk, or the liquor-store fortune of Bernard Berenson, or of course those impossible and intolerable Medicis, all those sinister Lorenzos and Cosimos. What decent human being, I quite agree Ken, what decent human being can even stand to look at the paintings and sculptures that were produced for those Medici, those rich Florentine swine. Yes, Ken, on second thought, probably you and Q. would have had much to nod in agreement about, as you walked through the National Gallery, or the Tate, or any of those other decadent centers of intolerable Western art. And Ken, wasn't it your favorite Russian writer who said that a good shoemaker was worth more than Pushkin, than everything that Pushkin had ever produced? Isn't that a world-view, isn't that an aesthetic creed, Ken, expressed so memorably and succinctly, that makes you a brother under the skin of Q-q. Q.?

And since Islam is now the vehicle of choice for those wishing to express their fury at their own perceived marginalization (psychic or economic), their own often self-induced alienation and hatred of Capitalism, of The System, of The West, of Amerika with a “K”(shudders of dismay may be inserted here), Mr. Q. came to the right place, and was made much of by the right host. Indeed, we are told that you liked Mr. Q. so much that you have invited him to return, any time he feels like it.

Ken, Redken, Mr. Livingstone, Lord Mayor of London, turn again, like Dick Whittington, if you possibly can. There may still be time. Think of those sculptures and those paintings. Do you really want Qaradawi and his ilk to have their way? . Think of the freedoms built upon, and enjoyed, by those who now live in Old Londinium. Think of Bracton. Think of Coke. Think of Locke. Think of of John Stuart Mill. Think of Harry Lauder, and Al Bowlly and Jack Buchanan and Elsie Randolph. Think of Vera Lynn. Think of Sigmund Freud, and Lucien Freud, and Emma Freud, and any damn Freud who comes to mind. Think of Peter Sellers. Think of Frank Muir. Think of the Goon Show. Think of My Word, and all the gentle people who listen to My Word. Think of Alastair Sim and Alec Guinness. Think of The Bells of St. Trinian’s. Think of Wee Geordie. Think of 23 Laburnum Grove. Think of Dennis Potter -- think of Pennies From Heaven, and The Singing Detective, and Lipstick on Your Collar. Think of Keats on Hampstead Heath. Think, Ken, even of those buying bespoke at a tailor's on Jermyn Street, or the Burlington Arcade. Think about what London means, or should mean, to you, and think about the London that would exist if the likes of Sheikh Al-Qaradawi, and his followers, now well-ensconced, were to have their way – in London, in England, in Europe, all over the world. Forget about what you think about Bush, or what you think you should think of him. Think about what Q.-q. Q., if he had half a chance, would do to everyone and everything in free-spirited, silly, often deplorable, sometimes lovable London, over which you preside.

Forget about contriving always to act so as to annoy the Americans, the London Board of Rabbis, the leader-writers on The Telegraph. Try to have some gratitude to the Great Dead who created the civilization of which you and those who live in London are inheritors. Not one of those Great Dead (of England, of Europe, of the Western world)would have lasted a minute under Islam, under the likes of Al-Qaradawi and his grim little world of the shari’a, his Total Regulation, his manichaen assignment of everything to one or the other column: Haram over there, Halal over here. You owe those Great Dead of the Western world something. You owe Q-q. Q. nothing.

Please, Ken, please Mr. Livingstone, please Mr. Lord Mayor, like Dick Whittington, turn again, even if that means you will have to turn against every cliché and received idea in the seemingly-immutable bolshevist banality of your mental universe. Get With the Program. And that program, if you need a hint, is not “Friends” but, rather, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2004 4:01 PM

And Qaradawi might reply:

"Don't listen to him. He is a Muslim hater. Muslims are oppressed and being persecuted. Look at what Israel is doing. I am just here to promote and protect the rights of Muslims, to educate, and to explain away misunderstandings about Islam. I come in peace, to promote understanding between the West and Islam. We must build a better world together. Do not listen to Muslim haters like this man, like the Israelis. He sounds like one, and look what people like him are doing to the Palestinians. Can you stand for that?"

And imagine a diplomat from the Third Reich in 1937 thereabouts.

"Don't listen to these Jewish ravings. National Socialism is about empowering the German people and giving them what is rightfully theirs. We all know the influence of the Jews over the theatres and the banks. They are doing damage to us all. The Germans have been oppressed by them as you (Britons) have, and we are simply claiming our right to our national destiny.

We want to join hands with Britons as friends to build a better world. A world based on understanding. A world based on a better order.

Surely you can understand that. Do not be afraid. Don't listen to the Jews. Join us."

What do you say Red Ken? Yea or Nay?

Posted by: JTF at July 13, 2004 4:32 PM

England my Friend give All your non-mulsums guns!! You are in a fight and you have let the libs take your guns and now you see how bad crime is without them well the next faze of the mulsums are to start coming into your homes and killing you in your sleep and stealing the girl children they do not kill to use as sex slaves now if you don't belive me look at what they did in Kosovo?? and are doing again with the UN right their!

They tried this in Italy they thought wrong there because Italains did have guns!!

If you are a Christain conutry or a non-mulsum country you had better learn to protect yourselfs!

We Americans may not pick up the phone with all the Hate America and our President we have been hearing from you and your people ?

What makes you think I would give my Life to save your A-s you had better get ready to protect yourselfs

Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who Fight with her give them Strength and courage to stay the course to Victory Amen

PS Fight for Short Skirts!!!

Posted by: Catherine at July 13, 2004 4:33 PM

Hugh
That was realy good but you forgot Simpley Foboulos Binny Hill?

You will see no more fountians in Spain with all their blossom think of the hot days of summer and the parks are empty of lovers only the police to beet women who would dare to expose their toes? there would be no Trevie fountians any where that is not permitted?

sorry Hugh hate to be a butt monkey!

Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who Fight with her give themStrength and Courage to stay the Course to Victory Amen

Posted by: Catherine at July 13, 2004 5:08 PM

Actually 'marriage' between Ken and Doc Q isn't as far fetched as it might seeem. I'm not referring here to sodomy although Arabs have a long tradition of enjoying 'boys.' No, it's their ideology which shows similar traits. Both believe in totalitarian regimes, communists had suicide bombings of their own and a vast propaganda machine blaming the West for everything.[To cover up or divert from regime's own failings.] Ken has always been a maverick as well as a communist and can't forgive the West for toppling his dream of a Communist World. As for art and culture what does Ken care any more than Soviet leaders did?
Unfortunately, apathy of average U.K. voter has kept this Hater of the West in office.WAKE UP BRITAIN.

Posted by: Morgane at July 13, 2004 6:14 PM

BBC Newsnight just featured a confontation between Gay Rights Activist Peter Tatchell and some hatched-face Stalinist from the Stop The War Coalition. Tatchell had outraged the Left by turning up at a Free Palestine rally with a demand that the Palestinian authority stop torturing and killing homosexuals and lesbians. The Stalinist was upset because Tatchell had distracted attention away from the anti-Israeli message of the meeting. Tatchell responded by saying that killing gays was wrong whoever was doing it and it should be protested. Ms.Stalinist then came out with the most incredible statement saying "No, we shouldn't protest it if they're black or brown because these people suffer from rascism." !!!!! So there you have it folks - what many of us have secretly known all along - you can never accuse black, brown or Muslim groups of anything wrong because they've all suffered from rascim. Tatchell stood his ground and said evil should be exposed whatever the colour or religion of the people doing it but Ms.Stalinist was adamant - the Palestinians are not to be condemned for denying their people human rights. The BBC newscaster , the gutless wonder Gavin Essler, did his usual "see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil" act and stayed shy of asking any probing questions about Islam and the killing of gays but it didn't matter. The Left's unquestioning support of Islam is tonight sporting a few hairline cracks and we now know that the Left no longer supports human rights.

Posted by: Son Of Albion at July 13, 2004 7:32 PM

This proposed legislation has done nothing to advance the Jihadi cause; what has happened is that the level of insight into the Islamofacist menace has increased - probably tenfold - over the last few days.

The comments on this Blog alone show this. And some of the articles in The Sun, The Mail, The Spectator and, above all, The Telegraph, show the way the British really think.

Blunkett's proposed legislation has no chance whatsoever of passing. It is a deliberate ploy to stir the pot. And how!

Ken is the UK Michael Moore (though nothing like as repulsive). He will turn the left against itself. Bring it on.

Posted by: Interestd at July 13, 2004 7:38 PM

Son of Albion:

Shame I missed that. You are right - just one quibble. You say:

'the Left no longer supports human rights.'

I'd go further. The Left has never supported human rights. The Left is simply against human freedom, talent entrepreneurship, individuality and everything that makes being human worthwhile. That, as another poster has said, is why lefties like Ken and George and islamofacists like Qurarwossisname are such good bedfellows. But not literally of course, that's for the next life with all the raisins and pearly boys.

Posted by: Interestd at July 13, 2004 7:44 PM

Hugh:

Leaving aside the high art, what about the vulgar British traditions such as pantomime? What will happen, when London is ruled by Sharia, to the pantomime I saw for our office party: Big Dick Whittington and his Little Pussy? (A rollicking rollercoster of a show with lots of risquee references!)

The title says it all. A shameless infidel pun. As a woman, what was I doing out anyway? Perhaps there will be an alternative version where they all sing a chorus:

'Swing low, sweet shariah
Coming for to chop off your hand...'

Posted by: Interestd at July 13, 2004 7:54 PM

Hugh said, “Where is Dick Whittington, and where is his cat, when you need them?”

Where is Dick indeed....

http://london.allinfo-about.com/features/dickwhit.html

http://www.longlongtimeago.com/llta_folktales_dickwhittington.html

"Your grandchildren will be getting cats and catching islamo mice."

Posted by: Sheik Canuck (swt) at July 13, 2004 8:44 PM

"Swing low, sweet shariah
Coming for to chop off your hand..."

Hilarious, Interested! We could write a whole satirical musical that would make fun of the ROP.

Posted by: Suzan at July 13, 2004 8:55 PM

The Left have always had this twisted ability to try and defend the indefensible. I remember back in the 1970s when the Socialist workers Party were falling overthemselves to support the IRA. (Funny isn't how the Left go all gooey over murderers - must be a Fruedian thing). Anyhow this "friend " of mine was struggling to justify the IRA pub bombings in Birmingham and Guildford. First he claimed that the violence against innocent civilians was a sad but inevitable response because of the "oppression" of the Irish. (Sound familiar?) When a bunch of us demolished that arguement he then claimed that the British secret services planted the bombs to discredit the kind gentlemen of the IRA. After we dealt with that defense he then lashed out with "Well, the people in the pubs were legitimate targets because as taxpayers they financed the British Army." Incredulous, we then asked how the IRA didn't know they weren't killing people in those pubs who may have been Irish or Republican sympathesisers. There was a long, long pause. Looking quite uncomfortable he finally answered, "The secret service did it."
The traitor Livingstone probably believes all those suicide bombers are Israeli agents.

Posted by: Son Of Albion at July 14, 2004 6:44 AM

NEWsnight & HardTalk

I nomininate Peter Hitchens & Will Cummins as presenters.

Posted by: apostate_islam at July 14, 2004 8:29 AM

Catherine,
What the fuck are you talking about "you let the libs take our guns"?Trust me sweetie , you just have to know the right people. (Although it would be handy if we could buy them round at the local off licence like in the States --please read as sarcasm).

Posted by: Rikki at July 14, 2004 8:57 AM

Apostate Islam,
That Tim Sebastian on hardtalk, which I very often stay up till 4:30am to watch, goes straight for the jugular but he's far too liberal!!!

Posted by: Rikki at July 14, 2004 8:59 AM