Danger, North at work - by Richard... Sunday, November 08, 2009

Danger, North at work - by Richard... Sunday, November 08, 2009

A partial explanation for the light blogging. The Defence Debate over in Jersey. From the left, General Sir John Wilsey, President of the Royal British Legion – Jersey Overseas Branch, Air Marshal Philip Sturley, President of The Royal Air Forces Association, Peter Troy, chairman, yours truly, and Canon Dr Peter Williams, Vicar of Gouray.

Interestingly, I met an Army Captain today, who had been at the debate - where I had expressed serious doubts about the campaign in Afghanistan. He had been in theatre and told me that those doubts were very much shared by the soldiers in the field.

More when I get back home tomorrow.

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A war in the offing? - by Richard...

The Independent on Sunday records a senior Tory MP saying yesterday that Mr Cameron would have to move quickly in the first year and a half of his premiership and had to show "real progress" on his promises.

The MP said: "I don't think a promise of a referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU in more than five years will sit very well. He [Cameron] needs to make progress, within the first 18 months of his premiership. If he does, it will be his crowning glory, but if he doesn't, it will be a thorn in his side."

Another Eurosceptic backbencher said: "We have agreed to keep quiet on this before the election, but if things do not start happening in the first year or so, there will be all-out war for a referendum."

LISBON TREATY THREAD

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They died in vain - by Richard...

The Sunday Telegraph is amongst several newspapers who link the erosion of democracy with Remembrance Day, and thence to the point we made recently about the paradox of fighting for "democracy" in Afghanistan, when we have given away our own.

Our ancestors fought for our freedom, and the current generation is fighting and dying in Afghanistan for the same cause. Yet it is indisputable that those freedoms for which they fought and are fighting have been steadily eroded, to the point where we are no longer an independent nation. We have lost that ultimate freedom – the freedom to govern ourselves.

This, however, will be the last Remembrance Day before the Lisbon Treaty comes into force. Next year, we will be remembering not only the lives that were expended in the cause of our freedom, but the fact that we have, despite the sacrifices, lost that freedom. Those who died have died in vain.

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Another one at it - by Richard...

"Amid all the detailed argument about the Lisbon Treaty and referendums, it is easy to ignore a basic truth about Cameron's EU strategy and the trajectory upon which he is now set. This will be the first unequivocally Eurosceptic government of modern times."

So says Matthew d'Ancona in The Sunday Telegraph. Thus, following in the footsteps of Daniel Finkelstein and Benedict Brogan, he is the third prominent political commentator (to our knowledge) to mark Cameron's "modern" Conservatives as "eurosceptic".

However, all this does is illustrate - as we remarked in our piece on Brogan - that the politicalclaque, living in exactly the same bubble as the politicians, is equally out of touch. 

The remarkable thing is that d'Ancona, like his fellow travellers, almost certainly believes that Cameron is a eurosceptic. But, if they cannot distinguish between a europhile and a eurosceptic, they are not equipped to offer sensible comment on one of the most important political issues of our time.

Such men, who so fundamentally lack judgement and understanding, are part of our problem. 

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