PETER HITCHENS: We're one step (and some fruit) short of being a banana republic

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I wonder if the Tories are beginning to wish they had not tried quite so hard to win the 2015 Election. Think of all the mess and humiliation they would have been spared if they hadn’t.

I do not think they won it ‘fairly and squarely’, as David Cameron ludicrously said on Thursday. I don’t think he thinks so either, really. And things which are wrongly come by tend to turn to dust and ashes in the hands of those who have schemed to get them.

So it is in this case. I have long believed that Mr Cameron did not intend or expect to win a majority. He wanted a second coalition, which could cast aside his insincere promise to hold an EU referendum and his impractical pledge to freeze taxes and National Insurance.

'I have long believed that Mr Cameron did not intend or expect to win a majority. He wanted a second coalition, which could cast aside his insincere promise to hold an EU referendum and his impractical pledge to freeze taxes and National Insurance'

Now look what has happened – the most ridiculous government in modern history, flailing about as it tries to obey a referendum verdict it hates, and abandoning its Budget within hours of issuing it.

The silly manifesto the Tories threw together in 2015 was never meant to be put into action and has been nothing but trouble. I wonder what other nasty surprises are lurking in its yellowing pages.

A sour and persistent smell, like the whiff from a neglected fridge, now hangs over the Government. The £70,000 fine imposed on the supposedly professional Tory Party, for blatantly breaking Election rules, may only be the start of an enormous landslide of scandal and embarrassment, dragging on for years to come and reaching into very high places.

I cannot ever remember this country feeling so much like a Latin American banana republic. All we need to complete the picture is some bananas, and some hyper-inflation.

And who knows if we cannot contrive that, too? After the 2008 crash, the Queen asked why nobody saw it coming. Well, after the next crash, which is just a matter of time, perhaps I will be here to tell her that I saw it coming. Anyone who can count can see it coming, if he wants.

And the mess we are making of leaving the EU may help that along. How much are we going to have to pay to get access to the Single Market we could have stayed in by joining the European Economic Area?

How on earth are we going to keep the United Kingdom in one piece by being rigid and stubborn? If I were Scottish, I would be infuriated by Theresa May’s refusal to allow another vote on independence.

'How on earth are we going to keep the United Kingdom in one piece by being rigid and stubborn? If I were Scottish, I would be infuriated by Theresa May’s refusal to allow another vote on independence'

This is false toughness. English foot-stamping does not go down well in today’s Scotland. The last thing we should do is encourage an emotional campaign based on wounded pride rather than on hard facts.

What if it goes wrong and there is an overwhelming unofficial vote to leave? Surely a better approach would be to be as generous as possible, to say: ‘Of course you must be free to vote. We are friends who have fought alongside each other for centuries, and trust each other completely. And if you really wish to go, that is your affair. That is the kind of people we are. But we hope that you won’t and will always welcome you back if you change your minds.’

As for Ireland, I simply cannot see why the Government is so complacent about the seething crisis that is building up there over the prospect of a nightmare hard border from Warrenpoint to Londonderry. There is real danger here, and it had better be faced soon.

The pathetic tale of HMS Dunroamin 

The woeful state of Her Majesty’s Navy is a national shame. Every government that has failed to keep up the strength of the Fleet has paid for it in the end, and it is ridiculous for a trading nation such as we are to neglect seapower.

The mean folly of Labour and Tory governments is now doing lasting damage to both Army and Navy, sawing into their very bone to save money. The crucial thing that is being lost is the accumulated experience of centuries, passed on by a solid core of trained men. If this goes on, we’ll end up with as much Naval tradition and prowess as Luxembourg. 

And the shortage of skilled sailors has now led to the inexcusable waste of a £1billion stealth warship, HMS Dauntless. 

'The woeful state of Her Majesty’s Navy is a national shame. Every government that has failed to keep up the strength of the Fleet has paid for it in the end, and it is ridiculous for a trading nation such as we are to neglect seapower'

The immensely expensive Type 45 destroyer, which went into service in 2010, hasn’t moved an inch under her own power for a whole year. She is stuck, tied up at her Portsmouth berth.

She is officially described as a ‘training ship’, a role normally taken by worn-out and obsolete vessels. A Navy statement lamely insists the ship is still ‘very much part of the fleet… an important part of our drive to improve training and career opportunities’.

I think we may need to change our ship-naming policy. Away with the romantic titles of old. Instead we can have HMS Motionless, HMS Deficit, HMS Mothballs and HMS Dunroamin.

 The West kills civilians just like 'evil' Putin

In what important way is the West’s bombing of Mosul, now going on, different from Russian bombing of Aleppo last December?

In both cases, heavily armed and ruthless Islamist fanatics have used civilians as human shields as they fight to the finish in thickly populated city streets and backyards.

In both cases, innocent civilians have, regrettably, died or been badly injured in the bombardment. In Mosul, estimates are that at least 300 civilians have already died during Western air attacks on Islamic State positions.

Angelina Jolie at LSE

Apparently the actress Angelina Jolie ‘confessed to feeling a little nervous’ as she arrived, above, to give her first lecture as a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. 

I can’t think why. 

Hollywood royalty, like rock royalty, are surrounded by automatic fawning and applause, much as actual aristocrats used to be worshipped by servile snobs in the old days. 

Embarrassed, perhaps. Nervous, never.

Most of us would accept, with a heavy heart, that this is the horrible price we have to pay for the defeat of IS. But when Russian forces did the same in Aleppo, the action was denounced almost everywhere as a hideous and deliberate war crime.

What’s the reason? In my view, it’s propaganda – and some of the media’s gullible willingness to believe it. IS’s close cousins, the bearded zealots of the Al-Nusra Front, used sophisticated techniques to persuade journalists (almost all far away from the scene) that the Russians were the bad guys.

So we ended with democratic, Western media, normally busy denouncing Islamist extremism, giving sympathetic coverage to some of the worst jihadists in the world. When Mosul falls, as it will, and those who defeated IS are applauded, as they will rightly be, please think about this.

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