SDLP Are Right About Me

Posted on September 2, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

A couple of months ago I applied (again!) for a job with SDLP. A couple of days ago, I got the same old “thanks but no thanks” letter. Youd think I would have caught on by now.

The SDLP are of course right. This is increasingly clear to me. I think my health would not be an issue. But to be frank, I think that my age would have been a problem. I may no longer have the…energy or optimism. For the record, I have not been short-listed because I did not demonstrate that I met the criteria.

Actually I dont agree with the SDLP assessment but its academic. No hard feelings. My loss is the gain of one or two bright young things.

Yet, I find it a pity that the SDLP never found a role for me…especially a lucrative role for me. A role that would have boosted my bank balance as well as justifying getting a History/Politics degree at the grand old age of 57….or one that justified promoting a (quirky, independent…and credible) SDLP line on Slugger O’Toole and here on the “Czar of Russia”.

In terms of balance, I can claim that I have done more for SDLP than SDLP ever did for me. I owe “nobody nuthin'” (sic).

Its the lot of a Prophet…even a Cassandra …to be under-estimated by people “in his own country”. It has always been a peculiarity of this Blog that it is well-read in United States and really thats the only place where I feel this Blog has had any impact. The highlight remains my visit to USA and lectures at Texas State University in 2013. Yet oddly SDLP never had me on any platform.

I am not really as bitter about it all as this sounds. Any role in SDLP is at least three years too late. Not only do I admire the Party for its altruism…it aspires to represent the interests of the most vulnerable, rather than the self-interest of its members. I am really too old and tired.

Nor do I contribute to the notion that SDLP is in terminal decline…a managed terminal decline…the Fealty Doctrine. It certainly needs to be more bold…and that is not easy in a Party that is competing for “republican, nationalist” votes with Sinn Féin on one side and for ” letsgetalongerist” votes with Alliance on the other. Not to mention increasing threat of the People Before Profit and Green Party (and the Greens have a nasty streak) and new potentially divisive issues…Womens Rights. It seems that a lot of Politics now is “generational.”

Anyway…the bottom line is that SDLP are right about me.

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Politics Is About Optimism

Posted on September 2, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

First of all, my health is a lot better. The worst aspect of getting old is not major health issues…heart, kidney, diabetes etc. Thank GOD, I have no underlying issue. The worst aspect of getting old is that the recovery period from an ordinary bout of flu is much longer and more frustrating.

There is actually a strange transition period in the stages of life. I used to think I was “getting older” and of I joked about being old, friends would rush to assure me “not at all …youre not old”. Now I dont even say that because by any standards, I am 63 and old.

I might worry about my knees…arthritic due to too many marathons (two!!!!) and half marathons (four) and 10k fun runs (far too many). But I dont worry about my mental health….guess what….if you open the dishwasher and put a pint a milk in it and think “Im going mad”….its entirely normal. If on the other hand you have put dirty dishes in the fridge and only know about because your children tell you….then thats a bad sign.

So I feel mostly ok. Except for the irritating fact that nothing is as good as it used to be. Music. TV. Football. Movies. And going to Dublin yesterday and not realising that my bank card expired on 31st August and I had to go to a bank to be told that yes I might be able to withdraw €40 but it as “at the discretion of the cashier”….so being at the mercy of a cashier ….a 14 year old girl I think…is one of those senior moments that really pisses me off.

Increasingly the Future does not seem to appeal. The Music, the TV, Football and the Movies will be even worse and hard to believe that the young people of Dublin…no longer Irish in any traditional sense …want the same kinda future…Irish Unity…that I do. I am a stranger in Ireland. Damn I am a stranger in Belfast. Damn it all, I am a stranger on the Falls Road.

And its the same with Politics. I am a stranger with these issues. In fairness to myself, I coped with the great non-issue of Equal Marriage. The World did not End. In fairness to most others of my generation, we are not actually bothered. Nor should we be. I enjoy seeing “Rights” extended. But increasingly my generation will have trouble with some issues coming down the line…Reproduction Rights, Migration, The Environment, Re-Unification.

Politics is not just about the ebb and flow of ideas at Election time. There is something more fundamental….historic….going on.

Politics is about Optimism. A desire to make the world a better place. Certainly thats true MY kinda Politics. But hard to see any kinda Optimism in the Fux News mentality of Donald Trump or Syrian refugees with babies chanting “Freedom!!!” in the Square outside the main train station in Budapest. Is that the level to which Europe…with those grotesque plans of expansion…has sunk.

Hubris as the Greeks say. Schadenfreude as the Germans say. Karma as everyone says.

I dont have the optimism to even try and make things better.

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Sick Note

Posted on August 27, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

Apologies for not Blogging recently. It has been a horrible six weeks or so. My health has not been good. And finding the time and more importantly, energy, has been very difficult.

I dont know how much of my future I can realistically invest in “Keeping An Eye on the Czar Of Russia” but just for the record, this Blog celebrated its fourth anniversary earlier this month. I am proud of that.

In terms of the number of people who have actually visited this Blog, a major milestone looms. Indeed, I would easily have passed it, if I had been blogging during August. So I dont really want to hang up my keyboard, until that milestone is passed.

Just as important…there are some loose ends to be tied up. There is a couple of blogs that I have in draft form…Robert Ballagh (Question and Answer Session) and Mairia Cahill at An Féile. And there is the ongoing crisis over the Stormont Assembly. I would have liked to have blogged about it as it unfolded. Now when I eventually get round to blogging about it, there will be an element of hindsight which I dont like. Blogging is at its best as a story unfolds not when it is all over.

Anyway, hopefully…I will be doing it sooner rather than later.

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Robert Ballagh….1916 Centenary Commemorations.

Posted on August 4, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

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An Féile Lecture. Robert Ballagh, artist, stamp designer, bass guitarist and committed Republican discusses how we should remember 1916 Easter Rising.

As you all probably know there is an Orange parade held in County Donegal on the Saturday before the Twelfth (of July) each year. Robert Ballagh began his talk by referencing the Deputy Grand Master of the Orange Lodge (Mr Henning) and his speech to Orangemen this year.
Henning told his Brethren that he saw no problem with Republicans commemorating the Easter Rising next year.
This was interpreted as a “positive” gesture by unionists but Robert Ballagh saw it as patronising. Republicans do notneed the permission of unionists to commemorate the seminal event in Irish National History.
The views of “Official Ireland” on next years commemoration are views that Robert finds more “worrisome”.
“Ireland Inspires” the video used to outline the context of the “official” commemorations…and first shown at uthe General Post Office in November 2014 was a debacle. In the very place, where The Republic was proclaimed…there was no reference to the seven men who signed the Proclamation (and later executed for it) but the Queen of England, Ian Paisley, Bono, Bob Geldof and Brian O’Driscoll (the rugby legend) all appeared.

Referencing, the old rebel ballad, “Who Dares to Speak of ’98” (ie the 1798 Rebellion), Robert Ballagh asked pointedly “Who Dares to Speak of 1916”. The Irish people are being asked to be “mature” and realise that our history is “shared”. It has even been suggested that a new wall is built in Glasnevin Cemetry should name all the dead from 1916…including British soldiers.
Robert noted that the fourteen patriots who were executed by firing squads ffrom the Sherwood Foresters. It was a “reward” …as this regiment was the British regiment which had suffered most casualties.
To recognise the Sherwood Foresters with a plaque near Mount Street in Dublin where they were in a gun battle witha smaller Rebel force…was akin to unveiling a plaque to the German Luftwaffe in London.
Self-confident nations would not even consider it.
“Official” Ireland is burying the singular event of the Easter Rising in a welter of other anniversaries concocted as a decade of centenaries.
In rushing to commemorate everything, we commemorate nothing special.

The Men and Women of 1916 wer not merely rebels, they were visionaries. Noting that the old lie that the Daily Telegraph had reported that O’Donovan Rossa had made a deathbed confession, repenting his Republican past and urging Irishmen to fight the Germans were the real enemies of “civilisation”, Robert Ballagh called for Honesty about the Rising.
I wonder did he know that Beechmount Sinn Féin think Rossa was executed.
There will be alternative commemorations to Official Ireland.k
Uu,ypty p
B

nces Black, Sinead O’Connor and Damien Dempsey and Adrian Dunbar, the actor.
The title deeds of the Republic of Ireland belong to the citizens of Ireland. We must work to reclaim it from politicians and bankers.

Question and Answer Session. I will blog about this later.

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A History Lesson From Sinn Féin Beechmount

Posted on August 3, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

image It is hardly the first time that Sinn Féin have re-written Irish History…but this is probably the most laughable.

Sinn Féin Beechmount (West Belfast) organised a bus trip to Dublin for the re-enactment marking the centenary of the Funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa. They must surely have been disappointed to discover that he was not executed.

The veteran Fenian died in New York City….natural causes…aged 83.

The significance of the Funeral (1st August 1915) was that his body was re-patriated to Ireland and the occasion used by the Irish Republican Brotherhood as a major propaganda coup. The graveside oration by Padraig Pearse (in Volunteer uniform) is one of the great speeches. It is loosely referenced in the play “The Plough and the Stars” (by Sean O’Casey).

“The Fools…the Fools…The Fools. They have left us our Fenian Dead. And while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace”.

The speech is (retrospectavely) regarded as the beginning of the countdown to the Easter Rising, less than a year later.

Still, Sinn Féin is the self-appointed guardian of the Republican Flame. But by any standards, this is a stupid and embarrassing mistake.

 

 

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Gerry Conlon Memorial Lecture…Preview

Posted on July 31, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

Previewing An Feile programme last week on Slugger O’Toole, Alan Meban noted that the “SDLP is back”. Well, I am tempted to say that we havent gone away ya know…although GOD knows Slugger would like that. But I think Alan is wrong.
As you will see from the small insertion (page 33) in An Feile brochure, the Gerry Conlon Memorial Lecture does not carry any indication that this is a specifically SDLP event.

I have always defended An Feile against the charge that it is little more than a “Provo front” But increasingly West Belfast, thru the wall murals, community organisation, An Feile etc, is virtually a one party state.

For my American friends, I should point out that the Westminster MP is from Sinn Féin. Five of the six members of the Stormont Assembly are from Sinn Féin (Alex Attwood from SDLP is the sixth) and Sinn Féin hold the lions share of Belfast City Council seats in West Belfast wards.
The showpiece event of An Féile is “West Belfast Talks Back”. It is a panel event featuring representatives of political parties. Sinn Féin is quite properly represented but SDLP is never invited.
This year, the panel is made up of a Sinn Féin councillor, Gavin Robinson MP (DUP East Belfast), Julie Ann Corr (PUP Councillor) and Jeremy Corbyn MP who is from London,a British Labour Party Leadership candidate.
Its hard to see that this is not a calculated snub to both SDLP and Gerry Carroll, the People Before Profit councillor, who is making an impact in West Belfast. Frankly real or imagined threats to Sinn Féin dominance in West Belfast are not tolerated. And Sinn Féin seem further intent on marginalising SDLP. DUP and PUP are not a serious threat and SF can appear inclusive sharing a platform with unionists.

Events at An Feile have a routine. A few words of welcome from one of the organising committee. So two years ago in 2013, we had the spectacle of (then) Director, Danny Morrison introducing a SDLP event. Morrison is a former Chief Press Officer, “a journalist and author” (we are ALL journalists and authors Danny) and notoriously dismissive of SDLP.
The 2013 “SDLP” event featured a panel discussion on Victims. It featured Catherine McCartney whose brother was murdered by people close to the IRA and Breege Quinn whose son was murdered by people close to the IRA. Both murders occurred since the Good Friday Agreement. During this discussion, Danny Morrison had the sense to sit in sullen silence on the front row….his big hat possibly hiding any embarrassment.
SDLP members present considered it a success. My blog on the event can be found in my August 2013 archive.

Yet there was no “SDLP” event in 2014.
Why not?
There are two answers. According to SDLP sources, they were informed by An Feile organisers that An Feile would not host an event organised by a political party.
But according to An Feile source, SDLP did not submit a proposal.
I know who I am inclined to believe.
Just take a look at the 2014 programme and note the event where Gerry Adams unveils a memorial to Bobby Sands in the Felons Club.
Or just look at the pics in the brochure…isnt that Spike Murray of Sinn Féin at the top of the page. Arent Martin McGuinness, Bobby Storey and Danny Morrison all on An Feile programme.

Of course apologists for Sinn Féin will point out these “SF” events are one step removed from the political party. They are organised by ex-prisoners, residents groups etc but clearly the fingerprints of Sinn Féin are all over these events.

In January this year (see my blog archive), the first Gerry Conlon Memorial Lecture was held. There was,..I emphasise…no SDLP signage and no reference made to SDLP during the event. It was chaired by Alex Attwood MLA and featured Michael Mansfield QC and Paddy Hill a member of the Birmingham Six.
Gerry Conlon was of course apolitical but SDLP seem to have earned the right to adopt Gerry and his legacy. Certainly his family was in attendance in January.

So An Féile 2015 and the second Gerry Conlon Memorial Lecture in seven months and it is an “SDLP” event. Clearly, this is a good move on SDLP part and effectively the third successive event, where SDLP has challenged the Sinn Féin record on Justice.
The Organisers of the Gerry Conlon Memorial Lecture (tomorrow evening in St Marys University College) are as different from SDLP as the ex-Prisoner Committees are distinct from Sinn Féin.
The keynote Speaker is Mairia Cahill the young woman who has challenged Sinn Féin on her treatment when she accused a senior member of Rape and more senior members of a cover-up. Suffice to say that her allegations, bravery and demeanour rattled Sinn Féin….not least the reaction of some of Sinn Féins over-hyped and over-promoted women.
So tomorrows lecture is going to be interesting.
As I recall, Mairia Cahill was a volunteer with An Féile and my first thought is who from An Féiles Organising Committee will make the welcoming speech.
The other Speakers will be interesting. At this point, I do not know who is on the panel. Certainly, Patrick Corrigan from Amnesty International’s local franchise, did not cover himself in glory in January.
Certainly, there is a wider pattern, where women and children were routinely abused by all sides during the Troubles. Kincora, for example.
Just how “Republicans” react to the Lecture…thats interesting. Certainly there will be some embarrassment that a well rehearsed narrative of West Belfast solidarity with the “Republican Movement” will be undermined …even if its only for an hour and a half.
Sinn Féin would certainly prefer the narrative of brave women in Armagh Gaol in the 1970s. One other Féile event is “The Sisterhood” where ex-Prisoners talk about their experiences.
These days, there is little to fear from the “Republican Movement” in terms of kneecaps being shot off. Thats so ….20th Century. The biggest threat in 2015 is likely to be a warning from a solicitor. In my experience, very few solicitors earn as little as the “average industrial wage” earned by prominent “Republicans”.

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Glasgow Belongs To…..?????

Posted on July 26, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

Several years since I spent any meaningful time in Glasgow.

It has changed…a lot. My first visit in early 1970s, the Gorbal tenements were still there and the City carried a lot of the nasty sectarianism of Rangers (mostly) and Celtic (less) and “Taggart” -style menace as well as the Billy Connolly-style humour and the late-night pub brawls in Renfrew Street.

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Glasgow has been re-generated in much the same way that Liverpool and Manchester have been re-generated. And Belfast and Dublin for that matter.

Arriving in the city at Buchanan Street Bus Station, there is an immediate awareness that this city is proud of itself…frankly in a way that neither Belfast or Dublin can match. Maybe I am just overly familiar with the two largest cities in Ireland. The hotels in and around the City Centre and the Buchanan Galleries Shopping Centre show a city on an upward spiral.

I dont ever recall Buchanan Street being this exclusive in shopping terms. Entire shopping arcades selling expensive jewelery. Who can actually afford this? Besides footballers at Celtic FC?

George Square is still George Square. The pillar with whatever “King George”, who gives his name to the Square. This is “Establishment”…Georgian meets Victorian…Robert Peel, William Gladstone and the Cenotaph. This is the Square where Glasgow comes together. Unlikely equestrian statues of Victoria and her consort Albert…it seems a parody.

But even in the days when I visited more often, George Square looked dated and a relic. City of Empire was nineteenth century. There was a different narrative for the twentieth century.

For Glasgow was the “Red Clyde”. The shipyards and the factories might well have been in terminal decline in the 1970s but this was solid Labour. The Scottish Nationalists were confined to the Highlands and little more than an irritant. They would never challenge Labour in Glasgow and  across the great central bank of solid seats.

This was the Scotland of Gordon Brown, Alastair Darling, Robin Cook, John Reid, John Smith…Donald Dewar ….and it was all swept away less than three months ago. The SNP took 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats. Neatly the Labour Party, Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats have one seat each.

Donald Dewar was the Secretary of State for Scotland in Tony B Liar’s first government after 1997, He died around 2001. But his big idea was that a devolved Scottish Assembly would neutralise Scottish nationalism. When he died, he was quite well respected and they even erected a massive statue to him outside the Buchanan Galleries. It now seems premature.

For as Donald Dewar looked down Buchanan Street last Saturday, he would have seen Palestinian supporters collecting signatures for a petition. And he would have seen the Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party stalls and around the corner in Argyle Street, he would have seen the Socialist Party.

The SWP people were really nice guys. They promised to pass my good wishes to Vanessa Redgrave. Interestingly Labour still controls the Glasgow Council but will be swept away in the next local election. I was told that Labour doesnt like the politicalisation of the City’s most exclusive shopping area. And I was told that SNP, who dont have a stall in the street (they dont need one!) will be much more tolerant of the fringe left-wing groups.

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There is an integrity about the re-generation of Glasgow. It needs no Giro d’Italia or World Police and Fire Games. It needs no Tall Ships Race or Titanic crap. There is no “Bread and Circus” here. No LetsGetAlongerism. Just a quiet confidence…as quiet as the bi-lingual sign in Queen Street Railway Station, barely one hundred metres from Queen Victoria unlikely sitting on a horse, looking very imperial. She would not be amused. But she better get used to it.

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The Royal Mile (Edinburgh Re-Visited)

Posted on July 22, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

Thirty seven years ago, I spent a lot of time in Scotland. Over the course of eighteen months, I was in Edinburgh on  seven occasions. Sometimes I was there for two weeks. Sometimes I was there for three days. It was all work related but plenty of leisure time to see the sights…to take a Saturday trip to Inverness and walk around Culloden Battlefield or go to a pre-season football match between Dunfermline and Hartlepool United or freeze watching Hearts Reserves against Raith Rovers Reserves.

Staying in the Inverleith B&Bs with other colleagues from Belfast, Newry, Derry and Enniskillen. Having the waitress in a bar near Edinburgh Castle come to our noisy table….we had been celebrating a good night at Powder Hall Greyhound Stadium and tell us that we should leave. Our accents were agitating the off-duty soldiers from the Castle. I dont know if they were the brave Scottish Soldiers that Andy Stewart used to sing about. All we knew…Catholic nationalist from West Belfast or Protestant unionist from Coleraine….was that in 1978 in Edinburgh, this was a very bad pub to be in.

Edinburgh always struck me as a strange city. Little to do on a Presbyterian Sunday. And Conservative. Despite the dubious link to the Highlands and Jacobites and a tourist industry that bought into “shortbread tin” Scottish Nationalism, all the evidence pointed to a very unionistimage image image

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Indeed I recall one Victorian hotel was called the “North Britain Hotel”. Of course, even in 1978, I knew that West Briton was a term of abuse for Dubliners who showed some unionist or pro-British sentiment. But Edinburgh was different in pre-Thatcherite times. They embraced the term “North Briton”. It under-scored the legal, business and political Establishment.

The last time I was in Edinburgh was the early part of 1979. I had not yet met Mrs Fitzjames Horse but we have talked for several years about going there. In part, I wanted to show her part of my life that she has never seen. The cluster of B&Bs around the old Training Centre. And the functional Edinburgh around Princess Street and the historic Edinburgh up on the Hill. GOD knows I had forgotten just how steep that hill is. In 1978 and 1979, I was up and down the Royal Mile like a mountain goat. But in 2015, It was really hard on our elderly knees.

So what did I learn from this?

I dont think I ever noticed the park benches in Princess Street before. Many dedicated to Scottish (British) regiments and many dedicated to individuals “who loved this city”. Yet the one that struck me most was the bench dedicated to the International Brigade who fought in the Spanish Civil War. It is pictured above as is the more conventional statue dedicated to the Black Watch (also above).

The Castle is as I always remember it…British rather than Scottish. It did after all hold out against the Jacobites in 1745 and indeed much of the Royal Mile leading downhill from the Castle is very “Establishment”….St Giles Cathedral, the University, the David Hume statue, the Heart of Midlothian mosaic (above) , Deacon Brodies, John Knoxs House (above).Little has changed. There is a flavour of antiquity in the high buildings where it is easy to imagine the population looking out of those windows to gaze on the public executions

For my taste, there was too much “shortbread tin” Scottishness in the kiltmakers, whisky shops and souvenir shops on the Royal Mile. The large men wearing kilts, who owned or worked in these shops struck me as “Tartan Tories” rather than Scottish Nationalists.

There is a lot of History in the Royal Mile and within the “old” city. The City was once walled and there is certainly a lot to see…this is the city of Robert Louis Stevenson, of a very deprived underclass who lived in caves below the streets. It is the city of Burke and Hare (the grave robbers) of Walter Scott (a very impressive memorial in Princess Street).

It is the city of Greyfriars Bobby. It is the city of….Harry Potter tours.

Oddly the National Museum of Scotland had little to interest a Jacobite historian. Three cabinets of fairly mundane artefacts and the only surviving Jacobite flag from The Battle of Culloden. All captured Jacobite banners were ritually burned by the Edinburgh Hangman, after the Battle.

But overall my impression was that while Edinburgh went “nationalist” in May’s Westminster Election, there is something in and around the Castle…the Militarism of the Edinburgh Tattoo and the “Establishment” that is still very much West Briton in character.

It contrasts unfavourably, with Glasgow and I find this odd. In the 1970s Edinburgh at least had an aspect of (shortbread tin) Scottishness while Glasgow had the air of a British city…a Labour stronghold.

There has been an odd role reversal.

 

 

 

 

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The Tories Have A Mandate…So Do Labour!

Posted on July 22, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

It is sad to see the British Labour Party implode under the temporary leadership of Harriet Harman. But she was always a phoney. A total careerist who would jump on any bandwagon to climb thru Labour ranks.

Leading the Labour Party to abstain on the Welfare Cuts is shameful. Her excuse …that the Tories won the Election on the basis of imposing cuts …they have a mandate ….misses the point entirely.

First off, the draconian cuts go much further than anything that was in the Conservative manifesto.

Second and more importantly, Labour Party have a mandate…to oppose the Tories. Labour is the Official Opposition. It is bizarre that Labour politicians are arguing that the Tories and/or the voters got it right in May and that the Labour Party got it wrong.

The fact is that the opposition to the Tories was led by Scottish Nationalists, LIberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, SDLP and the single member of the Green Party…and of course the forty eight Labour MPs who defied their Party whip and voted against the Government.

Leadership candidates Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall abstained. The three of them are of course totally useless. I dont expect much from them. But there are decent people on those benches….Alan Johnson, Hillary Benn for example and sad to see them abstain. Shameful and pathetic.

Credit therefore to Leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and others, who actually had the courage to do the right thing. They will be called dinosaurs. But they are more in touch with the feelings of voters…Labour voters than the mainstream Parliamentary Party.

It would shake things up if a bearded Lefty like Corbyn won the Leadership. If anyone predicted that twenty years ago, they would have been put in a padded cell. Corbyn has not “moved to the centre”. The likes of Harman, Burnham, Cooper and yer woman, Liz Somebody have abandoned the centre and moved to the right of a place where no Labour Party member should be.

Yet I dont think Corbyn will win. It is still for Burnham to lose.

Twenty five years ago….when Jeremy Corbyn’s beard had fewer grey hairs….the Militant Tendency (the left wing Party within a Party) was a threat. Neil Kinnock, as Party Leader fought against it. Today, the greatest threat to Labour is the Non-Militant Tendency….the cowards who abstained on Monday night. Ironically one of them was Stephen Kinnock….the son of the same Neil Kinnock. Hillary Benn (son of Tony) also abstained. And that really sums up where Labour is in July 2015. A very bad place.

But the greatest irony is that SNP, Plaid Cymru and SDLP….nationalist parties….are representing the interests of ENGLISH working class much better than the (majority of) Labour Party. It is of course cheeky that yesterday SNP occupied the Commons benches reserved for the Official Opposition…but GOD knows, they made a point which will not be lost on English voters.

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Wellington Meets His Waterloo…in Glasgow.

Posted on July 20, 2015 by fitzjameshorse

So …the Battle of Waterloo 1815-2015. A big Bicentenary in Scotland? After all…those Red Squares…the Black Watch, the Gordon Highlanders, the Scots Greys and a lot of other Scottish regiments took part in the Duke of Wellington’s most famous victory over the French.

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I bought the above postcard, thinking that it was just a one-off, literally a snap-shot of Scottish humour. The statue is outside Glasgow’s Modern Art Gallery and the pic below is how it looked on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week.

image It appears that the traffic cone on the Iron Duke’s head is now an integral part of the statue.

In Buchanan Street on Saturday, there were a lot of street performers. The pic below is one of them.

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So what is it with the Duke of Wellington and the Traffic Cone? Well….it is a tradition. Every so often the traffic cone is removed by the Council. But every time it is removed, it is replaced. So the Duke of Wellington and his Traffic Cone are now part of the fabric of the City of Glasgow. I really love this.

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