A bad revolution

I have no trouble with the political passing of the Tsars 100 years ago. Russia deserved better. A way had to be found to involve the people in the government. The murder of the Tsars was part of the dreadful violence the revolution unleashed. The  revolution caused more misery and suffering. As is the way with most violent revolutions the revolutionaries unleashed a tyranny on those who disagreed, and a pogrom of those they did not like. The small independent farmers were wiped out. Religions were suppressed. Dissidents were tortured, imprisoned or killed.  A revolution born of war fatigue ended Russian involvement in the First World War, but the Communist government  then hurled Russia into even greater losses through  killing many of her own in internal mass murders. They followed this with a major commitment to war with Germany in the 1940s.

The revolution peddled the myths of Marxism, whilst the revolutionaries battled each other over how far they should spread their power and message abroad. The proletariat were told they would inherit the earth. Instead they lost their remaining freedoms, drafted into industrial labour, placed in rented flats and made to live and work as the state dictated. The production machine was heavily slanted to making armaments, at the expense of consumer items for the public. The favoured few at the top of the single ruling party lived and worked  in the palaces of the Tsars and in modern luxury whilst most Russians were denied cars and consumer goods that became common in the west as the century advanced.

Russian literature is so often the story of struggle and of  the secret service, of torture and autocratic rule. Living standards fell well behind western ones whilst freedoms were also denied. It is strange that various western intellectuals thought the Communist system superior and were prepared to write for it or even to fight for it or spy for it. In my youth I developed a passionate dislike of the Communist message and its social consequences. I saw the USSR shoot people who tried to leave the eastern bloc, whilst anyone in the west was free to go and live in the USSR if they chose. I noted that even the most ardent pro Communists amongst the intelligentsia usually opted to stay safely living in the freer west.

122 Comments

  1. Mark B
    November 8, 2017

    Good morning

    George Orwell’s book, Animal Farm, tells the story of the Russian Revolution far better and even predicts its demise.

    Peter Hitchens, a self declared Trot, has recently given a brief rundown of the whole sorry mess. It started with the German’s helping the Bolsheviks and the first revolution which saw them as a minority party. They then led a putch against the new government which led to the calamity that was to follow.

    There was also a civil war going on in Russia between the Red and White Russians, with the White Russians being backed by the West.

    We must never be allowed to believe that Fascism and Socialism are opposoite ends of the political spectrum, they are not ! Hitler and Stalin made a pact which eventually saw Poland divided up by them both in 1939. Stalin, it was said, both trusted and admired Hitler. The German and the Russian armies worked very closely before Hitler’s invasion of Russia.

    Post WWII the map of Europe clearly fell into two spheres. We fought a war that we were led to believe was against Left-wing fascism only to see those we went to free fall into the even greater tyranny of Communism.

    It is true that those in academia and the like all seem to like Communism for the masses but not for themselves. Communism is a way to keep people down, not lift them up.

    And yes, those that supported it never wanted to go and live in Russia the same as those that lead the Labour Party do not want to live in North Korea or Venezuela.

  2. rick hamilton
    November 8, 2017

    I have often wondered why otherwise intelligent people believe that socialism will work when a century of experience shows that it never has (and never will).

    My conclusion is that socialists are essentially dreamers. They believe that human society can be perfected. All the unfairness of life will be eliminated in the socialist world run, of course, by them. However conservatives are pragmatists who take the world as it actually is and try to make it better. They do not (normally) believe in impossible utopias.

    No wonder socialists tend to be tax eaters and conservatives tend to be tax earners.

    1. Eggy
      November 9, 2017

      Socialism isn’t Marxism

  3. eeyore
    November 8, 2017

    Next May we’ll be invited to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. Given the danger Britain is in of electing a Marxist government, it will be an excellent opportunity to remind people of the unspeakable suffering that has resulted from the teachings of that great bad man.

    In Britain, as elsewhere, Marxism flourishes in seats of learning, whence it oozes out to poison the inexperienced and idealistic. A fitting birthday present for Karl Marx would be to apply his own methods to his disciples and purge the universities, so the highly educated nincompoops abounding there can do no more harm.

  4. alan jutson
    November 8, 2017

    Some of the younger generation who seem worship Mr Corbyn and his policies should really look at some old film archive, to see what went on behind the iron curtain of so called communist paradise.

    Perhaps they should also visit Cuba and see how ordinary people lived under Castro, perhaps then on to Venezuela now.

  5. Turboterrier.
    November 8, 2017

    What goes round comes around and with all cultures eventually change will happen and it will be driven by the very people from within that are at present being held back.

    The world wide web and mobile phones are the two major changes in the last 50 years that ensures that the people have real access to the other world. As the old guard move on the the tide will turn and accessibility to all the rapid changes being bought about on a nearly daily basis will fire up the new Russian generations. Change is inevitable, as in the western world the new generations are far more street wise to world affairs then ever the baby boomers were. Every little fact or piece of fake news can be exposed or ratified in nano seconds. The only real risk is that countries and political parties will try and take over and command the net as the world becomes more dependent on its use.

  6. Richard1
    November 8, 2017

    It is incredible that leftists including Corbyn and his supporters think the communist takeover of Russia is an event to be celebrated. Given how widely known are the horrors visited by soviet communism on the world, we can’t put this down to ignorance, they really must be Marxists. There is an excellent 10 minute flattening of the ridiculous George Galloway by Peter Hitchens on the Sunday Politics on this subject.

  7. Lifelogic
    November 8, 2017

    Indeed.

    As you say it is strange that various western intellectuals thought the Communist system superior and were prepared to write for it or even to fight for it or spy for it.

    Many in the UK still clearly do, even the current Tory leadership show an inclination for top down, big government knows best and absurdly high taxation levels.

    In Scotland they are even beginning to move in the direction of nationalising children and passing laws about how children are brought up. We also have dire virtual state monopolies in health and education for most people with little sign of any attempt to move to something better.

    1. Lifelogic
      November 8, 2017

      Nearly everyone in government thinks top down NHS is just great too, despite all the rather clear evidence to the contrary.

  8. DaveM
    November 8, 2017

    Dear Mr R.

    I hate witchhunts and I have no problem with Priti Patel. I also disbelieve most rumours and conspiracy theories. However, if it transpires that DfID was proposing to donate our cash to the Israeli armed forces whilst our own armed forces have been cut relentlessly over the past 7 years, your government is in serious trouble. I wonder if Chairman Corbyn has asked Theresa the appeaser for curtain measurements yet.

  9. Nig l
    November 8, 2017

    Yes. It is a shame we do not have time travel to take more recent generations back to show them the appaling depravation albeit they did have a job, often useless and menial, accommodation of poor quality and sports support if you were good enough to be used to showcase the Revolution.

    The ravages are still clear if you go off the beaten track in these ex eastern bloc countries. No wonder they are addicted to EU handouts.

  10. MickN
    November 8, 2017

    Well then you Sir and your like minded colleagues had better get your backsides into gear and give us a proper Conservative party to vote for at the next election or what you write above could well become the future of this once great country.

  11. agricola
    November 8, 2017

    I do not get the point of this replay of history of which our generations should be well aware.
    That is of course unless it is missing in all it’s dreadful detail from the current school curriculum. The latter might explain the love of Corbyn among the young. We should acknowledge that Stalin killed more of his own people than did Nazi Germany, no mean feat when you consider what Nazi Germany did to Russians and Slavic people in general. We should also be eternally grateful to the Russian military who were the boots on the ground before D-Day in the destruction of Nazi Germany.

    I have always failed to see what benefitted the Russian people when they switched from the regime of the Czars to that of communism even if I can acknowledge the hopes they had when they did so. The greatest thing the West could do would be build on the common ground we have with Russia and thereby ease them into the sort of society we enjoy. The Donald is in a unique position to achieve this. because he is not matured in the politics of the past.

  12. Nig l
    November 8, 2017

    On the basis that some in the Labour Party are (ex) Marxists why is the government doing everything it can to chase them left. Continue to do this and we might as well have Corbyn as PM

  13. Simon Brown
    November 8, 2017

    True, but they did for the Germans at Stalingrad, the turning point of the war.

    1. Mitchel
      November 8, 2017

      The resistance of the Soviet peoples,not for “communism”,not for Stalin,but for their Motherland is the greatest act of heroism in all history.

    2. Man of Kent
      November 8, 2017

      A ‘turning point of the war ‘ not the ‘turning point
      There was El Alamein at much the same time
      After these victories and American entry into the War the Allies kept advancing .

      Stalingrad was indeed a stunning victory tactically and strategically , but at huge cost .
      Khruschev as political commissar had some 11,000 soldiers summarily executed for desertion- the equivalent of a division .

  14. Bob
    November 8, 2017

    There seems to be a daily onslaught of witch hunts threatening to disrupt the current political structure.

    One could be forgiven for thinking this was being orchestrated.

  15. Ian Wragg
    November 8, 2017

    And with the collapse of the Soviet Union we get the EU. Staffed largely by ex communists and modelled on the same lines.
    Unelected, undemocratic and corrupt. The Brussels elite with their special tax rates and astronomic pension payouts.
    Just give Juncker and company a defense force and watch it be used to suppress any ooo

    1. Ian Wragg
      November 8, 2017

      Sorry phone froze.
      To suppress any dissent.

  16. Yossarion
    November 8, 2017

    Though Merkel was born in Hamburg and moved to the east with Her father, wonder what Her Fathers politics were to make that move?.

    1. formula57
      November 8, 2017

      He was a clergyman and was sent East by his church!

  17. Ron jenkins
    November 8, 2017

    “I noted that even the most ardent pro Communists amongst the intelligentsia usually opted to stay safely living in the freer West”.
    Exactly. Serving in H.M.forces in West Germany in the 60s’ it was noticeable that the whilst there were constant attempts to escape from the delights of East Germany there were not many in the other direction.Perhaps the thought of being on a waiting list for a couple of decades before acquiring a Trabant was enough to put off most of the intelligentsia of the time.

  18. Iain Gill
    November 8, 2017

    There was a lot wrong with British society then too (indeed it’s hardly perfect now).
    I don’t think we should look at these things in a sanctimonious way. We have had our own uprisings, Wat Tyler and so on. Indeed, we have many rebellions, including from within our own armed forces, which were only stopped because our ruling class were able to send in more troops to squash them. We have had troops on the streets putting down civilians trying to rise up.
    I prefer to think of these things as the strength of individual freedoms and choices when manifested as buying decisions and forcing businesses to act and change to meet consumers needs is on balance a whole lot better than state controlled command and control style organisations. But on that we are on weak ground too as currently over 50% of our earnings are spent and controlled by the state largely in a top down nanny state knows best way. We even support the disaster of a health system we have which even modern-day Russia would laugh at as obviously not the way to do things.
    So, I think we should learn from all of this with humility.

  19. Bert Young
    November 8, 2017

    The Tsars were simply replaced by autocratic / dictator like regimes . Stalin epitomised control from the centre and instigated torture and imprisonment for all those who dared oppose him in any way . This type of approach has been ingrained in the leaderships that have followed Stalin and , even today , opposition to the centre has been subject to severe jail terms .

    The one thing that has always been noticeable with the Russians I have met is their sense of humour . Cracking a joke with them always went down well and revealed a likeness it was easy to get on with . I sincerely wish we would open our gates more widely to the Russians ; we all would benefit from a stronger friendship with them .

    1. Mitchel
      November 9, 2017

      The crucial importance of central control has been understood by Russian leaders for many centuries-ever since Mstislav the Great divided the country amongst his sons and the resulting principalities were picked off one by one by the Mongols in the 13th century,giving rise to two centuries of tribute-paying vassalage to the Horde -“the Mongol Yoke”.

      Gorbachev’s PM,whose name I can’t remember,warned him that with his democratising reforms he was not just getting rid of Stalinism but a thousand years of Russian history.Mr Putin has restored the “power vertical”.

  20. percy openshaw
    November 8, 2017

    A broadly accurate comment regarding communism – especially with regard to the fate of the workers – both industrial and agricultural; as you say, such freedom as they had begun to enjoy under the Tsars was taken away again – communism returned them, along with everyone else, to serfdom. However, I should like to add three points. First, the crimes of communism arise directly and explicitly from its theories, which the communists themselves deliberately confuse with their supposed “ultimate aims”. Whilst the alleged goal is freedom, justice and liberty the theories clearly state that attaining these goods involves murderous dictatorship. It cannot be emphasised enough that communism is no more than a reversion to the worst sort of feudal society, complete with an unaccountable monarch (the “general secretary”) and a priestly caste – the ideologues and literary hacks willing to churn out propaganda. Second, the Tsarist state was in process of reform. You should not consign Alexander II or even poor, feeble, short sighted Nicholas II into the same obloquy as Alexander III or Nicholas I. The last Emperor, moreover, was our ally and fought gallantly against German aggression; it was shameful to abandon him to his fate at the revolutionaries’ already bloody hands. Had there been no war, Russia would most likely have continued the benign economic development set in train by the last two generations of Tsarist ministers – skilled, devoted and intelligent men such as Stolypin, Witte and Kokovtsov. Finally, I should like to use this thread to complain, bitterly, against our modern arts institutions, including the BBC, for the way in which they have chosen to mark the October coup d’Ă©tat as something noble, if only in intention. It was not. 1917 brought to power men and ideologies every bit as vicious as murderous as those which captured Germany in 1933. Instead of killing on racial grounds, they slaughtered people on grounds of “class” – an even more vapid and unmeaning category. I urge you, Mr Redwood, to take the BBC to task for its weaselly insinuations that supporting communism is in any way a morally acceptable option.

  21. margaret
    November 8, 2017

    The problem with any movement is that they want increasing power whether it is in the form of subjugating themselves or elevating themselves. Freedom as you have said before is precious , but there are so many degrees of freedom ,the concept is impossible to measure. To be employed is to give up freedom for the sake of a firm , to have a firm is to abide by rules and dedicate yourselves to not only producing but providing staff wages. To live by a religion is to accommodate the social rules of that religion . People like to belong but paradoxically want to be free. The’ Hunger Games’ are a typical anthropological experiment dramatized on the box.
    etc ed

  22. Tabulazero
    November 8, 2017

    Foreign Secretary Johnson through his crass carelessness has further endangered Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British citizen currently imprisoned in Iran.

    How is still remotely possible that Boris Johnson still be Foreign Secretary after that, Mr Redwood ?

    1. formula57
      November 8, 2017

      As is often the case, we can look for explanation to the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: “The foreign office is not there to look after British citizens, it is there to look after British interests”.

    2. NickC
      November 8, 2017

      Tabulazero through his crass carelessness has further endangered the UK by attempting to overturn the biggest national referendum we’ve ever had. And by his appeasement of the EU has increased the likelihood that we will continue to be imprisoned within the corrupt, dysfunctional, anti-democratic EU empire.

    3. Richard1
      November 8, 2017

      It does seem he has made an error, through having been misinformed, and he has now corrected it. But isn’t the opprobrium heaped on Boris rather odd – isn’t it really the Iranian regime that all Boris’s critics should be focusing on, for holding an innocent woman in prison?

      The real story here is it is looking like Donald Trump has it right on Iran, and those such as Jack Straw who spent years sucking up to and appeasing this unpleasant regime were wrong.

    4. English Pensioner
      November 8, 2017

      And Priti Patel is likely to be fired because she talked to the Israeli prime minister. At Boris’ request?

    5. Bob
      November 8, 2017

      Remain side lost the referendum vote so now they target leave side ministers.

      1. Tabulazero
        November 8, 2017

        No need, Bob. The remain side only has to count the points as leave side ministers demonstrate once more the outstanding breadth of their incompetence.

        I’ll grant you that it is at least entertaining. Which wheel do you think is going to come off next ?

  23. acorn
    November 8, 2017

    I have no trouble with the political passing of the Conservative Party any years ago. United Kingdom deserves better. A way has to be found to involve the people in the government.

    How the **** do the people get rid of this government? How did we get the most incompetent and incapable administration ever? Because, a two centuries out of date, so called, democracy, allows an elected dictatorship to have a Prime Minister – elected in just one constituency out of 650 – to have more untrammelled executive power,than the President of the United States!!!

    1. Peter Parsons
      November 8, 2017

      There is a better way to involve the people in the government, but the politicians don’t want it. Give us all a vote worth using and the politicians will have to listen to all of us. While most of us are electorally irrelevant, we will continue to be mostly ignored. Electoral and constitutional reform can’t come soon enough.

      “Strong and stable”. Need I say more?

    2. Edward2
      November 8, 2017

      I think you know the answer acorn.
      Every few years we vote in secret in an election.
      The electorate decide.
      Was it a dictatorship when the electorate voted in Labour as the winning party?

      1. Peter Parsons
        November 9, 2017

        Most of the electorate don’t decide though. Two thirds of the votes in 2017 had no effect on the outcome. Most of us are irrelevant and therefore get ignored.

    3. NickC
      November 8, 2017

      Acorn, Well I can’t remember voting for (or against) Juncker, Tusk, Schultz, or any of the others who really rule us, or their parties if they have any. At least I had the opportunity to vote for or against this government that you want to get rid of.

      We could of course have more direct democracy – notably missing in the EU. As is any democracy, of course (and, no, your fig leaf parliament doesn’t count). So we could have had a referendum on signing the Lisbon Treaty (aka the EU Constitution – and again, no, they were not different) as promised.

      We could have a referendum on whether to trade with the EU on the same basis we trade with the rest of the world already, or appease our enemies again as in 1972 and become merely a region of a European empire – ruled by Charlemagne the Junk.

      1. acorn
        November 9, 2017

        Frankly, as things stand at the moment, I would prefer the EU to be controlling the UK economy in preference to what we have in the UK at present.

        Have you actually studied the hierarchy of the election process in the EU? Starting with the election of 73 MEPs to the EU Parliament. How the European Council and the Council Of Ministers, get elected from member states individual election processes?

        Nothing happens in the EU unless at least one of the directly or indirectly elected bodies says it can happen.

    4. Daniel Thomas
      November 8, 2017

      That’s the problem with British politics in a nutshell.

      Comment of the day.

    5. libertarian
      November 8, 2017

      acorn

      Totally agree with you. We do not have anything remotely like a democratic system in this country.

      We ought to have a direct vote for the position of Prime Minister.

  24. Man of Kent
    November 8, 2017

    A statistic that has stuck with me :

    ‘During the 20th Century Russians killed other Russians at a rate of 1000 per day .

    36.5 million in total’

    This does not include the Russians killed by the Germans in WW2

    1. Mitchel
      November 8, 2017

      People might not be aware that the Russian Civil War -a war of annihilation that was a precursor to WWII-which followed the revolutions may alone have cost c13m lives in terms of battle casualties,massacres,pogroms and the dislocation effects -famine,disease,etc

      It never ceases to amaze me how after the losses of WWI,the Civil War,and the purges,terror and famines of the interwar years,they found the strength to fight WWII and then after the unimaginable losses there incurred,picked themselves up again and re-built.

  25. alan jutson
    November 8, 2017

    Off topic

    I see it is being reported that Priti Patel is being recalled back to the UK today.

    What on earth was she thinking of, holding talks in Israel without getting anything cleared up front..

    Yet another one in self destructive mode, shame, she promised so much at the start, but has completely failed to get foreign aid (for which she is responsible) under the microscope and sorted.

    Will it be another reason to get another remainer in the cabinet.?

    1. Peter Parsons
      November 8, 2017

      It is reported she planed to use foreign aid budget money to fund the Israeli army.

      I support the UK having a foreign aid budget and I support the 0.7% pledge, but it is there to improve the lives of ordinary people in developing countries, helping to improve their situation and develop economically, it is not there to fund foreign militaries.

    2. Nig l
      November 8, 2017

      Interesting that the Jewish Chronicle based on impeccable sources is saying that HMG had agreed a joint aid project with Israel in Africa but the announcement was delayed because of internal politics, the FCO saying its toes had been ridden on (poor diddums)

      Will we ever get (near) the truth?

    3. Chris
      November 8, 2017

      Yes, Alan, I believe they will put in another Remainer. With regard to your comment about Patel and foreign aid, the situation is still quite inexcusable but a comment has been made that MPs do not want to “revisit” the issue of foreign aid. That is where they are many miles apart from the electorate, even so far as a distant planet, and that is quite ludicrous. These examples of “foreign aid madness” are reported in the Press this morning:

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5060343/Priti-Patel-s-overwhelming-ambition-crush-her.html#ixzz4xpTcqkMH
      “…..And an analysis of more than 70,000 financial transactions revealed recently that spending on consultants by her department had doubled to a staggering ÂŁ1billion a year since 2012.
      Ten British companies received almost half of the funds. One British think-tank quoted ÂŁ10,306 to write a single blog post and another received ÂŁ23,000 in taxpayers’ money to write a two-page policy brief. Two consultants were separately handed ÂŁ12,000 to produce a six-page ‘how-to’ note on disaster resilience….”

      1. Chris
        November 8, 2017

        An afterthought, Mr Redwood, perhaps the money would have been better spent rewarding you with ÂŁ10,000 for one of your blog posts? You certainly seem to demonstrate more intelligence, common sense and expertise than some of these think tanks.

        1. Chris
          November 9, 2017

          As my earlier comment was not posted (about the sums involved regarding waste at the DfID e.g. over ÂŁ10,000 apparently paid to one think tank to produce a blog post) my PS/reply to it, beginning “An aferthought” will not make any sense.
          Article about waste and worse with regard to foreign aid was in D Mail yesterday.

    4. a-tracy
      November 8, 2017

      Apparently, everyone in parliament agrees that they need new rules and regulations to agree how to act with each other at work and out of work to avoid potentially awarding favour and promotion to willing members of the opposite sex or bringing their political party into disrepute and allowing themselves to be whipped to vote in a certain way because of recorded indiscretions they wouldn’t want coming out. No one in any party can be assumed to have sufficient common sense to not put themselves in compromising positions.

      BUT

      When someone makes a mistake there is an immediate cry for their head on a platter without going through due process, proper disciplinary procedures and our labour party are the ones crying out the most to go against those rules and regulations they demand from British business when handling disciplinary action. We all know how much it cost us as a nation when Ed Balls went against employment regulations and we ended up with a massive payout of compensation because of his error. Nadhim Zahawi MP gave an impressive interview to C4 yesterday and I’d like to know how the code of behaviour is explained to our newly awarded Ministers, who should have advised Ms Patel of the proper procedure when on holiday if visiting abroad, if she should have known better and it was clearly communicated then sad because I like her, perhaps she has to be demoted this time, in order to undertake further off the job training to prepare her better for a Ministerial position in the future, unless there is sufficient evidence she wasn’t correctly informed of the procedural requirements of this post. When new Ministers are given their jobs, how are they trained on the code of conduct, what to report, to whom and when, is it clear, is there something similar a works handbook or are we relying on ‘common sense’ which businesses are told is something you should never do.

    5. graham1946
      November 8, 2017

      Boris will be next. Brexiteers being cleared out ready for the big sell out.

      If she does appoint another Remainer (or 2) it will be proof positive.

    6. stred
      November 8, 2017

      Soubry and her Labour Remainer friends seem to be doing everything they can to get Boris and Priti sacked and you can bet they won’t be replaced by Brexiteers if it happens.
      Boris seems to have been talking to his Iranian opposite number and been given the impression that their accusation was that the lady had been slung in prison for teaching journalism and he was trying to argue that this was not illegal in Iran, but did not make this clear. He has been doing as much as he can to get her out and if the Iranians still think teaching journalists is the problem, then his words will make no difference.
      Priti seems to have become involved in informal meetings after one became another and another. It sounds like a typical Jewish party. The Jewish Chronicle is saying Bert of the Foreign Office was there just after she had met the PMso they do not appear to be bothered about it until now.. What was she supposed to say when welcomed, offered to be shown hospitals and that Nettanyahu was coming? No thanks, I must get permission, can you put him off!

  26. sm
    November 8, 2017

    Communism was/is rarely about the good of the ordinary man and woman, but simply about transferring power to another elite group, only in a much more ruthless way than notional democracies do it.

    Sorry about the cynicism, it’s engendered by the current success of the Government’s Kamikaze wing.

    1. Mitchel
      November 8, 2017

      Despite the verbiage,the Soviet Union was never communist(a system in which the state is supposed to “wither away”).Lenin was first and foremost a revolutionary who wanted to sweep the old order away -“theory is not dogma merely a guide to action”.Marx left no guide as to how to actually manage a country,so they made it up as they went along.Arguably rural Russia was actually more communist under the late Tsars,where peasants,after the abolition of serfdom,held property in common,rather than under Stalin whose collective farms were effectively a return to feudalism instituted to generate the capital for industrialisation.

      The notion of private property in Russia has always been different to the West;instituted capriciously by Ivan the Terrible and more formally by Peter the Great,rank and property “ownership”depended on loyalty and service to the state.Something evident in Mr Putin’s treatment of the Yeltsin era oligarchs in more recent times!

    2. Judas
      November 8, 2017

      As a social theory Communism is pretty good, not requiring a day off each week on your knees and grovelling before a superior. It is Jack and Jill Citizen who are too corrupt, greedy, power-seeking, murderous and mean to allow it to work as designed.

  27. Duncan
    November 8, 2017

    When the Conservative Party legislates to protect and indeed actively promotes the individual’s fundamental right to go about his private business and express his views without threat from either the state or indeed other individuals it does not and cannot claim to be the party of freedom

    I despise Labour and its collectivist zeal. It conceals its authoritarian soul behind slogans declaring liberty, equality and the liberation of man from an invented oppressive minority. Its idiotic binary politics betrays the absolute complexity of the real world. They make sustained attempts to infect the soul and indeed the intellect that affords them political and social control. They are disgusting in their intent

    Unfortunately we have a Conservative Party who now appears to recognise the social and political control afforded to them by the use of liberal left, identity politics. This was seen during the EU referendum campaign. This party, my party capitulated to the left and exposed such a capitulation to the public with their appalling behaviour

    Well, both parties can wed themselves to policies that increase state power but at some point the public will wake up and realise they have been duped

    I firmly believe the abolition of cash as a means of exchange will herald a new era of state oppression and interference in all our lives.

    Ideas can be dangerous but a state operating as a vested interest and with the sole aim of protecting such a position is a threat of far greater potency.

  28. Jason Wells
    November 8, 2017

    Agreed- but I would go one further and add that we had our own faults at this particular turbulent time when we conscripted millions of our young men into the army to go and fight in the trenches where hundreds of thousands were slaughtered. We have to remember the King, the Kaiser and the Czar were all related, in fact they were cousins, and millions died. By the end the Czar and his family were wiped out, but the Kaiser who largely started it all walked over the border into the Netherlands just one day before the armistice in 1918 where he was granted asylum- and where he lived until 1940- there was going to be no international criminal court for him- It was imperial notions in the upper classes that brought all of this about but in the end it was the poor people who suffered.

  29. BOF
    November 8, 2017

    And we have Corbyn, McDonnell and Momentum who would impose that system on the UK under the cover of ‘fairness and justice’.

    There many people in the country who have never learned the history of Marxism and cannot remember the sheer horror that it brought to Russia and Eastern Europe. They should all visit ‘The Museum of Terror’ in Budapest.

  30. Chris
    November 8, 2017

    With Marxism, the end justifies the means, hence appalling acts, as you refer to above, but also currently we have the stream of dubious actions, carried out with an arrogance that is quite bewildering. I refer to the trio who quite brazenly went to Brussels apparently to try to subvert democracy. Quentin Letts tweet about that is interesting:
    “Patel erred with freelance diplomacy, what about Privy Counsellors Clarke, Clegg and Adonis who travelled to Brussels?”.

  31. MikeW
    November 8, 2017

    There is no such thing as a good revolution..when things become so bad it is because our leaders or the sysyem has become so bad, so corrupt, so unbearable that there is nothing left for people to do. Unfortunately revolution can often lead to even worse forms of government as happened in Russia. There is not too much wrong with communism if it were carried out as per Marx etc as an ideal for some people to live by, the only problem as always in these cases Stalinism got in the way and brought with it nepotism depotism and dictatorship. In fact there was little difference between stalin and later hitler..they were both dictators..a very human failing that rears it’s ugly head quite too often even today. We should remember that when honest and honourable politics fails there is always the danger that one of these “isms” will creep back in to fill the void..can happen anytime anywhere..just look at what is happening in Turkey- this is why i believe the EU is so necessary for Europe..my opinion.

  32. Rien Huizer
    November 8, 2017

    Corbyn’s Brexit would not result in Minford’s sweatshop (rhetorical flourish but a not implausible outcome) but in a “closed shop”. Socialism in one country for the economic history buffs. How many people would consciously vote for either? It depends on the spin and voter irrationality. As you may know, voter irrationality is a myth..so spin should be a lot better than what is on display now.

  33. Dante
    November 8, 2017

    Nazi Germany found it easy to ally with the USSR and a year or so later the UK found it easy too. But the leadership and ideology in the meantime of the USSR had not changed a bit.

    1. formula57
      November 8, 2017

      True, although it is instructive to recall that upon the Nazi invasion of Russia Churchill said: –

      “No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism for the last twenty-five years. I will unsay no word I have spoken about it. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding. The past, with its crimes, its follies, its tragedies, flashes away.
 The Russian danger is therefore our danger, and the danger of the United States, just as the cause of any Russian fighting for hearth and house is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe.”

  34. Doug Powell
    November 8, 2017

    JR,
    It is so easy to be righteous and moralistic many years after any revolution. One has to have lived in the times to fully understand the passion of a demoralised and defeated populace to demand seismic change. Those in control, however, will never relinquish their power. Therefore a revolution can only be achieved by strong, single minded, usually brutal individuals, who have no compunction about purging the old order, otherwise there will be no change.

    For example, imagine Henry VIII being in charge of Brexit – you can be sure the Remoaners would have been burned at the stake by now!

    Reply Henry VIII handled the break with Rome by outing through Acts of Parliament. He did not burn Catholics.

    1. Sparkler
      November 8, 2017

      Well somebody did in Guy Fawkes. He didn’t suddenly die via internal combustion after eating red chillies.

      1. zorro
        November 8, 2017

        No, that was James 1!!!

        Henry VIII was always a Catholic – he just fell out with Rome over authority. It was ‘Bloody Mary’ who decided to burn people at the stake….

        zorro

    2. formula57
      November 8, 2017

      Revolutions typically are about the circulation of elites.

    3. forthurst
      November 8, 2017

      ….that was the Catholic Bloody Mary who burned the (Treaty of) Rome Protestants, so beware of the counter-coup!

    4. Richard1
      November 8, 2017

      no but he burned a few protestants. he was a convert to the first brexit

    5. Ed Mahony
      November 8, 2017

      ‘Therefore a revolution can only be achieved by strong, single minded, usually brutal individuals, who have no compunction about purging the old order, otherwise there will be no change’

      – And losing their souls in the process, becoming monstrous, psychopathic robots like Strelnikov in Boris Pasternak’s brilliant anti-Communist novel, Dr Zhivago. Strelnikov commits suicide in the end.

      Yuri Zhivago although flawed (commits adultery) represents, to a degree, the idea of human individualism (in a positive way), the poetic, the soul and the spiritual (in the tradition of Orthodox Christianity) which Communism seeks to stamp out.

    6. Ed Mahony
      November 8, 2017

      Yes to change. But controlled, sensible change/reform ..

    7. Handbags
      November 8, 2017

      The point is – that Marxism/Communism doesn’t work.

      How many millions killed in China under Mao – how many under Pol Pot?

      Knowing the consequences why do a small vocal minority still bang on about it?

      I can only assume that, despite their mask of democracy, they actually want to kill ‘those in control’ as you put it (i.e. anyone they don’t like).

      And ordinary people know that – they know perfectly well that Marxism, Communism and Socialism are disguises to mask something much darker.

    8. alte fritz
      November 8, 2017

      The Russian people did not demand Bolshevism. It was imposed by a revolution against the revolution. Nascent democracy was crushed.

      1. zorro
        November 8, 2017

        Indeed, it was mainly atheistic Bolsheviks who imposed the Red Terror. They were out for revenge against the Tsar and his allies….

        zorro

    9. LenD
      November 8, 2017

      Wrong JR..Henry was responsible for destroying churches and abbeys up and down the country..he and his cohorts destroyed murdered executed anyone who got in the way..they and his immediate decendents then went into Ireland and murdered on such a a scale that some still remember it as genocide.

      1. LenD
        November 8, 2017

        Not ireland..I think it was the Scottish rough wooing

    10. Lifelogic
      November 8, 2017

      Perhaps not burned at the stake, but they might at least have the decency to shut up after they lost (and this despite the government sloped pitch, the propaganda leaflet , all the larger parties being pro remain and the pathetic punishment budget threats from IHT ratter G Osborne).

      At the very least they could try to come up with a single sensible argument for remain. I have heard none.

  35. forthurst
    November 8, 2017

    The Russian Revolution was in February 1917 which led to the overthrow of the Czar; the Bolshevik coup d’etat was in November one hundred years ago. The Bolsheviks were a criminal gang of mass murderers, some of whom assumed Russia names to hide their foreignness. By abolishing the private property of the Russians, they were able to help themselves to the spoils; by setting up the Cheka, they were able to torture and murder at will, a process of decapitation of the intelligentsia in order more easily to control the leaderless proletariat. JR queries how the outside world could be fooled by a false narrative into believing in the nobility of their endeavour. The answer of course is just like today, when similar people to the Bolsheviks are engineering the destruction of the West with mass immigration, feminism, transgenderism etc, a critical mass of people can be brainwashed by a corrupted media (fake news) and cajolled by political correctness, a Bolshevik term, into accepting that what is being done is progress. Just like then, the Bolsheviks believed that through the Comintern they would spread their tyranny abroad; just like today, the Brussels regime which promotes all the tenets of the modern Bolshevism, endeavours to spread its tentacles and hold its victims through bribery and blackmail and the promise of Utopia.

  36. Norman
    November 8, 2017

    The same lawless anti-establishment, antidemocratic vibes are beginning to manifest in the West. Once again the ‘smart’ set think its cool to espouse totalitarianism, but many will be the first to lose their heads.
    The recent rash of revelations here at home of ‘off-shore’ behaviours (plural), whatever their factual legitimacy, are symptomatic of a cynical, hypocritical, self-destructive ill-will, designed to undermine the walls of the establishment; and with its seditious strategy of ‘divide-and-rule’, smooth the path of the progressive liberal left momentum.
    What saved ‘this Sceptred Isle’ in the past? The Reformation (the Bible in our native tongue, and the Gospel of grace applied in many ordinary lives); the faithfulness of the Marian martyrs to that end; the Puritans (200o of whom lost their Anglican livings); the subsequent glorious Revolution under William and Anne; the Wesleyan Revival, and the outworking of these things over the next 2-300 years.
    It will take more than Brexit to save us this time: and for our beloved friends in America, more than Trump. Albeit, in the merciful scheme of things, these are provisional, ideological steps in the right direction – resonant with our respective histories. As in a hologram, they are there to see, if you have regenerate eyes. We are at another ‘Dunkirk’: it’s deadly serious: the parallels with pre-revolution Russia are there to see. And just as there are no atheists on the battle field, it is time to pray!

  37. British Spy
    November 8, 2017

    One wonders what Russia and Eastern Europe would look like had there not been a Russian revolution. Also western Europe. One might think to study this question, country by country, alliance by alliance, population number by population number. Don’t go there.
    The Russians are supposed to have a proverb “Fire one revolver bullet into the past, artillery fire will be returned.”

    1. British Spy
      November 8, 2017

      I do not recall ever seeing a novel on what Europe and the world would look like had Hitler never come to power. Our writers are cowards. It is not that they dare not write it: they dare not think it.

  38. Stephen Berry
    November 8, 2017

    ‘What’s the point of society?’, as Mrs Thatcher should have said. I maintain that it is to find better and more efficient ways of supplying human wants. In order to do this a society requires peace and stability. War and revolution provide the opposite and Russia got a double dosage of them in 1914 and 1917. By 1914, Russia was developing rapidly into a modern industrial nation with the beginnings of a constituent assembly. It’s possible that without the war, Russia would have become a normal constitutional monarchy. Instead, it went down the huge false trail of Bolshevism.

    The first half of the 20th century saw the intellectuals abandon the Classical Liberalism of the Enlightenment in favour of various flavours of socialism. It is indeed strange that they did this and the effects in many countries have been disastrous. For instance, if we care to look at the official policy of the Labour Party in the 1930s and 1940s, it makes Corbyn appear quite right wing. The Attlee government of 1945-50, so admired by the intellectuals, nationalised 20 per cent of the British economy with consequences we all know about.

  39. Denis Cooper
    November 8, 2017

    Off-topic, this chap should be at least reprimanded:

    http://news.sky.com/story/nhs-boss-350m-brexit-promise-must-be-honoured-11118018

    “NHS England’s chief executive will call on the Government to use the Budget to honour Vote Leave’s pledge to give more money to the health service.

    In a strikingly political intervention, Simon Stevens is not expected to call for the full ÂŁ350m a week – or ÂŁ18.2bn a year – to be passed to the NHS, but will suggest failure to provide significantly more money would betray those who voted Leave with the NHS in mind.”

    Firstly he should concentrate on his assigned job of running the NHS in England rather than misusing his public office to make any “strikingly political intervention”.

    Secondly he is apparently unaware that we have not yet left the EU – that will be in March 2019 unless the Remoaners can find a way to prevent it happening, very likely relying on the unelected legislators-for-life in the House of Lords to block it, fervent democrats that they are – and that moreover the government has already clearly offered to continue making payments into the EU budget after we have left the EU until the end of the EU’s current multi-annual financial framework, but that even that generosity has not been enough for his greedy grasping friends in the EU who have been clawing increasing sums of money from UK taxpayers ever since we joined the EEC in 1973, with the exception of just one year which by complete coincidence happened to be the same year that we had a referendum on whether to stay in the EEC …

  40. Epikouros
    November 8, 2017

    It is strange that despite the dangers of socialism well documented in places like the USSR Cuba and Venezuela many today hanker to have it practised in the UK and other Western nations. Certainly we already have elements of it and call it a mixed economy although those with the wit to observe it objectively realise it that it does more harm than good and does not deliver that for which it is intended.

    Those who actively champion replacing free market capitalism the greatest driver of liberty, prosperity and social justice yet devised with socialism despite the evidence that it is dangerous to all three of those objectives purport they can practice it in a way that does not harm but bestows benefit. They are of course deluding themselves and unfortunately at the present time the majority of voters in the UK who believe them. If they gain their way then it will be similar to turkeys voting for Christmas.

  41. Dennis Zoff
    November 8, 2017

    JR

    Not quite sure why you are presenting this well-understood historical lesson, interesting though it may be to some less informed individuals, other than perhaps to take a pot shot at Jeremy Corbyn….

    …is there another underlying rationale for your comment?

  42. Fedupsoutherner
    November 8, 2017

    O/t. I see the head of the NHS is demanding ÂŁ350m a week for the NHS as depicted on the campaign bus. What don’t they understand about the fact that we haven’t actually left yet? All the time we are still paying monumental sums to the EU where and his fi they think the money will come from? Pathetic!

    1. Anonymous
      November 8, 2017

      You have to admit – it was a bloody stupid slogan and so unecessary.

      1. NickC
        November 8, 2017

        There was no promise to pay on the side of the bus; the slogan was “Let’s fund the NHS instead”. That is similar to saying “Quit your 20 a day habit, and you can fund a foreign holiday instead”.

        The Remains have only highlighted this – pretending that the slogan made a specific promise about a specific amount – to cover up their lies in their failed Project Doom. Tactics.

      2. rose
        November 8, 2017

        It was a brilliant slogan and has been talked about most days since. People didn’t realize just how much of their money was going to Brussels and now they do. No wonder the remainiacs keep trying to deny it, but the more they deny it, the more they draw attention to it – and their own lying.

        How could a man in that responsible position talk about a promise? A pledge from the government? And when we are still in the EU paying through the nose? You expect lesser fry to be that deceitful, but not the biggest employer in Europe.

    2. Ian williams
      November 8, 2017

      Correct – isn’t it ironic the ones who now want ÂŁ350m per week for the NHS are the same ones who want to send another ÂŁ100bn to EU at the same time – stop sending money to the EU then we can decide in Parliament how we spend our own money!

  43. Dan H.
    November 8, 2017

    The one good point about Marx and his idiocy is that during his life, the man made quite a few predictions about how the future would unfold, predicting for instance that the industrial societies would undergo revolutions throwing the top end of society out of power.

    None of Karl Marx’s predictions came to pass. Not a single thing he predicted would occur has actually happened, which rather leads to the thought that Marx really wasn’t very good at predicting politics or sociology. Furthermore, we also have the historical examples of what happens when various flavours of Socialism are tried on national scales.

    Germany tried National Socialism, which was an economic disaster not helped by having an insane and not very bright man in chage of its government.

    The Soviet Union tried communism and a command economy, foisting both of these on a number of vassal states in Eastern Europe. This command economy meant that in effect, nobody in any country had the least idea of what any particular good was actually worth on the open market, which made trading even between themselves difficult and trade with Capitalist, Free Market states a near-impossible nightmare.

    China also tried this top-down command economy, and gave it up as soon as minor outbreaks of capitalist behaviour on its collective farms demonstrated that a free market system was infinitely more flexible and better at managing an economy.

    The Soviet Union eventually collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions, ably assisted by being persuaded to engage in an arms race it could not hope to win.

    Communism and command economies never work, because the command system never has enough information or accurate enough information to operate efficiently. “Proper” Socialism is really a very, very difficult thing to achieve and one which takes a huge amount of ongoing hard work to keep running. Capitalism by contrast needs merely a firm and impartial rule of law, plus some high-level guidance and otherwise runs its self.

    Now, why this is not forcibly pointed out in schools I am not sure. Do we really want generation upon generation of voters to carry on making the very same mistakes over and over and over again?

  44. Chris
    November 8, 2017

    Slightly O/T but this sort of action by the EU should confirm to us that we need to walk away, and soon. I would hardly call this a shock as per the Express headline. Anyone with any knowledge of the EU and how they “negotiate” will know that they bully, prevaricate, demand every more, and eventually win. Please Mrs May, do not play their game. We have the upper hand and we need to use our power to demonstrate it:

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/876957/Brexit-talks-deadlock-Angela-Merkel-Macron-Germany-France-phase-two
    Merkel and Macron’s shock BREXIT BLOCK: Germany and France demand HALT on talks
    GERMANY and France are putting together a shock report in a bid to stop Brexit negotiations proceeding to phase two, it has been revealed.

  45. G
    November 8, 2017

    Off topic but I just heard Anna Sorbet on the radio. What a ghastly woman. Patronising beyond belief! So, she is absolutely fed up with you (as a so called hardliner)… Dear oh dear.

  46. Denis Cooper
    November 8, 2017

    Just to point out that there is no evidence that the referendum vote to leave the EU has made people in the UK happier overall.

    On the other hand there is evidence in the ONS charts reproduced here:

    https://order-order.com/2017/11/07/britain-happier-despite-brexit/

    that the pre-existing trend of slowly rising happiness has not been significantly disrupted by that vote, despite all the weeping and gnashing of teeth by Remoaners.

    Just as some other pre-existing trends have not been disrupted by the vote, for example the pre-existing trends of sterling falling in external value which can be seen in the charts on page 24 of the recent House of Commons Library report linked here:

    http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8127

  47. Lifelogic
    November 8, 2017

    Why on earth is May ordering Priti Patel to cut short her trip & return a few hours early? What on earth is the desperate urgency? Far, far more important things need to be done, cancel HS2, sort out the dire NHS, cut taxes, cut the green crap …..

    What strange priorities T May seems to have has she gone even more bonkers?

    It is Hammond who will be the disaster for this government I suspect – we will find out in his budget in two weeks time – the noises coming out suggest he to is barking up the wrong tree.

    1. Lifelogic
      November 8, 2017

      Is she trying to give the impression of childish, petulant, vindictiveness? That is surely how she & number 10 now look.

      1. zorro
        November 8, 2017

        if the cap fits….

        zorro

  48. Anonymous
    November 8, 2017

    We are in process of a leftist revolution here. BBC is full on. Radio 2 Jeremy Vine seems given over to left wing indocrination be it greenism, anti capitalism or unopposed “Thatcher was evil !” like the contributor’s rant in today’s reprisal of Ska music regarding the regeneration of Coventry joined by a psychology lecturer. There was a big rant yesterday from a professional leftist too.

    There appears to be a concerted effort on the railway to challenge an elected government by means of co-ordinated industrial action. I doubt the membership are fully aware as they think they are supporting local issues – but the RMT is adamant that Mrs May no longer has a mandate

    1. Ivanhoe and Rebecca
      November 9, 2017

      The Remoaner Establishment has tried Project Fear, Amendments in the House, delays demanding more information, Blair and Major exumed and electrified into spasmodic life, claims of sexual impropriety of Brexiteers and others dating to post Norman Conquest and now dismissal for talking to Jewish people without permission of the Lady of the Manor.
      It’s hard being a democrat in medieval Britain

    2. Chris
      November 9, 2017

      “We are in the process of a leftist revolution….”
      Yes, I agree Anonymous, but tragically they are being given a very easy ride. Where is the rapid rebuttal unit of government that Denis so rightly calls for? The problem all stems from, in my mind, the fact that our current Cons. government are currently chasing the Left further left, adopting this or that policy in the hope of wooing Corbyn voters. What stupidity, and what huge damage is being inflicted on the Conservative Party itself – its raison d’etre. People will vote for the real thing i.e. Corbyn, rather than a weak, pale imitator of a Party which seems to have no principles, nor sound ideology.

  49. Jason wells
    November 8, 2017

    What’s the matter JR..don’t like what i have to say?

  50. PaulDirac
    November 8, 2017

    Off topic
    Kristalnacht, on this day in 7 November 1938 was the first international outing of Nazi Germany. The brown shirts raided, killed and abducted large number of Jewish German citizens,
    Bless the (forces that defeated Nazism ed)

  51. Briton
    November 8, 2017

    What this with Priti Patel!!!????
    . She is being pursued by Sky News in similar manner to that of OJ Simpson, from the air, from the ground, showing her journey at the airport, from the airport as though she is a murderess.
    When she gets to Downing Street, lets hope instead she takes over immediately from Mrs May and sacks on the spot, publicy outside the door of 10 Downing Street Amber Rudd who has disgraced us all.

    1. DaveM
      November 8, 2017

      Indeed, once again trial by media. If we had a PM who commanded loyalty and respect none of this would be happening. It seems our PM caves in to any pressure from anywhere. It’s almost getting to the point where May sacks – or accepts the resignation of – anyone Labour doesn’t approve of.

      DO something Mr Redwood!

    2. Beecee
      November 8, 2017

      It is a sad day for democracy when a Government runs at the beck and call of the media.

      Mrs May is proving a great disappointment and, as the CEO of UK PLC, has been promoted to her level of incompetence.

      Peters Principle is alive and well in Parliament!

      Oh dear!

    3. a-tracy
      November 9, 2017

      Briton, that’s exactly what I said to my Husband what on earth is this media pursuit following her car by air from the airport like a top criminal. This is like opening up Pandora’s box, every visit now of any MP on their holiday will be scrutinised. Will every misstep by a Minister result in calling for their heads on a platter for media amusement? How much of a slip up is to publically suspend a member and open up a trial by Media before that person even knows what they are accused of. Oh Dear!

  52. Mitchel
    November 8, 2017

    “Russian literature is so often the story of struggle…..”

    There was a delightful documentary on BBC4 last night about the life and tribulations of the writer,Boris Pasternak-“The Real Dr Zhivago”-(the film of which you can never see too many times imo) where his daughter-in-law came out with that most quintessential of Russian Orthodox sentiments -“We are mortal.Life obtains value through suffering”.But my goodness what wonderful artistic treasures that Russian suffering has given us to enjoy in the West.

    (Arts documentaries,esp on BBC4 are still things the BBC manage to do exceedingly well!)

  53. ale bro
    November 8, 2017

    communism is a much better system than the alternative available at the time in russia, i.e. feudalism.

    there was never any realistic prospect of russia changing from feudalism to a democratic system.

    1. NickC
      November 8, 2017

      Ale Bro, This is from a speech by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1975:

      “Let me remind you with what sort of system they started.

      The [Bolshevik socialist] system was installed by armed uprising.
      It dispersed the Constituent Assembly.
      It capitulated to Germany – the common enemy.
      It introduced execution without trial.
      It crushed workers’ strikes.
      It plundered the villagers to such an unbelievable extent that the peasants revolted, and when this happened it crushed the peasants in the bloodiest possible way.
      It shattered the Church.
      It reduced 20 provinces of our country to a condition of famine.

      Lenin, Stalin, even Khrushchev, were worse than the worst Czars for ordinary people.

      1. Mitchel
        November 9, 2017

        Those words,I believe,are taken from his Harvard Speech “Warning to the West”which did not go down well with the western liberal elite-if that is what they were called then -for it’s deeply conservative message.

        Everyone should read it;it is shockingly prescient about the moral decay of the West.A great man in his own lifetime,even greater today.

  54. a-tracy
    November 8, 2017

    Simon Stephen’s is being very provocative, we have not left the EU yet and have to give notice, this is getting beyond a joke now, if our senior representatives for the NHS can’t understand simple economics how are they in a job spending our money.

    1. Sir Joe Soap
      November 8, 2017

      It’s a wind-up.

      1. a-tracy
        November 8, 2017

        It is a wind up, how about this in return, how much of the NHS budget did they spend on this meeting/conference today, in accommodation and travel to get there, stop wasting our money and spend it on us not yourselves Mr Stephens, lets have an investigation on how much is spent on none clerical expenses.

        Plus C4 news Sarah Wollaston I think her name is agreeing with the presenter ‘the people’ have lost trust, it’s just made up news, where and who are they questioning I’ve never been asked, I actually see improvements in the NHS in our local surgery, in out of hours treatments, in clinical investigations and treatment and I’m one of the biggest complainers if things aren’t going well with the NHS.

        John, your colleagues need to step up now, the backbencher need to call a meeting we want leaver replacements, prominent experienced MPs to start a rebuttal and confidence movement.

    2. Don't make me leave
      November 9, 2017

      I thought he had emigrated to Australia.

  55. ian
    November 8, 2017

    The politicians have had their own revolution and yes it a bad one, in my area there were 4 hospitals, now one and a half/ had 3 fire stations now left with one, had doctors as well, nearly all gone now. I do not go downtown now because of beggars and the homeless. It getting to the stage where i will have to move out frank to bankers, councillors, politicians who rule the country. As you all know by now gel is going to win the next election with the start of a new revolution while old rages on. Can not see it getting any better in the future, just waiting for next crash to finish off what left, like everybody else.

  56. Ian Stafford
    November 8, 2017

    The commemoration of the October 1917 putsch is being portrayed as a revolution against Tzarism. It was not. The Tzar had already been deposed by Kerenky’s March 1917 social-democrat revolution. he kept the Duma and did not murder the Tsar. Lenin’s October 1917 outside this revolution by military force against the government as they were meeting. As the Tzarist state was falling apart as a result of the War, it might not have been possible for it to be stopped, but the Lennin putsch was something which might not have happened but for the Germans. We should be looking more at the first revolution and not conflating the two 1917 overthrows.

  57. Garretg
    November 8, 2017

    The whole world is in turmoil and here we have JR throwing out that old chestnut communism vs capitalism..well i hardly think it matters much since all forms of politics and politicians from every quarter have proved to be such a big disappointment. It’s hard to know what drives individuals into this kind of work and not into other professions? The only thing i can think of is that to a large extent it is self serving..best suited to bootboys, educated bootboys, but nevertheless bootboys

  58. Sheeperior Intellect
    November 9, 2017

    Cambridge University students have discovered through extensive experimentation of unknown duration and cost that sheep can recognise differing human faces.
    Yes, detecting shapes on shapes of various intensities is the usual function of eyes. I guess a further year’s research will allow them to make a breakthrough and discover sheep using eyes is key and they miraculously grow their own. I don’t like to show off, but I’ve known they have eyes certainly since last Tuesday.
    One cannot imagine, well I can, also since last Tuesday, the educational standard of Universities other than Cambridge.

  59. Ron Olden
    November 9, 2017

    In case Corbyn and his colleagues had organised some festivities to mark the centenary of this mass genocide, I started my own FB Page on the arcane subject of the pros and cons of this ‘Revolution’, a couple of weeks ago.

    The ‘October Revolution’ was not a ‘Revolution’. It was a ‘Coup’ executed by Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, and made possible by German co-operation and money.

    The actual ‘Revolution’ occurred in February 1917.

  60. Prigger
    November 13, 2017

    The Russian Bolshevik Revolution produced the first Cosmonaut and the first Sputnik. In fact every single one of them since.

Comments are closed.