1. The Appeal of Jess Phillips
2. Starmerism's Necessary Delusions
3. The Historic Role of Angela Rayner
4. Jameela Jamil: A Defence
5. From Blair to Nowhere
Yes, top of the pops is Jess Phillips. How she understands her own legend came under the spotlight on the occasion of another book launch. Given the numbers this post attracted, perhaps the more interesting question to ask is why she attracts more opprobrium and fascinated horror from leftists than other appalling denizens in the PLP. Answers on a postcard or, more conveniently, in the comments box. Our tour of the month's events also took in the rubbish LOTO tell themselves and why, before peering into the historic role of the soft left of the party, Angela Rayner's place in it, and how she's striding along a well-trodden path. Fourth place was taken up by a brief meditation on the leftish ramblings of noted celeb Jameel Jamil, and the chart finishes off with Starmerism's Blairist cosplay. I'm hoping that next month the Labour Party won't prove so dominant, but I know what you people like.
The two posts supping pints in the second chance saloon this week are the shock waves rippling through the West's self confidence after the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, a "trauma" compounded by the British establishment's realisation that the US under nice Uncle Joe Biden are proving as arrogant and unreliable as it ever was under The Donald. The other choice is Monday night's screed on German politics and the "great replacement" the SPD appear to be pulling off. Having shed voters right, left, and centre it's now directly feasting on the Christian Democrats' coalition - a feat Keir Starmer and his allies are hoping beyond hope to repeat. Don't hold your breath, guys.
What September will bring apart from an explosion in Covid cases, no one knows. But you might be hearing some more about a little book due to be published on 14th September from Verso. Grab your copy now with 40% off until the end of the month!
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3 comments:
«the US under nice Uncle Joe Biden are proving as arrogant and unreliable as it ever was under The Donald.»
“Ubi major minor cessat” “The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must” and as it always was, since 1943 at least, when Winston Churchill said “When I was at Teheran I realized for the first time what a very small country this is. On the one hand the big Russian bear with its paws outstretched -- on the other the great American elephant”, and even more so in 1956 with Suez. I can't find now the exact quote, but I remember reading that Eisenhowever asked the admiral of the USA mediterranean fleet what were the chances of military action at Suez and the admiral replied something like "Well we can wipe them out but it will take some time" and then Eisenhower asked for more details and the admiral said something like "We can wipe out all four: egyptians, english, israelis, french, no problem, but it will take at least 3-4 days, I am sorry that I cannot promise to do it faster than that with what I have got in that area".
In geopolitical terms there is simply no alternative to being under american "protection" for european countries like the UK, also as the USA overmighty military control worldwide trade of food and oil/gas (and they are not shy about "sanctions"), and american "protection" brings with it export access to their markets. In "realpolitik" really "There Is No Alternative", but the degree of "protection" is negotiable within some limits, especially for european countries and the "centrist" principle of “with you, whatever” as Tony Blair pithily summarized is not fully necessary (see Wilson). For resource-rich countries the negotiable limits are a lot narrower.
«What September will bring apart from an explosion in Covid cases»
The usual zealous hacks in the legacy media have been reporting with much tut-tutting the big explosion in cases in China-Taiwan in the past months, to make the "Atlantic Alliance" governments approach look better: because the death count in the island of Taiwan since January 2020 to now has brutally exploded from around 20 to around 1,000, compare to "only" 120,000 under the leadership of Johnson, Starmer and Sturgeon (and most other "Atlantic Alliance" governments). In this graph of total deaths per million for some countries the UK is only fourth "best" though:
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=aged_65_older&Interval=Cumulative&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~EuropeanUnion~AUS~JPN~NZL~KOR~CAN~TWN~GBR~CHN~POL~NOR~IRL~ISL~DEU~FIN~THA~SWE~ITA~CUB~DNK~FRA~HKG~SGP&Metric=Confirmed+deaths
«the admiral replied something like "Well we can wipe them out but it will take some time"»
I found a quote for an earlier part of that discussion within the USA government:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2657873/Uncovered-American-duplicity-finally-explodes-myth-Special-Relationship-How-US-discussed-blasting-hell-UK-forces-Suez-Crisis-shameful-betrayals-historic-alliance.html
«Burke, one of the US Navy’s greatest fighting sailors, is recalling a conversation with John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower’s Secretary of State. Dulles has just wondered out loud if there is any way to stop Britain’s Fleet from launching its attack on Suez in 1956. Admiral Burke describes his reply:
‘And I said, “Mr Secretary, there is only one way to stop them. We can stop them. But we will blast the hell out of them.” He [Dulles] said, “Can’t you stop them some other way?” I said, “No, if we’re going to threaten, if we’re going to turn on them, then you’ve got to be ready to shoot. I can’t give these people orders to do something. They can’t do it in the first place – no matter who gives them orders – to demand and then get laughed at. The only way you can stop them is to shoot. And we can do that. We can defeat them – the British and the French and the Egyptians and the Israelis – the whole goddam works of them we can knock off, if you want. But that’s the only way to do it.”’
He then sent orders to the admiral in charge of the US Sixth Fleet, Cat Brown.
‘I gave him orders to go to sea, to be prepared for anything, to have his bombs up, to be checked out, so that we would be ready to fight either another naval force or against land targets, and to make sure of all his targeting data – a little cautionary dispatch – but it ended up to be prepared for any war eventuality. Cat Brown sent back, “Who’s the enemy?” And I sent back, “Don’t take any guff from anybody.”’»
So it was in 1956 that Burke invented “tous azimuts” not Ailleret in 1967 or de Gaulle in 1968.
https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1977/07/13/la-dissuasion-tous-azimuts_2861700_1819218.html
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