I am one person away from Mark Twain and Thomas Hardy

 

From 'The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick-Maker: The Story of Britain Through Its Census, Since 1801' By Roger Hutchinson (2017)

I wrote before in this blog that Frederic Harrison said his first memory was of his father paying a very rare visit to the nursery in 1837 and his father paying a very rare visit to the nursery and saying,

'Frederic, I am going to tell you something now that you will remember for the rest of your life. The King is dead.'

'I said, "Oh, papa, who will be King now?" and my father said, "We are not going to have a king. We are going to have a queen."

' I said, "So, it has come to that." '

I met Harold Macmillan who met Mark Twain and was friends with Conrad, Kipling and Hardy. 

Via King Michael of Romania and Lord Home I am one remove from Hitler.

I used to see each day, when I worked at the House of Lords, Lord Ampthill who had been the Russell baby. His mother had been a virgin when he was conceived with a partially intact hymen. His father had used 'Hunnish practices' to inseminate her. 

The court reports of their divorce proceedings (poor things) provided sex education to a generation of young readers and resulted in the Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act 1926 which prevented reporting of indecent details from divorce trials.

I used to pass a tramp asleep on a leather bench behind the throne who was the fourth Earl Russell. His father, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, knew the first earl who as Lord John Russell was Prime Minister and who as a young man met Napoleon. Four removes from Napoleon to me is not especially impressive.

At the next table to me in the United Oxford and Cambridge Universities Club, when I was an undergraduate member, I heard the father of the club, Victor Hill, saying that Rupert Brooke and he had chased the same girl at Cambridge. 

My father on his bike knocked over Bernard Shaw who shortly after left London for the countryside.

I knew and loved Monsignor Gilbey who officiated at one of Evelyn Waugh's weddings and who met Belloc and Chesterton when they spoke at Fisher House at Cambridge, but those people are recent enough.

I remember when I was 8 or 9 a friend of the family telling my mother that as a small boy he had watched Chinese immigrants on their way to be deported and being told it was because of the Boxer Rising. I already knew about the Boxer Rising, which happened in 1900, and was surprised because he did not look nearly old enough. 

My Auntie Rose was told as a little girl in the First World War that our men were fighting in Belgium and imagined that they were trading fisticuffs.

My grandfather, in whose house I grew up, was at the Somme. I so regret that I have lost his diaries. After 1945 worked in the War Office where his boss was called Mr Burgess. One day Mr Burgess did not come to the office and they discovered that he had was in Moscow.

Good advice

 

Now is no time to think of what you do not have.
Think of what you can do with that there is.
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

The Ukrainian forces are far closer to US high command than the Houthis are to Iran

I think, gentle reader, that you assumed the American forces are very closely involved in the Ukrainian war but this article from the NYT shows how closely. 

Fred Weir, veteran Canadian journalist in Moscow, shared it (to public) on Facebook today with these words. 

Oh great, this will really help to counter the Kremlin's mendacious claim that Russia is fighting a war in which Ukraine is just a proxy for the US and NATO efforts to crush Russia. Putin may have the Russian people totally bamboozled, thinking they're up against the united West, but fortunately we've got the NYT to investigate and reveal the Truth:

Lord Skidelsky explains the Ukrainian war very well

Please watch this short interview with one of our two or three best living historians. 

Key points:; Ukraine has not been defeated but done well; Russia expected to instal a subordinate government quickly; if Ukraine needs security guarantees so does Russia; if Russia is a threat to her neighbours why is she not a threat to her democratic neighbour Mongolia? (Because Mongolia is not going to join Nato?) 

We have a post-imperial reflex that uses the words 'we must' all the time - we must not allow the Chinese to mistreat the Uighurs for example - when we don't have the power to do anything about it! 

Jack Matlock: Kosovo gave Putin 'an almost perfect precedent' for Crimea

Jack Matlock was the penultimate US Ambassador to the USSR. In a very insightful and profound discussion published yesterday with Glenn Diesen, he compares the war against Serbia in 1999, in which Nato "killed over a thousand men", with the bloodless Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014. 

"That gave Putin a precedent, an almost perfect precedent, for the taking of Crimea." 

He says the 2014 revolution in Kiev 'was actually a coup d'état'. People said this in 2014 and I did not see it, but yes it was a coup  in which the Americans' involvement was crucial.

How splendid the US old school diplomats were before, as Mr. Matlock says, the neo-cons 'took over the foreign policy of both our political parties' to justify heavy defence spending.

I think he is right that it was the military industrial complex wanting money that was to blame.

He says that "when we tried to spread democracy by military force or economic compulsion we failed and ended up losing a lot of our democracy at home".

'O good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world.'
(As You Like It Act 2, Scene 3)

Dominic Cummings retweeted this

 

CBDC means "central bank digital currency", a digital currency issued by the European  Central Bank on behalf of the European Union.

Margaret Thatcher could have ended John Major's premiership in 1995 and possibly aborted New Labour

Sir Julian Seymour, who has died aged 80, ran Margaret Thatcher's private office from 1991 until he retired in 2001. From his obituary in the Daily Telegraph:

When John Major, exasperated at the machinations of the Eurosceptic Right, called a leadership contest in 1995, Lady Thatcher was tempted to back John Redwood. Seymour told her that for a former Tory leader to publicly back a challenger to a sitting leader would be a step too far. “I told her I always thought JR a bit odd, and an impossible bet for PM at any time,” he recalled.

He got no reaction, “other than that look when you know either that she privately agreed or was thinking about it, but was never, ever to be drawn into agreeing out loud. In summary, heart will have said Redwood, head will have said No.”

John Major later revealed that had he won two fewer votes in that leadership election (only MPs could vote in that more civilised era) he would have resigned. 

Had Lady Thatcher backed him he would have won at least two fewer votes and history might have been different. 

Who would have been his successor? John Redwood, Michael Portillo, Kenneth Clark, Michael Heseltine?

Would Great Britain have been spared Tony Blair?

Acknowledgments Lakshmi Kapoor for the first three

"There probably is a God. Many things are easier to explain if there is than if there isn't."

John von Neumann, autodidact who pioneered the modern computer, operator theory, game theory, learned calculus and differential equations at age 6.

The neo-cons, who want the US to dominate every part of the world, have still not gone away.

From June 20, 2014, Stephen M. Walt, writing in Foreign Policy. 

"What, if anything, might reduce the neoconservative influence to its proper dimension (that is to say, almost nil)? I wish I knew, for if the past ten years haven’t discredited them, it’s not obvious what would. No doubt leaders in Moscow and Beijing derive great comfort from that fact: For what better way to ensure that the United States continues to lurch from crisis to crisis, and from quagmire to quagmire? Until our society gets better at listening to those who are consistently right instead of those who are reliably wrong, we will repeat the same mistakes and achieve the same dismal results. Not that the neoconservatives will care." 

More US war crimes

 'Rules of engagement that permit destroying an entire civilian apartment building to kill one alleged terrorist is part of Joe Biden’s legacy. It’s still a war crime though, and Waltz’s text is a confession.' Matt Duss, who was Bernie Sanders' foreign policy adviser.

'Obama and John Brennan drone-bombed wedding parties repeatedly, and even groups of people standing around, if they suspected that one "legitimate target" was in the vicinity. It's of course a war crime, and if anyone applied this logic to the US, they'd be branded "terrorists."' Glenn Greenwald

The US attack on the Houthis is a much bigger scandal than the group chat

The best way to stop the Houthis attacking shipping is to give them what they want, which is a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. 

Max Blumenthal calls the Houthis "the one force mounting one of the only principled humanitarian interventions in my lifetime". 

You know not to trust a news source when it refers to the Houthis as 'Iranian proxies'. They obviously are not. They are as Blumenthal says 'fiercely independent'.

I wonder if there are any Iranian proxies as opposed to Iranian allies. 

The mainstream media wants us to believe Russia, Iran and China are the threats to the West. 

In fact the West is the main threat to the West.

It seems from the discussions in a group on Signal, in which they added by mistake the editor of the Atlantic (I am not making this up), a man that hates Trump, that the purpose of the very high level committee that decided to attack Yemen was to protect shipping, not just Israeli shipping. 

They obviously do not read John Helmer's blog and do not know it was only Israeli shipping that the Houthis targeted, until the US and UK intervened against them when they not unreasonably targeted American and British ships too.

27 March footnote. Houthis are still firing missiles after 12 straight days of US airstrikes.

The Munich Agreement was a fatal mistake by Hitler

Years ago it seemed no-one was talking common sense. 

That was because I took my news from the mainstream media. 

Now thanks to the internet you can follow Jeffrey Sachs to understand what is happening and Christopher Caldwell and John Mearsheimer. My work here is almost done.

No incident ever resembles Munich 1938. In this short clip Professor Sachs points out that America has used analogies with Munich for 50 years for a series of things and, even if they were apt, which they never were, Hitler thought the Munich agreement had been a trap into which he fell. 

By disregarding his promise of no more territorial demands in Europe, when he invaded Czechia in March 1939, he exposed his hand and brought down disaster on his head.

Churchill said 'History will be kind to me because I intend to write it'. So he did and so it has been, but his view of the period between 1933 to 1939, as you would expect of the view of any politician talking about his record, is very partial and very misleading. 

It is a myth (Chamberlain as Vortigern to Churchill's King Arthur) which I learnt at 8 and it is a myth that everyone still believes. 

It's the foundational myth of the American empire, though it was not America but only Britain and France (Chamberlain  and Deladier) who, in historian Maurice Cowling's words, were 'crazy enough to go to war with Germany without having to'. 

The history of the Western world since 1945 is a meditation on the powerful legend of Munich and Hitler. 

Had Churchill died in 1941 he'd have died an eccentric failure. Had Franklin Roosevelt left office in 1939 after two terms as President of the United States he'd have been a failure too. The New Deal was a failure. Instead they have been transmuted.

It is worth playing fair with Russians or not playing at all (Bismarck)

Don't expect that once you take advantage of Russia's weakness, you will receive dividends forever. The Russians always came for their money. And when they come - do not rely on the Jesuit treaties you signed and which you hope will get you acquitted. They are not worth the paper they are written on. Therefore, it is worth playing fair with Russians or not playing at all. Otto von Bismarck 

Denmark, which controls Greenland, is not doing its job, it’s not being a good ally. If that means that we need to take more territorial interests in Greenland, that is what President Trump is going to do. Because he doesn't care about what the European scream at us. J.D. Vance two hours ago. I loved every word of his speech at Munich and his more recent thoughts on Europe committing suicide, but this is utterly appalling. This is the veil off and the America that has ruthlessly taken over the world seen clearly.

Quotations

Samuel Johnson did not worry about problems. He did not use the word "problem", for at that time that word was used specifically for mathematics - not about the concerns of his era.

Jorge Luis Borges

The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.

Otto von Bismarck


The first rule of politics is : never invade Afghanistan.


Harold Macmillan

Water

“You cannot see your reflection in boiling water. Similarly, you cannot see the truth in a state of anger. When the waters calm, clarity comes.” 

Is this from a film I never heard of called Kung Fu Panda?

"Calm the muddy water, 

It becomes clear." 

Tao Ti Ching

In Haaretz, the Israeli centre left newspaper, today

More from the article:

Donald Trump's attack on the Houthis

American journalist Dan Perry is perversely mistaken today.

Trump 2.0’s approach to domestic reform, trade and alliances has been reckless. Trump's tariffs disrupted global markets; his handling of Ukraine and Russia emboldened adversaries; and his treatment of allies left many questioning America’s commitment to global leadership. But in the Middle East he's made some right moves, understanding what Biden seemed to miss: Peace through strength is sometimes the only way. Such is the long-overdue assault on the criminal hashtagHouthis.

The Houthis are no more criminals than other actors in the drama, but then grave crimes are being committed by the other parties, including or especially the US. 

Many countries have deep states but not Israel, it seems

The EU is set to exclude the US, UK, and Turkish arms companies from its €150 billion defence fund if their respective countries don't sign agreements with Brussels. That is of course. 

Why did the UK not threaten to leave Nato as a bargaining chip during Brexit negotiations?

Because the UK is ruled by what Dominic Cummings calls the Blob and Messrs Trump and Vance consider is the transatlantic deep state (think William Hague).

Many countries have deep states. Romania (cancelled election) and the UK (Brexit struggle) are two obvious examples.

Some do not, such as Israel. Netanyahu is able to swat away, so far, the opposition of the courts, the generals and the secular Ashkenazi left-of-centre establishment that ruled the country after 1948 until Begin and the Likud (successors to the Irgun) took power.

Quotations

"The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation is empathy." Elon Musk on The Joe Rogan Experience two weeks ago

 

"While the Army has 108,000 personnel, since 2018 more than 155,000 illegal migrants – most of them young men from Islamic nations like Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran — have entered Britain on some 4,300 boats." Matt Goodwin on Saturday

 

 

With countries and marriages, some unions work, others don't

The anti-system, pro-EU party USR (Save Romania Union) is the anti-system party that young Romanians with degrees and the Western European media like. 

But to many Romanians the EU and the Nato seem the system from which Romania needs saving, so there is another sort of anti-system party, the so called sovereignists. 

Election Bureau: Opposition to Romania’s membership of the EU and NATO makes a candidate unfit to stand in the presidential election

After rejecting the candidacy of Calin Georgescu, who came first in the cancelled presidential election in November and stands at 40% in the polls, on Saturday Romania’s Central Election Bureau went on to reject the candidacy of a another right-wing "sovereignist" politician, Diana Sosoaca. The decision was upheld by the Constitutional Court (CCR).

According to the Associated Press:

The CCR argued that her public discourse, including opposition to Romania’s European Union and NATO memberships, made her unfit to uphold the constitutional obligations of the presidency.