I attended Dartmouth in 1972 at the age of 18, and then served as a Naval Aviator after being commissioned.
Never once been unemployed.
Very fortunate / lucky to have subsequently flown with the Bristows Group, the Midland Group and the Big Airways Group - currently still working full time in a non-flying aviation role.
Hugely fortunate to have never chosen an airline which went belly-up.
I've never claimed a single benefit.
Ever.
Have mostly paid higher rate tax, my current marginal rate is 62%.
I'm proud of my country, of the Navy (as they were); I'm proud of having played a small part.
I'm particularly proud of being a Reform UK member and of having knocked on several hundred doors in Clacton last week.
But.
I have to admit, when I walk down the local town's High Street during the day, or drive through it at night, I see little to be proud of and little that I would fight for.
The town's council gave our village an immigrant hotel, (one of the illegals stole some of my property) - we're just waiting to see what happens next with Burnham's HMOs.
My village is tribal Conservative / Liberal - it is an education listening to these people; because of that, I'm afraid that apart from personal friends, I don't see much to be proud of in the community.
Except.
I am hugely proud of what Nigel, Zia, Richard, Lee & Co are trying to do - I'm proud that they refuse to give up, despite all the slings and arrows, despite the outrageous fortune etc.
They provide HOPE.
There is always hope - I suppose I'm proud that we have not given up.
I have to admit to living off the state for a while. I left school in 1975, which wasn't a good time for school-leaving employment, so with the rest of my mates, I signed on because someone told us we could. It was almost a rite of passage. We had no idea we were taking taxpayers' money; it was all from the magic money tree.
It lasted weeks, perhaps a month or two, before we were all gainfully employed, but the experience of going down to the dole office to sign on with an assortment of smelly dossers (not all were) was not a pleasant experience. And to be honest, we were all from modestly wealthy middle-class backgrounds; we didn't really need the money, but it paid for our beer.
The first two weeks were an adventure. The following few weeks were an unpleasant chore with beer as the only compensation.
I have always considered it a short, sharp lesson in the indignity of unemployment I never wanted to visit again. I often wonder if compelling people to stand in a queue of some very unpleasant people in an austere, grubby dole office and be publicly handed a green Giro by disinterested, unpleasant civil servants, to be cashed in public at the Post Office, instead of having money electronically transferred into a bank account anonymously, might put some people off claiming benefits.
Then again, the level of personal dignity which used to be so important in Britain seems to have evaporated from many sections of society. The Jason Arday vigil in Trafalgar Square the other day appeared to harbour about the same proportion of unpleasant-looking people as the dole office I once frequented.
There have been times that I have found myself unemployed and on benefits, normally after I have got myself into financial straights because I refused to sign on. Idiot pride.
I have gone from boom to bust on a few occasions when I ran businesses. If you remember the comment made by, possibly, Gordon Brown about people buying Lamborghinis with the pension pots we were allowed to access, well, I'm your man.
Not a Lamborghini but a business venture I lost a lot of money on. On the other hand, on the eve of 9/11, I was in line for a 4% sales commission of a £250 million deal I put together for an IT company I worked for. We were within a month or so of signing it when Osama destroyed the buildings; the US IT industry went into a tailspin, and the deal was cancelled.
Disappointing – but then the images appeared of people jumping from buildings, and I thought to myself, get a fucking life; it's only money; we should all count our blessings.
And what the hell's going on with Tim?! You need him back no matter how critical of Reform he is. Talk about lousy timing as well FFS. The loss of Ann, the £5 million cock-up and now a high-profile suspension, which will be broadcast by the left as a sacking.
He was on The Daily T tonight, and whether he was being truthful or not, he put his hand on his heart and said it wasn't him that leaked his suspension to Guido, so it could only be Reform, so now he's free to talk.
If that's true, you have a rat in the organisation. If it's not true, Tim beat Reform to the punch and made a mockery of Nigel's mantra of sorting things out behind closed doors. Whatever the truth is, Nigel needs to get Jenrick and Yusef together in a room, bang their heads together, and tell them neither is in line for his job at any time in the future if they can't bury the hatchet and work together.
Reform is in the business of rebuilding this country, not sacking people because they disagree with tactics.
Messaging needs to be clear. A woman called into TalkTV saying she had quit her membership of the party because she would lose her PIP payments but had some horrendous injuries. Just the type of person Reform doesn't want to lose PIP. Her fear all came from a pre-policy leak (or announcement) before Jenrick and Nigel presented the full policy yesterday. (?)
On the other hand, she could have been a hoax caller, in which case Talk TV needs a bollocking.
I think that's a very reasonable assumption. I also assume TalkTV have some degree of screening before they accept people broadcasting that they have just quit their membership of Reform.
My fear, therefore, is that there was a pre-announcement leak (back to the rat in the organisation) or someone made an announcement about the policy pre-presentation which, to be fair to the caller, made me wonder when I heard unofficial chat about it in the days preceding the formal press conference, and I have listened carefully to previous Reform interviews where Lee Anderson, for one, has explained PIP would be retained for the genuinely needy.
There is also the genuine concern that someone was just creating mischief, which, judging by the behaviour of the uniparty and its hangers-on, wouldn't surprise me in the least.
As for Tim, I can understand people getting pissed off with him. He seems still stuck, to a certain extent, in the Tory tactical mindset. His discussion on the Daily T revealed that, but that should be dealt with personally by either persuading him that he's wrong or instructing him not to discuss specific criticisms with journalists.
The point is, Reform cannot afford a high-profile, articulate and highly media-savvy loose cannon with a grudge outside the party. The Tory faithful loved/loves him, and Labour and the Lib Dems will now love him as well. He'll be invited onto all the usual lefty-supporting media (like the Sunday/Times, which will be rubbing its hands) to give his account of events.
Things are bad enough at the moment with the Burnham bounce and Reform's fall in the polls, and Burnham might just feel confident enough to call an early election. That would likely mean another 5 years of this car-crash government or the growing likelihood of a 'merger' with the Tories, but it will be on their terms, not Reform's.
Thanks - I should have made clear it was only luck wherein I wasn’t unfortunate enough to work for an airline that went bust; in which case things would have been very different.
Far, far better pilots than I ended up working for multiple operators because the relevant business models failed - and when they did so, their pensions followed suit.
It’s so so depressing. This is the greatest country the world has ever produced. Objectively so.
Pretty much every successful nation has either copied us, or has its roots in our culture.
I am proud of my nation and my ancestors.
I am shamed by what this nation’s rulers have done to the precious gift, with which they were entrusted.
For the last twenty-five years, watching the British government in action ,has been like watching a tantruming toddler crayon over The Fighting Temeraire.
"She has been talked out of love, and what has been talked out can be talked back in, and sung back in." Oh yes. I trust that when the levers of power come in to Reform's hands they will actually use them (eg make Marcus a bishop!) NB I think the lyric is 'lost St G IN the union jack'' ie lost English identity. One of my all time favourite songs that.
9 years in the Andrew man and boy when we had a navy. Family community and beloved country. The real patriots are merely resting waiting patiently while the madness eats itself alive. Thank you for rallying the troops Gawain.
It’s interesting that the only thing to rise is pride in the community. When something is threatened it closes in on itself for protection which appears to be what is happening. By closing in, it can regroup and move forward , we can only hope that that will also happen.
Usually working class + rural folk, all still hang together. We're in rural Somerset*, w our neighbours mostly local rural working class. We look out for each other. Yes you are right Val - look in the right place and you'll see it.
* Somerset. Still proudly monocultural. UDI for Wessex.
Many years ago I asked myself what it must be like for those people who live in countries they are ashamed of…it didn’t take many years for me to find out personally. I can hardly believe it’s happened, but as an aethiest my faith lay with the people of my country, its history of achievement and improved prosperity. I am a humanist, I believe people can do great things, but goodness me that faith has been tested in the last few decades. What a sorry mess.
I always noticed that British people didn't advertise their patriotism as loudly as people from other countries - it was a quiet appreciation, such as at war commemorations and in daily life (after all, we do make the best puds - even the French love 'le crumble')- except of course, on royal occasions and sports matches, last night of the Proms and such where the flags can be waved and enthusiasm let rip.
Then again, I'm English, so I think there's always been more open pride shown by the Welsh and Scots - let alone the Northern Irish, with all the history of the Troubles ...
But it wasn't embarrassment or worse, like we've seen over the past 20 years or so, as EU propaganda and 'wokism' has crept into our institutions.
"Roots" by Show of Hands is a great song - but it is a Lament, not a call to action. It is a Lament for something that seems to be lost for good. "Country Life" is even more savagely gloomy. Of course it is true that every Nation needs its Roots - but once they have been severed, recovery becomes difficult. For tree roots, the advice is - "The likelihood of a complete recovery varies based on the percentage of roots damaged. As a general rule:
Less Than 25%: The tree has a good chance of survival with the right care.
25% to 50%: This percentage of damage will cause stress to the tree, but treatment may still be manageable, especially in young or resilient trees.
More Than 50%: Professional support is needed to increase the chances of survival, as it is unlikely to recover without specific and ongoing care at this stage."
The "care" is in all cases full-time, intensive, and very hard work. And it runs counter to Consumerism and Liquid Modernity - there is no monetary profit in it. This means it is heretical or dissident in the extreme. People might even label it "communist" [though that is as meaningless as "capitalist" these days] because it is against profit. But what happens when the pursuit of profit destroys your immortal soul? You kind of have to be against it, for a while at least. Like someone with food poisoning has to be against eating for a while.
All over the world, the tiny lights of national culture are dying out like the world's fireflies or glow-worms (actually bioluminescent beetles). The beetles are dying out in a tsunami of Consumerism and Liquid Modernity - threats include habitat loss and degradation, light pollution, pesticide use, poor water quality, invasive species, over-collection, and climate change. Firefly tourism, a quickly growing sector of the travel and tourism industry, has also been identified as a potential threat to fireflies and their habitats when not managed appropriately.
Native cultures should not attract Tourists any more than Fireflies should, Both should be left to thrive in peace in their age-old Habitat. But this cannot happen in a frenetic atmosphere of construction and material expansion represented by the sinister acronym GDP or GNP.
Reform is a powerful word, connoting "re-build, re-construct, re-create". It does not connote mere tinkering with an existing System but a complete transformation, which might entail reviving the Past in cases where an excess of Modernity and Innovation is the problem. However, that Past would have to be sufficiently different from the Present to warrant the word "Reform". And that might entail going a lot farther back than is comfortable.
I must watch the film of David Brin's "The Postman" again, because it posited a USA that for some reason had been blasted back into the 18th century. Every modern building had disappeared (bliss), so had all the cars, and the Postal Service was on horseback and manned by a conscientious Kevin Costner looking very fetching in an old uniform he had found. Fortunately he had been an actor before the Apocalypse, so he also gave performances of Shakespeare as he went from settlement to settlement with the mail. Otherwise, things were pretty grim - but you can't have your cake and eat it, no pain no gain, etc.
I attended Dartmouth in 1972 at the age of 18, and then served as a Naval Aviator after being commissioned.
Never once been unemployed.
Very fortunate / lucky to have subsequently flown with the Bristows Group, the Midland Group and the Big Airways Group - currently still working full time in a non-flying aviation role.
Hugely fortunate to have never chosen an airline which went belly-up.
I've never claimed a single benefit.
Ever.
Have mostly paid higher rate tax, my current marginal rate is 62%.
I'm proud of my country, of the Navy (as they were); I'm proud of having played a small part.
I'm particularly proud of being a Reform UK member and of having knocked on several hundred doors in Clacton last week.
But.
I have to admit, when I walk down the local town's High Street during the day, or drive through it at night, I see little to be proud of and little that I would fight for.
The town's council gave our village an immigrant hotel, (one of the illegals stole some of my property) - we're just waiting to see what happens next with Burnham's HMOs.
My village is tribal Conservative / Liberal - it is an education listening to these people; because of that, I'm afraid that apart from personal friends, I don't see much to be proud of in the community.
Except.
I am hugely proud of what Nigel, Zia, Richard, Lee & Co are trying to do - I'm proud that they refuse to give up, despite all the slings and arrows, despite the outrageous fortune etc.
They provide HOPE.
There is always hope - I suppose I'm proud that we have not given up.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3565j1
What a great post.
I have to admit to living off the state for a while. I left school in 1975, which wasn't a good time for school-leaving employment, so with the rest of my mates, I signed on because someone told us we could. It was almost a rite of passage. We had no idea we were taking taxpayers' money; it was all from the magic money tree.
It lasted weeks, perhaps a month or two, before we were all gainfully employed, but the experience of going down to the dole office to sign on with an assortment of smelly dossers (not all were) was not a pleasant experience. And to be honest, we were all from modestly wealthy middle-class backgrounds; we didn't really need the money, but it paid for our beer.
The first two weeks were an adventure. The following few weeks were an unpleasant chore with beer as the only compensation.
I have always considered it a short, sharp lesson in the indignity of unemployment I never wanted to visit again. I often wonder if compelling people to stand in a queue of some very unpleasant people in an austere, grubby dole office and be publicly handed a green Giro by disinterested, unpleasant civil servants, to be cashed in public at the Post Office, instead of having money electronically transferred into a bank account anonymously, might put some people off claiming benefits.
Then again, the level of personal dignity which used to be so important in Britain seems to have evaporated from many sections of society. The Jason Arday vigil in Trafalgar Square the other day appeared to harbour about the same proportion of unpleasant-looking people as the dole office I once frequented.
There have been times that I have found myself unemployed and on benefits, normally after I have got myself into financial straights because I refused to sign on. Idiot pride.
I have gone from boom to bust on a few occasions when I ran businesses. If you remember the comment made by, possibly, Gordon Brown about people buying Lamborghinis with the pension pots we were allowed to access, well, I'm your man.
Not a Lamborghini but a business venture I lost a lot of money on. On the other hand, on the eve of 9/11, I was in line for a 4% sales commission of a £250 million deal I put together for an IT company I worked for. We were within a month or so of signing it when Osama destroyed the buildings; the US IT industry went into a tailspin, and the deal was cancelled.
Ho Hum, such is life.
Disappointing – but then the images appeared of people jumping from buildings, and I thought to myself, get a fucking life; it's only money; we should all count our blessings.
And what the hell's going on with Tim?! You need him back no matter how critical of Reform he is. Talk about lousy timing as well FFS. The loss of Ann, the £5 million cock-up and now a high-profile suspension, which will be broadcast by the left as a sacking.
He was on The Daily T tonight, and whether he was being truthful or not, he put his hand on his heart and said it wasn't him that leaked his suspension to Guido, so it could only be Reform, so now he's free to talk.
If that's true, you have a rat in the organisation. If it's not true, Tim beat Reform to the punch and made a mockery of Nigel's mantra of sorting things out behind closed doors. Whatever the truth is, Nigel needs to get Jenrick and Yusef together in a room, bang their heads together, and tell them neither is in line for his job at any time in the future if they can't bury the hatchet and work together.
Reform is in the business of rebuilding this country, not sacking people because they disagree with tactics.
Messaging needs to be clear. A woman called into TalkTV saying she had quit her membership of the party because she would lose her PIP payments but had some horrendous injuries. Just the type of person Reform doesn't want to lose PIP. Her fear all came from a pre-policy leak (or announcement) before Jenrick and Nigel presented the full policy yesterday. (?)
On the other hand, she could have been a hoax caller, in which case Talk TV needs a bollocking.
Regarding the TalkTV woman I’d suggest she simply heard PIP will be cancelled under Reform and didn’t bother to read or listen further to the detail.
I think that's a very reasonable assumption. I also assume TalkTV have some degree of screening before they accept people broadcasting that they have just quit their membership of Reform.
My fear, therefore, is that there was a pre-announcement leak (back to the rat in the organisation) or someone made an announcement about the policy pre-presentation which, to be fair to the caller, made me wonder when I heard unofficial chat about it in the days preceding the formal press conference, and I have listened carefully to previous Reform interviews where Lee Anderson, for one, has explained PIP would be retained for the genuinely needy.
There is also the genuine concern that someone was just creating mischief, which, judging by the behaviour of the uniparty and its hangers-on, wouldn't surprise me in the least.
As for Tim, I can understand people getting pissed off with him. He seems still stuck, to a certain extent, in the Tory tactical mindset. His discussion on the Daily T revealed that, but that should be dealt with personally by either persuading him that he's wrong or instructing him not to discuss specific criticisms with journalists.
The point is, Reform cannot afford a high-profile, articulate and highly media-savvy loose cannon with a grudge outside the party. The Tory faithful loved/loves him, and Labour and the Lib Dems will now love him as well. He'll be invited onto all the usual lefty-supporting media (like the Sunday/Times, which will be rubbing its hands) to give his account of events.
Things are bad enough at the moment with the Burnham bounce and Reform's fall in the polls, and Burnham might just feel confident enough to call an early election. That would likely mean another 5 years of this car-crash government or the growing likelihood of a 'merger' with the Tories, but it will be on their terms, not Reform's.
Thanks - I should have made clear it was only luck wherein I wasn’t unfortunate enough to work for an airline that went bust; in which case things would have been very different.
Far, far better pilots than I ended up working for multiple operators because the relevant business models failed - and when they did so, their pensions followed suit.
It’s so so depressing. This is the greatest country the world has ever produced. Objectively so.
Pretty much every successful nation has either copied us, or has its roots in our culture.
I am proud of my nation and my ancestors.
I am shamed by what this nation’s rulers have done to the precious gift, with which they were entrusted.
For the last twenty-five years, watching the British government in action ,has been like watching a tantruming toddler crayon over The Fighting Temeraire.
Very well put, that image is excellent.
Thank you Gawain. You have a lovely turn of phrase yourself. 👍
"She has been talked out of love, and what has been talked out can be talked back in, and sung back in." Oh yes. I trust that when the levers of power come in to Reform's hands they will actually use them (eg make Marcus a bishop!) NB I think the lyric is 'lost St G IN the union jack'' ie lost English identity. One of my all time favourite songs that.
Country life is also a blinder
Brilliant article re the love of our England
/Britain which hit me in the heart - I pray for a Reform victory so we can turn this around.
As with listed property a future government should force the COE to fund repairs of the local churches. They clearly have money to spare
9 years in the Andrew man and boy when we had a navy. Family community and beloved country. The real patriots are merely resting waiting patiently while the madness eats itself alive. Thank you for rallying the troops Gawain.
It’s interesting that the only thing to rise is pride in the community. When something is threatened it closes in on itself for protection which appears to be what is happening. By closing in, it can regroup and move forward , we can only hope that that will also happen.
🤞
Real communities. Not LGBDHH "community" shit.
Usually working class + rural folk, all still hang together. We're in rural Somerset*, w our neighbours mostly local rural working class. We look out for each other. Yes you are right Val - look in the right place and you'll see it.
* Somerset. Still proudly monocultural. UDI for Wessex.
Bulls eye, Gawain.
We shall not be moved.
Gawain your writing is an inspiration and analysis of the C of E is spot on.
Many years ago I asked myself what it must be like for those people who live in countries they are ashamed of…it didn’t take many years for me to find out personally. I can hardly believe it’s happened, but as an aethiest my faith lay with the people of my country, its history of achievement and improved prosperity. I am a humanist, I believe people can do great things, but goodness me that faith has been tested in the last few decades. What a sorry mess.
I always noticed that British people didn't advertise their patriotism as loudly as people from other countries - it was a quiet appreciation, such as at war commemorations and in daily life (after all, we do make the best puds - even the French love 'le crumble')- except of course, on royal occasions and sports matches, last night of the Proms and such where the flags can be waved and enthusiasm let rip.
Then again, I'm English, so I think there's always been more open pride shown by the Welsh and Scots - let alone the Northern Irish, with all the history of the Troubles ...
But it wasn't embarrassment or worse, like we've seen over the past 20 years or so, as EU propaganda and 'wokism' has crept into our institutions.
Beautifully written, GT, but I fear we are way, way, beyond the possibility of conventional change being the answer
"Roots" by Show of Hands is a great song - but it is a Lament, not a call to action. It is a Lament for something that seems to be lost for good. "Country Life" is even more savagely gloomy. Of course it is true that every Nation needs its Roots - but once they have been severed, recovery becomes difficult. For tree roots, the advice is - "The likelihood of a complete recovery varies based on the percentage of roots damaged. As a general rule:
Less Than 25%: The tree has a good chance of survival with the right care.
25% to 50%: This percentage of damage will cause stress to the tree, but treatment may still be manageable, especially in young or resilient trees.
More Than 50%: Professional support is needed to increase the chances of survival, as it is unlikely to recover without specific and ongoing care at this stage."
The "care" is in all cases full-time, intensive, and very hard work. And it runs counter to Consumerism and Liquid Modernity - there is no monetary profit in it. This means it is heretical or dissident in the extreme. People might even label it "communist" [though that is as meaningless as "capitalist" these days] because it is against profit. But what happens when the pursuit of profit destroys your immortal soul? You kind of have to be against it, for a while at least. Like someone with food poisoning has to be against eating for a while.
All over the world, the tiny lights of national culture are dying out like the world's fireflies or glow-worms (actually bioluminescent beetles). The beetles are dying out in a tsunami of Consumerism and Liquid Modernity - threats include habitat loss and degradation, light pollution, pesticide use, poor water quality, invasive species, over-collection, and climate change. Firefly tourism, a quickly growing sector of the travel and tourism industry, has also been identified as a potential threat to fireflies and their habitats when not managed appropriately.
Native cultures should not attract Tourists any more than Fireflies should, Both should be left to thrive in peace in their age-old Habitat. But this cannot happen in a frenetic atmosphere of construction and material expansion represented by the sinister acronym GDP or GNP.
Reform is a powerful word, connoting "re-build, re-construct, re-create". It does not connote mere tinkering with an existing System but a complete transformation, which might entail reviving the Past in cases where an excess of Modernity and Innovation is the problem. However, that Past would have to be sufficiently different from the Present to warrant the word "Reform". And that might entail going a lot farther back than is comfortable.
I must watch the film of David Brin's "The Postman" again, because it posited a USA that for some reason had been blasted back into the 18th century. Every modern building had disappeared (bliss), so had all the cars, and the Postal Service was on horseback and manned by a conscientious Kevin Costner looking very fetching in an old uniform he had found. Fortunately he had been an actor before the Apocalypse, so he also gave performances of Shakespeare as he went from settlement to settlement with the mail. Otherwise, things were pretty grim - but you can't have your cake and eat it, no pain no gain, etc.
All so very doomy, but I do recognise the problem.