Apocalypse 2009?

Ray

Meanwhile - donning his Stetson and with strains of Wagner whistling from his iPod - Brown and his cronies ride into battle against the 'crisis that came out of America', blasting everything in sight with that good old-fashioned covering fire called taxpayers' money.

Verity

Exactly, Ray.

"We can speed the demise of this recession if we all help the poorest in our community ."

How is hosing money over the poorest in the community - who don't work and produce nothing - going to help end the recession?

What "vital investment" in London's mass transit system? How is that going to end the recession? And how is this going to play in the rest of the country where the folks don't avail themselves of London's transport sysem?

And in "fighting crime", which the British police are no longer allowed to do in any case, going to help end the recession.

What posturing rubbish.

bill

I never did like Apocalypse Now that much nor the Deer Hunter come to mention it. First Blood was more my scene. Boris tends to leave me cold in any event.

David M

Do you have to be a polymath to be able to quote Apocalypse Now and Homer? I would have thought it just required a mouth.

Martin

My favourite recent gem from Boris was when on the World at One he was being interviewed by Brian Hanrahan on City job losses and Boris said, "I've counted then all out and I'll count them all back". Hanrahan remainded straight faced. Priceless.

Hysteria

I think I agree with Verity - cheap and easy soundbites meaning not terribly much - I think Heffer's approach in the Telegraph today is more close to the mark....

Nicholas

Good article and thanks for providing the link to it. I suspect the "message" in the film, which boils down to the fact that those with moral restraints in war will be defeated by those without them and then lose everything to the extent that the value of moral restraint will be gone, is lost in the slightly cartoon characterisation and weirdness of the film.

The Vietnam war was won by the North on the campuses of America, in Fleet Street and in the studios of the BBC, as the "war against terror" will be lost in those same places. But the context of the film must now also be seen in the story of Vietnam post-war. So much was given and for what? Was all that fighting, dying and suffering ultimately for nought?

The Taliban are driving through the Swat Valley in Pakistan, not defeated and ousted as suggested by your article, closing schools, putting women in shrouds and beheading "traitors". What will happen there eventually, and in Afghanistan and in Iraq?

The unfundamental West can't protect its values from assault and those values are at risk of being obliterated, partly from weakness, partly from appeasement and partly from the fundamental fifth column within, the Jon Snow School of Leftist Reporting, who ensure that the scrutiny remains firmly on what the West does and not what its enemies do. They will do for us all in the end.

Meanwhile we delude ourselves with hearts and minds, democracy, and all the other fallacies of Vietnam. The soldiers speak a different kind of jargon nowadays but have learned not a thing.

Verity

Excellent post, Nicholas and I share your despair.

I'm sure millions of others share my bafflement that an egotistical prat like Jon Snow and his motley ilk gained such traction.

Verity

I do not believe I have ever seen or heard a woman quote Coppola.

Frank P

As it is impossible to give credence to any politician or economist ever again after the last 11 years of the systematic theft of the nation; the current biggest global bust-out ever perpetrated by he banks and financial markets in profound collusion; plus the arrogant admission by our current usurper of the office of Prime Minister that he intends to put several future generations into hock before they are even born, by handing large wodges of their future earnings to the crooks that have just pissed the country's assets down the drain, I can only devoutly wish that my issue, or theirs, eventually wake up to what is going on and reek a most terrible vengeance on those involved. Particularly the odious Brown. Never did a man bear a more apt surname. May he rot in the most agonising torture available in the deepest recess of Hades!

As a footnote may I wish the happiest New Year that is possible to all the victims of Brown and his band of thugs and co-conspirators; Except, of course, those who voted thrice for NuLabour, who deserve anything that befalls them and more.

I intended to wish a Happy New Year to the Editor of this magazine and his staff until I read the article in today’s issue by Paul Wood of the BBC who was given space to publish more Hamas propaganda to add to the anti-Semitic bilge emanating the BBC’s TV and radio broadcasts. I wonder if one of ‘our’ editorial staff could explain why? There must be some explanation.

Archie

Not to be pedantic or anything, but I think the general thrust of 'Apocalypse Now' was to loosely follow the theme of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'; in that the farther up the river they went, the weirder things became, which I happen to think it does rather well.
Verity: spot-on, pithy and erudite as usual! Rubbish from Boris indeed. Am I alone or is anyone else wishing he would ditch all the PC claptrap to which he seems increasingly attached?

dilys

I've always preferred the "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" quote. Perhaps that'll be the one for when the Labour Party clears GB and his acolytes away.

TGF UKIP

Another brilliant post to finish the year, Nicholas, and I again salute you.

Hard to disagree with a word of your post either Frank Pulley and as for the question you pose at the end, don't forget that the Speccie is a Cameron Tory publication so don't we all have to be "inclusive"? Just be grateful that the article wasn't solicited from the Palestinians very own Alastair Campbell - Jeremy Bowen.

PS To be fair to the Dear Editor which is, admittedly, not my habit, the leader in this week's mag does take a much more robust and objective view of Hamas than any member of the BBC could or would wish to do.

Verity

Frank P - I was just about to post that we haven't seen you for a few days, and ask if all is well.

Hayward Maberley

David M,
There may have been a hint of irony in the polymath allusion. What about Pollie Mouth, an affliction akin to psitaicosis? That causes Boris the Boofhead and most other pollies to sound like parrots sqawking the same old phrases.

Hayward Maberley

Nicholas
“...the fact that those with moral restraints in war will be defeated by those without them and then lose everything to the extent that the value of moral restraint will be gone...”
Such as the restraint showed by the faked Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Operation Phoenix, Operatio Rolling Thunder and the most restrained of them all the illegal and immoral bombing of Cambodia. This last so destabilised Cambodia that the Khmer Rouge were able to take and remain in power with the further backing of the US and the UK of PM Thatcher.

Hayward Maberley

Archie,
Boris the Boofhead's allusion to The Heart Of Darkness is in reality more akin to being up the proverbial creek in the barbwire canoe.

Owen Morgan

"What 'vital investment' in London's mass transit system? How is that going to end the recession? And how is this going to play in the rest of the country where the folks don't avail themselves of London's transport sysem?"

Verity, Boris Johnson is Mayor of LONDON. He was elected to represent LONDON, so that is what he is doing. His actions are designed to benefit those who live in London and those who work in London (but, quite properly, the residents first, because they are his voters). That's a pretty big proportion of the total national population, but it's not the responsibility of London's mayor to sort out the labour-party-induced problems of other parts of the country. The London public transport "system" which Boris Johnson inherited was an absolute shambles. Making a genuine system out of it would be a worthwhile achievement and, by making London more attractive as a place for business, would eventually produce benefits for the country as a whole.

Verity

Oh, God! Howard Mayberly's back. And on 1 January. I hope this isn't an omen.

Owen Morgan - Upgrading London Transport is not going to have any effect whatsoever on the recession and it was idiotic of Johnson to think it will (if he really thinks so). Business won't move to London because they've got a nice transport system. First, there isn't any global business just now. See, that's what "recession" means.

Secondly, ever been on the Continong? The capital cities have transport systems that London can probably never match, never mind better.

Tristan

Pleasant surprises are rare. Succinctness rarer still. Knowing not to make a point if you don't have one... Almost extinct. I like the Coffee House.

Frank Pulley

Verity

All the best for 2009 - I'm doing as I'm told and so far it's working. Thanks for asking. :-)

As for Howard Neighbourly, it's good exercise for the scroll wheel; eyes left and skid past the central column until you see another name. Easy!

Verity

That is a very useful tip, Frank P, and I will employ it!

Hayward Maberley

Mr Pulley, Verity,
I said I would be back in the New Year to see if rationality and a modicum of politeness had apeared in posts on The Spectator. Seems not as far as you two are concerned. By the way Verity that working ranch of The Faux Texan up in Amarillo, The Panhandle is a figment of your somewhat vivid imagination. The Bush family in Amarillo who own The Frying Pan Ranch, no relation of the Down Easter Bushes.
Happy New Year Blogging

Nicholas

"Hayward Maberley" - "Such as the restraint showed by the faked Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Operation Phoenix, Operation Rolling Thunder and the most restrained of them all the illegal and immoral bombing of Cambodia. etc."

Absolute rubbish. You've been reading about the war from the Jon Snow perspective and cherry picking "Dastardly American Acts of Aggression" to make your argument but in doing so you have made mine. Because you ignore completely the cynical manipulation and atrocities committed by the North, including the violation of the Laos and Cambodian borders by the North Vietnamese military. You really have absolutely no idea of the nature of the Viet Cong or the NV regime at the time do you? Or what a gift to them the Western media and people like you were? You might begin by asking yourself what was the comparable US aggression to the Divisional sized units of the regular North Vietnamese Army waging war within the sovereign state of South Vietnam. Or perhaps by studying the strategy of intimidation and murder practiced by the Viet Cong. You also have no appreciation of the restraints placed on the US military by appeasement and by ridiculous policies designed to walk a tightrope between prosecuting the war and placating the domestic anti-war movement. If I were you I might also study Ho and the Viet Minh prior to 1945 to gain a real insight and understanding of the nature of his regime and aspirations, the lengths to which his cadres would go to secure political power, the exploitation of divisions and disagreements amongst his perceived enemies and the intimidation and murder that was central to the rise of the communist North.

When you truly understand the military history of the war (which will never happen) I'll be happy to have the debate with you. In the meantime please don't dress up your leftist propaganda as some kind of factual history. I bet you even still believe the Germans were responsible for the Katyn Forest massacre don't you? Or is that a difficult one for you given that your precious "party" now embraces both extremes of the communist and nazi ideologies?

As for your pompous "monitoring" of politeness and rationality here, as though you are some grand arbiter. It reeks of the little left and the mutant new labour "moral high ground" that seeks to demean and demonise all opponents.

We are all beyond redemption here (the result of living through almost 12 years of the increasing lunacy of your precious "party") so I suggest you waste no more time "monitoring" us but go somewhere else where there is still an appetite for leftist lies and New Labour nonsense. Difficult I know given the increasing tempo at which you are being found out but I'm sure you will find a barmy little marxist blog somewhere to virtually hoist your little red flag (with a single yellow star no doubt) and spout leftist mythology ad nauseum with the other comrades.

There, I hope that was rude and irrational enough to satisfy your supercilious leftist bigotry in stereotyping us. But in case not I can think of a few more things to write about you and your ilk to reinforce your prejudices.

joe

The end of that quote " and we're going to win" didn't happen in Vietnam ????

Frank P

Nicholas; (12.03am)

A wonderful flaying of HM; though it will be lost on the target, who is just a bag of sand, but it was nonetheless an excellent exercise 'pour encourager les autres' and very good entertainment for the rest of us.

We await, of course, the inevitable result ... but I shall not be able to to read it, as my scroll finger works by reflex action now when I see the HM monogram. Good luck; he won't go, y'know. I think he's been assigned. And if it provokes the sort of response from you that it did, then it's no bad thing. Excellent (as always)!

Verity

Nicholas - Bravo! Bravo!

An unanswerable tour de force that should blast this windy Aussie lefty out of the water ... but let's not be overly optimistic.

Frank P, you may be more canny than me and thus right when you say he's probably been assigned, but I read him as a fussy, vindictive elderly miss of royal extraction if you get my point.

Frank P

Verity; I always get your point, gel. But I (nearly) always stop short of such insinuations myself, lest it triggers the finely tuned sensors of those you mention with the inevitable tsunami of cloying pink candyfloss laced with the acid of acrimonious angst that would engulf any thread after such speculation. Moreover, your tentative assumption and mine are not mutually exclusive in this particular case, y'know. :-)