Many people disagreed with Kent’s views, but this was an era when they would engage in courteous debate. He not only appeared in the press, but also gave talks to universities and schools including St George’s Ascot and the Judd School in Tonbridge. “I used to talk to trainee officers at the army staff college at Camberley and we had very reasonable and interesting discussion,” he said. “It annoys me when people assume that you must be a lunatic or a Russian spy.”
Indeed he did used to give talks. One at Downside.
After which I asked him “You said in your speech that war is outdated. If this is so then why is it that there’s been, on average, one a year since 1945?”
His answer “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question”.
Pity that no one ever asked him about East German connections
He may not have been a direct Soviet/DDR spy but he was certainly their useful idiot.
Wasn’t stuff found in the Stasi archives revealing that they supplied funds to CND?
Amongst the oddities of pronunciation that besets English is the fact that ‘Kent’ as in the county is pronounced phonetically,l whereas in a surname, the ‘Ke’ sound is pronounced as ‘Ku’.
Good riddance to that traitor.
He and Ruddock used to visit the Soviet Union every year for talks with “leaders”. Funny that!
Off topic but I think worth sharing…..
I saw online a US bumper sticker.
LGBT
Underneath the letters were the words
Liberty Guns Beer Trump.
ALSO, as I’m in the sharing mood…
Late on in WWII, two German soldiers are talking
1st – if I see a plane in the sky, what’s the easiest way to identify it.
2nd – Easy. If it’s shooting at you, it’s American, if it’s taking a picture of you it’s British, if it’s on fire it’s Russian and if you don’t see a plane it’s the Luftwaffe.
“I used to talk to trainee officers at the army staff college at Camberley and we had very reasonable and interesting discussion,” he said. “It annoys me when people assume that you must be a lunatic or a Russian spy.”
Kent was notable for fallacious reasoning, so it’s no surprise that he didn’t realise that you can have a discussion with someone while assuming, cofrrectly, that they are both a lunatic and a Russian spy.
Enoch Powell (pbuh) was opposed to nukes, but was so on logical grounds. He failed to see that the whole purpose of nuclear deterrence is its inherent illogicality. Their whole purpose was that they were/are not going to be used.
I still rather fancy the idea of buying an ex-Minuteman silo stocking it with tins of spaghetti hoops and ammo and waiting for the Zombie Apocalypse.
The correct retort to an annoying question posed by a precocious grandstanding public schoolboy would be “Stupid Boy!”, or maybe “Report to the Headmaster, immediately!”
Massive cunt. I bet he was a kiddie fiddler, too.
Those of us of a certain age may remember that in the 1970s, the Soviet Union deployed over 600 SS-20 mobile intermediate-range ballistic missiles (each with three 150-kiloton warheads) to Eastern Europe in the 1970s. CND appeared entirely unable to prevent this, or to effect their withdrawal (indeed, CND seemed utterly indifferent to them…)
When NATO responded in the 1980s, by deploying BGM-109 Ground Launched Cruise Missiles, and updated the Pershing TBM to the longer-ranged and much more accurate Pershing II, protests and complaints from CND were loud and lengthy, including the fabled “peace camp” at Greenham Common where some of the GLCMs were based. Not that any double standard was in play, of course.
Yet suddenly, with the deployment of GLCM and Pershing II (both very capable systems), the USSR became extremely interested in trading away the SS-20s as part of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
A thoughtful person might note that “we’ll match your escalation, then we’re willing to negotiate downwards with you” very rapidly (GLCM and Pershing deployments began in 1983, the INF treaty was signed in 1987) removed a good four or five thousand nuclear warheads from any putative game of “Global Big Mistake III”, where pious one-sided protest achieved the square root of fµck-all.
+1 Jason
Does anyone remember seeing the news when the Tory Blue Rinse Brigade turned up at Greenham, with cake, to show support for the cause?
The Wimmin’s expression was purest “Redo From Start”.
+1 from me also Jason.
He was a Soviet/East German Agent (And an especially enthusiastic one) – as its the Times can’t see if this is mentioned in the obituary but he is therefore directly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions and untold misery globally – as well as Richard Murphy. Not a great legacy.
German joke from Normandy 1944:
If the RAF flies over we duck. If the Americans fly over everyone ducks.
P.S. CND: I always assumed it was funded with Moscow gold. You’d have to be pretty stupid not to, wouldn’t you? Are the Greens, or some of their number, funded by Putin? 100-1 on.
“Well, sir, then I don’t understand your qualifications.”
I always felt there should have been a pro-nuke guy called Clark Wayne.
Are the Greens, or some of their number, funded by Putin?
Russia has funded anti-fracking groups worldwide.
trainee officers at the army staff college at Camberley
Trainee officers at Sandhurst not the staff college. Sure, the Cambverly guys were doing a course but hardly qualified as “trainees”.
I don’t doubt that the USSR sponsored CND, that Putin sponsors the Greens. There’s plenty of accounting evidence.
No doubt we do our share too.
So a question: is it easier to subvert a government / influence a population in a low information (distrust, censorship) environment or a high information (sceptical, free press) one?
Kent lived in house overlooking Finsbury Park. Could occasionally be seen at the park café, hobnobbing with the usual wastes of space. Sanctimonious twat.
Well, I’d also assumed the USSR subsidised CND.
As for the Greens, I feel there are a number of donors. Originally perhaps the gas producers attempting to drive a stake through coal’s heart. And one imagines OPEC provides plenty of loot to stifle Western oil and gas production. You’ll have noticed the vigorous and perpetual anti=fracking campaign. Though nowadays the windmillers and solar panellists certainly also need to support those who’ll maintain and extend the subsidies. And of course I was entertained by the tale that Indonesian gas producers bribed the then governor of California to strangle the nukes. This was certainly a success story.
So I don’t think one can blame it all on poor old Puke.
Good question “So a question: is it easier to subvert a government / influence a population in a low information (distrust, censorship) environment or a high information (sceptical, free press) one?”
The high info society will have people kicking against the traces, because they can and want to show how different they are from their boring parents etc…. In the low info society, they don’t get the chance to rebel