David Cameron re-writes History.....

Posted July 22, 201014 yr

David Cameron criticised over World War II history slip

Source - BBC News 22/7/10

David Cameron has been criticised after mistakenly saying the UK was the "junior partner" in the allied World War II fight against Germany in 1940.

He made the historical slip, neglecting the fact that the US had yet to enter the war, on the second day of his first trip to the US as prime minister.

Labour's David Miliband called it a "slight", while a veterans' group said it could "alienate" former troops.

Mr Cameron referred to the situation in 1940 during an interview with Sky News in which he was asked about the changing nature of the "special relationship" with the US and his meeting with President Obama on Tuesday.

"I think it is important in life to speak as it is and the fact is that we are a very effective partner of the US but we are the junior partner," he said.

"We were the junior partner in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis."

However, the US officially declared war on Germany on 11 December 1941, shortly after Hitler launched hostilities against the US and four days after the Pearl Harbor attacks which drew the US into conflict with Japan.

Mr Miliband, the shadow foreign secretary, said the prime minister's comments had been misguided.

He said: "1940 was our finest hour. Millions of Britons stood up and gave their lives to defeat fascism.

"We were not a junior partner. We stood alone against the Nazis. How can a British prime minister who bangs on about British history get that so wrong? It is a slight, not a slip."

Terry Burton, president of the Association for Veterans of Foreign Wars, said Mr Cameron's comments were "rather inappropriate".

"It is going to alienate a lot of veterans. He should consider his words more carefully. The UK had been fighting the war a long time before Pearl Harbor," he said.

BBC political correspondent Vicki Young said the "pretty controversial comments" were a reflection of Mr Cameron's strategy to ease the fixation on the concept of the special relationship between the UK and US.

"He was trying to be realistic about Britain's position in the world, but it does seem to have backfired in this case," she said.

Before leaving Washington DC for New York, Mr Cameron laid a wreath at the US military's Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

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Historical innacuracy coupled with nauseating sycophancy.... Can you actually think of a worse combination.....? A couple of days back, Cameron's making big talk of being a bit more critical and less sentimental about our "Special Relationship" with the US.. Great, I thought, I still think you're a tit, but it actually sounds like you're someone who's gonna actually say no to America every now and again, hey, he's even talking about a time-table for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.........

ERRRRRRRRRRRRR..

One meeting later, and Cameron's gushing like an adolescent cheerleader who's just got a date to the Prom with the high school Star Quarterback.... Embarrassing just isn't the fukkin' word for this..... Yeah, cheers Dave, for just giving the Americans credit for something when really most of the actual work to defeat the Nazis was done at the Battle of Britain and on the Eastern Front where Hitler's army were fought to a bloody standstill by the Russians during the hellish winter, and at Stalingrad, Hitler's failure to take air superiority over our skies during the Battle of Britain and his fatal tactical error in attacking Russia during the winter were the key events which led to his eventual defeat... NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the Americans mate, they came along and supplied the bloody coffee and donuts when the actual three course dinner had already been prepared..... Winston Churchill must seriously be spinning in his grave today. This is the sort of rubbish you expect from some ignorant 14-year old high school student who can barely read or write, not from a British PM who went to Eton, Oxford, etc, and who's banging on about Britain and how it's important for us to remember our past, blah, blah, blah (fill in the rest of the soundbite yourself), he probably thinks that it was Americans who cracked the Enigma code as well after watching "U571", and also probably reckons there were NO BRITISH OR BLACK AMERICAN soldiers at all on D-Day after watching "Saving Ryan's Privates" or whatever that fanciful Spielberg revisionist crap was called..... I mean, seriously, if this is what an education in Eton gets you, then, I'd rather the next PM be educated in a rough comprehensive in North London or graduates from the University of Life.....

But this is Cameron all over - a Spin Merchant, a "master" of the Soundbite.... History however is NOT about spinning or putting soundbites onto things, and if you're gonna start quoting bits of history to make some silly political point, you BETTER be sure of your ground or you're going to come unstuck.... Cameron says he made the comment about "junior partner" in reference to the current situation with the War on Terror... So, errrr, why even mention WW2 at all Dave...? Why not just say "We are the Junior Partner in regards to Afghanistan and Iraq", full stop... You see, simple innit...? And doesn't run the risk of insulting every British veteran who ever fought against Hitler and Mussolini.....