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We've all known for years that PE foam was a fire risk, and it's always therefore been replaced by 120mm - 200mm of mineral wool for higher buildings.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. 

Pakistani Muslim Child Sex abuse - 'Three Girls'

I was privileged to be a drinking and conversational chum to the late Sandy Fawkes in the 'French' for many years. But this is not the place for Sandy anecdotes - if you're interested, her obit in the Telegraph will leave you in little doubt how mundane most people's lives are. 

Sandy covered the Yom Kippur war for the Express in 1973 but it was her action in that year over the death of Maria Colwell of which she was most proud. Maria was killed aged 7 by an abusive stepfather, and the story floated around the news desks of the Express' black granite fortress on Fleet Street. Sandy wanted to do a piece. Her editor blocked it. "We don't do dead kids. It's not news. No one wants to read about it". It was a stance shared by every other newspaper - including the sanctimonious Guardian. Well, she fought, she manipulated and she schemed and eventually she got her way and the Express led with reports on the fate of this child at the hands of abusive adults. It was an accomplishment of which she was extraordinarily proud. The rest of the pack followed, and her Britannic Majesty's Press acquired a new duty - reflecting public outrage at child abuse. 

Press reaction to the BBC's drama Three Girls this morning reminds me of this. All the while young English girls - children - were being abused, raped, enslaved by Pakistani Muslim men of little intelligence or ability working lowly occupations in Northern cities our press was silent - despite, I strongly suspect, every newsroom in the country knowing the story but 'spiking' it, as they had with the death of Maria Colwell. Now it seems the dam has broken. Julie Bindel in the Indie is amongst those now claiming to have known since 2006 what was going on. Why then, dear, did your paper not publish anything at the time?

Prepare for more of this 'Me too!' post hoc rationalisation as journos claim "I emailed someone about this, ooh, years ago. Or mentioned it in the pub. Or maybe made a joke about it......"

Sandy in the 'French'

Is it surprising that we're anti-corporatist?

Just as there's a gulf between nationalism and patriotism, and between supporting an internationalist approach and feeding globalism, the chasm between capitalism and corporatism has never been greater. 

If capitalism is using your own wealth in circumstances of risk with the aim of increasing not only your own but your nation's wealth, then corporatism must be using the wealth of others in circumstances of minimal risk with the aim of screwing your own people in order to make a small group of globalist thieves even richer. 

I reproduce the following from the Telegraph without further comment.

Anyone still wondering who really benefits from big corporate mergers need only look at the prospectus issued last week for the marriage of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management. Certainly it’s not the employees, 800 of whom stand to lose their jobs, though there are fat retention fees for the top brass.

The £200m a year eventually saved by this cull seems scarcely worth the bother, taking into account the £320m in “integration” costs it will take to get there. So who is this merger really for? Not the shareholders either, who I have rarely seen so utterly underwhelmed by the claimed commercial logic of a deal as they are by this one. Nor the customers, who as usual go unconsulted. But when it comes to City advisers – now you’re talking.

Together they share a stonking great £97m, some £15.6m of it in legal fees alone, split between Slaughter and May, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Maclay Murray & Spens. The lion’s share of the rest goes to Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. What a racket.

It's time to jail Rupert and Fenella

Back in the early 80s Rupert and Fenella's conspicuous hipness was pretty innocuous; they would open a baked potato stand in the newly renovated Covent Garden or build an accessible recording studio in a disused Methodist Church hall. Imbued with money and a desire to demonstrate their fashionable altruism they would tag these adventures 'community' or 'open' or 'collaborative' and the more astute amongst them would later sagely turn them to sound profitable investments when the reputational kudos was exhausted. 

These days Rupert and Fenella have to go a bit further afield to win youthful cachet. 

"Rupert's bought this old Scottish Trawler, yah, and he's re-purposed it to carry a couple of RIBs and built a mini clinic, all through this charity we've set up - 'Seaguard Rescue International' - we've had some pretty big donations including from you-know-who who's still using the billions he made on Black Wednesday ...yah, it's all terribly tax efficient and registered offshore; well basically Rupert patrols the Med just outside the Libyan territorial limit til he gets a satphone call from a refugee boat, meets it, takes the refugees off and lands them in Lampedusa. 

We've got a Facebook page with live Sat video feed and Rupert looks simply scrumptious and sooo dashing and we've saved hundreds and hundreds of lives yah and Tarquin and Penny Arsetrump are down there too in an old coaster with an onboard dentist - Tarquin's younger bruv, actshy- and they reckon the NGOs - that's what they call us - have landed nearly ten thousand refugees in Italy this year, yah, and we've got the peak season coming ..."

Of course what all the Ruperts and Fenellas and their socially committed financial backers don't realise, but what our government increasingly does, is that they're breaking the law - by knowingly making themselves part of the people smuggling chain facilitating unlawful entry into a EU country, they are quite possibly in breach of s.25 of the Immigration Act 1971 (as amended). Fenella's next phone call might be less hubristic.

"Mummy? Oh God it's awful I'm at Paddington Green police station and Rupert's been seized by the SBS and brought home and charged with people smuggling and they say we could get fourteen years! Oh Mummy please help; the Navy sunk our trawler with gunfire and Tarquin and Penny are on the run in Panama oh it's all such a mess ......" 

PPERA: The third leg of the stool

Keeping Labour out of power since 2010 has allowed our democracy a chance at correcting the deep corruption of our democratic systems that had crept-in during Labour government. I put it no more strongly than that; under Labour, democratic systems tend to corruption whilst under Tory government some healing and maintenance take place. 

Two legs of the stool - voter registration and the Electoral Quotient - have already undergone or are undergoing substantial correction. The 2022 election will be fought on new mostly equal constituency boundaries with mostly real voters within them. The third leg - party finance - remains a running sore, to mix my metaphors. Quite how Labour, who vaunt such pretence at 'equality, ' could allow such unequal, discriminatory and inequitable errors to pollute our democratic system is beyond my understanding.  

Party finance is a sod. Today's announcement that the CPS will not be proceeding against 14 constituencies in which the cost of the Tory battlebus was not accounted against the candidate's £30k spend limit is probably right. When Soros is deploying millions in a secret, unaccountable campaign in his own interests that undermines the British people the operating costs of an old coach really do seem trivial. I harbour faint hopes that the intelligence services will serve up Soros like a roast turkey when they are ready.

Labour won't cap donations because it would restrict Union funding. Both parties now want to fight campaigns as central, metropolitan advertising campaigns using slick voter targeting and marketing tools. A million unpaid supporters of their own views (including of course we bloggers) pump out words and memes over the social channels at our own cost. Technology and secret money, together with the peerages for loans scandal of the Blair years which Cameron continued without shame, bent commercial and trade deals, promises to the Bruvvers and other corrupting influences all make a nonsense of the PPERA provisions as they stand. Voters roundly (and rightly) reject State funding - the idiotic proposals from both Hayden Phillips and Christopher Kelly would have preserved the wealth of the LibDems but would also have brought UKIP £12m a year whilst Mr Carswell was sitting for the party and Zero when he wasn't. 

I do therefore look forward to a vigorous debate amongst those that care on how we may best reform this third leg of our democratic stool.  

Austria and why EU members are running scared

It starts with the bees. And human greed. This part of Austria is home to the Carniolan bee, and government legislation prohibits the introduction of foreign bee varieties. In this, it is strongly supported by the region's amateur beekeepers (of whom I hope to be one later this year) who work hard to keep alive traditional apiculture in the valleys and heights. Indeed, Wald Honig or honey made 'in the forest' sells at a premium and is quite delicious. So far, the purity of our unique bee sub-species is being maintained in a sustainable and committed way. 

The villains are the 'professional' bee keepers. Like many Austrians, they've become used over the past twenty years to high incomes for little work. So they keep more hives than they can manage, don't have time for the hour a week hygiene routine that each hive needs, and the Varroa parasite loads on their colonies (or 'bee people' in the local lingo) are through the roof. Their answer to high Varroa mortality is to keep even more bees and factor the loss of up to 20% of hives, like Great War generals throwing whole divisions into the slaughter. Secondly, they're too greedy for the valuable honey, and don't leave the bees enough of their own to get through the harsh -20deg winters, substituting with cheap sucrose the healthy gold they overharvest. Thirdly, they want to introduce the higher yielding Buckfast bee to force out the Carniolan natives. All to help maintain their income. I'm pleased to say they've been seen off for now, but we're all watching like hawks as no-one trusts them an inch.   

The fruit growers are the same. They've introduced foreign heavier cropping varieties that bud and flower much earlier in the season than the native plants, which have learnt over several thousand years all about late frosts. The consequence is inevitable; a late frost decimates their foreign fruit crops and they whine for compensation. It's greed. It's just happened again.

This is macho country, where a man needs to be a man and must drive a 4 x 4 resembling a Humvee and weighing two tonnes to prove it. They all lie that of course they've bought them for cash, but most know that they're all purchased under the universal 5 year leases that keep the motor industry afloat. More debt.

This is a protectionist economy where no-one has to work too hard. Estate agent fees are fixed by law at 3%, so they don't even have to pretend to be competitive and the product is dire. Property adverts on the web are often little more than a couple of blurred and wonky cellphone pictures and a couple of lines of text - why should they bother? 

The generation at fault is the boomers, roughly my own age cohort. Their parents proudly owned without debt their own homes, many of them small hobby farms, frequently with enough land for the son or daughter to build their own home on when they married, but always fully owned. Then came the pre-2008 financial tsunami with the crooked, now bust, Alpe Adria bank lending absurd huge sums for junk security. And boy did the younger Austrians load up on debt. The end result is most of that previously debt-free real estate is now heavily mortgaged. One generation has squandered the wealth of all its forebears, and now has nothing but debt and liability to pass on. A jerk in interest rates, a shock to the shaky debt structure and the whole lot will come tumbling down.

Austria is a country that's quite good at forgetting. In this case, they want to forget that the country was actually quite poor until the last generation; my cousins here used a horse until the 1980s for farm muscle, and their mother lived her life in a wooden blockhouse with an outside lavvy and the cowshed connected by passage to the kitchen. However, their reluctance to admit the recent past (even more than the more distant past) is mistaken - it's not the past rural poverty that's shameful, but the current debt and greed. They're unwilling to work for competitive rates, and rely on protectionist measures including the Finance Police raiding firms using cheaper Slovenian workers, but such measures are doomed to failure.

There's an article in the Telegraph by Peter Foster that I commend. And yes, I blame the EU for the coming earthquake; they bought the silence of Europe's people with crooked bribes and false wealth. They have destroyed whole countries and communities in their lust for power, and the bill is still to pay. No wonder they're terrified by Brexit into drunken braggadocio. 

The horse was called Lottie. Shamed that I can't readily recall my cousin's name

Britain's fish will feed Europe - at a price

One key outcome of Brexit that must form a Red Line for the UK is the reclaim of our exclusive economic zone from the EU. Do not take this for granted; they don't want to give it up, and no wonder. There will be a fight over this, but in the over-riding national interest we must be implacable. No deals, no shared sovereignty - we'll have the lot back from 2019. 

A glance at the bathymetric map will reveal our advantage. French and Spanish EEZs also extend to 200 miles - but mostly over deep waters. Ours are almost wholly over the rich, fecund, warm continental shelf on which sea life thrives - if not overfished. Britain's fish resources are the richest in Europe, and currently belong to the EU. 

This is also a key reason to form a close and mutually beneficial alliance with Norway; also outside the EU; between us we own 70% of Europe's fish. Denmark, NL, Belgium, Germany and France all have inconsequential fishing waters.  

Make no mistake, we will have our waters back, no exceptions, no qualifications. And we alone will decide who may fish those waters and how much may be taken. A robust conservation policy coupled with determined and aggressive enforcement will restore these seas to a marine resource teeming with life. One thing is clear - Europe will pay far more dearly for its fish in the future than now. 

Surely now is the time to honour Farage?

Well, the electors seem to be clear; UKIP has done its job and can now retire with honour and dignity. UKIP members have seen the evolution of their party from a fringe movement to a vast steamer that garnered 4m votes and scared the stools from a complacent Tory party that previously thought Euroscepticism was manageable. It was UKIP that forced Cameron into a referendum, and Nigel Farage that won it. No mean achievements either for the leader or any of the party's members. 

Leave is now mainstream, gaining new supporters daily, helped in no small part by the undecideds seeing for the first time the brutal naked aggression of which the Brussels federation is capable. Remainers are becoming like flat earthers. Farron reminds me of the chap who used to parade a placard on the steps of the Mirror building on Old Fetter Lane declaring that meat caused sin. The whine from the Guardian is growing less shrill, and June 8th should kill off a whole cohort more of remainers, as the country shifts firmly behind Theresa May as the best champion for Britain. 

Yes, I know there are those who think May the devil in disguise and that it's all a great conspiracy to rob UKIP but I really don't think this is the case. What I do believe and believe strongly is that Nigel Farage should be recognised by his country, and perhaps now is a good time. He's achieved something extraordinary, and I'm sure we will see him limned in bronze at size-and-a-third at some stage in some prominent place. Oh, we don't give away Apsley House type gifts to our victors any more, but Farage deserves something tangible. 

More Assets, more money to come to UK from EU ..

It may just have escaped your notice that the EU's propaganda showhouse, called "The house of European History", is set to open in four days. With an architectural style of which Herr Speer would surely have approved, it lacks only naked blond corn-mädchen with laurel wreaths on the pediment. 

Of course, the museum is empty of both objects and interpretive exhibits, save for the Nobel medal for something meretricious or the other given to the EU. It is the sole exhibit. This is for two reasons. Firstly, the construction budget over-ran initial budgets by a factor of four, to a total of €137m, swallowing the exhibits budget to pay for the building. When last I built a new museum the exhibition costs (lighting, cases, interpretation, simple interactives, audio visual etc) came to £1,500/m2 for a low key delivery. You can double that for the EU museum - which has 4,000m2. 

The second reason is that the 27 can't agree how to interpret European history. What can the museum say about the Germans?  I fear any interpretation of the past is doomed to failure, but that's now the business of the 27.

The question is, what of our share? Do we ask for 12% of the cost back, or demand that they now build a detached annex, under our control, in which to display just British history?

Incidentally, I publish below the EU's own table from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20141202IFG82334/eu-budget-explained-expenditure-and-contribution-by-member-state

If you divide the total by 52 you get, erm, €350m a week. Oh, and we also passed over 75% of €4.27bn ( €3.2bn) in tariffs for goods coming in through the UK.

Post-election Parliament must be ready for a raft of emergency Bills

The government has recently realised that our powers to impose sanctions currently arise from the EU - and that when we leave, we will need domestic legislation in place to legally do so. Legislating to remediate this situation may be no great problem. Now it is clear that we are leaving the EU, one way or another, an Act can be passed with a 'Coming into force' date co-terminous with our formal exit date. However, not all the legislation we will need will be so straightforward.

As Juliet Samuel makes clear in a cogent and compelling piece for the Telegraph;

Despite the EU’s moderation on paper, however, prospects for a smooth Brexit are currently far from rosy. The weekend’s headlines were flavoured with a classic Brussels tincture – a poisonous media briefing and a Jean-Claude Juncker soundbite. None of this would have been unleashed without Berlin’s blessing and suggests that German attitudes are hardening. Chancellor Angela Merkel appears to have bought into the idea that the EU must make an example of Britain in order to protect itself. The wrong side is winning the argument. This may be because most EU governments don’t yet believe they have much to lose. They cannot conceive that Britain would ever walk away from a deal, however unpalatable its terms. On this, they have misjudged.

Samuel makes clear that we must prepare now to walk away without a deal, and assume that this will be the outcome of the negotiations. If we manage to reach a satisfactory deal, fine. But if we don't, as seems more likely, we will be ready. 

We should not underestimate the global economic and financial shock of leaving with no deal. We must be prepared to look after the UK's interests, and if possible those of the Commonwealth and of the USA - the anglosphere. We will need emergency wartime powers and more importantly a national consensus that may mean a wartime cabinet - with opposition ministers sitting in government. Parliament needs to be ready to legislate on the hoof, reservists ready to be called up, the red duster fleet ready to serve the nation and yes, possibly even rationing systems to be devised and rolled out and temporary state control of food, fuel and power. Bills must be drafted NOW to meet an emergency.

This election is an essential fore-runner to facing a time of such emergency. The Prime Minister needs the backing of the country - the Commons will not be of one voice in the debate to reject a humiliating and wounding offer from the EU, but once the house has voted in favour of walking away, they will all be behind it or face the wrath of voters. The Lords are a different kettle of fish. We cannot allow these deeply corrupted and befouled fifth columnists to sabotage the national interest. Mrs May no doubt also has a reserve plan to deal with these foreign agents in our midst.

I do hope the Bank has been quietly buying back the nation's gold reserves so foolishly squandered by the last Labour chancellor. As the talks collapse and gold shoots past £1,400 an ounce we will need every kilo we can get. 

Herr Tirana prepares to use dirty tricks as EU buggered

Herr Tirana, one of the EU's several Presidents, confirmed today that "after a little cellar work and a touch of bastinado" all 27 EU leaders have now confessed agreed to the Brussels dirty tricks campaign to be rolled out against the United Kingdom.

"The EU must uphold democracy in Europe, which means agreeing with whatever the unelected officials want. We call it pure democracy because it is unsullied by elections, ballots and the votes of the ignorant and stupid common people.

You can never have too many boats ....

A bit of a fuss in the papers at news that Nick Serota's retirement gift from his colleagues was to be a boat. It's pretty certain that what's intended is something like the Enterprise pictured below rather than an Oyster 82.

These fun boats can still be had for about £600 - and of course you can keep it in the front garden.

Ah, such memories of idle summers spent on the river between Woodbridge Tide Mill and Felixtowe Ferry with a boom tent and a crate of Tolly

Economic war with Germany heats up

AEP in the Telegraph this morning says it all:-

(Berlin) demanded that Britain desist from tax dumping and financial deregulation that would “jeopardize the stability of the union". This demand is almost insulting. British regulators have led efforts to recapitalize banks. It is the eurozone and Germany that have dragged their feet on tougher capital rules.

There is no longer any attempt at diplomatic tact. The document states that the European Commission will "determine" when the UK has made "sufficient progress" as it jumps through the hoops, the way it handles accession talks for supplicants hoping to join. It reads like an imperial curia discussing a colony.

........ What is clear is that if the final document presented to Britain looks anything like the EU papers circulating this week, no sovereign state can accept it.

Sigh. Like the same-old same-old. Like the demands presented by Austria Hungary to Serbia in 1914, Germany's demands are impossible for the British realm to accept. Not even the softest, most accommodating Brexit negotiators could accept such national humiliation under the heel of the Hun. 

I fear it will be full blown economic warfare. 

Turks join with ISIS to attack Kurds

Turkey has launched a new offensive against the Kurds. They now face attacks from Turkey to the north and west, and from ISIS to the south and east. It has been a century since the last Islamist rulers of Turkey slaughtered the region's Armenian Christians in an act of genocide that preceded the later Holocaust, but the Kurds must surely have the Islamist capacity for mass extermination embedded in their cultural history. Their fight against the Islamists of Turkey and of ISIS is one for survival. 

The history of the Armenian genocide will be purged from Turkish history now that Erdogan can rule as a dictator. In Germany and Austria, where holocaust denial is a crime for which residents can find themselves in prison, millions of Turkish migrants who voted for Erdogan's Enabling Act will be teaching their children that the earlier Armenian holocaust never happened. Every effort of the national authorities to teach it in schools will be met with hatred, resentment and disbelief - and demands for more Islamic schools, in which such inconvenient truths can be smothered. 

But one and a half million Christians slaughtered by means as foul as any ISIS have re-invented remind us always why we must resist Islamism with every fibre of our national strength. 

French Toast

As will be apparent, France's electoral system is geared at preventing shock change and powerful leaders. Remember that the French bourgeois virtues include médiocrité, which means something a little different there to our jibe of mediocrity. And having soundly rejected the 'constitutional' parties of right and left for the Presidential election, French voters may not have the same choice for the two-stage Assembly elections on the 11th and 18th of June. Well-oiled local Republican and Socialist party machines may cement support, leaving Macron a lame duck President with no support in the Assembly.

And yes, short of some earthquake shock, Macron will be France's next president. 

Marine Le Pen is not finished - France and Britain will both go to the polls again in 2022, and in political terms that's an eon away. As for what this all means for Brexit, I'll guess little change. The Kermits still hate us and want us to suffer because we're so much more successful than they are, yet we need to co-operate even more closely militarily as the only two armed nations in Europe. It's all French toast - brittle with burnt crumbs. Hey ho.

Extra Territorial Jurisdiction

There is an interview in the Indie this morning with lawyer David Edward in which he lambastes the 'invincible ignorance' of those who think the UK can escape the jurisdiction of the ECJ. Edward sat as an ECJ judge, but perhaps not a very balanced one as his argument here is utterly distorted and deeply misleading.

"You can escape the jurisdiction of the ECJ, but you have got to comply with EU standards if you are going to export into the EU. And who decides what these standards are ultimately if there’s a problem? It’s the ECJ." Edward is quoted as saying. Uhm, yes. But EU exporters wishing to sell to the UK - by far the greater value of goods - must in turn comply with UK standards. And who will decide what those standards are if ultimately there's a problem? The UK Supreme Court and English / Scottish appeal courts. 

Never have I heard any Brexiteer suggest that British courts should exercise Extra Territorial Jurisdiction to decide what product standards within the EU should be. It's a nonsense. Edward is refuting a claim that no-one has made. His argument is specious and fallacious; in exercising our own jurisdiction over trade, competition and commercial law for all actions within UK territorial boundaries of course we escape ECJ jurisdiction. I weep for the 'invincible ignorance' of those like Edward in a state of denial over this fundamental reality. On our land, in our skies and upon our seas out to the 200 mile economic limit, British courts will exercise sole jurisdiction. British laws, British standards, British judgements and British penalties will prevail. 

And of course EU citizens will continue to enjoy access to UK courts to resolve matters within British territorial jurisdiction just as UK citizens will continue to enjoy access to the ECJ to resolve matters within EU jurisdiction. If a Polish single mum feels she is wrongly being denied a British welfare benefit, she has exactly the same recourse to our legal system as any Brit. And likewise a Brit in Europe to the ECJ. What exactly is the problem?

It's a manufactured issue, promoted by those who wish to preserve such bonds of slavery to Euro Federalism beyond Brexit. English common law never did fit well, if at all, with the Napoleonic codex approach of the mainland, yet it maintains itself as both a superior body of law and a more equitable legal jurisdiction than the 'political' fandangling of the ECJ. 

This is an economic battle between Britain and Germany

It is becoming transparently clear that Brexit is an economic battle between Britain and Germany. It is also becoming clear that EU membership is costing us way more than the headline contributions, before or after rebate. One of the EU's several Presidents, Herr Tirana, repeated yesterday in effect that they're so desperate for our wealth that they encourage voters to overturn Mrs May so we may repent and continue to bleed our nation's life blood for the vampire squid.

Germany knows the lead that a fractional advantage in GDP growth can produce over a decade. Yep, one nation grows at 1.1% and another at 1.6% and it doesn't sound much until you look at the lead after 20 years - 13% for these figures. That's been Germany's game plan since the 1970s - free riding NATO, skewing the rules, manipulating EU budgets and quiet economic sabotage to ensure their GDP growth is greater than ours. And now they're furious, they're incandescent with rage that they've been found out and that we're leaving. By doing so we ensure that our GDP takes the lead - not only will Trump make them pay an extra 1% of GDP to NATO, but they must pay 25% of the EU's budget from 2019 or see it unravel.

Hence the bullying, the threats and the attempted intimidation; we must pay €60bn, we must submit to the German European Court until 2030, we must follow their instructions. It's becoming clear that we won't do any of it, that we will walk away. So be it. Alone and ahead.

I'll miss Gisela and wish Bob well ...

There had to be casualties of course. Few regret the abandonment of his political career by Osborne; the Commons will be infinitely improved by his absence, and the housebuilders' brochure that is the Evening Standard, an organ that once was a newspaper, will no doubt benefit from his family wallpaper and soft furnishings expertise.

Gisela Stuart will be a real loss. The Labour Leave campaign leader was a boon to the cause before the referendum, and did much to counter the swivel-eyed loon barb thrown at we outers. She is transparently straightforward and shines as, well, just nice. 

Bob Marshall-Andrews is a Medway fixture and I wish him well in his move to the Lib-Dems, despite my wanting to see that party destroyed in Parliament. I can't imagine Medway without Bob; a rebel and maverick who used to publicly but pointlessly prompt the Labour leadership to give him a job. Rochester is a bit twee and has pretentions, but remains more Tesco than Waitrose, sandwiched between Emily Thornbury's white van Strood and Borstal. Chatham is as rough as a badger's arse, the home of pale, scabrous and violent Chavs, and Gillingham houses aspirational but just-coping NHS workers. Bob has done a great job there, transcending party. I wish him well.  

Game On!

Well, she's done it. And she's got the £ nudging €1.20, which is nice. And the global corporates are squeezing out a little high pressure flatus, which is also reassuring. Farron, Mandlebum, the Remoaners, the BBC, the EU and the Guardian are incandescent with rage, which is always worthwhile. All in all, it seems like the right thing to do. 

The main complaint of all those so upset by Mrs May's calling an election seems to be democracy. They are objecting to Britain's voters having a definitive say, rather than claiming to speak for us themselves. 

Oh yes. And that chap Grayling, which I always thought was a fish. If this doesn't trip him into gibbering insanity I don't know what will. So good all round, really. 

Isn't it time we re-issued 'Protect and Survive'?

There will be many homes in Britain that still have the last edition of the Home Guide to Nuclear War, issued by the government as Protect and Survive. Maybe in a telephone drawer somewhere, along with the radiator bleed key and a 1976 warranty card for the doorbell. However, whole new generations will be unaware of the simple preparations they must make if we are faced with nuclear Armageddon. Technology has also moved on, so an updated edition of this friendly guide to mass extinction may be worthwhile. 

It may be useful to remind the younger ones that iPhones are unlikely to work after an intense EM pulse, that a couple of tins of energy drink won't last long and that Facebook is unlikely to be widely available with which to share nuclear experiences. Ditto Instagram. It's also unwise to rely on take-away delivery services for food after the bomb falls, however impervious Mr Wu seems to Alpha particles. And as members of the family die and the bodies must be dealt with, Yell will not be the best source of home service providers. 

It's about time we scared the youngsters. 

Final hope for democracy in Turkey

Tomorrow's referendum in Turkey on that country's version of Germany's 1933 Enabling Act is, by all accounts, on a knife-edge. If Erdogan wins, he can exercise unrestrained executive power of a sort unseen since Nazi Germany. If he wins, Turkey also loses any chance of joining the EU, her NATO partner status will be in doubt, the migrant deal risks unravelling in time for the peak Summer travelling season and all hopes of Ataturk's secular Turkey will vanish.

Of course, if he loses, everyone expects him to to the achieve exactly the same ends by unconstitutional means. He's hardly going to put his hands up and go quietly, is he?

Sometimes the BBC's correspondents, isolated from the fake-news hothouses of Salford Keys and Broadcasting House, forget their remit and tell the truth. Mark Lowen's report here is really worth a listen. 

A young lady colleague once returned from a holiday in 'unspoilt' Turkey to report that each day a group of unshaven village grey heads, in threadbare grubby shirts buttoned to the collar and old lounge suit coats from the 1950s, would gather to keep the beach under observation. There was no direct interaction, but the visitors were all too uncomfortable to wear bikinis or to enjoy using the beach. These then are Erdogan's supporters, the illiterate bigoted Islamist peasantry of an 18th century Sultanate. God help us all.

Cameron ran a bent Referendum campaign say MPs

This won't be the headline in your MSM papers, which focus on a minor report footnote that a DOS attack may have slowed the website processing those registering to vote in the last days before the Referendum, but that this did not affect the outcome. 

However, the meat of the report is in Chapter 5 - a litany of criticisms of Cameron's misuse of public funds and of the machinery of government in an attempt to skew the result. The verdict, even clothed in the politesse of the old chums club, is damming. Cameron was bent. Never Again. 

Hmphhhh. Told you so.

Peace in Syria?

When I write 'peace in Syria' I don't of course mean the sort of peace that the West gifted to Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Libya, or indeed anywhere we've interfered in the past decade or so, where we've left a legacy of death, terrorism, economic collapse and failed governance. Only the most reality-challenged drug-addled FCO PR person could term those conditions 'peace'. So let's define our terms - what must peace mean for Syria?

No Entry to Salafism - No opportunity can be given to Salafist Islamists, the West's mortal enemies, to increase their power or influence in the region. This includes Turkey, Sunni Iraq, KSA, Kuwait, the gulf states and the various barbarian head-choppers.

Non-sectarian and tolerant society -  A future Syria must allow Shia and Sunni, Christian and Kurd, Alawite and Jew, to live in peace and freedom with no sectarian discrimination. Much as the country worked under Assad before the 'Salafist Spring', which saw deluded fools in Western government mistake Islamist uprisings for democratic urges. 

Russian influence preserved - Any settlement must preserve Russian influence and port / military facilities if the settlement is not to lead to wider causes of conflict

Self-determination - Allow the Syrian people to choose their own leaders and form of government - which may not be the same as Western forms of government and self-determination

Safe return for refugees - A safe place to which refugees currently in Jordan, Palestine and Turkey (as well as Europe) can safely return and rebuild. 

Now it might be that President Assad actually offers the best opportunity to meet these objectives. I don't know. 

However, I am sure that if the US and our own blundering, inept, mistaken FCO conspire to give us yet another Salafist-dominated failed state exporting Islamist terrorism and from which millions of refugees flee, all for the sake of global corporate oil or gas pipes, that we will hang the bastards from the lamp columns in Parliament Square. They're drinking in the Last Chance Saloon over Syria.