Late in 2005 a body called Icons Online launched a website English
Icons (www.icons.org.uk). This organisation is the creation of the
Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). It claims to be entirely
independent despite being funded by the DCMS (to the tune of
Å“1m
according to the Daily Telegraph 28 4 2006). The minister with direct
responsibility for Icons Online is the black London MP David Lammy,
while cabinet minister Tessa Jowell has indirect responsibility as
minister for the DCMS.

The ostensible purpose of Icons Online is to provide the English with a
sense of nation by celebrating English accomplishments, inventions,
events and such forth. The idea is that the public nominates and votes
on such things and that a number of these nominations will be selected
to be official English Icons.

This is an official projection of the liberal propaganda myth that
the English have no sense of nation and the Icons' website unashamedly
makes this intent clear:" Some people argue that there is no such thing
as a shared English culture. They say all those invasions by the
Normans and Romans simply left us with a 'hotch potch' of other
people's cultures. Paradoxically, this melting pot is what makes
England unique. And today's multicultural communities make this mix
even more vibrant and interesting."

The covert reason Icons Online exists is simple; NuLabour are only too
well aware that the English have an immense sense of nation and are
growing increasingly restive about their deliberate marginalisation by
the British political elite, who besides regularly insulting the
English, siphon off vast amounts of English money to give to the Celtic
Fringe whilst denying the English any national political voice in an
English Parliament having given such a voice to the other parts of the
UK.

The Blair Government is trying control this growing English unrest
by creating a soviet-style propaganda unit whose ostensible purpose is
to give voice to the wishes of the people, but whose real purpose is
to produce a preordained propaganda scenario. The preordained
propaganda scenario in this instance is to portray England and the
English as a happy-clappy multicultural heaven. This intention was
signalled not only in the passage from their website quoted above,
but also by the choice of The Windrush as one of the original panel
chosen Icons. Further evidence can be found in the official minutes of
the Icons advisory board (available on the ICONS website). The minutes
for 13 10 2005 state:

"JD [Jerry Doyle, Icons' MD] reported that the Daily Mirror had agreed
to be media partner to the ICONS project at launch stage. Efforts had
also been progressing to ensure that ICONS' partners were fully
involved in the project. It had been a great success to date, and there
was an impressive coalition of support from the National Trust. English
Heritage and a range of city museums. Being inclusive was also crucial
to the project and JD said she was pleased to report involvement from
the Black Cultural Archives, the Jewish Museum and the Muslim Council.
Efforts would continue over time to include other groups."

While the minutes for 8 12 2005 run:

"Partnership news was reported to the meeting by JD. Meetings had taken
place with the Football Association, Pride personnel in Brighton and
Mencap (re an art competition in 2006). ICONS attended the launch of
Islam Awareness Week to build up contacts and Ken Livingstone supplied
his nomination at the event."

According to the Icons website, the official icons are to be chosen
by "An advisory board [which] has been set up to help us sift through
nominations and decide which will be featured on this site. This group,
drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and experience, will consider
all your comments and suggestions - as well as the public vote." "A
wide range of backgrounds and experience" eh? The board is comprised
of entirely of public servants, members of Quangocracy, mediafolk and
academics. The nine members include these three (text taken from Icons
website):

"Vineet Lal is currently England Brand Manager with Enjoy England at
VisitBritain. Enjoy England is the official national tourism
organisation for England, and Vineet has been working with the England
team since its inception in March 2003. Originally from Edinburgh, he
grew up in Scotland and his tourism career has included roles at
Edinburgh and Lothians Tourist Board and VisitScotland... [He] thinks
it is a delightful irony that someone with such a strong Celtic
background should end up working on a brand strategy for England!"

"Jo Turner is head of Arts Online and International at the Department
for Culture Media and Sport. She has worked for the department since
1993 looking after policies concerning sport and young people, widening
access to museums (including the introduction of free admission), and
broadcasting. She also looks after DCMS policy matters for Culture
Online. She has worked as Private Secretary to Ministers dealing with
Sport, Broadcasting and Tourism. Jo has a degree in History, and was
previously a curator at the Imperial War Museum, dealing with
photograph collections, and has published work for the IWM about the
contribution made by ethnic minority forces."

"Sam Walker is director of the Black Cultural Archive and Museum. Based
in Brixton, the Black Cultural Archive and Museum was developed during
the 1980s to collect and document the history and life experiences of
black peoples in the UK..."

The last published Advisory Board minutes (dated 23 2 2006) includes
this statement:" The second wave of Icons (for addition to the site
late April) was discussed. The editorial director suggested additions
to his original list to better represent the results of the public
vote. Advisory Board agreed."

When this "wave of Icons" was announced in April they included the
Notting Hill Carnival and Brick Lane. I used the Freedom of Information
Act to get the actual voting figures. The Notting Hill Carnival was
chosen by the panel despite 84.5% of the public voting NO. Brick Lane
was chosen with a mere 20 people taking part in the vote. The voting
figures provided by the DCMS for all 21 Icons were:

Total
Icon name votes % yes Yes Votes No Votes
Big Ben 3321 87.70% 2913 408
Blackpool Tower 1090 65.20% 711 379
Brick Lane 20 65.00% 13 7
Cricket 2650 87.80% 2327 323
Domesday Book 1126 80.90% 911 215
Eden Project 597 30.80% 184 413
Globe Theatre 637 73.20% 466 171
Hadrian's Wall 1040 74.60% 776 264
Hay Wain 610 70.80% 432 178
HMS Victory 1378 82.10% 1131 247
Lindisfarne Gospels 245 61.20% 150 95
Mini-skirt 933 45.30% 423 510
Morris Dancing 6923 88.30% 6113 810
Notting Hill Carnival 2189 15.30% 335 1854
Origin of Species 727 69.60% 504 223
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen 790 65.80% 520 270
Pub 4353 87.90% 3826 527
Queen's head stamp
design by Machin 596 68.60% 409 187
St George Flag 2265 87.80% 1989 276
Sutton Hoo Helmet 661 64.10% 424 237
York Minister 735 68.20% 501 234

The Daily Telegraph (28 April 2006) reported that these icons had been
chosen as English icons because each was "one of the 21 most voted
for icons suggested by the public since the website was set up in
January". Clearly neither the Notting Hull Carnival nor Brick Lane
was "one of the 21 most voted for". They were selected simply to
progress Icons Online's openly declared multicultural agenda: the
purpose of The Notting Hill Carnival being to include blacks; that
of Brick Lane to include Asians within the concepts of Englishness and
England.

Icons Online is also censoring comments made about Icons, both those
nominated and chosen. Here is the project's director Daniel Hahn
writing to me concerning comments made about the Windrush which never
appeared on the site: " Thank you for your e-mail and your continuing
interest in our site. At present we have three comments published, and
ten which have been submitted and rejected. As you'll see if you browse
through the other icons on the site, we are happy to include debate on
our site by publishing comments that don't support a particular thing's
iconic status; we are not, however, prepared to publish anything we
believe to be obviously racist or in any other way offensive, into
which category I'm afraid those ten rejected comments fall. "

In addition to pushing of the multicultural agenda, the Icons Website
is manipulating matters in the general politically correct interest.
The most notable example of this to date is the fox hunting Icon
nomination. This has been changed from "fox hunting" (as nominated by
the public) to "hunting and the ban", something which was never
nominated by the public nor voted for. (The Icons website still has it
as fox hunting but their press releases have it as hunting and the
ban).

Apart from being a great political scandal, the behaviour of Icons
Online also has criminal implications because taxpayers' money is
being used for purposes other than those which Parliament has agreed
to, i.e. to fund a project to allow the ordinary Englishman and woman
to express their sense of national identity. The further manipulation
to prevent non-pc Icons such as fox-hunting being included compounds
the offence.

I have written to Tessa Jowell, my MP Frank Dobson and the Tory shadow
spokesman on Culture, Media and Sport Hugo Swire asking them to take
action to expose the scandal and prevent it continuing. Jowell has not
replied and Dobson refuses to act.

Swire sent me a long letter which dealt in detail with the manipulation
of the fox hunting nomination, but failed entirely to mention let alone
address the choice of the Notting Hill Carnival or Brick Lane as
Icons. However, he did send me an interesting reply he received from
the DCMS when he put down this Parliamentary question: "Mr Hugo Swire
(Devon East): To ask the Secretary of State for Culture,Media and
Sport, whether (a) she, (b) Ministers and (c) an official instructed
that hunting be omitted from her Department sponsored cultural icons
survey." (22 5 2006).

The reply was given by David Lammy: "No Ministers or officials in the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport, has instructed the editorial
team at the ICONS project on what to exclude from the list of nominated
items. Such decisions are entirely a matter for the projects editorial
team governed by an independent Advisory Board..."

English Icons is clearly a politically correct propaganda exercise to
"include" everyone living in England. Its effect is of course the
opposite: it angers the English and leaves ethnic minorities where they
were before: feeling anything but English for the icons celebrate not
Englishness but something other.

The fact that so many people (1854) took the trouble to vote "NO, the
Notting Hill Carnival is not an English icon", and only 20 people in
the entire country bothered to vote one way or the other on the Brick
Lane nomination tells you two things: (1) next to no one thinks they
are English Icons and (2) the English are very strongly opposed to this
type of political manipulation. The problem the English have is that
a lack of any mainstream political voice. Until that is remedied the
British elite will continue to manipulate and abuse then. The English
Icons project is a prime example of that abuse.
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