Article 8

ACCORDING TO TODAY’S SUNDAY TELEGRAPH some 102 criminals have beaten deportation over the last year due to Article Eight of the European Convention of Human Rights, which stipulate the criminal’s “right to family life”.

            The European Convention was passed into English law by the previous Labour Government, and as such surely qualifies in joining the ever lengthening list of ruination that, between 1997-2010, the Labour government brought our country to.

            But the betrayals of the previous administration are for another time. What concerns me is the way in which human rights have become weighted in favour of the criminal, not only by the European Convention, but also with the compliance of British judges, many of whom today seem to relish upsetting the public by their decisions.

            Although their hands have been tied in many cases by our politicians, who have signed and negotiated away the sovereignty of English law over our lives; they must also face criticism. Their “not me gov” shrug whenever challenged over an outrageous court decision; followed by a nod toward European judges, will just not do.

            The criminal is not and never will be the victim: the victims are those whom the criminal damages. His or her rights are secondary to those of his or her victims, and never their equal. The criminal’s background and upbringing, while a curiosity to inquisitive psychologists , probation officers and social workers; such professional observations should not be used to further the needs of  criminals by giving them, the perpetrators,  a “right to family life”.

            How many times have the victims or their families been left in tears by a judge’s sentencing? The newspapers, almost on a daily basis, record some unfair or downright criminal injustice committed by the criminal justice system itself. Under such circumstances, by passing the buck to Europe, members of the judiciary displays a lack of the very independence which they insist is a requirement of their office. They should  resign if they feel they have made a decision based upon a body of foreign law that has been allowed to migrate into English law by our politicians.

THE VAST MAJORITY of the British people, I proffer, are social conservatives who have been silenced by the political class that governs us within and outside of parliament. All the main parties are now Left of centre, as are the majority of the media who oversee them.

            The language of human rights are, however, easily understood by the conservative  majority - providing such rights are enacted by a British parliament, having been declared within party political manifestoes.

            The majority of the British people, may I suggest, have little truck for the criminal class – especially as that majority represent the peaceful and law abiding, who wish only to make their way through life with the  knowledge that they have the full protection of the law in doing so: but they can only feel themselves well enough safeguarded by the law if they are the sole agents of its creation through the power of the franchise.

            The European Convention of Human Rights, is a device devised, among many others, to help in the salami slicing of each nation’s independence away from national sovereignty and into a Federal Europe.

            There was no earthly reason for the last government to agree to sign up to legitimising this body within English law, unless the politicians who did so wished for the full integration of this country into Europe as mere canton or county council of a Greater Europe.

            Article Eight is a mere hors d'oeuvre to the main course that will be eventually served up to the peoples of Europe.

            In any mature and fully functioning democracy, the law provides the last word. It, if you like, fully abides by the wishes of the people by reflecting their broad idea of right and wrong, as well as the punishments meted out by the state to the law-breaker - including the conditions in which the criminal is kept.

           

THE LAW BREAKER does not have, and should not have equal rights with the law-abiding citizen. The question is, is how far the state should go in deciding the limits that have to be imposed, so that the criminal should not, in his captivity, enjoy more of the ‘comforts’ than are enjoyed by the law-abiding citizen on the outside?

            This question has been ignored by the criminal justice system and accounts for much of the anger of the law-abiding citizens. Each day we hear of cases where prisoners claim their human rights under the European Convention of Human Rights, or some other European directive; only to find their complaint upheld for the most ridicules of grievances.

            Each nation should be allowed its OWN independent system of justice without intrusion from the outside. Even in America, for instance, being a federal union, each state acquire many of their laws independently from Washington. This means that in some states capital punishment is still on the statute. It is so because, and only because, the people of that state requires it to be done so through the ballot box. If this is not true democracy then what is?

            In this country as well as Europe our political elite must be in total control. They, being of liberal dispositions, cannot tolerate any decision that they deem reactionary or that runs contrary to the climate of political correctness. For there is as little to discern between Christian Democrats or Socialists in Europe, as there is between Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or Labour in the United Kingdom.

            As such, our European liberal establishment can bare comparison with a totalitarian assemblage of some kind, the nature of which I do not wish to venture upon, but I will make one comparison; this would be with the Roman Empire, not at its height, but in the decades before its collapse.

MY POINT IS THIS. Laws belong to a people living within a specific nation and culture. Any intrusion from without may meet with some success through the alliance of a treacherous political class with a specific ideal - like the European Union.

             But if, through some extreme form of nationalism, which the liberal political class will be wholly responsible for calling up, the idea of a federal Europe will not go unchallenged; then they must take their share of the blame, because they would have run counter to the feelings of the people they live amongst and, seemingly, have nothing but contempt for, as liberal thinkers.

            Article Eight of the European Convention lacks credibility with the British public - but not with their politicians. Which is why it has been allowed to pass into English Law. Our main party politicians, I am sorry to say, wish this nation of ours to become a mere county within a Greater Europe.

            I am afraid to say (as far as traditional Tories are concerned)  that David Cameron is as pro-European as was Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before him. But I understand that it will take some time for the rank and file Tories to realise this. The great realisation that all the main parties speak as one in private regarding the European Union and the criminal laws it seeks to enact, currently by a back door that can be challenged by, if not altered by, the current “Tory” leader, one David Cameron.

           

             

           

            

The Archbishop once again dips his beard in the political soup

WHEN THE COALITION was elected in May of last year, it invited backroom deals involving changes and compromises to each of the parties election manifestos. This, after all, is in the nature of political coalitions; and this is why the people voted against the Alternative Vote last month so resoundingly. For the people now that the policies that will flow with such an arrangement, would never be advanced in any of the individual political manifestos.

            To this extent the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is indeed right to suggest that we are being served up policies which nobody voted for. But the people who voted knew that we have £170 billion deficit to sought out, and that in order to do so, much pain and hardship would be the consequence - but it seems that only the Archbishop was ignorant of what the rest of us knew.

            Or perhaps he has a series of policies that require no such sacrifice, and at the same time reduces the budget deficit. If so, then I for one would be willing to kick Cameron out of Downing Street tomorrow and give the Archbishop his opportunity to make fools of us all, and save the country in the process.

            All the main political parties (and yes, including Labour) knew before the last election that welfare spending in particular would have to have the axe taken to it - but then, the welfare budget has required close attention from reforming politicians for over two decades now. It has become, not a safety net protecting the individual from the vagaries of the market place, but a fast food drive in with a menu grown so large that Beverage must be turning in his grave. The safety net has become, for hundreds of thousands of people,  the equivalent of a fast food diet. It allows people to become idle and dependent, not just for few weeks, but over a life time. There are today in this country thousands of families, none of whose members have ever worked – this cannot be right.

            Archbishop Williams does his flock little service by attacking, as he does, the main architect of change in this government when it comes to welfare reform - Mr Duncan Smith. Mr Smith will do more for those imprisoned into welfare than ever the Archbishop will accomplish with his rhetoric.

            The Archbishop believes that the Coalition’s actions are an ‘opportunistic’ cover for spending cuts. There is nothing opportunistic about it. This country’s economy demands such cuts if future generations are to be relieved of further suffering.

           

IN HIS PIECE AS LEFT- WING CELEBRITY editor for the New Statesman, Rowan Williams also attacks the cost of higher education. Education, like welfare reform are two of the Coalition’s flagship policies; and so the Archbishop also has the Education Secretary, Michael Gove in his sights.

            The cost  of  higher education stands at a maximum of £9,000 per student, per year, depending upon the university, and the Archbishop deprecates such an amount. Presumably, Canterbury still believes that higher education should be subsidised by the tax payer, like everything else. The trouble is, is that people are facing higher living standards and cannot afford the increased tax contributions that free higher education demands. The government has already promised that NHS spending will not be cut, despite its many wasteful aspects.  At the moment the NHS budget stands at over £100 billion pounds and is expected to double by the middle of this century.

            The government has also ring-fenced oversees aid due to be increased to £12 billion- this, in order to prove that the that the Conservative Party is no longer the ‘Nasty Party’.

            I believe that the oversees aid budget should be cancelled all together until the nation’s finances are once more looking healthy. But instead of having the courage to do this, David Cameron prefers to weaken our nation’s defences without knowing (as with the Falklands) just what is around the corner.

            So I, like the Archbishop, also have my grievances with the Coalition, but mine are about priorities, and I think that this nation’s defence is of higher priority than its oversees aid budget.

ROWAN WILLIAMS was chosen by Tony Blair to represent the Anglican Church, and became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2003. His first foray into controversy was in 2008 when he foresaw as being ‘inevitable’, that parts of Sharia  law, particularly divorce proceedings, would become incorporated into the British legal system.

            In 2009 he attacks the Labour government over Iraq followed up in 2010 by his expression of ‘deep sorrow and regret’, after he suggests that the Irish church had lost ‘all credibility’ over the child abuse scandal. While in the same year he gives ‘two and a half cheers for David Cameron’s ‘big society’. Providing, that is, that they are not an ‘alibi for cuts’.

            In May 2011, the prelate has America on his mind when Osama bin-Laden met his much deserved fate at the hands of US Navy Seals. But, the Anglican leader was not offering congratulations; but rather, feeling ‘very uncomfortable’ at the killing of an unarmed man.

            Finally, on the 28^th May, he finds his sympathy being direct toward those celebrities who take out ‘super injunctions’.

            Cuts are what is needed whether they are an ‘alibi’ or ‘opportunistic’, or delivered in the national interest. We cannot continue on the road marked out by the last government. Today’s economic reality, to the likes of the Archbishop of Canterbury, seems to be a conspiracy of right-wing dogma, without any functioning veracity in the world in which Canterbury lives.

            Our country lives in dire times, times that many have not woken up to, including many of those in government, who are trying to come to terms with the ominous circumstances, the full force of which, are coming up to surprise us.

THE CLERIC OF CANTERBURY is a liberal ecclesiastic. He masterminds tolerance to the point of full capitulation. He believes in the basic goodness of all humanity, and as such will cause much suffering among those who follow his path.

            He has made overtures to Islam that surely many other Anglicans either denounce or must outright censure. To foresee, as the archbishop does, Islamic divorce proceedings being part of English Law, must make his position impossible. If it does not as it apparently has not, then how seriously can the nation take this prelate.

            I, like Canterbury, and speaking as a mere voter, feel outraged at the Coalition. I, for the first time in my life, (I was, at the time of the general election 60 years-old) gave my vote to the Tories after my disillusionment with Gordon Brown after a lifetime of voting Labour. I am as un happy with the Coalition government as is the great Rector of Canterbury. But my concern is not about the need for cuts, for they are indeed needed, but rather about their priorities.

            Rowan Williams has once more delved into the murky waters of politics. He may think he has a part to play in the political debate of the nation. If he feels this urge, as one or two of his predecessors have also done, then let this unelected prelate now enthroned on the leather benches of the House of Lords seek election through popular will instead of presupposing that he has the ear of the nation.

           

            

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

ACCORDING TO INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY, Andrew Mitchell, our country has become a ‘development superpower’ after the Coalition’s decision to increase the oversees aid budget by 34 per cent to £12 billion.

            Please tell me Mr Mitchell is not a Conservative, as I have never heard of him or wish to continue doing so after his Alice in Wonderland boasting about the ‘virtues’ of foreign aid.

            When I first read his pronouncements, I thought it was a put up job to cause heart failure among Mr Cameron’s bitterest critics. Mr Mitchell is either a political scapegoat whose modus-operandi  is causing the maximum outrage among the voters, in order to be slapped down by a ‘tough’ and ‘hard hitting’ prime minister, who will not countenance such political naivety – or, Mr Mitchell is just plain bonkers.

            He comes up with such gems as, ‘Be as proud of our £12 billion foreign aid bill as  you are of the Army’. Only to add the Queen to the list.

            Looking at Mr Mitchell’s photograph in the press as he arrives in Downing Street on his bike, one begins to form a portrait of this contemporary Tory. He has been put where he is, not because he believes in traditional Conservative values (for who does nowadays), or any kind of tradition at all; but because he does not represent what was once described by a Tory as ‘the Nasty Party’,  after the Thatcher and Major years. He represents the ‘Cuddly Party’ of David Cameron.

            Apparently, according to Mr Mitchell, we are admired throughout the world for our largesse. He does not qualify such admiration by naming names of those who esteem us so greatly. Are they world leaders who, like David Cameron, have the ability to dip into their exchequers purse? If so, then their high regard and good opinion, is worthless unless they are prepared to wage a foreign aid race with us, by sanctioning increases in their own aid budgets.

            My guess is, is that the esteem in which we are held, emanates not from other world leaders, but from the numerous NGOs who are the main benefactors; or the  celebrities who promote themselves by organising concerts on behalf of the blighted poor of the world - celebrities like the tax exile Bono.

            The kind of world Mr Mitchell is living in  requires enormous resources of gullibility to comprehend. It now seems he actually believes in what he is saying on the subject of oversees aid and I have misplaced a shrewd politician for a fool.

OVERSEES AID has been ring-fenced and allowed to increase by the Coalition. It has been done at the expense of our armed forces (which Mr Mitchell professes to be proud of).

            The prime minister was, in part, influenced by his youthful experiences with the Live Aid Concert in the 1980s, when he decided not to intrude upon the oversees aid budget - except only to increase it; even in such difficult economic times for the country.

            It is my belief, as it would have been the belief of any truly Conservative government in the past, that the security, health and education of our own citizens must be put before all else. This outlook still exists today, but not within the modern British Conservative Party. It still flourishes in all Western countries including Democrat America. For it is not immoral to put one’s own family before others.

            What is immoral, is that you ignore the suffering of others when times are good for your family and you have the surplus to give away in the form of increased amounts of taxation on aid.

            Oversees aid has been, and still is being,  much abused. It has found its way into numerous Swiss bank accounts and diverted from its intended purpose. It has been so arranged by corrupt leaders who slice off  the cream. This fraudulent behaviour has been prevalent on the African continent for decades. African leaders, who should have the welfare of their people at heart have grown rich on the backs of the Western taxpayer, by stealing from both their own people as well as ours.

            The British government speaks of rigorously ensuring that the aid given is being used in accordance with what they perceive as being in the interest of the British people.

            But we know, do we not, that there have been hundreds of millions of pounds donated to countries that are on the verge of becoming the next generation of world leaders? India and China have enjoyed over a billion pounds in British taxpayer aid in just one year, despite their world ascendency.

            We, on the other hand, have had to (because of a purely political decision) reduce our armed services (particularly our navy)  to a level that shocks even our ancient enemy – France.

            Our navy has seen its carrier force rendered none existent for the next decade. We have taken the decision to scrap our two aircraft carriers as well as our Harrier jet squadrons that manned them. We also sought to abandon our Tornado squadrons; until Libya changed Mr Cameron’s mind.

            In their place, we will share French carriers until our latest carrier comes on stream. I say carrier because two are to be built, but only one will see service.

            We are a seafaring nation that has been caught out on more than one occasion by an enemy we thought incapable of attacking us. But our navy has always provided the wherewithal to meet any challenge. Friends can soon become enemies if they feel that they can defeat you militarily.

ANDREW MITCHELL is a product of the liberal sensibilities that have gripped this nation’s establishment since the 1960s. The International Development Secretary has voiced his views on aid and has done so soberly.

            He genuinely believes that, ‘[His] ambition is that over the next four years people will come to think across our country – in all parts of it – of Britain’s fantastic development work around the poorest parts of the world with the same pride and satisfaction that they see in some of our great institutions like the Armed Forces and the monarchy’. 

            In believing such nonsense, he opens up this country to an impossible escalation in British tax-payer funded aid to the rest of the world. This man, through his professed pronouncements, seeks to make oversees spending, at least more important than this countries defence. If not why is his department being saved from the cuts while the MoD has to face, like all other departments, a 20% cut in their budgets?

            The  aid budget has to take its share of the current cost cutting. If it falls short, as it seems likely to, then the other departments of state must call for a stop to such munificence.

            Politicians from all parties and in all democratic countries seem to think that the money they are spending appears from a chancellors wish list instead of through the taxation of their citizens. Politicians treat taxes as if they were the rewards of their rhetoric rather than the sacrifices of  their citizens labour.

            I say this to Mr Mitchell. Ask any father or mother in this country whether, in such difficult times, that their family should be considered secondary to the people of the Third World. It is human nature to look to one’s own before transgressing and sacrificing on behalf of total strangers.

            We in this country have suffered many of the tortures and indignities that now proliferate among the developing world. In Britain during the period of our climb from darkness to light had to pay the price.

            Our people suffered during our Industrial Revolution on a scale measurable and comparable with the slavery that was the hall-mark of early America. But our Industrial Revolution laid the foundations of prosperity that today we take for granted.

           

I BELIEVE IN OVERSEES AID. But I do not elevate it above all else when having to make cut-backs within our national criteria.

            If we live in troubled economic times then priorities must be made. But such precedence’s must be arranged according to the country’s national interest. In the modern case of preserving and adding to the oversees aid budget, I do not believe that such a national interest is well served, especially if much of our country’s defence has had to be made redundant so spuriously by the current Coalition. But then, what are they? They are, may I suggest, a Cabinet collective that cares little for the people they represent.
            By advancing the oversees aid budget the Conservative Party hopes to relinquish the ‘Nasty Party’ image that Cameron has decided to, whatever the cost, rid his party of.

            International Aid is the icing on the cake for successful nations who wish to pour much of their post-tax surpluses into helping the unfortunate of the world. It is a worthy ambition to rid the world of its poor; and we must continue to fulfil the ambition.

            But when we are told that we must, in the still affluent UK, continue to support and increase oversees aid, while our nation’s defences are depleted at the same time to meet the cost of such advancement; then our politicians had better be sure of their ground before giving their support to such an overture.
           

           

             

THE DECLINE OF THE WEST

HERE’S SOMETHING TO CHEER YOU UP. This country, as well as the West generally, is in terminal decline. It is an axiom that nothing lasts forever; but I have long believed that the values that have governed the West’s function would have shown far greater resistance to the adjustments of time than now seem likely.

                In the past great Empires have come and gone, and left their mark on the generations that were to follow. Greece and Rome laid the foundations of modern Western culture through philosophy and language, as well as numerous other intellectual and artistic accomplishments that have all been adopted, studied, and referred to by copious academics during the creation of Western civilisation.

                If men are born free (and we begin with this premise), then the greatest system under which to live should embellish this self-evident truth by seeking out and finding the best organisation under which free men can live. After thousands of years of struggle, involving much spilling of blood, Western man found democracy. It was never to be a perfect system; but compared to all of the alternatives, hugely  preferable. No other system of governance allows such freedom of thought and expression among its people as does a truly democratic state.

                Democracy cannot be imposed but must evolve and mature if it is to stay the distance. British and American history demonstrates the hurdles that have had to be jumped; especially when the franchise is restricted according to wealth, class, and gender. It has taken a whole history of social reform scaling many injustices over many decades, in order to accomplish a mature democracy, especially within the UK.

                Other countries took different turns via revolution (as in France) to arrive at the same position. Social reform and revolution have represented the levers of change in Europe: ancient regimes have come and gone. The hangman’s noose and the guillotine have often disgraced the march toward the democratic ideal. But we in Northern and Southern Europe have finally settled, along with America, into a better fitting glove than what had been on offer before and ever since.

BUT NOW CHANGE IS imminent and the Western democracies, who believed that man was free and deserved to live a free life, are coming to an end. This end however, was never inevitable - as could have been argued regarding the finale of Empire; whether it were British, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, or Belgian.

                What orchestrated the West’s decline? Well, for a start, after relinquishing their empires, Europe felt  a duty of liberal conscience toward its colonies, and allowed citizenship to those inhabitants of whatever country any particular member of the European continent once governed - and despite all of the kerfuffle about colonial oppressors, there was no shortage of people ready and willing to come and live among their tormenters.

                With the influx of ex-colonial peoples (which were much resented by the indigenous community), especially within the UK, a new ideology was born from the minds of liberal thinkers within the UK. Instead of requiring that those who chose to live among us, must do so in accordance with  the laws and cultural standards of the host nation, these liberal thinkers declaimed the new ideology of Multiculturalism whereby cultural separation, would be actively tolerated on the principle that our, that is the UK’s culture, would be regarded as just another culture instead of the all embracing mother culture.

                Instead of racial integration, these liberal idealists, headed, by the way, by Roy Jenkins, encouraged separation of all the multifarious cultures that were to find a home in this country, and allow them to flourish separated from the host culture out of respect for their individual customs and traditions.

                This project of Multiculturalism gave birth to the plethora of what we today describe as acts of Political Correctness (PC). The host culture has been invaded by people from other cultures and a somewhat acerbic British people have had to be restrained in what they say about these events by the criminal law. PC has become the legal auxiliary of Multiculturalism that threatens free expression and, were it to prove possible, free thought.

               

MULTICULTURALISM BECAME THE FIRST NAIL in the coffin of the UK’s continued existence as a monocultural nation state. The second nail was hammered in by the European Union - a concept that the late Roy Jenkins was also involved in promoting.

                A  European Union has been the ideal of many of our politicians from within all the main parties, irrespective of the democratic wishes of the people they serve. Anti-European rhetoric and bluster have been used with varying degrees of subtlety by politicians from all our main parties when fighting a general election. But the mood music changes when power has been won.

                The European nail was driven into the coffin of our nationhood by our own liberal political class, as was the immigrant one. Despite the rhetoric of opposition, each and every politician reneges upon what they tell themselves and uses such ploys as mere tools of the job.

                We as a nation, have had layer upon layer of our identity stripped from us by the main political parties, who it seems, are all too ready to apologise for being representatives of a nation state. Some 80%/90% of English members sitting in the House of Commons care very little about the continuance of this island’s status of nationhood. This is mere conjecture, but I challenge any pollster to scientifically contradict it. If they manage to do so, then I ask what on earth are those politicians who believe in the continuance of a nation state doing by allowing its disappearance via the European Union and their nation’s leaders promotion of its departure?

                Our politicians from all the main parties are manoeuvring us toward a Federal Europe where one time great nations become transformed into mere cantons of a greater Europe – in other words, a United States of Europe.

                I do not believe that the British people agree for one moment with such an conclusion. The mainstream politicians however have a different perspective. The main parties believe, not only in the  inevitability of a United Stated of Europe, but also see themselves as pioneers helping to bring such a phenomenon about.

AT THE MOMENT our parliament, whose law makers we elect to make the laws that govern our lives, are being overridden by EU law. EU law takes precedence over our own, and leads one to ask a very important question regarding the value to us of our politicians, if they are no longer answerable to those who elected them; but rather to 27 unelected European Commissioners and their army of bureaucrats who rubber stamp and finesse policy, then why should they represent us and be paid for the privilege of doing so.

                There is not day go by when the press pick up on an example of how EU law wrecks any attempt by our parliament to frame laws that are supported by the majority of the British people.

                When it comes to a prisoners right to vote, we have to defer to EU human rights legislation; when it comes to getting rid of unwanted illegal asylum seekers, we have defer to EU human rights legislation; and when it comes to all sorts of crazy, stupid, irrational and hypertension inducing examples of rewarding the criminal; we have to defer to the European Court of Human Rights, rather than seek justice for the victims in our own courts.

TAXATION IS SECOND only to Lawmaking; but as far as the lives of our people are concerned it is probably more important. For if the people are taxed, they want to have some control over the way in which their money is spent as well as how much of it is taken from them. They also need a mechanism by which they can remove any politician or party that overtaxes them and seek to take their financial contribution for granted, by regarding such taxation as their own to do with as they please.

                The most important mechanism we use for preventing such liberties is the ballot box. But consider this: what if the taxes of the British people were to be levied and spent not by the elected government, but by an external body which is accountable to no democratic authority save by appointment.

                This unhappy state of affairs for the British people is under consideration by Europe. The European Central Bank will, they hope, render our own Treasury meaningless, and we will have a European Chancellor to decide upon taxation. It will not happen overnight of course. It is a question of slowly, slowly, catch the monkey. However politicians and Commissioners in Europe are discussing the possibility/eventuality of Euro wide taxation and spending among themselves and no doubt believe in its eventuality.

                Remember before the last budget when Europe wanted our chancellor to present his budget to them for inspection before he delivered it to our own sovereign parliament? The Coalition refused. But was such a refusal based upon the need to protect our sovereignty, or just bad timing for a government facing a Euro-sceptic people?

                If we are no longer in control of our laws, then our lawmakers and our nationhood become irrelevant over time as our nation slips quietly from its people’s grasp. But when we lose the ability to govern our economic destiny as a people, then the game is finally up for our, as well as all of Europe’s, nation states who have subscribed to the folly.

OF COURSE THE arm of the West extends further than Europe. The United States has been the effective guardian of the West since the end of the Second World War. She has poured billions into defending our continent and laid down the lives of many thousands of her young men to help save our continent twice in the last century.

                She effectively provided Europe’s military protection during the Cold War. Her presence allowed the European nations to spend less on defence and more on the welfare state. America has never been appreciated for her endeavours on the European continent. She did not mind, however, because she believed rightly that her own interests were also well served by her presence in Europe.

                But even America, the bulwark of the West since 1945, is facing economic decline. Like 5^th century Rome, will America tell a United States of Europe to look toward the self-protection its own cantons. The fall of a civilisation rather than an Empire takes many more hundreds of years. So while America will remain a dominant force in the world, its influence will be replaced gradually over time. But by who?

                The last great economic crash in the West may prove to be decisive in terms of its economic hegemony. The trillions of dollars of debt built up by America may prove to be too much for a country that could once lay claim to world dominance both economically and culturally.

                America will continue, but economically, is deeply (or even fatally?) wounded. She will have to do what we all have to do in difficult times. She will have to cut back on her spending or be forever in debt to countries she would rather not rely upon.

                America’s fall will be a trend rather than cataclysmic. This great country which has, for good or bad, given so much to the world, will, like Western Europe, have to face its destiny.

BUT ABOVE  ALL ELSE, the determining factor that will ultimately render Western Europe helpless will be the change in attitude by its political and military leaders.  The West has become weak; not militarily (not yet at least), but weak in purpose. The West has become conditioned by the ‘cruelties’ of its antecedents. Which as far as Europe is concerned, means Empire. Liberal guilt has moulded Europe’s decline as much as any other economic or multicultural factor.

                The tempo of  development in Europe since the end of the Second world war, has been that of a political rumba, whose rhythm has been monopolised by the Left in politics. Since 1945 the continent of Europe has evolved democratically into a social democratic entity where even conservatives (Christian Democrats) have joined the Left of centre in trying to achieve a United States of Europe.

                Because of, I suggest, our past, and the modern craving of political correctness that has been its corollary, we no longer have the strength to beat our enemies. We no longer have (as we did in the Second World War) the ability morally to conduct Total War against our enemies – who, let us remember, have no such reserve. If we cannot meet our enemies on their own terms then we deserve our fate. During the Second world war hundreds of thousands of German citizens were killed by allied bombing, and as an example of just how far we have come, there are some voices who wish to declare that such missions over Germany should now become considered as war crimes, and ‘Bomber’ Harris a war criminal. At the moment such voices are rare but will become more prevalent , no doubt, in the years to come.

                 Britain’s, as well as Europe’s decline will be as much to do with liberal guilt, as it will be due to any economic balls-ups. The West’s politicians have become soft because of their country’s  past and will not do what is necessary to protect their nation and their people when confronted by an enemy. Example: in Afghanistan, a British sniper who looks through his scope and sees some Taliban planting explosives that are meant to for his comrades, has to find and inform his senior officer before opening fire. This is not a military decision (although it has been handed over to them) but has become a political one.

                In Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in Libya, Western politicians have conducted events on the ground that were meant to be the preserve of the armed services. Which is why today Gaddafi still remains in existence. Our politicians are either enfeebled by guilt or ambition to do what is required of them for the sake of the country and her armed forces.

                If we are to be so inhibited in the way in which we dispose of our enemies, then surely this is the final factor in our decline as a nation.

               

               

               

               

                 

               

               

                 

                

NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM

NEXT WEEK ON THE 44^TH anniversary of the Six Day War Israel is expecting scenes comparable to those that accompanied “Nakba Day” (the establishment of the State of Israel) last month, when Israel’s boarders were challenged by Palestinians who, according to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, “…[attempted]  to subvert our sovereignty and breach our borders on behalf of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas", adding that, “"Those actors," are expected to call for similar events in the coming days.

            Already, according to the Jerusalem Post, Lebanon is declaring its borders with Israel a closed military zone. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has announced that it is taking precautions to defend Israel’s borders, while Israel’s navy is preparing for the arrival of another flotilla, larger than the one that was so controversially sent packing last year.

            Hamas has called upon all Palestinians and their sympathisers from  all parts of the globe to fly to Israel and demonstrate their support in Tel Aviv airport on the 44^th anniversary of the Six day War.

            The whole charade will no doubt attract criticism of Israel by “progressive” voices from within and without the media throughout the world. Israel will be made to look the aggressor as Palestinians provoke the kind of retaliatory action that can be filmed and shown on our screens.

            The stage is being set and the actors (to use Netanyahu’s description) are rehearsing their parts for the great day. Savvy of the requirements of nearest photo journalist and film crew, the protestors will make sure that every injury will be magnified and exaggerated for the delectation of the Western viewer. The crying and wailing will be the focus of every lens, and terrorist groups such as Hamas know this and as front row cheer leaders will be the most outraged by the unfolding tragedy.

            It amazes me that Israel is seen as the Goliath in all of this when she is surrounded, and has always surrounded, by enemies. Enemies like Iran, Syria, Hezbollah (if not Lebanon), and Hamas. Even Egypt, after the Arab spring can no longer be relied upon as, if not an ally, then at least a partner for peace.

            Three times, including “Nakba Day”, has Israel had to fight for its very existence against overwhelming odds. The Six Day War in 1967 followed by Yom Kippur in 1973 were, alongside the War of Independence, lessons to be learnt; and these lessons were always to be prepared for war; but also to find accommodations wherever possible with your neighbours, without sacrificing you sovereignty as an independent Jewish state: and this had been the position regarding Israel’s relationship with Egypt since the signing of the Camp David Accords on September the 17^th 1978 between Egypt’s Anwar El Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin.

BUT EVENTS SINCE Camp David have proven as illusive to a two state solution as they have always been. But today Israel faces dark times indeed. The Arab Spring has thrown a bloody great rock into the stream and caused, not ripples, but a tsunami that threatens once more, not only the Israeli state’s survival, but tests the West’s (particularly Europe’s) impartiality; an impartiality that has remained suspect by Israel (a suspicion that has its origins in the European Jewish Diaspora).

            The history of this part of the world is complicated by a complicated history. So where to begin. I suggest with the right of the Jewish people to their own homeland after centuries of persecution within the Diaspora culminating in the Holocaust.

            Only by accepting Israel’s right to exist can progress be made toward a solution. In other words, we must all, if not become Zionists, then accept that Zionism, as it is generally understood must not be dismissed. For to do so only prolongs the agony for all in the Middle East.

            I am both a gentile and a Zionist, who at 61 years of age, have learnt that the Jews have to find an anchorage in order to evade the persecution that had haunted them for 2000 years within the Diaspora. Ever since ancient Judea was taken from them, they found themselves dispersed; encouraging both hatred and envy for their enterprising capabilities, which, when allowed free expression brought wealth to the communities they lived amongst.

            The Jews anchorage has been their ancient homeland and the world had better get used to their occupancy of it. The state of Israel will not go back to their pre-1967 boarders, because since the territory of these pre-1967 borders was captured through a war of aggression aimed at destroying the Israeli state, then the post-1967 borders represent a buffer to further attempts by Israel’s enemies to once more seek its destruction.

            The 1967 war was a pre-emptive attack by Israel upon her Arab neighbours, who were just days away from attacking the Jewish state, in another attempt to drive the Jews from what they, the Arabs, regarded as Palestine.

            In 1967, Israel was on its guard. But in 1973 that guard seemed not to function. For during the spiritual day of Yom Kippur, when all Israelis were at prayer -including its civilian armed forces, the Arab world tried once more to drive the Jews from the Middle East; and this time nearly succeeded in their enterprise.

            Israel has always to be on its guard until the Arab world fully accepts its right to exist. Until this day comes Israel will do whatever it needs to do militarily to ensure its survival as a fully functioning sovereign state, as independent, autonomous and self governing as any other.

            For Israel will not go  quietly into the night as many “progressive” types wish for – I would have liked to have said pray for, but it would not have been politically correct to have done so.

           

NEXT WEEK THE PRESSURE will once more be on Israel to show restraint by the West. What a young IDF soldier boarding part of the flotilla is supposed to do when faced with an iron railing torn from the ship’s deck and used to attack him, I do not know. If that young man or women, in the chaos which surrounds them kills their assailant who has sought to do the same to them, then what are they supposed to do?

            For those of us who see our own country being annexed into a canton of Europe by our political leadership, the Israeli fight for national survival comes as a tonic. Perhaps this is why the English Defence League (LED) carries the Israeli flag on their demonstrations.

            Israel is to be admired for her determination to survive as a nation and should be supported in her attempt to do so. If this country had Israel’s backbone then the people of the United Kingdom would not turn against the main parties and lend their support to the likes of UKIP. Or, in extremis, the BNP as they will do eventually.

           

WE MUST WAIT TO SEE what Israel’s enemies will do next week on the 44^th anniversary of the Six Day War. My feeling is, is that the anniversary is nothing more than an opportunity for Hamas and Hezbollah to court publicity knowing that each misdemeanour caused by the IDF during the encroachment either from land, sea, or air, will count against Israel. As these groups lack the military might to overcome the state of Israel; they rely upon the Western media to promote their cause and ferment “progressive” opinion – especially among the student youth of the West.

            The only solution for the Middle East is one that accepts Israel’s right to exist. There is no other possibility for a peaceful solution. For those “progressives” in the West who support the Palestinian cause had better encourage their protégés to reach an accommodation with Israel rather than just dismiss Zionism.

            For Zionism means the state of Israel, and if those sympathisers of the Palestinian cause reject Zionism, then they reject the state of Israel and should have the courage of saying so - as Hamas has done.

            But they lack such courage. Instead they berate Israel while supporting the Palestinians - they prefer to seek occupancy of the nearest convenient fence (like all liberals), afraid of committing whole heartedly to a position.

            Israel will continue to exist in one form or another and the Arab world had better accommodate itself with this eventuality. If however, which seems likely, they repeat their historical mistakes and seek the destruction of the Jewish state through conflict, then so be it.