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Opinion

Blood-soaked rodeo

By Mark Mansfield
People attend a St George's Day rally on Whitehall, in Westminster, central London. Photo Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire

Ben Wildsmith

There is nothing quite so unsettling as hearing the current generation of politicians projecting moral certainty as the rationale for their actions.

After everything we’ve been through over the last few decades it’s challenging to accept on face value their earnest pronouncements about protecting ‘our’ values and serving the cause of liberty.

It’s not our first rodeo; in fact, we have been trampled by the bucking bronco of their murderous dishonesty so frequently that we can barely sit upright on our horses.

So, when London and Washington announced eye-watering increases in defence spending this week, it was to populations who have every right to question the morality behind those decisions.

The UK, you will recall, has recently abandoned HS2, its only recent investment in large-scale infrastructure.

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Bankruptcy

We in Wales, having contributed to it for no obvious return, watched the government write off our cash as the project was deemed unaffordable. Our councils are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy and slashing services. Our taxes are the highest they have been in modern times.

We have pledged, none the less, to fund Ukraine to ‘do what it takes’ in its war with Russia. Given the near impossibility of Ukraine winning a war with Russia, there are only two potential outcomes to this.

Our money will be spent prolonging the war, at incalculable human cost to the Ukrainian people, or else NATO joins the war and the world as we know it passes into history.

The bean-counting utilitarian arguments upon which our government so blithely relies when it is denying essential services to its own people do not, seemingly, apply to its foreign policy.

At home, there is no magic money tree, everything must be ‘costed’ and if that means your granny has the heating turned down in her care home then wise-up, bucko, because we live in the real world.

When it comes to unwinnable conflicts, though, limitless resources can be found and justified on moral grounds alone. We are ‘standing with’ the Ukrainian people, right behind them until there are so few left that a grubby compromise is brokered, and our arms companies pay out their dividends.

Our proudly virtuous country is, of course, also supplying weaponry to Israel. As Rishi Sunak was explaining the inviolability of Britain’s commitment to international law, mass graves were being uncovered in the ruins of Palestinian hospitals, the bodies within having their hands tied behind their backs and bullets through the backs of their skulls.

This week, the same Rishi Sunak claimed victory for his bill to deport refugees to Rwanda, a bill that deems that country to be safe in contravention of legal findings and despite proof that it shot refugees dead only five years ago for the crime of asking for better food.

Caricature

Still, Sunak stood and spoke, his voice a caricature of dignity, his record an inventory of disgrace. Without a mandate, he presumed to speak for us, to impoverish us further in the pursuit of conflicts over which we refuse to negotiate.

Are we to believe that the traumatised residents of Gaza will somehow become more moderate as a result of what is being visited upon them, that the thousands of orphaned and homeless children there will grow up to reject the philosophy of Hamas and embrace Israel as their friend?

Is Russia going to respond to temporarily sterner Ukrainian defence by seeing the error of its ways and resolving to become a nice, cuddly social democracy?

Is the youth of Europe happy to be conscripted into an extinction-event war without our governments even exploring the possibility of a negotiated settlement?

As blood-soaked warhorses ran amok through London on Wednesday morning, the myth of British decency ran with them.

The day before, St. George’s day, the union flag was once again waved by Tommy Robinson’s drunken fools as they spat the last gobs of nationalist bile at their own police force.

Wales has never been part of that flag and I have never been so glad of it.

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21 comments

Fi yn unig

Another masterpiece from Ben ending with a line to which I add me too and it shall never be. Cymru am byth!

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Rob Pountney

So, we abandon Ukraine to a Fascist dictatorship? TBH the reason why Ukraine is not winning is because the powers supporting them are not doing it to see them win, but to see them 'not lose'... That at least is beginning to change... I'm surprised at this from Mr Wildsmith TBH... Sacrifice Ukraine, sacrifice Moldova? how much will PPL 'sacrifice' before they act in their own self defence?

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Riki

Already is fascist! Kidnappings are routine, they even send disabled and The elderly to the front lines. We need to stop acting like we are five and thinking this about good and evil. The Ukraine government are just as brutal as anywhere else. Our leaders would do the same to us in a second if they could.

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Riki

This is what really annoys me, I have no problem with them be patriotic Englishman and women, what I have a problem with is how they fight for that right while denying the same to the Cymric Britons (What they would call Welsh people). They are no more Brythonic than I am Japanese. The term was coined for one people and one people only, the Natives of Briton. The term survived into modern times, in turn….so too should the understanding of who it rightfully belongs to.

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Rhufawn Jones

Cultural appropriation of the highest order. But it's the only way they can deceive themselves that they're not 'immigrants'

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Riki

Spot on! You have to admit, they are very smart in how they engineered the “Welsh” to abandon the terms and titles that are rightfully theirs. Co-opt the name, then commit atrocities using that name so the natives in which those terms apply will no longer want to be seen as such. It’s high level Psychological warfare.

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Padi Phillips

'Cymric Britons' most certainly are not 'natives of Britain' any more than the Anglo-Saxons or Norman settlers. Go back to the Ice Age and no-one lived in what are now these islands, and before that time, only a very few lived here, and they certainly weren't Britons, Cymric or otherwise. No one denies us our right to celebrate ourselves in patriotic terms as any visit to a YesCymru march or even the National Stadium (or whatever it's now called) on an international match day would confirm. Get up, stand and stop snivelling (and grow a backbone)! Celebrate who you are and wfft i'r holl Sais! They just don't matter that much, and if they do, then you have the problem, not them.

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Riki

Native implies the first to give a name to where they reside, or have resided for Millenia. And yes, the Cymric Britons are the natives as that’s where we get the terms Briton and Britain from. The Romans coined the terms for the natives they interacted with Based on the native terms for themselves. So Britain literally comes from Prydain via Latin and Greek translations based on the original Brythonic terms. This is why the Anglo uses the term Welsh and forced their language on the Britons, so they would lose the ancient terms for themselves as they no longer use the language in which those terms originate from. This isn’t rocket science buddy! If The Japanese were forced to use English for a thousand years they too would eventually lose the understanding of their origins, as the origins in terms of Names and self identity wouldn’t be easily available in the language that was forced onto them. Replacing native languages with English is designed to confuse the local and native populace into not understating where they come from as they will now be using far younger terms that have no relation to anything. The “Welsh” are perfect example of this. For example, if I was a person looking in on “Welsh” history and found nothing pertaining to the Welsh in the second century, I would wrongly sum up that the Welsh didn’t exist! But this wouldn’t take into account that the term is just a term used by a single people in a single language group. It had no bearing on their ancestors who were at one time not known as “Welsh”. So the ancient events that belong to the Britons (now known as Welsh) can be seen as belonging to someone else. Someone like the Anglo who are now known as British! So if a battle between Roman and Briton is recorded, people now will assume the records are talking about the English! How do you not see what is going on?! And how its blatant theft. We also see this with Scotland and how academics uses the term Scotland in regards to Roman interactions, when Scotland based on the scoti didn’t exist when Rome was present in Britain, The Romans when Hadrians wall was built would not have been interacting with the “Scottish”, but rather Again, the Britons!!! Who controlled southern parts of Scotland in those days. This is why terms used in native languages are so important.

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Jeff

Not good. Why not ask Ukraine what they want. They are not the problem, Putin is. You know, the bloke that deployed chemical weapons in the UK and routinely murders opponents. If trump wins, he has already told putin he can go for it. Ukraine are fighting for all of our freedoms at the moment.

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CapM

"Is Russia going to respond to temporarily sterner Ukrainian defence by seeing the error of its ways and resolving to become a nice, cuddly social democracy?" Are you making an argument for a permanent sterner Ukrainian defence. If so it seems at odds with the general tone of our article. If not are you suggesting that Ukraine and other ex Russian empire states need to 'suck it up' and just accept a nasty interfering expansionist tyrannical neighbour in order that our standard of living isn't effected negatively.

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Jeff

Hows the weather in St Petersberg.

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Mab Meirion

That last sentence is true...

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Dai Rob

Spot on Article Ben!!!

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blc

Are you quite seriously implying that we should entirely abandon Ukraine and let Russia take over? I do hope you at least understand that they won’t stop with Georgia, or Ukraine, or any of the former USSR territories, not while Putin is alive. I don’t know enough about the sales to Israel to comment, but I do know that a strong defensive capability is now more important than it has ever been. We’ve been rather lulled into a false sense of security in the last decade or so, believing that smaller-scale “anti-terrorist” operations represented the totality of modern warfare and that outright military conflict between nation states was consigned to history. I had hoped that the invasion of Ukraine would at least open people’s eyes a little. There are plenty of areas where the national government of the last 14 years has failed us. As highlighted, we face what is possibly the highest tax burden since the Second World War, and our reward for is public services that are in tatters. People not being able to see a doctor. People not getting timely treatment for cancer. Elderly, disabled, and vulnerable people having their support systems pulled from under them and being thrust into destitution. The rise of food banks. The appearance of “warm banks”, where people can go to keep warm when they cannot afford to heat their own home. Unfettered oligarchical capitalism running rampant, enriching a minuscule number of shareholders at the expense of our weekly shopping bill. An immigration system that condemns those seeking a better life - or those escaping persecution, torture, and death - to disease-ridden barges, subject to conditions which we would not consider for even our most hardened and dangerous criminals. Despite the fact that it is a long-standing “joke” among Chancellors over the years, much was made of the “sorry, there’s no money left” note left by the previous Labour administration for the incoming Conservative one. Despite the impact of the financial crisis on the country’s finances (and despite the fact that the origins of that crisis can, as with so many other policies, be traced back to the economic policies of Thatcher when she copied Reagan’s homework), the incoming Labour administration will inherit a far far worse situation than the Conservative-LibDem coalition did in 2010. Labour simply will not be able to make drastic improvements because of the state in which the Conservatives have left our national finances. They may not even be able to make truly meaningful changes before the next election. If you want a bogeyman at whom you can point the finger for our sorry state of affairs, you should target the architects: the Conservative Party. Their slavish devotion to the Thatcherite ideals of unfettered corporate oligarchy are largely responsible for many of the financial issues we now face. You can’t even call it “capitalism”, because capitalism requires effective oversight, control, and accountability, principles which Thatcher and Reagan shredded to pieces. One need only look at privatisation of public utilities to see where that leads: crumbling substandard infrastructure, chronic lack of investment, massive profits for shareholders & executives, ever-increasing bills, and an utterly ineffective, toothless, and powerless regulator.

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Padi Phillips

Agree with you 100% Ukraine should have been far better supported back in 2014 when Putin first invaded, and certainly should have committed far more once it became obvious that Ukraine wasn't just going to roll over, and crucially the supporting nations should have formulate what the strategic objective was for them, which is to state that they were for Ukraine winning. Despite Mr Wildsmith's somewhat bizarre notion that it's impossible for Ukraine to win, he should perhaps look to the 1905 Russo-Japanese War where Japan won, despite being a far smaller country - the Japanese, like today's Ukrainians were far more organised and the Russians, like today, in possession of all the kit they needed, but rotten to the core in terms of command. If Ukraine had been armed with all it needed to win this war it it would probably have been over quite some time ago, but with that massive advance in September to November 2022 running out of steam it allowed Russia to regroup. Had Ukraine had the weaponry it could have continued that advance and rout of the Russian army and the war quite likely be over. War is a horrible thing, and the Ukraine war needs to be over but not until Ukraine has all it's territory back. Anything less would send out a message to Putin and any other tyrant around the world that their grabs for power and territory will effectively be rewarded, making the world, and certainly Europe closest to Russia a lot less safe. The Russia-Ukraine conflict is one of those very rare things, a just war. Ukrainian sovereignty has been violated, and one of the most fundamental rights is the right to defend one's sovereignty. Quite simply there is only one option, and that is for Ukraine to win. Слава Україні

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Linda Jones

Great article again. It seems to me we are governed by warmongers who allow people in the UK to go hungry and homeless while flashing the cash on foreign wars. Lets face it Ukraine cannot win, they have to negotiate. Russia has stated on numerous occasions they would stop all aggression if Ukraine agreed to remain neutral ie not a member of NATO or the EU. Surely that's worth agreeing to in order to save lives.

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Jeff

Putin will murder and rape his way through Ukraine, this is what he is doing now. Putin wants to make his position solid and continue his reign. He is a thug. Putin would never have stopped had Kyiv fallen as putin hoped. Now we have many nations wanting to join NATO because they are next in Putins sights. Ukraine has stopped putin before we had to. Ukraine will lose if we let them and lets hope that Trump never sees power again because he will hand Europe on a platter to putin. Believe Russia if you want, they are committing war crimes every day.

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Rob

How exactly is EU membership a threat to Russia? There is an argument to be made about NATO but the European Union is an economic alliance, not a military one. Ireland, Cyprus Austria are not NATO members, neither was Sweden or Finland before the war. Sovereign means the right to join any organisation it wanted. Appeasement never leads to peace, as Chamberlain learned.

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Riki

Yep, it’s amazing isn’t it. I listened recently to Dr.Mearcheimer on Pierce Morgan and it was fantastic in how he schooled him into understating how America would do nothing if Russia nuked Ukraine, he layed the framework as to why America would not risk a World war based on nuclear warfare for the sake of any country on the other side of the planet, and the only support would ever be conventional….And he’s right, what sane person would?! And this was also used to explain why America wouldn’t want Iran to have nuclear capabilities, effectively, he showed that the only reason for Them is that they don’t want people to be able to have the capability of not being bullied. If Iran had nukes, Isreal wouldn’t be doing what it’s doing, and the same goes for why America will only ever support Ukraine conventionally. For example, if I walked into a bar armed and you saw me, even if you were armed you’d be less likely to cause a confrontation. Risk of confrontation is only ever diminished when those taken part are aware of what the other has and are capable of doing.

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Richard Davies

I will condemn russia when george 'dubya' bush and tony blair are at the Hague, charged with war crimes.

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Rob

Whataboutisms does not justify Putin's war crimes. There isn't a single person who regularly visits this site who would disagree that Bush and Blair should be tried in the Hague. We can be equally opposed to both Western imperialism and Russian imperialism at the same time, they are not mutually exclusive.

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This is what really annoys me, I have no problem with them be patriotic Englishman and women, what I have a problem with is how they fight for that right while denying the same to the Cymric Britons (What they would call Welsh people). They...

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