We are a bankrupt nation, in more ways than one

While the papers are awash with the unimportant election of a House Speaker, there are battles going on for control of Now Zad, a town in Afghanistan that was a British responsibility in 2006. As in so many places in Afghanistan, British troops have been replaced by Americans who are determined to do the job properly. Our troops, despite valiant efforts, are exceptionally badly equipped and supported by the Ministry of Defence Defeat, Parliament, the media and us.

For an insight into all that is wrong with our politics today, that has lead to our love affair with money, and our ignorance of the need for Defence, I recommend a scathing account written by Nick Cohen – Waiting for the Etonians. It is a compilation of many articles written by him over the last few years. I disagree with a few of his assumptions but the articles are all well written and thought provoking.

An extract:

There were property and credit bubbles in America, Australia, much of Europe and Russia. Britain was up there with the best of them. Although everyone wanted to blame the Americans for the crash when it came – blaming Americans was what Europeans did best, after all – house prices rose faster in Britain than in the US, as did personal debt. While American household indebtedness reached 140 percent, British indebtedness grew to 169 per cent of disposable income – every £1 coming into the average home had to service £1.69 of debt.

In August 2007, Britain passed a grim landmark. Consumer debts on the form of mortgages, loans and credit card bills totalled £1.35 trillion and overtook the entire gross domestic product of the country, which stood at £1.33 trillion. To put it another way, the British owed more than the value of the output of every office, factory, farm quarry, mine and fishery in the land – and that was before economists included the immense debts of the public sector and business, which took the sum of Britain's borrowings to three times annual economic output.

We were a bankrupt nation.

See Defence of the Realm, for thorough coverage of our military fiasco.

See The Washington Post, for a Marine's view of Now Zad