Every day I read the conservative woman which is an internet publication edited by Kathy Gyngell.   Every Sunday she writes a week in review. This week so epitomizes what is going on in the UK and indeed elsewhere that I thought I would reproduce it in full for publicity purposes and at the same time encouraging you to subscribe (see link below)

I have taken the liberty of adding illustrations. My comments and additions are in italics.

Dear Readers,

MY week began last Sunday with the funeral of Sir Paul Fox, who ran the BBC when it still was a British institution we could be proud of. I sat at the back, a sea of white hair in front of me, remembering when our values (and humour) unified us and thinking how ‘diversity’, far from being our strength, has been our downfall if not our destruction.

I can see the integrity, determination and strength of character streaming out of his eyes- Ed.
In a career that spanned both the BBC and the independent channels, Paul Fox, who was died aged 98, made perhaps his greatest mark as controller of BBC One for six years from 1967. One of the most colourful and extrovert of TV chiefs, he made the most of what was arguably the most vital and influential role in the industry. Ed.

Stiff upper lip was this formidable man’s motto. He was a man neither to emote or complain. Born in Germany in 1925, he began life in this country as a Jewish refugee (his father died when he was six, his mother and grandmother were to die in concentration camps) arriving in Britain on the first Kinder transport in 1938 and given a home by a British family. Five years later he joined the Parachute Regiment and was wounded in action with the 6th Airborne Division after the 1945 Rhine crossing.

Listening to the tributes to him reminded me how he never asserted his ‘identity’ but adopted the country which harboured him, fought for it and later, when he’d climbed from nowhere to becoming controller at the BBC, promoted the best of British values and culture. David Dimbleby told the congregation of his instruction: ‘Never underestimate the good taste of the audience.’ Today the BBC does the very opposite; it assumes the poorest of taste.

The Two Ronnies and Parkinson were launched during Paul Fox’s tenure; national sport became synonymous with the BBC. It was only after initial misgivings about Dad’s Army – ‘You cannot’, he told its writer and producer David Croft, ‘take the mickey out of Britain’s finest hour’ – that he changed his mind and then commissioned it. It was indicative of his patriotism.

You can find his Times obit here and the Telegraph’s here.

Today, like it or not, we are all sucked into the identity politics that diversity has spawned and its two-tier policing outcome, which John Ellwood brilliantly satirised on Monday in TCW with his ‘A Met police guide to who’s welcome . . . and who isn’t’. It goes back to Harriet Harman’s 2010 Equalities Act and one Theresa May’s enthusiastic endorsement of it. ‘With her audits, and reviews and inquiries,’ Laura wrote back in 2017, ‘she treats special interest groups as victims to be saved from the marauding masses out there itching to do them down. She also believes that only government – the State – can do the saving. It is not so much Mother Theresa as Nurse Ratched: it is frightening to behold.’ 

One politician who tried his hardest through a long political career to turn back this rising tide of diversity and dependence died last week. Frank Field, courageous and conscientious Christian, Labour MP for Birkenhead between 1979 and 2019, fell foul of the lot – the hard left, the feminists and Tony Blair’s state expansionist technocrats. He never ran away even when it made him physically sick. When faced by that wolf in sheep’s clothing Blair (whose unfinished revolution was brilliantly described for us by Paul Collits yesterday), he refused to comply and resigned as Minister for Welfare.

Blair and Gordon Brown’s working families and child tax credits did not think the unthinkable but drew more families into dependency, continued the discrimination against two-parent families and encouraged single parenthood. Field warned that without radical reform there would be moral and economic disaster. How right he’s been proved.

I met him once, at a Full Time Mothers’ meeting way back, when he spoke openly about depravity and incest in his constituency, associated with single parenthood and tri-generational female-only families where no one knew exactly who may have fathered who. He didn’t mince words.

I guess it’s because he was so totally politically incorrect that his obituaries have not done justice to him. He campaigned for Britain to leave the EU on behalf of working-class Labour voters. He supported Brexit exactly because of the need to control immigration with its excessive demands on public services. He was at odds with his party over abortion too. And in 2018 he quit the parliamentary Labour party which under Jeremy Corbyn, he said, had become ‘a force for anti-Semitism in British politics’.

LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 07: Stephen Lennon aka Tommy Robinson, leader of the English Defence League, pauses before a group march to Aldgate by EDL supporters on September 7, 2013 in London, England. The EDL far-right organisation have had restrictions placed on the march by the Metropolitan police due to the fear of “serious public disorder”, but it will still proceed to the edge of Tower Hamlets, which is home to a large population of ethnic minorities. (Photo by Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images)

All is not yet lost, however. On Wednesday, as if perfectly timed for St George’s Day, came a victory for justice. Remember how Tommy Robinson, attending the big London march against anti-Semitism on November 26, was arrested by police who grabbed him, handcuffed him and pepper-sprayed him in the face? And how he was then banned from London under a doubtful Soviet-style dispersal order? Well, it turns out the order was not properly served, the bail conditions were unlawful and all the body-cam footage mysteriously disappeared. Nonetheless, the sight of St George’s flag, as a Mark Steyn Clubland Q&A contributor pointed out, was ‘the red rag to the Met’s bull’ though there was ‘no such problem with the Palestinian “protests” naturally, where the red rag is replaced with red carpet’.

Yes, the judge dismissed the charges against Tommy Robinson on what Mark ironically calls ‘the quaint ground’ that banning him from coming into London was quite simply unlawful. There is no doubt it marks a significant victory for Robinson’s legal challenge and freedom of the press. But we should be under no illusion. As Mark says: ‘Tommy was very fortunate to come up against a judge who actually attached priority to the law and to the constabulary’s requirement to work within the law.’

In fact, listening to Mark’s brilliant Clubland Q&A monologue on this, and on the idiocy of the establishment Jews who want to dictate who is allowed to fight anti-Semitism and who is not, totally brightened the end of my week. It reminded me that we are not alone at TCW in our war against those who would destroy us.  Mark remains a brave and brilliant voice for truth. He pulls no punches in this episode and is very funny to boot. He is without doubt the best broadcaster that Britain doesn’t have (as I have said before). But the good news is that you can sign up and still listen to him (unconstrained by GB News).

His judicial review against Ofcom is coming up in London on June 11, I understand. We must all be there to support him – I believe the public will be allowed in. We should turn it into a veritable gathering of the clans! I will keep readers informed as I get more details.

Once again a big thank you to all those who already do donate regularly and a reminder to other readers that we rely on your donations to keep publishing our ‘free to read’ daily TCW as we are still cancelled by Google. Please, if you can, consider supporting us with a one off or monthly donation.

Finally – please get friends to sign up to our daily email which sends you our latest articles every day. It is free! The sign-up box is here.

Best wishes,

Kathy Gyngell

Editor, TCW Defending Freedom