On August 20, 1968, I happened to be in Prague when Czechoslovakia was simultaneously invaded from East Germany, Hungary, Poland and western Ukraine by more than 800,000 Warsaw Pact troops making any resistance futile. By contrast, on February 23 this year, the day before Putin launched his invasion of a country more than four times as big as Czechoslovakia, Russian field forces numbered fewer than 140,000, a figure that included field dentists and the like.
Even before the invasion was launched, it was already clear that the Russians had made an elementary military mistake: their generals, just like their American counterparts, were intoxicated by the techy verbiage of “Fourth Generation”, “post-modern information”, and “hybrid” warfare. Hoping to mimic their effectiveness in war games, cyberwar attacks and social-media disinformation were to be artfully combined with precision missile strikes to paralyse the Ukrainian resistance.
Hidden in all this was another delusion: that fighting the Ukrainians would be no different than fighting the sectarians the Russian officers had encountered in Syria and Libya. This view was also shared by the US intelligence community, which was so impressed by the Russian plan that it had frightened the White House into evacuating its diplomats, dissuaded any last-minute airlift of weapons as futile, and prepared to evacuate Zelensky.
That the same intelligence officials are still in charge is unfortunate, for it appears they are again failing to report accurately what is happening in this war — even though an elementary analysis of published information is quite sufficient to reveal what is going wrong. In short, increasingly uncontrollable escalation processes are underway, bringing closer the danger that the Kremlin might even perhaps consider detonating a nuclear weapon to stop the downward spiral of its loss of power and authority.
Early on, the Biden Administration acted with great clarity when rejecting demands for a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine. From the President down, officials pointed out that in the absence of enough surface-to-air missile batteries which would take years to deploy, the only way of protecting Ukraine’s airspace was to patrol it with US fighters ready to shoot down intruders, thus initiating direct US-Russian combat that would breach the strongest barrier to nuclear escalation.
There is no such clarity now. When the Ukrainians deployed locally manufactured R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles to help protect Odessa from amphibious landings that seemed imminent, they did not institute command-and-control arrangements that would subordinate the local battery commander to headquarters in Kyiv. Instead, identified Russian warships were to be engaged without further ado, since any hesitation could be fatal in the context of an amphibious assault that would certainly be accompanied by aerial bombing and missile strikes.
As it happened, the imminent threat of an amphibious landing came and went, but the arrangement that cut out Kyiv HQ remained in place. The result was the destruction of the heavy cruiser Moskva, which served as the Russian navy’s flag and command vessel in the Black Sea. Given that the sinking was bound to provoke retaliation, Kyiv might have preferred to let it be. But it was not consulted; had it been, it might well have denied permission to engage, if only because a US Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime reconnaissance aircraft was flying over the Black Sea at the time — quite enough to inspire Russian accusations of complicity, again raising the dangers of escalation at a time when Putin’s army is already under great pressure.
At the time of writing, the Russian army has committed an extraordinarily high proportion of its deployable combined-arms battalion groups. Their grand total on paper across the vastness of the Russian Federation comes to some 170, including low-readiness and incomplete formations, with 120 a more realistic number. Of these, 76 were last counted inside the borders of Ukraine, not including an unknown number withdrawn after suffering heavy losses of machines and men (including the three that comprised the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade commanded by Azatbek Asanbekovich Omurbekov, the Karakalpak colonel accused of the Bucha cruelties and killings).
What this means is that the Russian army is greatly stretched, already reliant on unwilling conscripts, very few of whom seem to be eager to fight, while the much-filmed Chechens and rumoured Syrians can only frighten unarmed civilians not fight in earnest. By contrast, while Ukraine’s soldiers and gendarmes on duty at the start of the war have been depleted by combat losses, accidents and disease, a great many conscripts and volunteers, including returning emigrants, are reinforcing their units. Compared to the start of the war, they are also much better equipped, even though the just delivered weapons, US-made M-777 155mm towed gun-howitzers (superior in range to their Russian 152mm counterparts), British AS.90 155mm gun-howitzers, Stormer vehicles with new anti-aircraft missiles, M113 troop carriers thinly armoured but better than nothing, are not yet in combat unlike the ex-Soviet tanks from ex-Warsaw Pact countries, and the shoulder-launched missiles made famous by this war.
Still, so much more could be sent, and that is the priority of the growing Ukraine-victory lobby that stretches from the US to Finland, with notable outposts in Germany’s once-pacifist Green Party and in Downing Street. This loose but influential lobby holds that victory for Ukraine is a victory for Nato and the West, so defeat for Ukraine must mean their defeat as well. It follows that enough military support must reach Ukraine to allow it to expel Russia’s forces, including in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
For this lobby, the greatest short-term threat is a ceasefire or, even worse, an armistice with Russian forces still in control of Ukrainian territory, providing a dangerous bargaining chip for Moscow. It sees a perilous contradiction between what satisfactory short and medium-term results look like for Ukraine, and what many Western leaders might accept to stop the violence, including allowing Russia to hold on to the territory it gained. It sees Ukraine losing the war unless it receives much more Western support, including heavy weapons with the requisite training. And it sees Nato’s role as ensuring Ukraine drives out all Russian troops, with the hope that Putin himself will be driven out of office.
Unlike the victory lobby, I see the makings of a solidly satisfactory outcome in the present situation, so long as enough aid reaches Ukraine to keep up its strength — and that means reading the riot act to double-dealing Chancellor Olaf Scholz — while vigorously proposing a peace plan. After all, the two sides have already reached agreement on the broadest issues: Zelenskyy has already stated that Ukraine will not join Nato and the Russian side has already accepted Ukraine’s entry into the European Union.
That leaves the disposition of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, substantial territories that Zelensky does not have the authority to give up, and without which Putin cannot leave the table where he has gambled and lost so much. While Putin cannot be given the two regions he demanded before starting the war, he can be provided with something that he can portray as a victory: plebiscites in both regions where properly certified residents, including returning refugees, would be allowed to vote on whether their oblast should remain Ukrainian or join Russia.
Upon acceptance of the plebiscites in principle, a cease-fire would come into immediate effect, with Russia’s respect of their terms guaranteed by the ease of reimposing sanctions just lifted.
It is axiomatic that both sides must benefit if they are to end the war. For Ukraine, this must include its unconditional recognition as an independent state, as well as the cessation of hostilities that would bring with it the return of millions of refugees and the arrival of a flood of reconstruction aid from the EU, US and Japan. As for Russia, the lifting of all sanctions would bring immediate benefits across the country, from the re-opening of the McDonald’s in Omsk where I once had the best meal the town could offer at 6am, to the resumption of normality for the great number of Russians whose lives have become international, whether they know it or not.
There is a model for this. Plebiscites proved surprisingly effective after the Versailles Treaty in disputed territories ranging from Belgium to Poland. In spite of the enormous devastation and loss of life brought about by the Great War, and the bureaucratic shortcomings of newly formed states, the votes in 1919 went well enough to prevent further border wars. And with today’s fast documentation techniques, they would be even more effective, allowing Ukraine’s reconstruction to start without delay.
All of this is anathema for the victory lobby. But its twin goals of driving out the Russians by force and bringing down Putin in the process would only be desirable if nuclear weapons could be un-invented. As it is, they offer Russia a court of appeal when facing conventional defeat, in a manner that negates any conventional victory — something that is surely infinitely worse than the outcome of any referendum.
Professor Edward Luttwak is a strategist and historian known for his works on grand strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations.
ELuttwak 
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SubscribeNot a word out of place.
Yes. An extremely impressive essay with a core message applicable to the UK and the US.
Yes… and no.
I’m in agreement with most of the piece but i disagree that ‘there’s no longer a nation’ (my quote). I very strongly believe there is.
Go to the shires, escape the urban bubbles, and that nation very much still exists. For sure, it has been diminished but like the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe, the burning desire to be productive on behalf of the nation remains. He’s absolutely right that we have to find a way – our way – of reviving ourselves to become more fully productive, and our politicians much more responsive to the electorate – whom they’re intended to serve. How this unfolds will be fascinating, and not without convolutions; but the process has begun.
It’s curious that there is no mention of the fact that before Brexit the EU did not actually allow us to pursue our national interest; the European interest trumped the national interest. Of course, most European countries ignored the rules and found ways to sell their infrastructure to their own internal entities, but the UK was always a “good European” and obeyed the rules scrupulously. It is a bit much to blame Keir Starmer when his predecessors have left him with very little national interest to protect!
Interesting. But the UK ” solving” global problems in India? Interfering rather via Soros backed busybodies and Islamist bureaucrats of their Deep States to introduce transgenderism and ” rainbow rights”, and a plethora of humbug laden discourse; instead of spending the money on the UK itself- especially in setting up industry for its domestic population.
Very true. One of the great stupidities of British foreign policy over the last 77 years has been to side with Pakistan and ISI against India.
I have been researching the reasons for an upcoming book; and my preliminary conclusions donot exhibit the traditional UK elites in very good light; all the more curious as Nehru seemed to have depended on MI 5 well into the early 1960s.
Totally agree. Soros fled Hungary in 1956 and attended LSE, pity he did not leave. Another example of theLSE, damaging India. Laski had done more damage to India in the 20th century than anyone else.
Good bit in that can agree with especially the failure of privatisation of utilities and the acquisition of so many of our best companies by foreign buyers. But as is usually the case here on Unherd the Author uses the recent story to take a few too many narrative leaps to underpin a political bias. That makes it a less serious piece than it could have been and more a bit of propaganda.
Firstly much is being made of the failure to support the potential Cumbria coalmine if UK needs coking coal for Scunthorpe. The tribalists fail to mention the coal to be mined there would have too much sulphur content to be of use in the blast furnace. In fact the biggest thing would be more stable Gas prices yet here the UK is subject to the fluctuations in international Gas price market. Weaning ourselves off such a degree of reliance actually would help businesses such as Steel. Author also fails to mention the strategy seems to be for Govt to buy time until electric arc furnaces are ready. Scunthorpe is old technology, but we needed some UK production and the proportion generated ‘in country’ in Europe significantly higher than UK. That’s a failure in industrial strategy going back much more than Starmer’s 9 months in office.
And then the predictable jump to Brexit and it being in our National interest. Well firstly let’s remember we didn’t join the Euro so this idea we had 30yrs of rolling over not quite the case. We had numerous other key vetos where UK had dug in and extracted exclusions. Tories and the Right generally never mentioned bringing Steel back into UK ownership as one of the freedom benefits did they. Farage just seen which way the wind is blowing and jumped on board. The notion now that bobbing around mid Atlantic blown this way and that is a better position than being attached to a stronger alliance highly debatable. We’ll see how it plays out in near future thanks to the Orange One. And of course we’ll see which way Reform lean especially if the zeitgeist is heading back towards taking back UK ownership (private or public) many industries. Some alignment I suspect coming on pension industry reform to support more internal British investment hopefully if we can just be serious thinkers for a short while.
The tribalists fail to mention the coal to be mined there would have too much sulphur content to be of use in the blast furnace
… according to one paper, not peer-reviewed, put together by someone who hadn’t tested the coal, but relied on general regional surveys :
“Their “evidence” for this claim is a report paid for by SLACC. A protest group set up to fight against the mine. The report was given to a single student at Edinburgh University to put together. It did not test the coal, it simply looked at coal in general in the North.”
Scunthorpe furnaces are contemporary tech, until a viable successor technology is developed. That is yet to happen.
The EU a stronger alliance? Possibly you haven’t read about the current state of Germany…
Better late than never. Starmer may be coming to his senses. Let’s hope we hear no more about declaring war on a nuclear power without US backing, when we have two weeks supply of ammunition and the prospect of no steel works with which to re-arm.
Thanks to Philip Cunliffe for a great article. The article states that “success was measured by … how much foreign investment it could attract”. Foreign investment takes two forms: (1) a foreign company chooses to locate some of its productive activity in the UK and (2) foreign cowboys buy an existing UK company to asset-strip it, whilst using its reputation to borrow money. Instead of describing the second category as “foreign investment”, I suggest that we use the more technical terminology “taking the pi55”.
I liked “China produced the steel, we produced slide decks on how to ensure your supply chains were gender compliant.”
The measurement of foreign investment carefully avoids any distinction between inward investment to create new productive capacity and simply buying existing assets. The latter has increasingly dominated, not least because we need it to help offset the trade deficit. It is, of course, a finite process.
A country without a capital, army or language.
“The national interest has been conspicuous by its absence from British politics for years if not decades.”
Indeed, not since the Falklands, and much of the blame for this must lie with the simply appalling Tory* party and its despicable charlatans, Major, Hesseltine, Cameron, Hague and May to name but a very few.
The only glimmer of hope came when the despised demos defied the treacherous ‘establishment’ and voted for Brexit, but only to see it sabotaged/denied by the Covid Scamdemic.
Thus what is left is but a hollowed out husk of a once great nation. Besides the despoiling and destruction of our industry what is left of our once great institutions, Parliament, the Judiciary, the Church(es), the Monarchy and so on? Sadly very little, ALL, without exception have degenerated to a greater or lesser extent, and this is entirely due to to the antics of the worthless muppets who rule us.
Consummatum est.
*Labour are NOT blameless, but that is only to be expected.
Before this. After 1945 those running Britain did not understand that trade is competition and we needed to move from the vast majority of people working in low paid un and semi skilled work into skilled well paid work. Those who understood this issue either worked overseas for British companies such as Shell, BP or emigrated .
After Suez in 1956 the FO had nervous breakdown and a Europhile group with the backing of Heath decided to enter the EEC at all costs, even if it meant sacrificing our fishing and sovereignty .
Cancellation of TRS2;the ending of grammar schools;university scholarships, expansion of arts degrees , Cousins a communist leaderof the TGWU, the ending of evening in degre level education at polytechnics inEngineering and Applied Science n and the communist Jack Jones, a civil servicewhose selection was biased towards art degrees and against engineering alldestroyed our lead in engineering such as aeronautical engineering.
In 1939 Britain produced he most brilliant aeronautical and mechanical engineers in the World – Camm, J Smith , JR Mitchell, Chadwick,de Havilland, Whittle, Stanley Hooker, Hives, B Wallis, all a product ofgrammar schools and rigorous mathematical education from a young age. Hooker designed the Supercharge for the Merlinover a couple of nights using a pencil and the back of income tax envelopes-that is genius. The comprehensive system has failed to produce such talent.
The Great Inventor
Stanley Hooker Legendary Rolls Royce & Bristol Engineer
Having lived through most of that I must wholeheartedly agree!
How did we let it happen? Were we not paying attention?
Simple.
The landowners developed contempt for trade and technology in second half of 19th century aided by Arnold of Rugby following a classical rather than technical education- compare with Bismarck’s Blood and Iron.
The agricultural decline post 1870 resulted in landowners entering the City, not industry and many of our best engineers developed railways, mines etc over seas.
The domination of middle class leftwingers of universities particularly Oxford post mid 1930s ( marmalade and manners ) which provided much of the A Stream Civil Service and politicians ( PPE degrees – Wilson) adopted the contempt for trdae and technology. Many of the children of factory owners post 1930s read arts degrees, not engineering and went into non industrial jobs. cahrles Northcote Parkinson explains this in his books – Parkinson’s Law and also Arnold Toynebee( resting on our oars was his phrase and John Glubb – End of Empires. From 1940s skilled craftsmen, foreman, engineers and scientists went overseas for better pay and power taxes. A mine electrician or railway mechanic ( completed 5 year apprenticeship and 1 year post apprenticeship training to become a master /journeyman ) could go overseas and within a year was a Foreman living in detached house with swimming pool.
My suspicion is that with the 80 or so civil servants forced to take retirement in mid 1950s due to communist sympathies; how many trashed British industry , for example cancellation of TRS2 and destruction of aircraft industry ?
BBC4 – Jet ! When Britain ruled the Sky (Extract)
Ah! The views of Martin J Wiener…English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit…plausible certainly but not necessarily right.
In any event, the creation and expansion of empire and the development of an Industrial nation are different and not interdependent.
The Empire provided a market. Many of our innovative and adventurous spirits went overseas. Yeast may only be 2% of the weight of a loaf but one only has to reduce it a small amount and the bread does not rise ;whereas one can change the mount of flour far more without much impact.
From the time of Newton, about 50 -75 people created our Industrial Revolution from 1660s to 1950s. For a start, Newton, Boyle, Hooke, Wren, Newcomen, Brindley, A Darby, Wilkinson, Watt and Boult, Wedgewood, Arkwright, G Stephenson, Priestly, Faraday. These people gives as modern physics, steam engine,cheap coal, cheap iron, cheap goods, electricity and railways without which there can be no Industrial Revolution. J Burke in his connections and The Day the Universe Changed explains technical innovation very well.Post 1850s many of our engineers were developing railways, coal mines,iron works,dams, harbours, irrigation projects, etc over seas for example S America,USA, Canada, Australia Japan, Ukraine, India, Africa and post 1870 much British capitalwas invested in S and N America , not improving our industries.
In the obituary of Heith Dewhurst he states that his Father’s factory still used steam to power belts and his father could not see how it could be improved . ” Is it any wonder the N of England was finished industrially ?”. japanese visited the textile mills in the 190s and realise how they couldinrease productivity.
We expanded the Welfare State and humanities education which could have been spent TRS2 which would have developed technology in general. We spent money on Concorde rather than swing technology developed by Wallis which enabled planes to take off at about 100mph and then reach supersonic speeds over the oceans.
Strikes led by shop stewards of the un and semi skilled unions ( TGWU, NUR, NUM, ) persuaded craftsmen and foremen to move overseas.
Whilst the TSR2 is frequently touted as a “lost opportunity” it was far too expensive and the only market was the RAF. There was no potential export market to ameliorate the costs. The decision to cancel was correct.
Compare and contrast the McDonnell Douglas Phantom, a simply brilliant “all round” combat aeroplane which sold well to many countries, including Britain.
But the F111 was a heap of junk, and again Britain was right to cancel the purchase contract, the problem being the very heavy penalty costs.
Free trade is usually promoted most by those with the biggest existing comparative advantage. The Empire was obviously keen on this, but within the Empire itself exported manufactured goods and controlled the extraction of raw materials. So, it wasn’t really free trade. The US dismantled this with its insistence on full sterling convertibility as a condition for its last war loans. The UK lost its protection and accelerated the relative economic decline that it had started in the late 19th century and had been helped on its way by the two world wars.
I agree with your description of decline from the late 19th century.
The Empire only takes shape post 1850, prior to that we were selling around the world. The main failure in Britain was the inability to improve the maths skills post 1850. Much civil and mechanical engineering can be done on simple area, volume, temperature calculations and trial and error. Marc Brunel sent his son Isambard to Paris to learn the mathematics required for more advanced engineering.
Germany started it’s industrialisation in chemical engineering in the 1850s where reactions involve volatile compounds at pressures many times that of atmospheric and temperatures of 100s Centigrade. consequently calculations must be correct to prevent fire and explosion.
Imperial College was founded because Britain was falling behind Germany, especially in chemistry. Post 1870s much of British capital was invested overseas and this is where many of best engineers went.
Even as late as the 1980s I can remember elderly ladies criticising someone because they were in trade. Charles Northcote Parkinson attacks this attitude in his books of the late 1950s. If one look at the increase in undergraduates since 1945 the vast majority are useless arts subjects, (if they had been classical and modern languages geared to business they would be of use) , not applied science and engineering needed for advanced manufcaturing.
The classic bait and switch. The article begins as a reasonable critique of British economic policy in recent decades before descending into a swivel eyed rant about sovereignty. Globalisation is not going any where. We are not going to be re-importing manufacturing from China and textile production from SE Asia. It always makes me laugh when people criticise discourse about identity in one breath before lauding some vision of Britishness that never existed in their next. Time runs forwards not backwards.
Nobody is saying we need to bring back button-making machines. What people are asking genuinely is that some industries should never be sold to countries outside of their own. This is basic human development.
Every human being needs safety and security first. Without that, there’s no self-actualization, no love, no creativity. What globalization got wrong is that it outsourced safety and security. These foundational needs were placed outside the country. We are also subsiding all lack of safety and security aboard to keep up the charade! To sort of keep people like you that you are safe cause all wars happen there but you are paying for it!
Now people are waking up. You probably have a PhD built on a house of cards. A PhD that never taught you how to question the foundations, only how to repeat what you were taught. You never asked why.
So let me tell you what nationalism really means: home.
You live where you work.
You eat what you grow
And no, you cannot globalize that.
Sure, clothes can be globalized. If someone wants to buy clothes made overseas, that’s fine. You can also support local brands. Clothes aren’t essential every day. But you know what can’t be globalized?
Where people need to work.
Where people need to grow food.
Where people need to make their own medicine.
Those are the industries that build a stable nation. Without them, everything else is just decoration.
Nice hobbit fantasy.
Absolutely brilliant. And it can be done.
Scathing sarcasm at its best. Nothing to nitpick here. Reviving the British identity is a project in its self. I could suggest a horrible-sounding Doge-like project for reinvirogating the national spirit as a start.
A superb article. This country needs to ensure it can provide for itself. If achieving this causes a loss to the bottom line of a foreign corporation this shouldn’t cause our leaders to lose a moments sleep. It’s not protectionist to look out for your own safety. You don’t label a person a hermit because they can wipe their own arse.
This is one of the best articles I’ve read. Now we’re finally talking. Until we name the problem for what it is, we cannot solve it. Yes, the two major parties fight over whether to keep the last standing steel production in our own country. And tomorrow? We’ll hear that Gmail has been bought by China and we won’t even have access to our own emails. Do you see where I’m going with this?
We’re finally talking about the real issue. And all those flags you see on the streets—that’s part of the distraction: the transgender flag, the LGBTQ+ flag, the DEI branding, the global flags from every country. People are given the idea that displaying all these flags is a symbol of something important. But it’s just a distraction and part of the global there is global here.
Because the moment people start thinking about where they are and who they are, they stop thinking about flags. Why? Because there would be no war there. The only reason there’s a war “down there” is because that’s where our money is going. If no money goes there, there is no war. And without that money, the flags would disappear instantly. They only exist as long as globalization funds conflicts.
So don’t worry about the flags. The minute we have a real leader who tells with conviction to the people: This is your home. Don’t destroy it and there is a money to start your own business (if we can give money to other countries under fake premises of human rights and blahh what is the shame of money given to our own people to keep business here?). We must come together, and we’re not sending another dollar to war—we’re investing in education, health, and infrastructure, everything changes! If not instantly, then definitely strategically and longer term.
People won’t need those flags anymore. Because those flags are just like everything else of all gender and virtual signaling-symbols used to keep us distracted from what really matters – innovation at home!
That’s so not going to happen!
But I can remember right back to 1969 when the Buy British Campaign was an utter failure despite being fronted by the charismatic figure of Max By graves. If it didn’t work then it’s not going to now. Even if Ed Sheeran urges us to.A high proportion of our 19th century business success was due to us owning a huge share of the market. We MADE our Colonies and nations like India buy OUR manufactures from cotton cloth to railway engines. We made it illegal and a crime for them to manufacture their own. Now the rest of the world has a choice and they CHOOSE not to buy from us. Mr Trump has got the same problem but he seems inclined to solve it at the point of a gun. Oh dear.
Correlli Barnett’s figures contradict your premise. In 1913 India was nearly equaled as a market for British products by France and Germany combined. They weren’t forced to “buy British”.
Britain also had extensive interests in South America eg Argentina, also not forced to buy British.
Certainly many British products in the 1960s and 70s were inferior hence the loss of markets including the home market. The causes are many…and lack of hard work and commercial nous figure strongly. But until recently the motor industry in Britain was performing well…foreign owned and managed which speaks volumes. The Nissan Qashqai was the best selling car in Britain last year…built in Sunderland (incidentally a factory established under the auspices of the “industry destroying” Margaret Thatcher…)
No doubt something CAN be done but to what extent, and with what success, is uncertain.
Of course Britain has a long record of allowing in products produced by cheap labour and under less stringent regulation which hardly helps. Britain outlawed slavery but allowed the import and sale of Brazilian sugar…produced by slave labour.
What is ignored is under skilling of middle management. Germany and Switzerland train people to 1 or 2 levels above which they operate. Britain does not , so middle management fearful of the advances in technology they did not understand, turned down innovation.
What is funny is the British aristocracy favoured innovation from Tudor times until about 1850. Duke of Bridgewater supported J Brindley to build his canal against the comments of professionals; Wellington supported Thoms Telford.
As B Wallis said ” I have achived everything in spite of he professionals not because of them. ” it was the aristiocracy who created the Agricultural Revolution, without which the Industrial could not have occurred.
East India Company, Royal Institute and Royal Society were supported and patronised by the aristocracy. It has been the left wing middle class intellectual who have despised trade and technology since the 1930s which have been the problem .
“yet it is they who privatised British Steel to begin with. “
TO BEGIN WITH ?!
British Steel was a postwar Labour creation, not some natural timeless entity.
Before the Iron and Steel Act 1949, private industry produced our steel.
“This global compact came with the added bonus that it allowed us to substitute dirty blue-collar jobs (and people) with nice white-collar jobs”
Actually, what too often substituted for blue-collar jobs was Welfare.
I was basically the wrong colour,” she says wryly. “It’s not just English people, but second- and third- generation Asian and black families that are fed up and want to leave. I don’t want to sound awful, but it’s just not England around here anymore.”
The problem is that the sense that ‘it’s just not England around here anymore.” is felt and recognised by all except adherents of Davos, their industrial clients and grievance insectionalists. To them, white ethnic ‘communities’ don’t exist and can’t be allowed.
It’s only Starsimer and his acolytes that believe their characterisation of the white ethnic caste as racist, fascist, extreme right wing. This is how they deny existence of white ethnicities because, if they didn’t, there would be justifiable tension between the largest community and the minnows, guess who’d win?
A further fundamental problem is the toolmaker’s son’s Stalinist repression of free speech and waging of identitarian war against the white ethnic majority. Clearly exemplified by crass pre-sentencing reports for non-white, non-Judeo/Christians, terrorising of parents on Whatswhapp group chat, imprisoning of petulant Southport Xtweets, NCHI harassment of Essex Telegraph journalists. And of course the US interest in the recent Dr Bolt abortion clinic case is the latest tyranny, which lends credibility to those claiming the characterisation of Tommy Robinson as a political prisoner……
What we have here is the slow and inevitable societal collapse that has been happening for decades with failures in globalisation, replacement (and plantation) , multiculturalism, DEI, Alice-in-Wonderlandism prizes for all, of the liberal progressives.
Their response ? A spur line from Barking to what will undoubtably become a carbon copy of Battersea? , Er, no, rather more like Thamesmead that utopian film set of Clockwork Orange.
Do I hear the sound of a canary squeaking a warning in the (metaphorical) mine shaft?
Is anyone listening?