The Dutch Lose a World Record to the Iraqis
I don’t think the Dutch will be too bothered, as it’s only the record for the longest time taken to form a government! The full report is here.
Lord Heseltine
Lord Heseltine is on Radio 5 at the moment. What a sensible man! I did like his comment about Labour being good in opposition, but hopeless in government. How true? He also said they will be pumping scare stories about the Budget like mad and the media will dance to their tune.
Is Lord Heseltine the best Prime Minister we never had? Possibly, but his views may well come to the fore. He’s just been taling so sensibly about how we reinvigorate our great cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and others.
He’s just giving very sensible views on Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Iraq Supergun
A bit of the Iraq Supergun, Project Babylon, is displayed in Woolwich Arsenal.
A Section of The Iraq Supergun
I have my doubts that it would have ever worked properly.
Also, having read the stories about the Germans and V2 rockets from Den Haag, you do wonder whether a fixed installation would have been a complete liability, as it could have been silenced by one big bomb.
The Iraq Inquiry
I can’t see the point to the Iraq Inquiry.
Never has so much hot air and money been wasted on so much to generate so little. Well possibly the Inquiry into Bloody Sunday has wasted a lot more and all of the money wasted would have far better been spent on the victims.
But that is only the start to this pointless inquiry, which will not find anybody guilty and never get anywhere near the truth. Probably, in my view, because the truth isn’t actually written down and it is much more a cock-up by lightweight incompetents, rather than any conspiracy.
You have to ask why Tony Blair was the politician and his wife was the lawyer. Perhaps she had the brains to earn the money and he had the style to convince the average man in the street. Could he convince the average judge and jury? He gave up the Bar too soon for anybody to find out.
But what really gets me about the Iraq Inquiry is that the best daytime radio programme of the week, the Mayo/Kermode film review has been cancelled.
Shame on the BBC for giving us endless drivel instead of entertainment. I doubt more than a dozen people outside the Westminster circle are listening. And that is the problem with British politics. It’s them in control and us what pays for it!
Man’s Inhumanity to Man
I have just watched the story of the Blitzing of Coventry on BBC2. Looking back from nearly seventy years it is possible to say that good triumphed over evil and that it just stiffened our resolve to stand up to the Nazis.
I’ve stood twice in the grounds of the bombed cathedral and it is a place with a quiet significance that moves me deeply. And I’m not a religious person.
Coventry Cathedral
Compared to the later bombing of Hamburg and Dresden, the bombing of Coventry was not as severe. In the 1960s, I met a woman who had survived the inferno of Hamburg, and she told me that just as it did for those in Coventry, it just made them angry and wanting to fight more.
So was it worth it?
I would argue that it wasn’t on a strategic level, as to bomb important targets accurately has been shown to do more.
But we never learn!
We just tried to obliterate Iraq, when perhaps a more subtle, but more targeted and demoralising approach might have been better. In Iraq too, we virtually forgot all of the black propaganda methods that we were so good at in the Second World War. Surely with all the technology we now have from satellites to Hollywood, it could find a place to get messages across and cause chaos.
But then big explosions play better at home.
The Anonymous Widower 