A paean to the people

kinglear

We had both courage and fortitude then, and a capacity NOT to worry too much about elf 'n safety

bernerlap

Wonderful film Fraser, thanks.
As for the role of what Mr Walker thinks of as the state in WW2; he should be referred to the grat Bomber Harris. Every time he met any civil servant he asked;'And what have you done to hinder the war effort today.'
We won the war inspite of bureaucrats not because of them.
And if anyone has any doubts I suggest they look at the books by Harris and Pathfinder Bennett.

Peter From Maidstone

Please don't give David Walker any space on CH. This is why I guess your readership is dropping and you are worried about the future. We don't want to read things from such people. There are so many, many other excellent right of centre people you could have contribute, but your first instinct is always to turn to a socialist.

This is why, presently, the Spectator does not seem to have a rosy future.

denis cooper

In 1941 the country was fighting for its life, as the film says, and it had a government which was determined that it would survive.

Now we have a political establishment which at best doesn't give a toss whether or not the country survives, and at worst is determined to actively terminate its existence as an independent sovereign state.

Cameron, Clegg, Miliband - not a shred of patriotism between them, as far as I can see, just an eagerness to ensure that we are totally subjugated to a European superstate.

This is what Cameron said in the Commons last Monday:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm101220/debtext/101220-0001.htm

“I must say it is profoundly not in Britain’s interest to see the break-up of the eurozone”

Given that the existence and expansion of the eurozone is clearly a very serious threat to our long term national interests, I beg to differ.

Frank P

Well, political and nationalist carping to one side; that little film brought back vivid memories of childhood surrounded by aerodromes active in The Battle of Britain, which shaped my conservative and traditionalist leanings. Propaganda, maybe! But one hopes it may have tweaked a few consciences States-side in those days when propaganda was a necessary tool for survival and an antidote to the Hitler's raving megalomania.

It seems to me that the propaganda of the MSM these days is entirely subversive - particularly that emitting from out national broadcaster.

Thank you for digging out that clip, Fraser. I had never seen it before and enjoyed it immensely. Nostalgia with knobs on! And though I may have a dig at the Jocks from time to time, regarding what seems in these days an inordinate share of hands on today's political levers of power, it is always with the recognition that they contributed, pro-rata, an inordinate amount to the war effort, through some of the fiercest fighters of our mighty military during the critical campaigns of our homeland history. And if you think that last sentence is a tad too alliterative, then think onomatopoeia and set it to the tune of a Spitfire's machine gun.

oldtimer

Well it is certainly no "paean of praise to the state" as Mr Walker puts it; but neither is it an endorsement of Mr Cameron`s notion of the Big Society.

To me this somehat turgid commentary was surprising only in the number of toys said to be on sale in the shops. My recollection is that they had all but disappeared by Xmas 1940, especially anything made of metal as some of the model aircraft appear to be.

However it was a time when it could truly be said "We are all in this together". In fact the state was extremely intrusive, but people accepted it as a matter of sheer survival.

Nicholas

You couldn't expect David Walker to admire this. As one of New Labour's national socialists his spiritual view of how England should be "remade" belongs in the nose of a Heinkel bomber looking through a bombsight or strutting the New Reich Chancellery in jackboots.

A loathesome reptile.

call me dave

Read Correlli Barnett's "The Audit of War" for details of strikes organised during WW2. Not the unions' finest hour!

yank

So some fringer cuts loose with some twitterings, and the Spectator gleefully seizes it up, as proof of their own conservative bona fides?

Please.

This is a leftist publication. It fits comfortably into that slot. The only question remains whether it buys into full authoritarianism. The point is open.

Peter From Maidstone

Nicholas, he is a loathsome reptile indeed, which makes it all the more surprising that Fraser thinks the readership of the Spectator would want to be subjected to anything he might write.

What is going on with the Spectator? What is it trying to become? It is certainly NOT a right of centre publication.

Edward Sutherland

call me dave: you are absolutely right about the strikes during WW2. My late mother was training as a physiotherapist at the beginning of the war at a large central Liverpool hospital. She told me that she and her fellow students were indignant that they had to treat striking dockers at the hospital at a time when troops had had to be diverted to unloading ships because of the dock strikes. Of course, things changed when Hitler attacked Russia and strikes became unacceptable to the much-revered mass murderer "Uncle Joe" Stalin. But well done Fraser for digging out the film.

Baron

Fraser, thanks, an inspiring choice, a fulfilling Christmas gift for the spirit rather than the belly; it truly was the time this country was at its best because her unwashed were at their best; ignore the Walker shite, he of the phylum that has fugged things up, still doesn't get it.

Osred

Interesting clip not seen before..but.

David Walker & Fraser Nelson are two sides of the same counterfeit coinage. Walker takes the classic Left approach to facts by placing them in a Hall of Mirrors and commenting on the reflection. Mr N meanwhile plugs away at reviving the corpse of a bit of metropolitan PR drivel.

dave will be pleased though.

JohnAnt

This is a fine film - but it is definitely not "an American's film on England" - it was commissioned and financed by the Ministry of Information as war propaganda and directed by Harry Watt, a member of John Grierson's left-wing documentary team. Quentin Reynolds lent himself to the enterprise as the film's presenter.
That's all OK - we needed propaganda like this at the time, it was effective, and the American 'voice' - whose script will certainly have been co-written, vetted and edited by Watt and others at the MoI- was a deliberate choice: in late 1940/early 1941 we desperately wanted to persuade the US to come into WWII on our side.
I'm beginning to worry about Fraser's grasp of historical nuances.

Edward McLaughlin

Nice clip Fraser, but yank seems to have things fairly summed-up.

However, I disagree with those who call for a bar on any comment here from David Walker. His twitter thus far has shown him to be in quite some disarray. Until today, I was not even aware of his existence. From just this one utterance I know something of what he is about and what we are up against.

yank

You know, I drifted past that point, because I just assumed it explicit that this was propaganda, aimed at the US. But on second thought, and reading the blogger's post again, I see that you're right... he's not aware of that.

So let me make it even more explicit, for him and any others so light of weight. A propaganda piece targeted at the US then would most definitely exclude "government bodies" and the privileged class inhabiting them... as those would be the equivalent of a red flag to a bull. Lords, ladies, kings, viscounts, blithering twits, field marshals, war mongers, Sir Humphreys, imperialists and nattering nabobs of all stripes would have ill suited the propaganda purposes here.

The recent resumption of the Thirty Years War, announced by the same idiots who started it all in the first place? I think not. Always a good idea to squirrel those folks away, when you're begging for help.

My question would be whether this piece was shown to the people at home at the time, or whether alternative propaganda was used.

And further, now that we're at it, let's remember that warmaking is the state's biggest absorption of personal freedom and liberty of all. It stands in direct antipathy of that which you're fishing for in this blogpost. So then, you here seem to be saying that people must submit meekly as the state tramples over all, and swallow whatever propaganda comes down the pike in the meantime?

Global warming and the Luftwaffe are equivalents, then?

In a reverse double ironical blind jujitsu sorta way, the commie was right. Best back up out of this ditch, and get back up on the wet road.

Fergus Pickering

Wht a funny old felow you are, Denis Cooper. Here is the reat Dave courting unpopularity by giving gorgeous George his head to cut child benefits and treble student fees, both excellent unpopular policies which will help to make Britain great, and you say he lacks patriotism. Blair lacked patriotism. Everything he did was to aggrandise himself. Ditto Brown, though he had the excuse that he was mad.

Nicholas

Ha ha! Just watched 'A Matter of Life and Death' (1946) and our friend yank was in it, being played sympathetically by Raymond Massey.

yank

Your references always seem to be sitcoms and science fiction, Nicholas.

That would explain a lot.

Nicholas

Your comments always seek to pigeon hole and stereotype people, yank.

That would explain a lot too.

Nicholas

Oh, yeah, and for absolute accuracy, yank, the sitcom was referenced by you not I. You misquoted "They don't like it up 'em" in the first place, not I. I merely corrected what was another in a long line of your taking liberties with the truth in order to articulate Anglophobe bile. You also mentioned Blackadder first, not I. So to be accurate they were both your sitcom references rather than mine. Got that now?

And is a 'A Matter of Life and Death' science fiction? It is usually described as a romantic fantasy but contains more religion than science. Whatever, the homespun Anglophobe bile of Abraham Farlan reminded me at once of you.

yank

Well no, Nicholas, you've got your facts wrong again. Your provided "correction" to my supposedly "incorrect" quotation was in fact a Wiki link to a Brit sitcom... a fictional usage. You might want to go back and click on your link, if you need a reminder.

It seems fictional sitcom quotations are preferred, in your world. The science fiction bit seems a newer offshoot of that attachment, but related.

Perhaps your next absorbed work will be one absolving Butcher Cumberland, finally. Anything's possible in fiction, you know (and you do seem to know, you know).

Nicholas

Well, all-knowing and patronising yank, I would be interested in the origin of that quotation in its "non-fictional" usage.

As for absolving "Butcher" Cumberland, we have been there before and to no purpose. Your prejudices are as deep-rooted and unassailable as your pompous belief in your own certainties. Indeed you are a meme for the special relationship itself.

TGF UKIP

Well Fraser, this post of yours had me roaring approval right until the final para when it driibles away to your usual spin and promotion for Dave and his progressive's dream of "The Big Society." Small wonder that you get such a pasting on your following post.

yank

Well, you can't be all that goddamn interested in the origins of that quote, Nicholas, since you linked to a fecking Brit sitcom to explain it.

And what's this "special relationship" you speak of? Is it something like the video attached to this blogpost? "We decided to abandon the frogs and skidaddle, but the hun had other ideas and is bombing the bejeezus out of us and now we're all having to study german. Help."

Yours truly,

Your Betters

P.S. Oh, and it's for the children.

Nicholas

Ha ha! A little bit of tail twisting and out comes the truly Ugly - and Angry - American to pour his Anglophobe bile over our treasured legacies. Now we can read your true feelings about that film. But you really should write your silly parody in a way that doesn't so obviously reveal that huge chip on your shoulder.

The "special relationship"? You must know what that is, yank. The one your country has exploited and used to piss all over us for nigh on 80 years.

But indeed I am interested in the origin of the "silky smart-ass remark", yank, because the coincidence is so remarkable and the "sitcom origin" so well known here. Please do share it with us. Heaven forbid that you should be bluffing?

yank

What "treasured legacies" would those be, Lord Nicholas? The ones with a beggar nation beggaring again, as historical, and like the BoE is doing these days?

And let me get this straight, first you did refer to a sitcom, then you didn't refer to a sitcom, but now you ABSOLUTELY referred to a sitcom and everybody knows it. Have we got that right then? Let's firm it up before we proceed any further. It's such an important topic, these limey sitcoms, so we must be certain, and I know how important you find sitcoms in your analyses and discussion. Why, they're almost as important as science fiction. Almost.

As for me, I'm still entertained by the whole bayonet business you fantasized about it all. You should publish that. "I saw it on a sitcom (I think), and that's the way it is, for centuries (or at least since tv was invented.)"

Nicholas

Go on, yank, do a bit more rabble-rousing. It's all you have left you silly, wee man.

Still no reference for that quotation yet I see. Just more hyperbole and belittlement worthy of a socialist - which of course is what you are under that homespun skin.

And you couldn't get anything straight if you lay down on reinforced concrete under a steamroller.

yank

Yes, I see. I'm a wee man, yet somehow worthy of a long string of posts whining about my weeish ways.

Look friend, you'll grit your teeth and smolder, but in future, it's likely best for your own health, that you leave my posts alone. Perhaps pass them by, would be best for you. They'll be quite disrespectful of the twisted worldview that you cherish, no doubt. But it's best for you if you walk by them. Simples.

Because if you don't, I'll be twisting your imperialist tail, first thing. A twisted, imperialist worldview that history and reality have both rejected, but that you still cling to. That's the tail twist here... every single time you succumb to your lesser judgment. It's not me... it's history and reality that will be twisting your tail, and you only bring that upon yourself. So don't.

Nicholas

yank, it takes two. Your parthian shots are predictably belittling and dismissive. We don't agree but only you bask in the glow of self-righteousness.

"Lesser judgement"? Well, it depends whose history you believe I suppose.

"walk by them"? That says it all it really. You swagger these pages in a black hat and wearing a six gun, as chauvinist and bullying as the country you represent. Walk by them? Because you say so? Don't think so you balloon.

yank

Suit yourself. And when next you whimper along behind one of my posts, don't whine again when you get slapped around, because that's exactly what's going to happen, again.

And remember, it's history and reality doing the slapping. I'm just their always reticent, tail-twisting facilitator. ;-)

I'll leave you again to this one though. And perhaps you will get the message this time.

Nicholas

I'll never whine in the face of a bully, yank, which is just what you are and only what you are. An egotistical shit-for-brains Ugly American who thinks his posts bear some special privilege and has the audacity to whine about "nabobs" perhaps not realising he fits that category perfectly.

Get the message? I have not yet begun to fight.