waiwera

Became a qualified Master Mariner in command. Served as an officer in the RNR. After University -Travel Industry - MD of European Tour Operation. Now Retired

[Ben Thompson @TheStoicEnglish]

The British Empire was the greatest work of human civilisation this world has ever seen. It outlawed the slave trade and then hunted it to extinction across every ocean on earth. It put the rule of law on six continents. It built the railway, the telegraph, the modern world. And when it left, India, Canada, Australia and fifty more kept the lot. That is not conquest. That is inheritance.

A quarter of the land on earth. A quarter of the people. Run from one wet island. Now ask what it did with that reach. Not what it took. What it built.

It built the law. Around a third of the world's people live under legal systems descended from English common law. The presumption of innocence. Trial by jury. A judge who can rule against the government and keep his job.

It built the machine age. The first intercity railway. The cable that joined Europe and America. By 1902 a telegraph ring circled the entire world, landing only on British soil.

It built the knowledge. Newton. Darwin. Faraday. Turing. Berners-Lee. The machine you are reading this on is, from the physics up, a British invention with foreign parts.

And it built a war on the slave trade. No great power had ever made war on the trade — until Britain did. Sixty years. Around 1,600 ships seized. Around 150,000 Africans freed. Around 2,000 British sailors dead doing it.

Then the thing that proves the case. Every empire before it ended in fire. This one chose to go — and the nations it freed kept the lot. The courts. The parliaments. The language. Then they formed a club with the country that had ruled them. Fifty-six members. Four of them were never British at all. Former French and Portuguese colonies asked to join.

Nobody applies to join the empire of a tyrant.

Was it perfect? No empire is. Fine. Now name the empire that did better. Name the one that bled for sixty years to end the slave trade. Name the one whose former subjects kept its courts. Name the one that packed up and went home.

There is one.

Nobody keeps the chains of a master. They keep the gifts of a builder. Fifty-six nations kept them. That is the verdict — and it was not ours. It was theirs.

Others apologise for our history. I tell it — properly, from the record, without the guilt. If that's what you want more of, stand with me: https://t.co/qC8TTIpcH2

#history #britishempire

[Tom Sharpe @TomSharpe134]

“Then there is the case of Norfolk, Virginia, where a British general recently took command of Nato’s Atlantic headquarters in September. To date, Britain has filled 44 of its 71 posts there. The ministry’s tepid response to this is that its fill rate across Nato is among the highest in the alliance. I wondered whether there has ever been a more meaningless metric. Back in the real world, if we cannot staff the commands we ask for, at what point do we stop being given them?”

“So how do we unpick this long-standing mess? First, consequences. Nobody in Main Building or the front-line commands has ever lost a job for presiding over this ritual, and the single services are not innocent: each protects its own headquarters and sacrifices its own capability. A few sackings would concentrate minds, “pour encourager les autres”, as Voltaire had it, even if the execution he alluded to might be a little extreme.”

“A friend of mine summed it up succinctly: “The pushers of this ‘jam tomorrow if we can just take a bit of famine today’ theology are now amongst the highest ranks. A theology which is clung to despite several iterations of proven failure.” Grim, but unarguable.”

“So long as it remains in the Treasury’s interest to run defence year by year and the decision makers that could force this to improve either fear anything that challenges the status quo…[or defence itself], then nothing will change.”

“Next autumn there will be another round of cancelled exercises and another speech about a war footing. This cycle of cuts and waffle is about the only thing in British defence right now that is reliable.”

[Clint Warren-Davey @Clint_Davey1]

Interesting alternate history map:

[waiwera @waiwera]

@EdwardJDavey @CarolinePidgeon Great in principle but it is a pipe dream to think we can rejoin and regain the deal we gave away.
Any rejoin deal we now secure is going to worse than what we had before. So all we can hope for is some form of halfway house.

[waiwera @waiwera]

@DPJHodges Agreed.

[Chris D. Jackson @ChrisDJackson]

My Lord.

@JoeBiden, 83 years old, battling Stage 4 cancer that has spread to his bones, stood for HOURS alongside @DrBiden as the names of 9/11 victims were read.

Donald Trump fell asleep at the 9/11 event at the Pentagon.

One showed respect despite his pain. The other couldn't even stay awake.

Trump is an embarrassment to the nation and the office he holds.

Really says it all.

[waiwera @waiwera]

@dsmiffy55 @Peston Well said.
It is a great pity that all these political pundits do not read the article’s of David Smith and other established economists.

[Suzie rizzio @Suzierizzo1]

This video by Canada is ingenious and catchy too. It’s about the Tariff War that Trump started with them. 🇨🇦

[waiwera @waiwera]

@SandyofCthulhu Crazy to include the very small unarmed university training boats just to boost the numbers.

[waiwera @waiwera]

@0807_liam @Telegraph @TomCotterillX Always have been. The British Merchant Navy suffered the highest % casualties in the last war. Greater than the Army, RN or RAF

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Call me a Luddite, I couldn’t care less. Technology is eating the world.

[waiwera @waiwera]

@NavyLookout I have made the point, every since they were built, that it is crazy to have both carriers alongside one another for months on end. Bottled up in a port with a very narrow entrance and approach channel.

[Raymond @Raymond82310289]

Who agrees?

[waiwera @waiwera]

@rosegeorge3 @mercoglianos It was ever thus Rose.

UK shipping has always been a secret to the Public.
With the exception of the Second World War it had been taken for granted.

Most are unaware, as an Island Nation, that we are now dependent on Foreign Ships and Foreign crews for 90% of everything!

[waiwera @waiwera]

@NavyLookout @HMSBangor @Brian_D2016 @dcullen_photo What is the point of just one vessel in this type/class?
Not effective in doing what it was intended to do.

[waiwera @waiwera]

@MatthewGreen02 I hope you are right Matthew.

Sadly this is not reflected in the current National Opinion Polls.

With the Greens overtaking the LDs.

Despite over 70 MPs the LDs are failing to get press and media coverage even though they have some sound policies.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

I laughed too. Especially at the very end.

[waiwera @waiwera]

@Sofia50020Sofia Cutty Sark. QE 2. HMS Victory.

How many more would you like?

[waiwera @waiwera]

@mercoglianos @TomSharpe134 Good you included the Merchant Marine.

At least the US supports US flagged AND US crewed Merchant Shipping.

Sadly the UK merchant fleet has very few ships for STUFT.

Very few British owned ships, British Mainland Port Registered and crewed by British Resident seafarers.