Dear Richard,
Many thanks for alerting us to what may alas well become a mud-slinging match.
Yes - as the _Guardian_ journalist explains, it is indeed unfortunate that the European Parliament elections should fall this
year.
I suppose it is difficult for outsiders to understand the depth of anti-European Union resentment in some quarters in the UK - not
'Euroscepticism' but in reality rabid Europhobia (Americans will of course call to mind their compatriots who see the hand of the
Devil in every measure taken by the Federal Government).
The Conservative Party in power stands to lose enormously, first because of its obvious lack of popularity with the ordinary
population (unlike the City of London microcosm, too small to swing the pendulum) and secondly because it cannot hope to rival
UKIP in the field of fanatical Europhobia. It is very clever on its part to attack Labour as a sort of second-best tactics. Much
as I dislike the device, Gove (Con.) is on firmer ground than Hunt (Lab.) : after all Ramsay MacDonald, the first ever Labour
Prime Minister (1924 and again 1929-1931) had had a "bad [First World] war" - he had to resign as Leader of the Labour Party in
1914 because of his Pacifist views. So Gove is not entirely wrong when he suggests that some on the Labour side were against the
war. Many Liberals of course also had serious doubts until "the Rape of Neutral Belgium".
Back to basics, most List members will no doubt remember WSC's florid apostrophe in _The World Crisis_ (Abridged Penguin edition,
p.24):
Ah! foolish-diligent Germans, working so hard, thinking so deeply, marching and counter-marching on the parade grounds of the
Fatherland, poring over long calculations, fuming in new-found prosperity, discontented amid the splendour of mundane success, how
many bulwarks to your peace and glory did you not, with your own hands, successively tear down!
Neither the current Education Secretary nor the Shadow Education Secretary can
obviously match this . . .
With all best wishes to all for 2014 (in spite of the European Parliament
elections for those entitled to vote) . . .
A.C.
Professor Antoine CAPET, FRHistS
Head of British Studies
University of Rouen
76821 Mont-Saint-Aignan
France
antoine.ca...@univ-rouen.fr
'Britain since 1914' Section Editor
Royal Historical Society Bibliography
Reviews Editor of CERCLES
http://www.cercles.com/review/reviews.html
From: Editor, Finest Hour
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 3:20 PM
To: churchillchat@googlegroups.com
Subject: [ChurchillChat] Centenary of the Great War: Let the Spin Begin
I didn't expect to find myself agreeing with Labour's Shadow Education Secretary, but take a gander at his screed and see what you
think:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/04/first-world-war-michael-gove-left-bashing-history
We're going to be reading a lot of silly nonsense about World War I in the next year or two, and Hunt's preemptive strike is a
salutary warning.
Hunt's piece recalls a poetic answer to Eric Bogle's famous poem "Willie
McBride," written by Stephen Suffet in 1997:
"Ask the people of Belgium or Alsace-Lorraine,
If my life was wasted, if I died in vain.
I think they will tell you when all's said and done,
They welcomed this boy with his tin hat and gun."
Full text at: http://richardlangworth.com/mcbride
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"ChurchillChat" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to churchillchat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to churchillchat@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"ChurchillChat" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to churchillchat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to churchillchat@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
