Boadicea's Chariot

Labour have imploded, the Limp Dims have lost more ground, the SNP have lost seats despite Labour’s travails. Only the Tories have had a good local election, gaining 164 council seats in Jockland. Meanwhile, in England, Labour have fared worse than Alex Salmond at a marathon. The Limp Dims continue their decline. UKIP have all but disappeared. Oh yes, a very satisfactory local election indeed. Let’s hope that the Delightful Mrs May continues her winning streak next month.

France has survived the first round of its obtuse presidential election system. Little Manny Macaroon and Marine Le Pen survived and France will have to choose between these two underwhelming specimens next month. Le Pen does not actually openly despise France and wish for it to be dissolved in an EU fantasy empire, but her economic manifesto is an absolute catastrophe. 1930s statism and protectionism failed then and they’d fare worse now. Even if she’s wrong about many things, and that her desire to withdraw from the eurozone and EU would be legally complicated to say the least, she is still motivated by a love for la France profonde. Little Manny Macaroon, the school boy who ran away with his French teacher, is favoured to win. He, naturally, has no clue about governance. However, he at least has a basic grasp of economics. He does, sadly, openly despise France having publicly denigrated it abroad. His idea of a foreign policy is the destruction of France as a sovereign state, being an even bigger euro-fanatic than Hollande. Neither candidate is what France needs. France needs strong and spirited leadership to end its drift — it needs someone who can read the mood outside Paris and Brussels. Neither, ultimately, does this. It seems as if Little Manny Macaroon is favoured to be the next president. He will have little support in parliament and his views on the EU and immigration are about as popular in France as a bad case of the clap. Should he, as he apparently intends to, emulate Blair and Obama France will be a year past its collapse in 2022.

http://fogtdal.blogspot.de/2017/04/denmark-for-dummies-2017-superficial.html?m=1

Sweden has always been a country dear to me. Read more…

Watching the Caviar Queen squirm and squeal is a sight that warms the cockles – from a distance. Read more…

My fellow Charioteers will already know that I am hardly the world’s largest fan of the USA. That I am hardly enamoured with the idea of going on holiday in the USA will, thus, surprise no one. That’s not to say that the USA is without its merits and charms. It has both, at times in abundance. In my experience Planet ‘Murca’s native aggro simply outweighs the good. Read more…

Metternich once quipped “Italy is a geographical expression”. Replace “Italy” with “Germany” and that quote would be equally applicable. Germany is a geographical expression. In 1805 there were over 300 political entities in German-speaking Europe. After Napoleon, these myriad polities were reorganised into 38 Germanic states in a loose, Austrian-led confederation. Eventually, Prussia grew increasingly powerful as Austria was forced to focus on the ever-growing number of problems in its formal empire. Bit-by-bit, Prussia expanded its territories. In 1871, a Prussian-led federal German empire was formed comprising 26 states. Read more…

We’re in a bad way. With the UK leaving the bastion of stability and economic growth, Read more…