James Higham observed recently that I am "down in the dumps," and he's right. I am tired and in dire need of a break. I shall be spending a couple of weeks in the South of France from this weekend and I am counting on the Cote d'Azur to work its magic. But that's not why.

I was upset by the CPS decision not to prosecute in the "cash for peerages" affair. It has shattered my faith in another British institution. Only the ancient institution of the jury is left to believe in and this Government is the sworn enemy of that.

The CPS is only the latest institution to let us down. Parliament has failed in its essential duty - in an unconstrained democracy with no constitutional protections - to defend the people's rights. Parliamentarians have been bought off by the Executive with pay, pensions and perks provided by the people's pennies.

The police service has been steadily politicised and seems keen only on hitting "soft" targets; the respectable people they are there to protect. The courts seem sometimes determined to bring themselves into disrepute in their quest to find ever more bizarre interpretations of "human rights." The education system is a farce; State  teachers being little better than leftist cadres indoctrinating our children.

I am satisfied that you or I would have been prosecuted on the evidence reported against Levy. He's an arrogant man, given to threatening litigation, so let  me make clear I am not saying he is guilty. That should have been for a jury to decide. He had made it clear that he would not go down alone. By doing so he brought all possible pressure to bear on his political friends. It is hard not to infer from the public facts that they in turn brought pressure to bear on the CPS.

If guilty at all, Levy was no more or less so than Tony Blair. It is impossible to believe that he did not know what his tennis partner was doing. He retained his services to do it. Nor is it possible to believe that Gordon Brown had no idea where the Labour Party's money was coming from. I accuse no individual, but I believe crimes were committed. I believe they have been covered up. I now believe that men of power in Britain, as was not even the case in the Middle Ages, are above the law.

So, I have been finding it hard to blog. Read the above paragraphs again. Is there anything to inspire? No. Is there a positive message of hope? No. Is there a call to arms? No. I thought my few readers deserved an explanation for my silence, but when I read it over, all I can see is that silence is better than the public, burning, resentful acceptance of defeat.

The Labour Party is a greater enemy of the British people, and of the English people in particular, than we have known for some time. It is a self-serving, corrupt clique which exists only to ensure that mediocrities like John Prescott and Hazel Blears can taste the dark delights of power. Yet my countrymen and women are, it seems, ready to keep voting for them.

One other British institution has failed. In the third term of an administration which has massively increased taxation, switched employment from workers to drones and savaged the nation's liberties, the Conservative Party is as effective as a chocolate teapot. If there is no Opposition, there is no democracy.

So yes, James. I am down in the dumps. I have turned, uncharacteristically, to escapist reading, My friend Bag [correction: it was Ian] has introduced me to the classic sci-fi of Robert A. Heinlein and damn fine stuff it is. My family is in England at the moment and I am whiling away my lonely nights and weekends in Second Life, talking to friends from around the world about anything but politics. Perhaps I should be doing something more valuable. Perhaps. But in present circumstances, blogging isn't it.

So posting will continue to be light for the foreseeable future. Maybe my holiday will give me back my strength. I hope so. I shall use it to decide whether, after two and a half years of sustained writing, the Last Ditch has reached the end.

Link: Row over visa report | Politics | The Observer.

Is anyone truly so naieve as to be shocked by this story? To emerge wet from the sea, complaining, seems more rational than to complain of incompetent government.

Even if civil liberties arguments did not require an end to the overmighty State, its global track record of waste and stupidity would demand it.

Link: 'Scotland exempt from flag plan'.

How, precisely, does Gordon Brown hope to perpetuate the Union by encouraging the flying of the Union Flag from English public buildings, while the Saltire flies from those in Scotland? Let us have some of the equality of which Gordon professes to be so fond. Let the Cross of St George fly from the drone-shops of England daily, reserving the Union Flag for the 18 special days when the Scots will condescend to fly it.

Link: 'Ceremony marks Menezes death'.

I realised the country I had loved was dead when this young man was shot. Not because a terrible mistake was made. That could happen anywhere. Because of the reaction of government, press and public.

Jean Charles died in an atmosphere of hysterical incompetence following the London bombings. The "stiff upper lip" sang-froid that once characterised the English was nowhere to be seen. The consequences of educating a nation in a spirit of "anything is good enough;" awarding marks and lavishing praise for inadequate performance and behaviour were everywhere to be seen. As were afternoon-tv sentimentalism and focus on "feelings" rather than reason.

We are not allowed to know the facts. We were not even told the names of the men our government wants us to see as "heroes". From all the accounts I have read, my understanding of events is as follows. A police team had an apartment building under surveillance because one of the London bombers had been known to visit there. A surveillance officer was taking a leak in a bush. Over his shoulder he glimpsed Jean-Charles go by and misidentified him as one of the bombing suspects. A game of Chinese whispers by police radio ensued as a hit squad was deployed to follow him, ordered to kill if he boarded a Tube train. He did.

Even as the detaining police officer called out not to shoot, knowing that he was holding down a lightly-clad man who was carrying no bombs, some kind of special police or military officer or officers shot Jean-Charles seven times in  the head, damaging the hearing of the bobby who seems to have been the only man on the scene not consumed by blood lust.

In the hours that followed, the Metropolitan Police defamed the dead man in the most shocking and disgraceful way. Every kind of excuse was mustered for what seems to have been, quite simply, fatal incompetence. The government - itself guilty of having given illegal "shoot to kill" orders -  supported this campaign of lies.

Police death squads often kill suspects in other countries. However, this happened in what was once England. Had you or I killed a man we wrongly suspected of being a suicide bomber, a jury would have decided our fate As the events of the last week have shown, the apparatchiks of the British State now look after their own - and to hell with truth, law and justice.

As the events of the last week have also shown, the degenerates who now occupy the space formerly populated by true Englishmen do not care. There has been no public outcry that the officers who killed an innocent man were not brought to trial. Perhaps they would have been acquitted. Perhaps there is some justification for their sickening actions that has not been made public. We shall never know. Those few of us who still care about justice, fair play and honest government in England are left with a bitter suspicion. If there was a better story than we have been told, we would have heard it.

If I were in England today, I would be at Stockwell Station. Those commemorating Jean-Charles' death are acting in the best traditions of what was once a nation worthy of love. I thank them. Today I shall drink a silent toast to the memory of an innocent young Brazilian, killed and defamed by citizens of a nation I am ashamed to own as mine.

Link: Cash for honours: No charges brought - Telegraph.

Last night The Daily Telegraph established that key figures involved in the inquiry are actively considering suing the police for wrongful arrest - and media organisations which have said they would be charged, for libel.

I do hope that they sue. I am yet to be satisfied of the political independence of the Crown Prosecution Service. I fear it may have been one of the most foolish of many centralising innovations. I would love a jury to judge these peoples' stories. The jury is the one British institution that still works.

Oscar Wilde's downfall was caused by a rash lawsuit. These people are just as vain and silly, if not nearly as talented, as Wilde. May the gods send them lawyers more greedy than wise.

Link: Killer boasted of stamping on woman's neck | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited.

At the risk of encouraging more simpletons to trot out the all-purpose accusation of racism,  I shall state the obvious. All cultures are not equally valid. All opinions are not of equal weight. Truth is hard to discover, but it is not relative. The same is true for morality.

A culture which regards it as desirable to rape, torture and murder a young woman who disobeys her father is an ignorant, primitive culture which is inferior to our own (imperfect though ours is).

It is insane that we have allowed such primitives to live in Britain. We need immigrants, but we should be selective. We should not hesitate to discriminate between prospective immigrants on the basis of the contribution they can make to our civilisation, as well as to our economy. This is not a matter of race. Britons of Indian and Chinese descent have made an excellent contribution and are more successful, educationally and economically, than the indigenous population. Incidentally, if racism were a serious problem in Britain, that last statement would not be true.

It would be as wrong to judge Kurdish society by the actions of Mohamad Hama, as it would be to judge British society by the actions of Fred West. However, the elevated "suicide rate" among young Asian women in Britain suggests that this is no isolated example

British society is flawed and there are many things we need to improve, but if we lack the moral strength to defend our own culture and mores we deserve to fall. At some point, we need to decide if that is to be our fate.

Let the accusations of racism begin - and to hell with those who make them. My contempt for them is almost as boundless as that for Mohammed Hama and his friends.

Link: Two-thirds think crime is rising | Top News | Reuters.co.uk.

Only two-thirds of the population think that the British Government lies about crime figures. Think how much effort Nigeria's conmen could save if they had the email addresses of the other third.

Link: Man avoids jail for website 'sick jokes' | Uk News | News | Telegraph.

What a happy and peaceful nation we must be, if the police and prosecutors have the time and energy to pursue a man for "sick jokes" on an obscure website which go "beyond the realms of bad taste."

Never mind free speech. Never mind the need to deal with crime of the quaint old-fashioned variety. This is the really serious stuff; so serious that the court "considered a custodial sentence".

How can the Government hold back on building more prisons when there are such monsters at large?

It's hard to feel sorry for this convicted felon. He disgraced himself by his pathetic snivelling to the jacks-in-office who appointed themselves arbiters of his comedic taste. His sucking up has secured him a sentence of 160 hours of community service. He should have done his jail time like a man. It would have been the least of his punishment anyway. He now has a criminal record and will be denounced as a self-confessed racist for the rest of his life. Was avoiding jail really worth the indignity of grovelling?

Meanwhile, one of the 100,000 professional criminals who wreck our lives by driving up our insurance premiums, putting us to the cost of fortifying our homes and systematically violating our privacy will not be pursued, so that the police can continue to rig the crime statistics. And the warped logic will continue to prevail whereby a student humourist moved to a place of safety to escape Muslim wrath is accused of causing a breach of the peace, while those who actually threatened him violence are not.

Does a society with such priorities even deserve to survive? I might not relish the prospect of Sharia Law in Britain, but at least I could understand the principles behind it. At least it has some.

Link: Hold terror suspects 'as long as it takes' | Uk News | News | Telegraph.

If Gordon Brown believes a word he says about liberty, he will fire this man forthwith.

What in the name of all that's holy is a public servant doing expressing political opinions anyway? Anyone fed from the public purse has a clear conflict of interest with taxpayers and should not even vote, let alone campaign for changes in the law.

Link: Maybe owning a home is not for everyone.

Mr Brown, who famously sold off the Bank of England's gold at the bottom of that particular market, is now going into property development just as house prices peak. Nice timing, Gordon!

Niall Ferguson, in the Sunday Telegraph.