November 4: Johnson wrong to sack drugs adviser
It's a joke that two very harmful and legal drugs, tobacco and alcohol, are readily available and affordable while we face a five-year jail term for possessing cannabis, which is less harmful.
Equally it's absurd to have possession of ecstasy, which is even less harmful than cannabis, punishable with a seven-year term.
That's why Home Secretary Alan Johnson is wrong to have sacked his science adviser.
It's true to say that drugs can ruin lives but so do many other legal activities. The former Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, raised cannabis to class B while her husband was charging the tax payer for watching TV porn, another industry that wrecks lives along with tobacco and alcohol.
Up to a million UK people are hooked on prescription drugs.
At every step, large corporations are making a profit from people's misery, with the approval of the Government.
Consistent with medical evidence therefore, Green Party policy is to legalise the possession, trade and cultivation of cannabis while at the same time improving drug education programmes. We should be better informed and able to make our own choices and not criminalised.
Marcus Rock,
Northants Green Party.
The British race does still exist
I refer to Dr Feldman's letter of October 28. His assertion that Nick Griffin's view that there is an indigenous Briton is a myth is at odds with historical comments.
I accept that a brief study of the history of this isle will show that the heritage of the British people cannot simply be called Anglo-Saxon. Pre the Saxons, it is based on such a mixture as took place in the Holy Land, which is a complex mosaic of cultures, ideologies and economies.
We note, however, that the cleric and historian Gildas (540 AD) made the statement that, in his own day, the Saxons were not warring against the Britons.
We can from his writings be certain that the greater part of the pre-English inhabitants of England survived, and that a great proportion of present-day England is made up of their descendants.
The Norman invasion was practically an overnight affair. William's victories were swift, sudden and self-contained. No new wave of people came to occupy the land, only a small, ruling aristocracy.
So historically we are told by commentators that we do have a "British race" little diluted by many influxes of the northern races and pre dating the Saxons and Normans.
I would have thought that someone like Dr Feldman would have added his voice to the bias shown by the BBC and the chairman on the programme in particular, rather than offering a less than factual repudiation of one single comment and suggesting that the programme failed to expose other failings of this participant.
Then again it is a typical Establishment attack on an unpopular view, but one which has a resonance with many of our indigenous population and I suspect that is why it is attacked.
Dr Kevin Corcoran,
West Cotton Close, Northampton.
Free expression being quashed
TO some extent I sympathise with the indignant riposte by Jean Howell (Chronicle & Echo, October 30) to Dr Feldman’s stated view that there are no indigenous Britons.
This nation was for centuries populated by people predominantly of Caucasian descent, the light-complexioned racial group of mankind.
A glance at old film footage and photographs taken at the beginning of the last century will reveal this as fact.
Older Britons still living today will remember times in this country when this was indeed the case.
However, Dr Feldman’s attempt to invalidate the use of the “indigenous” relating to Britain will not wash; we know what we mean and we recognise yet another politically correct attack on the concept of free speech and our choice of semantic preferences.
In recent years, due to immigration on a massive scale of people of different ethnicities, Britain has, for better or for worse, become multi-racial.
Opinions are divided.
When we really must be on our guard is from efforts by some politician and their adherents to quash free expression on matters which concern all of us.
Semantics and changing terminology offer interesting and sometimes amusing interpretations.
I suggest that in a short time even the term “ethnic minorities” will become obsolete, when as a nation we become completely racially-mixed.
Perhaps even the word “race” will be frowned upon here, while still accepting that indigenous Africans populate most of Africa, indigenous Japanese live in Japan and indigenous Chinese are undoubtedly most numerous in China.
Not for them, the ethnic melting pot.
Reading the same edition of the Chronicle, I was amused to read the report of a mixed-race man being sought by police for breaking into a house in Northampton.
He is described as “of dual heritage”. I bet he didn’t know that.
It’s all a question of identity, I suppose, with just a whiff of PC in the air once more.
Meanwhile, do we know who we are? “Birds of a feather flock together”.
Outmoded concept? Discuss.
Keith Perryman,
The Rise, Northampton.
Government help for BNP’s targets
FURTHER to the letters from Messrs Feldman, Minney and MacArthur (Chronicle & Echo, October 28) regarding Question Time and Nick Griffin, the BBC gave him the chance to exercise his freedom of speech, something many of the people of this country would like to do, but won’t, fearing they will fall foul of political correctness.
Victims of political correctness are reported in the media daily.
These letters comment about being sly, the use of rhetoric and being led like lambs to the slaughter. The addition of deviance would be very appropriate.
These above words and behaviours apply to all who present the panel, audience and the demonstrators.
It is very unlikely that the BNP will ever govern the country although the Government with many of its policies are trying to achieve that target.
Freedom of speech is badly lacking in this country of Great Britain.
Government, please note, one day the worm may turn.
V Graham-Hole,
Elgin Street, St James End, Northampton.
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