Morning music
Peter Hitchens
“Liberty fought tyranny in the High Court in London last week, in what I believe is one of the most important court cases of our time. The issues were simple. Is it permissible to disagree publicly with the British Government‘s foreign policy?
If not, how much do you have to disagree with it to be in trouble? And can you then be severely punished without a proper trial?
I have a strong personal interest in this, since I often (in fact, almost always) disagree with British foreign policy. This frequently seems to have been made by bomb-happy teenagers who have never looked at a map, opened a history book or done any proper travel.
These are surely huge issues for any country. Apart from anything else, if foreign policy cannot be criticised, how long before domestic policy is protected in the same way?“
[Mail on Sunday/Daily Mail]
Well worth reading.
[cf. my own trial, just now finished (at least at first instance)].
Tweets seen
From over a year ago but nothing has changed since then.
Anyone who thinks that misnamed “Labour” will be somehow better than the equally-misnamed “Conservatives” is self-deluding. Having said that, the “Con Party” does deserve to be stamped on and reduced to a tiny caucus at the 2024 General Election.
Stop the migration-invasion. Remove those not wanted in this country. Eliminate rogue landlords and buy-to-let parasites. Build decent homes for British people.
Bob Stewart was at least well-known. Any replacement will probably attract fewer votes even before the slide in Con Party fortunes is taken into account.
Beckenham has been a fairly safe Conservative seat since its creation in 1950. The Conservatives won easily even at the General Election of 1997, and the scandals around Piers Merchant [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Merchant] did not prevent his successor from winning the seat at the by-election (also in 1997): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenham_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1990s.
That it looks as if Beckenham will go Labour in 2024 is of wider significance, and underlines the almost existential crisis of the Conservative Party.
Another fact of straw-in-the-wind significance is that the likely new MP for Beckenham is one Marina Ahmad, a Bangladeshi who moved to the UK when 6 months old. The Great Replacement?…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Ahmad; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Stewart_(politician)[.
[Update, 13 October 2024: in the end, Marina Ahmad was shoved aside (I think after being labelled “antisemitic”) in favour of one Liam Conlon, the 20-something son of Keir Starmer’s collaborator, former civil servant and would-be queen bee, Sue Gray, who held the position of Chief of Staff at 10, Downing Street from July 2024 until (it seems) her interference and politicking made Starmer demote her and chuck her out of the first circle of power in October 2024. Conlon won the new Beckenham and Penge seat with 49.3% of the vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenham_and_Penge_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckenham_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s].
Mint julep
A word about a favourite drink, though one not had by me for some 20 years.
“I must descant a little upon the mint julep, as it is… one of the most delightful and insinuating potations that was ever invented, and may be drunk with satisfaction when the thermometer is as low as 70 degrees.
There are many varieties, such as those composed of claret, Madeira, &c., but the ingredients of the real Mint Julep are as follows. I learned how to make them and succeeded pretty well. Put into a tumbler about a dozen sprigs of the tender shoots of mint, upon them put a spoonful of white sugar, and equal proportions of peach and common brandy, so as to fill it up one-third, or perhaps a little less.
Then take rasped or pounded ice, and fill up the tumbler. Epicures rub the lip of the tumbler with a piece of fresh pineapple, and the tumbler itself is very often incrusted outside with stalactites of ice.
As the ice melts, you drink.
I once overheard two ladies talking in the room next to me, and one of them said, “Well, if I have a weakness for any one thing, it is for a mint julep!”–a very amiable weakness, and proving her good sense and good taste. They are, in fact, like the American ladies–irresistible!“
[Captain Marryatt— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Marryat].
The typical mint julep of today, however, uses quality Bourbon more often than peach brandy and cognac.
Dickens also enjoyed the odd mint julep: https://www.foodhistory.com/foodnotes/leftovers/bev/julep/01/.
Reminds me of happy times in Charleston, South Carolina, which I visited a few times in 2001 and 2002.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 
If only the Zionist state didn’t have nukes. Then a decent Britain or USA in the future or Russia in the here and now under Russian patriot, Putin, could turn that, “shitty little country” as a well-respected, very experienced and well-educated French diplomat described it as at the time of the Iraq War in 2003 into the world’s largest flat parking lot.
We could call it the ‘[REDACTED] Solution to the throughly evil, continual international law disobeying, terroristic Zionist entity’.
The only sad thing about it would be lots of Palestinians killed and a few of the rare decent Jews in the world such as these who live in the Mea Sharim area of Jerusalem:
https//www.nkusa.org
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John:
I find the layout of some of the Israeli towns quite impressive: trees, green spaces, clean lines. Look at, eg, Ashdod on Google Earth. Much better than the Arab equivalents (anywhere in the Middle East). However, one cannot, of course, judge matters overall by mere aesthetics.
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So Beckenham is on a knife edge then! If the Tories are sensible and select a decent British candidate they could retain it just like doing so could have saved Mid Bedfordshire from going Labour.
An even more potent demonstration of the Tory electoral crisis is the fact that both the Cities of London and Westminster seat which is situated in central London and contains areas like Mayfair and Belgravia and Chelsea and Fulham are predicted to go Labour.
The latter seat is the constituency of Greg Hands who was Tory Party chairman but isn’t now. At least he won’t have the indignity of losing that prosperous seat whilst being Conservative Party chairman.
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Rachel Reeves is a member of Labour Friends of Israel so it should come as no surprise she wants to treat vulnerable people with even more callous disdain than the sick Likud Party 1 does.
Evil loves company as the saying goes!
Don’t vote for Likud 1 OR Likud 2! Simples!
Voting is not compulsory in this country so why not use that option to abstain from voting for parties who only care about the Zionist entity and not our own?
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If Labour can’t be bothered to stand up for social justice and have real plans to create a fairer society then, frankly, WHAT IN THE HELL is that party in existence for?
Surely, they must have more strings to their bow than advocating for non stop, massive levels of immigration and being one of the war criminal Netanhayu’s biggest backers in the UK?
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St Mungo’s is an excellent charity one of so many we are fortunate to have in this country but as you say the problem they deal with has been and continues to be made worse by very misguided and often anti-British government policies.
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Charleston, South Carolina, looks like a charming place. They do have some nice places in the US. I wouldn’t wish to live in America particularly mainly because their crime rate can, in some places, be even worse than the failed, Third World shithole ‘Britain’ is becoming under the globalist, anti-British maniacs of Tory and Labour alike.
However, one thing I do envy Americans for though is that it is easy to find solitude and experience wide open spaces in a land which is geographically very large and doesn’t have a population density problem like we do thanks to grotesquely irresponsible open door immigration policies.
New England looks like a good area to visit, particularly Vermont in the Autumn or Fall as the Yanks call it.
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Yes, a good article from Peter Hitchens. We should be free to criticise the British government’s foreign policy. The Foreign Office hasn’t been working for British interests for many, many decades now. Indeed, some might say that situation has pertained for over a century.
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