The Monarchist 2.0

I'm not sure why we failed to mention that New Zealand has a new prime minister, but the Honourable John Key nows heads up the other Down Under. Like so many others who are wedded to the spirit of the age, he reportedly believes that it is inevitable (yawn) that New Zealand will become a republic, so I'm not sure how much of an improvement this limosine liberal is over his predecessor. In any event, unlike his colleague across the Tasman, he had the dignified good sense not to raise the republican issue in advance of meeting Her Majesty a couple of weeks ago. (Notice also how his tie matches Her Majesty's dress!)

The Queen receives the Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Hon. John Key MP, at Buckingham Palace, 25 November 2008.
© Press Association

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T'WAS THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, and all through the House, not a creature was stirring, except Dion the mouse. It is amazing how such an enfeebled Liberal leader, who got so thoroughly trounced in the federal election held barely six weeks ago because Canadians did not want him as prime minister, stands to become Prime Minister of Canada nonetheless if Governor General Michaëlle Jean refuses Prime Minister Harper's formal request this morning to prematurely prorogue Parliament; a request made for no other reason than for the current government to avoid facing a non-confidence vote they would very likely lose. This is a technical abuse of the British Parliamentary system.

And now the Queen's representative has been put in a very tricky political situation, because to deny the wish of a sitting prime minister is as unpalatable as granting it, of overseeing a transition to power to a man who just lost the election, who so clearly lacks the democratic legitimacy to lead the country. Yet Stephane Dion apparently has the confidence of the House through behind-the-scenes coalition dealing with the three leftist/left-leaning opposition parties, who combined have about a dozen more seats than the ruling Conservatives. How did Harper so badly miscalculate their weaknesses, how did he not see that the Liberal leader far from being weak, had nothing to lose after losing an election so badly, one that forces him to vacate the Liberal throne once a new leader is chosen. How did he not see that the social democrats and their leader would sign on to anything and with anybody who would promise to waste billions in an utterly futile "economic stimulus" package. And how did he not see that the Quebec nationalists/sovereigntists/separatists/socialists (take your pick) would support any spending measure that would see the dole role into Quebec by the truckload. Harper is an evil genius alright, we know he was able to singlehandedly unite the Right, and now he has shown an equally remarkable aptitude for uniting the Left.

To sum up, every federal party leader in this political crisis has egg on their face for dragging the Queen into this unbelievable mess. The pundits go on about some perceived "constitutional crisis", but let's be clear: there is no crisis here that the Crown cannot referee or solve. A decision simply needs to be made by Her Majesty's representative, and that is that. She wields an incredibly awesome power right now, contrary to the constant assertions of republicans, the Crown is not some useless instrument that should be discarded, but an abolutely necessary and critical part of our government. We are witnessing just how critical it still is today.

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It was a time described by historian A.J.P. Taylor as:

Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other sort of currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on to perform jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state who wished to do so.

But that was about to change severely. UK Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey had said the previous day:

The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.

On August 4, 1914 – 94 years ago – the United Kingdom declared war on Imperial Germany.

Winston Churchill was involved in the affairs of war at this time. That, however, is another story. Today we present quotes from Churchill’s six-volume work The Second World War, whose first volume was first published 60 years ago this year. We present extracts regarding World War I from volume 1, chapter 1; The Follies of the Victors 1919-1929. We let readers judge for themselves. The theme of the first volume was:

HOW THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
THROUGH THEIR UNWISDOM
CARELESSNESS AND GOOD NATURE
ALLOWED THE WICKED
TO REARM

Churchill says:

In the summer of 1919 the Allied Armies stood along the Rhine, and their bridgeheads bulged deeply into defeated, disarmed and hungry Germany. The chiefs of the victor Powers debated and disputed the future in Paris. Before them lay the map of Europe to be redrawn almost as they might resolve. After fifty-two months of agony and hazards the Teutonic coalition lay at their mercy, and not one of its four members could offer the slightest resistance to their will. Germany, the head and forefront of the offence, regarded by all as the prime cause of the catastrophe which had fallen upon the world, was at the mercy or discretion of conquerors, themselves reeling from the torment they had endured. Moreover, this had been a war, not of Governments, but of peoples. The whole life-energy of the greatest nations had been poured out in wrath and slaughter. The war leaders assembled in Paris had been borne thither upon the strongest and most furious tides that have ever flown in human history. Gone were the treaties of Utrecht and Vienna, when aristocratic statesmen and diplomats, victor and vanquished alike, met in polite and courtly disputation, and, free from the clatter and babel of democracy, could reshape systems upon the fundamentals of which they were all agreed. The peoples, transported by their sufferings and by the mass teachings with which they had been inspired, stood around in scores of millions to demand that retribution should be exacted to the full. Woe betide the leaders now perched on their dizzy pinnacles of triumph if they cast away at the conference table what the soldiers had won on a hundred blood-soaked battlefields.

Churchill goes on:

The territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles left Germany practically intact. She still remained the largest homogeneous racial block in Europe. When Marshal Foch heard of the signing of the Peace Treaty of Versailles he observed with singular accuracy: “This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years.”

Further:

The economic clauses of the Treaty were malignant and silly to an extent that made them obviously futile. Germany was condemned to pay reparations on a fabulous scale. These dictates gave expression to the anger of the victors, and to the failure of their peoples to understand that no defeated nation or community can ever pay tribute on a scale which would meet the costs of modern war.
The multitudes remained plunged in ignorance of the simplest economic facts, and their leaders, seeking their votes, did not dare to undeceive them. The newspapers, after their fashion, reflected and emphasised the prevailing opinions. Few voices were raised to explain that payment of reparations can only be made by services of by the physical transportation of goods in wagons across land frontiers or in ships across salt water; or that when goods arrive in the demanding countries, they dislocate the local industry except in very primitive or rigorously-controlled societies. In practice, as even the Russians have now learned, the only way of pillaging a defeated nation is to cart away any movables which are wanted, and to drive off a portion of its manhood as permanent or temporary slaves. But the profit gained from such processes bears no relation to the cost of war. No one in great authority had the wit, ascendancy, or detachment from public folly, to declare these fundamental, brutal facts to the electorates; nor would anyone have been believed if he had. The triumphant Allies continued to assert that they would squeeze Germany “till the pips squeaked”. All this had a potent bearing on the prosperity of the world and the mood of the German race.

Yet further:

The second cardinal tragedy was the complete break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by the Treaties of St. Germain and Trianon. For centuries this surviving embodiment of the Holy Roman Empire had afforded a common life, with advantages in trade and security, to a large number of people, none of whom in our own time had the strength or vitality to stand by themselves in the face of pressure from a revivified Germany or Russia. All these races wished to break away from the Federal or Imperial structure, and to encourage their desires was deemed a liberal policy. The Balkanisation of South-Eastern Europe proceeded apace, with the consequent relative aggrandisement of Prussia and the German Reich, which, though tired and war-scarred, was intact and locally overwhelming. There is not one of the peoples or provinces that constituted the Empire of the Hapsburgs to whom gaining their independence has not brought the tortures which ancient poets and theologicians had reserved for the damned. The noble capital of Vienna, the home of so much long-defended culture and tradition, the centre of so many roads, rivers, and railways, was left stark and starving, like a great emporium in an impoverished district whose inhabitants have mostly departed.
The victors imposed upon the Germans all the long-sought ideals of the liberal nations of the West. They were relieved from the burden of compulsory military service and from the need of keeping up heavy armaments. The enormous American loans were presently pressed upon them, though they had no credit. A democratic constitution, in accordance with all the latest improvements, was established at Weimar. Emperors having been driven out, nonentities were elected. Beneath this flimsy fabric raged the passion of the mighty, defeated, but substantially uninjured German nation. The prejudice of the Americans against monarchy, which Mr. Lloyd George made no attempt to counteract, had made it clear to the beaten Empire that it would have better treatment from the Allies as a Republic than as a Monarchy. Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the person of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency. Instead, a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military and feudal, which might have rallied to a constitutional monarchy and for its sake respected and sustained the new democratic and Parliamentary processes, were for the time being unhinged. The Weimar Republic, with all its liberal trappings and blessings, was regarded as an imposition of the enemy. It could not hold the loyalties of the German people. For a spell they sought to cling as in desperation to the aged Marshal Hindenburg. Thereafter mighty forces were adrift, the void was open, and into that void after a pause there strode a maniac of ferocious genius, the repository and expression of the most virulent hatreds that have corroded the human breast – Corporal Hitler.

He continues:

While all these untoward events were taking place, amid a ceaseless chatter of well-meant platitudes on both sides of the Atlantic, a new and more terrible cause of quarrel than the Imperialism of Czars and Kaisers became apparent in Europe. The Civil War in Russia ended in the absolute victory of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Soviet Armies which advanced to subjugate Poland were indeed repulsed in the battle of Warsaw, but Germany and Italy nearly succumbed to Communist propaganda and designs, and Hungary actually fell for a while under the control of the Communist dictator, Bela Kun. Although Marshal Foch wisely observed that “Bolshevism had never crossed the frontiers of victory”, the foundations of European civilisation trembled in the early post-war years. Fascism was the shadow of ugly child of Communism. While Corporal Hitler was making himself useful to the German officer-class in Munich by arousing soldiers and workers to fierce hatred of Jews and Communists, on whom he laid the blame of Germany’s defeat, another adventurer, Benito Mussolini, provided Italy with a new theme of government which, while it claimed to save the Italian people from Communism, raised himself to dictatorial power. As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into even more hideous strife, which none can say have ended with their destruction.

There is also some correspondence. We cite from volume 6 a message:

Prime Minister to Foreign Office 8 Apr 45
This war would never have come unless, under American and modernising pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs out of Austria and Hungary and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these vacuums we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer on to the vacant thrones. No doubt these views are very unfashionable....

Another message, three and a half weeks later:

Prime Minister to Sir H. Knatchbull-Hugessen (Brussels)          26 Apr 45
     It is no part of the policy of His Majesty’s Government to hunt down the Archduke Otto of Habsburg or to treat as if it were a criminal organisation the loyalty which many Austrians friendly to Britain cherish for their ancient monarchy. We should not actively intervene on their behalf, being at all times resolved that in any case where we are forced for the time being to depart from the ideal of non-intervention our guide is the will of the people, expressed by the vote of a free, unfettered, secret ballot, universal suffrage election. The principle of a constitutional monarchy, provided it is based on the will of the people, is not, oddly enough, abhorrent to the British mind.
     2. Personally, having lived through all these European disturbances and studied carefully their causes, I am of opinion that if the Allies at the peace table in Versailles had not imagined that the sweeping away of long-established dynasties was a form of progress, and if they had allowed a Hohenzollern, a Wittelsbach, and a Habsburg to return to their thrones, there would have been no Hitler. To Germany a symbolic point on which the loyalties of the military classes could centre would have been found, and a democratic basis of society might have been preserved by a crowned Weimar in contact with the victorious Allies. This is a personal view, but perhaps you would meditate upon it.

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The Queen receives Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at Buckingham Palace, 29 May 2008. The media doesn't report these visits anymore, so we will. This is not a courtesy call, but a customary requirement by a Head of Government to brief the Head of State. Obviously the Queen of Canada is privy to government information on the internal domestic affairs of her overseas realms too.

Unfortunately we don't know what subject matter the prime minister is raising here, but perhaps among other things he is formally asking the boss if Her Majesty will officially open the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. Or perhaps he is apologising for not formally inviting the Queen to the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City. Who knows, but the Queen's prime ministers customarily visit Her Majesty when they are in town. After two years in office, this is Prime Minister Harper's second visit to London and therefore second visit to Buckingham Palace.

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Those who did not live... before the Republic will never be able to know the sweetness of life. - Talleyrand

Professor David Flint at Australians for Constitutional Monarchy says all that needs to be said about Prime Minister Rudd's visit with the Queen at Windsor Castle yesterday. The Telegraph is connecting Kevin Rudd with the declaration "Australia will become a Republic", but nowhere in the article did he actually say that.

That there will apparently be an "accelerated public debate" over the next year on the issue, but that "it is not a top-order priority", is no doubt the prime minister's way of throwing scraps of meat at the republican troops without wrestling too many loyalist feathers. It is deliberately ambiguous and non-committal, without allowing republicans-in-a-hurry to question his republican credentials. But if in fact he is cool to the idea, then perhaps - just perhaps - he became a little cooler after meeting with Her Majesty yesterday. Perhaps - just perhaps - he experienced a little of that sweetness of life.

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This must be unprecedented. When has a sitting prime minister ever in the history of the British Commonwealth of Nations taken the Leader of the Official Opposition to court? Wow.

Under British Parliamentary rules and privilege, Members of Parliament are immune to libel suits by other MPs, and indeed members of the general public, if I'm not mistaken, for anything they say within the hallowed confines of the House of Commons. The Commons Speaker might decide to kick an honourable member out of the House for accusing another honourable member of bloody murder, but he/she cannot be sued for it afterwards.

So it may be that Stephan Dion, the Leader of the Official Opposition and Liberal Party of Canada, made the most costly political blunder of his life by accusing Prime Minister Harper of outright bribery on the Liberal Party official website, of offering a dying MP a $1 million life insurance policy if he would vote with the Conservatives on a key confidence motion in 2005 when the Tories were in opposition. Whatever the merits of this particular accusation (no credible evidence has so far come to light), this is rich coming from the "Libranos" who bribed MP Belinda Stronach with a Cabinet post at that very time, who not only transparently paid her off to go turncoat at the crucial moment, but went out of their way to make a big splash of it with the media. There's undeniable in-your-face bribery for you.

Key Liberals mentioned in the suit better have solid evidence or deep pockets. Prime Minister Harper has called the alleged personal slander "devastatingly defamatory". Things are getting a little complicated for the Liberals methinks.

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SPEECHES FROM THE THRONE, like yesterday's opening of the Canadian Parliament, are important and prestigious state occasions, and as such deserve the pomp and ceremony traditionally associated with them. Ideally this means that the Queen, if present, is enthroned and crowned; the Governor-General is vice-regally sashed in the Windsor uniform; that chief justices of the Supreme Court are wigged and gowned (though sadly in Canada's case, no longer wigged); that speakers and clerks are robed with bar jackets, and bicorned or tricorned as the case may be; it means the Sergeant-at-Arms is adorned with the custody of the ceremonial mace; that military officers are smartly decked out in all their glory and honour: medals, scabbards, swords and all; and the sitting Prime Minister, the first gentleman of Parliament, is formally dressed in his best morning suit.

I can't remember when the last time a Prime Minister wore morning dress. Mackenzie King was the last to wear a frock coat and top hat. Diefenbaker certainly wore his morning suit, as did Pearson and Trudeau after him. If you didn't wear it at every Throne Speech, you certainly did following your first election as Prime Minister, and you certainly did if the Queen was in attendance. But 1977 was the last time the Queen sat on the Canadian Throne (see below, Prime Minister Trudeau wears morning dress with signature rose). Alas, the tradition of the morning coat has given way to a miserly political culture that is always at pains to demonstrate its frugality. Haute couture for the politician is to be avoided at all costs. For them, the imperative is "business as usual".

But state occasions are not "business as usual". They are supposed to be lavish affairs, their purpose and intent being to lift us up from the drudgery of administration, and to remind us that there is something at play here that is greater than our own petty and lilliputian concerns as taxpayers. Prime Minister Harper understands this, which is why yesterday's Speech from the Throne was godly in its invocation: "May your deliberations be guided by Devine Providence, may your wisdom and patriotism enlarge the prosperity of the country and promote in every way the well-being of its people." This is evidence that we still believe in the function of God, and His supremacy over all events throughout our history. But if God, King and Country are all in the room, the least Harper could do is dress for the part.

(Above/below: Prime Minister's Chretien and Martin dress the part in 2000/2004)

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Great Britain sounds like a nation besieged with Tony Blair of all people going on about red lines on the EU's future:

1. Britain will not accept a treaty that allows the charter of fundamental rights to change UK law in any way

2. Britain will not agree to “something that displaces the role of British foreign policy and our foreign minister”

3. Britain “will not agree to give up our ability to control our common law and judicial and police system”

4. Britain “will not agree to anything that moves to qualified majority voting something that can have a big say in our own tax and benefits system”

There is but one red line, Mister Blair. Let me spell it out for the outgoing Prime Minister who must be really friggin worried about his legacy and the fact that he may go down in history as the man who devolved, diminished and destroyed Britain:

Britain will not, nor will it ever, accept something that further diminishes its national sovereignty and independence, it's constitutional order and the political and civil liberties and traditional way of life of its people.

Full Stop.

But honestly now, how could you let it get this far? And don't give us that doggy drip about how Britain was isolated in Europe until you came around. The whole prestige, historical greatness and good fortune of Britain is wrapped up in centuries of splendid isolation! Our ancestors understood that - they fought hard for their political freedoms, for their habeus corpus, for their King and Country in two world wars - they don't appreciate some piss ant risking it all away based on some misguided notion of isolation.

So why now? Because our beloved Blair is very afraid of referendums, because he knows the people will say no to an EU Constitution - so they must be placated and outfoxed to keep his personal dreams and ambition alive. We know, even as he refuses to admit, that he especially covets the permanent presidency of Europe, even if it means reducing Her Majesty to a subservient role as his future Lieutenant-Governor of England. It was never about isolation, it was about glory - not the glory of a nation, but the personal vainglory of one man who would never be content with the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods.

Related: The Great Charlatan's poisoned farewell gift by Gerald Warner

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Now that Stephen Harper has surpassed most of history's inconsequential prime ministers and solidified his hold on minority power (one poll had Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition at 22%, a new all-time low for the once mighty Liberals) and has apparently entered majority government territory, we should begin to contemplate what kind of leader he will be, and who he will stack up against.

I think we non-experts can quite easily rate the political success of statesmen if we understand that a leader's tenure first falls under one of the three Ts: transformational, transactional or transitional. A transformative leader makes a substantive impact on the national progress (or regress) of his country. A transactional leader is a caretaker of sorts, one who may know how to win power, but not what to do with it. Such a leader is more famous for his personality and style, than for any meaningful accomplishment while in office. And transitional leaders have the briefest of tenures (under 2 years), and are either unusually unlucky or found wanting in some regard. Mutually inconsequential, this group can only be differentiated and ranked according to the number of days, weeks or months in power. That out of the way then, here in my opinion, for better or for worse, are the most consequential prime ministers in Canada's confederal history:

Transformational Prime Ministers (measured by substance)
1. Sir John A. MacDonald, Con (Confederation)
2. William Lyon McKenzie-King, Lib (WW2 - Canada's F.D.R.)
3. Sir Wilfred Laurier, Lib (Development & Expansion)
4. Sir Robert Borden, Con (Great War)
5. Brian Mulroney, Con (Free Trade, Foreign Affairs)
6. Pierre Trudeau, Lib (Patriation of Constitution & Charter)
7. Lester Pearson, Lib (Flag, Healthcare, Peacekeeping)

Transactional Prime Ministers (measured by style)
8. John Diefenbaker, Con (Traditionalist/Populist)
9. Louis St. Laurent, Lib (Sound/Sensible/Dutiful)
10. Jean Chretien, Lib (Folksy/Low Expectations)
11. Alexander McKenzie, Lib (Honest/Unimaginative)
12. Richard Bennett, Con (Impersonal/Aloof)
13. Arthur Meighen, Con (Eloquent/Principled)
14. Sir John Thompson, Con (Loyal)

Transitional Prime Ministers (measured by spell)
15. Paul Martin, Lib (26 months)
16. John Abbott, Con (17 months)
17. Sir MacKenzie Bowell, Con (16 months)
18. Joe Clark, Con (8 months, 26 days)
19. Kim Campbell, Con (4 months, 12 days)
20. John Turner, Lib (79 days)
21. Sir Charles Tupper, Con (69 days)

Full disclosure: I’m a diehard Tory and a staunch traditionalist, so you are entitled to read into any bias that you believe might have affected my choice of ranking. Note though that I did struggle on a number of fronts. For example, it is debatable whether Trudeau should rank higher or lower than Mulroney. They both had a major impact - perhaps it would have been fairer to place Trudeau higher, particularly on the unity front. But Mulroney was much stronger on the economy and foreign affairs. Similarly, Laurier and King. Personally, I much prefer Arthur Meighen over King, but all the eloquence in the world couldn’t win Meighen lasting power. Some may feel Chretien should rank higher, given his three consecutive majorities. But what did he do, other than balance the books and almost lose the country in the 1995 referendum? It was especially painful to rank Pearson ahead of Diefenbaker, because Pearson more than anyone vandalized our heritage and institutions, whereas the Chief upheld the greatest respect. However, Pearson gave Canada its modern character, and reality requires that we recognize the impact this had, however insidious.

All that being said, watch for Harper over the next dozen or so years to eventually move into the number 2 spot. Remember, you heard it here first.

Fun fact: Sir John Thompson, while PM of Canada, died in Windsor Castle after receiving a knighthood from Queen Victoria. He was 49.

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Former British Prime Minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher, stands in front of a bronze statue of herself, inside the Palace of Westminster, earlier today.

The unveiling of the 7ft 6in (2.3 meter) bronze by sculptor Antony Dufort took place Wednesday evening in the Members' Lobby and Baroness Thatcher is the first living ex-Prime Minister to be honoured in such a way by the Commons.

It will face that of her predecessor and political hero Winston Churchill.

An earlier statue of Lady Thatcher in white marble, which had been on display in the Guildhall Art Gallery, in the City of London, awaiting transfer to the Commons, was decapitated by a protester in 2002.

At Wednesday's unveiling, Baroness Thatcher, who officially gave up public speaking in 2002 because of ill health, said: "I might have preferred iron - but bronze will do.

"It won't rust. And, this time I hope, the head will stay on."

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History is far stranger than fiction, a truth demonstrated again this week with revelations that in 1956 Guy Mollet, the then French Prime Minister, proposed a union between Britain and France. The soul shrinks at such a prospect. The two best enemies in all the world under one government? Under Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II no less. Devouted Churchillians will know that the great man himself proposed such a union in the dying days of the Third Republic, as what remained of the French Army evaporated before the German advance. The proposal was Churchill at his most romantic and pragmatic. It would have allowed the French to maintain that they were never defeated by Nazism, a kind if misplaced gesture; it also would have granted Britain immediate and legal control - though for how long? - over the French fleet and colonies. In the end the British were forced to sink much of the French fleet in the attack on Mers-el-Kébir and to gradually pry the French colonies from the control of Vichy.

Mollet's eccentric gesture must be seen in the context of its time. According to recently discovered documents, the proposal was made on the eve of the joint Franco-British retaking of the Suez Canal from that cretin Nasser. Eden had shown signs, at least to the minds of some senior French officials, of vacillation. The proposal of union, even if sure to be rejected, being dramatic and unexpected might have made any backdown over Suez more awkward for the Cabinet and No. 10. "How can we betray so loyal an ally as France?" one might have heard a hesitant minister ask had the Cabinet gotten cold feet over the attack. It was the sort of off the wall, desperate and ruthlessly calculated thing that the Quai d'Orsay has specialized in for centuries.

More broadly than the Suez Crisis, which in the end brought down both Mollet and Eden, the first half of the twentieth century had been unkind to the two former rivals turned erstwhile friend, though especially so for France. The halting and incomplete process of industrialization left the country vulnerable to the rise of the Rhur-powered German economy. This combined with the socio-political divides highlighted over secularization, the Dreyfus Affair and in the 1930s the short-lived Popular Front government, gave the impression to the French people, and to the outside world, of a weak and divided nation. The strange defeat of 1940, in Marc Bloch's famous analysis, only confirmed the image of a weak and fading France. The Fourth Republic (1946-1958) proved another blow. Despite hopes that it would remedy the oft remarked upon instability and ineffectiveness - the latter perhaps exaggerated - of the Third, the disaster of Suez, a still struggling economy - as the Federal Republic of Germany boomed - and finally the Algerian crisis ensured its demise. In this context a desperate French leader might be willing to swallow some national pride for the sake of short-term advantage.

All this changed in 1958. Immediately after the Second World War France had rejected Charles de Gaulle's calls for strong, and at times frankly authoritarian leadership. In 1958 a large majority of the French public practically begged the old war leader to save them from themselves. So he did. Despite being a dirigiste of the old school, de Gaulle was a great improvement on the muddling socialists who dominated the politics of the Fourth Republic. Sweeping away internal trade barriers, protecting private property from the predations of the Left and Far Left and otherwise maintaining a positive climate for investment and trade, de Gaulle engineered an economic miracle almost as spectacular as that of Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard's Social Market next door. He also matched improved French economic prowess with a more belligerent foreign policy.

From the First Battle of the Marne until Suez the Anglo-French partnership had usually meant a more junior role for the Republic. It was Chamberlain who was the prime force at Munich, Bevin who lead the French toward NATO in 1949 and Eden who first proposed aggressive action against Nasser in 1956. De Gaulle replaced this deference, born out of internal social and economic weakness, with an often juvenile anti-anglo-saxonism. Rejecting Britain's entry into the Common Market twice, pulling out of the NATO command structure in 1966, the pompous declaration at Montreal City Hall in 1967 of "Vive le Quebec Libre," and frequent prickings of the Americans over Vietnam, were as much a matter of policy as of nationalistic revanche for the former leader of the Free French.

The Britain of Harold MacMillan and Harold Wilson, de Gaulle's contemporaries at No. 10, was a bleak place. Supermac had made it a point to suck up to Eisenhower (if you have a more polite description, that is still accurate, please propose it in the comments) and while both he and de Gaulle oversaw the dismantling of their respective global empires, it seemed far more like a retreat for Britain than for France. Wilson had come to power promising to modernize Britain in the "white heat of technology." Hopes that technocracy might overcome class, tradition and stagnation were ill-placed. After Wilson came Heath and then Wilson again and then Callaghan. Then there was the Winter of Discontent. Members of the House of Commons openly talked about Britain becoming another Portugal. If the France of Georges Pompidou, de Gaulle's apprentice and successor, did not prosper as before, it seemed far more vigorous during Stagflation than its old rival. Certainly no French President of the time was seen running to the IMF for help to prop up the franc.

Then came the Eighties. Britain went with Mrs Thatcher and France with Francois Mitterrand. Germany had begun to walk away from the Social Market with Willy Brandt's government. From the distance of a quarter century the three decades after 1945 seem an anomaly. Britain, the homeland of laissez-faire became a case study of the dangers of democratic socialism. Germany and France, previously contemptuous of the free market, made a short-lived truce and prospered greatly as a result. The old patterns re-asserted themselves twenty-five years ago. The French today speak deridingly of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, while straining to catch up to the Anglo-Saxon economies, as they did a century ago. German authoritarianism has assumed a new more pleasant, if bloated, welfare state form in the last years of the 20th century. The Franco-British Union was a dead letter for the simple reason that the two nations were culturally incompatible. One nation prided itself on being "the Mother of the Free," the other "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." If those differences seemed obscure in 1956 they have become clearer again today. Tony Blair notwithstanding.

Publius

Originally posted at The Gods of the Copybook Headings

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The official notification of Bono's award of a knighthood (something Lennon and Harrison never won despite the latter having been the first to organise a benefit concert) came by way as an email which read:"Hi folks. Please see attached Press release. A statement from the Prime Minister will be on the No10 website shortly. A statement will also be on the U2 website."

Imagine- releasing the news on Bono's website which advertises his CDs and concerts! And just in time for U2's new greatest hits album, 18, which will top the charts by the New Year.

The way the news was broken immediately came under fire from MPs on all sides, who claimed it was final proof of the way Mr Blair has manipulated the honours system for cynical political purposes. MPs have complained that Blair has "cheapened" the honours system FURTHER by trying to shift attention from Iraq. LibDem MP Bob Russell, who represents the Army town of Colchester, said: "This breaks all precedents and is an insult to others who have to wait until next week to have their honours announced. "My town has lost many servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Mr Blair is more concerned about handing baubles to rock stars."

Ex-Tory Minister Ann Widdecombe (aka Doris Karloff) said: "I fail to understand why Bono should be singled out for an early announcement when the honours list is full of people who have worked hard. It is demeaning to them and is a typical New Labour manipulated news stunt." Labour's Andrew Mackinlay said: "I'm amazed at the way anti-establishment rock figures fall over each other to pick up gongs."

For a great piece about this, read Peter Hitchen's Snobbery, sycophancy...and Sir Dog Biscuit KBE.

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Britain finds herself this Christmas in a very sad state indeed. Her Majesty's Home Secretary and a number of other figures have announced that a successful terror attack in Albion is inevitable before the year finishes. An aide to the British commander in Afghanistan has been arrested for spying on behalf of Iran. A murder suspect has fled the country as a fully-covered Islamic female (so clad, authorities didn't dare ascertain his identity). Our Prime Minister is the first in British history to be interviewed by the police whilst in office; and Her Majesty's Government stands splattered about in slime and corruption, no longer even pretending to virtue, but nakedly flouting the law itself. 36% of the British electorate are actively giving up on mainstream British politics. Israelis now advise British subjects on how to live in a nation beset by suicide bombers. Over 200,000 British subjects left the country last year; almost a million have gone since 2000; meanwhile each year half a million Muslims enter. ID cards, speech hate laws, both on the horizon - a quarter of the world's CCTV cameras swivelling atop our lampposts and high-streets - our armed forces cut, cut and cut again.

My friends, Britain is over, or is just about to be. It still feels strangely untouched in places – I type this looking out across a hilly, crisp cold landscape, spotted liberally with trees and the footprints of animals, the sun starting to set, not a cloud about, frost stuck to our path, hot cocoa on the stove, King’s College choir in the CD player, and a long fun night of present-wrapping ahead… and yet, the trap’s been sprung, the net is over us, and all that remains is for the terrible future to haul in its prey.

All offers of invasion from brother nations warmly welcomed. I, for one, would welcome some new Anglosphere over-lords with open arms. A coalition of the willing - John Howard and Stephen Harper leading, appointing an amenable Viceroy in due time - would be Britain's best Christmas present of all. How about it?

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Iain Murray, weighing in at The Corner, believes that Britain is no longer a constitutional monarchy. With the prime minister's unprecedented intervention to save the Saudis from an embarrassing corruption inquiry into a British arms deal, Tony Blair has flagrantly dispensed with the rule of law and turned Britain into (according to Oliver Kramm at The Times) the newest banana republic.

Stephen Pollard explains:

In my view, it's of a different order of magnitude to cash-for-peerages. I'm not diminishing that (if a crime is indeed proven). But the notion that the government can suspend the rule of law when it sees fit, with no comeback or debate, strikes at the very heart of the notion of a constitutional rather than an absolute monarchy. So we now live, in the strict meaning of the phrase, under a despotic government, with the government acting, in the name of the monarch, above the rule of law as laid down by Parliament.

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