'Take That, Fritz!'

What does one do with unpleasant truths that refuse to be simply spun away? Why, have a Government report into them of course, preferably one that takes years, and produces a ton of words under which said truths may be buried.

Learning the Hard Way

 In the case of the Chilcot report on the Iraq war, the one obvious and outstanding lesson may be drawn very briefly: it is not a good idea for the UK to tag along on the coat-tails of the USA. If they really wanted to do something effective about the Middle East for instance, it would be far more likely to do so by positively taking their place with their peers in Europe; or at least they would be less likely to do harm that way.

Flowers in the Sand.

One might think the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme was another chance to remember the lessons to be learnt from war. What was the outstanding lesson of the two World Wars? Why, that competing nationalisms are highly dangerous; and eventually, after much suffering, the politicians actually got around to doing something in order to establish peace and security in Europe….

Yes, the grey voters who swung that Brexit vote have a lot to answer for. But it is amazing how the images of one’s childhood return with a new vividness in old age. How well I remember my Dinky toy tank, and armoured car with its gun turret, and the lorry with its towed gun that shot bits of matchstick and the scout car and the jeep; and the toy soldiers and the comic booklets full of our lads battling nasty Huns - Take that Fritz! - Zap, bang! Actung! Aaagh! Englisher svein!!! O yes, and there was the brave Biggles in the air, and there was the bomb site across the road to prove that it had actually happened. It was all supposed to have been the epic, archetypal struggle between Good and Evil.

The fact was that my father had just spent the first five years of his married life fighting that second war. He was extremely fortunate to have come home at all (and fathered myself), having escaped by luck from being massacred with his fellow officers in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment by the SS in a barn, while in the rearguard of Dunkirk.

It was difficult forgiveness and

peace-making, the stuff of actual Christian faith, which broke down much of the jingoistic nationalism. We have lately been rudely reminded, however, that this remains alive and well in many hearts and minds.  The huge effort that went into the political expression of that peace-making in the EU, in all those contacts, low level and high, means nothing to them. The unsettling realisation that perhaps the wars were not all the fault of the Germans, any more than it is now the fault of immigrants that the NHS is in trouble, has not been admitted by them, nor that ‘foreigners’ are human beings much like us. One doesn’t even know who ‘we’ are any more! Give us the old certainties back!

Mrs May’s "bold new positive role" for Britain in the world, along with Mr Johnson’s "intensifying our relationship with Europe", ring as hollow as her ‘one nation’ stuff.  "The government I lead will be driven, not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours. We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives…." One does not know where to start, the rhetoric rings so hollow. Where has she been for the last ten years? How long will these people get away with standing the truth on its head?

I came across an interesting article in El Pais lately by Leonel Fernández, ex President of the Dominican Republic and founder of the Fundación Global Democracia y Desarrollo. He quoted figures from the World Bank showing, for instance, that in the period 1980-2014, derivative contracts went from one billion dollars’ worth to 692 billion: ‘a fabulous sum, without precedent, which means that they have come to represent nearly 70% of global financial dealings.’ ‘The excess of liquidity which we find today in the global economy is not used to invest in industrial production, that of food or energy or creating infrastructure. On the contrary, it is mostly used for financial transactions which, instead of creating some kind of material wealth which meets the needs of consumers, generates rather a kind of artificial wealth based on commercial contracts.’

This shows where we really do need to ‘get our countries back from’, and again, who has been making any shape to do something about this situation? But enough of Brexit, that extraordinary act of vandalism, self-harm and misplaced anger. The sun is shining here on Sherkin, Tony Whelan has come to help get this building up. Time to take a break from all that nonsense and look for something more sensible to write about next week!

Grand Crew.

Thanks to Tony and Fiona for the photos.