The German philosopher Heidegger had a concept that some things are “correct” but are not the truth. I think Paul Mason is often guilty of that (“We must spend to defend… and to grow”, TNE #425).
The UK will spend £56.9bn on defence in 2024-54 but at least £6.5bn of that is taken up by nuclear weapons, while up to a billion is the hidden costs of our intelligence services. In the same period, Germany will spend £68bn. Without a nuclear spend, it is able to put more boots/tanks on the ground and missiles in the air.
There are, contrary to what Paul Mason claims, taxes – equalising rates on pension contributions, new ones for land, wealth, housing – which could fund rearmament. But it was the UK’s high spending on defence in the 1950s – an average of 9% of GDP – which some would argue was at the root of our lack of investment in the economy and the lingering low productivity that led to the decision in the late 1950s that the UK had to join Europe. The subsequent and reluctant “special relationship” with the US was intended as a short-term solution to the UK’s defence/economic problems.
If the UK was part of a European army with a joint UK/French nuclear component and a European intelligence agency there would be sufficient forces to deter Russia without the need for US assistance. And we do have small “demolition” nuclear weapons specifically designed to stop Russian forces.
But De Gaulle was probably right: British governments prefer the fantasy of a “bridge” to the US. If we are serious about defence, the first step must be to rejoin the EU.
Stephen Dorril
Netherthong, Holmfirth
No matter how much Paul Mason wants Ukraine to defeat Russia, that is not going to happen, and prolonging the fighting achieves nothing but further death, injury and destruction on both sides.
A desire for justice, in the sense of an aggressor defeated, has to be balanced against the cost of pursuing this unachievable aim. It makes far more sense to recognise that, following the dissolution of the USSR, Ukraine was left as an uneasy mix of Ukrainian speakers who felt an affinity with eastern Europe and Russian speakers feeling an affinity with Russia.
Ending the war now with a decision to divide Ukraine gives an opportunity for the bulk of the country to become an EU member in due course and follow the very successful example of Poland. The borders of European countries have constantly altered throughout history and this is just the latest chapter.
There is no need for the provocation of inviting Ukraine to join Nato, and in fact it was a great mistake not to abolish Nato when the USSR was dissolved. That failure has contributed to the alienation of Russia and probably the length of Vladimir Putin’s domination of politics in Russia.
Julian Jones
Bridport, Dorset
Paul Mason makes a convincing case for increased spending on arms, linking it with future growth.
Thus far the government has courted controversy by deciding to raid the overseas aid budget, taking aim at the sector least able to hit back at the ballot box.
Governments always have to look over their shoulders when taking “tough decisions” in order to fund hitherto uncosted spending, but this decision displays a lack of imagination on the part of the prime minister and his chancellor.
Paul Mason concludes that borrowing is the way forward. I would posit the idea of an emergency arms loan levy on all taxpayers. The levy would be an interest-free loan to the government over a period of, say, two years or longer, if necessary, but only repayable to taxpayers after a period of, say, five years when there are likely to be positive signs of growth.
This could be the ideal compromise between raising income tax and more borrowing in order to fund a specific, emergency necessity such as increased defence spending.
Maurice Waller
Seaford, East Sussex
I am in Virginia, USA, and so embarrassed and concerned about my country’s vice-president and his foolish and reckless behaviour in goading our emotionally fragile president into humiliating a foreign wartime leader just trying to fight for what used to be American values of liberty and democracy.
My street here is filled with Ukrainian flags along with the American flag. My family were all European immigrants, some of whom fled the mafia in Sicily. It was nauseating to hear Donald Trump and JD Vance bully president Zelensky.
I just want to apologise for the current leadership in my country, and tell you that, if Ukraine can survive for two more years, I think we can elect a congress that can help undo all of the damage the president and his really, really unqualified VP are doing to Europe, the world, and America.
Carolyn Phillips
After seeing Donald Trump and JD Vance’s appalling vitriol towards the bravest leader of a sovereign state on the planet, I have nothing but respect and admiration for Volodymyr Zelensky, and nothing but opprobrium and contempt for the president and vice-president.
It is time for decent people in the UK and elsewhere to stand up and reject the lies and rhetoric emanating from this US administration, built, like Brexit, on lies and distortions of the truth.
Trump has a different meaning up here in the north – and, as Bertolt Brecht once wrote, a fart has no nose.
Phil Green
What are the odds that America will soon rename the lovely pub dish “Freedom Garlic Chicken”?
Steve Buch
The long march of history will judge these two men. The president of Ukraine will be seen as a warrior who defended his country with every sinew of his being. The other guy will be seen as the narcissistic, bullying, draft-dodging New York socialite who betrayed his nation’s best interests. In the end, Americans will come to revile him more than Benedict Arnold.
Christopher Harrison
Start using MAGA to mean: Make America Generally Abhorred.
David Skinner
Maybe Volodymyr Zelensky did get the dress code wrong on his White House visit, but has anyone seen Elon Musk recently?
A tuxedo, bow tie, stetson and a double-barrelled shotgun down his dress pants might have got him more cred… I guess an AK47 wouldn’t fit.
Rex Nesbit
Two deluded ancients are threatening civilisation – Vladimir Putin as a born-again Potëmkin (who double-crossed the dim-wit Joseph II and got Austria on his behalf to conquer Ukraine for Russia) and Donald Trump aping Warren G Harding (the worst US president ever, who throttled the League of Nations at birth and thereby lit the fuse for the second world war).
It is time for us Europeans to pay a lot more attention to the wisdom circulating among old-age psychiatrists. It is my experience (not being a qualified psychiatrist but an ordinary physician) that mental deterioration prior to full-blown Alzheimer’s terrifies those with a Trump-Putin mindset and leads to unjustified aggressive behaviour in those already prone to aggression.
Trump is only a very few years younger than his father was when he developed Alzheimer’s. Time for government to seek guidance from those with in-depth experience of this troubling consequence of extended lifespans. Please would our government consult meaningfully those, largely to be found in the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who can help them outmanoeuvre these ageing tyrants?
(Dr) Jonathan Reeve FRCP
Remember Alaska
Nato may be reconfigured (“The end.. and a new beginning”, TNE #425). But remember the US last put troops on the ground in Vietnam and Afghanistan, which didn’t go well. The UK was more distinguished in Northern Ireland. We must get closer to Europe, especially France, which has a credible nuclear deterrent.
If Trump flips the Ukrainian borders so that he and Putin can loot its minerals, the UK can align with Poland and other EU border countries and dig in. If Trump thinks the US is protected by the Atlantic, remember Alaska, which the US bought from Russia in 1867. Putin might want it back, and he might put a few missiles on the disputed islands north of Japan.
Dr Chris Williams
In peril
I read Matt Withers’ interview with Neil Kinnock on Trump and rejoining the EU (TNE #425) with great interest. Kinnock is of course right.
Were Sir Keir Starmer to apply for membership of the customs union and the European single market now, the UK would instantly have the money needed to provide foreign aid and to significantly build up our military forces. Our situation is so perilous that a quick response is imperative.
With Trump talking about a third world war, Europe needs to be strongly united in the defence of Ukraine.
David Hogg
North Somerset
On a wing and a prayer
I always enjoy reading Peter Trudgill’s weekly column, and admire his knowledge and insight.
However, such does not appear to stretch to the liturgical history of the mid-16th century. There were in fact three Prayer Books of the period, 1549, 1552 and 1559. None were designated protestant.
Furthermore, Mary Tudor was the half-sister of Edward VI, and not his aunt. Mary did not succeed Edward until his death in 1553, by which time there had been two prayer books before Archbishop Cranmer was burnt at the stake in Oxford in 1556. It was my contention in my book In Just Three Years: A tale of two Prayer Books (Chronos, 2016) that Cranmer may not have been directly responsible for the second Prayer Book.
I have no doubt concerning the Cornish reaction to the first Prayer Book of 1549, and the effect on the Cornish language.
Rev Canon David Jennings
Market Bosworth, Warwickshire
I take exception to Peter Trudgill’s use of the continued description of Queen Mary I as “Bloody Mary”. She was nothing like as tyrannical as her father, Henry VIII, and her sister Elizabeth was no saint in that regard either, with a number of religious executions dressed up as treason.
Malcolm M Caporn
Aston on Trent, Derbyshire
The new European
Following the excellent dining recommendations of James Marsh and others in last week’s Letters page, I thought I should draw your attention to a new pub shortly opening in Leyton, east London. The European is a renovated old boozer with a wonderful pub sign – the EU flag! Definitely worth supporting them.
Robert Smith
Bewdley, Worcestershire
Cheers for coffee
Re: Everyday Philosophy on coffee (TNE #425). Coffee can be as variable and interesting as wine. My local small roaster, Context Coffee near Monmouth, has afforded me many interesting taste experiences with its single-origin coffees. As with wine, terroir, climate and methods all contribute to the individual characteristics.
Simon Durrant
BELOW THE LINE
Comments, conversation and correspondence from our online subscribers
In “The people’s photographer” (TNE #425), Jason Solomons writes of Martin Parr “the people who make the shots so memorable are always willing participants playing along with the narrative.”
I doubt that the subjects of Parr’s series “The Last Resort” thought that’s what they were doing. He is an excellent photographer, but, to me, those images look like the product of a wildlife cameraman capturing other lifeforms. He’s a great observer, but a distant one.
J Burgess
Thank you to Patience Wheatcroft for “This laughable war on Rachel Reeves” (TNE #425). It is classic misogyny.
Trudi Clay
Re: “Why Merz must act fast” (Tanit Koch, TNE #425). This latest election in Germany was nothing more than a bout of musical chairs. The problems Scholz had of getting more money into the economy and more for defence are now for Merz to sort out.
Removal of the debt brake and the proposed defence fund increase remain on the table, and as before, each will require a two-thirds support in parliament, thus, as before, will depend on the small parties voting with what will probably be der große Koalition’s increased spending proposals. Good luck with that!
Henrick Hauptmann
Re: “AfD’s greatest weapon now is complacency”. AfD is not everywhere, it is in the east. Look at the results map: nearly all of the former East Germany voted for the neo-fascists, while only two constituencies in the west did.
This is what I feared after the reunification, that this North Korea of Europe, standing out by its collective embrace of the “classless” society and attraction to its Soviet occupiers (Stockholm syndrome?) would prove resistant to the benefits of the free world. Now it’s on the way to undermining Europe.
Adalbert Jasiewicz
Sorry, Matt d’Ancona (Culture, TNE #425). The final episode of Zero Day confirmed it to be a complete load of hokum.. As another critic put it, it has a lot it wants to say about the state of the world and almost none of it is worth listening to. A limited capacity to surprise and a limited capacity to entertain just about sums it up.
Ann Shilcock
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