"We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share ideas with other people."
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Irish History
Northern Ireland is a province of the United Kingdom bordering the Republic of Ireland. It is populated by native Irish who are mainly Catholic and the descendants of Scottish and English settlers who are mainly Protestant. The Catholics generally support union with the South but the Protestants want to stay British.
The absentee landlord system during the Irish Potato Famine was so cruel and inefficient that a Royal Commission was appointed under the Earl of Devon to look into it. It reported:
"It would be impossible to describe the privations which they (the Irish labourer and his family) habitually and silently endure...in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage is water...their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather...a bed or a blanket a rare luxury...and nearly in all their pig and a manure heap constitute their only property."
These inhuman conditions resulted in widespread famine and emigration which denuded the country and prompted the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848. This was confined to the South East and crushed by the Royal Irish Constabulary but it led to the rise of the Irish Republican Brotherhood which became Sinn Fein in 1905.
In 1886 Gladstone introduced a Home Rule Bill but it was opposed by the Protestants in Northern Ireland and by the House of Lords. In 1909 Parliament was reformed and John Redmond gained the balance of power, but a quarter of a million Protestants signed a "Solemn League and Covenant" that Ulster should remain in the United Kingdom. Home Rule was postponed and the First World War commenced.
In 1916 five hundred people died in the Easter Uprising and fifteen rebels were subsequently executed. The rebellion had not been popular in Ireland but as a result of the shelling of Dublin and the executions of the ringleaders, Sinn Fein won a landslide general election and immediately declared the Irish Republic.
The Government of Ireland Act (1920) established Stormont as the Parliament of Northern Ireland and the Dial as the Parliament of the Irish Free State.
Between 1921 and 1972 the voters of Northern Ireland consistently returned the Unionist Party to Stormont. However, the British government, in response to the Civil Rights movement, acted to reform the electoral system and introduce power sharing. In 1973 a referendum in Northern Ireland confirmed that a majority supported the Union. In 1974 the Ulster Unionists called a strike which brought down the Stormont government.
There followed four more attempts to impose power-sharing until the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed in 1985. This was enforced by a massive police and army operation to contain
a murderous bombing campaign by the IRA, the military wing of Sinn Fein. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement
established a cease-fire and a mutually acceptable power-sharing arrangement. This was largely due to the efforts of Ian Paisley of the Democratic Ulster Unionists, and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein. Two men from different traditions
who overcame their prejudices to work together. Unfortunately, both men are now dead and their successors are not so amicable.
Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness (Belfast Telegraph)
It's ironic that Theresa May is propped up by the DUP when her opposite number Jeremy Corbyn is a longstanding friend of Irish Nationalism. The peace of the last twenty years was achieved with the UK and Ireland in the European Union. With Brexit on the horizon, it's not clear what will happen to the border or the peace process.
Electoral Performance
Northern Ireland is a province of the United Kingdom bordering the Republic of Ireland. It is populated by native Irish who are mainly Catholic and the descendants of Scottish and English settlers who are mainly Protestant. The Catholics generally support union with the South but the Protestants want to stay British.
The absentee landlord system during the Irish Potato Famine was so cruel and inefficient that a Royal Commission was appointed under the Earl of Devon to look into it. It reported:
"It would be impossible to describe the privations which they (the Irish labourer and his family) habitually and silently endure...in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage is water...their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather...a bed or a blanket a rare luxury...and nearly in all their pig and a manure heap constitute their only property."
These inhuman conditions resulted in widespread famine and emigration which denuded the country and prompted the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848. This was confined to the South East and crushed by the Royal Irish Constabulary but it led to the rise of the Irish Republican Brotherhood which became Sinn Fein in 1905.
In 1886 Gladstone introduced a Home Rule Bill but it was opposed by the Protestants in Northern Ireland and by the House of Lords. In 1909 Parliament was reformed and John Redmond gained the balance of power, but a quarter of a million Protestants signed a "Solemn League and Covenant" that Ulster should remain in the United Kingdom. Home Rule was postponed and the First World War commenced.
In 1916 five hundred people died in the Easter Uprising and fifteen rebels were subsequently executed. The rebellion had not been popular in Ireland but as a result of the shelling of Dublin and the executions of the ringleaders, Sinn Fein won a landslide general election and immediately declared the Irish Republic.
The Government of Ireland Act (1920) established Stormont as the Parliament of Northern Ireland and the Dial as the Parliament of the Irish Free State.
Between 1921 and 1972 the voters of Northern Ireland consistently returned the Unionist Party to Stormont. However, the British government, in response to the Civil Rights movement, acted to reform the electoral system and introduce power sharing. In 1973 a referendum in Northern Ireland confirmed that a majority supported the Union. In 1974 the Ulster Unionists called a strike which brought down the Stormont government.
There followed four more attempts to impose power-sharing until the Anglo-Irish Agreement was signed in 1985. This was enforced by a massive police and army operation to contain
a murderous bombing campaign by the IRA, the military wing of Sinn Fein. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement
established a cease-fire and a mutually acceptable power-sharing arrangement. This was largely due to the efforts of Ian Paisley of the Democratic Ulster Unionists, and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein. Two men from different traditions
who overcame their prejudices to work together. Unfortunately, both men are now dead and their successors are not so amicable.
It's ironic that Theresa May is propped up by the DUP when her opposite number Jeremy Corbyn is a longstanding friend of Irish Nationalism. The peace of the last twenty years was achieved with the UK and Ireland in the European Union. With Brexit on the horizon, it's not clear what will happen to the border or the peace process.
Electoral Performance
The results achieved by minority parties in the 2017 general election were pathetic. Most of them got less than 1%, whereas the winning Tories got 42% and the Labour Party got 40%.
Before Ukip, patriotic parties made little impression on British politics. Oswald Mosley's BUF was a mass movement before the war but they never got an MP elected to Parliament, and they were seriously damaged by the Second World War.
The National Front had a brief period of popularity in the seventies until Margaret Thatcher said that she understood people's fears of being "swamped" by immigration. She won a landslide election in 1979 and the NF was practically wiped out.
Recently, the BNP had scores of councillors, a Member of the London Assembly and two Members of the European Parliament, but it was all blown away by Nick Griffin's embarrassing performance on Question Time.
Ukip convinced the general public that immigration was a European problem and, with the help of the popular Press, they forced a referendum. But having achieved their ambition they no longer have a reason for existence.
This is hardly the time to announce the rebirth of the White Nationalist Party but that is just what Eddy Morrison has done. We don't need another party obsessed with Islam and Brexit but a modern party that stands for social justice and European solidarity would be welcome.
Minority parties are disadvantaged by a first-past-the-post system that was designed to perpetuate the status quo. Their first priority should be electoral reform, but they opposed it when it was offered.
They should concentrate on propaganda and forget about elections until they have sufficient support. That's how the Green Party got elected in Brighton. They focused on a single constituency instead of standing all over the country.
Brainwashing
Advertising works. The Martini TV commercial, featuring Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins, turned the aperative into a worldwide success. In 2011 General Motors spent $4.2 bn on advertising and Ford spent $3.9 bn. The IT company AT&T spent $2.9 bn and Verizon spent $2.5bn. In the USA most large corporations spend 2% of their income on advertising. The Coca-Cola campaign has made it the best-known brand in the world.
Advertising boosts the sale of products and negative advertising is just as effective. In 1974 over 40% of people in the UK smoked. But health education backed up by punitive price increases, and a ban on cigarette advertising has reduced this figure to 19%.
A similar campaign has made drinking and driving socially unacceptable. People are not just frightened of breaking the law, they are genuinely against drunken driving.
Payola is the illegal practice of record companies paying radio stations to plug their records. The term was coined by DJ Alan Freed who testified to a Congressional Committee in 1959. Fellow disc jockey Phil Lind admitted to taking $22,000 to play records. There is no doubt that constant repetition sells records.
If people can be persuaded to drive cars, give up smoking, take taxis when they are drunk, and buy targeted records, they can certainly be influenced by propaganda. Mass circulation newspapers like The Daily Mail and The Sun are guilty of brainwashing. False propaganda, such as the £350 million for the NHS, fills our heads with nonsense. The 'Will of the People" is really the will of the press barons.
At present liberalism is the order of the day and political correctness is strictly enforced but if we had a government committed to European values the mass media would follow suit. People are not born with opinions. They are influenced by experience and education and much depends on who controls the brainwashing of the nation.
President Donald Trump is a politician with Jewish grandchildren and billions of dollars. He is not a Nazi sympathizer but a Republican who told the truth about the mob that attacked free speech in Virginia. His view was immediately challenged by Theresa May who made a predictable statement absolving the Black Lives Matter thugs for attacking people with baseball bats. This was a perfect example of the type of 'false news' that has misinformed the masses. It's unfortunate that a lad from Ohio used his car against the mob because most of those demonstrating against the destruction of America's heritage were law abiding citizens.
A Plan for the Future
The 'just about managing' government of Theresa May goes from crisis to crisis. Almost every government department is under-funded and the one percent cap on the salaries of medical staff, firefighters, police, and teachers cannot be maintained as inflation reaches 3%.
On top of all her other worries, Theresa May is now faced with a massive bill for re-housing and inspecting hundreds of tower blocks in the wake of the North Kensington disaster. Local authorities can't be expected to foot the bill but the work must be done.
The Government has simply run out of money but they are frightened to raise income tax or reduce public spending. The Labour Party have promised a spending spree if they get into power but those of us who survived previous Labour governments know that they always end in tears.
We can't afford to maintain our National Health Service, replace our nuclear power stations, renew the Trident missile system, build high-speed railways, equip our new aircraft carriers with fighter planes, and pay the Brexit bill. These ideas were conceived when we were booming but we can no longer afford them. A sensible government would cancel some of these projects but the doctrinaire Tories are not for turning.
We are in the grip of a national emergency that requires urgent action. We should appoint a National Government, as we did during the Second World War. We should abandon the dream of 'independence' and draw up a recovery plan based on realistic targets. There's no point in pretending to be a world power when we can't afford to pay our nurses a decent wage. Instead of poking our noses into the Middle East we should equip our armed forces to patrol our borders, and instead of boasting how much we give in foreign aid we should look after our pensioners. It's time to forget about the Empire and look to the future.
Britain has the potential to be a modern European country with a high standard of living. But we need to invest in our industry and education and stop relying on imported goods and workers. We proved in the last war that we have the determination to succeed; all we lack is leadership and organisation.
Hidden Government
This book is well written and worth reading but it relies almost entirely on the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; an anti-Semitic book first published in St Petersburg in 1903.
Lieut Colonel J Creagh Scott DSO OBE wrote 'Hidden Government' in 1954 but most of it would be familiar to modern readers. He blames the Jews for the Russian Revolution, despite the fact that Lenin was Russian, Stalin was Georgian, and the leading Bolshevik Jew, Leon Trotsky, was murdered by the NKVD.
Lieut Colonel J Creagh Scott DSO OBE wrote 'Hidden Government' in 1954 but most of it would be familiar to modern readers. He blames the Jews for the Russian Revolution, despite the fact that Lenin was Russian, Stalin was Georgian, and the leading Bolshevik Jew, Leon Trotsky, was murdered by the NKVD.
He blames the Jews for the Balfour Declaration which promised Palestine to the Jews, but without it, America would not have come into the First World War and we would have been forced to make peace with the Central Powers. He also blames them for the Bretton Woods Treaty which tied the pound to the dollar and provided a massive American loan, but in 1944 we were bankrupt and had no choice in the matter.
He accuses Jewish bankers of making money out of nothing but he doesn't explain what happened to Lehman Brothers in 2008 - why didn't they just make some more money?
To bring us almost up-to-date he blames the Jews for passing nuclear secrets to the Russians. But not all Jews are criminals and not all Gentiles are model citizens. Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Segal, and Arnold Rothstein were top Chicago gangsters but Al Capone was a good Catholic.
The Jews always claim the protection of the State but they have backed revolutionary movements from the Spartacist revolt against the Roman Empire to the African National Congress in South Africa. Perhaps it's because they remain apart from the rest of us that they have an exaggerated sense of identity.
If the 'Protocols of the Learned Elder of Zion' are genuine this book is a damning indictment of the Jews but if they are false it's simply a catalogue of unproven anti-Semitic accusations. The 'Protocols' were exposed as a forgery by the investigative journalist Lucien Wolfe in 'The Times' in 1921, unfortunately, he was Jewish and therefore 'suspect'.
Lieut Colonel J Creagh Scott was a decorated soldier who served in the South African War and the First World War. He was badly wounded on the Somme but despite his injuries, he devoted the rest of his life to farming and supporting AK Chesterton and 'Candour'.
Princess Diana
It's twenty years since the death of Princess Diana. Like many people, I felt as though I had lost a close friend when she died. I had never met the woman and I have no interest in the monarchy but her death filled me with sadness. I guess it was because her picture was constantly in the papers that I felt as though I knew her.
Most people shared my grief but others did not. Some even thought she was a traitor for having an Egyptian boyfriend. And the conspiracy theorists indulged themselves in lurid fantasies involving MI5, or Mossad in a diabolical assassination plot.
Diana was a beautiful young woman with healthy instincts, she was an aristocrat, the mother of our future king, and a constant irritation to Buckingham Palace. But if she had lived the life of a saint she would still have attracted the attention of the lunatic fringe.
At the time the monarchy got the public's reaction completely wrong and Tony Blair got it exactly right. She was "the people's princess" and the failure of the Royals to fly immediately to London was a low point for their 'business'.
The funeral was handled with professional care. Her two boys bravely followed their mother's coffin and loyal crowds of mourners lined the flower bedecked streets. It was a State Funeral in all but name that was watched by a worldwide audience.
The funeral was handled with professional care. Her two boys bravely followed their mother's coffin and loyal crowds of mourners lined the flower bedecked streets. It was a State Funeral in all but name that was watched by a worldwide audience.
Princess Diana's small minded critics can enjoy their spiteful fantasies but we will never see her like again. A member of the Royal Family who acted like a normal human being, empathised with people, and had the smile of an angel. Rest in Peace Diana.
Mussolini
I thank my Italian comrades for their gift of a memento of Benito Mussolini. Seventy two years after his death the Italian Navy is patrolling Libyan waters to control the people smuggling gangs that have proliferated since Dave Cameron helped to destroy the stabilising regime of Colonel Gadaffi. History repeats itself and Europeans are once again obliged to intervene in Africa. The Fascism of the 1940s is no longer applicable but our continent is crying out for leadership. Communism collapsed in 1989 and Capitalism is overwhelmed with debt. We need a fair and modern system that will unite Europe. Fascism was defeated by a worldwide alliance that no longer exists. Who knows what the future holds?
European Outlook
Our sister blog is posted at http://europeanoutlook.blogspot.co.uk 
