Issue 92, June 2012

Nation Revisited
 

# 92, June 2012.

 

The Philosophers’ Arms
 

In a nondescript pub in Central London I overheard two men having a drunken debate. The existentialist said: “when you’re dead that’s the end of it,” but his metaphysical opponent insisted: “we must go somewhere – it stands to reason.” I tend to agree with him but “reason” has got nothing to do with it; belief in the supernatural is a matter of faith. The argument was settled by a third person, presumably the chairman, who said: “You’re all talking bollocks.” From that moment I have remembered that pub as “The Philosophers Arms” and made a point of avoiding it.

Another pub philosopher that I knew was an old soldier who constantly used the phrases “the direction of application” and “the application of direction.” I think that he knew the difference between them but I can’t remember what it was.

 

The world of philosophy is currently torn between Homer Simpson who epitomizes moral cowardice and Rab C Nesbitt who rejects altruism. Both men have risen above conventional mores but Simpson’s perpetual gluttony contrasts sharply with Nesbitt’s Spartan alcoholism. The objectivists cite cultural differences for this dichotomy but students of the great Liverpudlian mystic Pierre Head are undecided.

 

Cultural pessimism is a thinly disguised fear of death. If optimism is cowardice then pessimism is self-indulgence. It’s not Western civilization that is doomed but the mortal Oswald Spengler and it’s not God who is dead but Friedrich Nietzsche. 

 

As great minds wrestle with these eternal problems the rest of us can figure out how to feed an ever-expanding world population on finite resources. The answer lies in harnessing the power of the Sun and mastering the technology to rearrange matter to our requirements. These things are not beyond us. We already have the basic knowledge and we are making steady progress. But as we conquer space and time drunks and depressives will still be dreaming.

 

Better Days Ahead
 

Austerity may not be the answer to the current recession but we still need to economise. We can’t cut health, pensions or education but we could look at defence. We are currently spending £7 bn on two 65,000 tonne aircraft carriers that would be vulnerable to the Chinese “Dongfeng” (East Wind) anti-ship missile with a range of 1600 kilometers. Professor Andrew Erickson of the US Navy has described the missile system as placing US ships “at the wrong side of physics.”

 

The current estimate of £130 bn for big-ticket defence projects including the replacement of the Trident missile system is way beyond our means.  We should integrate our armed forces with the rest of Europe, negotiate a treaty of friendship with Russia, and withdraw from NATO.

 

Our biggest expenditure is welfare at £110.9 bn. The majority of welfare recipients are genuine but we are subsidising people who have no intention of going to work. And not content with our own scroungers we are importing them from all over the world. We could make massive savings on welfare. Many people are working cash-in-hand and still signing on the dole, and many so-called single mothers have got a man in the house who should be keeping them. We must clamp down on bogus claimants, strictly control our borders and adjust taxation to ensure that people are better off working.

 

Dave Cameron blames our economic problems on the eurozone. But the EU did not make us borrow £1.2 trillion to pay for unlimited immigration and our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Blair/Brown government borrowed money to buy popularity at home and prestige abroad. At the same time they neglected British industry and removed all constraints from the banks. This country would still be in dire trouble if the euro had never been issued.

 

European integration is part of a worldwide pattern of geopolitical realignment. China, South Korea and Japan have agreed to boost cross-investment in government bonds, worth nearly $15 trillion, in a move that will better prepare the countries to protect their financial markets from external shocks (Reuters 03-05-12). This is a revival of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement are further examples of related states coming together for mutual protection and assistance. 

There is no way that Britain can stand apart from worldwide economic developments.

Recessions are cyclical economic adjustments that occur about every 20 years. They perpetuate capitalism by killing off failing businesses and making room for new ones. And they prove that we are only an island geographically – not economically. The International Labour Organisation predicts that the world economy will recover by 2016. This is also the objective of Barack Obama. If they are right we can look forward to better days ahead. Until then we must keep our nerve and stop wasting money.

 

Democracy and the Power of the Press
 

Democracy is supposed to guarantee representative government but the Leveson Inquiry shows that we have been manipulated by Rupert Murdoch since the days of Margaret Thatcher. He took over the Times and the Sunday Times with her blessing and backed her in return. He supported the contemptible Tony Blair and tried to use the same tactics on Dave Cameron to take over B Sky B.

 

This inquiry shows that the British people are being rounded up and driven like sheep by the popular press. The press proprietors support free markets, open borders and American hegemony, and that is exactly what we have got. If newspapers had different policies there would be an element of choice. But there is very little difference between Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, the Barclay brothers and Richard Desmond. They all pursue the same eurosceptic, neo-conservative, pro-Zionist policies.

 

Rupert Murdoch must be given credit for spearheading the modernization of the media. He took on the print unions that were clinging to obsolete technology. He introduced computerization and pioneered satellite television. But he will be remembered for his backing of Tony Blair, his enthusiasm for the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and his support for Israel. He is no better or worse than the rest of the press proprietors.

 

The less than one third turnout at the May UK elections shows that people are not interested in democracy. They know that voting makes no difference because the country is run by big business. The trappings of government alternate between the established political parties but the real power lies with the giant corporations. Britain is a plutocracy run by newspapers, banks and oil companies.

But cracks are appearing in the monolith of global capitalism. The laws of nature decree that nothing lasts forever. The great empires of antiquity ran their course and the empire of the Rothschilds will be no different. The British Empire relied on deficit spending and the USA adopted the same system when they took over the world in 1945. But now the West is running out of credit and the emerging nations have broken the industrial monopoly of Europe and North America. We live in interesting times. 

Does Race Matter?
 

The old guard of the far-right believed in keeping Britain white but apart from the National Front most of them have reluctantly accepted the presence of millions of nonwhites. They have been forced to obey laws against racial incitement and most of them now accept that Britain lacks the resources to round up and deport millions of people, many of whom were born and raised here. They have therefore switched their focus from race to religion and campaign against the Muslims. They are supported in this spurious crusade by the pro-Zionist popular press that includes all Muslims in their “war on terror”. Racial hatred is illegal but religious hatred is allowed so long as it doesn’t include anti-Semitism.

 

Followers of Sir Oswald Mosley’s ideas are divided on the importance of race and both camps use his quotations to justify their arguments. He was no racist but he opposed non-European immigration and campaigned to send them home. Of course their numbers have trebled since his death in 1980. In “Mosley Right or Wrong” he said: 

          “It is right to be proud of your race and to want to preserve it, just as it is right to be proud of your family and want to preserve it. Race exists just as much as family exists, and in much the same way. It is simply a wider form of relationship. Of course, a lot of nonsense is talked about race as about most of the great truths of nature. It is exaggerated nonsense both ways.”

Eu      Europe is defined by its culture and a minority of non-Europeans who share that culture are no threat to its existence. But millions of Africans and Asians with no intention of assimilating are a threat to the survival of the greatest force for civilisation and progress that the world has ever known. One does not have to be a white supremacist to be opposed to unlimited Third World immigration into Europe. The great Irish playwright Samuel Beckett defined an Aryan as: “Blond like Hitler, thin like Goering, handsome like Goebbels, virile like Rohm – and be called Rosenberg.” The Nazis got carried away with racial theory but the defence of Europe and its people is a legitimate objective.

 

Between the extremes of racism and liberalism lies commonsense. We need to stop all non-European immigration; not a difficult proposition at a time of record unemployment and economic downturn. We must deport non-European criminals, illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers. And we should assist all those who want to go home. But limited numbers of law-abiding non-Europeans who are prepared to work hard and embrace our culture can be accommodated. The liberals will sneer about our culture consisting of beer and football. But we have a perfect right to our own way of life and anyone who doesn’t like it only needs to make his way to an airport.

 

           Europe is the product of its entire people; Celts, Tuetons, Slavs and Latins forged together by war and scientific achievement into a unique civilisation. The USA and Canada are committed to the North American Free Trade Agreement. East Asia is coming together. Brazil leads South America. And the Russian Federation stretches from the Baltic to the Pacific.  The nations of the world are forming themselves into self-sufficient blocs and Europe will be no exception.

          The global capitalist racket depends on cheap labour and open markets but we are entering a new phase of geopolitical development that will link production to consumption. United Europe allied to a resurgent Russia would have the economic, logistic and military power to launch a great programme of resettlement. Non-Europeans who want to go home could be funded by the money saved on welfare benefits and their home countries helped by foreign aid programmes and trade deals. A self-sufficient Europe stretching from Galway to Vladivostok would develop its own foreign policy and act in its own interest. We would not have to bow to international pressure for fear of economic reprisals; we could ignore ratings agencies and outlaw predatory speculators. And the European people who have butchered each other for centuries would be united; not just by political agreement but by blood and culture    

 

Brave New Europe?
 

This is the title of a UKIP pamphlet that’s supposed to be a general audit of the European Union. It starts with a potted history of Europe:

“The concept of a ‘united’ Europe under a single authority is by no means a new idea. Imperial Rome was the first to try under the Senate. From then on several others have made determined attempts – a number of popes under the Vatican; Charlemagne with the Holy Roman Empire; Napoleon with his French Empire; Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Soviet Socialism. They were virtually all ruthless authoritarian or police states. Most viewed Britain with covetous eyes – but apart from Rome and William the Conqueror, none made it across the English Channel. Until now? For the European Union, under the European Commission, can be viewed as the latest adventure...”

UKIP’s contends that every European power from Rome to the Soviet Union was motivated by a desire to invade and occupy Britain. They conflate the EU with Nazi Germany but they fail to mention that Edward Heath had a splendid war record as an officer in the Royal Artillery, or that Jean Monnet served with Charles de Gaulle’s Free French forces.  Instead they accuse the founders the EU of conspiring to enslave us in an authoritarian super state. And they seriously believe that the clerks, accountants and administrators of the EU are dictators.

“A 1942 conference in Berlin, Europaische Wirtschafts Gemeinsschaft (the European Economic Community) published a series of 11 documents, presenting in some detail how Germany intended to rule Europe after winning the war. While this has many similarities with the EU project, the origins of the EU are quite separate. The 12 years of Nazi rule and 50 years of Communist rule, however, clearly gave many executives and civil servants of Europe an enthralling taste of authoritarian control without accountability. They are essentially the same sort of people sitting at the same desks now being increasingly similarly fulfilled by working for the EU project.”

 

“Vladimir Bukovski, the Russian dissident who spent a total of 12 years in Soviet prisons, labour camps and psychiatric institutes, gives his informed opinion of the EU (or he calls it – the EUSSR).”

 

“Two of the early enthusiastic proponents of the EU were French president Francois Mitterand (1981-85 was a member of the Vichy government that collaborated with Hitler 1940-1945), and Jacques Delors, an active member of the Vichy Youth (French equivalent of the Hitler Youth) and president of the European Commission 1985–1995.Jose Manuel Barroso, EC President, was an ardent Maoist when a student. President Mitterand of France once told his close confidant, Magoudi: “I will take my revenge on the English upstarts. I will destroy their beloved island by linking it to Europe.”

 

Mike Greenhough lists all the British institutions that will be banned under the EU dictatorship; our existing political parties, our judicial system, our trade unions and our armed forces. He then assesses the cost of our EU membership:

“The ‘cost’ to the UK of being in the EU is almost impossible to determine with any accuracy, but certainly in excess of £50 billion per year – perhaps even twice that. The nearest and best estimate can be found in an excellent publication by Gerald Battern, MEP for London.”

Gerald Battern’s figure of £50 billion – perhaps even twice that - is ten, or twenty times our actual contribution; but he is better known as a conspiracy theorist than an economist. He will be remembered for a speech on the Bilderberg group that he made to a bemused European Parliament in September 2011:

 

“It’s impossible not to reach the conclusion that the non-reporting of these events is anything other than a conspiracy between the (Bilderberg) organisers and the media. It merely confirms the belief of many that the Bilderberg group is to bring about undemocratic world government. It’s a disgrace that the European Commission is colluding in that.”

 

The author is worried about the democratic credentials of the EU but he ignores anti-terrorist laws in the UK and the USA that allow suspects to be detained without charge.  The police state that he worries about is already in place. He goes on:

“What I have done is to take the evidence and put it in a line to see where it points. To me, it points towards a very authoritarian and thoroughly undemocratic European society. There doesn’t seem to be any built-in democratic checks to prevent it systematically guided into becoming a police state. Much of what is in this pamphlet has had to be very short because of space restrictions. You, dear reader must read the references and come to your own conclusion.”

 

The Nazi concept of Fortress Europe and the Vichy regime were wartime expedients. Jose Barroso may have waived his little red book in his student days but he has been a Social Democrat and a practicing Catholic ever since. Vladimir Bukovski is a member of UKIP and a professional agitator who betrayed the democratic government of Russia when he defected to the West with their military secrets. And when Francois Mitterand referred to Britain’s island status he was talking about the Channel Tunnel that he opened with Queen Elizabeth in 1994.
 

All the fears and insecurities of UKIP are aired in this pamphlet. They see dark foreign forces including the Vatican and the Third Reich behind a monstrous conspiracy to undermine our pristine democracy. Only those who hate the idea of European solidarity will agree with this reactionary publication that is worthy of the Murdoch press.

Nationalist Perspective
 

UK newspapers report air disasters according to how many Britons were on board. If a jumbo jet with hundreds of passengers goes down their headline would probably read: “Air Disaster: Two Britons Dead.” This is the nationalist perspective; they see everything in terms of nationality. 

 

The subject of European unity and the ongoing economic crisis is the clearest example of their limited vision. They refuse to recognise that the sovereign debt problems of the European states are exactly the same as those of the UK, Japan and the USA. 

Greece and California are bankrupt because they borrowed too much money. Greece is a member of the European Union but under the limited remit of the EU she is still treated as a sovereign state. California is supposed to be a sovereign state under the terms of the US Constitution but in fact she is a federal entity kept afloat by Washington and able to borrow money at reasonable rates. If California was treated the same as Greece she would be reduced to starvation. And if Europe had a federal government with one finance minister and a fully empowered European Central Bank the Greek economic crisis would not dominate the headlines. 

 

Few Americans want to cut California adrift but British and German right-wingers want to throw Greece out of Europe. Their mantra goes: “bring back the drachma, devalue it, the tourists will come back and all will be well.” But Argentina’s experience of breaking with the dollar has been a long and painful descent into poverty. In or out of the eurozone Greece will need the help of her neighbours. We cannot stand by while 12 million Greeks starve to death. Isolation is not the answer.

 

Journalists writing for the popular press have finally realised that the euro is a political rather than an economic imperative. Well done lads you’re dead right. The next step is to grasp that France and Germany will defend the euro with whatever it takes. It’s not just another currency it’s the symbol of European unity. Of course that will mean nothing to nationalists who favour little states with marching armies and stirring anthems. They would drag Europe back to the days of competing currencies and protectionist tariffs backed up with bayonets. Back to the dark days of 1914 and perpetual hostility. 

If nationalism degenerates into tribalism Belgium will be carved up like Ireland and Spain split into half a dozen states. The UK will be divided into four states and the Union Jack hauled down for the last time. The Serbo-Croat states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire willingly banded together as Yugoslavia after WW1 because they spoke related languages and shared the same Slavic culture. But following the death of Marshal Tito separatists backed by NATO blasted Yugoslavia into seven mutually hostile republics; all of them eager to join the EU. This is what happens when the amoeba mentality of petty nationalism splits nations into ever decreasing units.

 

Yet Another Conspiracy
 

The world of conspiracy theory was robbed when the lightning that struck Francois Hollande’s Dassault Falcon 7X aircraft failed to bring it down. The newly appointed President of France was flying to Berlin to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel when it was struck. Reports that she was seen at the Idar-Oberstein Haupstadt der Deutschen Artillerie directing the crew of a Krupp 88 mm flak cannon have been denied.

This incident had everything beloved of the conspiracy enthusiasts; a French president on his way to meet his German counterpart to discuss EU business following an inconclusive Greek election. It would have taken its place along with 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, the JFK assassination and the Moon landing as another triumph for the forces of darkness now known as the “liberal elite.”

If the president’s plane had been less robust books would have been have churned out and the Sunday papers would produced beautiful coloured graphics showing how it was blasted out of the sky. Experts of all sorts would be paraded on television giving their considered opinions and the usual suspects would push their agendas. The left would blame the CIA and Mossad while the right would blame Hamas or Hezbollah. The Jews would put it all down to anti-Semitism, the born-again brigade would see it as a warning of impending doom, and the Daily Telegraph would blame it on the euro.

 

The fact that it never happened will not stop the conspiracists from speculating. After all it’s not their fault that the Frenchman survived. The website www.conspiracyplanet.com lists hundreds of conspiracies mostly involving Jews and freemasons but including the British Royal Family and a tribe of green lizard people. Some of them are plausible, most of them are beyond belief and nearly all of them tell only part of the story.

 

In his expose of the money power “The New Unhappy Lords” AK Chesterton blamed the fall of the British Empire on the Bretton Woods Agreement that linked the pound to the dollar and gave Britain a massive bail out. It marked the end of Britain’s independence but the alternative would have been starvation. Our current national debt is bad enough at 62% of GDP but in 1945 it was 180%. We had no choice but to accept an American loan. Our decline was caused by the rise of America, Germany and Japan, our involvement in WW2, the growth of Indian nationalism and the cost of maintaining global forces. It’s unfair to blame it all on Bernard Baruch and the Federal Reserve. 

 

Now that the West is massively in debt to the Chinese and the Arabs it’s unreasonable to blame our financial troubles on the American Money Power. There was no greater commercial power than Britain in her prime. British bankers and insurers dominated the world and the City of London still exerts enormous financial clout. There will always be trusts and cartels but markets are driven by supply and demand and nations rise and fall by their own efforts; not as a result of conspiracies.  

Issue 88, February 2012

Nation Revisited

# 88, February 2012 

Michael Heseltine’s Prediction
 

Rob Poundall posting on the National Front website asks why Dave Cameron has the pro-European Michael Heseltine as a cabinet advisor. Speaking on the BBC1 Politics Show Michael Heseltine said: “I think that we will join the euro. I think the chances are that the euro will survive because the determination, particularly of the French and Germans, is to maintain the coherence that they have created in Europe. Now they have got a problem, let’s be frank about it, but my guess is that they will find a way through. I hope they will because the downside for the British economy of the euro going under is catastrophic. People have no idea of the scale of money British banks are owed by European banks. If the European banks start going it will be our banks on the line, our government on the line.”

When the New Statesman asked him about his stormy relationship with Margaret Thatcher he said: “Oh well, the council tax was the large domestic issue and Europe the international issue.” In fact, Margaret Thatcher’s government transferred more power to Brussels than any government before or since. She claimed that she was “not for turning” but her rhetoric seldom matched her performance.

The NF is right that Dave Cameron would not tolerate Michael Heseltine and Ken Clarke if he was as eurosceptic as he pretends to be. He has to placate the right wing of the Tory Party but he knows that we do most of our trade with the EU and that we are committed to the Anglo-French Defence Agreement of 2010. Dave Cameron may not be an intellectual but he is not as daft as he looks.

Michael Heseltine held senior posts under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, including Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Board of Trade. He is a self-made millionaire, a champion of European unity and a man of principle who resigned as Defence Secretary in 1986 over the Westland affair. Margaret Thatcher backed the takeover of our struggling helicopter manufacturer by Sikorsky of America. But Michael Heseltine favoured a European solution. Westland formed an alliance with Sikorsky but eventually merged with an Italian aerospace company to form Westland-Augusta in 2000. He remained a bitter enemy of Margaret Thatcher and helped to force her resignation in 1990.

The Thatcherites tried to sabotage the European aerospace industry but last year Airbus outsold Boeing two to one and employed 13,000 UK workers. British Aerospace makes 37.5% of the world-beating Eurofighter Typhoon. And Britain and France share military technology under the 2010 Defence Treaty.

The UK media are spreading alarm and despondency but the single market of half a billion people will survive as long as its leaders keep their nerve. It will continue to provide customers for our products and the close proximity of Russian oil and gas will guarantee our energy supplies for the future. And Michael Heseltine’s brave prediction will surely come to pass.

Fred Ponsford
 

The Pig and Truncheon, Whitehall. Specialists in marinated kippers and flambéed pork pies.  By Terry Savage, Nation # 8, July 1974.

Looking through a copy of the Hornsey Journal that had been left in the public bar my eye caught the following headline; “Blatant Insult to Immigrants Alleged.” I quickly read the piece to see what terrible crime had been committed against our coloured brothers!!! And lo and behold not only had the racialists of Haringey failed to elect a black Labour candidate in a safe Labour seat, but crime upon crime his fellow Labour Party members had not elected him as an Alderman. It appears that immigrant leaders in Haringey believe that at least one immigrant representative should be found a place on Haringey Council. I always thought that it was the electorate who decided these things, but then perhaps I am just old-fashioned. 

As I carried on clearing the lunchtime debris away I found on the floor a copy of the New York Times that must have been dropped by an American tourist. Right on the front page was an advert headed “Jews Don’t Mix-n-Match!” Part of the text was as follows: “We hate no one; we look down on no one. Our blood is no purer, our genes are not better, we consider ourselves superior to no one. We love Jews and Judaism and want to preserve it for generations to come.” Another part of the text ran: “There is no surer way to destroy the Jewish people than to marry out of the faith.” I wonder what political swear words would be used if anyone put an advertisement in the New York Times saying the same things about Anglo-Saxons.

On hearing on the ten pm news that Prince Charles had made his maiden speech in the House of Lords on the subject of sport and leisure, one of my customers, Fred the master of wit and repartee, leering through his one remaining eye (the other one being lost in the First World War, while trying to leave a Paris brothel without paying), was heard to comment, “that’s something he should bleeding well know about.”

The other morning whilst having a quick half and a look through the licensed victuallers trade paper just before opening time, I noticed that with the news that the Methodists had voted to abolish the Church’s policy of total abstinence, Allied monopolies shares had soared. In a statement the Rev Lennin-Foskett, chairman of the Church’s finance and investment committee says, “The fine new beers brewed by Allied Monopolies have enabled the Church to revise policies and appear far more modern, progressive and democratic without deviating from our deeply held beliefs.”

Whilst consuming a breakfast of succulent marinated kippers, the tender flesh of which oozed with a mouth-watering mixture of wine, oil and garlic, washed down with a pint of Guinness, I noticed a small paragraph tucked away in an inside page of the Telegraph. It seems United Nations officials in Geneva have ordered copies of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s book, Gulag Archipelago, to be removed from bookstands in the Palais des Nations, the UN headquarters in Europe.

One can only wonder at the mentality of people who advocate world government as a panacea for world peace, when that panacea is prepared to publish hate propaganda and lies about Britain, South Africa, Greece etc, but suppress the truth about Russia and the Soviet system. It’s enough to put one off one’s breakfast, even marinated kippers; 1984 here we come.

Lies and Misinformation
 

Joseph Goebbels the Third Reich’s Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda is credited with the invention of the Big Lie. The idea that a fantastic story is easier to believe than one that is simply exaggerated. That may be true but lots of little lies can be just as effective.

Every year without fail the press runs the story that one or other of the eurozone countries is secretly printing their old banknotes and getting ready to ditch the euro. This fabrication has been spread for the past decade but there has been no sign of a single new drachma, let alone a franc, lira or mark.

The latest fantasy is that the British government is standing by to repatriate a million Brits from Spain and Portugal when the euro crashes. If the euro crashed it would be throughout the world and one of the first casualties would be the UK. We do half our trade with the eurozone and our banks hold billions of euros. In the event of such a catastrophe the British government would not be able to help itself let alone a million refugees. This story is nonsense from beginning to end but it’s being reported.

           The press praises George Osborne for his handling of the UK economy. The pound lost 30% of its value in the past three years but instead of blaming him for the resultant rise in gas and oil prices they congratulate him for making our exports cheaper. Unfortunately we import more than we export so devaluation does us no favours. Once again they are twisting the facts.

The UK political consensus is led by the Times and the BBC. Its guiding principles are that American hegemony is sacrosanct, Europe is a potential enemy that’s about to collapse, and immigration is generally a good thing; except maybe for Poles and Muslims. These articles of faith are epitomised by Nigel Farage of UKIP who is almost a permanent fixture on Question Time.

British newspapers reported the Jameson Raid in 1895 although they knew that it was a subterfuge to provoke a war in South Africa. Leander Starr Jameson led a column of 600 soldiers of fortune in a botched invasion of Johannesburg. But the raid failed to trigger an uprising against the Transvaal Republic by mostly British “uitlanders” and he was forced to surrender to Commander Piet Cronje. At his London trial in 1896 he was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment but released early on health grounds. Throughout his trial he was lionised by the press and Rudyard Kipling was inspired to write his poem “If.” The press played a major part in starting the Anglo-South African War; a blatant act of aggressive imperialism driven by lust for gold and diamonds.

Modern communications have brought down oppressive regimes and newspaper circulation is falling throughout the world as people seek more reliable sources of information. When Marshal Giovanni Messe C in C Tunisia surrendered to General Bernard Montgomery in May 1943, the Axis newspapers made no mention of his capture together with General von Armin and 275,000 German and Italian soldiers. If it happened today the TV cameras of the world would be watching. And the locals would be tweeting, e-mailing and texting the news from their smart phones. Wars are now fought on camera and the days of the lies and censorship are over.

John Bean
 

In NR 87 Bill Baillie skates on thin ice when he presents evidence to suggest that the European Commission is completely democratically elected, yet later he says “self-appointed and self-perpetuating authority has served us well over the centuries.” The later comment suggests that he is not really sure of the former. As a committed European I have always looked for change via political activism and taking into account what the insular British will accept (hence my support for a European Confederation as opposed to a single federal state). Bill, less of an optimist than I, does not.

Under the Lisbon Treaty the European Council “shall provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development.” This means it defines the EU’s policy agenda and is the motor for European integration. Its members are not voted for in any direct manner but comprise the heads of the nation states who are members of the EU. Prior to the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 national heads of government would take it in turns of six months to be the President of the European Council. Since then the Council elected the former Prime Minister of Belgium, Herman Van Rompuy as its PERMANENT President. This was followed by the appointment of the red Lady Catherine Ashton (who was never voted to hold any UK political position) as the PERMANENT High Representative for Foreign Affairs.

Since the Lisbon Treaty, the executive power of the EU has been transferred from the European Council to the European Commission, of which the one time Maoist Barroso has been President since 2004. The role of the European Council is now more of an ideas forum which the Commission fits with teeth to become effective. Bill Baillie feels that as the EU member states each appoint ‘appoint’ one delegate to the Commission (27 delegates is the maximum, so new member states will have to ‘share’) this is supposed to represent the will of the people. This might be so if a choice for each country’s delegate appeared on the voting form to appoint our MEPs, i.e. the talking-shop farce in Brussels and Strasbourg for windbags of all political persuasions who have virtually no influence on EU decisions.

Mosley and ‘Europe a Nation’
 

Nation Revisited has always made it clear that it supports unquestionably Sir Oswald Mosley’s considerable intellect that brought forward his post-war commitment to ‘Europe a Nation.’ My first wall painting – whose artistic value was hardly Banksian – in South London gave support to this campaign. However, in view of the rise to dominance since 1946 of internationalism through the twin power of finance capitalism and Marxism, would Mosley modify his concept of Europe a Nation if he was alive today? I suspect that he could have been aware of this eventuality when he wrote on page 433 of his autobiography, “My Life”:-

“The new patriotism will extend to embrace all of like kind, but will not destroy the value of its kind by seeking the unnatural mingling of the old internationalism.”

Many Shades of Black by John Bean is available from Ostara Publications at £12.95 www.ostarapublications.com

Idealists and Criminals
 

One of the disadvantages of parliamentary democracy is that a good man is often replaced by a bad one. Cyril Osbourne was the Tory MP for Louth who was one of the first British politicians to call for an end to Commonwealth immigration. He defied his party and the liberal atmosphere of post-war Britain to warn of the dangers of uncontrolled immigration. But when he died in 1969 he was replaced by Jeffrey Archer who went to prison for perverting the course of justice. In a letter to European Action in 2007 Colin Jordan wrote:

 “In the early 1950s with the onset of mass coloured immigration, Cyril Osborne (MP for Louth), the Union Movement and my group the White Defence League, were the only elements foreseeing its calamitous portent and denouncing it.”

Enoch Powell made his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968. As Minister for Health from 1960 to 1963 he pioneered the importation of West Indians to work in the National Health Service. When he realized his mistake he started campaigning against immigration and helped the Tories to win the 1970 general election. But he cost them the 1974 general election after advising the electorate to vote Labour in opposition to the Common Market. He resigned from the Tory Party and decamped to Northern Ireland but that was effectively the end of his political career.

One of the few MPs to consistently defy the Tory Central Office on immigration was Harold Soref, who, despite his Jewish origins, had been a standard bearer at Oswald Mosley’s great BUF rally at Olympia in 1934. He was a fearless opponent of communism and a defender of the Whiteman in Africa. He was elected Conservative MP for Ormskirk in 1970 but lost his seat in the general election of 1974. He was beaten by Robert Kilroy-Silk who left the Labour Party in 2004 to become a UKIP MEP. When UKIP rejected Kilroy-Silk’s bid for the leadership he founded his own party called “Veritas” which collapsed within the year.

Another Tory MP who campaigned against immigration was Ronald Bell MP for Beaconsfield from 1974 until his death in 1982. He was replaced by Tim Smith who was found guilty with Neil Hamilton of taking “cash for questions” from Mohammed al-Fayed the former owner of Harrods.

The constituents of Louth, Ormskirk and Beaconsfield had the good fortune to be represented by decent and honourable men but they must have been bitterly disappointed by their successors. Robert Kilroy Silk never did anything illegal but he was sacked by the BBC for making racist remarks about Arabs. Jeffrey Archer and Tim Smith deservedly went to prison.

The parliamentary system attracts criminals as well as idealists and the House of Commons has seen its fair share of both. There are bound to be a few crooks amongst 650 men and women at Westminster but the recent expenses scandal has revealed the extent of parliamentary corruption and the willingness of some MPs to bend the rules. Despite enjoying subsidised housing, catering and secretarial services and getting three times the average wage some of them are still fiddling their expenses. It would be only fair if those that got caught were given three times the average sentence.

Do currencies matter?
 

The Romans found that they could cut 240 handy sized denari (pennies) from a rolled bar of silver weighing one libra (pound). This gave us the LSD system that survived in mainland Europe until Napoleon and in the UK until 1971. Banknotes were brought into general circulation during WW1 but they are fast becoming redundant in the Electronic Age. If a man goes on tour with his current account in credit he can use his debit card to pay hotel and restaurant bills, or draw money from ATMs in any country. The machine will issue the local currency and he doesn’t have to change notes at a bureau de change or worry about exchange rates. 

The International Monetary Fund records the wealth of nations in units of account called Special Drawing Rights. They adopted this system way back in 1969 to avoid the confusion of fluctuating exchange rates. SDRs are now being championed by China as an alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency.

We live in an increasingly cashless society where debit cards, prepaid cards and the “Oyster” cards used on the London Underground have transformed the way we do business. You can even use your mobile phone to pay bills. People have their salaries or pensions paid into the bank. They pay their mortgages and utility bills by direct debit and their shopping and restaurant bills by debit card. All that matters is that they have enough money in their current accounts to cover their outgoings.

When Harold Wilson devalued the pound in 1967 he said: “This won’t affect the pound in your pocket.” Although it was worth 14% less he was right because people went on earning and spending as usual. In 1971 we went decimal and the pound changed from being worth 240 pennies to being worth 100 new pence. At the same time America finally abandoned the Gold Standard and the pound was untied from the dollar. But despite having a fundamentally different currency we carried on as though nothing had happened.

Japan, the USA, Britain and most of the European states are technically bankrupt. They have not balanced their budgets for the last thirty years. They have simply carried on borrowing in the hope that their booming economies would enable them to keep up the payments. They funded social welfare and defence way beyond their tax yields and out of all proportion to the GDPs. If Lehman Brothers and Northern Rock had not collapsed under the weight of subprime mortgages governments would have carried on borrowing and spending. But since the banks ran out of money and increased their lending rates we have been forced to live within our means.

The 27 member states of the European Union are still clinging to the nationalism of the last century instead of embracing European unity. But the main objective of the EU has been achieved; the major states of Europe are interdependent and will never go to war against each other again. The senseless fratricide of the two world wars will not be repeated. It may take another decade to achieve a European government, an integrated economy and a common currency; but it will happen. America will be preoccupied by the rise of China and the development of the North American Free Trade Agreement; and Europe will emerge as a self-sufficient power in partnership with Russia. When Europe is united from Galway to Vladivostok it won’t matter what we call the tokens in our pocket.

Foreign Aid
 

At times of recession people question foreign aid, especially when we give money to countries like Brazil and India that are fast overtaking us. We should only help countries worse off than we are. But it would be inhuman to ignore the homeless and hungry when we waste money on sporting extravaganzas and pointless wars. 

Foreign aid often requires the recipients to buy our products or support us diplomatically. We should extend this “quid pro quo” to facilitate the repatriation of illegal immigrants, failed asylum seekers, dole scroungers, convicted criminals and volunteers. Immigrants that cannot or will not contribute to our economy should be sent home. When the MV Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in 1948 with 490 West Indians onboard we had a manpower shortage but now we’ve got nearly 3 million unemployed. There are currently 370,000 immigrants on the dole; 258,000 from outside the EU. Our social security system cannot accommodate the entire world. It must be restricted to those who have contributed towards it.

Foreign aid is less than 1% of our budget so cutting it would do nothing to balance the books. In 2011 the UK raised £598 billion in taxation but spent £711 billion. We borrowed the outstanding £113 billion. The biggest expenditure by far is Social Protection at £200 billion, followed by Health at £126 billion. Education costs £89 billion and Defence is way down the list at £40 billion.

Instead of cutting foreign aid we should increase it as part of a dynamic programme of repatriation. It would be cheaper than doling out never ending benefits, and it would show the world that we mean business. Last year the UK population reached 62.3 million and is expected to reach 70 million by 2027. The government claims that the European Convention on Human Rights stops us from deporting illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers. Last year we only deported 4,200 but France got rid of 33,000 under exactly the same legal constraints.

But we should not forget our neighbours. Hungary desperately needs a loan to avoid financial collapse. The forint is an independent currency that is not tied to the euro. The Hungarians took the advice of the eurosceptics but it has not helped them. The last time they tried devaluation in 1946 their old currency the pengo collapsed and was replaced by the forint at the rate of 1 = 200 million. The ECB will probably come to their rescue but the future of Hungary and all the states of Europe will depend on solidarity and planning. The Hungarians are a brave nation that resisted the tanks of the Red Army in 1956. They deserve our support and by helping them we would help ourselves. All the nations of Europe benefit from financial stability and we are all diminished by poverty.

The United States gave over $12 billion to Britain and Western Europe after WW2 under the Marshall Plan. This was a lot of money when the basic weekly wage in the USA was only $20. The aid was given with generosity and it was gratefully received. Most of it was used to buy American products but it got us back on our feet until we were able to fend for ourselves. 

America gives $3 billion each to Israel and Egypt every year. Most of which is spent on American arms. They are pursuing their foreign policy and subsidising their arms industry at the same time. All the big powers use similar arrangements to achieve political and commercial objectives. We should not hesitate to use the same tactics to solve our problems.

 

Chose Your Flag
 

When most people hear the word “nationalist” they think of Alex Salmond and the SNP, or Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland. But the BNP and similar parties also call themselves nationalist. The ones with “England” in their titles want to break up the UK but they all want to quit the EU, stop immigration and enlarge the armed forces. The British People’s Party and British Movement are National Socialists; the rest are what Arnold Leese used to call “Tories with knobs on.”

Nigel Farage would object to be included in such company but UKIP hates the EU and wants to control immigration – just like the rest of them. The BPP and BM would be just as horrified to be compared to reactionaries like UKIP. They all reject government figures showing that three million British jobs depend on our membership of the EU. Instead they use figures conflated by Open Europe; a Brussels-based “think tank” that is often mistaken for an official EU agency. In fact it’s a pressure group led by Baron Leach of Fairford, a dedicated eurosceptic and a director of Rothschild Continuation AG.

The BNP manifesto says: “The BNP will end the annual multibillion cash hemorrhage Britain pays out for EU membership fees and regulatory costs. This money will be spent on building infrastructure in Britain and alleviating poverty and unemployment at home.” 

The National Front takes a similar line: “The National Front supports the right of self-determination for all European nations and demands that right for Britain. It seeks a Europe where each nation is friendly to all others but where no nation seeks to dominate or interfere in the affairs of another. Consequently the National Front would withdraw Britain from the European Union.”

Many people who believe in European unity support so-called far-right parties because they campaign against Third World immigration. But an isolated Britain would not have the financial resources or the political clout to organise a programme of resettlement. Such a mammoth undertaking would require international agreement and could only be achieved through European solidarity. 

The great divide runs right through the political spectrum. The Liberal Democrats are pro-European but the Labour Party is split on the issue and the Tories are mostly eurosceptic. We have not had a party standing for “Europe a Nation” since Sir Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement ceased operations following his death in 1980. But now several pro-European groups have begun to expand with a variety of websites and publications. Three complimentary nationalisms are currently available to Englishmen; those of England, Britain and Europe.

The proposed independence of Scotland makes it all the more important for Europe to be united. If the UK breaks up we will still be linked to Scotland by the EU. The old gang parties in Westminster completely failed to grasp the implications of devolution until it was too late. It goes without saying that Scottish independence will be an illusion. National independent is unobtainable in the modern world and the “sovereign debt” crisis proves that no nation can go-it-alone. But the Scots seem determined to wave their Saltire whatever the consequences. 

The break-up of the UK would be as regrettable as that of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. It seems that as Europe gets bigger her states get smaller.

Issue 82, August 2011

Nation Revisited

# 82, August 2011.

The Power of the Press
 

The News of the World affair has revealed the close connections between politicians, policemen and the mass media. Alliances were forged, jobs were arranged, backs were scratched and money changed hands. Investigations are under way, arrests and resignations have resulted and at least one death has been reported.

Some journalists have pointed out that The Sun subsidises The Times and The Sunday Times. But all the Murdoch titles are as bad as each other. They screamed for war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and are pushing for war in Iran and Syria. If they are losing money they should close, and the sooner the better.  

Rupert Murdoch was born in Australia but is now an American citizen. He operates across national borders but opposes the European Union because he claims that it diminishes our sovereignty. He is also anxious to protect our systems of government and justice from “foreign” interference.

He is not the first media mogul to promote populist policies. Conrad Black was a great friend of Margaret Thatcher who is serving a prison sentence in the United States for fraud. His empire included the Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun Times, the Jerusalem Post and the National Post of Canada. It’s ironic that the Americans have locked him up because as owner of the Daily Telegraph he tried to get the editor Max Hastings to support his idea of Britain quitting the EU to join the North American Free Trade Agreement. Conrad Black dumped his Canadian citizenship to sit in the House of Lords. He tried to revert to being Canadian when he was brought before a US court in 2007 but without success.

But not all of our press barons are foreign-born. Richard Desmond was born in North London. He made a fortune out of pornography and now owns Channel 5 TV, the “adult” channels Television X and Red Hot TV and Express Newspapers. He is a fierce opponent of the EU and a dedicated friend of Israel.

Britain’s press billionaires influence elections and manipulate politicians into making war on innocent civilians. They support the “special relationship” with America and they share the views of the late Sir James Goldsmith who spent millions of pounds trying to detach Britain from the European Union.

They are rootless cosmopolitans trading on hysteria and misinformation. They pretend to be motivated by patriotism while serving global capitalism. We will not get the truth from newspapers and TV channels that are controlled by criminals. Fraudsters, phone-hackers and pornographers should not be allowed to operate in Britain. They should be prosecuted and so should the corrupt politicians and policemen that consort with them.

Blood and Soil
 

Nations are political divisions of mankind based on race and culture and reinforced by language, religion and tradition. They are made by people and shaped by geography and climate; a combination sometimes called “blood and soil.” Under this system the mountains and rivers are constant but borders, flags and regimes are changeable.  

Former citizens of Czechoslovakia are now Czechs and Slovaks, and former Yugoslavs are now Slovenes, Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians. Of course they are the same people that they always were; only their ID cards have changed.

Catholic Flanders seceded from the Protestant Netherlands in 1830 to unite with Wallonia in the new kingdom of Belgium. Now they object to being united with the French-speaking Walloons and seek independence. It seems that they dislike the French language as much as the Protestant religion.

The Scots have been united with England for 300 years but some of them want to reinstate the border. They can then issue their own stamps and coins and pretend to be an independent sovereign state. Scotland will still be the same country, with the lowest life expectancy and the highest rate of alcoholism in the EU, but the Scottish Nationalists will be bursting with pride and the Welsh separatists will be jealous.

Queen Boudica still drives her war chariot at Westminster Bridge but her Welsh-speaking people, who once dominated the British Isles, have been absorbed by the Anglo-Saxons.  She ruled over the Iceni as a vassal of the Roman Empire until she fell out with the mad Emperor Nero, burned down Colchester, St Albans and London and lost 80,000 warriors fighting the formidable Legio Germanica under Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. She led her people to disaster but became a national heroine who is often confused with Margaret Thatcher.

When confined to football nationalism is fairly harmless but when it gets out of control it results in bloodbaths like Culloden, Drogheda, the Somme and Stalingrad. Europe has twice attempted suicide in the last hundred years. Something like a hundred million Europeans, from home and abroad, were slaughtered in both world wars in the bloody name of nationalism.

The mighty empires of Britain and France have given way to lesser principalities. Otto von Bismarck no longer holds court in Berlin but Alex Salmond rules in Edinburgh and Hashim Thaci in Pristina. Eventually Europe will unite as a superpower but in the meantime the petty statists can fly their flags and sing their songs. Perhaps Alex Salmond will also be remembered by a statue at Westminster Bridge.

Some people talk about scrapping the European Union but we must work with what we’ve got. The EU is far from perfect; it lacks unity and direction and has failed to counter the relentless propaganda of its enemies.  But it remains the world’s biggest and most successful trading bloc, with a population of half a billion, a dynamic economy, a thriving agriculture and a resilient common currency. 

Despite the wishful thinking of the popular press the EU has not collapsed. It’s not the federalists who are deceiving themselves but the Euro-sceptics with their unrealistic to go-it-alone policies. After nearly forty years we are still in the EU and not about to declare UDI.

The Greek, Irish and Portuguese economies are being underwritten by the European Central Bank and the current crisis is forcing Europe to integrate. Even Angela Merkel has been reluctantly converted to fiscal union. Europe is moving towards a continental economy but Britain is keeping her distance. We will stay on the sidelines with Norway and Switzerland. Our small-minded politicians are resistant to change.

Their ingrained conservatism was personified by AK Chesterton who founded the League of Empire Loyalists in 1954. That was the fateful year of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Graham Green wrote in Ways of Escape:

“Dien Bien Phu, however, was a defeat for more than the French army. The battle marked virtually the end of any hope the Western Powers might have entertained that they could dominate the East. The French with Cartesian clarity accepted the verdict. So, too, to a lesser extent, did the British; the independence of Malaya, whether the Malays like to think it or not, was won for them when the Communist forces of General Giap, an ex-geography professor of Hanoi University, defeated the forces of General Navarre, ex-cavalry officer, ex-Deuxieme Bureau chief, at Diem Bien Phu. That young Americans were still to die in Vietnam only shows that it takes time for the echoes even of total defeat to encircle the globe.”

But the end of Western imperialism did not seem inevitable to AK Chesterton. He was a man of great courage who won the Military Cross on the Western Front in 1917; an emotional man who was guided by his heart rather than his head. In 1935 he wrote an embarrassing hagiography of Mosley called Portrait of a Leader:

“Through his own example he has restored the heroic thing which is the spirit of Britain. If the hearts of his followers prove one-tenth as great as his courage, they will not relinquish the struggle until the heights of Fascist power be won; until Britain’s great revolutionary leader sprung from one thousand year’s contact with British soil, achieves power to act for and with the British people, in the name of their ancient sanity and splendour, that there may be built up in their peerless land a corporate life, which shall ensure that her million hero-sons did not die to make a mock for history. Their battle shout sounds above the discords and semi-tones of a fading age: Hail, Mosley, a patriot, revolutionary, and leader of men!”

Two years later he changed his mind and denounced Mosley. Twenty years later he founded the League of Empire Loyalists and the British patriotic movement began its long and determined march down the cul-de-sac of petty nationalism. 

Of course, Oswald Mosley was not a God but a brave and visionary politician who was all too human. And the European Union is not a diabolical plot to destroy Britain but the logical result of 2,000 years of European history. But rather than accept reality the Empire Loyalists retreated into fantasy. They believe that the world is controlled by secret forces bent on destroying the white nations. To them the decline of the British Empire was not due to the rise of America and Japan and changing patterns of world trade but by left-wing politicians on orders from Moscow. A paranoid view of history that is simply not true.

They say that the banking firm of Kuhn Loeb & Co funded the Russian Revolution; thus proving that it was a Jewish initiative. But they forget that the Bolshevik seizure of power damaged Rothschild’s investments in Russia. They also neglect to mention that Kuhn Loeb’s cousins MM Warburg & Co backed the Nazi regime in Germany. The Warburgs have since justified their business dealings with the Nazis by pointing out that Adolf Hitler was the democratically elected leader of a legitimate state.

They are quick to identify the many Jewish Bolsheviks but they forget about Leon Trotsky and the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Jews who were liquidated by Joseph Stalin. Like the police, they make the evidence fit the crime.

This is particularly true regarding the European Union. They are determined to separate Britain from the rest of Europe. But even if they succeeded they couldn’t change the fact that we are Europeans by every definition. We are descended from the Beaker Folk who followed the retreating icecap to build Stonehenge. And from the Celts who dominated Europe before the Roman Empire. We are sprung from the Romans and their Frankish legions. We are Angles, Saxons, Danes, Normans and Angevins. We are undeniably European.

History has made Britain into a nation but our nationalism must be tempered by commonsense and our patriotism by practicality. There is no point in having a sovereign state bristling with weapons that cannot feed itself. “Blood and soil” must be sustainable. 

We can preserve our identity by cooperating with neighbouring states and devising economic systems for the 21^st century. The influx of Afro-Asian immigrants can be stopped. We could even organise a great programme of resettlement if there is the will to do it. We can develop clean energy and use the surpluses of modern agriculture to feed the world. European man has conquered space and harnessed the power of the atom. We can do anything that we set our mind to do. The Large Hadron Collider, built by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, is the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator. And Ariane 5 developed by the European Space Agency is the world’s most advanced expendable launch system. British scientists and technicians have contributed to both ventures and BAE Systems leads the world in aerospace technology.

We can save mankind and lead the way to the stars but first we must dump the debilitating baggage of insularity and learn to think and act as Europeans. The green fields of England will still look the same and the real and imagined differences between the nations will still be there when Europe is united.

Those who are frightened of losing their nationality should look to Poland. She has been a mighty empire occupying vast tracts of neighbouring states. And she in turn has been invaded and occupied. The Poles have been both masters and slaves but they have emerged as a modern European state with a thriving language and culture. Poland’s borders have moved west but being occupied by Austrians, Prussians and Russians has not diminished her unique heritage.  And having large numbers of Polish workers earning their living in Britain and other European countries has been mutually rewarding.

The rightwing parties have different views on what constitutes the British nation. UKIP accept anyone born in the UK and they would admit one immigrant for every Briton that emigrated.

Lee Barnes and the British Freedom Party stress the importance of culture and accept immigrants of all races who are prepared to integrate and contribute. 

The National Front still wants a total ban on immigration and a “phased and humane repatriation.” But they don’t explain how they are going to achieve it.

The BNP’s reason d’être is hatred of the EU. Their mercurial chairman for life Nick Griffin is against Muslims and Poles but he welcomes Sikhs. He defends the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine but denies the Holocaust. And he once advocated the distribution of assault rifles to the general public and urged the Marina Militare to fire on refugee ships from North Africa.  

He might not know what constitutes a nation but the general consensus is that Britain is the product of DNA and history. Our motorways follow ancient Roman roads; our fields and hedgerows were set out by the Anglo-Saxons, our beautiful composite language unites us to France and Germany, and our traditions and genes are imprinted with the genius of Europe. We are the sum total of all these things both physical and metaphysical; that is the real meaning of “blood and soil.”

Getting back to work
 

There are 2.4 million unemployed in the UK but this figure is deceptive. Maybe a third of them are looking for work. A third cannot work because they are addicted to drink or drugs and the rest have no employment skills. The unemployed are reluctant to take minimum wage jobs but even a catering worker must learn the basics of hygiene, health and safety, food preparation, cooking, public relations, stocktaking and accountancy. The fast food chains offer certificated training and promotion and even if workers move on they benefit from the experience.

The dole should be the last resort, not an alternative to working for a living. We can break the cycle of dependency by only paying benefits to genuine cases. Those who chose unemployment must be denied handouts that they have long taken for granted. But the government must ensure that there are jobs to go to. They can’t create work but they can help employers with tax breaks.  And they should consider scrapping National Insurance contributions and funding the scheme from general taxation. This would encourage employment and be cheaper in the long run. 

School leavers should be offered further education or apprenticeships. If universities or employers can’t afford to take them on the government must make money available. This will be hard on the taxpayers but without an educated and trained labour force we will slip down the industrial league table. Instead of wasting billions of pounds killing Afghans and Libyans we should spend the money training our youngsters.

Work gives people self-respect and the chance to contribute to society. Those who are gainfully employed are less likely to get involved in crime and antisocial behaviour. And they are fitter and healthier than the unemployed. Whatever it costs to train workers would be offset by savings on the police, social services, health care, courts and prisons.

Until we reduce unemployment we should stop immigration. The “free movement of labour” clause governing EU workers can be suspended by member states. Most EU countries restricted the entry of Polish workers in 2004 but the UK and Ireland chose not to. Non EU immigration must be stopped altogether and illegal immigrants must be sent home. It’s insane to admit immigrants during a recession.

Getting people back to work would save billions of pounds of dole money and revitalise British industry. Cultures can be changed by education; 30 years ago drinking and driving was widespread but now it’s totally unacceptable. Voluntary idleness should be treated the same way. If jobs are available they must be taken and able-bodied people who refuse to work must be ostracised. All we need is a government with the courage and determination to make it happen. We must invest in the future and learn to pick our own crops and nurse our own patients.

The Boys in Blue
 

The popular image of the bumbling policeman owes much to literature. Arthur Conan Doyle created Inspector G Lestrade in his Sherlock Holmes adventures. Holmes saw him as: “quick and energetic but wholly conventional, lacking imagination and normally out of his depth.” Agatha Christie carried on the tradition with her loud and ineffectual Inspector James Harold Jappe in the Hercule Poirot stories.

Unfortunately some of our senior policemen are no better than their fictional counterparts. Max Hastings is a newspaper man and historian with an extensive knowledge of the British army. In his 2002 memoire Editor he gives his opinion:

“I often talk to service audiences, and seldom go home without being impressed anew by the quality of senior army people. It is dismaying to notice the contrast with police leadership, much of which is conspicuously inadequate. Most chief constables would not rise above the rank of sergeant major in the British army, and they display the warrant officer’s limited perspective.”

But why are our top cops so unimpressive? It’s certainly not their pay. A Commissioner in London’s Metropolitan Police is paid £253,620 and a Chief Constable £188,736. A policeman’s lot might not be a happy one but it’s certainly a lucrative one. For that sort of money we should get officers that lead from the front and tackle crime with intelligence and determination. Instead we have senior officers who are always on television wearing immaculate bespoke uniforms dripping with gold braid. While criminals run riot they flash their beautiful teeth at the cameras and pontificate about the state of the nation. They are more like politicians than policemen except that they don’t have to stand for election.

Like almost everything else in modern society the police need shaking up. They have got too comfortable for their own good and need to be reminded that they are there to do a job; not just to accumulate a pension. Now is the ideal time for a clear out. The government needs to cut expenditure and what better way than by sacking a few senior officers.  If we can manage with fewer train drivers and nurses we can certainly get along with fewer chief inspectors.

The police were traditionally Tories before they took to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They supported the Tories because they were the party of law and order; advocates of stronger sentences and harsher punishments. But the Dave Cameron government has upset them by cutting their budgets and criticising their lacklustre performance. Dave Cameron has embarrassed his justice minister Ken Clarke by doing a ‘u’ turn on shorter sentences. The popular press reacted predictably to his reforms and the government caved in under the pressure. In fact it doesn’t matter a damn if criminals are given six months or six years because 80% of them come back for more. Ken Clarke was right but Dave Cameron is only worried about his popularity ratings. Never mind Dave, if you get fired we can always make you a top cop. The money is about the same but the hours are a lot better.

Supply and demand
 

The sovereign debt crisis affects the entire world. The United States has the biggest deficit at $14 trillion, Japan owes $10.5 trillion, Italy $2.2 trillion and the UK $1.6 trillion. The ratings agencies have downgraded several European countries because of high levels of debt and they are now threatening the USA. Readers of the British press should note that the USA, Japan and the UK do not use the euro; they have accumulated massive deficits in good old-fashioned national currencies. 

Borrowing money was an easy and relatively cheap option during the boom years. Property prices were expected to rise and salaries and bonuses were more than adequate to make repayments. Everything was going great until Lehman Brothers ran out of money and the borrowing had to stop. The so-called “experts” did not see it coming. Financial advisors were still selling get-rich-quick schemes right up to the crash. The very same pundits who pontificate daily in the newspapers uttered not a word of warning. And our clueless politicians were more interested in fiddling their expenses than trying to understand economics.

Borrowing drove international prosperity. Small countries like Ireland, Greece and Portugal were able to raise their standards of living and tiny Iceland became a banking giant. Japan invested in the latest plant and machinery and states with pretentions to glory like Britain, France and the USA built up huge armed forces and subsidised millions of immigrants. 

It took us fifty years to repay our loans to America after the last war. Now we have to do it all over again but this time we will be paying the Chinese. The amazing productive power of modern technology coupled with the constant erosion of inflation will help us to settle our debts but we must learn to live within our means and stop running up deficits that read like telephone numbers. 

It’s ridiculous that practically self-sufficient economies like the EU and the USA are threatened with bankruptcy.  Nations should not be impoverished by debt when their fields are bursting with crops and their factories are producing word class goods. After the Falklands war Argentina was declared bankrupt but she survived because she has a relatively small population of 40 millions living in a country the size of India that’s self-sufficient in food and oil. The international banks lost heavily on the Argentine default and they have been punishing her ever since.  

At present booming nations like China are happy to lend to countries like the UK and the USA because we are still good credit risks. But if we carry on borrowing we will lose our credit rating. The Chinese economy is growing at 10% a year but Chinese workers will eventually demand higher pay, better housing, health care and education. This will increase production costs and their customers will turn to cheaper suppliers in India and Bangladesh.

The laws of supply and demand apply to communists and capitalists alike. The USA has the natural resources and industrial capacity to be self-sufficient. She has chosen to be a maritime empire but will eventually realise, like Britain and France before her, that the costs of empire outweigh the benefits.

In the UK we import £30 billion more than we export. We need to close the trade gap by increasing exports. Our specialist manufacturing industry is growing but we need to do more. Our future depends on our continued ability to make high value goods that the world needs.

The Norwegian Massacre
 

Our thoughts and prayers go to the family and friends of the victims of Anders Behring Breivik the assassin who played out his sick fantasies on a beautiful summer’s day. The 32-year-old agricultural dealer is a Protestant and a conservative but we should not blame the Lutheran Church or the Norwegian Progress Party for the actions of a madman. His criminal insanity was driven by the fanatical pro-Zionist propaganda that unites the contemporary far-right from the Tea Party movement in the USA to the Alliance of European National Movements. It’s a short step from “Operation Cast Lead” (the invasion of Gaza) to the slaughter of Utoya.