Peter Hitchen's Thoughts on the Berlin Wall

I don't think this has been mentioned here before, but last week Peter Hitchens (look him up, he has lots of...things to say), wrote an article about what would have happened if the Berlin Wall had not fallen.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202094/PETER-HITCHENS-What-Berlin-Wall-didnt-fall.html

The early part of it isn't too terrible, although the fact that the Soviet Union still exists still allows Barack Obama to be elected President is unlikely. As the piece goes on, the situation in Britain becomes what can only be described as Hitchen's dreams come true, when Norman Tebbit becomes Prime Minister and the Labour Party is destroyed. Interestingly, he says that the SLD (the new opposition) only made gains in the 1996 election-presumably meaning that the tories won a 5th term(!). Domestically, the continuing cold war somehow causes the return of grammar schools as well as a return to policemen being on the beat (presumably looking for communists).

Finally, Hitchens sums up, saying that if the Berlin Wall had not fallen, the Labour party would probably have been destroted, and so maybe the Wall and the Cold War were not such bad things after all.

I would love to know what other people thought of the article.
 
I saw it too. Like you said, the first bit was fairly reasonable, but he drifted off somewhat into ideological masturbation, which is just as embarrassing to read as the normal kind is to watch.
 
Basically it's copied the premise of World War 3 The Movie only turned it into an absurd paranoid anti-Left asb scenario.

"I think the stupid Left in Britain were on the verge of being utterly defeated, largely because they still had a lingering sympathy with communism."

The only place people like this would get to write is the Mail.
 
There's no way the Labour Party was sympathetic to the SU by the mid eighties.

Hitchens is a funny one, an ex member of the Socialist Workers Party (like his brother) who has really rejected his past.
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
Obama before the Brandenburg Gate, well that's not a very good picture.
East Germany would have done something in response, like the red flags when Reagan came.
BTW, the grafity on the wall probably says something like "neither capital, nor communism"

It is very unrealistic to imagine East Germany completely locked without a new Berlin-Blokage.
A closure of the crossing point Friedrichstr. (Checkpoint Charlie was the US term) would have directly violated the right of access for US troups to the entire city of Berlin. That would have to trigger a response by US forces.

Also the idea of crushing a mass demonstration at Schönhauser Allee is a bit strange. A couple of thousand people could have easily reached the Wall from there once shooting got started.
And even though most of the opposition didn't want to leave the GDR, they probably would if faced with the occupation force using tanks and stuff.

The SED would have had to get rid of Honnecker, I don't think he was up to any strong decissions.

Anyhow, the GDR would have never holded on till 2009, to have president Obama visit the devided city.
 
It's historically illiterate in it's attitude to British politics and does indulge, as others have said, in ideological fantasising. (Although his basic thrust that a longer Cold War would have helped the Tories is true enough) But generally that is at least half the point of these sorts of articles. I've never seen an alt-hist written by a journalist which was done wholly seriously.
 
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Ugh, Peter Hitchens seems to specialise in hysterical opinion pieces of anything that he thinks the left/liberalism or any thing left of his place on the politican spectrum. Which is most people
 
Very...err... interesting.

I agree with VJ, apart from the fact the Tories would probably benefit to some extent, Hitchens is typing out of his arse.

Why would a moribund fifth(!) term Tory government repeal its own legislation?

How would CND split the Labour Party in 1990?

I do like the SLD bit though, his vague attempt at reigning in his wank by saying they do alright in the 1996 election, which also suggests that bar places like South Wales and Clydeside, Labour heartlands seats fall mostly to the still very Thatcherite Tories!

Not sure if this is better or worse than the WWIII scenario put forward in the Mail about Britain becoming a Soviet base within two days, seemingly ignoring Western Europe and not being bothered by that thing... the US Navy!
 
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