Connoisseurs of Theodore Dalrymple’s regular columns heaping scorn on contemporary demotic Britain will enjoy his latest: From stiff upper lip to clenched jaws, in which the good doctor examines the consequences of modern rights-inflation:

WHAT a human catastrophe is the doctrine of human rights! Not only does it give officialdom an excuse to insinuate itself into the fabric of our lives but it has a profoundly corrupting effect on youth, who have been indoctrinated into believing that until such rights were granted (or is it discovered?) there was no freedom.

Worse still, it persuades each young person that they are uniquely precious, which is to say more precious than anyone else; and that, moreover, the world is a giant conspiracy to deprive them of their rightful entitlements. Once someone is convinced of their rights, it becomes impossible to reason with them; and thus the reason of the Enlightenment is swiftly transformed into the unreason of the psychopath.

The doctrine of rights has borne putrid fruit.

The Telegraph supplies a story indicating just how marginalized firearms and hunting have become in Britain.

A deer hunter who took his photographs to a supermarket for processing was shocked to find himself reported to police.

Although the sport is legal, Tesco gave his details to officers who questioned him for several hours.

Last night the store was accused of “demonising” people who participate in field sports.

“Peter Williams”, who asked for his real name not to be published, said he was “made to feel like a terrorist”. Tesco has no ban on photographs of shooting and its privacy policy says: “We will never pass your personal data to anyone else”, but it contacted the police without telling Mr Williams.

Mr Williams, who is in his early thirties, from north Devon, took his film to Tesco in Barnstaple. Staff deemed photographs of him with his gun and a deer he had shot “inappropriate”, although he had broken no animal cruelty or firearms laws.

Mr Williams said that he was “utterly shocked and stunned” when two policemen arrived at his house on a Sunday morning with a set of prints given to them by Tesco.

After questioning him, the police accepted that he had a firearms certificate and had not broken any laws. Simon Hart, the chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, which campaigns on rural issues, said: “This is one of the most disturbing and ridiculous examples of ignorance and demonisation, of which Tesco should be ashamed.”

Mr Williams asked the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC), of which he is a member, to demand an explanation from Tesco. Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, replied that staff had acted appropriately: “On being asked to view the prints, our store’s management team decided that there was cause for concern and as such contacted the police.”

A second letter on behalf of Sir Terry said: “Tesco does not discriminate against any lawful section of the community… We are confident that the actions of our staff were… within the law.”

Last night a spokesman for Tesco said: “We are sorry for any upset or distress caused to the gentleman. However, if our staff are concerned about the content of photographic material it is right that they should seek advice from the appropriate authorities, in this instance, the police.”

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said: “With any allegation of a possible criminal offence which is referred to the police, we have a duty to the community to make inquiries, particularly with any issues involving firearms.”

Bullied by the European Union into conformity with contemporary political shibboleths, the tiny (formerly) self-governing island of Sark voted grudgingly to replace its 450 year old system of rule by landowners, originally negotiated with Queen Elizabeth, into a conventional modern democracy. USATODAY — Telegraph.

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Hat tip to Matthew MacLean.

Theodore Dalrymple, who has moved to France, finds appalling the ever-increasing extinction of Liberty in Britain:

I have lived under a Latin American military dictatorship where daily life was freer than in Britain today. Of course, you couldn’t go out into the street and shout “Down with Señor Presidente”, at least not without dire consequences; on the other hand, you were considerably less surveyed, supervised and harried as you went about your business than you are in contemporary Britain.

“Never pick a fight you know you cannot win.” advises Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins.

Iran is a serious country, not another two-bit post-imperial rogue waiting to be slapped about the head by a white man. It is the fourth largest oil producer in the world. Its population is heading towards 80 million by 2010. Its capital, Tehran, is a mighty metropolis half as big again as London. Its culture is ancient and its political life is, to put it mildly, fluid…

I would sleep happier if there were no Iranian bomb but a swamp of hypocrisy separates me from overly protesting it. Iran is a proud country that sits between nuclear Pakistan and India to its east, a nuclear Russia to its north and a nuclear Israel to its west. Adjacent Afghanistan and Iraq are occupied at will by a nuclear America, which backed Saddam Hussein in his 1980 invasion of Iran. How can we say such a country has “no right” to nuclear defence?..

Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be “hugged close” it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.

Now what do you suppose Jenkins would have said in the period of 1936 to 1939 about Nazi Germany? One can only assume that poor fellow has been living in Paris for too long.

Mr. Jenkins ought to remember that, historically, large barbarian armies have done remarkably poorly against far smaller Western forces on numerous occasions.

The Persian experience of the overwhelming superiority of Western arms in ancient times at Thermopylae and Marathon, during the Retreat of Xenophon’s Ten Thousand, and at Issus and Gaugamela will inevitably be repeated all over again today, if the Iranian regime persists in its course.

Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Army, though repulsed in its initial invasion of Iran, was still able to fall back, stand on the defensive, and battle Iranian military forces to a draw over the final six years of an eight year war. That same Iraqi Army was twice beaten by US forces virtually effortlessly in a matter of days. The disproportion of technology, of military capabilities, is so great that an Iranian Army confronting US forces would not be much better off than the Mahdi’s dervishes were facing Kitchener’s machine guns a century ago at Omdurman.

The US invasion of Iran can only result in one of history’s classic turkey shoots, as any Iranian forces which fail to surrender or flee would be quickly and efficiently annihilated by precision-directed American firepower. The Iranian military would have about the same prospects against contemporary American military forces that the ants in my front yard have against the garden pesticide sprayer.

Nor is it likely, for that matter, that the current brutal and tyrannical regime can expect so much loyalty from its own citizens that substantial portions of its Army and civilian population will fight for it to the death. Frankly, there is every reason to suppose that Iranians in general would welcome invading Americans as liberators, and the Revolutionary Islamic Dictatorship would collapse upon receiving a single blow. Overthrowing the present Iranian regime may, in all likelihood, prove about as difficult as kicking to pieces a rotten pumpkin.

The BBC reports that the Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to pursue the case for homophobic remarks brought by the Thames Valley Police against 21 year-old Oxford University student Sam Brown, who in unexplained circumstances said to an officer: “Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?”

Mr. Brown was arrested under section 5 of the Public Order Act. He was jailed overnight, and declined to pay an 80 pound fine, which resulted in the referral of the case for prosecution.

The 39 colleges of Oxford University are destined to lose their 800 year-old right to select their own students in a plan drafted by a so-called “working party” of sophisters, calculators, and economists appointed by the Labour Party’s collectivizing commissars in a new social engineering outrage aimed at further levelling. The Telegraph musters at least a modestly pejorative headline of protest.

The Times

But even this is insufficient. The Guardian exposes other surviving relicts of elitism:

Oxford University is being accused of snobbery after leaked details of admissions criteria for a post-graduate course revealed that tutors were instructed to give preference to candidates from “prestigious” universities over those from “second-rank” and “weak” ones…

Michael Driscoll, the vice-chancellor of Middlesex University and the chair of the Campaign for Mainstream Universities, representing the new universities, said the guidance was appalling.

“On what basis can they be saying that a degree from one institution is worth more than a degree from another?”

Hat tip to Cacciaguida.

Britain’s New Conservative Party Leader David Cameron stands bravely on both sides of every question.