Day 35 - Battle of Britain

RAF Hornchurch and other RAF stations are on the menu for this day Adler Tag (Eagle Day) - supposedly the first day of the great offensive. One of the crew of this Dornier, shot down two miles SW of Eastchurch, does not see its end. The other two crew are to spend the rest of the war as prisoners.

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So what's new?

We got it, we didn't ask for it, it doesn't work and now we can't change it.

Were it not so boring, one might run a blog on such things.

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What do you expect

... from a place that used to make bird mincer blades?

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The Franco-German motor

An academic from the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies, University of Exeter, worries that the proposed cuts to the Navy will "weaken our ability to shape EU defence policy".

Methinks that Dr Duncan Redford, as a military historian, should revisit the real driver for EU defence policy (pictured above), following which he might be less keen on it, and seriously uninterested in shaping it.

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Back in sync

I won't bore you with the details, and there are an awful lot of "cheats" that need to be fixed, but I've more or less caught up with myself. You can read Day 34 here. Some heavy re-writing here as well, covering 25 July, with entertaining detail about the bonking destroyer!

Battle of Britain thread

Battle of Britain

Slightly out of sync with the posts. I seem to have fallen into a new rhythm of starting the piece on the day, but finishing it on the next, thus keeping two days on the go at the same time.

Thus, I have finished Day 32. I'm quite pleased with this one – it was difficult to write, but it came together quite nicely. I touch on censorship and propaganda issues - hence the cartoon, taken from the piece (the wording on the blindfold reads "press censorship").

I've made a good start on Day 33, but have a lot more to do, especially with the illustration.

Today I'll make a start on Day 34 and, as always, I'll be adding to previous posts and working on the "backgrounders", with a little help – there are a few in the making.

In between wishing I hadn't started this, I'm privately wondering whether I have the stamina to finish, but it's turning out to be such a fascinating project that I would have difficulty walking away from it.

Battle of Britain thread

Ye're all going to dieeee

Die, I tell you, die ... ye're all going to die, die a most horrible death ... die, yes you ... die. And so reports the BBC: "Many more people will die of heart problems as global warming continues, experts are warning," they tell us.

"Climate extremes of hot and cold will become more common and this will puts strain on people's hearts, doctors say ... A study in the British Medical Journal found that each 1C temperature drop on a single day in the UK is linked to 200 extra heart attacks."

"Heatwaves, meanwhile, increase heart deaths from other causes, as shown by the events in Paris during summer 2003."

The worst of it is that these people are serious and so is the BBC. They cannot see how stupid they look, how stupid they sound, and how stupid they are. In fact, they are beyond stupid. They are barking mad.

Amongst other things, I wonder if any of them know what a Saturated Adiabatic Lapse Rate is, and what thus happens when you drive from the coast (altitude 0ft) to my home, altitude a smidgin short of 1000ft? Are they really saying that this puts people at risk of a heart attack?

It is these people that are the real health hazard – they sap our life energy with their constant, sterile diet of scare stories. But if they are so in love with the idea of death, they should embrace it and save us leading them there. I am sick to the back teeth of them.

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The ultimate surrender?

Booker this morning on the EU proposals to introduce a series of direct taxes.

You have to forgive the journalistic hyperbole, but it isn't the "ultimate surrender". It is just one more in a long line of surrenders. There are plenty more to come, as the political classes fall over themselves to give more powers to the Brussels machine, of which they are an integral part.

Harry Phibbs actually thinks that "Nations will turn Eurosceptic when pressed for hard cash", and will resist relieving the EU of the indignity of having to rattle the tin at the governments of the nation states. But as long as we have the slime illustrated above, that ain't going to happen.

But it was only yesterday that Mary Ellen Synon asked whether the British would tolerate it? Or would they let themselves be humiliated in a way that even the small ragtag population of 13 British colonies would not allow in 1776?

Sadly, the answer to both questions is probably "yes". As a collective, there are not enough of us even with sufficient balls to vote against the slime, much less rise up and send them to a better place. As a nation, we deserve what we get, I suppose.

But, until we get, at the very least, a referendum on the EU, there are no politics. Whatever the slime do - not interested. There is only one thing we want to hear.

COMMENT THREAD

War over ... Japan surrenders

Let's see now ... I did the so-called "Carbon Reduction Commitment" (CRC) last February. Booker saved it up until April when the scheme kicked in.

But now, six months after I had first written about it, The Daily Telegraph warns: "Business facing a wave of green taxes". Thousands of British businesses, it tells us, will be liable for significant fines and charges under a new government "green tax" scheme. It is writing, for the first time, about the CRC.

Interestingly, Bob Jarrett, of the BHF-BSSA Group, "a trade body that represents thousands of independent shops," complains that ministers had not done enough to explain or justify the CRC. "We've only come across this in the last few weeks, and yet the deadline is at the end of next month. The Department for Energy has not given this nearly enough publicity," he says.

Of course, it would be a waste of time Jarrett complaining that the media hadn't done its job either (except Booker) ... or that people should be reading the blogs if they want the news. If he had tried, they simply would not have printed his comments. Newspapers do not go in for self-criticism.

But, to help out the trundling Daily Telegraph, we've come up with a brilliant headline for tomorrow's edition. Did you know Japan had surrendered? Its newsroom probably hasn't heard yet.

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Stupidity is catching

We had the same experience here, and now the Spanish are repeating it. Spain's plans to have 2,000 electric cars on the road by the end of 2010 have been dealt a blow as figures showed just 16 have been sold, says the BBC.

Well, you could blow me down with a feather. Produce a pile of high-priced, under-performing shit consumer durables and nobody will buy them. Strangely, you do not even need an economics degree to understand this. But, to believe otherwise, it seems, it helps to be a politician – or a car manufacturer chasing favours.

That the vehicles are produced by a company called "think", though, is just one of those truly delicious ironies that you could not even begin to invent ... unless you were reading an early Tom Sharpe novel. Do you remember those?

The trouble is, when they are all at it, you get the "they can't all be wrong syndrome", which means the rest then pile in. But the brutal truth is, yes they can all be wrong. Stupidity is an infectious disease, to which politicians are particularly susceptible.  It just takes one of them to get a stupid idea and, before very long, they've all got it.

And how do you know if it is a stupid idea? Well, if a lot of politicians believe in it ... it's stupid.  On the other hand, if they don't believe in it - things like democracy, self-determination, immigration control and the like - then it has a racing chance of being a good idea.

As to the cure for politicians, I am told that copper-jacketed enemas, inserted at very high speed, are probably the only effective remedy. In fact, now we are a one-party state, they are the only remedy - period. Normal politics are over.

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She's noticed

"This is getting too boring to be worthy of comment," says Janet Daley, catching up as always.

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You did ask. Not as long as The Boy and the rest of the Cleggerons are around.

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Silly season

North Junior sends me this pic (left), illustrating what every well-dressed soldier might wear on the battlefield ... although he might be better equipped with a tracked mosque, as opposed to a church.

Given that is it silly season, though, I thought I would give it an airing, if for no other reason than to illustrate that truth is often stranger than fiction - or life mirrors art, if you prefer.

In my trawls looking for examples of German wartime radar equipment, I happened upon the example below, which I am reliably told is a FuMO 2 "Calais B" marine surveillance radar.

But you would be hard to notice the slender lattice as you streaked past in your Spitfire PRU or whatever. It is mounted on top of a structure which is described as an S 449 bunker (not that I am any great expert on bunker designs - check by looking at the link) - but with a difference.

If you look very carefully, you might notice a few non-standard additions, such as the dummy tiled roof to disguise the bunker and conceal the radar mast. And then there are the windows artfully painted on the walls of the solid, reinforced concrete, all set to help make the thing look like a des res perched on top of the cliff.

And yes, that's the best I can do for the moment ... I really could not bring myself to write a sensible piece, and in fact I'm too tired to try, having been reading into the wee small hours to prime the pump. I will give myself a good talking-to, and get down to a proper post in the morning.

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Day 30 - Battle of Britain

Today, the war erupts - the sea war joining with the air war to make for the biggest fight of the Battle so far. So many aircraft were involved, and so vicious was the fighting, that many regard 8 August as the true beginning of the Battle of Britain or, variously, the start of the second phase.

And, where you see the opening word "today", read yesterday - I'm running seriously behind and have had to abandon the piece only part completed. The problem isn't collecting the details, or even writing the narrative. It is, as so often, is fact-checking - which can be the longest part of the process by far.

And so it is with this day. There are issues here which don't seem to be right ... but I can't prove them one way or another, and the detail is crucial. You can see why historians are sometimes tempted to take short cuts - confirming details can be a tiring and unrewarding process. It is much easier to go with the flow.

Anyhow, it is all very unsatisfactory - an enormous amount of effort for very little reward. I've written what I can and will do battle again later today.

Read the story so far on DAYS OF GLORY

A perverse set of priorities

Recent landslides in China, triggered by prolonged rainfall, have - according to diverse reports killed at least 127 people. Furthermore, the death toll in the massive landslide in northwest China's Gansu province is expected to rise rapidly as over 2,000 people are missing.

"It's very hard to locate the people washed away by floods. It's hard to say what their chances of survival are," He Youxin, an officer of People's Armed Police Force, said. Rescuers had to use spades and bare hands because heavy machinery and excavators could not reach the site covered with sludge, some as thick as six feet.

On top of the Pakistani floods – which have, incidentally, also been affecting the Indian-held sectors Jammu and Kashmir – we have also seen extreme weather events in Korea, Korea Japan and elsewhere.

This, of course, is just weather, but still the warmists pursue their dire creed, on which Booker today passes comment. Interestingly, it was back in June that we got the most honest comment about extreme weather events in a certain locality, the candour matched only by the complete lack of interest in the Western media.

By the same token, we get plenty of coverage about the Russian heatwave, but got very little about the coldest winter in 130 years ... in Russia. Thus, the whole subject is wide open to cherry-picking, which distorts even accurate reports of isolated events. Without an appreciation of the whole picture, and a longer-term perspective, there is nothing that can be properly inferred from these events.

The real news, therefore, is not of climate, but of human tragedy and suffering. That we can do something about, and a fraction of the billions spent on "climate change" would go a long way to reducing the impact.

But as long as we are in the grip of the climate zealots, those being killed by the weather now are less important that the lucrative funding opportunities arising from predicting future disasters. How perverse it is that potential deaths in the future get more money than real deaths now – a sad reflection on human priorities.

COMMENT THREAD

Virtual democracy

In direct proportion to the degree of detachment from the democratic process, the various institutions which lay claim to be part of our government are expending our money on simulating the very process they are so keen to destroy.

Thus, as Booker remarks in today's column , the EU parliament has commissioned an online role-playing game called Citzalia which allows "citizens" to imagine they are participating in the parliament's "important work".

Citzalia is proclaimed as "a world you inhabit and help to create. Using your avatar, you can walk around, network, debate issues of the day, propose legislation."

Not least of the fatuity of this is that the EU parliament does not propose legislation. It is an absolutely fundamental characteristic of the EU that the commission has the monopoly of proposal, one which actually guarantees its laws are "democracy proof". To remove a law requires another law, which only the commission can propose, thus ensuring that no democratic institution can over-ride it.

For want of real democracy, therefore, all we get is "virtual democracy", much the same as we are already getting from the Cleggerons in Westminster. One of its first acts – as you may recall, says Booker - was to open a website on which voters could propose new laws and policies. Last week it was reported that every one of the hundreds of proposals from members of the public had been rejected or ignored.

It is not only democracy that has gone "virtual", however. So has governance in the widest sense. The Cleggeron corpus, Cameron and Cleggy – two prize "C"s who have acquired the label the "Brokeback Two" - have sent a letter round to their Cabinet colleagues reminding them of the need to reduce the public spending deficit.

This was "the most urgent issue facing Britain today", they said, even though during last May's election campaign, Booker listed several hugely important issues which none of the parties wished to talk about. First amongst them was the terrifying size of the government deficit.

This was already increasing, as Booker reported, at £446 million every day, so that by 2014 the national debt would have doubled to £1.4 trillion. The interest alone on that debt would equate to £60 a week for every household in the land.

Since then, of course, the new "virtual government" has been only too happy to come out of purdah on the deficit it inherited, and to talk up all the "tough" measures and drastic cuts needed to reduce it.

Nevertheless, when little Georgie Osborne introduced his budget in June, the small print still projected public expenditure continuing to hurtle upwards, from £668 billion this year to £737 billion in five years' time. In other words, there is little sign that the deficit will reduce by very much.

Not content with this, though, we get Willy Hague's admission that "there is a profound disconnect between the British people and what has been done in their name by British governments". As Foreign Secretary, he was referring in particular to our relations with the EU (without mentioning, of course, the failure of the three main parties to keep their manifesto promises of a referendum on the EU Constitution, aka the Lisbon Treaty).

Another government boast last week was that, for each new regulation, an old one would be repealed. Of course, it added hastily that this would not apply to EU regulations passing into UK law – but in terms of cost and damage to the economy, it is these that make up more than three-quarters of the regulations that matter.

Thus our "virtual democracy" leads to an ever more "profound disconnect" between government and people, says Booker. We "walk around, network, debate issues of the day", even "propose legislation". But as with that computer game, it is an empty charade.

"Behind their hands, our rulers must really be laughing at us", Booker concludes – but then he is writing for a family newspaper. The reality is much more stark, to the extent that people are increasingly opting out of the political process altogether. But when there is no prospect of influencing that process, and the sole contribution of the political classes is display contempt for their voters, there is absolutely no point in wasting life energy on them.

All we can hope for is that they eventually disappear up their own virtual democracy and we can then get back to real politics, where democracy might have some meaning. Until then, I really am not alone in not wanting to know. They can put their virtual politics where the sun doesn't shine.

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Day 29 - Battle of Britain

A convoy off Cromer is attacked – a detail that makes it into few chronological narratives on a day that was widely regarded as "quiet". The convoy is probably FS 244 – six vessels on the run that stretches from Methil, the sheltered anchorage in Largo Bay in the Forth Estuary, all the way to Southend. This one is due on 8 August. From there, the vessels will either join another convoy or make their way independently to the Port of London, or another destination close by.

Sometimes the convoys start on the Tyne, as this one did – most having done so from September 1939 up to the end of August 1940. From then onwards, the starting point is Largo Bay, watched over by the RAF as it becomes a prime target for the Luftwaffe (pictured, a No. 602 Sqn Spitfire on patrol over the bay).

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Building the narrative

Offline for most of the day, working up different aspects of the Days of Glory site, yesterday I was building the narrative on the Battle of Britain. I might as well get the bulk of the work done as we run into the "silly season".

In addition to the Day 28 narrative, therefore, I've made a start on another of my "backgrounders", this one on anti-aircraft guns.

Something I had never realised before is that, for three of the four months of the Battle of Britain, the guns claimed 221 confirmed kills. And they point to other functions which put the gunners at the heart of the battle (see p. 23 on the pdf linked).

The Command claims that its activities broke up bomber squadrons to enable them to be more easily dealt with by fighters. Furthermore, the importance of AA shell bursts as a "pointer" to fighters, even though the guns cannot themselves effectively engage the enemy, was frequently demonstrated.

Before this could have been known, Churchill created the narrative of "the few".  With the battle less than halfway through, on 16 August 1940 he had visited 11 Group's operations room at RAF Uxbridge, to watch Fighter Command in action. Afterwards, he told Maj Gen Ismay, who had accompanied him: "Don't speak to me, I have never been so moved."

After several minutes of silence he then said: "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few." This was the master word-smith at work, for that sentence formed the basis of his speech to the House of Commons on 20 August.

It is rhetoric at its finest, and it captures the imagination of the nation. But it is also terribly misplaced - representing only a partial picture of a battle that was still being fought.  It ignores, for instance, the fact that - at its height - Anti-Aircraft Command employed over 350,000 personnel. Through the Battle of Britain, when it was expanding rapidly, there must have been at least 200,000 manning the guns and searchlights.

Whatever else, 200,000 personnel can hardly be described as "the few" – yet they are as much part of the battle as fighter pilots. Without their intervention, total Luftwaffe losses over the period would have been more than a hundred less than the RAF, instead of that much higher (1733 to 1603).  Numerically, at least, we would have lost the Battle of Britain.

Interestingly, immediately after his reference to "the few", Churchill goes on to devote a far greater portion of his speech to Bomber Command. In an excerpt that is rarely quoted, he says:

... we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aims their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often at serious loss, with deliberate, careful precision, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power.

On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of an invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meantime on numerous occasions to restrain.

I have no hesitation in saying that the process of bombing the military industries and communications of Germany and the air bases and storage depots from which we are attacked, which will continue on an ever-increasing scale until the end of the war and may in another year attain dimensions hitherto undreamed of, assure one at least of the most certain, if not the shortest, of all the roads to victory.

In the historical context, this is not a man who has his back against the wall, fighting for survival against overwhelming odds. Already, he is thinking offensively, looking for the path to victory – and his war-winning weapon is not the fighter but the bomber. "On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers," he says.

More interestingly, we are at this time losing the war, but not in the air. The danger is through what one analyst calls the "slow strangulation of the British economy", caused by the combined Luftwaffe and U-boat attack on shipping.  Even in 1940 this is far more serious than is realised.

Heavily censored at the time, there had been an acute "coal crisis" in the January and February of 1940 and stresses created, far from being resolved, were intensifying. The inland transport system was not coping and only the most extreme measures eventually got the crisis under control and system working effectively on a war footing.

In the two years that it took to devise a workable system, small colliers and their escorts – many of them armed trawlers – were forced to traverse the dangerous waters of the East Coast and the Channel, facing appalling dangers - and suffering far greater casualties than "the few" who take all the glory and have captured the nation's imagination.

The heroism of the crews of the small ships gave the breathing space for a resolution of the transport problem which, incidentally, was a triumph for central planning. Private enterprise had singularly failed to step up to the plate. That undoubtedly influenced post-war politicians and administrators who had seen the failures at first hand, failures which cast a long shadow which reaches out even to the present.

However perilous the situation for Fighter Command might have been, the outcome of the Battle of Britain was never seriously in doubt. The Germans' objective – the invasion of Britain – was one which could never have succeeded. Apart from anything else, they simply did not have the physical resources to transport and sustain an invasion force.  We, on the other hand, at the height of the battle, still had sufficient resource to send a squadron of Hurricanes to Malta.

What could have lost us the war was that "economic strangulation", which was resolved not so much by force of arms – which was a necessary but not sufficient condition for victory – but by central planning on a heroic scale. Yet the myth endures that the nation was saved by the heroic actions of a few brave young men, "the few" to whom even their "creator", Churchill, devoted the smaller part of his rhetoric.

There can hardly be a better example of how the prevailing narrative can so completely misrepresent the reality and project such a false picture that the understanding of our past is little more than fantasy. Whether that makes a difference to how we manage our affairs is a moot point, but I rather suspect it does.

Battle of Britain thread

That oil spill

Raedwald has done the maths. For a boat, he's remarkably bright.

COMMENT THREAD

A breach in the dam

Something which is finally going to blow apart the vile construct that is the European Union is just beginning to emerge.

This is the news, offered fairly low-key at the moment, that EU member states are exploiting passport loopholes that potentially give nearly five million outsiders, mostly from Europe's poorest countries, the coveted right to live and work in the EU.

And, of course, once they are inside the EU borders, they have freedom of movement and, eventually, unrestricted freedom of establishment. This means they can come over here and sponge off the over-generous welfare system which seems to favour immigrants above all else.

Now this is being given the Daily Mail treatment, and it is obvious that The Boy can do absolutely nothing about it, for all the bleating about immigration, the brown sticky stuff will be flying off the rotating air movement device in industrial quantities.

At the heart of this scam, which is making a complete mockery of our immigration policy – more so than it already has – are two countries, Romania and Bulgaria. They are handing out passports to ethnically linked groups or minorities outside their borders. Now Hungary plans to do the same, as of January.

The main beneficiaries are citizens of Moldova, Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey - about 4.7 million people with living standards at a fraction of the EU average. All are eligible for EU citizenship under passport giveaway programs.

And it gets worse. Others outside Europe, looking to escape hardship at home, are also lining up. Spain enacted legislation in January 2009 giving even the grandchildren of Spaniards whose ancestors left due to political or economic hardship caused by the Civil War the right to obtain passports from Madrid - and the response has been huge.

Spanish foreign ministry figures from January indicate that over the first full year of the law, there were 161,463 applications - 95 percent from Latin American countries. So far, 81,715 have been granted.

Total Latin American numbers are unavailable - but the Spanish foreign ministry has extended the window for applications by another year to December 2011, due to what it calls "overwhelming demand."

In Cuba alone, nearly 82,000 people have applied for Spanish citizenship and 36,415 have received it as of 30 June, clearing the way for the lengthy and expensive process of obtaining permission to travel abroad - or leave permanently. Venezuela's Spanish consulate has handed out more than 35,000 passports so far this year.

The number of Mexicans who could qualify is uknown, but 150,000 are estimated to be eligible. Of those, more than 14,000 people have been given Spanish citizenship and huge lines of passport-seekers form every day.

Then there are more than 2.6 million people of Italian origin - most of them also in Latin America – who already hold Italian passports. And, like Spain, Portugal grants passports to children and grandchildren of emigrés - most of them in sprawling Brazil, home to 200 million people.

Effectively, millions worldwide are eligible for EU passports, and in the world of the have-nots, getting a passport and welfare rights in the EU is like winning the lottery.

Basically, as this rolls out, and the world's poor come flocking to the EU, their hands extended and their welfare eligibilities worked out well in advance, we are completely and truly stuffed. If ever there was an application for the word "sustainable", as in "unsustainable", it is our continued membership of the EU.

These bloody fools have started something they don't even begin to know how to control. With stresses already building up an indigenous population which has been abused and ignored by the politicians, the backlash will make the BNP look like moderates and Powell's "rivers of blood" speech sound like a description of a Sunday school outing.

Even now, they do not have the first idea of what is coming their way. But then, when a dam breaches, there is often little warning. At the first sign of a crack, therefore, it is wise to run. And the crack is showing ... après moi le deluge.

COMMENT THREAD

Day 27 - Battle of Britain

In fine weather, this Monday 70 years ago, the Luftwaffe is continuing its attacks on shipping in the Straits of Dover. In the early morning, six Spitfires of No. 64 Sqn fight with Me 109s of JG54, as do No. 64 Sqn Kenley (Spitfires). Two Spitfires are shot down, one from each squadron. One Me 109 crashes in France.

Read more on DAYS OF GLORY

The loathsome duplicity

Like busses - where you hang around for ages and then not one but two turn up – so it is, it seems, with helicopter stories, this being the second in succession.

This, though, is not really a helicopter story. It is more a political story which happens to involve helicopters. And more than anything, it illustrates the duplicity of politicians, their willingness to use the military to score political points and, in particular the loathsome duplicity of the Cleggerons.

In the frame here is Nick Harvey, the Cleggeron armed forces minister in what laughingly passes for a government. This is the Nick Harvey who, through the tenure of the last Labour administration, was highly critical of the shortage of helicopters made available to our troops in Afghanistan.

And, even when Gordon Brown – as legend would have it – relaxed the purse strings and allowed the military in December 2009to order 22 new Chinooks, Mr Harvey was still highly critical, condemning the "slow response" to the helicopter shortage as "shameful".

But now, this self-same politician who thought the delay so "shameful" has been speaking to the Western Daily Press. And, guess what. Mr Harvey has revealed that the order is now "in the melting pot" of the October strategic defence review. The "government" may decide to scrap the contract altogether.

An order of vital Chinook helicopters earmarked to help keep troops off the ground and clear of improvised explosive devices in deadly parts of Afghanistan may be shelved in MoD spending cuts.

One of the things influencing little Nicky is the realisation that British troops have been sharing the use of US aircraft in Afghanistan, which has helped ease the pressure.

"One thing that did impress me on my last visit to Afghanistan a few weeks ago," he says (where he was happily flown around in an RAF helicopter – pictured) "was the American commander telling me the coalition forces use the helicopters like a bit of a taxi rank".

This, adds our new minister, "compensates the need for more helicopters somewhat, in that people are just jumping in and using what is available from the coalition forces."

Interestingly enough, that was exactly the system which prevailed when Harvey was screaming for more helicopters for "Our Boys" – except that this did not seem to make any difference when Labour was involved.

But now Mr Harvey is at the helm, all of a sudden, new helicopters are no longer so important and it is quite alright for the Septics to supply them, as they have been doing all along – together with most of the airpower.

Funny old world, politics – but even "funnier" is the media which has been remarkably reluctant to highlight this volte face, even though it was screaming blue murder at what it perceived to be Labour's "dereliction". But then, the Cleggeron agenda of stuffing our armed forces isn't on their agenda – yet.

COMMENT THREAD

Eurotrash

Saddled as we are with the plastic A400M, that even Airbus is getting a little worried about, we can take some small comfort from the experience of the Australian military which have made the rather expensive mistake of buying European-built helicopters.

This is the MRH-90 helicopter (pictured), a fleet of which has cost the Australian taxpayers $4 billion, and which was recently grounded after serious engine problems were discovered.

Now, another snag has been spotted, after an MRH-90 helicopter on a routine flight from Brisbane to Townsville on Saturday was grounded at Mackay airport.During a post-flight ground inspection, the crew noticed scratches on the engine intake and closer inspection found evidence of internal damage from a foreign object being sucked in to the power plant.

A decision was taken to replace the engine and an inspection will be carried out by the manufacturer Rolls-Royce Turbomeca to establish the exact cause of the damage. However, in the wake of that failure, all MRH-90 engines must be inspected every five hours of operation.

In a military helicopter, such a brief interval for engine inspection is unprecedented and it effectively makes the machines unusable for operational purposes. Such a defect would hardly bother the Europeans, who do not actually believe in using military hardware – but it might cramp the style of the Aussies, who still have some pretentions to being a serious military power.

But then, if they insist on buying Eurotrash, they rather get what they deserve.

COMMENT THREAD

Day 26 - Battle of Britain

Seventy years after the event, a contemporary British writer opines that when we British endure a national trauma we try, if possible, to forget about it, and are often helped to do so by the exhaustion of coping with the trauma itself. "That is why much of our history is myth," he says. "It is not what happened, it is what we can bring ourselves to believe has happened."

If the history of those 70 years ago is a myth, it extends to the weather. It is fine in the early hours, cloudy with bright intervals later, clearing in the evening, says Wood and Dempster and several other sources. There is dull weather and filthy conditions says Donnelly. Whatever the actuality, there is little air activity.

Read more on DAYS OF GLORY

Go thou and micturate

In a response to public comments on the coalition government's approach to "Europe", the FCO website tells us that it "understands" that so many of you feel jaded and sceptical about the EU.

Speaking about the EU in Parliament, therefore, the Foreign Secretary said he knows there is "a profound disconnection between the British people and what has been done in their name by British Governments". And thus says the FCO: "We want to deal with this." It continues:

That is why we have said we will not agree to any further transfer of sovereignty or powers from the UK to the EU during this Parliament. We are committed to ensuring that the British people have their say on any future proposed transfers of powers to the EU.

So we are introducing a law to ensure that any future EU Treaty that transfers competences or areas of power from the UK to the EU will be subject to a referendum. This "referendum lock" will ensure no Government will be able to pass more powers to the EU without your consent. This is part of our commitment to be more accountable to you for what we do in the EU.

If you did not stop reading when you reached: "a profound disconnection" and have got this far, at least we have the clearest possible demonstration as to why this should be.

As to the "dribble", and that it is, the interesting thing is that EU treaties should be looked upon rather as "enabling acts". They, in themselves, do very little. The transfer of power comes later, when they are used to create new laws. And that is the case with the latest EU treaty. The transfers of power and "sovereignty" come when the EU law is created, on the back of the treaty.

For that reason, so many of us wanted a referendum. For that reason, the "colleagues" did not want a referendum. And now the shysters currently in power want to con us that they are actually listening.

As always, they are taking us for fools. It turns out that the much-heralded "public consultation" to which the FCO was responding, was a total sham - as we always knew it would be. But, since we would not even consider as a title the most obvious response, we dress it up a little. It means the same thing.

COMMENT THREAD

Water on a stone

Gradually, on the blogosphere, diverse sites are building up knowledge and expertise on important subjects, such as service periods and costs for bird mincers.

This site is an example - nothing big-time or dramatic ... more likes drips of water wearing away at a stone. But it is something that that cannot be ignored.

Speaking of which, John Rosenthal has done a superb analysis of the "EU Connection in Climate Research".

He has identified 26 projects on climate change funded out of Framework Programme 6, worth a whopping €165,580,451. In FP7, the "climate research" manna, he says, has flowed even more freely.

In just the first three years (2007–09) of the current Framework Programme, the European Commission has already funded 28 projects on climate change for a total EU contribution, according to provisional data, of some €116,271,772.

Actually though, Rosenthal, for all the depth and value of his work, might have missed a trick. As we have reported, the EU is allocating €1.9 billion from FP7 on climate change and related "sustainability" issues, a factoid which would hugely strengthen his arguments.

It also makes the money paid by Big Oil completely irrelevant, as Booker asserted. And through these diverse and several means, the message gets through. It can't be stopped, and the force is irresistable.

COMMENT THREAD

Day 25 - Battle of Britain

A Fairey Battle Mark 3 L5110 of No. 253 Squadron en route from Northolt to Turnhouse suffered an engine fire and then engine failure as it flew over Tanfield at about 19.00hrs. The aircraft crashed just to the NW of Causey. The crew, Sgt J A Anderson and LAC Ricks, baled out and landed on Gibside Estate; both were injured and were taken to Rowlands Gill.

The full story of this crash only emerged much later. Sergeant Anderson - known as "Andy" to his friends -  had exhibited great bravery. The Squadron had been given two old Battles for hack work and target practice, and one day one of them, burst into flames.

DAYS OF GLORY

An experiment

A second layer of explanatory notes gives added depth to the "Days of Glory" blog – see the sidebar under "weapons and systems". This is an example. Is it too techie? If so, what needs to be done to improve it?

Battle of Britain thread

Is God a warmist?

The Methodists – albeit in draft – according to this statement, headed: "Approaching God in the context of climate change", seem to believe:

The theological task is to reflect on modern scientific accounts of the threats presented by climate change in the context of affirming the triune God as creator and redeemer of the universe. The scientific analyses of climate change and the role of human carbon emissions are well-grounded. It is now intellectually and morally irresponsible to fail to acknowledge and address the urgent need for radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent intolerable damage to human populations and mass extinctions of many plant and animal species.

This is an interesting observation for a sect with its "intellectual" origins in Arminianism. This holds that humans are naturally unable to make any effort towards salvation and can achieve this only through God's grace. It also holds that salvation cannot be merited and no works of human effort can cause or contribute to salvation.

On that basis, it would seem that, unless God is a committed warmist, the Methodists are rather in trouble. As it is, She could just be having an Almighty joke at our expense.

COMMENT THREAD

Five years on

At the beginning of this month, five years ago, we launched the (then) new forum. Total posts now run to 103,651 on 8,419 separate topics, from 903 members. Our newest member is Autonomous Mind. I note with some wry amusement that we included in our launch statement this:

... Helen and I both reserve the right to delete or move abusive, verbose or polemical posts that interrupt the flow of discussion. This is not "censorship". Anyone has freedom of the internet, but websites are private space and, as in newspapers, you have no right to be published.

That one issue has perhaps given us more grief than enough, as some of the more aggressive trolls regarded it as their God-given right to deposit their pearls of wisdom on our forum.

Having weathered a heavy-duty hacking from Moslem fundamentalists, our main problem is the high volume of serial spammers, determined to convince us of the merits of bootleg Viagra and other merchandise, their additional aim being to harvest the credit card numbers for onwards sale.

Despite this, we have avoided the temptation to go for pre-moderation and, generally, we still operate a very light touch, even when, on the one occasion we got a long intervention from a serving minister. We guess that there are not many forums which have had such posts.

However, there remain technical problems which have never really been resolved, and with the acquisition of our own domain, we are thinking through possible developments, of which we will apprise you when we know what we are doing ... there is a first time for everything (knowing what we are doing, being one of them).

With luck, that should see us through another five years of what to date has been a very rewarding experience, bringing many new friends who have made our little "community" a very worthwhile enterprise.

COMMENT THREAD

Social workers

The voice of experience. We know there is a massive problem here. Time and again we get confirmation of it, yet no one in authority seems to be able to do anything about solving it – not the judges, not the lawyers, not the MPs, nor even the Boy.

But ignoring a problem does not make it go away. This is not going to go away, and the longer it is left, the more chances there are that irreversible damage will be done to the very fabric of society.

To paraphrase a familiar saying: you can ignore all of the people some of the time; you can ignore some of the people all of the time; but you cannot ignore all of the people all of the time. We will be heard.

COMMENT: BOOKER THREAD

Day 24 - Battle of Britain

The news of the day was the Hull registered steamer Highlander (1,220grt - pictured, pre-war at the quayside in Newcastle), under her master, Captain William Giflord, which steamed into Leith harbour with parts of a Heinkel 115 seaplane draped across her stern.

The ship had just survived a bombing attack and downed at least two of these machines, returning in triumph.

The action has started the previous day, just before midnight, when the Highlander was passing along the East Coast, about three and a half miles from land. On hearing a low-flying aircraft, the ship's two light guns were manned and speed increased.

This turned out to be a wise precaution as the aircraft dove into the attack. Machine-gun bullets swept the steamer's superstructure, riddling the funnel and deck fittings and piercing the side. There were no casualties. The aircraft passed astern, circled, and then returned for a second attack, at still closer range.

Read more on DAYS OF GLORY

Twenty years ago

You really would not know it from the reaction of the British media, but twenty years ago today, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. It was, to say the very least, a game-changer. Readers will be pleased to learn that Saddam's effigy is still on display at Madam Tussauds. Gone, but not quite forgotten.

COMMENT THREAD

The dreadful Huhne

Autonomous Mind ruminates on the worst possible energy minister we could possibly have – until the next one. Even those of us who knew Cameron was going to be bad have been stunned by his choice of Huhne to do the job – a man who is as incompetent in his day job as he is tawdry in his private life.

Normal people who behaved like this man would be ashamed to show their faces in public. But this is the political class and anything goes. So up he pops, now as the great political guru, and he gets a hearing. It is no wonder people are switching off from politics big time.

COMMENT THREAD

That's The Boy stuffed

Employers have been warned that unpaid internships could break the law, says The Daily Telegraph.

According to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and campaign group Internocracy, employers are almost certainly breaking the law when they take on unpaid interns. They should be giving them wages if they work. They are mistaken in believing that they are allowed to take on unpaid interns as long as both sides know it is a voluntary position.

"Private companies will normally be under a legal obligation to treat people employed on internship programmes as workers and to pay them the appropriate minimum wage," says the report by Kayte Lawton, a research fellow at IPPR and Dominic Potter, director of Internocracy.

Now, although not stated (surprise, surprise), this has a strong EU dimension. We are talking about equal treatment, and that is covered by the EU's Employment Directive.

That basically stuffs The Boy's "Big Society", which majors on " a new volunteering programme to help 16 year olds develop their skills, mix with people from different backgrounds and get involved in improving their communities".

Mr Cameron can only do what the EU lets him do. He knows that the EU is really in charge and his is just the front man. And if his masters say volunteering - i.e., unpaid labour - is out, then that's an end to the matter. The problem he has is that people are beginning to notice.

When the Tories fought the general election, says Melanie Phillips, they promised they would yield no more power to the European Union, and that they would even seek to regain from the EU some of the powers that Britain had already lost.

These pledges were designed to take the sting out of the fact that they were not, after all, going to offer a referendum on the European constitution.

Three months on, it looks increasingly as if none of their promises to safeguard British power is going to be kept. Indeed, the coalition administration even seems to be going in precisely the opposite direction.

This can hardly be a surprise.

COMMENT THREAD

Day 23 - Battle of Britain

The morning is exceptionally quiet, with heavy mist over the Channel. The first significant air action is just after midday when radar picks up signs of a formation approaching two shipping convoys "Agent" and "Arena" just off the Yorkshire coast. Church Fenton sector controller scrambles No. 607 Sqn Usworth (Hurricanes) and No. 616 Sqn Leconfield (Spitfires).

At 13:10hrs, the squadrons locate a Junkers 88 and a Dornier 17 at sea, just below cloud base. On seeing the fighters, the bombers gain height and disappear into the protection of the cloud, after a short exchange of gunfire. The Ju 88 of 9/KG4 crashes into the North Sea around this time but there are no records of 607 or 616 Sqns claiming the kill. One Spitfire is damaged but lands safely at its base.

Read more on DAYS OF GLORY

Booker

This has got to be sorted. There is no room for a system where there are huge injustices by public "servants" being perpetrated, at our expense, and journalists are not allowed to write about them – not that any are trying to, apart from Booker, only that's standard as well.

Parliament must fix it ... er ... except they've just gone on holiday. Back to the drawing board.

COMMENT THREAD

Not very funny

It is hard to believe that the famous Carry on Doctor film was made in 1967 – and equally so that the picture painted would today be unrecognisable. But, given the opportunity for a remake, the comedic possibilities would be endless, as the script-writers get to grips with the EU's Working Time Directive.

Think of the hilarity as the modern day Sir Lancelot Spratt (different film, I know) walks out of an operation, saying it's his home time, with doctors cast as "lazy clock-watchers".

But wait a minute! This is exactly what is happening. Such a film would not be a comedy but a documentary. What was it they said about life following art? And leave it to the Eurocrats and they will turn the rest of our administration into a comedy routine.

The problem is that, when it is real life, having a joke for a government isn't very funny.

COMMENT THREAD

Greeks wearing mitts

Greek security forces have warned of a wave of violence reminiscent of the terror that stalked Italy in the seventies after urban guerrillas threatened last week to turn the country into a "war zone".

"Greece has entered a new phase of political violence by anarchist-oriented organisations that are more murderous, dangerous, capable and nihilistic than ever before," says Athanasios Drougos, a defence and counter-terrorism analyst in Athens.

"For the first time we are seeing a nexus of terrorist and criminal activity," he said. "These groups don't care about collateral damage, innocent bystanders being killed in the process. They are very extreme."

The threats came from a guerrilla group called the Sect of Revolutionaries, as it claimed credit for the murder of Sokratis Giolas, an investigative journalist. Giolas was shot dead outside his Athenian home on 19 July, in front of his pregant wife.

One wonders whether our bubble-dwellers in the British establishment - and their happy little claqueurs - really think it could not happen here. And, when it does, therefore, not only will they be shocked, they will be mortified to find that the "extremists" have the support of the population, and they don't.

If you want a graphic lesson in what it takes to destroy a society, look to Greece, and then look closer to home. We are seeing the future being written.

COMMENT THREAD

Climate change?

So, floods sweeping Asia have killed more than 900 people, washing away thousands of homes and destroying infrastructure in some of the worst scenes in living memory. Heavy monsoon rains have exacted the heaviest toll in northwest Pakistan, with 800 confirmed dead and the regional capital Peshawar cut off. The deluge has also killed another 65 people in mountainous areas across the border in Afghanistan.

Floods devastating northeast China have killed at least 37 people and destroyed 25,000 homes, with the authorities racing to intercept vessels that broke their moorings and retrieve barrels full of explosive chemicals headed for a dam.

The worst floods in living memory have destroyed homes and swathes of farmland in northwest Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, with the main highway to China reportedly cut and the military deployed to help isolated communities.

The United Nations says almost a million people had been affected by the Pakistan flooding. Footage shot from helicopters shows people clinging to walls and rooftops as gushing waters rampaged through inundated villages. Others walked barefoot through the water to seek safety, carrying their belongings and with children on their shoulders.

"This is the worst ever flood in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the country's history," provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said. "The death toll in floods and rain-related incidents has risen up to 800 across the province," he said, with another 150 people missing.

Now then ... is climate change supposed to bring drought or floods to these regions? It is difficult to keep up with the latest predictions, whatever they may currently be.

COMMENT THREAD