The Lady was not for turning…thank God!

DOCUMENTS RELEASED under the 30 year rule gives further meat to the belief that, along with Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Churchill were the greatest British prime ministers of the 20^th century.

            The documents cover the period of the Falklands war and show Thatcher’s strength and indomitable determination against all the critics from within her own party, our American allies and the French. No other politician then or now would have shown her strength of mind to retake the Falklands, and in so doing would refuse any toleration of  backsliders.

            I can think of no other leader since who would not have baulked at some stage or other, if they were faced with a similar challenge. She was under constant pressure to compromise from America who, understandably for geopolitical reasons, wanted a swift end brought to the crises.

            As we were preparing to retake South Georgia the American secretary of state Alexander Haig called on the British ambassador to Washington, Nicholas Henderson, and told him that the Americans were preparing to warn Argentina of the impending operation in order to persuade them of America’s impartiality. Henderson fumed, and argued our corner.

At the time neither we or our American allies knew of the presence of the Argentinean submarine Santa Fe in the waters around South Georgia.

            If, even for all of the right motives, America had indeed forewarned Argentina, then the Santa Fe could have run amok; and the 140 Argentinean troops in occupation of South Georgia would have had time to arrange a formidable defence, and perhaps cause a far more costly attrition rate among the liberating British troops.

            We then come to the sinking of HMS Antelope, HMS Sheffield, and perhaps the greatest loss in material terms, Atlantic Conveyor, which carried much needed Schanook  helicopters vital in transporting troops; all destroyed by French made Exocet missiles, five of which had already been delivered to Argentina before the conflict began.

            To make sure the French never completed the order she had with Argentina, Margaret Thatcher communicated with Mitterrand: "If it became known, as it certainly would, that France was now releasing weapons to Peru that would certainly be passed on to Argentina for use against us, France's ally, this would have a devastating effect on the relationship between our two countries," she wrote in a telegram to Mr Mitterrand.

"Indeed, it would have a disastrous effect on the alliance (Nato) as a whole. This is the last thing that either of us would wish. I greatly hope therefore that for the time being you will be able to find some way of keeping these missiles in France."

            I doubt whether any modern Europhile sitting in Downing Street would have used such language, or even dared upset a fellow member of what is now the EU. If Thatcher had not pressured the French, they would have felt themselves under no obligation and the Argentineans would have received the rest of their order at great cost to the British Task Force.

            But even this did not stop the French from training pilots into the use of the French super Etendards to deliver the Exocet; three Etendards were spotted at the Dassult factory near Bordeaux carrying Peruvian air force markings – yet it was known that Peru had not ordered this type.

THEN WHEN THE END came and the British were advancing on Port Stanley, President Reagan delivered his plea for Thatcher to show magnanimity in victory by not humiliating the Argentineans and allowing a military force from Brazil and the USA to occupy the Falklands until a negotiated settlement could be arrived at. He called the PM according to the document at 11:30 pm London time on May 31^st, 1982.

            Her response was free of the diplomatic rhetoric a modern politician would have used (if that is, he had not already sold his nation short). Having sent the Task Force comprising in total almost the whole of the British navy at cost to the lives of British servicemen; she was not for turning. According to the official No10 note, she told the American president: "Britain had not lost precious lives in battle and sent an enormous task force to hand over the Queen's islands to a contact group.

"As Britain had had to go into the islands alone, with no outside help[1], she could not now let the invader gain from his aggression. The Prime Minister asked the president to put himself in her position.

"She had lost valuable British ships and invaluable British lives. She was sure that the president would act in the same way if Alaska had been similarly threatened."

            Taking the episode of the Falklands as a whole, I ask this question. What British prime minister since and before (here I exclude Churchill) would have shown such resilience as she did? Our modern political class, well tuned to the ballot box and there place in history, would have sacrificed any proud character they may have once thought themselves in occupancy of before they entered politics. Compromise has been their white flag; they have, under the false idol of globalisation sought to paste this nation onto a politically sculptured map of a United States of Europe.

MARGARET THATCHER has many enemies on the left. They, like children, have been led to believe in bogeymen: and Margaret Thatcher typifies such a childhood fear. The Left hates (yes, literally, hates this women); they cannot wait for her to pass away, so they can have yet another reason to get pissed, this time in celebration of her passing.

            To the Left  in this country Mrs Thatcher brought only abhorrence, odium, and detestation. She was their childhood monster. To them she blocked the only hope for Britain; a socialist, communist, pro European, or anarchist illusion, that her deniers believed in. She is as much despised today by the Labour backbenches (with the one exemption of  the MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field)     as she was when she served her country a prime minister.

            Yet this women served her country well; she was Britain’s first woman prime minister and served as a perfect template for any other. We as a nation have been well served by our female monarchs from Elizabeth I, Queen Anne, Victoria, and Elizabeth II. So why should not the same pattern of evolution flow through our political classes?

Well fortunately the hereditary principle has no relevance when it comes to prime ministers (although when it comes to safe seats for the sons and daughters of  past serving prime ministers, it is another matter). The democratic system is like a casino and it is as undependable. We in this country have been fortunate in times when our country or its interests have been threatened, to have produced a remarkable  individual who saves our nation and its historical reputation; and Margaret Hilda Thatcher was such a leader of her nation.

           

           

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[1] This was not quite true because Casper Weinberger gave orders for the British to receive whatever weaponry they needed. He was later to be given a honorary knighthood.  

Gay Marriage

TO PRETEND THAT THE NEW TESTAMENT allows for marriage between same sex couples takes inventiveness to new heights. But this is what the liberal clergy and laity are suggesting is the case. It is not the case and they all know it to be true scripturally, but they assume, given the Christian message of love and forgiveness, it allows for an anomaly. Thus mere assumption and nothing else gives  legitimacy to gay marriage.

            

             We have an interesting paradox whereby the Gospels forbid, but the love based Christian message can so easily be interpreted as allowing for such an arrangement: and the politicians have fallen into line with such prefabrications. Which is why David Cameron has blessed the arrangement.

             

             I believe that the Gospels and only the Gospels are  the sole arbitrator; and those conservatives in the Anglican church have got it about right: and in this liberal climate are brave enough to say what they think in spite of being shouted down by liberals as bigots and homophobes.

            

            Gay marriage should not be allowed in a Christian church. In a push for the dominance of a secular society by the same liberals who seek the Christian blessing for gay marriages; it seems ridiculous that such a provision should ever be considered.

Those gays who feel a need of some kind, to stand before an alter and swear their fidelity to their partners without believing in the Christian faith, like many heterosexual couples do  (or why such poor Sunday church attendances? ), should be told to piss off by the Church of England.

            

              Homosexuality is considered a sin, not only by the Christian faith, but also the Islamic faith; which is why, in the Middle East, Arab homosexuals in the Gaza Strip seek sanctuary within Israel, where they are tolerated in a free and democratic society along with Jewish homosexuals.

            

             If any Christian church blesses same sex marriages, then they are subjecting  their faith to Christian immorality, in the sense of disregarding the tenets of their faith laid down in the scriptures. They are soaking up whatever the liberal progressive decides in order to remain solvent. They, the Anglican church, must hold fast to over five hundred years of history since the Reformation and remain loyal to the Holy scriptures and their literal interpretation.

            

             Gay marriage is anathema  to all of the Judaic Christian faiths. To pretend otherwise, and call those who hold on to their faith, bigots, will meet with little reward. For all forms of social prejudice against those who defer from the normal like homosexuals have  been a source of bigotry encompassing literally millennia.

EITHER THE Anglican church holds fast to the Gospels or it gives into secular arguments until Anglicanism fades away into becoming, well… meaningless. Its spiritual purpose undermined by liberal acceptance of all forms of behaviour, the progressive and material view of the world allows.

            

            The Anglican church is, in spiritual terms, fast become a backwater where all forms of sexual behaviour can find a home. Gay marriage, despite the politicians promising that there would be no legal compunction on individual churches to allow such practices, will inevitably lead to involvement by the European Court of Human Rights, should a marriage service be declined to a gay couple by a church.

           

           Described as adapting to the modern age, such ‘reforms’ as women priests, and now bishops - as well as expansion into the gay marriage market; are making a nonsense of the holy scriptures around which the whole Anglican faith is supposed to revolve. Modernism that goes against the foundation of the faith should be challenged, or at least ignored; it should never find oxygen within a 2000-year-old faith, that has served as the moral backbone to Western culture.

            

           I am no friend of the Catholic church. But it seems to me, it will carry the torch of the Christian faith far beyond the lifetime of a liberal and semi-secular UK Anglicanism. I lay emphasis on the UK because in other parts of the world where Anglicanism still flourishes; in Africa for instance, the church falls in line with Gospel teaching and if forced to adapt, I can the African Anglican laity going over to Rome.

            

           There will come a time; if the influence upon the Anglican church continues; when a point is reached when its Christian legitimacy is brought into question. For it cannot continue appeasing the liberal social agenda and still expect to carry the Christian cross before it.

            

           What if (as I expect will be the case in a couple of generations from now),  paedophilia is allowed to be practiced within the law? What if a paedophile goes to the European Court of Human Rights to overturn a British court’s decision? What if parliament in the spirit of ‘progressive’ politics allows such practices…remember, I am speaking of a time 20 years from now.

            

            But we do not have to look to the future to witness an attempt to make paedophilia legal. In the 1970s the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) came into being. In 1978, the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), now known as Liberty, took PIE under its wing and granted it affiliation. At the time the Chairperson of the NCCL was one Patricia Hewitt, later to become Secretary of State for Health; Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and finally ending up in a position she would have preferred all along…Minister for Women, under a Labour government.

            

            Along with Ms Hewitt at the time, the NCCL’s legal advisor was no less a personage than Harriet Harman, the current deputy leader of the Labour Party. Both welcomed PIE as affiliate members of the NCCL.

I have no doubt that what will be left of the Anglican church on these isles in 20 years time will submit to some form of legalisation allowing paedophilia. Just as with Gay marriage, emotion will abrogate reality, and smothered by arguments that the likes of Hewitt and Harman found credible in the 1970s, the modern liberal church will momentarily scratch their heads about before falling once more into line.

            

            Once  the church turns against or re-interprets its scriptural teachings to keep pace with the modern age, then the church is no longer the rock it once was but a piece of architecture of frail construction soon to face its demise…even after 2000 years.

           

           

           

             

Christianophoba

“…Religious freedom is the canary in the mine for human rights generally.” Rupert Shortt

ACCORDING TO A NEW report by the think tank Civitas, Christianity is effectively being wiped out in the Middle East, and imperilled in Africa and Asia. The report identifies Islam as Christianity’ s main persecutor. A persecution that goes ignored by Western leaders for fear of being regarded as racists; but, more fearfully, of causing unrest among the 15 million Muslims that now reside in Europe.

            

            The report cautions that Christian converts are being murdered in Saudi Arabia, Mauritania  and Iran. In Egypt, Coptic Christians are being persecuted; and if the Muslim Brotherhood ascends to throne of Egypt. The Coptic’s can expect far worse.

            

            According to the Civitas report; “The ‘lion’s share’ of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries where Islam is the dominant faith, the report says, quoting estimates that between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the region or been killed in the past century.

“There is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands,”

The report authored by Rupert Shortt has provided evidence of what we all suspected from pieces we had read about Christian persecution  in the press from all over the world on the internet, but could not, until Mr Shortt’s  research, gauge the depth of Christian persecution in the Muslim world. The report observes that; “200 million Christians, or 10 per cent of Christians worldwide, are socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs.”  As the report suggests the vast preponderance of such Christian persecution takes place in the Muslim world… duh!

            But our instinct and, yes, prejudice, requires the authority of this Civitas report to confirm both intuition and prejudice regarding the persecution of Christians in the Muslim world. In fact, because of political correctness in the West, the Muslim communities living among us remain unchallengeable; they use lawyer racism at every opportunity, while Christians in the Muslim world suffer the fate of  the heretic through the centuries.

            

            Wherever Islam is the dominant faith, all other faiths are barely tolerated, and in hundreds of cases effectively crushed. How long will it take for the West to rise from its stupor. Is it not sufficiently demonstrated that in multi-faith, but dominantly Islamic countries, that Islam and only Islam can flourish? In Saudi Arabia Christian churches have to be surrounded by brick walls so the symbols of Christianity are removed from view. Yet we allow in our secular society mosques to be planted when and wherever they are in demand and the indigenous people have to accept their minarets dominating local landscapes, while the state of our Christian churches, in our secular society, go ignored.

            

             200 million Christians, mainly in the Muslim world face social disadvantage or oppression. Our politicians, being the frightened creatures they are, fear upsetting the Muslim population in their own countries. In this country Christianity is the only religion that can be the butt of a comedian’s jokes. The Muslim religion is sacrosanct and untouchable by either humour or satire.

THE WEST HAS embraced multiculturalism, which of course means a multi-faith society; while in parts of the Islamic world Christianity is a heresy. It angers me to see the way our politicians have allowed Islam to flourish protected by the law and in opposition to the majority of this country’s indigenous population.

            

             The secularists in this country see little problem with Christianity’s disadvantage to  the Muslims and would not lift a hand to defend the former against the latter. Which is why, I truly believe that, the West is in terminal decline. The author of the Christianophoba report, Rupert Shortt hit the nail on the head when he said; “…Religious freedom is the canary in the mine for human rights generally.”  

            

             What Mr Shortt is saying, is that, if we, as seems likely, care so little for our home grown faith that we care little about the growth of a Muslim faith’s presence, treating them both as mere insignificant and worthless superstitious appendages to our culture; then we will be unpleasantly surprised. Such an arrogant dismissal by secularists, know little of the real power of religion.

            I am an atheist , but one who would prefer the nutritious benefits of the message of Christian love, to the hatred of the Koran and its demands upon the people that surpasses in its cruelty even that of the Old Testament. I deplore the Christian message of love and forgiveness  for it leaves only a displeased victim without any form of punishment for their tormentor. But even this evil is preferable to the demonology of the Koran.

ISLAM IS THE new fascism. The Arab Spring has deposed of one set of dictators in Egypt, Iraq and Libya, only to see them replaced by militant Islamists. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood have successfully been elected to power. They will continue to hold on to such power because of their rural strongholds throughout Egypt: while the cities like Cairo are in the hands of the middle classes.

            

          The march of Islam and the persecution of Christianity in the Middle East are part and parcel of the Arab Spring which the West… or the Western media, to be more precise, celebrated in their naivety, hoping for a modern Western liberal society to emerge from the convulsions.

            

          In the Muslim world Christianophoba is real; and if we in the West are not careful it will become real among the Islamic community within this country and Europe, once the demographics change and the 15 million European Muslims become 30 million.

           

           

             

Taxing until the pips squeak

I CAN REMEMBER  during the 1970s when the actor Michael Caine sought exile abroad to avoid paying 90% tax on his income. I was outraged as a socialist (at the time) that he should act so scurrilously, and deprive the rest of us of what we considered a fair contribution to the welfare state and the NHS. But Mr Caine thought otherwise and was vilified in so-called ‘progressive’ circles, as a selfish Tory.

            

            In France today the Socialist government has introduced a 75% wealth tax on earnings over  €1 million, and the French actor Gerard Depardieu has sought refuge in Belgium where the tax is 50%; so he is not exactly behaving greedily – although I would deny any claim of greed against anyone, who is after all handing over their own money to the state.

            The French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has described Mr Depardieu’s behaviour as ‘shabby’. No such thing. He has worked like every other taxpayer for their money: and if France cannot cut its cloth to fit its width by slashing public expenditure and rebalancing the French economy by reducing the public sector; then why should the rich, or for that matter any tax payer, be made to pay for such irresponsibility.

            

           If I were fortunate enough to have earned over €1 million in a single year; I too would be outraged to have to hand over €750,000 to the government to continue wasting. Like the rest of Europe, including the UK, we all have deficits of leviathan proportions. Sound economics tells us that under such circumstances large public sector cuts have to be made and tax increases should be avoided at all cost; and any that are made should not be at the expense of economic activity.

             

           Next year when the tax on high earners come into force, France faces a retreat of the most talented and wealthy from the indigence that is caused by socialism, through class envy, resentment and jealousy; that seeks to punish the wealth creators. Which means that Mr Depardieu is merely a pioneer.

Already thousands of talented French men and women have crossed the channel to work in London where the bureaucratic red tape  that is strangling enterprise in France, is seen in this country as a virus that, if allowed to prosper by government, has the ability to block all economic activity. Which is why the likes of Mr Depardieu and those who may come after him are not traitors to their country: it is the socialist politicians who can only foster resentment at wealth creation that does so much harm to France.

It has even been suggested that Mr Depardieu should have is French citizenship removed: although such a suggestion is not being taken seriously, such a proposal gives a flavour of the way the socialist mind works. Mr Depardieu is no greedier than President François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande, whose idea all of this is. The rich business community are easy targets and seen as top hatted cigar smoking capitalists, of the type that  left-wing cartoonists flouted before their once beloved proletariat in the early part of the last century all over Europe.

That such individuals  employ millions of people who in turn pay billions in taxes into the state coffer seems to mean very little to the French socialists, to whom, it seems, the Soviet Union was much misunderstood and will rise once more.

THE LESS TAX people have to pay, the more money circulates freely in the economy and gives the people a greater choice in how they wish to spend it; and when they spend it the economy grows, employing ever larger groups of people.

            The BBC for instance, is an institution that gathers taxes under penalty (like all other state taxes) of imprisonment if they are not forthcoming. But what if  the people were given a choice? They could indeed carry on paying the licence fee – or, given the choice, use their licence fee to subscribe to other fee paying broadcasters like Sky, for example.

            

            This is how the market place works. It is the spending power of the people that keeps our economies growing and free. The market place gives choice and variety to the people. But if President Hollande has his way, this robust, energetic and enterprising system will be dulled down by the socialist porridge that is served up by the ascetic egalitarians that seek to, through prejudice and class envy, rid society of all spur to innovation and wealth creation.

            

THE LESS TAXES all aggregate peoples have to pay, the better it is for society generally. When a factory worker draws his pay; or a factory manager his salary. Or when a factory owner draws his post tax profit. All have one thing in common with each other. They all try to hang on to as much of their earnings as the government will allow.

            

           They naturally, like Mr Depardieu or Michael Caine, seek to hold on to as much  of their wages or salary as they can. But for the vast majority of tax payers who work in factories or small businesses , they have to pay under Pay As You Earn  (PAYE); which amounts to  whatever is demanded from them by a chancellor’s budget. Which, no doubt, leads to so much class conflict between those who are employed and those who employ.

            

            It worries me that taxation has become a force of nature instead of what it once was, an appeal, admittedly backed up by law from politicians, for extra funding of the state. It was once never seen as a politician’s natural right to rob so generously the wallets of the people. Yet today, it appears the case that what was once a begrudging acceptance by the people, has become on the part of the government, a natural entitlement.

            The state has managed to weave a web over a free society, laying claim the nation’s wallets through taxation. Any attempt to question this entitlement is greeted with calls of greed from the barren egalitarians.

            

            It is not Gerard Depardieu who is greedy (you cannot be greedy with your own money), but the socialist state that harvests people’s wealth, as if  it had planted the seed corn itself.  The overweening state is becoming an enemy of the people. The elected politicians spend the vast amounts of the citizens hard earned money, while wasting billions in the process, as if were a lottery win. The profligacy of the  French state is typified throughout the rest of Europe

            

           Hollande should rue the day this act of pure class envy was made. I hope there are more affluent sons and daughters of France who will also find a healthier retreat in order to freely spend as much of their own money as a much kinder tax systems in other states will allow.

Must do far worse!

GEORGE OSBORNE has barely scratched the surface with his Autumn Statement. He has resolved, or so it seems, to tinker at the edges. Our deficit is not reducing while we are still borrowing, and it is set to continue. There is now talk of further tax hikes and cuts in spending. Our triple A credit rating is all set to be reduced to two in January; thus making it more expensive to borrow.

            We are over a trillion pounds in debt, and George believes that freezing benefit increases to 1 per cent will have any meaningful mathematical impact on that debt. He has to be prepared to be so unpopular with the British people that he has death threats posted to him by the sack full, as well as an array of rotten fruit thrown at him whenever he sets foot out of Downing Street. He has to be truly hated and vilified throughout the media and society: only then will we know that he is pursuing the right actions to drag this country back from the abyss – this was the Thatcher way.

            I am in my sixties and when I hear the word austerity I think of the 1930s, when my father was sent to dig and then fill in holes for no other purpose than to earn a food voucher: or was on other occasions told to bike several miles in order help erect telegraph poles. He had to supply his own bike and shovel, if he wished a higher rate of pay. When the work ended and the money ran out; he was told that he had to sell his bike before receiving a state handout.

            This was true austerity in practice; and if the chancellor does not do what he knows he has to do, this will also become the modern definition of austerity for the next generation who are the grandchildren of the present - all of whom will have been innocent parties in all of this mess.

So he must either show much more rigour in his attempt at deficit reduction, involving measures that will startle a society brought up on generous welfare dependency; or his words and whatever other actions he may take, will be disbelieved or prove inadequate to the markets and the credit rating agencies.

THE CHANCELLOR’S political master, the prime minister, has ring-fenced spending on the NHS, education, and oversees aid. This will no doubt, at some point, mean another raid on the MoD and our armed forces, already a national embarrassment because of previous cuts, but a useful source of income for politicians seeking salvation.

            First of all George Osborne must confront the prime minister and demand that oversees aid must be forfeited for the sake of the UK economy. It would mean £7 billion being ploughed back into the treasury each year. It was only ring-fenced in the first place by Cameron in an attempt to rid the Conservative Party of its image of being the ‘nasty party’.

            Well, whichever party takes their country’s predicament seriously, will have to become the nasty party among the populace if their intensions to cure the national debt are serious; or, like George Osborne at the moment, to be left seeking a workable compromise between being nasty and popular. This circle cannot be squared in the current or any other future economic climate where extreme measures are needed.

      There is another rich source of revenue like oversees aid, which is our contribution to the European Union budget. The annual net cost to Britain in 2011 was £10.8 billion[1]. But the direct and indirect actual cost according to the Democracy Movement website is much more. In 2008 (last time it was calculated) the European Union was costing us £65 billion a year. I very much doubt it has decreased since then.

      This country has to suffer a long period of pain before it can resolve its difficulties; tampering around with ‘solutions’ that do not reflect badly on the government or the chancellor within a government are a mere fancy for whatever party governs.

BEFORE LABOUR becomes too complacent about the difficulties faced by the Tory party, and the prospect of their own return to office; they should remember who played the primary role in this country’s bankruptcy in the first place. New Labour came to power in 1997 and ended its tenancy of Downing Street in 2010. The Labour Party had 13 years in power, during which period they did what they always do. They spent taxpayers money as if they had won a Euro-millions role over; for this is what the Labour party, throughout its history, has always been proficient at…spending the tax payer’s money by disguising such wastefulness as ‘investment’.

When in 2010, after Labour was defeated, a note was left on a treasury desk with the inscription; ‘There is no more money left’. Such a rushed message told us more about the actions of the previous administration than any historian covering the same period. Labour had, under Brown’s premiership bankrupted the country, spending money as if it had a yearly flowering ready for the civil servants in the tax office to pick and replace.

The Labour Party had sought to treat taxation, like the Sherriff of Nottingham in the days of the fictitious Robin Hood, as an obligation upon the citizen to pay; no matter how much of their contribution is wasted after collection. The Labour Party is the party of the state, and the state can only function on taxes. There is no other means of subsidy than the taxpayer as far as Labour are concerned.

This country needs a strong elected government fully prepared to do what is needed to rid our country of its deficit. Labour could never be such a government because it only knows of one response to any economic problem – borrow and spend. While the Tories are only interested in a second term, and will merely tinker with the debt hoping to keep the credit agencies sweet; and their constituencies safe.

It will require sacrifice and suffering on a far larger scale than we currently see around us. Yet neither the public or the politicians of whatever hue are prepared to countenance anything more than the kind of tinkering that Osborne announced in his Autumn Statement.

In January the credit agencies are set to reward such a pusillanimous approach to deficit reduction by our leaders; making borrowing more expensive and our deficit larger. In the words the character in Dad’s Army…we’re doomed!

           

           

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[1] Source: Office for National Statistics

An act of petulance … I mean from William Hague

FOLLOWING THE SUCESSFUL upgrading of their status at the UN, the Palestinians must have known that there would be a price to pay. Both America and Europe pleaded with them to hold fast before acting rashly; for this would only provoke Israel into doing the same: and this indeed is what has happened. The Israeli’s have reversed an earlier decision not to build settlements on a particularly sensitive part of the West Bank known as E1. On top of which Netanyahu promises further settlements in East Jerusalem.

            Of course Israel is acting illegally with her actions, but by acting unilaterally as they did in going to the UN, the West Bank Palestinians under Abbas, have effectively abandoned a two state solution in Israeli eyes. By seeking anything that gives the Palestinians any kind of international sanctioning of their own state, (if only a limited one) without first consulting the other ‘partner’ who seeks to hang on to its own legitimately created state, legitimised by the UN, is an affront to Israel, and the UN should have accepted this before allowing the vote in the first place.

            A two state solution requires the participation of the Israelis and Palestinians: no other body has any legitimacy in independently negotiating a Palestinian homeland. The UN’s decision provoked Israel into acting as she did. The UN is weighted heavily in favour of the Palestinians, and from an Israeli perspective it has little to lose by acting against such an institution. Israel has not, since 1948, been very popular with the UN (outside, of course, America).

            The UN, as an institution, has become less and less regarded since its foundation on 24^th October 1945. Given its partisan approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, why should Israel take its motions, edicts, formulas and demands seriously?

            Israel may be acting illegally because of what they see as a Palestinian provocation; but as a partisan of the Palestinian, the UN is in no position to tell Israel how to behave…and neither has the British Foreign Office.

THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE comprises high ranking civil servants who are E. T. Lawrence Devotees (ETLD). They are also fond of the oil producing kingdoms of the Middle East. When they retire they will seek, no doubt, an opportunity to sell Arab princes their diplomatic pearls of wisdom for a price which far exceeds anything they can attain on retirement from within the British civil service’s pension scheme.

            Our Foreign Office civil servants have been Arabist for many years (and some would say anti-Semitic for the same period) following our colonial introduction to this region: and the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, which kept our diplomats keen to appease the Arab world at every opportunity. After all it was British companies such a BP that brought the oil from the dessert to each and every street in the UK as well as other parts of the globe.

            Which brings us to the shenanigans of our present Foreign Secretary, William Hague, who is, this very afternoon deciding whether to withdraw our ambassador to Israel. Such a decision  would no doubt cause eruptions of joy among his civil servants, as well as the Left generally, who have a myopic view of Middle East history and Israel’s part in it,

            The ETLD’s within the Foreign Office will consider our ambassador’s removal from Israel as a stocking filler at this Yule Tide season. The ETLD’s within the Foreign Office have for decades kept the re-printing of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom alive and profitable. While the ordinary wet dream among men comprises of a beautiful naked women; the high ranks of the civil service within the Foreign Office, see themselves as Lawrence clones ( if yet un-buggered by a Turk).

           

            William Hague should not listen to such people when he decides whether or not to withdraw our ambassador from Israel. He should consider the consequences of a Middle East without a Jewish state. His civil service advisers seem to have managed to bring him under their control, as all civil servants, in all the great departments of state seek to do to their political masters. But I would never have believed that William Hague would have fallen fowl of such pro- Arabic advice, as he seems to have done.

ISRAEL SHOULD BE regarded by the UK and Europe as America observe it. Israel is a Jewish homeland that acts as a magnet for those Jews who still suffer from anti-Semitism in all parts of the world. The Jewish state of Israel has historical legitimacy going back over 4000 years.

The Jews, and the Christians, have proclaimed Jerusalem as their home. The Jews have had a presence in what is now Israel for thousands of years. According to Jonathan Millar (a liberal writer no less): “Over the past few centuries, archaeologists have made a series of extraordinary discoveries that establish that a distinctive Jewish religion and culture was developed around 4,000 years ago in Israel and that Biblical figures such as David, Solomon and Jesus were the focus of considerable attention by the Jews of antiquity within Jerusalem and throughout the holy land. Further, Martin Gilbert, a widely-respected historian, has demonstrated, through a dispassionate examination of the historical record, that for more than 1600 years, Jews formed the “main settled population ” of what now is considered the modern state of Israel.

The Jewish people’s right to a homeland within the current boundaries of the Middle East is historically just. The Jews must remain in the Middle East as they have done so historically for over 4,000 years. The Jewish tenancy in the Middle East has as much legitimacy as any Arab, including the Palestinians.

If the Jews were ever driven once more into the Diaspora; it would mean the end of the West along with the Jewish state. The prestige of such a victory within the Muslim world would rally millions of Muslims against the West; including the millions of those the West has given citizenship to.

The West has to stand full square behind Israel, even after Benjamin Netanyahu’s intemperate riposte to the Palestinians visit to the UN. As I began this peace by suggesting that Abbas had full cognisance of what he could expect from Israel in retaliation; I have ended it by warning of the dangers for the West in isolating Israel, either diplomatically or economically, if the West insists on such strategy.

HACKED OFF WITH HACKED OFF

AS LORD JUSTICE LEVESON said in his opening remarks; (I paraphrase) if it had not been for Millie Dowler and the public sympathy  for the cruel way she was treated by the press, this enquiry would never have seen the light of day.

            Up until it came to light that Millie Dowler’s mobile phone had been hacked, the British public took the wholly sensible view that whining celebrities held little stock with them. Until Miss Dowler became a victim of hacking, it was left to celebrities to seek their own enquiry. But they were fighting a losing battle; for those who live for publicity, and in many cases crave it, should be prepared to suffer from the double edged sword that it is.

            Hugh Grant bemoaned his cruel fate as did Steve Coogan and Charlotte Church. According to Wikipedia; excluding  Millie Dowler and the McCann’s (as genuine victims), over 200 celebrities bared a grudge against British journalism; despite profiting (and I do mean profiting) from the complimentary and flattering endorsements they have all received throughout their careers. They breathed the oxygen of publicity and believed themselves unassailable as celebrities; they courted the journalists who they found alluring with their flattering pieces written in the Sunday supplements; which lead them to perceive themselves as being gifted and therefore above the common stock of humanity.

            When the intrusions from the press they once welcomed, occasionally made them human once more by exposing or criticising a human weakness, the celebrities felt themselves outraged. Like members of the 18^th century bourbon aristocracy; they demanded as it were their right to so do, sympathy of the type the public were not prepared to give. The Divine Right of the celebrity has no anchorage on British soil.

            Phone hacking is illegal and punishable under current laws; and any journalist who stoops to such a level in order to create a headline of such salaciousness in order that their paper’s Sunday sales overwhelm those of their competitors, should feel the full force of the law. The laws are there already. Phone hacking is a crime, and the politicians and the judiciary can strengthen the sentences if needed in order to deter such cowardly and vindictive practices.

THE BRITISH PRESS (known as the Fourth Estate) is a contrary beast. It makes you despise it one minute and applaud it the next. In other words, on occasion, it displeases more than it pleases; but on other occasions it pleases more than it does displease; and this is the way a free press functions.

            Now, through Leveson there is rightly talk of a greater independent oversight of the press…good! A free press should have boundaries, as should human behaviour. But a free press should never be underwritten by politicians (in a democracy) using the law, as Leveson suggests his independent overseers should. The press should be free from politicians, no matter how great or insignificant such a trespass is meant to be.

            Any law passed by parliament regarding the ‘underwriting’ of the independent scrutiny of the press, is a law to far. The law has no role to play, in whatever capacity, regarding the printed word, outside, that is, of the laws of libel and criminal activities by the press and their journalists.

            If a law is passed to underwrite this independent body; then what happens in the future? Amendments will surely follow such a law, to strengthen the politicians grip on a free press. Parliamentary amendments to a law are far simpler to accomplish than a law itself. Politicians, as they always do, will take exception to the press. Until now, they have had to grin and bear it. In a democracy this is the way it should be. But once the law is allowed to trespass upon a free press, the politicians additions will, over time, flourish like a weed.

THOSE WHO SOUGHT, like Leveson, a parliamentary law taking a hand in underwriting this independent body, should be ignored. Our press is free of parliament and has been so for over 300 years; and Leveson will undermine this freedom of the press if his recommendation regarding a political impute materialises. No wonder he departed the stage without being interrogated by the very people accuses.

            A  group of ‘celebrities’ has formed an alliance known as Hacked Off. They have sought to introduce law into press freedom; and so, when, from the QE Centre these members of Hacked Off  sat listening to David Cameron responding to Leveson in parliament; they hoped, but did not expect to hear, Cameron agreeing to every dot and comma of Leveson.

            Hacked Off  remains angry  with Cameron; but such anger should be ignored. Cameron is right to continue to give the press their centuries old freedoms. Hacked Off, like the X-Factor is a celebrity kind of thing. If Cameron wishes to retain his leadership of the Conservative Party, then he must once and for all declare himself free from the Hacked Off .     

ONCE THE LAW wins a place for itself in regulating the press, the politicians will feel themselves free to make further amendments, if they feel that the regulating body made a wrong decision, or is found to be as impotent as the Press Complaints Council is often accused of being.

            The British people, it is said, are full square behind an underpinning law for press regulation. If so, I say this, “Orwell forgive them; for they know not what they do”. The people have such a low opinion of politicians, yet they appear to be in favour of them having a foot in the door of press freedom. I wonder whether the politician’s expenses scandal would have reached the light of day under such a proposed set-up it probably would. But would the politicians not seek to add another amendment to the law on regulation of the press to undermine the next piece of investigative journalism, that seeks to expose further irregularities in the behaviour of politicians?

            Why I believe the prime minister is standing full square behind his decision, is not because he is too close to the press barons; but because, when this insidious legal underpinning becomes an even greater threat to a free press as time passes; Cameron does not want to be held responsible by history… for its authorship.

AS FOR THOSE VICTIMS; those who, like Millie Dowler and the McCann’s , have a truly legitimate grievance against the press; I would say this. An independent regulatory body with teeth is needed, after their experiences, more than ever before. The Dowler’s and the McCann’s would rightly chastise me for asking for giving the press yet another chance to redeem its behaviour.

            Lord Leveson’s findings are excoriating of the press. The press itself knows that its behaviour, after the hacking scandal, has to change. The press crossed a Rubicon when they invited themselves into illegally hacking little Millie Dowler’s phone. They deserve all that comes in the way of punishment for such a nasty, cynical and contemptuous act. I would love to see those individual journalists serving a prison term and the paper they worked for faced with a million pound fine; which has been proposed, and would I support it.

            In fact I would support almost any punishment that fell short of any kind of legal underpinning.

            As for the celebrities; they used the Dowler’s and McCann’s as human shields to make a legal underpinning to regulation palatable to the British people, whose interest in their predicament would have remained apathetic without the righteous anger that the Dowler hacking generated.

            If celebrities, like Hugh Grant, wished to avoid press intrusion, they should avoid his kind of behaviour. The type which procured prostitutes in America.

            Those who live by the press shall perish at the hands of the press. The press in this country is free and lively. It will promote celebrity  because, particularly, the red tops, know that their readers indulge themselves in celebrity to the point of copying their every act of fashion and aping their every life style choice.

            We still have a free press, and long may it remain so for another 300 years. The celebrities should be ignored and told to get on with their lives. If they no longer wish to remain part of the celebrity culture; then let them disappear into disregard. Let them be discounted by the media, including the press if they show willingness to seek a hermitage away from the evil eye of the press. Let us have a system of celebrity monasteries where our icons can parrot  Greta Garbo’s  famous words, “I want to be alone”; and be left alone…period!