I think that it is pretty shocking to read (Subs required0 that Irish school pupils are among the top drug-users in the world -according to new reports.

It’s a chilly Thursday lunchtime and a group of 14-year-old boys are huddled together on a laneway beside a private south Dublin school, waiting for their "weekly delivery". Minutes later, a lanky, pale-faced teenager turns the corner on a bike and they look relieved. He takes a batch of "selection packs" out of his schoolbag as crumpled notes are exchanged.

The deal is done in seconds and the boys are back in class before the bell rings, their weekend stash of hash and E tabs hidden in the pockets of their school uniform. It is a scene played out in every town and village of the country every day of the week, anti-drug activists warned this week. Predatory dealers are peddling drugs to Irish schoolchildren just metres from the playground and they have no problem finding business.

On Thursday, the alarming scale of drug use among Irish teenagers was revealed in a survey that placed them third in the world when it comes to experimenting with illegal substances. The poll, conducted in 2003, found that 40% of Irish 15-year-olds have used an illicit drug at least once in their lives. In the European School Project on Alcohol and Drugs (ESPAD) study, Irish schoolgirls acquired the dubious distinction of being the biggest teenage drug dabblers out of 36 nationalities surveyed.

Now please note – all Irish ATW readers – I AM NOT having a go at Ireland per se. I’m equally disgusted at what takes place here in the UK but can I ask what IS your view on this issue – ARE Irish schoolgirls hooked on trying drugs? What do you think can be done to solve this? One reads of drug gangs warring in Dublin, Limerick and the other major Irish cities. I favour a zero tolerance to all illegal drugs, with heavy financial penalties and mandatory loss of liberty for those parasites who give drugs to schoolkids.

In our slightly narrow way of looking at the world, which gives a higher prominence to matters local and National in a British sense, we miss many pointers to a wider change, both in attitudes abroad which have mirrored happenings in Britain. When we discuss the Islamic threat, or the Muslim problem, we don’t lift our sightlines any higher than the borders of our own country, except when we hear of death and destruction in Iraq, or another British soldier being killed in Afghanistan, because they are our own. So when I read a commentary of Muslim problems in Germany, I researched a little, and came out with yet another sign that the wider spread of militant Islam is ever present, and is not so hidden any longer!

There were plans to place a law on the Statute Books against the whole idea of ‘Honour Murder’ in Britain, but the Labour government chickened out after pressure from, guess who? That’s right; the bloody Muslim Council of Britain. I always though that the law was supposed to protect those who cannot protect themselves! Seems as if it is correct, as long as your skin is not brown, and your religion isn’t Islam!

“Machinery of government announcements are normally made by you in a written ministerial statement. Officials will prepare this. The aim should be to keep it low key.” So said the leaked memo from Sir Gus O’Donnell, Head of the Civil Service, to the Prime Minister, discussing getting rid of the Privy Council Office in the name of “efficiency savings”.

O’Donnell discusses how the dismembered body of the PCO can be shared out to other departments, such as the Orwellian-sounding “Department for Constitutional Affairs”, but, in an indication of the man’s bad faith, he points out that “the role of Lord President of the Council will need to remain with Valerie Amos since it is the reason she is paid a Cabinet-rank salary.” Maybe this is what Shadow home secretary David Davis means by "redesigning Whitehall for the personal convenience of New Labour ministers.”

It’s not yet clear what the Labour Cabal are planning, but you can be sure they harbour dark intentions – after all, the Privy Council has been around since the 12^th Century. Reason enough for our “modernising” leaders to wish to abolish it, along with the oath of allegiance to our Queen its members must swear.  The question with so many of this Government’s constitutional tamperings is who stands to benefit?  As ever, the answer seems to be an ever-more powerful Executive. 

This is an interesting story in this morning’s Newsletter.  Notwithstanding natural wastage and the gross policy of institutionalised discrimination on 50:50 recruitment (incidentally the ONLY piece of legislative discrimination in the history of Northern Ireland), 71% of existing PSNI personnel wore the proud uniform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.  That means the expertise which existed at a time when the RUC was the front line against republican violent insurrection is still, thankfully, very much in place.

What is also of interest are the figures relating to the locations of previous experience for PSNI officers.  Four have served in Hong Kong; eight have served in other parts of the Commonwealth (Australia, New Zealand, etc.) and a number have served in other forces across the country – from Strathclyde to Sussex.  53 PSNI officers once held a Royal Military Police warrant card.

So what of the Irish influx?  Ireland is the only country that shares a land border with the United Kingdom.  The SDLP argued petulantly for the right of Garda officers to be allowed to serve in the PSNI.  So how many have ventured across the border to take advantage of a better salary in a newly ‘peaceful’ province?  I’ll tell you: ONE!!  I think the SDLP thought that cross-border recruitment would dilute the force and make it less British.  So much for another plank of separatist thinking.  Have you noticed that nationalist aspirations and reality never understand the concept of teamwork!?

The Irish News has a piece this morning saying that nearly 650 people from 80 countries, including Ireland (own italics), have taken part in ceremonies in Northern Ireland to become British citizens.  I don’t have the full article as the Irish News is only available on subscription and I refuse to pay out for anything that gives an endorsement of Irish nationalism.  How’s about that, eh!?  At a time when separatists in Ulster are busily attempting to cajole and browbeat (they would call it ‘persuasion’) the British majority into surrendering their place in the Kingdom, Irish from the Republic are wanting to become British.  Some in the Republic must have infinitely better taste that Northern nationalists.  Oh the irony!

1890 – An ornithologist releases 60 pairs of starlings in New York’s Central Park as a memorial to William Shakespeare. The starling is now one of America’s worst pests.

1899 – Chemist Felix Hoffman patents the world’s most used pain-relief drug, the aspirin.

1926 – Fire destroys the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford upon Avon.

1930 – In Massachusetts, Clarence Birdseye markets the first frozen foods.

1987 – The Herald of Free Enterprise disaster.  A Townsend Thorensen roll-on, roll-off ferry en route from Zeebrugge to Dover, capsizes a mile outside Zeebrugge harbour.  A public inquiry into the disaster confirmed that the ferry had left Zeebrugge with its bow doors open, allowing large quantities of water to flood the car deck. It was also established that the crew member responsible for closing the doors was asleep at the time.  193 passengers and crew perished.

1996 – Gerry Adams issues a warning from his chums in the IRA, saying the organisation is prepared for another 25 years of ‘war’.

If you want an absolutely first-rate example of the sheer scale of moonbat-twittery, of the depths of illogical non-argument to which the left will happily descend in order to defend at all costs its sacred doctrine of anthropological global warming, then this simply takes the biscuit. No, actually that’s an understatement: It grabs the whole biscuit tin, removes the lid and bats itself over the head with it, while feeding the biscuits into the DVD player.

Brothers, sisters and politicians! If, perchance, you were left feeling slightly (or even mightily) perturbed, vexed and distempered by the revelations that The Prophet Al Gore’s personal gas and ‘leccy bills are just a tad on the heavy side, quite out of step with his great and holy prophetic utterances of immutable Truth (All repeat: "Truth!")  about our impending doom… (All repeat: "Doom!") and if, as a result of your disquiet in the light of these exceedingly sour and bilious revelations, you sought to reassure yourself that said revelations were in fact untrue, or exaggerated, or indeed (whisper!) the work of Xoxxogoth (that damnable agent of slander, libel, defamation and heresy, father of all deniers of global warming Truth (All repeat: "Truth!") and bringer of foul-odoured gastric indisposition at the most embarrassing of moments)….then Lo! Fear not, but cease thy procrastinations at once, O faithful one, and be thou refreshéd* and calméd!* Remember no more, neither call unto thy mind in any wise, how these revelations caused you at first to stumble in The Faith (All repeat: "The Faith!") but let thy trust in the great Prophet Gore be once more restored unto completion! (* Yeah, I know, they’re supposed to be grave accents, not acutes, but I’ve no idea what keys to press on my keyboard, to get grave accents. Help, anyone?)

In other words, if you read those news reports about Al Gore’s personal fuel consumption and you hoped that it wasn’t true, because that would mark him down as a complete and utter hypocrite of the highest order, then relax! You see, it doesn’t matter that he is a hypocrite! In fact, it is a VERY GOOD THING that he IS a hypocrite! You see, Gore’s hypocrisy serves the greater, global good! Gore’s hypocrisy merely serves to further the cause (according to Mark Lynas at The Guardian).

Just listen to these words of astounding moral equivalence:

"No-one likes a ‘greenie’ who is not a hypocrite. Climate activists I know who do walk the talk (eschewing all flights, for example) look prim and obsessive, as if they are out of touch with the concerns and pressures faced by ordinary people".

-No, they don’t. People in any field who "walk their talk" look honourable and worthy, not prim and obsessive. It’s the hypocrites, the ones who say "do as I say, not as I do", who come across as cretins.

"It is fine for BBC Newsnight’s "ethical man" to be a tongue-in-cheek reporter, but if it is the head of Greenpeace who is totally pure and virtuous, then that is seen as just annoying".

-Why should it be so seen? I completely disagree. I totally expect the head of Greenpeace to do his or her utmost to try and live by the statutes and axioms that he/she preaches and which he/she exhorts others to live by. In other words, you’re talking utter rubbish, Lynas.

"In my view, Gore was right to rack up thousands of air miles in his campaign to raise awareness of climate change […..] If he had stayed at home in Tennessee with the lights and heating off, wearing organic woolly jumpers and feeling generally good about himself, we would have a lot further to travel in terms of awareness-raising than we do now".

Can you believe this pile of, err, canines’ testicles!?!? So, the end justifies the means, huh? It’s quite OK for Gore to be a total hypocrite, because his hypocrisy serves as a legitimate vehicle for bringing the issue to the forefront of the national consciousness! (Biscuit tin ~ head ~ bang!).

Let’s get this line of argument straight, just so I can be sure I’m understanding it correctly, OK? …. It doesn’t matter what an individual actually DOES, because so long as they are in a "position of influence", their actions will serve to highlight the problem, and bring it to the forefront of debate.
Right on, brutha!
So, on that basis, it would be a really good thing if the Pope was to sexually abuse altar-boys, and I take it that the Guardian would not raise a murmur of protest if that happened, because after all, the Pope would merely be "highlighting the issue", bringing it to a "wider audience". Serving the cause of the "wider truth", huh?
-Yeeah, RRRIGHT. You just know it, don’t you? This two-faced doublethink moral equivalence and, dare I say it, editorial hypocrisy, will only ever be applied to the issue of global warming. Because they must "defend their faith" at all costs.

What utter hypocritical morons.

O happy day! Today the African state of Ghana celebrates 50 years of Independence, having cut the links with the United Kingdom way back in 1957. The BBC lovingly describes the celebrations – well worth the £20 MILLION lavished on them in a country with 78% of the population living on less than $2/day. And people wonder WHY poverty prevails in this land?

Yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph contained a DUP policy document the third page of which is headed “Setting the record straight”.

However, far from exposing those who oppose the “Democratic” Unionists as people who “distort reality and mislead the public”, the document raised at least two fundamental questions.

Under the sub-heading “Irish Language Act?” the DUP state:

“It has been claimed there will be an Irish Language Act placing Irish on a par with English. This is clearly nonsense. Government is consulting on a number of options but, as confirmed in Parliament, this issue would be a matter for the Assembly, with a Unionist majority, on the restoration of devolution. The DUP will not support an Irish Language Act. Furthermore it has been confirmed no Westminster legislation on this issue will be passed before 26^th March.”

So have Republicans “delivered”? Are the DUP preparing to go into government on the 26^th March?

Here are some sobering statistics that are worth reflecting on as concerns the state of modern Britain.

• In the past 25 years, the number of children brought up by a lone parent has more than doubled to 3.2m.
• In 1972, 92% of children were brought up by a couple. In 2005, that number had fallen to 76%.
• In 1970, 8% of births were outside wedlock. In 2004, this had risen to 42%.
• In NINE London boroughs, 40% or more families are single parent.
• Around 45% of British marriages end in divorce.

After four decades of the post-Christian anything-goes philosophy, where above all else we must never be judgmental about lifestyle choice – right? – the family unit is as weak as it ever has been. Which makes us all much more vulnerable to the tender mercies of a Government.obsessed with social engineering, a Government which wants to SUBSTITUTE itself as the parent in the family. 

I am glad to see the importance of buttressing the family appear back on the political agenda, though I seriously doubt David Cameron’s motives and even his meanings of family. (He supports the gay wedding agenda) I suppose the key point to make is that if we continue to sit by and watch the traditional family unit disintegrate, should we then act  surprised when our society becomes ever more dysfunctional??