At elections held in October 1954 the candidates of the Communist-controlled National Front, which comprises the Socialist Unity, the Liberal Democractic, The Christian Democratic, the Democratic Peasant and the National Democratic Parties, obtained ninety nine percent of the votes. Electors voted publicly for the single list of candidates by placing it, unmarked, in a ballot box.
One of the reasons I like reading old books – here The Penguin Dictionary of Politics, 1957 – is that you pick up the sort of detail unlikely in more modern productions. Also, a certain dryness in the description of election practices.
Another piece of history about to rhyme, if not outright repeat itself.
Der Onkel Walter, he knew how to run things!
None of this namby pamby liberals splitting coalitions in those days.
Mind you, elections in modern Britain are a bit like that. However you vote, the communists get in.
Tim, the past is a different country and even 1975 is a faraway distant land:
LONDON, May 21—Agreement has been reached on all but minor details to set up production of Rolls‐Royce Spey jet engines in China, according to reliable reports in the aviation industry here.
Special to The New York Times
No confirmation of the reports was available tonight from Rolls‐Royce (1971), Ltd., the nationalized aircraft‐engine manufacturer that was formed after the collapse and breakup of the private company. The contract was said to be for many millions of pounds.
Under the terms, a production line for the Spey would be set up in China, with a view to the ultimate production of entire engines. But it is envisaged that it may take as long as 10 years before the Chinese will be able to dispense with British instruction and supervision.
In 1975, the British government thought it was a good idea to sell advanced military jet engines – *and* all the machinery and knowledge they would need to build them – to Chairman Mao (!). The Spey only entered service in Britain 9 years prior.
There were concerns tho:
Objections by the British Government that such a contract would impair trade relations with the Soviet Union have been overcome.
Prime Minister Wilson announced last February on his lreturn from Moscow that he had concluded an agreement to provide the Soviet Government with credit facilities of £950‐million (about $2.19‐billion) over five years to finance the purchase of British goods—at an extremely favorable rate of interest to the Soviet Union of 7 to 7½ per cent.
“It’s ok to sell Chairman Mao jet engine technology, because the Red Commie Russians said so”
Changed days eh?
East Germans called their elections paper folding for that reason. They were allowed to make amendments to the pre printed list but they had to be done in front of
partyelection officials. For obvious reasons not many made amendments.That’s how the justified the second D in DDR.
Any country that feels the need to include the word “Democratic” in its national title isn’t.
Chris – what about countries that have advanced degrees, such as Dr. Congo?
Steve: UK has previous on this.
In the air over Korea, the US pilots (flying Sabres with US clones of RR jet engines) encountered MIG-15s, powered by Soviet clones of the same engine, helpfully given to them by Mr Gannex Raincoats. Definitely not a KGB agent, oh no.
– Changed days eh?
Yes, in those days it was the cringe left that wanted us to bend over for Russia and China.
Now it’s the cringe right.
OT
Tim, I don’t know whether I’m the only one here suffering from this but I find your site has become extremely slow and I’m constantly getting kicked off with 503 errors – which seem to be too many requests for missing pages – generated by the Wordfence WordPress plugin. Happened at about the same time I updated macOS to Sequoia 15.1. Same behaviour in all browsers. Another ancient iMac running 10.15.7 seems fine, so it can’t be the way I’ve strapped down the router..
– Happened at about the same time I updated macOS to Sequoia 15.1. Same behaviour in all browsers. Another ancient iMac running 10.15.7 seems fine . . .
No probs here on PC or Apple (non Sequoia). Seems like you’ve identified the likely culprit.
I avoid early adoption.
More OT
I’m seeing online chatter that there might be some bloody chickens coming home for Starmer.
@PJF
Excellent poultry news – anything more specific to hand?
I’ve thought for a while that too many of his “top team” seem to have a free hand without any significant show of support from their immediate colleagues: who is vocal in backing Phillipson’s education lunacy, mad Ed’s eco nightmare or the lunatic budget from Reeves? Why is Lammy still in post after Trump’s election? Every one of these people seems to rule their fiefdom as independent freelancers so what gives them this degree of latitude for remarkably expensive, misguided and radical policies?
The odd facts were also more likely to have been researched, instead of being scraped off various “weird but true” websites. — or ChatGP.
Well, it makes a difference from the Prime Minister running everything. If you have a Housing policy question, you should be asking the Housing Minister, not the bloody PM.
– anything more specific to hand?
As far as I can make out there are gagging orders (even for MPs) so I’m reluctant to put anything on Tim’s blog.
And I’m not on Xwitter so I’m only seeing people talking about things rather than seeing the things.
It’s related to a port that isn’t particularly southerly.
Norm
I also get all sorts of strange stuff on this site.
The ads are bad enough, but a 503 is quite common, also when I tried to post something earlier today the “Post Comment” button opened the Search page.
I am on an Android 10 tablet. I dont often use this on a PC – not noticed anything strang there.
@Norm – “I updated macOS to Sequoia 15.1. Same behaviour in all browsers.”
I’m running Sequoia 15.1 on my Mac Mini M1 and not getting any problems. I’m using the Chrome derivative Brave Browser Version 1.73.89 Chromium: 131.0.6778.69 (Official Build) (arm64)
« It’s related to a port that isn’t particularly southerly. »
Right, so he’s been snapped fellating The Keeper of the Wardrobe, I suppose…
Re this site I’ve had lots of weirdness, 503s and endless buffering with and without the VPN. I was running W10 64 on a PC using firefox or brave.
Last week I eviscerated the machine and installed a new motherboard, CPU and graphics card and now run W11 since when the glitches have been few – no idea how or why, though.
. . . so he’s been snapped fellating The Keeper of the Wardrobe, I suppose…
Lol, no (sorry, I missed the potential metaphor). A coastal town just north of Liverpool.
. . . eviscerated the machine and installed a new motherboard, CPU and graphics card . . .
Ah, the old “new computer in old case” game that’s available to those who bought a good power supply. Hope you’ve de-spyed Win11. Bloody operating systems are malware nowadays.
Hmm, my PC is 12 years old and I quite fancy a high spec small-form-factor build challenge.
Re southern ports as it were, farage makes some interesting points:
https://t.me/robinmg/39249
The accusations have been gainsayed by community notes and they are generally well informed, but Elon’s asked for them to be checked.
Aargh. At least Xwitter lets you see individual posts. Bloody walled gardens . . .
PJF – Yes, in those days it was the cringe left that wanted us to bend over for Russia and China.
Now it’s the cringe right.
Speaking of cringe, how are you getting on with being hyper-emotionally invested in a particularly nasty and destructive war between Russia and Little Russia?
I’ve been wondering about you guys (middle aged British blokes who are permanently furious at Russia for existing) and when the programming might break in the face of cruel reality. Seems like the Americans and even the Krauts have caught on, leaving just the Brits and yappy little Baltic mini-countries barking at Putin? The gap between the extremely aggressive rhetoric and the almost nonexistent martial capabilities of the British state would be humiliating… if they were capable of self awareness.
Was it worth 500,000 Ukrainian dead, and over £200 billions, just to see Russia get bigger and stronger? Seriously, has this catastrophe taught you anything at all? Or are you just gonna keep going “huhuhuh… Putler bumboys”? I can think of at least 10 urgent lessons from NATO’s failure to defend Ukraine, things the West could do immediately to strengthen its hand. But as you know nobody listens to Steve.
I see our disgraced former prime minister Boris Johnson clambered up a pyramid of Ukrainian skulls and severed limbs recently to similarly accuse antiwar Americans of being homosexually gay for Vladimir Putin. Convincing! I’m sure President Trump will take that on board.
Hope you’ve de-spyed Win11. Bloody operating systems are malware nowadays.
Windows 11 is basically malware. I’m increasingly annoyed at Microsoft trying to trick me into installing this privacy destroying shitware.
Remember you could just buy an operating system and let it work for 10 years? I just want the modern equivalent of Amiga Workbench 2.1
TtC – UK has previous on this.
In the air over Korea, the US pilots (flying Sabres with US clones of RR jet engines) encountered MIG-15s, powered by Soviet clones of the same engine, helpfully given to them by Mr Gannex Raincoats. Definitely not a KGB agent, oh no.
Yarp, it was the Nene engine. Something something selling them the rope to hang us with.
But NB in 1975 the British and Chinese assumed it could take 10 years to teach China to build Western jet engines.
It actually took 30 years. This stuff is hard – see also the enormous difficulties Western countries are now having in trying to regain lost manufacturing capabilities for things that are orders of magnitude *less* complicated than jet engines. We can print money, but not weapons.
. . . how are you getting on with being hyper-emotionally invested in a particularly nasty and destructive war between Russia and Little Russia?
My cheap shot just provoked four paragraphs of frothing outburst; you’re projecting mate.
– Seems like the Americans and even the Krauts have caught on . . .
The yanks have finally (today) permitted Ukraine to use long range missiles on targets in Russia. Which most likely means UK and Frog Storm Shadows too. Not sure if Jerry will permit Taurus, but Ruskie supply lines just got longer regardless.
A pendant remarks:
The RR Nene had a centrifugal compressor. This was easy to do by scaling up a supercharger compressor, which RR knew how to do. But centrifugals were a development dead end. The J47 in the Sabre had an axial compressor, which was hard to do but had a lots more potential for the future. Other US warplanes in Korea did indeed have nene clones, but not the Sabre.
Twas Attlee’s government that gave the USSR the Nene, which they used for longer than the West did. The MiG-17s in Vietnam had nene-derived VK-1 engines. German engineers developed axials for Russia contemporaneously.
I think it’s true to say that although the Nene was one of the best jets in the immediate post-war era, the RAF never had a nene-powered warplane.
– Windows 11 is basically malware. I’m increasingly annoyed at Microsoft trying to trick me into installing this privacy destroying shitware.
It’s still possible to disable the malware aspects; the user base seem to know the OS better than Microscum.
– Remember you could just buy an operating system and let it work for 10 years?
Exactly what I did. I’d carry on with it except newer programs either won’t work with Win7 or overwhelm the hardware.
Microsoft just released the full upgrade to Windows Server 2025 mislabled as a security update for Server 2022. The chaos potential is enormous.
PJF – My cheap shot just provoked four paragraphs of frothing outburst
Ah, so it’s pointless talking to you, because you see every interaction as a zero sum game. Like talking to a defiant child.
Remember maskies and vaccine nuts? That’s you, but with a little Ukraine flag on your social media.
The yanks have finally (today) permitted Ukraine to use long range missiles on targets in Russia. Which most likely means UK and Frog Storm Shadows too. Not sure if Jerry will permit Taurus, but Ruskie supply lines just got longer regardless.
The Ghost of Kiev will be doing wheelies in the sky, lol. Making decisions based on trying to fuck over the next American government seems suboptimal to me, but it’ll be interesting to see how quickly Russia gives hypersonic missiles to the Houthis in response.
Idk what it would take to cure British warfans of their reckless obsession with getting involved in Russia’s business. Nuking London? (It’d be an improvement.)
Steve’s Russian propaganda gets worse every day.
Is that because the Ruble dropped below the 1 Ruble per US Cent barrier?
Can no longer afford the anti-delusion drugs.
🙂
The Sea Hawk had Nenes. Most British fighters used Avons in th 50s. Early jets like Vampires used Goblins
Nene was largely for export, so the UK sold it to a number of countries, not just commie ones.
Still an act of lunacy bu the Atler govt though.
. . . but with a little Ukraine flag on your social media.
I haven’t got any social media, but don’t let that stop you shouting at your straw man.
There are so many misrepresentations of my positions and demeanour that I can only conclude weed destroys the memory along with causing hallucinations.
. . . how quickly Russia gives hypersonic missiles to the Houthis . . .
The Israelis fucked the Iranian missile program so badly I doubt they’d pass them on.
JG – thanks for that. I thought it may have been because of the way I set up my DNS – I use base.doh.mullvad.net for filtered, encrypted DNS – but the 503 error message claims too many lost pages requests from a bot. I was wondering whether the current WebKit (or Spotlight/Siri) was being misinterpreted as a bot by Wordfence. Obviously it can’t be.
JG –
“The Ukraine war is a horrific catastrophe”
“Huhuhuh Russian propaganda! XD XD XD”
You’d think being on the same side as Alex Soros would give you pause. But that would require you to think. “¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
Biden trying to poison the well before DJT. I sincerely hope Putin doesn’t rise to the bait and holds tight until January when he will get the deal that was agreed in 2022 before BoJo put the mockers on it and led to a couple of hundred thousand Ukrainians and Russians dead or maimed.
. . . hope Putin doesn’t rise to the bait . . .
The undersea fiber link between Finland and Germany has just been cut, though it’s probably George Soros in his scuba mankini.
. . . until January when he will get the deal . . .
It’s possible Trump will reward Putin and throw the post WWII order under the bus, but he’s a Churchill fan and might not want a Chamberlain rap. We’ll soon see what he’s made of.
Addolff – it’s possible there’s no deal to be done with Russia. Agreement would require a degree of faith on both sides that’s in short supply after Angela Merkel boasted that the previous Minsk Agreements were a ruse to give the West time to arm Ukraine.
The Russians will also be aware that whatever Donald Trump promises might be reversed as soon as he leaves office, assuming the US government obeys him at all.
At the moment, the West is still claiming , without any evidence, that there are 10,000 North Koreans in Kursk, ready to attack Ukrainians any day now you’ll see. So the Russian government might well just keep fighting until they have what they want, and “agree” to it later.
The big fear in Kiev, London and DC isn’t that Ukraine will lose the war, because the war is lost beyond any hope of recovery. They just don’t want to be caught without a chair when the music stops. Fear of crystallising losses is a powerful motivator, also known as sunk cost fallacy.
PS – despite Alex Soros creaming his pants at the latest escalation, read the fine print according to the New York Times:
The officials said that while the Ukrainians were likely to use the missiles first against Russian and North Korean troops that threaten Ukrainian forces in Kursk, Mr. Biden could authorize them to use the weapons elsewhere.
The North Koreans almost certainly don’t exist but never mind that for now. Notice the world “could”.
While the officials said they do not expect the shift to fundamentally alter the course of the war, one of the goals of the policy change, they said, is to send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them.
So it won’t change the outcome of the war, but it might terrify those imaginary North Koreans into submission. Hmm.
So what do? Ukraine and the British government still hope to provoke the US into fighting Russia directly, that’s the purpose of the Korean Scare and demands for “permission” to strike deep into Russia. (Permission here means active collaboration, Ukraine cannot independently fire ATACMS or Scalp, hence Russia’s threat that this would make NATO a direct party to the war).
If it seems stupid to risk WW3 over Ukraine, remember WW1 started over Serbia. Nobody wants WW3, but if you asked people in 1914 if they wanted a massive conflagration that would destroy Europe as they knew it, they also would have said no.
Strangely, the possibility of global thermonuclear war doesn’t seem to bother the British establishment even slightly. They’re too busy pretending to be Churchill.
PJF said:
“I’m seeing online chatter that there might be some bloody chickens coming home for Starmer.”
If it’s this one, it’s now been denied in the Mail.
I’m no longer sure whether that makes it more likely to be true, or less.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14095795/keir-starmer-father-southport-killer-axel-rudakubana-asylum-case-downing-street.html
@ RichardT
Yes, that was the one. It looks like there are some other rumours about the Southport day itself but I have no details. (probably even more dangerous to share, anyway)
I wonder whether the drongo who murdered those kids could be exiled to Rwanda. He is, after all, the son of Rwandan immigrants.
No doubt the Rwandan government would require a suitable bribe. But I’m sure they’d have no hesitation at all in giving him the chop if he made a nuisance of himself.