As a teenager I was shocked to read of the horrors of the Great War of 1914-18, and to hear a little of the reality from my two grandfathers who both fought in the trenches and survived. My study of what was called English history which was really UK history made me think the UK had fought too many wars, being dragged into many continental conflicts forĀ no good reason.
I amĀ no pacifist. I understand there are violent and dangerous countries that may wish us harm. Indeed having stronger defence forces than we currently enjoy seems like a good insurance policy and a necessary statement to put a hostile power off challenging us. We needed force to liberate the Falklands from the senseless and violent Argentinian invasion, and to help the USA liberate Kuwait from an unwanted occupation. There may be other such needs in the years ahead.
Throughout the last 500 years of our history we have sought to prevent a single dominant power taking over much of Europe by force. In the sixteenth century we with the Dutch resisted Spanish attempts to add the low countries and England to their continental empire. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries we worked with a coalition of other states to prevent French military domination of the continent, culminating at the turn of the nineteenth century in the great victories of Trafalgar and Waterloo to endĀ Napoleon’s empire building based on his large and threatening armies. In the twentieth century we twice fought against German domination of the continent. Today we haveĀ no issues with the EU emerging as a single force on the continent. We made the sensible decision not to join them, as our interests are global and based on trade, investment and contacts with the wider world. We should leave most continental political issues to our neighbours to resolve through their elected member states governments and through their strong centralised law making at EU level.
Foreign policy obviously looks very different from Warsaw which is closer to Moscow than to London, or in Berlin so much closer to the eastern borders of the EU than the UK is. Countries with continental land borders may choose closer agreements and arrangements with their neighbours to regulate their affairs. The UK is right to condemn Russian aggression and spiteful violence towards Ukraine and to help as a non combatant with other allies. The big issues about Ukraine’s European status, possible membership of the EU and development of the AssociationĀ Agreement are not matters we can or should wish to get involved with. We wish to see the end of the war and the dreadful violence and damage being done but we should not wish to influence the political settlement which has to follow. The main protagonists are Ukraine who need to resolve their own future, and Russia. Ukraine may want more help from the EU which they wish to join given its role in the conflict and its interest in future governing arrangements for Ukraine.
April 7, 2022
Too many indeed. We have only just withdrawn from Blairās disastrous counterproductive ones.
April 7, 2022
We need to make sure we don’t fight unnecessary / stupid wars, yes.
But we also need to have strong defence (Pootin’s got hypersonic WMD), not be appeasers / choose when to be tough (as bullies walk all over appeasers / doormats – they have no respect for them) – so as to reduce any unnecessary conflict (conflict we can’t avoid). And pray (if you’re into that).
April 7, 2022
As an arch-remainer, I would like to extend a note of congratulation.
I was fearful that Brexit would destroy immigration and am delighted to see some sense from the government in giving people from India 99,000 study visas, up from a low point of 16,000 in 2015. Also Nigerians have been granted 10,000 skilled-worker visas and 43,000 study visasāabout as many as in the previous four years put together.
Filipinos received almost 10,000 skilled-worker visas, putting them in third place behind Indians and Nigerians.
I have to admit being pleasantly surprised by these figures. Keep up the good work.
April 7, 2022
We can all concur with today’s excellent offering but I am intrigued by the obvious contradiction as to why Germany (in effect the EU) aggressively courted Putin’s natural resources while the EU (in effect Germany) encouraged Ukraine to veer westwards when they knew that this would provoke a response from the Russians. That’s utterly devoid of common sense.
There’s blame to be shared on both sides (US, EU, Nato and Russia) of this deliberately engineered conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
April 7, 2022
Dom, surely there’s no contradiction in Germany’s actions if you’re in the Green party, as their Minister for the Economy is (Don’t believe me? Look it up). Your government provokes Russia by cancelling Nordstream 2, in which the Russians have invested massively. And at the same time you threaten Germany’s access to sufficient fossil fuel, force ‘polluting’ industries into bankruptcy, reduce CO2 emissions, and give a massive boost to alternative energy sources making money for your friends and proteges. What’s not to like?
April 7, 2022
Ben Wallace is on record saying that the UK urged Ukraine to join NATO. Others disagreed but the UK did provide training and supplied defensive weapons before the current conflict. Although the resolution of the war resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a matter to be settled between the parties, others will inevitably have an influence because of the support they provide and their willingness to continue providing it. The economic costs are large and will grow larger. No doubt Putin hopes he can outlast NATO and the West by perseverance and his control of the narrative in Russia.
April 7, 2022
Easy to answer.German political institutions were captured by the US(which also controls the EU institutionally)long ago but German business is looking east to Russia and China.
It will be interesting to see if German business allows it’s dim politicians to bankrupt the country for the sake of US imperialism.
April 7, 2022
Good point. But I think that’s more to do with Germany.
April 7, 2022
Its good when you put something of yourself in the diary. Being too objective is like a badly written text book.It depends how one defines pacifist . One can believe that war is futile and serves no purpose yet realise that defence is necessary to prevent other regimes wiping out those trying to make a peaceful world.What a paradox! Turning the other cheek could lead to annihilation and yet who are we to judge? we must judge in matters where countries are at odds,simply, for peace to reign. Easter is upon us and I emotionally revel in all the high minded sacrifice surrounding us and then down to earth the Bachs’ passions take me to a level where I would fight and fight to defend my family because although I am instinctively a pacifist,seen cruelty sets heights for the defence of my loved ones survival which would switch with alacrity these instincts.
April 7, 2022
I think that the Ukrainian people themselves made up their own minds as to which way they wanted to go as a nation, and did not need telling or encouraging by anyone, including the Germans as you claim.
They certainly seem to be fighting with peerless conviction, and seem a rather resolute, decisive people.
April 7, 2022
David Frost today in the Telegraph – The ultra-Remainers are mobilising to prepare the ground for rejoining the EU
They know it would be too unpopular now, so theyāre trying to make voters think that Brexit is already failing.
Parliament is stuffed with socialists, remaoners and pushers of net zero many Tories even want to stop the sell off of the appalling propaganda outfit Channel 4. When is the BBC poll tax going to go?
April 7, 2022
Lifelogic the new game is not to rejoin but Brino, tie us in knots in the EEA agreement so we’re outside but controlled and our money starts flowing back in when it starts to run out at the end of this year, so that’s their timetable.
April 7, 2022
I don’t expect the government or civil service to do anything to counter the anti-Brexit propaganda, in fact they are more likely to add to it. That was so before we left the EU and it is still true now.
It might be objected that Boris Johnson is a hard eurosceptic, and so will always stick up for Brexit, but of course we know better than to believe anything he has ever said in the past or says now.
For example, in the debate on the 2021 Queen’s Speech, Hansard May 11 2021, Column 23 here:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2021-05-11/debates/A73F9E62-E76C-4188-9742-E84C55ACC435/DebateOnTheAddress
he proclaimed:
“Everything we do will be done as one United Kingdom, combining the genius of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – joined together by blood and family tradition and history in the most successful political, economic and social union the world has ever known.”
But if he really believed that he would not have treated Northern Ireland as he has done.
April 7, 2022
Let’s forget about Brexit for now (Brexiters won – be daft, surely, to go back to EU / Single Market). Pootin’s a much bigger issue. And if we can get passed this safely (please God), then let’s please focus on building a proper defence system against hypersonic WMD, with others in our geo-political area (i.e Europe) to share the cost and expertise. Because China is fast developing its hypersonic WMD, and then other countries will quickly follow – some with dangerous nutters who crop up now and again.
April 7, 2022
The monomaniacs can’t, Ed.
It really is all that they have.
April 7, 2022
Good morning.
The policy of not allowing one nation to rule Europe has been not quite been made redundant. Whilst our nuclear weapons may prevent us from attack and invasion, we are still susceptible to blockade and sanctions. Witness the French threat to cut our energy supplies if we do not acquiesce to their demands and their refusal to deal with the illegals and the trafficking gangs operating on their soil.
Now that we are able to act in our own interests and no longer have to adopt the EU position on foreign policy, we can now start the process of Global Great Britain. However, we will have to wait for someone who is better able to put words into action. Delay, dely babble and bluster !
PS I notice my post from yesterday is still in moderation. I take it I scored bullseye š
April 7, 2022
Mine also either remain sitting in moderation, or are exceptionally late being cleared. Doing so, speaks volumes about the host and does him so favours.
April 7, 2022
I wear it all as a badge of honour, mate š
April 7, 2022
Today we have allowed the country to be taken over by the WEF and Common Purpose.
They are equally or possibly more dangerous than Putin and his allies.
It’s time the nation woke up to the dangers of mass immigration and globalisation.
We are being conned.
April 7, 2022
Ian W
Hear, hear! When any trail is followed, it invariably tracks back to a global organisation or a rich individual funding it.
April 7, 2022
We have a Prime Minister who wants more and more immigration, and this has already destroyed England. I feel sick every time I see or hear him.
April 7, 2022
Sadly too many will not realise until its too late. I do wonder how many of those will ever consider the concerns raised by the ‘conspiracy theorists’ and perhaps realise they should been listened to, instead of being dismissed out of hand.
April 7, 2022
I cannot remember exactly how many meals a society is from revolution, but nothing focuses peoples attenion on the mess that is around them when things they once could afford are now out of their reach.
April 7, 2022
Speaking with a senior retired army officer about the present Ukraine situation and the possible different outcomes, he has a concerns about what appears to be disjointed support from different countries as once again it would appear to be us and the Americans in the vanguard with supplying military equipment. Other countries are too reliant on Russia for essential commodities.
Europe cannot afford a war of attrition on its borders as there is always the risk of it affecting other countries if a strong stand is not made and Russia feels it holds the upper hand.
The EU, UN and Nato have got to show complete unity in bringing about cessation of hostilities otherwise the only obvious question will be, who is going to be next? Hopefully the lessons from previous wars will enable all leaders to reflect and learn from the benefit of hindsight.
April 7, 2022
Turbo
Agreed, but the real difference is that we will GIFT the Ukrainians arms, America will SELL them Arms.
April 7, 2022
And we should have done likewise, we are a bankrupt country and cannot afford to have a PM throwing our money about like snow .
April 7, 2022
Nonsense.
Russia has no appetite for expansion with its ageing population.
The violation of the Minsk agreements by Zelensky (sponsored by NATO) were seen as an existential threat to Russia and its Government.
The imperialist tendencies are entirely of the West, wishing to expand urgently into new territories to mitigate the inflation it created in its economies because of the overreaction to Covid.
When examined every action by Putin has been a reaction to this Western imperialist tendency.
April 7, 2022
If Putin had been successful in Ukraine then no doubt he would have been emboldened to push onwards.
However, so far, the whole grotesque spectacle is one of utter dĆ©bĆ¢cle on Russia’s part.
We are very, very, deeply indebted, to the magnificent people of Ukraine.
May they continue their successes and enjoy unstinting support.
April 7, 2022
Firstly Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the actions of the Russian army are deplorable.
You talk of 500 years of prevention of a single power in Europe but do not mention the pain and sacrifice endured by Russia during this period. Their history lesson shows a pattern of invasion from the West. Over recent decades their security zone has reduced with Eastern European countries, then even the Baltic states joining the EU and Nato. An independent assessor could see they would get uneasy.
Perhaps the Ukrainian conflict could have been avoided if there has been less desire for a European single state?
April 7, 2022
You do realise that nobody set foot in Russiaā¦it was Russia who set foot in Ukraine
April 7, 2022
several ‘tourist’ Russians have set foot in England, curiously ‘old friends of Putin have died in odd circumstances’ and they hurriedly returned home. just saying.
April 7, 2022
I see that Canada is proposing to follow what New Zealand did in 2018, and ban foreigners from owning real property there.
Now, yet again, as with covid19, that’s proper government for you.
April 8, 2022
You support the European Court of Human Rights yet amazingly you want a racist policy where no “foreigner” could buy property.
April 8, 2022
will France force the Boy Wonder to sell his property?
April 8, 2022
There are all manner of things that non-nationals cannot, without more, do e.g. work, reside, draw benefits, etc. etc.
What’s so special about title to land also being unallowed?
April 9, 2022
Basic human right to buy property.
Rather different to your little list
You want to ban just foreigners.
Perhaps you might also want them to wear an identifying badge when they go out.
Ah, the liberal left in action.
April 11, 2022
The Nazis did not step into the UK either but the UK invaded Germany – your point is absurd.
April 13, 2022
P2, I am afraid you are rather misinformed, 78 out of 195 countries prevent the foreign ownership of properties. And among the other countries there might be some stringent restrictions, like proving that one is permanent resident and taxpayer in the country.
Maybe you should have explored the question before commenting after NLH. Look whether you could buy a small pied-a-terre in Switzerland, New Zealand, any of the Baltic Republics, Hungary, Slovakia, Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Thailand or even Australia.
I am concerned that your āliberal left in actionā is once more completely misplaced
April 7, 2022
‘Perhaps the Ukrainian conflict could have been avoided if there has been less desire for a European single state?’
– You’re obsessed by EU. Please get over.
Yes, let’s forge ahead with Brexit (Sovereignty good idea / Brexiters won). But Ukraine’s about FAR MORE than the EU (whether it existed or not). It’s about a nut case whose got lots of hypersonic WMD and who loves power and whose flexing his muscles now primarily because he’s a megalomaniac but also because he wants to leave a ‘legacy’ and because he needs an enemy to justify how Russia has performed relatively poorly under him the last 10 years, and he has a chip on his shoulder about former Soviet countries enjoying it out there in free market and he has a chip on his shoulder about the US and NATO etc
April 7, 2022
Bang on, Ed.
April 8, 2022
Obsessed with the EU. How do you get that from my comment?
I seem to remember a large Western country getting antsy with Russia and Cuba in the 60’s. My point was that an unbiased observer could judge Russia would get antsy if states surrounding it joined an opposing military (NATO) and economic (EU) union. The fact that Russia is led by a megalomaniac with WMD was all the more reason to tread carefully.
April 8, 2022
@Pete,
I didn’t mean to get aggressive. The only way we can deal with nutters such as Pootin (and then we have China in the background and Iran and North Korea and Islamic terrorists and …) is to ensure we have adequate defence against hypersonic WMD and other similar technology (I know – bit ask – but we are the UK – the great nation that gave us and the world Oxford, Cambridge and Sir Isaac Newton). And to act tough in healthy, balanced way (not crazy bravado, that stokes up even more the craziness of the brutal dictator, but nor being a weak doormat either – brutal dictators despise doormats as ‘weaklings’ and always try and walk over them). And pray.
April 7, 2022
I note (and I am no Putin supporter) that only three weeks ago the BBC were proudly showing us grannies and young ladies sporting rifles and automatic weapons and telling us that every man, woman and child was prepared to fight to the death. (They failed to mention the Azov Battalion SS insignia worn by soldier training them.)
This story has been memory holed.
In Iraq such fighters were called insurgents.
In Ukraine they no longer exist (according to the BBC) and ‘civilians’ are being fought and killed for no reason.
I don’t support any of it. Least of all NATO and the biased BBC that is perpetuating this unnecessary war and only telling us half of the story.
April 7, 2022
No one is being beaten up and thrown in prison for fifteen years for saying what you say or anything else though, NLA.
April 8, 2022
Who ever said that in the first place
You making things up again NHL?
April 9, 2022
All but an utter fool would understand that I am contrasting the position of dissenters here with that of those in Russia, for the benefit of those who claim that the West is “just as bad, or worse, than ix Russia”.
April 8, 2022
The BBC, EU, Greenies, Fracking and wot-not is more in line with Handforth Parish Council (remember all the bickering ..) compared to Ukraine where we got a nutter with hypersonic WMD leading Russia and with all kinds of chips on his shoulder. Let’s please unite on this issue and then carry on throwing our handbags each other regarding everything else (because it is like handbags compared to the seriousness and danger of the Russian leader). And then we have to look at other countries such as China also developing hypersonic WMD and what we are going to do to protect our country from this new, dangerous threat in modern technological warfare.
April 8, 2022
‘what we are going to do to protect our country from this new, dangerous threat in modern technological warfare’ – just takes one nut case with a death wish (God forbid).
And we can’t just dig our head in the sand over defence against hypersonic WMD and other threats. We GOT to do something. And we CAN (but it could take at least 10 years – maybe less / maybe a lot more). But it requires courage / leadership / imagination and the rest. And we got to start NOW.
April 7, 2022
Personally, I think a defence agreement is necessary for smaller countries who wish to protect themselves against a larger aggressive neighbour, providing the defence agreement itself is not dominated by a single large country who use it to their own advantage.
In life, cheats and bullies gain a massive advantage over everyone who plays ‘by the rules’. The latter being handicapped by a sense of fair play and the huge costs of ‘doing things properly’.
I can understand why Putin wants his neighbours to be isolated and undefended. I can also understand why his neighbours need to have defence against a larger aggressive, or potentially aggressive, neighbour. Every country should be offered help against a larger aggressive neighbouring country. It would help ensure peace if the larger country knew that the smaller country they are invading would have a HUGE defence force.
April 7, 2022
Art 5 of the NATO Treaty enables a NATO member to ask for help from another NATO member. Perhaps a false flag attack against a NATO member may cause this to happen and is why Russia didn’t want Ukraine in NATO.
No way are the US going to get directly involved.
It appears that President Biden and VP Harris have already been regime changed, going by footage in the press.
One of Putin’s advisers says that Biden is no longer taken seriously, thank God.
April 7, 2022
Well said!
This is just plain, down-to-earth, school-room psychology. There’s no fundamental difference in psychology between a psychopathic school bully and a brutal dictator. The brutal dictator has just got worse with years (although probably learned certain dark powers of manipulation to get where he is) and has a got a great deal more power to inflict damage. And every so often history throws up a dangerous one that we have to deal with. And if we can deal with Pootin (please God) there’s still China and other countries develop hypersonic WMD and the like. We need to seriously look at a sophisticated defence system (with others in our geo-political area) to help pay for and share resources so as to defend us from rogue dictators and super powers in the future.
April 7, 2022
The sheer hypocrisy of the UK government condemning Russia for an illegal war is breath taking.
We have engaged in more illegal invasions, coups, black ops and economic warfare than any other country (the USA is working hard to catch up). The list of countries we have not waged war against at some point is tiny. People in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen have recent konwledge of what it feels like to be on the sharp end of British weapons.
The sanitised and largely ficticious history of Britain the good guy you promote is, of course, the one fed to us in schools and in the media but it ignores reality. Britain has always been a ruthless and extremely dangerous country entirely willing to use any means to further it’s agenda -or maybe you believe that the largest empire the world has ever seen came about because we sprinkled fairy dust and angels just gave it to us.
April 7, 2022
āTheatre of Warā, meaning more likely, the āArena of Warā where men slog it out to the death watched and directed by those who have plans a million miles away from the stated aims.
(Actually, Roman arenas were also diversionary!!)
Our grandfathers believed that they were fighting for a better world and for freedom stretching down the generations.
My grandfather had a sort of shell shock that lasted until he died.
He had no idea why he had been sent off to a deadly war machine to sit in holes in the mud.
Industrial killing.
And look at what has been done with his āspoils of warāby the elite spectators.
He came from a family of 17 as did many then.
Mechanisation was taking hold and there was no need for so many ( agricultural) workers.
April 7, 2022
Mine had shell shock too.
Strafed by screaming dive bombers until he “…wished he could crawl under the paint of his truck.” and half of his division killed under a creeping barrage which left his nerves addled for life. A rattling cup and saucer was his grand entrance to any room.
Nevertheless, he made RSM by the end of WW2 and was much respected.
April 7, 2022
+1
And all credit and blessings to every single one of them.
But look at what our brave politicians did with the land our grandfathers fought for.
April 7, 2022
I fear Johnson is getting carried away, both seeing an international legacy and a way out of partygate, engaging in an increasing proxy war with Russia through arms shipments and accusations of war criminality etc.
Unfortunately both the actions and rhetoric do not include an exit strategy so if a very stubborn Putin decides to go for broke we could be at threat militarily and the whole of the rest of Europe economic penury as energy supplies either have to be rationed or continue to rise viciously.
However unsavoury saving Putinās face will probably be necessary and now worked on via back channels unless you are counting on the Russians removing Putin but will their visceral dislike/distrust of the Americans etc allow it. Our actions will have merely confirmed their view as ācold warā aggressors.
In the meantime who is paying for the arms Boris is giving away, the taxpayer I guess.
Do we have treaty obligations with the Ukraine. If not where is your mandate for this proxy war with Russia?
April 7, 2022
Nig1 so you don’t see the UK as defenders you see us as ‘cold war’ type ‘ aggressors?
April 7, 2022
Boris has pledged to off-set every anti-tank weapon he send to the Ukraine by erecting another offshore wind-turbine
April 7, 2022
+1
Churchillian speeches from a man who has no intention whatsoever of defending the actual 80 seat majority mandate delivered in his own country.
April 7, 2022
Or our sovereign territory and borders from undocumented invaders.
April 7, 2022
Hasnāt Putin done something with gold and roubles that might knock the $ off its perch?
April 7, 2022
Good question. It looks to be very specifically designed to get around sanctions and to boost the ruble for sales of gas in rubles.
April 7, 2022
+1
April 7, 2022
This conflict is about the future of the international financial and trading system that has evolved from the maritime network of the British Empire and was taken over by the Americans – and the Anglo-Saxon need for it to be a monopoly(the “international rules based order”,so-called)- when it is being challenged by the land-based power of the Russia-China-Iran axis who have in effect recreated ,at core,the unified land-based trading network originally created by the Mongol Empire(and incorporating the Silk Roads from China through Persia,Russia and the Middle East.Ukraine is just a battlefield in a proxy war.
Sergei Karaganov,Head of Russia’s Council on Defence & Foreign Policy(who looks like a sinister version of Blofield ,as portrayed by Donald Pleasance- minus the pussy cat!)said last week with millenarian zeal:
“We all feel like we are part of a huge event in history.It’s not about the war in Ukraine;it’s about the final crash of the international system.”
April 7, 2022
+1
Oh YES!
Iāve read that this whole shebang is about the financial mess up.
But I didnāt make the connection.
I guess things were going badly long before 2008?
And he actually admitted it!
Thanks.
April 7, 2022
Tweet from Andrew Neil this morning:
“Russia will run a record $200bn+ current account surplus (this year)much of it from EU payments for energy.It’s the reason the ruble remains strong despite sanctions.And it could be bigger than China’s trade surplus.”
Russia has reopened the Kerch Straits today and will resume wheat exports very shortly….
….to it’s friends!
April 7, 2022
+1
Oh dear.
No š for us then?
April 7, 2022
Yes, we judge characters by the company that they choose to keep.
April 8, 2022
once you know something about the characters first? or just unjustified prejudice?
April 8, 2022
This was utterly predictable, Mitchel. Though not, it seems, to our Western ‘leaders’. They were so sure that a sanctions war on Russia would deter a large nation rich in food and energy resources, even though from Cuba to Iran to Syria sanctions have never achieved what they were supposed to. They leave the little folk poorer while the elites in those countries carry on as before.
Now the Russophobia promoted in the West has apparently had the effect of strengthening domestic support for Putin.
All Biden, Johnson and von der Leyen will be remembered for is Cold War 2, with a declining Europe weakened by sanctions blowback, and a strong globally dominant Russia-China alliance. Theirs is not competent leadership, it is sheer lunacy. And we call Putin deranged!
April 8, 2022
Why am I unsurprised that brexit fanatics have apparently no morals?
April 8, 2022
Another of your unsubstantiated slurs NHL
Very poor.
April 7, 2022
Kwasi Kwarteng yesterday proving just how moroic he, Boris, Carrie, this Gov. really are on energy policy – āNet zero is the solution to the global gas crisis, not the cause.ā ā¦ āDue to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and increasing energy costs, Transforming our energy system is no longer just about hitting net zero targets and tacking climate change ā as important as they are ā it is also about national security.ā
Net zero is not remotely important indeed it cannot happen anyway. Net zero Kwasi is the problem not the solution, gas prices rose hugely before the invasion. As to national security are we to have battery tanks, solar war planes, battery ships and battle field recharging stations with agreed recharging breaks from fighting? Get real Kwasi or resign.
āAnother review into frackingā just get on with it you dope.
April 7, 2022
“24 Mar 2022 ā The UK’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by roughly 50 percent since 1990. The UK is now halfway to meeting its 2050 net-zero” Statista. It’s not as though we’ve done nothing already!
April 7, 2022
Indeed. Net zero has nil merit and even less sense.
April 7, 2022
+1 LL KK displays the most unbelievable crass stupidity.
April 7, 2022
We should be proud that we have played our part over the centuries welcoming refugees from conflicts, wars and religious persecution, including the Kindertransport children and Ugandan Asians. It is sad that refugees from Ukraine are faced with a bureaucratic nightmare trying to find safety here and equally sad that months after fleeing Afghanistan families are still in “temporary” accommodation in dismal hotels with their children being taxied to schools many miles away.
April 7, 2022
Lily where would you put them all immediately if it was a free for all? Standards seem to be expected from the UK that don’t appear as stringent in other Countries. So they put them in gymnasiums and old offices with only one or two toilets, if the UK did this there would be an outcry. People that wish to house refugees do want them checking first, can you imagine if those checks weren’t done and UK citizens were robbed or worse by offering a room.
April 7, 2022
we’ve had coaches bringing children to the Wokingham secondary school near me for years. The school they should have been going to was closed, and another issue was inadequate places in a nearby location.
April 7, 2022
It is difficult to argue against a statement that says there are too many wars.
Splendid isolation would be better for the world than American imperialism though only the paleoconservatives seemed to promote the former. Successive U.S. governments pursued an active policy of regime change into which Tony Blair dragged the U.K. , with bad consequences for all concerned.
That said, it should be noted that wars and warfare helped establish Britain and built an Empire. Ironically much of the fighting was outsourced. āPrivateersā were given permission by the crown to plunder the shipping of rival nations. The East India Company, after the first hundred and fifty years or so, saw an opportunity to increase profits by deposing weak local rulers and putting themselves in their place. They eventually had a bigger army than this country itself, mainly composed of native soldiers.
April 7, 2022
Realpolitik and pragmatism might see a benefit in easy wins.
āThe scramble for Africaā in the nineteenth century painted much of that continent British red without too much bloodshed. Cecil Rhodes achieved a lot in less than fifty years on earth, though now he is under attack from the iconoclasts.
The same with explorers planting flags in underdeveloped places like Australia.
April 7, 2022
I assume you are unaware of the other European nations who did quite a ‘good’ job of acquiring large parts of Africa, such as Portugal, Germany, Belgium (with a great deal of native blood) and France.
Cecil Rhodes was a psychopathic liar and conman – although undoubtedly very adept at making his own fortune by foul means. Now who does that remind me of ….. ?
April 7, 2022
SM,
On the contrary, I am well aware of the colonial history of the European nations you mentioned.
A bonus from the East India Company was that they kicked the French out of India. Clive was more a businessman than soldier, but he was quite an expert at grasping an opportunity when he saw one.
It is a shame the revolution in Portugal led to the loss of Angola and Mozambique as they provided more stability in Southern Africa as buffer nations.
Cecil Rhodes was an exemplar for the Chinese in Africa who are now making the most of what is on offer. In Victorian times there was a famous article in The Times āAfrica for the Chineseā by Francis Galton. He thought the Chinese ideally suited to the continent, though his reasoning may not be deemed politically correct today.
April 8, 2022
A bigger bonus for the Indians is that they kicked all imperialists out of India, notably the British.
April 7, 2022
They had to defeat the French first, at Plassy.
April 7, 2022
The British Empire followed the same trajectory(and was possibly modelled on) the earlier maritime empire of the Venetian Republic.Both,controlled by oligarchies, came to grief when they moved beyond a simple but very profitable trading network and tried to amass large land empires.
April 7, 2022
Mitchel,
In āThe Rise and Fall of the Great Powersā Paul Kennedy attributes fall mostly to military overstretch.
Britain did well for so long as it was better able to finance military spending because of the industrial revolution.
April 8, 2022
Britain did well until the nations that they oppressed also got firearms and started shooting back.
April 8, 2022
Military overstretch due to all that far flung land to defend!
April 7, 2022
Telegraph leader today:-
Tories have made a costly NHS error
The National Insurance rise, which came into effect yesterday, is a breach of a Conservative manifesto promise, is piling fresh misery onto households that are already under financial stress, and is another unwelcome burden for businesses struggling with cost increases. It is also unclear what the money it will raise is actually for.
They are surely right but the money is so they can cut taxes just before the next election to try to con the electorate yet again next time and to piss down the drain in the customary Sunak/Boris way – on idiotic things like eat out to help out, HS2, test and trace, millions of worthless degrees, net zero, a totally ineffective & incompetent NHS, bloated government āworkingā from home, MPs wage rises, over regulation of everything, unreliable energy, poor schoolsā¦
April 7, 2022
And in other news I read Sunak has just given 100k to his old school and his wife is a non Dom. Good luck to them.
In the meantime many ordinary people he has nothing in common with are struggling financially because of his actions.
April 7, 2022
The NonDom system was a great advantage to the country until the foolish George Osborne started to murder it in a act of economic suicide. Moves that (foolishly) were not reversed by socialist Hammond, Javid & Sunak. Why would very rich people come to the UK to pay Ā£millions more in tax for nothing in return? Plus risk 40% IHT.
I am sure Mrs Sunak pays what is correctly due and probably invest the rest sensibly and productively unlike this government who waste far too much money already.
April 7, 2022
that was to pay their heating bill for a few months….
April 7, 2022
JR..such a lovely balanced and calm assessment.
Iām not sure but it seems to me that Johnson is rather jumping in with both feet and setting the extraordinary ā nudge unitā to full speed ahead.
It will be white feathers next!
I hope he realises that we have (?) left the EU.
April 7, 2022
If this is a polite way of saying Johnson & Biden should keep their noses out of any dealings Ukraine negotiates with EU and more importantly with Russia to bring an end to the war, then I am in complete agreement.
While there is a case for helping Ukraine with defensive weaponry, I’ve seen little from this government in terms of pouring oil on troubled waters in its stance towards Russia.
The language seems to be more aimed at inciting a prolonging of the war with more bitterness.
As I note many are saying, it seems some in the West want to teach Russia a lesson using every last drop of Ukrainian blood.
April 7, 2022
Ukraine want to join the EU which is nothing to do with us or USA, but this is second best for Ukraine as they really want to join NATO as do Finland and maybe Sweden. That definitely does involve us and USA.
April 7, 2022
I can see Ukraine being divided along the Dnieper river and divided up between Russia and EU countries.
How is a gas-less Germany to pay for the rebuild ?
April 7, 2022
Maybe I wasn’t paying proper attention but I don’t remember seeing much about the atrocities committed by Ukrainian forces, including the volunteer battalions, in Donbas in 2014 and 2015. One of which volunteer battalions was supported by the man who has now taken over the role of the leader of the free world from the US president, appearing on big screens in national legislatures to issue his latest demands.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190417180137/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47895061
“Ukraine election rivals trade taunts and media tricks”
“Critics question Mr Zelensky’s fitness for office, pointing to his lack of political experience.
But he has been politically engaged. He supported the Euromaidan protests that toppled ex-president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
When the conflict with Russian-backed separatists erupted in the east he helped fund a volunteer battalion fighting the rebels.”
Or maybe there were no atrocities, no war crimes, no mass graves, no children killed, no torture chambers; maybe it was all staged by the Russians. Sure, I saw such allegations on the RT propaganda channel, but that has been shut down to prevent it spreading disinformation.
As I have asked before, ācui bono?ā, who benefits from fomenting and fuelling this war?
April 7, 2022
Why was the UK and US armies training and arming these special volunteer regiments when the US congress had stopped this because they knew that these were attacking civilians and had an ideology that we had defeated in WWII?
April 7, 2022
Thank you for this comment , Denis. Iāve wondered why there has been such an effort to sanction everything Russian. This hasnāt really been done with other conflicts, and the businesses and rich are still dealing with Russia.
Thereās something amiss with this war, but I canāt put my finger on what that is.
As you ask, who gets to benefit from this war? Good question.
April 7, 2022
Russia will. I’m afraid Ukraine’s days are numbered.
April 7, 2022
Kwasi talking his usual drivel in a speech yesterday. The war being a very useful excuse for this governments failed, insane, net zero, expensive and unreliable energy agenda.
š¬š§Delivering on Net Zero and U.K. Energyš¬š§
W/ @KwasiKwarteng and @CSkidmoreUK
Now up on our Youtube Channel
April 7, 2022
Link?
April 7, 2022
One of the greatest causes of war is the desire for another country’s resources or their desire for ours.
Self sufficiency in all things is the way to go with strong air, maritime and land defensive forces.
But war will never be banned, so being able defend oneself is paramount. Ukraine has demonstrated the value in inflicting heavy and demoralising losses on an invader.
April 7, 2022
Resources and trade corridors-routes to market-and,in the modern era, control of the services attached to that trade.
April 7, 2022
I too am no pacifist. But I do not want the UK to get involved in wars which are none of our business because the “enemy” has not attacked us – for example Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Cameron’s “intervention” in Libya.
There are too many wars because no sooner has a British Prime Minister entered No.10 then, instead of delivering the manifesto they promised in order to get elected, they want to become a Big Cheese on the World Stage. They seem to think the best way to get the global attention they crave is to send our Military on an OFFENSIVE campaign (in both senses of the word) or join in yet another USA-sponsored military adventure.
Regarding the EU, Sir John says “Today we have no issues with the EU emerging as a single force on the continent.” That seems to me to be a very naive way of regarding the EU, which has spent the past 5 years actively demonstrating that it wishes us harm, and which is seeking to have its own military capability.
April 7, 2022
Donna, +1, and that last short paragraph is particularly potent in puncturing complacency.
April 7, 2022
+ many
April 7, 2022
All ended in wrecked countries, hundreds of thousands dead and millions of refugees.
April 7, 2022
Wars often end ( or begin) with a treaty.
Has Johnson signed up this democracy to the WHO āPandemic Treatyā?
Has he surrendered our healthcare to a global authority?
Is that why the NHS has been purposely neglected?
April 7, 2022
I do hope he hasnāt signed up to that world pandemic/health treaty. I didnāt think it had been completed yet. I can guess where that will lead if he does.
April 7, 2022
+1
Total control of all our health through an app or something equally awful?
April 8, 2022
Their schedule is to get the treaty agreed by 2024. After that we will have no say in how Britain deals with future disease outbreaks – it will be decided by the UN-affiliated private body called the World Health Organisation. World government will be here, in other words. A component of the treaty is likely to be the imposition of digital health passports.
There is and will be minimal discussion of this in the media, otherwise people might wake up to the loss of sovereignty.
April 7, 2022
E h. Are you.sure the NHS has been neglected? Certainly not in the tax payers cash stakes, but nobody ever finds out where it goes!
April 7, 2022
+1
Wellā¦they have sent 20 or so ambulances out to Ukraine!
Which might be ok if we could rely on an ambulance service hereā¦.,
April 7, 2022
I share much of your sentiment. However, Your party wanted to copy Blaire! No need to invade Libya, it became a basket case and focal point for mass immigration. It was about regime change. Cameron got a taste for it then wanted to invade Syria but was stopped by Miliband! Johnson now wants to ignite the Ukrainian conflict just to deflect attention from his personal failings that would lead to his sacking- parties at No. 10!
Could you update us what Johnson wasted Ā£400 million of our taxes on in Ukraine or was it to line the pockets of a corrupt govt.?
April 8, 2022
It looks to me as if the money has been spent on trying to restore NATO’s credibility after the Afghanistan fiasco, Hope.
April 7, 2022
This text would be all very well in a world with armed forces on horseback and even tank. Once nuclear and long range missiles come in to play, however, the sphere of influence widens. Just as we are well out of the local-protectionist-EU and into the wide world of trade, so we need to take into account the wide world of nuclear and long range ballistic missile
So we have an intimate interest in the outcome in the Ukraine, little different than Polish, German or French interests. The luke warm response to Russian aggression by Germany needs to be challenged, and our rejoiner friends need to answer for German weakness in dealing with Russia and continuing to pay Russia big $ for gas.
April 7, 2022
On the subject of foreign power – should there be laws about the nationality of politicians’ families?
There are claims that the Prime Minister is having his policies cuckolded by his spouse, is it possible that the holders of other great offices of state are influenced by members of their family and if so shouldn’t those family members be UK nationals?
I am less concerned about the tax status of MPs’ families and much more interested in the influence that might be exerted.
April 7, 2022
And I now read NHS chiefs are saying that the recent NI rise wonāt be enough to achieve the required improvement rates.
Why am I surprised. A virtue signalling government gave them the money to pay for a plan that didnāt exist as you pointed out.
Can we now have the money back then?
April 7, 2022
Nigl
Meanwhile, āourā supposedly cash-starved NHS is advertising for an army of ādiversity, inclusion and equalityā apparatchiks, (some of whom are on Ā£120,000+ p.a.), allowing their staff to stay at home when they wish and āplantingā acres and acres of solar panels.
April 7, 2022
any amount of money is never enough…..I’d have thought the electorate would have had enough of this held to ransom nonsense over the years.
April 7, 2022
Supplying weapons to Ukraine is a serious mistake. It prolongs the war. It increases the death toll, the suffering and the destruction. It even risks a nuclear conflagration.
Apart from that, the outcome won’t be much different to how it would have been originally. The terms were..
No Nato for Ukraine.
Neutrality.
Recognition of the breakaway regions.
The problem has been Nato pushing too far east.
If the boot was on the other foot, the West would dislike it too.
April 7, 2022
+1. Yes, we’d do something similar. Probably by proxy. Meanwhile on the positive side, the war is good business for Western arms manufacturers.
April 7, 2022
+1
The US wouldn’t tolerate missiles in Cuba (after they’d stationed their own in Turkey), much less a Chinese military alliance with Canada or Mexico.
April 7, 2022
‘Supplying weapons to Ukraine is a serious mistake. It prolongs the war. It increases the death toll, the suffering and the destruction. It even risks a nuclear conflagration.’
– You think Pootin’s going to stop at Ukraine? (And not go on to try and take the Baltic countries and then who knows where / what). Guy’s a nutter.
If Pootin can be kept at bay in Ukraine long enough and the sanctions bite enough, things might change in Russia including maybe new leadership.
But ultimately rely on prayer not me (and I’m not sure I trust Parliament – look at their record on Iraq and Afghanistan – two completely obvious conflicts NOT to get involved with but they chose to over-look common sense for whatever reason – staggering really).
April 7, 2022
@ Florence – perhaps then you might prefer that our supplies of weapons should go to Russia, thereby to help see Ukraine defeated quickly and the war ended sooner?
April 7, 2022
Reading about the equipment which is being given to Ukraine I recalled the words of Margaret Thatcher:
“In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world.”
I also note here, about a “Stormy start to ‘Thatcher’s day'” in October 1999:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/466148.stm
“… due to speak in defence of former Chilean dictator General Pinochet later on Wednesday … ”
and recall that General Pinochet became dictator after a 1973 coup allegedly engineered by the US.
April 7, 2022
Many Tory voters seem absolutely to love wars, provided that the UK is on the winning side.
See: “Falklands”, WWII.
They have their counterparts in most countries.
It’s a problem.
April 7, 2022
Silly man.
April 7, 2022
Difference being our territory was attacked in the Falklands and do you seriously think fighting WW2 was not to be commended ?
We don’t *like* any wars btw.
There seem to be a lot more of them under neo Liberals in the west btw.
April 7, 2022
sometimes it is a choice – a war or be trampled on by an aggressor.
Which would you go for?
April 7, 2022
+1 MT
April 7, 2022
I canāt understand where the defence budget goes. Itās Ā£45bn pa I think, we are often told itās the ā5th highest in the worldā. Yet the armed forces are smaller than at any time since the napoleonic wars, at which time the population was about 1/6th of todays. I hear today we have 40 tanks. I read somewhere that Sweden – a country with 1/7 of our population and which spends less as a % of gdp on defence than the U.K. – has more combat aircraft. Of course some of it goes on nuclear weapons but itās a small proportion. Time for MPs and the rest of us to ask ministers and civil servants at the MoD, generals admirals etc – what the hell are you doing with our money?!
April 7, 2022
Richard. It’s probably the same as the councils. Big salaries for the few while those doing the important stuff have to make do.
April 7, 2022
Not 5th highest, but the 5th most expensive. Other countries, such as Russia, get a far bigger bang for their buck.
What it is about, IMHO, is capability. Can we do want we want and defend what we have with the forces at our disposal ?
April 7, 2022
+1
Does any of the budget get spent on supplying weapons to umā¦āFreedom Fightersā?
Like Starstreak high-velocity anti-air missiles, for example.
April 7, 2022
Paying about 10 times as many admirals , generals and civil servants as Israel and giving our weapons away to Ukraine.
April 7, 2022
I can see why Putin’s paranoia would make it impossible to invite Ukraine to join NATO but can see no reason why the Ukrainians could not join the EU. After all, they would then get billions of Euros to help them rebuild the country and this can be paid for by withholding money for gas purchased from Putin’s Oligarch friends and co-conspirators. The EU admitted earlier this week to having paid Putin ā¬35bn for gas since the war started yet has gioven Ukraine less than ā¬1bn Euros in support.
We should be using our still-vast foreign aid budget to help reconstruction. We can start by cancelling all money to India, Pakistan and China and any other country that have refused to vote against Russia’s conduct in the UN. That money can be used immediately to buy hundreds of British manufactured JCBs and send them to Ukraine to get site clearance under way and rebuild bridges and hospitals in the areas recently liberated.
April 7, 2022
But the EU is gradually being transformed into a military union, and so eventually Ukraine could effectively become part of NATO by that route. That would make it a potential location for NATO forces, EU and US and others including the UK, units to be based, military forces directed against Russia.
There is now debate in Ireland about whether it is really neutral, and if so whether it should stay neutral. Yesterday St Volodymyr told them that they are not neutral:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61008492
Switzerland is neutral and part of EFTA rather than the EU, but it has a difficult relationship with the EU that I would not wish upon Ukraine or any other country.
April 7, 2022
Because the EU is not a trading block but a federal state in the making complete with armed forces.
April 7, 2022
+1
As far as I can make out.
Itās the rules, dear boy, the rules!š Candidate states must adopt all EU rules and regs and that takes time.
It took around 4 years for Austria, Finland and Sweden to complete the joining process and that was back in the 90s.
And think of all the lovely rules the EU has spewed out since then.
And there are also issues of security, expansion and borders. All very complex.
And member states have to agree to Ukraineās candidacy.
But I guess the EU still hopes to subsume all of Europe ( except us?).
Unless of course this latest alarum finishes it off!
April 7, 2022
The EU is seen as NATO’s Trojan Horse.
April 7, 2022
I agree, Sir John, with your point about Ukraine and EU membership. However, the Ukraine government’s policy objective of joining NATO surely was something Britain was involved in. Since we apparently took the view Ukraine should not join (yet), I don’t think it was right for Johnson and his government to encourage Zelensky to fight Russia. What we have now is war rhetoric, arms sales and PR support for Ukraine, in an ongoing conflict that Kiev cannot win, but nothing from NATO that will really deter Russia.
It’s been reported in the US press that just before the invasion the German Chancellor tried to talk Zelensky into declaring a neutral status for Ukraine, but Zelensky turned him down. I wonder what would have happened if Johnson had lent Britain’s support to Scholz’s initative, and made it clear NATO countries were not going to fight Russia.
April 7, 2022
Russia views the EU as a Trojan Horse for NATO.
It has nothing to do with Vlad the Mad. No Russian leader would have put up with what NATO has tried to do any more than a US President would put up with China forming a powerful military alliance with, say, Canada or Mexico. They couldn’t even stand Cuba being involved so.
April 7, 2022
+ many
April 7, 2022
The EU has lost a cash cow. Although Ukraine is not a rich country, Germany will be resenting having to shoulder the 400 million people depending on it. The Project has to continue to expand, or all is lost. So billions of euros will be waved under noses to tempt Ukraine. The EU gives not a fig for world politics and won’t care if this inflames Putin.
We should look after ourselves and not play politics but give succour to Ukrainians. The Home Office needs to extract digit quickly.
April 7, 2022
Yes we seem to get ourselves in rather too many Wars, and it has cost us dearly over the Centuries in both lives and money.
Speaking which, not a good look that it is being alleged in some reports that the Chancellors wife is registered as a Non Dom.
Aware she is not an MP, so in theory and in practice she can do as she pleases with her finances for best effect, but really ?
April 7, 2022
She can’t do exactly what she likes because she is an Indian citizen and forbidden to have dual nationality. She has to pay tax there. Do you want her to pay twice? Or to renounce her Indian nationality and become a British subject? She pays tax here anyway on what she earns here. This has been revealed just in time for the elections. They always have something up their sleeves and this will run and run till the booths are shut.
April 8, 2022
Rose
Fully aware that she can do exactly as she likes, and that is the point I made, and nothing wrong with that at all, as what she is doing is entirely legal.
I just question putting in place a person, in this case a Chancellor who writes the tax rules for the population, who’s family benefits from this special tax situation, which is not available for the vast majority of the population.
I am all for encouraging investment into the country with tax breaks if necessary, but not to allow the owners or beneficiaries of such companies to write the tax laws at the same time.
April 8, 2022
Wrong, rose.
One can be a non-British citizen, be married to a British citizen, and can decide how/where to pay tax depending on how much income/pension/dividends from both UK and some non-UK sources one gets.
Given the balance between what is earned in the UK and what comes from elsewhere, most people decide (as I do) to have all things brought to UK bank accounts, everything declared to HMRC and as such all taxes paid here in the UK (as earnings from outside UK are not worth paying the (minimum Ā£30k) annual charge to get/keep the non-dom status).
As an alternative, if earnings from non-UK countries are much bigger than UK earnings, one is more likely to prefer the non-dom status. In which case
– one pays an annual charge to keep the UK non-dom status (minimum Ā£30k/year),
– one only pays tax on incomes specifically earned in the UK to HMRC,
– one then pays taxes on incomes/pensions/dividends earned outside the UK in whatever country is the most āconvenientā. Most of the time these earnings can be āmovedā to and declared in a low-tax country.
Nothing is illegal obviously but contrary to the type of excuses made by non-dom people this does not usually benefit the UK.
April 8, 2022
Obviously it doesn’t benefit the UK hefner.
But it is still perfectly legal.
Tax is paid by the individual in their second home country as well as their first home country as you explain.
No “excuses” are required.
Even paying Ā£30,000 per year to the UK is more than many people pay.
April 7, 2022
aj, it would appear that non-dom status was first introduced under King George III in 1799. Doubtful our present (modernising?) Chancellor would want to change it.
April 7, 2022
It’s not that she’s not a politician. It’s that Rishi won’t be feeling things as the rest of us do.
April 7, 2022
I suppose some will consider ‘should an MP, or a Cabinet Minister ,with a spouse worth upwards of Ā£400m be in a position to influence financial/economic affairs of the country?’
April 9, 2022
And some people might counter it is an advantage for the Cabinet Minister to be so well off he is unlikely to be susceptible to influence. Once one goes down the road of disapproval of wealth, which is really based on envy not high principle, there is no end to the prohibitions one can devise, and the Opposition have made a start.
April 9, 2022
Interesting view: we should all really be with high principles and aim to have a government of multi-millionaires so as to be sure that without undue influence the Cabinet will care for the common people with average annual salary of Ā£30k and average pension pot at retirement age of Ā£62k (Telegraph, 05/01/2022), which with full state pension added will give them an annual retirement of Ā£10.500.
And please nobody should grumble.
Does anyone think that Trappist monks have it better.
April 7, 2022
Critical mass as well as politics play a big hand in wars as well.
As we see with China now – It feels itself to be strong and powerful – too powerful to be constrained behind its own borders. It reaches out to expand its influence. Sometimes as we’ve seen in the past with European empires, that reaching creates conflicts, which can turn into wars.
What we are seeing in Ukraine is a result of political meddling. The EU has certainly been eyeing Ukraine for its massive resources and crops. By stirring up unrest, along with the Americans who were already firmly bedded into the Ukraine banking and political system, the EU imagined it could gain a huge advantage and provoke change, to their advantage, by poking the Russian bear.
The Russian bear eventually retaliated to protect its own borders.
Wars don’t always start because of some evil tyrant, all too often it is about greed, about covetousness, or even simply a naive political intention to impose an attitude or way of life on some other country because they are different in some way.
April 7, 2022
plus one
April 7, 2022
It is quaintly old-fashioned to believe that the only threat to this country comes from tanks and aircraft. War is being waged on us now by the globalists and their unwitting Marxist dupes, in order to assimilate our territory into their Great Slave Empire. Mass migration has been weaponised to alter our demography, in spite of this being against international law. The attempt to impose digital identities and control via regular compulsory State medical interventions seems to have been staved off for now. Our professional footballers, never the sharpest pencils in the box, persist in demonstrating support for a radical Marxist movement before every match. Our universities and museums allow their affairs to be dictated by this same Marxist movement. Our monuments are pulled down or vandalised and even our street names must be altered. Women are delegitimised and our young are encouraged to castrate themselves. If conventional war does come it is hard to imagine the same homogenous resistance seen in the Ukraine.
April 7, 2022
The Johnson regime is fully on board with this war against us, but what an eloquent, horrifying and accurate description of our country!
April 7, 2022
+100, Beresford.
April 7, 2022
+1. Beresford.
April 7, 2022
“Foreign policy obviously looks very different from Warsaw which is closer to Moscow…” – and likewise from King Charles Street which is closer to the Evil Empire?
April 7, 2022
Not only are there dangerous and violent countries that wish us harm, but also dangerous individuals with even more dangerous ideologies that wish us harm.
These people are backed up by corporate power, vast amounts of money, ‘science’ and actively compliant governments. We have just endured two long years of this war against the people in the guise of ‘fighting Covid’ and these evil people and the government are determined that it will not end until the people have been defeated and fully controlled. The war against us continues apace with ‘Climate Change’ and the war against CO2. It is all about control of people.
As Ronald Reagan said ‘Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same’.
April 7, 2022
+1. We’re sliding so fast down the authoritarian route that it’s getting hard to see which of the two great power blocks (US & the West, or China and the emerging nations) will be a nicer place in which to find oneself.
April 7, 2022
War is mostly failed politics and diplomacy, but when one side behaves outside the box as in WW2 it becomes inevitable. Dangerous and violent regimes are the problem, rarely the people. People are the victims of all the failure. Sadly but inevitably situations brought about by such as Hitler and Putin have to be resisted less the contagion spreads.
April 7, 2022
May there be no more videos from Johnson with the Warsaw Concerto playing in the background. We are not the morons he thinks.
April 7, 2022
he might adopt the 1812?
April 8, 2022
Well he got the morons to lock themselves into their homes for two years, wear face nappies, adopt silly routines and have their right taken away, whilst splashing the cash on effectivly nothing. All that and more because he knows that the morons will not vote hime and his party out of office.
April 7, 2022
Hereās the next battleā¦.the fight for a true conservative party – Boris and his 6 manifesto guaranteed pledges (p2)
Extra funding for the NHS, with 50,000 more nurses and 50 million more GP surgery appointments a year ā NOT ACHIEVED YET
20,000 more police and tougher sentencing for criminals ā NOT ACHIEVED YET
An Australian-style points-based system to control immigration ā NOT ACHIEVED YET
Millions more invested every week in science, schools, apprenticeships and Infrastructure while controlling debt – UNMEASUREABLE
Reaching Net Zero by 2050 with investment in clean energy solutions and green infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and pollution ā TARGET DATE CHANGED TO 2030
We will not raise the rate of income tax, VAT or National Insurance ā IGNORED PLEDGE & RISED TAXES
April 7, 2022
I presume you are happy that all the ferry ship business owners between ourselves and Europe are foreign owned and thus beyond our control in the event of any dispute. And similarly that many of our ports are similarly foreign owned and controlled. How do we defend ourselves there? We’ve gone off Russian oil but they were not enemies a year or two ago.
It easier to to formulate arguments to agree than to oppose such policies, after all we get easy money. National interest is always sold, just as with many armament acquisitions.
April 7, 2022
Yes. There has been a civil war raging in Ukraine since the EU-engineered coup in 2014. It is always unwise imo to intervene in a civil war far away.
April 7, 2022
Turkey isn’t in the EU but is a strong member of NATO and doesn’t fear to shoot down encroaching Russian jets. I am interested to know what she wants out of the negotiations she is presiding over in Istanbul. Apart from peace, of course. As usual, the MSM behave as if she doesn’t exist.
April 8, 2022
Turkey loathes the west.Erdogan can’t stand Biden.
April 8, 2022
Interesting points, Rose.
April 7, 2022
Liz Truss going on about more sanctions and less gas and oil from Russia, but she doesn’t offer any solutions. What good is that?
It’s obvious that if she wants Germany and others to use less Russian fuels then she should insist we crank up all we can on our fossil fuels, including fracking, and then sell it to Germany and others in Europe.
April 7, 2022
I predict that the war in the Ukraine will be over when the Russians fully retreat to the Dombas region and the Crimea peninsularā¦.the media, NATO and the EU will argue that peace has been restored (to the 2014 era)
Everyone will be too scared to attack or support attacks in these Russian occupied regions
April 7, 2022
Redondo (Argentinian leader) is small fry compared to Pootin and his hypersonic WMD and much closer to the UK than Argentina (also, Pootin seems to hate the UK for some reason – no doubt something to do with KGB past). Pootin more like Stalin than Redondo in ambition and power to back that up – although Stalin didn’t have hypersonic WMD.
What on earth were the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars about? Blix was never given opportunity to finish looking for WMD in Iraq, whilst the war itself kicked up a hornet’s nest of terrorism and then Syria and now Iran free to rule the region – whilst you don’t knock out a few terrorists in the mountains of Afghanistan by sending in a army to catch them. Political leaders were warned about this at the time (I kept banging on about this myself – even though I am no passivist – and got ‘accused’ of being Communist or something for opposing these daft wars. Communist my backside.
The real threat is from Pootin and his Communist past. He’s dangerous. Deranged. Clever. Chippy. And lying behind Pootin, is the shadow of China. We should have spent the last 20 years spending time, money and energy on a sophisticated defence systems and aligning our efforts with others in our geo-graphical area of Europe to share the costs / expertise etc …
I’m not here to say it’s too late but to say that we can start now.
God bless and protect the UK
April 7, 2022
We are presently being invaded on the south coast, an invasion allowed and organised by the government. Is such an invasion not a war, even though the government is on the side of the enemy?
April 7, 2022
I often wonder if an area of the UK will be claimed for another country. There are enough immigrants in the UK to achieve this, and there are many areas in the UK that are no longer British. Do we have our own Dombas in the making?
April 7, 2022
Good news!
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/brexit/european-parliament-backs-rule-change-to-ensure-flow-of-medicines-to-northern-ireland-1.4847214
“European Parliament backs rule change to ensure flow of medicines to Northern Ireland”
“North is granted a derogation in bid to resolve āmain issueā with NI protocol”
Of course that second line is incorrect, because the ‘main issue’ with the NI protocol is not the availability of medicines in NI, it is the fact that the availability of medicines in N I is still being determined by the EU even though the UK including NI has left the EU and the EU no longer determines the availability of medicines in the rest of the UK. Why? Because continued EU control over NI was part of the price that Boris Johnson was prepared to pay to secure his much-vaunted but near-worthless “Canada style” trade deal.
From September 21 2018:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/09/21/the-eu-is-more-preoccupied-with-migration-than-with-brexit/#comment-962171
“A deal like CETA, with the UK playing the part of Canada, would:
a) Do nothing to solve the fabricated problem of the Irish land border;
b) Be only marginally better for the UK than falling back on WTO terms;
c) Put the UK in the weak position of a supplicant during the negotiation.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/09/07/where-is-the-uks-tariff-schedule-for-march-30-2019/#comment-959636
āā¦ I find that Canada exports about 3% of its GDP to the EU, while the UK exports about 12% of its GDP to the EU; therefore on a simple pro rata basis if CETA boosts Canadaās exports to the EU by the equivalent of 0.18% to 0.36 % of its GDP, as the EU Commission projects, then for the UK the same kind of special trade deal with the EU might be worth 0.7% to 1.4% of UK GDP.ā
It has to be borne in mind that the long term trend growth rate of the UK economy is close to 2.5% a year, so even that upper limit of a 1.4% gain from a special trade deal would be equivalent to natural growth over less than seven months.”
April 7, 2022
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20220401IPR26545/eu-uk-relations-ensuring-uninterrupted-supply-of-medicines
“EU-UK relations: ensuring uninterrupted supply of medicines”
“The exceptional provisions will allow medicines authorised in the UK to be supplied to Northern Ireland through a temporary authorisation, valid for a maximum of six months or until the European Medicines Agency grants or refuses a marketing authorisation in the EU. Specific conditions would be in place to ensure that UK-authorised medicines do not enter the EU single market.”
Well, if the EU thinks that it is possible to devise “specific conditions” to protect the EU single market in this way, that is to say preventing medicines which are available in Northern Ireland but which have not been authorised for use in the EU finding their way across the land border into the Irish Republic, then why not do the same for all products. not just medicines, and why not do that through UK law and administrative measures if the EU refuses to extend its own protective measures to all goods?
And why not get on and pass those UK laws, now eight months after they were first proposed?
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/04/06/the-latest-co2-report/#comment-1310918
“Last July the government issued a Command Paper on the way forward with the Northern Ireland protocol, and two of the paragraphs envisaged the passage of UK laws to protect the EU single market … “
April 7, 2022
Off topic:
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/cabinet-article-16-push-boris-johnson-northern-ireland
“Minsters Are Pushing Boris Johnson To Trigger Article 16 After Northern Irish Elections”
I don’t like the sound of this; it is obvious to me that the preliminary step should be to pass the legislation envisaged in the Command Paper, and that is what should be in the Queens’s Speech:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/04/06/the-latest-co2-report/#comment-1310918
April 7, 2022
End of Covid, Ukraine war starts. Summut stinks and it ain’t my cheesy socks
Is Covid and all that has followed (BLM, gender crap, transgender debates, cancel culture, racial politics, green fascism, Covid barbarism etc etc) part of a greater agenda to expose us all to State control?
I feel ‘played’ by the State and so do some of my close friends. It’s becoming a tad tiresome now
It is time for Tory MPs to stop promoting their party and interests and do what they are paid to do, represent their constituents and promote freedom and liberty
April 8, 2022
It is the classic; “Oh look, a squarel !” ie Look over there as we do not want you to look here.
April 7, 2022
War is the result of unacceptable political ambitions of rogue national leaders, defensive neglect, and failed politics and diplomacy. The populations are those who pay the price. Avoidance is achieved by being seen to be strong and being well informed. In the current climate there is every opportunity to demonstrate that aggression does not pay. If the outcome of the Russia/Ukraine war continues in its present direction it may act to demonstrate the futility of such action as a resolver of differences of political philosophy. The further war is put on the back burner the better.
April 7, 2022
Note
Appologies for my second submission. I happened because the first via a ckmputer failed to post on the computer but materialised on my phone.
April 7, 2022
We declared war on Germany in 1914 because we saw it as challenger to our self-appointed position as hegemon of an empire on which the Sun never set. In the thirties many patriotic Englishmen realised that the major threat to Europe was from the Bolsheviks who had already murdered millions
through executions, torture and starvation; these were interred so that we could pursue another war with Germany with our new best friends the Bolsheviks. Now we support the USA in its determination to become world hegemon by the expansion of NATO Eastwards and engaging in ‘coloured’ revolutions and belligerence along the way.
April 7, 2022
I don’t see why we should blame ourselves in the west for the invasion of Ukraine. If they had somehow become a member of NATO then yes, it would have upset the Russians but I do not believe Putin would have dared to invade. He knows he would lose an all-out war with the west and won’t start one. I don’t believe he would dare to attack the Baltic states either (unless the present pathetic excuse for a POTUS signalled that he would do nothing). The expansion of NATO into former Soviet satellites wasn’t done thoughtlessly to provoke Russia but to ensure those countries would avoid exactly the sort of aggression we now see. Putin grabbed Crimea to ensure the naval base at Sebastopol would never be taken by NATO.
All the evidence is that Putin is only interested in one thing: power. He has stayed at the top for 22 years by imprisoning, exiling or murdering his rivals. He cares nothing for the destruction of cities or the deaths or thousands. Look at what he did to Chechnya. Like Stalin, he regards the deaths of millions as just a statistic. In my view the outcome of this war will be the end of Ukraine as we know it, or the end of Putin. One can only hope it will be the latter.
April 8, 2022
There will always be too many wars. We know how lucrative war is for a small minority – why should they want to see the end of them? We know how many US politicians (and probably those of other countries) have invested in the tools of war.
April 8, 2022
Aggressors start wars because they think they can win. Trump made it clear Putin couldn’t win, so he didn’t try. Biden, and Obama before him, made it clear Putin could.
April 10, 2022
Ukraine needs to develope it’s own policies??
YES but – – Zelensky was not democratically ‘installed’ and has probably not been democratically elected since.
Isn’t the EU just as much a ‘single dominant power taking over much of Europe’ as was Spain, Napoleon, the Kaiser plus Austria and Hitler’s Germany?
There is no need Sir John, for you to go soft on the E.U. now, just because we are (almost) out of it!
Individual countries in the E.U. are not able to make their own decisions via their own state parliaments as you know perfectly well.
The E.U. wants to be a single Federal State. As such it IS just as much a threat to Russia now, in the 21st century, as was Germany twice in the 20th century.
One big difference that strikes me – this time the U.S.A., well NATO anyway, seem determined to support the ‘single dominant power taking over the whole of Europe’ instead of Russia, which is the only country wanting to safeguard it’s borders.
In other words, the issue is a lot different from what we are being told to believe and which, even you are presenting it.
April 12, 2022
We have to get Northern Ireland out of the EU single market. The proposal of the foreign secretary not to do this and instead use English taxes to subsidise Northern Ireland business for the costs imposed on them by the EU maximising its meddling in intra-U.K. trade is completely unacceptable. If Boris thinks British voters are going to forget this at the next election he is deeply mistaken.