"That abject, squalid, shameless avowal"

Exactly eighty years after one of the most famous and notorious debates at the Oxford Union debating society, which received worldwide publicity in February 1933 for the sheer temerity of voting in favour of the motion -- "that this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country" -- the Cambridge Union Society repeated the performance just last night to commemorate the historic anniversary. Apparently the students of Cambridge University will still not fight for Queen and Country.

It came as a shock back in 1933 to suddenly contemplate that England's young were now a degenerate, decadent lot who had descended into frivolity. Churchill called the motion "that abject, squalid, shameless avowal... It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom." But the Great War was still fresh in the minds of many, and no doubt some of the students who were present had barely known their fathers, fathers who never came back from the trenches. Appeasement was in the air in the 1930s; another Armegeddon was not for them.

I've no idea what the excuse of today's generation is. If a video of this debate becomes available, please do let me know.

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What will "Dave" do?

We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonality...but we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed. — Winston Churchill, 1946

  Could Britain move away from the EU and toward the Commonwealth?

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'The King walked with death'

We begin commemorating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee with Prime Minister Churchill's moving and eloquent speech sixty years ago in remembrance of His Late Majesty, King George VI: 'For Valour'.

When the death of the King was announced to us yesterday morning there struck a deep and solemn note in our lives which, as it resounded far and wide, stilled the clatter and traffic of twentieth-century life in many lands, and made countless millions of human beings pause and look around them. A new sense of values took, for the time being, possession of human minds, and mortal existence presented itself to so many at the same moment in its serenity and in its sorrow, in its splendour and in its pain, in its fortitude and in its suffering.

The King was greatly loved by all his peoples. He was respected as a man and as a prince far beyond the many realms over which he reigned. The simple dignity of his life, his manly virtues, his sense of duty - alike as a ruler and a servant of the vast spheres and communities for which he bore responsibility - his gay charm and happy nature, his example as a husband and a father in his own family circle, his courage in peace or war - all these were aspects of his character which won the glint of admiration, now here, now there, from the innumerable eyes whose gaze falls upon the Throne.

We thought of him as a young naval lieutenant in the great Battle of Jutland. We thought of him when calmly, without ambition, or want of self-confidence, he assumed the heavy burden of the Crown and succeeded his brother whom he loved and to whom he had rendered perfect loyalty. We thought of him, so faithful in his study and discharge of State affairs; so strong in his devotion to the enduring honour of our country; so self-restrained in his judgments of men and affairs; so uplifted above the clash of party politics, yet so attentive to them; so wise and shrewd in judging between what matters and what does not.

All this we saw and admired. His conduct on the Throne may well be a model and a guide to constitutional sovereigns throughout the world today and also in future generations. The last few months of King George's life, with all the pain and physical stresses that he endured - his life hanging by a thread from day to day, and he all the time cheerful and undaunted, stricken in body but quite undisturbed and even unaffected in spirit - these have made a profound and an enduring impression and should be a help to all.

He was sustained not only by his natural buoyancy, but by the sincerity of his Christian faith. During these last months the King walked with death as if death were a companion, an acquaintance whom he recognized and did not fear. In the end death came as a friend, and after a happy day of sunshine and sport, and after "good night" to those who loved him best, he fell asleep as every man or woman who strives to fear God and nothing else in the world may hope to do.

The nearer one stood to him the more these facts were apparent. But the newspapers and photographs of modern times have made vast numbers of his subjects able to watch with emotion the last months of his pilgrimage. We all saw him approach his journey's end. In this period of mourning and meditation, amid our cares and toils, every home in all the realms joined together under the Crown may draw comfort for tonight and strength for the future from his bearing and his fortitude.

There was another tie between King George and his people. It was not only sorrow and affliction that they shared. Dear to the hearts and the homes of the people is the joy and pride of a united family. With this all the troubles of the world can be borne and all its ordeals at least confronted. No family in these tumultuous years was happier or loved one another more than the Royal Family around the King.

No Minister saw so much of the King during the war as I did. I made certain he was kept informed of every secret matter, and the care and thoroughness with which he mastered the immense daily flow of State papers made a deep mark on my mind.

Let me tell you another fact. On one of the days when Buckingham Palace was bombed the King had just returned from Windsor. One side of the courtyard was struck, and if the windows opposite out of which he and the Queen were looking had not been, by the mercy of God, open, they would both have been blinded by the broken glass instead of being only hurled back by the explosion. Amid all that was then going on, although I saw the King so often, I never heard of this episode till a long time after. Their Majesties never mentioned it or thought it of more significance than a soldier in their armies would of a shell bursting near him. This seems to me to be a revealing trait in the royal character.

There is no doubt that of all the institutions which have grown up among us over the centuries, or sprung into being in our lifetime, the constitutional monarchy is the most deeply founded and dearly cherished by the whole association of our peoples. In the present generation it has acquired a meaning incomparably more powerful than anyone had dreamed possible in former times. The Crown has become the mysterious link, indeed I may say the magic link, which unites our loosely bound, but strongly interwoven Commonwealth of nations, states, and races....

For fifteen years George VI was King. Never at any moment in all the perplexities at home and abroad, in public or in private, did he fail in his duties. Well does he deserve the farewell salute of all his governments and peoples.

It is at this time that our compassion and sympathy go out to his consort and widow. Their marriage was a love match with no idea of regal pomp or splendour. Indeed, there seemed to be before them only the arduous life of royal personages, denied so many of the activities of ordinary folk and having to give so much in ceremonial public service. May I say - speaking with all freedom - that our hearts go out tonight to that valiant woman, with famous blood of Scotland in her veins, who sustained King George through all his toils and problems, and brought up with their charm and beauty the two daughters who mourn their father today. May she be granted strength to bear her sorrow.

To Queen Mary, his mother, another of whose sons is dead - the Duke of Kent having been killed on active service - there belongs the consolation of seeing how well he did his duty and fulfilled her hopes, and of knowing how much he cared for her.

Now I must leave the treasures of the past and turn to the future. Famous have been the reigns of our queens. Some of the greatest periods in our history have unfolded under their sceptre. Now that we have the second Queen Elizabeth, also ascending the Throne in her twenty-sixth year, our thoughts are carried back nearly four hundred years to the magnificent figure who presided over and, in many ways, embodied and inspired the grandeur and genius of the Elizabethan age.

Queen Elizabeth II, like her predecessor, did not pass her childhood in any certain expectation of the Crown. But already we know her well, and we understand why her gifts, and those of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, have stirred the only part of the Commonwealth she has yet been able to visit. She has already been acclaimed as Queen of Canada.

We make our claim too, and others will come forward also, and tomorrow the proclamation of her sovereignty will command the loyalty of her native land and of all other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. I, whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian era, may well feel a thrill in invoking once more the prayer and the anthem, "God save the Queen!"

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When did Churchill lose his hair?

That would be the four years between 1900 (photo left) and 1904 (photo right). It has surely got to be one of the most spectacular examples of rapid hair loss for men.

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Churchill Sans Cigar

There is truly nothing sacred in the modern world.

In the well-known original image, Churchill makes a "V" shaped symbol with his fingers – while gripping a cigar in the corner of his mouth.

But in a reproduction of the picture, hanging over the main entrance to a London museum celebrating the wartime leader, he has been made into a non-smoker through the use of image-altering techniques.

It is unclear who is responsible for doctoring the photograph, with the museum – The Winston Churchill's Britain at War Experience – claiming not to have noticed the cigar was missing.

Drawn and quartered gentlemen. What is truly galling about this bit of sophomore Stalinism is how casually it was done. Did they think that modern England is so ignorant a place that no one would notice? Or so craven that no one would care? Sadly, it was probably a sound assumption. Luckily there are still those who recall Churchill in all his cigar chomping glory.

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The Threat of War

After all, my friends, only a few hours away by air there dwell a nation of nearly seventy millions of the most educated, industrious, scientific, disciplined people in the world, who are being taught from childhood to think of war as a glorious exercise and death in battle as the noblest fate for man.

There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties in order to augment its collective strength. There is a nation which, with all its strength and virtue, is in the grip of a group of ruthless men, preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law, by parliament, or by public opinion. In that country all pacifist speeches, all morbid war books are forbidden or suppressed, and their authors rigorously imprisoned. From their new table of commandments they have omitted "thou shall not kill."

It is but twenty years since these neighbors of ours fought almost the whole world, and almost defeated them. Now they are rearming with the utmost speed, and ready to their hands is the new lamentable weapon of the air, against which our navy is -no defense, and before which women and children, the weak and frail, the pacifist and the jingo, the warrior and the civilian, the front line trenches and the cottage home, all lie in equal and impartial peril.

Nay, worse still, for with the new weapon has come a new method, or rather has come back the most British method of ancient barbarism, namely, the possibility of compelling the submission of nations by terrorizing their civil population; and, worst of all, the more civilized the country is, the larger and more splendid its cities, the more intricate the structure of its civil and economic life, the more is it vulnerable and at the mercy of those who may make it their prey.

Now, these are facts, hard, grim, indisputable facts, and in the face of these facts, I ask again, what are we to do?

There are those who say, "Let us ignore the continent of Europe. Let us leave it with its hatreds and its armaments, to stew in its own juice, to fight out its own quarrels, and decree its own doom. Let us turn our backs to this melancholy and alarmist view. Let us fix our gaze across the ocean and see our own life in our own dominions and empires."

There would be very much to this plan if only we could unfasten the British islands from their rock foundations, and could tow them three thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean, and anchor them safely upon the smiling coasts of Canada; but I have not yet heard of any way in which this could be done.

Winston Churchill, The Threat of War, 1934

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Winston Churchill, 1878

Handmade oil painting reproduction of young Winston Churchill,
aged four years old, 1878, a painting by Ayron P Ward.

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Dave's Churchillian moment: The United Kingdom will now be pushed all the way into the cesspit of continental European integration

We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonality...but we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed. — Winston Churchill, 1946

Oh, what a hopeless romantic Churchill appears in retrospect. Britain does not have its own dream or task in the world today; the great global British project has been replaced by a continental European one instead. Britain is no longer just in Europe, of Europe and for Europe, they are now under Europe too, thanks to the undemocratically deceitful handiwork of their political masters. They are not merely interested or associated or linked; but combined, absorbed, entrenched and entangled, perhaps now, irretrievably. With the passing of the Treaty of Lisbon, the United Kingdom will now be pushed all the way into the cesspool of continental European integration.

And for what? Is it really possible to suppose that whatever integrated Europe could ever evolve from the cesspit of unrepresentative and irresponsible corruption, of undemocratic, anti-Christian, weak-at-the-knees bureaucratic paralysis, that currently defines its governmental apparatus; could possibly be better for Britain, than what Great Britain has evolved for itself over the course of a thousand years?

For the life of me, I cannot think of one single net positive likely outcome of this effort. Britain has, throughout its history, been secured as the constant incubator of civil liberties, parliamentary democracy and liberal economy; by the distance which it has physically enjoyed, and which it has strategically, politically and militarily nurtured; from the continent of Europe. What circumstances have changed, that should conspire to direct Britain's core interests and decisions in precisely the opposite direction from the compass north it has observed throughout its entire history, I know not.

In this respect, I ask the exactly same question as Sir Winston Churchill in his speech of March, 1936 to the Conservative Backbench Foreign Affairs Committee. In that speech, Churchill pointed out that throughout the course of almost four centuries, and in the face of four successive mortal threats to its free security from a rising and belligerent continental power (Philip II's Spain, Louis XIV's and Napoleon I's France, and Wilhem II's Germany), Britain always chose the hard but correct path of steadfast opposition to the power which - animated by principles vastly different from those of liberal Britain - could and would, in victory and in the achievement of hegemony, only diminish or destroy Britain's essence. Churchill asked: what has changed, that we should, in 1936, regard our proper response to the rising power of Adolf Hitler's Germany in a different manner?

The answer was, of course, nothing at all; and that Churchill was able to persuade his fellow countrymen of that fact, changed the course of history for the immeasurably better.

What was true in 1936 is, in my view, true today. That is not to suggest for a moment that there is any country or power on the continent of Europe today, which constitutes a belligerent and militaristic threat to Great Britain in the classical sense. Most European countries are today, at least nominally, liberal democracies. I suppose it is this very fact which leads many in Britain to think that the magnetic north pole of Britain's strategic self-interest has moved, and that that move justifies a submersion of Britain's hard-won independence and long-evolved institutions, into a European institutional hodge-podge without history, accountability, checks and balances, or record of performance.

Yet the risk David Cameron runs by refusing to retreat from a now constituted, sovereign and presidential European republic — on behalf of all Britons and, by extension, all Commonwealth subjects — should be self-evident from this description. What I find truly confounding is that there is nothing whatsoever that I can see to justify taking this risk, even assuming that integrated Europe should somehow acquire an effective, representative and responsible government. Britain already has one of those. So, too, does it have free trade and free flow of goods, workers and other economic constituent components and forces, between itself and its European neighbours.

And in terms of that other ancient worthy, the British Monarch, hitherto the highest ranking supremo in our shared socio-political hierarchy — just what kind of hereditary King answers to an unelected president, just what sort of Imperial Crown serves a foreign republic and just what good, pray, is a Sovereign that is no longer sovereign?

— Walsingham

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Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports

On 14 August 1946 King George conferred upon Sir Winston Churchill the ancient honor of appointment as Lord Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Ports. Above Churchill inspects a line of soldiers at his installation ceremony as the new Lord Warden and Constable of Dover Castle at Dover Kent.

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O God, Our Help in Ages Past

A little Sunday morning inspiration for you, courtesy of Padre Benton

On Sunday morning, August 10, (1941) Mr Roosevelt came aboard H.M.S. Prince of Wales and, with his Staff officers and several hundred representatives of all ranks of the United States Navy and Marines, attended Divine Service on the quarterdeck. This service was felt by all of us to be a deeply moving expression of the unity of faith of our two peoples, and none who took part in it will forget the spectacle presented that sunlit morning on the crowded quarterdeck...... the American and British chaplains sharing in the reading of the prayers.. I chose the hymns myself.

We ended with "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" which Macaulay reminds us the Ironsides had chanted as they bore John Hampden's body to the grave. Every word seemed to stir the heart. It was a great hour to live. Nearly half those who sang were soon to die.

- From The Second World War by Winston Churchill Volume III page 345.

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A "Gentlemen's Champagne"

The Gentleman routinely imbibes himself with Pol Roger champagne, or any other prominent champagne that holds the royal warrant.

WINSTON CHURCHILL WAS A CIGAR-SMOKING PUFFBALL whose daily alcohol regime included sherry at breakfast, whisky at lunch, champagne at dinner and brandy before bed. Or so it has been reported. This may not be quite accurate for the official Churchill Centre states that he preferred beer at lunch and whisky during tea time, whilst before dinner there was sherry, then Champagne, brandy and port. He apparently enjoyed the occasional glass of hock at breakfast, and he would traditionally greet people in the morning with a sherry. Those close to him confide that he couldn't stand cocktails, apart from the "Papa Cocktail", a smidgen of Johnnie Walker covering the bottom of a tumbler, which was then filled with water and sipped throughout the morning according to his daughter. As one observer described it, it was more akin to mouthwash than a highball but that's how Winston liked his scotch and water. It was perhaps this very watered down concoction that gave the great man a seemingly bottomless capacity for drink-soaked endurance, and allowed him to fondly quip that "he had taken more out of alcohol than alcohol had taken out of him." In fact the contention that Churchill was in any way an "Alcohol Abuser" is pointedly debunked by the Churchill Centre as a myth, for no serious colleague had ever reported him the worse for drink. He was not an alcohol abuser per se, he was merely alcohol dependent.

As evidence of that dependency there was of course his famous declaration to the King of Saudi Arabia that his absolute rule of life required drinking before, during and after meals, though it was during mealtimes that Churchill did most of his heavy imbibing. There was also the observation that he drank two bottles of Pol Roger champagne a day, his favourite champagne house and the only sparkling wine that he would consume following the Second World War:

And, of course, there was Mme Odette Pol-Roger, a widow from 1963 until her death in 2000 aged 89, on whom - and on whose wines - Winston Churchill doted so much. Indeed, so smitten with her was Churchill that he named a racehorse after her and promised to visit her in Epernay: `Invite me during the vintage, and I'll press the grapes with my bare feet,' he declared. It is reckoned that in the last ten years of his life more than 500 cases of the stuff passed through his cellars.

So for those who cannot afford the silky smooth crispness of Dom Pérignon everyday, Pol Roger champagne is probably the next best thing. Its premium bottle, Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill, is named after the gentleman who would tolerate no other. As a testament to its fine quality, the prominent champagne house also holds a Royal Warrant to supply the British Royal Family with cases of its very best, further enhancing Pol Roger's reputation as a "gentlemen's champagne".

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The American Churchill

Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (1858-1919), the greatest and youngest President of those United States of America.

Above: 1903 official portrait by John Singer Sargent (in T.R.'s words, a "man's portrait" by a "real man's artist").

TO CALL TEDDY ROOSEVELT the American Churchill might not be entirely perfect, comparisons never are, but does perfectly convey the esteem in which I hold him (on some qualities, I would rank T.R. the better). Like a biography on Churchill, a biography on Roosevelt leaves the reader with an heroic and implausible life's tale that is difficult to fathom and surprising to contrast. Animated by an indomitable spirit, both men seem larger than life and bigger than history.

To begin with, both served in their respective armies, headed their respective navies and led their respective countries; both were serious historians and gifted orators, and both read and wrote voraciously; both were Freemasons, Nobel laureates and Kipling imperialists; both were men of the greatest integrity, and possessed of the most irreproachable personal virtue, for whom loyalty was a core quality; both shared a fraternity to Anglo-Americanism and both were horrified and exasperated by the unwillingness of their opponents to save civilization when it needed to be saved - Churchill with Chamberlain, Roosevelt with Wilson. Isolated or ostracised, both stood virtually alone in a flood of filth against a tide of evil.

The image of Roosevelt rightfully stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore as a colossal figure of the American experience. This is astounding when you consider that the great man was neither a founding father, nor a serving president during a turbulent period in the Great Republic's history. Yet, on the list of greatest presidents, scholars consistently rank T.R. among the very top with an average placement score of 4.83 out of 42 presidents. Only Lincoln (1.58), F.D.R. (2.00), Washington (2.83) and Jefferson (4.42) rank higher, all of whom faced the titanic upheavals of revolutionary, civil or world war. Without an epic struggle by which to stake his claim with the best, Teddy was left to win it on his personality.

That legendary personality introduced America to the arena of international power politics, thrusting aside the American tradition of isolationism. Under Roosevelt's leadership (1901-1909), the American navy went from fourth largest in the world to largest after the grand British Imperial Fleet. Henceforth, the United States would "speak softly and carry a big stick" (his phrase), admittedly sometimes too softly (Wilson, Eisenhower, Carter), sometimes with too much stick (Johnson/Nixon, "Dubya"). Better than all his peers, T.R. exemplified manly virtue, understanding the delicate balance between manly restraint and manly assertiveness in the effective wielding of state power.

The great conservationist (way ahead of his time on that one) also exemplified conservative virtue with both feet firmly anchored to Nature's ground, who wasn't prone to Wilsonian liberal idealism that has affected most every president since, including the current incumbent in "making the world safe for democracy". Although Woodrow Wilson is ranked highly in his own right, it is nonetheless remarkable that Roosevelt is rated higher by scholars, even though Wilson led the United States through the Great War, albeit not until very late in the game. We know that Roosevelt thought the president "weak" up to 1917, that if it were up to him, America would have been in the thick of it in 1914. Knowing this, Churchill's "great Ifs accumulate" with untold American divisions irresistibly poring into Europe at the outset, becoming battle hardened in Flanders and Ypres in 1915 and marching on to Mons by 1916. No Verdun, no Somme, no Passchendaele, no mass disillusionment. A dramatic altering of the balance of power on the continent would have been impossible for the Germans to ignore. With the benefit of hindsight, we are entertained with the thought of Roosevelt at the helm, the idea that some semblance of the Old World just might have been maintained. But sadly we will never know. Like Churchill, I doubt we will ever see his likes again.

"Of all the public men that I have known, on both sides of the Atlantic (and there are few that I have not known in the past thirty years), he stands out the greatest, and as the most potent influence for good upon the life of his generation."
- Viscount Lee of Fareham, English statesman

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Young Winston

The greatest Briton, surely, though many of his fellow Britons proved and continue to prove themselves unworthy of him. Our brave old lion, stalwart defender of the sacred Crown and leader of the English-speaking peoples! He is, in some respects, an effectual patron saint for this blog; and a perpetual rebuke to the grotty, shameless politicians we are so unlucky to have today. (With some exceptions).


So the Monarchist reader will no doubt be happy to hear the good news that Richard Attenborough’s 1972 film ‘Young Winston’ has just been released on DVD for the first time. It lacks some of the charm of ‘My Early Life’, Churchill’s boffo autobiography (still available in a beautiful paperback from Eland), but remains an excellent piece, featuring much of its content, a film of awesome scope and home to some remarkable performances.

It takes in everything from Churchill’s cavalry charge against the Dervishes (who scream ‘Allahu Ackbar’ as they attack, oh how the times don’t change), his unsuccessful days at school (here we might have done without the rather seedy beating scenes), his midnight escape from a Boer prisoner-of-war camp, and his early years in Parliament. Simon Ward looks uncannily like the young Churchill, and does a great job of his snarling, flighty brand of eloquence.

Like the book, the film is a continually impressive, inspiring account of a great man’s formation. There’s none of the silly nonsense of ‘finding oneself’, or self-exploration, or backpacking in Thailand, that constitutes the present-day ‘development’ into adulthood. Instead we have an illustration in bravery, patriotism and good humour that all would do well to learn from.

Read the book first, and set aside a spring evening for the film. It goes down well with a brandy and a cigar, and a roaring fire, and a happy stomach full of some roast joint.

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Vive La Reine!

History is far stranger than fiction, a truth demonstrated again this week with revelations that in 1956 Guy Mollet, the then French Prime Minister, proposed a union between Britain and France. The soul shrinks at such a prospect. The two best enemies in all the world under one government? Under Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II no less. Devouted Churchillians will know that the great man himself proposed such a union in the dying days of the Third Republic, as what remained of the French Army evaporated before the German advance. The proposal was Churchill at his most romantic and pragmatic. It would have allowed the French to maintain that they were never defeated by Nazism, a kind if misplaced gesture; it also would have granted Britain immediate and legal control - though for how long? - over the French fleet and colonies. In the end the British were forced to sink much of the French fleet in the attack on Mers-el-Kébir and to gradually pry the French colonies from the control of Vichy.

Mollet's eccentric gesture must be seen in the context of its time. According to recently discovered documents, the proposal was made on the eve of the joint Franco-British retaking of the Suez Canal from that cretin Nasser. Eden had shown signs, at least to the minds of some senior French officials, of vacillation. The proposal of union, even if sure to be rejected, being dramatic and unexpected might have made any backdown over Suez more awkward for the Cabinet and No. 10. "How can we betray so loyal an ally as France?" one might have heard a hesitant minister ask had the Cabinet gotten cold feet over the attack. It was the sort of off the wall, desperate and ruthlessly calculated thing that the Quai d'Orsay has specialized in for centuries.

More broadly than the Suez Crisis, which in the end brought down both Mollet and Eden, the first half of the twentieth century had been unkind to the two former rivals turned erstwhile friend, though especially so for France. The halting and incomplete process of industrialization left the country vulnerable to the rise of the Rhur-powered German economy. This combined with the socio-political divides highlighted over secularization, the Dreyfus Affair and in the 1930s the short-lived Popular Front government, gave the impression to the French people, and to the outside world, of a weak and divided nation. The strange defeat of 1940, in Marc Bloch's famous analysis, only confirmed the image of a weak and fading France. The Fourth Republic (1946-1958) proved another blow. Despite hopes that it would remedy the oft remarked upon instability and ineffectiveness - the latter perhaps exaggerated - of the Third, the disaster of Suez, a still struggling economy - as the Federal Republic of Germany boomed - and finally the Algerian crisis ensured its demise. In this context a desperate French leader might be willing to swallow some national pride for the sake of short-term advantage.

All this changed in 1958. Immediately after the Second World War France had rejected Charles de Gaulle's calls for strong, and at times frankly authoritarian leadership. In 1958 a large majority of the French public practically begged the old war leader to save them from themselves. So he did. Despite being a dirigiste of the old school, de Gaulle was a great improvement on the muddling socialists who dominated the politics of the Fourth Republic. Sweeping away internal trade barriers, protecting private property from the predations of the Left and Far Left and otherwise maintaining a positive climate for investment and trade, de Gaulle engineered an economic miracle almost as spectacular as that of Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard's Social Market next door. He also matched improved French economic prowess with a more belligerent foreign policy.

From the First Battle of the Marne until Suez the Anglo-French partnership had usually meant a more junior role for the Republic. It was Chamberlain who was the prime force at Munich, Bevin who lead the French toward NATO in 1949 and Eden who first proposed aggressive action against Nasser in 1956. De Gaulle replaced this deference, born out of internal social and economic weakness, with an often juvenile anti-anglo-saxonism. Rejecting Britain's entry into the Common Market twice, pulling out of the NATO command structure in 1966, the pompous declaration at Montreal City Hall in 1967 of "Vive le Quebec Libre," and frequent prickings of the Americans over Vietnam, were as much a matter of policy as of nationalistic revanche for the former leader of the Free French.

The Britain of Harold MacMillan and Harold Wilson, de Gaulle's contemporaries at No. 10, was a bleak place. Supermac had made it a point to suck up to Eisenhower (if you have a more polite description, that is still accurate, please propose it in the comments) and while both he and de Gaulle oversaw the dismantling of their respective global empires, it seemed far more like a retreat for Britain than for France. Wilson had come to power promising to modernize Britain in the "white heat of technology." Hopes that technocracy might overcome class, tradition and stagnation were ill-placed. After Wilson came Heath and then Wilson again and then Callaghan. Then there was the Winter of Discontent. Members of the House of Commons openly talked about Britain becoming another Portugal. If the France of Georges Pompidou, de Gaulle's apprentice and successor, did not prosper as before, it seemed far more vigorous during Stagflation than its old rival. Certainly no French President of the time was seen running to the IMF for help to prop up the franc.

Then came the Eighties. Britain went with Mrs Thatcher and France with Francois Mitterrand. Germany had begun to walk away from the Social Market with Willy Brandt's government. From the distance of a quarter century the three decades after 1945 seem an anomaly. Britain, the homeland of laissez-faire became a case study of the dangers of democratic socialism. Germany and France, previously contemptuous of the free market, made a short-lived truce and prospered greatly as a result. The old patterns re-asserted themselves twenty-five years ago. The French today speak deridingly of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, while straining to catch up to the Anglo-Saxon economies, as they did a century ago. German authoritarianism has assumed a new more pleasant, if bloated, welfare state form in the last years of the 20th century. The Franco-British Union was a dead letter for the simple reason that the two nations were culturally incompatible. One nation prided itself on being "the Mother of the Free," the other "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." If those differences seemed obscure in 1956 they have become clearer again today. Tony Blair notwithstanding.

Publius

Originally posted at The Gods of the Copybook Headings

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In the name of God, go

In the long history of the British Parliament, few occasions have rung with greater drama than the Commons debates of May 7, 1940. In the aftermath of the debacle of the Norwegian campaign, and with the British nightmare of the ages - of continental domination by a hostile power - fast crystallizing into reality, the house of cards of Baldwin’s and Chamberlain’s 1930s “policy of peace” came finally and fully crashing to the ground. As real fear at last broke upon Britain - a visceral realization of the enormity and gravity of the crisis, and how badly it could truly turn for the nation - Parliament was suddenly baying for the government’s blood. Churchill himself tried valiantly and selflessly to shoulder the blame, at least for Norway, but no one was having it. It was all too obvious that Churchill was not the villain but rather the man of the hour, for it was exactly his prophecy - urged for years in the face of scorn and abuse - that had now become fact; and exactly his remedy – to fight, come what may – that was now so obviously recommended. Indeed, Lloyd George remarked that Churchill “must not allow himself to be converted into an air-raid shelter to keep the splinters from hitting his colleagues.” No, the anger of desperation fell exactly on target: on Neville Chamberlain and his ilk, whose true guilt lay not in any mishandling of the Norwegian campaign, but in their misguided and irresponsible rule over many years that had brought the nation, one step at a time, to this point. No actions or words of theirs could by then redeem that guilt. The mortal blow was delivered by Leo Amery, who in his speech to the Commons quoted Oliver Cromwell’s words to the Long Parliament: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Recalling this brings two things to front and centre of mind. First: that anger at mismanagement and misconduct tends, generally and ultimately, to be directed at the proper point, and tends to be greater and less susceptible to mitigation the more protracted and constant the offence. And second, that there is only one truly workable correction to a condition of persistent ineptitude and unpardonable or even criminal mismanagement; and that is for those guilty of such misconduct to step down and disappear, and to leave the business of governance to others. With that in mind, on the morrow of Paul Martin’s television address to the nation pleading for understanding and more time in office, and reflecting on the palpable mood of the country in the face of the now overwhelming evidence of Liberal misconduct, I can scarcely do better than to echo Cromwell and Amery. You Liberals have been here long enough, for any good you have done; in the name of God, go.

It is obvious at this point to everyone - except, apparently, to Martin and his Party - that the Liberals are no longer in a position to govern, and that nothing they can say or do, with the possible exception of spending some contrite time in Opposition and reforming themselves from bottom to top, can now alter that fact. Presuming that the current national mood survives until Election Day, whenever that may be - as all reason, honour and sanity demand it must - the Liberals’ eviction from the government benches is now certain. What remains to be established is the exact scale of the damage they have wrought upon our country.

For the catastrophic legacy of the past odd-decade of Liberal rule is to be measured not only in the damage directly attributable to Adscam, which is breathtaking enough. No; as in the case of 1930s Britain, the real rot runs deeper, has been longer in the making, is greater in its impact and its consequence; and therefore, is now all the more unforgivable and compelling of change.

Where does one begin the litany? How about with health care, the sacred cow that the Liberals invariably trot out as the Alamo only they can defend? We do indeed still have a public health care system in Canada, but it is obvious to anyone who attempts to use it that it is failing badly, costing ever more money, and delivering ever poorer service, ever more slowly. I would wager that not a single Canadian, coast to coast, would assert that our health care system is in better condition today than before the Liberals took power. Yet the Liberals instantly and self-righteously quash any attempt to explore any means of improving the system, of raising the return to Canadians on the vast sums of money they invest in it. The Liberal attack on such attempts always begins with the word: “privatization”, uttered with mock horror. That a large measure of private payment already exists within our system, in the form of pharmaceutical, dental, and “supplementary medical” coverage, the Liberals never mention. Nor do they admit that most other countries with public health care systems raise not the slightest objection to private payment for virtually any service – indeed, they are glad to see the burden on the public system eased. Nor are the Liberals honest, or intelligent, enough to see or admit that something this profoundly broken, needs some kind of a fix. No, the knee-jerk attack against anyone bold enough to consider out loud alternatives and changes to our obviously failing system constitutes too easy and self-serving a weapon for the Liberals to discard.

No matter. The provinces will, as they must, go their own ways on health care and find sustainable solutions, no matter what the Liberals say. They will be lead by Alberta, which has already declared – explicitly – its complete indifference to the federal Liberals’ opinion on the matter. Indeed, Albertans’ indifference to the federal government is now pretty much absolute and across the board. Long gone are the days when “western alienation” was the hot anger of the few; today, it is the profound and probably irreversible indifference of the majority. The Liberals have, for better than a decade, confirmed on every occasion their contempt for Western Canadians, and for Albertans in particular. In the run-up to the Second Gulf War, the Liberal government went out of its way to mock Albertans’ views on the idea of Canadian support for the effort, dismissing those views out-of-hand as “un-Canadian”. Western Canada has struggled for twenty years to gain a greater voice in Ottawa, one in fairer proportion to – if nothing else – its financial contribution to the country; whether through Senate reform, or through the Reform Party, which Westerners built from the ground up. But in truth, at this point, particularly with a torrent of oil money flooding in, they really no longer care. The latest Liberal slap in Western Canada’s face: Martin’s appointment of two Liberal hacks - probably the last two people Albertans themselves would have picked – as Alberta’s newest “representatives” in the Senate, in quite deliberate spite of Albertans’ democratic pre-selection of two candidates; didn’t raise much of a fuss, for it came as anything but a surprise. Albertans, and with them many other Western Canadians, have simply moved on. I do not know exactly where this new breed of western alienation will lead, but it cannot be anywhere that would warm the heart of any Canadian federalist.

Western Canadians as a whole, and Albertans in particular, have long been accustomed to seeing their net cash exchange with Ottawa stuck deep in negative territory. So too have they long been aware that most of their money ends up in Quebec. But with Adscam, the Liberals have accomplished something truly remarkable: they have managed, through a criminal destruction of taxpayers’ wealth, to shock and insult Western Canadians and Quebecers in roughly equal measure – and all in the name of national unity! For Western Canadians, Adscam is insult added to injury, and confirmation that the cesspool of Liberal immorality and corruption runs much deeper than even they had imagined. For Quebecers, the scandal carries the further sting of disillusionment. It reveals, suddenly and shockingly, in what fantastic contempt the Liberals hold them, that the Liberals consider bribes, kickbacks and dirty appointments to judicial posts to constitute business as usual in the province. As Stephen Harper put it last night, the Liberals have offered Quebecers a choice between separation and corruption. Quebecers’ reaction so far to Adscam makes clear what, between those options, they are apt to choose. Again, I do not know what the ultimate fallout will be, in terms of Quebec’s future in Canada, but again, it cannot be anything good from a federalist’s perspective. What is crystal clear is this: that if anyone can restore Quebecers’ faith in and respect for the federal government, it is not the Liberal Party of Canada.

I cannot think of a single way in which the Liberals - who claim to hold as their central principle a commitment to a federal Canada, underpinned by a strong and useful national government - have helped rather than injured the federalist cause. Indeed: the one policy sphere that has historically and universally motivated, required and justified the very existence of a national government – foreign and defence policy – the Liberals have more or less declared irrelevant and meaningless, in addition to making a hash of it for more than a decade. From every perspective, our most important foreign relationship is with the United States, and our relationship with that country is at its lowest ebb in living memory. I believe that the people and government of that country have never held Canada and Canadians in lower esteem. This is something for which Canada will pay a heavy price in the years to come, and the situation has come about not because we came to hold opinions different from the Americans’, but because our Liberal government could not be bothered to get past a childish smugness, and actually put some adult thinking into those opinions. On the supreme geopolitical questions of our time – the war in Iraq, the global war on terror, ballistic missile defence - the Liberal government has behaved with incredible – but, incredibly, perhaps calculated – incompetence and apparent indifference. The Liberals have consistently declined to devote any meaningful thought to these issues. Instead, the Liberals point to polls that ask trite questions along the lines of: “should we spend money on health care or on weapons and death”, as “proof” of Canadians’ support for their policies. It is a breathtaking abdication of responsibility, as if the executives of a major company were to cease the hard work of formulating and executing strategy, and instead just divvy up the cash and give everyone a year off – because “that’s what the people want”.

The list goes on and on. Our once respected Armed Forces have been attrited and abused to a point from which they may never be able to recover. Our tax burden has never been higher, and our federal bureaucracy has never been so bloated. Our economic productivity growth last year actually hit zero.

There is little else for Canadians to now say. You Liberals have been here long enough, for any good you have done. In the name of God, go.

Walsingham (originally posted here)

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