Remember the theme song from the classic British comedy series Dad’s Army? ‘Who do you think you’re kidding Mister Hitler, If you think old England’s done’. Presently England is coming rapidly undone. There was a spate of dispiriting news in the UK papers on the first of March. George Galloway won a runaway victory in the Rochdale by-election with more votes than Labour and the Conservatives combined. A horrified Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned that extremists were trying to undermine British democracy and people must come together to ‘beat this poison’. Yet he just could not help himself, identifying the threat as Islamist and far-right extremism. Pardon, PM? The centre-right is the new far-right?

Both major parties feel discombobulated talking of the threat from antisemitism and Islamism and more comfortable addressing Islamophobia. Phobia does not mean anti but ‘fear of’. Maybe Islamophobia is justified by the Muslim marchers’ alarming aggression and extremism, directed at Jews in particular and at anyone who refuses to support Palestinians? ‘She’ll be right, mate’ hasn’t quite worked out as promised with mass immigration without due diligence on the suitability and willingness of different groups to integrate into Western host societies. The leaders shy away from talking about well-known events that are widely discussed in the proverbial pubs. As one commentator remarked, Sunak desperately avoids ‘looking at the Jihadist elephant that’s charging around the room while being ridden by the hard left antisemitic mob’. You can put the Bible through the shredder with no repercussions, but scuffing the Koran will earn you a death threat for years. The surge in public support for Lee Anderson MP who was disowned by the Tories when he expressed frustration with the descent into Islamist disorder in London under Mayor Sadiq Khan, shows how parties pander to minority inner-city cultural elites but are disconnected from their own supporters in the country. The weaponisation of Islamophobia to censor any criticism of Islam and Muslim behaviour can only fuel extremism.

When Sunak warned that ‘mob rule is replacing democratic rule’, the obvious riposte is: the Conservatives have been in power since 2010. That’s a very long time in politics. During the Covid-era insanity police threatened to arrest elderly ladies walking apart drinking coffee companionably, but now watch passively as Britain-haters and immigrants deface war memorials and beam terrorist messages onto parliament. Failure to enforce the law against hate speech toward Jews and indulgence of disorder is leading to a crisis in Australia, the UK and the US. By his own admission it’s now necessary for the UK prime minister to remind Plod that protecting the public and politicians from a ‘pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour’ is ‘vital for maintaining public confidence in the police’.

The Conservatives have effectively presided over the collapse of the authority of the state, from petty crime, mass public disruptions by eco-extremists and demonstrators intent on threatening and intimidating, to porous borders and mass illegal immigration. Import the third world and become the third world indeed.

Galloway won the Rochdale by-election after an uninterrupted series of massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London that rang to angry chants full of Jew-hatred and genocidal threats while the police looked on. It culminated in shameful scenes on 21 February with the slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ projected on to iconic Big Ben. The Speaker of the House, purportedly at the behest of the Labour leader, broke parliamentary convention to avert a fatal split in Labour ranks on a Gaza vote. Labour would rather soil British democracy than stand up to Islamist intimidation. Did Jesus weep?

Sunak becoming PM was visible proof the UK is no longer racist and the next election would turn on his performance, not skin colour or religion. He has proven to be hopeless as a conservative and hapless as PM who is yet to grasp the distinction between giving speeches and taking action. Galloway was crude but not wrong to say Sunak and Starmer are ‘two cheeks of the same arse’ that had just been spanked by Rochdale voters. According to a poll released by the Office for National Statistics on 1 March, Britons distrust political parties by a 68 to 12 margin, the least-trusted of any UK institution (followed by the media).

Looking at census figures from 2011 and 2021, England’s Muslims increased from 2.7 to 3.8 million (6.5 per cent of England’s population), a growth of 43 per cent. Over 14 times more numerous than Jews, they are bestirring themselves to swing individual seats. With Muslims concentrated in specific neighbourhoods, in closely contested elections, their bloc vote could prove decisive in tipping one party into government. On present trajectory, they will number 5.4 million in 2031, over eight per cent of the population. The country had better get used to it. As a minority, they demand to live by Western values of religious tolerance and rights. Where they constitute the majority, they typically insist others live by their values and rights.

Other stories on the same day added to the despondency. The government continues to resist pressure to release data that could show a link between Covid vaccines and excess deaths – data that is essential for informed consent, a pillar of individual responsibility for health decisions. The Guardian is offering a work-experience scheme that is open to rich people from minorities but excludes working-class whites. The High Court overturned the government’s ban on a multi-million pound redevelopment plan by Marks & Spencer of its Marble Arch store. Can you imagine a more anti-conservative policy than the government setting sales targets for electric cars and heat pumps, oblivious to customer demand, on pain of heavy and rising fines for manufacturers and dealers? This sure sounds like Stalinist and Maoist quotas by central planners. As net-zero dogma hits market reality, governments are hitting the brakes all over the US and Europe.

Earlier, Scarlet Blake was reported to have strangled, skinned, dissected and put a cat through the blender. Later ‘she’ hit a man with a bottle, strangled him and drowned him in the river. The BBC, Sky News and Guardian described Blake as a woman, without disclosing ‘she’ is transgender. J.K. Rowling, bless her (again!), led a furious public backlash, noting this would distort and render into nothingness all crime statistics by sex. AstraZeneca circulated training material to its staff saying sex is not binary and ‘biology has a spectrum’. The Labour opposition health spokesman, not the Conservative minister, told the NHS to stop doing daft things like censoring ‘women’ and other gender-specific language. When reporter Justin Webb said, ‘Trans women – in other words, males’, one listener complained. The BBC reprimanded Webb for breaching impartiality rules. Yet every single one of the six words is factually true. Meanwhile Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary no less, expressed fears that, if the proposed ban on conversion therapy was passed, she could be criminalised for telling her kids that a boy cannot be a girl.

The one ray of sunshine? Florida University has eliminated the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bureaucracy and its entire staff.