MAX HASTINGS: Daily Mail Story on France and Terrorism

 Just imagine the Queen’s Birthday Parade, June 13, 2015: the monarch, her family and escorting officers are arrayed on Horse Guards’ in Whitehall, watching the serried red companies wheel and march past in slow time.

Suddenly, men burst from the crowd and begin spraying bullets among the soldiers and spectators.

It is a scenario from hell, yet no more fanciful than that of Wednesday’s massacre in a Paris magazine office, or last month’s slaughter of 132 schoolchildren in Peshawar, or the carnage of the London bus and Tube bombs of July 2005.

It is the sort of image with which security chiefs live every day of their working lives, because for them that would be the cost of a failure.

Yesterday’s dramatic events in France ended with three terrorists and four hostages dead after a formidable French security and intelligence operation.

The intelligence services have never doubted that new terrorist attacks will come to the West, including Britain. An event such as the Charlie Hebdo killings merely gives the ongoing threat a shocking new sense of immediacy.

On Thursday, the director general of MI5, Andrew Parker, made a rare speech, warning it was almost inevitable that an attack in this country would get through sooner or later. ‘Although we and our partners try our utmost, we know that we cannot hope to stop everything,’ he said.

The price of living in an open society, with the precious freedoms we take for granted, is that all of us, great and small, are vulnerable to attackers consumed by hatred for our culture, its values, and manifest superiority to those from which they come.

Globalisation places a disturbing number of such people in our midst, rather than far away in Somalia or Iran.

The good news is that although Islamic fanatics can cause us pain and grief, they pose no existential threat as did Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union.

They cannot be compromised or parleyed with, because they have no rational political demands: they claim affiliation to a feudal order in which women are denied rights, technology is banished and mullahs arbitrate over daily life.

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Dambusters reunited: World's only two airworthy WWII Lancaster bombers fly together over Britain for the first time in 50 years Daily Mail

Lancaster bombers united on windswept RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire for what will probably be last time

Lancaster Thumper, part of RAF Battle of Britain Memorial flight, joined Canadian Lancaster Vera from Ontario

Two aircraft are expected to visit some 60 air shows and public events across the UK over the next five weeks

Planes had been due to pass over Lincoln Cathedral last Friday, but poor weather caused flight to be postponed

Lancaster bombers most famous for Dambusters raids - attack on German dams with 'bouncing bombs' in 1943

Two Second World War Lancaster bombers flew together in the skies over Britain yesterday for the first time in 50 years.

The world's only two airworthy Lancaster bombers were united on a windswept Lincolnshire airfield for what will probably be one of the last times.

The Lancaster Thumper, which is part of the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial flight, joined the Canadian Lancaster Vera from a museum in Ontario.

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Peter Jones: Independence or the pound - which?. The Scotsman by Peter Jones

WHEN POLITICIANS accuse each other of desperation and panic, I tend not to listen, reckoning that it is the usual campaign hyperbole that tries to turn a minor slip of the tongue into a monumental credibility-destroying gaffe.

But I begin to think that it is an accusation that can be fairly levelled at Alex Salmond over the currency issue in this referendum.

There are certain tools that can be used to make the political equivalent of a clinical diagnosis of desperation. One is whether the arguments being used to shore up a position that has come under attack are robust or fatuous. And Mr Salmond is now making claims which, under any serious inspection, are complete nonsense.

In an article in a Sunday newspaper, he wrote that Labour leader Ed Miliband’s “hasty gambit to include a block on Scotland’s continued use of the pound in Labour’s next Westminster manifesto” would be “saying to Scots ‘I will defy the sovereign wish of the people in a referendum’”.

On umpteen grounds, this is gibberish. Actually, the only sovereign wish that will be expressed in the referendum will be the answer to the question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” If it is Yes, the sovereign will of the people will be that Scotland becomes independent.

If Mr Miliband said he would prevent Scotland from becoming independent, then that would certainly defy Scotland’s sovereign will. But he isn’t saying that at all. He is saying that Scotland can be an independent country if that’s what people want, but they won’t get a sterling currency union.

Read more here:

Further Reading:

Beyond the Scottish Independence Question, Looking at a Greater Devolution in The United Kingdom, A Perspective,

Promise of £348m shipyard contract for No vote

Independence issues: Financial, economy & currency

Beyond the Scottish Independence Question, Looking at a Greater Devolution in The United Kingdom, A Perspective, Updated

Like many of you, I have been following the Scottish Independence Debate from various media sources,  and  I think we in the United Kingdom of Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland need to ask ourselves and our political leaders some questions about the future shape of our country ?

Personally I feel that Alex Salmond is an astute politician, however his desperation for self promotion from the First Minister of Scotland to the President of Scotland,  (although he has stated that the Queen is the head of state,   I feel there is a possibility at her Majesty’s passing, some voices in the Scottish National Party will call for Scotland to be a republic.) Mr Salmond economic arguments for Scotland to be independent quite simply don’t add up,  for the last few years, the revenues from North Sea Oil have been decreasing year on year.   His latest interaction to say that Scotland will keep the pound and if they’re not allowed to keep the pound,  a newly independent Scotland will not pay it’s share of the UK National Debt  is more like the politics of the playground,  where Mr Salmond is telling everyone if I don’t get my own way,  I will throw my toys out of the pram.

Brian Wilson: Show us the money, Mr Salmond

He has now decided that Scotland will keep the pound, in the some sort of informal currency union, or dollaristion scheme (A sterling zone)  the Panama Option,  (Panama uses the US Dollar as it’s currency) many students  of history would know  what happened when Scotland last looked at a Panama Option,  they suffered economic turmoil and eventually bankruptcy because of a Ponzi scheme known as the Darien Colony.

Currently under the Barnett formula, the Scottish Government receives it’s income from the United Kingdom Treasury ,  and is generally allowed to spend this at it sees fit,  Mr Salmond’s dream of  creating a Nordic Model of a Free Market Economy with a Welfare State (Social Democracy)  is reliant on the UK Taxpayer,  if Scotland did vote for Independence  on the 18^th September 2014,  after any successful negotiation by Scottish and United Kingdom Governments,  Scotland even if it  decided to keep the Pound, it would either have to enter a time of austerity or drastically increase taxation,  the Nordic Model of Social Democracy does mean high taxation to pay for it’s welfare state,  on it’s current tax revenues and because it receives more back from Westminster that it pays to Westminster,  The Scottish Social Democracy model would not be sustainable  long term after 2016.

 An Independent Scotland of 2016 onwards will see falling tax revenue from North Sea Oil and Gas and other sources.  A large part of the Scottish Finance Sector would move  south of Hadrian’s Wall because a majority of it’s customers will be in the United Kingdom and  due to the  financial uncertainty caused by dollarization,  it would be extremely difficult or indeed impossible for Scotland to borrow money from International sources  at reasonable rates because Scotland would not have the standing of the United Kingdom,  although it’s possible that China and / or the Gulf States or indeed Russia  could lend money to Scotland, this of course would come with conditions such as access to Scottish Oil and Gas for Chinese Companies or the opening of Scottish Ports to Chinese Naval Vessels.

Read this important report to see why an Independent Scotland doesn't add up

Institute for Fiscal Studies , Fiscal sustainability of an independent Scotland

 Scotland also would have to negotiate to join international organisations such as International Monetary Fund,  The United Nations and The European Union,  although because of Spain facing issues with both the Basque Region and Catalonia wanting  independence,  the Spainish  Government could veto an newly independent  Scotland joining the EU Club.

The Westminster Government and the Opposition,(  The Conservatives, The Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party) have recently offered that if the people of Scotland  if they vote to remain part of the United Kingdom this is known as the Devo Max option, that Scotland would be more responsible for its income and expenditure , this would see a decrease in the money from the Barnett Formula and the Scottish Government would see either Tax raising or Tax varying powers,  if  the people of Scotland are given the option, it’s my opinion  that both the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly Government  should also be given the option of having their own equilvalent versions of Devo Max  depending on their needs and requirements, for example the Welsh Assembly Government could use some of it’s income and perhaps borrow on the international finance markets or from the European Union or the Westminster Government  for capital projects such as improving North – South Wales transport and infrastructure links.

 Before the 19^th Century many of the United Kingdom’s largest cities such as Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle were virtual city states it was due to the rise of  Railway Networks that a fragmented country came together,  if the people of Scotland,   Northern Ireland and Wales are given their own versions or types of  fiscal federalism,   the people of  the English Regions should also be given fiscal federalism .

 The United Kingdom needs to move away from a  centralised London and South East of England  system of Government  and Economic Management and the people of the English Regions,  Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales should be given greater autonomy,  and responsibility to run their own affairs although agree with a centralised government for larger picture issues s such as defense, legal issues, foreign relations and currency.

I also believe that the British Overseas Territories such as the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar should be represented  in a more United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Further Reading:

Scottish independence: Ed Miliband calls on SNP to 'come clean' on currency

Banks ‘could quit’ if dollarisation used post-Yes

Ed Miliband Says The Poorest Would Suffer If Scotland Went Independent

Salmond's Scottish Independence Plans Could Harm Businesses, Warn MPs

The Yes Scotland and the SNP’s Plan B for Currency Union, Plan B will not work

Independence Would Be 'Disastrous' For Scotland's Banks, Says Report

Blair Humphreys

8^th August 2014

Southport, Merseyside, England