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Last night London sounded like Beirut, c. 1980. Mercifully, it was fireworks rather than mortars, but the nervous souls among us jumped up all the same each time a bomb-like device went off.

The staccato cannonade had a crescendo built in, and tonight it’ll reach a thunderous finale (Penelope, where the hell are those earplugs you got me last year?). Technically the big bang should come tomorrow night, but weekends are more conducive to festivities.

“Always remember the fifth of November”, goes the popular ditty, and obedient Londoners always do. That’s why every year on this day, give or take a couple, fireworks light up the night sky, turning light sleepers like me into swearing insomniacs.

Bonfire Night is a big event, celebrating the failure of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, when the professional soldier and converted Catholic Guy Fawkes placed 36 barrels of gunpowder under the Houses of Parliament.

The aim was to blow up King James I, along with the House of Lords, to trigger a popular revolt and restore Catholic monarchs to the throne. The plot failed, and England remained staunchly Protestant, which ineluctably led to her becoming staunchly atheist.

This observation is inspired not by any personal convictions but simply by observation: the Reformation demonstrably acted as the anteroom to atheism.

Invited by Descartes (himself a semi-lapsed Catholic) to doubt everything, by Luther to become their own priests and by Calvin to disdain all spiritual authority, people were cast adrift in the raging sea of their own devices.

The reefs of atheism beckoned invitingly, and people happily sailed towards them. A Richard Dawkins – throngs of Richard Dawkinses – became inevitable, new prophets of the new materialistic gods always athirst.

These are the most obvious thoughts that Guy Fawkes night bangs into my mind. There are also less obvious ones, those having to with politics, not religion.

My contention is that violence is the only way to supplant any modern democratic state.

I’m not talking here about people voting to replace, say, Socialists Lite, aka Tories, with Socialists Full Strength, aka Labour. What I have in mind is rather changing significantly the existing constitutional arrangement if it doesn’t work well.

This brings us to ‘consent of the governed’, the defining feature of the modern state in the eyes of its founders. As do so many liberal notions, this one derives from Hobbes and mostly Locke, the inspiration behind both American and French revolutions, and therefore modern politics.

An idealised picture Locke must have had in mind was that of ‘the people’ coming together at some instant in the past to decide on accepting or rejecting the post-Christian idea of secular government unaccountable to any absolute moral authority.

Upon mature deliberation they chose to give their consent to the liberal, secular state. No doubt a show of hands must have been involved, all perfectly equitable and democratic.

This idea is doubtless attractive and it would become even more so if any evidence could be found to suggest that this meeting of minds ever took place. Alas, no such evidence exists.

In fact, no modern attempt to replace a traditional monarchy with a ‘liberal’ republic, be that the English revolutions of the seventeenth century, the American and French ones of the eighteenth, or the Russian ones of the twentieth, involved campaigning for the ‘people’s’ consent or asking them what they wanted.

What they all did involve was unbridled violence unleashed in ‘the people’s’ name by a small cadre of subversives and their variously named revolutionary committees.

Since neither Locke nor his followers could pinpoint the granting of ‘consent’ to any specific historical event, they had to talk about some nebulous ‘compact’ or ‘social contract’, to use the phrase first popularised by Democritus and later by Hobbes and especially Rousseau.

However, according to the legal principle going back to the Old Testament, for any contract to be valid it has to be adjudicated by an authority holding sway over both parties, one whose judgment they accept as binding. In any reasonable sense such an authority has to be institutionally superior to the two parties.

The only authority that can be deemed superior to both the state and the individual is God. Hence frequent, if insincere, appeals to the deity in various founding documents of the early liberal states.

However, one would look in vain for any scriptural references either to ‘government by consent’ or to ‘social contract’. Nowhere does it say that a third of the electorate, a proportion deemed adequate in most modern democracies including Britain, can cast their vote in a way that will give them absolute sovereignty over the remaining two-thirds.

An important aspect of ‘consent’, as understood by Lockeans everywhere, is that it’s irrevocable: once given, or presumed to have been given, it can’t be reclaimed by any peaceful means.

Yet in no conceivable way could it be true that a third or even a fourth of the population voting in a government has given consent on behalf of the rest of the people as well. This is patently ludicrous, as is the whole idea of consent, which in reality is neither sought by politicians nor given by voters.

Any real agreement includes terms under which it may be terminated. In the absence of a higher adjudicating authority, no ‘social contract’ can have such a clause.

Therefore violence is the only recourse either party has, meaning that in a modern state a revolution is not so much an aberration as a logical extension of the ‘social contract’, the only way for the people to withdraw their ‘consent’.

I don’t know whether Hobbes and Locke realised that their theories implicitly issued a carte blanche to revolutionary conspiracies. But Guy Fawkes illustrated – and presaged – their theories perfectly.

So perhaps some of the fireworks should be set off to commemorate his valuable contribution to political science – rather than to celebrate the failure of his attempt to put it into practice.

Was he aware of his pioneering effort? Who knows. A penny for your thoughts, Guy.

First a disclaimer: I love women’s naked bodies. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been spent in their presence, and I cherish every one, especially those I can remember.

Moreover, at the risk of enraging my more devout friends, I even enjoy female nudity vicariously, by looking without touching.

Photographs of naked women don’t upset me, quite the opposite. And I even like explicit sex scenes in films, provided they’re gratuitous and pursue no artistic ends whatsoever.

Having thus established my dissipated, tasteless and probably misogynistic credentials in three paragraphs of self-lacerating disclaimers, I now feel it’s safe to say what it is I dislike, nay despise.

That’s nudity practised for a cause and thus pretending to be something it isn’t (virtue), while concealing what it actually is: exhibitionism covering itself with an ideological fig leaf.

What the cause is doesn’t really matter: no good one can be promoted by parading female flesh in the buff. And even if the cause starts out as good, it’ll be compromised by the striptease.

Actually, the original Calendar Girls dropped their kit in 1999 allegedly to support a worthy cause, Leukaemia Research. Yet, even though a film was made about them, with Helen Mirren starring, they only succeeded in trivialising that deadly disease.

Miss Mirren, incidentally, has struggled to keep her clothes on throughout her distinguished career. Even now, in her dotage, she likes to parade her superannuated flesh at every opportunity, making one suspect that such exposure is an aim in itself.

Anyway, the idea caught on, and exhibitionism for commercial or ideological causes became a standard technique. Actually, Pirelli tyres have always been promoted that way, which is tasteless but otherwise unobjectionable.

Famous actresses stripping for the anti-fur campaign, on the other hand, was not only tasteless but also actively revolting.

Various naked celebrities would drag their fur coats behind them, each leaving trails of blood. “I’d rather go naked than wear fur,” was the line.

Ladies, this side of puerile, onanistic fantasies, there’s usually something worn between one’s skin and an overcoat. Hence the choice didn’t have to be as stark as that (pun intended). It’s possible to shed a fur coat and still sport, say, a jumper and a skirt for decorum’s sake.

Yet the ‘celebs’ jumped at the chance to parade what the Americans call T & A. Exhibitionism is as much of a compulsion as drug addiction.

And speaking of Americans, the latest actress to let it all hang out for an ideology is Jennifer Lopez.

Now Miss Lopez has devoted her whole life to keeping herself in shape, and it shows. Even at 49 she’s still a knockout, and her body is well worth admiring even fully clothed (especially in profile), never mind nude.

Her mind, unfortunately, is something else again, which she proved by shedding her clothes to strike a blow for women’s rights.

“It has taken time,” explained Miss Lopez in fluent Hollywood, “but I think we’re in a very powerful moment where women are going, ‘Wait a minute. We’re not afraid to say what we deserve.’”

And what would it be, dear, that you deserve to say? That you can bare your jutting attraction in a show of pathological exhibitionism? But we already knew that, thank you. Nothing new there.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the greatest barrier in the way of women’s emancipation from their servitude men’s insistence of seeing them as merely sex objects? Those ghastly creatures’ refusal to see a subtle mind and a great soul hiding behind well-rounded secondary sex characteristics?

So explain to me how an actress baring all in provocative poses upholds women’s rights. I’d suggest she’s striking a blow against them, not for them.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. It’s possible that Miss Lopez has set a pattern that could be profitably followed by prominent politicians, such as Mrs May.

She has already danced her way to the podium at the latest party conference – why not do pole dancing next time, to make a case for soft Brexit?

Yes, I know Mrs May isn’t exactly Miss Lopez, but then neither were those original Calendar Girls. Exhibitionism is an inner imperative that doesn’t have to depend on outward beauty.

And Frau Merkel is definitely missing a trick, which in her case is inexplicable. Naked photos of her as a young girl are widely circulated, so why not travel the trodden path?

As a former adman, I can even suggest a concept. She could run the ‘then and now’ photos side by side, with the headline saying: “I’ve matured over the years. So has the EU”.

On second thoughts, scratch that. Bad idea, sending a wrong message: the EU must portray itself as full of energy and youthful thrust.

The striptease would work better for Brigitte, Macron’s foster mother. The headline could say: “Manny loves me for what I am. Why can’t you love him for what he is?”

Please stop me before my imagination runs away with me. But the harrowing thought is that nothing I or any other perverse individual can think up is a match for reality.

Modernity makes satire redundant; today’s Swifts and Fieldings would be writing ads for toothpaste, or perhaps financial newsletters.

If you disagree, tell me if you would have been impressed by any satirist back, say, in the 1990s cracking a joke about a man who used to be a woman marrying a woman who used to be a man, and then getting pregnant because her reproductive organs weren’t removed when her brand-new penis was sewn on?

Of course not. You would have laughed at the man, not his joke. Now you can weep when reading such stories in medical journals.

Note that I said 1990s, not 1920s. Just one generation, and satirists already have nowhere to go. Perhaps now they’re unemployed, they could spend more time admiring Miss Lopez’s body, and never mind women’s rights.

A German joke is no laughing matter, quipped a wit once. Yet today no joke is – and some may be sacking or even criminal offences.

William Sitwell, the editor of the Waitrose Food magazine, found himself on the receiving end of this observation, when he was summarily sacked after responding to an e-mail pitch from a vegan hack.

Selene Nelson, food and travel writer of the vegan persuasion, pitched a series of articles on “healthy, eco-friendly meals”, as a result of which the “popularity of the movement is likely to continue to skyrocket”.

Movement, no less. Vegans are present-days suffragists, Luddites or Chartists. They aren’t just isolated oddballs here and there. They’re a political force, albeit still an aspiring one.

Mr Sitwell admirably replied in 10 minutes, which promptness is extremely rare among editors (spoken from personal experience). Moreover, his reply was humorous, which is rarer still:

“Thanks for this. How about a series on killing vegans, one by one? Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat?”

Personally, I would have suggested making them eat one another, but then I have no job from which I could be fired. Mr Sitwell did – and was.

Now neither Mr Sitwell’s joke nor especially my embellishment of it is particularly funny. That’s why I wouldn’t make it in a public medium, but then neither did Mr Sitwell.

His unfunny joke was made in a private missive, recipient’s eyes only. Since it had dire consequences, the self-righteous snitch must have forwarded the e-mail to Mr Sitwell’s employers and demanded action.

The demanded action was taken because today’s publishers are gun-shy. They know that a publication can suffer severe damage as a result of a PCC complaint or especially legal action.

The mere threat of any such thing is sufficient for them to get rid of the putative offender – whatever the face value of the problem (again spoken from personal experience: my offence was against homosexuals, not vegans, but both groups are equally hypersensitive).

In this case the Press Complaints Commission wouldn’t have been interested because the offending remark wasn’t published. I doubt a lawsuit would have been a real danger either, for the same reason.

What the publishers were afraid of must have been the possibility of a hysterical smear campaign, possibly accompanied by riotous rallies outside their offices. Being totally devoid of a sense of humour is an essential qualification for New Age activists.

Now vegetarians and especially vegans, unless they have medical reasons for their dietary quirk, suffer from a hysterical neurosis typically exacerbated by pernicious ideology.

Not being a professional neurologist or psychiatrist, I don’t know if their condition is treatable. However, I do know that most of them would refuse to submit to treatment, and that’s where the ideology comes in.

In their eyes they’re paragons of virtue, courageous, self-sacrificial fighters for the liberation of animalkind. Since as a rule they’re atheists (I’m strictly talking about Westerners here), they are prone to anthropomorphising livestock.

They may know that a legal difference exists between killing a person and slaughtering a cow, but in their eyes there’s no moral one. Both are animals created by Darwin in a flash of inspiration.

The neurotic hysteria part of it is indeed no laughing matter: we shouldn’t have fun at the expense of physical or mental deformity. But the ideological part is fair game, for the sanctimonious self-righteousness of those people isn’t a medical condition but a conscious choice.

Well, they’ve chosen wrong, and that’s a good reason to have a good laugh at their expense. But when they elevate their hysterical adulation of animals to a secular religion of sorts, an awful, hare-brained surrogate of real faith, they’re no longer just mildly amusing.

Like exponents of any other cult, they treat normal people not as the holders of a different view but as heretics and infidels. Hence no holds are barred, not even murder, as those fire-bombing anti-fur fanatics have demonstrated.

And their response to jokes at their expense isn’t a million miles away from the Muslims’ reaction to what they perceive as an affront to their particular cult. People may forgive those who poke fun at their thoughts, but not those who mock their faith.

Exponents of veggie cults become aggressively dangerous in that they try to shoehorn toxic alien additives into our civilisation, putting it at great peril – especially when they join forces with other New Age loudmouths, your tree-huggers, global-warmists, ideologised LGTB perverts, anti-nuke zealots and the like.

Therefore we, Western holdouts, are duty-bound to fight back with every weapon at our disposal, and savage satire has to come out of the quiver first. I myself lampoon those people every chance I get, and I support everyone who does the same – and admire everyone who suffers for doing so.

Such as William Sitwell, who showed that modern martyrdom doesn’t have to be sanguinary. The bastards can get us in all sorts of ways.

The fact that this question can be asked suggests some lack of certainty. No such problem with deciding what it doesn’t stand for: conservatism.

Conservatism is the only political and moral philosophy rooted in the founding Judaeo-Christian tenets of our civilisation. This applies not just, these days not so much, to the religion itself, but even to every seemingly secular principle the religion spawned.

That determines what conservatives wish to conserve: the core principles of Christendom, as refracted through the complex facets of contemporaneous society.

Therefore political conservatives (and conservative parties) must find a way of adapting those principles to the rough-and-tumble of quotidian life, making sure the latter doesn’t deviate too far from the former – and the former don’t compromise the latter.

The defining political feature of any country is the relationship between the state and the individual. The more power the central state possesses, the less conservative it is.

The key organisational principle of Christendom is that of subsidiarity, devolving power to the lowest sensible level. That’s why, before Jesus Christ became a superstar, no central Western government had even approached the power of today’s prime ministers or presidents.

Since everyone was believed to be individually responsible for his own salvation, it was assumed that everyone could also be responsible for taking care of the infinitely easier task of running his own life.

Kings thus held much more sway over the loftiest courtiers than over the lowliest peasants. The people just went on with their lives, which were steered with loose reins by local squires, magistrates and priests – not by the almighty central state.

This reversed the arrangement that had existed in the Hellenic world, where the polis was everything and the individual next to nothing. Personal sovereignty was a concept alien to the Greeks and Romans alike: people had any value only as citizens, not as individuals.

And citizens were happy to be subjugated to the polis, accepting that their own petty concerns were trivial compared to the communal good – as defined by the polis.

In an eerie sort of way today’s democratic politics resembles Hellenic antiquity, minus the philosophical depth and cultural refinement. This mock-classical heritage is reflected in the budget unveiled by the government yesterday.

Even before the 2008 crisis, sensible people knew that an economic disaster loomed at the end of a profligate spend-and-borrow policy. The way most Western states run their economies resembles a pyramid scheme, or cheque kiting if you’d rather.

Cheque kiting means writing a cheque for an amount greater than the account balance and then covering the deficit with a cheque drawn on another account at another bank where the funds are also insufficient.

If the kiter presciently opens multiple accounts in banks all over country, he can pursue the scam quite profitably – until one day the penny drops, as it were. Usually that happens when he gets too greedy to stop in time, an oversight he’ll then have plenty of time to contemplate in prison.

In that spirit, the chancellor has announced the winding down of austerity, which never was wound up in the first place. The Exchequer, he proudly declared, will loosen its purse strings to the tune of an extra £103 billion – this just days after the PM bemoaned the inordinately high cost of serving the national debt.

The government has been reticent about the source of the extra funds, but I can tell you where they’ll come from: printing and borrowing, the governmental version of cheque kiting.

Sooner or later the fraudulent cheques will be called to account, and the scam will come to a shattering end. But as long as this doesn’t happen before the next general election, it’s not this government’s problem, is it?

Their problem is to secure victory when the time comes, and damn all else. But why does this irresponsible, nay suicidal, spending spree improve their electoral chances? Why isn’t everyone screaming bloody murder?

Alas, our comprehensively uneducated public doesn’t realise that there’s a cheque-kiting scam under way. And even if they did, they wouldn’t care.

For they’ve been indoctrinated to think about such matters in the same slipshod way, and this applies to how they handle their own finances too. Maxing out a full pack of credit cards and mortgaging themselves to the hilt are the cornerstones of today’s private fiscal policies – mirroring the public equivalent.

Neither the government nor the voters give a moment’s thought to what will happen if, say, interest rates get to the level of 30 years ago, around 15 per cent? Doesn’t bear thinking about, that.

But this is only the most visible, and I daresay less significant, pitfall of promiscuous spending. For the state doesn’t shower prospective voters with money just to win their support. It does so to increase its own power.

Our state is paternalistic, meaning it performs towards us the same function as a father performs for his children. People welcome this care, forgetting that a father has practically an unlimited power over his brood.

He provides for the child’s food, shelter, education and medical care – but in return he acquires the right to tell junior that it’s time for bed or that there won’t be any pudding if he doesn’t eat his greens.

Extrapolating to politics, the more a state does for people, the more it’ll do to them. In the process, a provider state will draw more and more power to the centre, and away from the periphery.

Whether the state will worship Marx, as ours will under PM Corbyn, or pays lip service to Christianity, as ours does under the vicar’s daughter, is immaterial. It’s a distinction of style, rather than a difference of substance.

Some states achieve this end mainly by violence and diktat; others, such as ours, go easy on violence, heavier on diktat and heavier still on paternalistic hand-outs.

But they all pursue the same self-serving aims. Therefore, even though there might be some genuine conservatives in our Conservative government (which I doubt), the government itself has nothing to do with true conservatism. ‘Conservative’ is a misnomer.

The only good thing I can say about this lot is that, while defying the timeless principles of conservatism, they uphold what I call the ABC of today’s politics: Anyone But Corbyn.

Yes, that lot will be infinitely worse. But I can say one thing for them: at least they don’t call themselves conservative.

Many people, especially those who never wanted to leave the EU in the first place, claim that no one realised at the time of the referendum what Brexit meant.

Things have since proved so complicated, and the economic consequences of Brexit appear so nightmarish, that we need at least one more referendum.

If at first they didn’t succeed, they want to try and try again – until they get a result they can get their heads around, meaning the one they want. Everything else is just too incomprehensible for words.

The only thing those people with learning difficulties do know for sure is that post-Brexit we’ll all starve and freeze in the dark. It’ll be worse than the Black Death, what with fruit and veg becoming so unaffordable that a pandemic of scurvy will empty out the British Isles.

So, for the benefit of those slow learners, I’ll be happy to simplify matters by reducing them to a very clear proposition.

The EU is a political project whose aim is to create a single pan-European state dominated by Germany, with France bringing up the rear. As things stand now, Angie Merkel will be empress in all but name.

That’s why only one question needs answering:

Do we wish Britain to be a sovereign state headed by Her Majesty and governed by Parliament or, alternatively, to become a dominion of the German empire?

That’s all. Everything else is either immaterial or derivative.

Think of it as boarding a 16:43 for Birmingham. As you contemplate the journey, the only relevant question to ask is whether the train will get you there in time for, say, a 19:30 concert at the Symphony Hall.

Once that question has been answered in the affirmative, then and only then may you also wonder about the chances of bumping into someone you know at Euston Station or meeting the love of your life on the train (provided your wife isn’t any the wiser).

But first things first, right?

The very last thing we should do is mire the problem in the swamp of extraneous considerations, such as Brexit’s economic consequences. The issue is all about politics. So let’s sort out the politics first and worry about everything else later.

All right so far? Splendid. Now we’ve taken care of the central issue, let’s talk about peripheral ones – such as indeed the economy.

Actually, this isn’t a bad time to talk about it because our Europhile chancellor is about to uncork a ruinously promiscuous budget – and, which is even worse and certainly more perfidious – link it to Brexit.

Mr Hammond intends to spend even more billions we haven’t got and put an end to austerity – but only if Parliament agrees to the kind of Brexit that isn’t really Brexit.

I’ve said it a thousand times if I’ve said it once that those chaps ought to look up ‘austerity’ in the dictionary. They’ll find it means spending less than one earns – not overspending at a stratospheric rather than cosmic rate, which is what austerity seems to mean to our governing spivs.

Their type of austerity has brought bailiffs to many a door, and the IMF to many a country. This is one example of what I call ‘glossocracy’: controlling the people by controlling their language.

But what will happen if Britain takes French leave from the EU’s good offices? Something so awful that it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Britain – brace yourself and make sure you’re sitting, or better still, lying down – will have to lower taxes, reduce red tape and free up trade to attract foreign investment. In other words, our economy will emulate Singapore’s by becoming friendly to international commerce.

Again let me boil this down to a very simple proposition even slow learners can understand.

If we comply with the wishes of the British people (more of whom voted for Brexit than have ever voted for anything else), the government will go against its instincts and make our economy sound – just like Singapore’s. In other words, prosperity is a sort of punishment imposed on the people if they misbehave.

On the other hand, ruining the economy with unsustainable spending and borrowing, accompanied by devastating taxation and strangulating red tape, is the prize we win for abandoning, or at least compromising, our sovereignty.

The threat of prosperity has thrown Corbyn and other subversives into a hysterical fit. Becoming like Singapore, they wail frothing at the mouth, will destroy our manufacturing and make us all poor.

Now Britain’s GDP per capita was just under 40,000 USD in 2017, whereas Singapore’s was just over 55,000. Become like Singapore? Any sane person will scream “Yes, please!”

But not our governing spivs and especially not their disloyal opposition. Surely even problem pupils must see that the economic ‘punishment’ they see in their mind’s eye will bring not only more service business to Britain, but also a great deal of manufacturing?

In any case, British manufacturing has been in the doldrums for several decades now.

Nevertheless the country has managed to keep the wolf from the door, doing much better now than it did when the unions suffocated Britain with billowing black smoke and Jeremy Corbyn screamed “Down with capitalism!!!” at street corners rather than in Parliament.

Now I have no conduit through which I can reach idiots, subversives or subversive idiots. But if you do, please convey these simple messages to them for me. Who knows, perhaps a few of them will understand.

And as to the Fourth Reich, aka the EU, well, you know what I think.

Remind socialists that Hitler was one of them, and there will be no end to the ensuing wailing and gnashing of teeth.

A Tory MEP found that out the hard way when he responded to a socialist’s attack on ‘right-wing nationalism’ (not liking the EU very much) with a counterattack of his own:

“We have to remember that Nazis were national socialists. It’s a strain of socialism.”

This simple statement of fact had the effect of painting a target on the poor chap’s chest. A cacophony of jeering shook the building, with words like ‘rubbish’ and ‘idiot’ hitting particularly shrill notes.

Thus the debate was engaged on the intellectual terms left-wingers favour to the exclusion of all others. Howling, name-calling, verbal and sometimes physical violence – such are the rhetorical tools in their box.

Good knock-about stuff, that – provided one doesn’t see arriving at truth as the desired destination. If that’s indeed where one wishes to arrive, then less febrile and more contemplative techniques will work better.

In this case, the truth is simple: the Tory was right. Nazism and fascism at one end and communism at the other bookmark the span of socialism. They are all different manifestations of the same thing.

I define this same thing as inordinate empowerment of the state at the expense of the individual, with everything else acting as either window dressing or a diversionary tactic.

Yet fairness compels me to admit that this isn’t how the founders of socialism defined it. They focused on economics, which they saw as the be-all and end-all of life.

Engaging the adversary on his own ground, I suggest you put side by side two economic programmes, Roosevelt’s New Deal and Hitler’s New Order. I dare you to find any substantial differences between the two – this although the New Deal is socialist (meaning virtuous in today’s cant) and the New Order is fascist (the opposite of that).

Herbert Hoover certainly saw them as similar, which is why he described the New Deal as a ‘fascist measure’. And he wasn’t the only one.

When the New Deal was first introduced, the conservatives cringed, the Nazis gloated, the socialists cheered – and none of them failed to see the parallels. No wonder.

The two programmes are strikingly similar, and this is only partly because they were both designed at roughly the same time and by mostly the same people (Gerard Swopes of General Electric, Paul Warburg of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Walter Teagle, of Standard Oil of New Jersey, were the principal authors of FDR’s New Deal and also acted as economic consultant to the authors of Hitler’s New Order).

Even a cursory examination will show that Hitler’s beliefs ran towards socialist ideals: big government, nationalised or at least subjugated economy, wage and price controls, strict tariffs, cradle-to-grave welfare, vegetarianism and the kind of genocidal peccadilloes that until (or after) him were practised on that scale only by socialists.

The direct link between Hitler and Marx isn’t widely publicised, but it was self-acknowledged. In his memoir Hitler Speaks Hermann Rauschning quotes the führer as saying that “the whole of National Socialism” was based on Marx. “I have learned a great deal from Marx,” conceded Hitler, “as I do not hesitate to admit.”

Such debts are never acknowledged, while the differences between ‘democratic’ socialism and fascism are overemphasised. It’s true that the socialists of France or Sweden hold civil liberties in somewhat higher esteem than Hitler did.

But while all fascists were hideous and oppressive, not all of them were murderous. Some, such as Mussolini, compare favourably in that respect with figures who are widely canonised as secular saints.

Abraham Lincoln, for example, closed down 300 pro-Southern newspapers (and had their presses smashed), suppressed the writ of habeas corpus and had 13,535 Northern citizens arrested for political crimes from February 1862 to April 1865.

Comparing his record with that of Mussolini, who only managed 1,624 political convictions in 20 years and yet is universally and justly reviled, one begins to see modern hagiography in a different light.

Mussolini, incidentally, had been one of the most effective socialist journalists in Europe before the fascist light shone in his eyes. He clearly found the transition to be seamless and painless, especially since he professed admiration for Lenin and his jolly band of cutthroats.

Lefties would do well to respond to political issues in an Aristotelian rather than Pavlovian fashion. When they hear the word ‘fascism’, their knees jerk and they don’t even attempt to engage their minds.

The word ‘socialist’ makes their knees jerk in a different direction, with the mind remaining equally unemployed. That negates the advantage of being human, vindicating Darwin.

Except that, judging by the level of modern intellectual discourse, the ape isn’t our past but our future. And a rapidly approaching future at that.

Actually, my subject today isn’t gastronomy but language. Or, to be precise, the linguistic imperialism to which the English language submits much too meekly for my taste.

People are oblivious to the threat of linguistic extinction or at least degeneration, but the threat does exist – as it has always existed for every lingua franca.

That’s why I watch out for signs of erosion caused by both domestic ignorance and foreign interference. This isn’t to say that English should stand still.

Language develops, and a good job too. Organisms that stop developing start dying, and language is no different in that respect. However, not all changes are to be welcomed.

We should accept with but token resistance only organic developments, those occurring within the language as used by educated native speakers.

Changes brought about by uneducated speakers must be fought tooth and nail because by and large they’re reductive, shrinking rather than expanding the language.

Thus, when Kevin says ‘masterful’ when he means ‘masterly’, or when Sharon says ‘appraise’ instead of ‘apprise’, or when Lee uses ‘momentarily’ in the sense of ‘in a moment’ rather than ‘for a moment’, they ought to be corrected and told in no uncertain terms never to mangle English again.

A stern letter to the Department of Education wouldn’t go amiss either. If you don’t teach pupils their own language, the letter should say, what on earth do you teach them?

How to use condoms and how the British Empire was evil? Don’t worry about it, pupils can pick that kind of learning out of the ambient air, it’s all over the place. Tell them to pick up NHS leaflets and a copy of The Guardian, they’ll get all the information they need to get through life as fully paid-up morons.

Then use the time thus saved on teaching them their own language. Perhaps a foreign tongue or two would be useful as well, but now I know I’m asking too much.

Foreign influences should ring alarm bells too, selectively. We mustn’t forget that a massive influx of foreign borrowings has given English by far the greatest vocabulary in the world, and only a madman would find anything wrong with that.

However, I’m not talking about the foreign implants that have happened organically over centuries as a result of historical twists and turns or cultural exchange. (That sentence, for example, has seven words of foreign origin, and English would be poorer without them.)

Rather I have in mind changes that occur because they’re mandated for political reasons by foreign countries that shouldn’t have any jurisdiction over English.

Thus, to reinforce my richly merited reputation for abrasiveness, I refuse to refer to Peking as Beijing, although I can grudgingly accept Mumbai for Bombay.

The difference is clear-cut. Bombay is an Indian city and, if the Indians choose to rename it Mumbai, even old reactionaries like me have to grin and bear it. We may not like it, but we have no choice in the matter.

The Chinese, however, haven’t changed the name of their capital. They’ve just twisted our arm to say it in English to reflect more accurately its pronunciation in Chinese.

The only sensible reply to that demand should have been simple and to the point:

“Chaps, stick to your own language and never mind ours. Each language has its own traditional versions of foreign geographical names, and they often differ from what they are in their native habitat.

“Thus we say Paris, not Paree; Moscow, not Moskva; Rome, not Roma; Florence, not Firenze; Prague, not Praha. And we’ll bloody well say Peking because that’s how we’ve always said it. That’s it. See you at the noodle factory.”

English is actually the only language of those I know that has suffered this ignominious fate. The French and the Russians call the Chinese capital what they’ve always called it. None of this Beijing nonsense for them.

So what are we, Chop Suey? Of course the difference is that neither French nor Russian is an international language, and English is.

Thus it’s supposed to be vulnerable to international diktats – even though the French get away with referring to Wales as le pays de Galles. I know Galles sounds like Gaul, which makes it irresistible to the French – I’m just talking about the glaring inequity of it all.

I also obdurately pronounce the first syllable in Kenya as ‘kee’, not ‘keh’ – and some New Age nincompoops actually have the gall (that dread word again) to correct me.

This newfangled pronunciation came into being in 1963, when Kenya shed the shackles of the British Empire that, as all British schoolchildren today know, was unspeakably evil.

As part of that wicked rule, the British pronounced the name of a country in accordance with its etymology: it had been named after Mount Kenya, proudly featuring ‘kee’ as its first syllable.

But when Kenya became independent, its first president decided to change his name from Kamau to Kenyatta, to emphasise the blessed unity of his country and his person.

However, he pronounced his new name as Kehnyatta – and the country for which he had renamed himself then had to change the pronunciation of its name accordingly.

They are of course welcome to pronounce the name in Swahili as they see fit. They can call their country Koinya or Kinya or Kannia for all I care.

But, for as long as it’s spelled Kenya in English, I’ll pronounce it the way it was always pronounced when the British still tried to civilise the place. It’s not only countries but also languages that have traditions, and we ignore them at our peril.

There, I think I’ve committed enough hate crimes for one article. I just hope I’ll get away with a suspended sentence to be served in the community.

The other day we had to call in a plumber, and he duly materialised in the shape of a young man sporting a whole gallery of body art.

Since I find this genre not only morally defunct but also physically nauseating, I could hardly look at him. That made communication difficult, but we managed.

Within a few minutes the basin pipe was unclogged, and water happily began to flow down the drain unimpeded. The plumber collected his cheque and left.

Now that young man provides a useful analogy with President Trump.

This thought occurred to me in the context of the fuss kicked up by Trump’s declared intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty with Russia banning all land-based missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,000 miles.

I find Mr Trump revolting as a person. Someone with his background has no business being as much of a vulgar, barbaric, narcissistic savage. It’s bad enough if he really is all those things. But, if this is merely an image he deliberately cultivates, that’s even worse.

However, Trump isn’t someone I contemplate inviting over for dinner (not that he’d accept such an invitation, I hasten to add). He presides over Britain’s most valuable ally by far, one that for the past 73 years has effectively protected the West from history’s most evil regime.

And, extending him the same leeway I afforded that walking exhibit of body art, I have to admit that most of the things Trump does in his official capacity work as well as my basin does now.

Specifically, every international treaty he has pulled out of richly deserved such a treatment. Each one of them, the Paris accords, the Iran nuclear deal and now the INF Treaty, put America – and therefore her allies – at a severe disadvantage.

Signed during the halcyon days of Gorbachev’s (phoney) perestroika, the INF Treaty was specifically designed to protect not so much America as the countries lying within the ranges specified. Us in other words, and I use this pronoun broadly, to include the countries who, like us, belong to Western civilisation.

So protected we’d be, if Russia kept her end of the bargain. But the Russians cheated, as anyone who knows anything at all about that place post-1917 knew they would.

After all, with the exception of the Nazi-Soviet pact, they’ve cheated on every treaty they’ve ever signed, emphatically including those on arms limitations. SALT I, SALT II and so forth – as far as the Russians were concerned, they were ruses designed to gain strategic superiority over the West.

The same goes, in spades, for the INF treaty. While the Americans removed their cruise missiles from Europe, the Russians developed and deployed several new generations of such weapons.

The latest one, the Novator 9M729, is particularly deadly. (‘Novator’ means innovator in Russian – not to be confused with its cognate ‘Novichok’, which means novice.)

This land-based cruise missile can be fired from a mobile launcher, and it’s equipped with a supersonic booster. Therefore it’s extremely hard, practically impossible, to intercept.

The only way to counter the Novator is to threaten counterstrikes with similar weapons. However, the US hasn’t deployed them in Europe in compliance with the INF treaty.

Any contract becomes null and void if one party cheats on its terms and refuses to comply. Hence one would hope that anyone who doesn’t wish to see Europe dominated by Putin’s kleptofascist junta would hail Trump’s decision as highly welcome and long overdue – hoping that, having slipped the shackles of this sham compact, America still has time to redress the balance of power.

Alas, such hopes would be forlorn. For the ‘liberal’ establishment can’t do with Trump what I did with the tattooed plumber – separate his person from his job.

Their hatred of the US president is not only hysterical but also irrational. For shorthand purposes I describe such an animus as stupid.

Like me, they dislike Trump as a person. Unlike me, however, they also hate every policy he has put into effect, even though most of them have either worked admirably or – like his withdrawal from this and other larcenous treaties – are admirable.

Allowing emotions and personal idiosyncrasies to cloud one’s judgement of strategic issues is – for shorthand purposes – idiotic. In due course and under some circumstances it may also prove suicidal.

Chaps, it’s the cardsharp who’s in the wrong, not the player who caught him with an ace up his sleeve. It’s not Trump who’s the warmonger. It’s Putin. It’s Europe that’s staring down the barrel of those Novators. It’s Trump who  wants to have a free hand to defend us.

When there’s no danger on the horizon, by all means let’s have some nice clean fun at Trump’s expense – he deserves it. But when yet again we have to rely on America for our freedom, do let’s give him his due. He deserves that too.

If you don’t know what ‘glottophobia’ means, don’t feel embarrassed. The term is still new.

Makes one wonder how we’ve lived without it for so long. After all, we know how all those phobias and isms enrich our vocabulary, actually our whole lives.

Didn’t you feel culturally impoverished before we were blessed with the arrival of words like ‘transphobia’? One can’t resist sin – nor refrain from crime – unless one knows it for what it is.

Hence, for example, Brexiteers are helped no end on the road to virtue when our transgression is diagnosed as ‘Europhobia’.

Spending half my time in France, I didn’t realise I was suffering from an inordinate fear of Europe. I feel much better now that my phobia has been properly diagnosed.

‘Glottophobia’ isn’t, as you might infer from the word’s etymology, fear of language as such. It’s the crime of mocking language spoken with regional accents.

Anyone finding himself on the receiving end of this outrage is instantly traumatised for life, which places glottophobia side by side with homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia and other capital crimes.

That’s why a French MP has proposed that the mockery of accents be outlawed. Why is it that the French are always ahead of us?

This overdue measure was prompted by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the French Corbyn, who mocked a journalist who asked a probing question at a press conference.

Mélenchon lampooned the hack’s Toulouse accent and then asked if anyone had a question in “understandable French”.

That blew to smithereens another of my cherished stereotypes. I thought only elitist conservatives were capable of such snobbery, not tireless fighters for universal égalité and the liberation of the working classes from the capitalist yoke.

Still, the subject of regional dialects is interesting, both as such and in its social and cultural implications.

I grew up in Russia, a country that has no dialectal variety to speak of. Oh, I’m sure a Russian Prof. Higginsky will talk your ear off about phonetic differences between, say, Moscow and Petersburg, 400 miles apart.

But, since I was professionally trained in English, not Russian, I can hear no differences between the two in sound production, although there may be some variations of inflection.

All Russians speak essentially the same way. I grew up a few hundred yards from the Kremlin, but I sound almost identical to someone from Vladivostok, 4,000 miles away as the crow flies (and 6,000 as the car drives).

From there I went to the US, which offers more dialectal diversity. Some accents are quite pronounced, such as those of New York, Boston, the Deep South and the Southwest (with variations within each).

Thus a New Yorker and a Texan will know where each comes from. But I dare anyone other than a professional phonetician tell apart the accents of various Midwestern and Western states. I certainly can’t, and I’ve studied such things academically.

Even though a New Yorker and a Texan will acknowledge their differences, they’ll have no problem understanding each other. And a Russian or a Frenchman wouldn’t even believe it possible for native speakers of the same language to have such problems.

Note also that, though the journalist who offended Mélenchon with his impertinence spoke in a regional accent, the former had no problem understanding – and mocking – the latter.

This brings me to the unique phonetic phenomenon: Britain, a country much smaller than France and positively minute compared to the US and especially Russia. Yet linguists identify 50 major British dialects (five of them in London alone) and God knows how many minor ones.

These aren’t the namby-pamby differences between Moscow and Vladivostok or New York and Boston. Britons living but a few miles apart may not understand one another.

When my wife was growing up in Exeter, she couldn’t understand the farmer living five miles down the road. The denizens of two adjacent counties, Yorkshire and Lancashire, may have similar problems – and neither will effortlessly understand a Newcastle Geordie who lives practically next door.

Clearly some uniformity is vital to allow for smooth communication. That’s provided by the standardised accent variously known as Queen’s English, Received Pronunciation or, in the past, BBC English.

Educated people, even those who retain traces of their phonetic origin, all tend to speak that way and, truth be told, occasionally look down on those who can’t or won’t.

Yet the attitude to regional accents changes. For example, when Samuel Johnson entered Oxford University, he spoke with a pronounced Lichfield lilt, which he kept all his life.

Had he gone to the same university 200 years later, he would have found himself the butt of cruel jokes. Yet in 1728 he was neither patronised nor despised.

Regional accents weren’t yet viewed as a sign of inadequacy. Yet two centuries later the creator of Prof. Higgins observed that: “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.”

What had changed? The nature of British society, is the short answer.

The Industrial Revolution was no less destructive than any other kind, even though Joseph Schumpeter would have doubtless described the destruction it wreaked as largely creative.

As a result, England was no longer a country of aristocrats and peasants, with the middle classes sandwiched in between.

It became a society shaped by the middle class, with the aristocracy marginalised and the peasantry all but eliminated. Middle class sensibilities came to the fore, and a quest for uniformity was prime among them.

The middle classes, especially in Protestant countries, tend to hold a smug belief in their own superiority. Since they’re the acme of creation, it follows ineluctably that everyone should be – and sound – just like them.

Since in Victorian times they fawned on the upper classes, they could forgive some toff idiosyncrasies. But anyone they deemed beneath them was treated with contempt, usually but not always tacit.

It was then that speakers of regional dialects began to be seen as social and cultural inferiors. Eventually that feeling became justifiable, if not excusable.

For good schools insisted on certain standards of not only grammar and vocabulary, but also pronunciation. Thus it was possible to tell an Eton man from a Rugby one, either from the alumni of grammar schools, and all of them from those who never received much education at all.

A good accent, therefore, betokened a good education and a certain social standing, while a regional dialect bespoke ignorance. Glorious exceptions existed, but even they had to overcome their phonetic handicap to acquire recognition.

Then things came full circle. The British educational system was destroyed for ideological reasons, and gradually the teaching of good English faded away.

Proletarian accents became not only acceptable, but desirable and, for a politician, essential. Thus Tony Blair, who went to all the good schools, studiously dropped his aitches and used the glottal stop when addressing wide audiences, although sometimes he forgot, making his speech sound hermaphroditic.

Suddenly people in public life have begun to take elocution lessons to take their accent down, rather than the other way, as they used to. It’s essential to come across as prolier than thou.

Note the progression. First, in Dr Johnson’s time, nobody cared about the accent. Then, when the middle classes became dominant and smug about themselves, local accents became contemptible: the bourgeois dreaded the possibility of slipping a rung or two on the social ladder.

In our time, when everything is dominated by ideology, phonetic slumming has become a sign of ideological PC virtue. And ideological heresies start out being derided and end up being punishable by law.

So think twice before trying to mock the Cockney accent as a party trick. You may be committing the crime of glottophobia.

Whenever I talk about gun control, I make the same point: guns aren’t dangerous as such. They only become dangerous in the hands of either madmen or criminals or especially mad criminals.

Extrapolating ever so slightly, the same applies to nuclear weapons. In the hands of sane countries, such as Britain or France, they’re a factor of security. They’re only a factor of danger in the hands of criminal countries, especially those whose criminality is tinged with insanity.

That’s why any sane person ought to be wary of the noises coming out of Russia, all revolving around the radioactive ash into which the Botox Boy could turn the US at the drop of a hat, or rather of a few high-yield bombs.

Threats of wiping out the West with nuclear weapons aren’t new. As a child growing up in Moscow, I remember Khrushchev bragging that the Soviets possessed the kind of bombs that could each annihilate the US with a single blast.

However, everybody knew that was just braggadocio, possibly spouted under the influence of the national beverage. (Khrushchev’s favourite breakfast was an eight-ounce glass of vodka chased with a bowl of rich borsht and some rye bread.)

When Khrushchev began to sound not just boisterous but insane, his colleagues got worried. They didn’t want that red button pushed by a deranged fanatic having a fit.

It was time to act, and they didn’t even bother to kill Khrushchev in the fine Russian tradition. They simply packed him off to a modest dacha and left him to write his mendacious memoirs.

In other words, while unquestionably evil, the Soviet Union retained at least some sanity. Watching the latest news, nay symptoms, coming out of Russia, I’m not so sure.

Just look at Putin’s speech at the meeting of the Valdai Club, the closest equivalent his junta has to our Tory 1922 Committee.

The stage was set by the usual boasts about Russia’s ability to annihilate the whole world should the need arise. Nothing new there, nor in the Botox Boy’s lies about Russia’s strategic doctrine.

“Our concept,” he said, as his nose was lengthening, “is that of a counter-strike.” Nuclear weapons will be used “only when we’re certain that someone, a potential aggressor, is striking against Russia.”

Actually, even in Soviet times the Russians didn’t take the MAD doctrine seriously. They considered a nuclear war winnable, especially if started by their first strike. And Putin’s generals definitely include first use of nuclear weapons into their calculations.

So far I haven’t read anything about their specific plans to unleash a nuclear Armageddon, but there’s plenty of evidence about their reliance on tactical nuclear weapons for ‘de-escalation’.

This means that, if they start a conventional war in Europe, for example by attacking the Baltics, and it turns against them, they envision a nuclear strike on NATO bases or possibly some European population centres.

That would give NATO two options: either to pull back or to respond in kind, thereby risking a full-blown nuclear exchange – and Putin is certain they don’t have the stomach for the second option.

I’m not unduly bothered about the Botox Boy lying – what on earth else would one expect from a career KGB man cum gangster? But then Vlad began to overlay his lies with a note of apocalyptic insanity.

“Any aggressor should know that retribution is unavoidable, one way or another he’ll be destroyed. As victims of aggression, we’ll be martyrs who’ll go to heaven, while they’ll simply croak. Because they won’t even have time to repent.”

The Botox Boy didn’t specify how many virgins each Russian martyr will rate in heaven, but his visionary powers are most impressive. Prophet Jeremiah, eat your heart out. And there was more to come:

“In general, we fear nothing – a country with such a territory, such a defence system, such a population ready to stand up for its independence, its sovereignty. Not every place, not every country can boast such a population ready to lay down their lives for the motherland – and we can.”

I’m not a professional psychiatrist, but even the rankest amateur can diagnose paranoid delusions here. Vlad sees in his mind’s eye a potential aggressor that’ll go nameless (well, if you insist, the US), waiting for the best moment to let go of ICBMs.

One would think it’s the US, not Russia, that’s pouncing on its neighbours like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. But wait a minute, the Botox Boy is now ready to merge paranoid delirium with more lies:

“We’re not reaching out anywhere, we have a huge territory, we want nothing from anybody.” For sure. But what about the annexation of Crimea, asks a particularly malevolent Russophobe.

But Vlad won’t be caught out: “Crimea is ours. Why ours? Not because we came and snatched something. People went to a referendum in Crimea and voted.”

This sounds as if the referendum preceded the Russian invasion, whereas in fact it was the other way around. When the mock referendum was set up, the turnout was low, with the native Tartar population refusing to take part in that travesty. Those people who voted did so under the watchful eyes of Soviet soldiers cocking their AKs.

So Putin was lying, but it wasn’t just a bog standard lie. A wayward husband who tells his irate wife he had a late business meeting is merely a liar. But one who says he was kidnapped by aliens with feelers on their green heads is also a madman.

I don’t know if Russian martyrs will get to cavort with all those virgins in heaven, but I do fear that, under the Botox Boy’s leadership, they may well turn the world into hell.