Plan B Forum

Labour’s refusal to say Germany started the First World War makes them unfit for office, Boris Johnson said today.



The London Mayor condemned the party’s education spokesman Tristram Hunt for claiming it was ‘crass’ and ‘ugly’ to pin the blame for the Great War on Germany.

It marks an escalation in the political row over how Britain should mark this year’s centenary of the outbreak of the conflict in 1914.

Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove last week attacked the left-wing academics for fuelling myths about the First World War, accusing shows like Blackadder of belittling Britain and clearing Germany of blame.

Mr Hunt yesterday accused Mr Gove of trying to use the WWI centenary to ‘sow political division’, condemning ‘ugly’ and ‘crass’ attacks by the Conservatives.

He wrote in The Observer: ‘Whether you agree or disagree, given the deaths of 15 million people during the war, attempting to position 1918 as a simplistic, nationalistic triumph seems equally foolhardy, not least because the very same tensions re-emerged to such deadly effect in 1939.’

Mr Hunt, an historian who was elected to the Commons in 2010, said that the case put forward by Mr Gove, Max Hastings and Fritz Fischer that the conflict ‘was a necessary act of resistance against a militaristic Germany bent on warmongering and imperial aggression’ overlooked internal opposition to Kaiser Wilheim II.

But Mr Johnson hit back today, accusing Mr Hunt of ‘talking total twaddle’, adding: ‘If Tristram Hunt seriously denies that German militarism was at the root of the First World War, then he is not fit to do his job, either in opposition or in government, and should resign. If he does not deny that fact, he should issue a clarification now.’

Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Johnson added: ‘It is a sad but undeniable fact that the First World War – in all its murderous horror – was overwhelmingly the result of German expansionism and aggression.

‘That fact is, alas, not one that the modern Labour Party believes it is polite to mention.’

Downing Street appeared to back Mr Johnson today, insisting Britain 'should not be afraid' to make clear why it needed to stand up to German aggression.

rubato wrote:Lacking a real issue causing material loss or measureable hardship and for which he has a useful fix to propose, and thus actually govern and make the world a better place, BJ drags out a dog and pony show to entertain the claque.

"Your momma so fat she ... "


yrs,
rubato

rubato wrote:So you think this is the highest and best thing for someone in government to expend time and effort on? Not only his own time but that of all the others he tries to draw into this?

rubato wrote: And that is an obviously cogent point directed at Boris Johnson, and not one attacking another poster. As two of you have done yet again.





Yrs,
Rubato

Lacking a real issue...BJ drags out a dog and pony show...