A Real Christmas Message

 After the less-than-charitable Christmas message from the prime minister, I am happy to follow it with a more positive Christmas message from an old friend, the Rev. John Faraday, seen on the left in the photo below.

I am very grateful to Geoff for asking me to do a Christmas Message. Sadly when he didn’t receive my message he replaced me. Even worse, he replaced me by Boris Johnson! Actually, the mix-up is all my fault because Geoff asked me for my message a month or two back and it completely slipped my almost geriatric memory until I saw the replacement! I hope that Geoff will accept my late, late message.

Before I say more, perhaps I ought to give you some idea about who I am. I have known Geoff since about 1966. Our paths crossed at various times after that, like when I was 27 years old and newly married. Geoff was selling what (at the time) I regarded as extreme literature on Southport’s Chapel Street Station. When police appeared to shift Geoff & co I stayed with them for a few minutes, appalled that this could happen in our ‘free’ country. My political views were then right of centre, so I didn’t support Geoff through political persuasion!

I was then and still am an Evangelical Christian and since 1983 have been an Anglican clergyperson. Some will be surprised to hear that I also joined the Labour Party in appreciation of Jeremy Corbin’s direction. It seemed to me that his aim was simply to make the country work better for everyone, especially those who are worst off. (Though I do not agree with some of his ideas).

My time in the ministry in the Church, almost forty years, have convinced me that many people at the ‘bottom of the heap’ have no way of getting out. The holes they end up in seem to get bigger as they try to claw their way out. For me it was a privilege to spend a lot of my time in the poorer areas where I served with the people with the worst problems. Often the ‘professionals’ who worked with them from local or national government treated them as just ‘cases’, and forgot about them at 5pm.

The clergy lived amongst them! Our doors were opened at any time of the day or night. I met drunkards, swindlers and murderers. In those areas I also met many of the most genuine, honest people I have ever met.

Over the years many people have asked me questions such as ‘Why do it?’ ‘Wouldn’t you be better off using your abilities elsewhere?’ People have made statements like ‘We make our own destiny. The people in a mess get what they deserve!’

This is where the ‘Christmas’ side of the message starts!

God has an amazing love for people. Proud people, liars, cruel people, robbers, psychopaths, rapists, murders and Conservatives! He even loves you and me! Nobody gets everything right however hard we try, so when I meet a person, whatever their background I am never able to say ‘You are too bad for me to deal with!’ I am just one sinner talking to another!

When the Son of God came to Earth He didn’t wait for people to be good enough for Him. (Just as well! He would still be waiting). He came to experience our world, and He didn’t take the easy way. The ultra-conservative majority scorned His family situation. When he was about two years old His family had to flee from the bitterness of Herod the Great and went as refugees to Egypt. (They say that early experiences have a telling effect throughout life).

He was God’s Son on Earth, yet He was prepared to accept the worst that the world could throw at Him, as far as being crucified. Even on the cross He prayed that God would forgive His torturers.

Jesus rose again! He showed that human death does not have the last word! If someone trusts Him it should never be as if we say ‘I am good enough!’. On the contrary, we say ‘I am a sinner, & I’m sorry’. That is when God begins to change us. I never claim to be better than another person. (It is only a matter of degree- nobody is ‘good enough’.) It is us saying ‘I want to be more like Jesus.’ He is the only one who never failed!

So why is Christmas special to Christians? There are several reasons but I will just concentrate on one. At Jesus’ birth and in the months after we are told of two main groups of visitors, shepherds and wise men.

Shepherds were tough men who would fight a wild animal rather than risk the life of a sheep. They would have to do their share of night shifts and battling against fierce storms, and probably were not too well paid for their pains.

The wise men were unlikely to be kings(!) but they would have been rich worldly-wise travellers and traders.

When Jesus was born both were invited to meet Him. Both went out of their way to see Jesus and both benefitted from the experience.

I am convinced that God’s love for people today is as great as it has ever been. He doesn’t promise to make life easy (as so many sufferers from Coronavirus will tell you) but He gives life and the best direction for that life.

He came to the world in a first-century stable. He wants to work in you and me today. Who will let Him?

My best wishes for a joyful and meaningful Christmas (even though it will be very different to the usual).

John Faraday.

The Blogmeister writes: Thank you very much, John, for an uplifting message for Christmas, so unlike that of our dear old PM. Retrospective thanks for standing with us in my SWP days. I think it must have marked the beginning of a change in your own views. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

The Rhymes and Routes Christmas Message, 2020

 

The Rhymes and Routes Christmas Message for 2020 comes from The Rt Hon Boris Johnson, M.P. for Uxbridge and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Cripes! The things I get asked to do as Prime Minister! Don’t get me wrong, I love this job, as I am eminently suited for it. An Eton education is never wasted. But I am gagging with anger at writing Christmas platitudes on this stupid blog which is staffed by two geriatric Bolshies. Still, my old mate, Dom, with whom I still speak when my present other half isn’t around, says it’s always a good idea to brass it out with the Left, so here I am.

Well, I don’t have an oven ready Christmas spiel, but I think I can safely say that this has been a trying year, especially for me. No sooner did this bally silly Covid disease arrive in the UK that I caught the damn thing. I received excellent care and am especially grateful to two nurses, one of whom is Portuguese. I like him so much that I hope he stays in Britain. If he ever gets deported, or forced out, I’ll come and wave him goodbye. I must try to remember his name.

Christmas, as we know, is a time for families to get together and celebrate. I am a true family man, and, as everyone knows, I have at least three families to take care of. I consider myself very lucky to have a young fiancé and new sprog here with me in Downing Street and don’t intend to start any more families. But - you never know! As the song says: “I was born under a wandering star…” and, at Christmas time, it’s always a pleasure to pull a cracker! Ha! Ha! Still, as long as my better half keeps off my f(word deleted by Blogmeister)g laptop, all will be well.

One of my sternest critics, and occasional contributor to this blog, is a belligerent bolshie called RedNev, who persists in dragging up rumours and half-truths about me and my past. In the spirit of Christmas, I wish him well and enjoin him to get his facts right. The Garden Bridge project cost £52 million, not 53.

As for the cantankerous Blogmeister, he seems to have nothing good to say when it comes to Brexit, which I got done! I say to him: just look at the present situation regarding Europe. Could anyone else have created such a state of affairs? Christmas is a time for peace and forgiveness, and the IOG* of a Blogmeister should seek to be reconciled with Nigel Farage, Anne Widdecombe, Claire Fox, me, and all the other Brexiteers that he has attacked on this blog. Has he never read The Bible?

To conclude: I would like to wish all the readers of this blog a very Happy Christmas and a Joyful New Year. 2020 has been a trying year for me, and I intend to keep trying in 2021.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Boris the P.M. – as some people call me.

*IOG – Irritable Old Git

Blogmeister replies: Thank you for your message, Prime Minister. I am sure that I speak for millions when I say that no-one but you could have created the present mess resulting from Brexit. You are correct in that. As for peace and forgiveness towards the individuals mentioned – how do your previous wives, mistresses and colleagues feel about being reconciled to you? No reconciliation from them and none from me towards any Brexiteer, especially the ones you’ve mentioned. And as for reading The Bible – what’s your take on the Seventh Commandment?

Another Note of the Same Refrain

 

I am sad to return to this topic so close to Christmas. I have written about it many times before, knowing that it would be a recurring theme, and indeed it has been. Twice this year, I have written on the topic of murderous attacks on innocent members of the public by mental health patients. In February, I wrote of the attempted murder of a French child by Jonty Bravery at the Tate Modern, followed in March by the horrific murder of 7-year old Emily Jones in Bolton by the paranoid schizophrenic, Eltiona Skana. In both cases, the perpetrators were known to be dangerous, yet, for one reason or another, they were out on the streets. 

The same applies to the case featured today. On August 24, 2019, 69-year-old Allan Isichei, a Jazz musician and former Rugby Union player for the Wasps, was on his way home from his local pub in Southall, West London. 30 metres from home, he had the misfortune to encounter 36-year-old Gurjeet Lall, who, like so many similar killers was (and is!) a paranoid schizophrenic. CCTV shows some kind of verbal exchange after which Lall stabbed Allan Isichei several times. Mr Isichei died in the ambulance taking him to hospital.

Five days ago, Gurjeet Lall was found guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. Like so many killers of this type that I have written about, the verdict remains the same. Etiona Skana, Jonty Bravery, Robert Ashman, etc, all received similar verdicts. What such reports do not include is the unspoken caveat to the verdict: subject to response to treatment. All such offenders become eligible for release if they are judged to no longer be a danger to the public. Robert Ashman, for instance, was released eight years after attacking the then LibDem MP, Nigel Jones (now Lord Jones) and killing Jones' assistant in 2000. There is nothing to stop Gurjeet Lall being released after a period of treatment. He will be sentenced next Monday, but, whatever the length of the sentence, it will be subject to future revision.

The BBC says:

"At the trial at Inner Crown Court in October, jurors heard the killer had been arrested for possession of a knife in 2014 and 2019.Lall told the court he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia but could not remember the last time he took his medication."

This is yet another familiar refrain. Nicola Edgington , the first such killer (i.e. another schizophrenic) I wrote about, murdered her mother in 2005 and was released "conditionally" in 2009. In 2011, having failed to admit herself to a secure unit, she murdered  Sally Hodkin on he street in Bexleyheath. In her defence, non-taking of drugs was one of her explanations/excuses.

Allan Isichei's family have asked, rightly:

"Why was a person with a history of carrying knives who was only arrested while carrying one in January 2019 allowed to be back out on the streets unsupervised to carry out this senseless killing?"

Daniel Isichei expressed the view of many relatives who have fallen victim to murderous mental health patients:

"The absolute lack of remorse and denial by the killer, combined with obvious mistakes made by authorities in not having him under some form of supervision licence has all added to our grief."

The Isichei family are calling for a public inquiry into this case. I wish them luck with that, as does, hopefully, every reader of this blog. But, judging by the reactions of the authorities to previous such murders, we will be told that "lessons have been learned", staff "have been spoken to" and there is nothing to stop similar murders from happening in the future.

Boris, Blunders and Battles Over Fish

 It's becoming difficult to say anything new about Boris Johnson. He is such a shambles of a prime minister, with such a lurid past, that his constant blunders attract adverse comment on a daily basis. The Daily Mirror has published a list of 25 such misdemeanours that  he has committed in the past year. As we hurtle towards a no-deal Brexit, we face the appalling prospect of the Royal Navy being deployed to defend our fishing grounds from French ships. Only a lunatic or a blimp could welcome that prospect. As Tobias Ellwood, Tory chair of the defence select committee, has said in The Guardian:

"...he (Ellwood) was concerned that the navy would be overstretched at a time when Russian submarines were increasingly operating around the UK. “Our adversaries will be smiling as the biggest European militaries spar against each other over fish.”

Mention of Russian submarines is very apt here, but we will come to that. For now, though, readers might like to know what Boris has put out on his Facebook page. It came as a surprise to learn that he had such a page; even more of a surprise that it accepted public comment. If you wish to read it, or pass comment, click on the link. Reading his latest post, you are left wondering if Boris knows what planet he inhabits. He says:

"We said we'd get Brexit done. We did, leaving the EU on 31st January this year. Whatever happens in trade talks with the EU, our new trading relationship will be in place from January 1st ... to build back better and stronger ... this Conservative government will double-down on the pledges we made to the people, the pledges we were elected on, to build a better country for everyone."

The Mirror comments here:

"The Prime Minister might yet get a Brexit trade deal with the EU at the last moment... the 11th-hour wrangling is hardly the image he projected when he pledged an “oven-ready” Brexit deal last year".

No surprise there, but there might be something else happening that is not drawing much attention. The "something else" relates to the owners of the submarines that Tobias Ellwood is so concerned about - the Russian government. By happy coincidence, the anti-Fascist magazine, "Searchlight", has just put out its latest edition, in which we find a section called "Russia Traffic" which exposes links between the present government and Russia. I already had some idea of these links, but this report reveals more. The author, Searchlight editor, Gerry Gable, says:

"Johnson will find it difficult to set aside the overwhelming evidence of Russian influence that presents a dangerous challenge to our democracy"

We learn that Boris himself is named after a Russian émigré that his parents knew. He has received support from several  Russian oligarchs friendly with Putin. These include Alexander Temerko, Alexander Lebedev and his son, Evgeny, who owns The Independent and Evening Standard. When Johnson was Mayor of London, he was planning to hold secret talks with some unsavoury Russian figures in Moscow and Switzerland.

Among other individuals with Russian links named in the article is none other than Carrie Symonds, Johnson's fiancé. Two of her former boyfriends, Oliver Haiste (a man with far-Right connections)and Harry Cole have well-documented links with Moscow. All very cosy, of course. Johnson is on record as telling the Mayor of Moscow in 2008 that he has "many happy memories of Moscow". It looks like he is not alone in this. There are others named in the article, which makes it worth reading.

The article goes on to say that the official government response to the "Russia Report", published in July, is very evasive about Russian influence on the government itself. It is also noteworthy that Boris made strenuous efforts to appoint Chris (Failing) Grayling as head of the Intelligence and Security Committee, but failed. One wonders if Johnson was expecting Grayling to keep the report secret - "in the public interest", of course.

If President Putin is happy to see two NATO countries at odds, he could not have better placed agents to help him achieve it.

Spot the turkey...

When is a bully not a bully?

The prime minister's recent dismissal of the findings of an investigation into accusations that Priti Patel had been guilty of breaking the ministerial code by her mistreatment of her civil servants has revealed yet again the pernicious culture of cronyism that lies not only at the heart of British governments in general, but of this government in particular. 

The investigation was supposed to be independent, but we have learnt that Johnson attempted to persuade Sir Alex Allan to water down his conclusions. Having failed in that, he simply rejected the report and publicly stated that Ms Patel was not guilty of bullying and, in any event, she had apologised. It is typical of Johnson that he either did not see, or did not care about, the contradictions inherent in these assertions, i.e. that if she had done nothing wrong, why did she apologise? It is unsurprising that Sir Alex chose to resign.

Ms Patel's apologists have pointed out that she is doing a very important job - as though we needed to be told that - but that utterly fails as a defence for bad behaviour. They have also pointed out that the report states that Ms Patel did not receive the service she might expect from her civil servants - one Tory stated that there were faults "on both sides". A journalist actually asked how a woman little over 5' tall could possibly be a bully when dealing with mostly male civil servants. Such rationalisations are either disingenuous, or astonishingly ignorant of the dynamics of the boss/staff relationship. 

The first point is that in the Home Office, Ms Patel is the boss and the civil servants are her underlings; her height and gender are irrelevant to the fact that she is the one with the status and authority. The job of civil servants is to implement the law and government policy. This is true of all civil servants from those at the top in Whitehall to the junior levels that I worked in for 28 years as an executive officer in DHSS/DSS/DWP local offices. Civil servants have little discretion about what they do; to put it bluntly, they have to perform their job as instructed.

As for the suggestion that there were faults on both sides: the boss and her staff do not represent "two sides", which implies a conflict between two equal parties. One is in a position of power and authority over the other. If, as is claimed, civil servants were failing to provide the service Ms Patel required, there are well-established procedures to address the problem.

I was a trade union rep in the civil service for 24 years and while I wasn't involved in representing any mandarins, the procedures my members were subject to were the same as those covering top civil servants. There have been some hints there was an element of sabotage by senior civil servants possibly with an element of racism as to why they weren't (allegedly) doing their job properly. If this were true, then the appropriate response would be to have disciplinary action instigated against the alleged offenders. If the failings were the result of staff not being able to do the job required, then inefficiency proceedings should have been initiated. Those would be the appropriate ways to manage problems with staff performance. The entirely wrong response involves shouting, abuse and swearing. 

Johnson's dismissal of Sir Alex's conclusions, after unsuccessfully trying to influence his investigation, is entirely typical of a man whose own behaviour in both his political and his private life indicates that personal integrity is an utterly alien concept to him. His uncritical acceptance of Dominic Cummings' feeble excuses for breaking the first lockdown constitutes another example of his determination to stand by his mates, no matter what the consequences, which in Cummings's case included damage to the public's compliance with COVID-19 restrictions. The police reported that when questioned about breaking lockdown, many people justified their actions by mentioning Cummings.

Ms Patel's failure to ensure that appropriate disciplinary or inefficiency procedures were used to deal with the problems she claims to have had with staff demonstrates that she has few managerial skills, if any. Bullying is an abuse of a position of authority or power over another, leaving the victim powerless to defend him- or herself, especially as the minister is not a civil servant and is therefore not covered by the internal complaints procedures that do exist in the civil service. This also highlights the utter nonsense of the 'faults on both sides' argument: in vertical hierarchies, there are people with power and their underlings - hardly a battle of equals.

The 'two sides' argument also completely ignores the potential damage that bullying can do to the mental health and well-being of the victim. It is wholly unacceptable to say that bullying is a 'rite of passage' or a fact of life in the world of work, and that you should be a man and just take it on the chin. Recent research on the impact of bullying on both the mental and physical health of victims has demonstrated potentially serious consequences, both in the short-term and the long-term. 

The only protection for victims of ministerial bullying has been the ministerial code, and Johnson's dismissal of the findings will have sent the message to staff that they have no effective defence against overbearing ministers. This whole episode demonstrates that the prime minister is not the right person to adjudicate upon ministerial code enquiries, especially not the brazenly cronyist Johnson; this all leaves the code now fatally undermined.

Ms Patel has form; this is the second time she has been found guilty of breaching the code. Will it be three strikes and she's out? I wouldn't bank on it.

• When is a bully not a bully? When the prime minister is your pal.

The Corn Laws and Protectionism

 

When I first saw the spoof above on Facebook, I copied it and sent it to a number of people "for amusement only". Interestingly, a friend pointed out to me that most people in the UK, and certainly abroad, would have no idea what the Corn Laws were. I pondered this for a while, and realised that I was no expert myself. That's nothing to be proud of, as two of my university History courses were on British Social History of the 19th century. This is not to decry my lecturers of that time, as they were excellent. It's just that I haven't continued reading about this subject since I graduated from Salford University in 1980. I have many history books on a variety of  periods, but not British social history.

I have to thank the friend who pointed out the gap in people's knowledge and my lapsed interest. It's unfortunate that our social history is regarded as dull and of secondary relevance. Without an understanding of how our industrial history developed, we fail to understand how our present-day society came into being. The struggles for the universal franchise,  women's rights, workers' rights and welfare provision might not match the dramas and traumas of European history, but they were bitterly fought for against implacable resistance and should not be taken for granted. And, believe it or not, these struggles of our forebears have relevance today.

The Corn Laws were introduced after 1815 to protect the crop prices of British landowners who had made huge profits selling corn during the Napoleonic Wars. During the war, it had been impossible to buy imported wheat from Europe, but, post-Waterloo, that all changed. As imported corn would have been cheaper to buy, Parliament passed the Corn laws. following pressure from the landed classes, As Spartacus Educational comments:

"Parliament responded by passing a law permitting the import of foreign wheat free of duty only when the domestic price reached 80 shillings per quarter (8 bushels). During the passing of this legislation, the Houses of Parliament had to be defended by armed troops against a large angry crowd."

The British working class are often portrayed as placid and apathetic. This reaction, together with the actions of the much-denigrated Luddites, shows that they were well aware of what high bread prices meant for them. Nor was rioting confined to London. As Samuel Bamford wrote in 1843:

"...at Bridport there were riots on account of the high price of bread; at Bideford there were similar disturbances to prevent the export of grain; at Bury by the unemployed to destroy machinery; at Newcastle-on-Tyne by colliers and others; at Glasgow, where blood was shed, on account of soup kitchens; at Preston, by unemployed weavers; at Nottingham by Luddites who destroyed 30 frames; at Merthyr Tydfil, on a reduction of wages; at Birmingham by the unemployed; at Walsall by the distressed; and December 7th, 1816, at Dundee, where, owing to the high price of meal, upwards of 100 shops were plundered."

Formal opposition began in 1820, with the "Merchants' Petition" written by Thomas Tooke. It failed, but it spearheaded the continued agitation that eventually led to the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1845. The campaign to repeal the Corn laws was led by groups such as the Anti-Corn Law League (ACLL) and apostles of Free Trade like Richard Cobden, a sort of 19th century Milton Friedman. The Parliamentary lobbying, the ACLL, Cobden, etc, represented the resentment of the industrial magnates, who saw the Corn Laws as a bar to free trade and were concerned that their workers might demand higher wages, or simply become malnourished and unable to work. Richard Cobden put the case for repeal thus:

First, it would guarantee the prosperity of the manufacturer by affording him outlets for his products. Second, it would relieve the Condition of England question by cheapening the price of food and ensuring more regular employment. Third, it would make English agriculture more efficient by stimulating demand for its products in urban and industrial areas. Fourth, it would introduce through mutually advantageous international trade a new era of international fellowship and peace. The only barrier to these four beneficent solutions was the ignorant self-interest of the landlords, the "bread-taxing oligarchy, unprincipled, unfeeling, rapacious and plundering."

Well, the industrialists won in the end, and the Corn Laws passed into History in 1845. The Tory prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, voted with the opposition to win the motion. In Marxist terms, this was a "bourgeois revolution" in which the emergent capitalist class replaced the ancien regime of the landed aristocracy. Well, maybe. Research shows that the aristocracy in Britain married their children to those of the mercantile class, or made new peers by ennobling these industrial upstarts - a system that continues to operate today. 

Something else that persists today is the idea of British Protectionism, albeit in a different form. The propaganda of the Leave vote was undeniably protectionist, with its lies about money paid to the EU and its scare stories about refugees and EU migrants swarming in, etc, etc. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a regular target for mockery, but he is capable of intelligent comment, as Dr Keith Flett observed in The Guardian:

 

"Mr Rees-Mogg has a history degree from Oxford and he is certainly correct that Peel did cause a rift in the mid 19th-century Tory party. The purpose of the repeal of the Corn Laws, as Marx noted in a speech made in Brussels in January 1848, was to reduce the price of bread, not to help workers but to allow factory owners thereby to reduce wages and make more profit. Mr Rees-Mogg certainly agrees with that. Peel’s aim was to rebalance the Tories as a party of the ruling class away from landed interests and towards industrialists."

It is undeniable that the workers, their rights and welfare were of little interest to landowners and industrialists. Very few working class voices were heard in the campaign for the Repeal of the Corn Laws. This only began to change later in the 19th Century, with the coming of mass literacy and trade unionism. 

Nevertheless, the mass agitation did provide impetus to the rise of working-class activism. As Spartacus Educational says:

!The Corn Laws had an important political impact on Manchester... It also influenced working class radicals and the Corn Laws was one of the main issues that was to be addressed at the meeting that they had organised at St. Peter's Field on 16th August, 1819."

And we know what happened at that meeting...

After the Peterloo Massacre, 18 people lay dead, including a 2-year-old boy, William Fildes, and a pregnant woman, Mary Hayes. Hundreds of people were injured. The Prince of Wales (the future George IV) congratulated the magistrates who ordered the attack on the peaceful crowd  "for their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public peace". Parliament passed the "Six Acts" which stifled dissent by public meetings or in print for years afterwards.

The poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote an impassioned poem condemning the massacre - "The Masque of Anarchy" - in September, 1819, which was banned from publication until 1832.

The government cracked down severely on the press. As Wikipedia points out:

"The immediate effect of Peterloo was a crackdown on reform. The government instructed the police and courts to go after the journalists, presses and publication of the Manchester Observer."

The working class struggle had begun.

Diana, Bashir and a Funny Coloured Fish

 If the words "Rest in Peace" have any relevance, they don't apply to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Since her death in 1997, her life has been subjected to almost forensic scrutiny and bizarre conspiracy theories about her untimely demise. Her failed marriage, her lovers (real and imaginary), her charity work, etc, are frequent subjects for the media, and you'd think there was nothing left to say.

Well, as we know, we got that wrong. Last night, ITV screened the first of two programmes: "The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess". Channels Four and Five have presented two programmes on the same subject: "Diana: the Truth behind the Interview" and "Diana: the Interview That Shocked the World". As if you didn't know, these programmes focus on allegations that the BBC journalist, Martin Bashir, tricked Diana into her famous interview by presenting her brother, Earl Spencer, with forged documents. The BBC themselves comment: 

"Former BBC chairman Michael Grade has said allegations that Martin Bashir used forged bank statements to convince Princess Diana to do a 1995 interview were "a very, very serious matter"

Well, perhaps they are, and perhaps Martin Bashir does need to answer the charges against him when he returns to fitness. However, I have reservations about this matter which I will save for later.

It's difficult to explain why Diana became so celebrated in her lifetime. We are told that it is largely because of her kindness, her beauty and her charity work. All might be true, but was she very different from many other personalities in doing good works? The late Christopher Hitchens made a documentary  debunking the Diana myths in 1998. Yvonne Roberts wrote in the Independent, again, a year after Diana's death:

"I am sure Diana brought comfort to many. Her fame may even have expedited an end to the use of landmines. She may have encouraged some people to rethink on Aids and leprosy. The Diana nurses helping terminally ill children will prove invaluable. But, ultimately, what is truly significant about the past year is not what she appeared to ignite but how little has since been sustained. A saint, she ain't; a revolutionary - feminist of otherwise - she wasn't."

Historians will find much to comment upon when investigating the widespread mourning that accompanied Diana's funeral. It engulfed us at the time, and is now generally regarded as an outbreak of mass hysteria. People spent huge amounts of money on flowers to be strewn in the path of Diana's funeral cortege. Tens of thousands of mourners lined the procession route, many weeping uncontrollably and clutching teddy bears. I watched the event with a sort of fascinated disbelief. It was not an edifying spectacle. Another factor that was not edifying was something I learned from a supermarket worker back in my home town of Southport: the fact that sales of alcohol increased dramatically on the day before the funeral. I suspect that for many people in Southport and the rest of the UK, the whole TV event was a sort of entertainment - a "cryathon" fuelled by booze. 

Not everybody appreciated this maudlin TV spectacular (41% of UK households didn't watch) - but here, the mourning took on an ugly aspect. Voices of dissent were not tolerated. As one comedian remarked soon afterwards : "It was Disney meets the Blackshirts". There were cases of shops being intimidated into closing on the day of the funeral and hostility towards unenthusiastic journals. A prime example of this was the treatment of Private Eye magazine. As Peyvand Khorsandi wrote in The Independent in 2017: 

"t was these newspapers (i.e. the tabloid papers), and the ballooning sense of national mourning they were whipping up, that Private Eye punctured with its issue of 8 September 1997.There was outrage – it was withdrawn by three big retail chains, including WH Smith. Why? Because the target of its satirical wit was not the papers so much as the public."

Decades later, it seems to me that such a controversial figure as Princess Diana should be allowed to rest in peace. Not that I want to suppress either comment or historical research, but the present fuss over the interview, I believe, has another purpose besides public interest.

  You're right - that is a red herring, which is what I believe this whole Bashir and Diana "scoop" to be. Bashir was investigated by the BBC and cleared of fraud charges back in the 90s. What interests me is the fact that it has taken 25 years for this so-called scoop to be uncovered.  Without getting bogged down in the details of the controversy, I believe that this matter will work out very well for the present government, even though they are not yet involved. Not yet. As a simple distraction, it takes some of the heat off them for their failings in other areas. The calamity of Brexit approaches (ask John Major) and any diversion will do.

Another benefit for Boris & co will be the discrediting of the BBC over this matter. Already, the right-wing press are flapping their vulture wings, as can be seen in this article in The Tatler, the posh people's magazine. If the Beeb can be smeared by this issue, then it could result in it losing credibility with the general public. and that will suit Boris and his cronies very well. That will be one less independent voice to hold them to account.

If any individuals are guilty of malpractice, then they must face justice. We must not, however, allow the political right to gain predominance in our media.

Trotsky, Weimar and the Labour Party Divided

 

Leon Trotsky, or Lev Davidovich Bronstein, to give his pre-revolutionary name, is not much talked about nowadays, which is unfortunate, as, despite his ideological rants and tragic life, he was acclaimed in his lifetime as an outstanding writer and political commentator. A leading light in the Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent civil war, he fell foul of Stalin and left Russia for exile in 1929. He might have thought himself lucky to escape alive, but Stalin got him in the end. A Stalinist assassin, Ramon Mercador, killed him in Mexico, 20 August 1940.  Trotsky's principal political legacy was his variant of Marxism called "Trotskyism", which inspired British left-wing parties such as the Workers' Revolutionary Party (WRP), the International Marxist Group (IMG), the Socialist League (SL) and - to a limited extent - the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP). The "limits" to his influence on the SWP lay in the fact that the SWP never joined the Fourth International. The names of these parties ring in my mind like distant memories; Trotskyism and Marxism have faded into the political background and no longer have the significance they had back in the 1960s and 70s.

Nonetheless, I believe that Trotsky was a man of rare political vision who can provide us with insight into our present-day politics. Outside scholars and specialist websites, there is no recognition of his perceptive analysis of the reaction by the German left wing parties to the looming Nazi threat in the pre-1933 Weimar Republic. Trotsky, despite still considering himself a communist, saw clearly that the only chance for the Left to stop the Nazi takeover was for the Social Democrats (SPD), Communist Party (KPD) and the German Trade Unions to join forces and fight. In May, 1932, he said:

" I believe that if the most important organizations of the German working class continue their present policy, the victory of fascism will be assured almost automatically...I believe that the Communist Party must propose an agreement for struggle to the Social Democratic Party and the leadership of the Free Trade Unions, from below up to the very top...the united front of the working class against fascism must have a fully concrete, practical, and militant character. Its point of departure should be defense of all institutions and conquests of proletarian democracy and, in a broader sense: defense of culture before barbarism."

Had Trotsky been heeded, and the Left had won, the world would have been saved from some of the most hideous crimes ever committed against humanity; had they lost, at least they would have gone down fighting, instead of the tame way they submitted to Nazi repression.

So, what's this to do with the Labour Party at the present time? Literal-minded people will undoubtedly deny any similarity between the internal Labour Party divisions and the divided German left in the Weimar Republic. Of course, there are obvious differences which I have no need to spell out, but there are similarities that should serve as a warning. 

The internal divisions in the Labour Party have always existed. They are usually depicted as a straight split between Left and Right. It's often more subtle than that, but present-day divisions are broadly between the Corbynista followers of the former leader and a seemingly quiescent faction that supports the new leader, Keir Starmer. In a previous post, I predicted that Starmer would face a barrage of hostility from Corbyn acolytes smarting from the unseating of their "Lost Leader" - the leader who lost the election.

 I was right, as expected. Another Angry Voice thunders: 

" I have tried to give Starmer the benefit of the doubt, but it's increasingly difficult to keep doing it, given that he's outed himself as an opportunistic liar, trampled all over his promise to maintain party unity within months of becoming leader,"

The Canary laments: 

"Keir Starmer has announced a revived approach to the military from the Labour Party, to coincide with Armed Forces Day. But his approach just cements the notion that the new, rather “Blue“, Labour leader is little more than a political opportunist and charlatan; one who’s willing to out-Tory the Tories in an attempt to gain power".

And there are many similar posts on social media. I would not seek to suppress these correspondents, and I know that many Starmer supporters are no less scathing about Corbyn, although I admit to having seen no similar vitriolic attacks upon Corbyn. But the warning from Trotsky and from History is quite clear: factional in-fighting leads to defeat. If the Labour Party cannot put the past behind it and unite, then the real enemy - in our case, the Tory Party - will triumph. I don't often quote the Bible, but...

Corbyn Suspended - A Labour Civil War?

 

Boris and his cronies must be laughing like monkeys on nitrous oxide. Yesterday, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published its long-awaited report, which found that the Labour Party had, in "multiple areas", failed to halt and counter the spread of anti-Semitism in its ranks. Legally speaking;

"... the EHRC found Labour responsible for three breaches of the Equality Act: political interference in anti-Semitism complaints, failure to provide adequate training to those handling anti-Semitism complaints and harassment, including the use of anti-Semitic tropes and suggesting that complaints of anti-Semitism were fake or smears."

The EHRC found examples of political interference, inadequate training for full time party workers in dealing with anti-Semitism and two verified cases of harassment.

Labour has been served with an unlawful act notice, which requires the party to implement the EHRC's recommendations by 10 December or face legal action. Well might Keir Starmer describe yesterday as a black day for the Labour Party. 

The publication of the report didn't exactly make Jeremy Corbyn's day either, as the whole anti-Semitism controversy began on his watch. The report was published at 10..00am yesterday; at 10.30am, Jeremy was saying that the scale of the problem had been exaggerated. 30 minutes later, Keir Starmer said: 

"... those who believed the issue of anti-Semitism in the party had been "exaggerated" or were a "factional attack" were also "part of the problem and... should be nowhere near the Labour Party."

Starmer now says that he had previously cautioned Corbyn against such denials, but that did not stop Jezza. He repeated his dismissal on TV and, accordingly, was suspended.

All this is in the public domain, but what interests me is the way battle lines are being drawn between Corbynistas and Party loyalists. Already, social media is awash with pro-Corbyn soundbites, including posts from Corbyn himself. I have heard Corbynistas being likened to people who carry on supporting the manager of their football team, even when they have lost every game and been relegated to a lower division. Thanks to James O'Brien on LBC for that gem. They remind me of cultists who continue to follow the leader of their cult, even when that leader is exposed as a charlatan.

This not to say that Corbyn is a charlatan; he is nothing of the kind. He has been a Labour Party member for over 50 years and a dedicated anti-racist. As Labour leader, however, he made serious tactical and strategic errors. He made support for the Palestinian cause part of Labour Party policy, which alienated many Jewish voters (and those of us who thought it irrelevant to British domestic politics). He dithered his way through the Brexit debate - er...what did he stand for? During Labour's anti-Semitism trauma, he made no attempt to bridge the gap with the Jewish community, preferring to let his followers smear the Jewish community leaders in as many ways as possible. He accepted no responsibility for Labour's defeat in the last election, preferring to put the blame on the press, the Labour right-wing, the Zionist Conspiracy and Lord knows who else - anyone but himself.

It needs to be said, that had Corbyn not made that offending TV broadcast, he would not have been suspended. If he does not accept the EHRC findings, then he should challenge it within party rules and not go against his party leader's wishes. Nothing is achieved by his playing the martyr.

Back to the Corbynistas - they will now vilify anyone who, as they see it, opposes them:

"Either you're for us or you're against us." (That's a quote from a Dirty Harry film).

There will be ad hominem attacks on the EHRC members. I predict that, even as I type, someone like George Galloway will be scrutinising them for links with Israel. Keir Starmer will have an inbox full of abusive emails and social media will be ringing with denunciations of Jeremy's critics and lauding him as the Lost Leader - not the leader who lost. They might even get round to accusing me of being part of a Zionist conspiracy, despite the fact that I have never worked for Mossad. If it can proven that I did, then I will ask for back pay.

What worries me, and I'm sure worries many Labour activists, is that this controversy is creating divisions among Labour supporters of all hues. Like I said, Boris and his monkeys must be chortling with glee at the spectacle of a former Leader of the Opposition being suspended. Whatever we think of Keir Starmer, he does recognise this, and realises that Labour needs to unite, if it is to survive as a credible electoral force.

As part of my small effort towards unity, I shall not be deleting Jeremy Corbyn from my Facebook feed, nor will I block his supporters. This matter can only be resolved by constructive dialogue. As Alphonse de Lamartine said:

"Civil wars leave nothing but tombs".

Rock on, Jezza!

Free Speech Defended: Saluting Samuel Paty

 

The brutal murder of French teacher, Samuel Paty, on October 16 came as a double blow: the loss of a fellow-teacher and an attack on free speech itself. As it did when Leeds teacher Anne Maguire was killed by a pupil in 2014, my heart, and that of many others, went out to this man's family - a man slain simply for doing his job. It also called into question the vexed issue of free speech. Now, this blog is intended as a free speech forum, but people of the far right would gleefully point out that views of theirs are not welcome. Indeed they are not, but this points to a misconception that many ignoramuses have, usually expressed thus: 

"If it's all right to have free speech, then why can't we speak out against immigration, multiculturalism and the Jews?".

 If they have sufficient intelligence, they quote the master of Liberal theory, John Stuart Mill, seen above. Mill said: in "On Liberty":

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

Mill did say that, but a careful reading of "On Liberty" would show that he recognised that free speech has its limits, He admits that it would be wrong to make an inflammatory speech to an angry mob outside a corn-dealer's door. Hate speech directed towards ethnic or religious minorities or any such material which leads to violence or fraudulent vilification against an individual (i.e. slander or libel). would have been unacceptable to Mill (and is to most of us today).

Problems happen though, when freedom of speech impinges upon matters of religion. Many people of many faiths dislike seeing their faith mocked or unfairly (to them) criticised. In the UK, for instance, the Church of England has been a target for comedians ever since the "Beyond the Fringe" review of the early 60s. Jehovah's Witnesses receive much mild mockery from many commentators (including me) for their "prophecies" which never seem to happen. For the most part, the adherents of these faiths react with good humour, stoic silence, or serious debate. 

As we all know, this does not always happen. In the USA, some true Christian believers have carried out attacks on abortion clinics - even to the extent of murdering staff. There have been attacks by Muslim terrorists on cartoonists in Denmark, Holland and, in 2015, the Charlie Hebdo killings. The religious justification for these crimes by Jihadis is, as the BBC comments: 

"Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad can cause serious offence to Muslims because Islamic tradition explicitly forbids images of Muhammad and Allah (God)."

It's not widely known that it is only Sunni Muslims who abide strictly to this belief; Shia Muslims include images of the Prophet Muhammed in their murals.

These Islamist attacks do impact upon freedom of expression. I recall the comedian, Rory Bremner, saying some time back that jokes about Osama Bin laden might lead to comedians being shot. Intimidation by fear is worse than fear of censorship - but what becomes of us, in a free society, if we let ourselves be intimidated? This is not say that we should not be cautious elsewhere...

In 2007, Gill Gibbons, a teacher at Unity High School in Sudan was arrested for letting her class of 6-year olds call a teddy bear "Muhammad". Although there is evidence to show that her arrest was initiated by an aggrieved member of staff, and the fact that no parent had ever complained, she was thrown into a Khartoum jail for 8 days, during which she lived in fear of violence from guards and a 10,000-strong demonstration calling for her execution. To their credit, the Muslim Council of Britain condemned her arrest, and two Muslim peers flew out to plead for her release, which happened during their visit, after which she flew back to Britain.

Now, I happen to know Gill Gibbons, although I have not seen her since the 1990s, when she was married to my Head teacher at a school in Liverpool. I can only repeat what I said at the time of her arrest in Sudan - that she is a dedicated, hard-working teacher who would never knowingly offend anyone. Upon her return to UK, she said: 

'I blame myself because I shouldn't have done it...Ignorance of the law is no defence.'

That is a gracious admission, considering the way Gill was treated - but her case points to the problems that can apply to expatriates in countries governed by a different belief system to their own. It should be noted, however, that Islamists of a similar ilk to the extremists who locked up Gill Gibbons make far more offensive statements in Western countries than naming a teddy bear. Gill's actions harmed no-one, and she was acting in ignorance. The same can not be said for the Charlie Hebdo terror gang or the 7/7 bombers.

To be fair, you can suffer penalties for free speech in secular countries as well. Offend Vladimir Putin and expect a one-way ticket out of Russia. On the other hand, if you'd offended Stalin, you'd have been lucky to get out alive.

Samuel Paty broke no law. As part of a class discussion, he showed his class the Charlie Hebdo cartoons but had given Muslim students the option of leaving the room. Apparently, all but one did. The one student remaining, a girl, stayed to be offended (what a choice!) and wrote about the lesson on social media, which inspired this dedicated teacher's murder and mutilation. 

Now, there will be repercussions following this attack, as might be expected. The BBC points out that it has already worsened divisions in France. Significantly: 

".State secularism - or laïcité - is central to France's national identity. It's as important as the concepts of "liberty, equality, fraternity" that make up its post-Revolutionary motto...Curbing freedom of expression to protect the feelings of one particular community, the state says, undermines the country's unity.
But there is evidence that a growing number of people in France are uncomfortable with this argument and want the boundaries around secularism and free speech to change."

This could herald a period of conflict on this issue in France, with Islamophobes and Jihadis - extremists on both sides of the debate - seeking to inflame the situation.

But this is not exclusively a French problem. Last year, Muslim parents at a school in Birmingham protested against lessons on LGBT issues. It raises the question: how far can we accommodate dissenting voices in society without letting ourselves being intimidated and diminishing freedom of speech? If there are limits to be set on freedom of expression, at what point do we restrict those limits?

Whatever our answers, they come too late for Samuel Paty. It can only be hoped that we can resolve this matter without any more violence or murders. To Samuel's family, friends and fellow citizens, we can only say:

"Nous vous prions d'accepter nos sincères condoléances".

Repose en Paix.

"Left Out" - Jeremy Corbyn Assessed or Assassinated?

 

"Left Out - The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn" by Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire, is a sincere attempt, in my judgement, to give an objective account of what happened in the Labour Party between the Labour surge in the 2017 election to its caning in the election of 2019. Predictably, the book has divided opinion on partisan grounds.

Jeremy Corbyn, understandably, is dismissive of the book:

“… those people that are now being paid a great deal to write books analysing the past five years – what do they concentrate on? ... Tittle tattle, tittle tattle, tittle tattle gossip passing off as political comment, passing off as if it is a serious analysis.”

The right-wing press, as expected, are delighted by the revelations. The Daily Mail gloated maliciously:

"Journalists Pogrund and Maguire had front row seats to Labour's calamitous attempt to gain power.Former aides have revealed non-stop infighting between top strategists, Jeremy Corbyn's anger at losing control of his diary, and his own wife's on-screen snipes."

Trust the Mail to get personal. 

Anyway, I have the book myself, but, initially, found it hard to review. Corbyn has a point when he speaks of "tittle-tattle". Heavy use is made of anonymous sources, and there are some anecdotes, presumably intended to amuse, which do not advance the narrative. There is the anonymous allegation that Ian McNicol, the Labour general secretary and Karate expert, who:

“regularly used his training to turn light switches on and off with his feet”.

The authors also found it relevant to mention David Prescott, son of John. Prescott Junior is alleged to have made a number of inappropriate advances towards women, even on one occasion:

"Prescott was said to have relived himself on the kitchen floor of a woman who refused to have sex with him". 

As might be expected, Mr Prescott denies all such allegations - but this could give grounds for Corbyn's accusation that the book is about nothing more than gossip. It might be productive for JC to explain why Prescott was not suspended from the Labour Party. The authors say that Prescott was saved by intervention from senior officials in the Labour Party hierarchy.

These anecdotes might provide light relief, but do not enlighten us much about Labour's fall from almost-victory in 2017 to defeat in 2019. To their credit, the authors report exhaustively on the reasons for the catastrophe. 

To me, the rot set in with Corbyn's inept response to the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury. When everyone else pointed the finger of blame at Putin's Russia, including most Labour MPs, Corby bumbled his way to a slow acceptance of that view. One revelation in the book describes how two of his aides examined one of Corbyn's speeches and expunged condemnation of Russian aggression in the Ukraine and an affirmation of support for NATO. As James Dowsett says:

“The Salisbury attack is something we got wrong”, admits a senior Corbyn advisor."

Then there was the vexed issue of anti-Semitism, which was another example of Corbynist bungling. His declarations of support for the Palestinians - even making Palestinian self-determination part of Labour's programme - alienated many Jewish voters, even though Labour was already struggling to cope with accusations of anti-Semitism. He refused all suggestions from aides to make conciliatory gestures to Jewish voters. Margaret Hodge MP, who challenged Corbyn publicly, was called before the Labour disciplinary committee - a contrast to the treatment of David Prescott. This led to a split between Corbyn and his old colleague, John McDonnell. As "The Week" says:

"Corbyn backed the investigation. But McDonnell did not, fearing the optics of “jeopardising Labour’s standing for the sake of winning an argument with an elderly Jewish MP on a point of principle that was to most voters beyond arcane”.

Then there is the dismal spectacle of Corbyn's dithering over Brexit, which annoyed many in his party and the country as a whole. A firm stand by him on this issue may have saved us from Brexit.

This hardback book is now being described as a "first draft". Pogrund and Maguire are working on revisions for their paperback edition to come out next year. Indeed they should. As Sienna Rogers says in "Labourlist": 
"There was the ‘oatcake’ saga, which portrayed Corbyn’s wife Laura Alvarez negatively and had Labour Twitter scrutinising footage from the campaign day. A tweet from ITV – denying that they edited out the scene described in the book from their footage, as claimed – led to the Times online extract being amended."

This, and other mistakes, will be corrected. 

The authors do not  blame Corbyn alone for Labour's defeat in 2019. While he himself blames the Press, the capitalist system, etc, he does not, unsurprisingly, blame himself or, at least not yet, his internal opponents (although the book points to some involvement in a 2019 move to dismiss Tom Watson). The book makes clear - even if Corbyn didn't see it - that there were officials in Labour HQ who were less than happy at his becoming party leader and sought to curtail his tenure.

The authors, I think fairly, make an accurate assessment of Jeremy Corbyn: 

"At points in the narrative, Corbyn is a felt absence".

He was not a unifying figure, being used to years of being a maverick. He did not cope well with confrontation, despite being an able debater in the House of Commons. He appeared to be gripped by indecision at times of crisis and this did not play well with voters. 

As for the book, it is not without flaws for the general reader. It is almost claustrophobic at times in its focus upon office politics and backroom dealings. The voice of the Labour Party members out in the constituencies is not heard, nor that of Labour voters. However, this does not prevent it from being an important book for Labour supporters and anyone interested in modern politics. I realise that some people might find the reactions in the media (including this blog) off-putting. To them I say: don't condemn this book before you've read it.

Poachers, Gamekeepers and the Brexit Party

 

When it comes to radical politics in Britain, there is a long tradition of poachers turning into gamekeepers. That is to say, of political activists, radical in their youth, who move towards the centre ground and join "The Establishment" as they grow older. Examples include the late Dennis Healey, who left the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) when the USSR attacked Finland in 1939; Bessie Braddock , who was an active communist in Liverpool before becoming a rabidly anti-communist Labour MP; Jack Jones, who fought as a communist in the International Brigade in the 1930s, before becoming a Trade Union leader and Labour Peer.

More recent examples include John Reid (now Lord Reid), who became Defence Secretary for a while and is an ex-CPGB member, as was Lord Peter Mandelson. Steven Byers, who became a cabinet minister under Tony Blair, was a member of the Militant Tendency in the 1980s. Peter Hitchens, himself a former member of the International Socialists (IS), says:

"The veteran Left-winger George Galloway remembers former Chancellor Alistair Darling as an active sympathiser of the IMG (International Marxist Group) in Edinburgh in the 1970s."

The most recent, and most remarkable example of such political apostasy, however, is that which has happened to members of the organisation to which the young people in the photo above belonged - the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). which existed from 1981 to 1997. Its founder was a sociologist at Kent University, Frank Furedi, who led a breakaway group from the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) in the late 1970s, becoming the RCP in 1981. After 1997, some key members drifted (or swam) to the political Right. They were certainly effective. Guy Rundle says here:

"The post-RCP message began to spread through the UK right-wing press, The Times and Telegraph. Boris perhaps first encountered it through Bruno Waterfield, an RCPer and Brussels correspondent for The Telegraph, when Boris arrived. Something, in those years, made a failing wastrel like Boris into a man with a plan. The combo of bootstrap optimism and techno-society — the public/private split irrelevant — has the RCP brio all over it."

Other ex-RCPers to flourish on the Right include Munira Mirza, who now heads the Downing Street Policy Unit. (Dominic Cummings is said to be in awe of her). Gerry Gable, editor of "Searchlight" magazine , refers to the way that the RCP had erratic policies, but:

"...regardless of its twists and turns, its members always landed on their feet. Furedi, Mick Hume and Brendan O' Neill appear regularly in the Spectator, which formerly employed Johnson and now seems to be Downing Street's house magazine." (Editorial, Autumn Edition, 2020).

The most astounding example of post RCP success, however, must be that of the ex-Brexit Party MEP and new peer to be raised to the House of Lords, Claire Fox.

Fox was a leading member of the RCP , which strongly supported the IRA during the Troubles, even creating a group called the Irish Freedom Movement. In 1993, as is now well known, the RCP issued a statement following the Warrington bombing, which took the lives of two young boys: Tim Parry (no relation) and Jonathan Ball. It said that they supported :
"the right of the Irish people to take whatever measures necessary in their struggle for freedom".

These words have come back to haunt Ms Fox. When she stood as MEP candidate for the Brexit Party in the North West last year, she was widely criticised. One Brexit Paty MEP candidate, Sally Bate, resigned in disgust. Tim Parry's father, Colin, now a renowned peace campaigner, said, in April of last year:

"For somebody to come out with comments I believe she made, and being an apologist for the IRA, is absolutely disgraceful. If this woman would care to explain her comments back at that time to me and my wife, I would like her to do so."

Fox phoned Colin Parry to placate him and his wife, although he later told the press that she "repeatedly refused to disavow her comments supporting the IRA bombing..."

Colin Parry now opposes Ms Fox's elevation to the House of Lords. Both Warrington MPs, one Labour and one Tory, have also spoken out against it. Andy Carter, Tory MP for Warrington South has said:

“I will be very clear, I do not support her appointment to the House of Lords and I understand fully why so many people in Warrington feel the same".

Now, you might have expected a bold British patriot such as Nigel Farage, seen above with Ms Fox, to take a vigorous stand against the presence of an ex-Bolshie and IRA supporter in his electoral menagerie. After all, this is the man who opposes the early release of convicted terrorists from our jails. Er, well, not quite. He has been quoted as saying that he thought the criticism levelled against her as being irrelevant. Ms Fox has not responded with gratitude for his support, and that of the Brexit Party. In January, she accused Nigel of "whipping up fear" during the EU Referendum campaign. What a shame she didn't notice that before she joined the Brexit Party!

In conclusion, I'd like to provide another perspective on the RCP's take on the Irish "Troubles". It comes from a writer I remember from my SWP days - Eamonn McCann. He remembers the RCP in Ireland before and after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement:

"Naturally enough, local supporters of the ‘Ra (IRA) reckoned this crowd sound enough. But the amity only lasted until the IRA’s declaration of a ceasefire in July 1997. Claire and the Comrades went bat-shit crazy. The Irish people had been sold out again!...
Claire was so distressed by this misfortunate turn of events that she stormed along to the Blutcher Street home of one of Derry’s top Sinn Feiners, banged on the door and demanded an explanation. His response that she should – to use a technical term – fuck off, appeared to dampen Claire’s fervour. Shortly thereafter, she left town, possibly grinding her teeth at the crass ingratitude of those who’d abandoned the armed struggle which she had travelled so far to solidarise with."

In his article, McCann observes that Ms Fox has not been back. I wonder - why? Besides this, if McCann's article is accurate, Fox's outrage at the end of hostilities is difficult to reconcile with her more recent statement, quoted here in the Liverpool Echo:

"My political views have never made me insensitive to the pain and suffering caused to the innocent victims of events such as the Warrington bomb".

It seems that Ms Fox has more questions to answer on this issue. We can only hope that there are many members of the House of Lords willing to ask them.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Road to Moral Relativism

Tomorrow, we celebrate VJ 75 Day - the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory over Japan. It will be celebrated in Britain, all Commonwealth countries, all the lands occupied by the Japanese in WW2 and the USA. This month has also seen the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the 6th and 9th of August.
From 1945 onwards, the decision to drop the bombs has been controversial. The controversy continues to today, with more and more people in the former Allied countries coming to the view that the bombings were unnecessary. Criticism in the UK is spearheaded by CND, who regard the bombings as needless atrocities. Dr Kate Hudson, CND General Secretary has written:
"By the time the bomb was ready for use, Japan was ready to surrender. As General Dwight Eisenhower said, ‘Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of face. It was not necessary to hit them with that awful thing.’ So if Japan was ready to surrender, why were atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? A significant factor in the decision to bomb was the US’s desire to establish its dominance in the region after the war."

I support many of the present-day aims of CND, but am not happy with Dr Hudson's view - though I do not doubt her sincerity - and that of many similarly-minded authors. Almost without exception, I find their writings coloured by selectivity, anachronism and reductionism. In the short extract given above, Dr Hudson presents her case as if it portrays the absolute truth. But it does not. The claim that Japan was ready to surrender is disputed by Max Hastings, among others, who assert that while some elements in the Japanese government were willing to capitulate, many others, especially in the military, were not. I am not taking sides here, but Dr Hudson's refusal to mention that her view is disputed, renders her piece into nothing more than well-researched propaganda.

Dr Hudson's claim of the US desire of dominance in the Far East is a classic case of anachronism. The fact that the USA became so dominant is undeniable, but the Hudson/CND view ignores the fact that the USA and her allies were involved in a war against a ruthless enemy who needed to be subjugated. If we focus on what happened after the bombings and the surrender, we leave out the reasons for the war and the way people thought and felt at the time. The road to moral relativism starts here.

Starting down this road, we focus solely upon the bombs and their admittedly horrible after-effects. The BBC, like Dr Hudson, details the horrific death toll at Hiroshima:

"The recorded death tolls are estimates, but it is thought that about 140,000 of Hiroshima's 350,000 population were killed in the blast, and that at least 74,000 people died in Nagasaki."

And it gets worse:

"The nuclear radiation released by the bombs caused thousands more people to die from radiation sickness in the weeks, months and years that followed."

There are thousands of heart breaking accounts from survivors. This is just one. Hideo Kimura, 12 years old, was on the Nishi-Ohashi Bridge, 2,150M from the explosion at 8:15 – 8:30 am on August 6, 1945. The image above is taken from an online gallery devoted to the bombing, as is this account:

  “My classmates were screaming. Burned on their faces, arms, feet, legs, and backs. Trapped under heavy gates and houses, they screamed for help. Some were crying for help from the river, holding onto the stone embankment against the pull of the rising tide.”

These are terrible events, but when taken out of their historical context, they lead to the relativist view that the Allies were "as bad as" the Japanese. This is complete rubbish, and is not difficult to refute.  Let's just remind ourselves of how the Atom bombings came to happen. It starts, not at Pearl Harbour in 1941, but in China, exploding into full-scale war in 1937 and lasting until 1945. It is thought to have taken the lives of  20 million Chinese. It was a brutal campaign by the Japanese that saw some horrific massacres, carried out with small arms and knives. Just one of these was the Nanking Massacre, December, 1937 in which, as "History Today" says:

"Chinese soldiers were hunted down and killed by the thousands, and left in mass graves. Entire families were massacred, and even the elderly and infants were targeted for execution, while tens of thousands of women were raped. Bodies littered the streets for months after the attack"

Up to 300, 000 Chinese people are said to have died in the most gruesome circumstances.

The atrocities committed against Allied prisoners of war, such as that seen in the photo above, are well enough known, but need to to be mentioned here. There was the infamous Burma Railway, where:

" During the construction of the Burma Railway, which was a vital Japanese supply route at the time, 80,000-100,000 of the local Malayan population and more than 13,000 of Allied POWs (British, Dutch, Australian and American) lost their lives in a year-long period from 1943 to 1944.
The workers were molested, malnourished, refused medical care and executed in the most brutal ways."

And there are many, many other accounts of atrocities from all Japanese-occupied territories in WW2. There are a number of websites dealing with this subject that should be consulted when Hiroshima and Nagasaki are discussed. The point I am trying to make is that Allied combatants were well aware of the nature of their enemy and recognised that they had to be dealt with ruthlessly. Whether Dr Hudson and CND like it or not, there was a moral difference between the Axis and the Allies; only a doctrinaire humbug, a neo-Nazi or a Japanese revisionist could disagree.

I accept that CND and others are campaigning to end the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but historical events cannot be evaluated out of context. I wonder - will any CND members celebrate VJ-Day?

Japanese soldiers go berserk in Nanking, China, 1937. Unlike Hiroshima, where people perished quickly, here, Chinese civilians perished by rifle, bayonet or burial alive over a period of several weeks.