Yesterday, Lord Robertson, the former head of Nato, made a speech. He spoke in Scottish. But in any fucking language, the message was the same. We’re fucked. Britannia no longer rules the waves. With current government, it barely rules itself. And ‘ruling the waves’ would not protect us from missiles and bombs anyway. We’d be hoisting the mains’ls in the Channel whilst Moscow is firing nukes at St Paul’s Cathedral. If we had any boats to hoist them on. Which we don’t.

Robertson knows about defence. He was the only NATO secretary general to ever invoke the rule that ‘if one NATO nation is attacked, we all defend’, and that was after the 9/11 attack on New York.

And yet we’ve reached a point where America, about 90% of NATO in terms of things like soldiers, planes, tanks, missiles, ya’know, war-stuff, is threatening to pull out of the alliance. Which, in theory, would leave Europe vulnerable should Putin ever decide to attack it. We’d be dependent on the ‘good will’ of America to defend us. Like they did in the last World War, but might not choose to again.

So George Robertson pointed out that should such an event happen; we’d be fucked. Royally. We can’t defend ourselves. Not saying its all Kier Starmer’s fault, because decades of defence underfunding have left us in a somewhat ‘Dad’s Army’-ish type position. Five parts ancient weaponry; 5 parts farce. But Starmer has to shoulder a lot of the blame. Basically, because he’s a nob. And is so wedded to his party’s obsession with increasing benefits for everyone who needs them or can’t be bothered to work, that there is insufficient funding left to buy a new boat for the navy. Or missiles. Planes.

We just better be nice to Putin for the next 15, maybe 20 years until we can afford to defend a Russian attack.

British Airways, the world’s most unreliable airline, have cancelled our flights to Israel in September. Antisemites! So we’re looking for an alternative little break. Discussing various options. Then yesterday Mel said:
“I had an idea for September”
“Yeah; what?”, I inquired, rather rudely.
“I thought we could drive over to-”
“YES!!! I love it! Let’s do it!”
“Oh, well, I thought to Le Touquet in France, maybe Deauville too”.
“Great!! Wherever. Let’s go!”

She had me at ‘drive’. I love a road trip. As my daughter told someone a few years ago when asked where we’d gone, she replied: ‘dad’s taken his car on holiday and mum’s gone with’.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx