Author: Alexander Boot

First, the positive. This is what I wrote on 20 May:

“Mrs May’s manifesto appears to be a cynical attempt to appeal to traditional Labour voters, ensuring thereby a large and lasting Tory majority.

“Alas, the only thing that really appeals to traditional Labour voters is traditional Labour policies – and, even more important, traditional Labour philosophies.

“This is what Mrs May has served up, thereby guaranteeing a Labour victory on 8 June. That this particular branch of the Labour Party paints itself blue rather than red is a purely chromatic difference.”

In that I was right. Mrs May clearly decided she could get away with alienating the core Tory support by painting herself a slightly paler shade than the blood-red colour favoured by Corbyn.

Everything else I got wrong. I, along with the Tory high command, assumed that whatever seats the Tories could gain in Labour areas would be a bonus on the number of seats they were guaranteed anyhow.

As I wrote a couple of days ago to a deeply concerned friend: “You and I are thoroughly alienated. But we aren’t going to vote Labour, are we?”

We didn’t. But enough people did to plunge the country into chaos, thereby reinforcing my contempt for our unchecked democracy and weakening my already brittle hope for our country.

Presented with two versions of socialism, diluted and neat, millions of people voted for the most subversive creature ever to lead a major British party. What the hell, go all the way, was a strong sentiment.

This shows how fundamentally corrupted the British electorate is. The job of corrupting it wasn’t hard, considering that, instead of relying on the head to decide such matters, most voters are driven by the organ located quite a bit lower.

There’s a quote attributed to Churchill: “If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain.”

Actually, the organ I had in mind sits even lower than the heart, but neither one is a proper place for making decisions about the country’s future. A voter in a democracy is supposed to act as a statesman, choosing right policies on the basis of rational deliberation.

The assumption is that, since the average voter is capable of such deliberation, the arithmetic majority is always right, whereas in fact it never is. The average voter doesn’t know how to think about politics, or about anything else for that matter. Feeling is the new thinking, and, thanks to creeping infantilisation, not just among young people.

No one capable of thinking at the most rudimentary of levels would vote for a rank communist like Corbyn. Anyone with a modicum of nous would know in a split second that every policy Corbyn proposes spells an unmitigated disaster for the country and indeed for the Western alliance.

Yet even a modicum of nous can’t be presupposed in a population comprehensively educated to think with their gonads, not their brain. Witness the fact that over 40 per cent of the electorate voted for an evil communist creature devoted over a lifetime to obliterating Britain by whatever means possible.

Economically, Corbyn policies are Leninist class war designed to punish industry, enterprise and thrift. He’s committed to wholesale nationalisation, making the government the only serious player in the commercial arena. This is accompanied by the usual Labour dedication to high taxes and runaway spending – this time grossly exaggerated even by those standards.

Then there are some nice extra touches, such as Corbyn’s self-acknowledged commitment to collapsing the house market with his ‘garden tax’. That would impoverish millions of people, especially the older ones, those for whom their houses are their whole wealth.

In terms of national security, Corbyn has always been the terrorists’ best friend. In the good modern tradition he eschews discrimination and happily supports anyone who can murder his countrymen: the IRA, Hezbollah, Hamas, Muslims in general. There’s no reason to believe that, should he find himself in power, he wouldn’t turn Britain into a free hunting ground for murderers.

He’s also in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament, leaving the country at the mercy of any predator big or small. And of course he’d cut the army down to a level even lower than the one the Tories have criminally perpetrated.

This is accompanied by his zoological hatred of Jews in general and Israel in particular, and of course of the monarchy. I’m sure Comrade Corbyn wishes he could do to Her Majesty what his Russian co-believers did to her relation Nicholas II, but he’d be happy to settle for the next best thing: turning Britain into a people’s republic. May I suggest the BSSR as a possible name for it?

There are of course some hardcore communists in Britain, but they certainly don’t add up to 40 per cent of the electorate. That number has to include millions of those Charles Moore calls idealists and I call idiots, mostly young ones – those who don’t think but feel.

Corbyn fed them a few buzz phrases that made them feel warm down there, and off they headed, ‘down there’ first, for the polling stations. If any argument against unchecked democracy is needed, this election is it.

I’m not convinced, as some commentators are, that, had the Tories come up with a proper conservative manifesto, they would have had their landslide. Nor am I sure that anyone less of a nonentity than May could have led the Tories to Shangri-La.

It’s conceivable that a manifesto of low taxation, lower social spending, greater defence spending, resolute response to both Muslim terrorism and EU blackmail would have put Corbyn into 10 Downing Street, not just within a whisker of it.

The Conservative Party hasn’t been conservative for a long time, and our dumbed-down population only ever gives the Tories a large majority in the wake of universally acknowledged catastrophes perpetrated by Labour.

The British have become knee-jerk socialists and, given a decent economic situation, they’ll vote Labour – even, as in this case, its communist wing. Mrs May, devoid of any mental or moral strength, but amply blessed with cunning, realised this and delivered a Labour manifesto in Tory clothing, communicated with epic ineptitude.

The ploy has backfired. Our gonadic voters heaved a sigh of relief at realising that even the Tories are socialists at heart. Well then, why not vote with their gonads? No reason at all.

Even if Mrs May cobbles together a workable coalition with the Unionists, hers will be a lame-duck government unable to push through any grown-up policies – or certainly to get out of the EU on its own terms if at all.

Another election beckons, with probably a different Tory leader at the helm. But there are no different Tory leaders – only different names. It’s not only every nation that vindicates Joseph de Maistre by getting the government it deserves, but also every party.

Recently Stephen Hawking, a lifelong Labour supporter, declared that Jeremy Corbyn would be a disaster as prime minister.

Now, emulating Archimedes in his bath, Newton with his apple and Mendeleyev with his dream of the periodic table, the good professor has performed an instant turn-around. It’s now the Tories who would be catastrophic.

“Another five years of Conservative government would be a disaster for the NHS, the police and other public services,” says Hawking, regarded in some quarters as the world’s smartest man.

Perhaps he is just that, in one of those parallel universes whose existence he promotes with manic zeal. But here on earth, while I’m not qualified to judge his professional credentials, whenever he ventures outside his field Prof. Hawking tends to refute himself without realising it.

That is generally not a sign of an intelligent man. But judge for yourself, starting with his pronouncements on religion.

Prof. Hawking is an atheist, which doesn’t exactly preclude intelligence but, in my judgement, compromises it. It seems that the good professor has set out to prove this point.

“The universe is governed by the laws of science,” he says. And then, “There is probably no heaven… We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful.”

As are we all. However, some of us may point out that, just as the very existence of universal laws presupposes the existence of a universal lawgiver, so does any design have to owe its existence to a designer.

When enlarging on cosmology, intelligent atheists keep words like ‘design’ at bay because they know that logically ‘designer’ will follow in its footsteps, and then ‘creator’ is just round the corner. I know this because some of my best friends are intelligent atheists, and they never delve into such issues, other than saying that we don’t know and never will.

Then there’s that old chestnut about an unresolvable conflict between religion and science: “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason,” says Hawking. “Science will win because it works.”

This is intellectually feeble, philosophically unsound and historically ignorant. Science (I assume he meant natural science) answers ‘what’ questions and sometimes ‘how’ ones, but it neither answers nor even asks questions beginning with ‘why’.

It can’t: when it comes to Hawking’s universal lawgiver or designer, natural science is out of its depth. Higher sciences, theology and philosophy, have to take over. Religion deals with the whole phenomenon; science, with just one aspect of it. That’s why there’s no conflict, no winners and losers. And that’s why just about every great scientist in recorded history believed in God.

Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Pascal, Leibnitz, Maxwell, Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg, Mendel spring to mind, and the list can go on ad infinitum.

But never mind the greatest stars in the scientific firmament. Another militant atheist, Prof. Lewis Wolpert, mournfully admits that at least half of today’s scientists believe in God. They, along with all intelligent people regardless of their occupation, realise that the conflict between science and religion is a myth, and not a clever one at that.

When it comes to his political views, doubts intensify about Prof. Hawking’s intelligence outside his immediate field. He consistently supports just about every leftie cause, no matter how idiotic or pernicious.

I don’t even have to enumerate the causes: you name it, he supports it. Just off the top, Prof. Hawking is in favour of boycotting Israeli scientists because of Israel’s nastiness towards Palestinians. He wants Britain to disarm unilaterally and stay in the EU. And on the subject of medicine, he says: “I believe in universal medical care. And I am not afraid to say so.”

While applauding Prof. Hawking’s courage in supporting this extremely popular cause, one still has to point out something that ought to be obvious to the great mind. The argument isn’t about the advisability of universal medical care but the best methods of providing it. Insisting that those opposed to the NHS method want to see people dying in the streets is a sure sign of an intellectually challenged leftie replacing thoughts with rants.

Worst of all, Prof Hawking manifestly advocates the policies put forth by Jeremy Corbyn, some of which are downright wicked and all of which are hare-brained.

Corbyn’s tax and spend policies would push Britain over the edge of bankruptcy where she hovers already, largely (though, it has to be said, not exclusively) thanks to the legacy of the previous Labour governments.

His defence policies would render the country defenceless before enemies internal and external.

His immigration policies, unfolding against the background of his anti-Semitism and pro-Islamism, would turn Britain into a caliphate inside a generation.

His hatred of the monarchy would push Britain towards republicanism.

His hatred of capitalism would destroy free enterprise.

And – are you ready for it? – he’d make Diane Abbott his Home Secretary, thereby doing to the country what he used to do to Diane Abbott.

It takes not just an intellectually deficient man but a downright madman to support Corbyn with Hawking’s recently developed enthusiasm. Alas, if the polls are right, we have millions fitting this description. But, in this universe, no one else is described as the world’s smartest man.

Muslim brutality says all one needs to know about Islam. Our response to it says all one needs to know about us.

None of it is good. All we offer is cloyingly sentimental clichés, woolly explanations and pathetic defence measures. And our political ‘leaders’ liberally mix maudlin vulgarity with most refreshing cynicism, trying to exploit terrorism to their own ends.

Hackneyed phrases are a sure sign that sentiment has given way to sentimentality. How many times over the past two days have you heard the words “our thoughts and prayers go to the innocent victims”?

I suggest our public figures save their vocal chords, and our hacks their column inches, by abbreviating these platitudes to T&P and IV. This wouldn’t make the pronouncements any less trite, but it would certainly make them snappier.

At the French Open yesterday Andy Murray delivered a post-match interview in which every other word was ‘obviously’, the runaway favourite with our athletes. He then took up valuable TV time delivering the usual mantra. How much more inspiring it would have been had he just said “Our T&P go to the IV, and I was serving pretty well.”

The teddy bear industry is doing brisk business. There are shops in London that sell nothing but those cuddly toys. These days many of them end up on London Bridge and in Borough Market, which is supposed to show resolute solidarity in the face of terrorism. All it really shows is tasteless, mawkish sentimentality.

The Archbishop of Canterbury explained that the latest incident proves that scriptural texts can be “twisted and misused”. He then offered a toe-curling bit of moral equivalence by explaining that things like these also happen “within our own faith tradition”.

Saying that “this has nothing to do with Islam,” is wrong, opined Welby. That’s “just like saying Srebrenica had nothing to do with Christianity”.

It would be tempting to accuse him of rank ignorance, but surely even he knows that not a single verse in the New Testament calls for killing, while the Koran has hundreds of them. He must also be aware that the founder of Christianity was a crucified martyr, while the founder of Islam was a mass murderer – everyone knows that.

Hence there’s no moral equivalence. We’re all sinners, and Christians have been known to commit terrorist atrocities. But Christian thugs do that in spite of their religion, while Muslim ones do it because of theirs.

If the Archbishop is deaf to such nuances, he isn’t fit to be a parish priest, never mind the first prelate of our state religion. But deaf he isn’t. It’s just that PC reverberations drown out everything else inside his head.

Rachel Sylvester, writing in The Times, sees the roots of Muslim terrorism in “segregation and deprivation”, providing the useful datum that “more than three quarters of Islamist-related offences were committed by people living in the poorest 50 per cent of neighbourhoods”.

It’s true that the kind of Muslims who leave their Ferraris in the no-parking zone outside Harrods are unlikely then to drive said vehicles through a crowd. Yet Miss Sylvester doesn’t quite explain why white, Chinese or Indian people who share those same neighbourhoods with Muslims somehow desist from suicide bombing.

The same observation applies to the segregation part. It’s true that a few Muslim ghettos in Birmingham supply most jihadists. Yet there are parts of London, for example Acton, where one mostly hears Polish speech in the street. Yet the denizens of those Polish areas seem to favour plumbing over stabbing.

Jeremy Corbyn had the temerity to demand Mrs May’s resignation because, as Home Secretary, she reduced the size of the police force. Now since most of our policemen are unarmed, it’s unclear how they can stop large vehicles hurtling towards the IV to whom our T&P will then go.

Those policemen who are armed responded to the incident in a way that doesn’t suggest that their efficacy is hamstrung. It took them eight minutes from the first call to arrive on the scene and shoot the murderers dead. Pretty good going for an overstretched police force in a vast city.

In any case, Jeremy Corbyn is a fine one to talk. Even now he refuses to say one word against IRA terrorists whose mouthpiece he was, and neither does he renounce his Hamas and Hezbollah friends. Instead he proudly admits that “I’ve been involved in opposing anti-terror legislation ever since I went into Parliament in 1983.”

Is this the kind of idealism that, according to Charles Moore, endears Corbyn to young voters? This man isn’t an idealist but a villain, and we haven’t yet even begun to talk about his economic programme that, if executed, will destroy Britain at a speed that even previous Labour governments didn’t quite achieve.

That Corbyn is patently evil makes Mrs May good only comparatively speaking. She has responded to yet another Muslim atrocity by refusing to identify its provenance. Instead, having established that her T&P go to the IV, she then proposed a four-point programme to combat “Islamist” terrorism, each point perfectly pointless.

Point 1 is “countering Islamist ideology… with our pluralistic British values.” One doubts that British-born Muslims have been underexposed to such values. How can this exposure be increased? Pari passu with welfare hand-outs?

Point 2 is cracking down on online jihadist propaganda. Even assuming that this is achievable, such a countermeasure may only reduce the number of new recruits to the noble cause of turning Britain into a caliphate.

What about the tens – possibly hundreds – of thousands of jihadists already here? What about those to be admitted with an army of new arrivals? Especially, what about those 3,000 potential terrorists already known to the authorities as such?

Mrs May maintains trappist-like silence on such details, rendering this point moot.

Point 3 is closely related to Point 1, and just as pointless. It involves educational work in Muslim areas, teaching fiery-eyed youngsters the delights of moderation. Good luck with that.

Point 4 really takes the pita. According to Mrs May, “we need to increase the length of custodial sentences for terrorism-related offences”. But of course. A few more years in the pokey are guaranteed to be a powerful deterrent for people ready to blow themselves up.

Mrs May left out the fifth and most important point. We should publish a collection of vulgar post-murder clichés and issue free teddy bears to all who want them. That way we’ll be forearmed against those segregated, impoverished Muslims, as we’re already forewarned.

We were having dinner with friends last night, eating, drinking, laughing, telling off-colour jokes and at times even attempting serious conversation.

That’s what one does on a Saturday night. My preference is to do so at home: restaurants these days are too noisy to tell off-colour jokes or especially to attempt serious conversation.

Some others don’t mind that though; they like the buzz, the atmosphere of joyous exuberance. Why, they don’t even mind what passes for music these days drowning conversation in tribal, electronically enhanced din. Well, de gustibus… and all that.

Just as we were eating and drinking, thousands of others, mostly young people, were having a good time at the hundreds of restaurants and pubs in the recently gentrified Borough Market area of London, some six miles from us.

And then, at around 10 pm, as we tucked into our pudding, they weren’t having a good time any longer. Three men drove their white van through crowds at London Bridge, then crashed the van at Borough Market and jumped out brandishing 12-inch knives.

They then broke into restaurants and pubs and began slashing people’s throats. Eight minutes later they were dead, shot by armed police. Their rampage didn’t last very long. But long enough.

Seven dead, 48 in hospital with variously awful injuries, many walking wounded, river police looking for more bodies in the Thames. Saturday nights in London aren’t what they used to be.

Reporting on this witches’ Sabbath, the BBC at first didn’t say a word about the murderers, other than that they were men, three in number and probably terrorists. Others reported they were ‘of Mediterranean origin’.

Now the Mediterranean area, the cradle of our civilisation, is rather large. So what were they? Italians? Frenchmen? Greeks? Spaniards? Israelis?

And only the morning papers mentioned in passing, without making a big deal of it, that the murderers were “jihadists” who, for the benefit of the predominantly Anglophone audience, replaced the Arabic battle cry “Allahu Akbar!” with “This is for Allah!”.

Oh, so they were that kind of Mediterranean? Who could have thought.

Everyone, is the answer to this facetious question, especially since this is a third such incident in England over the past 10 weeks.

Everyone knows who drives HGVs through human flesh, slashes throats, sprays streets with AK rounds, blows up crowded buses and pop concerts. Not people of some nebulous Mediterranean origin, nor probable terrorists, nor even jihadists or Islamists, although here we’re getting warmer.

Muslims. That dread M-word that our politicians and journalists can’t bring themselves to utter. Devout followers of Islam, who do murder because Islam tells them to do it.

Yet no public figure has the guts even to say this out loud, much less do something about it. Quite the opposite.

Mercifully, no one has yet described Islam as a religion of peace, but we can expect that clarification before the day is out, although the M-word still won’t cross anyone’s lips.

Meanwhile Theresa May complimented Londoners on their bravery in the face of a “potential act of terrorism” and expressed sympathy with those “who are caught up in these dreadful events.” She later talked about the “single evil ideology of Islamist extremism”, whatever that means. Certainly not the M-word.

Comrade Corbyn, who hates Jews but has never met a terrorist he couldn’t love, regretted the “brutal and shocking incidents” and thanked the emergency services.

The Muslim mayor of London Sadiq Khan repeated his party leader’s statement almost word for word.

All good, appropriate and predictable. But where’s the rage directed at the true culprits? Where, above all, is an answer to the perennial question invariably asked by the pragmatic English: “What are we going to do about it?”

This question is neither answered nor even asked. Not ever, not in any tangible manner pointing at a real solution – and certainly not four days before the general election that Comrade Corbyn, who hates Jews but loves Hamas and Hezbollah, may conceivably win.

Churchill, speaking at a time when Soviet-made German bombs rained on London, expressed sympathy for the victims too. But he also said: “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

He missed a golden opportunity to deliver a prescient oration presaging the rhetoric favoured by his successors:

“I join all of you in deploring the ghastly atrocities perpetrated upon London. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. However, at this moment of grief, I must caution you against blaming all Germans, or indeed all Nazis, for these dreadful events. The people dropping bombs on the East End of London are not acting as Germans, nor indeed as Nazis. They are Nazi-ists, the black, or rather brown, sheep in the healthy flock of the great German nation and the ideology it happens to favour at the moment. This ideology may be at odds with everything this realm espouses, but it is as deserving of respect in the spirit of diversity.”

Acts of Muslim terrorism are recurring with monotonous regularity, and I have to follow suit by saying the same things over and over again: we’re at war, different from the one 77 years ago, but a war nonetheless.

The sooner we realise this, identify the enemy and begin fighting “whatever the cost may be”, the better chance we have of surviving.

The fighting part should be left for those trained for it. But I’ll be happy to make my modest contribution to the first two parts.

We’re at war with Islam. Hence every Muslim must be regarded as an enemy alien, however unfair this might be in most cases. Those 3,000 already known to the police as potential murderers must be removed from the streets by any means available.

It’s possible that some aspects of English justice may be compromised in the process. They always are at wartime. This is often the worst, or at least longest-lasting, damage caused by war.

But – “whatever the cost may be”. For the only alternative to victory is defeat. Which in this case means the death of our nation, as assured as it could have been 77 years ago.

Margaret Court won more Grand Slam titles than any other woman in history, but she’s going to lose this shouting match.

When PC stormtroopers close ranks against someone, there can only be one winner. Mrs Court has found herself on the receiving end because she remarked that tennis is “full of lesbians”.

It took the stormtroopers minutes to marshal their forces. Riding their rainbow-coloured horses in the vanguard were three other former Grand Slam winners Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King and Samantha Stosur. Martina immediately castigated Mrs Court as “a homophobe and a racist”, although neither the first nor especially the second follows from her remark.

Being lesbians, all three crusaders are in a weak position to dispute the factual aspect of Mrs Court’s remark, and nor is it their intention. In the distant past, people used to object to good women being branded lesbians. Now they object to good lesbians being branded lesbians.

Samantha still keeps one foot inside the closet, but the other two ladies proudly parade their perverse sexuality. Billie Jean once described herself as “a dyke with fat legs”, while two years ago Martina had the good taste to propose marriage to her girlfriend on bended knee in a crowded restaurant.

Anybody who follows tennis knows that Mrs Court was factually correct. This stands to reason.

Tennis is an aggressive game and, as numerous studies have proved, aggression is largely a function of testosterone. Women seldom start wars, do they?

It follows that professional tennis attracts a disproportionate number of women who are hormonally and psychologically close to men. I could name offhand dozens of known lesbians among women players, one with regret. I used to fancy Gigi Fernandez, who was gorgeous. It was heart-breaking to discover she was living with another player, Conchita Martinez.

My cracker-barrel explanation of this situation may be debatable, but the situation itself isn’t. Professional tennis indisputably has more than a statistically predictable number of lesbians.

Nor do the stormtroopers bother to deny it. They object not to the fact but to Mrs Court’s disapproval of it – especially since she’s on record as a fierce opponent of homomarriage.

Since her playing days, Mrs Court has become a Christian preacher, lamentably in the iffy Pentecostal confession. But whatever the denomination, she correctly says that not only Christianity but all Abrahamic religions regard homosexuality as a sin.

In fact, one Abrahamic religion executes homosexuals in variously imaginative ways, thereby creating a conflict of PC pieties. On the one hand, Islam satisfies PC multi-culti cravings. On the other hand, Muslims could be legitimately called homophobes and misogynists. Personally, I enjoy watching progressives tie themselves in knots trying to untangle this conundrum.

Yet on this issue there’s no conflict. Margaret Court has transgressed against the PC dicta and must be punished. For starters, Navratilova wants the Margaret Court Arena at the Australian Open to be renamed after a more acceptable personage. May I suggest Caitlyn ‘Bruce’ Jenner?

Or perhaps Andy Murray, who has joined the battle. “I don’t see why anyone has a problem with two people who love each other getting married,” he said. “If it’s two men, two women, that’s great… It’s not anyone else’s business. Everyone should have the same rights.”

Now Andy is an intelligent tennis player but that, alas, isn’t quite the same as an intelligent man. He clearly hasn’t thought about this issue as deeply as it requires.

First, marriage isn’t just about love. While it’s no longer invariably a union before God, it’s certainly one before the state, replete as marriage is with social, economic and demographic implications.

Hence it’s wrong to say that “it’s not anyone else’s business”. Both the state and society have their say, and not everyone has the same rights. For example, under the current subversive law Andy could marry a man – but not his brother Jamie. And if he should divorce his beautiful wife, he could marry any woman – but not his mother Judy.

Marrying anyone one pleases isn’t a matter of God-given right. The legalisation of homomarriage was a political act, which these days means a politically correct act. PC fascism rules the roost, with cockerels marrying other cockerels and hens marrying other hens to push through a pernicious, immoral and socially destructive ideology.

As both homo- and heterosexuals demonstrate, two people in love don’t necessarily cohabit or, if they do, don’t necessarily get married. In fact, about 60 per cent of cohabiting couples don’t end up tying the knot.

Homosexuals have lived together for centuries, in England unmolested. Even Oscar Wilde was convicted not for his predilection but for sex with minors. So why this sudden urge to get married?

Here’s another question, which is a kind of answer to the first one. Why is ‘correctness’ political and not, say, moral, ethical or social? Because for once our anomic activists are being truthful: PC is indeed a political tool designed to bring about tyranny.

No tyranny can be imposed without destroying all meaningful opposition. In this case the opposition comes from what could be broadly described as tradition or, even more broadly, Western civilisation.

For fascistic progressivism to triumph, Western civilisation has to be routed. Its religious and moral foundation, Judaeo-Christianity, has already been marginalised at best. Ditto, Western polity, reduced to spivs pandering to a braying mob. Ditto Western economics, rapidly heading for debtors’ prison. Now the PC crowd are destroying the family, the core unit of society.

You might say that the term fascistic is too emotive, but I don’t think so. Militant intolerance of opposing, especially traditional, views is a hallmark of fascism, however this is expressed. Initially different forms of expression vary only in the pejorative names screamed by the mob.

It could be ‘Jews’, ‘capitalists’, ‘whites’, ‘blacks’, ‘traitors’. Or, as is more fashionable in today’s West, ‘homophobes’. Typologically, neither the slogans nor the people who scream them differ all that much.

They’re all united by their hatred of the West and everything it has stood for over millennia. PC also means post-civilisation.

Before you heave a sigh of relief, I hasten to disappoint you: Russia still occupies the Crimea and two other provinces of the Ukraine. Russians and Ukrainians are still killing one another, and the Russians are still getting entrenched on their stolen property.

So that conflict is proceeding apace, and there’s no end in sight. But another conflict is raging concurrently, this one involving neither the present nor the future but the past, not geography but history.

The opening salvo was fired by that renowned scholar Vlad Putin, who, on a visit to Paris, reminded the smug French that two of their royal dynasties, the Bourbons and the Valois, were founded by “Russian Anna, Queen of France”.

He was referring to Princess Anna of Kiev, who married Henri I in 1051 and indeed became the ancestor of all subsequent French kings. That much is true, or almost true: Anna wasn’t exactly queen but Henri’s queen consort. And, when Henri died in 1060, she became regent to her son Philip I.

But let’s not quibble about petty details – Vlad was close enough when identifying Anna as a royal personage. It’s when he identified her as Russian that Ukrainians took umbrage.

President Poroshenko accused Vlad of trying to steal Anna from the Ukraine as he had already stolen the Crimea and two other provinces. And the deputy head of Poroshenko’s administration wrote to his “dear French friends” that “Putin tried to mislead you today – Anne de Kiev, reine de France, is from Kiev, not Moscow (Moscow did not even exist by [sic] that time).”

Fair enough, I suppose that’s why she’s called Anna of Kiev, not Anna of Moscow. It’s also true that Moscow didn’t exist at the time. And that’s how, extrapolating from these indisputable facts, I can settle the argument between those two countries.

Chaps, you’re both wrong. Even worse, you’re ignorant. Worse still, you’re driven by ideology and petty jingoism, which are the worst possible accompaniments of ignorance.

For it’s not just Moscow that didn’t exist in the eleventh century. Neither did the Ukraine. Neither, as a matter of fact, did Russia. What did exist was Kievan Rus, a distant progenitor of both countries.

Anna was a princess of the Scandinavian Rurik dynasty that had founded and ruled Kiev since the ninth century. Her father was grand prince Yaroslav the Wise, whose father was Vladimir the Great, who baptised Kiev 1,000 years ago.

Diasporic Ukrainians, playing fast and loose with history, inscribed Vladimir’s statue in London’s Holland Park with the words ‘Ruler of Ukraine’. This, though at Vladimir’s time the Ukraine as a geopolitical entity was still half a millennium removed from being a twinkle in anyone’s eye. Vladimir was the ruler of the Ukraine in the same sense in which Alaric was the Chancellor of Germany.

Now Russia was never identified as such even as late as the sixteenth century. For example, Elizabethan maps refer to what now is Russia as either Muscovy or Tartary. In fact, Russia qua Russia was more or less created by Elizabeth’s contemporary (and hapless suitor) Ivan the Terrible, the last grand prince of the Rurik dynasty and the first Russian tsar.

In a way, one can understand both countries’ desire to claim Anna as their own: she was a remarkable woman. Unlike her husband, she was literate, and in several languages, although her French never did get to be up to snuff.

Henri signed the marriage contract with a cross, while Anna did so in the Latin alphabet. Not only was she uniquely educated for a woman of her time, but Anna also inherited her father’s wisdom (not to mention much of his wealth, which provided a most welcome infusion into France’s depleted treasury).

Henri valued her judgement in matters of state, and many of his decrees bear the inscription “With the consent of my wife Anna”. No other queen consort in French history was honoured with a similar inscription.

Anna was also a sage regent to her son Philip I, although she was driven out of the court after she married a nobleman who had divorced his wife for Anna. She then founded a convent in Senlis, in whose grounds she’s supposed to be buried.

All that apart, the unsightly squabble over Anna between two countries at the outskirts of Europe (the Ukraine actually means ‘outskirts’ in Slavic languages) says little about her but a lot about them.

It’s a squabble not between two lines of historical thought, nor two interpretations of original sources, but between two petty, ignorant chauvinisms, with both parties trying to score political points. History has indeed been described as retrospective politics, or words to that effect.

However, using history that way is tantamount to disfranchising and debauching the past, robbing it of truth, honesty and dignity. All countries are occasionally guilty of that sort of thing to some extent, not least France in whose capital Vlad insulted the Ukrainians so.

According to French historiography, France actually won many battles that traditionally have been scored for England, such as Agincourt and Waterloo. Yes, say the French, in purely technical, soulless, Anglo-Saxon terms, England might have squeaked by in those encounters. But, more important, France won a moral victory, displaying chivalry and valour way in excess of anything shown by les unsporting rosbifs.

Yet there’s something endearing, if ever so slightly risible, about that kind of national pride. The exchange between Russia and the Ukraine isn’t endearing at all. In a way it’s as malignant as the former’s aggression against the latter.

One wonders if the West is getting finlandised. For those of you too young to know, or too old to remember this term, it refers to the USSR’s post-war relationship with Finland.

The country managed to retain her nominal independence, but nominal was the operative word. The Soviets effectively controlled Finland’s government, planting their agents into key posts and exercising veto powers over state appointments.

While still technically part of the West, Finland had to do Russia’s bidding in her foreign and trade policy, while refraining from joining any anti-Soviet alliances, such as Nato.

Now one gets a distinct impression that Col. Putin is seeking a similar arrangement with other Western countries, emphatically including the USA.

The poison spreading from the Kremlin has already infected the Trump administration, in my view incurably. This, regardless of whether or not the president himself is directly implicated in questionable, possibly illegal, dealings with Putin’s kleptofascist junta.

Since no prima facie evidence of any such involvement has been presented, the good tradition of Western legality demands that Trump be considered innocent. However, this side of a court of law, one is allowed to speculate, and no disbelief needs to be suspended to realise that, even if Trump isn’t guilty, he’s as good as.

Why else has he densely surrounded himself with those whose links with a hostile power range from inappropriate to criminal? Why else has he refrained from uttering a single word against Putin, while singing his numerous praises? Why else hasn’t he introduced tougher sanctions on Russia after her attempts to subvert the American electoral process came to light?

Once again, even assuming that Trump himself is squeaky clean, he’s in the very least guilty of a criminally negligent personnel policy. This has already turned him into a lame duck president, unable to push any of his flagship policies through Congress – this in spite of his party having a majority in both Houses.

Meanwhile, things are going from bad to worse. Three of Trump’s closest advisers, Carter Page, Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn have had to resign in disgrace. Secretary of State Tillerson and Attorney General Sessions are under suspicion, for the same reason.

And yesterday Mike Dubke, the White House PR chief, had to resign under a cloud painted the colours of the Russian flag. The same cloud is hanging over the heads of Trump’s chief of staff Reince Priebus, press secretary Sean Spicer and, above all, Trump’s éminence grise and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Kushner had a hush-hush meeting with Sergei Gorkov, a career KGB officer seconded, along with many of his colleagues, to the Russian financial industry. (Gorkov personifies yet another reason I admire Putin so much: the good colonel has managed to create history’s unique government, formed by a fusion of secret police and organised crime.)

Allegedly the purpose of the friendly get-together was to establish a secret communication link bypassing official government channels. What it was in reality is anyone’s guess, but even the alleged purpose, if proved, ought to suffice for a summary sacking or worse.

And even Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, is about to be subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence Committee after his refusal to supply records of his own contacts with Putin’s jolly friends.

At this rate Trump is soon going to run out of staff. How long before he also runs out of friends on the Hill and in the Republican National Committee?

At some point, Republicans will figure out that Trump is a liability and that, compared to him, Nixon was a valuable asset even at the height of Watergate. They’ll then realise that keeping Trump on may make the party unelectable for a generation, which would be a tragedy for the country, the world and – most important to that lot – their own careers.

Are Trump’s own antennae beginning to twitch? His line of work requires no deep intellect, but it does place a premium on a finely attuned self-preservation instinct. Leaving quietly and of his own accord may be his best bet, avoiding an explosive scandal complete with impeachment if not a criminal charge.

For the time being, he could leave with his head held high, proud of the invaluable service he rendered his country: keeping Hillary out of the White House. Yet that exit door may be slammed shut at any moment.

As to Col. Putin, he does what the KGB, whatever it’s called at the time, has always done: creating troubled waters all over the world, undermining the West’s unity, whipping up pro-Kremlin propaganda, subverting everything subvertable, compromising everything compromisable, employing every old trick from the repertoire of the cloak-and-dagger arts and quite a few new ones, such as electronic sabotage.

The difference is that these days it’s not the KGB that serves the government, but vice versa. The KGB is the government, which is made clear even by that sinister organisation’s presence in Russia’s ruling elite: 80 per cent of it have backgrounds similar to Gorkov’s.

Those who say that Putin’s Russia presents a much greater danger than the Islamic State are absolutely right. As are those who lament that the West seems incapable of confronting this threat with intelligence and courage.

As a lifelong champion of progress, I’m happy to see that the concept of the university has advanced since the time that ox-like lad Tommaso from Aquino left his monastery at Monte Cassino.

He travelled to Paris to study with Albertus Magnus at the University of Paris, where his time was utterly wasted on such useless and anachronistic subjects as philosophy, theology, poetry, music, maths and astronomy.

If Thomas Aquinas lived today, he could go to Oxford University instead, where his time would be more profitably spent on taking compulsory courses in black or Asian history.

These courses have been made mandatory after protests under the banners of the ‘Why is my curriculum white?’ campaign resounded through the university halls.

This is one of those questions that, if posed, can only be answered with two words, of which the second one is ‘off’ (pronounced ‘orf’ in the good Oxford tradition).

For such questions are asked solely for the purpose of rabble-rousing, not to elicit a civilised, informative answer. If that weren’t the case, one could explain to the rabble-rousers that Asian people have made a negligible contribution to our civilisation, and black people next to none.

One could argue that some of the formative influences on Western thought were exerted by people like Augustine and Tertullian, who weren’t exactly white. But they are worth studying not because of their skin colour, but because they indeed exerted a formative influence on Western thought.

An Oxford spokesman has commented on the progress achieved in the syllabus, but not the way I would have done. I would have said that the faculty and administration have succumbed to mob rule, thereby proving yet again that university education no longer means anything.

The spokesman said something different: “We are always open to academically sound suggestions for augmenting our curriculum.” But of course. However, the question does remain whether or not a study of the dreams Martin Luther King had represents an academically sound subject.

As a lifelong champion of progress, I can only answer in the affirmative. As someone who still retains some residual sanity I have to answer with two words, of which the second one is ‘off’ – however it’s pronounced.

Forgetting for a moment my championship of progress, I’d suggest that someone with a keen interest in Martin Luther King’s dreams or Mahatma Gandhi’s bathing habits should by all means pursue such interests. I could even a recommend a book or two on those subjects.

Realising that most of today’s students may not be into extracurricular reading, I’d even suggest that an optional course on minor sub-cultures might be made available. But making such courses compulsory is too much even for someone with my unwavering devotion to progress.

At a weak moment I may even suggest that universities ought to be places for acquiring higher learning, not venting baser emotions. What should matter isn’t the racial composition of the student body, faculty or subjects studied but pursuit of academic excellence.

When a university becomes a battleground for ideological warfare, it first stops being a university and then the worst possible ideology wins. I dare suggest that mine is the truly colour-blind approach to such matters.

Our former PM Dave disagrees – or rather did so when he was still in office. Then he was aghast that Oxford only took on 27 black students in 2014. That line of thought is echoed by today’s second-year student Billy Nuttall, who’s horrified that fewer than 10 students at Magdalen College are from ethnic minorities.

Note that Dave knows that precise numbers work best, while Billy doesn’t. How many is “fewer than 10”? One? Four? Nine?

To any sane person it wouldn’t matter, but then no sane person would give two flying bucks about the number of off-white students. Such a hypothetical, and increasingly mythical, individual would only care that university places should be taken by the most qualified aspirants.

I’m absolutely certain that no university in Britain would reject a black student who’s more qualified than a competing white candidate. Hence what Dave & Billy desire is rejecting white candidates in favour of less qualified black ones. This strikes me as a tad unjust – not to mention injurious to the very purpose of the university.

But then I remember my love of progress and bemoan the fact that Oxford, with its obdurate adherence to traditional academic subjects, still lags behind other Anglophone universities.

For example, you could if you wish take a course in ‘The Lesbian Phallus’ at the Occidental College, LA (Critical Theory, Social Justice Dept.). And Queen’s, Belfast, offers ‘How to Train in the Jedi Way’.

Not to be outdone, Georgetown University counters with ‘Philosophy and Star Trek’. You can pursue ‘Harry Potter Studies’ at Durham or ‘The Life and Times of Robin Hood’ at the type-cast Nottingham University.

Alfred University, NYC, can contribute to your intellectual growth by offering ‘Maple Syrup Making’, and Glasgow proudly lists a post-graduate course on ‘The History of Lace Knitting in Shetland’.

The lifelong champion of progress in me rejoices. The hopelessly outdated retrograde doffs his hat in mournful reverence. Academe, RIP.

I hope you join Mrs May and me in wishing all Muslims who haven’t yet strapped explosives to their bodies a peaceful celebration of their peaceful festival.

And anyway, no matter how many Muslims strap explosives to their bodies and then detonate them in the middle of crowds, nothing will shake my – and Mrs May’s – belief in the peaceful nature of Islam.

In case you haven’t yet been forced to take compulsory lessons in basic Islam, I don’t mind enlightening you that Ramadan celebrates the peaceful revelations God (aka Allah) vouchsafed to the peaceful prophet Mohammed, who had hitherto been robbing caravans – all very peacefully of course.

In particular, all peaceful Muslims celebrate such peaceful revelations as these, all 300-odd of them:

‘Slay them [unbelievers] wherever ye find them…’ (2:91)

‘We shall cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve.’ (3:151)

‘Take them [unbelievers] and kill them wherever ye find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant.’ (4:91)

‘The unbelievers are an open enemy to you.’ (4:101)

‘As for thief, both male and female, cut off their hands.’ (5:38)

‘Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends…’ (5:51)

‘Slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush’ (9:5)

‘Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward.’ (4:74)

‘…If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them…’ (4:89)

Such peaceful verses are indeed worth celebrating, unless you happen to be a Christian, a Jew, an unbeliever, a renegade or in general not a Muslim.

If you do belong to any of these objectionable groups, you don’t have to celebrate Ramadan. But you do have to shut up if you find that Allah’s revelations to the Prophet weren’t entirely peaceful.

Citing facts or scriptural details is completely useless, I hope you realise this. There are things that soar infinitely higher than facts, such as the theologised belief in multi-culti rectitude.

Mrs May realises this, and more power to her elbow. We need people at the helm who forgo parochial interests, such as the thousands of years of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and extend warm greetings to those who crave our death.

After all, didn’t Jesus himself say “That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”? Of course he did.

Translating this commandment into the language of our progressive politics, it means that we a) admit all Muslims who wish to come here, for whatever purpose, including blowing us up, b) recognise that their culture is different from ours, and possibly better than it, c) guarantee that no matter how many Englishmen are blown to kingdom come to the sound of ‘Allahu Akbar!’, we shall draw no connection with the religion of peace and, most important, d) join Mrs May in wishing all Muslims, from moderate to jihadist, a peaceful Ramadan.

So here’s to you, my Muslim friends… oops, you don’t drink, do you? Never mind. Just try not to detonate any nail bombs for a while, if you possibly can restrain yourselves. I know it’s hard, but…

Far be it from me to suggest that a statesman must be an intellectual or even a serious political thinker.

For example, the only British PM who could be so described was George Canning, and he only served in that capacity for four months before his death in 1827.

Yet that doesn’t mean Britain hasn’t had any effective statesmen since then. It’s just that the age of philosopher kings so dear to Plato’s heart has passed – if indeed it ever existed.

The USA, being originally an ideological contrivance, had to be founded by educated ideologues. And, while my admiration for the Founders isn’t limitless, as thinkers they inhabited a different planet from the residence of subsequent presidents.

For example, when John Adams was ambassador to France, he was asked to join the debate between the Federalists and the Republicans. In response, over the next fortnight he produced an 800-page book that’s still a standard text of political science.

Donald Trump straddles the other extreme. He wouldn’t be capable of even reading such a book in a fortnight, never mind writing one. Now while for a US president to be an intellectual isn’t necessary and may even be undesirable, the other extreme, being a complete ignoramus, isn’t helpful and may even be dangerous.

This, I’m afraid, is Trump’s problem. That’s why he constantly swings from sound to pathetic, with everything in between. Witness his first presidential tour of foreign lands, which Trump himself described with his characteristic modesty and Mussolini-like grimaces as “a home run”.

I’m ready to applaud Trump’s reference to ‘Islamic’, as opposed to a PC ‘Islamist’ terrorism, along with his pointed refusal to tout the two-state solution on his visit to Israel. Yet my applause would be heartier if at the same time Trump hadn’t undertaken to supply $100 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, known sponsor of terrorism.

His lack of enthusiasm for the Paris Accord and the whole global warming rubbish is welcome, especially since it infuriated Frau Merkel, which is always a good thing. Trump’s attack on “bad, very bad” Germany was also not without foundation, although I’d be tempted to mention that the EU is by its nature a protectionist bloc.

However, Trump’s specific complaints about Germany revealed economic ignorance astounding in a graduate of Wharton. He must have played truant during those seminars on free trade.

Witness this remark about the “bad, very bad” Germans: “See the millions of cars they are selling in the US? Terrible. We will stop this.”

Merkel objected that this lamentable situation was “partially due to the high quality” of German cars and that a change in policy wouldn’t make people “buy more Cadillacs”. It pains me to say so, but she was absolutely right.

People don’t buy American cars because they aren’t very good: 10 of the 13 “cars to avoid at all costs” on the Forbes list are US-made. While those turnpike cruisers can just about pass muster on those endlessly empty motorways out West, they’re no good for crowded, winding European roads.

Europeans don’t mind driving Asian imports, and the Asians flood Europe with their cars despite the EU’s restrictive practices. Those Americans who can afford it would also rather drive a BMW than a Chevy.

The way to “stop this” is for Detroit to start making better cars, not for Trump to slap tariffs on German vehicles. When American products, such as those made in Silicon Valley, are good enough, Europeans are happy to buy them.

The US motor industry is a basket case, and a few years ago it took vast government bailouts to keep it afloat. Protectionism won’t improve the situation, quite the opposite.

Those Wharton students who weren’t playing truant must have been taught that any policy that hurts the consumer will hurt the whole consumer economy. Does Trump think that slapping, say, a 10 per cent tariff on Audis will make Americans buy Chryslers instead?

It won’t. They’ll bite the bullet and cough up an extra five thousand for the better machine. Hence they’ll have five thousand less to spend on more competitive American products, such as those made in Silicon Valley. Jobs thereby protected in Detroit will be lost in Palo Alto, reducing the overall competitiveness of US industry.

Protectionism causes untold damage by mollycoddling domestic production behind a wall of near-monopoly. That anyone should deem this necessary can only mean that domestic production was ineffective to begin with.

Yet when its incompetence is artificially protected from better rivals, it’ll have little incentive to get its act together. Quality will go down, prices will go up, funds will be channelled into the least – and away from the most – productive areas.

This is the ABC of economics, taught by every serious economist, from Adam Smith to David Ricardo to Milton Friedman. Thus, for example, Smith:

“To give the monopoly of the home-market to the produce of domestic industry… must, in almost all cases, be either a useless or a hurtful regulation. If the produce of domestic can be brought there as cheap as that of foreign industry, the regulation is evidently useless. If it cannot, it must generally be hurtful.”

Trump’s thinking on such matters is shockingly primitive, in line with the old bumper sticker “Buy a foreign car, put 10 Americans out of work”.

Unfortunately, his intellectual failings are married to the character traits of a vulgar, overconfident parvenu. If Trump possessed Ronald Reagan’s diffident charm and common sense, his ignorance of every political discipline wouldn’t matter very much.

Alas, he shows the effrontery of an autodidact, or rather a nondidact. I just hope he’ll be able to learn on the job before causing major damage.