The post war international political and military record of the United States is appalling – a succession of failures from Korea to Ukraine with very few successes to shout about. The young JFK triumphed over Cuba but mostly ageing Presidents, from Truman/Eisenhower to Trump, have involved the US in bloody disaster. Sir Max Hastings has brilliantly chronicled many of these as he reminds us in The Times today. We should listen to him.

Pete Seeger asked “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” And then followed it with “When will they ever learn?”. The answer to that second question is. Of course. “Never”.

Overwhelming military superiority failed the US in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Soft power did help bring down the Soviet Union and boots on the ground in Europe via NATO worked ending the Cold War. Or so we thought for a time. But the Russians, from the Tsars to today like their Dictators. When will they ever learn?

“Jaw Jaw” is in theory better than “War War”. But the passing of Tom Lehrer reminds us that he said “…satire died when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize”.  Kissinger’s “Jaw Jaw” over Vietnam led to humiliating failure when the North reunited and it needed helicopters to lift Americans and others out of Saigon. We need to remember this when Putin abrogates everything Trump thinks he’s negotiated over Ukraine and Putin completes his unification ambition. When will they ever learn? 

Britain has moved in my lifetime from a significantly manufacturing based economy to one in which the service sector is of greater importance. The former was labour intensive, the latter far less so. Not just fewer workers per unit of output but different types of employee. The quite rigid social divisions of the previous structure have become blurred to the point of irrelevance.

We are all “working people” whether we wear overalls and do repetitive manual tasks or wear a suit and have an office in Canary Wharf. There has been significant social mobility but, arguably, not enough. The reluctance to move to where the best jobs are (in London and the South East) is often based on the practical consideration that it’s unaffordable to do so.

So the old class structure, once illustrated wittily but accurately by Cleese, Barker and Corbett on the Frost report, has largely disappeared. In its place is a hierarchy based on location. The best careers are in London – and Received Pronunciation is the language of the City. Those brave enough to move from a northern town or city to Surrey tend to lose their accent along the way.

The “Celeb” obsession has at its apogee the Royals. And Soap Operas always have characters who are Good, Bad and Ugly as Sin. Here’s the current scorecard:

Good

Duchess of Wales. Almost saintly. Beyond criticism. Courageous. Fashion icon. Wonderful mother. Don’t call her Kate and never refer to her maiden name, previous boyfriends, dodgy mother…

Prince William. Paragon of virtue. His Mum would have approved. Hard Working. Heroic. Don’t call him Wandering Willy and never refer to his baldness.

Princess Anne. Hard working good egg. Tells it as it is. Much nicer than her brothers. Bit of a goer in the past. Sporty in her youth. 

Bad

HM the King. Rehabilitation going slowly but steadily but still seen as an adulterous nasty from the way he treated the saintly Diana. Very odd at times. Establishment hasn’t succeeded in casting aside the detritus of his past.

Camilla. Despite determined attempts to get us to refer to her as the “Queen” we don’t, because she isn’t.

Duke of Sussex. Phoney Hollywood glitz hasn’t worked. Upsets Daily Mail readers. 

Meghan Markle. Beyond the pale. Modern day Mrs Simpson.

Ugly as Sin

Handy Andy. Unchallenged. Should really be Duke of Windsor not York. Girls, Golf and Gormlessness. 

Quite how long “Greater Israel” has been in the planning we can debate but it unquestionably predates the Hamas attack of October 2023 by many years. Indeed the attack itself can credibly be seen as a response to progress on Netanyahu’s Lebensraum plan. That in no way excuses Hamas’s terrorism, but it does help explain it.

The Settler mindset is inherent in Israeli behaviour and rhetoric. Absurd justifications for the sequestration of Arab land even invoke the situation that existed on the territory two thousand years ago. Israelis, or many of them, have effectively argued for the creation of a sort of Volksgemeinschaft community that would not only be developed within the existing borders but in new lands to be permanently seized from Arabs – predominantly Palestinians. This is the dream of a “Greater Israel”.

If for decades a substantial expansion of the size of Israel has been a driver then it is hardly surprising that the many attempts at establishing the basis of a “Two state solution” have failed. Palestinians’ presence in large areas of the West Bank and Gaza, geography that many Israelis see as legitimately theirs, has eventually led to the ethnic cleansing now underway.

The creation of a Palestinian state is increasingly dead in the water. Israel no doubt expects the international community to intervene though the scale of what it wants, the removal of up to 5 million people, is enormous. Whether the West will be complicit in this process remains to be seen.

I blame Muhammad Ali. He called himself “The Greatest” and it was sensible and life preserving for us not to argue. Before long we were seeking the greatest everywhere, and not just in sport. Everywhere. We even invented a new term – the “GOAT” the alleged “Greatest Of All Time” to make it clear what we meant. The problem with all this is that every such claim is subjective and unprovable. It’s an opinion, not a fact.

In cricket Don Bradman would generally be seen as the greatest batsmen of all time. His Test average of 99.94 is concrete, even irrefutable evidence to support the claim – a rarity in any endeavour. But what about the top batsmen of the modern era like Sachin Tendulkar who performed exceptionally in both Test cricket and Limited Overs formats? Which, of course, the Don couldn’t do.

My point is not to suggest Sachin was greater than Bradman but to show the pointlessness of the exercise. How about the “Greatest Prime Minister” ? We’d parrot out “Churchill” when asked the question and it would be seen by some as almost irreligious to challenge the claim. But doesn’t Churchill’s imperialism and his deeply held racist views at least make us think? In 1937 he said:

“I do not admit … for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.^”

Churchill’s wartime achievements were extraordinary but most modern historians would regard his 1951-1955 administration as a complacent and lazy failure. At a time when the opportunity existed to build a modern European nation a tired and often sick Churchill drifted into imperial and great power memories.

My point here is not to denigrate Churchill but to point out that all of our lives are a mix of the Good, the Bad and the Indifferent . When we call anyone in any field of human activity the “GOAT” we focus on the Good, and ignore the contrary evidence.

A key issue is the historical context. “All Time” says not just greatest in his/her time but historically. So to call Novak Djokovic the “GOAT” places him above not just his contemporaries but above Perry, Sampras, Laver, Hoad, Borg, Rosewall, Ashe… None of whom, of course, he ever played. The stats don’t help. Are Djokovic’s 24 Grand Slams better than Laver’s 11 or Perry’s 8 ? It’s actually a meaningless question.

Comparing people who lived in different eras is so fraught with confusion and is so subjective that it actually destroys any logic in the “GOAT” descriptor. My favourite Formula One driver was Jim Clark. Was he greater than Schumacher or Hamilton (or Fangio for that matter). You can make a case for any of them. By why would you? There is no monopoly on greatness, nor is ranking it worthwhile.

A person’s biological sex is on their birth certificate and cannot change. However a tiny minority of people want to present as and be accepted as a gender different from their biological sex. This is permitted by law. Some critics of this deny the idea of “gender”. They find the idea that biological sex can be different from adopted gender unacceptable. The law of the land disagrees.

When it comes to the oft-posed question “What is a woman ?” it seems that the answer is that it is identical to gender whether that conforms to biological sex or only to adopted gender . If a biological male chooses to present as a female-gendered person then he (a man biologically) becomes a woman legally.

If I’m right (tell me why I’m not under the law) then aren’t we making a mountain out of a molehill given the rarity of transitioning.

(To avoid doubt I strongly believe that women who have transitioned need to be exceptionally sensitive in all-women spaces (preferably avoid them) and that they should never compete in female sport.)

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” ( Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen) is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx. But you don’t need to be a Marxist to believe it. Indeed it underpins the political logic of every modern Welfare State.

When the Right vehemently opposes tax rises they are often denying the moral logic of redistribution. And yet a civilised society depends on just that. The principle is clear and, I would have thought, fairly uncontroversial. All societies have a hierarchy of wealth within them – from the rich man in his castle to the poor man at his gate. That the former should help the latter does not require a revolution, though it could lead to one if it is denied.

In late 18th Century France the bourgeoisie played a fundamental role in the French economy, accounting for 39.1% of national income despite only accounting for 7.7% of the population. Whilst the causes of the French Revolution went well beyond wealth inequalities these were unquestionably a major cause. Roll forward to today:

• The U.S. has the highest level of income inequality among developed countries.
• In 2021, the richest 1% of households earned 139 times more than the bottom 20%.

Arguably modern America is a more unequal society than pre revolutionary France. And measures proposed by the Trump administration will widen that gap further. The supreme irony, of course, is that many in the boondocks who voted for Trump will now be comparatively poorer from a low base.

Bernie Sanders has been arguing the evil of inequality for a long time – remember he very nearly won the Democratic nomination in 2016 ahead of Hillary. If he had he might just have beaten Trump. There are strong signs at the moment that his consistent message is helping spur action just where it needs to – in the deprived heartlands of Trump’s Red States. Bernie will be 84 in September and must pass the mantle of articulating the need for redistributive action on to someone else. Many on the anti Trump inspired American Left are waiting in the wings. Bernie called his 2016 book “Our Revolution”. It could be coming.

The violence in America rumbles below the surface much of the time, but occasionally breaks out. History tells us that often the repressed and disadvantaged underclass will only tolerate that position for so long. Trump’s Divine Right of Kings is vulnerable – Revolution is not impossible.

^{“… since Britain is one of just two European powers that has nukes, and no one with even a cursory knowledge of history will allow that Germany should get its own, a large share of this responsibility clearly falls to us.” Juliet Samuel in “The Times”}

What an absolutely astonishing insult to modern Germany. I have a rather more than cursory “knowledge of history” and because of that I understand and welcome the post war creation of democratic West Germany and the achievement of its reunification with East Germany after 1989.

The implication that the horrors of German governance in the first half of the Twentieth Century were in some way a consequence of a malignancy in the German character is deeply offensive. The Great War was the death rattle of Empire – something we Brits know a lot about. Imperialism was certainly not a teutonic phenomenon! And the rise of Hitler and his evil dictatorship was a grotesque political reaction to economic trauma.

The coming to power in previously democratic states of unsuitable and/or malignant leaders has happened all too frequently – and is happening now in the United States. I would certainly prefer to be allied with a Germany with its finger on a Nuclear button than Donald Trump!

Israel would not have acted in Gaza, could not have acted, without the overt and covert support of the United States. In effect this is an American war with Israel in the front line funded by the US. US Presidents as diverse as Carter and Trump (and everyone in-between) have not wavered in their support for Israel.

The Middle East is complicated, not least by the Sunni/Shia split in Islam. But there is nothing more designed, theoretically at least, to create unity than the opposition to Israel. Yes Iran, mainly a Persian not an Arab country and Shia, actually funds the Islamic terrorists and is extremist itself. But across the region there is no love lost between Persians and Arabs !

That the Israeli response to the Hamas attack was not proportionate is ever more obvious daily. As is the fact, admitted by senior Israelis, that the creation of a (much) “Greater Israel” is a goal. In other words the destruction of Palestine. The “Two State solution” is dead in the water. The gaining of Lebensraum is underway.

The Sunni countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are reasonably united and well armed. They don’t want war though and Israel is smart enough to confine its territorial ambitions to Gaza, the West Bank and Syria where, it seens, no Sunni State is going intervene.The reality is that only one country can restrain Israel. The United States. And they are not going to.

Moya Lothian-McLean ‘s diatribe against Keir Starmer in the New York Times today is unbalanced and unfair. After fourteen years of increasingly incompetent Conservative rule and five Prime Ministers – and the absurd decision to quit the European Union – there was an Augean Stables for him to clean up. That task would be a challenge to any leader and especially to one comparatively new to politics. And Sir Keir has had to cope with a hostile media environment the mendacity of which was on display from the start.

Like the United States Britain is a lone wolf internationally. Dean Acheson told us what to do as a post Imperial medium sized country more than fifty years ago. Look to Europe, and for a while we did. But a hard “Brexit “ has destroyed that and is gradually destroying much more. Starmer has refused to countenance strengthening our European ties anything other than superficially. But in time we , or what’s left of us, will have to return to Europe again. Trump’s America can survive as an international pariah. Starmer’s Britain cannot.

Brexit has damaged us economically but more importantly it has driven us towards a toxic National Conservatism. This is backward looking with every opportunity taken to celebrate past triumphs and to wave our flag. Meanwhile our infrastructure is crumbling and even to build a modest High Speed Train line linking London to our second city Birmingham seems a challenge too far. 

The National Conservatism is present in Nigel Farage’s Hard Right “Reform” party which is riding high in the polls. Our electoral system is such that for Reform to win an election, as suggested by this article, is highly unlikely. That election is four years away. Farage was once seen regularly with Trump – it was almost hero worship. That love-in suggests the choices Britain must make. Segue towards the increasingly authoritarian United States or reestablish our place as a significant democratic and liberal European power. 

Keir Starmer is certainly struggling in part because he has decided that he cannot do what deep down he knows is necessary. Culturally, economically, geographically and emotionally we Brits are Europeans. Let’s start acting again like we are.