Gaza Stripped: The expansionist Jewish State of Israel and the consequences

Gaza stripped: the Expansionist Jewish State of Israel 

Not a day goes by without yet another massacre. Not a day goes by without more violence. The repercussions of what is happening in Palestine are now spreading worldwide.

In Britain, of all places, the country is being shaken and the inaction of those supposed to take action is generating an environment in which the struggle will take over the streets. If there is bloodshed in the streets then we must prepare ourselves for widespred civil unrest.

Is there a redrawing of the political world in the United Kingdom?

It is plainly visible that the Conservative Party and the Labour Party are no longer that they used to be. In many areas inside the United Kingdom, the two party system has literally collapsed. New political parties have arrived and others are being created because of the partition of existing political parties.

The Labour Party was created because of the Trade Union Movement and now the Labour Party is on a collision course with the Trade Union Movement.

A political migration movement is accelerating. Trying to accommodate a plurality of views, often contradictory, has lead to ambiguities and frustration and lack of trust in big political organisations and, perhaps, the day for Britain to abandon the two party system is long overdue, opening the door to coalitions of smaller parties that better reflect in Parliament the views of individual voters.

Demographics influences, more and more, political life in the United Kingdom, and this is happening especially because of geopolitical issues. In more than one way, the existence of coalitions instead of big political parties is a healthier option, limiting the power of lobbies.

From a geopolitical perspective, no political party on its own would be able to drive the country in a given direction, without the support of a bigger number of voters, thus preventing any military adventures or the start of conflicts based on false premises. There would be greater accountability.

World Conflicts: what we see is an exercise of imperial power and control

Across the world people are being killed in an exercise imperial and colonial power. In 1953, the path towards democracy in Iran was killed by the United States and by Britain. They both wanted Iranian oil and gas resources but a democratic regime stood on their way. Without hesitation, United States and Britain distabilized Iran and appointed the Shah as ruler of Iran. 

A puppet regime was the perfect solution to satisfy American and British greed, but this was not going to last. With the rise of the Islamic Revolution, the Shah was deposed and a theocratic regime took over control of Iran.

The plan has always been to steel Iran´s resources and the present war by proxy against Iran is very much part of the plan. The criminal regime that rules Israel has no qualms in going around mass bombing and mass murdering. So the unprovoked attack against Iran comes as no surprise. It has been planned all along. Did they do the same about Iraq? Of course they did, but it backfired. It totally destabilized Iraq and produced a wave of violence that goes beyond the borders of Iraq.

Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that a war with several fronts was serious mistake and it was precisely a war on several fronts that brought the demise of National Socialist Germany. As the Roman Empire and many other empire before and after fell down, the so called West faces dangers that itself contributed to create.

There is a direct link between geopolitics and national politics and it goes without saying that actions on the international arena are generating consequences at national level. The words of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz were "this is the last chance for Germany". Well, he is doing everything possible to get Alternative für Deutschland elected as the new government of Germany. The more he engages Germany in a disastrous set of foreign policy actions, the sooner the rotten CDU/CSU will fall to bits. Bridges falling in Germany. Public buildings that cannot be repaired. The images of bridges falling and public buildings that cannot be repaired are the best images to represent what CDU/CSU are doing to Germany.

 

John Healey: if the money to support serving military personnel and their families was available, why no support was given until Reform appeared to be winning elections?

 

John Healey: if the money to support serving military personnel and their families was available, why no support was given until Reform appeared to be winning elections?

It is significative important to remark that just a few weeks ago there was massive austerity to the point the winter allowances for pensioners and welfare benefits were being cut, Now, after Reform won against Conservative and againts Labour, suddenly, out of the blue, there is money for everything.

So Rachel Reeves is willing to throw everything out of the Treasury to prevent Reform for winning elections. Sixteen times the Prime Minister mentioned Nigel Farage in a recent political gathering. Nigel Farage stated that he was happy to be living in the Prime Minister´s mind for free without having to pay rent.

Trust? What Trust? We have got a government that is willing to ruin Britain to keep itself in power. So, apparently, there was a budget gap left by the Conservatives. Well, a lot more than that has been spent or promised. More than 10 billion Pound for Mauritius, a very similar amount for Ukraine, 22 billion Pound for Ed Milliband Eco Projects, and now the promiss made by the Secretary for Defense that Britisn expenditure will rise exponentially to pay for defense? Where is the money coming from? From the 22 billion budget gap that Labour said that the Conservatives left behind. Ah, lets not forget billions of Pound promised for transport projects. 

Are you buying British debt bonds? Are you lending money to the British government? Are you afraid? I reckon you should be extremely afraid. One thing is to have to rescue the financial system. Another thing is to have enough money to rescue Britain which, as we know, would be something impossible to do given the size of the British economy.

 

Friedrich Merz: One country´s actions can trigger a chain reaction

When Merz predecessor, Angela Merkel, decided to open Germany´s borders, she could not foresee the problems that her approach would create. Suddenly, there were conflicts all over the EU when countries like Poland and Hungary rejected her open borders policies. She lived to regret her decision when she publicly stated "Multikulti ist Tot" and mass migration became so intense that it threatens Schengen Treaty arrangements. In her case, her decision did not involve engaging Germany in an all out war.

Friedrich Merz decision to authorize the use of German long range weapons against the Russian Federation is a completely different cup of tea with catastrophic consequences. Berlin has been told, over and over again (by Berlin I mean the German authorities) that such measure will in effect mean a declaration of war against the Russian Federation and that, therefore, the Russian Federation will be entitled to attack Germany. What Friedrich Merz has done, unitelaterally, is to put every single NATO country on a direct collision course with the Russian Federation.  Now, how can the Russian Federation attack Germany? Nuclear War.

Herr Merz got elected with less than 24% of the vote, taking into account that CDU did not get 24% of the vote. CDU/CSU got about 24% of the vote. His coalition partner - SPD - got 16% of the vote. It remains to be known what the German public actually thinks about Friedrich Merz statement and about the consequences of such statement. 

Friedrich Merz took such decision not as a NATO member. This was not a NATO decision. It was Germany´s decision, but it is a far reaching decision that will undermine Europe. I would say that such decision is not supported by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Article 5 refers to defense, not offense. 

Now, Chancellor Merz sent a Panzer group to Lithuania, a country that is pretty close to the Russian Federation. It is easy to see that if there is war between the Russian Federation and Germany then German forces in Lithuania will be targetted. 

We have not seen any reactions from other European countries. Do other countries want to be involved in an all out war? Like Angela Merkel, Friedrich Merz had no consultations with other European countries regarding the statement that he just made. Is this a German thing? i.e. making decisions that will affect everybody else, without even asking what other people in the European Union think about it?

This confirms my belief that Britain´s exit from the European Union was a very good thing. I also believe that dismantling NATO would be the next good thing. Why? Because one country can create a disaster for everybody else. So, if Germany wants war with the Russian Federation, Germany alone can pay the price of such a disastrous decision.

Kashmir: Should divided Kashmir become an independent country?

 

Kashmir exists as a divided territory - one chunk of Kashmir is under Pakistani administration and another chunk is under Indian administration.

Now, lets compare the geographic size of Kashmir to the geographic size of the United Kingdom.

243.620 km2 - United Kingdom 

222.236 km2 - Kashmir

Slightly smaller than the United Kingdom, Kashmir could become one country and Pakistan and India could reach an agreement to ensure stability. 

From a demographic point of view, about 12.5 million people live in the area controlled by India, while about 2.5 million people live in the area controlled by Pakistan. With about 15 million people would be more populous than many a country in the rest of the world and the inhabitats have a common language - Urdu.

Economically, Kashmir is about services and fundamentally about agriculture. So the main areas of activity are agriculture, tourism and little industrial development. If we look at other economies across the world, comparisons can be made that put Kashmir on a equal footing with many countries. So, as a country, it would be viable. A united and stable Kashmir would mean more stability for the entire Subcontinent.

BBC should be told that May 9th is one of the most important dates on the calendar of the Russian Federation

Dmitri Medvedev has stated that should anything unbecoming happen during the May 9th Celebrations in Moscow and should Ukraine be responsible for any attacks in Moscow on that day, the consequences for Ukraine will be catastrophic.

The former President of the Russian Federation has been very outpoken and very direct and has been asking for a stronger military response in the conflict in Ukraine.

No one should be in any doubt in terms of what such military response would be. While President Vladimir Putin has been very measured in terms of decisions made, Dmitri Medvedev wants to put an end to the conflict with a massive military response of the Russian Federation to wipe out any resistance in Ukraine.

While Western Politicians and Western Media, with their profound ignorance and lack of understanding of Russian Affairs have been constantly targetting President Putin, they are pretty oblivious of the fact that authorities in Kiev are still alive because the Russian Federation allows them to stay alive.

The War of Words is what comes before the Physical War

People must understand that the War of Words is what comes before the Physical War, when bombs fly and people die. Any war is a financial affair. In fact, there is always a financial reason for wars to happen. 

At this point in time there are economic rivals fighting to prevail and this is accelerating to the point when there will be a point of no return. We know how wars begin, but we cannot foresee how wars will end. This sort of wars have happened in the past. The Mighty Roman Empire saw the sacking of Rome by invaders. So the success of the so called West is by no means guaranteed.

Going into the not so remote past, we must remember the history of Europe. There was a time when the Moors (Arabic Invaders) and the Turks took over entire regions of Europe by force and kept them under their rule for hundreds of years. The naive belief that demographic changes will occur without consequences is dangerous. Peaceful colonisation will suddenly turn into a more violent expression of colonisation as foreign populations grow in numbers inside the so called West.

Macron seizes opportunity to divert attention from France´s serious internal issues

 

It does not go amiss that having made several decisions that led to absolute political chaos in France and to the inability of passing a budget without the threat of having Prime Ministers forced to resign, President Macron is now using the present issues about Ukraine as an opportunity to unite France behind him. For this General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, Ukraine is his Islas Malvinas Moment. 

When things go bad at home, nothing better than making people look elsewhere and look for justifications to ask for monies when the European Union has been alerting France that France has surpassed the allowed National Deficit. So, we France have an independent Nuclear Deterrent and we want to use it to protect you. Very interesting since Britain´s nuclear deterrent is neither British nor Independent. France and Germany have decided to start rearming themselves at quick pace and so France is planning to do exactly the same.

The major problem is that that rules about the EURO will have to change and major deficits will have to be allowed at a time when economic uncertainties are undermining national economies. So as Paul Samuelson put it - Butter or Cannons - Macron has decided to go for Cannons. Elegant justification to forget about Health, Education and other major areas of public administration. France can still rely on Britain to unload tens of thousands of illegal migrants. But, for how long? Countries like Italy and France itself have decided to get rid of Ukrainian refugees. Hardlines on migration, across the Europen Continent, are rising and rearming Europe has other disadvantages. You can never trust that today´s allies will be real allies and flash political changes can certainly lead to confrontation within the EU itself.

This might have something to do with American reluctance to follow warmongering politicians

 

The Ursula von der Leyen, the David Lammys, or the Grüne Leader Annalena Baerbocks of the world, might want a Europe-wide war, once again, but understandably President Donald Trump and those who support him do not want yet another European War because they know what the USA lost in terms of human lives left on the battlefield.

So the US does not want the maniacs to run the asylum. The idiots do not understand either that in order to put an end to a conflict you need to talk to those seen as your adversaries, the parties in the conflict. All the warmongering European politicians have done is to make matters a lot worse. After hundreds of thousands went to the slaughter, they want that more people go the slaughter. Do not talk, they say. Keep the war going, they say. 

I have no way of knowing how the German electorate will vote on Sunday. I do hope that they vote for those who want to maintain rationality, for those who are against keeping to war going for, if the war keeps going, sooner than later we will have a European-wide War in Europe.

The Real War is ongoing: it is happening as right now.

There were many wars before and we were led to believe that wars were about guns, bombs and cannons. But there are other wars taking place. These are wars fought with legislation and censorship. The American legal system has been weaponised and used for illegal purposes. In Britain, the Labour Party is waging war by preventing people from knowing what is really happening in Britain. The EU mandarins have a similar strategy. They want to protect you from the truth. They have to hide their mistakes and the consequences of their mistakes.

The facts are plainly visible. If there are lower temperatures, renewable energy is not nearly enough to meet the needs of the country. In Britain, without sunshine and without wind, barely 9 per cent of the energy needed was provided with renewables. So what about the 91 per cent? It was provided with fossil fuels. We must always have Plan B and even Plan C. Ideology is driving politics and this is a recipe for disaster.

So now Rachel Reeves put herself against the wall and put the country against the wall and is doing so with the help of Ed Milliband and other ideologists who ignore realities for the sake of ideological stances. And when reality knocks, what is the alternative proposed? To prevent people from knowing what is going on. But reality is too big and there is no carpet big enough to cover up what is happening. They inflated a gigantic ballon made of lies and deceit and there are needles everywhere. The idiots still believe that taxing the wealthy is the magic solution. What they do not understand is that given the size of the British economy there is not enough money in rich peoples pockets in Britain to prevent Britain from falling apart. We are talking about trillions of Pounds and the debt clock is ticking ever faster. 

At this point in time, British politicians keep posturing and talking about saving the rest of the world when in fact they are involved in a huge money laundering exercise while the walls of the British economy are getting plenty of cracks. Let us remember that those sending British money away will not last long. What needs to be remberered is that they are very much the problem.  

EU mandarins are telling us that they will cancel elections or annul elections if elections do not go their way and they are doing so very publicly and openly. This tells you very clearly that EU mandarins are the enemy.

 

Danemark: in the big scheme of things, Danemark does not even exist

The image of a Danish representative signing a sort of mutual defense agreement between Danemark and Ukraine by shaking hands with Zelensky the Ukrainian dictator (Zelensky was elected President but his mandate expired months ago and there have been no elections in Ukraine) shows how ridiculous political leaders can be.

The issue brought to the fore was the status of Greenland, a Danish territory with 57,000 inhabitants, that will have an independence referendum in April 2025. 

Danemark itself is affected by what has become a common issue across many so called Developed Countries: a negative birthrate. Because the country is desperate to maintain a status quo come what may, attitudes towards migrants have changed and so have the stances of Danish political parties.

The public announcement about the USA buying or taking over Greenland for strategic purposes is no mean fit. Historically, Danemark lost territories to Germany and when it was supposed to cede Norway to Sweeden, Norway became independent. Bit by bit, Danemark keeps losing and losing. Greenland is not demographically relevant but it has significative natural resources that could not go amiss for countries like the USA that happens to be the head of the North Atlantic Alliance to which Danemark still belongs to.

American military presence in Germany, the powerful neighbour, should be noted, being Germany covered by American military bases. You can never be too far from an American military installation. Calls by Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron to respect territorial integrity, should the USA decide to use any of the two proposed alternatives, cannot be more than posturing. The EU is not ready to finance its own NATO nor has the capabilities to do so. 

Keir Starmer planning to cut down British Armed Forces by 20,000

 

Plans announced as part of a Defence Review indicate that the British government led by Keir Starmer is planning to cut down the size of the British Armed Forces by 20,000 (down from present level of 73,000 including all branches). 

It must be said that barely 40,000 are actual trained combattant personnel. Such is the state of the British Armed Forces.

Manpower or lack of it is a very serious issue, but also material resources are critically absent. All of which renders Britain totally incapable in case of a real conflict involving Air Force, Navy and Army and other branches of the services.

Statements made by David Lammy beggar belief. The Foreign Secretary does not have a clue about what is he is actually saying and has no knowledge whatsoever when it comes to military matters. President Trump, during his first mandate as American President, made abondantly clear that each NATO member country should do its part. This is not just about Article 5. It is about Article 3 that commits every NATO member country to be self-reliant when it comes to self-preservation. Changes proposed by the Labour government goes in exactly the opposite direction, weakening Britain even more.

We must look beyond statements made by politicians regarding state of readiness. Britain is only ready to lose and budget constraints are not reassuring. It takes years to recruit and train military personnel. No matter how much money you have got, time is of the essence and time for Britain is running out.

January 20th 2025: Let's Hope that Joe Biden does not start World War Three

Let's Hope that Joe Biden does not start World War Three

We are almost two months away from the inauguration of a new USA President and there are reasons to be concerned when Joe Biden authorised the use of long range weapons against the Russian Federation. 

The Russian Federation acted with extreme caution knowing that in two months time, Joe Biden will no longer be around. The use of intercontinental ballistic missiles against Kiev show that the capability exists to wipe out Kiev in a single move. The payload might be conventional but this is something that not even the USA and others with all their technology can prevent. The technology to prevent an attack with such missiles does not exist.

London is merely 15 minutes away from a nuclear catastrophe. The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer knows that. Paris and Berlin are even closer to a Nuclear Holocaust. Only the Russian Federation's rational and measured approach has prevented World War Three, but I reckon this is the last call. 

Whoever cut submarine communication cables is preparing for war. China has not been practising about how to destroy satellites without a plan and is preparing for the worst case scenario. A world without communication satellites is a world that will go back decades. Nowadays, everything depends on either communication satellites or submarine cables. Without advanced communication systems, the economy will be the first critical casualty and with it will go any sense of political stability. This goes beyond hacking, when there will be nothing left to hack.

The financial losses without advanced communication systems will be catastrophic in every possible sense. Somebody said that should the Gulf Stream cease to exist this would trigger a new Ice Age. The losses will be not less dramatic.  An entire way of life will be wiped out.

Nuclear sites will be immediately targeted and no one knows for certain what would happen when silos containing vast amounts of nuclear weapons are hit. One can only imagine the dimension, what happens when ammunition depots are hit. Although in this the case, the ammunition will not be conventional ammunition, but hydrogen bombs.

Britain is building depots for nuclear weapons in at least three locations in the United Kingdom. Should any of those depots be hit, Britain as we know it will no longer exist. 

 

 

Here came the budget: Main target NHS and Second target the economy and particularly interest rates and growth.

The general thinking is that the Labour government will inflict pain earlier with the hope that near the next General Election the numbers will be much better to produce good feelings amongst voters. But this is a gamble by a government that publicly stated that if they had not inherited interest rates that were already going down the present announcements about borrowing could not have been made. 

Everything is based on the presumption that the economy will improve, that interest rates will go down and that repaying the borrowing will become easier. Another factor is promised improvements of the NHS. If the economy does not improve and if improvements promised regarding the NHS are not delivered then this would be a double political wammy that could bring down the present government at the next General Election.

The hope is that no crise like the Covid Pandemic or the energy crise generated by sanctions implemented against the Russian Federation or anything of the sort happens from now until the next General Election. Anything that would require much more borrowing and generate emergency conditions, negatively affecting. the economy, is not welcome. 

Et ceteris paribus? All other things being equal? Expecting that nothing will happen along the way that could change or derail present plans is a very negligent attitude. Things are bound to change. There are crucial ongoing conflicts and the seeds for more conflicts are being planted.

Now, lets have a look at potential trading partners. What is the situation in Europe? What is the situation in the Americas? What is the situation in Africa and Oceania? What is the situation regarding new players that are rising and increasing mutual cooperation?

The belief that new global associations will remain focused on the East and will not spread towards the West is extremely naive. We now live not in a bipolar world. We live in a multipolar world. In which direction the Americas, Africa, and Oceania will go is not a given. But present trends indicate that BRICS is making inroads. Those joining BRICS happen to be the most populous countries in the world. They also happen to be those which tend to have more resources in terms of raw materials. 

Founding countries? Russian Federation, China, India and Brazil. While the main Western countries have been involved in a rising number of conflicts, China has been spreading financially and economically across key regions of the world. The impopularity of the Western approach when dealing with conflicts is spreading and such impopularity does not benefit Western countries. China has not been involved in any major conflict. In fact, it is gathering more and more influence in countries that are far away from China.

Hermann Göring: No German cities will ever be bombed = NATO: we can attack the Russian Federation, but the Russian Federation will never attack us.

 

The concept of invincibility is still very much amongst us and we see it in the speeches and statements made by politicians and mass media personalities. We see in news reports and commentary about the conflict in Ukraine.

All the talk about using long range missiles is based on the concept of invincibility and of 'it cannot happen to us'.

Reality is exactly the opposite. A war by proxy can really and truly become a direct military involvement that could see Berlin, London, Paris, Warsaw and many other cities turned into ash and debris with no living soul in them.

We are not in the 1930s and 1940s. We are in 2024. The distances have become a lot shorter. What could be done in months and weeks can now be done in minutes.

It takes 15 minutes for a 100 megaton nuclear device to reach London and there will be scarcely the time to evacuate a city of more than 8 million people during the night and of more than 9 million people during the day. Not that policians, military men, mass media and civilians could take any notice of what could land on top of them all. They have got the same of awareness the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had in 1945. They believe - once again - in the concept of invincibility.  

One only has to read what those posting messages on social media say to know how convinced they are, believing that they can attack somebody else without a care in the world.

Understanbly, people have no personal memories of World War One or World War Two. The scenes of devastation is something that they can see in pictures, but they never had any personal experience of it. I guess those have an idea of what could happen to Europe are now being massacred by Israel and seeing their cities and towns turned into rubble with no living soul in them. It takes time for those who have not been exposed to total destruction to understand they themselves could suffer a similar fate.

Alternative for Germany - Is there an Alternative for Germany?

 

Is there an Alternative for Germany?

When the ruling SPD barely gets about 5% and his partners in the ruling coalition - Greens and FDP - get even less in state elections in Germany, something surely must change. Next stop? Brandenburg. If a disaster of the scale of what happened in Thuringen and Saxony also happens in Brandenburg then the ruling coalition must surely question its own future.

SPD and CDU quickly reacted proposing a ban on migration from two countries after lamentable events, but this did not seem to be enough to persuade voters to support the ruling coalition. In Thuringen, AfD got more votes than CDU and in Saxony the difference in favour of CDU was minimal compared to the level of support for AfD.

With Federal Elections around the corner, surely this is something to very much worry about. Geopolitical issues are dividing Germany, but internal issues seem to be equally divisive.

Immigration is being rejected by both sides of the political spectrum. A rising movement of the left is also anti-immigration.

The question is: have voters from both left and right of the political spectrum had enough of open borders? Let's remember that the official stance has been to punish Hungary for its reluctance to accept open borders. This beggars the question: are so called mainstream political parties out of tune? 

If they try to swim against the tide they will continue loosing support. SPD has even tried to ban Alternative für Deutchland. What will the argument in favour of banning Alternative für Deutschland? They got more than 30% of support and we got less than 6% and therefore we need to ban them because they are winning against us?

The Greens are the loudest party in favour of war in Europe. Do the Greens understand that their policies and stances are not supported by a vast number of German voters who have had enough of warmongers?

 

Jumping on the war bandwagon, EU MEPs will set EU on fire

 

Jumping on the war bandwagon, EU MEPs will set EU on fire

Next time around, EU voters should think more carefully when choosing Members of the European Parliament, not to choose warmongers that are bent on causing a nuclear holocaust in Europe, individuals that call traitor anybody who is for a peaceful resolution of a conflict that could engulf Europe and the world as a whole.

German authorities think that the European Union Flag is a foreign flag and has passed legislation 'banning the burning of foreign flags'. By passing such legislation they are shooting themselves on the foot because they are stating what more and more people think - that the EU flag has nothing to do with Germany and that it is a foreign symbol. Perhaps they should think carefully about detaining and jailing somebody for burning the foreign EU flag.

It should also be a reminder for German voters that should now see that many so called democratic politicians in Germany want Germany to go to war. One of the most outspoken politicians that are very much in favour of going to war is none other that a Green Party member of the coalition that rules Germany at the moment, the same Green Party that is being routed in one election after another. One wonders what war, and nuclear war in particular, has to do with protecting the environment and saving the planet. 

Labour government: Public sector pay promises that cannot be delivered will be the beginning

 

Is the edifice already starting to fall apart? Rachel Reeves promises of public sector pay rises have already backfired with Unions told that what they were promised is not affordable.

Winning an election acting under false pretenses is not a sign of political stability.

The 2024 September Budget will be crucial to know if this is the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end for the new Labour Administration, and this without taking into account dangerous statements that could take Britain to war in Europe, a war that will transform the Britain mainland into a battlefield.

Labour Administrations have a tendency to get Britain involved in disastrous wars. In 1997, Tony Blair won a historic majority only to get Britain involded in two major military conflicts that spelled absolute disaster. If Keir Starmer follows suit, the consequences for Britain would be catastrophic.

Keir Starmer: Labour has changed. No rise of Income Tax or National Insurance?

 

There was a candidate in times past standing for election in Latin America. He said that he was going to build roads that could allow motorists to save money. The brilliant idea, he said, was to build one side of the roads going upwards and the other side of the roads going downwards.

Massive investment in salaries in the public sector and in Welfare without spending a penny? Somebody will have to pay for it.

'Read my lips', was the catch phrase of President George Bush Sr.

Monies for salaries and welfare will have come from somewhere - either from borrowing or from higher taxes or from both borrowing and higher taxes. There is no way out. Father Christmas promises will not do. Public budgets will have to be financed with sound economics or we will end up having Britain as the new Slough or the new Birmingham. What was the emergency measure approved for Bimingham? A rise of Council Tax to try to shore up a bankrupt authority that, in spite of tax rises, was forced to stop offering vital services.

We are at a crosswords. Grant Shapps made promises about defense that cannot be delivered - not even by cutting down other vital sectors of the administration. The fact remains that Britain is unfit for war because Britain does no longer have the industries that supported strong military capabilities. But things are a lot worse than that. In a country with more than 60 million people, the numbers of those serving in the Armed Forces are below 70,000 and those capable and fit enough for combat are far below than that. So the Conservative proposal in terms of bringing in National Service are not just a realistic solution, but the only solution available. Keir Starmer should be asked about how you can fight a war without Armed Forces.