Features

Circumcision: the cruelest cut?

/ Rob Whitson / Leave a comment

The fact the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) now receives so much media and political attention after being ignored for so long is to be applauded. Although this makes me angry and upsets me it’s also for another reason, however.

I cannot stress enough how wrong FGM is and how much I am opposed to it. To butcher a girl’s sexual organs for no other reason than preventing their sexual pleasure out of some twisted misogynistic terror of female sexuality is inexplicable. Most readers would agree.

What also makes me angry though is that so few people find anything wrong in allowing something similar to be done to billions of infant boys worldwide for religious or cultural reasons: circumcision. Although not nearly as brutal as FGM, as someone subjected to this as an infant for no medical reason and without my consent, I believe strongly there are some disturbing comparisons, however.

By both design and function the penis is one of the most sensitive parts of the male anatomy. Equipped with unique nerve endings compared to other parts of the body, one of its primary functions is providing enormous pleasure to its owner when stimulated.

A protective sheath of skin, the foreskin covers the glans, the tip and most sensitive part. During an erection the foreskin retracts partially or fully to expose the glans during sex or masturbation to maximise the sensations felt by its owner.

Practised prior to recorded history circumcision is apparently the world’s oldest surgical procedure. With no definitive origin for its introduction, one theory is it was used in war as a less brutal or fatal way of emasculating an enemy than castration. To me, that merely supports the argument that this is a barbaric practice.

Many millennia ago, some idiot decided “God” (it seems to always be His fault doesn’t it?) wanted them to cut the foreskin off male babies either immediately or soon after their birth or at the onset of puberty. After the procedure, although the penis looks the same when erect and can perform the same function it is not. Part of it, a very important part, is missing.

Every major medical body worldwide, including the BMA, is divided on the benefits and disadvantages of circumcision and therefore the subsequent ethical issues surrounding its practice. I can testify myself, as no doubt can billions of other circumcised men, my penis still functions properly, providing me with enormous pleasure. Although there is no way to prove this definitively, according to many doctors however, a considerable degree of the sensation is lost after the procedure. There are many reasons for this.

Unlike the umbilical cord the foreskin is not merely a redundant body part but performs vital functions in its own right. Comprised of a double layer of skin containing muscle tissue, a mucous membrane and millions of nerve endings, when it’s cut off these are therefore also removed. The foreskin acts as a protective sheath and the exterior skin is a continuation of the penis. The interior, however, contains a delicate mucous membrane keeping the highly sensitive glans slightly moist in a similar way the inside of the eyelid moistens the eye. It can retract in a similar way, preventing exposure except during arousal in preparation for the sexual act and, possibly, depending on the person, when urinating.

After circumcision the delicate area of skin at the penis’ head is now constantly exposed, something it wasn’t meant to do, constantly chafing 24/7 against clothing. Without the mucous membrane, the body compensates as a result. The usually moist skin of the penis’ head soon dries out, becoming cauterised and toughening, thereby reducing much of the former sensitivity.

There are some medical arguments in favour of circumcision.

Some men are born with certain penile abnormalities that means sex for them is painful or even impossible due to a tight foreskin. In these cases, circumcisions are medically recommended. Circumcision is also the most effective treatment for certain infections.

There is even some inconclusive evidence, of a reduction in penile cancer and many sexually transmitted diseases, most notably HIV. There have been subsequent arguments for routine circumcision of high-risk populations such as amongst gay men and men in sub-Saharan Africa. However, as circumcision is no guarantee against infection, with many circumcised men globally still becoming HIV Positive, the only real protection against the virus is the practise of safe sex.

As already admitted, in my own case everything downstairs is still working. Indeed, sex is one of my favourite activities and from my own experience, which of course is all I’ve ever known, the way it feels is incomparable. I find it impossible to even imagine how good this would feel if it were increased. If I had only been left the way nature intended, I wouldn’t need to try imagining though.

I’m not angry with my parents: they were only following standard procedure in my native Australia at the time I was born. Thankfully, things there have changed over time though. The view of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians has now changed making the child’s “best interests” paramount. Unless medically necessary, despite evidence supporting reduction of possible medical complications later in life, this can be seen to favour giving the patient, not their parents, that decision when they are old enough to be able to make it. In today’s supposedly more enlightened society, my anger comes from the fact an irreversible decision is taken for billions of children before they can do so themselves.

I have no objection to anyone doing anything they wish to with their own bodies. I do in fact know one or two people who have been circumcised as adults purely because they like the way a circumcised penis looks or have converted to Islam or Judaism. That is their choice. In the same way any adult who wants to get their penis pierced is also free to do so.

It is simply not fair however to carry out what is currently an irreversible and, in my opinion, unnecessary, medical procedure with permanent consequences on children who are not yet able to offer any objection.

Although not suffering to this degree myself, some men are sufficiently traumatised to join support groups. If even one person feels the necessity to do this, let alone many hundreds of thousands, surely it is now time in 2020 for us to end this barbaric practice -except of course when medically necessary or when the individual can legally make this choice for himself after he turns 18.

A House far from home…

/ Rob Whitson / Leave a comment

There are two ways to enter House, one of many restaurants, bars and cafés on offer to National Theatre visitors. Squeezed on the first floor of the labyrinthine complex, one entrance is via the theatre building itself.

The other entrance is up a flight of almost invisible stairs on the building’s river side. As these are right next to another bar or restaurant, one whose name, unsurprisingly, I can’t remember as it undoubtedly also plays (no pun intended – honest!) with theatrical terms – The Terrace, Understudy, The Green Room… you get the idea – making things confusing to first time diners. Regrettably, confusion seems to be House’s main theme.

I’m all for clever names to reflect restaurant location. However, I also expect these to give at least some idea of the food or some semblance of how you will feel inside. In this respect, “House” does neither.

House, for me, conjures up images of comfort food and family favourites. Dishes such as stews, roasts, puddings and the like not the haute cuisine chef Polis Butkus is clearly offering.

Décor, if you can call it that, consists of a bar running through half the restaurant, garlanded above with what can politely be described as cheap plastic flowers. The bar is surrounded on two sides by a single row of chairs and tables pressed up against a wall with pendulum lights above each. Though not at all in keeping with either the style of furniture, the National’s listed brutalist architectural style and certainly not with the fluorescent bulbs as art on the restaurant’s river side which I was lucky enough to face, they are vital due to a lack of illumination throughout.

Art on the walls could attempt to show the restaurant wasn’t merely positioned here simply to fill space. Unfortunately, a few faded screen prints of old Shakespearian style maps of London and the Thames chosen by whoever decorated – a term I use very loosely – House fail to do the trick and merely continue to confuse.

If at this point diners hope to be given any indication of what exactly they will be eating from the menu, those illusions are shattered by the hodgepodge list of dishes driving diners down dizzying dietary destinations – Italy to Asia via Southwest England. No, I’m not exaggerating.

Even the bill is inconsistent: the average price for starters are a reasonable £9; sides are about £4 but mains are a wallet busting £20. Nor does the fixed menu, usually the cheaper option, achieve its goal: standing at £24 for two courses and £28.50 for three.

This is all a real shame because although most of the menu continues to confuse, all the food I ate was extremely good.

Although I have an adventurous palate, I was nonetheless baffled and a little overwhelmed by the menu choices, and so had difficulty deciding. Starters such as: cured mackerel and paté, grapes, treacle and fennel bread, contrasted with mains: rump cap, marmite butter, gratin and ox crumble. It all left my culinary curiosity a tad overwhelmed.

Nonetheless I dived in and began with Portland crab dumpling bisque. The bisque, though a little tepid for my taste, was excellent. A light foam of seafood in the midst of which swam four perfectly cooked jiaozi, their soft light pastry dyed black with squid ink, contrasting beautifully with the pale pink bisque and stuffed full of minced seasoned crab. Plated to perfection, this was garnished with pale crunchy parsnip crisps giving a wonderful change in texture to the lightness of the bisque and pillow like softness of the dumplings.

I decided to be more adventurous with my main, settling on the confit wild rabbit leg and loin, pasty, wild garlic and courgette purée, beans. I was intrigued. Largely as the menu gave no further detail. My waiter, who must have noticed me struggling to choose but still left me none the wiser. Would the entire dish come in a pasty? Would I be given some rabbit, a pasty filled with beans, all of this covered in puréed courgette? Who knew? My menu gave nothing away when a few words of description would have been warmly welcomed.

Once again, the food was excellent, in terms of both presentation and taste. Several slices of meat were arranged on a timbale mash of red beans, a bright green pool of wild garlic and courgette puree with a miniature bite sized pasty complete with a root vegetable and meat stuffing encased in flaky shortcrust pastry on the side.

The rabbit was slow cooked to melt in the mouth perfection, lightly seasoned with thyme, complimenting the delicately flavoured beans, subtle pasty filling, all magically marrying with the wild garlic and courgette purée. No component overpowered another. Even my side: a green salad, was exceptional. Mixed leaves with slices of dill pickle all dressed in a light but flavoursome herb vinaigrette.

With food this good and talented, imaginative cooking clearly apparent, surely a creative hub like the National could spare a writer or two to add a brief line of description to dishes on the menu? Similarly, with the talented set designers on offer here with minimum thought this place could be a real gem. Simply binning the plastic flowers and improving the art and lighting would help enormously. As would a name change.

If the National insists on theatre themed venues the food I tasted here was much more: “Dress Circle” or “Royal Box” than “House”.

Instead of wanting to give House a standing ovation, it just gave me a headache. I left bewildered as to why a venue lucky enough to benefit from the cooking of a chef as talented as Polis Butkus clearly is, has been left in the shoddy state it has and even more curious, in a semi-masochistic way, as to what exactly: mackerel, treacle, fennel and paté really would taste like…

Medea: The Almeida Theatre

/ Rob Whitson / Leave a comment

Medea is the third and final play in The Almeida’s acclaimed Greeks series and, although both other plays in the series were also excellent, it is probably the most memorable.

As the production opens, lights come up on what resembles a chic minimalist modern home, the type common in The Almeida’s Islington neighbourhood. An upper mezzanine floor divides the stage horizontally.

Standing at a collapsing kitchen sink and counter cruelly cleaved in two, Amanda Boxer’s nagging Nurse, proper almost to the point of stereotype, talks harshly, her voice grating as she bemoans Medea’s current situation. Andy de la Tour’s Tutor chimes in occasionally with his crudely male perspective while Kate Fleetwood’s Medea stands centre stage between.

This literally and figuratively sets the scene for the next 90 minutes because at it’s heart this is a play about duality: male and female; mother and father; woman and wife; love and hate; forgiveness and vengeance. The cut collapsing kitchen the perfect metaphor for Medea’s broken home.

Director Rupert Goold’s brilliant modern dress production makes full use of Ian MacNeil’s clever stark set where everything appears too perfect. Only both Neil Austin’s evocative lighting and Adam Cork’s sombre sound indicate scene shifts. All combine to leave the audience feeling something is very wrong almost immediately.

Although the entire cast is superb, Fleetwood’s Medea is a revelation. Torn in two by her love for her sons and the knowledge of how her behaviour hurts them, you can see Medea’s internal struggle.

Obsessed by husband Jason, a swaggering selfish Justin Salinger, and his love for another younger woman, she wrongly believes she can still win him back. Medea is a powerful intelligent woman. Using every resource available: reason, anger, threats, deceit, sex and even the children themselves, she cannot accept the only person she really controls is herself.

Jason and Medea fight dirty and as their slanging matches become more personal, she becomes increasingly desperate. Blind with rage she refuses to heed Michele Austin’s Cleaner’s harrowing stories as the warnings they are, seeing them instead as ideas for new weapons to use against her husband.

Her fury builds as Creon, Jason’s lover’s father and the Chorus of women she is ostracised from criticise her behaviour. Goading her on to the unthinkable, she spits venom at the audience before the play moves towards its inevitable heart-breaking climax.

This is an exhausting but unmissable night of brilliant theatre.

Berlin’s best showcased in Shoreditch pop-up.

/ Rob Whitson / Leave a comment

Berlin Pop-Up Interior (Courtesy: be Berlin)

Berlin Pop-Up Interior (Courtesy: be Berlin)

While Boris was busy in Manchester this week the Germans invaded London. This time, however, there was no tank or football fan in sight. Instead a pop-up store, opened in Shoreditch on Monday for be Berlin, the marketing campaign for Berlin Partner for Business and Technology, the German capital’s official promotional arm.
Arriving fresh from a similar sortie to Stockholm last week, London’s the second of five European capitals the Germans are trying to capture, opening for a week each in similarly hip inner-city areas of Amsterdam, Vienna and Paris immediately after.
Berlin Partner for Business and Technology, showcases innovative Berlin brands and start-ups in design, fashion, furniture, food and technology. Something of a Berlinophile myself, I went along to investigate.

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Kids’ online safety – cracking the code

/ Rob Whitson / Leave a comment

Photo courtesy Creative Commons

Photo courtesy Creative Commons

How to protect kids online? The Government is clueless!

The Department for Education plans to launch an online guide for parents and teachers, helping them decipher acronyms and other codes children use on social media.

The ParentInfo website is essentially a text-speak dictionary parents can access to decipher what kids are really saying online to protect them from pornography, paedophilia and “sexting”.  Abbreviations include: GNOC (get naked on camera); LMIRL (let’s meet in real life); DOC (drug of choice) plus warnings like PAW (parents are watching) and P999 (parent alert).

A marvellous idea in theory but I immediately recalled my own childhood that, despite being entirely Internet free nonetheless contained large amounts of pornography, albeit mostly in magazines, but also several videos. Some of this was largely purloined, interestingly, from a few of my parents’ more bohemian friends.

My friends and I also ran rings around adults in other ways with our own slang and teen-speak. Kids, as they say, will be kids.

I am not at all advocating giving children complete free-reign or access to pornography – boundaries must be set. I also agree parents and teachers need assistance. Technological developments now move so fast many must be left almost clueless. Once parents crack one code children, however, will almost certainly create another equally baffling. Again: kids will be kids.

Unless we therefore devote a branch of MI5 to this dilemma I fail to see how it can possibly succeed.

Another service ParentInfo offers is advice for parents on engaging with their children about the Internet and how to use it safely. Surely this is common sense and should now be as much a part of good parenting as explaining where babies come from.

I therefore fail to see the point of this whole endeavour.

Far more useful would be following the example of Belgian sexologist Goedele Liekens, who recently featured in Channel 4’s fascinating documentary Sex in Class, predictably slammed by the right-wing media.

Trialled in one school, Ms Liekens offered a ground-breaking approach to how teenagers should be taught about sex. Sex Education became as important to the curriculum as Maths or English.

Homework was even set. Girls were encouraged to explore their own bodies with a mirror. After voting on which photograph of vaginas in different states of hairlessness they preferred, boys were given a taste of their preference for the hairless and asked to shave their own pubic hair. Taught in co-educational classes, with an exam at the end, among other benefits the difference in girls’ assertiveness once the course was completed regarding what was acceptable behaviour from boys was inspiring.

If the Government put as much time and money into this worthy and tested scheme as it did another quick-fix solution designed to generate headlines, they might finally start helping the children they claim to want to protect.

EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Green Party Deputy Leader Amelia Womack

/ Rob Whitson / Leave a comment

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Can the long-termist Greens win a general election sprint?






  




Rob Whitson in UK Politics |  UK election 




06 May 2015, 08:40 GMT | Comments (0) | Report 








<> on May 1, 2015 in London, United Kingdom.
















Rupert Murdoch’s electoral edict to The Sun’s editorial staff: keep Miliband out of Downing Street or risk their jobs was unsurprising. Far more interesting was the lack of effect this, or anything in mainstream media, had on polls. The old: “It Was The Sun Wot Won It” days are over.








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Yes, cyclists matter – but so does everyone else
						

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Photo: Creative Commons courtesy en.wikipedia.org
Photo: Creative Commons courtesy en.wikipedia.org


You don’t need to go far to see their staggering selfishness, especially in London. Pedestrians and motorists both suffer, watching in anger while these two-wheeled terrors casually weave in and out of traffic, ignoring signs, signals, riding over pedestrian bridges and jumping the kerb. Roads and footpaths belong to them – nobody else.


Disregarding everyone’s safety, including their own, they wear neither helmets nor high-visibility jackets. Lacking lights for dark days and evenings, often in dark clothing as if trying to deliberately remain unseen, the only reason they have reflectors is because these came attached.


The poor woman probably scarred for life recently, after a callous cyclist hit and run on a Bermondsey footpath may be extreme.


But when newspaper headlines shout about another tragic cycling death, sadly few readers admit much sympathy. With little detail, no blame is directed toward the fatally injured cyclist. Readers, although wishing nobody harm, often recall nothing except the recent recklessness they saw or experienced. These images come to mind, not the poor cyclist tragically killed. Subsequently many readers rarely bother continuing past the headlines.


Yes, millions of responsible cyclists do follow road rules, are considerate to those they share streets with and wear correct cycling clothing.


Millions of drivers show similar respect for road safety laws. Most people no more condemn every motorist as irresponsible and dangerous for the few reckless drivers who blight the roads, than they do all cyclists.


One important difference remains though.


Motorists undergo lengthy theoretical and practical training before being allowed behind a car wheel and penalties, should they flout laws, are far more severe.


Cyclists comparatively, can jump on a bike immediately, whether it’s been years since they last cycled or never ridden at all.


The expression: “It’s just like riding a bike,” describes any activity you never forget or can pick up easily after a lengthy break. The irony is this should not apply to cycling, especially through London’s crowded streets.


Cyclists should not be permitted on roads until completion of practical and written road safety tests. If successful, a point-based licence, similar to motorists’ should be issued. Although these tests would be far simpler, cyclists breaking road law should also be penalised by losing points, with fines and, in extreme cases, imprisonment. Laws must include mandatory use of lights and appropriate clothing and a footpath cycling ban. Helmets and jackets should come included with any hire-bike.


This can only prevent, or at least reduce, those tragic cycling fatalities – the cycling campaign groups goal.


There cannot be one rule for motorists and another for cyclists. Yes, there should indeed be more cyclists on our roads, but not at any expense.

			

	


			
				


	

							
Rick Stein’s Down Under discoveries are deliciously different.
						

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rick_stein01
Photo: Creative Commons


Rick Stein (Photo: Thomas Ridley Foodservice via Creative Commons)




BBC2’s A Cook Abroad: Rick Stein’s Australia featured culinary curiosities surprising even this gourmet Aussie expat…


Visiting my Australian home for the first time in five years last Christmas, last night I returned, watching celebrity chef Rick Stein’s episode of BBC2’s: A Cook Abroad: Rick Stein’s Australia.


Viewers were taken on a tasty tour through Aussie cuisine’s past and future, usefully utilising Stein’s 30-year association with the country. Visiting the Sydney digs where his cooking aspirations began, he showed how a nation formerly famous for burnt “snags on the barbie”, now served sophisticated mouth-watering meals, rivalling restaurants worldwide.


Even meat pies, my own school canteen childhood favourite, had grown up. Once soggy pastry cases holding little but gravy, these were now filled with exotic meats like kangaroo.


Considerable time was spent showcasing the country’s fish and seafood but considering this is Stein’s forté and Australia, the world’s largest island, this was understandable.


What lifted the programme, making it so fascinating, was contrast – the continent’s evolution from culinary backwater to producing foods for the future. Interesting ingredients from exotic meats to native herbs, fruit and vegetables, that Aboriginals cooked with for millennia and local chefs proudly proclaimed were the next big foodie fad.


Tasmania, formerly Australia’s Isle of Man, was the new gourmet-go-to. Although its cool climate has produced world-class wine for some time it was, until recently, seen as little more than a hippie-hideaway by mainlanders. On my last visit I’d heard surprising rumours through friends and family of the Island State’s new restaurant reputation.


Jumping from “Tassy” to nearby Bruny Island, Stein met a pig farmer turned wallaby hunter. This metre high mammal resembling a small kangaroo is now in high demand for its tasty flesh. Shy, nowhere near as common, the kangaroo’s cute compact cousin is protected on mainland Oz.


On Bruny Island, off Tasmania’s coast, an estimated 10 million wallabies thrive, decimating crops. Stein accompanied him on a night-hunt to shoot a fresh victim, then watched him prepare fresh “free-range native bush meat” and one killed earlier, left to hang. Due to its high muscle content wallaby meat is tough. It looked delicious and Stein stuffed it down. This was not a show to watch while hungry.


The foods’ diversity plus Stein’s hosting, although his cheeky-chappy routine can often grate, were excellent. Pigs wandered around the hunter’s farm, hinting at the past but this show focused firmly on Australia’s food future. Avoiding the clichés often seen on many Australian-themed programmes, even the music was understated – not a didgeridoo was heard. Featuring fascinating facts, it was tasty television in every sense.


Returning to mainland Tasmania, next stop was a distillery due to its superb single malt: the world’s best. Scottish viewers probably switched off at this point but, Tasmania’s Scottish cool climate, lakes and mountains, helpfully highlighted, it rang true. A single malt, lover myself I hungered to go but 70 per cent proof and, astonishingly, £20 thousand a bottle, this was sadly outside my budget.


Inland fish farms further highlighted Australian food’s ethical environmental emphasis. Who knew Japanese sushi chefs prized Tasmanian salmon more highly than any other?


Stein almost went too far during a corny dash delivering fresh salmon to the renowned Japanese sushi chef resident in a sleepy Tasmanian backwater. But the mouth-watering morsels the sushi chef prepared and his sublime knife wielding skill made up for it, demonstrating why people travel from everywhere to eat there. As Stein said: “Tasmania’s hidden secrets need advertising.”


Watching this I wanted to go and suspect I wasn’t alone.


25 per cent of global abalone, one shellfish I’ve never tasted, is Tasmanian, 75 per cent sent to China. Renowned in Melbourne and Sydney, it’s not familiar across most of the mainland. A slow-growing mushroom-like mollusc, if cooked incorrectly this delicacy tastes like “boot leather.”


A fisherman cooked his in ghee aboard his boat, serving it with one of Tasmania’s famous Chardonnays. Stein devoured it, dubbing it: “The best seafood Australia isn’t eating.”


Delicious TV – this was the BBC at its best. Stirring renewed patriotism within me, I loved the environmental emphasis, especially considering Australia’s current Government, refuses to acknowledge climate change. Timely, tasty, it captured Australian character, and potential, perfectly.

			

	


			
				


	

							
Caroline Lucas: the media’s our problem
						

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The News Hub


The Green MP discusses her party – its policies, popularity and how to be heard above UKIP






  




Rob Whitson in UK Politics |  UK election 




11 Nov 2014, 11:26 GMT | Comments (0) | Report








Green MP Caroline Lucas (Photo: Creative Commons)
Green MP Caroline Lucas (Photo: Creative Commons)


















Caroline Lucas, the Green Party’s only MP since her 2010 Brighton Pavilion victory, is still polling well. Lucas, 53, takes nothing for granted next May however, especially with the unpredictable impact of UKIP.








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The ugly face of British nationalism
						

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EDL Rally (Photo: Rob Whitson)
EDL Rally (Photo: Rob Whitson)


In Whitehall on lawns opposite Downing Street, something other than the cool change made me shiver Saturday.


Exiting Charing Cross station numerous St George’s flags are visible, flying at the top of Whitehall near Trafalgar Square. My first thought is Unionists are celebrating their referendum victory. Getting closer, the flags’ and separate banners’ slogans: “No Surrender”; “No More Mosques”; “No Sharia Law”; “Supporting Our Troops” reveal a more sinister, dangerous nationalism though.


Asking one of many police nearby, I’m told the English Defence League (EDL), the South East Alliance and other far-right groups are uniting in protest against the “Islamic threat” to Britain. Previously dismissing them as mere lunatic fringe groups, I’ve always walked past. This time I follow to see what exactly they hope to gain.


There’s a raucous march down Whitehall, EDL supporters yelling and chanting. They try to get as close as possible opposite Downing Street when they’re confronted by a small but highly vocal anti-fascist rally organised in opposition. The police keep both groups apart. Once the EDL are set up on the MoD lawn more police line up to separate them from the traffic and tourists walking past to Westminster and Number 10. It strikes me just how many police there are and what else they could be doing.


Standing on the small island surrounding the Women of World War Two monument in the middle of the road, I watch and listen.


One of the most noticeable things is how clearly inarticulate and badly educated most of the crowd, consisting of men, women and children of all ages are, including nearly all the speakers.


An elderly English couple visiting London are standing nearby taking photos. We begin talking, their contempt for the group opposite quickly becoming apparent. I point out just how young some of the children are – mostly “mini-mes” of the men with matching football shirts and shaved heads.


“Look – they don’t stand a chance. They’re indoctrinated with this idiocy. Give me the child and I’ll show you the man,” says the gentleman.


I point out how few people are actually there in opposition to the rally and the numbers of people who walk by, seemingly oblivious.


“They don’t call them ‘the silent majority’ for nothing do they? What worries me is it’s the squeaky wheel that’s getting the oil now. Look at the rubbish the politicians are coming up with to counter Salmond and UKIP,” the woman says.


Their main speaker, sacked UKIP parliamentary candidate Paul Weston is now head of the far-right Liberty GB. Weston rants about Rotherham child abuse and ISIL, reading what he claims are Sharia Law edicts condoning rape and murder. Whipping the 200 or so strong crowd into a frenzy, he claims Islam is a “cult not a religion”.


Frighteningly familiar complaints begin about British jobs for British citizens, foreigners on benefits and the blood of brave British troops being spilled to battle Islam’s evil influence.


Nearby stands Viscount Alanbrooke’s statue, one of Britain’s great Second World War heroes. One of the soldiers they believe they fight for he looks away, seemingly embarrassed.


Stressing today’s event is going well and how pleased police are with today, Weston emphasises its peaceful nature. The speech stops to rapturous applause as the EDL anthem is played via speaker: “We’re coming! We’re coming! We’re coming down the road! We’re volunteers of the EDL, we’re coming down the road!”


Everyone’s chanting the words when, with no warning, protestors, police and paparazzi run back towards Trafalgar Square. Keeping up, a freelance photographer explains to me despite common beliefs rival groups usually fight among themselves over who’s more far-right. When we arrive at a pub on the northern end of Whitehall the brawlers have fled into the West End.


I stand by Northumberland Avenue taking notes watching as a large group of 20-somethings make monkey noises in earshot of a lone black police officer. He smiles politely. His white colleagues nearby however fail to intervene despite police easily outnumbering protestors by about three to one.


Asking the officer how he feels about all of this he just shrugs.


Seeing me taking notes one of his colleagues asks if I’m a journalist. I explain I’m just starting, my first time covering anything like this and my surprise at the number of police. Explaining this, he goes on to confirm something else I’d noticed:


“It’s the first time we’ve had such a poor show from the anti-fascists.


“The EDL are usually the better behaved out of all of them. The problem is they cause such an adverse negative ripple around them.”


Asking why he did nothing to stop the monkey chants he says he didn’t hear them: “You get used to that in the police. Things like: “bacon” “Laurel and Hardy” – you’ve got to develop a thick skin.” Again, his black colleague shrugs.


I point out how similar their demands seem to be to UKIP’s and how other more mainstream parties seem to be increasingly competing on the same nationalist platform in response to their recent success. I give the forthcoming Clacton by-election as evidence.


“Yes. It’s worrying,” the black officer says.


“No I don’t think they’ll ever get a real voice,” the white officer says. I walk away, having seen and heard enough.