The court psychiatrists evaluation of Norwegian neo-fascist killer Anders Breivik as paranoid schizophrenic follows in a long line of similar evaluations of recent far-right murderous attackers in Western Europe and gives the lie to the notion that the political abuse of psychiatry was a phenomenon of the former USSR alone. By rendering his crimes "apolitical" the official version of "not bad, just mad" absolves the propagandists of the hate that motivates Breivik and other far-right extremist killers of any responsibility for their violence. The Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips, whose vile stream of hate-propaganda against muslims was extensively quoted in Breivik's manifesto for murder, will doubtless be toasting the Norwegian psychiatrists verdict with champagne. (Pic: Passport photo of Breivik released by Norwegian police for press use)

In what is becoming a regular event the rich kids of 'The Phil,' a University club in Trinity College Dublin, decided they wanted to play with fire by inviting far right BNP leader Nick Griffin to address their meeting. Last night they were forced to cancel the event after getting their fingers burnt when a 30 strong anti fascist flash mob protested at their regular meeting last night, a week before Griffins organising opportunity had been scheduled.

Friday the 16^th September saw a well attended protest outside of the British Embassy called by Minceirs Whiden (Ireland’s Traveller only forum). The struggle continues to keep the 86 Traveller families in their homes in Dale Farm, Essex.  The evictions were scheduled to take place that weekend but since then there have been a series of hearings in court which has prevented the bailiffs moving in.The latest court decision is to review the full extent of the ‘enforcement notices’ and this will be heard on Thursday the 27^th.  The residents have won a temporary reprieve and it remains to be seen what will happen.

Dale Farm is a halting site  which is also the largest concentration of Irish Travellers in Britain, being home to over 1000 people (about 100 families), many of whom are said to have their cultural roots in Rathkeale in Limerick.  It was started in the 1960s when a number of families bought the former scrapyard site and Basildon council granted planning permission for 40 houses. This happened in the context of broad progress in race relations and a brief breeze of relative official tolerance for Travellers, epitomised in  the liberal-sponsored 1968 Caravan Sites Act.  Basildon Council have put aside an £18 million budget to bulldoze the site and forcefully evict the families (a staggering figure when you consider that in 2010 the total UK budget for providing Travellers with halting facilities was less than 30 million).