Peter Hitchens is an author and journalist whose contrarian takes on drug policy, education and foreign policy have found him occupying a singular place in the British media – with his brand of conservatism often angering audiences who would consider themselves staunchly conservative.
He sat down with Aaron to discuss grammar schools, Gaza and Britain’s profoundly inhumane actions at the end of the Second World War.
00:00 Intro
03:16 What keep you up at night?
04:41 The fall of the Tories
12:09 The decline in British education
25:45 Do we live in a dangerous world?
27:59 British ‘war crimes’ in WWII
39:00 British WWII Myths
51:05 Israel & Palestine
1:10:56 Putin and Russia
1:19:57 Nordstream
1:21:56 The future of Britain
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Episodes of Downstream are released Sundays at 6PM on YouTube.
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I me I know I’m supposed to be an insula thickheaded um fascist but actually I’ve spent an awful lot of my time traveling particularly on the continent of Europe and I know how other people live and in many cases I’ve noticed that they live a
Lot better than we do uh you talk to people in the Netherlands and they’re astonished at how old-fashioned and and um run down our country looks when they go and visit it and you know what they mean uh the the lives that the lives that we lead are not as good as they
Should be I’m also I still retain sort of Social Democratic desire to reform the lives of the poor and I look at it things like housing and and education transport and I feel Ashamed in Britain we tell ourselves lots of stories some true some less so one of the central stories is National mythology of the second world war how we choose to remember an extraordinary event from the Dunkirk Fiasco to the Battle of Britain to D-Day even to its aftermath of the welfare state
1945 this is seen overwhelmingly as the Genesis of the modern country we all live in today but what if that story isn’t true furthermore what if that story is a major reason Reon why we keep on making mistakes when it comes to foreign policy what if that’s the reason why we
Go into Iraq under a series of delusions we occupy Afghanistan for more than a decade what if that self-image we’ve created is the reason why we think we can police the Red Sea while British High streets disintegrate well today’s guest has some really unique insights into all of this
Peter Hitchens is a columnist at the mail on Sunday and his recent book the phony Victory looks at how Britain commemorates the second world war and the functions that memory serves for politicians when they want to invade countries in the 21st century Peter Hitchens welcome to Downstream well it’s
Lovely to be here again it is lovely to have you on again the first conversation was F fting insightful many people said you beat me hands down I don’t think it was a competition quite that’s not the point of these absolutely wasn’t no I’m obviously flattered to think that they
Thought it was but I didn’t treat it as what no I don’t and I think that’s something that um I think people look at a lot of Legacy Media and they look at things as contestation we try and be deliberative here at Nara media uh so I’m glad you say that today’s
Conversation is going to be more around Foreign Affairs security policy um clearly with a spotlight on Russia Iran China because you have obviously very original views on this stuff in a UK context so I’ll start with this one Peter Hitchin what keeps you up at night um politically not
Personally not much really because I don’t it’s not as if I come home think well if only I hadn’t signed that treaty or if only I hadn’t appointed David Cameron foreign secretary this war wouldn’t have happened I’m not responsible for anything it’s forign foreign policy is
Not a thing which keeps me way night because I have no influence over it was there ever a time that there were things that were who’ve always been politically engaged used to be a trist and whatnot um were there things that used to keep you up at well I never had the fantasy
When I was at trist that I was likely to influence the world anytime soon and do you know what I was absolutely spot on I never did and since I became a national newspaper colonist I don’t think I’ve ever influenced anything at all ever
Either so it would be nice in a way to be kept aw by the thought that that someone had actually listened to me and followed my ideas and that that policy might or might not have turned out well as it is I don’t have that trouble so
You don’t think you’ve made any impact onal not even your entire career the whole thing not anything at all not ever no one ever pays any attention to anything I say until 20 years after this when they say oh gosh yes you were right that’s still you know yeah but some
People it’s all happened by then it’s no it’s it’s no use you said the conservative party basically died after 2010 well it it the conservative party I began attacking the conservative party as useless round about 2003 and I think I’ve officially declared it useless in 2007 and I was
Urging people never to V vot for it again after about 2007 particularly in 2010 and they paid no attention and so we got David Cameron why should people not have voted consider obviously you’re writing this the mail on Sunday oh because look most politics take place between general elections they take
Place within parties parties have revolutionized the labor party have been revolutionized in my view by grin Euro Communists in the Years leading up to 1997 and was a wholly different party from anything else anybody had ever faced one of their objectives because they are gr Euro Communists or rather
The people who run it are was to transform the conservative party you had that kind of cultural moral and political revolution every institution has to conform and the main opposition party was one of their major targets and in 2010 David Cameron was pretty much standing for Elation on a blairite
Platform he didn’t understand it he didn’t know what it was about but he’ adopted it because he felt that it was the only way he would be allowed back into office and he was right but it also meant that the the British people no longer had any friends at Westminster
The whole place was all the political parties were under the control of the same fundamental Elite so pretty Patel Sol bravman are members of a political party which can be characterized as Euro communist well it’s no it can’t be characterized as Euro communist these people are not these people are not
Marxist leninist they don’t understand what it is they’re doing it’s a party that has been defeated by and accepted the nostrums of it without knowing what what they are you must remember mayard K’s famous remark I’ll paraphrase because I can’t do it exactly that whenever he met anybody particularly a
Businessman who who scoffed and said I have no ideology at all the man was invariably the slave of some defunct Economist and it’s the case of the conservative party the policies it follows entirely follows the equality and diversity agenda and implements the equality Act of 2010 with absolute enthusiasm is is that
Of is that of the Blair out Euro communist but they have no idea what they’re doing and you don’t think that could change within the conservative party so for instance I mean you’ve said they’re not very bright so let’s take some substantial things that they could
Change which would be a step towards the things you’re talking about they could um scrap the Supreme Court for instance they could actually it’s a very very important example of one thing because the Supreme Court has been an enormous part of the of the change in this
Country and the way it’s run but they’ve never made any effort to do so they haven’t even attempted to reform it and for instance one one quite clever reform would be to have hearings for the appointments of Supreme Court Justices and bring in some kind of parliamentary
Scrutiny of it but they haven’t even come up with that these people are completely their own masters and they they haven’t the government has no influence over them at all and they changed the law as they said they would in ways which which hugely limit the power of government by comparison with
The past so is the your relationship to the conservative party which like said changes really in the early 2000s all the way through to 2010 that seems like a quite clear moment which you’ve written about is that because you just you simply became tired of having to um
Elevate people who you viewed as stupid but it wasn’t lots of people in politics were stupid uh and always have been and and always will be now what I the problem that you have as a national newspaper colonist is you’re confronted over and over again by a number of
Things which keep coming round when whether it be the total ineffectiveness of the police force or the extraordinary enthusiasm of a poor and not very strong country for going to war abroad or the the the accelerating collapse of the education system and you write about it
And nothing happens so in my case I go I go away and think well there must be more I can do about this so I will go away and try and write a book about it which will be a partly a way of educating myself and also a way of
Establishing an area of knowledge which anybody can consult which will help them come to the same conclusions that I’ve reached and I I write these books and nobody reviews them and nobody reads them that’s not I wrote a book called The the originally called the broken Compass which was later changed to the
Cameron delusion to explain what was happening in the conservative party and it it’s very good and I recommend it strongly but hardly anybody has ready if they had they’d know what had happened and how it had happened and what the purpose of it had been the abolition of
Britain has sold very well sing I think many authors would love to have those numbers you say nobody reads your books selling is selling is one thing reading is another authors mostly have to be content with the fact that someone’s bought the book they they generally keep
Quiet about whether they’ve read it or not how many books do you get given or buy that you don’t actually ever read get given I get given far too many that I actually go out and buy I read I read three qus of them I read intently probably half of them yes okay
Well that’s a bit like asking it’s like a doctor asking a man how much he drinks isn’t it because you already knew what I was asking you there whether you and you’re exceptional any case you’re you’re a you’re you’re obviously a diligent reader a lot of people buy
Books so they can have a nice bookshelf particularly nowadays it’s a great thing for Zoom purposes isn’t it have books on so that’s it part of the shelfy hasht Shelf think I I would love to know and no one has ever really dared to do the research
The Publishers don’t want to know how many What proportion of books that get bought actually get read but certainly when I have conversations with people or indeed on some occasions are interviewed by people it’s quite clear they haven’t read the things that I’ve written okay I have to be honest with abolition of
Britain I haven’t read it I’ve listened to it no I listen to it as an audio book and I’ll tell you why because you narrate it yeah quite this is like it’s in’s booming voice so what an opportunity yeah right will you put it I don’t so what do you think the
Difference is between reading new and listening I think reading is much better than audio books you’re probably right but again for in 1984 uh if you ask people uh how it begins or How It Ends they don’t know that’s true they everybody thinks they’ve read it they’ve seen some
Television dramatization of it or a film of it they haven’t read it so I say I make references to bits in it like the Goldstein book or the news speak dictionary and they be blankly you know they haven’t read it people don’t read books very often they certainly don’t
Read mine but I know I I I read mine sometimes I even go back and read them after I’ve written them I think hm yeah that’s good forgotten that for people the Cameron delusion I have to say if you want to know what’s wrong with the Tory party then that’s your
That’s that’s the place to go it’s still in print listen a very fine picture on the front of it of David Cameron turning left on a bicycle for people watching or listening by the way your your audio books are a treat that might sound very strange the abolition of Britain when
You’re talking about you know John Reed and Tony Blair as Euro Communists you know you saying it I you know it’s quite uh satisfying musical almost very Musical you know I one of my regrets actually is with my book I didn’t read it um so it makes a big difference yeah
Well I wouldn’t have wanted anybody else to do it well I think you’re very wise man for saying that you said about the disintegration of the education system yes is that true because all the international data with regards to the UK suggest that for instance on things
Like reading what we just talked about we’re actually doing pretty well things like maths and science not so well but actually we’re doing better than we were potentially you’re referring to the P of studies aren’t you the oecd well I don’t regard the oecd as a neutral Observer of
The world the OCD is is an egalitarian organization and it has its own views so for instance whenever it does surveys of Education in Europe the German speaking countries which still have selective State education tend to come out quite badly and I I think that’s ridiculous I’m I’m suspicious of the pza
Studies I don’t think that they should necessarily be treated as as as wholly objective but if they had the same methodology over time and the UK is improving over time that would still suggest that we’re improving but it isn’t I I have a very simple measure and it works which is the examination
System of the country which you’re you’re looking at and what’s become of it and there used to be when I was at Secondary School an examination called The GC level which has been replaced now by the gcsc and a simple study of the history of that examination first of all
It was watered down and then had to be abolished because the the reformed secondary schools could could cope with it will tell you much of what you need to know as will studies of the sort of things which which newly arrived University students need to do before
They can even get onto their courses in many cases these days what I’m a living witness to this I I know what schools used to be like I know what they’re like now and I can tell you they have not improved do you have you have grandchildren I do you do I suppose
There’s that as well isn’t there you can sort of there’s an observation yes there is an observation there yes why do people Chang this stuff with regards to Ola I mean it’s one of those things you know I’m on the left I must refer you to what wasn’t working about I must refer
You to my most recent book A A revolution bet trade not to be confused with its um it’s with the revolution bet trade but it describes in detail what happened when the the governments of the middle 60s got rid of academic selection in state schools copy but that’s understandable it’s understandable but
It it’s just true again I wrote the book cuz got sick of the fact that there wasn’t any book like it and that nobody had done it and and therefore if I if I wanted to point people to to the to the most basic simple historical fact there
Wasn’t one place where they were all assembled now there is you can read it you should it’s doesn’t W take you long it’s actually again it’s it’s uh it’s short and very easy and at the end of it you’ll be astonished at what happened let’s go back to selection in a moment
But I can if you want to one can understand that in so much as or conservative can understand that in so much as there are people set of political commitments which do something because that aligns with their political commitments but o levels why are o levels scrapped because this is a
Technical change SC because because the schools couldn’t cope with them the new schools the new comprehensive schools couldn’t cope with them the pupils couldn’t pass them or or if they did they passed them at such low grades they had first of all to water down the grades to make it look better
And then they just got rid of them all together and they merged at the O level with an examination called called the the the csse into the GCSE which is a much lower level and indeed a different type of examination there it doesn’t test in the same way that o levels used
To so should we bring back o levels is that well you couldn’t because you you wouldn’t you wouldn’t have any one once one of the things that’s so catastrophic about this is that after about 30 or 40 Years of of inflated and watered down education there isn’t anybody left who
Could Teach the old the old the old syllabuses or or or could cope with them so you you you’ve actually destroyed something which you had and the grammar schools which were destroyed and which were open until 65 to anybody who was bright enough to get into them in many
Cases were schools hundreds of years old and I can’t think of any other reform of Education anywhere in the world which involved the systematic destruction of more than a thousand of the best schools in the country many of them stretching back into the age of Shakespeare but
That’s what we do they just don’t exist anymore they’ve gone as of the people who taught in them i a national catastrophe Bournemouth Bournemouth school they kept they kept the dream alive for you well they didn’t you see because in the end as they survived in Northern Ireland but what the northern
Irish gr schools do and any any school which is which is remotely selective and this is all private schools of course uh will will do fantastically well in the modern examination system but what they haven’t done is continue to use the old examination system they’ they’ve taken
On the GCSE and the and and the ZD a levels which come after it and therefore they can get the most terrific results but they’re not teaching at the same level of discipline and rigor that they had before so a response to all of this and I have my own criticisms of of
Selection having been through it uh but the standard response is that you shouldn’t be determining somebody’s life possibilities at 11 on the basis of a single exam what would you say to that well the moment we determine somebody’s life at the ede of 11 on the his parents
Income on National offer day you’re sent to the school which which is in the catchment area your parents can afford to live in is that better I mean I’m not I’m all in favor of Second Chances and in fact under the old system of of of selection viability
There were Second Chances quite a few uh but that that’s a separate issue you you will have selection and which you prefer selection by ability or selection by parental wealth or the willingness of parents to lie about their religious affiliations that’s that’s how it’s done now can that be better and the the
Schools as the suton trust which is no friend of mine in this argument but it’s come with more than one survey which show that the the the the better comprehensive schools which are not very good by old grammar stands but they are better are strongly socially selective for that very
Reason that they tend to be heavily populated by people whose parents are better off because of geography and yeah because that’s the way it goes and again as I’m they they understood this when when when Michael Stewart and then Anthony crossin began the destruction of the grar schools in in ‘ 65 they
Understood the catchment area problem they recognized it but they didn’t do anything about it because there isn’t anything they can do about it you’d have to have a almost Stylin Society to instruct people where to live or alternatively to bust people uh into schools many miles
From where they live which would be the only the only way of getting rid of that problem would it what would be the point of that what is the point of schools is the point of schools as the comprehensive campaigners thought the point of schools to create a more
Egalitarian society or is it to create an educated Society I think very much the second well I think a political it wasn’t it was never an educational project it was a political project I think they would say it’s about creating Fair access to education for all they wouldn’t say an egalitarian project
They’d say egalitarian in terms of egality of opportunity but it so hasn’t done that and it’s it’s been evident for decades that it’s failed completely to do that and that it’s actually created a more unequal society in which selection by wealth is replaced selection by ability in 1954 about 65% of peoples in
Grammar schools the best state schools in the country were from the working class find me anywhere in the country now a a good State School one of the top ranking ones where that is the case and find it so my experience it’s gone they destroyed it and therefore at no point
And this this is this is now almost 60 years ago they’ve had plenty of time to look at it and work out they made a mistake but imagine you’re you’re you’re you’re going with a friend who who wants to drive with you to to Manchester and you realize halfway through the Journey
In fact you’re you’re on the way to Newcastle upon time you’ve taken a wrong turning and you say to him look we’re on the wrong road we need to turn left a bit and go a bit more Northwest and Northeast and he said no no no I’m carrying on this
Way what do you think of him you think he’s off his trolley and it’s the same with all these governments they said they wanted to create a more equal society and they they didn’t and the evidence kept pouring in that they hadn’t and they never ever reversed
Their C or changed it They carried on doing the thing that they’ve been doing that was having the bad results that it is having and continues to have nothing changes you have all kinds of things all kinds of gimmicks in education from Tory and labor governments particular kinds
Of I forget even the names that David blun and used to come up with for all these supposedly special schools which they were creating but in the end and now it’s academies but in the end the problem remains selection for secondary education is done by wealth and the only
Point at which this isn’t happening is in the great successful six form colleges in London where there is absolutely rigorous academic selection but at the age of 15 16 when it’s far too late to lift Children of the poor out of out of whatever uh disasters they
Fall into the problem with selection at 15 is and 16 is that by then people’s paths in life already set at 11 12 or 13 it can change somebody’s life and lift them out of out of what would otherwise be a dismal fate of disappointment and
Waste 15 16 it’s too late see my my experience of grammar school and this is mid 90s to early 2000s um and like you said the present system is not functioning better in creating Fair out comes more equal s Etc we can agree on all that I think however I’d push back
On the claim that grammar schools can be strong vehicles for social mobility in so much as my experience now I appreciate Harold P Pinter went you know hack me grammar school Etc yeah back in the day my experience was that kids from poorer families um perhaps a chaotic
Home situation etc those were the kids that in year seven year eight year n drop out get expelled problem Behavior and the kids that stay on on were generally speaking middle class well that may that may be true because we have we have we’ve had an awful lot of social decline in this
Country since the 1950s and people growing up on the people laugh at the lady bird books account ladybird books accounts of council states in the 1950s they were actually drawn and made by people who lived there the world in which working class people lived in this
Country was very settled it was full of stable families and living in in in civilized homes in in Pleasant areas and the huge wave of disastrous family breakup which overwhelmed the country after the 1960s had not begun the schools schools can’t protect you against all of that they can
Protect you against some of it uh and so you can’t you can’t ask schools to be a a huge 100 foot concrete barrier against all social change but you can ask them to be to to offer a chance to people whose parents are not well off and
That’s I’m I’m just as much against and the abolition of Britain is very clear on this I have to say I’m just as much against the social changes which cause the problems which you mentioned uh as as I am against the transformation of State schools into a system of selection
By wealth I I thought you would go say say something completely different about how lots of of of middle class parents besiege the grammar schools and they they’re obviously uh as much affected by the wealth Factor as the comprehensive schools which I would say is largely true but that is because there the
Number of grammar schools remaining are mostly in well-off areas because in the poor areas labor councils vigorously closed them down and also because there are so few of them uh and they are besieged uh if you had a national system of of grammar schools which was never complete before they were abolished I
Have to say if you had a proper National system Ground Schools which I would create if I had the chance then that wouldn’t happen and it wouldn’t work either there’s two interesting points there before we move on sure so firstly I just thought I had to address it
Because otherwi we might slip by it and it wouldn’t get mentioned what you said there people would then say what about that as they always do in the context of the 2020s you’re basically saying that grammar schools can’t be an engine of social Mobility like they were in the
Past for other reasons okay that’s that’s that is I very much do say that yeah and and just to add on to what you’re saying if I hadn’t passed 11 plus I would have gone to a I wasn’t a Catholic at the time my mother was a
Catholic um I would have gone to a Catholic school because there were no other good schools so what you’re saying about if you’re not selecting by testing and ability you’re selecting by religion and Faith that’s exactly and not always genuine our Experience One it wasn’t her
Case it certainly wasn’t a mine at 11 but it’s the parents it’s the faith of the parents that’s important but I think it is it is I think widely accepted that quite a lot of people uh start going to church when their children are coming up
For um for the national offer day oh totally my goodness you go to you Church on a Sunday you’ll see rows of young kids with their parents and it’s all that also the case with primary schools and it’s it’s ridiculous I’m sure actually quite possibly some people gums
Of Faith as a result of it but it’s it’s a very poor reflection on the sort of country we are that that people are having to behave like this or feel they have to behave like this to get a a better education for their children I
Think that’s true do we live in a dangerous World well yes all Worlds the life is dangerous we have managed in because we live on an island and because we’ve successfully defended it until recently uh we live in remarkable safety in this particular country which most people have no conception of having one
Of the problems this gives is that an awful lot of people in this country have no idea about foreign policy because they can’t understand why other countries worry about what’s going on in their borders because we don’t have any borders except with the Republic of Ireland the Americans have a similar
Problem instead of having say for instance Germany on one side China on the other and and uh and and perhaps the bulans to your South uh the Americans have got Mexico at the bottom Canada at the top and two gigantic oceans on either side why should they worry it’s
Not to them a frightening World they aren’t in any danger but an awful lot of other countries are and they feel very touchy about things that go on in their borders in fact the Americans get touchy about things go on on their borders even though they aren’t really menaced
Remember the Cuban crisis at the moment anybody starts moving into to what they regard as their sphere of influence they get they get worried and I don’t blame them or disapprove of this all countries do so yes we do live in a dangerous world but it’s not very perceptible or
Hasn’t until recently been very perceptible in this country most of the wars that we’ve fought in in the last few centuries have barely touched this country except in the form of aerial bombing and actually by comparison with what we inflicted on Germany for instance not all that much of that if
What what had been done to Germany done to us most of our cities would have been flattened or burned and they weren’t I was a lot of damage done but a lot of the place was left standing we have not really experience Total War in this country first world war nothing happened
Except some Zeppelins and the bombardment of of scarra by the German Navy it was we’re amazingly immune other countries in Europe have have rivers of gray steel roaring through their towns and and and foreign troops tramping through their streets in their Countryside we haven’t had that so we feel
Save is what the RF did to German cities during the um during the second world war were those war crimes I don’t actually believe in the phrase war crimes as far as I’m concerned all war is crime uh was it form punishment on civilians well I I’m I’m not entering into that because
I’m not I’m not being trapped into some slogan here I very much oppose uh the the bombing the deliberate bombing of civilians which is what we did and I’ve written a l lengthy part of my here’s here’s another book uh the phony Victory on this very subject I’m
Against it morally I’m also it’s also actually highly in effective as a form of warfare but I I it’s we shouldn’t have done it and it’s it’s it’s done grave damage and one of the people in in British public Life whom I most admire and his reputation I made a great deal
Of effort to save some years ago Bishop George B who not whol alone but very nearly alone in British public life stood up and opposed the deliberate bombing of civilians uh in dur during the war and I think it was a very brave thing for him to do and I’m
Glad he did it because it a lot of people respond to these things by saying you weren’t there at the time and I wasn’t of course I wasn’t I wasn’t alive but he was and this was a man who had been a very very early anti-nazi amongst
Other things and had been very active in in helping refugees from Hitler uh he wasn’t any kind of sympathizer of the German Nazis was absolutely the reverse he was a great friend dietr bonhof for instance but he stood up publicly and did knowing that it would it would lead to a great
Deal of unpopularity and unpleasantness but it was it was it was right for him to do it we should not have done that it was say it was both wrong and militarily highly ineffective was it evil again we we’re we we’re moving into slogans I’ll stick you’re you’re Christian man I’ll
Stick with wrong you’re a Christian man yeah well it’s very complicated being Christian because what your your acts um acts are wrong uh but the classification of human beings is evil isn’t really I’m not asking you to call the people evil the actions evil I no I’m not I I I’m
Sticking with wrong evil is eil evil is not a is is not a category evil is um evil is a word designed to step about the temperature of the argument without actually saying anything factually different from what you would say if you said wrong well no because wrong is an
Inappropriate it’s a very expansive term it’s an inappropriate course of action no I didn’t say inappropriate inappropriate is the is the inappropri inappropriate is is the is the atheist word because they can’t use the word wrong I say it’s wrong that you the killing of innocent people is the
Deliberate killing of innocent people and the Terrible Things most people don’t even realize this to this day that it was deliberate is wrong I’ll stick at that I’m not going to be tempted into into going any into into emotionalizing it any further the thing examined cooly and rationally as I try
To examine these things was wrong and I think it was a grave National mistake we should not have done it would you call it immoral well yes of course because it the by being wrong it it’s it it breaks the the Christian moral code something can be strategically wrong or doesn’t
Have the doesn’t affect the the consequences you want I’m talk I’m not talking about strategy yeah I am talking about whether it was as an act it was it was right or wrong it was wrong and one of the problems is that the the the air
Crew who were ordered to do it uh I don’t I don’t lay the burden on them they had very little idea of what it was that they were doing and uh they were also themselves uh slaughtered in very large numbers by responsible military leaders who we were Prof with their
Lives because of this I a policy to a great extent pursued to please Joseph Stalin so when you hear people talk today about Allied bombing campaigns in in Continental Europe particularly Germany as um a license for what’s going on in XY Z country how does that make you feel
Well that’s exactly the point that’s why we need to examine what we did in in in those years so carefully uh because if because this is how countries become demoralized if they start to defend things of that kind and they they they they absorb them into their history as
Things which it was right to do uh then they feel free to do other things which are not right as well I think it it lowered the general moral standard of this country that we did that I think it still does makes people terribly angry
If you raise it it’s one of the reasons why I try and keep very calm and I’m discussing it the moment you start thinking about what these what what these events involved the the temptation to become uh bitterly angry and uh and passionate is strong but I try to be
Dispassionate about it and yet we haven’t learned the lessons because 80 years later people still refer to it as as Justified well I can only I can only this is one of the reasons again why I write my books because I I I think that I can make if if I have known
People who have held the view that the boing is Justified who have read what I’ve written about it and written and told me that they now don’t believe it I can only try and change Minds one by one but it’s it’s my job if I think
Something is wrong I should say so and that’s I went through all that to to to to make that pointed in the hope of changing mind I know minds are very hard to change people hold opinions for all kinds of reasons and they’re very reluctant to alter them but if you read
The passages on the bombing of civilians in Germany in the phony Victory I think it’s possible that if you previously felt it was justified you might change your mind I hope so why I wrote it it is a brilliant book kind of you say so and
I I I think the left should read it’s one of the better I mean that’s not an anti-war book in so much as no it isn’t an anti I’m not a pacifist paist absolutely not a pacifist nor was George Bell by the way two two of his brothers
Uh died in the first world war had he not chosen the church he would would have he would have died with them I think not a pacifist but for for people critical of you know the the foreign policy status quo or the platitudes we hear in the media about what is a a
Smart or an unsmart way of proceeding militarily it’s a brilliant corrective so anti-war is not the right word for I don’t know what the right word is but well I could barely get it reviewed and one of the reviews was by some Ned professor in the new Statesman
Who Sly called it a euroskeptic book which is so ridiculous for a book written about fundamentally the period 1935 to 1945 uh and also he said it was designed to please my elderly readers the man himself was I think 75 at the time he wrote that review and it absolutely
Wasn’t if IID wanted to please my readers I certainly wouldn’t have attacked the bombing of Germany because it remains something which most of my readers support and I know that if they write to me and tell me when I criticize it in strong terms and I write back they
Quite surprised to get back a seven Page Letter explaining why they’re mistaken but they I they they don’t like it so it wasn’t but it was astonishing that was almost the only review it received so why is it called the phony Victory what was the pH because it fascinated me that
The anybody who knows anything about the conct the war will will recognize the early months of the war were very peculiar indeed we although there was a fairly ferocious War at Sea uh there was no real effort uh to to begin a land war against Hitler even though we promised
The polls that we go to their aid uh and then when the land War started we collapsed very rapidly uh that we had gone into into the war as a great power declaring war on on Hitler because he had he he defied us as had the French
And we very rapidly been shown not to be a great power and yet at the end of the war uh we were the Great Victors of of this gigantic struggle against against tyan evil and how had we got from that a to that b and seemed to me that we
Hadn’t that at the end of the war although we were on the winning side we weren’t really the victors the War I also describe it length of very peculiar relations between this country the United States which are anything that shoulder to shoulder huge reluctance of
Americans to come to our Aid in 1940 and the very high price that they exacted for it uh the the war which we had begun with France France fell out of it and was defeated and occupied we were not occupied thanks to the Navy and Channel
And so we we were still in the war but the war was taken over for their own purposes by the United States and the Soviet Union who imposed the ultimate settlement with little reference to us because that by that time we were more or less bankrupt and I think we need to
Recognize that that’s the way the war went we weren’t the there was a finest hour I don’t dispute it it was tremendous that we stood up and didn’t Wiston Church’s greatest achievement was never for a second to consider negotiations with Hitler and that he that was something which I absolutely
Hugely continued to applaud and be thankful for but if it hadn’t as I say been for the fact that we that we we still had a navy and we still had the English Channel he wouldn’t have been in a position to do that and we used up I everyone goes on
About the Battle of Britain and within reason but uh in might be far more significant we used up a huge number of Destroyers in the Royal Navy simply fighting that war at Sea in the first few months and of course rescuing the Army from dkirk and at the end of that period the
The Navy had taken the most tremendous pounding but that’s why we in my view we remained free because the Navy had been there had fought had taken that pounding and was able to recover afterwards so the Americans you may have noticed that I come from a naval family
But these things interest me it’s the that’s where an awful lot of the battle was without that Churchill couldn’t have have done what he did you were born in Malta weren’t you I was your dad was a a royal Navy officer yes so my wife’s from
Walter well I give her my best wishes small world but I’m afraid I’m not the multis don’t recognize me I was an imperialist baby so I have no I have no uh no rights there of any kind at all yes fascinating relationship between malter and my birth certificate is
Interesting is it in males or in English both oh wow it was it was drawn up but I think you had to go to police station to register of birth it has it’s signed by a police sergeant that is fascinating it’s the size of a pillowcas huge great white thing so phony
Victory is really a nod to the fact that this war is started by two quote unquote 19th century European Colonial powers on the one side the Allies France and Britain it’s finished by these two very much 20th century Powers the Soviet Union and the United States in the book you really say after
19441 Britain is effectively occupied by the United States in much as it’s no longer a fully autonomous actor militarily with foreign affairs and so on or am I overstating the case slightly overstating it I mean there is a there is a sense in which Britain underwent
Some of the some of the experiences of occupation that was friendly rather than hostile occupation once the American Army came to this country in a big way it transformed society and in many many fascinating ways but it would it would be an exaggeration to call it an an occupation what we
Certainly were was we were we had become more or less an American pensioner uh lend leas was was in position though much less generous than people think it is they Americans actually far more generous with lendes to to Stalin than they were to us uh and it was set at a
Level which enabled us to fight but which wouldn’t necessarily allow us to recover economically afterwards for instance and that was intentional from the US I think so and I think the remember the the procedure which we had to go through before L relase began basically a a stripping of our assets by the
United States and the the shipping of all our gold reserves and convertible Securities across the Atlantic many of which never returned uh the until um morgant toow actually went to Res secary the treasury at the time actually had to go to the Senate and say if we don’t give these guys some help
Now they’re just going to have to stop fighting that those were his actual words to the Senate because the Senate was very reluctant to help us at that stage and uh a lot of American resentment remember in 1934 and this is people again will deny
This but it’s true you can look it up there’s a book being written about it now thank heav which I can refer you to but the the Britain defaulted on its War debt this first world war debt to the United States in 1934 and we’ve never paid a penny since
And there’s a great deal of resentment about that in America these guys have have def W the first world war debt to us why should we back them down dragging us into yet another European correl and all kinds of people were involved in the anti-british sentiments at that time from Kingman Brewster who
Later became a much like American ambassador to Britain to um I thinkest Hemingway and in the midwest where Irish America and German America was pretty hostile to us in any case there was a lot of opposition to America coming to our Aid I mean even in 39 Roosevelt says
We are not entering Another War do not worry yeah and he meant it I think uh when he said it he was very firm about it he would he he would have I think lost the 1940 election if he said he was going to go into the war
So the popular folk memory around World War II in this country is based really on a a bunch of misapprehensions and misunderstandings I partial they misapprehensions they’re so partial people don’t know so many things which were going on I have to say the
Gold convoys I mean I I had a i’ had a sort of vague inkling they were going they took some difficulty finding out the details of them and the the the immense amounts of national wealth which went first of all over to Canada and then down by train down to Fort Knox
Where as far as I know it still is and all all the stuff there even the the the gold deons and myors and Pieces Of Eight which Francis Drake had looted from the uh the Spanish treasure ships all that stuff which was still in the vaults that ended up being shipped across the
Atlantic along with the modern gold bars given the Americans so is it fair to say and this we had nothing left at the we completely stripped this is an argument made by David Edon really which and I don’t know if you agree or disagree he says that the modern British
State you can argue it has a sort of antecedence in the 1920s with the development of what becomes it’s the sort of protein the embryo of what becomes the welfare state after 1945 but the modern British state is really born in 1945 and you know our Lexington is you
Know the Battle of Britain that’s what he would say there’s a dis discret new poity after 1945 before then is a very different poity an Empire um that’s what he would say where where do you sit on that because well I think the welfare state as I Paul
Addison spend a lot of time pointing out was very highly developed before the second world war so I wouldn’t necessarily accept that but certainly it’s it’s a Cura 1940 is is a point at which the whole thing changes the old ruling class I discredited by it uh that
The books such as guilty men and your MP which basically said this this this mess we in dun Kirk and the rest of it is the false of the Tores uh it’s it’s it’s a widely believed have you ever seen what is probably Alan Bennett’s best
Work play called 4 years on no well it’s worth seeing because this is discussed at some length in there and the the contempt for the Tores as the as the men come home from dkirk was having failed the country goes very deep indeed and I think it it did change the politics of
The country and when the 1945 election finally arrived I think a lot of resentments which had been born out of out of 1940 many of them actually not entirely accurate uh were were then brought into play politically so the left has a myth around a lot of this the
Left has a very very peculiar myth because the left right up until 1939 was opposing rearm uh Neville Chamberlin again as I say in the book was actually quite busy rearming but he was rearming for a different war from the one that he got but he he definitely was rearming
The left right up atly particularly right up to 1939 was opposing rearm and in 1934 after Hitler was had been in power for quite some time and his nature was quite clear the labor party’s principal Daily Newspaper The Daily Herald uh described the first steps towards rearmament the I think it was the
1934 white paper on defense as an affront to Germany they were not um the left in this country was not enthusiastic about real they thought it would be used for imperialist purposes or against Soviet Russia and they kept on opposing it every estimate you got a name right up
Until the last minute because so no neither neither the labor part nor theor party has a particularly good record of all people quiny hog the late Lord Hellam wrote quite a good book about this called the left has never right in which he describes in detail what
Actually happened he was the one who won the bi elction in Oxford in 1938 so when there was a an anti an anti- Neville Chamberlain Coalition tried to tried to take the seat and he he won it but that book will tell you an awful lot of surprising things but the basic truth
About it is that the left were never right they simp they were not on the side of rearmed in the face of Hitler so just for people watching this what are you talking about so the the common mythology and I’m not suggesting it’s right or wrong we’ll talk about that in
A moment but the common mythology is that um Neville Chamberlain is guilty of appeasement he made huge M was he he did he he was guilty of so that’s the he he failed to rearm the country he left Britain exposed and it was the the left
Who were the people saying no Hitler’s a menace Hitler’s a threat they were this unique voice in civil society and you think of well you know a lot of that right well it wasn’t that simple I mean Chamberlain Chamberlin was spending billions in modern terms on on armaments
On the on the radar home chain on on the requipment of the Air Force and on the requipment of the Navy not so much on the Army decision have been taken in 1936 that we couldn’t afford to both modernize the Navy and the Air Force and have a large scale Continental Army and
Then of course we went into a war in which a large scale continental army was needed and we didn’t have one so yeah but I see what what Chamberlain Was preparing for was a defensive War the Spitfire is a defensive weapon this is exactly it the
Whole point it is it’s not really a close a close Military Support fighter it’s a defensive fighter and it was very very useful for that radar was also a defensive technology and the building of the of the home chain and everything that went with it was a defensive
Technology and these were triumphs and Neville chamber paid for them uh and you can’t take that away from him whereas at that that time labor which doubtless was making lots of antiaris speeches when it came to discussions of of real in general opposed and Ved against it you
Can look it up because in a modern context so so I think the spit far is the what 35 I think it would go back to that yes but it took quite a lot a lot of development to get there but in a modern context people will say you will
Hear this argument with regards to say Russia right now and we’ll go on to contemporary events that’s why I’m talking about all this um they would say look the left LED on the debate to rearm in the 1930s we need to do it again um in opposition to Putin you would say
The basic presumption of the argument is completely WR well look it up it isn’t true I it it really was a very a very strange Paradox I’m not saying that that Neville chamber armed the country to the teeth because he was very much afraid that economically we couldn’t cope with
It and probably we couldn’t we were not we were not in a very strong economic position at the time certainly not to build the sort of levels of arment that that we later had to build with with American Aid and very high tax and vast amounts of borrowed money but he he he
Did do quite a lot of rearming and the left were in general not in favor of it was Neville Chamberlain unfairly maligned then is he is he well I don’t know I think that the the the argument must always be was he fooled at Munich or was he playing at some kind of
Delaying game uh unless you knew his mind you couldn’t know because the war in 1938 would have been a disaster for this country we would have well I don’t think we’d have done any better than we did in 1939 I the the big the big material difference would have been that the
Germans wouldn’t have had the Czech gments factories that would have been the big material difference uh but on the other hand after the again people don’t never look at European Maps which is further east Prague or Vienna you tell me Vienna and the the problem is that once the anulus had
Happened and once the Germans control Austria the AL although the Czechs had very fine defenses in the esab mountains on the Northern boundaries of Germany uh and their borders with Austria which were now the borders with Third Reich I’ve been across them by train they they’re beautiful tank country they
Would they couldn’t have defended themselves and also they would have been within Incredibly Close Range of of German airow so it’s unlikely that Czechoslovakia could have held out very long in any case and what we could have mobilized I don’t know the French might have done something but again France
Wasn’t configured for an aggressive War so I don’t know it’s one of it’s It’s the great imponderable isn’t it we could be here all evening discussing what would have happened if we’ gone to war in 1938 but the the question has to be with Chamberlain if you is is whether
He was genuinely fooled or whether he was just playing for time I don’t know the answer I don’t really care actually it’s it’s the the problem with with with all of this is that the the whole conduct of European diplomacy and Poli politics between versailes and the arrival of Hitler uh was so
Foolish you say you don’t care it matters because today people are labeled with the term appea you’re guilty of appeaser I get it all the time but appeasement is popular and the biggest Act of appeasement in my lifetime was the the appeasement of the IRA in 1998
On the bast agreement when we said if you’ll stop bombing London you can have pretty much what you want but it’s never called the p it’s it’s it’s like treason appeasement do never Prosper for when it Prosper none dare call it appeasement the other thing the whole world is has
Constantly been saying to Israel for the past what 50 years or so land for peace give land for peace if you give land to the Arab world you’ll get peace well that’s appeasement and it would be interesting to see what would happen if they did it I want appeasement is popular but it’s
Very s called appeasement when so you would call a two-state solution appeasement I two State solution uh verging on the insane after particularly after October the 7th last year why are you familiar with the terrain have you been there I’ve not been there no no this is the trouble it’s very small I
Mean Israel is huge in international Poli it’s tiny and the the border which would run between Israel and the the putative Arab state next door to it would actually run through the capital city and I think about 8 miles it’s I think you can you can cross Israel at
Its narrowest point in a tank in less than half an hour it’s that narrow but leaving that aside uh if just imagine for a moment I think the current ruler of the Palestinian Authority is what 8 years old and is in the what is the 19th year
Of a 5year term he can’t be there much longer who will replace him who will be the leader the political leader uh of the new state what if it were hammer or someone like them you would then have nothing but a fence and maybe a r strip
Between Israel and a state governed by people like Hamas who had large quantities of rockets but that’s because it’s not a normal State I mean nobody’s I say it was I’m just saying nobody’s propos saying is it how on Earth do you expect this idea to work okay so let me
Let me like it’s just not if it if it went wrong it would go so terribly wrong well I think going I mean no no I mean it could be a lot worse than this if the whole of the whole of of of of central Israel was in the the was within
The reach of actions such as that taken in in the in the Gaza region October the 7th last year which it would be in the if there were a second if there were an Arab State and if that Arab state were taken over by militant foes of Israel
Then what do you think is going to happen so let’s let’s go over it I was asked this question I’ve been ask this question many times Well if you were Israeli and you knew that 10 miles that way people wanted to kill you what would you want I say I would love an
Internationally recognized highly militarized border and I think that gets the heart of the question you know in the late 1990s by then Israel had one Israel had one they developed nuclear weapons one of the world’s most effective security forces Etc the question for Israel is do you want one
State or two states now clearly they don’t want one state because of the Zionist project that’s a intellectually coherent thing you can agree or disagree but that’s just a fact or you can have two states which is entirely commensurate with the Zionist project and you’re saying well that that
Wouldn’t be safe well I don’t think it would be no I don’t think it would be a solution it would be two states but I don’t think it would be a solution I think it would be the beginning of a new period of very very severe conflict Kore
The outcome of which we cannot know but if Korea can do it why can’t I mean there was a bloody war and they’ve had a militarized have you been there I it’s not it’s not it’s not the same thing North Korea is is not full of people who
Desire the destruction of South Korea nor is it ruled by people who desire the destruction of South Korea it’s the there is a basically the two states turn their backs on each other but don’t you think it’s an Israel’s it’s not a comparable it’s not a comp I think you
Basing that argument on Miss Noma because it’s in Israel’s interest to have a prosperous Palestine ah now wait a minute now we’re trespassing onto the onto the the important zone of the argument because what what I would say to you is this I’ll tell you this anecdote because it’s true uh a
Colleague of mine an Israeli Arab journalist who I’ve done some work with several times out there was once driving me up through the north of Jerusalem to the the Palestinian Authority capital romala and because of the various uh border Arrangements which now exist we
Had to do quite a lot of left and right and backs that doubles until we got there and he got there he got a bit tired of it and in the end he said oh for the good old days before we had peace and what he meant was this that probably
Now at least going back to Oslo and 1993 there have been Relentless attempts by outside countries to impose a peace on Israel and what they have led to is actually more and more fenes less and less contact between the two peoples and a lowlevel constant conflict of extreme
Business when I first went to Jerusalem which is in the time Margaret that was prime minister you could drive down to Bethlehem for the evening uh also people living near Gaza would go there for the night life the level of uh of of common acceptance of each other by the two
Peoples living alongside was extremely high it was friendliness a large number of Arabs came and worked in Israel uh and took home good wages and and were prosperous as it say the relationship in two people were good if you’re real concerned for this area is for the the
The lives and livelihoods and safety of the people living there then I would say don’t try and create a political solution which might get you a Nobel Prize look for look for a compromise which doesn’t actually put anybody to the test any any Arab leader who who concluded doesn’t
Want any Arab leader W West Bank settlers every single day stealing land there’s an awful lot there sensible people on the Palestinian side I think and fired one of them who who worked very much on the idea that what needed most of all to be done was to increase
The prosperity of the of the Arab people living in the region and I think that’s a lot of that has actually been achieved you go to rala now and it’s got shopping rules and it’s got It’s got mousy black Cinemas and quite a high standard of Life which people would but they haven’t
Even got guaranteed property rights you have not got guaranteed I’m not I’m not I’m not arguing about that I’m saying don’t try if you try to get a solution uh it’s like the the great scene in Alice Through the Looking Glass where Alice tries to get into the garden out of the
House and she keeps walking towards the garden until she realizes that she’s in Looking Glass world to get into the garden you have to walk away from it if you want to have peace of any kind a real peace between the peoples of that region you have to stop trying to get a
Negotiated Nobel prize winning deal and to work on the small things and that that after many many many visits to the area and many many conversations with people on both sides that is my absolute conviction these attempts to get a negotiated fixed settlement will never achieve what they say make no I’m not
I’m talking about I’m talking I’m talking talking of what I know and I know that and I like very much the the people on both sides of that line and I want them to live in peace each man under his own Vine and under his own fig tree and it could be
Done if people would stop trying to to create some Grand uh showoff settlement in which people had to make political commitments they’re never going to make I’ve this as I say I’ve been there a lot I’ve thought about it a lot I’ve written about it a lot this is my absolute conclusion that
You will not get you will not get anything remotely resembling peace prosperity and happiness in the region if you keep trying to achieve political major settlement it won’t be done stop doing it I I I I’m completely convinced of that and I have nothing will shake me
For me it’s a very compelling contrarian argument don’t mean that an offensive way contrarian it’s actually most people say you should have a peace I don’t have a you haven’t even been there I have been there I have been there a lot I I don’t I can’t go there because if I go
There then I can’t ever go to Iran that’s why I’d love to go there there are Arrangements which people can make to avoid to avoid this problem I won’t say on this microphone what they are but you you shouldn’t cut yourself off I’d love to go there of
Course I’d love to go there um but the thing is Peter it’s a very it’s a very compelling argument good I think meant to be yeah well you make compelling arguments but the point is I think it it misunderstands the nature and the direction of the Israeli state
So if you were making the argument 30 40 years ago and the Israeli State again people can have issues with z M as a project but liberal Zionism as a political project as a political tendency is clearly very different clearly very different I’m not saying it’s better I’m saying it’s very
Different to the directional travel now in Israeli politics where you have far-right parties calling on illegal not not not enabling it’s terrible not accepting calling for illegal settlements arming settlers I mean they’re basically egging on a civil the Govern the Israeli Constitution was designed by the country’s enemies or
Appears to be you know it’s it’s the the darest possible Arrangement and it needs to be reformed but that’s not to say it can’t be reformed it’s been attempts to be made to reformed in the past the the behavior I mean I have very mixed feelings about Benjamin Netanyahu I
Wrote a long article about him based on Angel fe’s very good biography a few years ago in which I made the case for him uh that he’s actually mign but i’ I’ve withdrawn a lot of that now since his incredibly stupid behavior in bombarding gods or in response to the
Aob s which I utterly deplore uh but he one of the problems of Israel has been uh it’s a very small country and doesn’t necessarily have a very huge pool of talented people in it despite the fact that we think that it has but the the Israel left has concentrated so
Much effort on its dislike of Netanyahu that it hasn’t seen that the best way of dealing with him was almost certainly for the Israeli left to cooles with him and thereby keeping all the cases you were recently referring to out of office and they should have done that
And that would have been the best way of getting but they they here’s this is an anecdote from AEL fe’s book and it’s true after Rabin was murdered the the Run family hell is of course they opened their house to mourners to to to come and comfort the
Family uh word was sent to Benjamin Netanyahu that he was not welcome now anybody who knows anything about Israeli politics will know why he wasn’t welcome but here’s the interesting thing somebody else was welcome Yas Arafat a confirmed anti-semite a man who once said I have no use for Jews uh who was
He he was invited to the Rabin home but nany who wasn’t now this seems to me to be Folly amongst other things a death of that kind is surely a moment for reconciliation between people who are opponents and secondly I think they’ve just mishandled him he’s a clever man and He’s a brave
Man you can’t he’s and he’s actually conducted the policy which precisely because he’s a for military person has until now been remarkably free of blood and I just think the Israeli left have handled him wrong but again these are these are my opinions after much thought
Much reading and much travel of the area I this is what I think people I’ve no doubt there are people watching this who think I’m in favor of bombarding Gaza I think disgusting and it’s for exactly the same reason I’m against the bombing of of civilians in in in Germany by
Britain in the 1940s it’s it’s it’s it’s not it’s not within the the range of things which civilized people can do it has one other feature to it which I said at the time that it happened is that after October the 7th we had staring Us in the face the most powerful example
Since the end of the Third Reich of what the hatred of Jews actually involves this horrible murder rape destruction nobody could say that people had behaved like that because because they they they thought that refugees had been treated unjustly or because they were in favor
Of a of moving a border or because of some other detail of relations between the the Israeli State and the Arab world this was an act of racist barbarity and there it was before the world and if Netanyahu had done what I would have done under his circumstances and I would
And said and stood back and said we will do nothing in response to this this is what they did look at it Israel which has for many many decades been losing its moral standing in the western world would have had an opportunity to regain it and to remind people of why Israel is
There in the first place but by failing to take that opportunity and by doing this this bombardment of Gaza which is is ineffectual and stupid have you seen that great film The Battle of algers yes well then you’ll know that whenever you hear a politician or a military leader
Saying we are going to exter Pate such and such a terrorist organization you know that he’s he’s he’s he’s talking BGE it will not happen it doesn’t happen that you can’t defeat ideas how however much you dislike them uh with torture or machine guns or high explosive it will
Never ever work and the the bitterness and hatred stored up in the Arab world against Israel by by this occasion is so huge I fear uh in what forms it may eventually break out it’s been it doesn’t it’s it’s both wrong and cruel and stupid I just wanted to get that on the
Record that’s that’s what I think about it we certainly I mean we had a conversation once on the TV quite recently and I said it was a every bomb that’s dropped by the IDF is a recruit recruiting Sergeant for Hamas I think we not just for hamash there are other
People who will be be be you know that the hooes are incredibly popular popular throughout the Arab Muslim world because they’re viewed as the only people who are standing up against this their popularity is universal throughout the whole Arab Muslim world see it’s unusual for for a British journalist to say this
Because you know I’ve seen so many think pieces in the BBC and they say actually oh yemenese hate hoies and no actually what they’ve done and we can have a conversation about why they’ve done what they’ve done clearly it’s added to their Prestige both domestically and in the
Region I’m I’m just saying I know these things it’s it’s not it’s not very difficult to know them if you if if if if you if you do the reading I’m not I’m not making out a case for the hois or particularly against the and say this is
The fact this is the state there is a whole a whole Arab Muslim World in which people have an entirely different opinion and view of the world from the one that we have it’s time we realized it do you think there’s a lot of are you familiar with the word
Cope maybe not in that context and in what context so there’s a lot of COPE in the West in so much as we we we don’t understand or we fail particularly in Britain we failed to accept the changes all around us from an increasingly multi-polar world to technological leadership again becoming more M
Multi-polar to just hold chunks of the planet Vie things differently to us and yet in Britain particularly with the media I’m not talking about the general public actually the Public’s much more literal on this stuff really but the media has what we would call cope which
Is to say they just they they resist any possibility that actually everyone doesn’t agree with us and we’re not always right about everything well I don’t I know I think the essence of foreign policies is recognizing that that other countries exist and have their own interests different from ours
And that if you want to change that then you have to know what you’re doing but I think that the the performance of the Western countries in the in the Middle East and in the Arab world since particularly since the second world war has been pretty poverty stricken anyway
And I don’t see much sign is getting any better I we still haven’t got over the Iraq War Iran still hasn’t got over the the the anglo-american P against MOS why should they if the Iranians had overthrown our government in 1953 I think we’d still be pretty cheesed off
About it and I just it’s it’s just amazing how how bungled it it is and I don’t there seems we have to belong to clubs don’t we it seems to be at the moment that the if if you’re on the right you have to be in favor of of
Bombarding Gaza and if you and and uh I I this this difficulty because I have been for many many years a convinced Zionist I am I think that the there is no avoiding the need for a state of Israel because I think that the the the mass murder of Jews in Europe by
The German Third Reich provides the unalterable argument for I think D Danny finlin makes it very well in his recent book which you’ve probably read Hitler stalling Mom and Dad about how really in the end his um I his grandfather who was a great campaigner against Zionism among the Jews of
Germany uh he thought it was a foolish idea that integration was possible similation would come but when this happened and he was one of those who escaped it when this happened he couldn’t anymore argue against the Zionist State and that’s the problem I think for anybody looking at it there
Has to be somewhere to go for Jews who are persecuted and there I I can’t see a counter argument I suppose one argument would be that Zionism is really an expression of anti-Semitism in so much as or they can it can be an expression of antisemitism in so much we don’t want
You here please all go over there this but this is what Danny felin’s father was would have argued in in the Germany of the late 192s and early 30s he he took part in debates with Nazis but he was still going home and saying we I don’t want
I don’t I’m not a Zionist I won’t support this this Jew many many intelligent Jews on the right and the left all over Europe took the same view they were against the idea of the Jewish State there were many very good arguments against it it was not but once
The once the camps were opened up all those people who said that they couldn’t in the end they had to accept that they’ve been wrong I think we still do have to accept that they were wrong that you can have all kinds of about whether it should be
Where it is but it is where it is so what are you going to do are you going to ethnically cleanse it and move it somewhere else no that’s that’s always barbaric so you have to accept that it is where it is and make arrangements rational and intelligent arrangements to
Sustain it or in the end where are we I mean my position is just go back to the pre-1967 borders but all borders all borders in that region are unpopular while they exist and and popular popular in retrospect nobody wanted the 1967 borders when they were there yeah I appreciate in fact
They inv did Vladimir Putin yes is he a new Adolf Hitler no next question why why is he because we hear this left right you tell me why you think he is well I I don’t think he is but this is something it’s common pance it’s kind of from he’s not he’s
Not an ideological or utopian leader I don’t think Putin has any ideology he has the he has the burden of the Soviet education which he demonstrated in that that that often very dull interview with t Carlson when he gave his account of the months leading up to the second world
War and that tremendous tangle he got himself into over Poland uh because anyone with the Soviet ucation just can’t ever get over the fact that they divided up Poland with Hitler and he ended up blaming the poles for being invaded I was ridiculous that he burdened by a Soviet education but he’s
Not a communist he’s absolutely not a Marxist Leist he’s he’s he’s a Russian nationalist of some kind and you mustn’t mix him up he has got no he’s got no Dogma uh he’s therefore that’s one thing which separates from Hitler um also I think you have to remember that Hitler
Was the leader of a country which had been defeated in war and was very bitter about it Russia the Soviet Union wasn’t defeated in war in 19 91 it pretty much voluntarily dissolved itself I have written fantasy alternative history of what would have happened if the Soviet leadership in
1989 had behaved like the Chinese leadership and machine gun the people and they would now be welcome in every chancell presidential Palace and Parliament in Europe as the Chinese are but they didn’t they said okay we give in and they dissolved their empire in response to popular president
I say voluntarily and they dissolved their Alliance and uh it’s just it’s just in parallel with a country which was defeated in war which thought it had been stabbed in the back by its by its own by its own left and and wanted Revenge but it’s not historically it’s
Different isn’t that worse in a way though in May it may well be worse but it’s not a parallel I it there’s been again in the in the phony Victory I I devote a several pages to to the this guy is a new Hitler fantasy uh among
People selected for the role of new Hitler have been I think Emanuel Nora of Panama I’m ridiculous the people who are who are fitted up as the new Hitler when the United States wants to um wants to go to war with them and I one of the reasons I actually wrote the book
Because I could see that a lot of people in the west wanted a war with Russia and I I I go into the points which quite some time ago people such as cther indeed our president King had said things along the lines of Putin being a new Hitler it’s it’s historically illiterate I’m
Afraid so when I mean some people seem to think he has pretenses for hegemony over Europe you know like Charles I or like Napoleon he wants to conquer well he might but I it’s they can’t even take kcko which is what 20 miles from their
Border how they going to get a Cali I really don’t know they bungled the invasion of of Ukraine quite badly their army is I I remember going when he they they they began to have big military parades in Red Square again and I went to Moscow to watch the first the first
Russian one I’ve seen the last Soviet one in in in uh in November of 1990 on Revolution day I’d watch that and they they come and see the new one in May and so I came I watched it with my old friend now dead alas iGo monf who was
The son of a Soviet nuclear submarine captain and knew his military stuff and we sat watching stuff and at the end of it he turned to me he said how did you enjoy our display of strategic scrap metal and almost all the things on display the missiles tanks the vehicles whatever it
Was were were actually prototypes they weren’t things in mass production they brought out all that they had of the most modern weapons they had and of course the most the most impressive looking for parade purposes troops but in fact the Russian army is still heavily dogged by large scale corruption
You if you spend a billion rubles in a corrupt country on the military how much of it ever gets to the soldiers or to the arms factories you an awful lot of it is skimmed and this is evident when they went to war I think we overestimate
The uh I’m sure Putin is well aware of his capacities they still have a very strong nuclear capability but how can they use it uh the they’re producing lot of shells right now they producing a lot of shells because they basically have a second world war economy and we don’t
And we’ve turned we’ve started stop producing guns producing butter eventually if the West wants to rerun the first world war in Ukraine it it will no doubt build enough factories to build the shells to sustain it but nobody else in the world thought of of a
War of that kind apart from the Russians but that that’s that doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to punch their way uh through Europe or indeed that they necessarily want to I don’t know whether they want to or not it’s ridiculous to claim to know the mind of these
Tyrants they don’t one of the problems with people such as Putin is that they because he is a tyrant uh he never meets anybody he disagrees with uh his thoughts become increasing but all all may even in Democratic countries national leaders goes go mad in most
Cases and there is that danger he’s been there too long he may think all kinds of things but whe whether when he when he orders it to happen it will happen and I think there’s been a contradiction which has been largely neglected all the people who said oh well Putin wants to
Seize back the Russian Empire right then up to Berlin or whatever it is uh and he also wants to know he and then Along Came the invasion of Ukraine in which they said look look how the Russian army is being defeated by by the ukrainians with with a few weapons
Supplied to them by the West look how they’re being creamed uh you can’t have it both ways either either he’s poised to invade Europe or he was creamed by a few ukrainians with some with a small number of Western weapons in a short period you can’t have it both ways I no
I agree with that I think he was creamed I think they were I think I think in Moscow they were deeply disappointed and shocked by what happened but well some of them were I think those those people who really understood military matters have always knew that the Russian army
Had not been anything like as reformed as as the new Cold War people claimed it had I agree with I still think that’s true I they they fight for for months to take pocket handkerchiefs of ground on the Ukrainian front no they still they they can’t they’re not taking huge
Amounts of ground with all this all these shells that they have I agree with that but what I would say is um I think it’s quite plausible that and I think your point about him being a tyrant is so true there is so much contingency at work I think probably one day he’s
Thinking I’d like to go to Dena another day I’d like to go Kon adessa another day mova so I think that’s correct I think trying to get inside his head I’m not sure that is what he wants I mean he was he don’t he wants to go to the Dena
This is what he said to cson right this is historical Russian land all the way well he said what he Bas what he basically says is that is that Ukraine if it if it wants to leave the the Russian orbit shouldn’t try to take with it and I’m I’m not advocating this I
Have to say this because I’m constantly told that I’m some kind of Kremlin chill I’m just saying this is what he actually says if you read his articles and speeches if if Ukraine wants to be outside the the Russian sphere then it shouldn’t try to take with it uh
Territory which it which it actually obtained while it was part of the Soviet Union that it should go as Ukraine therefore that basically means uh leave behind Crimea and the dawn Basin which I think will is probably the outcome that’s what he means this all the idea that he fantasizes about being a
New a new zar seing well maybe he does but he doesn’t have the weapons to to to achieve it there were 13 years during which lvia Lithuania and Estonia near about as far from St Petersburg as uh as Coventry is from where we’re sitting and weren’t members of NATO and what happened
Nothing they were more or less defenseless I me if Russia wanted to do the these these seizures that it wanted to do then Why didn’t it do it then who was responsible for destroying nordstream I have no idea but I think um you have some idea well I don’t because
I again I can guess um it seems to me that it’s unlikely to have been the Russians why would they if they want to stop gas flowing down the northstream they just need to turn a wheel don’t they they need to send uh highly skilled um uh divers deep divers down with an
Extremely sophisticated underwater explosives and uh and radio controlled timers which I imagine is what you needed to do it I’m not even sure Russia can do that remember when the that submarine of theirs the KK sank uh they turned out basically with a rbo they didn’t seem to have much deep sea
Capability so I I would it seems unlikely that they either could or did after that you have a wide selection of possible um possible authors don’t you it was a CIA wasn’t it seems most likely I don’t know how could I possibly know you don’t know you I don’t know and
Before you said I have no idea think you have some idea no I I have I di I have no knowledge no I’m just I’m just saying I don’t claim to know things I I do know that radex Sosi the former foreign minister of Poland tweeted immediately
Afterwards thank you USA and I do know that Joe Joe Biden has said things about how they would he put a stop to nordstream Victoria nulan says know evidence is circumstantial evidence is there but I’m I I’m very much a believer in the presumption of innocence I can’t convict uncircumstantial evidence your
Naval History doesn’t mean you’ve not done a deep sea dive into uh I think I know I what I my nebal head tells me this is quite a difficult especially in the Baltic which is not a nice sweet Cal sea it’s quite a difficult operation to conduct and not many people would be
Capable of conducting it also not many people would be capable of conducting it without anybody noticing them doing it so circumstantial evidence is great but it’s you can’t convict on it I’m going to give you two quotes Grant shaps recently said Britain must shift from a post-war Society to a pre-war one
Meanwhile Patrick Saunders the head of the army um recently said that professional armies start wars citizen armies end them I suppose the the first one I’ve said myself long ago that we live in a pre-war era it’s not a great appu and you wouldn’t expect great appus from GR
Shaps would you be the father of the E scooter uh but no it it’s not it’s not an unreasonable thing to say certainly the way in which people like him have been behaving have made it into a pre-war era it wasn’t a pre-war era until really until the um the
Neoconservatives got control of foreign policy in Washington and and Britain everybody else got behind them but it’s become a pre-warn era well so 20023 well I think that’s when it’s you go back to the the Annunciation of the W witz Doctrine and everything that followed
From it then you do get a clear sign that that for some reason foreign policy in America has been captured by people who have sort of um utopian bound they want to change the world and start lots of Wars well this they think of course because they are fundamentally revolutionist and this is
Why my late brother was so keen on this stuff because he was fundamental Revolution they think that they will make a better world including Grant chaps I I think I don’t think I think I think we paying Grant chaps a huge amount of flattering compliments to assume he understands this sort of thing
I doubt whether he’s ever heard of the wol with st right I I don’t know whether most of these people could uh could find uh could find KF on a blank map so let’s go to the Patrick Saunders quote then because he’s the you know he’s the head
Of the well that is a truth isn’t it that in modern Wars that’s that that that is what happens that the consits very rapidly prove not to be enough and you then have to start it’s not the the volunteers Prov to be not enough and then you have to start getting other
People in but it’s logical isn’t it because if if if if if citizen armies start wars when he says start I think what he means is that Wars begin with with um with with iose what is he thinking of is then what’s the point of professional Army if your professional
Army literally can’t end Wars why have a professional Army the point of professional Army is deterrence the point of all sensible defenses deterence the point of of sensible defense is to make sure nobody attacks you that’s what it’s for but why don’t we just have a conscript Army then if only conscript
Armies can end Wars surely that’s best ter you we again we you forget we live in a lucky country which didn’t have to have a conscript Army because we have the sea the Sea The Deep salt sea is worth 40 or 50 divisions and we don’t need this one of
The reasons why why our politics have been so different countries with large standing armies necessary to their defense become armies with countries rather than countries with armies and the the tension between Army and Society even in France has always been very strong but in Germany it was
Huge and and and in Russia likewise and Austria Hungary but we didn’t have that there’s never been a naval dictatorship in the history of the world unless you can’t Admiral Hoy who was indeed an admiral but he hadn’t got a Navy at the time is conscription going to come back
I have no idea I mean I wouldn’t I would on Sunday you got your you got your the I’m being recorded I’m not going to give some huge Hostage to Fortune just just cuz you’ve given me a nice cup of tea I I don’t know I I wouldn’t I wouldn’t
Rule it out because I wouldn’t rule anything think out the world that we’re on the lip of a very uncertain you’re a worldly you’ve seen a lot so I think your opinions on the likelihood of conscription I I don’t think so if you want if you want I
Wouldn’t I wouldn’t I can’t see a progression by which we would reach it unless we’re stupid enough to actually join in the Ukraine war which I think most of the western Nations have resolved from the start that they never will the Ukraine war is is turning into
And if it carries on much long will turn into a a miniature of the of the uh the Western Front in in 1916 in which case if we got involved in it then we probably would end up having conscription which an awful lot of people would not uh accept happily just
As the ukrainians are not accepting conscription happily and the figures on the numbers of people who fled Ukraine uh to avoid serving in the Army are quite startling it’s about 700,000 isn’t it I don’t I I I I have seen a figure but I I haven’t got it in my head but
It’s an awful lot uh and it’s it’s it’s and it grows all the time because the Ukrainian borders are crossable and then again there L lot of people are evading the conscription squads if you if you live in a city you can hide from them it’s only if you live
In the countryside they can necessarily track you down but I I’ve heard of people who 63 being served with cryption papers in in Odessa 63 63 and women no I haven’t had women that’s purely voluntary at the moment I I would imagine so and women are still allowed
To leave the country and they have well because we hear a lot about people fleeing Russia Russia best part of a million but like you say we don’t really hear it with regard to Ukraine but people have I me a lot of people a lot of the people who who who left Ukraine
At the time of the invasion are not particularly keen on going back they like it in in Poland particularly and also in the other Western countries which took them in Ukraine we constantly told Ukraine is some kind of advanced democracy it’s absolutely not it’s a corruption ridden very badly governed
Country which has sunk quite badly in econ in at the end of the Soviet era had particular a very well educated population and a lot of advantages but it’s it’s squandered a lot of the advantages it had in in that time it’s not a place that people necessarily want
To live in and it’s had a big immigration it’s another of its problems it’s not a paradise it’s not it’s not nice wonderful brilliant Democratic free uh lovely Ukraine fighting horrible brutal Russia I mean hor Russia is no doubt horrible and brutal but Ukraine is in a paradise and we should stop telling
Ourselves that it is you call Ukraine Russia without the oil and gas well I I think lots of people lots of people called it that economically does that mean zalin is Putin obviously not but what does that say about their political class then if if you’re saying I’m
Saying but in terms of if you’re trying to work out what the difference is between if you travel in in in the Soviet days you traveled between Russia and Ukraine you hard to tell the difference uh slightly different alphabet um and a bit of Ukrainian spoken but basically the cities look the
Same the the the the general atmosphere was the same just the look of the place was the same uh if you go from Moscow the last time I was I went to K some time ago going from comparing Moscow with Kia Moscow is a much more wealthy and advanced city than KF
Which show still showed many many more signs of not having shaken free of the the poverty of the Soviet past and Moscow is a rich city KF by comparison not for instance but the the Ukrainian economy is Lacks The crucial thing which the Russians have had and also the
Soviet Union they haven’t got the oil they haven’t got the gas so that makes a difference what do you think of zilinski I’ve had I I I I admire his conduct at the beginning of the invasion I think he he behaved uh both um courageously
And uh and honorably with what he did I think looking back on his time as president I feel sorry for him and that he was elected on a peace program and on a cleanup program and found very rapidly that trying to clean up a country as corrupt as that is extremely difficult
And that when he tried to to come up with a peace agreement he was sabotaged not just by the banderite uh nationalist Fanatics who it seems to me probably wanted the war with Russia uh but also by his predecessor penko who who helped get out the opposition to it when he he
Came he actually put a piece a a a put forward a a peace program and they immediately said as they always do well any kind of peace with the Russians is capitulation which in my view is a misunderstanding of the word capitulation he tried to do what he
Promised to do at election so I I don’t uh OB this is obviously also a man with a sense of humor it’s always an advantage to a sense of humor in office because it tends to mean they also have a sense of proportion but I don’t
Dislike him I don’t think I’ve ever said a rude word about him it’s that’s not I’m not a Paran this guy bad this guy good uh engager in this war at all I think it’s a tragedy for all the peoples inv worlded uh but so that that’s sum up what I think
Waski final question I’m GNA end with a quote Peter from one of your recent columns yeah don’t worry it’s not a gotcha well I hope not I like the quote actually it’s good we cannot tear ourselves away from the delusion that we are a great power swaying the Destinies
Of Nations all over the world we are not how anyone can think this who has visited say black pool in recent years or wandered down one of the scores of Gap toothed High streets or endured our public transport system or tried to find an NHS dentist I do not
Know couldn’t agree I couldn’t have put it better myself why do so many people particularly in our political media class think we are still a great power given all of that because of partly because of our pitiful education system um partly because of the the long the long fading afternoon which was
Extended I think by the very long life of our late Queen which had a very strong psychological effect on people I think because we are an island because when we travel mostly we travel on holiday and therefore we travel above our standard of living and we see um we enjoy foreign
Places we don’t really visit them in the way that you ought to visit them so go actually look and see how other people live I I’ve traveled an enormous amount and I know I’m supposed to be an insula thickheaded um fascist but actually I spent an awful lot of my time traveling
Particularly on the continent of Europe and I know how other people live and in many cases I’ve noticed that they live a lot better than we do uh you talked to people in the Netherlands and they’re astonished at how old-fashioned and and um run down our country looks when they
Go and visit it and you what they mean uh the the lives that the lives that we lead are not as good as they should be I’m also I’m still retain sort of Social Democratic desire to reform the lives of the poor and I look at it things like
Housing and and education transport and I feel ashamed because I it was a thing that I found among serious Russian Patriots not Communists when I was living in Moscow these are the people who are most critical of their country is the Patriot is not the person who says my country is
Brilliant and wonderful and all things the Patriot is someone who recognizes the faults of and I thought that was my duty and it’s it’s to me it’s it’s the most tremendous Legacy of the the very very long remedial course I’ve had in the University of Fleet Street now in
Its I think 47th year uh when I’ve been taught an awful lot of things that I wasn’t taught at school I wasn’t taught at University largely by travel and by The Wider reading thinking that it causes we are not a great man and also
I’m very moved by by my the life of my my my father and my mother in the second world war and what they they had to endure and very interested in my father’s life in his Majesty’s Navy before 1939 and the standing of this country at that time and I know how much
It’s foren I I read his his M’s logs from his travels around very parts of the world from the Isles of Greece to to Shanghai and I I see a completely different world in which we played a different role we were these things that we imagin ourselves we aren’t anymore I know that
You read it was living in the United States reading the newspapers watching the the television news prrams they would ever mention this country they’re not very aware that we exist there are Americans who don’t even realize English comes from England we’re not important anymore but we are actually very very lucky we have
Got all kinds of resources which if we use them intelligently we could make this into a very very livable country but we don’t do it because we we waste our substance on pretending to be what we long ago CE to be Peter great place to end on thanks so much for joining us
Thank you for having Me
20 Comments
Yes, it’s over.
Ofc. Britain died quietly years ago and no one in the general population noticed. RIP
Yes because inequality is getting worse. The rich expect the poor to burnden the taxes. While the pay very little. Secondly we need to move on from thinking we are global power and that we rule the world. I mean if you listen to Brexiteers they think we have a Empire. Our people cannot get properly health care, homes and we have a open border policy. Adding to our collapse.
Success breeds success and conversly failure breeds more failure. On the down slope it is harder to be enthusiastic.
Regarding the British bombing of German civilian centers at 31:30 he claims that he is "not talking about strategy" – but his major argument was that the bombing was "ineffective." The effectiveness of a given military measure is certainly an aspect of strategy!
Massive softball interview – again. Hitchens really needed pushing on his flummery, particularly on British education and Palestine, but the push wasn’t there. He just gets a chance to spout his ideas on a left wing channel with very little
comeback. Why?
I completely agree about the lack of selection in state schools. its disgusting. I was almost driven to insanity by the incredibly low intelligence of the other children in my year and the education system aimed at us.
Thankyou for de-essing this interview
As a distant outsider all I can surmise is shove it up the Tories and eat humble pie and REJOIN THE EU. Britain is now the poor begging cousin thanks to Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss & Sunak bowing to the Putin/Farage/Cambridge Analytica nexus.
It’s what happens to any nation that sacrifices its young men in endless altars of wars. You end up with traumatised dna remaining
Hitchens is impressive. I've never heard anyone talk so much and say so little.
Town centres might be a bit dull, but the suburbs are all doing fine. I live on the edge of Bradford. Great bus service (French owned), electric railway (and two steam at weekends), even a canal on my doorstep and airport only a couple of buses away. Farm shops and every supermarket chain within half hours drive at most (Waitrose, Booths is a lot nearer as are M&S food stores). New houses everywhere giving the nimbys the eeby-jeebies. Tory MP, but it is a flip flop seat so doubt he will be around next year. Life is awful up north.
Britain is living in cuckoo land!
"zoom purposes" 😂
"Older men start wars, but younger men fight them".
Albert Einstein
1945-2045 will be remembered as the century of humiliation for the English people.
THE FIRST START OF DECLINE IN ENGLAND WAS IN 1945 WITH CLEM ATTLEE WHAT THEY DID WAS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE COUNTRY NEEDED, THEY NATIONLISED EVERY THING IN SIGHT, IT WAS THE BEGINING OF THE END,
This video is entitled Is Britain On The Brink Of Collapse. But the interviewer is obsessed with Israel and Palestine.
Brings to mind this quote:
"A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their will, ay, against their common sense and consciences… They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? Or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?"
-Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
In term of foreign policy biden is disaster to the rest of the World.