By Conrad Black
Obscured by the deafening cacophony of incomprehension about a number of the policy innovations of the Trump administration, there are some refreshing signs of progress. The movement away from authoritarian, socialistic, Davosian, woke Western self-reproach is broadening and accelerating. The worst-governed of the major Western countries were the first to move: Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Javier Milei in Argentina, and both are progressing well. Then came the mighty Trump victory over all the chicanery and corruption of the impenetrably complacent and shameless bipartisan Washington establishment. The scurrilous allegation of collusion with Russia, the spurious impeachments, the likely theft of the 2020 election through millions of unverifiable harvested ballots, the rank fiction that he had attempted an insurrection at the US Capitol, when he had in fact offered National Guard security and warned that hooligans might be a problem, the scandalous self-abasement of the national political media and most of the polling organisations, and the perversion of the intelligence agencies and the criminal justice system in totalitarian harassment of the former president, topped out by presumably spontaneous assassination attempts made more dangerous by the utter incompetence of the Secret Service: all of it rejected by the country. Former president Trump, outspent two to one and opposed by 95 percent of a rabidly partisan and unprofessional national political press corps, was acquitted of all charges and returned to the headship of the American people by the largest jury in history, 78 million people.
The Germans, ever cautious, commendably so given the difficulties that late-unified country has had behaving responsibly as Europe’s most powerful nation, has moved sensibly to the Right. The new chancellor Friedrich Merz is a Reaganite though he clearly finds the next step in American political evolution to Trump a daunting leap in these early days.
But in some ways the most astounding course correction appears to be underway in the United Kingdom. Margaret Thatcher was, next to Mr. Churchill, the greatest British leader of the 20th century and as she had promised, she put “Great” back together with “Britain”. But she could not prevent the division of her party between Euro-federalists and supporters of a sovereign United Kingdom in the European Common Market. And she never developed a natural successor. John Major was a good man and a fairly good prime minister but did not have the stature to lead a united government. Tony Blair took the Labour Party far from the extremes that so terribly damaged Britain under Harold Wilson, but New Labour was really just old Labour on the instalment plan. Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and the early Keir Starmer, whatever their merits in other roles and as individuals, were failed prime ministers. It was a procession of inadequacy at the head of the government more prolonged and numerous than any in the history of the office of prime minister of the United Kingdom going back to Robert Walpole in 1721.
But something astounding has occurred. The first three months of Starmer’s government beginning in July of last year produced a spectacle of stupefying incompetence. Foreign Secretary David Lammy managed to humiliate the United Kingdom in the heretofore unheard of Chagos Islands. Chancellor Rachel Reeves produced a budget that appeared to be carefully designed to throttle the stumbling British economy. And the regime leapt with the alacrity of a trained athlete into the tawdry practices of influence-peddling and petty corruption. But Starmer appeared to have the treacherous path ahead of him illuminated by President Trump, whom he and several of his senior colleagues had previously gratuitously disparaged. In quick succession, Starmer slashed his foreign aid bill in half and directed that money to national defence, promising that Britain will become an overachiever on its NATO pledge of two per cent of GDP to the military. He speaks of going to four per cent.
Best of all, £600 million annually of national health service bureaucracy was amputated, a move so brilliant and necessary that it was not much criticised by the official opposition, who after a great deal of hot air about streamlining the National Health Service, did absolutely nothing in that direction in their previous 14 years of government. There followed a statement of intent to cut welfare benefit by £5 million annually. The British Labour Party has suddenly become an agent for defending the country, ceasing to assist people who are not actually in need of medical assistance, and trimming away welfare cheats and putting the interests of the citizens of the country ahead of those whom the country fails to prevent from entering the country illegally in large numbers. This was the fruit of Starmer’s visit to the White House, and he will be back soon to negotiate a trade deal with Trump. I was one of those who saw that the security of Western civilisation required that Trump evict the mockery of an administration which had usurped his position, but I did not imagine that he would have such a success as an evangelist of political common sense and straight talk. Let no one contemplating 10 and 11 Downing Street doubt the existence of political miracles.
First published in the Brussels Signal
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One Response
Starmer is merely removing more wealth from the citizenry and blowing it on the Ukrainian War—just another step in the destruction of Britain. To ensure this, they arrest 30 citizens/day for social media comments.