It's been a long year

It's been a long year.

As my old governor used to say, we are where we are. With Gina Miller to thank for the Commons 'meaningful vote' in January, it's now panning out that there are three not improbable options. Either the Commons accepts the Robbins Treaty as is, or the EU scrap the 175 pages that deal with the backstop and the Commons accepts a modified treaty, or they reject the whole thing and we leave on 29th March. All other options - a new referendum, withdrawing Article 50 - are less probable, though still of course possible. Apropos the post below, let's hope that the time that most MPs will spend away from the febrile atmosphere of Westminster and back home in 'Leave' Britain will help them flush the baleful elitist poison from their systems. 

And now for a day or two I'm going to forget Brexit. The gallon of Zwetschke Gin I made with Tanqueray back at the end of August is now being served to visitors with great effect; it's really no different to Sloe Gin, but a novelty to the locals, for whom Gin based tipples are something unknown. 

So once again my most heartfelt good wishes for Christmas and the New Year to you all. Eat, drink and for those of you so inclined, skin-up. Have a good one, all.

Last Christmas (for many MPs?)

Ipswich used to have an MP called Ken Weech, whom despite being a Labourite was generally held in some regard by the whole town. He was not ambitious, never aspired to the ministerial ladder, was happy on the back benches and was known as a fair-dealer without pronounced views. Every year on this weekend, after Parliament had risen, he'd spend two or three hours just standing about on Cornhill, outside the Town Hall, on his own, just shaking hands and making friendly small-talk with constituents. He was rarely unengaged - no-one was deterred from approaching him, he wasn't scary or pompous and he consequently generally had a constantly shifting audience of two or three around him. 

He had a smooth way with the occassional pest who wanted a disputatious monopoly of his time - he'd just turn slickly to a passing shopper, smile, extend his hand and freeze the pest over his left shoulder. Likewise, he'd be gone before the customers of Mannings and the Golden Lion on the adjacent side of Cornhill spilled out after lunch, neatly avoiding the drunks. 

We used to sit in the front window seats at Mannings and watch him at work. He was a pro - it was a joy to see. People were genuinely happy to meet and greet their MP, and the brief encounters enhanced a tedious pre-Christmas shopping scramble for many. It was one of those little social happenings from which everyone got something. All credit to him. 

I'm sure he's not the only MP to have done this, or who will contemplating doing similar today. Except that many will be facing constituents for whom Brexit has been an enforced diet for months, and many, particularly from my own Party, will be facing constituents anxious to hear their MP's reasons for not supporting the constituency's Leave vote in the Commons (or, more rarely, Remain vote).

I suspect there's going to be a lot of Westminster flu about this weekend (like diplomatic flu, but the virus only becomes active outside of SW1). Which is a shame - as if there's a GE before next Christmas, it may have been their last opportunity to do so.

For Hope, and our Future

It's now eighteen months since that momentous referendum, and we're still leaving. With every single day it becomes more and more difficult for the saboteurs to derail the process. The global corporates, their Federast and globalist dags, the Euro bien pensants, has-been politicians, are daily nearer to meltdown and daily more furious. This also makes them daily more dangerous; the dags are being goaded into petty acts of spite, with Remoaner HMRC officials prodded by the Treasury now demanding tax from private Leave referendum donors whilst the vastly richer global corporates escape scot free for their Remain gifts. We may have sighted land, but it will still take some skillful pilotage before we're tied up alongside. 

ISIS are also just another terrorist organisation rather than a putative Caliphate. The government of Syria, with Russian help, have succeeded against the global corporates and their puppets, against the stupidity and venality of our own government and Foreign Office. We have reached the morning of the eve of Christmas with no successful Islamist attack on the West, just a failed terrorist act in Australia, a nation now more Eddie Izzard than Crocodile Dundee. There is a perceptible hardening of attitude towards Islamism, and the faint start of some pushback. 

More than anything else, social media has enabled the idiocies of neoliberalism, the insanity of distorted morality, the fake news, lies, distortions and deceits of the malign, to be exposed to the disinfectant of sunlight and to laughter. Social media means a FTSE100 firm and a sharp witted nobody are equal. Nothing is more painful to these evils than laughter. May St Isidore, patron saint of the internet, intercede for succour and protection of universal access to social media.  

At home and abroad we still face human challenges - abroad we have human populations outgrowing food, water, wealth and work, and with the richness of the West visible on their 3G screens forming a tsunami of human migration towards Europe. Do not, I beg you, direct hatred or vituperation towards these people, no matter how devious, dishonest, manipulating or self-interested their behaviour. We must work to keep them in their own nations, to emulate themselves the prizes of Western post-enlightenment Christian nations by adopting our norms and ways, however cruel we must be to keep them from our shores. 

At home we are still failing our own people; ex-armed forces living rough, enduring hardship and privation without complaint. They stood on the line for you and me. We owe them. For our semi-feral urban children, victims of gross sexual abuse and exploitation, victims also of failed official care, of moral relativism, and of our selfishness. We must help them. And heartfelt thanks to all those who keep the law, demand nothing, discharge their social responsibility and ask only for a little pride, a little identity and a little recognition. We owe them, too.  

As each day grows a little brighter I am inspired with hope. Not a surge, but a fleeting butterfly shadow of hope that flickers over the heart and soul. There is a future, a good future, and we can all help shape it. God really is with us if we allow him to be. 

It is easy here, in the snow and the beauty, to the sound of bells and in a little 14th century church with vivid ancient wall paintings, to understand the miracle of the Nativity and the joy that the birth of the Christ child, Son of God, born to save the world, brought to mankind. With all my gratitude and thanks to you all, may you all have a peaceful Christmas.   

Christmas peace for Aleppo's Christians as Islamist butchers routed

The routing of Saudi, Turkish and US backed Islamist butchers from Aleppo by united Syrian and Iranian forces, backed by Russia, will allow the devastated city's remaining Christians  to celebrate a bleak Christmas this year. They may have little for a festive feast - but the gifts of life, family and hope will transcend the horrors of persecution, dreadful torture and genocide under the repressive and murderous regime of the Islamist rebels. 

Assad has many faults but religious intolerance is not amongst them. He protects not only Syria's ancient Christian population but also many other minority faiths, all the target of violence, hate and extinction by the Islamist rebels backed by Saudi Arabia and others. 

Fools including Cameron and George Osborne in the UK have done nothing but prolong the war, extend the agony and add to the heaps of dead and dreadfully injured innocents. Their corrupt links with KSA and Sunni business interests will not stand scrutiny - and they put greed for gold above the lives of the poor suffering innocents of Syria. May they have a miserable Christmas amongst their Islamist chums. 

Just rejoice and spare a prayer of thanks for our brothers and sisters now rebuilding their lives in Aleppo under Syrian government protection.  

President and Mrs Assad attend a Christmas service