Britannia Radio

Will anyone actually care?   Monday 30 April 2012 Considering how much The Boy has cosied-up to le projet, it is rather ironic that he should now be blaming the euro for the state of the UK economy, complaining that it might be dragged down for years by a crisis that is "nowhere near half complete". There was a time also when it would have made the front-page if a prime minister suggested that the euro might break up. But it is only Cameron, and since every man and his dog has already predicted it, this barely gets a line in The Guardian - and not even a token rebuttal. Sometimes, though, you don't realise how much change there has been. But when things like this sneak up on you, the very lack of reaction tells its own story. With Cameron trying it on, one gets the sense of a man who has lost control – not that he ever really had it. He's doing a Gordon Brown, the man who famously blamed the septics for the world banking crisis.  Where Brown leads, Cameron follows with a dose of BSE – blame someone else. In the run-up to the local elections, however, dumping on the euro is hardly good tactics, especially when, according to a YouGov poll, more people (32 percent) blame The Boy for our woes, than they do the euro (29 percent). But then, he had probably been advised not to blame Labour, as only 17 percent of the poll put the last government in the frame. It used to be the case that incoming prime ministers could get the best part of a full term blaming their predecessors, but even that isn't working for Cameron. Before the preposterous Osborne delivered his "pasty budget", he did at least manage a net satisfaction rating of minus five percent, but that has since plummeted to a current minus 31. But when an Angus Reid survey for the Sunday Express finds that just 82 percent of those polled regard the government as out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people, and YouGov has Labour 11 points ahead of the Tories, this is a place Cameron doesn't want to be. It remains to be seen whether a significant number will be bothered to vote on Thursday, but it will only be indifference to the other parties that will save the Tories from being cleaned out. The real question I suppose, is that, apart from Galloway and his supporters, will anyone actually care? COMMENT THREAD Richard North 30/04/2012

A three-pillar war – part IV   Sunday 29 April 2012 We continue to pursue the theme expounded in my Many Not the Few book that the Battle of Britain was a "three-pillar war". It comprised: the "blockade", or economic war; the plan to invade England and the attendant daylight battle for local air superiority; and the bombing campaign aimed at destroying civilian morale. In the latter part, the intention was to force regime change in the hope that a new government would sue for peace.  This particular series of articles started in March, looking at the "blockade", or economic war, expanding on the issues I raised in the book. In particular, I have been looking at why Churchill refused to allow escorts to be released from anti-invasion duties in late September and October 1940, in order to protect the convoys, after the threat of invasion seems to have abated. In Part I, I set out some of the background, recalling that a shipping crisis was developing in the latter half of 1940, that Churchill's ministers and advisers were calling on him to release escorts, to which he agreed, and then went back on his agreement. In Part II, I introduced evidence that Churchill had become obsessed with the idea of a "snap" invasion in the autumnal fog, against which threat he had decided to hold back the escorts. Warships, however, were not the whole picture, so in Part III I branched out to look at Coastal Command, finding that this aviation branch had also been robbed of resources, mostly in order to feed the demand for bombers to strike back at the heart of Germany. I left that piece, last week, with the conclusion that so little resource had been put into protecting the merchant fleet that, had not the US joined the war at the end of 1941, contributing its massive shipbuilding resources and expanding the Liberty (and Victory) Ship programme, by the end of 1942 Britain could have been forced to sue for peace. For this week, I had promised to take a look at the wider aspects of the "blockade" and then to look at the political implications, past and present, in the following week. However, as one writes – in what for me is a journey of discovery – I find myself running more and more into definitional problems, relating to the Battle of the Atlantic, where one sees the 1940 events sometimes glossed over to the extent that the fighting almost disappears from the narrative. In this, the fourth article of the series, therefore, I thought it would be useful to look at some of these definitional issues around this part of the conflict, which some say started in September 1939 and was well under way by 1940.  However, the fact that there was an intense assault on merchant shipping going on during 1940 comes as something as a surprise to many casual observers, stemming in part from the fact that, in many popular histories, events labelled as the Battle of the Atlantic often start in the Spring of 1941. Earlier fighting is often called "skirmishing" or "preliminaries". In some narratives, the battle starts in March 1941 with a directive from Winston Churchill writing in his role of minister of defence. In others, it is dates from 4 April 1941, when shipping minister Ronald Cross announced that Churchill had "personally taken charge". Another possible starting point could be Adolf Hitler's speech in Berlin on 30 January 1941. Then, he made rather an odd statement, telling his audience that submarine warfare would "begin" in the spring. "They will notice that we have not been sleeping! And the Luftwaffewill also properly introduce itself to them! Our wholeWehrmacht will force a decision, one way or another!", he declared. And what he openly advertised in Berlin, he formalised on 6 February 1941 with Führer Directive No. 23 - which could also be taken to mark the start of the true Battle of the Atlantic.  Whatever the actual starting point - or the name, for that matter (to which we will return) - this was a most interesting directive. In its preamble, Hitler more or less acknowledged that trying to break the morale of the British people by bombing their cities was an uncertain endeavour. But he was also conscious that the German air campaign against Britain could not be sustained once units had been redeployed to "other theatres of war" – i.e., to the Eastern front for Operation Babarossa. But what put the broader battle into focus was Hitler noting that "in contrast to our earlier conceptions", the greatest success in the struggle against the English war economy had been "the heavy loss of merchant ships through naval and aerial warfare". Here, he is recognising that, of the diverse measures taken against Britain, the attack on shipping had been the most successful. To confuse the issue, Hitler also noted that the effect of the direct attacks on shipping, by sea and air, had been further reinforced by the destruction of port installations and of large stocks of material, as well as by the lessened utilisation of the ships when required to sail in convoy.  Thus, whatever Churchill or others may have decided to call it the battle, Hitler actually launched a multi-faceted assault on the "English war economy", which started in September 1939. This had been set fully in train with Führer Directive No. 9 of 29 November 1939, amended on 26 May 1940, and then reinforced by Directive No. 17 of 1 August 1940, the directive that declared unrestricted submarine warfare. One of the problems with nomenclature comes, as far as I can see, with the characterisation of the entire battle as a U-boat war, associating the Atlantic War exclusively with just that one part of the battle. In reality, in the early period, the assault was by no means, or even primarily, a U-Boat war. German went to war with only 26 ocean-going boats and until the Spring of 1941, rarely deployed more than 20 at any one time, the graph rising from the end of April 1941 to March 1943 when a peak of 160 boats was deployed. Thus, the early campaign comprised actions by surface raiders (some disguised) throughout the world. It included attacks by long-range aircraft – mainly FW 200 Condors (type pictured above), which from August 1940 were based in France.  The campaign also took in the attacks by short and medium range aircraft on coastal shipping, and the bombing of ports (including London), together with attacks on railways and communications. It also embraced an extensive minelaying programme, by air and sea, and attacks on shipping by the torpedo and gun-equipped fleet of so-called E-boats. And much of this activity was in the North Sea, the Channel and the Irish Sea, and their related coastal areas, rather than the Atlantic. Even with his directive of 6 February 1941, Hitler was setting out a template for a combined arms assault - not just U-Boats but naval and air forces. With the addition of concentrated air attacks, he wrote, "primarily against targets which coincide with those of naval warfare", he could confidently expect "the collapse of English resistance within a reasonable time". Until the beginning of deployment for Barbarossa (which was to start on 22 June), the Führer thus decided that these forces "should strive to step up aerial and naval operations progressively, not only to inflict the greatest possible damage to England, but also to simulate the appearance of an impending attack on the British Isles". And the Luftwaffe certainly played its part. In Match 1941, it flew about 4,400 night sorties over Britain, rising to 5,500 in April and dropping back only slightly to 4,500 in May. During that period, major attacks were launched on Merseyside, Clydeside, Belfast, Cardiff, Plymouth, Bristol, Southampton and Portsmouth – as well as London, the largest port in the Empire, plus Hull, Newcastle and multiple northeast towns. On the worst night of the attack on Liverpool, 3 May 1941, SS Malakand, loaded with a thousand tons of munitions, caught fire, blew up and obliterated the Huskisson Dock. It is thought that a drifting barrage balloon landed on the deck and burst into flames. Pieces of the ship were blasted over two miles away causing damage to the Overhead Railway. Half the docks were temporarily put out of action as a result of the destruction caused by the blast. Thousands of dock workers, troops and volunteers were involved in the clear-up. Miraculously, considering the size of the blast, only four people were killed. But so intense were the raids as a whole that Churchill was to suggest that, had the Luftwaffe persisted with them, the Battle of the Atlantic would have been much more closely run than it was. Now, if we step outside the normal framework and define battles (and campaigns) not by the methodology of their execution, and/or the instruments used to effect them – or their targets (actual or intended) - but by the over-arching objectives, it becomes clear that this bombing was part of the "blockade" or the "assault on the English war economy". Furthermore, we know the invasion plan and the struggle for local daylight air superiority that went with it, and the attempt to destroy the morale of the public in order to achieve regime change, were all part of the same campaign. And this is the one we know as the Battle of Britain. Thus are we back to the thesis of this series. The Battle of Britain, rather than a limited daylight air war between RAF Fighter Command and the Luftwaffe, was a continuous period largely defined by the fall of France until he invasion of Russia, involving the three phases or pillars that we have defined. That includes some part of the conflict known as the Battle of the Atlantic, however it is defined. The significance of this is, of course, profound. It restructures an important part of the Second World War and, thereby, changes our understanding of it.  Looking at the situation as is, in popular terms, the early part of the war is often seen in phases. The first is the period from the start of the war until May 1940. We then have the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, and the Blitz (with some overlap). This is followed by the Battle of the Atlantic. If one now redefines the structure, guided in part by Hitler's objectives, there is a merging of the parts. The segment which is currently called the Battle of Britain merges with the Blitz, both of which merge with the assault on the "English war economy". They become a single, if multiphasic, battle. For convenience, we could call this the Battle for Britain, as indeed it was sometimes called at the time. It is then entirely rational to argue that the U-Boat war in the Atlantic, running from the Spring of 1941, to the end of the war, was a phase of the Battle for Britain.  For those who wish to make the distinction, it can be labelled the "U-Boat war", or even retain its label "Battle of the Atlantic", as a sub-division of the Battle for Britain, And now we get to the really interesting bit. Throughout the telling of the history of the Second World War, there seems to be a huge amount of confusion as to the nature and structure of this part of the war, its labels and terminology.  As always, one can see the attractiveness of dividing the war into neat divisions, with simple labels, but over-simplification or false divisions do not make for clarity or understanding. Yet, seventy years on, confusion seems to remain. How it came about, and why, we'll look at in the next part. COMMENT: A "THREE-PILLAR WAR" THREAD  Booker and alienation   Sunday 29 April 2012 This piece is being kept on top for the day.  New posts are underneath, including the latest edition of "A three-pillar war", which is now posted. There will be no "It's grim ooop North" posting today ... it's too grim. For Booker readers looking for FCO 30/1048 (with annotations), it is here (.pdf format - 18 pages). We have our own look at the issues he raises in this piece, with a review of the Booker piece below. And, for an in vivo example of alienation, go to Witterings for Witney. Meanwhile, the idiot d'Ancona prattles on, asking whether this is "David Cameron's last chance to regain the public's trust?". At least one of his commenters notes the fatuity of the proposition. This is the man whose party failed to gain a majority in the general, demonstrating that he never had the public's trust. Janet Daley (yes, the whole claque is piling in) suggests that we are back to a Conservative Party – and a country – that is being run as a club. And indeed, we have returned to the idea of party cabals and the "old gang". More of this later. Just about every media political commentator at the moment is addressing the issue of political alienation, or the consequences of it, but very few – as does Booker in today's column - put the EU centre stage. When you think about it though, to discuss current sentiment solely in terms if Cameron and the failures of his government, is parochial to an extreme, the ultimate in "Little England" politics. And Booker points out, political alienation is not a uniquely British phenomenon. It is Europe-wide (and spreading beyond). In Europe though, from the riots in Greece to those protest votes for Marine Le Pen, the then George Galloway, we see signs of how alienated people now feel from the "political class" which rules over our lives. Alongside the Greeks, the French, and even the Germans, we see our masters as out of touch with the rest of us, without meaningful opposition, no longer responsive to any democratic control. And thus does Booker look for one of the common factors, which is of course the European Union. And, for an explanation of why the political process should be so afflicted, he too goes to FCO 30/1048. This document, he tells us, predicted with chilling candour, that it would take 30 years for the British people to wake up to the real nature of the European project that Edward Heath was about to take them into, by which time it would be too late for them to leave. Its author(s), writing in 1971, made clear that the Community was headed for economic, monetary and fiscal union, with a common foreign and defence policy, which would constitute the greatest surrender of Britain’s national sovereignty in history. Since "Community law" would take precedence over our own, ever more power would pass to this new bureaucratic system centred in Brussels – and, as the role of Parliament diminished, this would lead to a "popular feeling of alienation from government". It would therefore become the duty of politicians "not to exacerbate public concern by attributing unpopular measures … to the remote and unmanageable workings of the Community". And hence thrives the European elephant in the room. Politicians of all parties were also warned to be careful to conceal the fact that controversial laws originated in Brussels. By this means it might be possible to preserve the illusion that the British government was still sovereign, "for this century at least" – by which time it would no longer be possible for us to leave. In other words, says Booker, here was a civil servant advising that our politicians should connive in concealing what Heath was letting us in for, not least in hiding the extent to which Britain would no longer be a democratic country but one essentially governed by unelected and unaccountable officials. One way to create an illusion that this system was still democratic, this anonymous mandarin suggested, would be to give people the chance to vote for new representatives at European, regional and local levels. A few years later, we saw the creation of an elected European Parliament – as we see today a craze for introducing elected mayors, as meaningless local figureheads.  Entirely deliberately, though, I choose to call them elected mares. If Caligula had a horse for his consul, we now have mares. Returning to the anonymous FCO author(s), where they were perhaps shrewder than they knew (the paper has the feel of multi-authorship) was in predicting how all this would eventually lead to "we the people" feeling alienated from the whole process of how we are governed. We now see a gulf yawning between, on the one hand, the consensus government of our new nomenklatura and, on the other, all the rest of us, aware that we are democratically powerless. To the growing groundswell of contempt and resentment that this is creating, those who rule us with such sublime incompetence will eventually find they have no answer. Thus, as I wrote in my piece, this feeling of alienation is neither perverse nor untoward. It was predictable, predicted – and it has come to pass. Oddly though, there are still those are those who regard opposition to the EU as a "single issue". If you want to claim that "politics" as a whole is a single issue, then I suppose that is the case. But, as the man once didn't say, some issue – some neck. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 29/04/2012