Nation Revisited # 182 December 2021

Britain Can Make It

Battersea Power Station was the largest brick-built building in the world when it was completed in 1955. It generated electricity from British coal delivered by Thames barges, while the nearby Nine Elms Gasworks turned the same abundant fuel into cooking gas.  Now, some of our electricity comes by cable from France, some of our gas comes from Norway by pipeline, some of it comes from the United States by tanker, and the former industrial site at Battersea is an unaffordable, upmarket apartment complex financed by a Malaysian oil company.

When Britain excelled at industrial production we were blessed with coal, iron and a clever workforce that soon adapted to the latest technology. We built ships and locomotives for export and turned raw materials into finished products. The airplane was invented in the US but we were not far behind and by the end of the First World War we had taken the lead. We invented the tank which revolutionised warfare and when the Second World War came our codebreakers at Bletchley Park built the world's first computer to crack the German Enigma cipher.

As the world economy developed we discovered that we could import certain manufactured goods, and agricultural products, cheaper from abroad. And so started the decline of British industry that eventually resulted in the desperate situation we find ourselves in today. As our great manufacturers declined they were bought up by overseas competitors and the jobs that sustained our population and the profits that enriched our exchequer were exported to countries like the United States and Japan.

We cannot put the clock back. We are, where we are but let it never be said that we can't do anything that we put our minds to. We have got world class universities that are turning out scientists and engineers, and a willing workforce that performs well enough for its foreign masters. All we lack is the self-confidence that once motivated us. 

Those of us who were born in the last days of Empire are proud of our country but the younger generation are less so, having been brainwashed by a twisted educational system. We must put them right without resorting to the petty nationalism of the popular press. We are a great nation but we are also part of the European family. The 'Daily Mail' argument that it's unpatriotic to support European unity doesn't make sense. An Englishman is proud of England even though we are united with Scotland, Wales and Northen Ireland. In the same way we can be proud of Britain as an integral part of Europe.

Liberalism

In the last hundred years capital punishment and corporal punishment have been abolished, prison sentences have been reduced and attitudes to sex & drugs & rock & roll have changed. Many people who are worried about rising crime rates and antisocial behaviour blame Liberalism. Vic Sarson writes:

"The disease of 'Liberalism' took root in the aftermath of WW1. Feminism is one of many 'Liberal' manifestations; all sectional groups unbalance, distort and fragment society robbing it of cohesion and morale without which there can be no 'society'. Liberalism is an active evil rather than an innocent naivety which, combined with doctrinaire socialism has all but destroyed British society. So called democratic politicians pander to all sorts of notions and give credence to social evils such as encouraging junior school children to transgender. It would take an armed rebellion to strip these people out of their entrenched positions but even if the arms were available/obtainable would it be possible to raise and sustain such a force given the people material of today?

I often wonder if we were again in a WW2 situation would we have the manpower to fight it?"

The French Revolution, which laid the social foundations of the modern world, sprung from Liberalism. It was founded on Liberty, Equality and Fraternity but it took a bloodbath to replace the Ancien Regime. Citizen Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety sent thousands of 'enemies of the people' to the guilotine but eventually it claimed him as well. The Sea-Green Incorruptible was not above the Law. 

There is always a danger of going too far. It was wrong to hang a man for stealing a sheep but it's also wrong to let a thief go unpunished. Something must be done to achieve a sense of balance. Successive governments have experimented with 'short sharp shocks' and longer prison sentences but none of them have got it right.

The problem of rising crime is made worst by drug taking. The police have decriminalised cannabis, without consulting parliament, and their efforts to control harder drugs are limited by lack of manpower and resources. Drugs permeate every level of society and our larger than life prime minister, Boris Johnson, displays all the symproms of cocaine addiction. According to Narcanon these include; euphoria, overconfidence, unusual excitement, aggressiveness, paranoia, poor judgement, delusions, and hallucinations. This may explain his attraction to Pepper Pig.

Boris Johnson's tough-talking home secretary Priti Patel is expected to tackle the drug problem, control immigration, reform the criminal justice system, and restore respect for Liberalism.

Keeping The Lights On

The news that the French oil company Total has discovered a major new gasfield in the Shetlands comes as an embarrasment to a government worried about climate change. Gas is less polluting than coal or oil when used to generate electricity, but not as clean as wind power or nuclear.

                  

Nuclear power claims to be the cheapest way to generate electricity but if you consider the cost of decommissioning, and the storage of radioactive waste, it becomes the dearest. And when  you make provision for nuclear accidents such as Chernoble or Fukushima, the cost in lives and treasure becomes unacceptable.

Wind power is clean and efficient but only when the wind is blowing. Britain is usually a windy country but we recently went three months with our turbines at a standstill.

At present the price of gas is high due to increased demand from Asia. Germany is negotiating a long term contract with Russia that guarantees future supplies. Britain could do the same if we were not waging economic war on Russia with sanctions over Russia's annexation of the Crimean penninsular, a Russian speaking province that has been part of Russia, or the Soviet Union, since 1783.

This hostility to Russia is part of Boris Johnson's jingoistic policy that sent our aircraft carrier 'Big Lizzie' to provoke the Chinese in the South China Sea. He is pretending that we are still a world power with a navy that rules the waves; a position we have not enjoyed since we sank the German battleship Bismarck in 1941. He would do better to concentrate on keeping the lights on. 

We are already connected to the European pipeline system and our domestic network serves the whole country, Gas is the only source of reliable and affordable power.

Of course, we are trying to clean up the atmosphere, but we must be realistic. The volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma is currently spewing out massive quantities of pollutants, and other volcanoes around the world, including those under the sea, are adding to the problem. We can't fight nature but by changing to electric cars and taking practical steps towards emission control we are doing our best to protect the environment.

The oceans are another cause for concern. Plastic waste that is almost indestructable is found in every ocean. It poisons fish and other sea creatures and finds its way, via the food chain, into our digestive systems. Steps are being taken to replace plastic packaging with cardboard that will rot away to nothing. Most of the packaging is unnecessary, there is no need for apples to be sold in plastic boxes.

Our planet Earth is a molten ball of lava with a cooling crust orbiting an uncontrolled nuclear reaction called the Sun. This  emits radiation of all types, including deadly X rays and Gamma rays, and it throws out solar flares that interfere with radio communications. We share our Solar System with greater and lesser planets and satellites that exert gravitational forces that lift our oceans up and down and cause earthquakes, We are also surrounded by millions of stars that influence our planetary progress through the Universe. Mankind's industrial activities are no doubt dangerous, and should be controlled, but we are not the masters of our own destiny.

John Bean  7 June 1927 - 9 November 2021

I encountered John Bean in 1959 when cycling through central London with my school friend Paul Barnes. JB was speaking from the plinth of Nelson's Column at a meeting of the National Labour Party. Thus began a friendship that was to last a lifetime. 

He was born in Carshalton, Surrey. He spent his teenage years studying, dodging German bombs, and waiting to be called up. The war ended before he was needed but he did his National Service in the Royal Navy. On leaving the navy he started work as an industrial chemist but later turned his hand to journalism. 

He was recruited to the Lewisham branch of Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement in 1951 by his lifelong friend Carl Harley. He left UM two years later but he took some of their policies with him. He didn’t go so far as “Europe a Nation” but he believed in a Confederation of Nation States. 

He joined the League of Empire Loyalists in 1954. They were a right-wing pressure group that was firmly against Communism and finance capitalism. In 1957 he founded the National Labour Party, which merged with Colin Jordan’s White Defence League in 1960 to become the British National Party. In 1962 Colin Jordan and John Tyndall broke away from the BNP to form the National Socialist Movement. Colin Jordan kept the Princedale Road HQ, and John Bean kept his paper Combat which ran from 1958 to 1968. The leaders of the NSM were locked up for organising a paramilitary formation called Spearhead. The reorganised BNP stood in local and parliamentary elections with John Bean receiving a record breaking 9.3% at Southall in the 1964 general election; a campaign that I am proud to have taken part in. 

In 1967 the League of Empire Loyalists joined with the British National Party and a faction of the Racial Preservation Society to form the National Front. At first John Tyndall was excluded but he was allowed to join a year later. This development together with the rejection of JB’s policies on European Confederation and Workers’ Partnership persuaded him to quit active politics. He did not return until 1999 when John Tyndall was ousted as leader of the contemporary BNP by Nick Griffin. He became editor of the BNP magazine Identity but fell out with Nick Griffin in 2010. He joined the British Democratic Party in 2013 and for many years he wrote a column for the BDP website called Nationalist Notebook. 

He wrote four books; Ten Miles from Anywhere, an account of life in rural Suffolk, Many Shades of Black, his political autobiography, Blood in the Square, a political novel, and The Trail of the Viking Finger, a historical novel. He also appeared on television; Timewatch in April 1995, Windrush in September 1997, and The Lost Race in March 1999. 

He should be remembered for his practical approach to politics which he described as the art of the possible. He rejected the shock tactics of Colin Jordan in favour of conventional campaigning, and he tried to bridge the gap between Oswald Mosley’s vision of “Europe a Nation” and the narrow nationalism of John Tyndall.

He was a likable, sociable and intelligent man with a good sense of humour. His main fault was that he mixed with the wrong people and was reluctant to dump them. He was a genuine patriot with a social conscience. He leaves behind his wife Marion, his son Chris, his daughter Carol and lots of grandchildren and great grandchildren.

We agreed about ninety percent of the time but we argued about the other ten percent for over half a century; first by letter and then by email. I shall miss him dearly.

Nation Revisited 

This blog seeks reform by legal means. All articles are by Bill Baillie unless otherwise stated. The opinions of guest writers are entirely their own. We uphold the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19:

"We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people.