[Continued from Part 1, published here.]
But, back to our sovereignty. Readers may have heard that the British military is undergoing yet another review of our capabilities and those likely to be needed in some as yet future unpleasant situation that, like the black swan event of covid, could strike at a time.
Not to put too fine a point on it, our military capabilities are not what they once were. Much equipment is, apparently, out of date or doesn’t equate with the ‘new ‘normal’ thinking. Apparently the services are to become gender neutral, more mobile and tech savvy. One minister has indicated that anyone thinking that the services will look the same as they do now after this latest review had better think again.
Strong words, indeed. Probably a little combative and uncompromising for this government, after all, our ‘friends and neighbours’ that Boris keeps banging on about who reside across the ‘short straights’ seem to have been a bit miffed, to say the least, about how Lord Frost has spoken to them in the past.
Anyone would think that the EU is a sovereign independent country, rather than a trading bloc consisting of twenty something members who can’t even get their act together to supply covid vaccines to ‘citizens’. One could be forgiven for wondering how their many times proposed, but still on the table for discussion, EU army would fare in any engagement with hostile forces that would be met presumably in a non-combative style you understand.
Various EU members, though, have realised that the UK has left the EU and are now saying that the bloc is not the same without the UK’s influence. Is this what Michael Gove was indicating when he said the UK needed a reset with the EU recently?
Maybe he knows something that we and our media friends don’t, as ministers these days seem to talk willy-nilly about each other’s ministerial responsibilities. Perhaps he could give some indication as to why our army is to be cut by another 10,000 personnel, and why a fleet of Hercules aircraft, that are used to transport units including the SAS, are to be taken out of service and scrapped, when recently we were told that the aircraft (already admittedly almost museum pieces) were to remain in service until 2035.
We won’t be replacing them with US types though, presumably because of our close ties with the trading bloc across the short straits, which, oddly enough, does not seem too keen on allowing us access to all sorts of things, or apparently, if the vaccine shambles is anything to go by, which wants to take advantage of British expertise.
I am, you understand, just asking for a friend, but does this mean that what’s left of British military assets won’t now be included in any proposed EU military organisation and joint procurement policies that were or are still on the cards? For some reason politicians and the media, and not for the first time, seem strangely silent on the subject.
Not that any of this seems to bother the person in the street, judging by what hundreds of thousands still read about in the mainstream press on a daily basis. And despite what the comments sections in the press tell us, they seem to be more than happy to pay for it.
Despite all the huffing and puffing by various commentators for and against the licence fee that provides biased programmes and above average salaries to thousands of BBC staffers and millionaire salaries to presenters, salaries and perks that most people can only dream about, ‘Downing Street’ still continues with the charade that the BBC is to be cut down to size, that it’s license fee will be abolished and so on.
If either of those two things were to happen, I would be more than surprised because there are hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people still glued to the pronouncements of news and current affairs programmes. One can only assume that the vast majority of the public are quite happy with the BBC licence fee, the programming and the often biased news reporting and the stultifying reporting of ‘events’ in the mainstream print media subsidised now with government ‘advertisements’.
And so, it goes on. Little by little, day by day, illegal immigration, the quarantine rules on return to the UK but not for others, the attack on our culture, the shambles over education, the vaccine post code lottery, the disgraceful way that ‘do not resuscitate’ notices have been placed on patients, the appalling way in which elderly people have been treated in care and nursing homes for almost a year, the list goes on and on, opinion often reported as fact and manipulated by government nudge units along with very clever marketing methods. Just look how public opinion is being manipulated over the question of Covid Status Passports.
Why? As one lady said to me today, would you want to travel to some holiday destination crammed into an aircraft with hundreds of other people all breathing the same recirculated air, to visit a holiday destination that probably does not meet any of the covid safety standards that we have in the UK? She has, I admit, a good point.
A look at the press this week is dispiriting. As one comments section reader wrote, with all that is going on here at home and abroad, all we get is article after article on the latest Harry and Megan saga, and some interview with James Corden acting as Falstaff to Prince Harry, and Oprah Winfrey somebody whom we are given to understand had little contact with them, but, like that coffee salesman fella, was invited to their wedding. I wonder why, but whatever the reason it certainly produced lots of column inches if nothing else.
The last few days have, if the weather here in the Wold is anything to go by, by produced a change of heart in much of the population. The latest warning from JVT seems to have had little effect on them. Suddenly, on the highways and byways around here motorcycles have re-appeared in some numbers, presumably on some essential sortie or other. The town is busy with people appearing from who knows where. At the same time the local police report their high-profile police patrols have not noticed much increase in out of towners visiting for whatever reason.
Well, be that what it may, anecdotal evidence would suggest otherwise. There were even people canoeing on the river this morning, dog walkers in abundance and even an ice cream van plying for business in the High Street.
They think it’s all over, a traffic warden said to me. People have had more than enough despite what Boris and JVT are saying.
Are the people, in that quiet British way, about to make it clear that they are not going to put up with much more? Are they finally starting to question the narrative? Stranger things have happened. It seems the fat lady has yet to sing.
Norman, I am highly suspicious of anything that this government says or does! If they are reducing the armed forces I am more likely to assume that it is because they expect to sign us back in to the EU at the soonest possible moment (at least they will if Gove has anything to do with it! He’s the biggest two headed snake ever seen. Not an ounce of patriotism in him at all!).
Politicians who keep on voting themselves more and more pay increases most definitely do not have the best interest of the country at heart! Oh yes I know that it is the Independent Standards Committee (or something like that) who supposedly decree these increases but……if you believe that you’ll believe anything!!!!
It is my very earnest wish that the British people will take a stand very soon and begin the process of taking back their freedoms from the moronic, cretinous, treacherous, self serving insects that fill the HOC places. 650 members whose careers should be ended at the earliest possible moment. Kicked out of ‘office’ by an angry voting public!
Frederica…………that stand you are talking about, has to start on Thursday 6th May 2021, the date of the local elections. It will not mean the end of this utterly awful government (unfortunately) but if the unconservative Conservative Party are on the receiving end of a barnstorming electoral humiliation (which they truly deserve) it will nevertheless send a very stark warning indeed to the buffoon-in-chief at 10, Downing Street, that he will have to change course pretty smartly to avoid a landslide loss at the next general election. One thing the Conservatives or even the unconservative Conservatives don’t like is losing, and losing in a big way. That is the way it has to be on the 6th May 2021. The electorate must close their ears to what Conservative activists say on the doorstep ‘vote ‘whatever party’ and get Labour. That stupid strap line will no longer wash, but that will not stop them. No votes equals no councilors……..
I doubt that, I think there is a big shock on the horizon, I do not believe we have left the eu. Our boys and girls will be recruited into the army of that emerging sovereign nation of Europe of what we will be a sub-member
The reason that armed forces numbers are being cut again is simple. MONEY! Boots on the ground have to be paid for, and in our current financial state economies have to be made everywhere.