Shame on you, Jeremy Corbyn, for agreeing to sing the words of the national anthem in future!

You will not catch me singing the words any time soon, and here’s the reason why: I don’t agree with them.

After that… which of us would be comfortable with verse two? O Lord our God arise, Scatter her enemies, And make them fall: Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish* tricks, On Thee our hopes we fix: God save us all.

*”knavish” used to be “popish” – ah for the days when religious intolerance was official policy!!

When I attend church events like weddings and funerals, I adopt a respectful approach to those around me. This means not drawing attention to my dissenting views: I stand up and sit down at the same time as everyone else. During hymns and prayers, I stand or sit silently as a mark of respect. It would be hypocritical to join in.

This was exactly the approach Jeremy Corbyn adopted at the Battle of Britain ceremony – an honest, respectful and tolerant approach. The real or manufactured anger of his critics simply shows them to be intolerant of those whose views differ from their own. It’s not hard to work out whose attitude I prefer.

I watched Jeremy Corbyn’s victory speech live. I agree with every word he said.

Britain desperately needs an effective opposition to the bunch of incompetents currently making such a mess of running the country. (The economic so-called “recovery” is built on sand and excludes most of us.) There is now a glimmer of hope that the Labour Party will meet that need for a different vision for the country.

The first task is to begin to shift the centre of gravity of the political discourse back to the genuine centre ground. For over thirty years, we have been part of an extremist economic experiment – one which failed seven years ago: a pity that the present government hasn’t noticed yet. The real centre ground in public attitudes lies closer to Jeremy’s views than any other prominent UK politician.

I wish Jeremy and the Labour Party well in their endeavours. They will need an appealing mixture of passion and cool heads to succeed.

Passion

We saw plenty of passion from Jeremy in his speech – the sort of passion that comes from compassion. The energy and enthusiasm of newly joined members – and some returning ones – needs to be turned into an effective campaigning force ready to take on the government. A clear call for inclusiveness and a more consultative style came through also. What a welcome contrast to the various “I speak your weight” measured-soundbite politicians we normally see.

Cool Heads

But there is a need for clear heads as well – for two reasons.

Firstly, cool heads will be needed to deflect the torrent of abuse and misinformation that will now hit the Labour team. The usual hate-filled suspects in the media will already have a drawer-full of “loony-left dangerous comments” made over the past thirty years to throw back at Corbyn – presumably with the usual level of distortion. Tory ministers will make similar claims. Defence Secretary Fallon has already started with a hyperbolic and ludicrous outburst. (If he continues to cry wolf, Fallon will lose any credibility he has with the British public and his foreign counterparts. That won’t do a lot for Britain’s standing in the world.) Expect some very dirty tricks indeed.

Secondly, cool heads will be needed from suitably qualified experts to help flesh out an economic policy to give voters a credible alternative to the failed current austerity dogma. There is a credible alternative path to take – I just haven’t seen it fully worked through yet.

Tom Watson has shown himself to be grounded, resourceful and brave and will be a useful Deputy Leader with complementary strengths to his new leader.

I’m feeling optimistic right now. Time will tell. Good luck! – we need some hope for the future.

I find the killing of British citizens by drone strike in Syria a very disturbing development. UK military forces killed two of its own citizens in a pre-emptive drone strike. Two problems emerge:

1. The use of armed force in Syria defies the will of Parliament which voted against the extension of extend armed military action from Iraq into Syria.
2. It appears to violate international law.

Overruling Parliament’s Will

David Cameron has argued that, “in an emergency”, the Prime Minister can take military action against the will of parliament.

Firstly, this demonstrates the woolliness of our famously unwritten constitution, giving great power to the executive of the day to make up the rules as they go along, to suit current needs.

Secondly, I have seen no evidence of any intended actions by the targets which would amount to an “emergency”. What appears to be the case is that these evil, misguided individuals were plotting to take violent, murderous action at some high profile events which have already happened, so they didn’t actually do it.

Illegality

A test case of 1837 established that it is legal for a country to take pre-emptive lethal action in self-defence in very limited circumstances. A threat against the state must be imminent and there must be no feasible alternative option to prevent the threat. The action must be proportionate to the threat. There is nothing in the government’s statement that could possibly be interpreted that the threat from these individuals was imminent. So the criteria were not met and the action was illegal.

Imminent?

The government has so far resisted publishing the legal advice it was given on the legality of the attack. Of particular concern is the suspicion that the British government has adopted the same re-writing of the meaning of “imminent” as the Americans. A leaked internal US white paper from 2011 radically redefined the idea of “imminence”. It states:

The condition that an operational leader present an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on US persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”

In plain English: “imminent = they might attack us at some time in the future”.

British Values or Barbarism?

Cameron and his predecessor have been banging on about so-called “British values” for some years. Key tests of those values include respect for the law and following due process. Civilized democracies don’t do extra-judicial killing. Those targeted were truly evil individuals who wanted to do grievous harm, including the murder of innocent civilians in pursuing their warped and ultra-intolerant views.

But Britain now appears to be more barbaric than at any time since 1837. Every time we take a step towards the barbarism they espouse, the terrorists score a victory.

…doesn’t include David Cameron.

The dismal performance of our Prime Minister seems to have come to a head in the past week. I’m thinking in particular of his uncomfortable, embarrassed, eye-contact avoiding interview on TV recently in response to the continuing humanitarian crisis of mass migration into Europe.

It has been obvious to me for some years just how weak a politician he has turned out to be. An example was the controversial veto of an EU agreement 2-3 years ago: a double own-goal. The rest of Europe’s leaders simply ignored his veto and went ahead without the UK. Cameron’s action reduced further any goodwill the other leaders may show him in future negotiations over EU reform.

I also quickly noticed his repeated habit of making pious, sympathetic, statements on some topic and then proceeding to do the exact opposite of what he had said. This seems to be driven by a desire to be liked by his audience, at the expense of being seen to be inconsistent and untrustworthy. For example, his pre-2010 tree-hugging, husky-loving “greenest government ever” public claim soon gave way to an overheard private comment to cut the “green crap”.

Cameron has repeatedly demonstrated poor judgement, as the following two examples show. Firstly, the appointment of Andy Coulson as his communications director was made despite warnings that the choice would be unwise. Secondly, the rash claim to reduce net immigration to a few tens of thousands was made despite him not having the powers to control this figure, as the recent record figure of over 300,000 for 2014 has shown.

His weakness is seen in the failure to stand up to his own backbenchers and UKIP, which had two main consequences:

1. Being gradually forced into a position where he had to concede an “in-out” referendum on EU membership with an arbitrary target date when the timetable for proper negotiations was outside his control;
2. On immigration, a deliberate, and morally despicable, blurring of the distinction between asylum seekers, refugees and “economic migrants” has boxed him into a position where he cannot convincingly speak on the more heart-rending news events without appearing to contradict his earlier narrative. The repeated assertion of the myth that immigrants are attracted to Britain because of our generous benefits has no basis in evidence. It also leaves Cameron nowhere to hide – when pictures confirming the sheer desperation of people fleeing murderous regimes show just how ludicrous such a claim is.

The tragic sight of little Aylan Kurdi on the beach and the desperation, dignity and determination of a group of Syrians marching together from Hungary to Austria has changed the moral landscape of the immigration issue. It puts Angela Merkel and Germany on the moral high ground and leaves Cameron – and by implication the rest of us – portrayed as mean-spirited and misanthropic.

Cameron needs to be reminded of three things:

1. There is such a thing as compassion: people can rise to performing acts of enormous kindness to strangers, particularly if given inspirational leadership to do so. Look at the cheering crowds at a German railway station!
2. There is more to life than the narrow pursuit of material self-interest.
3. The “national interest” is not synonymous with that of his rich friends and Tory Party donors in the City.

Perhaps it’s too much to expect a member of the Bullingdon Bully Boys Club to understand these simple facts. Britain deserves better than this.