Vladimir Putin: Biggest threat to Britain for generations (Image: Getty)
It has been said that if the conflict which seems to be inching ever closer does arrive, and our woke generation face conscription, the Russians could defeat Britain without firing a shot. All they would have to do is misgender a handful of the Grenadier Guards’ newest recruits and the rest would fall about having fits of the vapours. None of which is to denigrate the actual soldiers of the actual Guards by the way. Anyone who wants to put on a uniform to defend our country and be part of something much bigger than a social media algorithm is alright by me, and has nothing but my respect and gratitude.
But the point is that, according to a recent extensive survey, more than half of our young people aged 16-29 would never defend Britain. We live in extraordinary times where our Government is telling us to stockpile food because we could be at war with Moscow in as little as 1000 days.
Meanwhile our stripped to the bone military begs for pennies from Chancellor Healey – who responds telling us defence might hit 3.5% of GDP in 10 years’ time. By which point we can assume we will all be singing the red flag and toasting comrade Putin.
Russia, which you can’t have failed to notice is in the middle of a grotesque and miserable war with Ukraine, spends 7.5% on defence. And, for comparison, when Margaret Thatcher successfully sent a task force to the Falklands in 1982 defence spending was around 5.5%. UK defence spending last year was less than half of that.
Is it just me who is terrified by the insane irresponsibility of a Government telling us to stock up on white wine because war is coming, while refusing to spend any money strengthening our defence? Are we supposed to party while the ICBMs land?
Because Wes Streeting seems pretty convinced they are coming. But at least woeful underspending is a fixable problem.
The scarier issue is that we have sleep-walked our way to creating a generation which refuses to defend itself.
Oh they’ll defend Palestine – a country they have never been to which promotes torture, extrajudicial executions, political repression and horrific abuses against women and LGBT people, but their own democratic, tolerant and actually even now quite amazing nation? Not in a million years apparently.
Why? How have we created a generation so riven with self-hatred they would rather let the fascists win than fight for democracy and freedom?
In the most recent significant study 51% of under 30s said they would simply refuse to fight.
Surely one factor is that one in five people in the UK were not born here. This figure is much higher in the conscription-age group.
Norman Tebbit once suggested the cricket team you supported indicated your true loyalties – which I found a facile analysis. Our incredible Ghurkas, and their 13 VCs, for example, have fought fiercely on Britain’s behalf time and time again, and most of them are Nepalese.
But it would be mad not to think nationality is not a factor on some level.
If you’d emigrated to Somalia say or the DRC, or even Lithuania or Albania, would you fight in their wars? Not sure I would.
And the other big, big factor is social media, which has picked up where Joseph Goebbels left off.
The Nazi Propaganda Minister famously said: “It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths,” together with “whoever speaks the first word to the world is always right,” and of course “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Just apply those same claims to your choice of social media. Chilling isn’t it?
Those ugly, evil algorithms take an initial, perhaps legitimate, concern that life in the UK might be a little unfair at times, then it amplifies it. Then it amplifies it again, and again, and again, until you end up like the bastard child of Elon Musk and Adolf Hitler, despising Britain and everything she stands for.
Social media is the ultimate boot stamping on your face forever. In pretty short order we could find that that boot was made in St Petersburg.
