Tag Archives: National Service

Diary Blog, 27 May 2024, with more thoughts about Sunak’s “National Service” idea

Morning music

[The Motherland Calls, Volgograd]

Rafah atrocity

[cartoon by Arab cartoonist from Gaza about the latest Israeli atrocity, at Rafah; https://www.cartooningforpeace.org/en/dessinateurs/mahmoud-abbas/]

“National Service”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13462137/rishi-sunak-national-service-open-doors-teenagers-university.html

Under the [“National Service”] plan, 18-year-olds will be given a choice between a full-time placement in the Armed Forces for 12 months or spending one weekend a month for a year [doing community work].

The Tories would also encourage employers to consider those who complete the Armed Forces placement during job applications.

However, the Armed Forces option would be selective – with only around 30,000 placements for ‘the brightest and best’.”

[Daily Mail]

So Sunak’s cockeyed “plan” for conscription turns out to be mainly a plan to have untrained 18-y-o young men and, I presume, women doing a kind of forced labour on one weekend per month for a year. Even by Sunak’s standards, this is pretty silly.

For one thing, the time is unbalanced. Leaving aside any Army/Navy leave or liberty days, it means that those choosing and being selected for the military or naval option will spend 365 days serving. The “civilian” option, though, will only take up 24 days.

Guess which option most young people are going to choose?

Even if you take off maybe 125 liberty days or leave days from the 365, that still only reduces to about 240 days on duty, as against 24. Ten times the commitment.

The idea that employers will give the “military/naval option” cadets an easier ride in later civilian job recruitment could not be enforced and relies entirely on goodwill.

In fact, the year of service (in either case) will set back the cadets or National Service litter-pickers for a year, especially the military/naval cadets, except those planning a Service career anyway.

As for the rest, spending one weekend a month picking up litter, helping clean hospitals, or planting trees, might not be a huge commitment of time, but will be seen by most as a kind of slave or serf labour, even if remunerated or compensated at say £150 per weekend (I have seen nothing so far, though, about any remuneration).

I suppose that, if the 30,000 military/naval cadets were offered pay (£15,000 p.a.?) and a gratuity, on completion, of some not-trifling amount (say £12,000 in cash, taxfree), that might spark some interest.

Over 700,000 or so people turn 18 every year in the UK. That means that 670,000+ will be on the monthly “community service” option.

What happens if the litter-pickers (etc) decide not to comply? Do they get taken to court? Fined? Ordered to comply on pain of imprisonment? What if there is mass non-compliance, or organized civil disobedience?

In fact, in view of the fact that the State has not the resources with which to imprison up to 700,000 young people, the most they could be given might be…unpaid work for a few days a month. Oh…

This has not been thought through by Sunak and/or those around him.

Likewise with the military/naval option. To train recruits to a basic level takes maybe 2-4 months (the British Army takes 14 weeks to basic-train standard recruits, the Royal Navy 10 weeks for ratings; officers are basic-trained for longer, 15-30 weeks), and overall training of those National Service cadets is likely to take a total of as long as 6 months (the British Army takes 44 weeks to fully train an officer).

In other words, after training, the cadets will only be available for deployment for 6 months before their time is up and they either leave or join the regular Army or Navy. Any trained to an officer level will only be available for deployment for a few months, or even weeks.

The latest statistics for UK armed forces state that 10,680 recruits joined in a year (all arms), plus 3,890 in the Reserves (former TA). So nearly 15,000 (of all ages). https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2024/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-1-january-2024.

In other words, the increase in manpower might only be 15,000 or so, or is the idea to have both ordinary recruitment and National Service recruitment? Looks as though the end result would be much the same.

Also, who would choose to join as National Service recruit when he/she could join up with (?) better pay and conditions as a regular recruit and/or as an officer-cadet?

Will the National Service cadets or recruits be put into dedicated units, or mixed-in with regular units?

Again, this really has not been thought through.

The people this crazy scheme is apparently supposed to “help”, or change, or just control and monitor the most, those disaffected 18-y-o individuals who are not at or planning to go to university, nor into a structured career or job of some kind, will be the least likely to opt for the military/naval option, so will “choose” the “one weekend per month” option, and probably either fail to attend, or may do it very unwillingly, like a “community payback” penalty imposed by the courts.

What is the point?

Also, if the government has a force of about 670,000 “litter-pickers” (etc) to deploy, how many older (older than 18) people will thereby be deprived of the chance of doing paid or better-paid jobs doing the same or similar work?

Once again, the consequential effects have not been properly thought through.

Tweets seen

The most important problem facing both Britain and mainland Europe.

L’homme qui rit (en Chinois)

As if the pathetic French government is going to be able to do something/anything about this. The biggest weakness of all French governments is that they mistake making a gesture for actually accomplishing something. Macron is a prime example.

In fact, thinking of the French love for demonstrations and marches, most entirely ineffective, the tendency goes wider than just the political leadership.

[“Our voice for Putin!”; reportage— Novosti]

Pity that the British Empire no longer exists. Churchill killed several empires, in effect— the German Reich, the British Empire (which died after using its sting to kill the German Reich), and the other European empires, which all eventually succumbed in direct or indirect consequence of what happened after 1939.

More music

[Central Coast highway, California]
[painting by Victor Ostrovsky]

More tweets seen

This is what the near future has in store for the UK— a literal Israeli agent as Secretary of State for Defence. Look at ex-MP John Woodcock (now “Lord Walney”), a sex pest and depressive case who is one of the worst Israel/Jewish lobby puppets at Westminster. He is apparently over-excited by the possibility that Israel will have yet another of its main “candidates” at Cabinet level, right in there with the others (Starmer, Yvette Cooper, Rachel Reeves, Liz Kendall, Lisa Nandy etc).

All true (about Starmer), but all I myself am interested in, re. the upcoming General Election, directly, is to collapse one of the two main System parties, even at the high cost of allowing the other to become an “elected” dictatorship. Only by unbalancing the “two main parties” system can a social-national alternative arise.

Ecce the ****-poor quality of political reportage in the UK. Beth Rigby (the woman with the ludicrous accent or diction on Sky News) thinks that Lancing (West Sussex) is “near” Oxted (Surrey). Near? Well, 65.4 miles by road; as the crow flies, maybe 50 miles.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancing,_West_Sussex

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

Pathetic.

Says it all. A Con Party MP, with a majority in 2019 of 4,214, prefers to vacation rather than try to save himself from being ejected. He knows that he and his party are toast (in fact, his own majority has been sliding since 2015: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wycombe_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s).

Those are the sort of cretins advising ministers and prime ministers in this country…

I think that that was in Downing Street, though, not at CCHQ (Con Party HQ). Maybe I am mistaken, but that was my recollection.

So the Jewish chief of the Con Party election campaign is being accused of falling down on the job, thus making it even easier for pro-Israel Starmer and his cabal to win said election with a huge majority? I feel a conspiracy theory coming on…

[Addendum, same day: a regular reader of the blog suggests that Isaac Levido is not Jewish. I do not know for sure, despite the name(s) and the look of the said publicist, so am adding this cautionary addendum in the interests of accuracy and fairness].

Having said that, why the voters are turning away from the Con Party is not mainly by reason of poor presentation but by reason of very poor actual government of the country over the past 14 years, and especially the past 5 years.

Late tweets

As Schiller put it, “Against stupidity, the Gods themselves struggle in vain“…[Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans].

It is probably pointless to speculate on why those poor people, living on pennies, support the ultra-wealthy little Indian money-juggler. Mental degeneration? Insanity? Congenital mental problems?

Having said that, they are not entirely wrong, inasmuch as the Labour Party under Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall etc will probably be as bad as, and maybe worse than, Sunak and crew as far as social security “welfare” in concerned.

What can it be? The Israeli flag is to replace the Union Jack? Unlikely (too obvious). Sunak has resigned and there will be an immediate leadership election? Just about possible. British troops are being sent to fight on the Ukrainian frontlines? In that case, Goodnight Vienna London; it has been a pleasure…

At time of writing, it is —right now— 2229, so back in a minute or so…

2235. Still waiting. The clowns cannot even get their big announcement out on time.

So that’s at. A desperate attempt to hold on to at least the former Con Party core vote of pensioners. The full registered electorate of the UK is about 45.5M; persons 65+ total about 11M, so about 27% of the electorate. Also, far more likely, traditionally to vote, either by post or in person.

These are pretty much the only people, or at least by far the biggest bloc, still likely to vote Con at GE 2024.

Whether it will make much difference, hard to say. Many pensioners will wonder a. as to whether Sunak will even be there after 4 July, and b. whether he can be trusted. There again, not all vote on the basis of perceived self-interest.

As a “big announcement”, slightly underwhelming, but I expect it will buy at least some votes. Absolutely desperate though, as a tactic.

Late music

Diary Blog, 26 May 2024, with thoughts about Sunak, the General Election, and Steve “Hilton”

Afternoon music

[Stefano Bersani, In Giardino]

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13459697/Come-Rishi-Ditch-bland-jargon-fight-breathtakingly-bold-agenda-writes-STEVE-HILTON.html

Come on, Rishi! Ditch the bland jargon and show some fight with a breathtakingly bold agenda, writes STEVE HILTON“.

An opinion piece by Steve “Hilton”, about whom, inter alia, I wrote a piece on the blog, 5 years ago: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/08/10/les-eminences-grises-of-dystopia/.

Now the “blue sky” Hungarian-origined “thinker” —resident in California at last hearing, having left the UK and taken on U.S. citizenship— opines about the 2024 UK General Election.

He writes that “…somehow I don’t think Sunak does accept the inevitability of defeat.

You don’t get to be in his position, with all the success he has achieved in his career and his life, without exceptional drive and determination. I simply cannot believe that someone that impressive – Oxford, Stanford, Goldman Sachs, Prime Minister within seven years of becoming an MP – is content to just drift out of office without a fight.

[Daily Mail]

Those words alone show how out of touch “Hilton” is, and how easily dazzled. Yes, Sunak got a degree from Oxford University (after having been at Winchester College, where he became Head Boy, it would be almost surprising had Sunak not gone on to Oxford). So what?

Sunak then went on to Stanford University, and graduated with an MBA. OK, but so what, really?

Indeed, and in all fairness, Hilton’s own academic achievement, coming from his level of poverty or near-poverty in childhood, was more creditable than that of Sunak: Christ’s Hospital (school) on a bursary, followed by Oxford University.

“Hilton” then praises Sunak for having worked (for about 2 years or so) at the Goldman Sachs financial outfit. Not everyone thinks that that is a recommendation, but “Hilton” is no doubt dazzled by the money Goldman Sachs pay some of their staff.

“Hilton” himself was brought up in a fair degree of poverty, by a mother abandoned by her husband; she and her son survived only by reason of the State benefits that “Hilton”, as well-overpaid and useless adviser to Cameron-Levita’s “Conservative” government (2010-2015), later did his best to take away from other poor, sick, and disabled people.

As the Germans say, “put a beggar on a horse and he rides it to death“…

As to Sunak’s money, much of it has come, directly or indirectly, from his marriage to a super-wealthy Indian, daughter of an Indian billionaire. Anyway, as far as I am concerned, I do not, without more, respect money-jugglers. Maybe “Hilton” does.

It must have been galling for “Hilton” to forever be around the wealthy and politically-powerful, including his own wife, Rachel Whetstone [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Whetstone], yet have only the hanger-on’s level of influence, and nowhere near as much wealth, though at Downing Street, “Hilton” was paid or overpaid some £200,000 p.a., (worth maybe £240,000 p.a, in 2024 money). Good pay, yes, but a high salary is not the same as having serious capital.

“Hilton” also forgets to note that Sunak is “in his position” purely because two other idiots, “Boris” Johnson and Liz Truss, had to resign. Sunak (like Truss) has never led his party into an election; the Premiership was simply gifted to him.

“Hilton” goes on to write that ” Now, after years of chaos, Britain seems to be on the right track. But, make no mistake, a Labour government would set things back. What’s needed now from Sunak is energy, aggression and inspiration – and then he could pull off an even greater upset than John Major achieved in 1992.”

Absolutely asinine.

“Hilton”, the not very successful spin-meister, seems to imagine that, if only Sunak and the “Conservatives” were to really attack Starmer and his crew, the electorate will rally round the Cons. A brainless “analysis”, though I agree with Hilton that Starmer really offers nothing but a change of personnel.

As for “Britain seems to be on the right track“, from where does “Hilton” get that idea? It flies in the face of facts flagrantly obvious to anyone with eyes and any perceptiveness at all; Britain is quite obviously not on the right track“.

A million unwanted non-Europeans, mostly (at best) parasites, entering the UK every year; a health service on its knees; a police service unable or unwilling to do its proper job, but at the same time all too eager to “cosplay” as a poundland Stasi or KGB, snooping on tweets and blogs; poor pay for most, and a continuing squeeze on the State benefits which sustained the young “Hilton” and his mother; a housing crisis caused or made far worse by the all but uncontrolled mass migration invasion; potholed and unrepaired roads and highways; a government throwing money and military support at “Ukraine” (the corrupt, brutal, and shambolic Kiev regime of the Jew Zelensky) and Israel; filthy rivers…it just goes on.

I suppose that the Daily Mail paid “Hilton” well for his little piece of “analysis”, if you can even call it that. Money wasted.

To my mind, whatever Sunak now says will either accomplish nothing to mitigate what must surely be a catastrophic election result for the Con Party, or may well make it all worse for them.

So far, a disastrous General Election announcement, with Sunak all but washed away by heavy rain; a visit to the Titanic museum in Belfast (you couldn’t make it up!); and now the announcement that, if re-elected, the “Conservatives” will reintroduce mandatory 1950s-style conscription (with a few semi-“woke” tweaks) for all (?) 18-y-o young men (and women?).

As I noted on the blog yesterday, the “National Service” idea seems designed to appeal to some kind of “false memory” delusion in some 70-100 year old Con Party voters, rather than being serious policy.

As I noted yesterday, after a date in 1957 no young men born after August 1939 were called-up (drafted), and call-up ceased in 1960 (though a relative few served until 1963).

So someone today would have to be at least 85 to have actually experienced the former “National Service”, which varied much.

For example, one of my uncles served, on an easy and almost 9-5 basis, as a lecturer in the Army Education Corps; his son, my slightly-older cousin, not seen by me since 1970, became a lecturer at Oxford University and then senior lecturer (mainly American Literature, I think) at Edinburgh University; he has apparently also written a number of books on literature, published by Oxford University Press.

Meanwhile, another uncle, circa 1950, was some kind of accountant in the Pay Corps, based in places such as North Wales, as far as I know. Hardly thrilling. Other and less fortunate conscripts, though, found themselves fighting in swamps and mountains against people out to kill them. Korea, Malaya, Cyprus etc.

At any rate, that “National Service” idea alone has probably cost the Con Party a million General Election votes overall.

With everything so wrong in the country, Sunak goes with conscription as his Big Idea?! He really should have stayed in the world of corporate finance, juggling money.

I think that “Hilton” should go home to California, if that is where he now mainly lives, and stop trying to comment on a British society and political landscape which he no longer understands, if he ever did.

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

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

https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/08/10/les-eminences-grises-of-dystopia/.

Tweets seen

The importance of that is less in the limited material damage done, and more the fact that, despite the devastation of Gaza, despite the huge number of casualties (mostly civilian), despite the Israeli ground invasion, despite everything, the Hamas organization in Gaza remains able to fire rockets capable of penetrating the defences of Tel Aviv and causing at least some damage.

What goes around comes around…

Au contraire, that is exactly what Starmer-Labour can do. Yes, they have no publicly-palatable plan, and secretly are planning to do a Cameron/Osborne Mark 2, but up to the 4th of July they will just rely on the hatred and contempt felt by the voters for Sunak’s hapless bunch of clowns.

Most people want rid of the “Conservatives”; the fact that Labour will also be terrible in government, maybe worse, scarcely impinges. Only 5 and a half weeks left before the General Election. Postal voting will be happening from about 3 weeks from now. Time is not on the side of Sunak and his party.

Goodwin makes the mistake of imagining that the general public is as interested in the minutiae of policy as he himself is.

Not quite Die Fahne Hoch!, but an interesting straw in the wind, all the same…

Britain is in its worst financial position in 70 years” Bloomberg quotes the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) Johnson, who said that the next British government will face problems not seen since the 1950s and that politicians have three ways out of the crisis: painful spending cuts, tax hikes to 80 maximum or significant increase in debt.”

“Labour”-label will probably continue to degrade public services, social security etc. The spending cuts of 2010-2015 began, or began to be planned, under Labour’s, Gordon Brown’s, government in the years prior to 2010.

Look at Rachel Reeves. Is she someone anyone at all would trust to be decent or “caring”? I think not.

If the pensioner bloc believes Labour, that further weakens the Conservative Party ahead of the election.

Incredible. The wonders of Nature…

Our cat friends.

Kick away his (financial) stick. (actually, that clip is from 3 years ago).

At the beginning of the MPs’ expenses scandal, in June 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that Rosindell “claimed more than £125,000 in second home expenses for a flat in London, while designating his childhood home 17 miles away – where his mother lived – as his main address”, and between “2006 and 2008 claimed the maximum £400 a month for food”.[13] [Wikipedia].

Rosindell also blocked the Parliamentary bill that would have stopped animals being used in circuses. What a horrible person.

Sadly, Rosindell’s seat is Romford, Essex, a safe Con Party constituency.

This guy is blatantly trying to lose the election – it all fits: Prime Minister reveals radical plan to force 18-year-olds to serve in the military for 12 months – or give up weekends to carry out civil duties. The authoritarian arrogance of this is breathtaking enough and it’s what the Cult wants to impose eventually in an expanded form. But to announce it now is another ruse designed to open the way for his one-party-state fellow operative Starmer into Downing Street.”

Exactly. The NWO/ZOG wants Starmer-Labour to be “elected” (under a rigged system) and to become, thereby, an “elected” dictatorship: fake communitarian, pro-Israel, pro-Jewish lobby, pro-NWO/ZOG, pro the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalergi_Plan], pro-mass migration-invasion of the UK and the rest of Europe, pro-repression of free speech.

The mask of Evil is dropping.

Not sure which is the more ridiculous— James Cleverly as MP and Cabinet Minister, or James Cleverly as “chocolate soldier”, Lieutenant-Colonel in the Reserves (TA, as was). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cleverly#Military_service.

Thinking about why the Tories have called the election early despite clearly being in for a drubbing, I agree with @AMercouris of the Duran: the entire establishment is most worried not about Tory v Labour but about the possibility of alternative parties making gains, however small.

The more time that goes by, the more the voters realise how much they hate both the Tories and Labour. If these are the only choices, vast swathes of the people will simply stay away from the polls (as they stayed away from the recent local elections). But if there are alternative candidates from Reform and the Workers party, and those parties have the time to organise their campaigns while the war criminals continue to become ever more unpopular, there’s every chance they could win a few seats.

Even without winning seats, they could prevent Labour from getting its landslide by gaining vote shares in many constituencies that Labour hopes to take from the Tories.

Getting a stable Labour government installed on a low turnout seems to be the main aim of the ruling class right now. It’s been clear they’ve been grooming Starmer as the next PM for a long time. He’s 100% their man – a servile lackey who will commit any crime required and an ultra-zionist. And he has the huge advantage of trade union backing at a time when more and more anti-worker measures are going to be implemented and more aggressive wars launched.

A hung parliament would be a nightmare for this agenda, as would a parliament with anti-EU and/or antiwar troublemakers putting pressure on the ‘uniparty’ loyalists and exacerbating the crisis of legitimacy by making embarrassing demands from the back benches.

Anyone considering whether / how to vote should remember that this election has no ability to solve any of our problems, which stem from the capitalist system itself – from the global capitalist crisis of overproduction (and consequent poverty, unemployment and inflation) and from the desperate imperialist war drive.

The only useful thing you can do with your vote is use it to back Workers Party or independent candidates if they STAND AGAINST NATO, OPPOSE THE LABOUR PARTY, AND OPPOSE THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA.

If we can get a few anti-Nato, anti-genocide MPs in Parliament, it will be a major irritation to the establishment, and a permanent reminder to the British people that their will is ignored by the vast majority of their ‘elected representatives’. If we can help deny Labour the huge majority that the corporate media are confidently predicting, so much the better.”

I agree with the basic premise, but not with the conclusion there. If the Con Party can be all but wiped out this year, left with only a risible rump of deadhead MPs, that may unbalance the whole “2 main parties” System scam, leaving a vacuum that social nationalism may then fill, though not immediately (because no real social-national party exists).

So at least a third, and maybe half of the British public are complete idiots, and/or turkeys voting for Christmas…

One can only speculate as to the group-karmic consequences of the continuing Israeli war crimes.

Late talking point

https://www.rudolfsteinerbookcentre.com.au/product/472/Karma-of-Anthroposophy-The-Rudolf-Steiner-the-Anthroposophical-Society-and-the-Tasks-of-Its-Members

“…If such authentic souls, such honest anthroposophists can be found … then an upward movement and dynamic will arise. If such souls do not appear, then decadence will take its inexorable downward course… Today humanity stands before a great crisis: either it will see all civilization collapsing into the abyss, or else spirituality will raise civilization up by the power of the Michael impetus, through which the Christ impetus works, thus continuing, enriching and sustaining it.‘” [Rudolf Steiner 1861-1925].

Said one hundred years ago this year.

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

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/.

Five years or so ago, when I wrote the above blog post, I highlighted a number of possible events that might end, or almost end, our present civilization. A possible and possibly contrived pandemic was one, and one of the others was nuclear war.

Since 2019, the push, mainly in the West, for war, especially war with the Russian Federation, has become almost a clamour.

We look at, perhaps particularly, the First World War, and ask “why on Earth did they do it?“, it seems so senseless on looking back. Yet look now: a ridiculous contrived Russian ogre has been conjured into existence, supposedly threatening Central and Western Europe.

The fact that Russian forces have failed even to crush the corrupt and shambolic regime in Kiev seems not to have dented the “Russia threatens us” narrative. The Russians may have been unable to take or destroy Kiev, but they, we are told, now certainly threaten Warsaw, Berlin, Paris, and London.

There again, Russia today is merely and ordinarily nationalist; there is no inherently-expansionist Marxist-Leninist ideology, as there was during the currency of the Soviet Union.

The whole idea is senseless.

More and more powerful missiles and other arms are being given to the “Ukrainians” (the Jew-Zionist regime in Kiev). Only today, a Russian nuclear early-warning station was destroyed.

Be under no illusions: nuclear war on the strategic level might be triggered by only one incident, leading to an intercontinental nuclear exchange within days. Such an event or series of events has been foretold in major staff college war games over the past 60 years.

Were such a catastrophe to happen, the way back for our whole civilization would be long and hard, if it could even take place. Almost everything we know and live among would cease to exist. 99% of the world’s population, certainly Europe’s, would not survive.

There are forces of Evil behind much of this.

Pull back, before it is too late.

Late music

[painting by Arnold Bocklin]

Diary Blog, 25 May 2024, including some history about Starmer and Sunak’s Israeli “friends”

Morning music

Saturday quiz

Well, this week brings another victory over political journalist John Rentoul, who scored a very modest 3/10; I trumped that with 5/10. I knew the answers to questions 2, 4, 6, and 9; I literally guessed no. 3 (I think it was in the back of my mind, though; I may have seen it somewhere, somewhen).

Sidelights on English life

A very English murder

https://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk/news/suspected-murder-victim-finally-laid-to-rest-after-500-years-9367453/

16th century possible murder victim laid to rest at St Mary the Virgin, in South Baddesley, after remains found on Sowley Beach in the New Forest.

A suspected New Forest murder victim was this week buried in a “once-in-a-lifetime” service, some 500 years after he met his end.

The remains of the unknown man were laid to rest about five centuries after he was initially disposed of in a “clandestine” fashion, as revealed by the A&T.

The 25-minute ceremony took place two years after his medieval-era skeleton was found in mysterious circumstances on a beach near South Baddesley.

[Steve West/A&T]

As reported in the A&T, after a lengthy investigation, archaeologists have since concluded that “foul play” may explain how he came to be there.

Tuesday’s special funeral took place at St Mary the Virgin, in South Baddesley. Around 50 attendees – comprising nearby residents, those who had been involved in research and local historians – came to pay their respects.

Mourners were greeted and handed a leaflet titled ‘The Funeral and Burial of the 16th Century Man Known only to God’.

The Very Rev Gordon Wynne conducted the service, which included a medieval hymn before the handmade wooden casket was buried in the church graveyard.

The funeral comes after police were alerted in May 2022 by local resident Graham Coulter who helped excavate the human remains after half a skull became exposed in the mud near the mouth of Lymington River.

Speaking after the ceremony, the chartered surveyor, who lives in Lymington, said: “I think it’s a nice reflection on Christianity and mankind. “It’s very moving. It’s nice people turned up to give him a proper send-off.”

The rare remains – of which 80% of the body was still present – were recovered from Sowley Beach. They were given a radiocarbon dating estimating them to have been buried in AD1450-1650.

An osteoarchaeologist who studied the 5ft 4in (1.63m) skeleton concluded it was likely to have been a 20 to 25-year-old adult male.

[Graham Coulter, finder of the skeleton (picture: Steve West)]
[skull at time of discovery]

[New Milton Advertiser & Lymington Times; n.b. I have corrected a few errors of spelling etc]

The full report is a good read, though it is disappointing to see that the senior archaeologist at the local council thinks that 1450-1650 comes within the “mediaeval” period. Either the Renaissance or, just about, the early Enlightenment.

It was amusing somehow to read that a person holidaying in the area, and who attended that religious service, was one Kathryn Tudor! Like something from The Morning of the Magicians [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morning_of_the_Magicians].

Mrs. Tudor, however, is another who seems to imagine that the period in question was “mediaeval” (as does the local newspaper). Our English education must be to blame. G.K. Chesterton expressed a similar irritation to mine via his fictional Father Brown detective-priest, and that was a century ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Brown.

Anyway, a murder case too late for Brother Cadfael [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadfael], and yet far too early for Inspector Morse [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Morse_(TV_series)], Poirot [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercule_Poirot], or even Sherlock Holmes [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes].

Have I identified an historical gap in the market for detectives in literature? 1450 to 1650. I have never heard of a fictional detective operating in those centuries.

Well, that story is a delightful English vignette. Somehow charming, intriguing, and unsullied by contact with too much of England in 2024. More like something out of M.R. James [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James].

[excellent documentary on M.R. James]

A better class of shoplifter?

https://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk/news/cctv-lymington-shop-hit-with-second-champagne-theft-9367622/

A second haul of alcohol has been stolen from a Lymington store, which has now seen more than £1,000 worth taken over the two incidents.

As reported by the A&T yesterday (Thursday) 21 bottles of champagne valued at £717 were taken from Marks & Spencer on St Thomas Street on Tuesday 30th April, and CCTV pictures were released of a pair wanted by police.

Now officers have made a second appeal over an incident at the same store between 1.10pm and 1.40pm on Wednesday 15th May, when the eight bottles of champagne and spirits valued at £326 were taken.

[New Milton Advertiser & Lymington Times]

A long way indeed from Les Miserables, in which the plot revolves around the theft of a loaf of bread: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables#Hugo’s_sources.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13457087/dead-pets-visit-biologist-proof-loved-owners-grief-relatives-return.html

Interesting-sounding piece by dissident scientist/thinker Rupert Sheldrake; unfortunately, it is behind a paywall.

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

https://www.sheldrake.org/

How time flies. When I first heard of Rupert Sheldrake, in the early 1980s, he was a still-youthful 39 or 40, and I was in my mid-twenties. Now he is 81, nearly 82, incredibly, and I myself am no longer young (67).

Sheldrake was a touchstone for many. The editor of Nature described his work as literal “heresy“, and pretty much said that his books should be burned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake#%22A_book_for_burning?%22. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maddox#Sheldrake_editorial,_1981.

I think it’s dangerous that people should be allowed by our liberal societies to put that kind of nonsense into currency” [John Maddox].

You can see the kind of thinking that leads to those people who doubt orthodox views, whether re. “climate change” aka “global warming”, or re. the “Covid” scamdemic/panicdemic, or other matters, being pilloried, while others (msm talking heads, scribblers etc) parrot System orthodoxy, and say that the dissidents or freethinkers should be incarcerated, deprived of medical services, bankrupted etc.

Who has contributed more to science and to this country, Sheldrake, or Maddox? I say Sheldrake.

Incidentally, I see that Sheldrake’s wife, Jill Purce, is also an interesting personality (I had not known of her until today): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Purce.

See also: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13458211/british-medical-journal-abandoning-science-transgender.html

More from the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13447283/Outrage-NHS-rules-send-new-mums-home-day-birth-horrific-pain-C-sections-traumatic-labours-paracetamol-ibuprofen.html

The NHS has today been accused of providing ‘inadequate’ pain relief to women who have suffered agonising childbirths. 

Under health service guidance, new mums can be discharged just a day after undergoing a C-section or vaginal birth. 

But they are advised to take just paracetamol or ibuprofen to manage symptoms. 

Campaigners and doctors slammed the move, claiming it was yet another example of women’s pain issues in healthcare being ignored or underplayed.

[Daily Mail]

Still clapping?

The fact is that we now have health rationing in the UK. There has always been an element of that but it is now becoming impossible to ignore. It is not OK to simply repeat the old slogans of “our NHS” etc and how the rest of the world supposedly envies it (which is not true in respect of most advanced countries).

I am totally in favour of “free at point of use”, but the existing NHS model is just not working. Resourcing is one factor, but attitude and ethos is another one, and one that must be addressed. Also, pervasive maladministration.

The elephant in the room, though, is mass immigration. A population of 56 million when I was growing up has become one, officially, of 65 million, and probably 70 million in reality, with about a million more coming in every single year. Something has to give. Various things are giving, are cracking. Health provision is one of those.

Tweets seen

What the “Israelis” are doing in Gaza, what they have been doing for the past nearly 8 months, is a form of controlled sadism exercized mainly upon a helpless civilian population, and upon their even more helpless companion animals. This is not war but a kind of cruel and deliberate torture. Gott straf ihnen.

I was told a few years ago that, in the USA, hardly anyone not over 60 watched TV any more. I found it hard to believe, though even when I lived there (1989-1993, on-and-off), and on later visits (1999-2002), it was true that the people I knew watched very little TV, but at that time I think it was more of a class/education/cultural level thing, in those pre-mass Internet days).

When I lived in the USA, I was told (by my first wife, an American) that much of my own TV viewing was of a “redneck” nature. She even told her colleagues all about how I loved Unsolved Mysteries [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_Mysteries] and America’s Most Wanted [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Most_Wanted].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeta_Nargund#Family

Do you see the way things are going? Labour, once a “socialist”/social democratic party, is now completely signed-up to the transnational finance-capitalist agenda, and to the “great replacement” of Europeans by non-Europeans in Europe, including the UK and Ireland: the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalergi_Plan.

Look at Islington North. Symbolic. The very constituency represented for 41 years by a white man who is also a socialist (like Jack London, though Jack London said “I am a socialist, but a white man first“, unlike Corbyn…) and who was Leader of the Labour Party.

Corbyn’s replacement as Labour candidate— a non-European who is a health profiteer, along with his parents. I bet he is pro-Israel, too.

Now do you see it?

More music

These people should be on our side. Or vice-versa…

More tweets seen

Ha ha! Has the little Indian money-juggler somehow failed to understand that, under “Conservative” misgovernment, immigration is running at about a million a year now, out of which “only” about 50,000 are coming here on small boats (in reality, often ferried in by UK Border Force, RNLI, and Royal Navy)?

Has Sunak not understood that 80% of “asylum-seekers”, even those entering in backs of trucks or on rubber boats, are eventually given “Leave to Remain” under a system and legal framework which came from the 1950s and is now totally ridiculous and out of date ?

No, Sunak knows all that. He just hopes that the British people do not.

Labour, of course, will just do the same but in a different way, by allowing almost all to enter the UK “legally”. Reality? No difference in terms of end-result.

Persons aged 16 are far more likely to vote Labour, at present (about 90%); thus Labour hopes to entrench its likely large majority of 2024 in 2029.

Man proposes, God disposes“, though. Those 16-18 y-o voters of 2024, and their successors, might go another way completely after 5 years of (as I firmly expect) useless and yet repressive Starmer-Labour government.

On the wider point, if Goodwin is correct and Starmer intends to prevent any real democratic revolt against his planned “woke” tyranny, then he must expect the consequences. As John F. Kennedy said, “those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable“.

Imagine, if you will, Britain in 2034, after 10 years of Starmer-Labour.

A population of about 80 million or more, more non-European than white, at least in the main cities and towns; the country in an irreversible economic slide, with pay very low, and with State benefits equally low and restricted to ever-smaller groups; pensions not keeping pace with inflation; the roads scarcely repaired; the NHS even worse than under the “Conservatives”, and become a world leader in…waiting lists, poor treatment, and negligence; ever-greater numbers of blacks and browns (etc) flooding in, but the numbers officially concealed; Jewish-Zionist supremacism ever-more evident, but any criticism muzzled by even more restrictive and repressive “hate speech” laws.

Needless to say, by 2034, let alone 2044, the central areas of the cities will have become almost no-go areas for real Brits, as crime and disorder take hold. London is already halfway there.

In those circumstances, any measures taken by the British people themselves would be justified.

Starmer and Sunak’s Israeli friends— a history

A bandit state.

https://twitter.com/trtworld/status/1397981427522699268

“Typical”…

Migration invasion. Why do the Swedes not fight back? I suppose they would answer us in similar vein…

Late tweets

So that writes off the votes of the tiny minority of the young who might have voted Con. Beyond that, this is not a serious policy idea, more an attempt to shore up the collapsing Con vote among those 70+.

National Service ended over 60 years ago (gradually from 1957, though anyone born after 30 September 1939 was exempted). The last call-up was at the end of 1960; the last conscriptee was discharged in 1963.

In other words, only those (some) people of 85+, and who served under legal compulsion, would still be alive today.

Incidentally, who do you think will be taking all available jobs while the UK-born 18-21 y-o contingent are polishing boots, being beasted on assault courses, or being taught how to shoot hostile targets and not the local farmworkers? That’s right— the recent immigrants.

Just the way to achieve “community cohesion”…

This is some kind of pathetic appeal to misplaced nostalgia, designed (perhaps stupidly) to appeal to the very elderly (most of whom still vote Con anyway).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_Kingdom#After_1945

Quite right. Why should any young British men suffer and die (or live on, crippled) for the interests of Israel and NWO/ZOG?

You will not get much of interest from the likes of that “Akunjee” character.

Only the most awake (not “woke”) people understand that the NWO/ZOG System has chosen Starmer as its puppet to become an “elected” (via rigged selection and election procedures, FPTP voting etc) dictator, casting Britain into the pit of migration invasion, mass race-mixing and mixed breeding, and gigantic repression on free speech, dwarfing anything yet seen.

I still cannot understand why Sunak went out in the pouring rain to announce GE 2024. Was he trying to show the population that he is stoic, or a tough guy of some kind? What it said to me is that he is an absolute idiot, for all his paper qualifications; someone who does not know enough to put on a raincoat when it is raining hard, or at least have someone hold an umbrella over him. Someone such as that has not the basic nous to be Prime Minister.

Actually, what is the point of “National Service” even if the scheme could be enforced? In any serious war with Russia (the scenario constantly being pushed; no other exists), there will probably be a nuclear exchange before very long. The UK would be a, perhaps the, prime target for Russian attack. The “National Service” “chocolate soldiers” would be but pillars of ash long before being deployed anywhere outside the UK.

Come to think of it, how exactly would UK troops on any large scale be deployed? Both the air force and navy are now very small, and the air lift capacity very limited as well. As for the Royal Navy, its new aircraft carrier could carry a large number of troops, but it is not even defended by many naval fighter aircraft. It would probably be sunk long before it got to the Black Sea or Baltic.

This is all nonsense, worthy of some idiot such as Gavin Williamson, that deadhead: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/05/02/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-gavin-williamson-story/.

I was out early today, before 0700 hrs, and the English countryside was arguably at its best in the fresh breeze and sun of the early summer (though I also very much love the autumn). How terrible if those green trees and sculptured ranks of hedges and topiary were to become a charred and irradiated wasteland, all because of a completely unnecessary and contrived war with Russia…

Antonov: No one in Washington is thinking about the future of relations between the US and Russia “The American authorities do not think about the future of Russian-American relations and are engaged in destroying them”, said the Russian ambassador to the USA, Anatoly Antonov, commenting on the new American package of military aid to Kiev.

Late music

[Victor Ostrovsky, The Stroll]