I was amused when I heard that Mr Irresponsible, aka David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, had reshuffled half his cabinet.
The same thing was done by Harold Macmillan, Conservative Prime Minister in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in 1962 when it was dubbed Night of the Long Knives in comparison with the Nazi purge of 1934.
(Macmillan may or may not have uttered the phrase, “Events, dear boy. Events,” under which I have categorised this post.)
Whatever, the Night of the Long Knives incident offered his Labour opponent Harold Wilson a brilliant line when he talked about this some time later. Wilson said, “I remember the then Prime Minister sacking half his Cabinet – the wrong half, as it turned out.”
I wonder if Ed Miliband can somehow reuse that one.
I suppose a seventieth anniversary is something special but perhaps it is more so when it involves an almost iconic event.
7/12/2011 marks seventy years since the Pearl Harbor attack, the event which turned relatively localised war into World War. “7th December 1941: a date which will live in Infamy,” – FDR.
It is sobering to realise that the Second World War lasted less than four years after that. The US and UK have now had troops dying in Afghanistan for much longer than that; and in Iraq for not much less time. Not so many troops dying admittedly, but dying nonetheless.
I vaguely remember Gore Vidal saying something to the effect that the difference between Pearl Harbor and the September 11th attack was that no-one saw the latter one coming. He had a personal reason to blame the US authorities for the war with Japan, though. His lover died in the Pacific fighting.
When I heard that Severiano Ballesteros had been taken poorly again I had forebodings and it was only a day later that the news of his death came. At the age of 54 this seems cruelly early.
He was one of those sporstmen whose fame transcended his sport. The evident joy with which he carried out his work stood out against the majority of professional sportsmen, and even more so in retrospect. His fist pump at the Road Hole in the final round when he won the Open at St Andrews epitomised this (though admittedly it is easy to be joyful when you’re winning.)
His greatest contribution to the game of golf was to boost the standing of the game in Europe. It is possible that without him the European Tour would not have garnered such success and also that the Ryder Cup might have fallen into abeyance as the US used to win it more or less all the time (certainly retained it) until the conversion of the contest into the US vs Europe rather than US vs the UK and Ireland.
When his game declined – possibly as a result of the onset of the illness which has now claimed him – it was a disappointment even to non-golfers.
His apparent recovery in 2009 from a brain tumour was good news. Sadly it wasn’t to last.
Severiano Ballesteros Sota, 9/4/11 – 7/5/11. So it goes.
I noted it mentally at the time but let it pass. However, Call me Dave’s remarks last night brought it to mind again.
His posturing over Georgia would have gone beyond recklessness if it were to be repeated in office. [I have to say here that David Milliband was as bad back then. Don’t they have advisers who know about this stuff?]
But not only did Call me Dave get it wrong over Georgia and thereby possibly antagonise Russia, he now wants to target nuclear weapons on Iran and China. Note Nick Clegg’s startled reaction in the clip.
Iran!
Iran which does not have nuclear weapons (any more than Iraq had: anyone with knowledge of the Middle Eastern psyche knows what I’m talking about here) and which therefore our threatening them with amounts to bullying. And nobody likes a bully.
And China!
China: with whom we have no quarrel and which has more than enough capacity to make ours seem piddling and which, therefore, it makes no sense to threaten.
Quite apart from the fact that the UK most likely can not or will not use its nuclear weapons without prior US approval and we probably only have them because the French do too (as Yes, Minister put it once) what on Earth was he thinking? Or did he just let his mouth run away with him?
Either way such talk is dangerous and does not bode well for the country’s international relations under a Call me Dave premiership. For you can be sure the relevant authorities in Moscow, Tehran and Beijing (not to mention elsewhere) will have taken due note. Mehdi Hassan in the New Statesman makes much the same point.
