Superb writing: Chinese UKR paper, + 'Hatfield Girl'

You'll never read a more instructive short position-paper than this Chinese one on how China should conduct itself vis-à-vis Putin and Ukraine.  So rich, so clear-sighted, so crisp, so well stated (and well translated, we must assume).  I'm not going to summarise or extract from it: it's quite short and you should read the lot (its headline below is a link). 

Possible Outcomes of the Russo-Ukrainian War and China’s Choice

*   *   *   *   *

On the subject of rich, clear writing, a heartfelt lament.  'Older readers' will recall we once had an active and exceptionally fruitful ongoing dialogue here and elsewhere with 'Hatfield Girl' who blogged at Angels in Marble.  Alas, the lady left that blog frozen in its marble state some seven years ago, and if she contributes to the www anymore, I don't know under what moniker.  (And I think I'd have spotted it anyway because both her style and thinking were distinctive.)  We miss her as much as we miss Raedwald - and that's a serious compliment.  Hopefully she hasn't suffered a parallel demise.

Anyhow, as best I can summarise a subtle writer's views without pernicious distortion - perhaps a ridiculous thing to try (and I invite readers who recall her to pitch in on this: there are several of you) - HG held a position roughly as follows:

•  there is such a thing as Christendom, however badly represented by current-day man-made institutions
• Christendom can be a great (one of the greatest) and valuable force for civilisation 
• Christendom is internationalist in essence (which made HG temperamentally inclined towards the EU, but she was no supporter of Brussels) 
• Orthodox Russia would ideally be a strong candidate for inclusion in this vision

She didn't bang on very much about Christendom by name and per se, but here's a 2012 post - actually not one of her more subtle offerings, but rather a short summation piece - where she made things more-than-usually explicit. 

     https://hatfieldgirl.blogspot.com/2012/02/we-must-not-abandon-greece.html

Read this whole thing, and the BTL thread.  It's very prescient, pointed, and poignant.

... this Europe, core Europe and its surrounding states, is Christendom ... not the 'Jesus wants me for a sunbeam' with tambourine accompaniment Christianity so dear to other parts of the world ... Europe isn't a tyranny - it has been and it could be again - but now it stands against the global, a-cultural imperialists ...

Seeing ... the destructiveness of the current EU's institutions and actions on European democracies ... I turn to Europe's cultural and strategic reason and forces for its unity in the face of uncivilised and rapacious assaults on its values and its peoples. And accept, for now, the Union with all its deficiencies and deficits. The assertion of a single 'West' led by a 'global' America and its interests is repellent. NATO has become a monstrous armed threat to European values. 

Well, I never fully agreed with her, but ...  

HG, where are you at this hour?

ND

Raedwald RIP

Radders was a great friend to this blog, and I trust we were to him.  I never met him in person (he was due to attend one of our Xmas drinks but for some reason he didn't make it) - but we'd definitely have enjoyed a night over the beers.  His not having posted for three weeks caused disquiet - such a stalwart blogger - and it seems the worst has befallen.  If more details of his personal life now emerge, there's many of us who'll be interested to learn them.

From never having met the man, there is still much to be said from his consistent, colourful and extensive blogging.  He described himself as an irredeemable optimist but was also clearly a fine conservative, and the two traits don't always coincide.  A massive supporter of localism and the wisdom of Burke's Little Platoons, he was also a good European - warmly espousing catholic internationalism but despising globalism in general, and Berlaymont in particular.   As firm as he was in his views, he was also ready to acknowledge mistakes, and man enough to leave them up online for all to see (none of the nasty, furtive re-writing of a Redwood or a Cummings). 

Raedwald had principles, alright: and he was clearly also practical to the nth degree.  You just know he was a man you'd want on your side in a fight: the supremely handy sort who'd rebuild the world after an invasion of Triffids.  At the same time he was clearly of a philosophical bent, his abstractions coming from a solid and wide-ranging empiricism in the best English tradition - an empiricism based in turn on his quite remarkable range of richly-enjoyed experiences.  His tales of Human Reality came from rural East Anglia and the boatyard; from the tough world of quantity surveying and project management at the sharp end of the building trade; and from hardcore bohemian Soho!  Firmly grounded, widely experienced real-world thinkers like Radders give one all the more contempt for the malcontent bedsit lefties with brains the size of planets, who clearly couldn't change a three-pin plug, yet who cultivate gigantic Hegelian fantasy-systems on nothing more than instant coffee, envy and bile.  

We needed Radders for some important fights yet to come.  Much of the UK Left is currently in a slough of despond, having childlishly invested everything in Corbyn.  They seem to despair of pretty much everything just now: but another, less fragile part of the dark side is limbering up for a massive assault on free speech, hoping to subborn the universities, the television, and ultimately social media - one all can too easily imagine platforms trading off the freedoms of expression they currently facilitate for their own freedom to make money.  (They are businesses, after all.)  And then there are the supranationalists ...   

Radders, despite attracting some very odd BTL traffic, maintained a stout line in critical commentary that was extremely valuable to us all.  We'd already lost Anna Raccoon: and now there's one fewer voice to speak truly and plainly in the culture-wars ahead.

How I wish he'd joined us for those beers.

ND 

Bad Stuff, Good Stuff

Back from Germany for Christmas, & to confront the usual backlog of incoming rubbish in need of attention.

Top of the pile . . . Utility Week, 'your unique guide to the UK and European utility industries', which has done us the service of interviewing one Sarwjit Sambhi, head of power generation at Centrica. So - what does Mr Sambhi have to say ?

He just wants the government to get on with market reform. He wants a market framework that gives generators a fixed level of revenue. Otherwise, he warns, "nothing will be built ... we need guaranteed minimum revenue".

Ordinarily one would have just a very few crisp words for such a miserable pleader, before sending him on his way. Regrettably, however, Chris 'Crapper' Huhne and indeed the whole government seem to swallow this nonsense whole for breakfast each day. So now I must wade through the ocean of dirigiste drivel that is last week's "transformation of the power market" from DECC, a.k.a. the "reform" that Mr Sambhi has been demanding so greedily. Analysis to follow in the coming days.

But . . . there is good news - Alice Cook is back !!!

That, and the fact that CU and BQ have been posting brilliantly during my lamentable period of blog-slacking: there's hope for us all yet.

ND

Guido rules the waves

Small departure from normal monetary based comment from me. Just wanted to say maximum respect to Guido Fawkes for his revelations about Damian McBride and the sick heart of new Labour.

Our Government, not content with leading us to economic disaster, has at its centre a group of nasty, ignorant and contemptible people; obsessed with hurting the Tories rather than healing the country.

Not only has Guido calmly exposed this (no mean feat to take on the 5th most powerful Government on the planet), but it has also revealed the complicity of much of the mainstream media such as the Telegraph and Mirror journalists in going along with the Government spin merchants.

All power to Guido for the week ahead. The cover up of the original sin always proves more fatal. Blogs are becoming more influential, just see the headlines of all tomorrow's papers.