#reginald maudling

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1972 – Bloody Sunday Aftermath.

The day after Bloody Sunday, British Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling announces a tribunal of inquiry ‘into the circumstances of the march and the incidents leading up to the casualties which resulted’. After being denied the right to provide an eye-witness account of what happened, an emotional Bernadette Devlin, the 24-year-old MP for Mid-Ulster who had been on the speaker’s platform in Derry…

[ministerforpeas]

Hunger Games: HomeSec Smashdown

First we had the Chancellors, now it's time for the Home Secretaries to battle to the death to become Britain's top HomeSec!

As you can see some people here have returned yet again from previous seasons! We also have a crazy cat Reform lady as well!

Who will win? Find out!!

Hopefully not Patel or Braverman

[georgefairbrother]

This month (April) in 1969, the BBC reported on a surprising by-election result;

“…A 21-year-old woman, Bernadette Devlin, has become Britain’s youngest ever female MP and the third youngest MP ever…Standing as an independent Unity candidate, Miss Devlin wrested the seat of Mid-Ulster in Northern Ireland from the Ulster Unionists…”

She had grown up in a working class family of six children, and both parents had died by the time she was a teenager, forcing her to balance furthering her education while taking care of her younger siblings.

Bogside 1969 (image BBC News)

Having been arrested and subsequently imprisoned for her role in the Battle of the Bogside, violent sectarian protests in Derry in August of that year, she was re-elected at the UK general election in 1970 and served one full term.

Following Bloody Sunday, she (literally) smacked Conservative Home Secretary Reginald Maudling in the face for asserting in the House of Commons that the behaviour of members of the the British Parachute Regiment, (which had killed 14 civilians and wounded at least a further 15 during street protests in Derry), had been justified on the grounds of acting in self-defence. Devlin had personally witness these events.

Having not sought re-election in 1974, she remained active politically, supporting the cause of the hunger strikers in 1981 and standing unsuccessfully for seats in the European Parliament and the Dail Eirreann (Parliament of the Irish Republic).

On January 16th, 1981, the BBC reported:

“…The Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former Westminster MP, Bernadette McAliskey (formerly Devlin) has been shot by gunmen who burst into her home…The three men shot Mrs McAliskey, in the chest, arm and thigh as she went to wake up one of her three children. Her husband, Michael, was also shot twice at point blank range…Three men are now being questioned by police. They were arrested by members of the Parachute Regiment, who were on patrol nearby when they heard the shots…The McAliskeys were flown by army helicopter to hospital in Belfast, where their condition is said to be serious, but not life-threatening…”

(Irish news sources claim that the British soldiers were 'watching the home' but did not intervene).

The BBC also reported that Loyalist paramilitaries were going after those who were campaigning for H Block prison reform, in the heightened tensions surrounding hunger strikes over demands for ‘prisoner of war’ status by Republicans in custody. Four campaign activists had been killed to that point.

Bernadette McAliskey continued to advocate for civil rights in Northern Ireland, and for inmates and former inmates of the Maze Prison. She later founded the South Tyrone Empowerment Programme, a community welfare organisation, now listed as a resource on the UK government family support webpage for Northern Ireland, researching and campaigning in areas such as housing, family support, civil rights, and the welfare of migrant workers.

Top image and additional material from the website of herstory.ie

[reginaldmaudling]

What is the meaning behind your username?

It's a sort of obscure ref but I'll try to explain.

So basically when i was in my Monty Python era, they did this running joke in the 70s where they would frequently reference the name Reginald Maudling, which is also the name of a real life politician that was alive at the time. Not sure why they picked him to mock on their TV show, but then he was a politician...

[thephilosophyofwho]

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must make way for an older man.

-Reginald Mauldling

[brian-in-finance]

A roadblock in Belfast in September 1969 GETTY IMAGES

On the night of August 14, 1969 — 24 hours before the start of the tale told in Kenneth Branagh’s new movie — I saw in Belfast a nine-year-old boy, the same age as the adorable Protestant celluloid “Buddy”. The significant difference between the two was that my Patrick Rooney was a Catholic who lacked half his head, which had just been removed by a police machinegun bullet.

A few minutes earlier I was standing under the Divis Flats tower block after two exhausting, terrifying days reporting the sectarian violence that had exploded out of control in Londonderry and Belfast. A police armoured car suddenly stopped in front of me. The turret traversed and its gun began to stammer, hosing the building.

Idiotically I thought it must be firing blanks, because since the Troubles began nobody had hitherto done much shooting — petrol-filled milk bottles and paving stones were weapons of choice. The Provisional IRA did not exist. Then the armoured car drove away and I heard screaming. I ran upstairs and found myself in a room where a man was cradling in his arms the terribly injured boy. I helped carry him across the road to the police lines, where, of course, no good could be done. He was extremely dead.

Patrick Rooney, who was nine years old when he was shot dead by RUC machinegun fire in his home in west Belfast in August 1969

Kenneth Branagh’s loosely autobiographical Belfast is an enchanting rite-of-passage movie that brought back to me a host of memories, not all of them bloody. I met many good people while reporting there, including a family in the Protestant Shankill Road who lived in a house like that of Buddy’s parents: no prettiness; an oppressive sense of confinement in a ghetto physically indistinguishable from the Catholic ones.

I once took the ten-year-old son of my Shankill friends to England for a week, to escape the violence. I meant well, but with hindsight I doubt that it was a great idea: afterwards little Nigel had to go back. Buddy in the movie, wonderfully played by Jude Hill, experiences the fear I remember so well.

A few months earlier, when the first English reporters went to Ulster to report the campaign for Catholic civil rights, we found ourselves precipitated into a lost valley isolated for centuries from the world as we knew it. We arrived ignorant of the province’s history and briefly deceived by externals.

The shops, scenery, white goods, even inner-city streets were not much different from those across the Irish Sea. But the people stunned us. The craic was coined early: “You are now landing at Belfast Aldergrove airport. Put back your watches three hundred years.”

Patrick Rooney’s funeral MIRRORPIX

As we learnt what was being done by the Unionist Stormont government in the name of the crown, we felt ashamed that we had lived so close, oblivious of Ulster’s injustices. We heard the story of Emily Beatty, an unmarried 19-year-old policeman’s daughter, granted a house in Caledon by the local council in order to deny this to a family of homeless Catholic squatters, because she was a “Proddie”.

We watched the Royal Ulster Constabulary, paramilitary arm of the Unionist Party, ruthlessly crush civil rights protests or, more sinister, hold the ring while Paisleyite thugs did the job. In 1969 the UK government-appointed Cameron Commission reported that Ulster’s disorders had broken out because of “on the one hand, a widespread sense of political and social grievances for long unadmitted and therefore unredressed by successive governments, and on the other sentiments of [Protestant] fear and apprehension . . . of risks to the continued existence of the state”.

Throughout history most British people have switched channels when Ireland is mentioned. This revulsion afflicted politicians who briefly visited Ulster. The home secretary Reginald Maudling remarked on his plane after a 1970 trip: “For God’s sake bring me a large Scotch. What a bloody awful country.”

Many journalists, including me, were hated by Ian Paisley and his murderous supporters as Catholic partisans, which we were, insofar as we passionately supported civil rights. A retired army officer wrote to me recently, recalling that as a 20 year-old subaltern on the night of August 15, 1969, he rescued me from a Protestant mob amid the flames of Catholic Bombay Street, which they had just set afire.

Soldiers patrolling the streets of Belfast in October 1969 GETTY IMAGES

That was the night the army was first committed to Belfast, welcomed by Catholics as deliverers and hated by Protestants for denying them their prey. Later, when I made films there for the BBC, a caller telephoned Broadcasting House to warn that unless I apologised on screen for being a Catholic-lover, they would burn my family’s house in Hampshire, of which the address was given. My poor father had to spend the ensuing month surrounded by policemen with an insatiable thirst for tea.

It was the vicious hatred that most shocked English visitors — and which is almost entirely missing from Branagh’s film. Paisley in later life was admitted to the House of Lords. Some British politicians found him an amusing eccentric, with whom they enjoyed sharing a joke. When we encountered him, however, he was a satanic hellfire preacher, denouncing “the scarlet woman of Rome” and rousing his Protestant following to deeds for which it seemed deplorable that he was never imprisoned. He makes a bit-part appearance in the movie, but the scope of his evildoing is not explored.

The escalation of the Troubles began on August 12, 1969. Catholics threw stones at the tribal Protestant Apprentice Boys’ march, drumming its triumphalist way past Derry’s Catholic Bogside. That episode erupted into wholesale rioting, which after two days and many petrol bombs caused the British government to commit troops. Two nights later disorder spread to the tribal interfaces of Belfast.

We saw Protestants standing among their police allies on the Shankill side, clutching sticks and dustbin lid shields, singing their tribal songs, such as The Sash My Father Wore.

In the days, weeks and years that followed, Ulster’s glaziers got rich as endless glass was broken, replaced, broken again. I met families like Buddy’s, who wanted no part of the violence and refused to enlist with the paramilitaries. I also saw the “peace walls” that eventually had to be erected between Catholic and Protestant streets, creating a zoo to keep the factions from tearing each other’s throats. I have beside me now my tattered copy of the army’s “tribal map”, issued to illuminate the respective orange and green zones for those required to patrol them, at mortal risk.

Jude Hill as Buddy and Jamie Dornan as his father in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast ROB YOUNGSON/FOCUS FEATURES

The weakness of Branagh’s film is that between its spasms of violence it is too nice. In all my years — as they became — of walking ghetto streets, I never saw a woman as impeccably groomed and made up as is Buddy’s mother, played by the lovely Caitríona Balfe. On camera almost nobody holds a cigarette, whereas every real-life interior scene was wreathed in smoke, just as half the population seemed to spend half their lives half-cut, as maybe they had to be, to endure that existence.

Belfast reminds me of the deal the makers of The Magnificent Seven struck with the Mexican government, before being allowed to film that great western in its country: no dirty peasants were allowed to be shown, so that even after the gunfights everybody remained Omo white.

Max Hastings in 1970 GETTY IMAGES

Don’t get me wrong — Belfast is a charming movie with a big heart. But for me it addresses almost none of the really dirty stuff. Today, everybody except those who witnessed them has forgotten the horrors. English Tories have climbed deep into bed with the Unionists, people little less grotesque than they were in my day. The United Ireland that should have happened years ago is indefinitely postponed. The Northern Irish economy is a basket case, kept afloat only by English taxpayers.

I had a letter recently from Patrick Rooney’s brother, asking if I can remember any further details about the boy’s death, but no, after 53 years I can offer nothing fresh. I have also heard from little Nigel, whom I took to England from the Shankill; he married and has a son, seems to be doing OK, if not quite as well as Kenneth Branagh.

That is no dig: Branagh is a brilliant film-maker. I am not for a moment suggesting that his Belfast represents a falsehood — only that it is a lot less ugly than the city I knew. And back in 1969 his tribe bestrode the dunghill, while Catholics suffered terribly at Protestant hands.

Max Hastings is the author of Ulster 1969: The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland, published by Gollancz in 1970

Remember… when the first English reporters went to Ulster to report the campaign for Catholic civil rights, we found ourselves precipitated into a lost valley isolated for centuries from the world as we knew it. — The Times

[creativeprojectemmawalker]

“Policemen always call me a stupid bitch, and I deny that I'm stupid.”

I am currently reading Bernadette Devlin’s book ‘The price of my soul’ and its really inspiring me to make work about her. She was a civil rights leader and at the age of  21, she was the youngest MP of that time and remained the youngest woman ever elected to Westminster until the May 2015 general election when 20-year-old Mhairi Black eclipsed Devlin's achievement.

Her quotes echo through time as some of the most brilliant things I have read/heard in my life. She has been an idol of young irish women in NI and a great example for my project for this reason. 

“After taking part in the ‘Battle of the Bogside,’ Bernadette served a prison sentence in Armagh jail. In 1972, after Bloody Sunday, she crossed the floor of the House of Commons in order to attack the Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling, after he stated that the paratroopers had fired in self-defence. In 1974, she became active in the Irish Socialist Republican Party for a short time and in 1979; she stood in support of the republican prisoners in the European elections, winning 6% of the vote. She and her husband, Michael McAliskey, were shot and badly wounded by loyalist gunmen at their home in 1981. Since 1997, Bernadette has been active in the South Tyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP) - a community-based organisation that she founded which supports the rights of migrant workers.” - https://www.acenturyofwomen.com/bernadette-devlin/

[aoifeanamadan]

Me thinking about Bernadette Devlin McAliskey slapping Conservative Home Secretary Reginald Maudling across the face when he incorrectly asserted in the House of Commons that the paratroopers had fired in self-defence on Bloody Sunday.

[long70s]

The Troubles, Pt 2

1972

2 January: An anti-internment rally is held in Belfast, North Ireland

3 January: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb in Callender Street, Belfast, injuring over 60 people.

17 January: Seven men who were held as internees escape from the prison ship HMS Maidstone in Belfast Lough.

21 January: Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Brian Faulkner bans all parades and marches in Northern Ireland until the end of the year.

27 January: Two Royal Ulster Constabulary officers shot dead by IRA in an attack on their patrol car in the Creggan Road, Derry; The British Army and the Irish Republican Army engage in gun battles near County Armagh; British troops fire over 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

28 January: The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association place "special emphasis on the necessity for a peaceful incident-free day" at the next march on 30 January in an effort to avoid violence.

30 January: Bloody Sunday: 27 unarmed civilians are shot (14 are killed) by the British Army during a civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland; this is the highest death toll from a single shooting incident during 'the Troubles.’

31 January: British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to House of Commons on 'Bloody Sunday', "The Army returned the fire directed at them with aimed shots and inflicted a number of casualties on those who were attacking them with firearms and with bombs.”

1 February: British Prime Minister Edward Heath announces the appointment of Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery to undertake an inquiry into the 13 deaths on 'Bloody Sunday; The Ministry of Defence also issues a detailed account of the British Army's version of events during 'Bloody Sunday.'

2 February: Angry demonstrators burn the British Embassy in Dublin to the ground in protest at the shooting dead of 13 people on 'bloody sunday'

5 February: Two IRA members are killed when a bomb they were planting exploded prematurely.

6 February: A Civil Rights march held in Newry, County Down; very large turn-out with many people attending to protest at the killings in Derry the previous Sunday.

10 February: BBC bans "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" by Wings; two British soldiers are killed in a land mine attack near Cullyhanna, County Armagh; an IRA member is shot dead during an exchange of gunfire with RUC officers.

14 February: Lord Widgery arrives in Coleraine, where the 'Bloody Sunday' (30 January 1972) Tribunal was to be based, and holds a preliminary hearing.

22 Febuary: The Official IRA bombs Aldershot military barracks, the headquarters of the British Parachute Regiment, killing seven people; thought to be in retaliation for Bloody Sunday.

25 February: Attempted assassination of Irish Minister of State for Home Affairs John Taylor who is shot a number of times (the Official Irish Republican Army later claimed responsibility)

1 March: Two Catholic teenagers shot dead by the Royal Ulster Constabulary while 'joy riding' in a stolen car in Belfast.

4 March: Abercorn Restaurant bombing: a bomb explodes in a crowded restaurant in Belfast, killing two civilians and wounding 130.

9 March: Four members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) die in a premature explosion at a house in Clonard Street, Lower Falls, Belfast.

14 March: Two IRA members shot dead by British soldiers in the Bogside area of Derry.

15 March: Two British soldiers killed when attempting to defuse a bomb in Belfast; an RUC officer iskilled in an IRA attack in Coalisland, County Tyrone.

18 March: Ulster Vanguard hold a rally of 60,000 people in Belfast; William Craig tells the crowd: "if and when the politicians fail us, it may be our job to liquidate the enemy.”

20 March: Donegall Street bombing: the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonate its first car bomb on Donegall Street in Belfast; four civilians, two RUC officers and a UDR soldier killed while 148 people were wounded.

24 March: Great Britain imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland

27 March: Ulster Vanguard organise industrial strike against the imposition of direct rule on Northern Ireland by Westminster

30 March: Northern Ireland's Government and Parliament dissolved by the British Government and 'direct rule' from Westminster is introduced.

6 April: The Scarman Tribunal Report, an inquiry into the causes of violence during the summer of 1969 in N Ireland, is published, finding that the Royal Ulster Constabulary had been seriously at fault.

7 April: Three members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) die in a premature bomb explosion in Belfast

10 April: Two British soldiers are killed in a bomb attack in Derry.

14 April: The Provisional Irish Republican Army explodes twenty-four bombs in towns and cities across Northern Ireland.

15 April: A member of the Official Irish Republican Army is shot dead by British soldiers at Joy Street in the Markets area of Belfast close to his home; a member of the British Army is shot dead by the Official IRA in the Divis area of Belfast.< April: Two British soldiers are shot dead by the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) in separate incidents in Derry.

18 April: The Widgery Report on 'Bloody Sunday' in Northern Ireland is published, causing outrage among the people of Derry who call it the "Widgery Whitewash.”

19 April: British Prime Minister Edward Heath confirms that a plan to conduct an arrest operation, in the event of a riot during the march on 30 January 1972, was known to British government Ministers in advance.

22 April: An 11-year-old boy killed by a rubber bullet fired by the British Army in Belfast; he was the first to die from a rubber bullet impact.

22 April: The Sunday Times Insight Team publish their account of the events of 'Bloody Sunday.’

10 May: An Irish Republican Army bomb starts a fire that destroys the Belfast Co-operative store.

13 May: Battle at Springmartin: following a loyalist car bombing of a Catholic-owned pub in the Ballymurphy area of Belfast, clashes erupt between PIRA, UVF and British Army.

14 May: 13 year old Catholic girl is shot dead by Loyalist paramilitaries in Ballymurphy, Belfast.

17 May: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) fires on workers leaving the Mackies engineering works in west Belfast (Although the factory was sited in a Catholic area it had an almost entirely Protestant workforce.

21 May: The Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) kidnaps and shoots dead William Best (19), a soldier in the Royal Irish Rangers stationed in Germany whilst on leave at home.

22 May: Over 400 women in Derry attack the offices of Official Sinn Féin in Derry, North Ireland, following the shooting of William Best by the Official Irish Republican Army.

24 May: Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) kidnaps and shoots dead William Best (19), a soldier in the Royal Irish Rangers stationed in Germany whilst on leave at home.

26 May: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) plant a bomb in Oxford Street, Belfast, killing a 64 year old woman.

28 May: Four Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and four civilians killed when a bomb they were preparing exploded prematurely at a house in Belfast.

29 May: The Official IRA announce a ceasefire.

2 June: British soldiers die in an IRA land mine attack near Rosslea, County Fermanagh.

11 June: Gun battle between Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries break out in the Oldpark area of Belfast.

13 June: The Irish Republican Army invites British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Willie Whitelaw to 'Free Derry'; Whitelaw rejects offer and reaffirms his policy to not "let part of the United Kingdom ... default from the rule of law.”

14 June: Members of the NI Social Democratic and Labour Party hold a meeting with representatives of the Irish Republican Army in Derry; the IRA representatives outline their conditions for talks with the British Government.

15 June: The Social Democratic and Labour Party meet Secretary of State for Northern Ireland W Whitelaw, to present the IRA's conditions for a meeting.

18 June: 3 members of the British Army are killed by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb in a derelict house near Lurgan, County Down.

19 June: A Catholic civilian is shot dead by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the Cracked Cup Social Club, Belfast; Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw concedes 'special category' status, or 'political status' for paramilitary prisoners in Northern Ireland.

20 June: Secret Meeting Between IRA and British Officials held.

22 June: The Irish Republican Army announce that it would call a ceasefire from 26 June 1972 provided that there is a "reciprocal response" from the security forces.

24 June: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) kill 3 British Army soldiers in a land mine attack near Dungiven, County Derry.

26 June: IRA proclaims resistant in North-Ireland; The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) begin a "bi-lateral truce" as at midnight; The Irish Republican Army (IRA) kill two British Army soldiers in separate attacks during the day.

30 June: Ulster Defence Association (UDA) begin to organise its own 'no-go' areas (this is a response to the continuation of Republican 'no-go' areas and fears about concessions to the IRA).

2 July: Two Catholic civilians are shot and killed in Belfast by Loyalist paramilitaries, probably the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)

3 July: The Ulster Defence Association and the British Army come into conflict about a 'no-go' area at Ainsworth Avenue, Belfast

4 July: The Royal Ulster Constabulary forward a file about the killings on 'Bloody Sunday' (30 January 1972) to the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland

5 July: Two Protestant brothers are found shot dead outside of Belfast (speculation that they were killed by Loyalists because they had Catholic girlfriends).

7 July: Secret Talks Between IRA and British Government: Gerry Adams is part of a delegation to London for talks with the British Government; 7 people are killed in separate incidents across Northern Ireland.

9 July: Springhill Massacre: British snipers shoot dead five Catholic civilians and wounded two others in Springhill, Belfast; The ceasefire between the Provisional IRA and the British Army comes to an end.

13 July: A series of gun-battles and shootings erupt across Belfast between the Provisional Irish Republican Army and British Army soldiers.

18 July: The 100th British soldier to die in the Northern Ireland "troubles" is shot by a sniper in Belfast; Leader of the British Labour Party Harold Wilson holds meeting with representatives of the Irish Republican Army.

21 July: Bloody Friday: within the space of seventy-five minutes, the Provisional Irish Republican Army explode twenty-two bombs in Belfast; six civilians, two British Army soldiers and one UDA volunteer were killed, 130 injured.

22 July: 2 Catholics are abducted, beaten, and shot dead in a Loyalist area of Belfast.

31 July: Operation Motorman: the British Army use 12,000 soldiers supported by tanks and bulldozers to re-take the "no-go areas" controlled by the Provisional Irish Republican Army; Claudy bombing: nine civilians were killed when three car bombs exploded in County Londonderry, North Ireland; no group has since claimed responsibility.

9 August: There is widespread and severe rioting in Nationalist areas of Northern Ireland on the anniversary of the introduction of Internment.

11 August: Two IRA members are killed when a bomb they were transporting exploded prematurely.

12 August: British soldiers are killed by an IRA booby trap bomb in Belfast.

14 August: A Catholic civilian is shot dead during an IRA attack on a British Army patrol in Belfast.

22 August: IRA bomb explodes prematurely at a customs post at Newry, County Down - 9 people, including three members of the IRA and five Catholic civilians, are killed in the explosion.

23 August: 4 civilians and 1 British soldier are injured in separate overnight shooting incidents in North Ireland.

2 September: The headquarters of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in Belfast is severely damaged by an IRA bomb.

10 September: 3 British soldiers are killed in a land mine attack near Dungannon, County Tyrone.

14 September: 2 people are killed and 1 mortally wounded in a Ulster Volunteer Force bomb attack on the Imperial Hotel, Belfast.

20 September: The Social Democratic and Labour Party issues a document entitled "Towards a New Ireland", proposing that the British and Irish governments should have joint sovereignty over Northern Ireland.

6 October: Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Jack Lynch closes the Sinn Féin office in Dublin.

10 October: 3 members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) die in a premature explosion in a house in Balkan Street, Lower Falls, Belfast.

14 October: North Irish Loyalist paramilitaries raid Headquarters of the 10 Ulster Defence Regiment in Belfast and steal rifles and ammunition.

16 October: 2 members of the Offical Irish Republican Army are shot dead by the British Army in County Tyrone. Protestant youth members of the Ulster Defence Association, and a UDA member are run over by British Army vehicles during riots in east Belfast.

17 October: The Ulster Defence Association open fire on the British Army in several areas of Belfast.

19 October: The Ulster Defence Association open fire on the British Army in several areas of Belfast.

23 October: Loyalist paramilitaries carry out raid on an Ulster Defence Regiment.

24 October: British soldiers kill 2 Catholic men at a farm at Aughinahinch, near Newtownbbutler, County Fermanagh.

30 October: The Northern Ireland Office issues a discussion document 'The Future of Northern Ireland'; the paper states Britain's commitment to the union as long as the majority of people wish to remain part of the United Kingdom; Loyalist paramilitaries carry out a raid on Royal Ulster Constabulary station in County Derry, and steal 4 British Army Sterling sub-machine Guns.

31 October:  2 Catholic children (6 and 4) playing on the street are killed in a Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) car bomb attack on a bar in Ship Street, Belfast.

2 November: Government of the Republic of Ireland introduce a bill to remove the special position of the Catholic Church from the Irish Constitution.

5 November: Vice-President of Sinn Féin Maire Drumm is arrested in the Republic of Ireland.

19 November: Leader of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) Seán MacStiofáin is arrested in Dublin.

20 November: 2 British soldiers are killed in a booby trap bomb in Cullyhanna, County Armagh.

24 November: Taoiseach Jack Lynch meets with British Prime Minister Edward Heath in London to give Irish approval to Attlee's paper stating new arrangements should be 'acceptable to and accepted by the Republic of Ireland'

26 November: Bomb explosion at the Film Centre Cinema, in O’Connell Bridge House in Dublin.

28 November: 2 IRA members are killed in a premature bomb explosion in the Bogside area of Derry.

1 December: 2 people killed and 127 injured when 2 car bombs explode in the centre of Dublin, Republic of Ireland

20 December: Five civilians (four Catholics, one Protestant) killed in gun attack on the Top of the Hill Bar in Derry, North Ireland.

28 December:  2 people are killed in a Loyalist bomb attack on the village of Belturbet, County Cavan, Republic of Ireland.

29 December: President of Sinn Féin Ruairi O Bradaigh is arrested and held under new legislation in Republic of Ireland.

[reveal-the-news]

History suggests Kwarteng’s gargantuan economic gamble won’t end well | Economics

History suggests Kwarteng’s gargantuan economic gamble won’t end well | Economics

A struggling economy. An unpopular conservative government. Definitely a dramatic change. Britain has been here before. Like Reginald Maudling in the early 1960s and Tony Barber in the early 1970s, Quasi Quarteng went for broke with a massive package of tax cuts designed to put Britain on a path to higher growth. The Chancellor will be crossing his fingers that his experiment has a happier ending…

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1972 – Bloody Sunday Aftermath.

#OTD in 1972 – Bloody Sunday Aftermath.

The day after Bloody Sunday, British Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling announces a tribunal of inquiry ‘into the circumstances of the march and the incidents leading up to the casualties which resulted’. After being denied the right to provide an eye-witness account of what happened, an emotional Bernadette Devlin, the 24-year-old MP for Mid-Ulster who had been on the speaker’s platform in Derry…

[ministerforpeas]

Hunger Games: Chancellor Battle Royale (Crack Edition) Part 2

Arena Event

HOLY SHIT ITS FIRE WOO WOO WOO 🚨

WE START WITH LAWSON GETTING BURNT

KWARTENG ACTUALLY BEING GOOD FOR ONCE EVEN THO IT WAS FOR HIS OWN GAIN

GOOD RIDDANCE CUNT

WHAT THE HELL SMITH THATS ONE OF YOUR MATES!

THIS LOSER DIES

HOWARD GETS SLAIN BY FIRE ALONG WITH HAMMOND

AND MAJOR DIES AGAIN NOOOOOOOOOO 😭😭😭

Fallen Tributes 2

OHHHHH PLEASE LET SMITH WIN PLEASE LET SMITH WIN

Night 2

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 😭

The Winner

LITERALLY ANYBODY ELSE SHOULD'VE WON

Placements

Less actual kills this time thanks to the arena events.

Summary

And as you can see, the summary is so short that I didn't have to zoom out to take a screenshot!

Statistics

It should be noted that poor Howard didn't even get to feed on anyone this round! At least Major got a kill...

[georgefairbrother]

On 18th September 1972, BBC News reported that the first 193 Ugandan refugees, fleeing persecution by the country’s military dictatorship, had arrived at Stansted Airport, Essex. Over half of the arrivals had British passports, and housing and immediate needs would be overseen by the Ugandan Resettlement Board.

Uganda’s Asian community, numbering around 55 000, many of whom ran family businesses and small enterprise, were ordered in August 1972 to leave the country within 90 days by President Idi Amin. Amin had publicly denounced Ugandan Asians as ‘bloodsuckers’, threatening that any who had not left by the arbitrary deadline of November 8th would be interned in military detention camps.

Many of the initial flight of refugees had endured frightening experiences prior to their departure from Uganda, at the hands of Amin’s troops. "On the way to the airport the coach was stopped by troops seven times, and we were all held at gun point," one refugee told reporters. Another stated that he had been robbed of personal valuables and Ugandan currency on the way to Entebbe airport.

News reports at the time cited some opposition within the UK over the acceptance of the Ugandan Asians. The Leicester local authority mounted a newspaper campaign urging refugees not to come to their region seeking jobs and housing. The BBC asserted that, in hindsight, the resettlement programme was seen as ‘a success story for British Immigration’.

The loss of the hardworking and successful Ugandan Asian community devastated Uganda’s agriculture, manufacturing and commerce. Idi Amin was deposed in 1979 and died in Jeddah in 2003, having been responsible for the deaths of as many as 300 000 Ugandan civilians during his reign of terror as President. In 1991, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni invited the expelled community to return home to help rebuild the economy.

The Wilson Labour government also had to grapple with a refugee crisis from a former African colony.

In February 1968, BBC news reported;

"…Another 96 Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya have arrived in Britain, the latest in a growing exodus of Kenyan Asians fleeing from laws which prevent them making a living…"

Many Asian people living in Kenya had not taken up Kenyan citizenship following the country’s independence from Britain in 1963, but possessed British passports. Under Kenya’s Africanisation policy, non-citizens required work permits, and were being removed from employment in favour of Kenyan nationals. There was growing public demand for laws to prevent non-citizens from owning businesses or even operating as street and market traders. As a result, British passport holders were leaving Kenya at the rate of 1000 per month, leaving a huge deficit in skills and experience within the business community and civil service.

Fearing a backlash over the large numbers of Asian immigrants, Home Secretary, and future Prime Minister, James Callaghan, rushed through the Commonwealth Immigration Act, which made it a requirement that prospective immigrants must have a 'close connection' with Britain.

This led to disagreement in Cabinet, with Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, George Thomson (1921-2008) arguing;

"…To pass such legislation would be wrong in principle, clearly discrimination on the grounds of colour, and contrary to everything we stand for…"

In 1971, the Heath government made further legislative changes that would mean that (some) immigrants from Commonwealth countries would be treated no more favourably than those from the rest of the world, and that tightened restrictions on those who stayed by linking work permits to a specific job and location, requiring registration with police, and reapplication to stay in Britain each 12 months.

The Patrial Right of Abode lifted all restrictions on those immigrants with a direct ancestral connection with Britain.

Home Secretary Reginald Maudling (later famous for being smacked in the face by Irish MP Bernadette Devlin, and for having to resign over a corruption scandal linked with disgraced property developer John Poulson) denied that this was, in effect, a 'colour bar', telling the BBC;

"…Of course they are more likely to be white because we have on the whole more whites than coloureds in this country, but there is no colour bar involved…"

Unsurprisingly, not everyone was convinced.

Vishna Sharma, Executive Secretary of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, described the bill to BBC News as, "basically racially discriminatory, repressive and divisive," and added, "It will create divisions amongst the Commonwealth citizens already living in this country on patrial and non-patrial basis. It will create day-to-day bureaucracy and interference on people living in this country. It will create more hardship for people wanting to enter into this country."

(Source; BBC reporting and history.com. Photo Credits; BBC News)

[reginaldmaudling]

Eight people I’d like to know better

I was tagged by @yverocher - bless you dear :P

1. Birthday: June 16th

2. Zodiac: Gemini

3. Height: smol

4. Last song I listened to: Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up - it was playing on loop whilst I was waiting to disembark my plane this afternoon

5. Hobbies: drawing, gif-ing, photography, blogging, gaming, swimming, eating, sleeping, crying

6. Favorite color: blue in any form

7. Last movie I watched: The Silence - it was the only thing I’d downloaded on my iPad to watch on the plane home and it was... meh.

8. Favorite book: Michael Palin’s 1st Diaries

9. Dream job: postlady

10. Meaning behind my URL: Reginald Maudling was a Tory politician from the 70s who was consistently lampooned and mocked by British satirical magazine Private Eye, and Monty Python, both of which I am a fan of.

and I’m tagging: @pichael-malin @starrison @an-anonymous-friend @lyeekha @emmy-award @theparadoxmachine @cestpasfaux24601 and @mercurymay. No pressure, and if you’ve already done this particular tag meme before, feel free to ignore. 

[tridentine2013]

Corbyn - What if you are wrong?

Ok, so you hate Jeremy Corbyn; but what if you are wrong to?

I get it. You are furious that a major political party in the UK has a leader who is an ‘IRA sympathiser’. Incensed that he is ‘weak’ on defence; a pacifist. Enraged that he didn’t sing the national anthem that time … boiling mad that he didn’t campaign effectively for ‘remain’, and that he is a Marxist puppet of the troublemaker trades unions, who cosies up to extremists and wants to borrow even more money which we ‘cannot afford’, especially since Labour already ‘crashed the economy’, and are not fiscally competent. He voted time and again against anti-terror legislation, wouldn’t push the nuclear button, isn’t a royalist, and wants to tax your home, your garden, your work and your inheritance. He’s scruffy, he’s an enemy of business, and he supports uncontrolled immigration. You know this, because everyone knows. Everyone except the barmy army of dupes and gulls who hang on his every word like brainwashed sheep. But what if you are wrong? What might you be passing up by holding to ‘your views’, because the media you trust have exposed these truths time after time?

Let’s address the issue of most concern to many, Corbyn the terrorist sympathiser and appeaser. In this context, the IRA issue is pre-eminent. I dare to suggest that most British people not living in Northern Ireland have a very limited grasp of the politics of Ireland, little understanding of the period from William of Orange to the Easter Rising, or the ‘Anglo Irish Treaty’, the establishment of the Irish Free State, or what precipitated ‘The Troubles’ from the mid-1960s to 1998. But that is not important. What is important is that you know that the IRA murdered and bombed their way around the six counties and the mainland for many years, inflicting harm on innocent civilians along the way. And that anyone who showed support for them was obviously anti-British, and by definition a terrorist sympathiser. Do you believe then, that it is ‘not the British way’ to try to find a solution to a 20-year-old guerrilla conflict, which might bring the killings to an end? Some of you may remember Margaret Thatcher proclaiming that the British Government would “… never negotiate with terrorists”. But in 2011 cabinet papers were released which showed that in 1981 she did just that, during the ‘hunger strikes’. But she was not the first; in 1969, the British Army met senior figures in the IRA. In 1971, they met again in secret talks. In 1972 Irish Labour Party politicians acted as a ‘conduit’ for talks between the IRA and Reginald Maudling of the Conservative government of the UK. Later in 1972 MI6, the UK Government, and the British Army held talks in N.I. and subsequently the IRA ‘top brass’ were flown to secret talks in London. This trip included Martin McGuiness and Gerry Adams. Willie Whitelaw represented the British Government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. From 1973 to 1976 many more secret talks were held. In 1977 Douglas Hurd met Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison. These secret ‘back channel’ communications were not suspended until 1982. And the it gets interesting. In 1983 Ken Livingstone met with Gerry Adams in Belfast, which led to an invitation to the Palace of Westminster in 1984, extended by Livingstone and fellow MP Jeremy Corbyn. In 1986 Gerry Adams MP, president of Sinn Féin, and Tom King MP, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, entered into secret correspondence, carried out by intermediaries. With the approval of prime minister Margaret Thatcher, King lays out the UK’s position for negotiations. Livingstone, Corbyn, and many other Labour and Tory politicians had come to the view that a military solution was not possible. In 1988 James M. Glover, former Commander-in-Chief of the UK Land Forces, admitted during television documentary that the Irish Republican Army cannot be defeated militarily, and the most rational period of the entire troubles followed, 1989 to 1994, known historically as the peace process period, beginning under Thatcher in which (1991 on) the British Government held regular covert talks with the IRA which ultimately led to the 1999 ceasefire, and eventually the Good Friday Agreement. Jeremy Corbyn’s role was perhaps minor, but it was, in contrast to many politicians, open and honest. It was, in keeping with Corbyn’s political beliefs, an attempt to explore the opportunities for peace.

But he definitely didn’t sing the National Anthem though …   that much is true. Jeremy Corbyn is a democrat and a republican. And definitely a man of principle. A man of peace. He sat in silent contemplation, reflecting perhaps on the horrors of war; who can actually say?

But do we prefer armies of politicians who fiddle their expenses, avoid tax, break promises, lie in court, ’employ’ family members as researchers or office managers, take money from ‘lobbyists’ or in countless ways abuse their position and privilege, so long as they sing the National Anthem? Liam Fox for example, our current Conservative Secretary of State for International Trade. Who had to repay over £22,000 of falsely claimed mortgage expenses, and claimed £19,000 in 4 years in ‘mobile phone charges’. Liam Fox who failed to declare several trips abroad paid by foreign governments, who simultaneously rented out his London home whilst claiming the cost of living in rented accommodation (£19,000) from the state. Liam Fox who took his close male friend Adam Werrity to MOD meetings with foreign dignitaries at the taxpayer’s expense, even though Werrity had no security clearance. I bet he would sing the National Anthem with gusto.

What Jeremy Corbyn did do however, apart from not sing the National Anthem, was to stay talking with ex-service veterans, while the other ‘dignitaries’ at the Remembrance Day event went off for a taxpayer funded slap up lunch. To suggest that you would rather he had simply sung the National Anthem ‘out of respect’ is to endorse the Liam Foxxes of this world. To imply that it is ok to act abominably so long as you give the appearance of having the interests your country, not naked self-interest as your primary motivation. This affair was actually an example of the kinder, fairer, more honest politics which Jeremy Corbyn seeks to encourage. You may not agree with him in this regard. You may be a ‘patriot and a royalist’. But we have the only National Anthem which conflates support for the royal family with patriotism. Which does not, if god is invoked at all, ask him to favour and protect the nation, instead suggesting he does so by proxy in favouring the monarch, and the monarch’s enduring rule. Is it unpatriotic to be a republican? Is it not possible if you are German, or French, or Irish, to be ‘patriotic’? Jeremy Corbyn is a proud Briton. But he draws that pride from how in our best selves, collectively, we treat all humanity. When we do not invade or destabilise, undermine or subvert other countries for our own economic gain. When we do not attack other nations on false pretexts, when we look after our own, be it our disabled population, or other socially disadvantaged groups … When we show global leadership in human rights. When we improve the entire world by scientific or medical breakthroughs, when we are the best we can be.

But he is a Marxist, and that is reason enough to hate the man with a passion. Except that he isn’t. He just isn’t. I hope that we are agreed he does stand by his principles, whether we agree with them or not? In his over 30 years in politics, he has presented himself as a democratic socialist. The wealth of ‘Marxist and Marxist-Leninist’ groups have never had Corbyn on their membership list. But it’s his policies that mark him out as a Marxist? I cannot go into the technical reasons that Corbyn cannot credibly be argued to be a Marxist, but it is worth remembering that what motivated Marx and Engels was the interests of the working man, and the establishment of a system of economics which offered an alternative to capitalism. Marx believed the capitalist system bore insoluble contradictions, and contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. In 2008 the inherent flaws of free market economics were laid bare. Marx was in many respects visionary. His ideas about the exploitation of Labour, the primacy, within the system, of those owning the means of production, the problems created by overproduction have become manifest. But that is a separate discussion. The fact is that Jeremy Corbyn is somewhere between a democratic socialist and a social democrat. This should not describe a position on the political spectrum which troubles or scares you unless you are someone who has become hugely wealthy, largely by paying workers considerably less than their labour value. Jeremy Corbyn is a pragmatic socialist, with an objective of progressive, achievable change to a more equitable and rewarding system for the individual worker. He is broadly in line with the theories of Keynesian economics, and fundamentally opposed to the idea that ‘austerity’ is or was a necessary response to the circumstances of the 2008 global crash. Whilst we are on the subject, we might look at some evidence from the Office of National Statistics, regarding the immediate post-crash growth. 

          The graphic above charts the actual GDP growth over the period shown. The post-crash trough which bottomed out in 2009 demonstrates that in less than a year from the trough, GDP growth had returned to positive, from a low of -2.4%. From shrinking 2.4%, to shrinking less, (relative growth) to actual positive growth for 3 quarters before the 2010 election. Since then, we see a very stagnant period, with virtually no growth, which looks set to continue into the foreseeable future, due to lack of investment. Yes Corbyn, and Labour would borrow more money, which at historically low interest rates, would be spent in areas of the economy, including infrastructure … building etc., to stimulate economic activity and growth, which (the theory goes) would be more than capable of creating the wealth to meet the increased interest costs, providing a faster paydown of international loans than to meet interest payments by continuing to impoverish the public sector including schools, the NHS, and social care. Corbyn’s Labour seek to create better wages, and a better standard of living for all working people. Even the 5%, or 1 in 20 people who would pay higher taxes will actually earn more collectively, in a better performing economy.

But are Labour not demonstrably, historically worse at running the economy that the Conservatives? You may be surprised, since this is a claim made daily, usually by more than one Tory politician, that it simply does not bear scrutiny. It isn’t true. (1) The Conservatives have been the biggest borrowers over 70 years. (2) Labour have borrowed less and paid back more debt than the Tories even during the ‘Neo-Liberal era’ since 1979. (3) 130 leading economists endorsed Labour’s spending plans as detailed in their 2017 manifesto. Many issues are misrepresented regarding their ‘cost’ to the state of course; the ‘huge’ cost of renationalising key industries such as the railways is a case in point. In this case the systemic change would occur in stages, as the existing franchises expired, the lines will become state owned and operated. In other nationalisations, the principle which applies is that the industry is bought, effectively, with government bonds sold on the debt market providing the funds to purchase the shareholding, either majority or total, and take control thereby of future profits. The obsession with selling off the public sector to private interests, for profit, has been enduring and extensive. And value is extracted from the water, power, and transport sectors, from refuse, prisons, NHS, parts of the Courts System, Police, Care Homes, collection of business rates, Army recruitment, TV licensing, custodial and immigration services, and disability assessment. Do we want or need private companies extracting value (private sector profit) from these services? In many cases nationalised or part nationalised businesses in other states are the ultimate beneficiary.

But he has voted against ‘anti-terror’ legislation time and again, that is true. Does he want terrorists on our streets or something? No. Jeremy Corbyn voted in the main, against anti-terror legislation which was frequently framed to permit definitions of terrorism which impinged on our own rights or civil liberties, against 14 day detention, (so did May), against Control Orders, (so did May), against ID cards, (so did May), against 90 day detention, (so did May), against the Counter Terrorism Act 2008, another attempt to extend detention without charge (to 42 days on this occasion) ,a vote from which May was absent, against TPIMs, which May supported. Do we want our politicians to speak out if they see legislation being proposed which whist having a specific claimed purpose, creates the possibility of loose interpretation or wanton misuse, against our own interests? It is right that our civil rights are front and centre of such debates, and this is the reason why so much ‘anti-terror legislation has been either defeated or considerably amended between readings. Corbyn wants the public to be safe, but from the abuse of process by the state, as well as from terrorism.

But the Unions though, bunch of leftie troublemakers! Maggie sorted them out.  The relationship between Labour and Trade Unions is as old as the Party itself. Trade Unions were once just about the only organised resistance to the systematic abuse of British workers. The Labour Party, originally the Labour Representation Committee, was formed to increase workers’ representation in Parliament, a Parliament made up almost exclusively of the historical ‘powers that be’, the Tories (Conservatives) and the Whigs (Liberals). The function of a trade union is to look after the interests of its members, and that is as true today as it has ever been. The fact that Thatcher era propaganda ‘demonised’ Unions has been entirely to the advantage of business. The Labour Party and the Trade Unions of today, (although stripped of much of the power they once had) are a bulwark against the worst excesses of the exploitation of Labour. If you hold to the Thatcherite view of unions, and are not leading a large corporation, you would do well to study the reality behind the rhetoric.

But the nuclear button. How could we have a Prime Minister who wouldn’t defend us against our enemies? Corbyn doesn’t even want us to have a nuclear capability. He wants to scrap the Trident replacement programme. Jeremy Corbyn has stated, on record, “We want a secure and peaceful world. We achieve that by promoting peace, but also by promoting security”. What he has also said, (in paraphrase) whilst holding to the opinion that all wars are a failure of diplomacy, is that there are circumstances in which he would support military action. But reluctant to send our soldiers to foreign lands to pursue political objectives? Unpersuaded that we have not in the past been too quick to adopt the military option, on occasion embarking on wars which were illegal in international law? Yes, without doubt. So he is someone committed to defending our interests, but in search always of a nonviolent, peaceful, negotiated solution to potential conflict, who approaches military options as a ‘last resort’? I would hope that this approach to defence would be popular with most reasonably minded people.

He is as is well known, a unilateralist. Which means that Britain under Corbyn would be seeking to take the lead in international efforts to bring about an end to nuclear weapons globally. We would pass legislation to dismantle our own nuclear arsenal, and seek to do so whilst leading an international initiative aimed at achieving, by negotiation, a nuclear free world. There is a credible roadmap to nuclear disarmament, and there are options, when such a process is complete, to see that no country develops such a capability again. I would hope that all our descendants are born into a world in which the threat of total annihilation is no longer ever present. Could any of us claim, in circumstances where Jeremy Corbyn is asked to consider authorising the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, that as a civilisation we have achieved anything worthwhile? The dogma of mutually assured destruction is outdated. There are simply so many ‘battlefield weapons’, also known as ‘tactical nuclear weapons’, for the M.A.D. logic to remain credible. When generals in the field have access to small, strategic warheads, designed to create tactical advantage by eliminating mere thousands of troops, (and any civilians in the very localised blast zone) we have a recipe for a disastrous escalation.

Jeremy Corbyn is a peacemaker, a military ‘dove’, who wishes to use the position of Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister to improve the circumstances of the British people, whilst seeking also to take initiatives to stabilise, and make more peaceful the wider world. Those who seek to convince us that this is ideological and unachievable are frequently those who are in some form benefiting from the huge sums spent each year around the world, on ‘things to kill people with’.  

What you could be passing up, with your determination to not rationally reassess your view of Jeremy Corbyn, is everything you ever dreamed of. For you, your children and your children’s children. This is not hyperbole, this is about the future not just of the UK, but the world. You and I share a world where $1.6 trillion is spent on ‘defence’. The collective means to harm one another. One point six thousand BILLION dollars, at immense cost to the mere seven billion inhabitants of the planet. A stack of dollars, every year, which piled up would stretch over 80,000 miles. Yes, we spend annually, as a civilisation, a pile of money eighty thousand miles high, on stuff to harm one another. Or if stacked on their side, more than three times around the circumference of the earth.I don’t want that to continue, Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t want that to continue, and we neither of us could imagine that you want this to continue. The spend on the collective means to harm one another equates to $240 per head for every living being; 3 billion of whom currently live on less than $2.50 per day. Jeremy Corbyn’s call for talk, diplomacy, consensus, agreement, rather than war, is informed by many things. The most powerful is the idea that we really shouldn’t be killing one another. (378,000 deaths per year attributed to wars during the relatively peaceful 1985 to 1994.) It isn’t a civilised way to behave. But another important factor is the 1.6 thousand billion dollars could be used in so many more humane and socially beneficial ways. In the UK we spend forty five thousand million pounds a year on ‘defence’. And Jeremy Corbyn is not even suggesting a reduction to the ‘defence’ budget. In fact, since the war the Tories have on average reduced the defence budget by 0.5% during each year in power. Labour in power, over the same period, have increased defence spending by 2.4% per year. We can talk later about other ways to spend that money, but for the moment I would like to explain why I am talking in largely global terms, about one party leader, in one country, the UK. It is because a better WORLD is possible.

Jeremy Corbyn is not a figure without parallel in global politics. There are, and have always been leaders of parties or even countries, whose objective has been the best possible future for their people. Senator Bernie Sanders ran a campaign in the US Presidential ‘primaries’ which enjoyed huge (yuge) popular support, for an agenda which promised to give greater power to individual Americans in the process and management of the US political system. He faced seemingly insurmountable odds, not least because of the enormous amount of money needed to even campaign effectively. That he did not win the Democratic Party nomination is largely due to a particularly undemocratic structure within the party’s nomination system. He ran Hilary Clinton almost to the wire, and in the end, it was power and money in the hands of an elite which prevented his election as the Democratic Party Presidential nominee. Sanders also represented a fairer, kinder politics. For the many, not the few, to borrow a phrase.  

Instead, Trump triumphed against Clinton, in a contest which could easily have produced a very different result had the race been between Sanders and Trump. But in a little over 3 years, Americans will return to the polling booths. Were that to coincide with a Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party in power in the UK, the impulse toward real change could become irresistible. If you can begin to imagine a world where the most powerful leaders, of the most powerful countries, were genuinely committed to a peaceful world in which the living and working conditions, the health and fortune of the average person was of primary importance, things could change for the better very quickly.

  (1)    http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/

(2)    http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/14/labour-have-borrowed-less-and-repaid-more-than-the-conservatives-since-1979/

(3)     http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/guws3cyv3ctq9g7vg754p2zyymvc2f/

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[peterabell]

Patel resigns as Tory chaos continues

INTERNATIONAL Development secretary Priti Patel has resigned from government after the row over her rogue state visit to the Middle East intensified, with the shocking revelation that she’d visited the occupied lands with the Israel government.

Peter A Bell's insight:

I suppose it's too much to hope for, but I do wish we could stop referring to the present shenanigans as "Tory chaos" and recognise the fact that what is happening is a feature of British politics. Anybody who imagines things would be much different if seating arrangements in the House of Commons were altered is just plain naive.

 Patel behaved as she did, not because she is a Tory, but because she is British. It was the British sense of entitlement which led her to act as she did, and suppose she would get away with it. It was the British sense of exceptionalism that bade her assume that the rules didn't apply to her. It was British elitism that put her in that position in the first place.

 None of this is unique to the Tories. Nor is there anything novel about the corruption which stems from this British entitlement, exceptionalism and elitism. That corruption is inherent in and a product of the structures of power, privilege and patronage which define the British state. It is as old as the the British state. And, like any corruption that isn't cauterised, it grows and spreads.

 Insider trading! Sex scandals! Foreign spies! Cash for honours! More sex scandals! More financial scandals! Nepotism! Political ineptitude! Cash for honours again! More financial impropriety! More foreign spies! And we're only up to the 1950s! It gets worse after that. Remember these names and the scandals associated with them?

 John Vassall. John Profumo. Joh Stonehouse. John Poulson. (What is it with these 'Johns'?) Reginald Maudling. T Dan Smith. Harold Wilson and The Lavender List (Not a JK Rowling fantasy.) Jeremy Thorpe. (Baron) Joseph Kagan. Cecil Parkinson. Jeffrey Archer. Edwina Currie. David Mellor. Michael Mates. Jonathan Aitken. Neil Hamilton, Tim Smith and Mohamed Al-Fayed. Peter Mandelson (Twice!).

 That takes us only as far as the turn of the century; at which point, things start to get really bad.

 We are told that changing parties will solve all the problems precisely because it won't change anything. The British state is corrupt by nature. All the British parties are mired in that corruption. Every British politician is tainted by it.

 Scotland urgently needs to distance itself from this pit of putrescence. We need to bring our government home.