Quotulatiousness

September 9, 2022

Britain’s “Lord of Misrule” at the end of the “Borisarchy”

Filed under: Britain, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In Quillette, John Lloyd considers the parts of Boris Johnson’s personality that allowed him to achieve the premiership but not to retain it:

The respectable consensus on Boris Johnson’s resignation is that the Lord of Misrule was an opportunist who rose to power amid the mayhem of Brexit that he’d helped to create, but that his fecklessness finally caught up with him. There’s something in that, but more in what’s not. Although his critics will refuse to admit it, what’s mostly missing is the laughter, which is now a more important factor in British public life than before.

Much of public and media life in the UK — and it isn’t unique in this — is a search for laugh lines, and Johnson — instinctively but also with calculation — played heartily into this. He always had. In a largely affectionate biography, Andrew Gimson, Johnson’s former colleague at the Spectator and the Daily Telegraph, writes that, “To make people enjoy being led by him was an aspect of leadership which Boris mastered at a very young age. He made people helpless with laughter, and so great was their enjoyment that they scarcely cared what he did with their support, as long as he kept on amusing them.”

With the laughter came Johnson’s inchoate libertarianism — a strong aversion to condemning activities in which others like to indulge, especially those in which he likes to indulge himself, such as adultery. He is fond of telling the story of when Churchill, Johnson’s lodestar as a public figure, was taken aside during his second administration (1951–55) by his chief whip and told that a cabinet minister had been discovered having sex with a guardsman in Hyde Park at 3am on a freezing morning in February. The press had found out, which the whip advised, meant the minister would have to resign. “Caught with a guardsman?” Churchill asked. “Yes Prime Minister.” “In Hyde Park?” “Yes Prime Minister.” “On a park bench?” “That’s right, Prime Minister.” “At three o’clock in the morning?” “That’s correct, Prime Minister.” “In this weather! Good God man, it makes you proud to be British!”

To Johnson, this is evidence of Churchill’s goodhearted tolerance and defiance of narrow prejudice (this was a time when homosexual acts were quite severely punished), which are matched only by his own in generosity and wit. To be generous and broadminded in his speech (he is said to be quite mean with his money) is attractive to the many sinners among us. We see in the Prime Minister a person with the moral outlook of Casanova and yet (or, and so) finds attractive women willing to dally with him — a cheering thought. As one of these, Allegra Mostyn-Owen, who became his first wife, later admitted, “at least he made me laugh.”

[…]

Accustomed to lying to wriggle out of embarrassments like the discovery of an adultery, he continued to mislead when he joined aides for impromptu parties at No. 10, when the strictest lockdowns and prohibitions on the public were in force. How could a man of such intelligence fail to realise that his bluster would unravel almost as soon as they were uttered? He had, it seemed, an inbuilt arrogance — a conviction that he was able to avoid consequences that brought others down, but which only made him stronger.

In the end, he ran out of that road. Ironically, what finished him was denying that he knew that a government whip, Chris Pincher, had a history of groping other men. Johnson refused to take the scandal seriously enough to fire Pincher, as his senior colleagues pressed him to do — an echo of the Churchill joke he liked to tell, and a reaction which accorded with his libertarian instincts. However, his colleagues finally wearied of delivering statements to the media that made them look ridiculous within days or even hours. It was the last straw.

When Lord Dannatt, a former head of the British Army, was confronted with the (admittedly faint) possibility that Johnson would be considered for the post of NATO Secretary General, he was quoted as saying: “There is no doubt that [Johnson] has done a lot of good, and our full support for Ukraine is just fantastic. But I am afraid that these are personal things, a lack of integrity, a lack of trust. Frankly, we do not want to put Boris Johnson on the international stage for further ridicule. He is a disgrace to the nation.”

QotD: The BBC behind-the-scenes in 1983

Filed under: Britain, History, Media, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

By 10pm on the night of 9th June 1983 BBC Television center was humming. In Studio Two, amid a beige version of the set from Alien, David Dimbleby and Robin Day were about to start the election results show, though everybody already knew Thatcher was going to walk it.

I was in the studio next door, which had been transformed into a vast Green Room, tables stacked high with food and booze. Us trainees had been brought in to help organise the guests and manage the hospitality.

And that party was only getting started. As the night wore on and the politicians, academics and journalists came and went, but mostly came and stayed, the whole place, and the labyrinth of corridors, scenery docks and stage lifts surrounding it, began to resemble something between a University May Ball and the last days of Rome.

People were being sick in corridors, being discovered “in flagrante” in lifts or sneaking off into unlocked offices. Some, bearing an uncanny resemblance to their Spitting Image puppets, became far too slurry and unsteady on their feet to go before Dimbleby and co at the appointed time.

Back then, juniors like me were often sent to pick up politicians and other public figures, because if they were not physically guided they’d forget to turn up altogether or go to the wrong place. We’d arrive rather sheepishly outside clubs, parties and private homes — sometimes not the private homes that they were supposed to be living in. We’d gently lead them away from whatever drunken dinner they were at and take them to the studio where more free alcohol was always available. And everyone was smoking.

For politicians and journalists alike, it was an especially louche time. And secrets, by and large, were kept along an arc of tolerated misbehaviour that ran from Westminster through St James’ to Notting Hill and White City. Albertines Wine Bar and Julie’s restaurant both had booths you could dissolve into during lunches that slipped toward early evening, and the “cinq a sept” trade in the local hotels was always healthy.

There was a BBC chauffeur driving company run by a man called Niven, and a late night “Niven Car” was the ultimate perk when the White City and Lime Grove bars finally closed. I’m not the only BBC veteran who’ll remember when a certain public figure left an item of intimate female clothing on the back seat of her “Niven” after an over-enthusiastic snog on her way home. It was duly recovered, popped into a plastic bag and discreetly couriered back to its proper owner.

I’m making it sound more fun than it was. There was a lot of awful behaviour that went unremarked and unpunished, especially the leering, groping and grabbing that my female colleagues had to put up with endlessly, some of which would today rightly be called sexual assault. And, of course, this permissive culture was the ideal environment for celebratory predators, the Jimmy Savilles, Stuart Halls and Cyril Smiths (one of David Dimbleby’s guests that very election night). We all heard the gossip, but nobody made a challenge.

But if I could have any part of that world back it would be this: we didn’t expect, need or want our MPs, ministers or their shadows to be plaster saints.

Phil Craig, “I’m done with po faced politicians”, The Critic, 2022-05-18.

September 8, 2022

Queen Elizabeth II (21 April, 1926 – 8 September, 2022)

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 14:44

It was inevitable that the Queen would die, yet the news was still an unwelcome surprise and a shock. I shared the news on social media, and as you’d expect, the very first response was from someone clearly looking for a fight over the monarchy and the bugaboos of his current obsessions. Thank goodness for the “mute” function. Prince Charles is now the King, although I understand he plans to choose a different regnal name.

In The Critic, Ben Sixsmith looks at the Queen’s reign in retrospect:

Queen Elizabeth II signs Canada’s constitutional proclamation in Ottawa on April 17, 1982 as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau looks on.
The Canadian Press/Stf-Ron Poling

For years, Queen Elizabeth II was a link to another age — an age of tradition, and respect, and restraint. Did that age ever exist in an ideal form? Of course not. But we still admire its echoes, which surrounded our conception of the Queen.

She was crowned in 1953, looking rather vulnerable at the age of 25. Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. Man had only just reached the top of Everest and was more than fifteen years away from reaching the Moon.

The Empire was crumbling but the young, elegant, stoical Queen kept alive a sense of British importance and stability. Her personal calmness and courage as she toured dangerous regions was noted (and would be later tested when Michael Fagan, a disturbed socialist, snuck into her bedroom).

Her popularity never faltered. Governments, institutions, actors, athletes et cetera have risen and fallen in their popular esteem but Her Majesty was always loved. Was this in part because our exposure to her was so limited? Of course. But there is something special in that. She never imposed herself upon the public. She was committed to the tiring, traditional, constitutional, life-affirming, often rather modest and unheralded duties that she had inherited. The monarchy is a lot more than one person, of course, but it took a special person to embody it.

All the way back in the 1950s, Malcolm Muggeridge warned that elevating royals to the status of celebrities would kill the institution. Who could deny that he was onto something? Princess Diana was drowned in prurience and sentimentality, and some of the Queen’s own descendants have disgraced themselves, to greater and lesser degrees, by embracing the sordid lifestyles and the haughty status of the rich and the famous. Throughout it all, Queen Elizabeth maintained her dignity and grace, and her focus on her own responsibility.

The CBC posted an obituary for Her Majesty as soon as the news was confirmed:

HRH Princess Elizabeth as a junior officer in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in April 1945.

Queen Elizabeth, Canada’s head of state and the longest-reigning British monarch, has died.

She died on Thursday afternoon at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, Buckingham Palace said in a short statement. She was 96.

“The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow,” the palace said, in reference to the Queen’s son Charles, who automatically became king upon her death, and his wife, Camilla.

Her husband, Prince Philip, died in April 2021.

Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, at the relatively tender age of 25, and presided over the country and the Commonwealth, including Canada, for seven decades. Those 70 years as monarch were recognized during this year’s Platinum Jubilee events, which reached their height in London in early June.

In her time as monarch, Elizabeth bore witness to profound changes at home and abroad, including the decline of the British Empire and decolonization of many African and Caribbean countries, along with the end of hostilities with Irish republicans.

As one of the most famous women in the world, she was also under great public scrutiny during some of the most painful moments of her life, including the death of her father, King George VI, the marriage breakups of three of her four children and the death of her former daughter-in-law, Diana, Princess of Wales.

But Elizabeth always had a keen sense of her role.

“I cannot lead you into battle, I do not give you laws or administer justice,” she said during her first televised Christmas address in 1957. “But I can do something else: I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.”

In the National Post, Araminta Wordsworth points out the Queen’s fondness for Canada during her reign:

“Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II” by Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 .

After a record-breaking reign of 70 years Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth died on Sept. 8, 2022.

She was the longest-ruling British monarch, outpacing her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. However, Louis XIV of France still holds the absolute record, with 72 years, 100 days.

For most Canadians, the 96-year-old is the only sovereign they have ever known, but whether the country will sustain the connection after her death remains to be seen.

Certainly, Canada was the country she chose to visit most often. She was also here at one of the pivotal moments in our history when then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau brought home the Constitution in 1982. As sovereign, she signed the document in a rain-spattered and windy ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the capital chosen by Queen Victoria.

But her connection to Canada had begun decades earlier. In 1939, Princess Elizabeth was reportedly the first British royal to make a transatlantic phone call: the recipients were her parents, then the Duke and Duchess of York, who were on a North American tour.

In 1951, the princess spent almost five weeks in Canada, filling in for her ailing father, George VI.

Winston Churchill, then in opposition, had wanted the princess and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, to travel by boat, arguing air travel was unsafe.

But he was overruled and the royal couple became the first to embark on such a tour by air. With an action-packed schedule, they crossed the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including a side trip to Washington, D.C., greeted all the way by rapturous crowds. The royal pair square-danced, attended a hockey game and accepted countless bouquets.

Surprise! Liz Truss can successfully locate Canada on a map!

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Economics, Environment, Germany — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In UnHerd, Marshall Auerback details some of the Canadian connections of Britain’s new PM:

British Prime Minister Liz Truss, 1 May 2022.
Official portrait via Wikimedia Commons.

Faced with soaring costs of living, increased collateral damage from the war in Ukraine, and widening national inequality, Liz Truss seemed curiously optimistic in her first speech as Prime Minister. What could possibly be driving such bullishness? Absent any sign of a coherent plan of action, we might find her motivation in an Instagram post from 2018, where Truss cited the time she spent in Canada as a teenager as “the year that changed my outlook on life … #pioneercounty #optimism #maplespirit”.

As profound an impact as that year might have had on Truss’s optimistic psyche, she would do well to look more closely at Canada’s faltering “success story” in recent years. Today, the country is no longer the land of milk and honey (even if it does still produce a fair amount of maple syrup), but suffers many of the same problems as the UK, and a number that are significantly worse: rising inflation, profound income inequality, the challenges posed by climate change, and an increasing host of social problems — not least the mass stabbing spree last weekend in Saskatchewan that left 10 people dead.

However, to the extent that the Trudeau Administration has attempted to remedy some of these problems, there are clear lessons for Truss. Unlike in the UK, many of Canada’s energy problems are largely self-inflicted, a result of a progressive government ignoring its comparatively resource-rich environment, even as its European allies (including the UK) suffer severe consequences of being cut off from Russian gas supplies and the corresponding rise in energy prices.

A few weeks ago, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Canada to secure more gas for his country. This being Canada, the German Chancellor was treated politely, but the underlying plea for Ottawa to increase liquefied natural gas (LNG) production to offset the loss of Russian gas was given short shrift. The Canadian government, one of the biggest producers of natural gas in the world, has misgivings about whether becoming an even bigger producer and exporter would actually be profitable.

Leaving aside the broader debate as to whether the dangers of man-made climate change have been confounded with natural weather and climate variability, natural gas, although a fossil fuel, emits roughly half the amount of carbon dioxide when combusted in a new, efficient natural gas power plant. This would suggest that Canada’s absolutist stance is not only a major geopolitical mistake, but also an economic own goal. The country is foregoing a major growth opportunity, which would both alleviate global inflationary pressures by increasing the supply of natural gas to the global markets, while simultaneously enhancing the prospect for a plethora of new high-paying jobs that would buttress Canada’s declining middle class.

Canada is also home to substantial supplies of copper, nickel, lithium, and cobalt — all of which will be essential to producing the infrastructure required to transition from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy, such as wind and solar. But mining itself remains a “brown” industry, one that creates substantial carbon emissions and environmental degradation. It seems conceivable, then, that the Trudeau government’s green energy purity could soon discourage the increased mining activity needed to facilitate this energy transition.

[…]

Yet in many respects, Canada’s problems are more easily resolved, given that so many are self-inflicted. And not only are there ample natural resources to offset the current energy crisis, but also broad institutional mechanisms to alleviate regional inequalities. Canada, then, cannot provide all the solutions that Truss needs. For all her boosterism, Britain remains a country fatigued by her party’s ongoing political churn and the non-stop travails still emanating from Brexit. If she is to succeed, Truss must begin by removing her rose-tinted view of Canada. The Great White North can certainly serve as an inspiration — but that is all. Canada may have changed Truss’s “outlook on life”. But if Britain is to “ride out the storm”, as she suggested yesterday, an entirely new approach is needed.

Liz Truss replaces Boris Johnson

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In Spiked, Brendan O’Neill looks at some of the many, many tasks already piled on new British PM Liz Truss’s desk in the wake of Boris and the pandemic:

So it’s prime minister Truss. No big surprise there. What we need next, though, is something that would be very surprising, almost unfathomably so. We need a PM who can buck the crisis of political will and take clear, firm action to save the country from economic collapse and existential malaise. Is that Truss? I’m sceptical, but we shall see.

At first glance, Truss would seem to be singularly unsuited to the task at hand. That task is nothing less than a revolution of will, a rediscovery of the political mettle that has been glaringly absent in Britain these past few decades. We live under a political class that is cautious, bereft of daring; which is hyper short-termist, more concerned with dodging controversy in the present than laying out a plan for the future. The energy crisis is the bastard offspring of this evacuation of vision from politics.

And in Truss we seem to have a leader who is more technocratic than visionary, more given to following the political consensus than to shaking things up. As the Telegraph put it, Truss has been a “dutiful servant”. Despite being something of a Tory party outsider – considered by many insiders to be “a bit odd” – Truss has always “diligently backed the consensus within the party”. She seems overly media-oriented, too. She’s clearly had her gauche edges smoothed by media training and she devotes a lot of energy to “savvy social-media use”. A politician who prefers consensual calm to bold action, and who is more concerned with virtual likes than real-world impact, is not what crisis-ridden Britain needs.

And yet, Truss is far from alone in lacking political audacity, in seeming to prefer the small bureaucratic task of managing public life rather than overhauling it. In this, she’s fairly typical of today’s managerial elites. Also, Truss’s political clarity seemed to improve during the leadership contest. She even became a little more daring in what she said – for instance, by bristling against Net Zero policies. No, this doesn’t prove she’s the leader we need, but it is a reminder that politicians often find themselves, and their cojones, in the heat of battle. Will the pressures of the crisis similarly bring out Truss’s slightly edgier side? We should hope so.

On that crisis, let us be clear: it is incredibly serious. It is the most serious crisis Britain has faced in decades. The political and media elites seem unwilling to acknowledge just how deep and menacing the crisis is. Even their focus on households’ rising energy bills suggests they do not appreciate the enormity of what is unfolding. Yes, millions are worried about how to keep the lights on this winter, but the impact of the energy crisis on business and industry will be graver still. Numerous businesses look set to go under, precipitating economic collapse and mass unemployment. Choosing between heating and eating will be a luxurious memory in the event of the joblessness and poverty that would follow such a calamity in British capitalism.

On a somewhat lighter note, it turns out that Liz Truss isn’t the same person as @LizTruss on Twitter:

September 6, 2022

Add the traditional English pub to the endangered list

Filed under: Britain, Business, Food — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

There is nothing to match the warm, cozy comfort of a proper English pub*, especially on those cold, wet days as evening falls. Traditional pubs have been struggling for some time as British preferences in entertainment, drinking, and dining have become more cosmopolitan over the years. The raw numbers of pubs has declined year-over-year for decades, but it’s looking like the winter of 2022/23 may be the worst time for pubs in living memory:

“The Prospect of Whitby ; Pub London” by Loco Steve is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .

Simon Pegg’s wise counsel in Shaun of the Dead – “Go to the Winchester, have a nice, cold pint, and wait for all this to blow over” – has long been shared in GIF form whenever a new crisis springs into view.

Chillingly, this time next year, that may no longer be an option. To the Great British pub, the winter energy crisis represents an existential threat. And on the back of two years drifting in purgatory under lockdown, many pubs are facing a war of extermination.

The trade publication for pubs, the Morning Advertiser, makes for especially grim reading at the moment. Its pages are dominated by the energy crisis. It suggests that without urgent government intervention, more than 70 per cent of existing licensed premises will not survive the winter.

One “wet-led” pub – that is, a pub-pub (one that relies on the sale of alcohol to remain viable, rather than on burger stacks and artisan chips served on a slate hubcap) – illustrates this plight all too clearly. Until this summer, it had been paying 14p per electricity unit on a fixed energy contract. But it has now been quoted 83p a unit. It is hard to imagine any cost that could rise so vertically without dealing a mortal blow to a business balanced on the edge of viability. And it’s not as if heating and energy are optional extras during the winter. This is not a thriller, this is a snuff movie.

Pubs have always faced challenges, of course, going right back to the Civil War and the mirthless interregnum. Thanks to Cromwell’s war on harmless pastimes – such as bear-baiting, whoring and dice – you will rarely see him honoured on pub signs in the way you see a Royal Oak or a King’s Arms.

The First World War famously saw the introduction of last orders. This was to keep munitions workers working. It was one of those temporary, emergency measures that, like income tax, proved oddly barbed once in the flesh of the state. As the 20th century wore on, rationing and oil shocks tightened belts. And then, under Thatcher, the rise of restaurants, wine bars and other sub-pub drinking options diffused the economic benefit of those re-loosened belts.

Drink-driving legislation and smoking bans delivered a slow-motion one-two that left many well-established premises, especially in rural locations, reeling. And in the background, the steady drip-drip of anti-drinking propaganda from bodies such as Public Health England (now rebranded as the Health Security Agency) has done its damage, too. The public-health lobby sees drinking only in terms of abuse, while ignoring the social benefits, the knitting-together, the public mental health of England that the public house affords.

* The Scots and the Welsh may have issues with this, but based on my experiences of drinking and dining in pubs in all three countries, it’s the English pub by a country mile. Welsh pubs can be pleasant, but Scottish pubs outside Edinburgh remind me of grim old Ontario bars back when Ontario was still just emerging from the post-Prohibition no-fun-on-Sunday Orange Lodge era (“We’ll let you drink, but you must be made to feel guilty for it!”).

Scotland’s AMAZING Jacobite Steam Train

Filed under: Britain, Railways — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Dylan’s Travel Reports
Published 4 Dec 2020

An amazing day out on West Coast Railways’ iconic Jacobite steam train from Fort William to Mallaig and back, part of the stunning West Highland Line!

Date of Travel: 21 October 2020
Class of Travel: First Class
Rolling Stock: LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0/Mk1
Cost of Ticket: £133.75 ($176.10, €150; price for 2 people)
Origin: Fort William, United Kingdom (Scotland)
Destination: Mallaig, United Kingdom (Scotland)
*Currency conversions correct as of 09/11/2020 to nearest $/€0.05
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September 5, 2022

Amon Göth: The Super Nazi – WAH 076 – September 4, 1943

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, History, India, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 4 Sep 2022

While the Allies give up on the first Battle of Berlin, Amon Göth goes on a murderous rampage in the Tarnow Ghetto.
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The Tragic Life of Rudyard Kipling

Filed under: Books, Britain, History, India — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 14 Aug 2019

The life of the youngest-ever winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Rudyard Kipling, was filled with tragedy. He survived a difficult childhood to go on to become one of the most celebrated authors of his day, penning such classics as The Jungle Book and Just So Stories. But only one of his children would survive him and his legacy has been tied to some of his out-dated political beliefs. The History Guy remembers the tragic life of Rudyard Kipling.
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September 4, 2022

The War is Four Years Old this week – WW2 – 210 – September 2, 1943

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Italy, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 3 Sep 2022

Four years of war and no real end in sight, but as the week ends the Allies land their first troops on Italy, actively committing themselves to a front in Western Europe. In the USSR the Soviets are taking heavy casualties but still pushing back the enemy with big partisan help and in Pacific plans are made for offensive against yet more Japanese held islands.
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September 3, 2022

Napoleon Defeats Russia: Friedland 1807

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Military, Russia — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Epic History TV
Published 28 Sep 2018

Napoleon brings his war against Russia and Prussia to an end with victory at Friedland, leading to the famous Tilsit conference, after which Napoleon stood at the peak of his power.
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September 2, 2022

Alliance For Peace (1951) North Atlantic Treaty Organization Promo Film

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Europe, France, Germany, Greece, History, Military, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

PeriscopeFilm
Published 14 May 202s

Produced by NATO and the Signal Photographic Service of the U.S. Army, this black & white film is about the formation of NATO and its importance in the defense of the free world. Copyright 1951. The film features a score by William Alwyn. The film dates from the time when Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was supreme commander of NATO (1950-52), a post he left in order to run for President of the United States.
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The Paras Last Drop – Gamil Airfield 1956

Filed under: Britain, History, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Mark Felton Productions
Published 18 Apr 2020

The last time the Parachute Regiment dropped into combat was during the 1956 Suez Crisis when 3 PARA landed on El Gamil Airfield outside Port Said, Egypt.
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QotD: Historical parallels between the British and American empires

Filed under: Americas, Britain, Cancon, History, Military, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… let us compare the US imperial experience to its British model. A whimsical exercise in comparative dates.

England was colonised by the Norman Empire (a tribe that spread across France, Britain, Italy, and the Middle East can be referred to as an empire I believe), in 1066. After some initial fierce resistance, they settled well, integrated with the local economy, and started developing a more advanced economic society.

North America was colonised by the British Empire (and Spanish and French of course), in the sixteenth century. After some initial fierce resistance, they settled well, integrated with the local economy, and started developing a more advanced economic society.

Norman England spent the next few centuries gradually taking out its neighbours. Wales, Ireland, and eventually Scotland (though the fact that the Scottish King James I & VI actually inherited England confuses this concept a bit). The process was fairly violent.

The North American “English” colonies spent the next few centuries taking out their neighbours. Indian tribes, Dutch, Spanish and French colonists, etc. The process was fairly violent.

England fought a number of wars over peripheral areas, particularly the Hundred Years war over claims to lands in France.

The North American colonies enthusiastically joined (if not blatantly incited) the early world wars, with the desire of taking over nearby French and Spanish colonies

The English fought a civil war in the 1640s to 50s over the issue of how to share power between the executive government, the oligarchs, and the commons. It appears that the oligarchs incited the commons (which was not very common in those days anyway). It was extremely bloody, and those on the periphery — particularly the Scots and Irish — came out badly (and with a long term bad taste for their over-mighty neighbour).

The Colonies fought their first civil war over the issue of how to share power between the executive, the oligarchs and the commons in the 1770s to 80s. It is clear that the oligarchs incited the commons (who in the US were still not very common — every male except those Yellow, Red or Black. An improvement? Certainly not considering the theoretical philosophical base of the so-called Revolution!). It was not really so bloody, but those on the periphery — particularly the Indians and slaves (both of which were pro-British), and the Loyalists and Canadians — came out badly. (60-100,000 “citizens” were expelled or forced to flee for being “loyalists”, let alone Indians and ex-slaves). Naturally the Canadians and their new refugee citizens developed a long term bad taste for their over-mighty neighbour — who attempted to attack them at the drop of a hat thereafter.

The British spent the next century and a half accumulating bits of empire — the Dominions, the Crown Colonies, and the Protectorates — in a haphazard fashion. Usually, but not always, troops followed traders and settlers.

The United States spent the next century and a half accumulating bits of empire — conquests from the Indians, purchases from France and Russia, conquests from Mexico and Spain, annexations of places like Hawaii, etc. — in a haphazard fashion. Usually, but not always, troops followed traders and settlers.

Nigel Davies, “The Empires of Britain and the United States – Toying with Historical Analogy”, rethinking history, 2009-01-10.

September 1, 2022

The Royal Marines at War: Commando – The Story of the Green Beret (1945)

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Royal Marines
Published 31 Aug 2012

Commando, made for the Admiralty in 1945, is a drama-documentary covering Commando training in Wrexham, Anchnacarry and St. Ives. Fascinating archive footage shows wartime Commando units on amphibious assault exercises, perfecting cliff-top assaults and practicing both armed and unarmed combat techniques.

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