“We Will Do Everything Possible To Assist Ukraine” …Boris Johnson

Posted on March 2, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

If the first casualty of war is the Truth, then surely the second casualty is “Words”.

Aside from the fact that Boris Johnson is a committed liar, I wonder if Volodymyr Zelensky is impressed by Boris Johnson’s message that Britain will do everything possible to assist Ukraine.

At first sight “everything possible” is pretty unambiguous but does Johnson mean “EVERYTHING possible” or “everything POSSIBLE”.

If it is “EVERYTHING” then this means boots on the ground and a no-fly zone.

If it means “everything POSSIBLE” then really it means “NOTHING”.

I am not convinced by standing ovations for ambassadors from Ukraine in the United States Congress or in the Westminster Commons. Wearing yellow and blue ribbons is the ultimate in gesture politics.

Of course Politics might be the Art of the Possible but I am not sure how that applies here.

The narrative is that Zelensky, the heavyweight boxers and the ordinary people of Ukraine are very brave and holding out against all the odds. There is also the fact that the Ukrainians are winning the propaganda battle.

But there is also a narrative that Putin expected all this to be over in two or three days.

I get the impression that the “West” also wanted a quick war. Obviously a long drawn out war causes more casualties. But Ukrainian defiance has also surprised Biden, Johnson, Macron and the rest. A long war increases the chances of misteps in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

However supportive the NATO and European Union APPEAR to be….they are conscious that they are now following public opinion. I saw this on one of those new, fancy telephone kiosks in Mary Street, Dublin last night.

We are now in the position that western governments are following public opinion.

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Ukraine

Posted on March 1, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

First of all, I “stand with Ukraine”.

One of the strange things about the last week is that people see parallels with the Past and other people don’t see any. It is a curious mixed bag.

First off, people tell us that this is unprecedented in modern Europe. I suppose it all depends on how “modern” Europe is perceived.

I am too young to remember the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 (or the British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt) but certainly the former had a legacy that affected my 1960s childhood. As I delivered Catholic newspapers like The Universe, Irish Catholic and Catholic Herald in West Belfast, one of the great heroes to many was Cardinal Mindszenty, the Hungarian cardinal imprisoned by both Nazis and Communists and freed in 1956 who spent more than a decade in exile in the American Embassy in Budapest.

I do remember 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the building of the Berlin Wall. I have seen news footage of desperate people being shot as they tried to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin.

And as a teenager in 1968, I recall the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (sic) .

So there is a history of USSR (and Russia is its successor) imposing its will on its satellites and former satellites.

Czarist Russia, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation is a continuum. In any form, it is an Empire. An “Evil Empire”? …….well all empires are “evil”. It can be dressed up as Civilisation, Manifest Destiny or the City on the Hill but Exceptionalism is extremely unpleasant.

And as conflicts in Europe go, the implosion of Yugoslavia led to a war involving attrocity, rape and genocide. And of course a refugee situation.

But is the West’s perception of a “refugee crisis” a graduated perception.

For those of us who have seen images of refugees from Sudan, Iraq and Syria, Bosnia-Herzegovina….and latterly Afghanistan, the Media conditions us to accept that refugee status is an occupational hazard of what we patronisingly call the Third World

To me as a father and grandfather, it was impossible to look on children at Kabul airport and not see my children and grandchildren.

Ukraine…we are told…is different. The families arriving into Poland from Ukraine are in Europe. Modern Europe. They dress as we do. They have luggage as we do. They LOOK like us. And somehow this is not supposed to happen to people who look like us.

As my wife reminded me this morning, in August 1969, she was an 11 year old girl and her father put her and her mother and siblings on a bus taking them from the Clonard area in Belfast to the safety of the Irish Aer Corps at Gormanstown, County Meath.

This seems to have been forgotten by both British and Irish media. It seems even my wife is not “people like me”.

How did this happen?

I think that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West expected Russia to be different from its predecessors. But the Russian Bear in the 21st century is as much a predator as it was in the 19th century or 20th century. Mikhail Gorbachev was an outlier…..but the Russian Doll…the Babushka Nesting doll has the face of Putin and contains Brezhnev, Kruschev and Stalin.

The simple fact is that Russia is a predatory empire, whether monarchist, communist or a fascist kleptocracy…expansionism comes naturally.

I was in USSR as it then was in 1980 (Olympics in Moscow). Of course I knew of their federation of fifteen republics but did not know how much this was part of the Russian psyche until I saw the Opening ceremony in the Olympic Stadium. Yes, I knew Ukraine and Belarus were members of the United Nations and knew the “western” history of the Baltic republics but would not have been able to name the various “-stans” in the east of USSR.

With their independence and with the collapse of the broader eastern bloc, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and some joining European Union and (from a Russian point of view worse) joining NATO, modern Russia feels diminished.

Another imperialist power with an identity crisis is Britain. The post 1945 fall of its Empire and independence of several nations pushed Britain into finding a new place in the world…the Common Market. But Britain could never accept equality…Britain unable to rule the waves re-positioned itself to waive the rules and craved its imperial past…and found a rather stupid way of doing it…Brexit.

Ukraine…to an extent always a frontier….between Catholics in western Ukraine and Orthodox in eastern Ukraine. In a secular world this is less relevant Ukraine is looking to Brussels more than Rome. Indeed tonight Ukraine applied for EU membership.

This is not supposed to happen in Europe. Strangely I felt the same when I was reading a book in bed on the night of 15th August 1969. The gunshots, the tracer bullets………in Europe!

And there are images that resonate with me. The middle aged lady who walks up to the Russian soldier demanding to know what he is doing there. “Go home” she tells him. And I think that middle aged lady and many more like her were doing the same in Ballymurphy.

Living in fear of death. Children killed. I have seen this before.

The only difference is 24 hour news and social media. Back in the day, we only had dustbin lids to warn the world.

The “West” really has done some U-turns in the last week. Germany risibly supplied helmets last week. This week, the Germans and many NATO (eg Norway) and/or EU (eg Finland) countries are supplying weapons…but cannot actually deliver them into Ukraine itself.

What Ukraine wants most is EU membership. It offers protection of sorts.

What Ukraine also wants is a no-fly zone. NATO can’t agree ….they are committed to “no boots on the ground” and will not directly confront the Russians. Even delivering weapons into Poland for Ukraine to pick up is high risk.

But this is a fast-moving story.

The narrative is that the Ukrainians are putting up fierce resistance to the invader. They are undoubtedly brave. Their President is charismatic. Whether western politicians like it or not, there is a great wave of public opinion that calls for intervention. As the cluster bombs explode in Kyiv…as the body count gets higher, politicians might start listening.

Remember Kuwait….thirty years ago, that was a war about Oil.Or Iraq. The public were unimpressed…weapons of mass destruction they told the western voters. It was a lie…a great big lie. But it is easier to go to war with Saddam Hussein (who had no weapons of mass destruction) than it is to go to war with Vladimir Putin (who has a lot of weapons of mass destruction).

And the Balkans in the 1990s. The “West” was forced into action by a public who did not like the genocide and mass rape on TV screens.

Appeasement.

Was Crimea Putin’s Sudetenland? Ethnic Germans in 1938. Ethnic Russians in 2014.

But Putin went further. Casual assassination of his enemies. Murder in Salisbury, England.

How did he get away with it? …….Money.

The Russian oligarchs own London. Literally. Houses, Cars. The estate agents have big bonuses. So do the salesmen of luxury cars.

Lawyers, Call Girls, Bankers are all feeding off Russian money.

And London is awash with dirty money laundered thru Banks. It has been known for years. Even the British Conservative Party receives Russian money. Somehow the British government has decided to deal with this….in the last seven days.

Sanctions? In some way irrelevant because they take too long to work. But let’s be honest. A Russian victory is priced in. In a week or a month Ukraine will (probably) be defeated and then the “West” can go back to what it does best…make dirty money.

For today’s Sanctions are tomorrow’s investment opportunity.

In a year or so, diplomats will talk about normalising relations, recognise a diminished or puppet regime in Ukraine and photo-ops and state visits to Putin or his successor.

Peace Talks?

No conditions apparently. Just how many Treaties have I read about as a schoolboy…Westphalia (1648), Utrecht (1580), Paris (1783), Vienna (1815), Versailles (1919). Peace prevails at the expense of lands seized and lands annexed.

Any Peace is unlikely to see Russia go back to its recognised boundaries or even the boundaries it alone recognises. Nor is any Peace likely to see Ukrainian rights enhanced.

Conflict Resolutionists? In Norn Iron, we actually have a surplus of conflict resolutionists. It seems easy enough. Just tell the Russians and Ukrainians that in every conflict, there is no right or wrong. Everyone is 50% right and everyone is 50% wrong….not sure Ukraine would see it that way but exporting every conflict resolutionist from Norn Iron to talk nonsense in Kyiv means I wont have to listen to the idiots.

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The Glasnevin Wall

Posted on February 7, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

Glasnevin Cemetry in Dublin is in many ways our Arlington Cemetry. Our great heroes in many fields are buried here. Daniel O’Connell, Michael Collins, Kevin Barry, Countess Markievicz are buried here. So is Luke Kelly (musician), Liam Whelan (footballer) and Brendan Behan (writer). I have been there on a few occasions.

To mark the centenary of the Easter Rising of 1916, a sculpture listing the names of those who died was constructed.

There was some controversy as the “Vietnam-style” wall listed members of the Royal Irish Constabulary who lost their lives. It was…inclusive.

It has been pointed out that the memorial to the Vietnam War victims only lists American dead. And the memorial to the Alamo (which I have seen in San Antonio) only lists the defenders of the Alamo.

The Glasnevin Wall has been subject to vandalism and so t will be closed…cancelled.

I think that the Centenary of the Easter Rising was the only real success in the Decade of Centenaries.

It was the seminal event in modern Irish history. Pre-Easter 1916 and post Easter 1916 were two different places. As such it was inclusive.

Take a look at these stamps which were issued to commemorate the Centenary of the Easter Rising. Police Constable James O’Brien was the gatekeeper at Dublin Castle on Easter Monday and the first man to die in the Rebellion. He was shot dead by Captain Seán Connolly of the Irish Citizen Army. Captain Connolly would later be shot dead. Side by side on a stamp.

The Malone Brothers…one of the great heroes of that week was Lt Michael Malone who was commanding a unit at Mount Street Bridge. Several members of the Sherwood Foresters were killed by him personally. He was killed that week. His brother William was killed a year earlier fighting with the Dublin Fusiliers. Side by side on a stamp.

The woman is Louisa Nolan who risked her life to attend the dead and wounded British at Mount Street.

Sir Francis Fletcher Vane, the honourable British officer who reported the deliberate killing of civilians by British troops and Francis Sheehy Skeffington, the pacifist who was one such victim, killed on the orders of Captain J C Bowen-Colthurst.

In their own way, they played a part in Easter 1916 and whatever we have now is in part due to these people and people like them.

Too inclusive? No I don’t think so.

But not everyone agrees. You can see that on the “Malone” stamp, someone thought that William was an unworthy of being featured on an Irish stamp. Yet defacing it with adhesive white paper just seems a petty and insulting act of vandalism.

Some might say that the Glasnevin Wall was overly inclusive. And unionists in Norn Iron, who always have a reason to whinge about not being loved enough in the Republic of Ireland might take the vandalism as a personal insult and the decision to “cancel” the Wall as giving in to Criminality.

On the other hand, people like me might say that more than 3,500 people died in The Troubles (1969-98) and there is no official monument in Belfast to commemorate them. We just could not agree in including all of the victims.

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Decade Of Half Centenaries: Deaths January 1972

Posted on January 31, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

We have had the Decade of Centenaries. It was little more than an attempt by (some) academics to help us “understand” the background of the Troubles (which began in 1969) thru seminal events like the Ulster Covenant, Easter Rising, First World War and so on.

Realistically nobody has any real grief over events and deaths that happened a hundred years ago.

It was a controlled narrative to produce a faux notion of “shared history” and by extension a “shared future”.

It was deemed “helpful” to look again at our history.

To me the Decade of Half Centenaries…….the series of “50th Anniversary of….” from 1969 to (say) yesterday is actually much more relevant.

Why? Because these events are actually within living memory. I was 17 years old when the Troubles began.

Yesterday was of course the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday. As a consequence of that single murderous event, fourteen people were killed. Traumatic for the families involved and the broader nationalist and Catholic community.

The problem with mass murder ..memorable …is that obscures the pain of single murders. Yet the pain is just as horrible.

Aside from Bloody Sunday, thirteen people were killed in January 1972.

Three members of the IRA were killed…two (one an old school friend of mine) in gun battles with the British Army in West Belfast. The third died as a result of a premature explosion.

Three British soldiers died. All killed by IRA.

Three members of RUC died, including two killed in a gun battle in Derry with IRA a few days before Bloody Sunday. The third was off duty and killed by IRA in North Belfast.

Two RUC reservists were shot dead by IRA. One in North Belfast. The second shot dead at his workplace in a “Catholic” part of West Belfast. As I knew that latter area well, I found that very disturbing.

A Catholic man was shot dead at his home in North Belfast.Killed by Loyalists.

A Protestant bus conductor who had witnessed a bus being hijacked and was called to testify was shot dead by IRA in East Belfast.

Those who had families are still mourned by elderly parents, elderly widows, middle aged children and by grandchildren they maybe never knew. And some who were maybe single are maybe forgotten.

SOURCE: CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths.

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Bloody Sunday 1972-2022

Posted on January 30, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

This is a strange post. I have always known that I would write about Bloody Sunday. And I thought it would be a long post but actually it wont be long.

Reasons…we are all familiar with the story. And I was not in Derry. I was at home watching TV on a cold Sunday when the News broke. And it kinda continued breaking during the day.

I was 19 years old. Old enough to remember better than I seem to. All I remember is what I saw on TV news. The footage…that very familiar footage. The interviews. John Hume telling the truth. The Para officer telling lies. The journalists telling us what the Government, Police and Army Press office told them to say.

We knew it was lies. Especially the Paras because I had seen them in Ballymurphy less than six months before.

It was Murder.

But I hold the journalists in total contempt. They had the briefings from official sources. They had interviewed people. They made a judgement that the Army were more credible, especially to “British” audiences.

But the journalists were there. There is a point where a reporter is a witness to a crime. There is a point where a reporter is a goddam liar.

The Widgery Report exonerated the Paras. The Saville Report (38 years later) exonerated the murdered and bereaved in Derry.

The reporters who are still alive suddenly remember that they did not take sides. They merely reported “facts” as they were told. In 2022, look out for weasel words telling us that we are somehow mistaken. They will tell us their reports were more nuanced, more balanced than I remember.

Ballymurphy (August 1971), McGurks Bar (December 1971) and Bloody Sunday (January 1972)…three events that would change my life. Other events within a year would change me more. An arc of events in 1971/72.

I remember at work, Protestant co-workers seemed embarrassed but I might be imagining that. Jeannette who was maybe 25 years old was angry about the British Embassy being burned and trying to bait me and said “what do THEY own up here? ” and unusually brave, I said “The Six Counties”….and the office fell silent.

So we had a Tory Government (1972-1974), Labour (1974-1979), Tory (1979-1997), Labour (1997-2010) and in 2012, it was Tory David Cameron who finally exonerated the people of Derry…and by extension the nationalist people. To be fair, he was forthright. It was his finest hour.

On this 50th Anniversary, there will be public Remembrance. And private Remembering. Once again journalists will descend on Derry and interview survivors.

The story of the Troubles is that people like me were “Nobodies” and we became “Somebodies”.. That is what has happened.

Reconciliation? I do not “do” Reconciliation”. If I was convinced that it could not all happen again, I would extend my hand. But as Colum Eastwood in the British Parliament demands an apology from the Parachute Regiment, he is heckled by Sammy Wilson (DUP). And Johnny Mercer (the Tory MP), the ex military man does his outraged speech complaining about Colum’s “childish witterings”.

So no, I do not do Reconciliation.

Look at the DUP. Did they care then? Do they care now? See…..I don’t mind that they don’t care. And likewise Doug Union of People Beattie and his UUP will spout something about “we must learn”.

And those great champions of LetsGetAlongerism? Do you remember where they led the campaign for Justice? No the people of the Bogside (or Ballymurphy or New Lodge) were never the people that Alliance politicians encountered at coffee mornings. Nor for that matter were Protestant farmers in border areas or the victims at Kingsmill or Tebane the kinda people, Alliance met on the golf course.

No point in upsetting the apple cart when there are places on quangos to be filled.

Sinn Féin….well you can’t complain about Justice and then perpetrate Claudy and Bloody Friday later in the year…or Kingsmill and Tebane and La Mon or the Shankill Bomb.

In this case….and do not say it is a partisan point…SDLP can claim the high moral ground.

But tonight……the thing that gets me most….is that I cannnot actually remember much.

For the record, there were 13 other deaths as a result of the Troubles in January 1972. And hopefully I will post about them too. The Decade of Half Centenaries is much more important than the Decade of Centenaries. The difference is that people still mourn for events in 1972.

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SDLP : New Faces: Paul Doherty (West Belfast)

Posted on January 28, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

I am of course a man from West Belfast. I still feel like that even though I only lived there from 1952 to 1979.

Of course I usually worked in Belfast but oddly I have never felt totally at ease anywhere since 1978.

In SDLP terms I joined Falls Branch of SDLP in 1973. It was just after the Council Elections. I did not vote. And just after the murder of SDLP man, Paddy Wilson, a friend of my father.

I think I felt guilty that I told Paddy I would not be voting. But after his murder, I was canvassing for SDLP in West Belfast.

I was the youngest person in the Falls Branch. And 1973 was not a good time to get involved in Politics. Obviously the British Army were on the streets, the Provos were out. And of course the Republican Clubs (the Stickies…later rebranded as Workers Party) gave us a hard time.

Oddly the Stickies gave us a harder time than the Provos. Why so? Well the Stickies were electoral rivals of SDLP.

But the Provos……their political wing was little more than the parents, wives, relatives of IRA prisoners……they were usually much nicer to us. Why so? In simple terms,,,they needed SDLP. Often to get a son or husband out of a police station.

I remember after the branch meeting (above a chip shop on Glen Road) driving to aRUC station with Desmond Gillespie MLA and a distraught mother. A few nights later, the distraught mother was picketing about SDLP outside Dessie’s house at Gransha.

Of course the West Belfast SDLP politicians at that time were Gerry Fitt and Paddy Devlin, Desmond Gillespie (probably the nicest man in politics) and Dr Joe Hendron. And Mary Muldoon (then Sullivan). Alex Attwood came later.

Certainly the local Party was damaged by the defections of Gerry Fitt and Paddy Devlin. Despite Alex’s best efforts, it never really recovered. The absence of electoral politics, the rise of Sinn Féin contributed.

It almost seems that in 2022, SDLP in West Belfast is at Ground Zero. Which makes the relatively unknown Paul Doherty an interesting choice for the upcoming Assembly election.

I have never met Paul Doherty he has been a major presence on Twitter for a while. And extremely active….but he has really two distinct profiles….one is directly political but the other is in terms of founding and running a Food Bank.

SDLP are quietly confident about a good result and I always think it is a good thing to see community activism beyond the narrow “party political policy”. SDLP surprised many in North Belfast at the last council elections when Paul McCusker was elected with double the quota on the first count. Much of that can be attributed to his work as a anti drugs activist.

In many ways this is the key to electoral success……a combination of political action and activism within a particular field or charity which brings in a personal vote.

Sinn Féin has (not withstanding Gerry Carroll holding a seat for People Before Profit) given the impression that West Belfast from Castle Street to Twinbrook is a one-party state but the reality is that quite a lot of people do not like Sinn Féin.

But will that vote rally behind Paul Doherty?

I hope so.

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I Am A Victim Of “Cancel Culture”

Posted on January 27, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

It would be hard to find a person more “woke” and “right on” than me. So I find it odd that a comment I made on Slugger O’Toole has been deleted.

There is an excellent post by Ms Kellie Turtle. She is described as a feminist activist and PhD researcher. So she is a professional full time feminist, not just one who does Feminism at the weekend or in her spare time. Therefore her views are worth considering.

When the time is right, I’d like to hear Doug Beattie communicate what he’s learned…

This is a really good post. For the benefit of American readers, Doug Beattie is the current leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. I have always doubted his (relatively) liberal credentials but Slugger O’Toole and the letsgetalongerist dominated media have spent years looking for a liberal unionist who will somehow secure the “union”. Mike Nesbitt, Robin Swann, Steve Aiken…even Peter Robinson…and now Doug Beattie.

But thanks to an ill-judged Twitter joke and even more historical tweets, Beattie’s reputation as the reforming unionist has been shredded. Doug Beattie is now Doug Beaten-Docket. A worthless bet.

What to do?

Well certainly people who NEED a liberal unionist will certainly think in terms of “Doug, what on earth possessed you to say THAT?” or maybe try and re-habiltate Doug.

I actually made a very sensible comment on the thread. Upticked by six readers.

“I was reminded of former politician Ed Balls doing a documentary on care homes or those life swap documentaries where posh teenagers have to live on benefits.

What indeed have we all learned?
Doug Beattie seems to be the sort of UUP man who could only come from Portadown, Dungannon, Lurgan and Cookstown and that’s different from being UUP in obviously nationalist or obviously unionist areas.
A frontiersman.
As I am a frontier nationalist, I have watched with some surprise that the man I see when I am passing on the bus is different to the press conference man, the man in the Stormont Chamber, the man on the View.
I am struck that rather than being more than meets the eye, Mr Beattie is actually less than meets the eye…or he is just what he is.
And anything that I have learned in the last few days has not changed my mind. Indeed only those who invested some hope in Beattie will be left to wonder.
How Beattie is seen in the Stormont press gallery or in NIO or academia is one thing…but why not ask the people in Killycomaine, Brownstone, Garvaghy, Mourneview, Taghnevan (Catholic and Protestant areas in his Doug’s constituency)
Good, Bad, indifferent.

As the feminist anthem “I am Woman, hear me roar”, tells us that part of the journey is “make my brother understand”. Many of us get it. We never heard our mothers, grannys, aunts, sisters tell stories of toxic men.
But we have heard our wives, cousins, sisters in law and female friends and many have honoured us and trusted us enough to tell us some of their pain.

We want to make d**n sure we don’t hear it from daughters, granddaughters, nieces.
Yeah…we get it.
And what we all need to get is that “toxic” knows no boundaries in terms of genre.

Would I like to hear Doug “communicate” ?
Well…frankly no.
Two years ago or two weeks ago, Doug Beattie or “when the time is right”, Doug Beattie has never said anything or will say anything that I want to hear.”

But was this later comment of mine too frivilous

“I am a new man….it makes me a babe magnet”

Those who know me as a wee, old, fat baldy man will know me well enough to know that I am not by any traditional or other metric “a babe magnet”. But I do hint at a serious point that women should be as wary of men who PROFESS to being a “new man” or “woke”.

Yes there are Dinosaurs. And there are Dinosaurs in sheep’s clothing.

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Doug Beattie…It’s The Way He Tells Them!

Posted on January 24, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

Apparently Doug Beattie, UUP Leader who we keep being told is a modern kind of unionist has made a very unfunny joke about Edwin Poots and Mrs Poots. I have not heard the joke and I do not want to hear it.

Beattie has apologised. Is he fair game for criticism?

There is really two responses …reject the apology and milk Beatties “joke ” for political advantage (as the other parties would do) OR say Beattie has apologised and we should “move on” (the likely UUP response).

The worst phrase in politics is “we should move on”. Typically we have had two months of this from the Tories.

There is a tendency for politicians who have behaved badly or unwisely to apologise and rush to the high moral ground putting the onus on those offended to forgive and forget.

I do not buy that. And certainly not in election years. Part of the process is to accept the consequences of wrong or unwise actions. And if the offended do not want to accept the apology and would rather milk it, then that is a consequence.

Barry McElduff offended a lot of people (probably including Doug Beattie) with that Kingsmill “joke”. McElduff paid a political price (resignation) despite initial Sinn Féin “let’s move on” defence.

What exactly is fair in politics? Should a politician be reminded that they were once a member of another party? Should a politician be reminded of a criminal conviction, such as a road accident?

I do not know. But I look forward to the inevitable (????) post from the moralist on Slugger O’Toole, who have perhaps hyped Doug Beattie and liberal unionism.

If they are hesitating because they need some kinda real or false Equivelance…well there is the McElduff incident and his resignation.

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Downing Street: Whaddya Know?…Whaddya Say?

Posted on January 20, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

We do of course live in the “New Normal”.

At first the Pandemic seemed like Science Fiction. Mysterious killer disease that started in Asia.

For the record, I had the worst flu I ever had (at times I could not breathe) in December 2019, a full three months before Covid 19 was announced.

I am of course more than two years older now. I have not (so far as I am aware) been infected by Covid. But my energy levels are very low. I spend too much time sleeping.

Do I have “long Covid?” To be honest, I do not want to know.

Lockdown?

To be honest, it did not really affect my wife and myself. We are retired and elderly. We are not “social”. I certainly missed almost 18 months without my free travel and the one moment of genuine anger I had was in October 2019 when I deleted three years worth of “travel” Blogging site I had…..and it cannot be retrieved. That was the one week of genuine mental anguish.

We are an extended family of ten living in three houses. One son, wife and three children were on furlough. Their biggest sadness was the death of a much loved mother/grandmother. And only 15 people at the funeral. Our other son and wife are both key workers and as such, we gave day care to their son. We also interacted quite a lot with both families. We obeyed the law, kept mostly to the rules as long as they did not interfere (too much) with our family life.

So we are going thru the pandemic as three inter related “bubbles”. I think that is a reasonable approach. Famili es…our ONE family of ten and TWO families of five and three have different comfort levels. But we are getting thru it. One adult and two children have had Covid.

One thing I never believed was the mantra that “we are all in this together”. Nor did I feel heartened with children painting rainbows and displaying them to cheer up health workers. Nor did I feel “Baked Potato” would see us thru nearly two years of misery.

The corruption in the British government. The mendacity has been obvious from the early stages.

Somehow they have got away with it.

Until this last month or so.

PartyGate.

Well what do you expect? They are after all Tories. To be honest, I can’t keep up with the Timeline but I do know this all came to light when the video of the rehearsal for a press conference came to light about six weeks ago.

Allegra Stratton said “I went home” and that means she went home to her hubby, the editor of the Spectator….did she not tell her hubby that there was a party in Number 10…is he annoyed at missing that scoop?.

And that party the night before the Dukey Embra funeral was for a departing PR man about to become Deputy Editor of The Sun…..wow that guy really missed a scoop, It could have been all over The Sun on Monday morning.

It seems really strange that as the news of PartyGate broke in December, journos in The Sun did not ask their Deputy Editor about the Downing Street culture.

It seems reasonable to think that a lot of journalists in broadcast and print journalism were always aware of these parties and just decided the general public had no need to know.

The nature of the Media is that it mediates between what is happening and what the public is told. Two reasons. One is political bias. One is the nature of the job that requires “access”.

As James Cagney used to say in gangster movies “Whaddya know?, Whaddya say?”

I suspect that the journos analysing the latest bombshell revelations are commenting on things they were aware of months ago.

The price Journalists pay for Access is Discretion, Secrecy. “Lobby terms” might well have a place but covering up potential criminality is not acceptable. It is not “lawyer-client” privelege.

You might say that Journalists have Ethics. But if you say that I would laugh….I would laugh loudly.

I almost feel sorry for the government ministers sent out on the media round to defend the latest indefensible revelation. Some like Nadhim Zadawi can appear very sincere. I do not know if he really believes the rubbish he is talking or whether he is like me…..a person who can fake sincerity. Others like Grant Shapps are not very good at sincerity….and of course it is amusing that other cabinet ministers (Truss, Sunak among them) with Prime Ministerial ambitions are appearing loyal while also distancing themselves from Boris Johnson….others are hopeful of a better cabinet post and others like our beloved Brandon Lewis and Nadine Dorries would be booted out. Jeremy Hunt and David Davies would be back in….”In again out again in again out again” (Lanigans Ball) or The Vicar of Bray that changes sides with every regime change.

But if I was a politician on early morning TV and interviewed by Beth Rigby and Kay Burley, I might be inclined to remind them of their own lockdown partying (and suspensions from our TV screens).

It must be horrendous to realise that Piers Morgan is on the high moral ground.

This Access versus News is not unique to “political journalism”. A decade ago the scandal about MPs expenses was largely ignored by political journalists. The revelations and public anger were driven by “news journalists”.

It is the same with Sports Journalists. The journos embedded with (say) Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal have Access and “sources”…official and otherwise. They are privy to the teams boozy nights out in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, The dressing room bust ups, the womanising …and its very much a case of suppressing some information. But its the “news journalists” who will spill the beans.

The Police and the Parties

I do not really understand the Police having difficulty in finding witnesses to crimes that they themselves witnessed. There are security gates with armed police. There is a policeman at the door, police inside, and probably one on the roof of every building in Whitehall.

There is CCTV and presumably a system for logging in and out every person who enters or leaves Downing Street. And presumably the privately educated, over privileged Tory advisers did not actually clean up after their parties. I daresay that the cleaning staff at Downing Street could be more helpful to Sue Grey and her crack team of investigators.

One of the odd things about the Rich and Powerful is that they do not even realise that ordinary people exist. Andrew Windsor said as much in his interview with Emily Maitlis. And one of the interesting parts of the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell was that servants were instructed not to look at Jeffrey Epstein and his rich and famous guests.

The answer to Downing Street probes is not to be found in emails and text messages sent by ministers and officials to each other. Take a look at the invisible people…the plebs.

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JeffreyMandering

Posted on January 15, 2022 by fitzjameshorse

Dual Mandate or Double Jobbing? They mean the same thing but one is much more perjorative than the other.

This means a person being a member of two legislative Assemblies at the same time…ie Westminster Parliament and the regional Assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Norn Iron. The leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, Douglas Ross is a member of the House of Commons and the Scottish Assembly.

The practice of Dual Mandate/Double Jobbing was discredited in Norn Iron and for some years now, it has only been possible to be a MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly at Stormont) OR a MP (Member of Parliament at Westminster).

In many ways it can be seen that Stormont is “minor league” and Westminster is the “major league” and often the case that ambitious politicians cut their teeth at Stormont before moving on to Westminster.

Of course, it is the voters themselves who make the real choices.

So why then would Brandon Lewis, Secretary of State for Norn Iron seek to introduce legislation to bring back the Dual Mandate. And to do so in time for the Assembly Elections in May this year, meaning that Westminster MPs could seek election to Stormont.

Double Jobbing, as the name suggests is unpopular. But not universally unpopular. A reasonable person might see it as a bit greedy. Or that a legislator cannot be part time in Belfast AND London.

Four of the five major parties…Sinn Féin, SDLP, Alliance and UUP have condemned the British proposal. DUP have welcomed it.

The official reason for the British decision is that it merely brings Norn Iron into line with the rest of the disUnitedKingdom. It creates a level playing field and all parties here are free to decide whether to stand a MP as a candidate in May.

As too often, the British are being disingenuous.

For a start, UUP are not represented at Westminster. So they are unaffected.

Sinn Féin have seven seats at Westminster but as abstentionists, they do not take an oath of allegiance and do not actually take up seats. They are effectively place-holders (and as I am fairly neutral on abstention) I see their point that the Mother of Parliaments is not all it claims to be. For SF, Westminster is largely irrelevant and with the exceptions of Chris Hazzard (South Down), Michelle Gildernew (Fermanagh-South Tyrone) and possibly Paul Maskey (West Belfast), they tend to show more contempt for Westminster by sending four second-raters to London.

In Sinn Féin terms, Stormont (and of course Dublin) is where the action is.

SDLP hold two seats at Westminster. Colum Eastwood (Foyle) and Claire Hanna (South Belfast). Both romped home in 2019, in part due to Claire reaching out beyond traditional nationalist support and SF withdrawing to support the leading anti Brexit candidate.

In five seat per constituency Colum might be a big enough hitter to bring in a third SDLP MLA. Claire might be a big enough hitter to bring in a running mate.

To be clear….this wont happen. SDLP has already picked three candidates in Foyle and two in South Belfast. And are optimistic that a seat can be gained.

Alliance has one Westminster seat (Stephen Farry in North Down) and has one of the five Assembly seats there. Farry might be a big enough hitter to help gain a targeted seat there. But s strongly against Dual Mandate/Double Jobbing.

To be clear to the voters of these parties, Dual Mandat/?Double Jobbing is discredited.

But the DUP. They hold eight seats but are in danger of losing their position as the biggest Assembly party and with it, the position of First Minister to Sinn Féin. The Party has been doing badly in opinion polls.

So it is tempting to repatriate Sammy Wilson (East Antrim), Ian Paisley (North Antrim), Gavin Robinson (East Belfast) and Gregory Campbell (East Derry) to head their Assembly ticket.

And “Sir” Jeffrey Donaldson…….now there’s a thing. A few months into his leadership of the DUP, he is the MP for Lagan Valley. Currently he would have to resign his seat and stand for Assembly if he is to become First (or Second) Minister. And the problem there is that DUP might lose that seat if the other parties rally behind the Alliance candidate, Sorcha Eastwood. Actually I think it is ONLY possible if other parties back Eastwood. She is certainly a firm believer in her own ability and threat.

Would DUP voters tolerate Double Jobbing?

Yes, they would. Partly because it might help them keep First Minister position. But also because many evangelical voters believe that Greed is actually an aspiration. Riches are a blessing. They have no shame about Money in the way that many voters in other parties do.

Of course, it is hardly a coincidence that the British government is doing something that obviously helps DUP….they have abandoned any pretence at being neutral in Norn Iron affairs.

Of course any DUP MP winning an Assembly seat can always resign and be replaced by a co-option.

Everyone (in the DUP at least) is a Winner.

I am looking forward to the condemnation of British policy on Slugger O’Toole.

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