Juno forgotten

However upset the British are about the lack of invitation of the Queen to the commemorations to the 65th Anniversary of the D-Day landings, this should be nothing as to how the Canadians should feel. They are the forgotten force of D-Day. The Canadian 2nd Infantry Division had been slaughtered at Dieppe just under 2 years before and there was an understandable concern that history would be repeated.

As it happened the attack by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division upon Juno Beach was in its initial stages as bloody as that on Omaha with casualty rates of almost 50% and altogether there were about 1,000 killed and wounded over the day.

They seem to be well and truly forgotten - unrepresented at the commemorations in a way that makes the British seem as if they are shining in the spotlight.


Update

I see Prince Charles has been invited. As heir to the Canadian throne I hope he visits the Canadian beach

Now he really is stiff ....

"US 'Viagra scientist' dies at 92 "

Bad taste I know but ....

The Nation's Favourite Poet

Been looking through the selection given by the BBC here and there are a couple of outstanding omissions. Firstly Shakespeare - his sonnets are immortal. But the one that is missing above all is William McGonagall, widely considered to be the worst poet to "grace" the English language. You see "favourite" is not the same as "best" and I just love reading the dreadful lines of the man from Dundee and I suspect that he has given far far more enjoyment than large number of considerably (not difficult I suppose) more talented poets....

For more on McGonagall see here

The Tay Bridge Disaster

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
"I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay."

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers' hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov'd most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav'd to tell the tale
How the disaster happen'd on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

The Telegraph

I am getting a little tired now of the way that the Telegraph has been dominated for weeks now by the expenses scandal with details being on pages 1 2 3 4 5 ..... I would rather like to get back the paper I like.

I think the time has come to release ALL of the details on the now infamous CD into the public domain.

More scandal

The MP's expenses scandal escalated today when it was discovered that David Blunkett had claimed for a motorcycle, a hang-glider and a pair of binoculars!

Hazel is toast

A number of commentators - including Iain Dale here - have suggested that Hazel Blears is being lined up for being dumped by Gordo especially following her outspoken attack on how Gordo is running the country.

This from the BBC seem to confirm that view.

Martin blows it

Just watched the Speaker make a complete hash of his opportunity to clean up the Commons. he has in fact without a shadow of doubt made things worse by his complete misjudgement of the feeling of not just the House but also of the country at large. He gave no indication of his plans, no indication of when he will go. Absolute disastrous performance.

He must go NOW

Star Trek

Just had a friend on the phone talking about the new (brilliant btw - saw it last Saturday) Star Trek film.

There is a scene where Captain Pike (Kirk's predecessor as Enterprise commanding officer) is being tortured by the Romulans in order to disclose Spock's whereabouts.

Apparently in one cinema someone shouted out at this point "Don't tell him Pike!"

Priceless

BNP shoots itself in the foot

Iain Dale has reported that the BNP has claimed that the VC awarded to Johnson Beharry "was only awarded his Victoria Cross because he is black".

Actually I though that the medal was awarded to Beharry was awarded because he twice performed actions of outstanding heroism, either one of which would have probably won a high award for gallantry.

With luck, comments like those above will make people think twice before voting BNP.


VC citation here

The Speaker

With Douglas Carswell's vote of no confidence in Michael Martin imminent it is worth wondering what the minimum vote that will be needed to cause his resignation. Given the tribal loyalties of Labour I strongly suspect that Carswell will not get an absolute majority but that does not mean that Martin is safe. From a historical point-of-view it is worth remembering that Chamberlain actually won the vote in May 1940 but was forced to go because his majority had been slashed.

Now obviously the circumstances are very different, it does mean that given a sufficient minority Martin is doomed. The question is what size of minority will be needed before Martin gets the hint?

Just a few votes against him and he will survive but I don't think that that will happen. There is just too much feeling against him. I suspect that it will be the number of abstentions that will be crucial. MPs might not feel upto positively voting against him, but they realise that he will have to go. A high level of abstentions will force him out just as much as a positive vote against.

Will Nick Clegg's intervention allow more high profile MPs to come out against him?

I hope so.....

The Crooks or the Fascists

The current situation reminds me somewhat of the 2002 election in France when it was between Chirac and Le Pen .....

A bunch of freeloading (criminal maybe) MPs who are boosting the BNP....

Not nice

Voodoo polls ...

One of my pet hates are what Sir Bob Worcester calls "Voodoo polls". These are classically on-line polls beloved by political web sites.

A beautiful example is the one today on ConservativeHome here. "Two-thirds of Conservative members say Andrew MacKay should cease to be Tory MP"

Er no it doesn't mean that at all. It means that 2/3rd of the people who clicked the buttons said that "Andrew MacKay should cease to be Tory MP". The people who took the poll were self-selecting - they got off their arses and clicked the buttons. How do we know that they were Conservative members? Were their membership numbers checked? Er no. All that happened was that the people said they were Conservative members ... a very very different thing altogether. Next , were the people who were actually Tory party members representative of the party at large? Again we don't know the demographics of the people involved. All we are certain of is that they had access to the Internet. They could have drifted to the website or they all could come from LabourList or LabourHome .

There is nothing to control the poll, nothing to check whether it is being fixed, no attempt to make it a demographic sample. The poll is completely meaningless but it made the Spectator here.

More on Voodoo Polls



Update

It has made Ben Brogan in the Telegraph ...

How do we select MPs

I have always liked and admired Kate Hoey for her constantly being independently bloody minded and not being lobby fodder. Individuals like her are becoming fewer and fewer which is greatly to the detriment of Parliament. I DON'T want MP's who - like the Ruler of the Queen's Navy "I always voted at my Party's call And I never thought of thinking for myself at all".

I am deeply concerned that the route to becoming an MP is more and more via the parties - Special Advisers for example - is now the norm and that the experience of life outside politics is deminishing. There are exceptions of course - Liam Fox & Nadine Dorries are both medically trained - but they are now becoming fewer and fewer much to Parliament's detriment.

When are the pair we are all waiting for coming out?

Balls & Cooper ....

I checked with Guido this morning (yes he DOES answer emails!) and he had heard nothing of the rumoured injunction so I suspect that the Telegraph will be publishing their expenses soon....

This becoming like the Augean Stables - a complete clean out is required.

I must say that Cameron is handling this with far greater skill than Brown, even Mackay's loss was dealt with far more effectively than Labour did with Morley - especially now it has emerged that the Labour chief whip knew about the problem with Morley at least a week ago ....

Just when you thought the worst of the expenses claims were over

This man appeared. Has he no shame? Claiming Remembrance Sunday wreathes on expenses is really the lowest of the low.

The Telegraph must be careful

It is becoming obvious that the tactic being used by MP's in order to defend themselves against the indefensible (apart from the dreadful "its all within the rules") is to pounce on the slightest inaccuracy in their reporting. A good example is Phil Woolas's tampons and women's clothing. I strongly suspect - as does Dizzy - that this was a clerical error and that the Telegraph go this minor point wrong - it doesn't detract from the general thrust of their reporting - but this defence will be used again and again: a minor error by the Telegraph will be used as a smokescreen by the MPs.

I am impressed by Margaret Moran though.... She hasn't actually said in what respect the Telegraph is wrong. Just that it is ...

She is an MP and an honorable member so I must believe her.

Expenses claim

I love Harperson's comment : "I don't think there's any reason for resignations, but there is reason to tighten up the system "

When did she have this Pauline convertion?

Trident

One of the very big decisions that Cameron will have to take when he becomes Prime Minister is whether to build a replacement for Trident in about 10 years time. I am not certain whether he should, even though this might mean the end of the British "independent" nuclear deterrent.

Firstly the sheer cost of £21billion (at present - it will rise it always does) is just too much for the services to carry. I know that Trident is considered to be a national asset and comes out of the MoD budget rather than the Navy's but it still a huge amount, especially given the cost of the two new aircraft carriers.

Secondly, and this refers to the carriers. It is my view that expeditionary warfare will be the norm for the foreseeable future - given the changing patterns of warfare to what Rupert Smith in his book "Utility of Force" called "wars amongst people" and hence the ability to power project is much more important than having the ultimate deterrent. We will not be able to guarantee having use of friendly airfields close by the theatre of operations and having a carrier or two would be of far far more use to operations than a Trident sub. (BTW the same argument also applies to the "heavy army" - the armoured regiments of Charley 2 tanks - resources should be swung to the infantry) . I don't believe that we can afford both the carriers and the subs so given the current nature of warfare the carriers MUST come first.

As for for Trident being the ultimate deterrent, there would be only a few states now that would even contemplate using nukes and these would be rogue states such as Iran or N. Korea. The issue I have - and its a selfish one I agree - is whether they would attack us with nuclear weapons - and frankly I don't believe they would. Trident would be of no use whatsoever against terrorists armed with nuclear weapons (the basic designs of which are openly available) since they wouldn't care about retailaton. Would we take out, say, Teheran, if an Iranian based terrorist group attacked the UK?

On balance I am coming to the conclusion that Trident must go ....