Article

2007-01-22 Britain

British Defence spending is lowest since the 1930s

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by mrp 2007-01-22 10:22|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 And we all remember what happened to Briton when the world was going nuts and they cut their funding this low.

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-01-22 11:32|| 2007-01-22 11:32|| Front Page Top

#2 The entire Cabinet should be arrested for this. If things get as bad as they are likely to get, we may see a return to rule by Her/His Majesty's Privy Cabinet. Clearly, the people - and I include myself - have shown ourselves to be incompetent to elect a Parliament capable of defending the Realm.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-01-22 12:11|| 2007-01-22 12:11|| Front Page Top

#3 UK has had to find funds to house all these muslim immigrants who dont want to work!!!!

Thanks Tony!!!

Posted by Ebbolump Glomotle9608 2007-01-22 12:34|| 2007-01-22 12:34|| Front Page Top

#4 Appeasement bordering on abject surrender was a major theme of British politics in the 1930's. A lone voice in the wilderness called for an extraordinary military build up, but his voice was rejected until it was almost too late. His voice was persistant. Thank you Mr. Churchill.

Today England appears to be very much in tune with the appeasers from the 1930's. Actually, it's worse. There are more islamists entrenched in GB today than there were entrenched Nazi sympathizers at any period of the 1930's.

Why should anyone be surprised to learn that England is abdicating it's duty to defend from without that which it will not defend from within.

I recall from Mark Steyn's book (Face of the Tiger) the story of Queen Elizabeth several days after 9/11. Her Majesty was the first British monarch in the history of her once magnificent Empire to STAND and SING the anthem of a foreign country (albeit one her relatives played a hand in establishing).

Steyn records that tears welled in her eyes when she sang the WORDS of the song written by an unheralded lawyer in the bay outside the City of Baltimore during the last time the eastern seaboard of the US came under sustained attack (compliments of the Royal Navy).

Steyn engaged in conjecture. He wrote that her tears at St. Paul's Cathedral were most sincere in no small part because the Grand Old Lady got it. Her majesty understood something many (most)of her subjects did not: That the true guarantor of the continued freedom of her entire Empire rest squarely on the shoulders of the unruly cousins for whom she was in mourning.

It's further recorded (by Steyn) that the great organ of St. Paul's Cathedral bellowed the strains of the American cousin's CALL to WAR. The Queen stood and sang the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the words of which were last heard in that Great Cathedral during the internment ceremony for a giant and the Greatest British Prime Minister of the 20th century.

Dear Great Britain: You have cousins here who will stand with you but you must first be prepared to stand on your own. It may not be too late.

Posted by Mark Z">Mark Z 2007-01-22 14:48|| 2007-01-22 14:48|| Front Page Top

#5 It seems time for all those retired military people to stand for Parliament on a platform of supporting the troops. I'm silling to bet that they'd garner enough votes to get the attention of the two pacifist parties -- Liberal and Tory, I mean -- even if it was the Conservative Shadow Defence Minister who brought this up to discomfit the government.

Posted by trailing wife 2007-01-22 14:52|| 2007-01-22 14:52|| Front Page Top

#6 Britain seems to be further down the road to the New World Order envisioned by its leftists (and those of the USA). The country has taken leave of its senses, but may yet recover. Prince Harry, son of the beloved princess Diana, will be on the line in Iraq in May.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-01-22 15:05|| 2007-01-22 15:05|| Front Page Top

#7 What is all this bloody caterwauling about funding and troop levels?

Don't you know that we have achieved Peace In Our Time?

Posted by Neville Chamberlain 2007-01-22 15:16|| 2007-01-22 15:16|| Front Page Top

#8 Definitely not their finest hour.

Posted by xbalanke 2007-01-22 16:03|| 2007-01-22 16:03|| Front Page Top

#9 Excalibur

Britain does not have a democracy. What it has is a system designed to give as little power to the people as possible and give it to the parties instead.

Conider this: it is the party who sekects the candidates without you having anything to say about it. You donb't have the equivalent of primary elections like in America. In addition you don't even have a second round like in France who at least gives some possibilities to the people for picking the guy who will bear the colors of the left and the right in second round.

Then the Prlaiment meets (or more xactly the leading party and picvks the Prime Minister without asking you anything. In fact it can demote it, without asking you anything and without going to elections. Oh, and the whips are there to ensure that your reprtesentative votes go along party line ainstead of about defending the interests of his constintuency.

That is why you don't have to feel guilty about your representatives. You have any.

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-01-22 16:35|| 2007-01-22 16:35|| Front Page Top

#10 The Queen stood and sang the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic?

The Battle Hymn of the Republic? That one who speaks of men dying for settibg other free and who was a marching song of the Union during the Civil war? Are you sure?

Posted by JFM">JFM 2007-01-22 16:41|| 2007-01-22 16:41|| Front Page Top

#11 Pity is, there is no one like Winston Churchill in either major party today. Hell, you would be lucky to find a politician even worth half of Winston in all of Western Europe. What is weird is that the Royal Family may be the only hope for the UK : Prince Harry becomes King, invokes his right to dissolve Parliament and call new elections, and forces the British choose a decent government. Unfortunately, there is a greater chance of Harry Potter becoming a Labour PM than that happening.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2007-01-22 17:16|| 2007-01-22 17:16|| Front Page Top

#12 "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on."
Julia Ward Howe

JFM I am not sure about the being sung at Churchill's funeral but that last verse is a doozy. Sure to make a liberal squirm and an aclu lawyer wet himself.

I have never heard about HRH singing but I sure find it touching.

Even the Southerners sang that tune during the war and as a result became one of the most famous songs and poems to come out of the war between the states next to Dixie, of course.

Posted by SCpatriot 2007-01-22 17:57|| 2007-01-22 17:57|| Front Page Top

#13 The Battle Hymn of the Republic? That one who speaks of men dying for settibg other free and who was a marching song of the Union during the Civil war? Are you sure?

Yes, boys choir sang it with candles and everything. Damn moving and a little scary.

Posted by Shipman 2007-01-22 18:15|| 2007-01-22 18:15|| Front Page Top

#14 I like what GEORGE WILL + KRAUTHAMMER, etal. said or inferred about the AIRBUS vs BOEING controversy - AIRBUS hurt itself by arguing for, and winning, a bad contract which it knew wasn't in its best interests; and then made matters worse for itself by building a costs-heavy, oversized, mostly poorly-made/supplied passenger plane whose commercial strstegy was outdated before it even made its first flight. THE ONLY COMPANIES THAT MADE OUT WERE THOSE ENGAGED IN CONCRETE/CEMENT RECONSTRUX OF A380-damaged RUNWAYS-TAXIWAYS-APRONS. You know its not good when even dedic anti-Dubya/USA USLefty critics criticize Airbus on TV.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-01-22 21:48|| 2007-01-22 21:48|| Front Page Top

#15 #9
That's why it worked for so long, JFM.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-01-22 23:49|| 2007-01-22 23:49|| Front Page Top

23:49 gromgoru
23:42 gromgoru
23:38 Atomic Conspiracy
23:24 Skidmark
22:58 Skidmark
22:56 Pappy
22:55 Skidmark
22:47 Pappy
22:27 Barbara Skolaut
22:18 49 Pan
22:17 Atomic Conspiracy
22:08 CrazyFool
22:06 Skidmark
21:59 JosephMendiola
21:57 Chuck Simmins
21:56 JosephMendiola
21:48 JosephMendiola
21:37 Frank G
21:33 twobyfour
21:17 Chuck Simmins
21:01 Swamp Blondie
20:52 KBK
20:52 JosephMendiola
20:45 JosephMendiola