This nonsense about Winston Churchill just shows how the lunatic fringe has moved into the mainstream. Ben Shapiro and Andrew Roberts have both forensically dismissed the claim that Churchill should not be regarded as a hero so I need not attempt to walk in their shoes but there are some points to be made arising from the “debate”

Even in the 1930s public opinion saw Churchill as an old fashioned figure, a relic of the Victorian/Edwardian era out of sync with modern attitudes. He had opposed votes for women, self government for India and helped break the General Strike of 1926. He believed in the Empire, hated Bolshevism and despised the League of Nations.
Within the Conservative Party he was seen as a relic and a troublemaker. Even as late as 1960 when, as a university student I helped campaign for the Tories in a council election I heard the local candidate use those very words about Churchill even when most of us saw him as the hero who saved our nation in 1940.

After Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 he became almost a one man band constantly warning against the rise of German militarism and the need to re-arm. His warnings fell largely on deaf ears, not just from his fellow politicians but also the general public. My parents remembered vividly times in cinemas when the newsreels showed Churchill and there were cries or “warmonger” from the audience. Rumours swirled that he wanted war because he had shares in the armaments industry. He was a voice in the wilderness when he refused to acclaim Chamberlain for Munich.

Yet when the nation was awakened to the possibility of defeat in 1940, when many politicians and media figures were pushing for “terms” and Chamberlain sought to create a government of national unity the Labour Party refused to serve under anybody else except Churchill. When George VI unwillingly appointed him Prime Minsister the country largely fell in behind him…..beecause, at that moment of crisis, his old fashioned, outdated ideas of patriotism mirrored the public mood

“It is to wage war by sea, land, and air, war with all our minds and with all the strength that God gives us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crimes.”

For a country totally alone, weakened militarily and economically it was manifestly an irrational response. No “modern” politician would have dared used that phrase…..which was why Churchill was the only one who could say it with conviction.

Subsequently as a wartime PM his path was not always even. The latecomers from Washington and Moscow gradually took up the greater part of the burden. But without that moment in 1940 the “monstrous tyranny” could well have been secure in Europe even until this present day…..

WHEN THE LENS OF WISHFUL THINKING TURNS HISTORY INTO MYTH

Much of the reporting about the centenary of the granting of votes to women has been strong on emotion and weak on historical facts. Most of the narrative has been about the “suffragettes” and their militancy, with various celebs and politicians decked out in purple, white and green, the WSPU (suffragette) colours.

In fact most of the heavy lifting for women’s suffrage was done by Millicent Fawcett’s “suffragists” (NUWSS) who favoured non violent campaigning. It could well be argued that it was the NUWSS effort that won the right to vote. Yet they (and their colours of red.white and green) have today been overshadowed by the Pankhursts and the suffragettes.

Curiously enough the NUWSS was a tad more left wing than the suffragettes. The WSPU abandoned action in 1914 and fully supported WW1. Although Fawcett also supported the war she had to be more circumspect because many of her members were pacifists. Nevertheless today even left wingers were decked out in purple white and green when they should have been red, white and green.

Maybe the passionate grandstanding of the suffragettes has a greater resonance with 21st century culture than the equally determined but less theatrical behaviour of the suffragists. However, although the current commemorations focus, quite rightly, on women gaining the right to vote and the democrat in me celebrates that landmark, the historian in me does get irritated when facts get….massaged…..

“The failure of a second bill in 1867 led to the formation of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage in Manchester, gradually joined by numerous other branches around the country, which were united in 1897 in the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. The suffragists of the NUWSS were many more in number than the militants who in 1903 set up the WSPU (Women’s Social and Political Union) and adopted direct militant action as tactics. By 1914 the NUWSS had 50,000 members, the WSPU 5,000. The NUWSS retained their focus on peaceful campaigning: petitioning, demonstrating, writing, speaking and teaching, organising and lobbying in favour of the vote. Many of them saw the violent tactics of the suffragettes as bringing the movement and the credibility of women as aspiring responsible members of political society into disrepute and compromising the female values which they argued were needed in government and society and which necessitated that women should have a vote.”

Am I the only person whose Facebook timeline has uncovered posts from apparently well educated, middle class women (usually in their late 20s/early 30s) who regularly proclaim their feminist purity by railing against male misogyny yet who quite happily call Theresa May a b**** or a c***?  These are women who would prickle with resentment if you called them “love” or complimented them on the way they dressed. If you called them the c or b word they would go full metal discrimination. They stoutly defend Diane Abbott against any criticism by swiftly playing the sexist card yet they quite happily fling those words around when pontificating about the Conservative leader and do not smack any wrists when their male friends resort to similar name calling in the threads to their posts.

There is not a peep of protest.

Why?

It’s because the target of their ire is a) a right wing politician and b) she appears to be winning. Hence sisterhood goes out of the window and the claws are unleashed.

It happened to Margaret Thatcher and it also happened to Sarah Palin (even though she didn’t win)

If one were cruel it could be put down to hypocrisy. But since that sin is endemic on the left perhaps it is best filed under bad manners……

It’s now clear that Paul Nuttall made a mistake in allowing himself to be hyped into the Stoke by election, partly by the media and also by Farage/Banks. (Remember that Nigel has never had the cojones to be a candidate in a by election) Paul  should have brushed off the “frit” nonsense and let a local face stand – the result would then have been seen in a different light. At present May is riding a Brexit wave because she is not perceived as a con man like Cameron…which is why the Tories did well in Stoke. What everyone seems to conveniently forget is that Nigel lost at Thanet in 2015 for a similar reason – Tories were nervous about the possibility of a Miliband/Sturgeon majority in the Commons so UKIP were not able to siphon off those crucial votes and Nigel lost by a much larger margin than John Bickley did in the Heywood by election in 2014

Paul’s task is to rebuild the party from the mess left by two years of civil war so that it is ready for the next opportunity. Political energy should be concentrated on the target areas and educating the electorate, using the 2015 manifesto as a framework for policy. Selling this should be a collegiate task using as many voices as possible. This was a disappointment not a defeat. Hysterical overstatements should be avoided. Additionally it should be recalled that Nigel has tried to become an MP several times and always failed  so his implied criticism of Paul was not only untimely but also a tad laughable……..

DAVID Davis has vowed that Britain’s “best days are yet to come” as he laid out the Government’s White Paper on Brexit.

The Brexit Secretary told MPs this afternoon said that our vote to leave the EU was a “vote of confidence in the UK’s ability to succeed”.

The train out of the EU has now left the station with the Remoaners still sobbing in the last carriage while casting a wistful eye towards the massed ranks of faceless EU bureaucrats still gloweringon the platform.

Of course the Guardian/BBC EUphiles will still maintain their doomsday chorus of sniping and sneering but, Gina Miller notwithstanding, our destination of an independent Britain where we and we alone decide on our laws is coming nearer

BREXIT DAY WILL BE MARCH 9  

Theresa May has set a target date of launching the formal Brexit process on March 9.

The Government is pushing its EU Bill through Parliament by March 7, which would allow the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50 at a summit of European leaders on March 9 and 10.

Ministers told the House of Lords yesterday that it hopes to have the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill approved by March 7.

The following day – March 8 – is the Budget, before Mrs May travels to Brussels for the long-awaited Brexit showdown with her EU counterparts.

The PM has promised to trigger Article 50, the formal mechanism for quitting the EU, by the end of March.

 We’re on our way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to Guido Tony Blair has finally grasped that a return to front line politics is a definite no no

 I can’t come into front-line politics. There’s just too much hostility, and also there are elements of the media who would literally move to destroy mode if I tried to do that

But he is still convinced he has his finger on the pulse of the British people

Blair says there are millions of “politically homeless” people in Britain

You don’t have to be a genius, of course, to realise his idea of the politically homeless does not refer to the Sunderlands and Dudleys and those millions of other working class voters who used the referendum to give a V sign to all the great and the good.

Clearly he means people like him – pro EU, metropolitan, internationally minded, virtue signaling and well salaried members of the chattering classes….Blairite, Lib Dem and oh so Green

So he intends to work behind the scenes, using his wealth and contacts to help  build a platform for these folk to exchange ideas and share a vision and comfort each other through the post referendum, post Trump dark days

Problem is there already exists a ready made platform for such people that is also run by them – and it’s taxpayer funded…

The BBC……

Plenty of coverage of the Labour leadership contest in the media – but very little about the UKIP leadership election – which Peter Preston at the Guardian finds rather odd considering

Ukip scored 3,881,099 votes in the 2015 general election. More than the Lib Dems and SNP put together. Its current poll rating, even leaderless in the lee of Theresa, mostly hovers in the 14% region. Last June, at Brexit time, it was five or six points higher than that. Without Ukip, Remain would have won. Editorialists talked obsessively, post-referendum, about the disaffected white legions of the north and Midlands in revolt against London’s elite. Yet where is that newfound extra-metropolitan fascination when Ukip makes its own top choices?

Of course this could be down to the fact that our media gurus, permanently ensconced in their North London bubble have little understanding and even less sympathy with the party and its supporters. Maybe they assume (or hope) that, with Nigel Farage slipping into the background and Brexit won, UKIP will just go away

John Harris, also in the Guardian, has a word of caution for his fellow hacks…

At which point, a few corrective thoughts. First, whatever the state of Ukip’s internal affairs, the state of politics in both Europe and the US suggests that as economies and societies continue to fragment, and the mainstream seems to have no clear answers, the new rightwing populism is going be with us for some time to come.

Second, given that the referendum happened only two months ago, it is worth at least briefly reflecting on the part Ukip played in the outcome. With a solitary MP and a flimsy activist base, it still played a huge role in embedding the connection between most of Britain’s ills and the EU, and thereby carrying its cause from the margins of politics to its very centre. Here is an example of postmodern politics from which people on the left would do well to learn. Moreover, the people responsible are hardly likely to simply disappear.

Which is why it is absolutely essential for the future of UKIP that the next leader should be Diane James. She is the only candidate who has a national media profile, who comes across as cool, calm and collected whenever she is on TV or radio but is also rock solid on core UKIP values – and tough enough to bring some order and discipline into the organisational mess that currently fractures the party (and infuriates the grassroots….)

Remember the Eastleigh by-election when the media were shocked that UKIP came so close to winning A LIB Dem seat that Cameron had hoped to bag for the Tories?

There was a time when Ukip candidates were noted for their flakiness and eccentricity, but James, a healthcare executive and a councillor in Surrey, has come over as mainstream and professional. The Guardian’s John Harris said she was a smart, apparently unflappable operator who you might easily mistake for an A-list Tory candidate

Diane James certainly made an impression on me. For quite a while I had found myself in sympathy with UKIP on many issues but the quality of its leadership cadre before 2013 left much to be desired. Diane changed my perception of the party. As a new member I attended the 2013 party conference and discovered that quite a few other new faces felt the same way. Talking now to ordinary members it appears to me that at the grassroots level she remains very popular.

However there is some evidence that amongst the old guard, the pre 2010 folk, she is perceived by some as “not quite one of us”, rather aloof and unwilling to socialise. Some of these are keyboard warriors who, I suspect, preferred the old days of obscurity and isolation when they could play out their fantasies of worldwide conspiracies far away from the media spotlight.

If you want to go back to those times then Diane James is not your candidate. But if you want UKIP to tack on another 2/3m votes to the 4m of 2015 – and thus break into parliament – then she is the leader who can do it.

UPDATE..21/11/16

So what do I know….lol….it wasn’t to be. Pity.

“At a high profile public event in Cambridge last week, I was asked why I had not completed the process to become Leader of UKIP? I had little option, but to give the truthful response that, although nominated Leader by popular vote in the membership, I found that I had no support within the executive and thus no ability to carry forward the policies on which I had campaigned.

“My decision to retire from the election process and not complete it was very difficult personally and professionally, given that UKIP has dominated my life and all my efforts for over 5 years. In recent weeks, my relationship with the Party has been increasingly difficult and | feel it is now time to move on. | wish the Party well for the future under new leadership.”

Whoops!!!  Iain Dale for the naughty step….

He pours scorn on the temper tantrum being thrown by the Vote Leave camp because ITV have invited UKIP leader Nigel Farage to oppose David Cameron in their set piece EU Referendum debate. He also has the audacity to suggest Farage would do better than Boris or Gove…

It’s not as if Nigel Farage isn’t a good media performer or doesn’t know the arguments. In fact, I’d say he’s a far better performer in debates than either Boris Johnson or Michael Gove would necessarily be.

Naturally this goes against the grain of the currently accepted narrative that Marmite Nige turns off as many people as he turns on. How could he possibly cope against the smooth as silk double glazing salesman that is Dave?

But hark back to 2010. Dave’s failure to achieve an overall majority and his need to swallow the bitter pill of a coalition with the Lib Dems is often put down to his failure to outsmart Nick Clegg in a TV debate. Clegg became the SuperDebateMan and the bruised Dave steered clear of repeating the format in 2015.

Yet who was it who crushed SuperDebateMan Clegg in two widely broadcast debates on the EU just two years ago?

That’s right – Marmite Nige…

Nigel Farage triumphed in the second television debate on Europe by a clear-cut 69% to 31%, an instant poll showed, suggesting that a more emotional but often overscripted Nick Clegg failed to convince viewers that Ukip is selling the British people a “dangerous con” and a “fantasy”.

The Guardian/ICM findings after the BBC2 debate were almost exactly matched by a separate YouGov poll for the Sun, showing that in a sometimes brutal debate, with both men accusing the other of lying, it was the Ukip leader who came out ahead by an even bigger margin than a week earlier.

Yet a year later in a TV match up with SNP, PC and Greens he didn’t do well at all. He scored a pathetic own goal by linking health tourism with Aids and became very bad tempered with the audience. This was not the confident operator of the Clegg Debates or a score of BBCQT appearances where he had overcome hostile audiences with a good grasp of facts and a sense of humour.

Some blamed campaign exhaustion. Others sensed ill health. But many squarely placed the blame on Nigel’s campaign guru and right hand man at the time, BreitbartUK editor Raheem Kassam who, it has been claimed, advised Farage to go “shock and awe”. With Kassam’s guidance Farage not only was marginalised in the 2015 TV debate but he also failed to win a constituency that had earlier appeared to be “in the bag” for UKIP.

So, yes, Iain Dale, Farage is a good media performer. There’s no reason why he couldn’t do a  Clegg on Cameron as well – but only if the loose cannon that is Raheem Kassam is locked firmly in a box for the duration.

An ice cold bucket of cold water from Roger Helmer MEP over the claim by government minister and former George Osborne bagman Matthew Hancock MP that Brexit would be a “leap in the dark” and lead to a decade of uncertainty – so therefore there is really no safe and sensible alternative to being shackled to the zombie EU.

The alternative to being in the EU is not being in the EU. And far from being a mystery, it is in fact the current state of a hundred-plus countries around the world – most of whom are doing rather better, in economic terms, than the declining and dysfunctional EU.  It is the state that Britain was in for centuries before we joined the “Common Market” less than half a century ago.   I don’t think that many Canadians or Australians or Singaporeans wake up in the morning scared to death because their countries are independent and not in the EU.  

For the benefit of Mr. Hancock, let me set out the parameters of Britain post-Brexit.  We shall have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU, and contrary to the government’s scare story, that will involve negotiation not “with 27 member-states” but with just one interlocutor – the EU itself. 

But imagine a worst case, where we failed to negotiate an FTA. Then, as Matt Hancock knows perfectly well (or ought to know), the default position is simply the WTO rules.   Arm’s-length trading on a WTO basis would be less advantageous that an FTA – but not much.  For example, the duties payable on our exports to the EU under the Common External Tariff would be less than half our current net contributions to the EU budget. Dozens of countries around the world trade perfectly well with the EU on WTO terms. The three largest external suppliers into the EU are China, Russia and the USA. None of these has an FTA with the EU, but they trade with it very successfully nonetheless.

Simples….