High life | 31 May 2018

I’m back in New York and digesting the five glorious days spent in Normandy. What was the fighting all about, you may ask: was it about freedom, equality, cultural diversity, man’s dignity — all liberal catchphrases these days? Liberty and freedom are also big words nowadays, but all I see are massive central governments with arbitrary powers à la Brussels and Washington DC. Normandy promised us a lot but, as far as I’m concerned, delivered little. If freedom of speech was non-existent in Germany in 1940, political correctness makes it just as rare in London and New York in 2018.

Our stifling culture of PC makes the sacrifices of those young men who fell in Normandy seem, well, not in vain exactly, but hardly worth it. The material and spiritual degradation of the post-modern West — the porn, the violence and the greed — are not worth the life of a single Green Jacket, G.I. or Panzergrenadier. Call me a cynic if you like, but after visiting the graves of young Americans, British, Canadian and German soldiers, grief was replaced by rage at how we’ve squandered our precious victory. We are now all prisoners of a stifling cultural uniformity that punishes those who trespass as quickly and as mercilessly as any Gestapo visit ever did. Qualities such as virtue and civility are seen as irrational and harmful, and PC humbug reigns supreme.

I’ve already mentioned our Führer James, the king of LNGs Peter, and mein Kamerad Tassilo; the rest of the party were John Moore, a very successful businessman, Matthew Westerman, of the Imperial War Museum, Martin Houston, an oil and gas tycoon, Robinson West, a Washington insider, and Tom Harley, an Aussie international fixer on his way to Saudi Arabia, whom I instructed to ‘tell that fat towelhead MBS to stop murdering Yemeni children through starvation’, and who answered:‘I will make sure to use just such words for the maximum of effect.’