Women on the Front line

A Ministry Defence source says: 'there is a real desire among Ministers and the military to open up ground combat roles to women . There is a genuine hope this will become a reality by 2016'

So how many lies are there in that sentence. One at least - I have spoken to many soldiers of all ranks and have yet to hear any single soldier express any such 'desire' at all.  Anybody who has ever been a soldier knows this is political correct madness which will have a negative effect on the combat ability of front line troops. So why do it? well it is all part of the great 'Modernise Britain ' campaign so ably promulgated by our Prime Minister but I just wonder whether anyone has even thought of what risks women on the front line might actually face when push comes to shove and the bullets start flying - death or injury sure that is a given - but - frankly- I wouldn't want to be a woman front line soldier who ended up a prisoner of ISIS and I wouldn't like to be the Minister explaining how this state of affairs has been allowed to happen. .    

No doubt that same lying spokesman from the MOD will maintain that 'standards of fitness and strength and stamina' will not be jeopardised in pursuit of our Dave's aim of  making the army more 'inclusive' well pull the other one will you - because we all know that that is exactly what will happen.

London house prices and Boris

On a visit to London I picked up the Evening Standard - two articles caught my eye. In one Sam Leith reported that ; "...even thirty somethings - the sort you would expect to be life blood of the up and coming fringes of the city - are fleeing to Birmingham, Nottingham and Oxford in search of affordable housing and agreeable lives."

Turning a few pages I came across a picture of a T shirt clad Boris Johnson (not a pretty sight) who was in Kuala Lumpur where - surprise, surprise - the developers of  Battersea Power Station are staging a road show to sell the properties to the Malaysian rich

Now I'm sorry but if I was Mayor of London I would be seriously concerned about Sam Leith's piece -which he wrote on the back of a report form the Office of National Statistics who found 60,000 people in their thirties left the capital in the year to June.  In fact so concerned would I be about the ridiculous level of house prices in London that instead of promoting sales of the Battersea Power Station development in Malaysia I would have thought his time would be better spent in lobbying the Prime Minister to look at bringing in legislation to either heavily tax foreigners buying property in London or to restrict foreigners right to buy in London - and by the by - don't tell me it can't be done because the Swiss do it rather well.

High property prices are not a boom - they are a curse. Walking round London last night through Kensington and Chelsea  whole streets are in darkness with hardly a light showing in blocks of flats or rows of houses - so many are now owned by rich foreigners as 'investments.' Simple Edwardian terrace houses in Battersea and Fulham are now routinely fetching well over £1.0 million making them unaffordable to all but the highest paid and all Boris does is promote more sales of London property to more absentee so called 'investors' -it is a bad joke.

SAVE PLYMOUTH GIN

Plymouth gin -is - surprise- distilled in Plymouth and is currently the only gin with a Geographic Indication (GI) which means that it can only be made within the city boundary and with specific ingredients.

Sadly the company was sold some years ago to the ghastly overseas conglomerate Pernod Ricard a spokesman  of which said: ".... the company has realised it is not in the best interests of Plymouth gin to retain GI status."

Pass the sick bag. what he meant is that to say is this:

"We smelly French want to exploit the Plymouth Gin brand and make as much money out of it as possible and the easiest way of doing that is by distilling it where it is cheapest and most convenient for us to do so - which is not -actually in Plymouth - as we don't give a stuff for Plymouth or it's people."

Could Pinault Ricard's determination to devalue the name and brand of Plymouth gin have anything to do with the fact that for generations it has been the favourite drink of the Royal Navy and -if you want a laugh - ask Google to list French naval victories over the Royal Navy- there just aren't any.

The people of Plymouth, the Royal Navy and anyone else interested in the unique heritage of Plymouth gin must unite to fight the ghastly French and ensure that Plymouth gin remains unique to Plymouth . 

Geography

A very bright daughter of a friend told me she was going to read Geography at University.  I couldn't resist asking her a simple 'prep school' geography question ; 'Where is the Gobi Desert?'   Now actually the Gobi Desert is not some tin pot little affair but covers some 500,000 square miles of Northern China as well as a fair chunk of Mongolia but she looked at me blankly and hadn't a clue what continent it was in let alone what countries . I tried another question; 'where is the Mekong river? ' another blank stare.

What on earth do they teach in schools nowadays?  When I did my common entrance aged 12 an important part of the paper was a map of the world on which you had to identify certain rivers, mountain ranges, countries and such like.  Virtually every twelve year old in my class would have been able to pinpoint both the Gobi Desert and the Mekong river on that map but this very intelligent eighteen year old couldn't do either.

And that perhaps is what's wrong with so much modern teaching - there are no foundations. No one makes children learn the names of countries, capital cities, oceans, and deserts in Geography any more, just as no one makes children learn the kings and queens of England and important dates any more. No one either - apparently - makes children learn poetry any more either but then the poetry which is taught in school is banal boring modern blank verse so it is hardly surprising everyone switches off in class.  Teach the children proper poetry - The Charge of Light Brigade by Tennyson, the Pied Piper by Browning or Lepanto by Chesterton to give but three examples and they would be a very poor lot of children who wouldn't be gripped and inspired but that would never do would it -these poets wrote poems everyone could enjoy without having them explained to them by so called experts so clearly they are not good and -even worse- they are not - that awful word - relevant    .

Anniversary of the Hanoverian Succession

This coming Monday (Oct 20th ) is the 300 th anniversary of one of the most momentous events in British history yet no great parades through London are planned, no service of thanksgiving, not even a special issue of commemorative stamps.  Yet arguably what happened 400 years ago was one of most important occurrences not only in the history of Britain but in the history of the world. It was of course the accession of King George I, the Elector of Hanover, to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland.

Yet it so nearly did not happen. The Tories and much of the country at large hankered for the return of the Stuarts in the person of The Old Pretender, the son of the deposed James II.The Jacobites though lost through a mixture of indolence, overconfidence, and bad luck but it was a close run thing.  If they had prevailed and the Old Pretender had been crowned James III then the 18th century might have been very different. Instead of Great Britain becoming embroiled in war after war against France we might, instead, have allied ourselves with France against the likes of Prussia and Hanover. Think on that.  If France had been an ally then no French help would have been given to the American colonists in their War of Independence. Canada would have remained French, France would not have bankrupted herself in wars with Britain and therefore the French Revolution would not have happened.    

But instead of glamorous Stuarts we opted four hundred years ago for stupid boring Germans and by God they were all that and more. George I arrived with his two ugly mistresses, one of whom he created duchess of Kendal and the other countess of Darlington.  the duchess was tall and thin and immediately nicknamed the Maypole while the countess was small and fat and thus was called the elephant.

But it was to the sheer stupidity of the four George's, and to the first two's idleness in delegating all the business of government to such a clever man as Sir Robert Walpole, that caused the rapid transfer of power during the 18th century from the Crown to an elected Parliament and the development of that unique British invention - the Constitutional Monarchy.  Food for thought I think you will agree and surely one of histories big 'What If's' - is it worthy though of a celebration?  I cannot warm to the Hanoverians I'm afraid, they had no 'style' - no glamour- they were dullards all. No I am a romantic and the Stuarts for all their faults had style, they had romance and they were one and all glamorous so I for one would not be celebrating in any case but I am surprised that no else is.

Mansion tax and Property prices

Markets are supposed to be efficient.  But, just at this moment, London  residential property prices, seem to demonstrate that they are anything but.  The Labour Party is totally committed to the economically illiterate 'mansion tax' which they plan to levy on all properties worth over £2.0 million at a rate of 2%.  The Labour Party is also, despite it's inept leadership, quite likely to form the next government either on its own or with the help of what's left (not much I suspect) of the Liberal Party.

So - all things being equal- within rather less than a year a £3.0 million London house could be subject to a annual tax of £60,000! Now -in that event what happens to it's capital value? - come on thicko - think back to you basic maths and basic economics. It is going to collapse in value isn't it? In fact it is going to fall at the very least by just over a £1.0 million- taking it below the £2.0 million threshold but possibly by even more - why so?  Because all houses above it in value will also see their values collapse.  In other words the £5.0 million house which would, if its value did not change, carry an annual tax burden of £100,000 will also fall by at least £3.0 million.  Why the collapse in its value?  Because £100,000 represents an annual yield of 2.5% on £4.0 million.  In short you cannot expect capital values of London property at any level to be unaffected by the imposition of this ridiculous tax. So why are investors not baling out as fast as they can? It is a mystery to me.

An even bigger mystery is why there are 25,000 luxury homes either in development or planned with, a today's completion value, of £60 billion i.e. with an average value of over £2.0 billion.  Now it maybe that developers and owners of prime London property know something you and I don't - that Ed Milliband hasn't a hope of becoming Prime Minister, let alone Nick Clegg. I just wish I could be so sure.  But to me it looks like a hell of a gamble. After all -frankly -the upside in London property has to be very limited while the threat of a 'mansion tax' makes the downside a black hole.  
 

The new History curriculum and The Nursery History of England

So the teaching of history is to be overhauled and all children in primary school are to be taught a chronological history of 'Our Island Story.'  Well three cheers for that.

But if this is to happen schools will need to buy new books and - as luck would have it - I have a copy at my elbow of the very history book which every single child should be given as a basic 'primer' of history.

The Nursery History of England is probably the finest history book ever written. And I don't mean the finest 'childrens' history either -I mean the 'Finest' full stop. What is so horrifying of course is that when it was published, shortly before the Great War, every child in the land was taught the basics of British History and knew the dates of the kings and queens as well as the dates of the key events in the history of our Island. Now - talking to my children's friends - or actually middle aged adults -I am horrified by their complete ignorance.

So what is so brilliant about the Nursery History of England?  In one word- it is pictures. Glorious technicolour pictures as well.  Open the book at random and on one page there will be two beautifully painted pictures of events in history while -on the page opposite- are two short explanatory paragraphs.  My sisters and I poured over this book in our childhood and -if I close my eyes -I can recall many of the pictures from my memory bank. King Alfred burning the cakes, King Cnut ordering back the waves, King John and the Magna Carta, the Empress Matilda fleeing across a snow covered landscape and so on. All the great stories are here.

All right -I will admit - perhaps some of the sentiments and views expressed may jar with some of our friends in the Urban Metropolitan elite.  Take the final entry which concerns King George V's visit to India.

One of the biggest countries which belongs to England is India.  It is very hot and poor English people do not go out there, but just a few English people who help to rule the country. There are a great many Indian princes. A short time ago king George and queen Mary went out to India, and the Indian princes went and bowed down before them to do them honour. Some of them brought presents, and it was a very fine sight. The king and queen wish India to be happy and all the other lands they rule as well.     

Great Stuff - and absolutely true.