The UK has fought all too many wars in Europe. Often we were fighting to defend the right of another country to govern itself, or to support political and religious freedoms. We had to fight Philip II of Spain, Napoleon and Hitler for our very national survival as we fought for Europe’s liberties and saw off invasion threats.
After the world war ended in 1945 there was an uneasy peace in much of Europe, with an iron curtain between an enforced Union of the USSR, and the increasing number of democracies in the West as Spain and Greece threw off dictators and military government.
Following the break up of the USSR a series of nasty wars broke out . Slovenia and Croatia detached from Serbia. Bosnia partially left Serbia after an intense civil war. Kosovo wants to leave Serbia.
This century Putin’s Russia pushes to recreate part of the old USSR. There is a scramble for influence between an expansion minded EU wishing to grow by arguments, votes and treaties, and Russia prepared to use force as well as persuasion and diplomacy. The EU has pushed its borders up to Russia in Finland, Poland and the Baltic Republics.
The obvious current centre of this battle is Ukraine. The Kosovo/Serbia split, the Transnistria /Moldova split, the Georgia arguments and others are all part of this clash with a subjugating Russia. In Ukraine the EU backed the protests to remove an elected pro Russian President in 2014, only to see Russia seize Crimea. In Georgia today an anti EU majority in Parliament has passed a media control bill which the EU and its supporters condemn. Serbia, and Moldova are both candidate countries to join the EU, though Serbia is out of favour. Kosovo could become a candidate.The range of candidate countries will give the EU closer exposure and longer borders with Russia.
I will look tomorrow at NATO and UK options
May 18, 2024
NATO – with the RAF in the air alongside the Luftwaffe, bombed the hell out of Serbia. Hardly trying to win by ‘argument and persuasion’.
They forcibly made Christian Serbia surrender ancient Christian land to incoming Moslems. Are going to see the same along the M18? A new caliphate already well developed where gentiles are exploited sexually and in ever other way with impunity from British law?
Why should NGO’s not declare where their funding is from? Would you allow Russia to fund NGOs in the U.K. pushing a political agenda – in secret?
The west has used aggression and the power of the USD to coerce the world – even our would-be friends, like Putin’s Russia. But we thrust him away and into the arms of Zi. Brilliant!
They call the west ‘the Empire of Sodom’. Look at all the rainbow flags and tell me that is not so. If we can’t fight evil in the western political class, then rejoice that somebody – Russia – can.
Reply This piece contrasts Russian and EU expansion. A later piece will look at NATO/US
May 18, 2024
+1 LA
May 18, 2024
+++
I expect that the funding comes from very high places!
And leeches downwards to some very unexpected ones.
Do we, for example, have a free press/MSM?
And if we did would the country have been laid waste for a seasonal outbreak of flu?
May 18, 2024
It’s not Russia doing the ‘subjugating’.NATO also bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade with fatal results-neither forgotten nor forgiven.The timing of Xi’s visit last week was deliberate.Serbia has recently said it will take back Kosovo,its historic heartland, “at a time of its choosing”.And the Republika Srpska component of Bosnia has said it will break away from that failed state if if there is anymore western interference.Another piece of Moldova is close to breaking away-the autonomous region of Gaugazia whose inhabitants are Russified,Orthodox Turks;their leader was in Moscow week before last,they are now connected to the Russian banking system.
NATO and the EU go in hand-in-hand.It has long been established practice that NATO moves in first,establishes a protectorate,then the EU takes over the economic and social aspects.Spare us the Atlantic Council ****.
May 18, 2024
+1 LA. We don’t need US or EU expansionist. It just costs us money, wastes loves, and creates enemies.
May 18, 2024
I meant lives (curse the spell checker)
May 18, 2024
I suffer a lot from the computer ‘improving’ my text. Sometimes it does it just before posting so I can’t correct. They are not called ‘confusers’ for nothing.
May 18, 2024
Interesting that the war in Ukraine started over EU membership. That we are being told we should risk conflict with Russia for Ukraine’s right to join the EU in “defence of all of our freedoms.”
Yet we were told we could not leave the EU fully because of a gang of terrorists.
May 18, 2024
+1 unelected!
May 18, 2024
I don’t see a country like Russia being our would-be friends. Decades of Soviet rule has warped their sensibilities. Putin himself is devoid of morality and one of those whose humanity was lost at an early age in a rite of passage. Look at his direction of the poisonings in Salisbury and executions of political opponents. He has subjected many to physical hazard and death by ordering military action in Ukraine – a country that was presenting no threat to Russia, except they wanted to throw off Russian influence. On top of this he adds lying as a way of life.
May 18, 2024
You should read a bit of history and the readouts from the Kremlin (in English).
May 19, 2024
which are endless lies
May 18, 2024
Sounds sensible to me, but not my area. I cannot see that a positive outcome in the Ukraine is very likely and Israel/Gaza etc. hugely depressing too.
So Hunt wants to blame the appalling state of the UK economy on the Covid and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Not really true. On Covid the problem was the Tories absurd over reaction and gross incompetence – the Lockdowns did huge net harm (even the first one), the “vaccines” did huge net harm too as did the furlough and the currency debasing QE agenda. Now this government waste £300M a day on the sick joke of an endless totally misdirected Covid Enquiry. True Labour supported all this lunacy but the Tories were in power at the time with a good majority and Sunak was Chancellor, Boris PM. The absurdly high energy costs are self inflicted by our insane net zero policy and refusal to frack with energy prices 3 times those of the USA.
It was also a mistake to lie about the origins of the virus as they did and still are doing. They knew & very early it was a lab leak after gain of function experiments.
Most of Hunts speech yesterday is not true. The government have not cut taxes, job creation is very poor, living standard per cap have not really risen. The vast migration levels 1 million + PA does huge net harm to living standards.
May 18, 2024
Hunt says Labour plans are a myth and a lie correct but Sunak says the vaccines are unequivocally safe and he himself says:- “the effective tax paid by someone on an average salary has fallen under conservative governments from 24% to 19%” this over 4 years. If you look as NI employers and employees, the frozen tax allowances, inflation and income tax this is clearly not true. How on earth did he come up with these figures.
Also “Combined with increases to the national living wage, that means that the “undertax” income of someone on the lowest legally payable wage has gone up by 35%” Well what exactly does this mean. They are not better off at all, certainly not in real terms. The net zero war on motorists alone will cost them £700 extra if they need a car to get to work. Plus upping the minimum wage just gives companies less left to invest in the business or to fund pay rises for the other higher paid workers.
May 18, 2024
@Lifelogic +1 – all independent analysis shows the tax take has increased and will keep increasing. Every so called give away was absorbed the freezing of allowances. Hunt says we should judge his Conservative Government by its record – the 70 year high in tax record, then again he says £100K wage is not a lot of money
May 18, 2024
£100K is not a lot in London yet Junior Doctors in London start on £34K but often have £7K of student loan interest leaving them about £17K PA after tax, NI, commuting, council tax, this loan interest… about 12K of that goes on renting a room so £100K a week left to live on.
May 18, 2024
£100 a week left to life on (not £100K)!
May 18, 2024
Good to see yesterday that you are (not) an expert on yet another subject, this time the sugar industry.
It generates approx £1 billion for the economy from 3500 suppliers are does not receive subsidy. British sugar received a grant, it would have been matched, to improve output across the industry. Over the years it has improved efficiency by 25% making it one of the worlds best.
So a world leader making a substantial financial contribution and you want to bin it. Incidentally your lack of knowledge cane solution is (has been) severely affected by high tariffs leading to our main producer, Tate and Lyle operating well (50%?) below capacity.
No wonder you don’t go into politics to actually try and achieve something.
May 18, 2024
Well a grant obviously is just a subsidy surely this is rather obvious? The home industry is also protected by very high import duties of about 35p per KG. This roughly doubles the price of sugar in the UK then were have the sugar tax and VAT on many high sugar products like sweets, chocolate, chocolate biscuits.. (though not on bags of sugar). So protecting home producers of sugar with a very large tax on sugar buyers. Sugar production in the UK is not remotely competitive.
May 18, 2024
Not competitive without the huge import tariff on most overseas competitors that is. Large UK production only continues due to vast subsidies from consumers who are forced to pay circa double what they should have to pay without this huge import tariff.
You say it generates £1 billion for the economy but customers are overcharged for sugar by about £0.8 billion over the international price. Thus taking money out customers pockets that they would probably rather spend on other things thus boosting other areas of the economy that might be more world competitive. So net harm is done by this high import tax.
May 18, 2024
Sugar – pure white and deadly just like another substance that is illegal. Obesity, diabetes, tooth decay, cancer anyone?
May 18, 2024
Enigma
And (oh dear) nasty “colonial” connotations.
Like tobacco and cotton.
“Pure, White and Deadly” (Yudkin).
I think his work got him somewhat cancelled.
An early example of corporate might?
May 18, 2024
All true LL.
May 18, 2024
I agree Lifelogic.
Every time Sunak and Hunt open their mouths to justify the appalling state the Not-a-Conservative-Party has created in the UK they are blatantly lying. Basically, they are gas-lighting us. I can’t listen to them without wanting to throw a brick through my TV.
May 18, 2024
Coming up to an election they really should be ushered into a back room.
No problem gagging us ordinary folk is there?
May 18, 2024
You are not alone. I started to listen to Hunt yesterday and it struck me he looks and sounds like a robot with no ability to grab an audience, to motivate and reassure us that his Government is on our side. They’re not!
This idiot needs a serious charisma by-pass or kept off of our screens. He is at worst a recruiting agent for Starmergueddon or a best an advert for REFORM.
May 18, 2024
@ Donna
I feel the same way, I can’t bear to hear their voices, because I know they are lying!
May 18, 2024
Joe Biden Collapses in Philadelphia – Dares to Ask, “Are You Prepared to Sacrifice Democracy for Freedom?”
And we wonder why the west is collapsing.
May 18, 2024
@LifeLogic – The coming election is about which version of Socialism do you want. Their will be no option of the right person as MP to represent you in parliament. Parliament reinforced by the HoL has become an insult to the notion of freedoms and democracy.
The 14 year Conservative Governments record of enhancing the diktats of Blair/Brown or Labours version that has the same theme. Punish and control.
May 18, 2024
The HOL is an increasing disgrace. The real Lords, who represented vast estates with millions of tenants and workers, had some democratic representative justification.
The horrors that parade in ermine and a turban now make a joke of our country.
The HOL must go and not be replaced as ‘Lord’ (🤯) Kinnock said all those years ago. I think the only prescient statement he ever managed. Who could ever have imagined that people like him and Kirkhope would be swilling champagne on the terrace and being paid for it?
May 18, 2024
Well I respect Peter Lilley, Matt Ridley and Frost must be one or two others who are sensible too. The rest are truly dire and or almost invisible.
May 18, 2024
There seems to be a collective amnesia surrounding lock down of everything from health to the economy courtesy of covid.
It’s all put down to covid itself ,not the reaction to it, and Ukraine.
Did people seriously believe they could all stay off work, get paid, and ‘eat out to help out’
Labour doesn’t mention this era as Starmer would have locked us down for longer and who knows how or where that would have ended.
Then there is the issue of the Bank of England and OBR as our host has explained to us.
Another element that sees little attention.
May 18, 2024
Is it really £300m per day? How does anyone spend (and waste) that much so fast?
May 18, 2024
Cheap compared to funding the ‘new Britons’ who arrive as William did! Harold – where are you when we need you most?
May 18, 2024
£30 Billion for the dysfuncional test and trace Covid app too! Our brilliant civil service are so very good at getting value for tax payers money. Usually no value or negative value.
May 18, 2024
We should continue our stance from its evolution during the Cold War. Be very strong in defence and be seen to have very effective means of aggression as part of NATO. We should not get involved in the expansion of the geographical or political realm of the EU. Our position and that of the USA and Canada should be seen to be very strong , but to do nothing aggressive, such that differences with for example Russia cause them to spend a disproportionate amount on their military, leading to internal population dissatisfaction. Let them disintigrate from within. Reagan and Thatcher set the precident in such policy.
For the UK , being defensively strong must include self sufficiency in the ability to feed ourselves, and having a strong industrial base backed by our own reliable energy sources. Realise that the dilution of British culture by mass immigration and the wholesale subversion of our institutions is as an effective means of UK destruction as is war. In all respects we must eliminate reliance on our potential enemies, and on an EU, that in political direction, makes them unreliable bedfellows, while not forgetting that the people of Europe have much the same desires as ourselves.
That way we survive the rumblings on european borders, in the Middle East, and via pacts, around the Pacific, the aggressive ambition of China.
May 18, 2024
Agricola, a very good summary, from which real, conservative, national policies COULD be developed that would return vibrancy and security to us. As with so much of the common-sense written here, the present Tory Party will not do any of it. Our political and administrative establishment no longer works for the national interest. I am greatly saddened, but at least I have alternatives if I see my country melt away into a dystopian, european morass.
May 18, 2024
The immediate threat is not Russia but Iran and the Islamusts which are, in alliance with the Woke Left, actively doing to UK what you suggest we should let Russia do itself, destroying itself from within. Straight out of Sun Tzu, the art of war? Of course Putin exploits this but his territorial ambitions are relatively limited. There are no limitations to the aims of the Islamists. They want all of the world to fall to Islam.
May 18, 2024
Russia and Iran are in a hugely significant informal alliance.We also saw the China-brokered rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia last year(further agreements were signed last week),last month Turkey moved to do the same (with Iran),this week so has Egypt.
Russia has very close relationships with a large and increasing part of the Islamic world.This very week there is taking place in the ancient Tartar fortress city of Kazan on the Volga(Russia’s unofficial Islamic capital) the 15th International Economic Forum-Russia-Islamic World:KAZANFORUM 2024″.There are 11,000 registered attendees from 80 countries.
It features hundreds of workshops and discussion groups to stimulate trade,connectivity and cultural interaction – there’s even a ‘Russia Halal Expo’-Islamic markets are already major markets for Russia’s agrifoods but have considerable further potential.
Kazan will also be the host city for the BRICS summit this autumn.Current Islamic members are Iran,UAE and Saudi.More Islamic states are expected to join in the round of expansion that will be announced at this event;Indonesia is a leading candidate.
Russia is done with the faithless,corrupt west.No going back!
May 18, 2024
People seem not to comprehend that NATO is beaten. The Fall of Britain – the abandonment of British Democracy ie qualified voting (ethnic British people) and Capitalism, for the Continental Corporatism ensured that. The abandonment of British values across the west ensured it’s self-destruction.
Russia is a European power, the greatest commodities rich country on earth. It has thrown off communism, embraced its ancient Orthodox Christianity and capitalism. Putin, from St. Petersburg, offered deep and fundamental treaties to the west four times, and was rebuffed. He was grateful for what the British Navy did to feed St Petersburg during the last overt Nazi-German War. I’m proud to say my father was an Officer of the RN and on the Russian run.
Those who cannot understand that NATO is done will never be able to grasp that we are watching one of the greatest geopolitical seismic shifts ever. The USA will not remain intact, the petro-dollar is gone, the world reserve currency in its death throes. Europe has been invaded by aliens and as Sir Alfred Sherman said ‘backward people bring their backwardness with them’. They re here not to ‘pay our pensions and clean our toilets but to govern us. That is why Britain is no longer British. Because John Redwood, in spite of his brilliance is condemned for being British.
I don’t know whether Britain will survive my lifetime (I’m 68). I am so angry that I cannot express myself. Our children and grandchildren will live in terrible times. 😭
In fact as Lewis observed ‘I sat with my anger so long that eventually she revealed her true name ‘Grief’.
May 18, 2024
Mitchel
I wasn’t aware of the forum, but I’ve heard much about the BRICS. So really, a lot of enemies and some old allies are forming an alliance, and growing bigger and stronger….to work against the west! This in addition to leftie billionaires funding anything that is anti the west!
What absolute idiots we are!
May 18, 2024
They don’t have yo work against the west. The west has self-destructed. The BRICS are working to survive the fall of the west. They are allowed to do that.
Here is proof of the destruction of Britain ‘🇬🇧 The head of Britain’s main media company, the BBC, said that “impartial news is increasingly becoming an affront to audiences”. The truth offends the woke ‘british values and emotions’. Note this has absolutely nothing to do with authentic British Values on which we were all weaned.
George Orwell would be proud. They’ve outdone the dude completely.
May 18, 2024
++
May 18, 2024
Indeed. Protection of our borders and our security should be this Governments priority. IT IS NOT.
The Governments immediate stopping/returning or deportation of illegal criminal immigrants to prevent more ongoing atrocities/serious crime almost weekly now! IT IS NOT. ECHR and foreign interests takes precedence.
The Countries ability to grow our own food and generate our own energy (not hostile EU states) should be a Government priority and National interest. IT IS NOT.
Our ability to mine coal, produce oil and gas including Fracking should be an obvious preference to importing these same goods, particularly from those rogue states who profit from this stupidity. IT IS NOT. This Government puts NET stupid above all other consideration’s.
This Government legislates non Equality Laws to discriminate against white English men and boys under the guise of DEI/ESG and 172 Companies Act. Outrageous. It promotes wokery in all our Health, public services, emergency services and quangos and has refused over 14 years to address this appalling left wing imbalance. And on and on and on.
The list is long and solution is obvious!
May 18, 2024
Migrant Hotel KING’ makes Times Rich List with staggering £750 million by ‘exploiting’ Broken Britain it seems.
So our Rolls Royce civil servants do not seem to be very efficient at purchasing things. Why did they pay £700 million + over the going rate to this man? Gross incompetence, crony capitalism or worse I wonder.
May 18, 2024
Some examples of government waste. Covid Inquiry £300 million a day for a sick joke. Two defective and useless Aircraft Carriers £8billion, rather more if they eventually get them to work. Covid measures (duff “vaccines” and lockdowns that both did vast net harm) £400 billion, Net zero cost will be many trillions if they really go for it (they won’t as not realistically possible or affordable).
May 18, 2024
£8 billion wasted on two defective aircraft carriers.
Pah. I raise you to £70 billion+ being wasted on a HS rail line which will go from the outskirts of London to nowhere useful in Birmingham.
The time supposedly “saved” by HS2 will be needed to get from the outskirts of London to the centre …. and from nowhere useful to New Street Station in Birmingham.
May 18, 2024
+1then all the soft loans for worthless degrees rhat will often not be repaid.
May 18, 2024
Hunt yesterday.
“To point out, as the Labor Party do, that living standards have fallen this Parliament without mentioning the pandemic or the energy crisis is taking everyone for fools.” Not really the main problem was the appalling government over reaction to Covid and net zero was the main cause of the energy crisis.
“In fact, a conservative government protected living standards with an unprecedented £3,200 in cost of living support for the average family. As a result, in the last year, living standards grew by 1.3%, despite the OBR predicting they would fall by more than double that amount.”
No not “the conservative government” but taxpayer who will have pay for this support perhaps £15,000 each when you add on all the gov admin costs, corruption and all the far too many non taxpayers being carried by others.
May 18, 2024
Sir JR, you’re piece today seems to suggest the EU is an ‘agent de provocateur’ I think you may well be right.
May 18, 2024
The EU is a communist inspired dangerous organisation which is increasingly financed by Germany
They are starting to lose influence and advantage so they may walk away. Then they would be sympathetic to Putin
Popcorn time.
May 18, 2024
The EU is a US constructed vehicle to control Europe.More Wall Street than Karl Marx.Go back to the Dulles brothers and their backing for Jean Monnet.See Politico.eu: “Europe’s American President:The Paradox of Ursula von der Leyen.”
It might resemble the Soviet Union in some respects but the Soviet Union was never actually communist.
May 18, 2024
Outward aggression turns the UK into a target. Assisting others who are badly treated is sensible, but heavy fighting often prolongs wars and revenge from those defeated long after. Being strong in defence of our own land without interfering in the affairs of others is a safer path to lasting peace. Diplomatic prevention is also an effective weapon to engender peace. Switzerland was neutral in WWII and remains a pleasant place to be, even surrounded by the EU, but relatively unbothered by its frequent idiocy.
May 18, 2024
Good morning.
If we put as much effort into sorting out our problems rather than getting involved with those of our neighbours I think we would be in a much better place than we are now.
A revolutionary thought I know.
May 18, 2024
These people can’t even control the Channel,yet they have a deluded-not to say dangerous- wish to control the Black and Red Seas.
May 18, 2024
+1.
May 18, 2024
I agree with your first sentence, Sir John. Not with the rest.
May 18, 2024
Sir John, as always a very biased reporting on Russia like all most all Western Politicians apart from Trump, the Hungarian PM and the one that has just been nearly murdered.
You put gloss on the 2014 protests. They were bloody 61 people burned alive because they were pro-Russia. Ethnic cleansing of Ethnic Russian Ukrainians. Kiev shelling it’s own citizens in the East since 2014.
You known full well that Crimea was part of Russia in very recent times until a Ukrainian president of the USSR gave it to Ukraine. They are all Russians in Crimea.
If you want people to make an informed opinion about an issue please give the full honest picture from both sides.
PS, you have not mentioned the death and destruction on both sides and effectively we are at war with Russia to defend the most corrupt non democratic government in Europe. I won’t mention the N word. And our Government starting WWIII and for what ? You tell me if you can.
May 18, 2024
N’s a reality there. They had to go somewhere?
The world is being robbed, a country emptied and slaughtered.
And the money is being rub-a-dubbed in the theatre of war.
I bet the personal wealth of some has increased by the tens of millions.
May 18, 2024
Hear, hear.
May 18, 2024
I’ll tell you for what.
The day Ukraine gives up its struggle, the day the Russian army will swoop in subjecting their victims to rape, murder and pillage – it’s what victorious soldiers generally do unless well disciplined. And who is going to stop them? Neither the West nor their own commanders.
May 18, 2024
The Ukrainian Government cut off the water supply Crimea when it was part of Ukraine. Russia HAD to ferry in water to save the millions of ethnic Russians so attacked. Cutting off water is a crime against humanity.
That is how Crimea reverted to the Russian Federation.
Are you surprised that Crimea voted to join Russia – their ethnic motherland?
May 18, 2024
Assuming by options Sir John you intend to address future actions. I should have thought NATO’s eastwards expansion was part of the story thus far particularly as the manner of it, as recounted in detail in ME Sarrotte’s Not One Inch, is the primary cause of Russia’s perceptions of it as hostile to Russia and untrustworthy. While nuclear arms reduction was a success, the manner of NATO’s conduct of its negotiations with Russia caused its dreadful failure as measured by its stated objective of bringing stability and peaceful cooperation to Europe. The prevailing Western view now, entirely without justification, is that the West is always right, need not recognise that Putin’s Russia has any rights as a sovereign nation, and Putin’s Russia is always wrong. That is no basis for peaceful cooperation of any kind and unless corrected, will lead to war.
May 18, 2024
Vladimir Putin seems relatively cosy and untouched by the West’s action. The UN haven’t even charged him as much as £10 for disturbing the peace.
May 18, 2024
Yanukovych, the pro-Russian ex-President of Ukraine, was elected using the same flawed and rigged election system that regularly returns the Belarus dictator Lukashenko – and the war criminal Putin. He was overthrown by a popular uprising involving the loss of civilian life in 2014 (the Maidan Revolution)
As democracy developed and became entrenched in Ukraine politics Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyi – a Russian speaker and a TV comedian – won the 2019 Presidential election, beating the incumbent Petro Poroshenko by a large majority
Zelenskyi, despite his lack of a political background, has proved to be an outstanding and personally brave wartime leader. Many have compared him to Churchill – he has understood the strong desire of the Ukraine people to fight the Russian aggression and liberate their lands.
NATO has expanded as a result of the Russian invasion; we have welcomed Finland and Sweden. The war has made NATO stronger, and Russia weaker and more isolated. Defence budgets have increased.
I await your views on NATO and British involvement with interest
May 18, 2024
What was rigged about Yanukovich’s election? His opponents tried to bring forward the election, contrary to the Ukrainian constitution, but that was overturned by the Constitutional Court. He won the second round of the presidential election, held in January 2010. His leading opponent, pro-EU pro-NATO Yulya Tymoshenko, complained it was rigged, but she would, wouldn’t she? As usual, you’re taking her Atlanticist line, G.
May 18, 2024
The war that most concerns me is the war being waged against the people, by our own government.
The great Covid scam. AGW, NZ, CO2, scams. Mass immigration scam. To support the scams they clamp down on our essential liberties like free speech and tax us till the pips squeak.
Scams have become government policy with all legacy parties behind them, but they want us to vote for them. Never again.
May 18, 2024
+ 1
I certainly feel under attack by the British Establishment and the Westminster Uni-Party.
May 18, 2024
+ 1
May 18, 2024
Donna. +1
Me too!
May 18, 2024
+ 1. Sharon and Donna
May 18, 2024
@BOF +1
May 19, 2024
The only scam you need to worry about is the hugely expensive and heavily subsidised carbon capture and storage scam that the fossil fuel industry is trying to sell to the world – so that they continue to extract value from their investments in oil and gas fields
May 18, 2024
SJR’s posts on the economy, individual freedom, environmentalism, farming etc. are well-informed and I always learn something from them. Not so this one. Just to take one example: in Georgia the ‘media control’ bill (now an act) which Parliamentarians – people like him – have enacted is designed to make foreign agents reveal themselves. He doesn’t seem to like it. Yet his own government is quite rightly putting in place the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which gives the Secretary of State the power to require ‘registration of a broader range of activities for specified countries, parts of countries or foreign government-controlled entities where this is necessary to protect the safety of interests of the UK’. The USA also requires foreign agents to be registered as such. Now the Georgian Parliament requires foreign agents of political influence to reveal what bodies in Georgia they are funding – so? It voted for transparency, not for Putin. It is strange to see our host, as a parliamentarian and a patriot, misunderstanding people like him who vote in their national interest.
Reply Do read what I write. I have expressed no view myself on the Georgia bill. I have set out the difference of view between pro Russia and pro EU forces. I am on these matters a commentator not a participant as this is not a UK matter.
May 18, 2024
Reply to reply.”not a UK matter”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The UK is funding some of those NGOs in Georgia;the UK was also caught funding the parties behind the abortive coup in Kazakhstan just before the Ukraine war started.And what do you think Cameron has been up to on his recent tour of central Asia?
I’m pleased to see regular large demonstrations(not reported it would appear) in Armenia against the disastrous PM Pashinyan-a protege of a certain ancient billionaire whose name cannot be mentioned on this site.The crowds are not carrying EU/NATO flags this time(probably why its not being covered in the media).
May 18, 2024
Pashinyan surrendered Nagorno Karabakh so that Armenia was not engaged in a war/dispute to tick an EU Membership box. An Armenian friend tells me that France is sponsoring Armenia – and providing protection (!) when Russian troops withdraw in the forthcoming weeks – requested by Pashinyan.
This cataclysmic action might do to Armenia what the Turks failed to achieve not so long ago.
I understand that Armenia has an income of USD 20 Billion a year from rental income from it’s Quarter of Jerusalem.
The EU will undoubtedly take that ‘for Ukraine’.
May 18, 2024
I did read what you wrote, Sir John. I especially noted your choice of wording. You re-branded what is actually entitled the Georgian Parliament’s ‘Transparency of Foreign Influence’ bill, as a ‘media control’ bill. Your re-wording of the bill’s title seems very much to adopt its opponents’ point of view on it.
In fact, the Georgian Parliament HAS passed laws that mean more state control over the media and free expression, but that was a year or two ago, under the guise of “combating hate speech and incitement to terrorism”. It said this would give alignment with EU law. And for that matter, this country’s law, I believe. Many people in Britain are concerned about foreign influence from certain countries, as I am and I expect you are. But that doesn’t make us in favour of censorship or ‘media control’.
Reply I was seeking to present tge views of both sides, not to express my view. I have no vote on a Georgia law and no view of what is right for them.
May 18, 2024
Two words, proxy war. End of.
The world was safer under Trump. No wonder the Globalist scum despised and now despise him, working hard to undermine him at every turn.
The gravy train of massive military spending trundles on towards an inevitable catastrophe
You know you’re near the truth when the Globalist network seeks to destroy opposing voices to their agenda
May 18, 2024
The EU has expanded and steadily accrued more power, usually without popular consent. The French, Dutch and Irish voted to reject the proposed EU Constitution so it was re-written into the Lisbon Constitutional Treaty to avoid Referendums, apart from Ireland where the Constitution required one. Ireland voted to reject it, but after some minor tweaks was forced to vote again to provide “the right” answer.
The “expansion-minded EU” only debates with those who share its objectives and only pays attention to votes which produce the result it wants.
The history of Ukraine in the Soviet Union is tragic, but Putin was deliberately provoked by the USA and the EU into attacking Ukraine. He acted to protect ethnic Russians who were being treated appallingly by the Ukrainian Government and to recover Crimea, which traditionally had been a part of Russia. The slaughter taking place in Ukraine is, at the very least, partly the fault of the USA, EU and the UK.
I for one do not support the UK facilitating the slaughter by shovelling (borrowed) money and munitions at Ukraine: we should be telling Zelensky to negotiate.
May 18, 2024
Donna :
Agreed.
May 18, 2024
Yes, the war in Ukraine is a tragedy, and part of the current political madness.
At the start of the war, whilst visiting my sister in a care home, I met a dear lady, recently admitted and still pining her loss of freedom. At my next visit, seeing her sat down with one of the carers, I asked her what she was doing. ‘I’m writing to Mr Putin, to invite him to tea’, she said. She felt the war was nothing that couldn’t be sorted out by dialogue and good will. ‘Good for you, but I don’t think there’s much chance he’ll accept’, I humoured. ‘Oh ye of little faith!’ she chided.
Much to think on there. A mother’s love dictates we should be aiming for a negotiated solution, and an end to the senseless killing. And a Father’s love in Christ will one day prevail, as the only solution to the desperate folly of fallen humanity. ‘Thy Kingdom come, Lord!’
(She was of the same mind, bless her. ‘Out of the minds of babes and sucklings’, and ‘orphans and widows’, too, no doubt.)
May 18, 2024
We think modern warfare is all materiel due to advancing technology but Ukraine and Russia have both been short of men to fight and die. The ‘nation state’ concept was pushed by Prussia, I believe, because it needed to unify its conquered territories so men would fight for their new master; their system of schooling, which we adopted, was part of this.
But the nation-state concept has been eroded. Deliberately by the EU: disliking a nation’s power, it promotes regions within and collaborations without. And personally: the young are told they’re each a special individual, a particular shade of the characteristic du jour. Why then will we continue to choose to die for a nation state? Against an all-threatening foe like a Hitler, probably. Or an expanding Islamism; Hamas on our doorstep. But Putin’s no Hitler, he just wants to be remembered by his people as the man who restored Russian pride.
Davidson and Lord Rees-Mogg’s ‘The sovereign individual’ showed people have increasing freedom to shift the country they live in and that countries had better start competing to attract them. Who would now stick around if facing call-up to fight in some other NATO country because of trouble at its distant borders? Better to get out before capital controls try to deter and other safe countries start thinking they’ve had their fill.
Reply In recent wars people have been asked to fight under NATO or EU command in pursuit of transnational objectives. Defending your homeland is a more persuasive rallying call than some of these international missions.
May 18, 2024
Russia has no manpower shortage.
The Institute for the Study of War in the USA (Nuland’s family firm) estimate Russian losses to date at < 40,000.
Ukrainian forces are losing 1,600 a day atm. And total losses are way above 500,000. Zelenski claimed losses of 31,000 two weeks ago – so why are his Press Gangs now grabbing the disabled!
May 18, 2024
The art of war ‘fighting without fighting’ – Sun Tzu
(1) Islam is slowly taking over our communities, churches and politics
(2) Communist Net-Zero controlling our taxes, travel, energy-bills and cost of living
(3) International treaty with the UN, EU & ECHRs undermines sovereignty & democracy
(4) Woke politicians apologising for and removing our history, traditions & our britishness
(5) Industrial/Automotive imports from China and Energy imports from France undermines our economy
May 18, 2024
@glen cullen +1
Government by the people for the people denied, fought against and dismissed. The Nation disenfranchised by the personal self-gratification of the few
May 18, 2024
The Art of War ‘winning without fighting’. Watch China do that across Africa. They bankrupt you forever. Mind you, so does the EU – ask Greece. And the USA with USD 34/35 Trillion of debt is ripe for the picking.
May 18, 2024
To many idiots think they can grab power and yes, they keep getting away with it. To many pseudo democracies think the answer is talking, that then leads to unelected unrepresentative power of supra-national organizations.
Weak crummy Governments blame others and seek to be given what others earn. The Socialist ideal gives the appearance of winning the power of the people – it isn’t. It is the power to ‘me’ and you can have your say as long as you obey my words – it is my creed for the World.
I am ‘strong’ because I can punish you.
It is all about holding people down, suppressing and punishing, ruling by threats – full on Socialism morphing into Communism!
Am I referring to Putin, Xi Jinping, the EU Commission, WHO, the UN or Sunak, Starmer? Your choice, they all refuse democracy unless it is their personal version, they all refuse freedoms and freedom of speech unless you agree with their personal diktats.
Am I wrong? Name the defenders of freedom, name those that have representatives of the people serving the people chosen by the people, ultimately as the power. Certainly, none of the above they all fight that notion.
May 18, 2024
The whole of Western Europe is at war now from the fifth column Communists and their useful idiots who have infiltrated our Parliaments, Civil Service, Institutions, academia, judiciary and police, the MSM (eg BBC) et al. They seek to destroy our social cohesion, nationhood and the willingness to defend ourselves through mass immigration of alien cultures. They pursue the destruction of our economies and our military capability by transitioning us from cheap, abundant and reliable hydrocarbon energy to rationed supplies of weather dependent chaotically intermittent renewables with no plan for grid-scale storage or for nuclear energy. Electrification using impractical replacements for energy dense hydrocarbon fuelled devices, hackable national and local grids and the inability to be able to protect hundreds of thousands of wind turbines spread out over half the North Sea, vast arrays of solar panels and hundreds of kilometres of cabling both undersea and on land will make us sitting ducks for any Russian attack.
May 18, 2024
Sir John, it is worth recognising, all countries seeking membership of the EU regard it as nothing more than a bordello maybe an economic bordello, but a bordello just the same.
Thank goodness we found the door out of the place. The intoxicating/debilitating aroma of the grand palaces was becoming overwhelming.
May 18, 2024
Britain’s wars on the Continent were usually to preserve a balance of power, and to prevent Europe being dominated by one power which could then threaten Britain. This even applied to the Great War, where the Low Countries being dominated by Germany would be a huge threat to Britain.
This policy was entirely correct and properly self interested. Britain should not concern itself with how another country is governed or run, only if it is a threat ie hostile or friendly.
The idea of “spreading democracy” is nonsense and always fails.
May 18, 2024
Last Thursday Lord Callanan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero and Minister for Energy Efficiency & Green Growth, was taking questions in the HoL when he said :
“I certainly agree that the Opposition’s policy is fantasy politics. However, I will give the noble Lord [Lord Frost] the costs in the latest published analysis, which show that electricity from offshore wind is 60% cheaper to build and operate than gas-fired power. The levelised costs are £44 per megawatt hour for offshore wind, versus £114 per megawatt hour for closed-cycle gas turbines.”
[Both are 2023 prices.]
If the cost of offshore wind is £44/MWhr, then why has the Government set the CfD price at £73/MWhr at 2012 prices = £100.27/MWhr at 2023 prices for the next renewables auction, AR6?
And when comparing chaotically intermittent wind (as I write the 28 GW of installed wind capacity is producing just 2 GW) with reliable gas, does the Minister put no value on reliability? Plus, the £114 figure for gas includes a £60 carbon tax
May 18, 2024
The costs quoted assume maximum delivery. They ignore actual delivery because it would show they entire policy is based on hot air.
May 18, 2024
Energy via French interconnector at 22.7% as at 15:00hrs today
May 18, 2024
How many wars would have been fought without the instigation of power mad politicians?
How many could have been funded without the profiteering of bankers?
How could bankers fund the wars without the fractional reserve banking scam enabled by politicians?
Wars are the biggest crime in the world and we keep giving legitimacy, by voting and taxes, to the criminals.
May 18, 2024
Being allowed to fight for your country is a vital freedom. Look at what happened to Britain when we were NOt allowed to defend her. Unrecognisable. Everyone from the Duchess of Devonshire to my gardener says so.
We have been raped and pillaged. It’s ongoing – it’s as if we had lost a war! I suppose we did – the one angainst our Representatives.
May 18, 2024
“Britain reaches a new illegal migrant record with 9,681 having crossed the channel so far in 2024 in the biggest boom since records began.” Daily Mail.
Stopping the boats, eh Rishi? Just as well you’re not encouraging these criminal migrants to force their way into the land of “free everything – and no questions asked.”
May 18, 2024
Is the US pier built in Gaza for forced migration & replacement, dividing and further destabilizing of western society ? Why not just truck the aid in?
Reply Because the combatants are not allowing sufficient truck access
May 18, 2024
22 illegal aliens /boat people arrived yesterday from the safe country of France
May 18, 2024
Wars everywhere – not just in Europe have been caused by a few demented individuals . You would think that civilisation would have learnt lessons from this – but no , the situation is just as bad as today . Democracy has not reduced mayhem and the world is no happier a place than it was ,many years ago .
May 18, 2024
Incorrect – its the erosion of democracy that leds to war ….just look at the unrest in the UK due to woke government and their pursuit of international treaty with UN, EU & ECHRs
May 18, 2024
+1. There is no longer any redress for our grievances. All we can do is fight.
May 18, 2024
You speak of Russia wanting to get back to its old USSR borders as something that shouldn’t be happening, and yet when it comes to the EU increasing in size by taking other countries into it’s fold that is acceptable.
The EU has shown itself more corrupting and expansionist than Russia ever was.
You cannot condemn Russia for wanting to protect its borders and stop the people it considers its own, from being slaughtered by the Ukraine government! The war was started in effect when the USA deposed a democratically elected president and installed a comedian.
It is the West that keeps the war going, and it will only end if Trump is elected or Ukraine runs out of battlefield fodder.
Reply I explained the views of the 2 sides. I did not support the EU in some of its actions.
May 18, 2024
Your articles are normally balanced, I will give you that. Russia’s motives are generally not fully elaborated on.
There was an effort – about the time of the alleged Arab spring, when a certain UK MEP tried very hard to stir up a Russian spring. That was interference beyond what was reasonable. No doubt he had support from the EU elite, but that alone, for me defined how the EU operates — without morals.
May 18, 2024
Typically in the last few centuries wars in Europe have had much better outcomes as a consequence of British involvement than was likely the case without. The price the UK has paid has been too high, typically.
Now we are in reduced circumstances without the military capability we had as a Great Power and without the social cohesion at home to provide the needed will to fight, can our leaders not learn the obvious lessons to avoid engagement please?
May 18, 2024
O/T SJR but I hope you won’t mind: A couple of days ago, you raised in Parliament a question concerning the WHO treaty, and got a very evasive answer from the minister, Andrew Stephenson. An even more serious evasion was when the same minister refused a straight answer to your colleague Mark Francois, about whether Parliament would get to vote on the new public health measures being discussed with the WHO. Andrew Bridgen MP asked the same minister if he would agree that the WHO assembly meeting scheduled for the end of this month needs to be postponed, until the wording of the new proposals has been worked out. That seems sensible to me. But your government doesn’t think so, apparently. How can we the public have any confidence that you are in reality and in practice defending our public-health sovereignty, as you claim to be doing?
Reply I am making the case
May 18, 2024
Thankyou, both. Very important.
May 18, 2024
OT but slight connections..danger and very bad behaviour.
Why, in this fearful and health and safety crazy land is super loud earsplitting music playing in moving and stationary vehicles apparently totally acceptable?
May 18, 2024
Sort out some DMZ’s in my v humble opinion, stop the expansions in either directions.
May 18, 2024
Zelensky passed legislation disallowing Ukraine negotiating at all.
He has to repeal that law before they can even surrender ! 🤬
May 18, 2024
John,
I remain impressed that you discuss serious issues in a calm collected way.
Out here in the real world we are screaming, our family are dying from piss poor healthcare, doctors replaced with PA’s. Our family are out fighting foreign wars, without it even being discussed in parliament. Our jobs are being displaced by absolutely staggering levels of immigration, and industrialised import of Indian nationals to replace Brits. Massive levels of tax and crap public services, which spend most of their time on woke nonsense which has no support among the majority. Our capital city has been shut for permanent violence and protests by people who hate us and should never have been allowed into the country.
Our ruling class have no idea we could or should pay our way in the world.
To be authentic you need to be a lot more upset about this stuff, like the rest of us.
US policy on Russia has been misguided, the NATO side is not guilt free.
Reply I can only pursue a limited number of issues and need to find more MPs to support the changes I think we need. I cannot change Biden’s policy. I and my friends tried to over Northern Ireland and the Windsor Framework and failed.
May 18, 2024
The war in Ukraine is not just to impoverish Russia but also Europe.