Mailwatch(ed) Forum

To say nothing of “If you would pursue peace, prepare for war” .

Not sure who said it. Might have been Enoch Powell. Or Frankie Howerd.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 02, 2025 3:39 pm To say nothing of “If you would pursue peace, prepare for war” .

Not sure who said it. Might have been Enoch Powell. Or Frankie Howerd.

Either of those might have quoted it (and I'm pretty sure Churchill did too) but the phrase originates with Vegetius in his 4th century Roman military manual.

Daniel Craig in Layer Cake.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Jun 02, 2025 2:55 pm Ha ha ha ha.

What's the biggest power in NATO? Any developments there recently that might call into question the readiness of that power to defend Europe?

The Green Party are waffling pretty spectacularly too.

Green party urges government to boost aid spending as means of avoiding international conflict
The Green party has described the strategic defence review as too militaristic, and urged the government to focus more on development. In a statement, Ellie Chowns, who speaks on defence matters for the party in the Commons, said:

Security is not just based on arms expenditure and threats, but on real leadership that uses diplomacy and development too. There must be a real commitment to an international order based on human rights, equality and genuine cooperation.
To avoid the horrors of war and armed conflict, we need to look at the deeper causes of insecurity, including poverty and climate breakdown. This is why the Green party strongly supports the restoration of the international aid budget to at least 0.7% of GNI. And we will continue to argue that real patriotism means ending UK-made weapons or components being sold to dictators, human rights abusers or for use against civilians anywhere in the world.
The prime minister has talked up the boost to jobs and the economy through increased defence expenditure, but there are many more jobs to be created in the clean, green - and peaceful - economy, a sector growing four times faster than the rest of the economy. This is where the government’s focus for investment should b

I'm surprised she didn't propose hitting Russia with a major, and I mean major leaflet campaign.*

*That's a Red Dwarf reference.

Security is not just based on arms expenditure and threats, but on real leadership that uses diplomacy and development too.

Threatening military hardware backing you up does wonders for leadership and diplomacy.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Jun 02, 2025 7:33 pm I'm surprised she didn't propose hitting Russia with a major, and I mean major leaflet campaign.*

Are Greens permitted to criticise Putin?

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Sun Jun 01, 2025 10:28 pm

Another betrayal….

Has this been posted before? I know people who question the independence of "fact checking" organisations, but:

https://fullfact.org/government-tracker/

Youngian wrote: ↑Mon Jun 02, 2025 7:59 pm

Security is not just based on arms expenditure and threats, but on real leadership that uses diplomacy and development too.

Threatening military hardware backing you up does wonders for leadership and diplomacy.

Yeah, especially in the context of other countries threatening your allies.

I think this stuff is going to be a real problem for the Greens. Ellie Chowns is floundering here, God knows what happens if the Zack Polanski wing start making all the decisions.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Fri May 30, 2025 10:26 pm I was referring to this being done by the government because of Reform.

Think they're probably prepared to borrow more for investment because of immediate pressure from Reform. I hope they don't overdo that because I do see a risk.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Mon Jun 02, 2025 3:39 pm To say nothing of “If you would pursue peace, prepare for war” .

Not sure who said it. Might have been Enoch Powell. Or Frankie Howerd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si_vis_pacem,_para_bellum

Reeves to announce lots of non-London infrastructure apparently. I'm a fan of putting stuff together in a way that adds up to a "narrative", but they should be wary of jumping the gun on stuff which will cost a serious amount of money and have to be cut back later because that'll feed more cynicism.

One interesting aspect is that the high speed route from Liverpool to Manchester is supposed to be going ahead. There's really no economic case for this unless you can reuse a big chunk of it for HS2, in which case it would have trains fro. So is this being (cryptically) announced too?

At the moment, it's faster to take the M62 between the two cities. And there's a lot of local demand for a Lime Street - Piccadilly/Oxford Road shuttle service that doesn't see you going round seemingly every suburban station.

It would be- what?- 3 trains per hour? That's not that much for something so expensive, with all the tunneling and demolition. Yet add HS2 to it and you've probably got another 2 trains per hour to London and another 2 to Birmingham. So I think HS2 might well be happening as well, which would be great.

Someone on Bluesky pointed out that this is all a bit Withnail. "We've built HS2 by mistake". But I can see why they'd choose to present it like this. Could be a masterstroke.

Yeah, HS2 is pretty toxic, but all these little bits of high speed that...just happen to link up...well, who could object to that?

They've also not sold back the land that's been compulsorily purchased for the bit that's been cancelled. That might be a clue too.

Big extension of free school meals. I guess this is how you do poverty reduction when faced with an electorate who thinks that the poor would just put extra cash on a nag in the 3.30 at Lingfield (they wouldn't).

But what of the real political question? How does this policy relate to Morgan McSweeney or (even worse) Blue Labour? I can accept that either or both of those may have influenced the dire immigration speech. But we were told a while back that fixing potholes (something that unites petrol heads and enviro bicyclists) was a McSweeney sort of policy. Talking of which, it seems that even some of Herefordshire's worst roads are getting resurfaced soon. If hailing the genius of McSweeney is the price, it's one I am prepared to pay. Then again, "this is shit, let's fix it" is what governments generally want to do.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Jun 05, 2025 3:18 pm But we were told a while back that fixing potholes (something that unites petrol heads and enviro bicyclists) was a McSweeney sort of policy. Talking of which, it seems that even some of Herefordshire's worst roads are getting resurfaced soon.

That's the thing - the UK's roads are well beyond their normal lifespan and they really need to be properly resurfaced - not just have the holes filled with chippings and then a bit of bitumen poured on top, as I expect Reform to continue what the Tories did round here. Come the next winter, the lumps will be unseated yet again.

We're getting a resurface here!