Antisocial Distancing

 

Despite the Covid rules for keeping one’s distance I expect life in the average Royal Air Force Officers’ Mess has continued as usual.  In my sheltered time as a bachelor inmate, one found that the Dining Room was fully furnished with large rectangular oak tables set for breakfast – perhaps 6 or 8 place settings at each.  Whilst the staff would have preferred to serve and clear one table at a time, the usual preference of the Officers on entering the room at the start of the day was to choose an unoccupied table.  Here, in silent isolation, there would be room to spread the morning newspaper and tiresome early-morning conversation could be avoided.  I understand that in some Army Regiments, diners at breakfast might wear their hat to indicate to brother Officers that they did not wish to be disturbed.  And who could imagine a gentleman inconveniencing another Officer in the Ante Room by deliberately taking an adjacent armchair?

Rejoice!

 

The curse of Mushroom appears to have struck my old adversary, the news manipulator Kamal Ahmed.  Ahmed is a BAME news executive which, Mushroom has heard, is fashionably treated as if it were a wildlife protected species.  Astonishing, then, that the BBC, of all organisations, has dispensed with his professional services.  The BBC, shock and outrage, has contravened its own diversity rules.  Several BBC news presenters, we are told, have “raised concerns” - but not about the woke sausage machine of BBC "stories" Ahmed leaves behind, we may be sure.

Help from Our Friends

The day after I posted my previous piece about the importance of defending ourselves and not relying on "our friends in the EU," as the Prime Minister calls them, Allister Heath wrote:

"At a time when Britain is taking moral stances on Hong Kong and Alexei Navalny, the EU continues to suck up to the Russians via Merkel’s beloved Nord Stream 2. At best, the supposed European superpower intends to act as some sort of amoral non-aligned player, friendly to China and happy to take NATO handouts in return for nothing."

The delusion that the EU is responsible for peace and harmony in Europe is a matter of faith, not historical analysis, says Robert Tombs.  Tombs cites evidence from Sir Ian Kershaw, "who ascribes post-war peace to the defeat of Germany ‘once and for all’, to the Cold War and superpower hegemony, to new prosperity, and to nuclear weapons – not, in short, to European integration."

Hopefully, in the wake of the spiteful Article 16 debacle, more Rejoiners will begin to see the EU as unreliable and, as John Gray puts it, "the dangerous myth of some semi-sacred institution."

UK Must Defend UK

 

With the performance of the EU over their Covid vaccine strategy even attracting criticism from some of the most ardent “Rejoiners,” it could be helpful to remind everyone about defence.  Although Covid dominates our attention, a determined enemy would relish the opportunity to gain an advantage whilst our attention was focussed elsewhere.  To remind, Article 5 of the NATO Treaty requires all the signatories to come to each other’s aid in the event one of them is attacked – the principle of collective defence.  Could that be relied upon? Following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 , Julian Roepcke, writing in Standpoint, reports a black joke in the German security community:  “if Russia invades the Baltic states, Germany will of course honour its NATO commitment and defend them – once the German public approves this in a binding referendum.”  As for EU defence initiatives, they offer a full spectrum of military assistance short of actual fighting capability and could be safely ignored.  As Richard Barrons put it, their several Headquarters "provide day care for middle-aged officers" and are "unable to deploy anywhere robustly and quickly."

The astonishing behaviour of the EU over so-called, “vaccine wars,” should remind those in charge of UK defence that we should ensure we are able to look after ourselves.  Recent events give no cause for optimism that the EU could unite on anything (except hatred of Brexit), let alone collective defence.  All of which bodes ill for the future of the new Queen Elizabeth carriers which, with only 48 F35B aircraft, pack only a modest punch and will require the support of allies to maintain even that capability.