One of the biggest mistakes people make when dealing with Trump is thinking it is all about him. This is understandable given Trump thinks everything is about him and so did his predecessor. But even Trump would probably acknowledge that on this issue, and several others, he is simply representing the interests of the people who elected him. That is his job after all, but Merkel, Macron, and the rest don’t seem to understand this: they talk of changing Trump’s mind as if he’s decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement just for the fun of it, instead of it being something he was specifically elected to do. I genuinely doubt they realise that the commitments they’re demanding must first be approved by the senate. The way Macron has kicked off his presidential career, he probably thinks everyone at the G20 can do anything they like, as if they’re medieval kings.
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Vince Cable is the latest of many LibDem and Labour leaders and followers who are irrisistibly reminded of Hitler when they contemplate some Tory politician. Jeremy Corbyn is reminded of Hitler by Donald Trump, casting Theresa May in the lesser role of Neville Chamberlain at Munich. Even the odd Tory – the very odd Tory 🙂 – insists it’s the Tory leader, not the Labour leader, that reminds them of Hitler. I think comparing our politicians to Hitler pretty meaningless when even the ones I dislike are obviously more like themselves than like him. Would it be less absurd to ask: who gets his vote? If Adolf had immigrated into Britain recently, or else was already living here, whom would he have voted for last month? Doubtless, like the rest of us, he’d have been less than delighted with either major party, but which one would he have reluctantly chosen? Let’s look at cases. If Adolf were an immigrant: a year ago, the beeb and other media went wild over the arab girl who posted a peace-symbol selfie against the Geert Wilders rally. They quickly lost interest in the story when shown her earlier tweet – “Hitler didnt kill all the jews, he left some. So we know why he was killing them.” If she had moved to Britain last year, I think we know which party she would have voted for last month. Just as it was when the Mufti of Jerusalem praised Adolf Effendi, so it would have been last month: the common elements of disliking Jews and liking socialist methods would have made her choice easy. If Adolf already lived here: twenty-five years ago, I encountered the only native Briton I’ve ever met who agreed with Hitler. In a street in Braintree, a group had gathered round a stall collecting signatures for the Maastricht Referendum Petition*. A man signed and commented that we fought Germany in WWII so why were we giving them a say in ruling us now. While others agreed, a batty old woman suddenly said, “We were on the wrong side.” The man both felt and acted utter astonishment: his step back, pointedly dropped jaw and angled-back head well-conveyed what we all felt. I expressed the “no point arguing with her” feeling I sensed in the rest of us by joking, “Clearly, opposition to the eurocrats covers a very wide range of opinion.” My ‘reward’ for saying that was to have her press a leaflet on me. It ‘explained’ that the Jews were behind everything and we needed politicians who would wield state power to stop them, not enable them (I was not persuaded 🙂 ). Twenty-five years ago, I would not have guessed Labour any more likely than Tories to be the recipient of her vote in that year’s election. Today, I’m quite sure Labour got her vote a month ago. Jeremy would deny her remark indignantly – but he and his friends have so much in common with her. So that is my view of which party any latterday Hitler-lookalike would choose if their views echoed the ‘National’ side of Hitler’s National Socialist ideology. And the more they echoed the ‘Socialist’ side as well, the surer I am of my answer. I’m still not sure it’s a useful question. I can doubt someone is much like Hitler in character and intent, yet think they are furthering his goals. What do commenters think? —- * The Maastricht Referendum Petition was organised by a group of Tory, Labour and LibDem rebels to ask parliament for a referendum on the UK joining the Maastricht treaty in the early ’90s. From memory, patrons were Margaret Thatcher for Tories, the Duke of Devonshire for LibDems and someone for Labour, and the organising MPs were Austin Mitchell for Labour, and a LibDem MP and a Tory MP whose names I have forgotten. When the petition was voted down, former Tory leader Lady Margaret Thatcher and future Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith both supported a referendum, while the Labour MPs who ‘agreed’ with them included none other than a certain Jeremy Corbyn, along with Diane Abbott, Ken Livingstone and George Galloway (but also former Labour leader Jim Callaghan). So it seems that opposition to the eurocrats did indeed then, as now, cover “a very wide range of opinion” – and I feel even more sure that Labour had the batty old woman’s vote last month (unless she’s dead; I call her a batty old woman for a reason). FYI, some Labour backbenchers supported the referendum because they were furious that the Tory-negotiated deal included an opt-out from the EU’s ‘social clause’, i.e. some Labour MPs voted for a referendum so they could renegotiate to give yet more power to the EU (“wide range of opinion” indeed 🙂 ). July 8th, 2017 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Technology has become another way for men to oppress women, says Lizzie O’Shea’s sub-editor. For example,
And it is all because of “sexism in the tech industry”. Therefore my nomination for Guardian comment of the day, if not longer, goes to monkeyrich:
It is not just the Guardian, by the way. Cristina Criddle in the Telegraph wrote in 2016, “Female digital assistants that do not fight back reinforce the connection between a woman’s voice and submission. In fact, it encourages it.” No, they do not. July 7th, 2017 | 45 comments - (Comments are closed)
Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic our citizens are confronted by yet another danger; one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles: the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people. The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies. – Donald Trump speaking in Warsaw today. July 6th, 2017 | 42 comments - (Comments are closed)
July 5th, 2017 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is a worse error still: pretending you did what you promised in your own manifesto when you didn’t. Gordon Brown’s Big Blowout was a fitting end to 13 years when Labour spent like there was no tomorrow. Today is the tomorrow Labour spent like there wasn’t. The coalition won 60% of Britain’s votes in 2010 by promising to remedy that – and the Tories still say they did, they are and they will. Can anyone count on their fingers how many pounds of debt have been paid off? (What do you mean, you don’t have a negative number of fingers !) They paid off nothing. They even increased the debt. The increase was nothing compared to Gordon Brown, of course – and nothing is something when compared to Gordon Brown, who in turn compares well to Jeremy Corbyn – but not one pound was paid off. The UK is like a couch potato, so ashamed of a spectacular blow-out that he tweets all his friends he’s switching over to the DASH diet and gym workouts. He doesn’t actually do it – he keeps lazing on the couch, eating at the rate to which he has now become accustomed, and each month the old bill for that huge takeaway binge has only its interest paid on his credit card statement – but he’s been tweeting so much that his even fatter friends now reply, “Hey, you deserve a break after all this! Come and join us for another big blow-out.” Now he is trapped by his own lies. For seven years, austerity has been talked about. It suited Labour, it suited the media – and it suited the Tories to pretend they were doing some. Now the Tory party is caught in its own lies. Surely, after all this austerity, Britain could afford another night out with Labour. Back in the ’80s, under the austere Margaret Thatcher, interns and electives loved working in A&E – and patients did not wait so long to be seen. The reasons they don’t love it today have nothing to do with austerity – quite the opposite – but how would you know if you listened to the public debate on it? Likewise, many a green is justly called a watermelon: green on the outside, red on the inside. Grenfell tower was made green on the outside and was red that night: red is the colour of fire and of blood. How many would be alive today if the £9 million it cost to clad it had been austerely withheld? I very sincerely hope it will not take the next Tory leader an actual electoral defeat to work all this out. July 5th, 2017 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
As I pointed out two decades ago, the Serious Fraud Office’s primary weapons, common law conspiracy to defraud, and the second limb of false accounting, if construed as the courts appear to understand them and universally applied would make all commerce impossible. It is an early example of the modern trend in antijurisprudence whereby everything is illegal just in case and ‘the proper authorities’ are trusted to pick on Bad People. – Guy Herbert July 5th, 2017 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am writing today to solicit your support in favor of the “And A Pony” Party, the only party that truly cares. Other parties advocate minimum wage laws, but only the AAPP advocates raising the minimum wage to $175 per hour and giving all workers a pony. (We ask why our political opponents lack the courage to stand up for our working people.) Other parties favor preserving old-age pensions, but only the AAPP proposes tripling all old-age pensions annually and giving every retiree a pony. Why do our opponents fail to support our position? It can only mean that they hate the elderly, don’t want them to live well in their golden years, and wish to deny them the companionship that only a pony can provide. Other parties propose providing all citizens with health care paid for by someone other than themselves, but only the AAPP proposes giving all citizens free health care, weekly massage and spa treatments, and a pony. Our opponents clearly do not care sufficiently about the well-being of all our nation’s citizens, and refuse to join us in this call. Other parties propose spending more money on education, but only the “And A Pony” Party is bold enough to insist upon reducing class size to one half (that is, two qualified and state licensed teachers per student) and providing a pony for every child in school. Surely every child will learn better if provided with two full time teachers, and what could be more important than educating our youth? We call on our political opponents, who do not seem to care about our children as much as we do, to stand aside in favor of those who truly are concerned for their future. Other parties would like to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, but only the “And A Pony” Party proposes to provide every family, completely free of charge, with as much electricity as they could ever use, generated entirely by clean technologies, and a pony, too. Our opponents, who are in the pockets of big energy and the anti-pony lobby, would have us continue to enrich the fat cats forever, and would deny families vitally needed ponies. Other parties believe the government should reduce unemployment, but only the AAPP proposes to give a good, high paying job to every worker who wants one no matter what their skill level or age, and a pony. Would our opponents give every worker a good, high paying job? They have been in power for decades, and yet they have not delivered for our people. It is time for a change! Other parties pretend that they want to do something about the growing problem of hunger in our country, but only the AAPP promises to provide every creature with a functioning digestive tract within the bounds of our nation’s borders as much free, nutritious and well prepared food as they can possibly eat, as well as a pony. (The astute will note that we are therefore promising to give every pony a pony. This is correct. You will note that the other political parties do not promise to give every pony a pony, let alone provide free meals to all ponies, thus demonstrating that they are indifferent to the suffering of our nation’s noble equines. Indeed, it appears they do not care about the hungry at all!) Other parties pretend to care about the plight of the homeless and advocate for more public housing, but only the “And A Pony” Party would give every citizen, living or dead, an eight bedroom mansion complete with a fully heated swimming pool, a tennis court, and a stable with a pony in it. Our heartless opponents pass the indigent begging for scraps on the street every day and cannot find even a trace of kindness in their hearts for their plight, let alone work, as we will, to assure that every citizen gets a mansion and a pony. In the next election, you face an important choice. If you truly care about the future of your nation — if you truly want to see our people live the lives of prosperity, happiness and pony ownership that they deserve — there is only one possible party you can vote for: the “And A Pony” Party. I sincerely hope, for the sake of our country, that you support us in our quest to help our children, the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the old, and the poor. July 4th, 2017 | 48 comments - (Comments are closed)
Many will know Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy, a fun essay by Benjamin Barton on episodes in the books that insinuate scepticism about government (and about mainstream media, though this is less the essay’s theme). In the Potter books (and even in ‘A Casual Vacancy’, which is a bad book written by a good writer), J.K.Rowling (sometimes wittingly, sometimes quite unwittingly, I think) teaches lessons that are indirectly unhelpful to those who love statism. Telling an 18-year-old, “You realise Corbyn’s Bureaucracy will be every bit as efficient, as fair and as restrained as the Ministry of Magic”, can be a more useful start to a conversation than mentioning Stalin or Venezuela. (Not that you’ll get any agreement from Rowling herself on that – but my post “Harry Potter and the Silly Tweets” must wait till another day. 🙂 ) When “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” came out in 2003, at the height of the protests against attacking Iraq and the war on terror, the PC brigade went off her for a while. The book’s picture of a hidden evil leader inspiring hideous acts of terrorism, while politicians and the media corruptly downplayed the danger, didn’t quite suit them. Of course, she had planned that plot in the mid-90s as a natural part of the series’ architecture – its appearance in 2003 was coincidental – but the essay has a point. However right in the middle of his argument, Benjamin shows that he is an American – that the everyday experience of growing up as a child in Britain, with UK politics as a “noises off” background one gradually starts to notice, is one he has not had – and does not suspect that he needed. To him, it seems obvious that the politics of the Magical world are not democratic:
Benjamin is arguing logically from his US experience: presidents are elected and are never just ‘sacked’. But the British reader instantly recognises that Benjamin is arguing from an ignorance of UK experience. Theresa May replaced David Cameron as prime minister without an election. An election has now been held and Theresa May is still prime minister, but had she not accepted her inevitable future by promising her party to “serve as long as you wish me to”, she might already have been sacked. She will cease being prime minister before the next election – probably long before. British children and teenagers, the book’s protagonists, grow up knowing that there are elections from time to time, and that the head of government changes from time to time, and that the two are related, but often only indirectly. They also see that Fudge talks like a politician in Britain – like a man with an electorate to worry about, a man who has to care about whether it ‘looks like’ he’s doing the right thing for the magical community. So, transatlantic commenters, what things about the US do I not know that I do not know? And have I any company in my ignorant ignorance? Have you met an ignorance more ignorant, and more ignorant of it, than mine? I appreciate it’s a hard question:
(From ‘Yes, Prime Minister’, episode 6, quoted from memory) July 2nd, 2017 | 55 comments - (Comments are closed)
Someone close to me died recently. Here are a few of the things I learnt:
July 1st, 2017 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
Double-standards – more double-standards: do you remember Stephen Fry and a whole bunch of others railing about the winter Olympics being held in Sochi, in Russia, because of Vladimir Putin’s supposed homophobia? I’ve never taken much of an interest in the Winter Olympics, nor has most of Britain actually, it’s not a hugely popular event. And at the very moment he was ranting about Russia, the cricket world cup, a game we do play a lot of, was getting under way in Bangladesh, where the penalty for same-sex relationships is life imprisonment. In Russia, it’s legal. The Bangladesh escape censure because it’s an Islamic country, and the lefties never wish to be nasty about Islamic countries. More recently, you will have heard them all screeching about the horrible Democratic Unionist Party and their homophobia and how utterly ghastly they are. But again they make no comment whatsoever about the approach to homosexuality in the Islamic world and within the Muslim communities. That is never mentioned. July 1st, 2017 | 50 comments - (Comments are closed)
In an earlier post I said that things were looking good for the Allies in late 1916. In essence, they were getting stronger and their enemies were getting weaker. In early 1917, things got even better. America joined the war while Russia became a republic with a democratic constitution. What could possibly go wrong? Well, as we know, lots did. First, while America may have been a rich country with a large population it suffered from exactly the same problems as Britain did in 1914. Its army was small and not prepared for war against similarly-armed opponents. It would take time to become effective and it’s debatable whether it ever really did. Second, the French launched the ill-fated Nivelle Offensive. Although it was far from a total failure, Nivelle had made extraordinary claims for it. When the hopes founded on these claims were dashed French morale collapsed. What happened to the French army at this time is still shrouded in mystery. The rumour is that far more French soldiers ended up getting shot for mutiny than was admitted at the time or even subsequently. It’s possible we’ll get to find out a little more this year when a few more of the archives are opened. One of the odd things was how this affected Haig’s standing. In February, there had been an attempt to subordinate him to the French High Command. By May, the French government was asking his opinion on who should head that High Command. He didn’t give it. Third, the February Revolution failed to stick. The Russian army had ceased to be an effective fighting force well before the Bolshevik take over in November. So by late summer 1917 Britain’s only effective ally was Italy. While I am tempted to crack jokes Italian “effectiveness” the truth is that I don’t know enough about Italy’s contribution in the war to comment with any great authority. And, anyway, after the defeat at Caporetto, in November, they were in much the same position as the French. Worse still, in February, the Germans launched unrestricted submarine warfare. This sent shock waves through the British high command. At one point, Jellicoe, the First Sea Lord, claimed that Britain had only a matter of months left before its food supplies ran out. The only thing that could save it was the British army capturing the Channel ports where most submarines were based. This is the context in which Passchendaele – or the Third Battle of Ypres as it was officially known – was fought. July 1st, 2017 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
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