A Kammic interlude

Oliver Kamm can be very funny at times:

One other reason militating against an anti-nuclear trend in public opinion is - to be blunt about it - the nature of the anti-nuclear cause. I remarked earlier this week on the oddity that the chairman of CND, Kate Hudson, leads an organisation supposedly committed to anti-nuclear policies while she is herself a member of the Communist Party of Britain. I did point this out when I debated with Ms Hudson on Sky News a couple of days ago, and will do so again in any future encounters. The Party does, after all, declare its solidarity with North Korea, so is unlikely to be quite as exercised as I believe it ought to be by the prospect of nuclear weapons under the control of a vicious, corrupt and murderous totalitarian regime.

Here is Ms Hudson writing (last May in the newsletter of the Socialist Campaign Group) of the "supposed threats posed by Iran and North Korea". And here she is last November addressing the Communist University of Britain (not - amazingly - an educational institution but a caucus organised by Ms Hudson's party) alongside one Keith Bennett of the Korea Friendship and Solidarity Campaign. The Korea with which Bennett is friendly is the one you would expect. In 2000, he was the author of a stirring "Letter to Comrade Kim Jong Il on the Anniversary of the Passing of Comrade Kim Il Sung", which you can read here:

While recalling President Kim Il Sung’s tireless patriotic and internationalist efforts for the reunification of the country, the participants acclaimed with great joy and enthusiasm, the successful North-South Summit held in your capital city of Pyongyang last month, as well as the historic Joint Declaration signed by yourself and President Kim Dae Jung. We take this opportunity to once again congratulate you on these events, which we regard as tribute to the correct and far-sighted policies and principles laid down by President Kim Il Sung, and also as a vivid manifestation of your tireless and energetic leadership and wise guidance, that has successfully steered the ship of state in the DPRK through unprecedented trials and ordeals, so that a bright new vista has now come into view, shining clearly over the horizon and bringing a characteristic broad smile to the ever radiant image of President Kim Il Sung.

By bringing to the attention of Sky's viewers the ideological affiliations of the chairman of CND I naturally implied no value judgement upon them. I just thought they were interesting, which is why I'll keep mentioning them.

Please follow the link and read the whole thing - he is one of the most effective advocates of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent.