The wartime entertainer Bud Flanagan can rest easy. “Who do you think you are kidding, Remainers, if you think old England’s done.”
Twat.
Weintrop was born with a sense of adventure and was keen to see the world. In 1910, aged 14, he decided to leave home and walked all the way to Southampton where he claimed to be an electrician aged 17 to get a job aboard ship. He sailed with the SS Majestic to New York, and jumped ship when it arrived in the USA. Reuben got various jobs selling newspapers, delivering telegrams for Western Union, and even harvested wheat in Fargo, North Dakota. He joined a vaudeville show that toured across the USA, whilst in October 1914, he sailed with a show to perform in New Zealand and Australia. He travelled to perform on stage in South Africa where he met his brother Alec (Alexander), who was living there at the time.
Once back in San Francisco, Reuben decided to return to the United Kingdom to enlist to fight for Britain in the First World War. He returned to Britain in 1915 and enlisted as “Robert” Weintrop; he joined the Royal Field Artillery, and was sent with his unit to fight in France. In the Army, he worked as a driver and entertained the troops with his singing and impersonations. Here he met the unpopular Sergeant-Major Flanagan from whom he later adopted his stage name. In 1919 he formed a comedy double act, Flanagan and Roy.
And:
Flanagan’s last recording was Jimmy Perry and Derek Taverner’s theme for the British sitcom Dad’s Army,[4] “Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?”, recorded by Pye shortly before his death in 1968, and for which he was paid 100 guineas (£105). The song was a pastiche of the sort of songs Flanagan had sung during the war.
Further:
Brexit is an act of self-defeating folly. Our long-run growth rate, declares the Office for Budget Responsibility, has now sunk to 1.7%. We report today that the introduction of customs checks on EU goods in April and July is to be deferred because of fears of food shortages. Trade flows between the UK and the EU are in crisis. The country does have the capacity and values to be a force for good, but this Global Britain is a hoax. The home guard that Dad’s Army so wonderfully lampooned were at least honourable men. The same can not be said for the army in No 10.
Bud gets to lampoon those good men. The failed bond salesman can fuck off.
If Will Hutton says it’s Monday, I automatically check. Like Spud, everything he writes is counterfactual. That’s probably why he has a gig at the Guardian, the home of the delusional
The government has the country locked in a Dad’s Army mindset
If only, eh? Captain Mainwaring might’ve been more than a bit pompous (a trait Willie has in spades), but he was a thoroughly decent chap with a strong sense of duty. He also had no problem telling public safety tyrant Hodges to wind his bloody neck in.
“Global Britain”, whatever that means, always seemed like a bait and switch to me. Most people who vote Tory don’t want Global Britain, they just want Britain. The social milieu of Dad’s Army Britain was conformist, claustrophobic, and chafed by class friction, but it was also splendidly English. It was a society that worked.
There may be a virtue, a sign of agility perhaps, to be the first to impose sanctions, say, on Belarus
Why should we care about quarrels in Belarus, a far away country of which we know nothing?
The Chinese have long memories and will make the unfortunate connection even if we don’t. They are also astute judges of power. They know that the projection of military force with borrowed planes and no economic backup is an expensive farce.
Why are we even pretending to be able to militarily compete with China, a country of 1.3 billion people, at the opposite side of the planet, which is building more ships every year or two than the combined tonnage of the Royal Navy?
If only the destitute and dying in Yemen or Somalia lived in Tory marginals, they could have expected much better.
The Home Office is doing everything it can to ensure they do live in Tory marginals under this “conservative” government.
Why was nothing done about Hutton’s lamentable stewardship of the Work Foundation? In 2001, it had a viable pension fund. But, according to wiki
I wonder if those who were so quick to jump on Philip Green are equally eager to see Hutton have his day in court.
Further evidence of his incompetence, he thinks that “Mr Hitler” can be replaced with “Remainers”. Thick as shit?
What about this pack of lies?
Why isn’t he serving time for treason?
Poor old Weintrop, this enterprising person who would these days be foiled by the simple task of obtaining a visa. What a tragedy for the world!
And in another part of that shitty rag
They were ‘remainers’ before the referendum was lost. Now they are ‘quislings’.
It would be difficult to hate Hutton as much as he hates his country. That article poured scorn on Britain before we joined the EU (Winds of change, end of empire, little Englanders, etc.) and rubbishes our chances now we have left. Our only hope of survival is to be subsumed and absorbed. Why doesn’t he do everyone a favour and ship out?
A point often overlooked about “Dad’s Army” was that – beneath the humour – it was depicting a group of men, most of them war veterans, who knew with rock-solid certainty that if they were called on to fight, they were all going to die: touched on, once, in “The Battle of Godfrey’s Cottage”.
Most of the cast had themselves had significant military careers. Edward Sinclair (the verger) landed at Pegasus Bridge with the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry on D-Day, in a glider. John le Mesurier was a captain in the RTR. Arthur Lowe was a Warrant Officer in the Middle East. Clive Dunn spent most of WWII in PoW camps in Germany. John Laurie and Arnold Ridley had both seen combat in WWI.
Indeed, Ridley was particularly remarkable: his character ‘Godfrey’ was the first-aid man, because Ridley had been so badly wounded in WWI that he couldn’t carry a rifle. (Although he somehow managed to rejoin the army in 1939 and saw service in the BEF, before they worked out he was crippled and invalided him out of the army, again…) which was why he got an episode about Godfrey being a “conshie”… who, it turned out, had been decorated for collecting wounded men in No-Man’s-Land.
Not seeing similar commitment from Hutton…
I have a pic of a relative in the HG on the wall. eptiome of pike – no scarf, but wearing battledress and white plimsolls.
Sam Vara,
“Why doesn’t he do everyone a favour and ship out?”
They can’t. The ironic thing about remoaners is how much they claim to be so cosmopolitan, but their status and wealth is almost entirely bound to being in the UK. Like Hutton is a known part of the UK elite. If he fucked off to Germany, he’d be nothing. Lots of hard remoaners have some wanky job in a local council that someone in Italy wouldn’t value (because they have their own local council wanky jobs).
What a fabulous life story, and it wouldn’t be possible nowadays.
Truly the Edwardian period was the peak of human civilization.
+1 Jason
Great post Jason.
Another thanks to Jason.
‘Truly the Edwardian period was the peak of human civilization.’
Agreed. Back then the West had a sense of purpose and self-confidence. Sadly that civilization died in the supernova that was WW1, since which we have been living in the cooling embers which the currently growing woke culture aims to displace entirely.
Jason – splendid
@ Tim
Not a failed bond salesman – Will Hutton was an equity salesman; irritating but not a total failure because he was working with/for one of the best research team. Needless to mention that the other equity salesmen from P&D that I encountered were better.
Dad’s Army mocked the humanity of a group of mostly older men–but it also acknowledged that they were brave men who would have died defending the line from the Pier to the Novelty Rock Emporium if need be.And taken some invaders with them.
That is why it was a great comedy–it had respect for as well as laughter at its subjects.
I bet they wouldn’t have pissed their pants about a bad winter flu either.