“Milton adds: “London is a city built on immigrants and Boris has already said, during the election and subsequently, that he is in favour of an amnesty for people who have been here [illegally] for a significant period of time and that their status should be regularised.”

This can’t go down well with a man who recently said:

We get bombed, and we say it’s all our own fault. Schools refuse to teach history that risks making pupils proud, and use it instead as a means of instilling liberal guilt. The government and the BBC gush over “the other”, but recoil at the merest hint of British culture. The only thing we are licensed to be proud of is London’s internationalism – in other words, that there is little British left about it.”

That is a non-sequitur. There is no inconsistency between offering amnesty to illegal immigrants and being proud of your country and its history (indeed the two could be causally related) and wanting to hold a number of criminals to account for their actions.

“Oh, and he wrote a book bashing political correctness with so many holes that it could only accurately be described as Swiss Cheese.”

Sunny, the only hole in the report that any of the six links you provide identify is that Browne appeared to say at one point different career choices explained the pay gap, while at another point he said it may not explain the whole pay gap. Even accepting this constitutes a hole in his argument, where are the others?

Well, there’s this one:

“Don’t psychologise those you disagree with: judge what they say at face value, rather than believing there are hidden, dark motives that entitle you to dismiss what they say without thinking about it.”

Which I’m sure anyone who’s ever thrown their hands up in disgust when arguing with a disciple of Mel Phillips will recognise - the only way to keep on top of the straw men is with a flame thrower.

How is that a hole in his argument? Look, if you’ve already decided the pamphlet is a work of evil, I’m sure those links are a lot of fun - “Melanie Phillips likes it!” “And while he says don’t do this on p.94, on p.7, p.26 and p.54 he does a bit of it himself!” But the idea that they identify lots of holes and inaccuracies is rubbish. If you’re going to argue a report has “so many holes that it could only accurately be described as Swiss Cheese”, you can’t support that claim just by linking to half a dozen jokey blog posts and one that makes a serious criticism that even the post author admits is trivial.

“How is that a hole in his argument?”

It’s not, it’s a perfectly sensible bit of advice. However, he doesn’t follow it when he frequently misrepresents his opponents, which either means he doesn’t believe it applies to him, or he hasn’t noticed it’s contradicted by his core position. Either way, it doesn’t do his argument a lot of good.

The whole idea of a PC liberal do-gooder conspiracy to undermine Britain is, of course, a prime bit of psychologising your opponents (or ‘lying’, as it used to be called in the days before political correctness). The usual response when this is challenged is a blizzard of straw men along the lines of ‘you lefties always say X,Y,Z’ - ‘er, I’m not saying X, Y or Z’ - ‘you lefties always say ‘A, B and C’ - ‘oh, fuck off’ - ‘you lefties always resort to bad language when you’re losing the argument’ - etc.

I think the key bit of advice in that line is not to think “there are hidden, dark motives that entitle you to dismiss what they say without thinking about it”. Maybe some people do this with political correctness, but Browne wrote a whole book attacking it, so it seems difficult to say he is among them!

Are you seriously maintaining that linking to posts that attack the pamphlet because Melanie Phillips likes it, and because it emphathises with the families of the victims of 7/7 (not self-inflicted deaths), shows it to be full of holes? It may even BE full of actual holes - but let’s see some support for that.

Okay, you want holes then try this from his introductory chapter…

The way that PC distorts news values was shown in the comparative coverage of the murder of 52 innocent people by Islamic extremists in Britain’s worst ever terrorist attack, and the killing of an innocent Brazilian immigrant by British police a fortnight later. After a few days, the coverage of the terrorist attack was obliterated by saturation coverage of the accidental police killing, much to the anger of relatives of the London bombings. The reason was simply that the terrorist attacks, although a far more important story, didn’t fit the politically correct agenda, whereas the killing of a vulnerable immigrant by a powerful police force did.

So a two-week old story in which there were no new developments is displaced from the top of the agenda by a breaking story in which there were new twists pretty much every day thanks to the Met’s incompetent efforts at news management as that’s evidence of ‘political correctness’?

Nope, its just the normal news cycle playing out but what it does tell is a something about Browne’s attitude towards the media, which he would prefer to see as a purveyor of political propaganda rather than a reporter of factual events as they happen.

And I haven’t even started on the bending over backwards to appease Muslims stories that he cites in there.

Nick - yes, that could be one interpretation. The other interpretation might be that “London’s internationalism” is diluting British culture - and the immigrants are to blame. No?
But I forget, you always look for the good in people.. don’t you?

Well, I can’t speak for Browne but I would never dream of accusing immigrants (the vast majority of whom are here for self-interested but perfectly virtuous reasons) of trying to undermine British culture themselves. Since Browne’s target tends to be the media and other established institutions, I can only say that I doubt he would level that accusation either.

“Since Browne’s target tends to be the media ”

Some of the media, it would be more correct to say. Those bits he isn’t writing for, usually.

Thank you Unity, that’s pretty much what I’m getting at. The desire to see conspiracy everywhere manifests itself in the apparent existence of conspiracy everywhere, even when his own bloody advice (for instance on trusting logic over emotion) contradicts it. QED - big holes in his argument.

More than three months after he took over, Boris Johnson is finally getting to grips with London. The main reason for blunders so far is obvious: Policy Exchange has painfully found out that generating documents that sound convicing to David Cameron isn’t necessarily the same as running London. That half-a-million transition team run by Nick
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juliana

Link Building

More than three months after he took over, Boris Johnson is finally getting to grips with London. The main reason for blunders so far is obvious: Policy Exchange has painfully found out that generating documents that sound convicing to David Cameron isn’t necessarily the same as running London. That half-a-million transition team run by Nick
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juliana

Liberal conspiracy
Link Building

[...] the other hand, it is possible that Browne‘s changed his views. He might no longer feel that “the only thing we are licensed to be proud of is London’s internationalism“, he [...]