Our thieving partners - by Richard... Monday, March 12, 2012

Our thieving partners - by Richard... Monday, March 12, 2012

You really don't have to add a great deal more to this, other than to remind ourselves that, in September 2005, with Tony Blair holding the EU presidency, the EU moved towards a China-EU Framework Agreement, in which we and the rest of the EU member states were to become "strategic partners" with China.

You will be pleased to be reminded, also, that Blair and premier Wen Jiabao witnessed the signing of a €500 million loan from the European Investment Bank for the extension of Peking airport and that, during the meeting, a Joint Declaration on Climate Change between China and the EU was issued. This confirmed the establishment of a China-EU partnership on climate change.

The two sides emphasised the importance of high-level political dialogue and consultations at all levels in enhancing understanding, expanding common ground and advancing bilateral relations. And now they steal our secrets, and those of our most important ally.

There is stupidity, and there is a higher form of stupidity, an example of which is to allow the EU to dictate our foreign policy. China may be our trading partners, but they are also our potential enemies. As such, they cannot be treated as our "strategic partners". Except, of course, that they are, and we no longer have any say in the matter.

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One for your shit list (Guest post) - by Pete... Sunday, March 11, 2012

Following the example of Madam Defarge, I've been keeping a little shit list of my own. Being a super-user of Facebook, I have access to all kinds of preening wannabes, whose monumental egos override their sense of caution and let people like me "out" them. Lately I've been keeping an eye on one Theodora Clarke who penned this little gem on the London riots.

"It is telling that Waterstones was the only shop not looted in Clapham; book shops were spared the major damage of other stores during the riots".

No it isn't. Seriously, what intrinsic (or resale value) does a Cheryl Cole autobiography have? Or a Delia Smith cook book? If, as she says, the cause of the riots is simply opportunism, books are high weight, specialist stock to carry, which takes homework to convert into a quick buck. An opportunist would not waste their energy. Anyone who understood the world of street commerce would recognise this.

While I completely agree that the riots were opportunism and the looters showed a "showed a blatant disregard for authority", take a look at the example set by our ruling class. Why on Earth would we show any respect for authority? Council CEOs on 160k (minimum) and MPs who collectively think John Lewis is a good measure of what household items cost. They who think people are going to pay £63 for a dish draining rack.

And why is that? Because we have an alien breed of MPs from a select stock, groomed for positions of high office because they work for the right consultancy, schmooze the right people all preparatory to being selected by a brand name party. These are the sort of people who proudly boast on their Twitter page: "Dudley North Conservatives annual dinner with Rt. Hon. Philip Hammond MP & Chris Kelly MP".

So why am I getting worked up about this particular piece of Tory vermin? Well folks, I'll bet you the contents of the EU Referendum paypal account that this prat gentle person is a junior minister in the next administration ... just like Chloe Smith's engineered rise to office.

If Theodora Clarke wants to know what is wrong with British society (and British democracy) she should go and look in a mirror. I would say exactly what I think of this lady on her own Facebook page but last time I did that to a public figure (admittedly after swilling a bottle of Jamesons), the police came knocking, telling me that I should be nice to these people. My response was unambiguous.

Dora, you made the list. Google her. You'll know what I mean.

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A touch of irony - by Richard...

When Peter Hitchens describes the egregious Lord Dannatt as "outspoken, principled, fearless", you can be absolutely assured that he means exactly what he writes. Or, it could just be that yet another person is getting the measure of the man – full of BS but never there when the chips are down.

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Eating my words? - by Richard...

Almost calculated to make me eat my words after writing my last post, we happen upon a piece of propaganda by defence correspondent Sean Rayment in The Sunday Telegraph so inept, that one can only applaud the run of caustic comments.

Rayment bizarrely optimistic article about the Afghan National Army (ANA) thus attracts the comment from "ste045": "Was this article written by Army's PR corps, a larger dollop of wishful thinking I've yet to read".

From "anythinggoeshere", we get the view: "I doubt the raw Afghan military will have the competency or self confidence to be aggressive enough, they will probably adopt a bunker mentality", while "Carolus Campanus" tells us: "This piece is so wonderfully retarded that I may keep it so that I can have something to chuckle over when the Taleban take power".

Rayment actually claims the goose-stepping drill comes from the Soviet occupation, but "mackinlay" corrects him, saying that it "comes not from the Soviets, but, the German and Swedish mercenaries from the 1880s brought in to modernise the army". The current form of drill used, he says, "is straight out of the Swedish Army of the 1920s, with a Swedish military mission in the country from then to the 1950s".

This will not be the first time Rayment will have been wrong. While in June 2006, Booker was complaining about Snatch Land Rovers and calling for mine protected vehicles in Iraq, Rayment wasextolling the virtues of the Warrior.

For good reason then we have "MarcosPerez47" complain that: "The Telegraph has become a propagandist comic book even its most loyal readers can no longer swallow". Echoing this is "Fedupofallthis", who asks, "Is this article propaganda or tripe or maybe both? ", then adding: "Whatever it is, I am not swallowing it".

And then there is "tinkerbell23", who says: "From your headline: '...can be revealed in unprecidented detail' … The subbing at the Telegraph is getting very bad now. It's getting to the point where there is not a single article on the web site version that does not have either an awful spelling error …".

That error has been corrected now, but we still have "withdrawl", the second error, so far undetected. "More and more people read this paper on the web. If the web version is full of errors then it ruins that experience. Eventually, I'll stop reading it", says "tinkerbell23".

Behind the scenes though, we hear that the sub numbers have been slashed, leaving the staff quite unable to cope. And as always, it is the sharp end that suffers, although the paper still seems to have enough money to send Rayment to Kabul to pick up on the propaganda.

The clue here is that it is essential for the Cleggerons to project that the ANA is capable of taking the load, thus legitimising the withdrawal. And if Cameron needs the ANA to step up to the plate, Rayment will obligingly tell him it is "ready for the fight".

Actually, when I think about it, this time comments were relatively restrained.

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A new era of intolerance? - by Richard...

A little while back, I drew attention to a forum where some posters were being extremely unpleasant about me and my new book, despite their not having read it. Independently, and in response to that blog post, a number of commenters joined the fray, building to over 300 replies on the single thread, with over 10,000 views.

That left the diehards getting more and more aggressive, and they tried to defend their turf – until yesterday when the thread was removed it its entirety, apparently on the pretence that a thread about a book (started last April) is covert "advertising".

One has to gloss over the question as how one can discuss a book without in some way "advertising" that book, but such higher realms of logic are clearly not for the defenders of the faith, especially as advertising is clearly allowed elsewhere.

What this is really all about, therefore, is the "guardians", having dictated that the Battle of Britain is the daylight battle for air superiority conducted by RAF Fighter Command from July to October 1940, no alternative viewpoint is permitted.

Ironically, the narrative attached to those who flew in 1940 to defend our freedoms must now be defended by restricting freedom of expression in a discussion about the value of their exploits. Doubtless, Wing Commander H R Allen would have appreciated the irony.

The broader issue here though, is the point that I made in my original post, when I remarked on the similarities between this bunch of obsessives and, warmists and even europhiles.

But what we see in them is also apparent in some of the comments to Booker's column on armoured vehicles, where one sees the same type of dogmatic, sneery and aggressive response that one encounters elsewhere.

There is nothing at all wrong with this approach when it comes to addressing our masters. But one really does wonder why some people feel it so necessary when they join anonymously forums and comment threads to express their views in such a way, to people whom they do not know and have sinned only in having views which differ from their own.

It is difficult to judge, without a comparative base, but one really does wonder if we are on the verge of a new era of intolerance.