Daily Archives: December 1, 2015

Almost half of Germans ‘don’t want Angela Merkel to serve another term’ – Telegraph

December 1, 2015 By in Immigration, People, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Telegraph reports that some 48 per cent of those questioned in a survey for Bild newspaper say  that they do not want Mrs Merkel to continue in office after the next German election in 2017.

Source: Almost half of Germans ‘don’t want Angela Merkel to serve another term’ – Telegraph

Of course, there has been a popular backlash to Angela Merkel’s policies on refugees. She acted with the noblest of intentions, showing a modern and caring side of Germany. But it was essentially fire-fighting, rather than a robust strategy. Integrating the refugees has been harder than anticipated. The article cites a group of refugees complaing about the quality of German food – this is the beginning of the challenges.

On the other hand, Angela Merkel is an outstanding political leader and there’s nobody close to an effective political challenger. So Angela still has some wriggle room, if she wishes – she might of course say ‘enough’ but I don’t think so.

Opinion – Jeremy Corbyn rolls over in face of shadow cabinet opposition and gives free vote to Labour MPs on Syria air strike – live – Telegraph – John Gelmini

December 1, 2015 By in David Cameron, Defense Policy, Foreign Policy, People, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jeremy Corbyn obviously wanted to retain his position and the salary that goes with it; there is no money in “principled opposition” as a latter-day “Dave Spart”, so regardless of which newspaper is reporting on the matter, the result will be war in Syria.

The question then for Dr Alf and the rest of us is whether our ageing planes and Brimstone munitions can do the job. The reality is we are already too late and far “behind the curve”. ISIS commanders have decamped to Mosul and ISIS fighters have tunnelled under Raqua with jackhammers and created a sanctuary for themselves.

The RAF has 37 ageing planes, allegedly just two of which are serviceable, so the idea that we can project serious force is frankly a joke in this context. If we bomb, we will kill civilians leaving ISIS fighters safe and presumably free to booby trap the buildings left standing which David Cameron’s and Michael Fallon’s 7000 fighters would then have to clear house by house all by themselves, assuming of course they exist and can be brought to Raqua to engage in hand to hand fighting.

We are not prepared to commit ground troops nor effect regime change on ISIS’s funders and we are not prepared to do anything about Turkey other than throwing money at them as an inducement not to send over more refugees.

We are certain to fail in our endeavour, which suggests that we are deliberately acting in such a way as to ensure that ISIS grows in strength to the point where it can remove Assad, something that Russia and China will oppose. ISIS is a Frankenstein as are the Gulf states who bankroll them and the duplicitous Erdogan who has his own crackpot agenda. We allow it to roam about at will at our peril and we need to deal with it with the utmost severity and precision now whilst there is still time.

John Gelmini