608: As I Suspected

I watched, the other night, Jeremy Paxman's beautifully presented programme entitled The War Machine.

I do not feel that the quality of the presentation was matched by the content.  There was little about the higher direction of the war, although Lloyd George received honourable mentions for his successful  efforts in increasing production of munitions.

The majority of the programme, to my jaundiced eyes at least carried a distinctly left-of-centre flavour, with far too much time for example being given to a pair of frightful Scottish communists (well they sounded like communists) who attempted to justify the strike action taken in Glasgow by shipyard workers in 1915.

As readers here know, I consider that the First World War was a terrible mistake, but the country having become involved in the war, then strike action (and there was plenty in the 1939-1945 conflict too) is disgraceful.

Anyone who can be bothered to read Corelli Barnett (Audits of War etc.) will discover that it was stone-age individuals like those two losers who largely contributed to the destruction of the ship-building industry in this country - and not only ship-building.  We are seeing the same sort of Luddite attitude today in the strikes on the London Underground; I despair of this country sometimes.

I still have a sort of forlorn hope that subsequent programmes will a) intelligently consider grand strategy, b)not spend their entire allotted time on hoi polloi and c) not recycle the usual rubbish that all the generals were hopelessly incompetent.  I also hope for NO MUSIC; the BBC insists in its historical programmes in adding music everywhere.  Why?

Until the next time