Married multicultural 'feminist' who is running for Parliament is filmed groping stripper

A would-be Lib Dem MP who describes himself as a feminist has been filmed repeatedly trying to touch a naked lap dancer.  Married father-of-one Maajid Nawaz asked for two private sessions at a strip club in east London.

Footage shows the prospective parliamentary candidate – who calls himself an advocate of women’s rights – attempting to touch her arms and thighs, which is against the venue’s policy.

Staff said Nawaz had been pestering the girl all night and his actions had been ‘outrageous’.

In the film, Nawaz – a convicted former extremist – can be seen repeatedly trying to make contact with the girl as she dances naked for him in a private room during two £20 lap dances.

Manager Jay Shah, who witnessed Nawaz’s behaviour, said he was ‘very drunk’ and bouncers threatened to throw him out several times.

‘He was asking her to touch him and he was touching her,’ he said. ‘In general he was quite persistent with her, asking to take her out and for her number.’

A rising star of the Liberal Democrats, 37-year-old Nawaz is also a leading figure in the Muslim community and head of anti-extremism charity the Quilliam Foundation, which he set up.

A regular guest on BBC News programmes, he declared on Newsnight in 2013: ‘I consider myself a feminist.’ He once wrote on Twitter: ‘You don’t need to be a woman to stand for women’s rights.’

He often throws his weight behind gender issues such as the campaign against female genital mutilation and paints himself as a role model for young Muslim men at risk of radicalisation.

But Abdul Malik, the club’s owner, said he wanted the video to be seen by the public because of the way Nawaz portrays himself as a feminist and a family man. ‘He’s always talking about religion on TV and I thought, what a hypocrite,’ he said.

He claimed ‘arrogant’ Nawaz acts like a ‘spokesman for Islam’ – but visited the club during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

A spokesman for Nawaz said he denied touching the dancer ‘inappropriately’ and added that his reputation for advocating women’s rights was ‘in the context of Islamic extremism’.

He said he had not been warned about his behaviour, and was not ‘out of control’ through drink or breaching the rules.

The spokesman said: ‘The evening you refer to was our client’s stag night before his marriage. ‘His best man took him to the gentleman’s club with the full knowledge of our client’s then future wife (now his wife).’

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The ‘Party of CEOs’ and Religious Liberty

Social conservatives need to get serious. Since Indiana, the need for a new, well-funded political arm for Christians and other traditional believers has never been more obvious. In so many ways, the days of cheap grace are over. It is going to get increasingly costly and risky to publicly adhere to traditional Christian teachings on sex and marriage, as Professor Robert George warned us.

Frank Bruni approvingly notes in the New York Times that a major gay philanthropist told him, “Church leaders must be made ‘to take homosexuality off the sin list.’” A Talking Points Memo columnist followed up with the Orwellian idea that unless cops are pointing a gun at your head, you, as a Christian, aren’t being “forced” to do anything — never mind that you’ll be fined and punished if you don’t.

Meanwhile, the EEOC has just opened up a case against Mount de Sales Academy, a Catholic high school in Georgia, for firing its band director when he said he was entering a gay marriage.

A Wyoming Equality activist said churches should either marry gay couples or lose their tax deduction, before quickly deleting his own Facebook post.

Many churches, and even whole small denominations, will fold to the moral and political power of the gay-rights community (which, obviously, includes many people who are not gay).

The Catholic Church is riven, with many liberal Catholics misinterpreting Pope Francis’s recent statements as calls to spread secular liberal pieties instead of comforting the marginalized. Instead of speaking truth to power, Emmanuel College, a small Catholic college in Massachusetts, has decided to join the dominant powers in shaming and humiliating the small number of evangelical Christians in its vicinity by refusing to let its athletes compete against Gordon College students.

And now, in a startling display of the power of crony capitalism, major corporations in Indiana and elsewhere are weighing in on the side of using government power to oppress small Christian businesses — and against whatever other religious-liberty protections the gay-rights community dubs anti-gay.

Years ago, back when I was running the National Organization for Marriage and scouring the gay press daily for hints of what to expect in the future, I noticed a stray comment — I believe it was from the then-chairman of the Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese. I can’t find the quote now but I what I recall him saying is: “Our secret weapon is going to be our corporate network.” Secret out of the bag.

One of the big points to emerge from Indiana is that big business has decided to weigh in in favor of “equality” and against moral “liberty” in a big way. "Big business has been at the forefront of the backlash against the Indiana law, and similar legislation pending in states around the U.S.,” reports CNN’s Money channel.

Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle announced he would cancel a $40 million expansion in Indianapolis. Salesforce’s Marc Benioff pledged to reduce investments in Indiana and help employees relocate (to one of the other 20 states with RFRAs?), pronouncing Indiana’s rather innocuous RFRA to be “brutal” and “unjust.”

Most eloquently and helpfully, Benioff explained the social phenomena we are now witnessing: “This is a really important point that, you know, CEOs have a lot of power and control on investment in states and we want to invest in states where there is equality,” he said. “One thing that you’re seeing is that there is a third [political] party emerging in this country, which is the party of CEOs.”

I am sure much of this reflects the sincere if misguided sentiments of the Party of CEOs, but there is another force at work here as well. When I say that traditional believers lack institutions, I mean that over the last ten years, the stage for the moment that has just emerged has been set, piece by piece, with very little effective, creative, or well-funded response by the so-called Religious Right.

Can a president endorse gay marriage without facing any significant, organized, and well-funded blowback? Check. Can the Left drive Catholic adoption agencies out of business? Check; been there, done that in Massachusetts, Illinois, and D.C. Can they get a beauty queen canned for saying she opposes same-sex marriage? Check. Can they attack a whole corporation because a CEO gives personal money to Prop 8 in California? Check. Can they force a blue-chip Atlanta law firm to dump the House of Representatives as a client over gay marriage? Check. Can they suspend and discipline the first deaf diversity officer at a federally chartered university because she signed a petition urging that gay marriage be put to her state’s voters? Check. Can they get a Washington State judge disciplined for an ethics violation merely for saying in his private chambers that he won’t perform same-sex marriages for religious reasons? Check. Can they get a Catholic high-school teacher suspended for criticizing the motivations of the gay political lobby? Check.

Can they get thousands of high profile Christian donors to embrace and participate in a truce strategy, as if once we elect a silent pro-lifer to office he will magically transform himself into a fighter for the unborn, let alone for millions of loving, hardworking, decent people across America getting fired, demoted, or at least slandered as bigots and haters?  If you are on my Facebook page, you know that the answer is yes, there are many.

How did we get to the point where, unbeknownst to millions of decent, hardworking Americans who want nothing more than to live and let live, “religious liberty” is now a code word for a “license to discriminate”?

How did we get to the point where Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle not only wades into the debate to oppose Indiana’s RFRA, he proudly announced what Apple CEO Tim Cook would consider “brave” plans to punish the state by deciding not to expand his company’s headquarters in Indianapolis?

The largest answer is: Because traditional believers have not invested in the kind of political and information networks we need to be taken seriously.

To understand that, you have to go back and look at what happened to Target in Minnesota, which gave substantial amounts of money to a political organization that supported Governor Tom Emmer, purely for business-related reasons. (For Gawker’s subtle take, see: “Meet Tom Emmer, Target’s Favorite Right-Wing Nutjob.”)

Target was disciplined for donating, for business reasons, to a GOP politician who also supported letting Minnesotans vote on the question of gay marriage.

The actual protesters and boycotters were creative but tiny in number. It was their access to the mainstream media that gave the corporation heebie-jeebies, led to an immediate apology, and eventually to Target TV’s ads featuring two gay dads.

So when Mike Pence signed the RFRA into law, and the media firestorm ensued, I am guessing Oesterle knew he had a problem. For supporting Pence, his company would be fair game, under the LGBT rules, unless he figured out a way out of the fire.

Global and national corporations apparently do not have to show respect for religious people, but they must not attract the well-organized ire of the impressive and powerful LGBT community. This happened when they decided that the cultural, the financial, and the political power are all in the hands of the gay-rights movement.

Nobody is afraid of what a Republican might to do his or her corporation. It is better to be feared than loved, or at least certainly more lucrative. In the aftermath of Indiana, I compiled this report card, on which GOP candidates responded publicly to the open hatred expressed toward traditional believers in Indiana.

It is not an attempt to grade the candidates on their overall positions, or even on their religious-liberty positions. (Who does that? What is the smart, effective political organization that views its mission as keeping track of what legislation GOP candidates say they are willing to support, and grading them on it? Then directing money, ads, and boots on the ground to candidates who support the rights of traditional believers to make a living in America? Oh, that organization doesn’t exist yet.

It is a snapshot of one moment in time: When they came for Indiana Christians, who ran toward the lions and who prudently ran away? I do not say that, if your candidate did not take this moment to shine, you cannot support him or her. I do say you should be pushing the candidate to do more and show more courage instead of accepting your own dhimmitude.

When it comes to the GOP presidential nomination, I’ll say this: I will enthusiastically support whomever the party nominates if he or she is better on the life issue than the Democratic nominee (most of whom have embraced, as Rand Paul just said, aborting seven-pound unborn babies).

But I am tired of those who keep telling me that their candidate is secretly and silently solid on the issues I care about most. We have not one instance of a candidate who, having secretly supported us, became brave once in power. It never happens.

Vote for whom you will, but do not fool yourself that you are holding some secret Messiah trump. Because we have not built powerful and effective political institutions, social conservatives sit under the table, feeding on the crumbs from the libertarians (who have made these investments), hoping our silent and secret political Messiah will save us from the Democratic wolves. This is a recipe for failure and loss. The loss, alas, will not just be ours. It will be the loss of much that America holds dear.

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Labour parliamentary candidate called people displaying England flags 'simpletons and racists'

A Labour parliamentary candidate has apologised 'wholeheartedly' for telling people to throw 'Tippex' over cars displaying England flags.

Huw Thomas, the Labour candidate in Ceredigion, West Wales, suggested on an online forum in 2006 that the flags were for a 'simpleton' or a 'casual racist'.

He posted his views on a Welsh language website called Mais E writing during the 2006 World Cup: 'I agree it is totally sickening the number of English flags to be seen around Wales.

'It really shows the level our society has been infiltrated by immigrants who aren't ready to integrate.'

He also stated: 'I got the opportunity when I was offered an English flag for half price in WHSmiths Oxford to answer with the sentence: "Since I am neither a simpleton nor a casual racist I must decline your offer".'

In a statement he said: 'I apologise wholeheartedly for these comments, made while I was a young student. These are not my views now and I deeply regret writing this post online.

'Every candidate at this election will have gone through a political journey. Most will have said or thought things when they were young and at university, college or school that they now regret. This is certainly the case for me.'

He added that people in Ceredigion 'deserve an MP that will admit when they are wrong'. 

It comes after senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry stood down in November after publishing a picture of a house in Rochester draped in England flags.

The MP for Islington South and Finsbury, in North London, took the snap while canvassing in the by-election in Rochester and Strood and was accused of being 'snobby' and 'sneering down her nose' at working class voters.

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Historian David Starkey in attack on 'victim status' of Muslims, disabled people and other ethnic minorities

His factual claims about IQ are in fact well-supported by the evidence

Historian David Starkey has launched an astonishing attack on the 'victim status' of ethnic minorities and disabled people - and says women are only of average intelligence.

The outspoken 70-year-old said evidence suggested women tended to be of average intelligence, whereas men were either 'very, very bright or very thick', but denied he is sexist.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Daily Telegraph, he hit out at Baroness Doreen Lawrence, the mother of race murder victim Stephen, for following what he claimed was the approach of US civil rights leaders after Martin Luther King's death by 'treating blacks as victims'.

He said: 'They espoused victimhood and violence. And I think to a dangerous extent that has happened in this country. With all the praise that's been lavished on Doreen Lawrence, she's constantly treating blacks as victims.

'All forms of liberation, and I speak as gay and I was in all this when it wasn't fashionable, when you didn't get your CBE for being a prominent poofter, when there were actual penalties for doing it - all of them depend upon you taking control. About you refusing to be a victim.

'And I find it very, very sad the sway there is now this perpetual procession of people - group after group - wanting to assume the status of victim. It's catastrophic.'

Starkey, who said he was 'born quite seriously disabled', added people with physical and mental disabilities should not be portrayed as victims.

And he claimed fears of Islamophobia were victimising Muslims, making them 'therefore somehow privileged and exempt'.

A recent poll showed many Muslims reported higher community tensions, with one in three saying they felt under greater suspicion in the last few years, while 44 per cent of non-Muslims reporting being more wary.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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