“Mr Wilson (21) was described as a vulnerable person with learning difficulties.”
It’s not hard to see why the Provisionals may have had problems owning up to this one.
October 27, 2009
Results
Last week I had to put up with lots of people telling me that getting Nick Griffin onto Question Time would help expose him for the monster he is and therefore help to destroy British National Party support.
A YouGov poll at the weekend found that a fifth of people would actually now consider voting BNP. Well done guys. Thank Christ they didn’t have Chris Huhne at Cable Street.
October 21, 2009
The Fash Show
There is something a bit cringeworthy about Peter Hain’s last ditch attempt to have Nick Griffin booted off tomorrow night’s Question Time. I say this not from the point of view of a free-speech-for-all liberal. As I see it the BNP leader should not be allowed anywhere near the studios at TV Centre and the BBC should not have been as stupid as to needlessly open a can of worms by inviting him whenever they could have quite easily continued their policy of ignoring the filth. However, the desperate eleventh hour dragging up of a legal technicality by Hain can never make up for the years of ineptitude by his party and the rest of the political class that has allowed a tiny far right organisation to make significant gains in a number of working class areas of England. It seems a lot of people who should know better have forgotten both what fascism is and how it should be fought.
There is an old argument that has been put forward by anti-fascists down the years that rapists would not be permitted to occupy a slot on primetime telly to put forward their position on women so therefore neither should racists be handed such coveted slots to articulate their hate-filled views on ethnic minorities. Of course, the difference here is that our politicians would not permit rapists to set up their own political party, allow it to win seats in local council chambers and the European Parliament and only after all of that has happened bring into question whether or not they deserve a seat on a Thursday evening current affairs programme. Understand that point and you understand the problem.
You see, if you ask me the British National Party should never have been allowed to even exist. Like the hypothetical rapist party referred to above, they and all other extreme right organisations should be banned from the day they make their existence known. Indeed, back when the BNP didn’t even have a single councillor in England there were many individuals and organisations on the left calling for this but, probably because they were considered small and insignificant at the time, this was ignored by the people in power. That opportunity to nip things in the bud and stamp them out early on has now passed.
I have always placed myself within the no platform camp. As far as I am concerned fascists do not have the right to assemble, speak, organise or even exist in our society. That is not the position taken by New Labour and their establishment friends. Stating that fascists have a right to free speech when they are on the madcap fringe only to suddenly experience an overnight conversion to a no platform point of view the moment they start winning seats at elections is not a position that stands up to scrutiny.
The free speech fundamentalism practiced by mainstream politicians has put us into a corner where we are now being forced to have to engage with the BNP as if they were a normal political party. They are not. That said though, you would imagine that any decent parliamentarian worth his or her salt would be more than a match for anyone from a party with a constitution as mad as a box of spanners and led by a man who has a past conviction for denying the Holocaust. Sadly on Thursday evening we are relying on the talents of Jack Straw, Baroness Warsi, Chris Huhne and Bonnie Greer to perform the task of highlighting just what this eccentric little band of thugs stand for. While I do at least hope they put up a good fight, I can’t say I’m expecting much from them.
If any good at all comes out of this mess hopefully it will be that everyone understands the BNP a little better. I am of the opinion that one of the reasons for their growth is down to the fact that many of those voting for the party do not really know who or what they are voting for. From the informal chats I’ve had with friends and workmates there seems to be a naïve view going around that the BNP are something along the lines of UKIP or a slightly more vulgar version of David Davis. To that extent it seems that their efforts to look respectable under the guidance of the one-eyed Cambridge graduate have been fairly successful.
However, just how many of the 943,598 people that voted for British National Party candidates back in June’s European election really believe that the United Kingdom is a country for “indigenous Caucasians” and that all non-whites should be repatriated to their “ancestral homelands”? I’m sure a few of the idiots probably do but I’m also convinced that a massive chunk of that 943,598 do not. Let’s face it, how many working class English people out there with any sense of self respect would seriously want to be without James, Ferdinand, Johnson, Wright-Phillips, Lennon, Cole (Ashley or Carlton), Agbonlahor, Heskey or Bent for next summer’s World Cup? Were Führer Nick to have his way all these lads would be back where he reckons they belong in Kenya or Jamaica.
We’ll see how things turn out. No doubt the fall out from the televised debate will be every much as interesting as the lead up to it. However, the sad fact remains though that on Friday morning British fascism will be that little bit more human, that little bit more respectable. We obviously have not, as George Santayana famously advised us in that much quoted line, learnt from history. We are well on the road to repeating it, content as we are to provide free speech to those who would happily abolish ours. Never again? My arse.
October 19, 2009
“Next week will be possibly the worst week ever for the Catholic Church in Ireland”
October 19, 2009
A necessary yarn
If you haven’t bought The Lost Revolution by Brian Hanley and Scott Millar yet then you should as it is a truly excellent contribution to the never-ending collection of works on recent Irish history and politics. As well as being an enjoyable read, the book also helps to fill the very obvious gap that exists in relation to the lack of material on the history of the Official republican movement since the split of 1969.
I had contemplated writing my own review but to be honest I don’t think I could add to or better some of the stuff that has been appearing in recent days on Splintered Sunrise. In fact the book has triggered a plethora of reviews and commentaries on various left wing blogs, many of which have been as engrossing to read as the book itself (well, almost) and all of them infinitely better than anything that has appeared in the newspapers. Not only have the blog posts been of a high standard but the subsequent comments that have appeared in response them have also been top notch with quite a few of them developing into the sort of debates you just don’t get on Slugger nowadays. So, as I’m too lazy to write a proper post today, here are a few suggestions for Monday evening reading:
Splintered Sunrise
Cedar Lounge Revolution
Here, here, there, here and here again.
Other blogs
Garibaldy, Mick, Provo lefties, ex Democratic Left boyo Gary Kent, an interview with the authors from Indymedia and two superb pieces on Dublin Opinion here and here.
‘Proper’ journos
Book reviews from Maurice Hayes, Deaglán de Bréadún and Andrew Lynch.
And finally, in a category all of its own, AP/RN’s take.
Before I go I should also add that Sean Swan’s Official Irish Republicanism: 1962-1972 is another worthwhile read on the movement. I’m still slightly peeved though that the copy Amazon sent me arrived in a damp condition. Bastards.
October 18, 2009
Seanad “load of balls” says FG
Its becoming harder and harder to justify the existence of Seanad Éireann so one can’t really fault Enda Kenny on this latest and blatantly populist vote winning proposal. The last person I witnessed attempting try to defend the Free State’s upper house was poor old Donie Cassidy on an edition of the Late Late Show earlier on in the year in which he was faced with a studio audience baying for blood. Needless to say Cassidy, a man not known for possessing magnificent oratory skills, was unable to provide any decent reasons to maintain the Senate, though one suspects keeping him and some other TDs that have lost their seat in work would probably be the main motive had he been totally honest.
I would be surprised if many people were genuinely saddened by the demise of An Seanad under a new administration. After all, anything that would reduce Eoghan Harris’s potential speaking time is bound to be widely welcomed. And, if like me, you are one of the few people that bothers their arse watching Oireachtas Report then you will also know how tedious the debates that take place there can be (unless David Norris is around of course).
One thing I will say though is that the Seanad chamber in Leinster House is quite a pleasant old room, one of the few things I remember from a dreadfully planned history tour of Dublin organised by my school back during A-Levels. I might write a letter to Enda later this week asking what plans he has for the empty chamber once he and his cohorts have abolished the Senate.
All of this could transpire to be completely meaningless as I have a feeling once FG get into government they’ll probably push Senate reform well to the back of their agenda. And sure why wouldn’t they? It’s not as if anyone out there will even remember this proposal in a week’s time let alone after the next general election. But then that’s pallytix folks.
October 14, 2009
First they came for the anti-fascists
Apparently producers at the Question Time programme are going out of their way to weed anti-fascists from the audience for next Thursday’s edition of the show in order that the British National Party leader Nick Griffin can speak unhindered. What a truly, truly strange situation we find ourselves in that this twisted sense of morality (fascists in, anti-fascists out) has been allowed to take hold in an institution like the BBC. Clearly we have learnt nothing from history. Maybe we should just blow our own brains out now and save any future far right administration the bother.
