A good video on the women who flew military aircraft in Britain during WWII. Title is a little misleading, lots of airplane types other than Spitfires were involved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez81N-YFGtM
Britain
“London is above all a metropolis of merchandise.”
London has never been planned. Beside other eighteenth-century capitals, London is remarkable for the freedom with which it developed. It is the city raised by private, not by public, wealth; the least authoritarian city in Europe. Whatever attempts have been made to overrule the individual in the public interest, they have failed. Elizabeth and her Stuart successors tried bluntly to stop any expansion whatever. They failed. Charles II and his pet intellectuals tried to impose a plan after the Great Fire. They failed. Nearly every monarch in turn projected a great Royal Palace to dominate at least part of his capital. All failed until George IV conspired with Nash to cheat Parliament into rebuilding Buckingham House, scoring no triumph in the process. The reasons for all this are embedded deep in England’s social and political history. London is one of the few capitals where church property and church interests have not been an overriding factor; where Royal prestige and prerogative in building matters have been set at naught; where defense has never, since the Middle Ages, dictated a permanent circumvallation to control the limits of development. London is above all a metropolis of merchandise. The basis of its building history is the trade cycle rather than the changing ambitions and policies of rulers and administrators. The land speculator and the adventuring builder have contributed more to the character of the Georgian city than the minister with a flair for artistic propaganda, or the monarch with a mission for dynastic assertion.
From Georgian London, by John Summerson
In the introduction Summerson engages in some classic English understatement: “This book originated in a series of of lectures prepared for the Courtauld Institute in 1939, but not delivered owing to the turn of events.” He then mentions that he was unable to finish the book during the war: “The whole period has, of course, been somewhat unpropitious for a book of this sort. The subject matter has been bombed from time to time and any papers, plans and drawings of whose existence I was aware have been totally inaccessible.”
Helen Szamuely
We learned belatedly of Helen Szamuely’s passing.
Helen was a historian, an English patriot — a founder of what was to become the Brexit movement, a researcher, literary critic, public intellectual and political commentator and prolific writer.
The Telegraph‘s obituary is a bit harsh (perhaps payback for deserved slights) but gives some background. Richard North, Helen’s long-term collaborator on the great EUReferendum blog, has kind and interesting remarks about Helen, and a video of Helen speaking, here. Richard’s son Pete shares thoughtful reminiscences about Helen here. She was prominent in London conservative political and intellectual circles but those of us “across the pond” had to make do with her online presence. I wish I had met her in person.
Helen wrote or contributed to numerous blogs. Besides EUReferendum the Chicago Boyz blogroll includes Conservative History Journal and Your Freedom and Ours and perhaps one or two others I’ve overlooked. She was also active on Facebook, Twitter and who knows where else on social media. Lex and I invited her to contribute to this blog and she very generously and cheerfully did so over the years. She was brilliant and erudite with a wide range of interests which she was always ready to discuss. I will miss her.
RIP, Aleha HaShalom. Our condolences to Helen’s daughter, Katharine.
—-
Lex adds:
Very sad. There was a period of many years, until recently, where I was in almost daily communication with Helen, as part of a group that included James C. Bennett. Helen was a brilliant, opinionated, sometimes prickly, deeply-learned, patriotic, liberty-loving woman. She was a strong and early proponent of Britain leaving the EU. She was right, she was way ahead of her time, and I am glad she lived to see PM May sign the notice of withdrawal. I considered Helen a real friend, despite never meeting in person, and it is sad that I never will now. Just on my current Gmail account, I have 1,879 email threads including Helen going back to 2005. She was a big presence, for me and for many others. Rest in peace, Helen. We are still here, pushing for all the things you believed in and fought for.
[. . .]
Once, early in my correspondence with Helen I asked “By the way, is your name pronounced SHAMwelly?” She responded: “No, it’s a Hungarian name, so the sz is pronounced s. The Poles pronounce things the wrong way round.”
Seth Barrett Tillman: This Is Not A Hung Parliament (with addendum)
This is not a hung (UK) Parliament. When Parliament meets a majority of those voting will vote for the Tory leader (although by that time PM May have stepped down).
With 649 of 650 seats declared at this juncture (10 AM BST, June 9, 2017), the Tories have 318 seats.
[. . .]
That leaves the Tory leader (Prime Minister May or her successor) with a 318 to 314 vote on a no confidence motion and a majority of 4.
QED: No hung parliament. And did I mention that DUP, on which the Tory Government is likely to depend, as a practical matter, is proBrexit. What a time to be alive!
British People Need Guns
https://www.funker530.com/footage-london-cops/
Solid work by the cops in London. Once the coppers show up the jihadis are dead dirt in seconds.
Notably the terrorist idiots were wearing fake suicide-bomb vests. The cops closed with them and killed them at close range without regard to their own safety.
But the cops cannot be everywhere. When seconds count, even with the best of intentions, the police will always be minutes away.
In the USA we have, thank God, the Second Amendment. These dirtbags would have run into citizens carrying firearms, not pint glasses or bare fists.
The Brits need to gun up.
There will be lots more like this.