Insanity rules

I have read a daily newspaper since I was a youngster. In the 1950s it was the Daily Mirror, as our household supported Labour in the days when that party represented the working class, unlike today's middle class woke organisation. Later, when I began commuting every day to London I read the Daily Express, which did not used to be the sensationalist red top it is today, later moving to the Times. Once I was married we began taking the Daily Telegraph, which we still read every day. However I now find it increasingly depressing to read any newspaper, as the insanity which is dominating our society seems ever worsening, and nothing is being done to change things. As Alison Pearson, the Telegraph columnist, points out, it is almost impossible to identify April Fool jokes, as so many unbelievable articles are to be found every day.

She lists a number of these true stories which illustrate the point: a builder in Bedfordshire gets a police record for racial hatred after whistling the Bob the Builder theme at his neighbours; a family on horseback is menaced by two men, but the police then summoned them to answer accusations because they described those responsible as gypsies; a female professor is cast out of her university for stating biological facts; a grandmother is visited by the Thought Police because she posted a message criticising a Labour councillor, and, perhaps worst of all, a four year old is suspended from a nursery for abuse against sexual orientation and gender identity. Those responsible for the last must be totally deranged.

Just flicking through a few days of the newspaper reveals numerous articles which make clear how far the woke have taken over: the BBC refuses anti Semitism training, despite it being obvious that so many of its employees are in dire need of such; the demands of the unelected quango the Sentencing Council that there should be two tier justice; museums and other bodies issue trigger warnings over absurd issues; a Labour run council has sought an injunction to ban Christian street preachers. One could go on and on, but what is the point when any sane person can see the situation?

The outlook beyond these shores is also dark.There have been many impressive Presidents of the USA in the last one hundred years including, inter alia, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Barak Obama. They have treated the defence of Western values as of primary importance, and ensured that the military power of their country prevented those who sought to destroy such values did not succeed. They were sensible adults who made their country the most important guarantor of freedom. Now we have an administration in Washington which appears to be a combination of adolescent frat boys, hillbillies and rednecks, whose senior figures seem to believe that only American interests matter, and that they can just bully other nations into yielding to their demands, while making friends with authoritarian regimes who seek to undermine the democratic nations of the West. Indeed the autobiography of Vice President Vance is entitled Hillbilly Elegy, which speaks for itself.

Over the years I have often referred to Orwell's classic novel 1984, as he so accurately forecast such horrors as the Thought Police, the corruption of the language via Newspeak, and the mutability of the past becoming the means to suppress truth. Now the world appears to be becoming that described in the book, where it is divided between Oceania, Eurasia and East Asia. Who can doubt that we are seeing these replicated as America, Russia and China, all led by authoritarian regimes. If this is indeed the future reality, then those nations such as the UK must abandon the current alliances with the US, and join together to create a sufficiently strong military to defend their freedom. This is a tragedy, but the alternative is to bow the knee to the sort of ignorant louts who have taken power in Washington, and are set on betraying all that we hold dear.

The increasingly pronounced move towards isolationism by the USA, and the growing ascendency of authoritarian states such as Russia, China, and Iran, and the inability of those on the Left to grasp the realities of the world is preventing the necessary steps to be taken if we are to survive as a democratic nation. Socialists have never understood that their egalitarian ideals of using state power to divide the national wealth differently totally ignore the fact that such wealth depends on the capitalist system, and the private sector, to produce same, as they believe that somehow governments can produce money out of thin air. If they seek to tax more, then the disincentive effect will lead to a fall in the funds available, while to merely spend money they do not have will inevitably lead to inflation. Either route makes the nation poorer. This refusal to face facts is now affecting the absolutely essential need for the country to actively prepare for war, as those who oppose reining in the costs of the social care system limit the government's options to pay for the revival of our Armed Forces.

While of course those who are enduring disabling mental illness must be supported we have now reached the point where far too many others, citing symptoms of depression or anxiety, including a growing number of youngsters, is calling into question whether there is an over diagnosis of such illness taking place. GPs have reported that their surgery time is dominated by trying to work out whether their patients are fit for work, and now roughly 11 million fit notes are issued every year in England alone, with ninety three per cent assessing the patient as "not fit for work". That has doubled over a decade, and in the latest quarter, forty four per cent were for five weeks or more absence.

My parents, and their generation went through two world wars, the great depression, experiences of unemployment, and a lack of money, yet most managed to cope without becoming dependent on the state. I was more fortunate, but I remember rationing, the pressures of school and work, and the constant fears engendered by the Cold War, and dealt with such anxieties, without the need to, in effect, give up. To spend on large numbers of the worried well, rather than on defending the country, may lead to a situation where an imposed alien regime will put an end to all social care, even when it is justified.

The short term concerns of the political class, plus the utter stupidity of the selfish liberal elite, has led this country to the edge of the abyss of economic and political destruction. Ever since the fall of communism our governments have seized upon what they called the peace dividend to starve our Armed Forces of the resources they needed to protect us from our enemies. To make matters worse they have forgotten the concept of protecting strategic industries, and have allowed our vital industrial base to shrink, as major companies are sold abroad, and taxpayers money is spent on purchasing essential armaments from foreign manufacturers. Now at a time when war clouds are gathering the nation is pursuing an absurd net zero policy which is further undermining domestic industrial strength, as our best brains emigrate, and expertise accumulated over generations is lost.

As we rely more and more on imports of manufactured goods, how do the politicians choose to pay from them? By allowing our trade deficit to balloon, our national indebtedness to increase to an unmanageable extent, and to rely on services such as insurance, legal structures and other intangible products to provide an income. This is no way to protect the UK from the threats from nations which actually maintain an industrial base attuned to war production. An insurance document will not stop a tank, a legal contract will not stop a missile, and massive arrays of windmills at sea will be destroyed by the Russian navy in the first few days of a conflict. This is the fault of all the main parties, particularly the Conservatives, and if we continue down this path we will be like wheat before the sickle, and we will have brought it upon ourselves.

When I was studying economics in the far off days of the 1960s there were two guiding principles which had always informed government's decisions, regardless of whichever party was in power. The first priority of any administration is defence of the realm, for without that all else falls. As a necessary corollary to this was the defence of strategic industries, which were, and are, essential, if the country is to sustain a long war. However the latter concept has been ignored by the parties in power, largely it must be said by the Conservatives. MacMillan, in his speech famously described as his attack on "selling off the family silver", said: "The sale of assets is common with individuals and states when they run into financial difficulties", and this has happened far too often in the past decades. We have reached the point where the very existence of British steel making capacity is under threat, as the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe may be closed, leaving the UK with no means of producing steel. Should this happen then, in the event of war, we would not be able to produce the heavy armaments necessary to fight, and would inevitable go down to defeat. Whatever the cost the government must prevent this disaster, else we face the end of our existence as a sovereign nation.

Recent assertions that lockdown has caused irreparable harm to school age children are understandable but perhaps exaggerated. While they did endure a few months of interruptions to their lessons one should remember that children are pretty resilient, and can overcome such things in time. When I was at school the generation immediately before mine had experienced evacuation, with a consequent separation from their family, and often, on returning too early, went through horrific episodes of bombing, yet the vast majority survived both physically and mentally. It seems likely that many of the mental symptoms youngsters are displaying may very well be due to the ongoing pernicious effects of over use of mobile phones, and of social media, rather than as a consequence of a short period of lockdown some years ago.

One of the most prophetic sitcoms in recent years is undoubtedly 'One foot in the grave'. Although its central character Victor Meldrew is held up to ridicule, his experiences with the problems if using modern technology ring true more and more each day. If one has a problem with either a company, or a utility, sufficiently serious to warrant raising it with them, it is now standard practice that first they make even finding a relevant telephone number very difficult, but when one actually rings, one is presented with the same set of unhelpful reactions. Usually, whatever the time, the automated response will say that 'they are experiencing an usually large number of calls at the moment', and will then spend several minutes telling the caller that they might be able to find the answer that they want on their website. As one has usually looked at the website first, and having read 'frequently asked questions' that do not cover the situation, and endured a chat with a moronic bot, which states with monotonous regularly 'Do you mean such and such', when clearly you do not, this suggestion is worse than useless.

Having finally reached an actual human being, it is frequently the case that they insist on proceeding through a checklist, without any regard to the original complaint, often asking the same questions more than once, before finally saying that it will be dealt with, which, as happens time and again, it is not. It is clear that these organisations do not employ sufficient numbers of advisors, and often that those they do employ are not sufficiently trained in the details of situations with which they are expected to deal. At the very least every help centre should use a system which informs the customer of their current position in the telephone queue at regular intervals. Far from being helpful these help centres obfuscate, and leave customers saying, in a phrase made famous by Victor Meldrew 'I do not believe it'. Things were better in the days before computers were involved.

When my wife and I sat down to watch a two part programme, shown on PBS America, entitled 'Dying Democracies', we expected it to relate how the democracies of Europe were being undermined by the insanities of the woke, and in particular how the importation of millions of people from cultures incompatible with Western beliefs was destroying democracy in most of the nations affected, which were already reeling from the dictatorship of the bureaucrats of Brussels. It transpired that it was exactly the opposite, extolling the virtues of the EU, applauding the so called liberal nonsense promulgated by the Western elites, and condemning anyone who tried to resist as 'far right', or indeed fascists. Populist parties were dismissed as using lies to gain power, and of having the intention of turning their nations into right wing dictatorships. Those who are responsible for this programme clearly regard the fact that such parties are popular because they advocate policies which the majority of their electorate support, as deplorable.

No mention is made of the manner in which the unelected Commissioners of the EU issue diktats which the member states are required to obey, even when they run contrary to the obvious desires of the electorates. Indeed anyone who opposes the whole concept of the EU is dismissed as more or less fascist, the opposite of the truth. The narrator accuses countries such as Hungary, and Italy, who have elected governments opposing the obvious prejudices of the makers of this so called documentary, of changing laws in order to undermine democracy. This is laughable, as the deplorable judicial action which is preventing Marine Le Pen standing in the next French presidential election is a direct result of the process which has seen cooperation between the bureaucrats who run the European Union, and domestic left wing judges aimed at replacing democracy, and the rule of law, by the rule of unelected functionaries, and lawyers.

In France, and increasingly in the UK, we see the elected representatives of the people being overruled by arrogant members of the judicial system. The UK government has delayed local elections that they were likely to lose, while quangos, full of appointees, seek to dictate policy, often against the wishes of the country's elected representatives. That the Kremlin can issue statements about this failure in democratic standards, albeit the height of hypocrisy, is a salutary reminder that over mighty lawyers are not merely undermining Western democracy, but are making our claims to be morally superior to the dictators impossible to justify.

The makers of this programme are totally deluded if they really believe that the EU is a democratic institution, that the judiciary in many European nations is acting in an impartial manner, and that it is populist parties who are threatening democracy. In reality it is the elites, who have had their way for decades, and are effectively destroying democracy throughout Europe. It is regrettable that this programme should have been shown in the US, as those who do not know the facts will be deceived into believing the rubbish that it is attempting to sell as the truth.

I do not know if anything will be done to restore sanity before it is too late, but, if it is not, then the future is bleak indeed.