I see that Archbishop Welby has waded into the political arena with a suggestion that forming some sort of committee of all the talents might take the toxicity out of Brexit.
I think he hopes that Brexit might be capable of compromise. As I understand it unless we leave the Customs and Trading Union we would be unable to control our borders or trade agreements with potential trading partners.
Whether you voted to leave or stay, let’s at least tell the truth. I really dislike the nonsense talked about leaving the EU. We have had a referendum – whether you like or dislike the result you must agree that we have to live with it- let’s stop moaning and make it a success.
When we leave we must be able to control our borders for if we are unable to control them we stop being a home and stay as an hotel.
Then we are told that we have to be in the single market to trade with it. Rubbish! Most of the world seems to be surviving well enough outside it, why can’t we?
And why do all our businesses have to have a tariff free access? The tariffs are low and with currency adjustments we will be able to live with them just fine.
And why would trading under World Trade Organisation rules be a such disaster? Our businesses already trade with a over 100 countries under these rules and we know exactly what we are doing. It’s a commonplace.
Then we are told by experts that we will be palpably poorer outside the EU. Sorry but I don’t believe the experts, they are the same people who told us that we should join the Euro.
And my friends in universities tell us that our institutions and universities will be denied access to the finest minds. Nonsense! No one in HMG wants to stop the coming and going of talent. In fact, I understand that outside the EU our talent pool will be wider.
And why will we be turning our back on the largest market in the world? Of course we will continue to trade with our European friends, yes, we both need each other but heck, the EU is not that successful. In the last fifteen years the Eurozone has grown by 27% and the UK has grown by 40%.
Roosevelt told the American people that they had nothing to fear but fear itself. That surely applies to us today.
Millennial Snowflakery
My generation was taught the merits of a stiff upper lip. For example, when eight-year old Quintin Hailsham (one-time Lord Chancellor) arrived at his prep school, the bigger boys at once cut up his teddy bear before his weeping face and whooping with glee, flushed it down the lavatory.
Okay my education was not quite as nasty as that – for one thing, I didn’t have a teddy to cut up – but compared to today’s pampering, it was merciless enough. And I’ll bet, dear Reader, that yours was pretty razor-edged as well. I recall vividly that from an early age, any physical peculiarities or pustular eruptions were highlighted by schoolmates who then teased out our character weaknesses and paraded them at every opportunity. One windy friend was called “Farty” for four long years… My time in the army was equally challenging: the Sandhurst staff roared their opinions at top tempo about our physical and mental inadequacies to anyone prepared to listen.
“You ghastly inadequate bastard! ” was the least of the abuse. Just imagine our young tolerating that kind of treatment today.
Harsh Truths
There were rules that governed our behaviour – and anyone who breached the unwritten codes was cast in outer darkness. The lesson was that emotional continence was not an option, it was essential. It was no use complaining or moaning, and to let others see you were unduly sensitive spelt disaster – for if weaknesses could be identified, the sharks would swiftly move in for the kill.
On reflection, I reckon it did no lasting harm: we were toughened to cope with life’s slings and arrows.
But today’s young are obsessed with sensitivity and self. What on earth has happened to us all? Is it raging feminism and political correctness that has reduced the young to a laundry box of big girl’s blouses?
How’s this for offended sensibilities? A student was admitted to hospital for a week having read a novel that was part of her course. She claimed to have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) apparently triggered by the book. While I accept, of course, that PTSD can occur amongst solders who have been on active duty, I reject the idea that our peacetime life is so traumatic that ordinary citizens need to be treated like shell-shocked veterans of war. That sums it up really: 20 million deaths in the First World War, 62 million deaths in the Second World War. There was no counselling then but here is a weeping student overwhelmed by a daft novel.
And it’s not just our introspection either. Political correctness prevents our telling one another hard truths because we are terrified of giving offence. So doctors daren’t tell patients that unless they – or their children – shed some blubber, they will wear out their hips, hearts and attract diabetes. Who is brave enough to tell a friend they smell? Who dares advise a chum if he drinks any more, he will die an early death? Do we dare tell a friend that if he leaves his wife and infant children to shack up with a Thai girl he found on the Internet, it is bound to end in mayhem with lives destroyed? And he will be sucked dry of money.
The educated middle classes have abandoned the moral authority they once had. What morality is and who holds it is today hotly contested, so we shrug and walk away. Our liberal ideology has persuaded us to abandon the imposition of moral teaching, even formal education on children; so we daren’t teach girls how to cook decent food or even set out clearly what constitutes a nutritious meal. Apparently it is considered to be ”sexist” to teach girls how to cook, so parents let their children choose what they want to eat with disastrous results.
In a local school play, everyone had a part (it was more a crowd control exercise than a “performance”). Out of the hundred or so children, there were three – around eight years old – who were larded in fat. When the play ended, they waddled out with their parents like tugs towing a steamer. I suppose neither the headmistress nor the school doctor would dare risk the vicious row if they warned of future health hazards.
I reckon that letting your children grow obese is a form of child abuse.
Life and Death
The idea that no one should criticise anyone else can have grave results. Take the ghastly case of baby “P”, beaten to death by his parents. Shortly before his death, Peter was seen by a social worker. However, his face was a mess of chocolate. The social worker was so affected by political correctness that she failed to insist the child be cleaned in case she caused “offence”. Had the child been cleaned, of course the deep bruises would have been visible – and perhaps a life might have been saved. How terrible is that story?
And consider that in the last few years, the industrial rape of young girls in Northern towns by Asian men continued unabated because the social workers and the police chose to turn a blind eye towards the abuse rather than run the risk of being thought to be “raaaacist”.
Some even thought that children should be allowed to choose prostitution as a “lifestyle” choice.
Go figure. How craven and marshmallow-soft have we become?