Freedom Day

A year ago as the dawn Sun peeped over a valley rich with the Summer scent of new-cut hay I tuned into the Referendum results and got the shock of my life. No less stunned were the gloomy, funereal faces of the newscasters admitting the result. 

Since then much has happened. We have seen-off court cases, a hostile house of Lords, internal sabotage and a constant pissy whine from the old political establishment. Much remains to be done. We pray the resolve of our nation's leaders does not falter, that the sniping, bullying and undermining of the EU is overcome.

Yet I take comfort from the election, in which 86% of voters cast votes for Brexit parties, and from a recent You Gov poll that puts Leavers at 78% in total against 22% die-hard remainers. And every spiteful, bullying put-down from the hubristic EU Federast capos actually gains more and more of us to the Leave cause. 

The real Freedom Day will come in 2019 when we are free of the shackles of this despotic little Federation. But for now, this is a good anniversary to remember. 

Kensington duffer sacked

The forced resignation of Kensington and Chelsea Chief Executive Nicholas Holgate was on the grounds of the Council's appalling response to the aftermath of the Grenfell fire. More on this shortly. The yappy dags of the mainstream media though can't resist adding their own made-up reasons; "and for ignoring the repeated warnings of the fire risk" snaps the Mail, "and for neglect of the poor and of social housing" whines the Guardian. 

Across the country things are structured for the blue-light services to form the 'hard' response to civil emergency but for local authorities to co-ordinate the 'soft' side; power, water, sewerage, food, housing, transport, clothing, bedding, pets, banks, schools. Each council is given a substantial annual grant to maintain an Emergency Planning function including regular training; 'gold' 'silver' and 'bronze' commands in association with neighbouring councils are put in place. So when something like Grenfell happens, the machine swings smoothly into place. 

Except of course it didn't. K&C's response was non-existent. Holgate was an utter failure, a decorative popinjay, who left it up to churches, mosques and sharp-elbowed residents to organise food and clothing banks, blankets and so on. And despite K&C being replete with flats, Holgate's morons were sending DPs to council housing hundreds of miles away. In the event a group of six neighbouring councils had to step in to do what K&C was not - in the process excluding Holgate from the management of a crisis in his own borough. Even the departments of State each set up a stand on the estate and dispatched staff to serve the DPs - but not K&C council. 

It was quite right that this duffer was booted out. It also reminded me of the incompetence of the mayor of New Orleans in the days following the disastrous floods there. Such people must go. They earn their inflated salaries on the basis of a modicum of competence. When found wanting, they must be cast into the darkness.  

Update
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I've just found Simon Jenkins in the ES whose own piece mirrors my view:-

It was total humiliation. Yesterday, as the dust began to settle around the Grenfell Tower site, six London borough bosses met to co-ordinate rescue efforts and struggle to repair the reputation of local government. They did not include the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, on whose patch the tragedy occurred. In the chair was the chief executive of the City Corporation, John Barradell, with “leadership roles” for Westminster, Southwark, Ealing, Hounslow, Bromley and Harrow. I am told they did not even meet in the royal borough.

So, it's to be 'hard' Brexit then.

Confirmation from the Federast Empire that Brexit means exit from the customs union and single market will have disappointed a number of 'soft' Brexiteers. The statement came yesterday at the start of Brexit talks between the Kingdom and the Empire. And I use those terms with reason.

Imagine, some time after 1870, if the kingdom of Bavaria told the king of Prussia and Emperor of Germany that they wanted to leave the German federation, please, and go back to building castles and selling cuckoo clocks and lager. Prussia's anger would not only make it certain that Bavaria was excluded from the Zollverein but would take the hit on increased clock and lager costs, on principle.

But doesn't this just make our team's job easier? If this means any grant of UK aid to the Federation - though not the absurd €100bn of aid the EU are asking for - must be linked to a trade deal that replaces some of the elements of the foregone customs union and single market? That any agreed UK aid to the EU is conditional?

And surely, if yesterday's pronouncement from Barnier means we're already on WTO terms by default, we've got nothing to lose by walking away without agreeing a grant of aid to the 27?

Can anyone explain?

Grenfell Tower

Around 6am, 5am UK time, last Wednesday morning I started watching Grenfell Tower burning. It was clear from the footage that the fire progressed on the outside of the building. "Cladding" I said to my plumber. A bit of digging about found the portfolio pics on the website of Studio E architects, of Tooley Street; they confirmed that an aluminium sandwich panel was specified. The architects have since taken down their website and are keeping a very low profile. Their residential portfolio has also disappeared from their RIBA page. 

It's all about energy efficiency. This was a concrete tower block with inadequate insulation and single glazed steel or aluminium windows. To slash heat loss, new external wall insulation and double glazed windows have been a standard solution since the start of the century, and to that extent no problem. EWI on low rise and domestic buildings usually means dark grey PE or Polyethylene foam in blocks up to 150mm thick stuck and screwed onto the existing facade. On low rise this is then usually rendered to give a 15mm thick crust that stops people poking holes in the foam with their fingers (but useless against woodpeckers, who now prefer making nests in EWI than in trees). 

We've all known for years that PE foam was a fire risk, and it's always therefore been replaced by 120mm - 200mm of mineral wool for higher buildings. However, repeated wet work - layers of render coats - at heights is costly and problematic, with the risk of injury if the adhesive bond between render and rockwool fails and chunks fall off. In place of render on highrise buildings the industry instead uses rainscreen cladding, designed to be fairly but not absolutely waterproof. So a void is left between the cladding and the rockwool to allow some rainwater to drip down and be drained without soaking the EWI. Again, not a problem if the rainscreen cladding is not inflammable and if fire-stopping and drainage at each storey is incorporated. 

What we know from the photographs and news reports is that rockwool was used - correctly - for the insulation but so it seems was the inflammable PE foam - if only in a 5mm thick layer in the middle of an aluminium sandwich for the rainscreen cladding. Suspicions that fire-stopping was left out - which would make drainage behind the facade much cheaper and easier - would explain a chimney effect for the fire spread. 

Now, none of this is specialist construction design and engineering. Just about everyone in construction knows the problems with PE foam - and personally I won't even use it for low rise not just because it burns so easily but because it's completely vapour impermeable and stops buildings from breathing - and just about everyone knows the importance of fire stopping between dwellings. 

When those responsible for the design and execution of these works face the consequences of their errors it will not be enough to claim that since the government hadn't banned one material or another they are in the clear. All of us in positions of responsibility in construction have an absolute duty of care and design teams - CDM, designer, engineer, supervisor, PM, QS - are constituted in such a way as to provide post-hoc evidence of exactly how such decisions were made. You can be sure that since last Wednesday each one of them will have printed out and assembled every email from this job, every periodic report, every meeting, every bit of written evidence and will now each be constructing a narrative that minimises their own culpability. Lawyers will have been briefed. We must now all wait and allow the enquiry to do what it must. 

Grenfell Tower cladding drawing from Studio E architects

   

German Nordstream II investors running scared

The unexpected inclusion of sanctions measures against Euro firms assisting Russian energy exports in a Bill supposed to penalise Iran in the US has caused panic amongst the Euro corporates. The Local reports that Merkel's spokesman said that she 

'shared the concerns raised by Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern who charged in a joint statement on Thursday that the measure brings a "completely new and entirely negative quality to European-US relations". In a hard-hitting statement, the German and Austrian said they "cannot accept the threat of extra-territorial sanctions against European companies that participate in the expansion of European energy supplies" adding that this would "violate international law". They accused Washington of using the sanctions to squeeze Russian gas supplies out of Europe in favour of US energy exports. "The aim is to secure jobs in gas and oil industries in the US," said Gabriel and Kern.'

The major panic seems to be with the Nordstream II  scheme - owned by Russia's Gazprom but with substantial investments from Uniper, OMV, Royal Dutch Shell, BASF's Wintershall and Engie. All now face penalties wherever Trump's administration can reach them. 

Nothing to do of course with the EU's signalled intention to fine Google €1bn this year, of course, and if US penalties equal this figure it will be purely coincidental.

Watch out BMW and Audi ...

BREXIT IS DEAD - Der Spiegel

Der Spiegel seems pretty certain - the Germans have won, with the help of global corporatism and the Tory Party, and Brexit is dead.

We''ll come crawling back in a few years begging to be let back in, they say. And they warn that re-admission will mean Britain's utter humiliation - they want to grind our face in the dirt under the heel of the jackboot. We cocky Brits will learn who is boss.

Hey ho. 

Austria bans Burqa, Niqab in fight against Islamism

Austria's fight against Islamism continues with the passage of new laws that make it illegal to wear a Burqa or Niqab in public from 1st October. These garments are not part of core Muslim faith but rather a hostile declaration of Islamism and non-integration - both unacceptable here. The same law makes mandatory attendance for both migrant men and women at Austrian culture and language courses. 

The Libertarian part of me abhors any control over what people can wear - I'll defend to the death a young punk's right to express through bin liners, safety pins and a pink mohican his contempt for a corrupt world. And any man's right to wear ladies' vestments in public. That sort of thing. But these bloody black ghost garments are something different; anarchy in dress actually expresses uniformity of values, those values being freedom, liberty, liberalism, but the uniformity of Islamist costume expresses the opposite, expresses a destructive apartheid that we simply cannot tolerate. 

Christian nuns have long known that covering the hair and neck is a gesture of modesty; indeed, in my childhood all Catholic women were obliged to cover their hair in church with a headscarf. However, nuns have also long known that leaving the face and the eyes free was essential in order to communicate honesty and sincerity. 

As for my personal crusade with silly men who try to talk to me whilst they're wearing mirror sunglasses I simply keep repeating "Ich kann dich nicht hören" until either they give up or take them off, at which point my hearing is miraculously restored.

Ruth, not Boris

A rapid post. It was the yoof wot done it for Corbyn. The Sun and the Mail no longer determine elections, social media does. Corbyn offered free stuff to a generation that's poorer, and has to work harder and longer for less, than their parents. The Conservatives need to capture a share of the youth vote. Boris is seen as an old establishment mugwump, not popular. He won't win.

Try Ruth Davidson. How is she rated amongst 18 - 34 voters? Find her a seat in the next ten weeks. Put her up against Corbyn.

The EU army and borrowed Nukes

Lost in the election noise last week was the EU defence 'Reflection Paper'. I'd like to say it's worth reading but in fact only the assumptions and ambitions are noteworthy amongst the Federast waffle. The EU's ambitions are clear; three options are presented from 'Co-operation' to 'Shared' to 'Common'. Co-operation is the do-nothing option and is dismissed. 'Shared' means armed forces that remain under national control but integrate - a sort of EU NATO - and the Commission's favourite, 'Common', which means a single Euro defence force controlled by Brussels and merely funded by member states.  Believe me, the EU really does want its own army, navy and air force all badged with that vile twinkly yellow noose.

The assumption made is that the EU's multiplicity of kit - many types of main battle tank and so on - is uneconomic and rationalising ('consolidated procurement') could save €25bn to €100bn annually. It's bollocks of course. 'We have 17 types of combat tanks; the Americans have one' says Juncker in an interview with Der Spiegel  and the paper expands on this. The truth, though, is that this is driven by Euro defence firms greedy with hunger for taxes; US procurement and R&D is €108k per soldier compared to the EU's €28k, we're told. The bloody Germans want some of that, as do the French. And they'll have to give the Italians room at the trough, too. If you thought US defence cost overruns and defence corruption, fraud and mis-accounting were bad you've seen nothing - just wait until those Euro firms start in earnest. 

As I've posted below, I think the timing is important. EU free-riders will not now increase their NATO spending by a cent. The EU is calculating what's needed to make a Common EU army and national expenditure will be so directed; the spending may be badged as 'NATO' in the short term, but this will be mendacious. They've almost certainly also got an outline idea of how to fudge the divorce.

Which brings me to an interesting footnote - shared Nukes. The US, to help little countries without the bomb to feel included, has distributed 180 B61 air-launched nukes to Turkey, Germany (?), Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. These 'dial-a-yield' devices can be set on loading to yield from 0.3 to 170 kilotons (Hiroshima was 15) and they can be launched from a variety of national NATO aircraft - but need US consent to 'unlock' them. Will Mr Trump now ask for them back?

Cheer up! It could have been worse

Amidst the glum faces and recriminations this morning there are some silver linings. For a start, the ScotNats have been cut off at the knee - Ruth Davidson must surely now be in the running to replace Mrs May - and the Union is that little bit safer. Likewise with the leverage the DUP will now wield to ensure our border with Eire remains as it is now. Peace in Ulster is too important.

As for Brexit, well, it looks as if it will be a lot softer than it was last week. Mrs May will be forced to find consensus. In doing so the 48%, who have with some justification felt totally left out of their own governance, will now feel a tad less aggrieved. However, the power of the 22 Committee and the hard Euroskeptics will pushback strongly. Overall, I'm not devastated by any of this. Slowly Slowly. Our national congruence is just a tad healthier than it was yesterday, and that's important.

We Brits don't like snap elections intended to make PMs more powerful. When Heath asked "Who runs Britain?" in 1974 we answered "Not you, chum".  Mrs May has had a lesson in the dangers of hubris and must now expand her old discredited Home Office circle of advisors. 

On the upside the PLP will remain in chaos and Yvette Balls can now put away her leadership ambitions for another year and keep trying to live down her house-a-migrant promises. Fat Boy Watson will stay off our screens and we can watch Chuka Ummummma wriggle and squirm in newly discovered Corbynism. Hey ho.

Universities must banish Islamism

The government, through HFE funding, can force an immediate change for all new undergraduates wishing to attend UK universities that will significantly curb Islamism and make Islamist speech and action as unacceptable as racism or sexism. Simply, all new students must sign a declaration abrogating the seven key indicators of Islamism, and agreeing that should they be caught expressing or arguing such views it will be grounds for immediate expulsion. 

Islamism is not a matter for freedom of thought. Islamism is not a human right. Islamism is a perverse and inhuman death-cult that has no place whatsoever in a western democracy. It must be stamped out from every aspect of public life.  

Islamist failure in places one loves

Everything worthwhile on the slaughter by the Islamist animals in London over the weekend has already been said. We now wait action by whomever wins the election on Thursday. And yes, I voted more than a week ago for an MP for my inner London Constituency just ten minutes by train from London Bridge station. That's the point. The scene of this latest atrocity is as familiar to me as any place can be. Oh, it's happened before of course; I used to walk past tiny little St Etheldreda's each day - a simple medieval gem that had survived both the fire of London and the Blitz only to fall to the Provisional IRA. And the Baltic Exchange. And even to the bomb left on Platform 4 at London Bridge station that fortunately detonated twenty minutes before I was due to stand waiting for my train. 

The thing about this part of Southwark is that it's only partly gentrified and still scruffy with a bit of an edge. That's the joy. The National Trust's 'George' and the Market Porter may be a tad upscale but the Globe used to be (until its refit) a comfortable shithole with a front door to the street and a useful back door onto the cheese stalls. The Old Kings Head over the road is also truly trad with a hipster-repellant Sky Sports big screen. And alongside the costas and starbucks are places such as Cafe Rossi - Full English with two rounds and a mug of tea for a fiver. Fried chicken and betting shops share street frontages with hipster bespoke cheese emporia and bakers making sourdough with vaginal yeast. This is where I bought my weekly pound of real dry bacon and indulged in half a dozen freshly shucked Mersea Island natives standing at a formica counter. Here was where we met after work to tie-on a session - with a short intoxicated stumble to the station to get home. 

Nah those sodding little Islamist buggers can't ruin it. Only the hipsters, the city wealthy and the dreary sterile gentrifiers can do that. 

Cafe Rossi - All day breakfast a fiver

Germany will never, ever pay more than now for NATO

Many of us will have grown up with the BAOR - either as serving soldiers or like myself as army brats. There was a time when Gütersloh, Fallingbostel or Sennelager were more familiar to us than Slough, Reading or Peterborough. The BBC even had a forces radio programme, and knowing at least half a dozen BFPO numbers was par for the course. Well, BAOR disappeared without notice in 1994. The 25,000 remaining troops in Germany became BFG, now down to about 4,000 and scheduled to pull out completely by 2020, almost exactly in line with Brexit. 

The change came with the fall of the wall in 1989. Before then, our lads were to play a vital role in forming a heroic but utterly pointless sacrifice in holding up the Soviet advance through Germany to France for about 72 hours. Then we all thought it an essential sacrifice. Now we wonder, why bother? Perhaps France and Germany would be better off under Russian rule. Why shed British blood in their defence? 

When Trump abstained from the traditional annual G7 offering of American blood in Germany's defence last week he too must have felt the same. Germany has been financially raping Europe for thirty years, sitting on a vast pile of gold as she threatens, bullies and manoeuvres others to pay for everything, like some nightmare dining partner endlessly disputing the division of the restaurant bill.  

Turkey is now a Salafist terrorist nation  and belongs nowhere near NATO. In bullying the Netherlands into ignoring the veto of the Dutch people and extending full EU privileges to Ukraine, the EU has just given Putin another poke with a sharp stick. The UK will find it hard to mobilise even 6,500 troops - we need a standing army of 100,000 to put an adequate force in the field. Germany's armed forces are to all purposes entirely useless. Amidst the ruins of NATO (and oh yes it's now finished in all but name*) there's only France to defend the EU. 

Merkel may gamble that she'll get away with it, and perhaps she will. But without British and American wealth and blood to pay for it. We're done. 

*Also proving the rule that corporations are most likely to fail at the point at which they open a spanking glossy new multi billion dollar HQ

Charity industry whines at lobbying restrictions

As the Grauniad reports, there is a huge whine coming from the professional charity industry. A 2014 Act that requires them to be politically neutral during elections in return for tax breaks and other privileges is preventing them from using their people and funds to campaign for Corbyn, they say. Or rather say in effect. They pretend they want to point out the flaws in Conservative policy (without commenting on Corbyn's manifesto, you understand) but we all know for whose benefit many of our charities are run - their executives.  

Even excluding the fake charities - lobby groups funded by the EU, government departments, local authorities or global corporates to the extent that less than half their income is from public donations or legacies - much of the rest of the charitable industry sector has taken on the mantle of big business with Common Purpose staffers. 

It is instructive that Labour has promised to remove the political campaigning restrictions if it gains power. What's actually needed is a huge shake-up of the whole corrupt weaselly scam, a clear-out of the crooked misappropriation of donations in inflated salaries and luxury perks for charity bosses, a mass cull of fake charities, a Charity Commission with real teeth and protections for the public - in knowing that if they give money, at least 85% of it will go to the beneficiaries, in knowing that the charity's workers are working for the recipients of aid not the Labour Party and knowing that a charity is not 'owned' by a corporate lobbyist.  

Taormina, oafs and whores

The Euro press was not amused by President Trump's rough handling of their leaders at the G7 in Taormina. 'Oafish' said one; 'Boor in Chief' said Handelsblatt. Burdick and Lederer's Ugly American had resurfaced in Europe, it seemed. But Macron, Merkel and some bloke called Gentiloni who is supposed to be Italy's Prime Minister are not only isolated from Sicily's present day realities in their sumptuous and secure luxury but I'll bet are missing any idea of what Taormina represented in 1943.

Today, Sicily is filled with Maghrebi and sub-Saharan African migrants, in the absence of work or benefit begging, stealing, whoring. The advance guard of several millions of economic migrants preparing to cross the Med into Europe's underbelly their purpose is in sharp contrast to the US forces and British 8th Army waiting there in 1943 ready to invade the Italian mainland. Fresh from victory in North Africa, they too had crossed the Med to Sicily - and after cruel battle there took a brief and deserved rest before the final slog Northwards up the Italian mainland. That late Summer of 1943 was by all accounts perfect. Not only Alan Moorehead but Alan Whicker were there, having bagged themselves billets of some comfort, as had the war artist Edward Ardizzone. 

Trump's real anger at Euro NATO defence free-riding is understandable given the tangible sacrifice of British and American lives that made their Federation possible. He can be excused a certain oafishness at their selfish and self-interested parsimony. He pointedly refrained from committing more American blood in their defence if it happens again. To put Taormina in context, I reproduce below a brief note of Whicker's war-world. And an Ardizzone sketch lest we forget. 

Ardizzone- In Sicily, fighting

Islamist Ramadan killing month starts on Saturday

The bloody month of Ramadan starts on Saturday - the traditional period for Islamist atrocities, murder and bloodshed. The death-cultists will no doubt be preparing some special treats for us all and yet more innocent people will die at the hands of these evil animals. Yet as we have seen in Manchester, not all Muslims are Islamists, and not all Muslims will hide and cover-up their evil. I've posted several times before that lashing out against all Muslims is mistaken - that we must be far more targeted, far more precise. Remember that Abadi was reported to the incompetent security services by fellow Muslims several times, and we have let them down.

It is in particular Salafist Sunni Islam - the Wahhabi and Deobandi death cults - that are responsible not just for ALL the Islamist terrorism in the UK but the source of a sea of blood in Iraq and the Middle East. And behind it are wealthy and powerful figures from Saudi Arabia's ruling establishment; these monsters are every bit as responsible for the shattered dead in Manchester as the fool Abadi and their other Islamist foot soldiers. It is the fat paederast princes in Riyadh we must target - and metaphorically blow their perfumed keyboard fingers to buggery.  

I urge you do not be distracted into a general anti-Muslim crusade. You are wasting your time and energy against the wrong people. And you may be breaking the law. Concentrate on the downfall of the evil Islamist doctrine of Salafism instead; get Salafist mosques closed, Salafist imams deported, Salafist schools and madrassas closed, Salafist websites and facebook pages purged, Salafist bank accounts seized, Salafist property frozen and all Salafist funding from Saudi Arabia sequestered. Use all your power under section 29J of the 2006 Act to express 'antipathy, dislike, ridicule,insult and abuse' for Salafism; stamp their risible, inane, primitive religion into the dungheap and let's ban it from Britain's shores.

Would internment have prevented Manchester?

Would preventive internment have prevented the Manchester horror? Last time we tried internment, in Northern Ireland it was approved by 'Grocer' Heath in 1971 and 350 paddies were banged up. The initial problems were twofold; there were 450 names on the list but 100 got away due to police and army incompetence, and only Catholics were interned - loyalist potential killers were left free. By the time the scheme - called 'Operation Demetrious' by the inept security bunglers - was ended four years later things had hardly changed. There were 1,874 Catholic thugs and only 107 proddy thugs banged up. Economic damage was incalculable, from mass civil disobedience, rent strikes, civic criminal damage and sabotage. Thirteen protesters had been shot dead by the Paras. It was universally agreed that internment was an utter failure, radicalising more terrorists than it took off the streets. Not one experienced police, security or armed forces officer will support it. The evidence is that it doesn't work.

Yet as far as the animal Abedi is concerned, our security bunglers have bungled again. Here was a classic social failure, so thick his mates called him 'Dumbo' with a brow so low he could have passed for a native in the states of the deep south. A classic subject for the evil fantasies of Islamism with its primitive, simple tenets that can be understood by even the very stupid. So well did he absorb the poison that his mates reported him to the terrorist security line twice and his own mosque once. He travelled to and from Libya, a hotbed of Islamism. His brothers and father were Islamists, their own brows hardly less Neanderthal than his own. Everyone who knew him classed him as a nut-job exploding jihadist, and the security bunglers knew it all. Surely, had he been banged up away from the internet, without his passport and his 3G phone, Manchester would have been prevented?  The expert evidence suggests otherwise. 

The domestic security service has around 4,000 workers and a budget of £3bn, with police forces across the country to do their legwork. Yet they and the police seem to spend more time and energy chasing Katie Hopkins for being rude about Islam than preventing terrorist killers. Abedi should not have slipped through the net. Someone screwed up. 

It is fantasy to believe that any other than reasonable, justifiable and equitable measures can be taken in the fight against Islamism. Internment is a savage, sectarian and ultimately futile measure that satisfies populist anger but actually helps the Jihadists. Ankle tags, yes. Confiscation of passport and travel bans, yes. House arrest, possibly. Daily reporting, possibly. Internet bans, yes. 

But above all the bungling security services need to apologise to the Muslims - Abedi's imam and his friends - who actually acted as responsible citizens and reported him to the government hotlines but these security agencies then did absolutely nothing. And someone must be sacked for that. 

Islamist animal slaughters children

That Islamists have no place in Western societies is not news. Nor that some of them are brutal, amoral killers and lack any vestige of human compassion. Nor that the followers of the perverted death cult frequently pick children as their victims. We knew that the Islamists were busy plotting to slaughter us, that our open borders have allowed killers, guns and explosives to enter the country without hindrance. Most Islamists are still free to broadcast their perverted and inhuman propaganda on social media - the death cult's forum. So nothing about last night's slaughter of children in Manchester should have shocked or surprised us - yet it has.   

It was a Monday night break for young girls and their mums, with the promise of the start of Summer and in the carefree days before exam results in August. Travel plans had been made and co-ordinated with other parents; tram and pick-up, taxi, last train and meet at the station. Mobiles checked, promises extracted. For some it would be their first late night out, the start of an adventure into young adulthood, with all its dreams and aspirations. This morning those dreams lay shattered in puddles of clotted blood and ironmongers' shrapnel. 

May God grant us strength to defeat the evil of this death cult. 

It also seems that a warning was given some four hours before the slaughter; we're told that this twitter account is now suspended. I wish we could say the same for @owys663. 

Could Germany's next problem be an Austrian?

The young fella above is, at 30, Austria's foreign minister, the new leader of the ÖVP and mooted as the country's next chancellor after October's snap election. Sebastian Kurz could also face down his German opposite number - whether Merkel or Martin Schulz - after Germany's September federal elections. The architect of blocking the Balkans migrant route by ignoring the EU and Germany and stitching up a deal with Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, Kurz is also a fierce critic of Merkel's migrant policies.

The ÖVP is the traditional centre-right party in which farmers, burghers and family / craft business owners found a home. Since the war it has a long history of governing in coalition with a Blairite, soft left SPÖ - but as elsewhere in Europe, the two are in trouble. The hard right  FPÖ, home to horny handed beer drinkers and drivers of overweight SUVs who resent change and migration, came within a whisker of putting their man Herr Hofer in the presidential palace. Right now they're polling high, and expected to do well in October. That the next Austrian government could be an FPÖ / ÖVP coalition is a distinct possibility; Kurz, the cute face, out in front but Heinz-Christian Strache, the FPÖ's boss, as the iron fist. 

A Kurz government would bolster the Vizegrad 4. Hungary's Orban is already a Kurz fan. His success would leave Europe with an ideological block stretching from the Baltic almost to the Adriatic that opposes the policies of the Franco-German pact; Christian, orthodox in belief, small c conservative, with congruent cultural traditions and populations largely intact from cultural enrichment, the old MittelEurope nations could be Germany's worst headache. 

Germans oppose squandering their wealth for indolent Mediterranean folk to sleep in the Sun their wine-quieted eyes. The Eastern bloc in contrast grafts hard and multiplies investment. Austria is stuck between Italian idleness and Polish zeal - accustomed to high tax socialist languor but with a northern European work ethos and guilt complex. The coming election may be a leap northwards.

Goodbye ECJ - and ECHR, I'll fetch your coat

Much of what Mrs May announced yesterday as manifesto commitments was geared not at voters but at our enemies in that Other place - the Lords. I think she felt comfortable enough in a majority that she could afford a few vote losers or even vote neutrals. By custom, anything included in an election manifesto is not challengeable by the Lords. She traded, I think, maybe five seats for a smooth ride out of Europe. 

She made clear that there would be a clear break with the ECJ and good riddance. However, she gave the government five more years to rid ourselves of the ECHR. I know this will raise hackles, but I can understand her position. We're too busy with existential matters right now to kick out this frumpery; we must tolerate the ECHR humping our shin like a dirty little dog whilst we finish the important stuff. Then a decent kick should send it spinning ooh twenty yards.  

All in all, a balance of advantages. That puerile cretin Farron looks more absurd each day and Labour have become a pantomime act that the nation finds vastly entertaining. I'll wait until 9th June, but if little Owen Jones is right, Labour's failure should presage the collapse of the European left.