WHAT WOULD MAGGIE DO? (THATCHER THAT IS! IT'S THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF HER FIRST ELECTION VICTORY.))

CAL THOMAS:

Republicans in America, now debating among themselves whether to appeal to "moderates" to rebuild their party, would do well to consider Thatcher's wisdom: "Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides."

Britain, like America, is not in turmoil because it once embraced the conservative principles of Margaret Thatcher — principles that worked.

Britain and America are in turmoil because they too quickly abandoned Thatcher's principles in favor of a superficial, "feel-good" philosophy. Using another food analogy, we want dessert before — even instead of — our vegetables, though we know what's best for us.

Lady Thatcher's official portrait will be unveiled this week and hung at 10 Downing Street. A greater honor would be for the British people to again "hang" her principles in their minds and hearts.

LORD SAATCHI - (EXCERPT):

... When Lady Thatcher was leader of the opposition 35 years ago, she founded the Centre for Policy Studies to express the benefits of free markets. The result was a revolution in economic policy, and four election victories in a row. Times change. By a Darwinian process, a new world order is evolving. But nobody knows its shape. To help define it, we need to do what she intended – search for real ideas with the zeal of a prospector hunting gold.

Beatrice Webb, the founder of the London School of Economics, used to say that people fall in love with funny things: “Some people fall in love with their chauffeur. I fell in love with Soviet Communism.”

Mrs Thatcher fell in love, too. With the exact opposite.

That is why she would despise the vision that is opening up before us –

• in which the state controls your mortgage,
  
• your bank account and your life insurance;
  
• where the state routinely passes your papers from one government department to another,
  
• your phone bills to the health department,
  
• your health records to Revenue & Customs,
  
• your tax records to the benefits department;
  
• your car journeys tracked by state sensors;
  
• your bus and Tube journeys caught on state cameras;
  
• your foreign trips notified to the authorities;
  
• every click on your computer available for inspection;
  
• your identity card always ready for presentation;
  
• one in three on the state’s payroll;
  
• two in three receive a state payment;
  
• cities where half the jobs are with the state,
  
• and where the state has views on how you fill your rubbish bin.

Lady Thatcher would see this for what it is.

She would block it with every ounce of her body. Because she knows where it is headed.

Lord Saatchi is chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies

BRITAIN AND THE USA ARE HEADED BACK ON THE ROAD TO SERFDOM

WE MUST GET OFF. NOW.

TO DO THAT, WE NEED SOMEONE LIKE MAGGIE MORE THAN EVER.

UNSEALED PAPERS SHOW THATCHER WAS A VISIONARY ON MASSIVE IMMIGRATION - AND A FRIEND OF THE SHAH

THE SCOTSMAN:

MARGARET Thatcher complained bitterly in private about the numbers of immigrants coming to Britain from south Asia . .

Papers released to the National Archives at Kew, west London, under the 30-year rule cast fresh light on the former prime minister's attitude towards race and immigration.

They record a meeting in July 1979 between the premier, foreign secretary Lord Carrington and home secretary William Whitelaw to discuss the plight of hundreds of thousands of "boat people" fleeing communist persecution in Vietnam.

According to the minutes, Lord Carrington, who had visited refugee camps in Hong Kong where some refugees were being held, gave a "vivid account" of the conditions he found and suggested Britain should accept 10,000 over a two-year period.

He expressed concern that if the UK did not come forward with a significant offer, there would be a "damaging reaction" both at home and abroad. Anything less than 10,000, he said, would be "difficult to sustain internationally".

The suggestion drew an angry response from Mrs Thatcher who said that there were already too many people coming into the country.

She said that "with some exceptions there had been no humanitarian case for accepting 1.5 million immigrants from south Asia and elsewhere. It was essential to draw a line somewhere".

Mr Whitelaw weighed in, saying it was a mistake to mix up immigrants and refugees. He further antagonised Mrs Thatcher by adding that his postbag was showing a shift in opinion in favour of accepting more boat people.

"The Prime Minister said that in her view all those who wrote letters in this sense should be invited to accept one into their homes," the minutes noted.

"She thought it quite wrong that immigrants should be given council housing whereas white citizens were not."

Mrs Thatcher then raised the question of the implications of such a move in the light of the expected exodus of the white settler population from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) once majority rule was established.

She added, however, that she had "less objection to refugees such as Rhodesians, Poles and Hungarians, since they could more easily be assimilated into British society".

SHE KNEW ASSIMILATION WAS NECESSARY AND THAT UNBRIDLED SOUTH ASIAN (THE SUB-CONTINENT, PAKISTAN) IMMIGRATION WOULD LEAD TO CULTURAL SUICIDE.

IT HAS.

THERE'S PLENTY MORE; USE THE LINK.

YAHOO/AFP:

Britain was desperate for the shah of Iran not to move near London after the 1979 revolution despite previously supporting him, even planning a cloak-and-dagger mission to the Bahamas to put him off.

Prime minister Margaret Thatcher was "deeply unhappy" that Britain could not offer sanctuary to a "firm and helpful friend".

But her predecessor James Callaghan and officials had already decided before she was elected in May 1979 that the shah's would pose a huge security risk and damage relations with the new regime, secret files released Wednesday showed.

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi left Iran on January 16, 1979 and in February, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France and became supreme leader of the Islamic republic.

Meanwhile, the shah moved between a series of countries including the Bahamas while desperately trying to persuade someone to give him a permanent home. On February 9 1979, a freelance journalist close to the shah called Alan Hart contacted Downing Street to say the deposed royal was interested in living full-time at his lavish estate in Surrey, southwest of London. Hart said "he had been asked by the Shah... to make an informal approach to the British authorities to sound out their reaction to the possibility that he might seek to come to the UK to settle more or less permanently," according to a letter from Downing Street to the Foreign Office.

In response, a senior Foreign Office official wrote to Downing Street that any such move "would be bound to complicate and very likely damage our relations with any successor government", plus "saddle us with an enormous security problem". Callaghan, who was still in office before being ousted by Thatcher later that year, echoed this analysis. "He is an intensely controversial figure in Iran and we must consider our future with that country," Callaghan wrote in a note on the situation on February 19. "He will need to make interim arrangements."

Within a few months, though, Thatcher was in Downing Street and voicing discontent about the situation.

"The prime minister made it clear that she was deeply unhappy about the Government's inability to offer sanctuary to a ruler who had, in her view, been a firm and helpful friend to the UK," a letter from Downing Street to the Foreign Office revealed on May 14.

In the meantime, officials were plotting to send an emissary, the former ambassador to Iran Sir Denis Wright, under an alias to the Bahamas to discourage the shah. "His cover will be breaking a business trip to spend a weekend with an old friend -- yourself. Your old friend's name is Edward Wilson!" another former ambassador, Anthony Parsons, telegrammed to Britain's high commissioner in the Bahamas on May 16.

After travelling between countries including Egypt and Morocco, the shah headed to the US for cancer treatment. Once he arrived, Iranian students took 63 hostages at the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979, demanding that the Shah return to Iran to face trial in the 444 day-long Iran hostage crisis.

He died in Cairo in 1980.

SHE WAS RIGHT AGAIN.

THE BRITS NEED ANTHER THATCHER; SO DO WE!

INSTEAD, WE EACH HAVE CLEMENT ATTLEE.

IGNATIUS ON THATCHER:

... it was Thatcher who opened the door for modern Britain. 

She wielded the wrecking ball that demolished old ideas and barriers, on the right and left. When people speak of Barack Obama or anyone else as a potentially transforming political leader, I ask myself: Does this person have the raw toughness and hunger for change of a Maggie Thatcher? 

Almost always, the answer is no.

... People talk about transformational politicians. But watching Margaret Thatcher take down the British class system was an education in how it’s really done. It required the radical vision and iron will of someone who genuinely abhorred the status quo. 

Thatcher demolished the two conservative pillars of British society: the labor unions that held the parliamentary Labor Party in bondage, and the upper-class Tory leaders who resembled the benign but hapless relics of “Downton Abbey.” It’s hard to say which side was more hidebound and resistant to change, the unions or the aristocrats. They were unwitting partners in Britain’s paralysis. 

By breaking the power of the unions and the old Tory elite, Thatcher opened the way for a politically powerful British middle class. The universality of the middle class is America’s enduring national myth, so it’s hard for us to appreciate how narrow and precarious it was in Britain.

RIP.

FRENCH TRADE RUINS THREATEN RIOTS

UK TELEGRAPH: Sarkozy warned: 'We'll take to the streets'

France's most powerful union leader has warned Nicolas Sarkozy that workers are ready to fight any attempt to force through his radical reform programme without consultation.

Bernard Thibault, the head of the 711,000-strong CGT union, said that Mr Sarkozy's large majority in last Sunday's presidential election did not give him "the legitimacy to do anything he wants".

With Mr Sarkozy due formally to assume office on Wednesday, the union leader foreshadowed trouble ahead, cautioning the president-elect against adopting "Margaret Thatcher's strategy" to divide and destroy the country's unions.

"Do I think he wants to crush the unions? Yes, I do," Mr Thibault told The Sunday Telegraph. "Mr Sarkozy's plan is comparable to Mrs Thatcher's ...

Sitting in his eighth-floor office of the CGT headquarters on the outskirts of Paris, Mr Thibault, a charismatic unionist whose blond bobbed hairstyle is reminiscent of the era when Lady Thatcher confronted his British equivalents, said: "Mr Sarkozy and his entourage are wrong to imagine the influence of unions is based just on the number of members. We can mobilise. We can organise many big strikes and enormous demonstrations, as we have shown."

Al Qaeda is stuck in the 12th Century; leftist jerks like Thibault are stuck in the 20thC - the PRE-REAGAN/PRE-THATCHER 2othC! Truly an idiot soixant-huitard!

Sheesh: Thatcher SAVED the UK, and turned a dying economy into one of the best in the world. If Sarko follows through and enacts many of the same policies, then the same result will ensue, and this will be a HUGE BENEFIT to workers in France - much better than what they could ever get from a strike, er um a '"demonstration" or a "mobilization."

Hayekian and Friedman-esque policies worked in the USA in the UK in Ireland - well, er u, they've everywhere it's ever been enacted. AS HARD AS IT MIGHT NE TO BELIEVE, THEY'LL EVEN WORK ON THE FRENCH.

Idiotarian leftie-losers like Thibault and Royal should just get out of the way. And get a haircut!

OBAMA IS NOT ANOTHER LINCOLN; HE'S ANOTHER CLEMENT ATTLEE

• SOME PEOPLE - MANY IN THE OBAMA TEAM ITSELF! - ARE COMPARING OBAMA TO LINCOLN.

• (ROUND UP OBAMA=LINCOLN HERE.)
  

• OTHERS TO THE COPPERHEADS - WHICH IS MORE ACCURATE, OF COURSE.

BUT I HAVE LONG COMPARED OBAMA TO ATTLEE. I'LL STICK WITH IT, TOO:

We first posted on this parallel in July, and it has come to pass: THE USA ELECTED ITS ATTLEE.

WIKI ON ATTLEE:

The government he led put in place the post-war consensus, based upon the assumption that full employment would be maintained by Keynesian policies, and that a greatly enlarged system of social services would be created -- aspirations that had been outlined in the wartime Beveridge Report.

Within this context, his government undertook the nationalisation of major industries and public utilities as well as the creation of the National Health Service. After initial Conservative opposition, this settlement was by and large accepted by all parties[2] until Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party in the 1970s.

WHAT WE POSTED IN JULY 2008:

Tired of war, the British people thought they could atke a holiday from history - again, just as they had after WW1.

Just as we did after the collapse of the USSR.

And the people who want Obama to become POTUS and CiC are animated by the same misguided, irrational and anti-historical impulses.

And the desire to have the government do for them what they should do for themselves.

The British Welfare State - like ours and like welfare states everywhere - was a failure. It diminished Great Britain and led to increased suffering. It took 30 years and Thatcher to undo it's stranglehold and save Britain from collapse.

The USA and Great Britain don't need to replay the mistakes of the past and elect Attlees or Carters or Clintons.

We don't need to take another holiday from history - not with Iran and al Qaeda still threatening the free world.

We don't need to expand the welfare state. That would just drag down the entire economy, if not the world's economy.

We don't need another Clement Attlee.

We need Reagans and Thatchers.

The closest we'll come this election is McCain - who is more like Churchill than Attlee.

CLEMENT ATTLEE OBAMA -
a dove who wants to reinvigorate the welfare state

WELL... HERE WE GO AGAIN!

The socialistic policies of Attlee and Obama always have the same results.

The policy of appeasement always has the same results, too.

Socialism and appeasement will make the USA weaker and poorer - and this sends a clear signal to our adversaries.

Because weakness invites adventurism...

LIKE THE BRITS EXHAUSTED BY WW2, AMERICANS -EXHAUSTED BY WW4 - HAVE OPTED FOR SOCIALISM.

IT WORKED OUT BADLY FOR THE BRITS - 30 YEARS AFTER ATTLEE PUT BRITAIN ON THE ROAD TO SERFDOM THATCHER SAVED THEM.

WE NEED ANOTHER THATCHER - NOT ATTLEEISM.

REPEAT: THE POLICES OF OBAMA ARE EXACTLY LIKE ATTLEE AND WILL FAIL:

The government [ATTLEE] led put in place the post-war consensus,

based upon the assumption that full employment would be maintained by Keynesian policies,

and that a greatly enlarged system of social services would be created ...

IT DIDN'T WORK THEN - OR FOR FDR A DECADE EARLIER, AND IT CERTAINLY WON'T WORK NOW.

WE NEED ANOTHER THATCHER AND WE NEED HER NOW!

RIP LADY THATCHER

A GIANT.

DETAILS OF HER MODEST, RESERVED, DIGNIFIED FUNERAL SERVICE HERE. EXCERPTS:

Alan Southern, a former member of the Parachute Regiment who fought in the Falklands War, said: 

"Lady Thatcher was an absolutely wonderful lady. She loved the armed forces and she did so much for the country, she put the 'great' back in Great Britain."

HERE'S THE FIRST THING SHE CHOSE TO HAVE APPEAR IN THE PROGRAM OF HER SERVICE:

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end isto make a beginning.

The end is where we startfrom.

We die with the dying:

See, they depart, and we go with them.

We are born with the dead:

See, they return, and bring us with them.

The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree

Are of equal duration. 
A people without history 
Is not redeemed from time, 

for history is a pattern

Of timeless moments. 
So, while the lightfails

On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel

History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time. 

Little Gidding (1942) 

from Four Quartets

T. S. Eliot(1888-1965)

HER IS WHAT WAS WHAT SHE WANTED TO BE READ FIRST:

First Reading read by
Amanda Thatcher, Granddaughter

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 

Put on the whole armour of God, 

that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,

against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, 

against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, 

that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, 

and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, 

and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 

Above all, taking the shield of faith, 

wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, 

which is the word of God: 

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, 

and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.

Ephesians 6. 10-18 [EMPHASIS ADDED]

HERE IS THE LAST STANZA OF THE POEM SHE CHOSE TO CLOSE THE SERVICE:

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

In the primal sympathy

Which having been 
must ever be;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death.

Ode: Intimations of Immortality

from Recollections of Early Childhood (1802)

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

AND THE MUSIC SHE CHOSE TO END THE SERVICE:





LADY THATCHER WAS THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT BRITISH PERSON OF THE LAST CENTURY.

AND LIKE #1, A PERSON WHO HELPED SAVE HUMANITY FROM TYRANNY AND THE POVERTY WHICH TYRANNY CREATES.

AND - CONTRARY TO WHAT #1, W.S. CHURCHILL, USED TO SAY - SHE WAS INDISPENSABLE.

AND MISSED.

RIP LADY THATCHER.

OBAMA IS LIKE CLEMENT ATTLEE: THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS INSTAPUNDIT AND PROF BAINBRIDGE BY A YEAR AND A HALF!

GLENN TONIGHT:

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE ON OBAMA AND THE BCS:

One day shortly after the Second World War ended, Winston Churchill and Labour Party Prime Minister Clement Attlee encountered one another at the urinal trough in the House of Common’s men’s washroom. Attlee arrived first. When Churchill arrived, he stood as far away from him as possible. Attlee said, “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?” Churchill said: “That’s right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it.”

I’m reminded of that story by news that President Obama plans to regulate the college football playoff system. . . . With the government already running the banks and the auto industry, and trying to take over the health care industry, however, one might have hoped that sports would escape the ravening maw of Leviathan.

But I guess Attlee and Obama are kindred spirits.

Well, let’s hope that Obama doesn’t do for America what Attlee did for Britain, though that does seem to be the goal . . . .

Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 6:35 pm

GREAT STORY.

ER, UM... BUT WE MADE THE COMPARISON BETWEEN OBAMA AND ATTLEE SEVERAL TIMES AS LONG AGO AS A YEAR AND HALF.

WE FREAKIN' OWN IT:

A WARNING POSTED ON JULY 20, 2008 - BEFORE THE ECONOMIC MELTDOWN AND THE ELECTION:

WHAT CHURCHILL'S LOSS IN 1945 MIGHT TELL US ABOUT 2008 IN THE USA

BBC - JULY 26, 1945, (ALMOST EXACTLY 63 YEARS AGO):

Clement Attlee has been elected Britain's new prime minister after Labour won a sweeping victory in the general election.


The outgoing prime minister and great wartime leader Winston Churchill tendered his resignation immediately.


The landslide victory comes as a major shock to the Conservatives following Mr Churchill's hugely successful term as Britain's war-time coalition leader, during which he mobilised and inspired courage in an entire nation.

People voted for Attlee, in spite of admiring Churchill as a hero

... Mr Attlee, 62, was welcomed by the King shortly afterwards and asked to form a new Government.

Throughout the election campaign Mr Churchill had appealed to the country to give his new National Government - formed after the dissolution of the Coalition government in May - a good majority.

But the appeal was rejected by the people of Britain, largely, it is thought, because they believed Labour's promises to implement the Beveridge Report and its plans for creating a welfare state.

Tired of war, the British people thought they could take a holiday from history - again, just as they had after WW1.

Just as we did after the collapse of the USSR.

And the people who want Obama to become POTUS and CiC are animated by the same misguided, irrational and anti-historical impulses.

And the desire to have the government do for them what they should do for themselves.

The British Welfare State - like ours and like welfare states everywhere - was a failure. It diminished Great Britain and led to increased suffering. It took 30 years and Thatcher to undo it's stranglehold and save Britain from collapse.

The USA and Great Britain don't need to replay the mistakes of the past and elect Attlees or Carters or Clintons.

We don't need to take another holiday from history - not with Iran and al Qaeda still threatening the free world.

We don't need to expand the welfare state. That would just drag down the entire economy, if not the world's economy.

We don't need another Clement Attlee.

We need Reagans and Thatchers.

The closest we'll come this election is McCain - who is more like Churchill than Attlee.

CLEMENT ATTLEE OBAMA -
a dove who wants to reinvigorate the welfare state

THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION:

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

PREDICTION: THE ELECTION OF AMERICA'S "CLEMENT ATTLEE" WILL BRING ON "THE OBAMA INTIFADA"

We first posted on this parallel in July, and it has come to pass: THE USA ELECTED ITS ATTLEE.

WIKI ON ATTLEE:

The government he led put in place the post-war consensus, based upon the assumption that full employment would be maintained by Keynesian policies, and that a greatly enlarged system of social services would be created -- aspirations that had been outlined in the wartime Beveridge Report. Within this context, his government undertook the nationalisation of major industries and public utilities as well as the creation of the National Health Service. After initial Conservative opposition, this settlement was by and large accepted by all parties[2] until Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party in the 1970s.

WHAT WE POSTED IN JULY 2008:

Tired of war, the British people thought they could take a holiday from history - again, just as they had after WW1.

Just as we did after the collapse of the USSR.

And the people who want Obama to become POTUS and CiC are animated by the same misguided, irrational and anti-historical impulses.

And the desire to have the government do for them what they should do for themselves.

The British Welfare State - like ours and like welfare states everywhere - was a failure. It diminished Great Britain and led to increased suffering. It took 30 years and Thatcher to undo it's stranglehold and save Britain from collapse.

The USA and Great Britain don't need to replay the mistakes of the past and elect Attlees or Carters or Clintons.

We don't need to take another holiday from history - not with Iran and al Qaeda still threatening the free world.

We don't need to expand the welfare state. That would just drag down the entire economy, if not the world's economy.

We don't need another Clement Attlee.

We need Reagans and Thatchers.

The closest we'll come this election is McCain - who is more like Churchill than Attlee.

CLEMENT ATTLEE OBAMA -
a dove who wants to reinvigorate the welfare state

WELL... HERE WE GO AGAIN!

The socialistic policies of Attlee and Obama always have the same results.

The policy of appeasement always has the same results, too.

Socialism and appeasement will make the USA weaker and poorer - and this sends a clear signal to our adversaries.

Because weakness invites adventurism, there will be another intifada in Israel (their third), another in Europe - AND OUR FIRST IN THE USA.

THE OBAMA INTIFADA.

And Putin and Iran will become more aggressive in Venezuela.

And Putin will become more aggressive in Georgia and Ukraine.

And Iran will become more aggressive in Iraq.

And al Qaeda will become more aggressive in Pakistan and Kashmir.

And al Qaeda will attack us here again, too.

Obama will weaken our defenses by weakening our ability to gather intel by weakening the NSA Intercept Programs.

Obama will weaken us by ceasing deployment of Missile defense in Eastern Europe and Alaska.

And Obama will weaken us by cutting the defense budget.

TO AVOID THE CATASTROPHE OBAMA'S POLICIES WILL PRODUCE, WE MUST FIGHT OBAMA'S DANGEROUS POLICIES EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

WE SHALL.

JUST OVER A YEAR AGO, 1/18/09 (EXCERPT):

"OBAMA IS NOT ANOTHER LINCOLN; HE'S ANOTHER CLEMENT ATTLEE"

3/2/09 (EXCERPT):

• WE NEED ANOTHER THATCHER AND WE NEED HER NOW!

• THATCHER UNDID ATTLEE'S NATIONALIZATION AND SOCIALISM - AND SAVED BRITAIN.

• OBAMA IS OUR ATTLEE.

• WHERE IS OUR THATCHER?!

5/22/09 (EXCERPT):

THE UNBRIDLED SOCIALISM OF OBAMA

He's taken over the auto industry.

And a lot of the banking/financial industry.

And he has his eyes on the healthcare industry.

Together, they make up a BIG chunk of the economy. What... maybe 30%? Plus the federal government already is a huge part of the economy.

This explosive growth of the government is an un-American intrusion into pour businesses and is FUNDAMENTALLY anti-freemarket.

There's been nothing like it since Attlee took over from Churchill after WW2 - and nationalized about 60% of the British economy. RUINING IT FOR THREE DECADES!

10/31/09:

OBAMA: THE MOST LEFT-WING PRESIDENT IN THE ENTIRE WEST SINCE CLEMENT ATTLEE

WHAT OBAMA, SOROS AND THE SEIU ARE ATTEMPTING
IS NOTHING LESS THAN THE ATTLEEFICATION OF AMERICA.

AN ADMINISTRATION OF THE LEFT, BY THE LEFT
AND FOR THE LEFT.

I HAVEN'T POSTED ALL THIS TO BRAG.

IT'S TO PROVE THAT WHAT MY 1500 READERS A DAY READ HERE IS AT LEAST AS GOOD AS WHAT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE READ EACH DAY AT THE BIG BLOGS.

AS A FEW OF MY GREAT CO-BLOGGERS KNOW, IT'S FRUSTRATING TO BE AHEAD OF THE CURVE ON SO MANY THINGS AND ON SO MUCH ANALYSIS AND TO GET COMPARATIVELY LITTLE BIG-TIME LINKAGE ON IT OR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT FOR IT.

GLENN AND BAINBRIDGE ARE BIGTIME RESPECTED BLOGGERS, YET I BEAT THEM ON THIS BY YEARS.

AND I BEAT THEM AND OTHER BIGTIME BLOGGERS BY MONTHS AND WEEKS AND DAYS ON SOME ITEM EVERY SINGLE DAMN WEEK.

SIGH.

WHAT CAN IS SAY!?

I'M GLAD YOU'RE HERE!

THANKS!

I mean that. Thank you. Thank you for all 2,000,000+ page views!

RELEASE OF SECRET DOCUMENT REVEALS GERMAN CHANCELLOR HELMUT KOHL WAS A VISIONARY ON ISLAMIZATION

BBC:

Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl wanted to halve the number of Turks living in West Germany in the early 1980s, British official papers cited by a German magazine reveal. He discussed the idea with then UK PM Margaret Thatcher at a meeting in Bonn in 1982, Spiegel Online reported. Mr Kohl said that Turks "did not integrate well", minutes of the meeting said. He told Mrs Thatcher he wanted their numbers cut by half within four years. 

Spiegel Online said the minutes were marked "secret" but have now been released as the period of confidentiality has ended."Chancellor Kohl said... that it would be necessary over the next four years to reduce the number of Turks by 50% - but he could not say that publicly," notes from the meeting said, according to the Spiegel Online report.  

"Germany had no problems with the Portuguese, the Italians, even the south-east Asians, because these communities integrated well," the notes read. "But the Turks came from a very distinctive culture and did not integrate well." The author of the report was said to be Mrs Thatcher's then private secretary, AJ Coles. 

Turkish migration to Germany stems from October 1961 when a labour recruitment agreement was signed between the two countries. Many so-called "guest workers" also came from Italy, Greece, Portugal, Tunisia and the then Yugoslavia. Mr Kohl, who was chancellor until 1998 and a leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), often spoke out against immigration during his time in office. However, numbers of immigrants continued to rise steadily.

KOHL WAS RIGHT AND WHAT HE SAID IS TRUE ABOUT MUSLIM IMMIGRATION INTO EUROPE SINCE THE 1970'S.

SADLY, NEITHER KOHL OR THATCHER ACTED THEN - AND NOTHING EFFECTIVE HAS BEEN DONE SINCE.

NOW, THE COLONIZATION OF EUROPE BY ISLAM IS SELF-PERPETUATING AND THE FACT THAT SO MANY MUSLIMS WITH NO INTENT OF ASSIMILATING - (AND WITH BIRTH RATES TRIPLE THAT OF NATIVE EUROPEANS) -  ARE CITIZENS OF THE EU VIRTUALLY CONDEMNS EUROPE TO A FUTURE OF SHARIA AND DARKNESS.

SIGH.

ONLY DEPORTATION OF NON-CITIZEN MUSLIMS WHO FAVOR SHARIA, AND INCARCERATION - (OR VOLUNTARY EXILE) - OF MUSLIMS CITIZENS WHO FAVOR SHARIA, (AND THEREFORE ARE GUILTY OF SEDITION), CAN SAVE EUROPE.

SADLY, THE LEFTIST PROGRAMS OF MULTICULTURALISM AND PC ARE PREVENTING THIS.

AND NOW, EVEN AS BRITISH SOLDIERS ARE BEHEADED IN LONDON IN DAYLIGHT, THE RULING CLASS FAILS TO ACT IN A WAY THAT MIGHT ENDURE CULTURAL SURVIVAL.

ONLY POLITICIANS LIKE GEERT WILDERS AND NIGEL FARAGE AND PAUL WESTON CAN SAVE EUROPE VIA DISMANTLING THE E.U. GOVERNMENT AND TAKING ACTIVE MEASURES TO DEFEND NATIVE CULTURES.

I DOUBT THIS WILL HAPPEN.

IF A BEHEADING IN LONDON DURING DAYLIGHT DOESN'T MOBILIZE A REBIRTH OF EUROPEAN PRIDE AND A WILLINGNESS TO DO WHAT MUST BE DONE, THEN WHAT WILL???????

Socialist Wilson closed more coal mines than evilrightwingnutjob Thatcher

Paul Weston

Left/liberal propaganda a la BBC is very powerful. It makes people think, for example, that Margaret Thatcher destroyed Britain's coal mining industry. But this is not true. Between 1964-1979 the Labour government closed 326 mines whereas the Thatcher era saw the closure of only 154......As I say, the power of left/liberal lies and propaganda is an astonishing thing.....

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/leftwatch/2013/04/wilson-closed-more-coal-mines-than-thatcher.html

IN 2005, AN UNKNOWN PUNDIT PREDICTED THE EURO-DEBACLE NOW UNFOLDING

NIGEL FARAGE WASN'T ALONE.

IN THIS POST WRITTEN IN 2005, A UNKNOWN PUNDIT PREDICTED THE CURRENT EURO-WIDE DEBT CRISIS AND EXPLAINED WHY IT WOULD HAPPEN:

These articles demonstrate that it's becoming increasingly obvious that the EU is a socialistic bureaucratic mess that's committed more to its own existence than to the betterment of the lives of ordinary Europeans.

Their socialist economies have DOUBLE THE UNEMPLOYMENT OF THE ("evil," "anti-worker") USA, and ALMOST NO GROWTH. The chickens are coming home to roost: THE EUROPEANS SIMPLY CANNOT AFFORD THEIR INDIVIDUAL WELFARE STATES OR THEIR "VISION" OF WELFARE CONTINENT!

... As I have written in this blog many many times: Continental Europe needs a Thatcher and they need her NOW. WHY IS THIS INCONTROVERTIBLY TRUE? The ONLY nation in the EU with a robust economy and low unemployment is Britain - and only because of "classically liberal" Thatcher policies: the dismantling of socialism and the welfare state, lower taxes, looser labor/employment requirements for businesses, and a pro-entrepreneurial government. You'd think that the rest of Europe would've noticed the results in Britain, and already emulated Thatcher's policies - (as Blair has!)!?

Only massive denial and cognitive dissonance on the part of the Euro-left - and the strangle-hold they have on their governments - prevents the continent of Europe from having a new birth of freedom and of the prosperity which only freedom creates.

France and Spain and Italy and Germany - and the rest of Old Europe - need presidents and PM's who have the courage of Thatcher, and are willing to suffer unpopularity and the onslaught of non-stop reactionary attacks in order to bring about the REAL CHANGES that Europe so badly needs.

THAT POST WAS WRITTEN IN THE CONTEXT OF THE IMPENDING COLLAPSE OF THE EU CONDITIONALLY MOVEMENT.

A CRISIS THE EU AVERTED - TEMPORARILY - BY "RE-BRANDING" THE CONSTITUTION AND CALLING IT A "BASIC LAW" AND THEN THE TREATY OF LISBON, AND BY FORCING IRELAND INTO A RE-VOTE.

IT WAS A LITTLE BIT OF PRESTIDIGITATION - LIKE PULLING A RABBIT OUT OF A HAT.

BUT WITH THE GERMAN PEOPLE FINALLY FED UP WITH BAILING OUT THE LESS PRODUCTIVE AND HENCE POOR WELFARE STATES, THE CRISIS HAS RETURNED.

AND THIS TIME, I DON'T THINK THE EUSSR BUREAUCRATS WILL BE ABLE TO PULL ANOTHER RABBIT OUT OF THEIR HATS!

AND MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT:

IT'S THE DEBT THAT'S DESTROYING THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIES AND THE DEBT WASN'T CAUSED BY BUSH TAX CUTS OR UNFUNDED WARS.

IT'S THE SOCIALISM, STUPID!

"PRAVDA": MORE PROOF THAT THE BRITISH "CULTURAL ELITE" HAS LONG HATED MURDOCH

In 1985 I was in London and I was lucky to see the GREAT actor Anthony Hopkins in a new play at the National Theater called PRAVDA.

FROM AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE REVIVAL IN 3006:

The merciless Fleet Street satire Pravda has not been staged since 1985 - so, with a revival imminent, will it still work today? Alex Sierz meets authors Howard Brenton and David Hare, while Marc Lee flicks through his favourite movie journalists

Do newspapers tell the truth? In the programme for the original 1985 production of Pravda - written by David Hare and Howard Brenton - Brenton wrote: "Pravda means 'the truth'. English newspapers aren't propaganda sheets. The question is, why do so many of them choose to behave as if they are?"

Starring a mesmerising Anthony Hopkins as the reptilian Lambert Le Roux, a South African newspaper tycoon not unlike Rupert Murdoch (owner of The Times and the Sun), Pravda was one of the biggest hits in the history of the National Theatre. The play is an epic satire on the media in the Thatcher era; a morality tale about how Andrew, a young liberal journalist, finally succumbs to Le Roux, who makes him editor of a tabloid.

Now, some 20 years later, Pravda is being revived for the first time in a co-production between the Chichester Festival and Birmingham Rep. It's taken so long to revive because it is such an expensive large-cast venture. The play's name, of course, evokes the communist propaganda sheet of the former Soviet Union, but do Brenton and Hare still believe that the British media deserves comparison with that?

"Well," says Brenton, "it's easier to write propaganda than to write about something that's actually happening. It's easier to make bad papers than good ones, and they sell better. At the time, I was very enamoured of the idea that English people have a policeman in the head, and like to be policed in their thoughts." "We were talking about the self-censorship of the journalist," adds Hare. "And the British are very good at self-censorship."

Then, as a reminder that Pravda is a satire, Brenton says, "The title is basically a provocative joke which actually has a ring of truth." In fact, the play combines hearty jokes - characters have names such as Elliot Fruit-Norton and Ian Ape-Warden - with an acerbic criticism of the failures of Thatcher's liberal opponents.

"For the past 20 years, liberals have been on the defensive," says Hare. "In the 1980s, progressives suddenly found themselves in the uncomfortable position of being conservative and resisting change. I myself was thrown by the 1980s. This play - and my conversations with Howard - was for me a way of trying to understand what was going on.

"The old Establishment that was destroyed in the 1980s was feeble and Thatcher pushed it out of the way. Thatcher always chose her targets carefully. She backed off reforming the legal system because she knew she would lose. On the other hand, she knew she would win against the miners. She was very shrewd politically. She chose the right enemies."

On stage, Le Roux appears as a monster, although his power and certainty of purpose are highly attractive.

... The play was also about the unthinkable," says Hare, "that a foreigner should take over a British institution....

THE PLAY WAS A BLATANT ATTACK - NOT ON FLEET STREET AND THE TABLOIDS - BUT ON THAT MONSTER RUPERT MURDOCH.

IN 1985.

THE VILLAIN - THAT MONSTER, LE ROUX - WAS MERELY A PLACEHOLDER FOR THE LEFTIST AUTHORS TO HANG THEIR HATRED OF MURDOCH AND THE RIGHT; THEY MERELY CHANGED MURDOCH FROM AN AUSTRALIAN INTERLOPER TO A SOUTH AFRICAN ONE.

THEY FIRST STAGED THIS IN 1985. THEY REVIVED IT IN 2006.

YUP: THIS WITCH HUNT AGAINST MURDOCH HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR MORE THAN 25 YEARS!

THE VENOM WITH WHICH THE LEFT HAS GONE AFTER MURDOCH IN RELATION TO THE HACKING SCANDAL HAS MORE TO DO WITH THE LONG AND DEEPLY HELD HATREDS REVEALED IN THIS PLAY - (BOTH ETHNIC, PERSONAL AND POLITICAL) - THAN ANY ATTITUDE THEY HAVE ABOUT PRIVACY OR JOURNALISTIC ETHICS.

HERE'S MORE PROOF IT'S ABOUT MURDOCH AND NOT ETHICS:

THE LEFT DOESN'T GIVE A CRAP WHEN LEFTISTS LIKE WIKILEAKS HACK INTO THE PENTAGON OR WHEN LULZ HACKS INTO NEWS CORPORATION EMAILS.

AND ANOTHER THING: THIS PLAY'S TITLE... IT'S FUHREEEEEEKIN IRONIC:

THE AUTHORS OF THIS PLAY "PRAVDA" - AND THE CRITICS AND THEATERGOERS WHO LOVE THIS PLAY - ARE MORE LIKE THE TYRANNICAL STATISTS WHO RAN THE REAL PRAVDA IN THE SOVIET UNION THAN IS RUPERT MURDOCH.

FRANCE MAY SINK THE E.U. & THE EURO

French chauvinism may soon sink the EU and the euro; (GOOD RIDDANCE!):

Three articles from today's European press make me think that the ENTIRE EU EXPERIMENT will soon be in DIRE need of MAJOR re-tooling -

(1) from theUK TELEGRAPH:

Deutsche Bank warned yesterday that a likely French 'No' to the European constitution could begin a wave of currency speculation across Eastern Europe, setting off a chain of economic disruption. Norbert Walter, the bank's chief economist, said rejection of the treaty in France's referendum on May 29 could halt the eastward expansion of the euro-zone. The Turkish lira is also vulnerable."There could be a wave of currency attacks in the new member states. These countries would then have to raise interest rates. We could see enormous exchange rate swings," he told FT Deutschland. "The problem is that the EU has no strategy for dealing with a rejection of the treaty. People may well question whether the eurozone should have any new members at all," he said. The warning follows eight consecutive opinion polls showing the 'No' side are ahead. An Ipsos survey for Le Figaro yesterday gave a six-point lead to opponents of the treaty prompting a front-page headline: "The No takes root".

(2) from the UK TELEGRAPH:

A top European Union official said France, Italy and Spain faced a catastrophic" slump in exports as a fresh batch of gloomy data hit the eurozone yesterday. French industrial output slumped 0.5pc in February, following a 2.2pc contraction announced last week by Germany. The slide was blamed on high oil prices and the continued strength of the euro against the dollar and key Asian currencies. The French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin admitted yesterday that he now had no hope of fulfilling his pledge to cut unemployment below 10pc over coming months. The yield on 10-year French bonds fell to near historical lows of 3.58pc. The aborted recovery is causing growing alarm at the European Commission and the European Central Bank. Both bodies have slashed their eurozone growth forecasts from over 2pc to 1.6pc in 2005. A senior EU official said the eurozone was now acutely vulnerable to any slowdown in the United States, having failed to generate enough internal demand to sustain recovery.

(3) from the IHT:

At a meeting in Brussels, EU leaders took a strong turn toward entrenching Europe's high-tax social model by backing away from a radical deregulation of the Continent's services sector. They wanted to assuage fears among voters in France and Germany that cheaper workers from the free-market economies of Eastern Europe would steal their jobs.

These articles demonstrate that it's becoming increasingly obvious that the EU is a socialistic bureaucratic mess that's committed more to its own existence than to the betterment of the lives of ordinary Europeans.

Their socialist economies have DOUBLE THE UNEMPLOYMENT OF THE ("evil," "anti-worker") USA, and ALMOST NO GROWTH. The chickens are coming home to roost: THE EUROPEANS SIMPLY CANNOT AFFORD THEIR INDIVIDUAL WELFARE STATES OR THEIR "VISION" OF WELFARE CONTINENT!

Furthermore, if and when the French electorate votes "NO!" to the EU constitution - as NOW APPEARS LIKELY - major banks and major investors from all over the world may BAIL OUT of the Euro currency - creating a major financial crunch, if not DISASTER! (Think of Mexico and the "Asian Flu" financial crises/bailouts - during the Clinton era - and multiply by five!)

Who could come to the rescue? Of course: the decidedly un-continental Texas "yokel" and "unilateralist" American president George W. Bush, and the "ultimate unilateralist" - World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz. How DELICIOUSLY IRONIC!

You know what would be DOUBLY DELICIOUS? If Bush and Wolfie DEMAND that - to get the bailout - the EU WOULD HAVE TO LIBERALIZE their economies and HAVE MORE TRANSPARENCY at the E.U.

This would have the added bonus of actually helping Europe!

As I have written in this blog many many times: Continental Europe needs a Thatcher and they need her NOW. WHY IS THIS INCONTROVERTIBLY TRUE? The ONLY nation in the EU with a robust economy and low unemployment is Britain - and only because of "classically liberal" Thatcher policies: the dismantling of socialism and the welfare state, lower taxes, looser labor/employment requirements for busineses, and a pro-entrepreneurial government. You'd think that the rest of Europe would've noticed the results in Britain, and already emulated Thatcher's policies - (as Blair has!)!?

Only massive denial and cognitive dissonance on the part of the Euro-left - and the strangle-hold they have on their governments - prevents the continent of Europe from having a new birth of freedom and of the prosperity which only freedom creates.

France and Spain and Italy and Germany - and the rest of Old Europe - need presidents and PM's who have the courage of Thatcher, and are willing to suffer unpopularity and the onslaught of non-stop reactionary attacks in order to bring about the REAL CHANGES that Europe so badly needs.

Stay tuned. France votes on May 29... I can't wait!

UPDATE: WELCOME BELMONT CLUB READERS! Please check out a few other posts while you're here. AND: If you're not a regular reader of THE BELMONT CLUB, you should be - EVERYDAY; (wherever his URL happens to be!).

UPDATE: Welcome DISSECTING LEFT readers! If you haven't read DL lately go there NOW for more on the looming problems in the EU(SSR!).

FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC BAILOUTS LEADING TO NATIONALZIATION

THESE BAILOUTS HAVEN'T SOLVED THE FINANCIAL CRISIS OR THE REAL ESTATE CRISIS.

AND NOW, EXPERT DOUBT THEY CAN BE UNDONE!

NYTIMES: Fannie and Freddie Are Unlikely to Be Restored

Despite assurances that the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be temporary, the giant mortgage companies will most likely never fully return to private hands, lawmakers and company executives are beginning to quietly acknowledge.

The possibility that these companies — which together touch over half of all mortgages in the United States — could remain under tight government control is shaping the broader debate over the future of the financial industry. The worry is that if the government cannot or will not extricate itself from Fannie and Freddie, it will face similar problems should it eventually nationalize some large banks.

The lesson, many fear, is that a takeover so hobbles a company’s finances and decision making that independence may be nearly impossible.

... Last week, Fannie Mae announced that it lost $58.7 billion in 2008, more than all its net profits since 1992. Freddie Mac is also expected to reveal record losses in coming days.

Most important, by taking over the companies, lawmakers have gained a lever over the housing market and national economy that many — particularly Democrats — are loath to discard, legislators say.

“Once government gets a new tool, it’s virtually impossible to take it away,” said Representative Scott Garrett, a Republican of New Jersey and member of the Financial Services banking subcommittee. “And Fannie and Freddie are now tools of the government.”

One reason that Fannie and Freddie will never return to their earlier forms is simple mathematics: to become independent, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must repay the taxpayer dollars invested in the companies, plus interest. Even if the firms achieve profitability, it could take them as long as 100 years — or longer — to pay back the government. And almost no one expects the companies to return to profitability anytime soon.

Moreover, the takeover has provided legislators with a long-sought ability to influence the mortgage marketplace directly and pursue social goals like low-income housing.

I'M PUZZLED: DIDN'T BARNEY FRANK PROMISE US THIS COULDN'T HAPPEN!? (SARCASM OFF.)

• WE NEED ANOTHER THATCHER AND WE NEED HER NOW!

• THATCHER UNDID ATTLEE'S NATIONALIZATION AND SOCIALISM - AND SAVED BRITAIN.

• OBAMA IS OUR ATTLEE.

• WHERE IS OUR THATCHER?!

VIDEO: CARLY FIORINA: AN AMERICAN MARGARET THATCHER

MARGARET THATCHER WAS THE FIRST WOMAN ELECTED TO LEAD A GREAT EUROPEAN POWER, AND SHE WAS A GREAT LEADER.

FIORINA WOULD MAKE AN EXCELLENT PRESIDENT AND A GREAT FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT OF THE USA.

AN AMERICAN THATCHER.

MUST SEE TV: THATCHER DEMOLISHING THE INCOME GAP ARGUMENT

AT THE END 11 YEARS OF THATCHER RULE - AND AT HER LAST Q&A, A LIBERAL ASKED THE PM ABOUT THE "INCREASED INCOME GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR".

WATCH THATCHER AS SHE DEMOLISHED THIS IDIOTIC LIBERAL SHIBBOLETH AND WITH IT THE ENTIRE CLASS WARFARE STRATEGY.

(SHE DEMOLISHES THE ECB TOO!)

NANNYSTATE IDIOCY FROM THE TORIES

SADLY, TORIE BOSS CAMERON IS PROVING TO BE MORE LIKE CHIRAC THAN SARKOZY OR THATCHER:

THIS IS LONDION (VIA GINA COBB):

Patients who refuse to change their unhealthy lifestyles should not be treated by the NHS, the Conservatives said today.

In a bid to ease spiralling levels of obesity and other health concerns, a Tory panel said certain treatments should be denied to patients who refuse to co-operate with health professionals and live healthier lifestyles.

And those who do manage to improve their general health by losing weight and quitting smoking, for example, would receive "Health Miles" cards.

Points earned could then be used to pay for health-related products such as gym membership and fresh vegetables.

The aim is a shift in the NHS towards preventing disease and ill-health rather than having to treat it.

The proposal was one of a raft of measures suggested in a review of public services, ordered by David Cameron.

DAILY MAIL (UK):

"It is inconsistent with the concept of the responsible citizen to imagine that it is realistic for citizens, having paid their taxes, to expect that the state will underwrite the health implications of any lifestyle decision they choose to make," they say.

GINA ASKS:

When socialized medicine program fails, the "solution" is to impose tighter and tighter arbitrary controls on patients.

How will those controls work? Will everyone who engages in behaviors the medical establishment deems high risk -- from high risk pregnancies to alternative lifestyles -- be denied medical care? Or will only certain unhealthy lifestyles be penalized, while other "politically correct" unhealthy lifestyles receive a free pass?

D' YA THINK THEY'LL INCLUDE HOMOSEXUALITY AS A RISKY LIFESTYLE AND REFUSE TO PAY FOR HIV TREATMENT!?!? NOPE. THAT WOULDN'T BE PC.

THIS EFFORT BY CAMERON IS REALLY JUST ABOUT AN ELITE FOISTING THEIR VALUES ON THE MASSES - "FOR THE COMMON GOOD" OF COURSE.

BY HANDING OVER HEALTHCARE TO THE GOVERNMENT, WE'VE GIVEN THIS ELITE THE POWER TO INFLICT THEIR PC VALUES ON ALL OF US. THIS IS STALINISM.

WHAT MAKES IT WORSE IS THAT SO MANY OF THE NANNYSTATE GOVERNMENTS ALSO CONTROL PENSIONS. THIS CREATES A CONFLICT OF INTEREST ON THE STATE:

THEY SAVE TWICE BY DENYING YOU CARE AND LETTING YOU DIE:

THEY SAVE THE MEDICAL EXPENSE AND THE PENSION PAYOUT.

CAMERON IS NOT A THATCHER CONSERVATIVE - A HAYEKIAN. HE IS A BLAIRITE LEFTIST. THATCHER SHOULD SPEAK OUT. AND THE REAL CONSERVATIVES - LED BY ANCRAM - SHOULD RETAKE THE PARTY. (MORE HERE.)

CAMERON IS BAD. BROWN IS WORSE. HILLARY AND THE DEMS: WORSER STILL.

THE POLITICAL BATTLE FOR NEW TRIDENT SUBS SAYS A LOT ABOUT EUROPE - and it ain't good...

BBC:

A majority of Scottish MPs are opposed to Tony Blair's plans to replace the Trident nuclear weapons system, a BBC survey has found.

Thirty of the 59 MPs said they were either "definitely" or "probably" against the Prime Minister's proposals.

The survey also showed a majority of Scottish Labour backbenchers disagreeing with the plans. It found 25 MPs with constituencies in Scotland were definitely against the proposals.

A further five said they were probably against.

Only 10 MPs said they were definitely or probably in favour.

Scots are very left-of-center if not Left-wing. They are as anti-defense now - in the middle of the GWOT/WW4 - as they were in the middle of the Cold War/WW3, when they advocated unilateral disarmament. Gordon Brown is inheriting a Labor Party which may be more like Michale Foot's than Tony Blair's. (More on the burgeoning Labor Party rift HERE.)

This reluctance to build new Trident subs is a harbinger for the UK - and continental Europe, and it spells disaster. Coupled with NATO's recent reluctance to shoulder their fair share of the burden in Afghanistan it truly spells DISASTER IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Combined with their low birth-rates and extremely low church attendance rates and HIGH emigration rates for their ambitious youth - and high immigration rates for Muslims IT TRULY SPELLS THE END OF EUROPE.

THIS IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION: If they won't reproduce or transmit their religion/civilization to the next generation, or defend themselves from the insidious creep of islamic colonization and the ensuing islamicization, then it is truly over for Europe in the next 20 years.

The sorrow and the pity of it all... If they'd only act now, then maybe it can be avoided... But the signs are bad... very VERY bad...

Europe needs another Thatcher - AND NOW! (BTW: Thatcher was re-elected PM in that 1983 election.)

Sadly, as Labor returns to the failed policies of Michael Foot's Leftism, there is nothing close to a Thatcher in the Tory Party.

Hence my belief that only Sarkozy can possibly lead Europe back from the brink.

POST-INTIFADA FRANCE: ANTI-ANGLO AMERICAN "STATUS QUOISTS" VERSUS SARKOZY, THATCHER AND REAGAN

Out of the ashes and rubble of the French Intifada MIGHT yet come the beginnings of real reform. This reform - led by Sarkozy - might be initiated NOW, but instead, the anti-Anglo-American status-quoists appear to be holding off real reform. Villepin (Chirac's "annointed" heir) appears to be have won what amounts to an early round in the 2007 presidential contest between him and Sarkozy. UK GUARDIAN:

A report drawn up for the French government has rejected calls for positive discrimination to help minorities find jobs, dealing a blow to the interior minister and presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy had proposed a mixture of carrot and stick measures: (1) holding parents responsible for the delinquency of the children (by withholding some welfare/support payments if their children break the law); and (2) introducing some American-style affirmative-action type of programs (what the French have dubbed "positive discrimination" - an intellectually HONEST description!) to help the banlieue youths who are so motivated break out of the cycle of discrimination and poverty. [I have my doubts as to whether there are many banlieue youths who would take advantage of the affirmative action measures - were they to be introduced - because I believe many have ALREADY been indoctrinated/brainwashed by (and become a part of) isalmofascist gangs and cells.] Here's how Dow Jones/AP described the Villepin/Chirac versus Sarkozy debate:

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Friday it would be "a mistake" to punish the parents of juvenile delinquents, during a visit to a poor suburb engulfed by a recent wave of nationwide riots. Villepin was commenting on a measure that Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was expected to submit to the Cabinet as part of a new crime prevention bill, one of the center-right government's responses to France's worst riots since the student-worker protests in 1968. "Punishing the parents without having taken into account the reality of their problems, I think it would be a mistake," Villepin said on a visit to an underprivileged neighborhood in Meaux, northeast of Paris. The interior minister's bill [drew] heavily on a parliamentary report on crime prevention, which recommend[ed] among other things that the government strip "negligent" parents of some state subsidies, handing control of welfare allocations to social workers.

Here's how "Reuters" framed the debate:

France's prime minister and the ambitious number two in his government set out different visions on Friday for helping minorities find jobs, drawing what could become battle lines in the 2007 presidential election. In response to three weeks of rioting by disaffected youths in poor suburbs, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy explained in a newspaper article why he favours positive discrimination, or affirmative action, to cut high unemployment among minorities. "Proclaiming equality before the law is no longer enough: henceforth we also need to promote equality by (using) the law," Sarkozy wrote in an opinion piece for Le Figaro newspaper. "We cannot continue to accept that a growing number of individuals are allotted destinies written in advance."

Sarkozy stuck to his guns despite opposition by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, the person most likely to challenge him for the role of leading the centre-right into the presidential election. Villepin told a radio interviewer on Friday there was no place for positive discrimination in a state built on the notion of equal opportunities for everyone. "We say that when there are inequalities, we put them right. But we must not fix them by renouncing our French model, a universal model under which each individual is respected for who he is, independent of colour," Villepin told RTL radio.

Villepin and Chirac OPPOSED both Sarkozy measures, AND the chief reason given was that they want to maintain the "French model." I think Villepin and Chirac are the reactionary/anti-progressives in this debate. And I argue that their position is absolutely LUDICROUS because the "French model" is a FRIGGING DISASTER IN EVERY WAY: it's lead to the intifada and high unemployment, low productivity, low growth, high deficits, the flight of their young entrepreneurial class to the UK and USA, and general economic/political and intellectual/cultural stagnation.

Whether France thrives - or even survives - in this new century (as the UK and the USA have ever since the Reagan/Thatcher revolution a qurater of a century ago) - or whether France slides even further intoeconomic ruin, will be determined by who wins the Sarkozy-Chirac/Villepin debate/presidential sweepstakes between now and 2007.

If Villepin wins then France will become Western Europe's 21st Century version of the USSR. In other words, Chirac and Villepin NOW are behaving very much like Gorbachev was in the late 1980's: stupidly defending a system which is a total failure. The longer France resists embracing the Reagan/Thatcher/Hayekian model (and policies therein derived) the more difficult will be her recovery. TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

[ADDENDUM: Sarkozy is a tough SOB, and will not give up until he loses the election. Here's an example of his toughness (Xinhua):

French police has made another 1,540 arrests in the wake of the latest urban violence, lifting the number of rioters up to 4,740 with 3,200 caught in act, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday. "Arrests didn't stop with the end of the riots," he reiterated his determination to eradicate illegal traffics and traffickers before the Association of France's mayors. These 1,540 people arrested have link to riots or divers traffics or delinquency. "Those who pillaged, those who behaved as delinquents have debts to pay to the courts in our country," he said.

The number of arrests has been HUGE: 4,740 ARRESTS - with 1,540 coming in the last week! Wow! This number dwarfs anything I have EVER seen in relation to any rioting anyewhere at anytime - even in the USA or France in 1968, even during the Israeli Intifadas. I think this shows that Sarkozy (to whom - as Minister of the Interior - the police report) is deadly serious about defeating the islamothugs. I wish I could say the same about Villepn and Chirac. But sadly, I only see "dhimmitudinal" appeasement and "anti-Hayekianism" from these two clowns.]