Taunton Marines Honoured

Despite the general unpopularity of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq that our British troops are engaged in, there still exists a great affinity between the public and our armed forces.

This was proven beyond doubt today in Taunton when the local Royal Marine unit 40 Commando, stationed at Norton Manor Camp, held a parade through the town to mark their homecoming after a tour of Afghanistan.

The streets were in places lined more than eight people deep, especially as the parade route converged at the war memorial outside the Market House in the centre of Taunton. In fact, so busy were the pavements that it was quite often impossible to see anything more than the back of another person’s head.

The parade also marked the sad death of three brave 40 Commando Marines who did not return home after losing their lives in service of their country. Two of those commandos were killed when caught in an explosion in Helmand Province, while another died in a separate explosion while taking part in an outreach patrol to disrupt enemy forces north of Sangin.

40 Commando is also the regiment of reservist Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, who has been in the news lately with the recent announcement that he is to receive the George Cross from the Queen in October, for bravely jumping on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades after tripping a wired trap while out on a reconnaissance patrol in Helmand Province in February.

News crews from BBC Points West (or BBC Points Bristol as they should really be known since the vast majority of their news never covers much else) and ITV West were on hand to cover the morning’s events, while the usually non-existent local Police were out in force to mark the route.

To cheering crowds, the Royal Marines of 40 Commando were given a special welcome home and a day that they, and those that were there, will hopefully remember for years to come.

The Cult Of Obama

This will be the first and hopefully last time that I have cause to mention the Democrat Presidential candidate, Barack Obama and anything relating to his campaign – lest he actually become US President later this year which I still doubt he will.

His visit to Germany and much lauded speech in Berlin (in which unsurprisingly he said nothing at all) were met with screaming crowds of zealous fans whose presence did little more than confirm his full transition from man to unthinking cult.

In many ways Obama reminds me very much of Tony Blair when he first became Prime Minister, who arrived in Downing Street to crowds of screaming fans waving Union Flags on a manifesto of ‘hope’, ‘change’ and ‘optimism’. What those words actually meant, nobody was really sure – but it wasn’t long before Blair and his Labour mob had set to work destroying what was left of Britain, and for his once fanatical supporters to slowly drift away.

Similarly praise for Obama has been equally misplaced. Thus far he has cruised along on a wave of meaningless rhetoric and lavish praise from (in this country) the BBC and the types who were so fond of Tony Blair’s comparable variety of emptiness and slogans in the 90s. In the Mail on Sunday, Peter Hitchens asks:

When will Mr Obama’s absurd bubble of adulation burst?

Unfortunately, one has to suspect that the artificial bubble that has enveloped Obama will be sustained by blogs and the media, both in this country and in America, until the Presidential election in November. However, we can, I feel, do the United States and British politics a great service by simply ignoring him altogether.

By continually mentioning his name and his exploits we will only perpetuate or indeed enlarge his bubble of adulation. Deprived of the oxygen of hype and publicity, hopefully the Obama cult may die out and people will, like they did with Blair, eventually begin to see that behind the grand words and spirited speeches there is just a man – not a saviour – with nothing to say at all.

Illusions Dispelled

Any illusion that ConservativeHome still spoke up for conservative values has been dispelled today with the introduction of a new front page banner on the website which reads ‘comprehensive coverage of Britain’s Conservative Party’.

Even before Samuel Coates had left the ConHome fold to work for David Cameron’s bland speechwriting team, the website had become almost entirely sycophantic towards the Conservative party leadership and the site’s front page often resembled little more than an MPs press release area.

In changing the text of the banner I suppose Tim Montgomerie has at least now had the decency to publicly admit that the true purpose of ConservativeHome is to pursue the interests of the Conservative party and that he will use his site to focus almost entirely on the David Cameron project which has itself very little in the way of conservatism behind it.

In recent months ConservativeHome’s pages seem to have been increasingly filled with the strange and often absurd witterings of those like Louise Bagshawe on CentreRight (a woman who is for some peculiar reason taken rather seriously by some few Conservative party members and MPs) and almost entirely devoid of critical comment and opinion. As such it is neither independent in content or comment and therefore, I would have thought, no longer a website that merits more than a cursory glance.

Top Ten Blogs

I have been relatively busy recently so here is a post which doesn’t really require too much thinking (by me anyway).

It is also a rare occasion when I will not in some way directly involve mention of the European Union (oh no, I did it again!) or what I would deem similarly serious political matters or events.

So, as it happens, I noticed that a few of the self obsessed egos who involved themselves in 18 Vanity Street (which amusingly collapsed last year) but chose not to move sideways onto Stephan Shakespeare’s PoliticsHome project have reappeared in the team behind a new magazine called TotalPolitics.

Rather unsurprisingly the TotalPolitics magazine (much like its staff) will really only be interested in the soap opera of the Westminster Village rather than anything that could be even considered vaguely serious. I am not the only one of this opinion.

Yet, despite the magazine being funded in part by Lord Ashcroft and released to much fan fare on some few blogs, I think it may now well be a good time to place your bets on how long it will be before it goes the way of Doughty Street down the pan.

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