Who will you vote for?

Seeing as the Coalition has turned into precisely what we in the blogosphere said it would; New Labour all but in name, who are you going to vote for in 2015 (if not earlier)?

One should not bask in the glory of self righteousness but there is, inevitably, something regal, not to say grand, about being right again, again and again... Fret not, for I jest, but turning on a note of seriousness instead; every serious blogger from Mr North to Guy Fawkes said that this venture would go tits-up and they would just frolic in Blair's shadow, for secretly they adore him. That is highly inconvenient for us who don't, those of us who cannot find a single person who has been more detrimental to life in Britain, on every echelon, as a suitable analogy for comparison.

He truly is a nation-state destroyer.

The Americans have a very special military honour bestowed upon officers of absolute distinction. The honour is known as 'General of the Armies' and it is the equivalent of being a six-star general which is an exorbitantly high rank by modern day comparison. I mention this because Blair and New Labour ought to be bestowed this regal order for their dis-services to the United Kingdom. But what is more, the Coalition should do some deep soul searching before they enter the next election. Either they fight in Blair's shadow with the empty mimicry and zero principle approach to politics that was his zest. Or, they fight on their principles, from the spirit of their hearts; for what they truly believe in and for what is right.

I do not believe that 646 people who are well above average intelligence cannot see the problem with bowing to a foreign court, to disable the defences of the realm, to give money to those who do not deserve it, to those who would rather rip of the arm that feeds them, let alone bite it. It cannot be that 646 people of such statute, who have fought a campaign into that Mother of all Parliaments, should just lay down their arms and accept that status quo. I cannot accept such frugal subservience to power. People must have higher aspirations for their country, and especially MPs, than what currently passes for informed governance of Great Britain.

For make no mistake, if they do not change their ways, we will change their place come the next election. Right now there is no discernible difference between the three main parties, all we know is that the country would be better run without any of them.

Some free advice

Given that the probability that anyone with any form of influence will actually read this blog, is fairly slim. I am fairly comfortable posting my personal advice here for the benefit of politicians who think they know how the real world works.

What has been bothering me as of late is that the government is not able to put across what they really want to do. I do not really care much for their policies (the coalition's) since a) the Liberal Democrats had a hand in writing them, and I despise them as a political entity, b) the Conservative party does not seem to know what it is conserving anymore and might as well re-name itself to something more appropriate akin to the centre left/right policies it now subscribes to.

Me; I am very conservative and never went through the socialist stage which most youngsters seem destined to pass through, as a right of passage, before reaching maturity and embracing a pragmatic and grown-up outlook on the world (and realise that you cannot simply dish-out other people's hard earned money on your bullshit socialist utopia). As the old saying goes, a conservative is a liberal who just got mugged, and a liberal is a conservative who just got arrested. I have never been arrested nor mugged, when I have, I shall update you on my political credence.

But back to the main point behind this post. If you cannot communicate your vision then you will be defined by your enemies. It is a very simple concept. But it seems as if ministers are currently just trying to leave something, anything, just for the sake of changing society, but not saying why they want to change it. Why on earth sell off the forests for example? Who ever asked for that? It is not as if logging is big business in the UK (no it really is not so don't go posting some statistics saying that it is for then I will retort with a statistic from Sweden or Finland, which will dwarf any lumber figure put forth by any of my potential enemies).

It is fairly simple to get past this; formulate what the hell is wrong with the current system be it the armed forces or the NHS. And really hit home why it needs to change. Be a coward and ignore the EU at your own peril, there is still a lot of domestic policy (the EU is domestic policy now as well) which is still quite frankly shit. Noticed lately that no NHS doctors wear white coats? But in every other country in the world with an advanced medical service this is the case. Do some googling on that and you will see for what retard reason those were dropped and subsequently leading to various outbreaks of dangerous viruses. This is a minor issue though; there is a lot more which needs to be changed before the doctors get their coats back. Question is will ministers listen to the people or will they peddle on into oblivion and certain electoral defeat, lest they tell everyone what they are trying to achieve?

Why are young people left-wing?

I am what would be considered a young person and I am a right-wing conservative (not a Tory though). Without getting into a soul searching debate of what actually defines 'wings', lets just say that I am one of the few, if my position in society at large were to be examined. My fellow peers at university are mostly ultra-liberal and even more so left-wing bordering on socialist. Political affiliation is a difficult subject mostly because the people subject to evaluation simply do not know what they are, because few know what they believe in. They have a few hunches as to what an appropriate knee-jerk response would be to some random statement, intended to produce such a reaction but that is about it. When pressed they get annoyed and want to end the discussion. I do not want to end the discussion, I want to know why most people start of their lives as left-wing liberals but later on change to something else and not necessarily conservatism or similar 'isms'.

I have a lot of friends in Sweden, and Sweden is about to have an election. Regular readers will know that I wrote a long prodding essay about Facebook here, sadly Facebook will feature again in this little attempt to come to closure. Facebook is where the action is, so too with politics. I am very saddened to see that so many of my friends, of similar age to myself, are so fantastically left-wing. They post little messages on their personal "comment" about their thoughts on the election and they join various groups who advocate socialism. Much to my dismay for they are comprehensively and collectively, wholly ignorant of the dangers of what they are advocating. I can say this not because I am a righteous plonk who thinks he knows what is best for everyone else, no, because I am a political nerd, and I would like to think that my thoughts and comments are a bit more informed than those of the average Joe.

I have been fortunate enough to have known some of these people since I could barely walk. They are truly wonderful people, but sitting where I am, they are also complete fucking nut-jobs who are indulging in the most disgusting form of cultural relativism. What is more they seem to have no recollection of history, which is made even worse since I know they have had history classes; I took the same classes. When they say socialism, they dream up some eutopia-like scenario and post a nice little red star to accompany their political creed, leaving me dumbstruck again. They know nothing of the gulags, perestroika or glasnost or of serfs and Molotov. What is 1905 and 17 to them more than some random years? Do they know that Soviet socialism (which is nice way of saying 'communism') killed in excess of 20 million people. Who is Solyetzin, what did he do, 'sounds lika soya to me'. Do they know that socialism/communism has failed everywhere it was tried? Sweden was not built upon socialism, but it just so happens to be one of the frontrunners of the modern welfare state. Welfare per se, is not socialism - I think. That might just be my deluded way of putting together a cognitive argument. Put it like this instead: I believe that if you are fortunate enough to have had the possibilities to advance to such a point that you are self-reliant, then a small small percentage of your income should be given to your fellow man so that he too, hopefully, can do the same. Our birth place is, to the best of our knowledge, random and for all I know I could have been sitting in Katmandu right now, mending carpets, not having a thought in the world for the modern welfare state. Based on that alone, it suffices to say that we should all be compassionate but not excessively so [I think]. However...

The dangers of the welfare state are 1) it often is unjust in taking lawful property from individuals through excessive taxation, 2) it substitutes the collective judgment of the government for the freedom and judgment of the individual 3) it discourages initiative and entrepreneurship by individuals, and 4) it leads to excessive government power and hence corruption. The danger of these tendencies of the welfare state were well summarized by Lionel Trilling, a respected man of the contemporary liberal left as quoted by Gertrude Himmelfarb in her book 'Poverty and Compassion' “Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the object of our pity, then of our wisdom, ultimately of our coercion. It is to prevent this corruption, the most ironic and tragic that man knows, that we stand in need of the moral realism which is the product of the moral imagination”. As political economist F. A. Hayek has stated; “The guiding principle that a policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy remains as true today as it was in the nineteenth century”.

So why are young people left-wing? I think (a lot of 'I think' tonight simply because there is very little written on this subject, at least very little that is available to me) a lot of it is derived from some spurious belief that because you are young you want to break from the past, you want the new world, automatically assuming that the old world is a bad world. Since you yourself are 'new' your ideals have not been tainted by reality and pragmatism (you remember, I am sure, all the bollocks you got at school "anyone can do anything" and we all thought 'great, fantastic, I can be a rocket scientist' even though we knew deep down that there was probably only one or two kids in the room who had those kind of brains) and you express yourself in the way of a revolutionary who has the most commendable of values, not to mention altruistic of values, but has little in the way of prospects. Because you are new (simple terminology but lets not get bogged down in semantics) you reject all opposing views as being irrelevant and erroneous, because they are made on the premise of an old society. Yours is the right belief, the righteous belief, yours must be correct because others are wrong, since their ideals and morals have been debased and contaminated by the old world. Hence by proxy, and proxy alone, your altruistic and utopian idea must be morally superior to those of the elders. And since you have the moral imperative only you, and you alone, have the right to change the world.

Socialism is meretricious.

My Manifesto

We bloggers complain a lot, some would call it legitimate criticism of the society we live in today and others would plain and simple call it whining. I think the former category is the most appropriate but I am by no means going to set upon the task of auditing myself; I am not the government after all, and I would like to think that I have some personal integrity.

We complain but we rarely offer any reasonable alternatives of what should be done. Of course sometimes we do, with the EU for example we always suggest a referendum as to our continued involvement with this organisation. But on drug classification we are split and more so than often we indulge in criticising the government instead of offering constructive criticism. I am as much guilty of this as are many other bloggers.

Hence, in the interest of fairness we either put up or we shut up. There is no point in complaining about every single thing if we do not seek to do something about it.

On the top bar I have added a new tab as you might see, it is called "My Manifest" for lo and behold it is my manifesto. This is how, if I were PM, my party would do things and this is probably how I would outline the manifesto as well: clear, simple and poignant. This is what I would do to transform the vices into virtues and promote the virtues to cornerstones of the country.

I intend, at first, to only limit myself to topics that I consider myself somewhat proficient to have an opinion on such as defence, foreign policy and education. As time progresses more policy areas of interest will be added to the manifesto; as I take onboard more information. It will be to all intents and purposes an organic manifesto which grows with time and the accumulation of knowledge of this blogger.

Not a revolutionary prospect but close

You read it here first, a long time ago actually, but the next election will be the election of the so called "fringe". Only difference of course is that the fringe is not longer the perpetrators of the right or the left, they will be the flag-bearers of the left and the right. Why? Because no other political parties do; they have no colours to nail to the mast and no defining streak which sets them apart from the other in the majestic political landscape (notice the sarcastic hyperbole), they are to all intents and purposes 'centre'. Not 'centre-right' or 'centre-left' but bang, slap, middle of the bar, is where most mainstream political parties have set up camp today, and guess what, I reckon that voters will realise this too a much larger extent once the next election creeps closer. Consider why:

Have we had reduced immigration? No

Have we repatriated power from Brussels? No

Is the defence budget being slashed in the middle of a war? Yes

Can gypsies still set up camp wherever they want? Yes

Is the Human Rights Act going away? No

Is health and safety madness still prevalent? Yes

Is political correctness madness still prevalent? Yes

Are the trains and bus-services still too expensive? Yes

Is Britain still being sold off; lock stock and barrel? Yes

Are the pubs still dying? Yes

Is religious insensitivity to every single fucking thing, still clogging the news? Yes

Is there still too much red-tape? Yes

Are the righteous still preaching 24-7 how we should live our lives? Yes

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Now consider why nothing has happened with these rather large issues, it has to with political ideology or maybe it just has to do with vested interests - personally I think it has to with principles or lack thereof rather:

New Labour: Centre-left

Conservatives: Centre-right

Liberal Democrats: Centre-left

The Green Party: useless and pointless

BNP: Left

UKIP: Right

SNP: Centre-left

Now this is what I think is going to happen come the next election. People who at this election were on the verge of not voting for either LibDems, the Tories or Labour wont be on that note again. This time it is abundantly clear that all of their parties have moved away from their traditional ground and into the centre where, as this post so fragrantly demonstrates, everyone hates them particularly those us with a very firm set of principles, and that pretty much entails the entire blogosphere.

The Tories will most likely loose a lot of votes to UKIP because after 13 years in opposition and perhaps two or three in government it is as clear as daylight that they do not espouse right-wing policies. A lot of working class voters will probably shift to the BNP because of 13 years in government they were completely ignored and their two or three in opposition was an abject failure and a complete waste of everyone's time, because they are trying to defend the most abysmal mandate period in British political history. They have not yet succeeded in that goal and if anything it will turn into a pyrrhic victory if they do, but then the party at large will probably disappear as well. Here comes the interesting part; a lot of LibDem voters wont know what to do with themselves. They are at face value left leaning people who were not completely convinced by Labour but they have also come to realise that neither their party nor their most obvious successor, Labour, are going to serve as a reasonable substitute for their vote. Who they go for instead is anyone's guess but probably some really weird party like Socialist Alternative or Trade Unionist & Socialist.

And such is my thesis (and has been for about 1.5 years now, remember you read it here first); The election that really counts was not the one past, but the one we are about to have sometime in the next 4 years.

Harry Potter Politics

Cornelius Fudge = New Labour and some politicians in general - arch general denyists that there is anything wrong at all with the country.

Mr. Fudge vehemently denies that Voldemort is back with all the ensuing terror that this foul prospect would entail. Our politicians on the other vehemently deny that the EU is a problem that Islam is in fact a "religion of peace" and that the war in Afghanistan is actually going well.

I think we can all draw the conclusion that J.K. Rowling got her inspiration for Mr. Fudge from the British political establishment. And that is the sad part.

Gerald Warner on Good Form

Just ninety minutes of PR candy-floss from a Liberal Democrat wide boy – that was all it took – and the papier-mâché construct that was Cameronian Pseudo-Conservatism crumpled and dissolved. Yesterday William Hague, the Cameronians’ best debater, was taken out in the course of the Daily Politics debate – a defeat analogous to Marshal Marmont surrendering Napoleon’s last army as the Allies closed in on Paris. Then the supposed fight-back election broadcast turned out to be a session of meaningless Daveguff delivered in a garden against a background of piano music, like an old silent movie. Vichy Toryism is assuming the past tense – the whole Potemkin village is collapsing.

Already, on last night’s edition of the Daily Politics, they were asking the teasing question: if Dave loses the election will he have to go? The answer, axiomatically, is yes, within 24 hours, and his whole tainted clique with him. Yet Michael Portillo, the first begetter of Tory “modernisation”, maintained he should stay (it would be fun watching him try); he also insisted that Cameron and his accomplices must not respond to their present emergency by venturing onto the topics of immigration or Europe, which Dave succeeded in removing from their agenda.

Whom the gods wish to destroy… The implosion of the Cameronian imposture is not difficult to understand. The nation is massively concerned about immigration, but the Cameronians refuse to discuss it, beyond a pledge to import “tens of thousands” a year. The only policy on immigration that would come within a mile of meeting public demand would be a total moratorium on incomers for a minimum of 10 years, accompanied by a focused and exhaustive drive to discover and expel all illegals. Nothing less will be seriously entertained as an “immigration policy” by the British public.

On Europe, the obvious Conservative policy would be to guarantee to hold two referenda within the lifetime of the next parliament. The first, to be held within six months of taking office, would be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Yes, it would be a referendum on an already ratified treaty – AS WAS THE ONLY PRECEDENT, THE 1975 REFERENDUM ON EUROPE, after smirking Head Teeth misled us into the EEC. If the answer turned out to be No to Lisbon, Britain would unilaterally derogate from its provisions, followed by a further referendum on continued membership, Yes or No, of the European Union.

Other obvious policies would include the abolition of 90 per cent of quangos; the repeal by a single-clause Bill of all PC laws passed by Labour since 1997 as listed in an annexed schedule; an end of tinkering with the constitution but a Draconian crack-down instead on financial fraud by members of both Houses of Parliament with all offences criminalised; the scrapping of all proposed taxes, subsidies and other measures relating to the global warming myth; a referendum on the restoration of capital punishment; and the imposition of punitive sentencing for criminals, with victim status restored to the person against whom the offence was committed, instead of the perpetrator.

The tragedy is that any moderately competent Conservative leader offering such policies would now be within a couple of weeks of being swept to power on a landslide. Instead, Cameron and his clowns are fighting desperately for survival, after 13 years of the worst misrule Britain has ever experienced. They cannot organise a “fight-back” because they have no real policies beyond toy-town socialist fantasies such as “Big Society” (dear God!), no principles, no grounding in basic Conservative philosophy, no genuinely Tory instincts, no understanding of the people of this country and how they think and live.

The Vichy Tories live in a metropolitan cocoon, sharing a comfort zone of liberal-left political correctness with their supposed opponents in the other two main parties. They have used consensual complicity for half a century to frustrate the wishes of the nation on such issues as capital punishment and immigration. Mesmerised by the Great Charlatan Tony Blair, they imagined they could use the same marketing techniques to sell themselves into government. Dave has a masterly blueprint for winning the 1997 general election: in the 2010 contest he is hardly any longer a contender.

The fall of the Kingdom

Lets get something straight, bloggers by their existence, are not optimists. We are the most ardent sceptics and pessimists that trod this planet. We have to be because as of now we have as a collective taken over the function of the media in scrutinising the state. Commonly the three pillars of power in the UK used to be the House of Commons, the House of Lords and finally the Main Stream Media. Not anymore; the latter have been replaced by a swathe of more powerful bloggers who can singlehandedly produce a more thorough analysis of the state of the nation, than can the entire political section of either of the major newspapers.

Now, in Britain we have a duopoly system of politics. Like major corporations, say between BAE Systems and Thales UK we are under the illusion that there is some genuine competition between these two defence contractors, yet they are both building the new aircrafts carriers for the Royal Navy in unison. In public they portray a facade of mutual friendly hatred, call it banter, based on them perpetuating the lie that defence contracts in the UK are subject to the tendering process (they are but the 'right' guys always get it anyway). The Labour Party and the Conservative party are supposed to be competing against in each other. Are they?

The parties claim to be the champions of the people, they say that they are men and women of the people when nothing could be further from the truth. Politicians are not supposed to be men a women of the people, how could they? They are as far from 'normal' as you could possibly get. A true, well meaning person, who strives to serve his or her country is a man or woman -for- the people and not of them. Hence, I agree to some extent with Peter Hitchens in his length response to ConservativeHome readers; the Tory party of today are not Conservatives for what are they really conserving?

The political system in the UK is not a marked based one of mutual friendly competition, designed to bring forth the best minds and the best policies, perfectly suited to needs and wishes of the people - we usually call this democracy but in the PC world of today that is probably not allowed anymore. No, the political system in the UK is a monopoly because the marxist ideologies imposed by this Labour government will not be rolled back and removed by the Cameron administration for they will simply claim that there is nothing that they can do, that the leftist paradigms are now so rooted in society that nothing in their power could uproot them. Bollocks, where there is a will there is way and if you for a minute think that the people are happy with this excuse for a country that today poses for 'Britain' you are sadly mistaken. I am not a man of the people I am part of the people, and while I do not represent them as a collective voice, you do not have to be a genius or employ the full, taxpayer funded, power of HM Treasury to work out that everything that Labour has touched since they came to power in 1997 has turned to fire and ashes. The tories will be no difference since they, like Labour before them, will continue the charade whereby us gullible voters are to be taken under the impression that Right and Left are as different as East and West when in reality the political compass is pointing the only feasible way for them; North - which is the same if you are at East or West.

This is British Politics Today

These subtle few lines encapsulate what it means (mostly) to be a Political party in today's 'Modern Britain'

We Have Principles, vote for us! If you do not like them we have others!

But hey at least we have our beer.

I like this chap, most of him

This chap David Lindsay sounds very reasonable bar his defence aspirations (he wants to remove all nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological weapons from British soil and waters). Most of his policies I agree with. Hope he gets elected.

"I have real conservative and patriotic policies. Restoring the supremacy of British over EU law. Returning to preventative policing based on foot patrols. Making each offence carry a minimum sentence of one third of its maximum sentence, or 15 years for life. Restoring grammar schools, restoring O-levels, restoring excellent secondary modern schools, and defending and restoring special needs education. Introducing a legal presumption of equal parenting, restoring the tax allowance for fathers, and allowing paternity leave to be taken at any time in the first 18 years of the child’s life. Helping farmers and small businesses through a windfall tax on the supermarkets. Defending village services, saving shooting and fishing, repealing the hunting ban, and making Gypsies and Travellers obey the same planning laws as the rest of us. Preserving the historic regimental system, rebuilding the Royal Navy, and saving the Royal Air Force."

Good Man!

Milk Politics

Do you remember the Milk Rounds or the School Milk (in all honesty yours truly was not born when this was around)? Well this is another one of those areas where the country has gone completely bonkers.

Consider what we now get our milk in: awful environmentally hazardous plastic cartridges that have to be thrown out once they have been used. This of course is counter productive as the damned things are made of plastic i.e. oil and have to be burned and thus releasing all those nasty gases the Green lobby keeps banging on about.

Well they have not done anything about it at all to be quite honest. But before we get to the Milk rounds lets have a look at what some food chains are in fact offering. Tesco have nothing but the plastic gear which is utterly useless particularly if you throw out the damned thing with the lid screwed tight. Some councils now employ people-this is not a joke-whose soul purpose is to pop the cartons so as to free some space in the bins. The same story is true for most of the big stores except Sainsbury's and Waitrose. They have in their larger supermarkets started using bags of milk (see picture). Even the bags themselves are recyclable which is always good. But obviously the main benefit comes from not having a physical carton which you have to smash with your bare knuckles in order for the damned thing to become somewhat 'flat'. Other benefits include saving plastic and spending that oil on say better gear for soldiers.

Sainsbury's claim that the only way to open the bag, without ending up covered in milk, is to place the bag inside the jug and shut the lid. A spike then pierces the bag releasing the milk. Your humble narrator can comfort the dear reader that this is all complete bollocks. You do not need a special jug. You need a jug but not a special Sainsbury's jug, and a pair of scissors. Cut of a corner and pour the bloody milk into the jug. It is not rocket science.

It is a bit odd that it only arrived in the UK about a year ago; you can only buy milk in bags in Canada. They do not sell it in any other form (well supposedly 60% is sold in bag form but I never saw anything but bag milk). Which begs the question; why are they intent on destroying the country side when they might as well just outlaw any packaging which does not necessarily have to be made from the most inconvenient of materials? Do you really need cereal in a carton, is not the bag enough? And so on. Not wishing to be a mouth piece for the Green lobby, for I truly despise the lot of them for their inconsistent and deceitful ways, but we do need to reconsider the way we pack things at least to save material.

But now the more pressing of questions: Why the fuck have they let the Milk Rounds fall into despair when it was probably the most environmentally friendly way of delivering fresh, cheap, locally produced, milk? Bear in mind that companies like Lidl insist on their milk being sent from bloody Germany to all its stores in Europe. I.e. the milk you buy from Lidl is not even by any stretch of the imagination 'local'. The Milk Rounds used and use glass bottles (as you will know by now that glass is 100% recyclable) and the vehicles they spin around in are driven by electricity.

This is not to say that the industry is dead - far from it. From the website Findmeamilkman.net we have it that (my emphasis)

"The UK’s 9,500 milkmen and women deliver to around 5 million homes every day. Whilst fresh liquid milk in environmentally friendly returnable glass milk bottles remains the cornerstone of this service, your milkman can also offer a large range of other goods. They will be more than happy to discuss the range of products that can be delivered regularly to your doorstep."

Now a normal person in the UK consumes roughly 2 litres or 3.5 pints of milk each week. This is a fair amount of milk. But one must wonder why are only 5 million homes in the UK getting their milk from this service which ought to be the Emperors of the milk trade (and media and government policy) in the UK, yet are not. A decade ago, more than 2.5 billion litres of milk were being delivered to the doorstep each year, which by 2004 had fallen to 637 million. Only 13% of the milk now consumed at home comes from delivery rounds (2006).

We can get pretty nostalgic about our doorstep milk deliveries. After all, there can’t be many countries that have had a record at number one in the singles chart about a milkman. Comedian Benny Hill’s record Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West) topped the charts in 1971 for five solid weeks. Before the milk float, milk was delivered on wheeled carts – either horse-drawn or simply pushed. The milk was in a churn before the advent of the milk bottle and the milkman poured it into the jugs his customers left on their doorsteps. A cloth cover over the jug protected the milk from flies.

The early morning chink-chink of the milkman or woman and the hum of the electric float is declining in 21st-century England though – despite efforts to extend the range of products on offer to include eggs, bread, juice and more. Despite rumours to the contrary, there is no threat to UK milk deliveries from the European Union - yet. However as we move further into this century it appears that the trend is being reversed because people are starting to realise what this article has been arguing that there is simply no way in which supermarket-milk beats Milkman-milk. As such it is becoming more popular again and it is only a question of time before an MP of one ilk or another seizes upon this issue to include it in their portfolio of "green policies".

Instead of building expensive fucking "eco-towns" perhaps we ought to retrace our steps to a time when people were far more sensible (and greener) than they are now.

Appeasement - doublespeak for 'Caitiff'

Spot the difference between this image and the one below, apparently they are the same according to the BBC. Splendid then.

Remember the charming chaps featured in the image above? You know the ones who were within in an inch of being lynched by a mob before the valiant police stepped in and saved them from the people, who were there for entirely different reasons; to support the troops.

Before diving into the chronic-failure policy that is appeasement let me just display the spin put on this story by the BBC. The BBC called these protesters "anti-war protesters" even though nearly every other MSM outlet managed to label the protests accurately; namely as muslim protesters. Take a look here for example (even the Guardian managed to implore reason for once).

There is, and please read this very carefully any potential BBC staff, a profound difference between "anti-war" protesters and the despicable lot that managed to upset the town of Luton including its normal muslim population, who are very supportive of the armed forces in general. Akbar Dad Khan, a local community leader, said: "They are about 10 to 15 hotheads. The best thing to do is just to ignore them. I agree with Mr. Khan entirely though just to make issue completely crystal...

These are anti-war protesters:

Turns out though that the government has done a policy U-turn again, lo and behold! Police around the country have been told that they are to "take it easy on muslim extremists" lest they become more militant as a result. This defies all logic but so does New Labour. Remember in 2005 when Mr. Blair, then PM, called for an "overhaul of the criminal justice system to root out and prosecute extremists."

Tory MP David Davies said: "This sounds like abject surrender. Everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law". Quite.

What has history taught us about the policy of appeasement then? The most famous case can of course be ascribed to former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. In 1938 the Nazis in the Sudetenland (formed under the Versailles Treaty) became really chafed and figured they would called for autonomy. However this could lead to war since the Germans might intervene and help them something which could not be tolerated by the British. So, things really got heated upon which Mr. Chamberlain hopped on a prop and flew to Berchtesgaden to negotiate directly with Hitler.

Hitler, as you know, was a bit strange and he wanted pretty much everything he could get his hands on. Whenever there was an objection he threatened war. In conjunction what happened was that the British and French told their ally, the Czechs, to give away huge chunks of its population and territory to the Germans (what the Czechs really should do as an honest retribution is to sign the Lisbon Treaty and then send a memorandum to Mr. Cameron reading "ha ha, up yours wanker") this all resulted in the Munich Agreement where effectively Czechoslovakia ceased to exist and was chopped up into four pieces and then handed to Germany, Hungary, Poland, and an independent Slovakia.

Smashing!

Well not really, in March 1939 Chamberlain assured the Poles that Britain would support them if their independence was threatened (remember how we said that Hitler was a rather quirky character). On 1 September Hitler invaded Poland and on 3 September Britain declared war on Germany. The rest is history as they say.

What we should take from this example is that appeasement is a crappy policy at best and downright perilous at worst. Why? Because the recipients of the appeasement think that they can do whatever they want as their adversary, clearly, does not have any balls.

Or why not take a more recent example of appeasement failure. Newt Gingrich said that he was wrong to put the racist label on Justice Sotomayer.

Aha? That is odd.

Justice Sotomayer ruled against white firemen in New Haven, Connetticut, who said city officials violated their rights when it threw out the results of a promotions test on which few minorities scored well. The minorities in question were African-Americans. To you or me that is blatant racism staring you right in the face, according to Sotomayer it is not. Anyhow the ruling has been overturned by the Supreme Court to which Justice Sotomayer is set to become a full time member of in the not to distant future. That does not bode well.