Category Archives: Society

Britain, Defence, Government, NATO, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

NATO defence spending

DEFENCE

nato-funding

Intro: Mr Trump is right to ask serious questions about the budgetary imbalance

The visit by Theresa May last month to Washington won an important acknowledgement from President Donald Trump: ‘he was 100 per cent behind NATO’. This was perceived as something of a coup given Mr Trump’s apparent indifference towards the 70-year-old alliance. His principal objection was not so much its existence as to the disproportionate contribution being made by the United States to its upkeep. By some measures, America pays 75 per cent of the total of NATO spending, most of which provides for the defence of Europe.

Donald Trump’s view – and, also, that of President Obama before him – is that Europe should shoulder a bigger share of that burden. A NATO symposium in Cardiff a few years ago proposed a minimum standard: that all NATO members should spend two per cent of their GDP on defence. This suited the UK because we have been meeting are two per cent commitment. According to the Government and NATO we continue to do so. A think-tank report, however, has caused consternation in Whitehall by suggesting all is not as it seems.

According to The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), last year’s figure was put at 1.98 per cent, below the NATO standard. The report claims that in Europe, only Greece and Estonia met the 2 per cent target in 2016. It has been suggested that the UK fell slightly short of the target because the economy grew faster than expected. The cash shortfall equates to around £380million. The British Government has responded by denouncing the calculation as “wrong” and has pointed to official NATO statistics from last July which put the UK’s defence spending for 2016 at 2.21 per cent of GDP. The Ministry of Defence has blamed exchange rate fluctuations caused by the drop in the value of pound sterling for the IISS ‘miscalculation’.

But this argument is largely specious – superficially plausible, but actually wrong – because, what matters is not a smoke-and-mirrors-game played with national budgetary statistics, but the provision for an adequate defence of Europe (largely paid for by the countries of Europe). Mr Trump is right to ask serious questions about the budgetary imbalance. The recent revelations that the Royal Navy’s entire fleet of seven attack submarines was out of action indicates that this is more than just massaging budgets; what matters is having the military capability to defend the nation and contribute to the requirements of the alliance whenever necessary. The politics and intergovernmental wrangling are secondary to the provision of effective defence systems; and the UK – and many others in Europe – need to pay their proper share towards them.

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Arts, Films, Society, United States

Film Review: ‘Loving’

THE POWER OF LOVE

Inspiring: Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as Richard and Mildred Loving.

Inspiring: Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as Richard and Mildred Loving.

Synopsis: The gripping true story of a mixed-race couple who stood against the bigots to become American heroes.

WHEN Richard Loving, a white bricklayer from Virginia, married his black girlfriend, Mildred Jeter, in 1958, a firestorm of publicity and a prominent footnote in the Constitution of the United States were the last things either of them expected. Or wanted.

Richard, as depicted and choreographed by Joel Edgerton in writer-director Jeff Nichols’s wonderful film, was a simple soul, who with his crewcut and slow drawl might have seemed like the prototype of a Southern redneck, but clearly didn’t have a bigoted bone in his body.

He was joined in matrimony by Mildred (Irish actress Ruth Negga) for uncomplicated and old-fashioned reasons. They loved each other, and she was pregnant.

However, interracial marriage was prohibited by Virginia’s miscegenation laws. They sidestepped that by tying the knot in Washington DC, only to find themselves arrested and jailed on their return home.

The judge deemed that ‘Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents . . . The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.’

He gave the Lovings a stark choice; either annul the marriage or leave the state for 25 years. They left, but secretly returned for Mildred to give birth, and were arrested again.

Their lawyer used his friendship with the judge to keep them out of jail, but told them there would be no further leniency.

Although they were country folk who yearned to go back to their roots, the Lovings were compelled to raise their growing family in the city.

A few years later, stirred by the spirit of the burgeoning civil rights movement, Mildred wrote to the attorney-general, Robert Kennedy, who referred their case to the American Civil Liberties Union.

An ACLU lawyer, Bernard Cohen (Nick Kroll), saw their predicament as perfect leverage for an appeal to the Supreme Court, and although Richard in particular recoiled from being leverage for anything, they duly became a legal precedent, a cause celebre.

Journalists descended on them. Life magazine sent a photographer (played here by the ever-splendid Michael Shannon).

 

AND inevitably, the grotesque notion, long enshrined in Virginia’s law, that interracial marriage was ‘against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth’, was overturned.

Loving vs. Virginia remains a landmark civil rights case.

It is a poignant tale, but then civil rights stories always are. Nichols’s great skill is in maintaining its integrity. There are no eloquent, barnstorming speeches about injustice, least of all by the Lovings themselves.

This is not the America of Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? Stanley Kramer’s 1967 film in which Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn played the gnarled old white liberals grappling with their daughter Joanna’s decision to marry Sidney Poitier’s urbane black doctor.

This is an America in which you can practically hear the cogs turn when people think.

Edgerton and in particular the Oscar-nominated Negga are both superb, giving heartrendingly sensitive performances as two people bewildered by the events that have engulfed them. When their lawyer asks Richard if he has a message for the Supreme Court justices, it is a plain one: ‘Tell them that I love my wife.’

His surname gave Nichols a conveniently plain title, too, and the narrative doesn’t need much adornment either.

Maybe that’s why the picture itself is not in the frame for an Academy Award, but Nichols’s achievement should not be overlooked. He has made a very fine film.

 

Loving (12A)

Verdict: Rousing true story ★★★★

 

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Britain, Government, Politics, Society

Theresa May has now been PM for six months

UNITED KINGDOM

theresa-may

Theresa May has now held Office of Prime Minister for six months. On a recent visit to the United States Mrs May said that British Conservatives shared the principles of US Republicans.

Intro: Britain has a prime minister with convictions and a true sense of purpose. After just six months, she is growing fast into the job

AS a generally broad rule, Theresa May doesn’t give much away about her thoughts. But when the British Prime Minister does have something to say, it makes compelling listening.

The last fortnight has been an impressive period for Mrs May, with two speeches of historic importance, both full of substance and good sense.

And to crown it all came last week’s encouraging talks with Donald Trump, who hailed a “fantastic relationship”.

In the first of her momentous speeches, the prime minister outlined her vision for Brexit, with a straightforwardness and clarity that left her critics floundering.

Last week, addressing Republicans in Philadelphia, she set out her political philosophy and ideas about Britain’s relationship with the US and wider world.

In doing so, it is no exaggeration to say she signalled the end of a grim era for the West. For she brought down the curtain on two disastrous decades of Anglo-American intervention in foreign wars, whose legacy has been the rise of Islamist terrorism and the biggest migrations in peacetime history.

Whilst in America, Mrs May said that British Conservatives shared the principles of US Republicans: ‘The value of liberty, the dignity of work, the principles of nationhood, family, economic prudence, patriotism – and putting power in the hands of the people.’

But in a hugely significant passage, she added: ‘The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over.’

Yes, we should intervene when the threat to our interests is real, and we should stand by our friends and allies. But wherever possible, Western values should triumph by example, not by force of arms.

As for those who have accused Mrs May of crawling to Mr Trump, they are a long way wide of the mark.

True, the prime minister did show politeness fitting for a guest – and the friendship due to our most powerful ally and biggest trading partner among individual nations.

Yet she has not shrunk from telling President Trump some home truths, warning him to be wary of Vladimir Putin, speaking up for NATO, free trade, and emphatically rejecting bigotry and torture.

Of course, there was always going to be a limit to how much could be achieved in such a short visit. But on the evidence of what she has said, Mrs May’s message on both torture and NATO appears to have got through. The prospects for a trade deal with the US seem set to be very promising.

There is good reason for quiet optimism that the UK’s partnership with the US will be highly successful – particularly for trade – to the great benefit of both countries.

Britain has a prime minister with convictions and a true sense of purpose. After just six months, she is growing fast into the job.

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