Here we go again. After winning a High Court challenge over the police’s ban on their protests, the extremists of Extinction Rebellion are in line for a million-pound pay-out.

So how do they celebrate this unexpected windfall? Not with a party, that is for sure. No, they are planning another twelve long days of protests to bring London to a standstill again, saying they are determined to turn this into the ‘climate election.’ 

Haven’t we got enough to worry about with posturing and lying politicians of all persuasions?

And do any of these demented protesters have a shred of compassion for the ordinary folk they prevent getting to work to support their families, especially those on zero-hours contracts? No show, no pay, because some imbecile has glued himself or herself to a ruddy bridge or railway carriage.

Like the Crown Princess of their movement, Greta Thunberg, they argue that we ordinary people and hard workers are stealing their future. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they are robbing hard-working people and their families of their present.

Surely it is time these anarchical demonstrations were banned. Why should thousands of innocent people suffer for the sake of a few bigoted climate changers?

And the collective madness spreads throughout our lives I’m afraid. A head teacher in Brighton has been branded ‘Britain’s biggest snowflake’ for banning children from playing ‘rough’ contact games like tag.

Tag for God’s sake! Unless it has changed radically since I was a child, it is hardly a dangerous pastime.

But Joanne Smith told pupils at Rudyard Kipling Primary School, they had to play with ‘gentle hands’ – banning traditional games like ‘it’ or ‘British Bulldog.’

Instead, children are being encouraged to hold hands or clap with each other while in the playground. Parents of children at the school were understandably angry when they were told about the crazy policy. Many are calling for the bizarre rule to be axed because it has left the kids feeling bored at playtime. 

But Mrs Smith is having none of it. She wrote in a letter to all parents: ‘To clarify, Gentle Hands does not mean no touching. The children are of course allowed to hold hands or play clapping games with a friend should they wish to. Gentle Hands simply means playing games outside that do not need to be physical.

‘This will ensure the playground is a happy, safe and calm place where everyone can enjoy their lunchtime running around and getting the exercise, we know is important to them.’

Oh big deal Ma’am. This will ensure another wagonload of future protesters who have not the slightest idea of how the real world works.

The school, that describes itself as ‘fully inclusive’ (whatever that may mean) has around four hundred and fifteen pupils and was rated as ‘good’ at the last Ofsted inspection

Yet the mother of a ten-year-old boy said: “The school have got it completely backwards. Sometimes, I don’t even know what planet Brighton is on. They’re banning children from playing tag? Why on earth would anyone think tag is a bad thing?

‘I’m going to teach my son about another game instead, that’ll really scare the snowflake headteacher – kiss-chase.”

Well said Ma’am. I am glad some parents in this crazy society understand how childhood works. Surely the reason for breaks in school are to allow children to let off steam so that classrooms will be calm places – or have I got that wrong? In my day – which admittedly was a very long time ago – playgrounds were noisy, demented places where everyone dashed madly around. People fell and were picked up and everyone had fun before the next lesson.

Walking past any junior school nowadays while a break is being had, I don’t think they have changed, despite the efforts of teachers like Joanne Smith. The decibel level is usually through the roof and I am sure that is not caused by holding hands.

Poor old Rudyard Kipling must be turning in his grave knowing how this politically correct and rather daft female is running his school. Children in Britain can’t do any of the traditional things that children always used to do. Conkers have long since been banned, now harmless games like Tag or British bulldogs are going the same way. No wonder the kids are turning to crime. Everyone needs some excitement in their life and it seem that there is not much else left for them to do.

A spokesperson for the school confirmed they were supporting ‘gentle hands.’

“We want to make sure the playground is a happy, safe and calm place where everyone can enjoy their lunchtime running around and getting the exercise, we know is important to them. With the full support of our staff and our Parents Teachers and Friends Association, we have reminded the children of our Gentle Hands rule during break and lunchtimes.

‘This is because last half term we had a few incidents involving rough play and play fighting that were causing children to get upset. Gentle Hands simply means playing games outside that do not need to be overly physical and risk hurting or upsetting other children.”

For Pete’s sake; have these teachers any concept of the real world that these children will eventually have to enter? It is at this age that they need opportunities to play around and occasionally get upset with each other damnit! That way they can work things out between themselves and arm themselves for getting upset in later life.

Getting upset is a normal part of being human and if these kids are not allowed to learn how to deal with it at their young age, they will grow into totally unstable adults – just like Miss Thunberg and her Extinction Rebellion acolytes!

Stop the world – I think I want to get off!

Every country needs a system of law, mainly because the human animal needs direction in how to live its life. But the law must surely be tinged with compassion and common sense, not be enforced with extreme rigidity whatever the circumstances.

Take the case of Mavis and Dennis Eccleston who had been married for sixty years and lived in the West Midlands. Dennis was riddled with cancer and when he told Mavis that he could not continue the battle and intended to end his life, this doughty lady told him, ‘I am coming with you.’

They duly took a cocktail of drugs, said goodbye to each other and drifted into unconsciousness, but their daughter Joy Munns found them and they were rushed to hospital.

Dennis died there but the medical staff managed to save eighty year old Mavis. The day after this all happened, she was arrested on suspicion of murder and taken away by police, still in her dressing gown, nightie and slippers. She was then held in a cell for thirty hours.

Where is there a shred of humanity in that scenario? But it gets worse. On April 1 this year, Mavis and Dennis’ three children were given the devastating news that their mother was to be charged with murder.

In September, this poor woman was subjected to a harrowing three week trial before jurors found her not guilty and she was discharged.

Thank God for those jurors but what on earth were the West Midland cops, the Crown Prosecution lawyers and all the relevant pen pushers who caused this travesty of justice doing to even allow the case to come to trial.

Surely someone in authority could have quietly spoken to Mavis and given her a caution or something similar. And when will the strutting popinjays who are currently electioneering for their lives set about debating the iniquities of the current laws on assisted suicide? This has gone on far too long and as I said at the beginning of this little piece, the law has to contain an element of compassion.

Meanwhile, a group of eight ladies from my own country came across to Britain in search of jobs as ‘trained and qualified nurses.’

Huh! The authorities in the NHS did not take long to discover that none of the ladies in question had any idea about nursing. Their ‘qualification certificates’ were all identical and after in depth enquiries, it was found that they had been forged, probably by the same person on the same machine.

Reprehensible and far more worthy of punishment than the ‘crime’ committed by poor old Mavis Eccleston, but apparently not. They promptly claimed and received asylum on the grounds that they were afraid to go back to Zimbabwe When questioned by the Media, a spokesperson for the Home Office said that it would be a ‘violation of their human rights’ were they to be deported as should have been the case.

So they will stay here and we the poor taxpayers will pay for them.

I can’t remember who it was first said that the law is an ass – it could have been Shakespeare or Rumpole – but that is hard on asses, which are relatively intelligent animals.

The law in Britain is little more than a laughing stock and it is administered by cretins without a shred of common sense in what passes for their brains.

Meanwhile a birth coach has been forced out of her government role for saying that only women can have babies.

For most of us that is pretty obvious but she apparently offended the trans gender lobby so she was fired.

At the same time, a female prisoner was sexually assaulted in a women’s prison by a transgender inmate with a male body. This man had previously been sentenced for rape.

I am not sure that according to law rape can be committed by females so surely a convicted rapist should serve their sentence in a male jail? Compassion for those who claim to be trapped in the wrong body is one thing, but destroying the career of a dedicated healthcare professional who simply states an incontestable medical fact is not only outrageous, it’s insane.

And deliberately putting women at risk of rape in pursuit of a fashionable political agenda is nothing short of criminal.

The entire legal and moral set up in Britain needs drastic overhauling. This surely cannot be allowed to continue.

The English rugby team slipped quietly back into the country yesterday. It was not the homecoming they wanted and will doubtless provide stark contrast with the welcome the Springbok side will receive when they land back in Johannesburg later today. Not only did the Amabokke win the world cup but they swept the board with rugby awards for the year, receiving the trophies for best team, best coach and player of the year.

They will return as conquering heroes and deservedly so but they are returning to a very troubled and divided land. The economy is lurching from crisis to crisis, political corruption is rampant and there is an epidemic of violent crime.

Nowhere is this epidemic more in evidence than in the farming community. Last month, there were twenty eight farm attacks and three farm murders, whilst one farm attack was successfully fought off. During September, there were forty six farm attacks and seven farm murders, whilst again, one attack was repulsed. Yet despite this continued reign of horror, government authorities continue to deny the existence of any problem in the farming community.

In August there were forty five farm attacks and four farm murders, whilst six attacks were successfully averted. In July, there were thirty nine farm attacks, four farm murders and four other farm attacks were fought off. In June, the figures were similar – thirty four farm attacks and six farm murders, whilst three attacks were repulsed. And in the first five months of the year there were one hundred and eighty four farm attacks and twenty farm murders.

Horrifying statistics I’m afraid yet the South African government says it is not happening! Other political leaders around the world seem to agree with them as they are all very quiet. Apart from Donald Trump in one speech, none have even referred to this attempt to destroy the South African farming community.

Yes I know these figures seem fairly minor in the general context of South African crime. After all, every year there are thousands of murders and tens of thousands of rapes. Muggings, assaults and hijackings are everyday occurrences so why should a few farm attacks matter?

For me, it is not the crimes themselves, it is the manner of them and the terror they imbue. I lived through the Rhodesian war and as a middle ranking police officer, was horrified witness to numerous farm attacks and the effects they had on farmers and their families. Most farmers live in isolated surroundings and work hard on their lands. Imagine then the terror of sudden gunfire at night and the violent confusion that follows.

I also reported covertly for the London Sunday Express for eleven years during the Zimbabwe farm invasions and yet again, I saw it all at first hand. Now it is happening in South Africa and the horrors continue while the rest of the world doesn’t even raise its collective voice in a disapproving murmur. Fewer than a dozen white Zimbabwe farmers lost their lives in the farm invasions, yet almost three thousand South African farmers have suffered the same fate, many in appalling circumstances.

Even while the Springboks were celebrating their stunning victory on Sunday, a brutal farm attack was taking place near Nelspruit, not far from the Kruger National Park. Four attackers entered the homestead while an elderly couple and their son were asleep in their beds. The attackers laid into the couple with pangas (machetes) demanding money and firearms. The son who woke during the assault opened fire on the attackers, hitting one but was wounded himself in the subsequent exchange of gunfire.

The gun battle caused the attackers to flee with one of the victim’s firearms whilst dragging their wounded accomplice with them. The man died as they ran and was left behind. His firearm was recovered by police.

All three victims were hospitalised while the police continue with their enquiries. I don’t suppose they will arrest anyone for this though.

On 31^st October, a Newcastle farmer, Anton Pitout was attacked by a mob on his farm in Normandien in the Drakensberg mountains. He was very severely assaulted with knobkerries and other objects all over his body, head and face and was lucky to survive. This is the third attack he has endured this year.

A farmer who came to his assistance was also assaulted. The attack comes on the back of a dispute with land affairs and locals over a ninety hectare portion of his farm that he offered to them so that he could continue his farming activities on the rest of the land. Inevitably perhaps, they want more.

The local police are refusing to assist, claiming as they claimed in Zimbabwe that it was ‘a private matter.’ The South African Police have degenerated into a rabble I’m afraid, just as they have in my native Zimbabwe.

The day before the mass assault on Pitout, two people died as a result of being tied up and tightly gagged during another attack in Mpumulanga. Both suffocated behind their gags after brutal beatings but at least the police are said to be investigating.

I have chosen the least horrific of incidents to highlight here. There are others a hundred times more violent and difficult to read about. Old folk, children, helpless housewives and sometimes house servants have been brutally assaulted and put to death in nightmarish circumstances but the world still says nothing.

So despite the general euphoria at winning the rugby world cup, the question must surely be asked, why must South African farmers who are providing food for the country continue to be attacked, murdered and tortured without getting any help from police or government?

And why are world leaders so damned quiet about the situation. Trump apart, I suppose they are all too scared of being labelled ‘racist’ by the Great Unwashed.

What a sad reflection it all is on Society in the twenty first century!

Like a few million other people I spent the morning yesterday in front of the television – or idiot box as I usually refer to it. I didn’t go to the pub to watch, nor did I have anyone watching with me. Perched on the edge of my chair with a bucket of strong coffee, I was prepared for an agonising eighty minutes.

The occasion of course was the rugby World Cup final in Japan and I was a bag of nerves before the game. Ever since I was a boy and was told by a former Springbok cricketer that if I worked hard at my bowling, I too could wear the green and gold (I never did) I have supported South Africa in sport. Many Rhodesians have worn the Springbok colours and I don’t think many of my countrymen were supporting England yesterday.

Nevertheless, the England team had comprehensively beaten the mighty All Blacks the previous Saturday and in doing so had put on an awesome display of fifteen man rugby. Nervously I wondered whether the South Africans could match it.

They could indeed and were every bit as awesome yesterday as England had been the previous week. I sighed with relief when the final whistle blew and my heart bled for those defeated Englishmen. Everyone who plays or has played any sport to a reasonable standard will know or remember the bitterness of defeat, particularly in a big match – and you don’t get bigger than a World Cup final.

My sympathy for the players ebbed a little when so many of them refused to wear their silver medal – Maro Itoje refused to even put it on. I thought that was somewhat disrespectful to their Japanese hosts who had laid on one of the most successful world cup tournaments ever. But I suppose their actions mirrored the disappointment they were feeling, so I wallowed happily in the feeling of euphoria engendered by the handsome Springbok win.

What surprised me was the reaction of the British Press this morning. Last week, they crowed about the World Cup coming back to these shores and what heroes the rugby team were. They were lauded as saviours of a divided nation and Head Coach, Eddie Jones was tipped as a racing certainty to become Sir Edward in the New Year. They gleefully reported how a victory parade was scheduled for next Tuesday in London and at least one major clothing retailer produced a few thousand England World Cup Champions 2019 golf shirts.

Huh! Those same scribblers this morning poured bile and vitriol on the English players and support staff. They were accused of having ‘shamed the nation’ and being ‘totally inept in their performance.’ There were calls for last weeks proposed knight of the realm to be fired and for mass changes in the team before the Six Nations tournament begins in a few months time.

Once again, my sympathy for the players and support staff rose. They gave of their best and were beaten by a better team on the day. Every sporting side, no matter how successful experiences that from time to time and it is part of sport. I wonder how many of those commentators have ever been on a sports field of any sort, let alone in the heaving cauldron of emotion that is a world cup final.

One or two of them have and the former England scrum half, Matt Dawson who is now the BBC’s main rugby pundit was reasonably gracious. Last week, he wrote that if one was picking a joint England/South Africa team, all twenty-three places would have to go to England because their players were so much better.

After the game, he grudgingly admitted that the Springboks had played well and deserved their victory. Thank you for conceding that, Mr Dawson but I wish you could get your fellow scribblers to sit down and try to understand just what happens to everyone involved in a big sporting occasion.

Far from the England team being fired, I feel that most of England’s hypocritical journalists should lose their jobs.

Well done South Africa, but well done England too. Despite reading many accounts that described the game as ‘scrappy and disjointed,’ I found it fascinating to watch and it wasn’t until Cheslin Kolbe scored five minutes from full time that I truly allowed my nervousness to dissipate and settled down to watch the post-match celebrations.

In fact I opened a bottle of wine in my own little solo celebration. As it is Sunday today I might well imbibe a wee bit more in order to toast Rassie Erasmus. He ignored the predictions of the so called ‘experts’ last week and stuck to his own game plan to provide South Africa with their third world cup triumph.

Three finals and three victories – two of them against England. That really can’t be bad.

With electioneering already under way, I was asked yesterday whether one should vote for the individual or the party and it was not an easy one to answer.

I have nearly always voted Conservative, but a few years ago when based in Stroud, I voted for David Drew of Labour. Mr Drew and I did not agree on much, particularly when it came to matters African, but he was an excellent constituency MP who worked hard for the people of Stroud.

The incumbent Conservative on the other hand was an out of touch idiot who seemed far too full of his own importance. So despite being chastised by those closest to me, I put my X beside David Drew’s name. Fortunately perhaps my little vote did not bring Labour into power, but in the forthcoming December election, I will be hard pressed to choose a destination for my vote.

The Brexit Party deserve better than to be marginalised. After all, it’s thanks to them that the inept Mother Maybe was thrown out and Bunter J has managed to secure a Brexit deal, however imperfect that deal is.

Why should the Tories, who contrived to botch Brexit until Johnson took over, benefit from the Faragists’ hard work? There are some fine people in the Brexit Party and if I thought they could form a workable government, I’d have no hesitation voting for the them. But regretfully I can’t see that happening.

If any kind of Brexit is to become a reality, Bunter J is the only real hope. Nigel Farage is wisely offering the Tories an olive branch at the moment, so let’s just pray they are bright enough to take Donald Trump’s advice.

The alternative, a Jeremy Corbyn/John McDonnel government, is too horrible to contemplate. If they win, the strike-torn, bankrupt days of the mid seventies will start to look like a brand new bright tomorrow. I know I will offend my Grandson by saying this, but even if I was an avid Labour supporter, I don’t think I could find it in my heart to vote for a party, led by this total waste of oxygen and the awful men and women immediately around him.

We are continually being told how this country is at risk from terrorism. Boarding an aircraft has become an exercise in frustration as luggage and bodies are searched by lowly security people who have little official standing and we are told that it is all for our own good.

How then is it that a foreign criminal convicted of a terrorism offence in Britain has used refugee laws to overturn the Government’s bid to deport him? The Kenyan man is now free to apply to permanently stay in Britain despite admitting to having ‘an extremist mindset,’ according to court papers.

In one of the first cases of its kind, he successfully argued that his rights as a refugee outweighed the risk, he poses to the UK in a judgment that has just been made public.

The man, who ridiculously, can only be identified by the initials NF, claimed he would be subject to ‘ill treatment’ if sent to Kenya. He deserves ill treatment damn it! He was caught at Heathrow in 2011 returning from East Africa with a huge haul of terrorist material stored on an iPod. The aforesaid court papers reveal that this included audio files said to be made by Al Qaeda and images of armed persons with flags associated with Al Shabaab, a linked terror group. 

Detectives later found more materials at his home. In 2013, NF was given a nine-month jail sentence for ‘possessing information useful to terrorism’. This consisted of a document entitled Thirty-nine Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad, which the trial judge described as a ‘terrorists’ manual.’ 

The Home Secretary at the time then tried to deport NF and his wife KKA, who both lodged asylum claims to stay in Britain. Home Office officials argued the couple were not entitled to humanitarian protection under the Refugee Convention because of the risk NF posed to the public.

But despite hearing that NF accepted he had an ‘extremist mindset,’ in 2016 immigration judges upheld an appeal by the Kenyan nationals. This of course meant that NF and KKA were allowed to remain in Britain and pursue an asylum claim.

The Home Secretary attempted to overturn that decision but a newly published judgment reveals that the government has lost. Upper Tribunal vice-president Mark Ockelton and judge Mark O’Connor said the threshold for ‘threatening international peace and security’ had not been crossed.

What then does cross this ridiculous ‘threshold?’ If the man is not an acrive terrorist, he certainly wants to be and that should not be allowed.

David Davies, the MP for Monmouth, said: ‘This goes to show how totally out of touch our courts have become… It’s absolutely insane that judges and the courts are allowing this to happen.’

Of course it is insane Mr Davies, but it is symptomatic of what is happening in modern Britain.

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We do not routinely comment on individual cases’ and would not discuss the status of NF and KKA’s asylum claims.

I have no idea why the couple said they would be at risk in Kenya, but Amnesty International and the UN have apparently shared concern about the detention of suspected terrorists there.

But Kenya is their homeland; Britain is not; why should they be allowed to pursue their nefarious designs here as they will almost certainly do? I know they have their ‘human ruddy rights’ but so do the rest of us. Why should ordinary people be put at risk for the sake of one homicidal fanatic from another country?

None of it makes sense damnit!