I had a rant recently about the Islam4UK's proposal to hold a march through Wootton Bassett to draw attention to the many Muslim dead in the current Afghanistan adventure. I tried to say something about how this small Wiltshire village has become a symbol of something, but didn't say it very well. As always, The Heresiarch says it far better, and far more succinctly, than I can:
But what is really inspired is his choice of venue. Wootton Bassett is the town that in the absence of any clear explanation of what we are doing in Afghanistan, has become not merely the scene of tribute but, in an odd way, the mission's whole justification. What began as the quiet and spontaneous reaction of locals has now become strangely ritualised and increasingly official. The town now seems both the focus and the locus of that attenuated thing we're supposed to call Britishness, where the military covenant, elsewhere a hollow joke, becomes almost sacral.
Add a comment about what sort of national leadership vacuum has precipitated the Wootton Bassett phenomenon (I can't remember anything like it), and you've got the whole thing.
Well worth a read, this man.
Monday, 4 January 2010
Sunday, 3 January 2010
At last
A politician says something I can agree with about the Iraq war.
Former Prime Minister Sir John Major has criticised Tony Blair's handling of the Iraq war and his presentation of the case for invasion in March 2003. Sir John said he had reluctantly backed the war because he believed what Mr Blair had said as prime minister. But now, he said, big questions had been raised by the evidence given to the Chilcott Inquiry into the war.
Former Prime Minister Sir John Major has criticised Tony Blair's handling of the Iraq war and his presentation of the case for invasion in March 2003. Sir John said he had reluctantly backed the war because he believed what Mr Blair had said as prime minister. But now, he said, big questions had been raised by the evidence given to the Chilcott Inquiry into the war.
I can understand Labour MPs not speaking out about the catalogue of deceit and spin that constituted the Government's 'case' for going to war. Not many of them have the courage of the late Robin Cook. And of course the Conservatives have been hamstrung by their pallid acquiescence in the Commons vote which - well, I was going to say 'took Britain to war', but it was more like a rubber stamp on a decision that had been taken many months before and a long way away. Only the LibDems spoke out against it, and I found myself in the curious position of agreeing with a party that I normally think of as irrelevant. Now, at last, someone in a senior position has said what I have been thinking all along.
In the run-up to the war, I was highly suspicious of the way things were going. Hans Blix had not completed his search for the WMDs that we were assured were there, and I was sure that no decision about war would be made until the facts were clear. I was wrong, of course. I certainly wasn't in favour of war, but neither was I completely against it either. It was only when Tony Blair made that claim - in Parliament - that Saddam Hussein had WMDs that could be mobilised at 45 minutes' notice, that I came down reluctantly behind the Government's position. I guess I was naïve enough to think that if the British Prime Minister said something in Parliament, it would be true. I know that Blair and his cronies now say that the 45-minute claim only ever referred to battlefield weapons, but that was certainly not the impression that they were giving out at the time. This was a massive piece of misinformation, and I was taken in by it.
I think my anger at Blair and the whole lot of them is because I allowed them to compromise my principles. I believe that war is sometimes necessary, but must always be a last resort, and must be engaged in for the highest ethical reasons. If Iraq is threatening Britain, or British people, or British forces, I reasoned, then a hard strike against them is unfortunately justified. Blair was quite specific with the British people - the war was not about regime change, it was about WMDs (the reverse of what Bush was feeding to the American people at the same time, incidentally). When it turned out that the war was indeed about regime change, and pursued partly to advance US interests in the region, partly about oil, and partly about Bush Jr finishing off the job that Bush Snr couldn't do, I felt betrayed.
Betrayed. It's a strong word, but Blair's lies to Parliament and the British people caused me to give my tacit support to something which I later realised was completely wrong, and something that on principle I would never have supported had I know the facts. Blair made me feel stained by my association with a vicious and unjustified act of aggression against a country that posed us no threat whatsoever, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent bystanders (people who, in theory, we were acting to protect against the evil Saddam). What no-one pointed out at the time, but which seemed a reasonable question, was that the War On Terror was a result of 9/11, but that Iraq had no connection whatsoever with Al-Qaeda. It was like having the bully from No. 15 set fire to your shed, and kicking the door of No. 28 down as revenge.
So John Major's intervention is welcome.
Sir John said it now seemed there were doubts before the invasion about whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said he wanted to know whether the Cabinet had known about those doubts. He said: "I had myself been prime minister in the first Gulf War, and I knew when I said something I was utterly certain that it was correct, and I said less than I knew. "I assumed the same thing had happened and on that basis I supported reluctantly the second Iraq war."
My position exactly.
Sir John said the argument that someone was bad was an inadequate argument for war. "There are many bad men around the world who run countries and we don't topple them, and indeed in earlier years we had actually supported Saddam Hussein when he was fighting against Iran.
There is a moral case to be made for going to war to remove 'bad men' from positions of power, although I wouldn't agree with it. But we don't do this anywhere else in the world. Zimbabwe and North Korea are two obvious examples. But then, those countries don't have oil.
Sir John said concerns about the Iraq war needed to be addressed if the public's trust in politics was going to be restored.
That's certainly true for me. I think the events of 2003 an onwards regarding Iraq are what turned my attitude from healthy suspicion to downright cynicism. I didn't use to follow Louis Heren's advice (when listening to a politician, always ask yourself "why is this lying bastard lying to me?"), but I am more inclined to do so now. If the Prime Minister can lie to Parliament and the people so comprehensively and with so little remorse, what else are they lying about? Then, of course, all the crime statistics and the educational achievements (which always sound so good, and never ever match what you see in the real world) start to look like the spin they really are. It is now commonplace, when presented with official figures about anything, to look first for the manipulation. The corrosion of trust in politicians may well be a truer legacy of Prime Minister Blair than anything else he did.
John Major says a lot more about Parliament and politicians, and it's worth reading. He might not have been the greatest Prime Minister we ever had, but he had integrity.
Integrity, that's what has been lost.
Oh dear, oh dear
I sure hope this doesn't go ahead:
An Islamic group said to have links to an extremist movement is planning to march through the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett. The town has become famous for honouring British war dead returning from Afghanistan. Islam4UK pledged the protest would be peaceful with symbolic coffins representing Muslim victims.
The gathering of ordinary people at Wootton Bassett when soldiers are repatriated is not organised by Westminster or the armed forces themselves; it is seemingly an example of a genuine outpouring of feelings - of respect for the armed forces and the sacrifices they make on our behalf. I cannot remember anything like it happening before, and I reckon that at least part of the drive to go there and pay one's respects is due to the shameful neglect of the forces that we have seen under this Government. (I spoke to a man collecting for the Poppy Appeal in November, and he said that donations - and those for Help for Heroes - had been higher than ever. The fact that there is now room for two charities benefiting ex-servicemen is testament to a change in public feelings.)
If Islam4UK decide to hold a march - peaceful, in the way that the British Union of Fascists' march through Cable Street in 1936 was peaceful - then I fear that the public reaction will be both overwhelming and violent. Regardless of the intentions of the proposed march (which may or may not be truthful), the British public - those who go to Wootton Bassett and those who do not - will see it as a slap in the face for our armed forces, who have already been treated with disdain by our own Government. Regardless of whether we support the decision to go to war in Afghanistan, we know that our troops deserve our support, and we don't take insults to them (for that is how it will be perceived) lightly. I would predict a huge turnout of people, some of whom will want to be there as peaceful witnesses to Britain's support for its army, and some of whom will be there for a fight. The outcome will, inevitably, be serious disturbances, and I am convinced that there will be the potential for fatalities. If the march goes ahead, and Islam4UK supporters are injured or killed, then the international reaction will make the Mohammed cartoon issue look like a playground spat. For one thing, it will give any crackpot outfit in the Islamic world the 'justification' that they need to bomb any target in the UK. For another, it might just force the British public into a much more polarised viewpoint on Islam in general, and that would be no good at all for society.
But, of course, that is the purpose of the proposed march.
I believe in the right to peaceful protest, and I don't like the idea of banning people's rights to say what they think, but in this case I think the authorities should just say no. Allowing the march to go ahead could be a catalyst for a complete change in attitude by ordinary British people, and I don't think the results will be at all pretty.
An Islamic group said to have links to an extremist movement is planning to march through the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett. The town has become famous for honouring British war dead returning from Afghanistan. Islam4UK pledged the protest would be peaceful with symbolic coffins representing Muslim victims.
Islam4UK is said to call itself a "platform" for the extremist movement al-Muhajiroun.
On its website the group said it was "totally unacceptable" to honour servicemen who had contributed "directly or indirectly" to the deaths of "well over 100,000 Muslims in Afghanistan in the last 8 years".
"We at Islam4UK find this totally unacceptable and as a result have decided to launch the 'Wootton Bassett March' to highlight the real casualties of this brutal Crusade," the website states.
If this is allowed to go ahead, I fear real trouble. I mean real trouble.The gathering of ordinary people at Wootton Bassett when soldiers are repatriated is not organised by Westminster or the armed forces themselves; it is seemingly an example of a genuine outpouring of feelings - of respect for the armed forces and the sacrifices they make on our behalf. I cannot remember anything like it happening before, and I reckon that at least part of the drive to go there and pay one's respects is due to the shameful neglect of the forces that we have seen under this Government. (I spoke to a man collecting for the Poppy Appeal in November, and he said that donations - and those for Help for Heroes - had been higher than ever. The fact that there is now room for two charities benefiting ex-servicemen is testament to a change in public feelings.)
If Islam4UK decide to hold a march - peaceful, in the way that the British Union of Fascists' march through Cable Street in 1936 was peaceful - then I fear that the public reaction will be both overwhelming and violent. Regardless of the intentions of the proposed march (which may or may not be truthful), the British public - those who go to Wootton Bassett and those who do not - will see it as a slap in the face for our armed forces, who have already been treated with disdain by our own Government. Regardless of whether we support the decision to go to war in Afghanistan, we know that our troops deserve our support, and we don't take insults to them (for that is how it will be perceived) lightly. I would predict a huge turnout of people, some of whom will want to be there as peaceful witnesses to Britain's support for its army, and some of whom will be there for a fight. The outcome will, inevitably, be serious disturbances, and I am convinced that there will be the potential for fatalities. If the march goes ahead, and Islam4UK supporters are injured or killed, then the international reaction will make the Mohammed cartoon issue look like a playground spat. For one thing, it will give any crackpot outfit in the Islamic world the 'justification' that they need to bomb any target in the UK. For another, it might just force the British public into a much more polarised viewpoint on Islam in general, and that would be no good at all for society.
But, of course, that is the purpose of the proposed march.
I believe in the right to peaceful protest, and I don't like the idea of banning people's rights to say what they think, but in this case I think the authorities should just say no. Allowing the march to go ahead could be a catalyst for a complete change in attitude by ordinary British people, and I don't think the results will be at all pretty.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Snow thoughts
I like snow, for a lot of reasons.
Firstly, no matter how muddy, dank, overgrown and generally neglected your garden is (can you see where I am coming from here?), snow makes it look lovely.
Secondly, snow makes everywhere into a playground. Walking along the lane becomes fun again, as you crunch through the crispy white stuff and throw snowballs at the dog.
Thirdly, snow makes the roads adventurous once more. I appreciate that not everyone will agree with me here, but I quite like the way than snow takes us all back to a time when going anywhere by motorised transport was an adventure, which needed skill, understanding and preparation. A long journey in the car today, whatever the conditions, is simply a matter of sitting there and letting the heated this and the automatic that do their stuff. If you wear a warm coat or a hat, it's only to get you from the front door to the car, and to keep you comfy until the heater starts working. You can, in a modern car, go anywhere at any time, with Radio 4 and your shirtsleeves on. But when the snow comes, the roads suddenly become a place where you need to prepare for what you are doing. Shovel in the boot, warm clothes on (in case of breakdown), and - crucially - a bit of skill in the old driving.
I moved to Pembrokeshire almost 20 years ago, and I never cease to be astonished at how the people here deal with snow. One inch, and it's 'do I dare go outside?' Two inches, and it's gridlock. I lived for a long time in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where we got a decent amount of snow every winter, and drifts of six feet and more were commonplace. Everybody coped. You put a few things in the car that might come in handy, you learned how to drive in slippery conditions, and you got on with it. In 13 years of living there, I never once failed to get to work because of snow. (I had to divert to a different school and spend the day impersonating a German teacher once, but that was the worst it got.)
So what is the secret? I'm sure a lot of it is familiarity. If you have to do this every year, then you soon get used to it. Drive gently, use higher gears, preserve momentum - and just occasionally, when it's safe to do so, go bonkers and really see what happens when you turn too hard or brake too sharply. You soon learn.
The best car I ever had for 'getting there' in the snow was a Citroen 2CV6. Like this one:
Light, with low power and good ground clearance, and narrow tyres that cound bite down through the snow to the hard stuff beneath. Air-cooled, so no worries about frozen radiators. And an utterly ineffective heater, so you were already dressed for the Arctic and fully prepared for the worst if it ever did get stuck. Except it didn't. Not once did YVY27V ever fail to get me where I was going. I've been up frozen hills, past lorries and 4x4s all askew on the verges and across the road, all at a steady 20 mph, and got home safe and sound. And it took me 4000 miles round Europe one summer, too. Utterly brilliant cars, and I will have another one, one day.
There have been a lot of complaints recently about the level of gritting of the roads by the local authorities. According to motorists, very little has been done. According to the authorities' spokesmen, it has been done brilliantly. As usual, what you see on the TV reports bears no relation to what you see in your own life, so you assume someone is lying. I can say for certain that the amount of gritting round here has been minimal, and a lot less than previous years, whatever the County Council say.
I'm not sure this is a bad thing, or even if we should grit roads at all. I'm rather attracted by the idea that we accept the weather and the conditions for what they are, and run our lives accordingly. Would it be such a terrible thing if we couldn't do London to Leeds in two hours for a few days of the year? People would have to relearn their winter driving skills, and invest in winter tyres (and snow chains if they lived at the top of a hill) and take a bit more care. Is that such a bad thing? Or perhaps stay at home, read a book, walk the dog, take the kids sledging? And think of all the damage that the road salt does to the shiny bits of your pride and joy. Eurgh.
Snow disrupts our cosy routines and makes us reappraise our lives and our priorities. And it's pretty. Gets my vote.
Firstly, no matter how muddy, dank, overgrown and generally neglected your garden is (can you see where I am coming from here?), snow makes it look lovely.
Secondly, snow makes everywhere into a playground. Walking along the lane becomes fun again, as you crunch through the crispy white stuff and throw snowballs at the dog.
Thirdly, snow makes the roads adventurous once more. I appreciate that not everyone will agree with me here, but I quite like the way than snow takes us all back to a time when going anywhere by motorised transport was an adventure, which needed skill, understanding and preparation. A long journey in the car today, whatever the conditions, is simply a matter of sitting there and letting the heated this and the automatic that do their stuff. If you wear a warm coat or a hat, it's only to get you from the front door to the car, and to keep you comfy until the heater starts working. You can, in a modern car, go anywhere at any time, with Radio 4 and your shirtsleeves on. But when the snow comes, the roads suddenly become a place where you need to prepare for what you are doing. Shovel in the boot, warm clothes on (in case of breakdown), and - crucially - a bit of skill in the old driving.
I moved to Pembrokeshire almost 20 years ago, and I never cease to be astonished at how the people here deal with snow. One inch, and it's 'do I dare go outside?' Two inches, and it's gridlock. I lived for a long time in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where we got a decent amount of snow every winter, and drifts of six feet and more were commonplace. Everybody coped. You put a few things in the car that might come in handy, you learned how to drive in slippery conditions, and you got on with it. In 13 years of living there, I never once failed to get to work because of snow. (I had to divert to a different school and spend the day impersonating a German teacher once, but that was the worst it got.)
So what is the secret? I'm sure a lot of it is familiarity. If you have to do this every year, then you soon get used to it. Drive gently, use higher gears, preserve momentum - and just occasionally, when it's safe to do so, go bonkers and really see what happens when you turn too hard or brake too sharply. You soon learn.
The best car I ever had for 'getting there' in the snow was a Citroen 2CV6. Like this one:
Light, with low power and good ground clearance, and narrow tyres that cound bite down through the snow to the hard stuff beneath. Air-cooled, so no worries about frozen radiators. And an utterly ineffective heater, so you were already dressed for the Arctic and fully prepared for the worst if it ever did get stuck. Except it didn't. Not once did YVY27V ever fail to get me where I was going. I've been up frozen hills, past lorries and 4x4s all askew on the verges and across the road, all at a steady 20 mph, and got home safe and sound. And it took me 4000 miles round Europe one summer, too. Utterly brilliant cars, and I will have another one, one day.
There have been a lot of complaints recently about the level of gritting of the roads by the local authorities. According to motorists, very little has been done. According to the authorities' spokesmen, it has been done brilliantly. As usual, what you see on the TV reports bears no relation to what you see in your own life, so you assume someone is lying. I can say for certain that the amount of gritting round here has been minimal, and a lot less than previous years, whatever the County Council say.
I'm not sure this is a bad thing, or even if we should grit roads at all. I'm rather attracted by the idea that we accept the weather and the conditions for what they are, and run our lives accordingly. Would it be such a terrible thing if we couldn't do London to Leeds in two hours for a few days of the year? People would have to relearn their winter driving skills, and invest in winter tyres (and snow chains if they lived at the top of a hill) and take a bit more care. Is that such a bad thing? Or perhaps stay at home, read a book, walk the dog, take the kids sledging? And think of all the damage that the road salt does to the shiny bits of your pride and joy. Eurgh.
Snow disrupts our cosy routines and makes us reappraise our lives and our priorities. And it's pretty. Gets my vote.
Deep. And crisp, even ...
Yesterday, the weather finally caught up with the BBC Weather Service and did what it was supposed to do. Snow.
It started yesterday afternoon with a bit of cold rain, which gradually turned into sleet, and then started falling more slowly and visibly white. By nightfall, we had a nice covering of crisp flakes all over the drive. This morning, the world was eerily quiet, which is one of my favourite memories of snow as a child. I lived in the frozen North (County Durham) and we had snow every winter. One day, the sky would darken and you could smell the approaching snow. That night, you went to bed in anticipation of something special.
If you were lucky, when you woke up there were two signs that snow had arrived. One was the strange quietness, as the newly-fallen snow muffled any noises, and the other was the odd lighting effect in the bedroom - the ceiling was brighter than normal, as the majority of light entering the room was coming from below, reflected from the snow in the garden. If it was the weekend, it meant wellies on and a trip to the park with the toboggan. If it was a schoolday, it meant - school. I don't remember school ever being closed because of the weather. I suppose it helped that I was within easy walking distance of about half a mile - a distance that most parents today would consider to be justification for a 4x4 purchase and a row at the school gates over unsafe parking.
I can remember the winter of 1963 very well. I'm not old enough to remember 1947, but 63 was pretty epic. In fact, I can remember feeling fed up with snow by the time it ended, which says something. I was 9 in January 1963, and I can clearly remember walking up the road to school with the snow almost waist-deep. It had a hard crust on the top - although not hard enough to walk on - so that each step was an acrobatic lift of the leg to waist height, then a move forward and a plunge through the crust to the firm ground below. Getting to school took for ever that winter. The school playground was on a slope, so the first thing we did was to polish up a decent slide down the middle, and spend the time before lessons sliding sideways from the top of the playground to the bottom. The bell went for assembly, and while we were inside the caretaker would come out and put salt on it. It was "for our own good". Health and Safety didn't start with the 1974 Act. (To be fair, he always salted the slide after we had gone inside. These days, there would be a 'procedure' whereby the slide would be salted before anyone arrived and a full auditable record kept, to ensure that no-one had any fun at all.)
I'm rambling. Again. This is what it looked like half an hour ago:
View from the front door.
The lane to the main road.
View across the valley behind the house.
And not to forget the bikes:
A very frozen Pan, and
A cold and soggy XT. Bless 'em. I'll bring them in for some hot soup later.
It started yesterday afternoon with a bit of cold rain, which gradually turned into sleet, and then started falling more slowly and visibly white. By nightfall, we had a nice covering of crisp flakes all over the drive. This morning, the world was eerily quiet, which is one of my favourite memories of snow as a child. I lived in the frozen North (County Durham) and we had snow every winter. One day, the sky would darken and you could smell the approaching snow. That night, you went to bed in anticipation of something special.
If you were lucky, when you woke up there were two signs that snow had arrived. One was the strange quietness, as the newly-fallen snow muffled any noises, and the other was the odd lighting effect in the bedroom - the ceiling was brighter than normal, as the majority of light entering the room was coming from below, reflected from the snow in the garden. If it was the weekend, it meant wellies on and a trip to the park with the toboggan. If it was a schoolday, it meant - school. I don't remember school ever being closed because of the weather. I suppose it helped that I was within easy walking distance of about half a mile - a distance that most parents today would consider to be justification for a 4x4 purchase and a row at the school gates over unsafe parking.
I can remember the winter of 1963 very well. I'm not old enough to remember 1947, but 63 was pretty epic. In fact, I can remember feeling fed up with snow by the time it ended, which says something. I was 9 in January 1963, and I can clearly remember walking up the road to school with the snow almost waist-deep. It had a hard crust on the top - although not hard enough to walk on - so that each step was an acrobatic lift of the leg to waist height, then a move forward and a plunge through the crust to the firm ground below. Getting to school took for ever that winter. The school playground was on a slope, so the first thing we did was to polish up a decent slide down the middle, and spend the time before lessons sliding sideways from the top of the playground to the bottom. The bell went for assembly, and while we were inside the caretaker would come out and put salt on it. It was "for our own good". Health and Safety didn't start with the 1974 Act. (To be fair, he always salted the slide after we had gone inside. These days, there would be a 'procedure' whereby the slide would be salted before anyone arrived and a full auditable record kept, to ensure that no-one had any fun at all.)
I'm rambling. Again. This is what it looked like half an hour ago:
View from the front door.
The lane to the main road.
View across the valley behind the house.
And not to forget the bikes:
A very frozen Pan, and
A cold and soggy XT. Bless 'em. I'll bring them in for some hot soup later.
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