‘The young of Iran are ready to rise

Then his ultra-harsh theocracy turned violently anti-West and has been sowing violence and unrest throughout the region since. But at last it looks as if the ordinary people of Iran have had enough. A street-level campaign of disobedience is spreading, undeterred by the ruthless secret police that accompanies all tyrannies.It started with young women objecting to being forced to cover their heads at all time, and it was just a few bold rebels doing it. Now it is pan-national and more.The young are knocking the turbans off the heads of the priests as they pass. It is the priests who have ruled the roost since the revolution and they are now the lightning rod of the pent-up anger and frustration. Once again the internet seems to be playing a large role.Dictators can dominate all forms of in-country media but not the web. On this the young can learn of women being educated and qualified in a dozen professions hitherto banned to them. They see freedoms and privileges normal in the West but which are denied to them. Priests are being sworn at on the streets – unheard of until now.Iran has been an international menace for 40 years with its nuclear programme and fomenting of strife.The unified West has remained quiescent in the face of countless and unceasing provocations. The ordinary people of Iran have had enough (Image: GETTY)Considering what an angry West has done to Russia and its economy – now virtually destroyed – over Putin’s insane invasion of Ukraine, is it not time the ayatollahs experienced retribution for their endless aggression? The young of Iran seem ready to rise at last. Should we not encourage them?Collectively and united the Western democracies are immensely powerful.Another nightmare that never ceases to threaten its neighbours and prepares the most aggressive nuclear missiles is North Korea. Its barmy tyrant who seems to get away with anything is Kim Jong-Un. North Korea is bankrupt and its people starve. Yet we ship in wheat as Barmy Kim tests yet more nuclear missiles offshore.And we protest – but that is all we do. We carry out joint land-sea-air protests in the sky and on the seas and Kim takes no notice. He is convinced we will do no more, because he has nuclear weapons. But with our technology they could be wiped out in a single strike.And there is opposition to Kim, but outside North Korea, mostly sheltering in the South. But it receives precious little support from us.Surely it is time to increase support and aid massively to see what those North Koreans who loathe Kim could do with a bit of help.Virtue-signalling is a self-indulgence that seems to have invaded our whole society. Not a day goes by but on radio, TV or in a newspaper we see someone telling us how very laudable he/she is for something they have done or not done. It is a most irritating vanity and more so when it is not justified in reality.Somewhere near the top of the tree are those preening themselves for driving an electric car. You are creating pollution but I am not, they claim. Will some facts offend you? Electricity does not grow on trees nor spring from the lawn after a shower. It has to be generated and for that to happen something has to be burnt – probably hydrocarbons – creating pollution.Of course it all happens at a generating station – which is out of sight and out of mind – so that’s nice. Up in Yorkshire the vast Drax power station burns huge quantities of hyper-expensive imported wood pellets, creating more pollution than the coal used to generate before wood pellets stupidly took over.The only pollution-free generating processes are wind (not nearly enough for our needs), sunshine (ditto), nuclear (very expensive and insufficient), geo-thermal (exploiting the blazing heat at the earth’s core, not even tried) and our roaring tides (ditto).Everything that burns creates smoke, i.e. pollution. So the electric car drivers are indirectly creating as much as the rest of us.The only possible solution is the micro-car with the minuscule engine.Many of us used to think London was a fine city where the law-abiding could go about their business in safety. Street crime was rare and minor. Pickpocketing and bag-snatching made the headlines.New Yorkers, especially in the 1990s, were wide-eyed with admiration, recalling their own highly dangerous streets where violent crime were an hourly hazard.The capital today seems to produce a shooting or knifing every 24 hours. Pulling a gun, or almost by routine a knife, seems to be a standard reaction of the thugs who roam the pavements.What on earth happened? First, I think, was the virtual disappearance of the bobby on his beat. The mere sight of that uniform was a deterrent to the young tearaway.Another factor could be the obsession of the once-vaunted Met with bringing tea to demonstrators and the universal concern with ‘social’ issues over real nasty crime.A criminal told me once that the real deterrent was not the severity of the punishment, but the inevitability of rapid capture. This is where the bobby-on-the-beat comes in, doing what squad cars can never do.So we may be heartened to hear that new Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley is an old-timer with a belief that the old ways work. And he’s right – they usually do.My neck of the woods used to have a daily, much appreciated to-the-front-door newspaper delivery service. Like so much of convenience in this country it has been discontinued. Too idle to drive to the village shop to buy my papers, I had recourse to the TV over my first cuppa.I do not usually favour ‘the box’ at that hour – it is for later. But I want to find out what is going on in the world. I thought our major providers, BBC and Sky, might oblige. Not a bit of it. Just breakfast shows with mushy interviews.So I went international. There was a Russian-owned service – no thanks. And an Arab source – many shukrans but not for me. Where was all the hard news – story after story – to bring me up to date?Well, CNN out of Washington told me about the death of Jerry Lee Lewis and his career, the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, devastating tropical storms in the Philippines and an awful crushed-crowd tragedy in Seoul.But why should I have to go to foreign channels for a good hard-news programme?Why are our own channels devoted to ‘wokist’ tripe?Albanian criminals should be deported without hesitationThis country’s southeastern tip is being drenched, not by autumn rains but by illegal immigrants. But they fall into three categories. There are the genuinely desperate asylum-seekers fleeing persecution, war, violence, tyranny and horror in the land of their birth. We have a long and honourable tradition of welcoming such refugees.Many wealthy, successful people today have parents or grandparents who were once just that. They do us proud; it is a fine tradition and we should never change it.Other are fit, muscular young men looking for a better life and prepared to work hard to achieve it. So long as they earn their keep, we have room and our economy could use the help.But category three are criminals and gangsters who have come to join a gang of their fellow nationals already here. A big component are Albanians, whose gangs control much of the drug trade.These we should chuck straight out without hesitation. Ah, squeak the whingers, but what about the appeals mechanisms? Other democracies also have the rule of law but they fly them straight back and put them in touch with the embassy to lodge and pursue their claim from home. Even the Albanian government is puzzled by our dopiness on this issue.