“Know thyself” is a most fundamental axiom of Greek philosophy that has been repeated into cliche in philosophy and religious studies classrooms around the world. And yet it is a concept that many seem to forget. To ignore our fundamental presuppositions and the grounding of our beliefs is foolish and to unwittingly seek to undercut them is ideological suicide.
These thoughts follow my reading of Polly Toynbee’s recent article in the Guardian which seeks to essentially de-Christianise the Christmas celebrations and throws around the terms ‘cultural Christianity’ and ‘humanism’ as a way to legitimise her thoroughly anti-Christian position as some kind of reasonable middle ground/self-critique. A contradiction for sure, as she lampoons the foundations of Christian belief and excoriates the actions of early Christians. If we attached power cables to Friedrich Nietzsche’s grave, his rolling would probably solve the present energy crisis our country is currently undergoing.
Cultural Christianity, at the very least, demands an adoption of Christian morality and admiration for Christian tradition and history that is ridiculous to maintain in lieu of actual religious belief and makes me wonder why one doesn’t go all the way to believe in God too. Perhaps we consider the morality of ‘love thy neighbour’ as not necessarily an exclusively Christian belief but the very mindset that the European and American lives in are framed by Christianity – from the Protestant work ethic to our preference for monogamous relationships. Believing in the morality, mindset and general worldview of Christianity without its origin and basis, the teachings of Christ and the existence of God is vapid and naive. Why is marriage a sacred, inviolable contract if its primary advocate is not even real? (or dead).
This mindset is ultimately pointless and shallow and seeks to provide its own moral foundation with an appeal to some kind of tradition, popularity, or history – merely copying a greater tradition than itself. Ms Toynbee’s self-critical cultural Christianity is further called into question as nothing more than a veneer in her decidedly un-historical diagnosis of Christianity as anti-philosophical, anti-mathematical and anti-intellectual. The church is aware of its failings as a human institution, our own doctrine expects this and our scripture reminds us to be constantly vigilant against sin and our nature. Unfortunately, examples in history can be dragged into scrutiny to illustrate the failures of our forefathers. Maybe certain Popes and church leaders resisted the progress of science, or maybe the condemnations of 1277 sought to strangle ‘heretical’ elements of Aristotelianism out of medieval philosophy, but it isn’t appropriate to attribute particular mistakes by fallible humans to the wider religion. To do so is to be blinkered to what Christianity has provided and what it stands for.
Many of the greatest leaps in mathematics and science were accomplished by monotheists, algebra was pioneered and beautifully developed during the Golden Age of Islam and much of modern science owes its exposition and articulation to Christianity: Newtonian physics, Mendelian genetics and even the Big Bang Theory originate from Christian scholars. As for philosophy, while the discipline in the medieval period did develop in partnership with theology, the enlightenment saw the emergence of important secular thought among many Christian thinkers. For one example, Immanuel Kant, the father of modern philosophy, sought to use God to justify human freedom and escape relativism and nihilism; providing a philosophical framework that has shaped the European zeitgeist. There is a good case to be made that most Anglo-American philosophy that traces back to Hume is essentially a secularisation of the work of William of Occam; a Franciscan monk. Yes, certain Christians supported the barbaric practice of slavery but subsequent Christians spearheaded the abolitionist cause and rebuked their forebears. To accuse Christianity of being backwards because some nuns teaching children attempted to use theological themes to encourage good behaviour is intellectually immature. Ms Toynbee can chase caricatures and mistakes by certain people in order to try and hurry Christianity out the door as much as she wants but her arguments are largely rebutted by a cursory reading of history. There is no real correlation between Christianity and intellectual stagnation.
A point that is interestingly used to drive her case forward is to complain about the largely ceremonial title of Fidei Defensor, which our monarchs adopted as an ironic jest at the Papacy. It is a somewhat nickel and dime point to analyse the declaration of the Anglican church’s independence – remember that the monarch is also the (ceremonial) Supreme Governor of the CofE: a broadly ceremonial title. Surely then, in an institution that is allegedly racist and backward, we should be welcoming Charles’ declaration to defend all the faiths of all of his subjects even if he is styled with a ceremonial, historic title? Dwelling on the ‘the’ seems to be counter-productive. These nickel-and-dime points come across as the bread and butter of this article – We can see another example of these snipes in her discussion of assisted suicide. To say that life is sacred and that assisted suicide is a slippery slope somehow makes our elected officials dangerous radicals that are out of touch with the electorate. This polemic move is extremely dishonest. See the advancement of medically assisted suicide in Canada as an example of the practical risks associated with this policy.
Maybe this response article is also rising to the nickel and dime bait. The debate could rage forever, as glib anecdotes and controversies are thrown about to illustrate the evil of the ever-vengeful skydaddy and his charlatan prophet. But let’s not forget the message of Christmas in the Gospel – a message of love, hope and the salvation of mankind by God who loves His creation and wants nothing more than to reconcile our broken relationship.
So this Christmas remember that the secular values we associate with it – family, reconciliation, joy, giving and altruism – stem from a message of divine love and peace with a promise to end human suffering. Ms Toynbee’s vision of a secular winter holiday is not possible without the Incarnation.
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It’s Not Just Any Christmas, It’s a Little Shop of Horrors Christmas
What is Christmasy about setting fire to Christmas cards? What is festive about a giant Venus flytrap almost eating a small dog? Nothing, but apparently those are the kinds of Christmases two of the largest high-end retailers are trying to sell us, and we aren’t buying.
The release of Christmas ads in November launches the holiday season, and there are few greater British traditions than gathering around the kettle in the work kitchen to talk about the new John Lewis advert the day after it’s aired.
But the first major retailer to release its ad did not get the reaction it had hoped for. Marks & Spencer faced a backlash over its ‘Love Thismas, Not Thatmas’ ad, which sent the message that traditional Christmas needs to be burnt down, shredded, smashed, and go swimming with the fishes.
In one scene of the retailer’s clothing and home campaign, Sophie Ellis-Bextor turns her attention from browning marshmallows on a gingerbread house with a kitchen blowtorch to setting a stack of Christmas cards on fire. In another, paper hats get mulched into confetti, an elf gets launched off the roof of a house with a baseball bat – you get the idea.
It ends with the voiceover saying: ‘This Christmas, do anything you love.’
‘Do anything you love.’ Eschew the spirit of charity. Destroy Christmas and make it all about you. Not about family. Not about children. Reject tradition.
The John Lewis ad was worse. If the Little Shop of Horrors did Christmas ads, it would look like this.
In short, a boy’s Christmas tree seed grows into a giant voracious Venus flytrap with multiple sharp-toothed mouths, that at one point appears to snap after the family’s Pomeranian. Fearful of the carnivorous plant, the boy’s mother, grandmother, and sister take it outside.
But the narrative that you shouldn’t judge a predatory plant based on its natural inclination triumphs when the family joins the flytrap in the garden with their presents. And as if taking inspiration from the feverish delusions of a sick toddler, the ad ends with the plant snatching the wrapped gifts, gobbling at them, and spitting them back at the family, unwrapped.
John Lewis’s message is spelt out and very much the same as M&S: reject tradition. Or as the major retailer phrased it, the ad “celebrates the joy in the UK’s changing Christmas traditions.”
At one time, John Lewis set the standard for Christmas ads. Memorable favourites like Monty the Penguin (2014), the 2010 montage ad accompanied to Ellie Goulding’s rendition of ‘Your Song’, or the adventurous snowman ad of 2012, were warm, festive, and at times tear-jerking. They celebrated dreaming and childlike innocence. They felt like they were produced with true love for the season. While not all were cookie-cutter traditionally Christmasy in appearance, they conveyed those timeless values of family, sharing, hope, and gratitude. They were crafted with the skill of Don Draper.
The 2023 John Lewis ad is ugly nightmare fodder.
The affordable food retailers, however, embraced and celebrated the traditional messages of Christmas.
Asda leans enthusiastically into the festive season with its joyful, light-hearted ‘Make This Christmas Incredibublé’ ad, featuring Michael Bublé as a store quality officer.
Showing off turkey, mince pies, panettone, and enough cheeses to put a lactose intolerant into a coma, Bublé is funny and ostentatious. The sets are tastefully but festively decorated, and the ad is finished with the singer joining a choir of staff in an energetic rendition of ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’.
Asda struck the right chord and knew its audience. It knows they’re suffering under the cost-of-living crisis and says without saying: you can still afford to have a nice Christmas dinner this year.
The Aldi advert sees a return of Kevin the Carrot, this time in his adventures in a Christmas food-themed Willy Wonka’s factory. Narrated by British actor Jim Broadbent, lines of poetry convey deep-rooted values such as: ‘Only Kevin the carrot clearly understood the true meaning of Christmas and the importance of being good.’
And: ‘The season of goodwill was truly in the air, for Christmas is a time that’s sweeter when you share.’
But it was fellow German food retailer Lidl that stole the paper Christmas crown. A racoon who loves Christmas goes on a little hero’s journey to make sure a toy monkey gets delivered to the boy who he’s been watching through the window. While never discovered to be the creature that placed the toy under the tree, the raccoon is rewarded when the family dog takes a portion of Christmas dinner outside to share with him.
It was old John Lewis: full of innocence, adventure, mild peril, and generosity. It was moving and warm. It shared an important message: little gestures of kindness matter.
And the latter two retailers put their money where their mouth is: both Aldi and Lidl are part of the Neighbourly charity network to distribute unsold surplus food to local communities. Lidl is also hosting toy banks for donations in their stores and has said that it will be producing the monkey and raccoon toys for sale, with the proceeds going to Neighbourly.
These aren’t just empty words, but action. The desire to help comes through these ads and touches people. These are authentic expressions of the season of good will towards all men.
What I and people who took issue with in the M&S and John Lewis ads is not that some individuals reject traditional Christmas. People are free to have whatever unconventional Christmases they want and not be judged for it.
No, this is about people tired of being nudged by forces that shape our society and craft our media that our world must change. That even though we are in the majority, we must have our expression of our culture and tradition come second – or not at all – to unconventionality, modernity, and progression.
‘Don’t touch or break our Christmases,’ we’re saying.
These messages from John Lewis and Marks & Spencer were intentional, crafted by professional agencies that have been captured and work to serve the woke agenda and their ‘purpose-driven’ campaigns – sometimes at the expense of profit. While unconventional unChristmas ads are not woke in themselves, they originate from the same spiteful anti-tradition place.
But the fickle monster you feed eventually comes back to bite you over any perceived form of ‘hate’, slight, or microaggression. Case in point: Marks & Spencer had shared a still outtake from their ad to social media, showing paper hats burning in a fireplace, before quickly deleting it and apologising for any offence caused.
Not apologising to those Christmas-lovers who might have thought it mean spirited, but to pro-Palestinian activists. Yes, Marks & Spencer took seriously complaints that burning red and green paper hats was insensitive and stoking tensions because Palestinian flags also happen to feature red and green.
Let no good pandering go unpunished.
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The Dishonorable Victoria Nuland
As the Russia-Ukraine Crisis crawls into the second month of conflict, humanitarian disaster, and media sensationalism, many passive observers of the situation have been wondering who is to blame for the biggest military conflict in Europe since 1990’s Yugoslavia.
Mainstream media, OSNIT Twitter experts, and heads of state all make substantial claims about the culprits, the causes, a variety of predictions for the outcomes, and “solutions” that do nothing to actually solve the issue other than to speculate needlessly and obfuscate the reality on the ground in order to garner as much engagement as possible from the online community, and inflame hatred on both sides – dumbing down the debate to kindergarten levels of maturity, driveling the issue down to just another “Kony 2012” bandwagon for everyone to jump on.
In the West – particularly NATO member nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom – there has been a certain disregard for introspection and self-criticism in regards to the lead up to the current conflict. While the reality may not be as clean or as pleasant as we want, the current crisis in Ukraine is hardly a new development, nor had the invasion of Ukraine been completely out-of-the-blue as many pundits make it out to be.
This conflict has been ongoing for the last decade – it seems that most discussing the current escalation are willfully ignorant of that fact.
The people of Donbass, Luhansk and other Eastern oblasts of Ukraine have suffered under similar war-like conditions and humanitarian crisis since the beginning of the Ukrainian Civil War in 2014. No one in the West has cared about it, nor paid any thought, hashtags, or great displays of solidarity for those who have suffered since then – only now paying attention as the conflict escalated from a local regional conflict to a nation-wide one as soon as the Russians directly became involved – all with the help of actually being televised, of course.
Framing the issue as an “attack on the territorial sovereignty”, “democracy”, or “self-determination” of Ukraine is not only blatantly dishonest – it’s entirely hypocritical. Where were the calls to recognize the territorial sovereignty or democratic will of the separatist regions who no longer felt that their interests were represented in Kiev?
Nowhere, of course. Because it wasn’t “our side”.
For most, the finger of blame for the escalation of tensions to all-out war in Ukraine has been pointed directly at Russian President Vladimir Putin for activating the “special military operation” and invading Ukraine. For others the responsibility lies with Ukrainian leadership not compromising on territory claims and security concerns the Russian government has had, and the failure to follow the standards set by the Minsk II protocol signed in 2015. Many others lay the blame with NATO for encroachment and not taking Russia seriously or engaging in any sort of constructive dialogue with Moscow.
As the issue has been brushed aside, ignored, and unaddressed by Western powers who could’ve negotiated a peaceful resolution that would’ve put an end to the bloodshed years ago, the cock has truly come home to roost – metaphorically speaking. By not seriously engaging with any sort of dialogue with the Putin regime, attempting to make a buffer of any sort that addressed the security concerns of both sides, and by not prioritizing the safety of civilians on the ground but rather their own expansion, NATO has done nothing but help fan the flames of this conflict.
NATO, of course, cannot be “blamed” necessarily for the conflict at large. For what it’s worth, as a security organization it has been rather beneficial in creating a level of stability and bipolarity in European politics. It wasn’t always ideal, nor fair, but as a product of its time – the Cold War – it did a lot more good than harm in balancing power and security in the 20th century.
It may have acted as a bulwark against the threat of Soviet Communism back then, but as the Cold War ended it has changed with the unipolarity of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
Today, NATO is merely an extension of American security and political power. It has shaped the Western world and its response to threats from an American perspective, prioritizing Washington’s concerns above all others. It is entirely a fabrication that the responsibility and configuration of NATO is somehow shared between its member nations; that’s symbolic rather than the actuality. This has been observable in the past couple of years as the projected power of NATO has been growing weaker without an immediate perceived threat, and European member states skimping out on funding the organization or actively seeking alternate security solutions – such as the push for a militarized European Union separate from NATO.
How coincidental that as the crisis in Ukraine has developed, the re-emphasis of NATO power has occurred as it was staring at its dissolution after American security failures in Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East?
NATO, of course, is composed of all sorts of characters and figureheads – both military and political – who maintain and grow the institution the way Washington needs it to. In the last two decades one of the largest forces in shaping how NATO (i.e. Washington D.C.) operates in Eastern Europe and in regards to Russia has been Victoria Nuland, who is currently serving as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the Joe Biden administration.
If anyone can be sourced as holding key responsibility for laying out the foundations for the current crisis unfolding between Ukraine and Russia, it is her.
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Victoria Nuland has been described as “brash” “blunt” and “crude” by many who have worked with her, either through the State Department or as her counterparts across Eurasia. The Washington careerist Nuland has spent most of her life entrenched firmly in the circus of the US State Department, climbing the ladder of power with a ferocious tenacity and iron-set will to shape Washington’s policies across the world.
It would be commendable, if her efforts weren’t completely driven by neoliberal globalist ideology that props up the status quo powers and elite D.C. political class. We can see how close she is to the establishment elites, after all she’s married to the co-founder of the Project for the New American Century and Council on Foreign Relations member, Robert Kagan.
Nuland has found herself in a variety of powerful positions throughout her tenure in Washington – from deputy director of Soviet Union Affairs under Clinton, to being the US Ambassador to NATO during the Bush administration, to Assistant Secretary of State under Obama’s 8 year reign. The Under Secretary has previously worked closely with some of the most hawkish characters in Washington, having directly answered to Dick Cheney as his deputy national security advisor, and with Hillary Clinton as the spokeswoman for the State Department.
With mentors and colleagues like these, it is no wonder that Nuland has been able to entrench herself into the new administration rather safely. She doesn’t pull her punches, even if it would be the smart thing to do – preferring to ideologically shoot from the hip with her diplomacy and think later about the consequences of her actions – if at all.
Her attitude and approach to diplomacy may have allowed her to gain many fans in Washington, as brazen approaches are often applauded in the D.C. swamp – but it hasn’t gained her much of a fanbase among European diplomats. Her policy of ignoring the efforts of EU leadership to try and fix diplomatic relations with Russia, and by shipping weapons to Ukraine during the Obama years directly acted against the advice and fears of many EU nations who worried it would escalate tensions with Moscow.
Rather than her actions being a product of her career, Nuland seems to be a true believer in the diplomacy she practices, almost delusionally so. In 1997, along with former Senator Richard Lugar, Nuland published Russia, Its Neighbors, and an Enlarging NATO: An Independent Task Force Report; in which it was “concluded” that NATO should be able to expand into Europe, and that Russian concerns or perceived security threats were unjustified – any attempt to negotiate or compromise should be disregarded. The report is rather short, but statements and conclusions are entirely delusional and a product of liberal elitist thought – the only way for Russia to participate in this changing world would be to cede its own sovereignty and self-determination in order to join the “New Europe” and the authority of NATO (ie. Washington).
I imagine that any Russian authority who were in the effort of trying to rebuild a nation after almost a century of communism and centralized bureaucracy would see the terms laid out in the Nuland report and laugh in disbelief. Trading one bureaucracy for another, but this time with less sovereignty and being subjected to the whims of a former rival.
In the very same report, the issue of Ukraine is emphasized. The task force agreed that NATO’s “doors shall remain open” for Ukrainian membership. Of course we know today this has been one of the driving motivations for Russian engagement in Ukraine, has been the threat of NATO expansion towards Russia’s border with Eastern Europe and one of Russia’s vulnerable corridors for invasion.
Nuland has been wanting, and working hard to ensure that Ukraine joins the American sphere of influence. Whether this is a personal mission, given her Jewish-Ukrainian ancestry, or whether this is completely career-driven doesn’t matter. It has led to disastrous consequences regardless of the motives.
One only needs to look at the Maidan protests and 2014 coup d’etat that Nuland was a key figurehead in orchestrating – a leaked phone call with the then US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt shows how instrumental Nuland was in hand picking the pro-West Ukrainian Arseniy Yatsenyuk administration that took over after the expulsion of Viktor Yanukovych’s Moscow-friendly government during the “Revolution of Dignity”. Whether or not the previous government was a “Moscow puppet” matters little, when the United States and NATO conduct the same actions that they accuse Russia of – infringing Ukrainian democracy and self-determination – even if it is through more covert means.
While the massive shake-up of the government took place, NATO also funded and armed the infamous neo-nazi “Azov Battalion” to conduct operations in the Eastern Ukranian separatist regions, with disastrous humanitarian consequences for civilians in those regions. Everything from wanton destruction to residential areas, kidnappings, and even crucifixions – Azov Battalions have not only been blamed for this, they take pride in their cruelty.
It seems that the US State Department made it a policy during the 2000’s and 2010’s to arm and aid the most depraved groups of people, whether it has been Islamsist militias in the Syria or neo-nazi paramilitaries in Ukraine in order to fulfill their policy goals without getting their own hands dirty – with innocent civilians suffering the most due to this short-sighted, or willfully ignorant decisions.
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Of course in the mind of someone like Victoria Nuland, the ends justify the means. But what exactly are the ends?
Is it to “stabilize” Ukrainian democracy?
As Zelensky has purged opposition parties and political rivals have been arrested and tortured, we can see by the lack of condemnation that that’s hardly the priority.
Is it to “secure the sovereignty” of Ukraine?
The whole reason this mess has occurred is because Nuland ignored Ukraine’s sovereignty in order to place her own political pawns into positions of power – so claiming that they’re trying to do this is laughable.
Is it to “prevent the humanitarian crisis and deaths of civilians”?
This conflict has been ongoing for a decade, with tens of thousand already dead or displaced before Russia stepped foot into the region. Where were the actions to prevent the humanitarian crisis that has existed for the past decade?
So what are the ends? Because the narrative that Washington and the mainstream media are pumping out are hardly grounded in reality.
If I was a gambling man, I would wager that the end goal of this crisis that has been created is multifaceted; waging the media war against the Russian Federation has been ongoing for the past decade – many Americans, particularly those in red states and from working class backgrounds see the more conservative culture of Russia and the strongman figure embodied by a leader such as Putin as a viable alternative to the current American society that empowers the elite Washington D.C. political class and desecrates the rest of the country. Many saw Trump as a leader like that, after all.
Regime change in Russia to bring it into the “global society” and the confines of internationalism is also a possibility. Nations can’t be seen as breaking away from the “rules-based order”, as that would not benefit Washington D.C. or global institutions like the United Nations or World Economic Forum that have infiltrated the top levels of government and society in order to push their own agendas under the guise of “democratic will”. However, I think this is far stretched and I think the horse has bolted in regards to this scenario – Russia has been cut-off, and I don’t think anyone at the Pentagon or the State Department wants to get involved with what would be a severely messy operation to pull off in trying to oust Putin and his loyalists from power.
What I think is the most plausible situation is actually rather outside the box. As the United States recedes as a global superpower under the weight of its recent failures and crumbling domestic situation, the best way to prevent any other rising power from gaining a foothold at the top is to make a chaotic situation that is so out of control that no-one could possibly control it.
Ukraine has so far proven to be far from a “clean” operation on the ground for the Russians. Victoria Nuland has done a rather outstanding job of shaping Ukraine to be so emboldened by their own ideas of fighting for their “sovereignty” and crafted such a unique identity separate from Russia that they will likely continue to be a rather large thorn in the side of Russia for decades to come, regardless of the outcome of this current war. Russia will be exhausting itself and its resources trying to control the situation.
So while the United States may not be “directly” involved with securing the situation on the ground, at least Washington can be guaranteed that Russia won’t be able to do it either despite their close proximity. All the Americans have to do is keep pumping weapons and resources to keep ground-forces fighting or causing a logistical headache, and in the meantime they can refocus their priorities to other, more pressing situations – namely domestic security.
But if those are indeed the “ends”, are they justified?
To any rational, morally sound and peace-loving person, of course not.
But as we have seen time and time again, Washington D.C. and the elitists that occupy the highest seats of government will create their own justifications, even if completely false or out-of-touch, in order to fulfill their own goals of self-preservation and holding on to power.
This reason, above all, is why Victoria Nuland has been perfectly fit for the job that she has undertaken for the past two decades. Because she embodies those very same insane values.
And Washington D.C. loves her for it.
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Keir Starmer is right about the NHS
A couple of weeks ago Keir Starmer made headlines by claiming that too many people from overseas are recruited by the NHS. For this he was, of course, slandered as the second coming of Sir Oswald Mosely or Enoch Powell by his own side, who, despite their protestations to the contrary, rarely look beyond the headline when it comes to statements about immigration.
Sir Keir made the point that immigration was not the key to ending the staffing crisis faced by the NHS, a point in which he is perfectly correct. Rather than relying on foreign workers to fill the shortfalls in staffing, he would instead “train people in this country” to return to the goal that every country that seeks: remaining somewhat close to self-sustaining one of its most important government services.
An estimated 34% of people joining the NHS last year were from overseas, up from 18% just 8 years ago, a massively disproportionate amount compared to the wider population. There remains in England a shortage of 12,000 hospital doctors and more than 50,000 nurses and midwives. This compounded with the issues of the COVID backlogs has meant that the health service now faces some of the longest waiting periods in its history. Going into a winter with the ongoing fuel and power it is clear that, amongst the litany of other permacrises the service seems to face, the NHS may be entering one of the most testing seasons of its 75 years.
Why not then, if the situation is indeed so dire, accept as many immigrants as it takes to see us through? This makes sense to the types to whom immigration is a hammer and every problem a nail, but continuing this reliance on outsiders to prop up our geriatric and unreformable healthcare system can only end in disaster. They would have us prioritise short term relief over long term investment, a propping up of an overreaching shanty than to build with foresight the proper foundations of a functioning institution
But it makes sense to build from within. For one, it makes no sense to have our healthcare system, one of the most important things in the lives of millions of our countrymen, reliant on those who could at any time up and leave to go home. This has already happened with many Poles who after the covid pandemic dissipated have decided to go back to the continent, affecting services like bus provision in Birmingham particularly hard; so why are we so blind to it’s possible happening in a far more crucial industry? There is also a conversation to be had about our own homegrown medical personnel leaving for America after their training; but one problem at a time here.
This all feeds into the wider discourse around immigration, which has once again hit a record high. 1 in 6 people in England and Wales were born abroad, yet the ONS has decided – for no reason at all, I’m sure – to no longer record ethnicity statistics, and coincidentally demands for housing and services are strained to breaking point. The arguments are tired, but now with this it seems some are finally awake to our current reality that mass immigration is unfair and unjust to all parties save two: left-wing parties who prey on the votes of migrants; and big businesses who can save on labour costs by endlessly importing low cost workers from the third world.
All others suffer for the system; native peoples find their wages undercut and the value of their vote diluted, their languages and culture displaced from inner cities now turned to foreign ghettos. These areas are inhabited by the destitute peoples drawn to a strange place where they have no roots or history, taken from countries far poorer than ours who desperately need the wealth and skills of the people poached from them by the lazy politicians and managers of our institutions who would rather paper over cracks than build from within a stable and secure foundation.
This is a problem far wider reaching than just the NHS, but given that that particular institution is tantamount to our golden calf it’s a good place to start the discourse. For many in Labour however this discourse is unthinkable, as is any that seeks to come up with any solution to our immigration questions with any other answer than “no human is illegal, just let them all in”. This is Starmer’s problem; there remains in Labour the strain of far-left terminally online social vandals that took charge during the Corbyn administration. Though he is leading a cautious return to the centre, he will be answerable in part to these cerebral vacuums, as will his (often just as miserably online) MPs who have already shown themselves to have a habit of breaking rank, as seen in their attending picket lines over the last few months, in order to appease their Twitter followings.
Starmer, whose wife works in the NHS, might be the political equivalent of a plain ham sandwich but on this he knows what is needed, even if it puts him out of lockstep with his party, to whom even suggesting a policy on immigration that isn’t throwing open the door to the world is equivalent to having a televised fireside chat in which he reads extracts from Mein Kampf whilst sat atop a chair made from slave-picked cotton. It remains to be seen whether he sticks to his guns, or will be cowed back into toeing the line by his party, though on this it can be assured; Keir Starmer is right about the NHS.
