Article 5

President Trump said yesterday that the key component of the NATO treaty - Article 5 - "depends on your definition...there's numerous definitions of Article 5, right?"

This of course is heresy to Western politicians and media, who have always assumed that the definition is clear that "an attack on one of us will be met by all the rest coming to our defence militarily". I recently listened to a podcast produced by Deborah Haynes for Sky News called The Wargame. There are five episodes and the scenario of an attack by Russia on the UK is acted out by a number of recently active politicians - Ben Wallace as Prime Minister, Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary, Amber Rudd as Home Secretary, Jim Murphy as Chancellor and others - and military experts. They meet in one room and a group representing Russia in other. Action takes place in real time.

The scenario starts with an attack on the Murmansk naval base in Northern Russia, probably by Chechen rebels but perhaps even by the Russians themselves. Russia of course accuses the Brits of doing it and threatens reprisals. And so on. Once Russian ships fire missiles at us, we naturally assume article 5 will be evoked and the Americans, French, Germans will weigh in with their planes, ships and special forces. But no. The American President calls on both sides to stop their "aggressive" actions. Eventually the Norwegians and Poles offer some kind of air support. And that's it.

I'm not going to bore you with anything more about the podcast except to say that it has (political?) agendas which become apparent:

• The UK's military is woefully weak
• Article 5 isn't worth the paper it's written on

To be fair, Haynes says right from the start that the situation has a 1% chance of actually happening. So we can take it with a pinch of salt, or we can consider the "truth" it exposes.

Let's have a look at the actual text of Article 5:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

So it's "each of them...will assist...by taking...such action as it deems necessary". Not a very solid commitment. I suppose it comes down to trust. In previous US presidential incarnations there was an implicit confidence in Europe's reliance on the Americans to come to our rescue. I'm not sure there's any such confidence in the future after Trump's two terms are over; even a Democrat president might well think differently about Europe than we might imagine.

Then there's "in Europe or North America". So Iran's attack on a US base in Qatar doesn't count, nor would an attack on our aircraft carrier if it's in the Pacific, off the coast of Taiwan.

It makes you wonder whether Trump is right; it's all in the interpretation.

Shut up or suck up

How to deal with the 47th President of the United States? It's a problem national leaders have grappled with for six months now. It's gone from fawning (Starmer, Alexander Stubb) through mature assertion (Macron, Carney) to bemusement (Ramaphosa, "death, death, death") and belligerence (Zelensky, "you're gambling with World War III...it's going to be great television"). It doesn't appear to make any difference. Starmer's cringeworthy production of a letter from the King out of his pocket like a magician got us a tariff reduction to 10%. Here's how the others did:

Finland: 10% (no letter, no king)

France: 10% (no letter, definitely no king)

Canada: 25% (no letter, same king, no state visit)

South Africa: 35% (poor Cyril)

Ukraine: 10% (no letter, no punishment)

Today we saw the übermensch of cringe, Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte laying down the red carpet and prostrating (castrating?) himself on it in front of President God with this extraordinarily obsequious message:

Mr President, dear Donald,

Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, that was truly extraordinary, and something no-one else dared to do. It makes us all safer.

You are flying into another big success in The Hague this evening. It was not easy but we've got them all signed onto 5 percent!

Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world. You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.

Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.

Safe travels and see you at His Majesty's dinner!

- Mark Rutte

Ugh. Pass me the sick bucket. He gets paid €317,000 a year tax free for this bag of wind.

Hippocrates close your ears

"Do no harm" is not actually part of the 5th century BCE oath attributed to Hippocrates, which included things like swearing by (not at) the gods, living a virtuous life and avoiding surgery (because that's for surgeons). Modern day doctors, in their graduation ceremonies, probably feel that they don't fancy at least two of these so they typically (it varies by institution) swear to uphold codes of some fairly obvious ethics, including something like the aforesaid aphorism. It's reasonable for us as citizens to expect our medics to practise their trade in an ethical way.

The British Medical Association, which represents "junior doctors" (who apparently now want to be called resident doctors, who cares), called a series of strikes in 2023/24 covering 44 days of action - or perhaps we should say inaction - after having claims for a 35% pay rise rejected by the then Conservative government, which instead offered them 6% plus a lump sum, followed by increased offers, all of which were rejected by the docs. In September last year they finally settled with the Labour government for 22.3%, some backdated, some for the following year. The BBC reported that "more than 1.2 million appointments and treatments had to be cancelled because of the strikes".

Now they're back. It's reported in today's Times that Dr. Ross Nieuwouldt, the co-chair of the resident doctors' committee of the BMA said "the vast majority are excited to to go again" as the union prepares a new wave of strikes  in support of a 29% pay rise.

Now I'm not commenting on the legitimacy of these on the face of it ludicrous pay claims (how's that for not commenting?). What irks me is the morality of key public servants withdrawing their services. As a teacher, I never joined a union. My principle was that I didn't want other people speaking for me and that I personally would never have gone on strike and - as I saw it - deprived my students of my pearls of wisdom. That would have been immoral. Basically I'm not a joining person - I don't even belong to my residents' association; I only joined Cornwall Croquet Club because it was a closed shop - no pay, no play. Fair enough.

I am instinctively supportive of the concept of trades unions and I'd have to concede that over the years I benefited from pay rises negotiated by the teachers' unions with the governments of the day. I just don't want to join your club.

But teachers striking? Not for me. Junior doctors getting "excited" over forthcoming withdrawal of labour? No, do your jobs; serve the public. Do no harm.

Supermajorities

23. That's the size of the majority as the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill (also known as the "Assisted Dying Bill") passed its Third Reading in the House of Commons. Voted For: 314, Against:291, Didn't Vote: probably around 37 once you exclude the Speaker and the 7 Sinn Fein members.

I do wonder whether such a narrow victory (less than 4%) is sufficient to endorse a highly contentious change to life in the UK. I always thought that the Brexit referendum, as a constitutional issue, should have required some kind of supermajority in order to pass. Typically in constitutional matters of all kinds - the constitution of your local tennis club, for example - something like a two-thirds majority is required to succeed. It's a protection against short term changes in people's opinions, unexpected consequences and even voter persuasion/manipulation. The Assisted Dying Bill is not a constitutional issue, it doesn't change the way our country is run but it fundamentally affects an aspect of our way of life, of our culture, maybe our understanding of our humanity. Most of all, once the change is made it's extremely difficult to reverse even if the consequences prove to be perverse (as some would say of Brexit).

I have always been ambivalent about this Bill, mostly because I cannot separate my own feelings on it (which I genuinely can't anticipate) from the "greater good" arguments which seem to emphasise the benefits for perhaps small numbers of people. It's the thought that I simply don't know how this will work in practice that would have me vote against it were I an MP. That isn't to say I'm against all change; I'm happy to see fundamental (in the sense that it is almost certainly irreversible) change if there is a huge proportion of informed opinion (and therefore, in Parliament, votes) in favour.

Most of what our elected representatives vote on is transactional: increase this tax now, we can change it later if fiscal circumstances change or a new government is voted in. A majority of 1 is OK. But generational change is different and in my opinion requires much greater support. Not 100%, that's not realistic and open to manipulation but some kind of supermajority that guarantees near-permanent approval, near-certainty that this is the right thing to do and future generations of MPs will almost certainly not seek to revoke it.

There are different kinds of supermajority definitions including combinations of minimum turnout, overall majorities of those eligible to vote (this Bill would have required 326 to pass on that measure), two-thirds or three-quarter majorities. In a UK-wide referendum, for example, it would be reasonable to require the majority consent of each of the four nations for fundamental change. Ask the SNP! I don't think our politicians give sufficient consideration to the mechanics of our (unwritten) constitution. It feel like "winging it" is a British tradition that we cherish.

I just don't think 23 is enough to wing it.

St Austell to Istanbul direct

I love trains. I once had a house where there were trains at the bottom of the garden. When we first moved in the noise disturbed sleep; after about a month we no longer noticed them. These were not proper trains, they were just London suburban, carrying drones to and from dreary work. Proper trains are intercontinental.

I once dragged my family onto a train at London Victoria to begin a journey which would end in Istanbul a few days later. This was 18 or 19 years before the Channel Tunnel opened. I was probably seasick on the ferry. I had always dreamed of romantic train journeys: the Trans-Siberian Express, the Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver, the Orient Express. The most practical and least expensive option was, I decided, to go from London to Istanbul. Probably the best part of it for me was the months of planning using the Thomas Cook International Timetable, each leg of the journey meticulously planned and eventually booked, hotels in Paris, Venice and Istanbul itself, all ready for the big day. [Note: school teachers = long summer holidays].

Things don't always go as planned. If you miss the once a day sleeper train from Belgrade to Istanbul - not pre-bookable through Cook's because it was run by Bulgarian Railways and there were no signs in English in Belgrade station to show where the booking office was - you may have to adjourn to a Communist era hotel and dinner at probably the only McDonalds in the Balkans. I still have this image in my mind of waving goodbye to the train, but the following day we got our travel tickets early and eagerly awaited the train as it approached, from Berlin I think. We had not, however, got sleeper berths booked but an intrepid English-speaking co-traveller advised us to just get on the train, find a sleeper compartment and occupy it pending purchase of the berths.

We also hadn't realised that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had had some kind of tiff with the Greeks about visas so, when we got to the Yugoslavia/Greece border those without visas had to debark onto the platform and try to deal with it. Middle of the night, long queue at the visa station, only drachmae accepted, we had none of course (we're only transiting), risk of the train going without us, I did what any proper Englishman would do: ushered the family back onto the train and into our compartment with instructions never to move, queued until it was obvious that I would miss the train, got back myself, held breath until the train departed. Ticket inspector - visas? Shrug, point at watch, sorry-no-speakie-Greek, absolutely not moving, arrest us if you will. Inspector moves off, too much trouble. Sleep to Istanbul. By the time we made the return trip the politicians had sorted it out and no visa required.

I loved it all. I thought back on this when HS2 was first mooted in 2009. My dream of cross-European travel might come true; I could embark in Cornwall, where I was now living, bypass the awful London underground, sleep through the Channel Tunnel and wake up somewhere exotic like Barcelona, Prague or Athens. But no, there's no HS2 to Cornwall. And no link to the Channel Tunnel. No link to Heathrow airport. Not even a link to London termini. When I was a boy, I was very much into trainspotting (steam train era) and I used to travel across north London to somewhere called Old Oak Common where an adventurous young lad could find a viewing point to see the trains going in and out of London Paddington; the iconic locomotives of the Great Western Railway.

But Old Oak Common was where HS2 would stop, after which travellers would have to get a bus - maybe even a horse-drawn carriage - into London.

HS2 was never designed to go anywhere interesting. Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds - who wants to go there? At least go to Edinburgh, Holyhead, Penzance, Inverness, York - places worth visiting.

Who wants high speed anyway? Classic rail travel is leisurely, taking in the scenery of places you haven't been to before and would love to come back to; not Birmingham. Whilst sipping a glass of cheap plonk.

18 years ago, after my elder son's wedding in Sydney, Australia, I traversed the continent on a 3 day train trip from Sydney to Perth. 

(I know, it's faded with time and the Cornish sun)

Desert all the way but some interesting side trips including to a Kalgoorlie gold mine. Flew back to Adelaide where I joined the Ghan train to Darwin via Alice Springs. Scenery, glass of Aussie Shiraz.

If Britain actually wanted un Grand Projet, as a symbol of national brilliance, openness and ingenuity, HS2 should have joined up [levelled up?] Scotland, Wales, the South West, Heathrow, London termini and linked to HS1. Pay for it all by imposing swingeing air travel taxes.

I dream that one day I'll be sitting on platform 2 at St Austell station

awaiting the arrival of the weekly Penzance to Istanbul sleeper train. £1500 return for senior citizens, plonk included. Book early, it'll be popular. See you there?

Remoralising

Zia Yusuf, the Reform UK chairman (at the time) said, in the aftermath of the party's strong showing in the recent local elections, that young people were being taught to "hate their country", they needed a "sense of pride" about the UK, as he said his party's mission would be to "remoralise" young people.

It's 30 or so years since I was a teacher, and I've never taught in a primary school, so I have no idea what pupils are taught nowadays but common sense would suggest that hating their country isn't part of it. Nor is stimulating a sense of pride in their country. More likely is that teachers are performing their duties to open their students' minds through thoughtful examination and analysis of facts.

There are two issues here. Firstly factual accuracy and context; the job of education is not to close people's minds but to present and explore in a balanced way the history of your own country, say. But there is also the hidden truth that the United Kingdom is a multiracial and multicultural society and not all of a school's pupils will regard the UK as "their" country. Is it not reasonable that young people whose families have strong Asian heritage should be encouraged to have pride in the lands of their parents as well as the land in which they were born? I suppose I should take Yusuf at his word; he didn't say pride about the UK exclusively.

But why pride at all? I'm British, having been born here of British parents, but I can't honestly say I feel proud to be British, any more than to be a European or a citizen of the world. I don't remember at school the issue of pride in my country came up at all. Maybe I missed that class; my secondary school History teacher was the most unpleasant person who ever taught me, and I failed his subject miserably.

I could talk about football here but not all my readers are interested so I'll go for cricket instead. Remember Norman Tebbit and his "cricket test"? I think it was in the 1990s that he used the phrase to suggest that it was necessary for South Asian and other immigrants to the UK to support England against, say, India in a test match. If they "failed" the test, they were insufficiently assimilated (his word, not mine).

Of course it's not unreasonable to expect immigrants to respect the culture and values of a country in which they choose to live. To learn the language, abide by both laws and customs, absorb and understand the history of their new country and, above all, integrate. Maybe inter-marry. Retain pride in both old and new heritages.

I had begun floundering here, because immigration is such a complex and treacherous issue to debate. Then along came Emma Duncan. She is a regular columnist in the Times, where she writes mostly on economic issues from - in my opinion - a centre right perspective. Today she wrote about Parallel Histories, an educational charity. She describes their teaching of controversial history using a dual-narrative methodology. A teenager states "the repeated refusal by Palestinian groups to accept the existence of Israel is a major obstacle to peace. There cannot be a negotiation when one side refuses to accept the other's existence." The student is then required to change sides and articulate contrary views: "Israel has to be accountable for its actions. Until then there will be no peace, just a surrender and the people of Palestine will never accept surrender disguised as diplomacy."

This sounds to me a better type of education than dog whistles about pride and hate.