Category Archives: historical

Defence, historical, historical revisionism, Reminiscences and Musings, Russia and Russian relations, Uncategorized

What Is and What Might Have Been

August 4, 2019 Ian Millard 1 Comment

Introduction

I was just watching one of the seemingly endless re-runs of the early 1970s historical documentary series, The World at War, and in particular the episode named Barbarossa (from Fall Barbarossa or Operation Barbarossa, named after Friedrich I, the Holy Roman Emperor of the 12th Century who led the Third Crusade against the infidels).

I of course remember watching the TV series when it first was broadcast, in 1973. Many will say that it is in many parts contaminated by what amounts to Jew-Zionist propaganda, and I do not dispute that. Others point out, in a connected critique, that every alleged wrong done by the German Reich and its forces is given great prominence, whereas the cruelties and barbarities of the Soviet regime are barely mentioned (I suppose that it could be argued that the most famous chronicles of those terrible times were not published in English until after The World at War was made: GULAG Archipelago, for one). The criticisms are valid, but one cannot write off The World At War because of those flaws.

The strength of The World at War was that many of the leading personalities on all sides, such as German, English and other general officers, admirals etc, some members of Hitler’s circle (eg Speer), and a host of lesser-ranked people, were all still alive in 1973, giving their filmed testimony weight and immediacy.

Anyway, this article is not meant to focus on The World at War alone, but to examine a couple of “what if?” situations, both in the war years of 1939-45 (for Russians and Americans, 1941-45) and at other times.

The drive to Moscow in 1941

When I was first in Moscow, in 1993, my assigned driver, Pasha (an insolent loutish youth, apropos of nothing) pointed out, as we drove into the city from Sheremetyevo airport, the tank trap memorial, 23 kilometres from the Kremlin on the Leningrad Highway (Leningradskoye Shosse). The memorial marks the supposed furthest point of advance of the German forces in 1941. We drove near to the Kremlin only about 15-20 minutes later.

In 1941, the town of Khimki (now effectively a suburb of Moscow) had only just (1939) been administratively created, and was little developed. Now, hundreds of thousands live close by. Even since I drove through in 1993 there has been further development. Indeed, in the photograph below, taken in a recent year, there can be seen an IKEA warehouse. What would Stalin have had to say about that?!

tanktrapmemorial

The proximity to central Moscow amazed me. Even if not true (as some say) that some German advance-reconnaissance motorcyclists advanced yet further, to a point where they could see the golden domes of the Kremlin churches, it is incredible to see how close the forces of the Reich came to capturing Moscow.

kremlin4

In 1941, flush with the victories in the West in 1940, Hitler intended to advance in Russia against 3 main objectives: Leningrad, Moscow, and also the Ukraine generally, with its huge natural resources of grain crops etc and (in the Don Basin or Donbass), coal.

Hitler at first prioritized Leningrad, followed by the Donbass, and only then Moscow. His generals disagreed, arguing that only a decisive blow against Moscow could achieve victory. There were cogent arguments for all three main objectives:

Leningrad: reasons based around morale (the city of the two 1917 Revolutions and in particular the second, Bolshevik, one; the city bearing the name of Lenin); also, the city without which the all-weather port of Murmansk could probably not be held. If Murmansk fell, there could be no Allied resupply of the Soviet Union except via the Soviet Far East. At that stage of the war, that alone might sink the Soviet regime;
Ukraine: grain supplies, coal, even oil (should German forces be able to advance beyond Ukraine; also, protection for the Romanian oilfields supplying Germany);
Moscow: in the highly-centralized Stalinist system of the Soviet Union, everything came from the centre. Indeed, in the earliest hours of Barbarossa, Soviet officers were heard in German intercepts begging Moscow for orders: “we are under attack; what shall we do?”…It might be that, were Moscow to fall, the Soviet Union would fall. Hitler himself had said that “all we need do is kick open the front door and the whole rotten structure will come tumbling down.”

I have to say that (of course with the knowledge of the decades since 1941) I would favour the Moscow option. Had Moscow fallen, the bubble of the regime would have burst. In a small way, the open panic of the NKVD and CPSU when they thought the Germans would soon be in Moscow, and which led to open rebelliousness on the part of ordinary Moscow inhabitants, leads me to think that a German capture of the city would have led to a rapid fall of the Soviet regime in all of European Russia and perhaps beyond.

In any case, without Moscow under Soviet control, Leningrad must surely have fallen too before very long.

Hitler thought that it was more important to defeat the Soviet armies in the field. European thinking, thinking from the constricted lands of Central and Western Europe. In the Russian space, those otherwise valid ideas become less valid. New armies can be (and were) raised from the vast areas beyond the Volga, beyond the Urals.

As for going for three objectives at once, it might, under other stars, have worked, but the cautious Russian proverb says “chase two hares and you will not catch one”…

Still, what if? What if Moscow had fallen in 1941? Without a two-front war, Germany could not have been defeated in the West. There could not have been the Normandy Landings of 1944, certainly not successfully. European Russia would have been under German control, and the wider expanses of the Soviet Union would probably have been invaded and taken by a Russian but anti-Soviet army such as the Vlasov Army, which might have been expanded to a formidable force. Also, the forces under Rommel in North Africa would have been able to have been hugely reinforced, with the heady strategic possibility that Rommel might have been able not only to take Alexandria, Cairo and the Suez Canal, but Jerusalem, Damascus and then drive up through the foothills of the Caucasus towards Baku and its oilfields, linking up with the forces of Army Group South driving South-East from Ukraine; German forces did occupy part of the Caucasus and even part of Kalmykia in 1942 (occupying Elista briefly).

Mainland Europe would, in that overall scenario, have avoided most of the destruction of 1941-1945. In time, there would no doubt have been peace made between the German Reich and the British Empire. The calamitous decolonization in Africa etc would have been avoided, at least until such time as it would not have had such terrible effects on human and animal inhabitants. There would be either no State of Israel, or one which would not be the hub of a worldwide Jew-Zionist web. The forces of Stalinism would never have invaded Eastern and Central Europe. There would have been no Korean War, no Vietnam War, no Cuban Missile Crisis, and Castro himself would have been seen as just another Latin American tinpot dictator (which is all he was anyway, once Soviet backup was removed) and unable to pose as a world “statesman” (BBC and Labour Party idiots please note).

What if? If only…

And now for something completely different…

What if…Beeching had never happened? Alternatively, what if rail lines had been closed but maintenance of track continued?

I wonder how many British people of the post-1960s age, let alone the (often vacant-seeming) “millennials”, have even heard of Dr. Beeching, his reports and his “Beeching Axe”? [see Notes, below]. In outline, then:

“The first report identified 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of railway line for closure, 55% of stations and 30% of route miles, with an objective of stemming the large losses being incurred during a period of increasing competition from road transport and reducing the rail subsidies necessary to keep the network running; the second identified a small number of major routes for significant investment. The 1963 report also recommended some less well-publicised changes, including a switch to containerisation for rail freight“. [Wikipedia]

Note those figures: 2,363 rail stations to be closed! Not to mention 5,000 miles of track.

“Protests resulted in the saving of some stations and lines, but the majority were closed as planned, and Beeching’s name remains associated with the mass closure of railways and the loss of many local services in the period that followed. A few of these routes have since reopened, some short sections have been preserved as heritage railways, while others have been incorporated into the National Cycle Network or used for road schemes; others now are lost to construction, have reverted to farmland, or remain derelict.” [Wikipedia]

“Beeching’s reports made no recommendations about the handling of land after closures. British Rail operated a policy of disposing of land that was surplus to requirements. Many bridges, cuttings and embankments have been removed and the land sold for development. Closed station buildings on remaining lines have often been demolished or sold for housing or other purposes. Increasing pressure on land use meant that protection of closed trackbeds, as in other countries (such as the US Rail Bank scheme, which holds former railway land for possible future use) was not seen to be practical. Many redundant structures from closed lines remain, such as bridges over other lines and drainage culverts. They often require maintenance as part of the rail infrastructure while providing no benefit. Critics of Beeching argue that the lack of recommendations on the handling of closed railway property demonstrates that the report was short-sighted. On the other hand, retaining a railway on these routes, which would obviously have increased maintenance costs, might not have earned enough to justify that greater cost. As demand for rail has grown since the 1990s, the failure to preserve the routes of closed lines (such as the one between Bedford and Cambridge, which was closed despite Beeching recommending its retention) has been criticized.” [Wikipedia]

The above long extracts from Wikipedia lay out the facts quite well. What is missing is perspective. The postwar period in the UK, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, was one of almost wholesale destruction of old buildings, streets, villages, towns and cities. In fact, postwar redevelopment changed London a great deal more than the oft-cited depredations of the Luftwaffe (most of which bomb damage was concentrated on the Thames dock areas and nearby areas which suffered collateral damage). Naturally, demolitions are sometimes inevitable and sometimes an improvement [see Notes, below], but much that was valuable has gone.

In fact, the 5,000 miles of track closures earmarked by Beeching were in addition to about 3,318 miles of railway track closed between 1948 and 1962 and also a further 1,300 miles of passenger railway between 1923 and 1939! Over 9,000 miles of track!

So “what if”? What if, for example, the rail track had been maintained? That way, were (as now are) different ideas, new technical ideas, possible (eg robot trains, no-staff trains, small ultralight trains, trains made with lighter materials, trains using solar power etc), those tracks could be the basis for new transport links and could be further linked with new track.

The expense of a railway is mostly in the staff pay, pensions etc; after that, the cost of actually running trains (fuel etc); after that, maintenance of trains, track, bridges, tunnels etc. The core maintenance can be relatively little. In the USA, this is the policy (see Wikipedia in Notes, below). Political policy which is also a national insurance policy.

Not that the trekking ways, cycleways and nature walks which often have replaced the old railways are not useful too, but most rail track destroyed has been simply ploughed over, built over or abandoned. Pity.

Notes

https://londonist.com/london/history/lost-london-buildings-destroyed-in-the-21st-century

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-London-1870-1945-Philip-Davies/dp/0955794986

https://www.timeout.com/london/art/12-amazing-photos-of-londons-lost-landmarks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmykia#World_War_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elista

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel#North_Africa_1941%E2%80%931943

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Liberation_Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khimki#Khimki_in_the_Battle_of_Moscow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_I,_Holy_Roman_Emperor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War

Alt-Right, Boris Johnson, Brexit, elections, historical, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

Can The Conservatives Win A General Election? (or are they doomed?)

July 28, 2019 Ian Millard 1 Comment

We are where we are, in the now-ubiquitous phrase. The prime-ministerial chair once occupied by the likes of Pitt, the 1st Duke of Wellington, Gladstone, Lloyd George, Churchill, Attlee, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher etc is now occupied by a public entertainer of mixed ethnic and cultural origins, born in New York City, brought up partly in the USA and Belgium, and until recently a dual passport-holder. A rootless cosmopolitan playing out a performance as an “upper-class” “Englishman” caricature. Am-dram Churchill. Poundland Churchill.

Boris Johnson, Boris-idiot, Boris the clown. More to the immediate point, Boris without a majority, soon. As a child of eight years, Boris Johnson wanted to be “world king” and has for decades schemed and cheated and lied in order to get to the nearest position (outside the monarch’s own ambit) that England allows: the rank of Prime Minister. However, he has not become “King of the World”, but “King for a Day”, the traditional role, in the Revels, of the Jester or Fool (“…for who but a Fool would be King for a Day?”).

The Conservative Party elected Boris Johnson its leader. Conservative MPs voted to reduce the field to two. Conservative Party members, some 140,000 of them, voted and 66% of them, about 92,000, preferred Boris Johnson. It is not my purpose of this article to rail more than en passant against the absurdity that allows a prime minister to resign and for her successor to be, in effect, elected by 92,000 (mostly very elderly, mostly rather well-off financially) Conservative Party members (out of about 50 million voters generally). This article is for the purpose of examining electoral chances.

First of all, we have the Brexit chaos. I favoured Leave. I still favour Brexit. However, the whole process was criminally mishandled by the Conservative government of Theresa May.

How will Brexit affect a general election? I assume that the House of Commons will not allow a WTO or “no deal” Brexit, and so any general election that is then called will see Boris Johnson parking his tanks on the lawn of Brexit Party and trying to go all out for, effectively, the Leave vote of 2016. There are dangers for the Conservative Party in that.

Brexit is not the only issue in a general election. Some more affluent voters may vote Conservative for tax or other reasons even if they oppose Brexit. Also, many in the population will never vote Conservative even if they favour Brexit. Many despise Boris Johnson and will never vote Conservative as long as he is the leader. This is, if chess, three-dimensional chess.

However, now that the Conservatives under Johnson present themselves as the “Leave”/Brexit party, it can be assumed that a sizeable number of former Conservative voters who favour staying in the EU will migrate, at least temporarily, to the only significant Remain-supporting party, the LibDems. Where else can they go? It might be argued that many Conservative MPs favour Remain, and that those MPs will receive a special vote based on that. Don’t count on it. The label is the primary motor, and if Conservative means Leave, many Remain voters will leave…the Conservative Party.

If the next general election is called without the UK having left the EU, or having left on terms dictated by the EU (Brexit In Name Only), then Brexit Party will be waiting to snap up the hard-core Brexit vote.

Brexit Party intends, at present, to contest all 650 seats. Its mere presence ensures that dozens, maybe even beyond a hundred, Conservative MPs will lose their seats, in some cases to Brexit Party, but in more cases to the LibDems or Labour.

There has been talk of a Conservative/Brexit Party electoral pact, but that carries the danger of gifting the Brexit Party a bloc of seats. which might challenge the Conservative Party more strongly later.

Labour, though now called by msm commentators a Remain party, is more nuanced. Corbyn’s fence-sitting tactic, though much criticized, is all that he can do in a circumstance where Labour-held seats were more often (about 60%) Leave-voting, though most Labour voters voted Remain (because, as I blogged recently, Labour votes are increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer seats).

It may be, anyway, that Labour voters have concerns other than, or as well as, Brexit: low pay, the Conservative attacks on the social welfare and benefits system, the burgeoning crime and disorder problem etc.

The composition of the Boris-idiot Cabinet and government will not attract many former Labour, LibDem or floating voters.

My conclusion is that the Boris Johnson government may struggle to attract the votes of more than 30% nationwide. Recent opinion polls have put the Conservatives at anywhere between 23% and 30%. Labour has been between 18% and 28%. LibDems around 16%-20% and Brexit Party 14%-20%.

If the Conservatives continue to lean towards Brexit strongly, they risk losing many of their pro-EU voters to the LibDems, but if they try to fence-sit or move more towards Remain, many of their previous voters will vote for Brexit Party or stay at home.

There is also the Boris Factor, but we see that, even though there has been a “Boris Bounce”, its effect has been slight. The Conservatives are still polling at or below 30% (as is Labour). Indeed, it could be argued that, for many former Conservative voters, especially in marginal seats, Boris-idiot is not an attraction but a turn-off. I concede that that is a guess, but it is at least an educated one.

I have fed various recent opinion poll results into the Electoral Calculus calculator [see Notes, below], and it is quite hard to come up with a Conservative majority in the Commons. Most results show a hung Parliament with either Lab or Con as largest party. Only one showed a Conservative majority (of one vote). In several cases, both main System parties were as many as 80 MPs short of a majority.

Now we all know that the “glorious uncertainty” of the Turf is carried over to the field of battle of British elections. It is hard to predict elections in Britain and “a week is a long time in British politics”, as Harold Wilson said. Also, Electoral Calculus is a fairly rough guide. Having said that, it seems clear that, at least in the short term, the Conservatives are on the back foot here. Any gamble to increase the Conservative majority in the Commons may well backfire, as in 2017. That would mean the end of The Clown as Prime Minister, but would also mean something of a political and even Constitutional crisis.

These should be fertile days for social nationalism, but we are as yet not even in the game…

Notes

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

Afterthought, 29 July 2019

David Cameron-Levita as Prime Minister always made sure that the interests of pensioners were prioritized, in particular by introducing the “Triple Lock” on State pensions. Pensions have been one of several issues taking greater prominence over the years by reason of the increasing average age of the population of the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Pension_(United_Kingdom)#Pensions_Act_2007

There were clear practical political reasons for this policy. Support for the Labour Party at elections is fairly even across the half-dozen usual age groups, whereas support for the Conservative Party is concentrated among the old and middle-aged: just under 50% of all Conservative votes are those of persons aged over 65 years. Hardly any young people intend to vote Conservative (in the 18-24 age group, below 4%).

The loyalty of the over 65s has been reinforced by pensioner-friendly policies. There are signs now that the Conservatives intend to, in the oft-seen phrase, “throw the pensioners under a bus”. In 2017 Phillip Hammond wanted to remove part of the Triple Lock, but the DUP insisted on its retention in part-payment for DUP “confidence and supply” support in the Commons.

The Conservative Party is already getting some flak from the elderly for the BBC’s announcement that free TV licences will be withdrawn for those of 75+ years. There are rumblings about bus passes for pensioners. Overall, it is clear that the free market crazies now in the ascendant under Boris-idiot want to target the elderly as they have already done the disabled, sick, unemployed etc.

The Labour Party is now the party of the blacks and browns, those dependent on State benefits, and of the public service workers. The Conservative Party is now the party of the rich, the affluent, the buy-to-let parasites and the like, and (many of) the elderly. If the elderly who are not particularly well-off desert the Conservatives, the Conservative Party is in big trouble, because only about 10%-15% of UK voters can really be described as rich or even affluent, certainly no more than 20%. In 2017, the Conservative vote amounted to 42.4% of votes cast. If half or more of those votes suddenly disappear, the Conservative Party is quite likely to disappear with them.

Further Notes

https://www.ipe.com/countries/uk/peers-call-for-removal-of-triple-lock-on-uk-state-pension/www.ipe.com/countries/uk/peers-call-for-removal-of-triple-lock-on-uk-state-pension/10030786.fullarticle

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/27/pensions-triple-lock-questions-answered

https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2019/04/james-kanagasooriam-the-left-right-age-gap-is-even-worse-for-the-conservatives-than-you-think.html

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-over-75s-licence-fee-18335538

Update, 3 February 2023

Well, we all now know that, in December 2019, Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party won a supposed “landslide” at the General Election. In fact, the Conservative Party vote was only 43.6% of votes cast, but Labour’s vote fell to 32.1%, and that decided the matter.

Key was the decision of Nigel Farage to stab in the back his own candidates and supporters by withdrawing Brexit Party from serious contention. That was the key act that ensured a Johnson/Conservative win.

Brexit Party ended up with 2% of the vote nationwide. Had Farage and Brexit Party gone all out to win from the start, Brexit Party might have got 15%, which though giving Brexit Party few if any seats, would have tipped the balance back to hung Parliament territory.

Other factors were the elderly and late middle-age voters sticking with the Conservative Party, and the relentless and mainly Jewish anti-Corbyn campaign in the msm, which helped to crush Labour’s chances.

Alt-Right, ethnostate, free speech, historical, historical revisionism, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Uncategorized

The 20th of July 2019: thoughts

July 20, 2019 Ian Millard 27 Comments

derfuhrer

Today is the 75th anniversary of the attempt made to assassinate Adolf Hitler at his headquarters in East Prussia, the Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair), now situated within the borders of post-1945 Poland.

I blogged last year about matters around the event and around those times more generally:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/the-20th-of-july/

What is there to add? Perhaps a reminder that human manifestations on this Earth do not last forever. The film, below, shows what the sprawling headquarters of 1944 is like today: as abandoned and lost as the cities of the Aztecs or the Mayans.

On the other hand, the devastated cities of the Germany of 1944 and 1945 are today thriving governmental, commercial, cultural and residential centres, with populations again in the hundreds of thousands or even millions.

dresden1945

[above, Dresden in 1945]

Berlin1945

[above, Berlin in 1945; area shown is the Unter den Linden boulevard in central Berlin]

Berlin1945Reichkanzlerei

[above, Berlin in 1945; area shown is the Reichskanzlei or Reich Chancellery]

The above photographs show the devastation resulting from war. Today, those same areas are prosperous, busy, thronged with inhabitants. Some of the old has been replaced, some kept, adapted to contemporary usage.

The same is true of ideas. Both the practical and the spiritual-cultural achievements of National Socialism were huge, enormous, particularly when it is considered that they were achieved within only 6 years of peace, the years 1933-1939. SIX YEARS!

3396AD3500000578-3561575-Hitler_had_lived_in_Munich_just_before_World_War_I_and_remained_-a-1_1461778976380

DietrichEckartBuhne

an-automobile-on-the-sweeping-curves-everett

autobahn

VW3

Nuremberg_Aerial_Kongresshalle

ShockBlast-Hugo_Jaeger-other-678798

Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-K1216-501,_Berlin,_Neue_Reichskanzlei,_Marmorgalerie Chancellery3 Chancellery2

We do not need to copy or indeed defend everything that was done by, or in the name of, the Reich. Indeed, many of the flaws of the Reich, or supposed flaws, existed and in fact were even more glaring in both the West and the Soviet Union of the 1930s. The Zeitgeist streamed over the world as a whole, like the jetstream.

In 2019, we honour what was good in the Reich, what worked for the German people and the peoples of all Europe. The rest, we do not need. Times move on. Some challenges remain; others, newly emerged, have to be faced for the first time.

2EFE92D300000578-0-image-a-16_1449088809263

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bdm-girls-riding-out-through-the-woods

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We honour the past and stand ready to create the future.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%27s_Lair

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gier%C5%82o%C5%BC,_K%C4%99trzyn_County

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Prussia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%99trzyn

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/

Boris Johnson, Brexit, Conservative Friends of Israel, Defence, elections, historical, Ian Millard, Jewish lobby in UK, MPs, Party Politics, Russia and Russian relations, society, Uncategorized

The Main Conservative Party Leadership Contenders in Outline

June 9, 2019 Ian Millard 27 Comments

First words

One of the 5 tweets that got me disbarred at the instigation of a pack of Jews was that describing Michael Gove MP as “a pro-Jew, pro-Israel expenses cheat”. I am very glad to be able to post the key words yet again (as I do from time to time), now with the addition “who is also a dishonest, cocaine-snorting little degenerate with a Jewish wife.”

Major Candidates

I have decided now to blog about the main rivals for Theresa May’s threadbare purple as leader of the Conservative Party. I start with Gove.

Michael Gove

currie-janner-and-gove

[above, Gove enjoys the company of Jew paedophile and rapist, the now-deceased one-time Labour MP and (later) “lord”, Greville Janner, at a Zionist social gathering]

Gove was adopted, his origins not publicly known. He was a journalist before becoming an MP. At that time, he showed his adherence to the Israeli cause by participating in a pro-Israel demonstration in Trafalgar Square.

It seems that, like —sadly— too many of “our” mainstream media scribblers, Michael Gove was a fairly frequent abuser of cocaine before (only before?) his Jewish Zionist backers got him onto the System political racket as an MP.

Michael Gove's admitting to have used drugs as a young journalist came ahead of the publication of a biography in July, which reportedly contains the allegation https://t.co/jiUcqhrI07

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) June 8, 2019

For several years, Gove had a relatively low public profile as MP, despite his promotion to Shadow Cabinet in 2007, after only 2 years as a backbench MP. He was one of the most blatant (though far from the worst) expenses cheats and blodgers exposed in 2009: he and his Jewish or part-Jewish wife, Sarah Vine (a Daily Mail columnist), claimed as detailed here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gove#Expenses_claims

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Vine

Gove is an active member of Conservative Friends of Israel. He is a non-Jewish Zionist, completely in the pocket of the Jewish Zionist lobby. He has always supported UK “intervention” in the Middle East and elsewhere (eg Libya).

Gove was Boris Johnson’s campaign manager (in effect, Johnson’s deputy) in the Conservative leadership contest of 2016, but stabbed Johnson in the back at the crucial moment, causing maximum damage to the leadership bid that he, Gove, had been supporting until that moment.

Gove’s wife has said that he cannot do as much as boil a kettle. Well, Einstein was like that and look how he benefited humanity. Oh, no, wait…

Conclusion: A doormat for Zionism and the Jewish lobby; intelligent, but not as intelligent or cultured as he and his backers believe him to be. A driven careerist. Completely untrustworthy. Not reliable in any way (except in his support for Israel, which for me is a negative). Administratively, probably competent. Otherwise unfit for the office of Prime Minister.

https://twitter.com/BermondseyBoy68/status/1137341476323700736

Boris Johnson

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[above, Boris Johnson “praying” at the “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem]

Boris Johnson, aka Boris-Idiot, has wanted to be Prime Minister for a long time. A melange of different ethnicities, he is partly-European, partly-Turkic, partly-Jew: his maternal great-grandfather was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi in Lithuania! Three generations on, the Eton and Oxford “fiddler on the roof” was born in New York City to a father who worked for the World Bank and was later a Conservative MP.

Boris Johnson has been a backbench MP twice, without having distinguished himself. He has been Foreign Secretary and was terrible at it, incapable of doing the job properly. He has been a journalist-trainee (at the Times— sacked for making up a quotation), a journalist (at the Telegraph— where he was known for making up news) and an editor (The Spectator-— where he was notorious for absenteeism, lateness, making the staff make up for his defaults, also rude and unpleasant to the staff, and spent much of his time, in office hours, out of the office screwing lightweight airhead Spectator scribbler Petronella Wyatt).

Johnson has always had to face accusations of incompetence, complacency, laziness, lack of serious thought and application, as well as charges of dishonesty. These traits have characterized Johnson from his days at Eton right up to his shambolic and quite brief time as Foreign Secretary. A further trait has been appointment by reason of connections, rather than merit.

Johnson, who spent his childhood and youth amid the wealthy without himself really being of (very/extremely) wealthy background, is obsessed with scrabbling for as much money as he can get, and apparently gets (on top of MP salary and expenses) £250,000 per year for writing garbage in the Telegraph, which garbage he cobbles together once a week in about one and a half hours. One has to wonder at the motivations of the Telegraph’s editor or, perhaps being more significant, owners. The Telegraph is owned by the Barclay Brothers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Frederick_Barclay] who both favour Brexit and would no doubt find it very useful to have a UK Prime Minister obligated to them. Johnson tried to be Mayor of London and MP at the same time, in order to double his salary.

Boris Johnson is not prepared to do the preparation necessary to avoid egregious and avoidable mistakes. Two that come to mind are the water-cannon he bought as Mayor of London (unusable because not approved by the Home Office, a fact that Johnson did not bother to find out in advance) and Johnson’s painful mishandling of the Zaghari-Ratcliffe case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazanin_Zaghari-Ratcliffe#Boris_Johnson_intervention

Johnson will do almost anything to become Prime Minister. Though probably genuinely at least cynical or sceptical about the EU, he has fluctuated between Leave and Remain for most of the past two decades, and only committed himself to Leave when it became politic so to do.

“He’s lied his way through life, he’s lied his way through politics, he’s a huckster with a degree of charm to which I am immune”

[Anon., said to be a Cabinet minister, quoted in The Times of Israel]

Johnson, like 80% of Conservative MPs, is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. In 2017, an Israeli employed by the Israeli Embassy in London, Shai Masot, was covertly filmed talking about how he had a million pound slush fund for “friendly” Westminster MPs, and how he wanted to have others “taken down”.

The Jew Masot talked to a “British” traitress and/or agent, one Maria Strizzolo (an aide to Jew Zionist “Conservative” MP Robert Halfon), about Boris Johnson, who, said Masot, was OK. “Ah, Boris…Boris…is good; he is solid on Israel. Of course, Boris is an idiot…” (and smirks…).

After being openly talked about like that, Boris Johnson just laughed it off in the Commons. He knows that he needs the Jew-influenced “British” msm to publicize him and support him. What’s a few insults from his Jewish “friends” anyway?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1387955/Al-Jazeera-Investigations-film-Shai-Masot-undercover.html

As MP and as Mayor of London, Boris was rumoured to have been an occasional drug abuser and, more often, a stalker of women in supermarkets etc. After having been (in the Minder appellation) “‘Er indoors” for many years, his (second) wife, a half-Indian woman, finally chucked him out in 2018.

Apparently, Johnson rarely if ever reads a book or anything beyond newspaper opinion columns. His pathetic attempts to pull rank on the plebs and make himself seem cultured by using Latin or classical Greek words fell flat after a few years. People saw through it.

Johnson’s latest girlfriend, whom he will probably marry, is a Conservative backroom PR woman who has smartened him up, cut his hair, put him on a diet and generally made him look less like a clown. She cannot do much about what is in his head, though.

Johnson has something in common with Donald Trump. Nothing that he says can be taken at face value. In fact, the sharp-eyed Jews have not had difficulty noticing that:

“Johnson’s…actions have done little to assuage liberal Britons. Last year, he came under heavy attack from Jewish community leaders after he described Muslim women wearing burkas as looking “absolutely ridiculous” and like “letter boxes” and “bank robbers.” The Jewish Leadership Council said Johnson’s words were “utterly disgraceful,” while a leading rabbi accused him of “racism with a smile.” The Jewish Chronicle compared the former foreign secretary to a “bar-room bigot”.” [The Times of Israel]

Now we see that Johnson is again trying to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds.

Excl: Remainer Tory MPs beginning to back “malleable” Boris for leader as their best hope of softening or reversing Brexit altogetherhttps://t.co/SFUY5sN0s7

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) June 6, 2019

Conclusion: Boris Johnson is a basically rootless character. Ethnically somewhat “diverse”, born in New York City, brought up in Belgium and England, educated with the (very) wealthy while not being quite one of them [cf. David Cameron-Levita, who was heir to a fortune in the tens of millions of pounds], Boris is always the slight outsider. He is pro-Israel mainly because it is convenient to be so (though he is part-Jew). His am-dram Bertie Wooster impression is no doubt an attempt to fit in with an England where he still does not wholly belong. The same is true of his equally am-dram but totally empty Winston Churchill impression and mimicry (he even affects a slightly-hunched posture at times). As a politician, he makes a good public entertainer. Driven. Unreliable. Incompetent. His Uxbridge seat may not be safe. Unfit to be Prime Minister, however looked at.

Jeremy Hunt

The most serious main contender for Conservative Party leader, as I identified some time ago.

From an English background, Hunt is distantly related both to the Queen and to one-time Labour government minister and founder-leader (1930s) of the British Union of Fascists and (1950s) Union Movement, Sir Oswald Mosley. Born into an old Establishment family (his father was an admiral).

Politically, Hunt has had a fairly meteoric career. Elected as MP in 2005 (at age 39), he was made a Shadow minister almost immediately, promoted to Shadow Cabinet minister in 2007 and, as soon as the Conservatives formed the Con Coalition in 2010, appointed Cabinet minister (Culture Secretary 2010-2012, Health Secretary 2012-2018, Foreign Secretary 2018-present).

Hunt has by far the widest experience of government of the present contenders.

Hunt’s wife is Chinese, yet he has on occasion criticized the Chinese government.

Hunt is (predictably) pro-Israel:

https://cfoi.co.uk/foreign-secretary-jeremy-hunt-affirms-israels-unconditional-right-to-self-defence-at-cfi-parliamentary-reception/

Conclusion: Probably the most serious contender for Conservative leader if one forgets about level of public profile (Boris Johnson’s trump card). A smarmy snake type, but (despite gaffes here and there) reasonably competent (when compared to Johnson, especially). It would be surprising were he not one of the final two candidates.

Sajid Javid

CYHP3gvWYAArn3_

By origin Pakistani Muslim, Javid could be described as an apostate, having said that:

“My own family’s heritage is Muslim. Myself and my four brothers were brought up to believe in God, but I do not practise any religion. My wife is a practising Christian and the only religion practised in my house is Christianity.” [Wikipedia]

Javid is not a practising Muslim and he drinks alcohol. One of his brothers died from ingestion of alcohol and codeine.

Javid has been a devotee of the “philosophical selfishness” of so-called “Objectivism”, the “philosophy” invented by Jewess Ayn Rand.

“Philosopher and theologian John Milbank commented [about Javid]: “It is extraordinarily disturbing that any mainstream politician should express any admiration for Ayn Rand. We should be concerned that someone like Sajid Javid can now hold high office within the United Kingdom.” [Wikipedia]

Javid was an international banker for about 18 years, rising by 2009 (when he quit to pursue his political ambitions) to an income of some £3 million a year. At least it can be said for Javid that his political career is not motivated by money-grubbing (cf. Johnson and, to some extent, Gove). Whether being an international banker is quite as impressive as it sounds, after the debacle of 2007-2008, is a matter for debate.

It was a shock to many that Sajid Javid, as Home Secretary no less, expressed support for the “antifa” thugs and snoopers. It shows either malice or, more likely (?) ignorance. I saw a Twitter photo of Javid at a Metropolitan Police event at which some of the most notorious Jew-Zionist trolls and troublemakers were in attendance.

Javid is yet another Conservative MP who belongs to Conservative Friends of Israel.

“Javid is regarded as one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in the Cabinet and is a long-time supporter of Conservative Friends of Israel.” [Wikipedia]. He even went there on his honeymoon!

“Javid’s strong record of speaking out against anti-Semitism has earned him plaudits from leading Jewish communal figures” [Wikipedia]

“In 2015, at a Board of Deputies of British Jews hustings event, Javid stated that publicly funded cultural institutions that boycott Israel risk having their government grants cut.^[81] Citing a boycott of the UK Jewish Film Festival^[82] by the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, Javid said: “I have made it absolutely clear what might happen to their [the theatre’s] funding if they try, or if anyone tries, that kind of thing again.” ^[81] British playwright Caryl Churchill raised concerns about political interference in the arts and questioned: “All Charlie Hebdo? Except when freedom of expression means freedom to criticise Israel.”

[Wikipedia]

Conclusion:

Sajid Javid seems to be a genuine Leaver/Brexiteer. Put another way, a convinced globalist…in favour (unsurprisingly) of immigration into the UK. A complete doormat for the Jews and Israel, too. Intelligent…up to a point. Seems to be another one who is either narrow or has idees-fixes: Israel, Ayn Rand etc. May be administratively competent. As potential Prime Minister, a Pakistani-origined capitalist-globalist who supports Israel, the Jewish lobby, the mindless “antifa” idiots and the outlook of Ayn Rand, is not my idea of the right selection.

Dominic Raab

Raab is half-Jewish (and half-English) but was brought up culturally mainly English, including Church of England, and in –perhaps appropriately– Gerrard’s Cross, Buckinghamshire, the next rail stop from Beaconsfield, one-time seat of deracinated Jew Benjamin Disraeli, later Lord Beaconsfield, who became both Conservative leader and then, in 1868, Prime Minister.

Raab has a background in law (a degree and solicitor’s qualification, as well as a 2-year training term with Linklaters, a leading City of London firm), the Foreign Office (5-6 years) and as adviser for 3-4 years to Conservative Shadow Cabinet ministers. He was elected MP in 2010.

Raab has had a turbocharged career in Parliament, being involved with numerous serious policies and initiatives, including cross-party ones. Evenhanded (on the surface) re. Israel, he has criticized the most egregious excesses of the Zionists, in particular the settlement movement. He reached the Cabinet in 8 years.

Raab was involved with the Britannia Unchained booklet, which might be said to endorse what some have termed a “Zionist slavemaster agenda” for the British people.

Raab is a sincere Leaver/Brexiteer.

I assess Raab as hard and indeed ruthless.

Conclusion: Another rather rootless person. Not quite Jew, not quite full English. Probably competent in terms of administrative and executive ability, but there have been allegations that he bullies his staff. Seems doubtful whether he can much impress the British voters, and his suggestion of forcing a WTO Brexit through via the prorogation of Parliament (something not done, for purely tactical political reasons, and as far as I know, since Cromwellian times), must give pause to those who would support him as potential Prime Minister.

Other candidates

There are a number of other candidates, though it may be that few if any can get 8 MPs (increased from 2 to cull the numbers) to support their candidatures. I have already blogged, a while ago, about Rory Stewart, arguably the most interesting candidate individually:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/will-rory-stewart-mp-be-prime-minister/

though I note that some msm commentators have now expressed some of the same doubts as I did some time ago, and wondering whether his whole adds up to the sum of his parts, basically.

Should other candidates get through the initial process, I shall also examine them (or should that be “turn on them”?).

Overview

The Conservative leadership contest is yet another “shitshow” (in the elegant word of Johnny Mercer MP). The Conservatives cannot organize Brexit, cannot even organize their own leadership election effectively! They certainly cannot run the country properly. I wonder how long they can cling to government.

Another point comes to mind, in relation to various issues but, for example, Gove’s cocaine abuse. MSM commentators and talking heads all saying that the public don’t really mind if journalists, MPs, Prime Ministers, snort drugs. I wonder. There may be plenty of people who think that frequent abusers or users should be machinegunned , if only as a public health measure. I merely pose the question…

There is a real and growing rift between the “socially liberal” metro-people and the other “tribes” in the UK.

[example: the Political Correspondent of Sky News does not regard it as significant that at least two of the main contenders for the Conservative Party leadership were habitual cocaine abusers!

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1138085102808965121 ]

and

this is the political puzzle of the week, it makes almost no sense at all https://t.co/WLBoKRWr5u

— Friend of Deep State 🐋 (@PickardJE) June 11, 2019

As for the Conservative Party, it seems bizarre that a few hundred MPs, and then what amounts to about 40,000 70 and 80 year olds, can elect a party leader who will then automatically become Prime Minister and may serve until 2022 without any need to be endorsed by the whole people.

👇Iain is spot on. Look at the powerful movements the Republicans/Labour allowed Trump/Corbyn to create in the open. The Tories are tying their own noose by locking the nation out of their coronation. https://t.co/X4D1CsfCtN

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) June 6, 2019

“All of this is behind oak-panelled doors.”

The Sun’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn says the closed-door Tory leadership hustings are “a fundamental ludicrous way for the Conservative party to solve their massive problems”#newsnight | #InsideThePapers | @tnewtondunn pic.twitter.com/bhO1oR5ydc

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) June 6, 2019

Notes

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9236464/tory-leadership-election-security-measures-ballots/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gove

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronella_Wyatt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hunt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sajid_Javid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Raab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Raab#Britannia_Unchained

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/British-PM-contender-Dominic-Raab-has-Jewish-father-who-fled-the-Nazis-590730

https://www.timesofisrael.com/meet-the-frontrunners-to-become-britains-next-pm-and-their-stances-on-israel/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1387955/Al-Jazeera-Investigations-film-Shai-Masot-undercover.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazanin_Zaghari-Ratcliffe#Boris_Johnson_intervention

Afterthought, 10 June 2019

Boris Johnson has just “pledged” (whatever little weight that carries in the mouth of a congenital liar like him) to cut taxes for the 5%-10% of the adult population with gross incomes above £50,000 a year. He thus addresses directly the affluent and wealthy people who, as members of the Conservative Party, are about to elect the leader of that party. People who would benefit from any such policy.

To put it another way, Boris Johnson has just made it more likely that he will be elected Conservative Party leader, but at the same time has made it even less likely than it already is that the Conservatives will win the next general election. In fact, they will probably not even be the largest party in the Commons after a general election. They might not even be the second-largest party.

I wonder what the mass of voters (90%+) who earn less than £50K a year gross will think about a Conservative Party led by Boris Johnson that prioritizes tax cuts for the affluent and wealthy 10% at the expense of the other 90%? If only 10% of voters vote Conservative next time, it is “Goodnight Vienna” for the Conservative Party; and Boris Johnson, in his modest-majority Uxbridge seat, will be one of the first to fall.

Tweets and updates

So it was Dominic Raab's campaign team who pushed the Gove cocaine story to the media. Incredible that this process is choosing the UK's next Prime Minister. It's like watching rats fighting in a sewer – only the Tory battle stinks much worse.

— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) June 10, 2019

Cabinet
– Theresa May warns her successors there are more opponents of a "no deal" than there are hard brexiteers who will vote it through.
– Julian Smith warned Parliament will use "all endeavours" to stop no deal
– Sajid Javid demands no deal cash from HMT
More 1pm on Sky

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) June 11, 2019

As he left Cabinet, Rory Stewart was asked if he could beat Boris Johnson. He replied “yes, I can, and I’m looking forward to it”

— Tom Rayner (@Tom_Rayner) June 11, 2019

The last 30 years has been a story of Conservative parliamentary decline and stasis. The question of how to right it should be at the heart of this leadership campaign. Not much evidence anyone is thinking about it so far.

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) June 11, 2019

Update, 13 June 2019

After the first ballot, the three least-supported candidates have been eliminated: nonentity Andrea Leadsom, ex-accountant Mark Harper, and dishonest (and thick-as-two-short-planks) Esther McVey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_McVey#Out_of_Cabinet_(2018%E2%80%93)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Harper

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Leadsom#Alleged_exaggeration_of_pre-government_jobs_and_responsibilities

As previously said, you can have any Model T Ford car as long as it is black, and you can have any Conservative MP as leader so long as he or she is pro-Jew and pro-Israel. In fact, the voting record of the candidates shows identical voting on a number of important issues; for example [see tweet below]

OK. So now three have been eliminated from the #ToryLeadershipElection, it still leaves us with a broad range of differing opinions to choose between:#BirdsOfAFeather pic.twitter.com/tWL6kEbjW3

— Tom Pride (@ThomasPride) June 13, 2019

Update, 14 June 2019

“Suited thug” Matthew “Matt” Hancock MP has withdrawn.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48631706

Rory Stewart MP on Marr. It seems that, in polling of Conservative Party members, he is now second-placed (after Boris-Idiot). That would seem to prove what I have previously written, that Boris Johnson’s “popularity” is no more than the outcome of his 20 years of publicity largely generated by himself. Stewart has matched that, or tried to match that, via a social media blitz.

I have written about Stewart individually and I see no reason to alter anything I wrote then (except that I thought then that Stewart would have more MPs behind him), at the beginning of May of this year:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/will-rory-stewart-mp-be-prime-minister/

Stewart only received 19 votes in the second ballot, thus coming last. Matt Hancock MP (who had received 20 votes) then withdrew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_(UK)_leadership_election

Stewart has more self-belief than Hancock (and more intelligence). He is still standing and may be gaining ground. For him it is all or nothing. He has ruled out serving in a Boris Johnson Cabinet, and it is hard to see Boris appointing him anyway. Boris does not like to see his idiocies floodlit.

To me as an observer, it seems that Gove is probably out of the running now, as is Sajid Javid. Be grateful for small mercies. That leaves, realistically, Johnson, Hunt, Raab and Stewart.

I had thought that Stewart would find more support among MPs than he has done so far. However, assuming that Johnson will be in the top two, Stewart now has a 3/1 chance of being there too. I had thought Hunt the obvious second-place candidate at the end. Now, well, we shall see.

Stewart is basically pro-EU, so it is hard to see Conservative Party rank and file members voting for him on that basis, but on most other bases he scores over Johnson.

Whoever becomes Conservative Party leader, this is a party going nowhere but down.

Update, 17 June 2019

Well, as I guessed a couple of days ago, Rory Stewart has gained ground, at least in the betting, though the betting exchanges’ and bookmakers’ odds are often not a reliable guide to political results (see the EU Referendum, the Trump election, the recent Peterborough by-election etc).

Stewart is now at 2nd place in the betting to be next Conservative leader, though only at 16/1. Boris Johnson is favourite at around 1/5 odds-on (Hunt 20/1, Gove 46/1, Raab 85/1, Javid 120/1).

By all accounts, Stewart did well in the TV debate (Johnson the sole absentee, obviously afraid of being exposed as an idiot and incompetent, as well as wanting to seem to be the “presidential” figure above the fray).

Update, 19 June 2019

The latest “debate” on TV was held. I heard a few minutes. Boris Johnson…what a complete idiot. Is that really the best that can be offered for potential Prime Minister? God help the UK…

The tax plans of both Johnson and Hunt are mad. Anyway, there it is…

A piece in The Guardian (see below), by Jessica Elgot, a Jewish Zionist journalist (who used to block me when I had a Twitter account). She refers to Rory Stewart as a “Black Watch veteran”. Not sure what the hard core of that very tough regiment would say to that; after all, Stewart only spent 5 months, if that, in that regiment (as a probationary short service 2nd lieutenant). Still, the inside track on the Con leadership campaign is interesting. Seems that my 3 May blog about Stewart hit the spot, pretty much.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/18/rory-stewart-the-black-watch-veteran-shaking-up-the-tory-leadership-race

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/will-rory-stewart-mp-be-prime-minister/

Update, 19 June 2019

Well, Rory Stewart is out of the race, which means that, until or unless Boris Johnson leaves frontline politics, his career is stalled again. He pledged not to serve in a Johnson Cabinet, and, as I blogged previously, it is doubtful that Johnson will appoint him to anything significant.

That leaves Johnson, Hunt, Gove, Javid.

Gove has said that he would serve under Johnson. As usual, willing to do whatever it takes to keep the career going and the salaries rolling in (a Cabinet minister gets about £75,000 a year on top of the MP salary of about £80,000; also, a ministerial car, a large and staffed country house in several cases).

I doubt whether Gove will be one of the final two; neither can I see Sajid Javid making the cut. That would leave Johnson and Hunt. The assumption is that Boris-Idiot would be be given a triumph by all those retired affluent Conservative Party members across the UK, all 100,000 or so of them (about 1 in maybe every 500 UK people belong to the Con Party). The assumption may or may not be right. If Hunt is the alternative, he may yet be in with a chance.

As to Boris-Idiot, this completely incompetent and clueless fool may well be posing as Prime Minister soon. Good grief…

Talked to a Tory MP last night who was backing Johnson
"Do you think he'd be any good as PM"
"No"
"What on earth will he do about Brexit"?
"No one knows"
"Why do you want him, then?"
"He's the best hope we've got"
"By 'we" you don't mean Britain do you?"
"No the party, of course"

— Nick Cohen (@NickCohen4) June 19, 2019

Update, 20 June 2019

The final ballot having been held, the two candidates still standing are Boris-Idiot and Jeremy Hunt. Exactly what I predicted at the start (see above), though I was beginning to wonder whether Rory Stewart might make it into the final showdown.

Everyone is now assuming that the conclusion is already cut-and-dried. Probably, though Hunt may do better than expected as runner-up.

I find myself wondering about why it is that Boris Johnson has managed to shrug off all the (entirely justified and proven) allegations about his drug abuse, sex life, incompetence, lies etc. I think that the answer(s) are as follows:

Boris took drugs. Gove took drugs. Boris has been unaffected, while Gove has been diminished, ending up looking like a squalid and rather silly little figure. Why? I think because people are not comparing like with like. If Mick Jagger, at age 65 or for that matter (and as now) 75, plays around with some young girl, well, people just shrug and say “that’s what he’s like, he’s always been so”, or “that’s rock music for you”. Now, if some, say, respectable vicar, bank manager or headmaster does the same or even somewhat less, he will be pilloried, because people do not expect such behaviour from their local vicar or whatever. I think that that is part of the answer. People assume that louche Johnson might have snorted cocaine, but few not in the know thought it of apparently straitlaced Gove;
Gove has policy in mind. He is at home in the world of policy. Johnson has no real policy (or indeed ideology, or indeed belief in anything). So why do most people prefer Boris-Idiot? Because emotion is stronger than intellect, and will is stronger than emotion. Boris does not appeal on the intellectual level (how could he?!) which is Gove’s stronghold; he, Boris, appeals to emotion, whether to people liking his public persona, or his “dogwhistling” re Muslims, those two combined neatly and amusingly in his “Muslim women looking like” pillar-boxes or letter-boxes. It could even be said that Boris is appealing to the Will, to an inchoate Englishness (even though Boris himself is, at highest, only part-English);

Of course, the political fusion of all three parts of human mentality and being, meaning Will, emotion and intellect, was personified by Adolf Hitler. Obviously Hitler “bestrides the narrow world like a colossus”, even today, and was a titan compared to a silly creepy grubber like Boris Johnson, but there we are: “history repeats itself, first tragedy, second time farce.”

Poor UK…

https://twitter.com/mrjackb1/status/1141680593845051394

Update, 25 June 2019

Uxbridge on Boris Johnson: 'No one has seen him here in years' https://t.co/Z54pE8KONV

— The Guardian (@guardian) June 24, 2019

I was Boris Johnson’s boss: he is utterly unfit to be prime minister | Max Hastings https://t.co/B2KQ6w2cVO

— The Guardian (@guardian) June 24, 2019

Update, 30 June 2019

Even if Boris Johnson wins the absurd Conservative leadership contest, he may be prevented from becoming Prime Minister:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/30/boris-johnson-might-never-enter-no-10-if-mps-withdraw-support

Defence, historical, historical revisionism, Jewish lobby in UK, Reminiscences and Musings, society, The Great Replacement, Uncategorized

A Few Thoughts About 6 June 1944 and also (mainly) About 6 June 2019

June 6, 2019 Ian Millard Leave a comment

Foreword

Well, here we are on 6 June 2019. Peterborough by-election day, but also the 75th commemoration of the Normandy Landings, aka D-Day. There has been wall-to-wall coverage on BBC News, ITV News and Sky News.

Preamble

This is not the place in which to discuss whether the Second World War could have been avoided (on the Western Front, in Western Europe generally; I think that it could have been). This is not the place in which to discuss whether the British Empire and the German Reich could have concluded an honourable armistice after the Fall of France (I think that they might have done; Germany made about ten separate offers).

It is important to note that these anniversaries are made use of by the Jewish Zionist element. Which is partly why they are pushed so hard on TV. Another chance to remind the masses about “the Nazis”, about how bad they supposedly were, and about how “necessary” it was to declare war on Germany, and eventually to defeat “the Nazis” (and so, Germany).

My own father was too young to be in the armed forces for much of WW2, though he was, near the end of the war, recruited by lot as a “Bevin Boy” (he was born and brought up in County Durham), and worked both in coal mining and later a shipyard (after the war, he became a professional footballer). Ironically, that service, far from the front lines of the war, killed him about 70 years later (via exposure to asbestos in a shipyard).

My maternal grandfather served as a soldier throughout WW2 and was both at Dunkirk and, rather later, in Burma.

Overview of my outlook re. the Second World War

My view of the war, even leaving aside my general sympathy with National Socialism in terms of ideology and aspiration, is that, on the Western Front, it need not have happened and should not have happened. I believe the same about the First World War, incidentally.

More

Born in 1956, I was brought up, as people were then, with “the War” as a constant backdrop. My grandfather talked scarcely at all about his war service with the British Expeditionary Force in 1939-40, or with the Army in Burma for much of the rest of the war, though it affected his health. He did give the odd bit of advice when I, aged maybe 7 or 8, was laying out my little Airfix plastic soldiers (various armies, but including, I think, German, British Eighth Army, Japanese and US Marines). I remember a couple of his comments, such as that patrolling soldiers should always be following one another in a line if in jungle, never abreast.

Had my grandfather not already been in uniform by reason of having been in the Territorial Army in 1939, he might never have served actively in the war at all, being at the time 38 or 39 years old (the usual cut-off age was 41). That’s Fate…

As mentioned above, people of my age who were brought up in the 1950s and 1960s always had “the War” there, around, like the woodsmoke and burning leaf smell of autumn in those days. The Germans were regarded by children of my age as honourable enemies (unlike the Japanese) and not some force of malign and almost cosmic evil, as the Jews try to make out now.

The Jewish “holocaust” propaganda and historical distortion that is now pervasive had not then really started in a big way. Also, the unspoken narrative was that Britain had suffered and struggled and “won the war”. The —in fact, overwhelming— input of the USA and the Soviet Union was popularly regarded (not only by children) as being at best no more (even taken together!) than that of the UK.

Churchill (as myth) hung over the scene like a Mount Rushmore presidential sculpture or —with apology to Jane Russell— like a thundercloud, only equalled by the leader of the “German hordes”, Hitler.

In the early 1960s, my grandparents never missed All Our Yesterdays (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Our_Yesterdays_(TV_series) and I usually watched it with them.

The UK at that time (1960s) was still basically homogenous racially, certainly outside London or some port cities. In places like Reading, where I was born, and on the edge of which I lived until age 10 (my family was then in Sydney for 3 years), there were few blacks and browns (in fact, barring a family of Anglo-Indians whom we knew, there were almost none). The only black I recall seeing in England in the early/mid 1960s was the NHS consultant at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading who treated me for hearing impairment at age 7 or 8. He was from somewhere in the Caribbean. The country was then still a nation. The various war anniversaries were just part of the landscape, along with Trooping of the Colour, the Royal Tournament (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Tournament), the University Boat Race, Ascot, the Queen etc.

Today

Today, the UK is split and fissured racially, ethnically, economically, ideologically. It is scarcely a nation at all.

Today, with the “D-Day” ceremonies, the old Establishment or old Britain had its day in the sun: the unthinking royalists, the BBC and other msm, the remnants of the British armed forces (both of WW2 vintage and from today’s depleted armed services).

Though today’s ceremonies were in similar format to those of the past, there was, despite the wall-to-wall BBC/ITV/Sky news coverage, an end of the season feel. I wondered how many millions were really watching the seemingly endless TV.

I very much doubt that any but a tiny percentage of the ethnic minorities watched the shows today. Fewer will have understood the background even in the cartoon form presented by the TV people (Good v. Evil etc).

I would be prepared to bet that less than 1% of the population under 25 years of age watched more than a minute or two of the news coverage about the ceremonies in England and France. Same applies to most persons of non-European origin.

What we see here are two UKs: there is

the official, Establishment UK, together with the msm and the Jewish Zionist element (who latch onto anything “Second World War” as an opportunity to re-demonize National Socialist Germany); and the few now very elderly people who were at least in their teens in 1944; and there is also
the real UK, which is vastly more numerous and mostly has no interest in what happened in 1944.

In fact, it occurs to me that that division (between those who regard today’s ceremonies as hugely important, and those who regard them as of no interest or importance) reflects the change in UK society, and also that in UK politics. There is a chasm between what, say, the BBC or Sky think important, and what the bulk of the public think. A difference of orientation, of what is in the emotional life and which will eventually change political life.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevin_Boys

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Expeditionary_Force_(World_War_II)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Beach

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/31/secondworldwar.nationalarchives

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10336126/Nazis-offered-to-leave-western-Europe-in-exchange-for-free-hand-to-attack-USSR.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1940_War_Cabinet_Crisis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill,_Hitler_and_the_Unnecessary_War

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1940/07/19/Hitler-offers-Britain-peace-or-destruction/6824181303557/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2433733/How-Nazis-offered-peace-treaty-World-War-II-meant-selling-Russians.html

Update and further thoughts, 8 June 2019

As I write, Trooping of the Colour, held today, is not trending on Twitter (not that Twitter is the world) anything like as much as the Michael Gove cocaine scandal. Point made, I think. These events (Trooping of the Colour, WW2/WW1 anniversaries etc) have some significance for the elderly, perhaps to some extent for those who (like me, aged 62) prefer not to think of themselves as elderly quite yet; for some (a minority) of white (i.e. real) British/English people, but not at all for the “broad masses” and certainly not, speaking in group terms, for the ethnic minorities.

Yet the System is still trying to interest the people in such things. Look at this tweet by Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun “newspaper” [below]: May Bank Holiday changed date next year.

Excl: Next year's May Day bank holiday being moved to Friday so the whole nation gets the day off to mark 75th anniversary of VE Day – May 8, 1945https://t.co/2DSAnSfiPb

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) June 7, 2019

The fact is, that moving a one-day holiday to a different date is not going to have much if any impact on the public, whatever amount of “news coverage” (propaganda) is pumped out. It just does not now have much emotional impact on most people in the UK, not even those of (real) British origin (and let’s not pretend that the Africans, West Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese etc in the UK are somehow at one with the descendants of the Huguenots or those of long-ago Viking/Norman origin etc…).

As the Second World War recedes in memory and time, these commemorations become ever less relevant. The Jewish Zionist element has latched onto them in a parasitic way, as a method of pursuing its anti-Third Reich, anti-anti-Semitism message, along with pushing the “holocaust” fable and industry. It has less resonance with every year that passes, though.

It is the measure of the national self delusion still abroad that the question as to whether “D-Day” could be mounted today, in 2019 [see tweet below], could ever be asked!

…”These commemorations allow us reflect. It is a stark reminder of the perils we face if we drop our guard. The haunting question is – could we do it all again?”
His article here: https://t.co/iOA1zUmqW9

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) June 5, 2019

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9232117/tobias-ellwood-calls-for-defence-budget-increase/

“Struggle” to mount D-Day again?! Ha ha!

Tobias Ellwood MP [Con, Bournemouth East] may have reached the exalted rank of Army captain (Royal Greenjackets), but either is ignorant of history, strategy and geopolitics, or (far more likely) is talking in this manner in order to boost the MOD budget. He cannot seriously imagine that Britain could ever mount another Normandy Landings operation! In fairness to Ellwood, he does write:

“But we must not kid ourselves. Pressures on the defence budget since the end of the Cold War have left us with one deployable division of 35,000 personnel who could not fight a sustained campaign without allied support.” [The Sun]

In fact, Britain on its own would have been unable to do “D-Day” even in 1944 without huge American, Canadian (etc) assistance. The very first day, ie “D-Day” itself, airborne soldiers (mainly British, American, and Canadian) numbering 24,000 were dropped into battle. Behind them, the rest of the 150,000-strong assault force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings

That of course was not the entirety of Allied forces, which numbered in the millions across the world. The total of engaged participants on all sides has been estimated at 100 millions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_II

Britain now (as Ellwood writes) has 1 deployable brigade of 35,000. That, leaving aside rear echelon and headquarters contingents of every kind, is pretty much the usable British Army now, though official figures state 81,500 regulars and 27,000 reserves (former TA):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army#Modern_army

Compare the figures: in 1945, over 3 million (in the Army alone, not including other arms); in 1980, just before the Falklands campaign, 222,000 (mostly regulars, at that); even in 2010, 155,000. Now the Army (regular and reserves) numbers about 108,000 officially and probably greatly fewer in reality. The Army, Navy, Air Force are losing 2,000 men and women a year.

Then there is the lift capacity, by air and sea. Hugely depleted.

The fact is that the UK could not even repeat the Falklands re-invasion today, the British Task Force fleet then consisting of 127 ships, including 43 Royal Navy vessels (the last figure not being the whole of the Royal Navy by any means). Today, the Navy only claims about 74 ships worldwide, and only 31 of those are large combat vessels and submarines (the rest are small vessels such as minesweepers, patrol launches etc).

In 1939, the Navy had over 1,400 ships. That figure did not include supply ships. “By the end of the [Second World] war the Royal Navy comprised over 4,800 ships, and was the second largest fleet in the world” [Wikipedia].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy#1939%E2%80%931945

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War#British_Task_Force

I get the impression that there is a sizeable and entirely ignorant part of the British public (and it seems to include Gavin Williamson MP, until recently Defence Secretary!)…

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-gavin-williamson-story/

…which actually believes that the UK could “take on” Russia, or China, or both! I see tweets urging British intervention in Syria, for example. Even in the (madly stupid) British bombing of Libya some years ago, the UK was dependent on French and Italian help.

These delusions have political consequences.

Update, 11 June 2019

Point proven? [see tweet below]. Note how this Bengali woman, Ash Sarkar, persists in saying “we” and “us” and “our” [British], just because she was born in the UK (assuming that she was)… talk about “cultural appropriation”!

At some point, baby boomers are gonna have to stop invoking a war they never fought in. pic.twitter.com/uKFGXB4D8T

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) January 30, 2019

and see: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/disordered-and-infantile-people/

Update, 21 July 2019

Well, the Iranians have seized British-registered ships in the Gulf of Hormuz. Bad boys. Oh, wait…turns out that not one of the officers and crew are British, and anyway this is tit-for-tat because the British seized an Iranian ship at Gibraltar “on suspicion” that it might be breaking the sanctions regime imposed basically by the USA. In fact, this whole incident was caused at root by that idiot Trump having torn up the agreement with the Iranians re. uranium enrichment. Looks like “perfidious Albion” has been superseded by “unreliable Yankee-Doodle”…

The relevant point here is that the UK Foreign Secretary (Jeremy Hunt) is talking about “consequences” for Iran, but in reality all that the UK can do is rattle sabres a little and freeze funds in the City of London. Britain cannot do much in terms of gunboat diplomacy for a very cogent reason— Britain has few gunboats.

Alt-Right, Brexit, elections, free speech, historical, historical revisionism, Jewish lobby in UK, Party Politics, Uncategorized

Last Word Before the 2019 EU Elections

May 22, 2019 Ian Millard 16 Comments

The last Brexit Party rally before the poll has taken place, at Olympia in West London:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7055483/Brexit-Partys-EU-election-success-topple-Corbyn-vows-Farage.html

3,000 people paid £2.50 to hear Nigel Farage speak. How many System politicians can get 3,000 to hear them speak? In fact, few would even get an audience of 300. Maybe 30, but only if entry were gratis. In fact, many of those listening to Farage had also paid a voluntary £25 donation to Brexit Party (read the report).

The size of the rally was not quite as impressive as those of Mosley in the 1930s, but you can’t have everything!

On 16 July 1939, Mosley addressed 30,000 at Earl’s Court in West London.

Returning to our contemporary political reality, here are the latest opinion poll readings:

European Parliament voting intention:

BREX: 37% (+3)
LDEM: 19% (+2)
LAB: 13% (-2)
GRN: 12% (+1)
CON: 7% (-2)
CHUK: 4% (-)
UKIP: 3% (-)

via @YouGov, 19 – 21 May
Chgs. w/ 17 May

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 21, 2019

European Parliament voting intention:

BREX: 32% (+1)
LAB: 22% (-1)
LDEM: 14% (-2)
CON: 12% (+3)
GRN: 7% (-2)
CHUK: 5% (+1)
UKIP 3% (+1)

via @ComRes, 13 – 17 May

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 21, 2019

Note the variation between the YouGov and ComRes polls. There is usually variation, but not such wide variation. The YouGov poll is the more recent, relying on polling done in the past 3 days (19-21 May). It shows Brexit Party at 37%. The Conservatives have slumped to a miserable 5th place, on merely 7%! This is incredible! As for Labour, it has been overtaken by the LibDems.

Obviously, EU elections are not the same as Westminster ones, but I think that we are seeing more here than the sort of EU election surge that we have seen before with both UKIP and to a lesser extent and long ago (in 1989) the Green Party.

Anecdotal evidence is always suspect, but then so are “statistics”. I concede that I meet few people these days, but everyone that I do meet, or encounter, or hear, is voting Brexit Party in the EU election.

I am inclined to believe that, with only a day to go, Brexit Party is still, even now when it is polling around 37%, being underestimated. I should not be surprised were Brexit Party to top 40% on Thursday.

It is clear that the most fixated Remainers are gravitating to the LibDems, with most of the rest voting Labour. The new party, Change UK, has sunk like a stone and I shall be surprised if it gets a vote of 5% (as polling indicates). Its “rallies” have all been tiny meetings, with audience numbers often in single figures. Even its main London meeting audience (disregarding journalists) only numbered about 40.

MSM scribblers and the Twitterati wastes of space are now discussing as to whether the EU elections constitute a kind of referendum on UK EU membership. How can it be, when the Labour, Conservative and even Green parties are internally split?

It is clear to me that the EU election in the UK will be dominated by Brexit Party candidates. What is really significant is that Brexit Party doing really well will give it a launching pad for Westminster.

The important poll will be the Peterborough by-election on 6 June. If Brexit Party can win that, it will be on its way.

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/notes-from-the-peterborough-by-election/

People are angry about what has happened in and to this country over decades, since 1989 particularly. Finally they have realized that the guilty parties are literally that, the political parties (and their own apathy, but let’s not look in the mirror…). The Conservatives, having destroyed so much over the past decade, are the primary target for the wrath of the people, including that of many who until recently were themselves voting Conservative.

Brexit and its betrayal has finally crystallized the feelings of disappointment and treachery.

The Conservatives are facing a perfect storm in the EU elections:

the pathetic Prime Minister, Theresa May;
the mediocre or poor level of most other leading Conservative MPs;
Brexit, fake Brexit, and betrayal of the popular decision in the 2016 Referendum;
the rise of Brexit Party to near 40% in vote-share and perhaps, on the day, beyond;
the defection of Conservative pro-EU/Remain voters to the LibDems

The real crisis for the Conservative Party will come after the EU elections. The Peterborough by-election was noted above. The Conservative Party is rated by the bookmakers as no better than a 20/1 shot for that by-election. Incredible when one considers that from 2005-2017, Peterborough had a Conservative MP who was beaten in 2017 by only 607 votes (1.3%). Even when Peterborough had Labour MPs in the 1990s, 1980s etc, the Conservatives were always closely second-placed.

Then there is the Conservative Party membership, officially 124,000 but most of those are people in the sixties, seventies, eighties or even nineties. The active membership may be no more than a few thousand. This is important for several reasons: lack of canvassers etc, lack of subscriptions, but also the fact that, once Theresa May goes, if MPs cannot elect a new Conservative leader outright, the top 2 in the MPs ballots will go for general membership vote. Who will the aged Conservative membership pick? Will their chosen leader be in any way acceptable to the British public as a whole? That seems doubtful.

What an odd system, when a Prime Minister can resign and then be replaced by some new leader, chosen by about 150 Conservative MPs or —at most— by maybe 60,000 aged Conservative Party members, and who then becomes Prime Minister automatically, with no obligation to call a general election until 2022!

People in the UK are outgrowing both the present political/electoral system and the existing System parties.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mosley

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/09/notes-from-the-peterborough-by-election/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/12/what-is-brexit-party-why-does-it-exist-what-are-its-chances/

Latest

Brexit Party now (22 May 2019 at 1800 hrs) at 38% for EU elections (acc. to Opinium)

European Parliament voting intention:

BREX: 38% (+4)
LAB: 17% (-3)
LDEM: 15% (-)
CON: 12% (-)
GRN: 7% (+1)
CHUK: 3% (-)
UKIP: 2% (-)

via @OpiniumResearch
Chgs. w/ 16 May

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 22, 2019

Meanwhile, Panelbase has a new poll re. Westminster elections: Labour on 31%, Conservatives way behind on 21%, Brexit Party on 19%.

Westminster voting intention:

LAB: 31% (-5)
CON: 21% (-6)
BREX: 19% (+6)
LDEM: 13% (+5)
GRN: 5% (+2)
CHUK: 4% (-)
UKIP: 3% (-2)

via @Panelbase, 14 – 21 May
Chgs. w/ 24 Apr

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) May 22, 2019

Using Electoral Calculus [ https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html ], that Panelbase poll indicates that a general election held now would produce the following result: Brexit Party bloc of 19 seats. Labour majority of 44 seats. Conservative loss of 132 seats, including those of Amber Rudd, Nicky Morgan, Justine Greening, Stephen Crabb, Boris Johnson, Grant Shapps etc. Happy time! (except for the Labour majority, but the Cons have to be stamped on now; should have happened long ago)

u-boatnight1

Update, 23 May 2019

Election day, 1800 hrs. I happened to see an interesting Twitter thread analysis from a journalist. From a couple of days ago. Read the whole thread.

THREAD: On the rise of the Brexit Party and what it means for Brexit and British politics.

That’s it, there are no more Brexit Party rallies planned before polling day. I’ve been to half a dozen of them across the country, from the very first week to the end.

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 21, 2019

Update, 27 July 2019

It will be be seen above that the videos of Mosley’s massive 1939 rally in London are now “not available” because YouTube (aka, for many, “JewTube”) has closed the account. This is part of a huge censorship campaign now spreading across the Internet. (((They))) are behind it. It is a covert censorship, banning and barring operation to close down free speech in the UK and across the Western world. It affects, inter alia, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon; many others too.

CZpdYWeW0AQXGc_

In view of the duty to fight the evil noted, I have posted, below, other links.

https://www.oswaldmosley.com/

http://www.freepdf.info/index.php?post/Mosley-Oswald-My-life

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Life_(Oswald_Mosley_autobiography)

This is also interesting

animal welfare, environment, free speech, historical, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Uncategorized, wildlife

Is the World “Running Out of Time”?

April 19, 2019 Ian Millard 7 Comments

Extinction Rebellion, David Attenborough, and the debate

In the past days, the “Extinction Rebellion” troops have brought Central London to a halt. I am interested in the protest, not because of its own puerile idea that it will actually accomplish anything, but for other reasons: interesting how limited the official (police) reaction was at first, before millions of Londoners started to get angry at their daily life being disrupted; interesting how the protests have dovetailed with more Establishment propaganda (and I use the term purely neutrally), such as the David Attenborough film trailed below; interesting too how easily the London streets were “taken over”.

https://twitter.com/BBC/status/1118853372302561280

The BBC has fired both barrels on this. Some of the msm has followed.

MIRROR: The end of life on earth … unless we change now. #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/ldv5erZ513

— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) April 17, 2019

My thoughts

I should say immediately and in brief what is my own view of climate change.

I think that there is little doubt that climate change is happening. In particular, the Earth may well be warming. It has both warmed and cooled in the past, both in periods of geological time and in the relatively short time that humans have been on the Earth. In fact, we know from written records and necessary implications that there has been a considerable variation even in the last few hundred years, over the past 1,000 years, over the past 2,000 (etc).

In the times of the Vikings, Greenland was exactly that, albeit briefly, and in the 11th and 12th centuries had farms, homesteads etc, as recent archaeological discoveries have confirmed. The “Mediaeval Warm Period”, c.950-c.1250 AD also meant that vines could be grown successfully in Britain. It is said to have been the warmest period in Europe since the “Roman Warm Period” (c.250 BC to c.400 AD), which of course covers both much of the time of the ancient Greek or Hellenistic Period and then the flowering of both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.

More recently, there was the “Little Ice Age”, which is rather elastic: c.1300 AD to the second half of the 19thC , but within those 550+ years, three colder periods, especially the one starting in 1650, famous for ice fairs on the Thames, skating on ponds in the Low Countries (as shown in Old Master paintings) etc. There is a good representation of the former in the 1947 film Wicked Lady [see Notes below; the Thames ice fair scene starts just before 00:59:05 and ends at about 01:03:05].

It is noteworthy, by the way, that the warmer periods of Europe’s history have been the more prosperous and the more peaceful too, overall, though not without exceptions.

Obviously, human beings cannot tolerate temperatures too cold or too hot. We require temperate or relatively temperate climatic conditions.

Let us say (i.e. assume) that the orthodox scientists are correct and that there is “climate change” amounting to “global warming”. Then we move to causation: what is causing the warming? The scientific establishment has established a dogma which says that human activities, specifically emissions of carbon, are the predominant causes. Dissident scientists etc point to sunspots or other causes.

Let us further say/assume that the more-officially-approved scientists are right and that human activity is the cause of the putative climate change/global warming. What can be done? There consensus breaks down.

The huge new economies of Asia do not want to stop polluting if that means that industrial output slows, because in India that would mean destitution for untold millions, and in China would mean, very likely, economic collapse and political revolution.

In fact, China at least is doing much in terms of reducing “emissions” (assuming that therein lies the problem) but here we come up against the real cause of most of the environmental problems of the world today: too many people, and too many farm animals to feed carnivorous populations, as well as too much energy used to warm or cool those enormous populations, the world population having grown about 20 times larger since the start of our age (the 5th Post-Atlantean Age) around 1400 AD.

I blogged not too long ago about the overall problem facing the world:

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/

The obvious answer to the present or upcoming world crisis, which crisis includes, but not exclusively, mass extinction of creatures, “emissions” (assuming that they are of the importance the scientific establishment thinks), spoliation of land and oceans, is a huge reduction of the human population of the Earth. The main question, apart from whether it will happen, is by what method it could (will?) happen.

From the sublime to the ridiculous…

So we come back to “Extinction Rebellion” and their London protest. I am sure that most of them are well-meaning, even if totally and laughably up their own a***s, in the contemporary phrase. Many of these people are all too easy to ridicule. Emma Thompson, with or without her designer non-European adoptee, flew in (no doubt First Class) from LA to protest about people like her flying all over the place for trivial reasons; maybe it is thought OK if you are a millionairess and actress who lives in houses and villas in Hampstead, Bute (Scottish Highlands), Ibiza or France, when not in Beverly Hills or Bel-Air.

The reaction to the poseurs has been vitriolic in places:

Emma Thompson joins Extinction Rebellion climate change protest. She flew in from L. A last night and landed at Heathrow. Today she will help fuck holidays, meetings, funerals and reunions….pompous privileged pillock

— . (@0UTFORLUNCH) April 19, 2019

How hypocritical is #EmmaThompson at #climatechangeprotest having flown from LA and such a regular in the skies even in the @British_Airways adverts taking the money from aviation industry https://t.co/yWhgm3pcRd

— Just Me… (@BtnFusion) April 19, 2019

https://twitter.com/theusapost21/status/1119227782440071168

https://twitter.com/JackFie26823626/status/1119227297402429446

Emma Thompson jets back from birthday celebrations in LA to join environmental protests. Ha ha ha! What hypocrisy! Yet the idiots regard her as some Messiah and lap it all up. #ExtinctionRebellion

— JMitchell (@Jodders77) April 19, 2019

However, “useful idiots” support the protest (and Emma Thompson), as appears from the tweet of “Geri the Gerbil”, below :

Climate change isn’t a clever 'game' of ‘who’s a hypocrite’ it’s about getting big business, governments & the people that own our systems, to change.

b/c people who shout ‘TAKE A FLIGHT TO GET HERE DID YOU EMMA THOMPSON? Aren’t going 2 do a damn thing 2 save the planet.

— Name can’t be blank (@GHNeale) April 19, 2019

“Geri the Gerbil” seems to assume that the Extinction Rebellion protests will actually accomplish anything re. “climate change”. No, let alone “save the planet”! Obviously they change nothing at all.

Here’s another one (see below) defending Emma Thompson, while urging people to sell their second homes and stop holidaying overseas (mixed message? Emma Thompson has about 4 or 5 luxury homes, including 2 or 3 overseas, and flies frequently, sometimes on private jets…). Maybe the clue is in the “Costa del Sol” part of the tweet by tweeter “Caroline” , i.e. it’s OK for a wealthy and terminally politically correct theatrical like Emma Thompson to fly all over the world, have half a dozen houses in several different countries etc, but woe betide you plebs from having a tiny concrete villa on a Spanish costa and taking an EasyJet there a couple of times a year! Shades of Emily Thornberry’s “White Van Man” gaffe, perhaps.

I might respect Emma Thompson more if she just said “it would be better to have a tenth of the present world population” (I might even agree with that, especially if those left were mainly European) or “international flights and second, third or fourth homes are OK for a few rich people like me, but not for the million…”

Why target Emma Thompson with criticism. Nearly everyone flies everywhere nowadays. She is high profile. Isn't her presence worth the carbon? Cancel all your holidays in the Costa del Sol and sell your second homes abroad. Everyone's greed is killing our planet https://t.co/NmX4VMA4wU

— 🍃💚🍃Caroline Shah – fighting for what is right (@Justwantclarity) April 19, 2019

Well, I cannot reproduce the full range of idiocy on display here, but here are just a couple of other deluded fools anyway:

https://twitter.com/CoCoAwareness/status/1119224816308051968

And what about this one (below), one Natasha Cox? She loves London being closed down because the atmosphere is lovely, there is no traffic, and there is dancing! She is evidently not an economic scientist! Where does one even start with such people?! Smiling and being well-meaning are both good, but not nearly enough…

Really lovely atmosphere down on Waterloo Bridge. No traffic and some dancing! #ExtinctionRebellion #ClimateChangeTheFacts pic.twitter.com/SkLrauSm9O

— Natasha Cox (@HollowayTree) April 19, 2019

Time for serious people to tip-toe away…

What interests me is that the Extinction Rebellion mobs were at first not stopped by the police: some police “officers” even danced with some of the protestors. I wonder what would happen if a few thousand social nationalists took over Central London. Would the police be so easygoing? I think not. Is it a class thing, because so many of the protestors seem to have come from rural or suburban enclaves where some no doubt live in comfort on their trust funds or buy-to-let incomes? The police are now belatedly getting a little tougher:

The serious disruption the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations are causing to people in central London and beyond is unacceptable and we completely understand the concern it is causing to those who are disrupted by it https://t.co/dS2NOnbPsy

— Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) April 18, 2019

Another point that interested me, watching some self-righteous fellow on TV news today explaining why this direct action protest was the right method, was his assertion that MPs, society etc had to be forced to do what the protestors would like to see. Whatever one may think of their views (and I am not completely out of sympathy with them —social nationalism has always been quite “green”:

see https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2016/11/17/social-nationalism-and-green-politics/ )

the fact is that this protest has a quite strong sub-terroristic edge under the surface “non-violent civil disobedience” stuff. If ten thousand (?) people are willing to shut down Central London “peacefully”, it may be that 1% of them, say 100, might be willing to do some very non-peaceful things. I merely pose the question.

Conclusion

The Extinction Rebellion protests will not change or expedite government policy, will not convince many not already convinced, and might cause others to be even more resistant to the environmental movement, which has some excellent aspects but which is terribly confused.

It is clear that only a mass sweeping away of the world population can accomplish the rescue of the planet and its life.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_expansion#Greenland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6991969/Humans-risk-wiping-ONE-MILLION-natural-species-Earths-life-support-reaches-breaking-point.html

Update, 21 April 2019

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6944245/Climate-change-protesters-millionaire-father-wanted-chop-trees.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed

Alternative “world is getting colder” exposition:

"A petition being submitted by hundreds of independent climate scientists and professionals from numerous countries to heads of the European Council, Commission and Parliament declares "There is No Climate Emergency."" https://t.co/NELzaEpm09

— Tom Nelson (@TomANelson) August 19, 2019

Alison Chabloz, Campaign Against AntiSemitism, David Icke, David Irving, free speech, historical, Ian Millard, Jewish lobby in UK, Mark Lewis, Reminiscences and Musings, Stray memories of life at the English Bar, Uncategorized

Letting Off Steam About Libel

April 17, 2019 Ian Millard 1 Comment

My attention was caught by this news report:

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1118518659830505472

Now many who read my blog will know that I was, in the 1991-2008 period, at various times a practising barrister (in England) and an employed barrister (mostly overseas). Defamation was not one of my specialisms. I would have liked it to have been. It is an interesting and lucrative field, often involving interesting and/or famous people, though certainly not demanding the highest legal skills or intellectual gifts (contrary to the general public belief).

I did a few cases of libel while at the Bar, though all were advisory; none reached a substantive court hearing. I did advise, pro bono (unpaid), and when only a student, on a libel matter the result of which made the front pages of the more serious newspapers: Flegon v. Solzhenitsyn [1987].

Unable (as a mere student) to appear before the judge and civil jury (all defamation cases then had a jury), I nonetheless attended court most days, sometimes all day, wrote (mostly ignored) instructions and good advice for the plaintiff (now dumbed-down to “claimant”), and advised generally on tactics etc (also mostly ignored). I was told by another attendee that once, I having told Flegon’s assistant to give Flegon a note while he, Flegon, was (speaking very loosely) “cross-examining” a witness, I bowed myself out of [High] Court, only for the judge to demand of Flegon, as soon as I had gone, “to see that note that you have just been given”. Apparently, the judge read the note and told Flegon (who was proving a massive pain to the judge in various ways) to “listen to the good advice that you have been given, Mr. Flegon”! My first commendation by the Bench!

The Daily Telegraph said, when Flegon died (16 years later, in 2003):

“His remarkable success at repeatedly getting manuscripts out of the Soviet Union led to the widespread view that he must have had contacts in the KGB; but in 1987 he won £10,000 libel damages in the High Court from Solzhenitsyn over an allegation to that effect in the Russian version of The Oak and Calf. Unable to afford a barrister’s fees, Flegon conducted his case himself, in faltering English.”

Well, returning from the past to the present, we often see people, usually on Twitter, either talking about suing this or that person (often another “tweeter”) or expressing an opinion on defamation cases before the courts.

The average Joe has no idea about legal matters, and yet many opine about the law and practice of defamation, perhaps because it tends to attract msm publicity. For example, the tweet below betrays no hint that the tweeter knows that people have never been allowed to get legal aid for matters of defamation.

"Kezia Dugdale wins £25k defamation case brought by Wings Over Scotland"

This seems to me a balanced and reasonable judgement. A Win-Win.
But who will pay the costs of the action? Shared costs between plaintiff and defendant?
The taxpayer? I hope not …https://t.co/ix1WbN1CBQ

— Peter Curran (@moridura) April 17, 2019

Despite having been expelled from Twitter, I read the tweets of others, particularly those whom I consider “persons of interest”. Often, en passant, I see tweets by various idiots either threatening others with legal action or recommending that others sue —often named— other parties in defamation. Few seem to understand either the relevant law (which has changed somewhat in recent years) or the practical aspects.

In the Kezia Dugdale case reported today, the Scottish judge decided that the words written were defamatory, but that the defendant, Ms. Dugdale, had a defence (that of fair comment). By the way, note that that defence has now been replaced, in England and Wales, by a defence of “honest opinion”, but this case was heard in Scotland under Scottish law.

Now the claimant in that Kezia Dugdale case, a Mr. Campbell, obviously does not understand the law, having tweeted only today that the law or legal system is, in effect, asinine because the judge decided that the words were defamatory and yet had decided against him! Like many many others on Twitter etc, the said Mr. Campbell does not seem to understand that even if words are defamatory on their face or by implication, the defendant might yet have one or more of the available defences.

Time and again on Twitter (I am not on Facebook) I see people, innocent of any useful legal knowledge, claiming that words which are not defamatory anyway are defamatory, or (where the words might be defamatory) ignoring the available defences.

Prominent among the above are Jews on Twitter, who often invoke the name of “Mark Lewis Lawyer” (the Jew-Zionist lawyer who recently fled to Israel after being found guilty of professional misconduct: see Notes, below). In fact, his publicized defamation cases were all (the ones I saw anyway) very simple and straightforward, requiring little real legal expertise. My honest opinion is that he is a copper-bottomed self-publicizing poseur.

Take a look at the above paragraph. It might or might not be considered in part “defamatory” (or it might be considered as a whole or in part a “mere vulgar insult”, which would not be actionable in any event). Also, even if the statements above, or some or one, were to be considered defamatory, I have defences open to me should the supposed “top defamation specialist” reach out from his mobility scooter or wheelchair in Israel to sue me (he has so far not done so in respect of any of the rather many blog posts which I have written about him in the past months). I have the defences of, inter alia, “Truth”, “Honest Opinion”, and “Publication on a matter of public interest” available to me.

There again, the armchair lawyers of Twitter rarely consider other factors, chief amongst which is whether the defendant has any funds. If not, large sums (in some cases, hundreds of thousands of pounds) might be expended in pursuit of a defendant who (like me) would simply declare bankruptcy if faced with a money judgment. Bankruptcy in England is now little more than an inconvenience lasting for a year (in most cases) for someone without capital (whether in cash or real or other property) or income. There are few advantages to being broke (as I now am and, incidentally, as “Mark Lewis Lawyer” now is); one of them, though, is the useful one of being effectively “unsueable”.

There are other factors, but this is a blog post, not a legal treatise.

It is usually the case that the best advice that can be given to a potential litigant in defamation is “don’t”! Three examples:

Oscar Wilde. Wilde need not have brought the libel action which eventually led to his disgrace, imprisonment, exile and early death;
David Irving. A fine and persecuted (by the Jew lobby) historian, but not a lawyer. Need not have brought the case against Deborah Lipstadt, an American Jew-Zionist academic supported and funded by the worldwide Jewish/Zionist lobby. Insisted on appearing for himself. Said to have lost £2M in costs to the other side, at least on paper. He also, more importantly, had his books removed from large bookshop chains; some were even pulped. Large publishers dropped him;
Count Nikolai Tolstoy. The only one of the three whom I have ever met (once). The only one of these three who was the defendant (there was also a co-defendant in his case). He lost, but eventually paid only £57,000 of the £1.5M awarded against him initially; he paid the £57,000 years later and only after the death of the plaintiff, Lord Aldington.

So, Twitter armchair lawyers and the perpetually outraged: don’t put your daughter on the stage, never wear brown in town and stop threatening libel suits against people, even if you can get lawyers you can rely upon…

Notes

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BD,_%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA

https://www.dworskibooks.com/index.php?route=information/news&news_id=3

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1430648/Alec-Flegon.html

https://www.scotsman.com/news/kezia-dugdale-this-case-was-never-about-the-definition-of-homophobia-1-4909617

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17580304.kezia-dugdale-releases-statement-after-winning-defamation-case/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde#Wilde_v._Queensberry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Libel_suit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Tolstoy#Controversy

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-David-Irving/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3ADavid+Irving

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/3/enacted

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/crossheading/defences/enacted

Blog Posts About “Mark Lewis Lawyer”

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/update-re-mark-lewis-lawyer-questions-are-raised/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/mark-lewis-lawyer-latest-update/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/20/self-publicizing-supposed-top-lawyer-mark-lewis-full-transcript-of-disciplinary-hearing-judgment-now-released-by-tribunal/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/the-latest-revelations-about-zionist-supposed-top-lawyer-mark-lewis/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/13/more-details-about-mark-lewis-lawyer-and-his-abusive-social-media-presence/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/mark-lewis-lawyer-disciplinary-case-now-updated-to-11-december-2018/

https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/mark-lewis-lawyer-tries-to-have-part-of-the-case-against-him-thrown-out/

historical, Reminiscences and Musings, Uncategorized

The Burning of Notre Dame de Paris: is it symbolic?

April 16, 2019 Ian Millard 40 Comments

Notre Dame, which as I write is still ablaze, is of course at the very heart of Paris and, metaphorically, France too. One could point to other buildings in that latter regard, perhaps the Sainte-Chapelle, the Sacre-Coeur, the Cathedral at Rheims, or even that of Chartres, but Notre-Dame symbolizes Paris, or did, until the secular landmark of the Eiffel Tower was constructed.

Like millions of visitors to Paris, I have been inside Notre-Dame a couple of times (as I have the Sainte-Chapelle, and the Sacre-Coeur with its unique atmosphere and where a Mass is continuously performed, 24 hours a day).

Sometimes, the burning of, e.g., a great building, is considered a symbolic event, marking a great change. One thinks of the Burning of Rome, the later Sack of Rome, the destruction of the great ancient Library of Alexandria, the Great Fire of London etc. In more modern times there was the deliberate burning of both the First Goetheanum in Switzerland (see Notes, below) and the Reichstag in Berlin.

Other catastrophic events can be —or be seen as— historically, politically or socially significant. When the Herald of Free Enterprise sank, in 1987, the very name made me wonder whether the era of “Thatcherism” was drawing to a close. It was. On a smaller scale, there was even speculation, at the time of the Marchioness disaster of 1989, as to the sociological meaning of it, if any (because so many well-heeled families in London, it was said, knew or were acquainted with one or more of the 51 people drowned and/or others on board).

Are these events causally connected in some way with the movement of history, or is it that human beings, having perhaps a premonition of coming events, attach meaning to large fires and other disasters? Was the fire at Windsor Castle in 1992 somehow connected with the events that hit the British Royal Family in 1992 and in the years after the Queen’s annus horribilis? It was certainly the case that, after hundreds were crushed to death at Khodinka Field while celebrating the crowning of Nikolai II in 1896, the “simple people” thought it a bad omen. Were they wrong?

France is facing an existential crisis still not fully accepted as such by most. The influx of Algerians, Tunisians and black Africans since the 1960s became a flood, a disastrous flood, many years ago.

France and particularly Paris is now under siege from those of non-European descent, some of which may have been born and (semi) educated in France, but who are, except in language (and sometimes even in that way) alien.

An extremely high proportion of the population of France (at least 30%) is now non-European, and that situation is worsening. At the same time, there is a pushback by the (real) French via the Gilets Jaunes movement and via support for Marine le Pen.

“President” Macron, a complete puppet of the Jewish lobby and New World Order, has instituted a “Zionist Occupation Government” in France via his pop-up “party” (facade), En Marche, which consists of random people from nowhere who were recruited almost overnight, thanks to funding from secretive sources.

Macron’s expressed policies are to ruin the French way of life and French society, and to put in its place a globalized bastard-American culture. His secret policies (the policies of those behind Macron) are no doubt worse yet. He has allowed yet more hordes of non-Europeans to flood into France. Paris itself has become a poubelle (dustbin) compared to what it was only a few decades ago.

I hope that some of Notre Dame can be saved. I wonder whether France can be, and what it might take to do it.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacr%C3%A9-C%C5%93ur,_Paris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Chapelle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goetheanum#First_Goetheanum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Herald_of_Free_Enterprise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchioness_disaster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Windsor_Castle_fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khodynka_Field#Khodynka_Tragedy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_France#Ethnic_groups

Update, 17 April 2019

Jews “have nothing to mourn“, says at least one Jew…

“France is in state of shock, the Christian world is outraged while muslims are rejoicing on social media. Jews have northing [sic] to mourn.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23744

Addendum, 18 April 2019

“Blood will stream over Europe until the nations become aware of the frightful madness which drives them in circles. And then, struck by celestial music and made gentle, they approach their former altars all together, hear about the works of peace, and hold a great celebration of peace with fervent tears before the smoking altars” [Novalis]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novalis

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Novalis

Update, 20 May 2026

Mass Hysteria

April 4, 2019 Ian Millard 2 Comments

I was just reading the blog of some Mancunian of whom I was unaware until today. I found his blog interesting despite his (to my mind, rather silly) pro-EU and (evident from his Twitter output) pro-immigration views.

His blog tells of how he and his family were immune from the mass hysteria all around after the death of Princess Diana. I found that interesting, partly because it echoes what I heard from people who were in London when it happened, in 1997 (the actual death was on 31 August 1997). I heard tales of pubs full of blubbing drinkers (days after the actual death), people who did not smile or even look normal in the streets, crowds treating Harrods department store (owned by Mohammed Fayed, the father of the last of Diana’s known lovers, Dodi Fayed) as if it were a shrine, taking flowers there etc.

In fact, I had seen the evidence of that last, because I had been to Harrods to buy a raincoat. I myself was not in England at the time of what I call the Diana Death Hysteria. I was then living in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Only about 70 English/British people lived in Almaty in 1997 (I know that because I had quite close contact with the small British Embassy and in fact visited the Embassy fairly frequently).

I did not have satellite TV and was unaware of the fact that Diana had died until 2 days later, when a colleague told me about it on Monday morning (the death having occurred on the weekend). I was later told that I was pretty much the only British person who had not gone to the Embassy to sign a book of condolence opened by the staff there.

On my return to London a few weeks later, I needed to buy a raincoat (it scarcely ever rains heavily in Almaty), so headed to Harrods in a taxi. When we approached the store, I noticed what seemed to be piles of trash outside Harrods, piled against crowd barriers. I asked the driver what that rubbish was doing there (to me it was reminiscent of the scenes seen during the 1979 “Winter of Discontent”, when rubbish went uncollected) but the driver replied, “that isn’t rubbish, Sir, it’s flower tributes for Princess Diana”. Well…

The phenomenon of mass hysteria or collective grief and/or jubilation has tended to pass me by. I also missed the mass celebrations for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 because, again, I was at the time overseas and incommunicado (in Rhodesia). Those who experienced either or both have found it hard to explain what exactly happened to (other) people (I can only assume that my own connections and associates are a hard-bitten lot!).

I am no psychologist (or psychiatrist) but have some tentative theories, revolving around emotional triggers in the population. I have wondered whether such mass emotionalism could be harnessed for the public good in future. In the past, a usually more restrained type of emotionalism bound the British people together. In the 20th Century, that involved devices such as the Union flag, shared “experiences” (even if in reality never actually experienced by many of those emotionally affected), such as the two World Wars, the Poppy Day commemorations, noted historical events and people (such as Nelson, Trafalgar, Wellington and Waterloo, Richard the Lionheart, Florence Nightingale, Robin Hood), music such as “For those in peril on the sea“, the National Anthem, “There’ll Always Be An England” etc. A patriotic and historical pastiche, certainly, neither comprehensive nor even particularly accurate in parts, but true enough and simple enough to bind a people together.

Today, the UK population is so fragmented in terms of race, ethnicity, language, age, (what passes for) “ideology”, culture, even sexual orientation or display, that it is hard to imagine them coming together in collective grief (false or otherwise) or jubilation today. I suppose that some would point to football or cricket games, the Olympics etc, but these are minority interests, despite the large number interested.

If one talks to people, or watches the often incredibly ignorant TV quiz contestants, it is realized that many (and by no means always the “blacks and browns”) know next to nothing of British history, literature, music, or even basic geography. Their world is not even a post-1945 one, but a post-2000 one of X-Factor persons, “soaps”, “celebrities” of whom I at least have never heard, music which is either banal or simply noise.

It may be that the Diana mood of 1997 was an elegiac lament for a Britain —or more accurately an England— which was on the point of disappearing (and now has disappeared).

The blog post which I have been reading:

https://heterocephalusgabler.wordpress.com/2019/04/04/this-is-hysterical/

Almaty when I lived there

275731-Trolleybuses_are_best_in_Kazakhstan

275876-ianrmillards_new_Alma_Ata_Page_Almaty

Music

	Ian Millard on Diary Blog, 6 June 2026
	John on Diary Blog, 6 June 2026
	John on Diary Blog, 6 June 2026
	Catatonic on Diary Blog, 6 June 2026
	Ian Millard on Diary Blog, 6 June 2026

Ian Robert Millard

Category Archives: historical

What Is and What Might Have Been

Can The Conservatives Win A General Election? (or are they doomed?)

The 20th of July 2019: thoughts

The Main Conservative Party Leadership Contenders in Outline

A Few Thoughts About 6 June 1944 and also (mainly) About 6 June 2019

Last Word Before the 2019 EU Elections

Is the World “Running Out of Time”?

Letting Off Steam About Libel

The Burning of Notre Dame de Paris: is it symbolic?

Mass Hysteria

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Proposals for a new society…