I think the man who will replace Tony Blair as leader of the Labour Party and future British Prime Minister will be Jack Straw. Indeed, I am so inclined to think it will be Mr Straw, that I went off yesterday to a betting shop and laid £20 on his being the “next permanent Leader of the Labour Party.” I was given odds of 66:1. He was at the bottom of a list of probables headed by Gordon Brown at 4:3.

These past few days, there have been some «small fires» – small indeed – in the Brussels area, but today the fire brigade was lured into an ambush in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek. There were no casualties, but apparently we'll have to see a few dead before it will be possible to reflect seriously on what is really going on in Brussels. The authorities did not want to confirm a connection to the fires in Paris, but did not dare to deny it either.

Last year I read somewhere that 15% of the French army consists of Muslim soldiers and that this is the reason why the French authorities do not have the army restore law and order in the Muslim suburbs. So far, I have not been able to find confirmation of this figure in official statistics. In September 2005, the Institut français des relations internationales (French Institute for International Relations, IFRI) published a report stating that 10 to 20% of the army is of immigrant origin, most of them North African. “Their loyalty is continuously questioned,” Christophe Bertossi of IFRI said.

Other countries (the Netherlands, Austria,...) also worry about radical Muslims in the military.

As predicted Paris is burning. I am in the US at the moment and will not return to Europe until 13 November. I cannot cover events from here, but No Pasaran is a good place to keep informed, though there are others as well.

A quote from Anatole Kaletsky in The Times, 26 October 2006

[T]he greatest political blunder of the past decade [will probably be] an event most people still regard as a triumph: the creation of the euro. What we see today, not only in Italy and Hungary, but also in the other relatively weak economies on the southern and eastern fringes of the EU, is the beginning of the end of the European project. [...] At some point the people of Europe will realise that there is something rotten in a political system that leaves them forever in the world economy’s slow lane – and which cannot be changed by any democratic process, regardless of how people vote.

A quote from Anjem Choudray during a debate at Dublin’s Trinity College this week

The flag of Islam should be flown over the Dáil [the Irish Parliament]. [...] If US warplanes are using Irish soil, then Ireland is seen as aiding and abetting the war on so-called terror. Ireland says it has a position of neutrality but I don’t think it is seen that way in the Muslim world at all.

A quote from Cardinal Keith O’Brien of St Andrews and Edinburgh in The Catholic Herald, 24 October 2006

I am happy that, if it is the wish of the people, Scotland becomes an independent country. […] The people and the Members of the Scottish Parliament have increased control but not all the power they would wish for. I have just been involved in a protest against nuclear weapons, many of which are based here, and the people ask ‘why are we not able to say what we want in Scotland?’

As a non-religious person, but still one that acknowledges and respects the impact of Judeo-Christian thinking on Western culture, I have warned against naïve Christian compassion related to Muslim immigration, as well as a disturbing tendency among too many Christian organizations to ally themselves with Muslims, for "religious values" and against Israel. But frankly, the most useful allies Muslims have in the West more often than not tend to be found among the non-religious crowd.

On Tuesday 24th October, Britain confirmed its position on immigration policy in time for the acceptance of Bulgaria and Romania as new member states. Astonishingly, it has shifted from its “open door” policy approach to requesting restrictions on workers arriving from the two new EU member-states. The most prominent of restrictions will include only making available agricultural and food-processing jobs. Citing the potential for a crisis in public services, Home Secretary, John Reid, assured that lessons had been learned from the 2004 open door policy that had led to an overcrowding in schooling and private housing.

The German author Henryk M. Broder recently told the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant (12 October) that young Europeans who love freedom, better emigrate. Europe as we know it will no longer exist 20 years from now. Whilst sitting on a terrace in Berlin, Broder pointed to the other customers and the passers-by and said melancholically: “We are watching the world of yesterday.”