England Now Has a Version of DOGE

For John, BLUF:  When Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer looks to be adopting a reform of the Bureaucracy, maybe DOGE isn't so off base.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Starmer to abolish NHS England

Here is the sub-headline:

KEY MOMENTS

From The aatelegraph, 13 March 2025 3:05pm.

Here is an extract:

Starmer: We’ve created ‘watchdog state’ out of step with the public Sir Keir Starmer said: “I’m going to send teams into every government department with a clear mission from me to make the state more innovative and more efficient. But we also need to go further and faster on regulation.”

The Prime Minister insisted it was “not about questioning the dedication or the effort of civil servants” but rather “the system we’ve got in place”.

“Over a number of years politicians have chosen to hide behind vast arrays of quangos, arms-length bodies, regulators, you name it, a cottage industry of checkers and blockers, using taxpayer money to stop the Government delivering on taxpayer priorities.”

Sir Keir admitted “we always knew it was going to be contentious” to promise to build 1.5 million homes during the current Parliament, adding: “Some parts of the state haven’t got the memo.”

He warned an office conversion into 139 homes was in jeopardy “because the [cricket] ball strike assessment doesn’t appear to have been taken by a specialist qualified consultant”.

“People across Britain are frustrated, they don’t think politics works for them, it doesn’t deliver on its promises... Parts of the state see their job as blocking government from doing great things it was elected to do... We’ve cleared a watchdog state, completely out of whack with the priorities of the British people.”

It sounds to me like British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has broken the code and realizes that the Bureaucracy has become its own self-perpetuating organism.  It reminds me, in a way, of the 1983 film, War Games.

This suggests that maybe President Trump and Elon Musk may be on a good path.

Regards  —  Cliff

Register Your Chickens

For John, BLUF:  The British Government has gone overboard in its fight against avian flue by registering every owner of a chicken in England.  It has not gone well.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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As God Is My Witness, I Thought Roasted Chickens Could Fly

From VodkaPundit, by Blogger Stephen Green, 10:15 AM on 8 October 2024.

Here is the lede plus five:

Ordinary people need to enjoy a little taste of rebellion against their oppressors now and then, particularly when it comes in the form of a delicious roasted chicken. But there's something I need to get off my chest before we get to Britain's tawdry tale of chicken registrations and crashed government websites.

Watching the once-Great Britain slowly slide into soft totalitarianism has been a great disappointment. It's virtually impossible to do anything in the UK any longer without being surveilled on video, audited, indexed, reported to the authorities, or jailed for silently praying. You can't own a pistol, and they've considered banning knives. You'll be hounded or stabbed by Islamic colonizers or beaten with reeds for using the incorrect imaginary personal pronouns.

I made up the part about the reeds. But Britain's Labour government has considered making it a hate crime punishable by up to two years in jail for purposely using the "wrong" pronouns.

All this is from the people who invented the English liberty that evolved here into American exceptionalism.

True, it's sad, but glimmers of Ye Olde English Liberty remain.

Following a 2021 outbreak of avian flu that resulted in millions of culled birds, the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was placed in charge of new registration requirements for chickens.

I was beginninhg to have my doubts about Vera Lynn and her singing There Will Always be an England:

There'll always be an England
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me

I am not English.  I am an American.  But, both. physically and politcally I am a descendent of England,  Thus, this gives me hope.  This tells me there are people in Merry Old England who still believe in individual freedom and who are willing to tweek the nose of oppressive government.

The point is that if you have just one chicken, even for a pet — and I won't judge you, I swear — as of Oct. 1, you have to register your bird with DEFRA. (I swear I keep reading that as "DERPA.")

This is when Britons have finally said, "Enough!" because pranksters hit the registration page so hard last week that they crashed it.

The prank registrations aren't limited to Tesco roasted chickens. Some people have reportedly registered rubber chickens and even chicken nuggets.

As of this writing, one week later, the website is still "unavailable due to technical issues."

Good on you People of England.  Good on you for standing up to petty bureaucrats who would crush the idea of individual freedom.  Good laws make everyone safer and happier.  However, oppressive petty restrictions are the bane of freedom and democracy.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Desiring a Polite Society

For John, BLUF:  we are no longer a polite society, but one where everyone is a possible enemy.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Diversity and the death of polite society

From The Conservative Woman (UK), by Commentor Frederick Edward, 16 February 2024.

Here is the lede plus four:

TRYING to enter a Boots the other afternoon I had to wait to be buzzed in. According to a sign on the door this was because of a recent spate of aggressive behaviour towards its employees:  as such, after 5pm, entry into the shop was controlled.

This was not, may I add, in some inner-city slum, but in an average retail park in an average town.

Similar trends are visible elsewhere.  Petrol stations near me – though it tends to be the nicer ones with an M&S or Little Waitrose bolted on – have started employing security guards.  These shops, which previously had no bouncers, have for the last few years had two on duty at any time.

Obviously this is necessary owing to a rapid increase in both scummy behaviour towards its employees and an increase in theft (or, as it is euphemistically called in retail, ‘shrink’).

It is a sad token of society’s general direction, and one borne out by statistics. Reported recently was that violence and abuse against shop workers had risen 50 per cent year-on-year, and that the total lost to shoplifting has reached an all-time high of £1.8billion.  Such are the records that are broken in 21st century Britain.

When I was youbg we were taught it was an honor to live in these United States.  Yes, you could assert that it was that wy for Caucasians, but I would suggest World War Two showed that it was so for other folks also.♠  All being happy to be here♥  we treated each otherr with rewpect.

Today, with the division of the natoin into oppressors and the oppressed, and with gradations therein, we are not one people, but a swrl of bickeering sub-nations.  I had hopes that President Obama would begin the healing process, but it didn't advance past his Attorney General Eric Holder saying "We need to have a conversation,"  Surprisingly, President Trump seemed to make some small progress.,  Candidate Biden promised to bring us together, but there has been no follow-through.

The person who will lead us out of this morass is the one who will show respect to all and build trust between groups, offering the American Dream to all.  someone who will build a concensus on what we owe to help marginalized groups their own opportunities and fair share.  Someone who will support the idea that respect goes in all directions and that the sins of the past are for historic review and lesson learning and not a way of creating new groups to be eschewed.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Just for example, the Navajo Code Talkers, the 442nd Regimentsl Combat Team (Go For Broke) and the Tuskeegee Airmen (thank you Mrs Roosevelt).
♥  Not everyone who immigrated to the United States was happy to be here.  A surprisingly large number returned to their home countries, and that is fine.

Humor to Ease Tensions

For John, BLUF:  Someone tried it and failed, although in retrospect I think he made some good points.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Monty Python Star John Cleese Is the Latest to Be Silenced

From PJ Media, by Reporter Stephen Green, 14 March 2022, 5:14 PM ET.

Here is the lede plus two:

John Cleese had his microphone taken away at an SXSW comedy event in Austin, TX for having the audacity to joke about reparations, according to the Daily Mail.

“[People] get competitive about this business of being oppressed,” he deadpanned.  “We were oppressed, the English, by the Romans from about 0 to 400.”

Cleese asked, “You do know the British have been slaves twice, right?”

Twice?  Yes, remember the French conquest of England in 1066—Battle of Hastings and all that.

Yes, the Englished managed to absorb the French and reassert themselves.  Remember Robin Hood?  Rember the 1215 Magn Carta.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Fixing Discrimination

For John, BLUF:  How do we rebalance long term discrimination, and do it without creating reverse discrimination.  This Summer the English Touring Opera demonstrated that it didn't have the solution to hand.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Ripping Off the Veil

Here is the sub-headline:

A British classical music organization exposes the sordid business behind all racial-preference regimes.

From City Journal,by Journalist Heather MacDonald, 19 September 2021.

Here is the lede plus three:

Racial preferences have been almost impossible to dislodge because their human costs are usually hidden.  College admissions officers don’t inform rejected student applicants that they were turned down to make room for diversity admits.  An HR office does not tell job seekers or the company’s own employees that they were not hired or promoted because they would add nothing to the company’s diversity metrics.  The rejected applicants may suspect that they didn’t get a desired position because of a racial preference, but they can rarely be 100 percent sure.

The offstage nature of these tradeoffs allows preference proponents to deny that diversity decisions entail a zero-sum calculus.  In 2019, a U.S. district court judge upheld Harvard’s racial-admissions preferences after a lengthy trial.  In her opinion, Judge Allison Burroughs insisted that race is only a positive factor, and never a negative factor, in Harvard’s admissions process. Such a claim is specious.  The only reason that institutions implement racial preferences in the first place is that there are not enough qualified applicants among non-Asian minorities to achieve a racially proportionate student body or workforce under a meritocratic selection system.  Hiring a diversity candidate under a preference regime almost always means not hiring a more qualified non-diverse candidate.  The former’s gain is inevitably the latter’s loss.

Now a British classical music organization has inadvertently ripped the veil off the diversity arithmetic, and the consequences may be far-reaching.  Earlier this month, the English Touring Opera told nearly half its orchestral musicians that it would not be renewing their contracts for the 2022 season because it has “prioritised increased diversity in the orchestra.”  In other words, as a bunch of white guys you must be cleared out so that we can boost the collective melanin levels among our musicians.   Your talent does not matter; your skin color does.

Here, at last, were concrete, publicly identified victims of a preference regime.  The reaction was swift.  Since the Sunday Times broke the story, the English Touring Opera has been thrown on the defensive.  Arts Council England, a government arts funder and the opera company’s main patron, is backpedaling on its aggressive promotion of diversity after the company claimed that it was only following the Council’s mandates in terminating the white musicians.  It turns out that the public has little stomach for watching the diversity sausage be made.

This is relevant to Lowell in that our School System needs to have a more racially and ethnically diverse student facing organization.  However, firing Caucasians to make room for others just creates a new problem.  One solution would be to hire more teachers and para-professionals, which would allow for smaller classs sizes and perhaps a better learning environment.  It would seem the money is not there.  Thus, we need to ponder and be creative.

Send your suggestions to me.

In the mean time, perhaps this current economic upheavel will provide an opportunity for organizations big and small, private and public, to hire various people to fill their employee shortages and the more obvious examples of long term hiring practices will be wiped away.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The American Revolution Begins

For John, BLUF:  I think I had been fuzzy about the sequences of events in the American Revolution, but this helps to make it clearer,  The British march on Lexington and Concord and then later comes the Declaration of Independence.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Today Should Be a National Holiday:  An Annual Tradition.

Here is the sub-headline:

If there were any justice today would be a national holiday at least as big as Independence Day.  I’m not kidding.

From The Writer in Black, by Writer David L. Burkhead, 18 April 2021.

Here is the lede plus two:

Back in the 1770’s an unrest that had started more than a century before–with Colonial reaction to the English Civil War, the Catholic reign of James II, and the Glorious Revolution that followed–was growing in the American colonies, at least those along the Atlantic Seaboard from New Hampshire down through Georgia.  Protests over taxes imposed without the taxed having any voice in the matter, complaints about a distant monarch and legislative body making rules and laws over people to whom they are not beholden.

There had been clashes which fed that unrest, including the famous “Boston Massacre” where British troops fired into a rioting mob resulting in several deaths.  Think of it as the Kent State of the 18th century.

In an effort to quell the unrest, or at least have it be less of a threat to British officials, General Thomas Gage, Military governor of Massachusetts, under orders to take decisive action against the colonists, decided to confiscate firearms and ammunition from certain groups in the colony.  His forces marched on the night of April 18, 1775.

This is about the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which played out on the 19th of April 1775.  When Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote about Paul Revere and his mission to warn every Middlesex village and farm he is talking about the County in which I now live, and proudly so.

A lesson to be learned is that soldiers shooting into a crowd of rioters doesn't always work out well for the Government then in power.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Great Charter

For John, BLUF:  We we bgin to see emerge the Rights of Englishmen, which we enjoy today.  Not perfect, but pretty good and evolving.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Today is the Annivrsary of King John Affixing His Seal

I joked to someone that after this nothing of importance happened in history until July of 1776.  While that is a little flippant, it also contains a grain of truth.

Regards  —  Cliff

Guy Fawkes Day

For John, BLUF:  Our freedoms are precious and we need to preserve them.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Remember, Remember,
The Fifth of November.

November 1605

Diversity means giving every faction the chance to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as they see fit.  Within the boundaries of legality.

The Plymouth Colony, where the Pilgrims landed on 9 November 1620, 15 years and days later, wasn't the solution either.  They just wanted the freedom to worship the way they wanted.  They weren't interested in religious freedom for others.  But, we finally got there, thus the First Amendment.

Happy Birthday, Nick.

Regards  —  Cliff

There In Spirit

For John, BLUF:  We should be careful to not lose our political heritage in a narrow rejection of our common history.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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This is the Feast of Crispin

Posted at Cat Rotator's Quarterly on October 25, 2018 by TXRed.

Here is the lede:

Ah, October 25, one of those dates that means a lot to a very few people.  A date immortalized by one of the greatest poems in English, a poem we don’t recall as poetry.

This is about the Battle of Agincourt, and King Henry the Fifth's speech.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

[The whole speech is on video at the link.]

Progressives assert that there is "White Privilege" in this nation, holding back others.  I would assert that they miss the fact that what bouys our spirits is Anglo-Saxon privilege, a privilege available to all, "we band of brothers (and sisters)," regardless of race, color or creed.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispin_and_Crispinian

Controlling Dissent

For John, BLUF:  "O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away"; But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play."—Rudyard Kipling, 1890.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Tommy Robinson, Untouchable

That would be "Untouchable" in the sense of the Indian Cast System.

Mr Tommy Robinson is a British Citizen who has been agitating against rape gangs in certain Midland cities and towns.

From PJ Media, by Mr Bruce Baker, 11 October 2018.

Here is the lede plus one and a part:

Day by day, it seems, Britain is descending even further into the madness of dhimmitude.

On October 8, Tommy Robinson was at a service station along the M1 [Motorway] in Northamptonshire when he encountered four cars full of young British soldiers in uniform.  They asked to take a picture with him.  He happily complied.  In the picture, they're all smiling.  It's a lovely photo.  Apparently all of the soldiers in those four cars (reportedly twenty-eight in all) knew very well who Robinson is, and apparently all of them were delighted to pose for a snap with him.  They also let him take a brief video of the encounter, in which they can be seen chanting his name.  Both the picture and the video were shared online.  Posting the video on Facebook, Robinson wrote:  “A moment like this makes it all worth while.  Today I met real British heroes.”

And then, of course, all hell broke loose.

First off, Mr Tommy Robinson is an activist, who has jumped all over certain sexual crimes being committed in England.  Second, the British Authorities have been on him for his supposed "Racist" views.

What is missing is the understanding that while Mr Robinson may well be over the top, being over the top should not be a crime.  Maybe, after Brexit, things will calm down again.  However, for now the treatment of the soldiers, as described in the article, seems a little harsh, at least by US Standards.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Wanting to Breath Free

For John, BLUF:  The Brits have found, once again, that the Continent is not a place that values individual freedom.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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May challenges EU as Brexit talks hit 'impasse', sterling tumbles

"Sterling" is the nickname for the British currency, the British Pound note.

From Reuters, by Reporters Guy Faulconbridge and Andrew MacAskill, 21 September 2018.

Here is the lede plus three:

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday that Brexit talks with the European Union had hit an impasse, defiantly challenging the bloc to come up with its own plans a day after EU leaders savaged her proposals.

At a summit in Austria on Thursday, EU leaders rejected May’s “Chequers” plan, saying she needed to give ground on trade and customs arrangements for the UK border with Ireland.

The British media said the response had left her proposals in tatters, and May angrily struck back in a televised address from her Downing Street office, saying neither side should expect the impossible from the other.

“Throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect,” May said.  “The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it.”

The last paragraph of the article is the best:

“The referendum was the largest democratic exercise this country has ever undergone,” said May, who has repeatedly ruled out a second vote following the original 2016 referendum.  “To deny its legitimacy or frustrate its result threatens public trust in our democracy.”

SHACK!

On the nose!

People calling for a "second" vote are the clueless cousins of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Remember his line?

Democracy is like a streetcar.  When you come to your stop, you get off.

We, here in these United States, need to get around this by leaving as much as we can to the individual states.  Then, if you don't like the laws in Massachusetts, or Montana, you can move to another state.  People not all being alike, it is good to leave room for variability.  And for the fabled Rights of Englishmen.

Hat tip to the Drudge Report.

Regards  —  Cliff

Road From Slavery

For John, BLUF:  Sadly, slavery still exists, because many cultures don't value individual freedom.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Britain Abolishes Slavery, 1833

From Instapundit, by Law Professor Gail Heriot, 28 August 2918.

Here is the lede:

ON THIS DAY IN 1833: William IV, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, signed the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 into law.  There was an exception for possessions of the East India Company (which was removed in 1843).

It is a short but thought provoking post.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Loss of Rights

For John, BLUF:  I don't care what this person did, this process is wrong.  What we have is an In Camera judicial activity that is reminiscent of the work of the Star Chamber.  Doing bad while thinking they are doing good.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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URGENT: Tommy Robinson is in prison — help us challenge the judge's gag order banning reporting on it

From The Rebel, by Canadian Ezra Levant, this long weekend.

Basically, Mr Levant is raising money to help someone in England who was whisked off the streets, given an unfamiliar lawyer, tried and sentenced, all in a day.  And, the court issued a gag order to stop the British Press from reporting on this.

I thought BREXIT was important for the protection of the Rights of Englishmen, but apparently the British Government is intent on destroying those rights.  The scary thought is that it might be because of a coverup of sexual misconduct, or what I assume you and I would consider sexual misconduct.

I keep hoping that there is a rational explanation for all of this, but I fear there is not.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

For John, BLUF:  If we give health care over to the Government the treatment of some may well improve, but others will face a rationing they had not previously seen, to balance the books.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Women with obese male partners will be denied IVF treatment, rules NHS group

Here is the sub-headline:

Decision comes amid 'unprecedented financial challenges' due to 'stretched' budgets

Acronym Alert:  IVF is In-Vitro Fertilization.

Remember, it is the United Kingdom, and just one of the several local National Health Service Groups.

From The Independent (UK) and Reporter Tom Embury-Dennis, Friday 9 March 2018.

Here is the lede plus three:

Women who have obese partners will be denied fertility treatment in a bid to cut costs by the Bath and North East Somerset clinical commissioning group (CCG).

If their male partner has a body mass index over 30 – something suffered by more than a fifth of British men - women will be barred from IVF.

The decision was made in the face of “unprecedented financial challenges” due to “stretched” NHS budgets, the CCG said.

The move was in line with NICE guidance on fertility that says men with a BMI over 30 are less likely to be able to conceive, said its clinical chair, Dr Ian Orpen.

Not quite "death panels", but still, a pretty drastic curtailment of treatment.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

A Writer Looks at Race in Shakespeare

For John, BLUF:  When we talk Race, what are we talking about?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A Nation of Iagos

Here is the sub-headline:

A conversation on race, with William Shakespeare

This is from City Journal, by Author Andrew Klavan, the Winter 2018 edition of the magazine.

Here is the lede plus two:

CAN WE FINALLY HAVE A REAL CONVERSATION ABOUT RACE? a recent headline read. And I thought:  I’m game.  I’d be happy to talk about race.  But with whom?  No leftists, certainly.  The Left’s idea of a conversation is shrieking, “You’re a racist!” at anyone who opposes their policies.  And their policies are a racial disaster.  Employment rates were rising and illegitimacy and murder rates were falling among American blacks until the Left seized the culture in the 1960s—then the numbers all went in the wrong direction.  You want to visit a place where black lives don’t matter?  Try Chicago, where Democrats have been in charge since 1931, or Baltimore, where there hasn’t been a Republican mayor since 1967.  After heavy antipolice demonstrations, both cities saw a dramatic surge in their already-disastrous murder rates last year, according to FBI statistics.  What can leftists have to say about race besides “We’re sorry”?

I have more sympathy with the bromides of the Right, but let’s face it, they are bromides.  Yes, bourgeois behaviors like education, marriage, and hard work still forge the way out of poverty in America.  But I’ve seen schools in poor black neighborhoods, and I’ve met children there, and I think if you’re eight years old and your dad is gone and your mom’s on drugs and all your role models are gangsters . . . well, maybe it’s not so easy to get your bourgeois game on.

But then, are we still having a conversation about race?  Or are we just talking about poverty?  Is race even an actual thing?  Is it really a meaningful genetic category?  Can it be isolated as a cultural fact?  Does it exist anywhere but in the minds of bigots, Left and Right?  Let’s start with that conversation.

Kind of long, but worth the read.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Guy Fawkes Day

For John, BLUF:  He tried to blow up Westminster Palace.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions.

Regards  —  Cliff

Iconoclasts at Oxford

For John, BLUF:  There'll Always Be an England.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Cecil Rhodes statue row: Chris Patten tells students to embrace freedom of thought

When I first heard about this brouhaha I was skeptical.  But now that The Guardian has talked about it, I am prepared to give it credit.  It appears Oxford University Chancellor Chris Patten is telling Rhodes Scholars opposed to a statue of Cecil Rhodes, that was installed some time ago, on the facade of Oriel College, to suck it up and accept the statue, although not the racist ideas of Mr Rhodes.

Why destroy an artist's work of art when you can gather people around it and talk about it and the background of the person or event being remembered by the piece of art?

I wonder how many of those opposed to the statues of Confederate soldiers♠ refuse to drive on US Route 1 because part of it goes through Virginia, where it is known as Jefferson Davis Highway?  Or refuse to drive over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge where Interstate 95 crosses the Potomac River?

Hat tip to my buddy Neal.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  What about Confederate Sailors?

Heroes Are Made, Not Born

For John, BLUF:  There'll always be an England.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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British girl finds her own 'Excalibur' in legendary pool

Via Fox News, 4 September 2017.

A young British girl swimming at a lake in the United Kingdom believed to hold the legendary King Arthur’s famous sword happened upon a shiny sword herself.

Matilda Jones, 7, was swimming with family at Dozmary Pool while on vacation last Tuesday, when she discovered a shiny sword beneath the water, The Sheffield Star reported.

OK then, England is to be saved by a woman.  Works for me.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

"I detest America"

For John, BLUF:  That is OK, probably Reporter Walter Duranty did also  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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'I Detest America': 148 Lost Documents by Alan Turing Accidentally Found in Old Storage

This is from Science Alert and Reporter Signe Dean, from 28 August 2017.

After not seeing the light of day for at least 30 years, a unique collection of letters by famous mathematician Alan Turing has been found in a storage space at his old university.

Well, apparently it isn't just the Antifa.  Way back when I was in Elementary School Noted Mathematician Alan Turing despised America, per a letter to a colleague.

Ouch!

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Manufacturing History

For John, BLUF:  Well, there is DNA to prove it one way or the other.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Something is Broken in the UK Intellectual Sphere.

From The Medium and the keyboard of author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, on 4 August 2017.

The BBC did some kind of educational cartoon on Roman Britain and represented “diversity” in terms of someone looking African in the show as representative of “diversity” at the time.  The BBC was effectively applying quotas retroactively (I mean, really retroactively).  Any dissent from the statistical errors made by the politically correct police is treated as apostasy.  Effectively, scholarship is dead in the U.K.

What was meant to be a “typical” of Roman Brittain by the BBC: flowing quotas of political correctness backward in time.

Representativeness heuristic.  The picture was portrayed as representative (playing on the representativeness/ availability heuristic in the minds of children).  Some people backtracked later by saying it is was not common but not impossible, which is where I shout “BS!”

Anecdotal vs Statistical. The backup is mostly anecdotal from cherry picked stories.  We find nothing beyond traces of sub-Saharan genes in areas where Roman legions were located (France, Gaul, and even Spain, where most of it came much later from the Arab trade).  Show the picture to a French or Italian person and tell him “this is the typical…” and wait for the insults.

Mr Taleb sees the intellectual rot.  It is like the folks who want to ensure texts are drawn from a diversity of authors and not just from the best scholars.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff