Selmayr determined to inflict 'punishment beating' on UK

Robert Hardman in the Mail profiles Martin Selmayr this morning. Amongst the revelations that we already suspected is that "(Selmayr) will certainly play a key role in determining the sort of Brexit we are offered. As one Brussels insider put it to me: 'If Martin has his way, it will be not so much a deal as a punishment beating.' "

I was looking back this week at a collection of lithographs on flimsy paper published in December 1918 - almost a century ago - by a Belgian artist who had been confined along with French and British soldiers in a German POW camp. Turning the fragile leaves, one is immediately struck by the extent to which these German WWI POW camps were a rehearsal for the concentration camps of the NSDAP era. The brutality, the wire, the watch towers, the starvation, the random shooting of prisoners and, yes, the punishment beatings are all there - a prototype for Dachau, Belsen and Theresienstadt.

Here is a lithograph titled  'der Schlag'. It is, no doubt, illustrative of the sort of punishment beating that this 'modern' German Chief Official would like to administer to Britain. With Selmayr, Europe has regressed one hundred years.

Martin Selmayr attends to the UK?

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Postscript - additional image

Only the fascists and Marxists will gain from a bad Brexit

Allister Heath in the Telegraph (£) firmly connects hammer to nail this morning;

The consequences of a Brexit betrayal would be catastrophic: there would no longer be any halting the tide of anti-establishment fury that has been building since the early 1990s. Support for mainstream parties would collapse and new ones would emerge. Yes, a centrist business-as-usual grouping may well be one of those that arises from the rubble, but its supporters – the Remain metropolitan base – massively overestimate its potential. It would be small, little larger than the Lib Dems are today. Sadly, the libertarian yet Eurosceptic party of my dreams would be even tinier.

The real winners would be nasty, European-style extremist parties of Left and Right that would desecrate our public life. The polling is depressingly clear: swathes of people would vote for a new authoritarian party under certain circumstances, while there is extensive support for hard line socialist positions. The poison of far-Right and far-Left demagoguery would contaminate our body politic, as has already started with the rise of Corbyn and anti-Semitism in the Labour Party; and just like in other countries, millions would end up voting for detestable people with repellent ideas.

In refusing to accept the referendum result, in this constant, febrile, attritional campaign against cutting the ties to a failing Federast empire, the country's supposed elite are acting like purblind idiots. They are blundering in their arrogance into a place in which the politics of hate, fear and force drive out the freedom and liberty we have spent centuries building; the repulsive bullying, authoritarian racism and vicious spitefulness of far right and far left would crowd-out fairness, decency and tolerance. 

Heath concludes his piece with the one question we have all been asking for the past two years - if the elite are so bloody intelligent, why are they fighting to ally us with the EU?

Mainstream, popular policies of the kind routinely embraced by self-governing countries around the world could nip the extremists in the bud and give the Tories 45 per cent of the vote. Why can’t they see this? And why is the establishment willing to gamble everything for its irrational love of a failing super-state?

So, Oliver Robbins sneers at Brexit committee

With a deep sneer of contempt across his twisted face, the unelected official in charge of sabotaging Brexit faced down MPs yesterday. His expression says it all. 

Politics in turmoil - conditions favour the extremists

WE have had an unequivocal assurance from Mrs May in the past few days that there will not be a second Brexit referendum. Of course, that means nothing. Mrs May's past assurances on the Customs Union, free movement and ECJ jurisdiction have been over-ruled by the elite establishment, and today no assurance from her on a second referendum means anything unless confirmed by Oliver Robbins. 

The BBC is giving much airtime to anyone calling for a second referendum at this time because the polls have been swinging towards 'Remain'. However, the polls are close and erratic, and could easily shift back. The most recent, from 14th July by Deltapoll, shows 50/50 but this could be a rogue. 

 Yougov however cautions against relying on polls re-asking the referendum question;

However, just because people think Brexit is the wrong decision, it doesn’t necessarily mean they think it should be reversed. They do not. When we ask what people think the government should do about leaving the EU, just over half (53%) think that it should go ahead with Brexit, mostly on its current course (42%) though 11% would prefer a softer Brexit. A fifth (21%) think that the government should call a fresh referendum instead, while 13% would prefer them just to halt Brexit altogether.

Neither is there much support for other means by which the decision to leave the EU could be reversed. By 50% to 29% people think it would be illegitimate for MPs in the House of Commons to vote against Brexit going ahead, and by 45% to 37% people oppose the idea of another referendum once the terms of the withdrawal negotiations are known.

With confirmation that Vince Cable has been in talks about a new Limehouse Declaration to save the rapidly dying LibDems, offering a broad leftist Remainer umbrella, there is also a poll suggestion that a new pro-Brexit party could get 38% of the vote and rumours that Nigel Farage is in funding discussions to form such a party to attract both Conservatives and the lighter mauve UKIPpers.

A new far-right authoritarian anti-Islamic party could, frighteningly, attract 24% of voters from deep purple Kippers and those with a ' British National Party, National Front, British Freedom Party, British People's Party, English Defence League, Britain First or the UK First Party' background - currently 'banned' from UKIP. Cough cough.  

And with confirmation expected today that Labour will officially go anti-semitic and all the little lefty Nazi Corbynistas can trample the Star of David, the old parties are hardly helping to preserve political stability. 

'Turmoil' I think is the word. 

Intelligent Brexit analysis converges

More and more intelligent voices are being heard condemning the calculated subversion of democracy by the highest echelons of the civil service. They've been roundly rumbled - and now we must watch their every move to guard our precious democracy from their cynical and unscrupulous corruption. Let there be no mistake - it's not swivel-eyed loons who are cataloguing the depths of their malfeasance, but a convergence of academic, journalistic and social media commentary that is exposing the raw power-mongering of this unelected elite. As the academic David Blake writes in the Telegraph (£) -

In short, the White Paper is not intended to be the final stage of a transition to a "softer Brexit", but rather the first stage in the establishment’s campaign – led by the senior civil servants at No. 10 – to reverse Brexit.

One strong piece of evidence for this comes from the fact that was an “alternative” White Paper being prepared by the Department for Exiting the European Union. This was developing the “Canada plus plus plus” free trade deal, the only sensible deal consistent with the referendum result. This proposal was trashed by the No.10 civil servants which led to David Davis’s resignation. The same civil servants now want to close DexEU down.

Then add in the deliberate incompetence of the UK’s negotiating strategy. Triggering Article 50 before we were fully prepared. Agreeing, in the context of the fixed two-year time frame for the negotiations, to the sequencing of the three stages of the negotiations (divorce, withdrawal and future relationship) where the EU alone determines when each stage is finished. Agreeing to pay a £39bn divorce bill before any trade deal was in place. This is all part of the Mad Hatter’s strategy. Lord Kerr, the British civil servant who drafted Article 50, said that he deliberately chose the short two-year time frame to make it virtually impossible for any country to leave the EU. Lord Heseltine said on the day after the referendum that Brexit would never happen.

The final piece of evidence was the immediate call from strong Remain supporters for a second referendum with three options – accept the terms of the White Paper, go for a “no deal” or stay in the EU – whose only purpose would be to split the Leave vote.

The price of democracy is constant vigilance. US readers will wonder why these senior officials are not being dragged before Parliament; Congress or Senate would not be so lenient. But Westminster is not Capitol Hill. Despite 400 of 650 Commons seats having voted Brexit, and 82.4% of UK voters voting for the two main parties in 2017 both of which had Brexit as a manifesto commitment, most MPs quietly support the coup being attempted by our civil servants.

We leave the coup plotters a warning. You violate British democracy at your peril - so long as we preserve universal suffrage and the secret ballot, we can still have your heads on the block. Democratically and literally if we have to. And that applies to any guilty ex-MPs a new Brexit election displaces.  

Boris gives May one last chance to ditch Oliver Robbins

With, I must say, unexpected Statemanship, Boris yesterday ended his resignation speech not in the manner of Geoffrey Howe but by calling on May to ditch the siren voices of Oliver Robbins, Jonathan Black and the  other Viziers of the Europe Unit and return to her Lancaster House vision. You can be sure that speech was not written by a colourless, robotic EUphile mandarin in love with the power of officialdom but by someone with a deep love for their nation, confidence in the British people and with hope for the future. None of which three traits are remotely apparent in the higher echelons of the civil service. 

Allister Heath in the Telegraph (£) pretty much has it today - 

Too many ultra-Remainers think that those who voted Leave suffered from “false consciousness”, that they were duped, manipulated or conned, that they will eventually tire of the exercise and roll over, and that a Brexit in Name Only – or even pretending that the referendum never actually happened – would allow the natural order to be re‑established.

This is delusional nonsense, the kind of attitude that would have been prevalent in the court of Louis XVI after the Bastille was taken; tragically, it is also the advice that May has been receiving since she sidelined her Cabinet Brexiteers and entrusted her entire strategy to the civil service.

It's now certain that May will go - but at a time of her successor's choosing, not hers or her Grand Vizier's. She has only one chance to avoid either the UK crashing out next March without a deal or a humiliating request for an extension of Article 50 - and that's to do as Boris says. Move Mr Robbins to head up the Ascension Island Development Corporation, disperse the highers to Agriculture, Transport and Local Government, and send the rest of the Europe Unit back to DEXEU and Dominic Raab.  

One chance, Mrs May. Don't blow it.  

Never trust the Viziers

Interlude

No Brexit today - I just can't do it. 

Off to Spain, then. I can just remember fascist Spain under Franco in the early 1970s - desperate poverty, asses carrying goods rather than the Commer vans that we had, wrinkled grannies in black doing dreadful things to children, fear and religious superstition, the secret police, and Franco's victims uneasy in their hidden graves. We had 10cc, Suzi Quattro and Genesis. They had torture. It was a third-world fascist shithole. Growing-up seeing the depths of degradation that far-right zealotry could bring to a European people, Spain left me with a lifelong hatred of fascism, far right authoritarianism, the racial purity nutters, the National Front (in those days) and anyone who wanted to control what I did with my own willie. I cheered when Franco died.

Years later, in the Easyjet age,  I saw the forensic tents over pieces of undeveloped scrubland beyond the city boundaries, exhuming the victims of Franco's death squads before the pile-drivers moved in to buid new apartments or industrial sheds. The sight moved me beyond words, and cemented my loathing of fascism.

Now Franco's raddled corpse itself is to be removed from Valle de los Caídos, a vast egoistic memorial to Franco and the unknown rapist. Well, good. Except, as politico-eu reports, the fascists are still with us, protesting at the desecration of their saint. At least it seems that the lady-fascists shave their pits these days, or perhaps the boy-fascist to her right is hiding her pit-hair under his nose?  Hey ho.

Cabinet Office Europe Unit - The Enemy Within

Europe Unit - Cabinet Office

Oliver Robbins, Permanent Secretary
Jonathan Black, Director Europe Unit
Five Deputy Directors
Six Cabinet Office Band As
Seven Cabinet Office Band Bs


"The Europe Unit’s mission is to support the development and execution of the Government’s strategy for an orderly withdrawal from, and establishment of a new partnership with, the European Union. Our main roles are to:

• Give the Prime Minister the best possible advice on how to lead the Government’s approach;
• Support coherent and timely cross-Government decision-making; and
• Work with other departments to advocate and deliver the Government’s position with European partners, especially through work as the Prime Minister’s EU Sherpa and Coordinator of the negotiations with the European Commission."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It's no wonder David Davis resigned when the full extent of Theresa May's duplicity became clear. She has nurtured her own 'Remain' unit at the heart of the Cabinet Office to work against everything that DEXEU was trying to do. When Jonathan Black was pictured shmoozing cabinet ministers at Chequers whilst selling the Robbins White Paper, a document unknown to the department that should have written it, you knew a coup had just taken place. A coup led by EUphile mandarins against not only elected members, but against the democratic mandate given by the people of Britain. 

We should have picked up the signals back in January, when a gloomy, pro-remain economic assessment was 'leaked' from Whitehall;  DEXEU denied any involvement, and the finger swiftly pointed to the Europe Unit. But no mandarin was ever moved or dismissed - and we can now speculate whether the 'leak' was not authorised by Theresa May herself as part of a covert campaign against her own cabinet.

Again, at a meeting of EU defence officials, they were joined by another Europe Unit mandarin, Alastair Brockbank, who told them under conditions of strict secrecy that they should 'count the UK in' to their EU PESCO defence force plans, so confident were these mandarins of sabotaging Brexit. And now we have a furious Airbus, manipulated and induced by the Europe Unit into launching a 'campaign Fear' assault on Brexit only to learn that Airbus has lost out to Boeing in replacing our E-3 'Sentry' aircraft.

It is simply intolerable that we should nurture this nest of vipers at the heart of government. The Europe Unit ARE the Enemy Within. They are implacable enemies to our democracy, as dangerous as the 'Spycatcher' nutters in MI5 MI6 in the 1960s who plotted to overthrow Wilson. Except now they are not just plotting - they are actively working to overthrow our parliamentary democracy. It is unforgivable that Theresa May has allied herself with such vipers. She, and they, must go.

Every Leave constituency where the MP voted to Remain

This list was done just before last year's election and clearly needs updating.

New MPs who entered the House for the first time in 2017 need to be classified. Otherwise, as the next election will be Leave vs. Remain, we have 400 target Remain-MP seats to overturn, both Tory and Labour.

I'd suggest the only way any of the 400 can be exempted from a 'Leave' candidate challenge is by voting down the government next week and declaring for a WTO Brexit.

HERE IT IS

Update - Saturday am
================
Peter Oborne gets it - read his piece in the Mail and get ready for the tectonic plates to shift! And I would urge all Leave readers to use the excellent online facility to join the Conservative Party - whether or not you are already members of UKIP or the Labour Party. After all, you carry both a Tesco club card and a Nectar card, don't you?

Owen Paterson sets Brexit acid test

A brief post today. With a crucial Commons vote on the sell-out White Paper probably coming next week, positions are already being staked out. Most MPs are gracious enough to indicate they will wait for the debate in the chamber before making their minds up. The clearest argument I've read this morning is from Owen Paterson - who writes in the Telegraph (£)

The Government has repeatedly told us that it believes “no deal is better than a bad deal.” Having now shown us what a bad deal looks like, the Prime Minister must quickly ramp up preparations for moving to WTO terms or face the catastrophic damage to our democratic institutions that would ensue on failing to deliver the biggest mandate that the British people have ever given.

The EU Withdrawal Act means European law will cease to apply to the UK on exit day. Under the Chequers agreement, the Government will have to reinstate large chunks of EU law and Parliament will have to vote on it. My criterion is simple: unless the Government’s proposal is better than WTO terms, I will vote against it.

There you go Mrs May; tell the house how subservience to the ECJ, open EU borders, the status of a rule-taking Satrap state, prohibition from free trade and bleeding Britain's wealth in protection racket payments to the Federast mafia is better than full independent WTO membership and you have Mr Paterson's support. 

The enemy within

The concept of 'the enemy within' surfaces regularly through time and history precisely because the threat is real. Two quotes only.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. - Cicero

We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty. - Margaret Thatcher

That Brexit has been turned from the democratic will of the people of Britain into a disastrous betrayal of voters is wholly the doing of an enemy within the very heart of government. Today the political class will publish its Brexit White Paper, which their administrator Mrs May has already cleared with Frau Merkel. The elite have ensured their well padded nests remain comfortable, and bugger democracy. As Quentin Letts had it in the Mail yesterday

For me, an elite is an essential part of any aspirational society, for it can create a top tier which those on lower strata can aim to join. Yet an elite must be porous. It must not try to fence off its privileges. That is what our elite, in the law, the BBC, Civil Service, the Confederation of British Industry and elsewhere have been doing. Horrified by what they see as the ignorance of the pro-Brexit lower orders, they are fighting dirtily to maintain their Brussels career paths, their industrial subsidies and those EU regulations which create oodles of work for them.

We have allowed those who think they know best for us, a privileged elite of powerful and well connected bureaucrats, who see the best future as one in which Europe's unelected bureaucrats rule unfettered to secure the best outcomes for all we poor benighted fools, to cement their gains of a power near which they should never have been allowed. Our mandarins are simply an enemy within, fighting with great power against the democratic wishes of the people. 

They have run away with government. Our Prime Minister is no more than Olly Robbins' compliant tool, like a wind-up doll speaking crass saccharine lying words that rob us of our State. Olly and his chums are ever present and all powerful. They are our enemy. And make no mistake, they must be defeated.

Britain's next Prime Minister attends RAF centenary service

Britain's next Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Jeremy Corbyn PC MP, today attended a service of celebration for the centenary of the Royal Air Force. Looking elegant in expensively crumpled 'Lands End' linen, Mr Corbyn accessorised with a pair of 'Bic' biros worn in the breast pocket and a Gregg's Vegetable Pasty in a side pocket. 

Seriously, if the May deal goes through I shall be campaigning for Corbyn at the next GE - in the absence of a Brexit party standing. I'm afraid it's time to make Liberals of the dear old Conservative Party. It's failed us, and has no right to survive. 

♬Oh! Jeremy Corbyn .. Oh! Oh! Oh! Jeremy Corbyn ...♬

The Mandarins won Chequers - BRINO will destroy democracy in UK

Make no mistake, this is a crisis of democracy. I woke this morning to hear of the resignations of David Davis, Steve Baker and Suela Braverman from DExEU. Elsewhere, leaks have sprung that the Federast mandarins found this pro-Brexit department not only threatening but gaining power in Whitehall. Now without its ministers, the brave Brexit civil servants who staff the department are lost. Hammond, May and the Remainers have won. They didn't even have to wait for Herr Barnier to contemptuously dismiss the Chequers plan and demand that the UK concede even more to the Lords of Brussels. 

The mandarins won Chequers. Their contempt for the democratic will of the British people is absolute. We are disposable and replaceable. Their globalist chums in the Federation and at the reins of the global corporates will maintain them in power.

Already they are plotting alternatives to popular democracy, to ensure that never again can the people of Britain rebel like we rebelled in June 2016. This is a watershed, and there is little hope we can salvage our nation and our democracy unless the people of Britain unite anew in one concerted effort to defeat the evil of the Federast behemoth.

The hour has come.

WELL, PRIME MINISTER, WERE YOU LYING OR NOT?

The issue today at Chequers is very simple. Theresa May made an unequivocal promise on three red lines that she pledged on her honour she would uphold;

- An end to UK membership of the Customs Union
- An end to UK membership of the Single Market
- An end to the jurisdiction of the ECJ in the United Kingdom

The question that will be answered this weekend is simply - was she lying? 

A Prime Minister lying to Parliament is very serious indeed. A Prime Minister lying to the British people, as Blair has found, is more serious by far. For ever deprived of official honours, loathed, shunned and scorned by the people, a reputation in fouled rags, condemned to spend the rest of their pathetic lives in post-hoc apologia, begging for interviews on the 'Today' programme. 

Well, Theresa, which future do you see for yourself?

Corrupt Euro MPs vote to keep stolen tax money secret

The European Parliament is a a massive corrupt pustular cyst at the heart of the EU, a body intended only as a PR gesture to counter the reality of anti-democratic rule by a cabal of self-selecting officials. It's fake democracy at an international scale. In return for the shame of being the feculent tools of a loathsomely crooked mafia, MEPs have the consolation of having their mouths stuffed with gold - a pre-tax monthly salary of €8,611.

But of course this is not all. There will be legitimate expenses - travel, correspondence and so on. Any transparent, open democratic organisation pays such expenses in return for proof of expenditure, and determination of eligible use of public funds. In the UK getting to this stage was like pulling teeth - but even Gorbals Mick, the most corrupt speaker the Commons has had in living memory, could not hide the truth or stop the sunlight reaching those dark places. People of course have a right to know how their tax is being spent by their elected representatives, our courts found. 

But not of course in that seething stink hole of bloated fraud, peculation and simony that is the European Parliament. The over-full mouths of MEPs are merely stuffed with even more gold - another €4,416, paid as a fixed lump sum, for which no receipts are required, no accounting necessary, and no public scrutiny possible.  

From time to time, in reaction to public opinion such as this, the fake Parliament allows MEPs to consider a token suggestion to reform the legalised theft. This occurred again this year. And like all other suggestions that would make MEPs more transparent and accountable, it was firmly thrown out, MEPs rejecting any suggestion that they account for their expenses. 

Thrust those snouts in deep, folks; bloat yourself on that swill whilst you can. It may soon be past. 

Vid - H/T Doug. Click caption button for English subtitles.

Denmark hardens compulsory integration of Muslim 'ghettoes'

Now here's a story notable for its absence from UK media - and not one from some crackpot news source but from the New York Times. What the Danes are doing in 25 Muslim 'ghettoes' (and yes, the NYT says that word is explicitly used, but I can't confirm it) to enforce integration seems harsh, but I guess the longer it's left the harder it becomes. I won't paraphrase the entire, thoughtful and comprehensive article by Ellen Barry and Martin Selsoe Sorensen but here's a taste;

Rokhaia, her due date fast approaching, flared with anger at the mandatory preschool program approved by the government last month: Already, she said, her daughter was being taught so much about Christmas in kindergarten that she came home begging for presents from Santa Claus.

“Nobody should tell me whether or how my daughter should go to preschool. Or when,” she said. “I’d rather lose my benefits than submit to force.”

One of the measures being implemented is that "Starting at the age of 1, 'ghetto children' must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in 'Danish values,' including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language."

All across Europe, amongst the old, original EU members rather than the newcomers of the Visegrad group, laws to force reluctant Muslims to integrate are gaining traction. Burqa bans, bans on Saudi and foreign funding of mosques and imams, clampdowns on arranged marriages and female genital mutilation and measures to force integration are becoming mainstream. 

One measure yet to be adopted by any European state is a ban on first-cousin marriages. Though these are unlawful in China and in many US states (and a criminal offence in others) it remains legal in Europe to marry your first cousin. Some 55% of Muslim marriages in the UK are first cousin unions, producing, as such things do, the most terrifying crop of deformed, seriously malformed or mentally subnormal offspring who are a serious burden to the NHS. Labour minister Phil Woolas called this the 'elephant in the room' and said in 2008 that "If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there'll be a genetic problem" - yet the UK has not yet taken action to ban the vile practice. 

Legal first cousin marriages (blue) or not (other)

 But I think the message is becoming clear to those considering migrating to Europe from one of the 'stans or from North Africa - that the prospect of establishing and maintaining detached nations-within-nations here in Europe is in rapid decline. Possibly we have even passed 'peak Islam' as nation states across Europe roll out the pushback.   

Poor women with large tattooed breasts - 11 years on

Back in May 2007 I posted a piece titled "Poor women with large tattooed breasts will have to do the best they can" which has, over the years, attracted over 3,000 hits. I guess some 2,800 googlers or more will have been disappointed. There were no illustrations. It was about non-essential NHS procedures and I wrote

Whilst I also believe that funding decisions should be made at the local level by local bodies of health professionals and citizens, rather than from the State central health bureau, I think the NHS (or rather the NHS at its local level) should be allowed the power generally to ask for top-up fees for a whole range of medical procedures; a charge that is somewhere between free and the cost of a wholly private option.

Fertility treatments, breast enlargement or reduction, tattoo removal, elective caesarians for mums too-posh-to-push, varicose vein removal, cosmetic plastic surgery, piles reduction and many other minor procedures are now seen as a 'right'. This is never what the NHS was founded for. What next? Baldness treatment for men 'psychologically damaged' by being slapheads? Buttock implants for women who see a phat booty as a 'cultural necessity'?

Of course we're all happy to get something for nothing. But I'm sure if given the choice between spending money a year's gym membership or getting our piles sorted next week, we'll go for rectal comfort. 'Unfair to the poor' I hear some say; yes, perhaps. But not life threatening. And poor women with large tattooed breasts will just have to make out the best they can.

Well, NHS England have just caught on. Eleven years late and some £2bn wasted that could have been saved had they formulated policy from our blog posts in a more timely manner.

Of course, back then hardly anyone had gender reassignment treatment on the NHS whilst now there are thousands queueing for gender dysphoria counselling and hundreds waiting to have their tackle lopped at £16k a chop. But I doubt the NHS would dare face up to the Trans lobby - at least not for another eleven years.

Blair, Straw must face trial for rendition & torture conspiracy

I said at the time of the peak 9/11 rhetoric that you could no more have have a 'war on terror' than you could have a war on swords, or a war on light machine guns. Terror is just a weapon. You can protect yourself against a weapon, but to end the threat you must deal with those using it. And any group with a big enough grudge can use terror.

Our domestic war criminals Blair, Straw, Hoon and Irving - the holders of the four great offices of State who lied this country into an unlawful war - have also now been exposed as complicit in the most vile and despicable acts of torture. 

Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee has just published its long awaited report on UK complicity in rendition and torture under Blair and Brown's governments. Not only are the facts a damning indictment of Blair's hubris and utter immorality, but the intelligence service bosses, Scarlett and Dearlove, are also exposed as deeply complicit in this disgusting business. And please don't defend torture - "When we torture people, even if we win the battle, we've already lost the war for hearts and minds, especially our own". Blair's torture policy was Not In My Name and not, I suspect, the name of the vast majority of essentially decent British people. 

The Chair of the committee is one Dominic Grieve. This report has been long awaited, and perhaps those wondering why the long delays may look to Blair's machinations as in Chilcot's report and wonder if he has not adopted the same tactic here.

Blair and Straw at least must face trial over this. And both Dearlove and Scarlett, as Peter Oborne recommends in the Mail, must at the least be stripped of their kinghthoods.  

It is high time we put these people in the dock to answer for these crimes.

50% of UK Revenue Cutters deployed to Greece

Those of you familiar with North Norfolk will at some stage have come across the horses of the Household Cavalry on holiday. In return for having to live in London's ugliest building (by the hubristic brutalist Basil Spence), having to stand still for long periods outside Horse Guards as idiotic tourists self-snap and caparison alarmingly close, and at getting a sniff of Hyde Park but never being allowed to get a full gallop on, the doughty chargers are rewarded with a few weeks a year cantering naked in the North Sea surf, galloping down wide dawn beaches with damp sand under their hooves and pigging out on sweet fresh grass well-balanced with mash and hay. Then it's back to London. 

The same must apply to the crews of the UK's revenue cutters. Not only have Dutch shipbuilders Damen constructed these for standards of crew comfort unknown to the Royal Navy, with floating soundproof decks, 'box-in-box' suspended crew quarters and generous leisure space, but they also even have raft-mounted engines to reduce vibration so the crew can sleep more easily. Those domes at the stern aren't for tracking the pursuit of drug smugglers - they are TV satellite receivers, so the lads (and lasses?) don't miss a single world cup game. And that tube at the front isn't a gun but a fire-hose, designed to look like a gun.

But I guess that comfy beds, satellite TV and gourmet food just aren't enough for our Border Force afloat. What they really need is a month or so steaming between the Aegean islands on ink-dark seas, with Retsina and gay discos after their 9-to-5 shifts are done. To top up their tans and steam about searching for the few rubber boat people making the trip to the Greek islands from Turkey, and take them back.  

The problem is, the UK has only four revenue cutters - HMC Valiant, HMC Seeker, HMC Searcher and HMC Vigilant. Valiant has been on holiday in Greece since 2015, and it's been so much fun that another of the flotilla will join her there. Meaning half our total revenue cutters are away on holiday. And unlike the Household Cavalry's chargers, not just for a quick break. 

Nice work if you can get it. 

HMC Vigilant - will she win the Greek lottery?   

Europe's Liberals need to learn from Turkey

If you or I were in Turkey, opposing the illiberal authoritarian regime of Dictator Erdogan, we would risk being thrown out of our jobs, having our homes trashed by thugs, imprisoned or being quietly dragged away at night and shot. Erdogan's fifteen year regime has used every legal means plus emergency powers to repress free speech and democracy in Turkey.

Some 60,000 are held in 'emergency detention'. 150,000 public sector employees have been thrown out of their jobs since 2016, following a purge of the armed services in 2013 in which commanders not loyal to Erdogan were jailed at show-trials. Police, judiciary and universities have been purged of potential opponents, but above all Erdogan has complete control over news media and has jailed hundreds of independent journalists. 150 media outlets were closed after 2016, and government censorship is active and present in all others. All news in Turkey is Erdogan news. Internet access and use is restricted and any website can be (and are) blocked at the whim of the censors. Even Wikipedia is banned. In the run-up to the election, Erdogan's party got 67 hours of election broadcasting. His biggest rival Ince got 7 hours. the Iyi party got 12 minutes.  

Yet despite all this, people still communicated. Somehow they managed to meet and talk, to canvas, to spread the message. 87% of voters turned out to vote, and despite the repression and crackdown, Erdogan managed only a slim parliamentary majority. People organised themselves to guard polling stations and ballot boxes from Erdogan's thugs. Even Kurdish voters, some of whom faced an 8km walk to cast their votes, passed the magic 10% threshold as their HDP party gained 12%, despite the party leader having been imprisoned by Erdogan. 

Free speech. Free association. The right to form political parties. Erdogan has trampled on all these most fundamental rights - yet still somehow he failed to win the victory he needed. Universal suffrage and most of all the secret ballot have kept democracy alive in Turkey. They are the most precious of our rights, and worth our blood to defend. 

We need to learn from the Turks the ways in which democracy can be nurtured under an illiberal regime.