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Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

UnHerd is getting interesting again! I love the fact that a myriad of new voices are being given a platform! It matters not if I agree with them or not. l don’t care if the writing is (sometimes) not as polished as that of the usual suspects – I can live with that (and that is definitely not directed at this piece, which is very good). The important thing is to let a million voices speak. This is a good model for UnHerd to follow, very well done!

Gloria Gordon
Gloria Gordon
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

SSD

Last edited 1 year ago by Gloria Gordon
Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Reply to  Gloria Gordon

Hey Gloria, is SSD a euphemism for premoting that you are going to splurge some spam all over? Go on then, hit me with your tale about how your brother-in-law is makin’ $500 a day, you know I’m dyin’ to hear that stuff.

Last edited 1 year ago by Prashant Kotak
Matthew Steeples
Matthew Steeples
1 year ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

I quite agree. It is great to have a variety of opinions and on the only occasion I met the late Alan Clark, I found him honest and amusing. I did not agree with him about his liking for Hitler, etc, but at least he was not like the drippy dullards we have now… What next for the Tories? One privileged prat who studied PPE at Oxford or another privileged prat who studied PPE at Oxford – it’s hardly an inspired set of options.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

Thank you, an excellent excoriation of Clark summed up perfectly by your phrase “he remained an expert spectator, but poor player, of the game”

One notable omission was that for his all his macho posturing Clark was a natural born coward. Thanks to a deplorable piece of skulduggery whilst at Eton, Clark managed to avoid National Service. Not a good report for an Englishman who called his Alsatian dog Adolph!

However, ‘heaven be praised’, his sexual adventures never rivalled those of that notorious pervert and former Tory Cabinet Minister, Ernest Marples (of Motorway fame), and his loyalty to Lady Thatcher, particularly at the ‘end’ was outstanding.

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago

Clark did not disguise his admiration for the late fuhrer. And both were vegetarians, always a bad sign.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

And dog lovers?

Andrew D
Andrew D
1 year ago

Possibly too. I should add that Clark’s diaries are a wonderful read. I remember a very amusing and insightful article by Craig Brown, comparing the differing accounts of some event in (respectively) Clark’s and Edwina Currie’s diaries. Clark’s account was razor-sharp, witty and (I’m certain) accurate. Currie’s was self-serving claptrap, more typical of the type of politico that sadly we’re lumbered with.

Kevin Ludbrook
Kevin Ludbrook
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

Also interesting to read Michael Heseltine’s version of the same events. As you say, I’m also more inclined to believe the accuracy of Clark’s.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Kevin Ludbrook

Ironically Hesseltine also found a way to avoid National Service. After nine months of hell in the Welsh Guards he discovered that if he stood as a Parliamentary Candidate he could escape further service, which is precisely what he did!
Given Clark’s later bitchy comment about Hessetine ‘buying his own furniture’, one can but laugh!

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

Yes I must agree, the diaries were epic, almost another Pepys.
Mind you Wedgewood Benn’s diaries were also good.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew D

Edwina of “up periscope “ infamy with John Major Esq?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

I thought he was an OR in The Blues?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago

For 24 hours. He was old enough to have served in Palestine or Malaya, but in the event did neither.

Last edited 1 year ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

was he not a trooper recruit for a bit in the Household Cavalry ? His son became an Officer in The Blues.. or The Life Guards?

Malcolm Knott
Malcolm Knott
1 year ago

Clark’s insights into forward planning at the Ministry of Defence were, and probably still are, invaluable.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Knott

He wrote an excellent account of Operation Barbarossa in 1965, so much so I was surprised that Beevor followed through with Stalingrad some years later.

Mark Hawkins
Mark Hawkins
1 year ago

With Carrie working for Damian Aspinall and Truss having an interesting symbiotic relationship with Robin Birley it seems more like the Lucan gang have taken over the tory party than Alan Clark.

Richard Rolfe
Richard Rolfe
1 year ago

The “podgy life-insurance-risk” had the last laugh, having out-lived Clark by 22 years and counting.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

Much as I loved Alan Clark’s diaries and his amusing persona, He was ( and I’m sure it was part of his satire) a bit of a faux gent, but I believe that he knew that and played the image for fun!

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

Much as I loved Alan Clark’s diaries and his amusing persona, He was ( and I’m sure it was part of his satire) a bit of a faux gent, but I believe that he knew that and played the image for fun!

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

What I loved most about Alan Clark was as to how he upset the bourgeois ” Ooh what will the neighbours think?” heome ceounties middle classes… For that alone he should have been made a Saint upon his passing…

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

What I loved most about Alan Clark was as to how he upset the bourgeois ” Ooh what will the neighbours think?” heome ceounties middle classes… For that alone he should have been made a Saint upon his passing…

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

Alan Clark was the most superb antidote to Toylittory, corfam and poly draylon intra M25 man an woman!