Rum, sodomy and the lash and Michael Fallon

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Michael Fallon has resigned as defence secretary. As far as one can tell, it is because he fears further allegations of sexual impropriety will surface.

But that is not what he said in his resignation statement:

"I accept that in the past I have fallen below the high standards that we require of the Armed Forces that I have the honour to represent."

That is nonsense and for two reasons.

First, we are not a Central American republic. The defence minister is not a member of the Armed Forces bound by their code: he or she is a civilian.

Second, the defence minister does not "represent" the Armed Forces. He or she is over the Armed Forces and may well have to impose spending cuts or reforms they do not care for.

As proof, I give you Winston Churchill who, as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1913, was

having trouble with some of his admirals at a strategy meeting. One of them accused him of having impugned the traditions of the Royal Navy, provoking the reply: "And what are they? They are rum, sodomy and the lash."

To return to the first point, Fallon did not resign because he has fallen below the standards we require of the Armed Services.

Fallon resigned because he has fallen below the standards we require of our politicians.

He should have admitted this in his statement tonight.

It is 25 years since the Berlin Wall was torn down

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The fall of the Berlin Wall is the greatest political event of my lifetime, but what lessons should we draw from it?

An article in Foreign Policy by Melvyn Leffler suggests that it would be quite wrong to see it as the triumph of capitalism and the American way.

He writes:

We need, first, to acknowledge the role of the human rights revolution and the agency of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like Helsinki Watch, the Workers Defense Committee (KOR) in Poland, and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, and many others. These groups, though diverse in ideology and tactics, all clamored for change, openness, free expression, individual opportunity, religious liberty, and human dignity. 

Historians are now coming to appreciate the energy and agency of these NGOs in the fall of communism. These groups championed the Helsinki Agreements of 1975, the accords signed by 35 European countries - communist, non-communist, and neutral, as well as the United States and Canada - that outlined the principles to guide East-West relations, including economic, scientific, cultural, and technological cooperation. They inscribed the obligation of all the signatories to respect fundamental rights such as freedom of thought, religion, and conscience. 

NGOs arose throughout Europe, east and west, to champion the right to travel, to promote cultural exchanges, to support family reunification, and, most of all, to hold governments accountable for imprisoning dissenters, discriminating against minorities, stifling civil society, thwarting the rights of workers to organize, or infringing on the freedom of religion or the press. These NGOs worked tirelessly to shame transgressors. They nurtured transnational contacts, and their mutual support sustained dissidents throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. As much as anything, this led to the downfall of the repressive communist regimes.

He also pays tribute to a generation of political leaders: George Bush the Elder, Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterand. (Fairly or not, Margaret Thatcher does not get a mention.)

Today, in a time of multiple international crises, it is hard to have confidence in our leaders. Has there ever been a more lacklustre pair than Philip Hammond and Michael Fallon in charge of foreign affairs and defence?

And the Conservative Party, which had an honourable record of speaking out against tyranny in Eastern Europe now seeks to placate precisely those who are infuriated by the free movement of people in Europe.