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Saturday 24 December 2016

Con Coughlin coughing into his cornflakes

Poor old Con Coughlin must be coughing into his Christmas cornflakes this morning. Following instructions from his FCO and MoD masters, poor old Con has being doing his best to talk-up a war with Russia all year. No incident was too trivial to be mis-interpreted, no pretext too minor for Con to rattle his lightsabre on the Telegraph's Defence desk. And all year all the poor sod's earned for his pains is laughter, mockery and regular pillorying in blogs such as this. And now his own paper mocks his efforts; former Moscow Ambassador Tony Brenton writes
"Russia is not a threat to the West. Our defence expenditure is ten times, and our economy 20 times, Russia’s. Putin is ruthless but not stupid – he will not take on those odds. Current western policy towards Russia has failed. Sanctions have cemented popular support for Putin even as the Russian economy resumes growth. The Russians are winning in Syria, and show no sign of letting go in Ukraine. Meanwhile there are important things we should be working on together. Islamic extremism is a much greater threat to both of us than we are to each other. The British government has been among the most vociferous hawks on Russia. Time for us to be more British; lower the volume, and think harder about where our real interests lie."
Amen to that. Peace and fellowship between our Christian lands, and love to all men except the buggers trying to kill us. Have a wonderful Christmas all and thanks for another superlative year - your comments are a joy, and inspire me each day.  

19 comments:

anon 2 said...

"Have a wonderful Christmas all and thanks for another superlative year - your comments are a joy, and inspire me each day."

Thoughts fully reciprocated, Raedwald! Thank you; and Happy Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour's Birthday :)

APL said...

"Peace and fellowship between our Christian lands, and love to all men except the buggers trying to kill us."

Amen to those sentiments.

PS. Happy and peaceful Christmas to you, and your readers.

rapscallion said...

. . and a Merry Chrimbo to you Radders. Love your blog - a daily visit site for me. Always a joy to read.

As for Russia, Coughlin is wrong yet again - so no change there then. There has been a lot of anti Russian rhetoric in the papers this year, for reasons that I cannot fathom. They appear to be the fashionable bete noire at present.

Clearly, they wrote Hitlery's emails, skewed the Brexit vote, skewed the Italian vote and probably helped Leicester City win the Premiership.

TPTB really do think we're stupid don't they!

Have a great 2017

Poisonedchalice said...

And a very Merry Christmas to you and yours Raedwald. I enjoy my daily visit to your excellent blog and it forms a counter-point to the trashy and unbelievable MSM.

And yes, for some bizarre reason, bashing Russia has become fashionable. We should instead, be holding out the hand of friendship to unite against our common enemy, Islamification.

Oldrightie said...

Amen and total agreement with all previous comments. Chritmas celebrations in Aleppo a huge present to all Christians.

meltemian said...

A Very Happy Christmas to you Radders, and to everyone reading and posting here.
Roll on 2017 and the DJT take-over, it's going to be interesting!
Καλά Χριστούγεννα.

Anonymous said...

To just add my penn'orth - Happy Christmas to all and thank you Raedwald for this great blog!

mike fowle said...

Hear hear.

Flyinthesky said...

What everyone else said. A daily must read.

Span Ows said...

Amen.

Dick the Prick said...

Same goes, big nose. Happy Christmas all :-)

Balanchine said...

Merry Christmas Radders! Always a pleasure to read you blog! So jealous of your mancave by the way....!

Cascadian said...

I suspect there is a great deal of creative accounting attached to the ambassador's statement-"Our defence expenditure is ten times, and our economy 20 times, Russia’s" that may be correct if NATO members (mostly USA) budgets are aggregated.

Even then, given the shambolic military equipment acquisition, piss-poor leadership and appeasement-minded politicians who believes that EU forces are sufficient to counteract even the rag-tag groups such as DAESH. Germany recently proved that point.

His closing comment though is hopeful "Time for us....to think harder about where our real interests lie."

Enough moaning, may all here enjoy Christmas amongst their chosen friends with an excess of good cheer and food. An especial wish to the genial host for providing this forum and tolerating dissent in this time of labelling alternative views "fake news".

Anonymous said...

The Stranger within my gate,
He may be true or kind,
But he does not talk my talk–
I cannot feel his mind.
I see the face and the eyes and the mouth,
But not the soul behind.

The men of my own stock,
They may do ill or well,
But they tell the lies I am wanted to,
They are used to the lies I tell;
And we do not need interpreters
When we go to buy or sell.

The Stranger within my gates,
He may be evil or good,
But I cannot tell what powers control–
What reasons sway his mood;
Nor when the Gods of his far-off land
Shall repossess his blood.

The men of my own stock,
Bitter bad they may be,
But, at least, they hear the things I hear,
And see the things I see;
And whatever I think of them and their likes
They think of the likes of me.

This was my father’s belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf–
And the grapes be all one vine,
Ere our children’s teeth are set on edge
By bitter bread and wine.

Kipling sums up what I want for my country and therefore is, my happy Christmas.

I wish all who read this rather cracking good blog a happy and peaceful Christmas and to R in your Alpine fastness - we wish you a safe and proper Xmas and keep 'em coming Radders.

On Con, what a home boy wimp he is, get a grip man better yet grow some individuality and strike out from the miserable, purblind insanity of the illiberal sanctimonious arse bandits aka the consensus sewer of Westminster.... and then, you'll get yourself a set.

Pat said...

Did the EU not try a couple of years ago to get Ukraine as a member? Using its usual tactics of bribery (and yes the previous pro Russian regime was installed by Moscow using similar methods).
Our then prime minister did make a speech calling for an EU that stretched from the Atlantic to the Urals, so presumably Russia was eventually to be incorporated in the empire.
Russia's response as I recall was to take over the Crimea, because it takes Sevastopol very seriously, and support pro Russian groups in Ukraine.
The EU being both unwilling and unable to use military force were therefore thwarted.
Is it any wonder that pro EU people don't like Putin? Its as remarkable as them not liking Farage.
The sooner we're out the better.
Merry Christmas.

James Higham said...

They really want to kick off WWIII.

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas.

Anonymous said...

Con Coughlin is a solid plywood plank, of that there can be no doubt but if there was a competition to find the worst, to test the patience and credulity of all right thinking men he'd be well down the list.....................

The attempted kidnap of an RAF serviceman outside an airbase was a bungled mugging by opportunist thieves, police believe.

A huge manhunt was launched involving 70 police, including a counter terrorism squad from Scotland Yard, after an airman was attacked at knifepoint while out jogging near RAF Marham in July.

The two suspects of Middle Eastern appearance were initially suspected to be jihadis plotting a Lee Rigby-style attack.

Daily Mail here.



Dear Lord, "opportunistic"........... "mugging"? How many city dwelling [LUTON] muggers travel out to the middle of nowhere on a 'mugging spree'?

Good grief, I thought that, the Berlin police were totally stupid/ incompetent but this takes it to another [downwards] level.

Prawn Sandwich said...

Nostorovia (Na Zdorovie) Radders.

Anonymous said...

DP111 writes..

The Jihadis/terrorism is not the existential problem. In fact, they are alerting us to the coming existential crisis, and a consequence of Muslim population growth. This growth is several times larger then European rates. In less then 50 years, Muslims will be a majority. And that’s that. Sharia, and the end of Western civilisation

As the Muslim population increases, attacks will get more frequent, with “moderate“ Muslim demands that the state give more to the “marginalised” Muslim youth, or they will become even more radicalised. And so on. The more you give to the so-called moderates, the more our society will become Islamic. Moderate and radical Muslims play the good cop bad cop routine.


As the late Laurence Auster wrote:
Islam is a mortal threat to our civilization. But we cannot destroy Islam.
· · Nor can we democratize Islam.
· · Nor can we assimilate Islam.
· · Therefore the only way to make ourselves safe from Islam is to separate ourselves

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/006854.html

There will no peace in the West unless there is a separation from Islam and muslims. Expect Christmas will be bombed each year, as that is what Muslims do – to ruin the festivals of other religions. Recall the bombing of the cathedral in Egypt a few days ago.

In Europe we are only just starting to see what it has been like for non-Muslims in the Middle East for hundreds of years. In Egypt, Lebanon, Nigeria, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Pakistan -to name a few. It’s common practice for Muslims to step up the jihad attacks at Christmas and Easter time.