The problem with Britain

 Every day a thousand or more people, mostly young men of Muslim faith, arrive by boat or some other illegal means in England. They immediately seek asylum, claiming to be refugees escaping some risk of harm in the country they left some considerable time ago.

One thing is for certain: they were not at any risk in France, Belgium or The Netherlands where they set off from on their journeys across the Channel. Yet we seem obliged not only to rescue them when the boats inevitably collapse somewhere in the Channel but provide a sort of automatic Welcome Pack in the form of clothing, a phone, hotel accommodation and some money for food and essentials and, crucially, free legal assistance so that they can formally lodge their claims and start legal cases that will take years, if not decades, to resolve, by which time they may well have found a wife and started a family and the European Court of Human Rights will declare that any attempt by the UK to deport them will be contrary to their ‘human rights’. To my knowledge no-one has yet to be deported other than a few who raised no objection , possibly because they were housed in a particularly grotty part of a northern town and couldn’t cope with the accent or greasy food.

These illegal immigrants join many of their legal friends and commit all kinds of crimes, with violent and brutal attacks being hugely increased in the cases police have to deal with. It seems these immigrants have a far lower boiling point than most Brits and also a tendency to use a knife in any fight rather than a good old-fashioned punch. As for how they treat young white girls, let’s not go into detail other than to report that, after many many years of their activities being covered up by local Council officials and police departments in the areas affected, a National Enquiry has been launched into how so many thousand young white girls were groomed and sexually abused for years by gangs comprising predominantly Pakistani men. Towns across the north of England where Pakistani communities had become established - and thus their representation in the law and management of the areas became a majority - all have now been discovered to have an appalling secret which has been simply covered up. Or, where someone has been brave enough to talk about it they’re told by the Government to keep quiet for fear of upsetting race relations. Indeed, not long ago I would have been accused of racist expression merely by commenting on this here.

The new illegals seem to mix with the established Muslim communities and find jobs or just continue to receive funds in the form of unemployment benefits or assistance with rent and living costs. I would not be surprised to see them with cars and a driving licence. Indeed, once the community starts to manage all the relevant services then security breaks down and previously precious British documents like a passport or driving licence become something that can be purchased not applied for. No checks, just cheques. Get a few while you’re at it, guys, and change Mohammed to Muhammad and Mohamed and claim support benefits for three people.

The legal services are often provided by solicitors and legal staff from the same community and they know every trick in the book. We have seen people who came here illegally and who then raped women or were involved in serious violence found guilty by Courts but judges have been unable to deport them even them. The defendants’ barristers have argued that their clients would face serious emotional hardship if they were returned to this or that country - or several defendants turn out to be gay and thus likely to be subject to harm and great risk in their previous nation if returned. Often the gay defendant becomes remarkably butch when he arrives at prison and has an affair with one or more of the young women prison officers there.

I don’t know what bible they swear on when in Court to declare that everything they say will be the truth and nothing but the truth but in my book it’s mostly a load of lies.

Even where the new people now swarming around village greens or some local cheap hotel in town are reasonably well-behaved and even friendly, the families of Old England have so little in common with them. They can’t communicate easily, they don’t share the same views on many things anyway but can’t even argue if they wanted to. Schools become cluttered with paperwork in several different languages. Teachers try to be inclusive but only succeed in alienating the white kids. They get resentful but any parent showing some sign of concern is rapidly told to be quiet, if not charged with some sort of hate thought crime.

You look around some towns now and the shops have changed almost out of all recognition, run by people from the immigrant community and providing services and especially food for that community. The old English grocer, baker and butcher have long gone.

Naturally, when life around you changes for the worst in your view, you move to some other place where it seems better. Your place is rapidly taken by an immigrant who does like it there and so, before long, school photos show rows of black and brown faces and just a couple of white kids here and there. In some towns the takeover is complete. They’re simply places where I have no desire to go. It’s not that I specifically dislike the people there, it’s just that there is nothing there for me and I would feel quite ‘obvious’ walking down the street and even a little scared that there might be some of the new arrivals who have no sense of restraint built in to their upbringing and who might believe that I am offending them or invent the idea to justify having a fight if there’s nothing more interesting to do. So I don’t go there. Nor do many others like me.

These immigrants invariably marry someone from the same ethnicity. They may be happy banging some young white girl but they’ll only marry and have children with the good Muslim girl their uncles or aunts recommend. That may well be a cousin so God help the development of humanity over time in that respect but that’s another story entirely. It also seems to be the case that our immigrant couples have far larger families than the old white people do. So gradually the world becomes theirs as we become a minority not only in our towns and cities but in our nation. The implications for Government are clear. Britain will change. It has already but we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Lack of reason

 I think it is fair to say that the number of people who think Russia should carry on bombing or attempting to invade whatever they can hit or reach with troops in Ukraine is minimal - maybe just a few thousand outside of the Russian Federation. No-one can be quite sure about the numbers within the country, of course, but they’re not being terribly well-informed so we’ll excuse those millions who do think it’s a good idea and not count them in the total.

Whichever way one reads this then, isn’t it quite extraordinary that more than 3½ years later men, women and children, old folk, babies and pets are being killed by either Russian troops or some Russians firing missiles or directing drones from the safety of a room with a computer screen. It is almost beyond comprehension and I am sure we will look back in years to come and wonder just how it was allowed to continue.

It isn’t solely Russian troops as they have been assisted by North Korea’s troops but their involvement is almost more crazy and will be another matter for comment when we can see what actually does happen in time to come.

At the time of writing, Kyiv and several other cities and towns are being attacked every night, usually by a combination of a mass of drones and various missiles. Some get shot down and fall harmlessly to the ground but many slam into apartment blocks, hospitals, restaurants or wherever often faulty navigation devices have sent them. Any claim that the target may have been purely military is unlikely to be true but even if it were, the quality of most of the weapons now being fired or used is rather poor. It’s not that Russia is running out of weapons but whoever is making replacements is not doing a good job.

Ukraine doesn’t have much by way of weapons to fire back these days and is having to seek an alternative method of war to the traditional ones. Recently they have been particularly successful in two areas: local intelligence inside Russia and use of drones to incapacitate aircraft or facilities on the ground in Russia. This has kept them in the game but one still gets the impression that all that Ukraine’s brave and intelligent efforts have is little more than the annoyance of a fly buzzing around the face of the Russian bear. I worry so much that before long the patience of Grizzly will break and the people who make decisions over there simply say enough is enough and throw the big stuff across the border. Either a mass invasion of hundreds of thousands of troops coming north from Belarus and/or use of some massive missiles that cause Hiroshima-style damage that ends it all once and for all. 

Why hasn’t Russia done more, done far better over all this time? This country with its supposedly massive supply of nuclear weapons, that is sufficient to make Trump wet his pants at thoughts of the threat and want to be friends with whoever has his finger on the Big Red Button, is struggling to make any headway in Ukraine? Indeed, their first invasion was almost embarrassing were it not so awful with the behaviour of Russian troops in retreat and the mistreatment of women and children in the villages. Whilst Russia did take some control over parts of four regions in the East, no-one lives and there is no economic activity in the towns they devastated in the process. So even that small advance seems of questionable value. 

To a large extent life goes on as it always has in much of the north and west of Ukraine. The difference is that there are no planes in the sky and no young men on the streets, or at home, for that matter. The only tourists come by van laden with materials and donations from abroad. Prices match those in England for food that is grown locally and far exceed them for anything else. You need to be quite well-off to live in Ukraine now.

In Kyiv and Odessa you take your chances because that’s where the majority of attacks are focussed so you can have a sort of 50-50 existence. Enjoy a cup of coffee at the café one day and be blown up there the next. Choose your days well and all will be well. Or not, as the case may be. That seems to be the attitude of those who continue to try and live ‘normally’ there. In most towns the constant whine of the sirens will keep newcomers awake but locals sleep soundly through now. Seeing young teenage girls with their eyes fixed on mobiles in a bunker underground somewhere at 2am is an odd sight, though, that still haunts me. You think they’re playing a game or texting a friend but they’re watching the missiles fly on an app which everyone uses to determine how much at risk they may be at any point of time.

In Kharkiv you get the feeling that everyone has joined a Resistance Movement. Even grandmothers can be seen wearing military clothes out shopping and carrying a gun. They expect Russians to appear around every corner and God help a blue-eyed white guy who just happens to be running along nearby. I wouldn’t feel safe there today and neither my Russian nor Ukrainian is sufficient to explain to anyone challenging me rapidly enough that I am on their side.

Here in Britain we welcomed those escaping the initial horrors with welcome arms and a bit of support, although not as much as we give to illegal immigrants now I think about it. Now everyone is beginning to get tired and the blue and yellow flags flying in many streets in towns and villages are looking a little drab and worn. We wonder when the people will be able to go back. We like the Ukrainians that we meet here, although we do wonder quite what the men are doing here. No-one likes to say out loud but there is an unspoken regard of the men as being a little too fortunate, perhaps, to have been able to drive an expensive car filled with their families and many of their valuables. Having said that, I am pretty sure my inclination would have been to run too and take whatever I could out of the place.

The problem is that no-one really can understand why on Earth Russia is still ploughing on and trying to kill more Ukrainians and take over this or that deserted village in the East. 

We have seen Trump come and go in relation to this war. His attention was taken by Israel and Iran but I have a feeling he was quite relieved to have fewer questions being asked about what he had failed to do. His awful appeasement of Putin has left a bad mark on his presidency which may well come to haunt him, however powerfully he may attempt to change the news on other matters he regards as being success. 

Without American assistance and approvals Ukraine will not have enough firepower or resources to continue to hold back Russia as things stand at the moment. But that doesn’t mean Russia can advance either. It is a sort of stalemate and could stay that way for months, as each side looks at alternative ways - in Russia’s case, to overcome Ukraine resistance; in Ukraine’s case to continue to resist and minimise Russian weapon threats. Trump will not feature, in my opinion, in any future scenario. Europe might, in some form, if leaders really can put on a convincing show that they have some sort of red line over which, should Russia cross, they will react in a way that will escalate matters. 

One almost wishes that we had Israel's IDF on our side. They’d get on with the job that we avoided at the beginning.

So nothing much new is happening in Ukraine at the moment; just people getting older and others dying too young.

Godforsaken places

 The temperature here in the village peaked at 32½°C today but I fear some places are experiencing a veritable firestorm. Who would wish to live in any of that conglomeration of nations based in that area surrounding Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan to the north and south? 

I certainly don't fancy a holiday anywhere in Turkey, Egypt or the UAE at this time. Well, to be honest I have never fancied going to any of them anyway but the chances of landing safely are getting slimmer by the hour, never mind being hit by a stray missile while you're there.

Actually I am beginning to wish that a missile does go astray and land somewhere where sufficient people in the country will finally wake up and politicians will be unable to resist calls to put an end to all this.

To date we've all been terribly sad or shocked or frustrated or whatever and have said that something must be done but never quite come up with the sort of solution needed. Now we have russia pummelling Kyiv (and various other towns that seldom get a mention) in Ukraine and Iran firing ever bigger missiles at Israel whilst Israel bombs the hell out of Iran and Ukraine does its best to minimise russia's visible armoury with drones and carefully exploited local action by agents and rebel assistants within the russian federation.

Lebanon are getting hit once again too and you wonder why they ever bothered to rebuild as having Hezbollah located there seems to mean the Lebanese will inevitably get blasted every few years whatever else may happen in the world.

Countries on the eastern fringe of the EU complain about russian missiles skimming across their skies on their way to knock out a apartment block or two in Ukraine but it seems to be no more than some kid moaning about some distraction in class.

In London and several other cities in Britain we see demonstrations against Israel and showing support for Palestinian organisations which seem pretty close to Hamas if not indeed actually Hamas. There seems to be little by way of demonstration in support of either Israel or Ukraine these days. That's odd when you think about what is actually going on and you do have to wonder whether those demonstrating or urging others to do so have ever sat down and thought it all through.

Russia invaded Ukraine and has caused immense destruction of that nation's town's, infrastructure and killed more innocent people than I want to specify here, never mind the huge number of troops lost in the battles that continue to rage. Ukraine fought back. What were the people there supposed to do? Let Russia take over? Of course not. Whatever anyone's views may be about who got what and why when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine was an independent nation with international borders and we sat back and ignored Russia invading Crimea and haven't exactly done much since. Britain, the United States and others signed an agreement to protect Ukraine in return for their giving up the Soviet Union nuclear weapons which had been based in Ukraine before the collapse. By my reading we had a duty to honour that pledge but all I have seen since from the USA is criticism of Ukraine's response and rather too much by way of fear of antagonising Putin. One does have to wonder what it is that Putin has on Trump which has been so effective in the USA being so pathetic in their action since Trump's re-election. 

There always has and always will be only one response to the bullying and atrocious actions of russia's leaders and that is to demonstrate a massive joint defence capability to back up Ukraine's actions. At the start that might have been sufficient to make Putin think twice about continuing but now everything is in such a mess that it is difficult to know for sure what will happen. With the USA seemingly trying their best to withdraw from the scene like school children shouting insults while running in the opposite direction, there remain just a few countries in Europe and the British Commonwealth who are prepared to consider standing their ground and helping Ukraine retain what they can. Putin will have seen, however, that the power we can amass with any degree of immediacy or certainty is minimal and that he can rebuild his armoury more rapidly than we can, so it will suit him to see this thing carry on for years and gradually he could edge closer and closer to taking over a good half of Ukraine at which point he may well feel he has met his objectives. I am not in the camp of believers that he wishes to take back the Baltic states or even the whole of Ukraine. In a way, though, I wish he would have a go as that would force the hand of NATO and I don't think the USA would be able to get away without lending their support at that point. But that's not going to happen so . . back to what has happened and is expected to happen.

In the other case, a mass of supporters of a terrorist organisation called Hamas went into a festival and brutally shot, raped and took hostage a huge number of innocent young people in one of the worst incidents of its type in most of our memories. This group, supported, funded and equipped by Iran and religious zealots, basically says that Israel should not exist. Simple. It's like russia saying Ukraine should be part of russia but worse - Iran's weird rulers don't want Israel or Israelis to exist at all. It's not just the land but the extinction of the whole thing that is Israel, as far as I can see. So it seems pretty reasonable that, if someone is pointing a gun at you and you know he has no intention of letting you live you are going to do your best to ensure that he doesn't get to fire it. If that means killing him then so be it. There's really no choice in that sort of situation and that's what Israel's military forces have been trying to do. It seems that they have been extremely successful in removing many of the people who were giving the commands to kill Israeli people and have recently moved on to attempting to destroy Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon. I have to say that this seems absolutely necessary and I wonder why on Earth the world didn't act more firmly in the past when it must have been obvious that Iran would not just use nuclear development to make some electricity. We have all been stupid to allow them to have got so far that they have a processing plant hidden deep inside a ruddy mountain. It's not like this would have been built quietly behind the scenes over a few days while no-one was looking. The area known as Gaza is populated by people who we know voted by some majority for Hamas people to govern them. It's not like Hamas didn't make their views on Israel abundantly clear. So the folk who voted for them and support them must also be regarded as dangerous, if not necessarily all terrorists themselves. With Hamas burying offices and operational HQs inside or under hospitals and nurseries, it is not exactly easy for them to be taken out and, understandably, given the choice of letting those bad people carry on planning more atrocities in the world or preventing them doing so, Israel said we're coming for you loud and clear and gave innocent people in the areas as much notice as they could to get the hell away. Those that stayed will have been hurt but many will have had an option to move.

Of course, news script editors and social media writers have seen all this a great story and seem to have taken numbers and stories of events directly from Hamas supporters in many cases, or stories fed by russia into the system as well, and we get the headlines that make Israel out to be the baddies. In many ways, Israel's government and military seem strong enough to cope with all the criticism and are getting on with the job of destroying Hamas and hopefully Hezbollah and all their supporters and equipment in Iran too. Ideally, the whole religious shooting match that is Iran and goodness knows where else in that godforsaken part of the world will collapse as communism did in the Soviet Union. It would be a nice change to see some reasonable people, who didn't hate Christians or wish the destruction of whole nations and see all that as their prime objective, who might actually welcome doing business and working with us Brits and whoever is left in Israel, to show the rest of the area that all this hate gets people nowhere.

I can only conclude that the vast majority of those demonstrating in support of Palestine groups are reading solely from one religious book and, like some sort of zombies, are following each other with minds and eyes closed to any alternative view to their own. These people may look like innocent students or working people out to make a point but they're quite dangerous because they can influence others and make many more who don't really understand what has been happening support their cause. A huge number of younger people now seldom read any news or, if they do, it is a headline or repeated phrase which may have no credibility at all but sounds like something they can believe. Before long, they repeat that to a friend as if it is a gospel truth and next thing we know they'll be voting at an election for an MP who can have influence on the British government and before we know it we have a majority of MPs who come from a background sympathetic to the Hamas cause or, dare I say it, of decidedly anti-Christian flavour.

You would think that anyone in their right mind would be shouting at the world, government, whoever will listen, to put piles of troops and equipment up against Ukraine's borders and make it quite clear that we, as a group of nations, will fire missiles and stop any further advance by russia and encourage return to previously accepted international borders - by force if necessary. We have to call Putin's bluff but we need USA at least partially on board so that Putin doesn't feel there's any advantage in pressing that big red button. The same people should be shutting up about Israel and, if they're going to do religious stuff, pray to whatever god they have that someone with a bit of decency and calmer view of the world takes over the running not only of Iran but the whole area. We've had enough of the Islamic State and the bad things it has brought to the world at large. Maybe if there were to be a pleasant place where those with different religious views could live happily then we could persuade all the demonstrators and, for that matter, anyone else who doesn't like the way we do things here in Britain, to join them. And while we're at it, what better place to send illegal immigrants who, on the whole, seem to have no particular love for Britain anyway, just our benefits and the fact that we have some big communities of their relatives here already.