Britain Has Delusions of Grandeur, Says Former Australian PM Paul Keating

Ben Wallace and Liz Truss visited Australia over the weekend to discuss China’s influence over the Indo-Pacific region | BIANCA DE MARCHI/POOL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
THE TIMES: A former Australian prime minister has mounted a scathing attack on Britain, saying Australia’s oldest ally suffers from “delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation”.

Paul Keating, who left office in 1996, said the UK was led by a “disreputable government” and labelled Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, as “demented”.

Keating, 78, who succeeded Bob Hawke as Labor prime minister in 1991, released his statement on Sunday after Scott Morrison’s government hosted Truss and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, in Sydney as the allies work to counter China’s influence in the region.

Keating’s attack was prompted by an interview Truss gave to the Sydney Morning Herald in which she said China could replicate a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine through aggression in the Indo-Pacific region. » | Bernard Lagan, Sydney | Monday, January 24, 2022 [£] *

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What have I been saying all along? Exactly this! Thank you, Mr. Keating. Thank you for saying the truth. – © Mark

In Full: Paul Keating Addresses National Press Club of Australia

Nov 10, 2021 • Former prime minister Paul Keating addresses the National Press Club discussing Australia's strategic framework and its role in the Indo-Pacific.

In his address, Mr Keating gave a scathing assessment of Australia's defence decisions regarding the Indo-Pacific region.

His remarks come after Australia scrapped a $90 billion French Naval Group submarine contract in favour of nuclear submarines in alliance with the United Kingdom and United States.

Australia Should "Cut the Tag" with American Foreign Policy after Trump Win Says Keating

Former prime minister Paul Keating says Australia should focus less on the alliance with the US and concentrate more on relationships within Asia.

Former Australian PM Paul Keating Says World War One Was European Folly 'Devoid of Virtue'

Former Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Former Australian PM Paul Keating says World War I was "devoid of any virtue" and Australians will not be used as cannon fodder again

Paul Keating, Australia’s former prime minister, has used a memorial ceremony speech to lash out at the Great War as a European folly which was "devoid of any virtue", lamenting the use of Australian troops as “cannon fodder”.

Criticising European tribalism and racism, Mr Keating said Australia fought out of loyalty to imperial Britain but had already moved away from European values by the time of the war. He said the nation had developed an “Australian-ness” which was “free of the dismal legacy of Europe's ethnic stigmatisation and social stratification”.

"The First World War was a war devoid of any virtue. It arose from the quagmire of European tribalism," he said.

"A complex interplay of nation-state destinies overlaid by notions of cultural superiority peppered with racism."

Mr Keating, a staunch republican with a passion for history and oratory, used his Remembrance Day address in Canberra to declare that young Australians were now “too wise to the world to be cannon fodder of the kind their young forebears became”.

“One thing is certain: young Australians, like [young] Europeans… can no longer be dragooned en masse into military enterprises of the former imperial variety on the whim of so-called statesmen,” he said. » | Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney | Monday, November 11, 2013