Mercifully I am released from party politics no place for non conformists or those with serious conviction, I knew my days with UKIP were numbered when I heard the phrase ‘we cannot sell that on the doorstep’. This from a party which came to prominence by being different, a cavaliers ‘approach to political correctness, disdain for the metropolitan press elite. The party has now abandoned any pretence at libertarianism. Ask the leadership for a view on fractional reserve banking, hard currency, legal tender laws, regulation, central banks, QE, market interest rates etc. The response will be ‘Er kick out Johnny Foreigner. Drinks all round!’
James Delingpole correctly label UKIP as Liberal Democrats with a Eurosceptic bias. Last year I gave a lecture to the Institute of Economic Affairs predicting a lost opportunity in politics, I did not want to be proven right. Having said that they are streets ahead of the other lot who would like a political commissar in every parish.
A wonderful opportunity has arisen, though, freed from party political work to get on with more important matters. Not the least of which was completing Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. This provoked some research outside my usual sphere of economics and military history.
I also found time for a few holidays . On with the fell boots and away on creaky knees to the Welsh and Cumbrian mountains. From the peaks we could see that testimony to man’s folly offshore wind turbines, too many to count.
This came as a shock as we live in rural East Yorkshire, the scale overwhelmed us. There is no serious economic or scientific assessment which has not condemned this crony capitalistic scam, exposed by no less than the retired chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder by this, whose country is so threatened by this ‘green’ absurdity.
But I wanted to dig deeper, none of this is new. Any horny handed son of the soil at my local pub is on to the wind scam, yet now they see landowners add to their monstrous single farm payment rent for pipelines to carry CO2 out to sea whilst their neighbours growing tomatoes and cucumbers buy machines to manufacture it to assist production. The local power station, Drax, burns wood chippings from Canada and local grass which takes thousands of acres out of food production. Old age pensioners struggle by on a pittance in the local towns and the greenies claim the moral high ground!
So where does Gibbon come into all this? Well I have been investigating the conversion of Constantine, the emergence of Jerome, St Augustine and Ambrose. These early Christians craved martyrdom, the equivalent of a second baptism, fully atoning for past sins, a gateway to paradise if you will.
Notwithstanding we now live, at least in the west, in a secular society martyrdom is obviously something some members of humankind need.
The paradox is the modern greenie is always well heeled. Mummy and daddy are often loaded so offspring Barnaby and Polly can sail around the world on the Greenpeace yacht with none of the angst they would feel on uncle Ted’s boat in the Med. Ironically this modern martyrdom is pain free to them, those who suffer are the poor who cannot afford electricity or food and have seen their jobs go to the Far East.
If you doubt me check “athletes of god.” Particularly the Stylites who lived in the Eastern Empire in the Fifth century: they lived on top of poles! There were Holy Fools who rejected normal social conventions and behaved as though they were insane. These ascetic ideals are difficult for most of us to understand as we live lives of quiet desperation under the iron heel of the state. But these people are today a strong political force albeit small in number. As ever their counter party the crony capitalist hovers like the Griffin Vulture ready to gorge on the carcass. Even the Holy Fool and his money are soon parted.
Godfrey Bloom served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber from 2004 to 2014
