This is Northumberland Calling 14.2.25

The chickens coming home to roost edition

Hello America (Particularly Central Ohio) this is Northumberland Calling

Happy Valentine’s Day or more accurately Lupercal, a Roman fertility tradition which early Christianity adopted and then modern marketing, particularly card manufacturers put on steroids. The original festival involved purging and purification and was called Februa which is where we get the name February from or the month of purging. Given that is the shortest month, perhaps it is better suited to purging and cleansing than other months.

Rachel from Accounts Reeves has some accounting to do for the exaggerations on her CV. On Linked In, she claimed to work for the Bank of England, several months longer than she actually did. Why? No one knows and Reeves has not explained but the evidence is there. There is also evidence that she fiddled her expenses while at Halifax Bank of Scotland. Starmer is standing by his chancellor. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77r05nx11po

Yesterday saw an Afghan asylum seeker who failed on his application but was allowed to remain in Germany because of how dangerous Afghanistan is plough into a group of pedestrians. It is being treated as a terrorist offence. There is a general election looming in Germany. The AfD, the far Right party which is opposed to immigration is poised to do well because of the complete mishandling of mass migration, particularly as the German economy stagnates. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/02/13/germany-has-lost-count-migrant-terror-attacks-afd-has-not/ or https://archive.ph/j7tc9

To understand why modern Germany worries about a resurgence of the far Right, one needs to understand the insidious nature of Nazi philosophy. The best way to do this imho is to listen to Episode 408 of the Rest is History which goes into great detail on the subject. Some of the things I was aware and others I wasn’t. For example I had known that the Nazis weren’t Christian, but I hadn’t realised that they considered Christianity to be Jewish because Jesus was born a Jew. Thus all the innovations including tolerance, compassion and respect for human dignity which spring from the Christian tradition were tainted and should be expunged. The use of strategic essentialism and cancel culture with its emphasis on ideological teaching in schools turned up to the max reminded me of the excesses of the Omni-cause far more than Trump. But this fear of the far right growing particularly amongst disaffected youth (the main driver of Nazism in the late 1920s and early 30s) is something which the Left and in particular the far Left has used to shield itself from scrutiny of its policies.

Pete Hesgeth told NATO a few home truths this week. The US is no longer prepared to be the ultimate European shield and will not provide boots on the ground in Ukraine to act as a peace-keeping force. Later it emerged that Trump appeared willing to negotiate with Putin without reference to Ukraine. The Weimar + group of European nations said – no, this is appeasement and that they would guarantee Ukraine. The Weimar+ countries provide more assistance to Ukraine than the US. Sources in the US now indicate that US is prepared to provide air cover for any peacekeeping force. The Munich Security Conference is happening today where some of this will be hammered out, hopefully the failures of another Munich conference in the late 1930s will concentrate minds. Then too the US put pressure for appeasement: https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/us-could-provide-air-defence-to-ukraine-peacekeeping-force-320mk3nqw or https://archive.ph/TM6bA

This is former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace’s take on the matter and why Europe should not abandon Ukraine even if the US has reached the limit of what it is prepared to do: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2025/02/13/ukraines-betrayal-we-have-entered-an-age-of-appeasement/ or https://archive.ph/JfU7d

A significant part of the trouble is Europe’s use of the US military might as a shield and have hollowed out their own armed forces. The difference is striking and European nations, including Britain do need to significantly increase their defence spending. This observation is far from new. It is something which successive US governments have been saying since Kennedy. However this time, Europe does need to rearm instead of frivolously wasting money because one must assume the US means it. The US like the British Empire before it has discovered that being the world’s policeman costs much domestic capital. There was a reason for Milner’s liberal imperialism drive, staring in the late 1890s. This is a good essay on ‘Can Europe defend itself without the US?’ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/02/13/can-europe-defend-itself-from-russia/ or https://archive.ph/bjVB3

In the US, RFK jr is now the Health Secretary and Trump has wasted no time in reorienting the Health department and has established a commission – Make America Healthy Again. There will be a new focus on getting America healthy. Americans have a much lower life expediency (78.8 years) than Britain (82.06). Other stats are equally skewed. One of the big focuses chronic childhood diseases including the Autism spectrum which now affects 1 in 36 children. Something like 18% of late adolescents now have a fatty liver, something which was unheard of in the 1970s. It is worth reading the entire EO to see what the focus is and the time scale. Fingers crossed that this reorientation works. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/establishing-the-presidents-make-america-healthy-again-commission/

Over here, Kiera Bell and James Esses are leading the push for a judicial review to stop the proposed puberty blocker trial, calling it unethical. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/13/call-off-puberty-blocker-trial-or-legal-action-nhs-warned/ or https://archive.ph/rVgRv

The Sandie Peggie tribunal has continued this week. There will be a hiatus until July after today because new disclosures have resulted in delays and the need to question who knew what when and how. Yesterday saw Peggie’s line manager take the stand and admit that she had never participated in a formal investigation nor led one when she took charge of this one. And that the decision to suspend Peggie was taken before Peggie had been asked to give her account (ie due process was not followed). The NHS trust and the doctor at the centre have had their inconsistencies on display. The line manager took her cue from the DEI people and did not question if the policy was lawful of allowing a biological male into the female changing rooms was lawful. She did admit that other changing rooms/areas were available. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/trans-doctor-nhs-fife-sandie-peggie-beth-upton-naomi-cunningham-m569mdbvp or https://archive.ph/GxxUX

A significant new find which sheds light on London during the Roman period was uncovered this week – in the basement of an unassuming office block. The Roman basilica or town hall provided a focal point for local government during the Roman period. The site will now be fully excavated and the office building redesigned to incorporate the remains (and access to the remains). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2jdnv0ywyo

The Ilse of Lewis which is beautiful and to a certain extent unspoilt(lots of abandoned cars) is not playing up its links to Trump. Trump’s mother left/escaped in the early 1940s and became a US citizen in 1942. There are no plans to do a Trump trail. Having visited Lewis and Harris a number of years ago, I would say if people wish to understand something about Trump, they should visit this island. It remains very feudal and there is great poverty. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/dont-mention-the-donald-why-scottish-island-remains-reticent-about-promoting-its-links-to-trump-pkwvrzb8d or https://archive.ph/5dtTm

I finished my revisions on Wednesday and sent them in. I now wait for my editor’s verdict.

The problems with Avian flu in the UK continue to grow but flockdown has not reached Northumberland yet.

Paddy from last summer. But he was not over impressed with the sprain.

Poor Paddy managed to sprain his tail last Friday. I have no idea how but he was far from happy on Friday night. I was worried that he had eaten something which did not agree with him, but no, it was a train sprain, sometimes called swimmer’s tail and incredibly painful. He had some Loxicom and few days of rest. Slowly he is getting back to his old self and starting to play again etc.

If you want to find me during the week, I have started putting things on Celia M’s Jottings in Purple

which is where a number of refuge FP commentators are hanging out as they dislike the current FP policy on comments. The discussion is usually lively as you might expect from former FP commentators. Depending on how firmly my Procrastination Princess tiara is attached (aka how well my actual writing is going), I may end up getting distracted.

Hopefully everyone else’s week was a good one. I look forward to seeing you in the comments.

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