Drone attacks reveal the problem with Iran
Never trust anything called ‘smart’
AN infallible guide in this life – and there are not many – is if you see the word “smart” linked to a governmental, bureaucratic or commercial project, avoid it like the plague. It will surely turn out to be profoundly dumb.
Not long ago we were all being told that “smart” meters would be installed in our homes to monitor every amp of electricity and every therm of gas we ever used. No more vague calculations, no more estimates, no more reading meters.
Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Life-enhancing but compulsory and that’s another word to avoid. As soon as Authority decrees that its great idea is a must you know it’s a con.
Now the roll-out of smart meters is being put back, along with the HS2 rail cock-up, until… well, whenever. In officialese that means it will slip gently down the river of time into a vague memory. As will the huge sums of our tax money frittered away. Reading the meter and filling out a form may be slow but it is accurate. Not much of that about.
WHAT on earth is going on in the Middle East? You might respond, “Who cares?” But alas we all depend on that seething cauldron of hatred and instability. Almost every drop of oil and therm of gas we import comes from there.
Actually, we have a hundred years of free energy beneath our feet in shale oil but we cannot drill for it because this offends the luvvies. The USA, also endowed with shale gas, has turned herself from a massive importer to a net exporter of energy which is why she is prospering and we are not.
We are told it was the Houthis of Yemen who destroyed half the Saudi oil reserves with pinpoint drone and missile attacks and sent our petrol prices towards outer space. So who the hell are the Houthis?
Well, they are a tribe and a sect of Islam that occupies north Yemen and have been at war with the Yemeni government for half a dozen years. Why? Don’t ask, it’s too obscure to explain. As with all civil wars, each side has its supporters. The official government has Saudi Arabia pouring in the finances and arms. But they have not won because Houthis are backed by Iran. So far, so remote.
Then a few days ago an entire fleet of ultramodern drones sweep in, delivering cruise missiles with deadly accuracy at a dozen refining centres in Saudi oilfields. So much production is destroyed and lost that the prices go up at your local petrol station. And the Houthis claim it was all their doing.
Now the Saudis have collected SOME pharmaceutical firms spend time and money creating emetics to enable you to empty your stomach. Don’t bother – just flick through Theresa May’s resignation honours list. Every talentless jobsworth she ever employed to create the capitulation to Brussels that Boris is trying to reverse, or at least mitigate, is in there. If you insist on reading it, do not face upwind. You might soil your waistcoat. This whole abuse of the honours system should be discontinued. Let’s stick to people who endow charities to help the suffering, or cure cancer. Stuff like that. the remnants of the missiles and tracked their flight patterns. The hardware could not conceivably have been manufactured or even operated by the tribal warriors of Houthi-land who could no more have been behind the attack than the idea that if someone is testing atom bombs in the Aran Islands it must be the IRA.
The trouble with Iran is that it UNLIKE David Cameron I never had an Etonian education but I at least have an Oxford English Dictionary. It tells you the meaning of words. Dear David has just rebuked Boris Johnson (same academy) for firing 21 “loyal” Tory MPs from the fold.
A loyal MP, if forbidden by deepest moral tenet to side with his own party in a crucial Commons vote, will take the day off, stumble on the stairs or in some other way abstain. These 21 deliberately voted with the crypto-communist Jeremy Corbyn and the quite dippy Jo Swinson, left, of the Lib Dems. “Loyal” MPs do not vote against their party and its huge-majority leader.
Still on words, some of us are having problems with the phrase “Liberal Democrat” in the same breath with Ms Swinson. In democracy the fairly sought and legal viewpoint of the clear majority shall prevail. That was how slavery was abolished, how women got the vote, though a passionate minority opposed both.
But for Ms Swinson the best government is by a privileged and enlightened minority including, of course, herself. I’ve got a Jack Russell with a better grasp of democracy than that lot.
has two governments: the official one and the Revolutionary Guards Corps, a parallel government with its own non-national army, navy, air force, special forces, intelligence agents and arms industry. It is also completely out of control and rabidly spreads terrorism and attacks tankers, including ours, in international waters.
Surely Tehran cannot complain if RGC facilities experience some terribly regrettable accidents? We too could just throw up our hands in well-simulated bewilderment.
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THE police, on instructions, are now interrogating the fire service leaders whose colleagues put their lives on the line the night the Grenfell Tower incinerated, killing 72 residents. The mistake (and it was a mistake) was to tell them to stay put instead of evacuate. Still unmentioned is the clown who ordered the building to be covered in highly inflammable cladding. Of course, he/she was a bureaucrat and the establishment looks after its own.