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What you want to say – 3rd March 2021 March 3, 2021

Posted by guestposter in Uncategorized.
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As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

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1. terrymdunne - March 3, 2021

New Peelers and Sheep podcast episode out next Monday March 8th – entitled ‘Notes on the Defence of Irish Country Houses’ – it takes its name from a draft document composed in 1914 by Colonel George O’Callaghan-Westropp, self-styled as The O’Callaghan, a county Clare landlord.

O’Callaghan-Westropp was an activist in the British conservative-nationalist mobilisation against Home Rule and lost out through agrarian agitation and government intervention in the years running up to 1914 (that is the years of the Ranch War).

He later re-invented himself as a leading activist in the Irish Farmers’ Union. This episode tells his story and also looks at the Farmers’ Union and its clash with the labour movement over attempts to control food prices through regulating food exports in 1920 (the Butter and Bacon Embargo). The Irish Farmers’ Union also had a political wing – the Irish Farmers’ Party and a proposed paramilitary wing – the Farmers’ Freedom Force.

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banjoagbeanjoe - March 3, 2021

The Farmers’ Freedom Force. I guess they never needed to activate it because their class became the ruling class. Their Freedom Force was the state and its cops.

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terrymdunne - March 3, 2021

Yeah in the 1922-23 Lock-Out in south Kildare the local I.F.U. supplied a list of labour activists to be arrested to the Dept. of Agriculture who duly supplied the names to the Dept. of Defence to do just that (and they did – at least in some instances). Mostly what the Farmers’ Freedom Force became is propaganda in the Transport Union press – esp. when there were instances of violence/intimidation in strikes – as in this cartoon here –

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banjoagbeanjoe - March 3, 2021

Great cartoon. You wouldn’t get the likes in SIPTU News or whatever it’s called these days.

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Jolly Red Giant - March 4, 2021

There are instances of the FFF confronting striking farm labourers in West Limerick and in Waterford.

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terrymdunne - March 4, 2021

Yeah there was certainly extra-state confrontations, violence and intimidation in strikes – the cartoon is from January 27th 1923 and reflects that – the proposal in spring 1920 was for a formally organised nation-wide paramilitary wing of the I.F.U. (in response to the Butter & Bacon Embargo) and this was never implemented AFAIK.

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2. Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 3, 2021

I don’t know what it’s like in Ireland but here in Germany it seems that the federal and state governments are caving in to the ‘profit first – what does it matter if tens of thousands more die?’ lobby.

The lobbyists are putting round a ‘we can’t take the lockdown any more’ vibe, on the (possibly/probably) justified assumption that the political class can live with a 20-40k more Covid deaths.

The rate of infection dipped briefly towards what before the British B117 variant were considered ‘manageable’ levels, and is now beginning to rise. At first linearly but that may be the lower slopes of an exponential rise. A third wave of infection seems inevitable, given the lack of political will.

I’d be pleasently surprised if the rate doesn’t double in the month of March, leaving more thousands avoidably dead and tens of thousands disabled.

Are the death cult of capitalism lobbyists having a similar success in the RoI?

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3. crocodileshoes - March 3, 2021

RTÉ is discontinuing its DAB service at the end of the month. We bought several DAB radios at the time DAB launched here, but it never took off. Stations outside Ireland were never available and the non-RTÉ stations in Ireland mostly tried a DAB offering and abandoned it. All our DAB radios get FM too, but the DAB element seems to have gone the way of Betamax – a possibly better technology that never achieved critical mass.
Odd thing is, the momentum in other countries is in the opposite direction. Norway has turned off FM and gone 100% for DAB; Switzerland is doing the same. Their markets are not much bigger than ours, so it’s not a size thing. Is it lack of investment? Conservatism among Irish listeners (we’re always being told we’re avid radio fans)?

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 3, 2021

A lot of people listening over the IP protocol perhaps? T’Internet that is.

And perhaps fewer people listening to predetermined scheduled ‘entertainment’.

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sonofstan - March 3, 2021

Pretty common here in the UK too I think; all the BBC channels on it, including 6Music which doesn’t broadcast on FM.

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crocodileshoes - March 3, 2021

Why does one country embrace a technology and another reject it?
Anyone know of a similar instance?
Is there a firm of ambulance-chasing, daytime-tv-advertising lawyers out there who’ll get me compensation for my money wasted on the ‘broadcasting technology of the future’?

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WorldbyStorm - March 3, 2021

I listen to RTÉ online mostly. Is that a factor? I’m guessing a small listenership.

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Paul Culloty - March 3, 2021

I’d have thought Tune In and its equivalents had rendered DAB obsolete, but evidently not from the above posts.

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crocodileshoes - March 3, 2021

Is there a political aspect? There was some talk when DAB was introduced about freeing up FM bandwidth. I got the impression publicly-owned RTE were going to set an example and privately-owned channels were expected to follow. They didn’t and now RTE has pulled the plug. And what about the pressure on FM bandwidth – not an issue any more?

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sonofstan - March 3, 2021

Not quite the same, but in Germany and especially Japan, most revenue from recorded music still comes from physical sales.

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sonofstan - March 3, 2021

That was in answer to Croc. shoes

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 4, 2021

Really? Wow – that surprises me.

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EWI - March 5, 2021

Is there a firm of ambulance-chasing, daytime-tv-advertising lawyers out there who’ll get me compensation for my money wasted on the ‘broadcasting technology of the future’?

I’ll join you with my Minidisc stereo, ’64-bit’ G5 PowerMac 1,1 and APS camera.

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rockroots - March 5, 2021

A minidisc stereo sounds like something that could become a specialist collector’s item, if you hang on to it long enough. I know first-hand how difficult it can be to source equipment for obsolete formats, even VHS tapes.

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EWI - March 5, 2021

’64-bit’ G5 PowerMac 1,1

Should be ’64-bit’ Mac Pro 1,1 (too early).

A minidisc stereo sounds like something that could become a specialist collector’s item, if you hang on to it long enough. I know first-hand how difficult it can be to source equipment for obsolete formats, even VHS tapes.

Unfortunately I doubt children will let it survive that long.

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4. CL - March 3, 2021

” Prof Eamonn de Valera Jr, the son of former President Eamon de Valera, repeatedly facilitated the illegal adoption of babies long after the introduction of the 1952 Adoption Act, which made the practice a criminal offence, RTÉ Investigates has learned.”
https://www.rte.ie/news/investigations-unit/2021/0303/1200525-de-valera-jr-repeatedly-facilitated-illegal-adoptions/

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sonofstan - March 3, 2021

Wow….
and also holy f*ck

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WorldbyStorm - March 3, 2021

Got to say that’s a grim new story. Genuinely shocking.

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EWI - March 3, 2021

Grim and unsurprising. Regrettably no mention that the Tánaiste in the unnamed 1952 government was St. Seán Lemass.

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Fergal - March 3, 2021

Every society gets the criminals it deserves… Emma Goldman
We’re as sick as our secrets…
Dreadful, absolutely dreadful… the only positive, I hope, is that any return to clerical domination with their willing handmaidens is impossible?

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Liberius - March 3, 2021

Years later, Prof De Valera Jr wrote a letter regarding the placement of another baby in the late 1960s in which he said “given his illegitimate background we felt it best the child was placed with a good family.”

And some people wonder why I have a very low opinion on these people and the societal structures they created, that could easily have been me if I hadn’t been born in the comparatively enlightened* early 1990s.

*Not that the 1990s were that enlightened.

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sonofstan - March 3, 2021

Having been born when Baby Dev was sorting out who did and didn’t deserve a baby, and being adopted myself, this really does send a ‘there but for the grace of people who thought they could behave like God’ shiver down the spine.

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EWI - March 3, 2021

Worth bearing in mind that ‘Dev Sr’ also has illegitimacy swirling around his origins, and was placed across the Atlantic with relatives in Clare.

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CL - March 3, 2021

” The programme, RTÉ Investigates: Ireland’s Illegal Adoptions, also details how the Sisters of Charity, who ran the infamous St Patrick’s Guild Adoption Society, pursued a birth mother for maintenance payments for her daughter, long after she had actually been adopted….
A year after she gave birth the nuns began phoning Arnotts, where she worked as a shop assistant. A letter was sent threatening to send a money collector around.
“She would prefer not to have to do this as it might be embarrassing for you and we want to safeguard your reputation. We have not failed you. You have failed us,” it said.”
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/son-of-eamon-de-valera-facilitated-illegal-adoptions-through-his-medical-practice-40152135.html

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5. CL - March 3, 2021

Percentage of population vaccinated with at least one dose:

NI, – 19.9% ROI, – 3.2%
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-56048229

” TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said the government will have to reflect on what to do when restrictions in Northern Ireland are eased at a much faster pace than the Republic…..
Martin said the UK is far more advanced in the vaccination programme “so they have a different perspective and are looking at it through a different lense than we currently are”….
He said restrictions both north and south of the border will inevitably be different in the months ahead “given the decisions that are taken by the UK government, but we’ll have to examine that, we’ll have to reflect on how we deal with that”.
https://www.thejournal.ie/northern-ireland-restrictions-3-5363323-Feb2021/

” Failure to exit lockdown restrictions at the same time on both sides of the Border would be “very foolish”, the British Medical Association (BMA) has warned….
As the Stormont Executive announced its plan to ease out of coronavirus closures, Dr Tom Black, chairman of the BMA in the North, cautioned that divergence between Dublin and Belfast could ravage Border areas as people flock from one side to the other….
“It would be very foolish of the Republic and Northern Ireland to differ in that respect, because we would just end up with high rates of infection around the Border counties.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/failure-to-co-ordinate-lockdown-exits-on-both-sides-of-border-would-be-very-foolish-1.4499156

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 3, 2021

Figures from 13th Feb.

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WorldbyStorm - March 3, 2021

Between 6 and 7% at the moment in the ROI have had one shot. 141,883 have had two.

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CL - March 3, 2021

The NI vaccine dosage rate closely tracks the rate for the UK as a whole.
The latest figures show the UK at 31.9
and Ireland (ROI) at 8.8
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker/?areas=gbr&areas=isr&areas=usa&areas=eue&cumulative=1&populationAdjusted=1

This disparity makes North/South coordination in easing of restrictions more difficult.

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sonofstan - March 3, 2021

Compared to 28% in NI, with 31,000 second doses.

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sonofstan - March 3, 2021

That was as of last friday so probably closer to the UK average as CL has it by now.

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6. Tomboktu - March 3, 2021

It looks like the razor that I have for 30 or so years has been taken off the market, which I think means matching blades are no longer available. If the other models usthe same grip mechanism to attach the blade cartridges, I could use those but it’s a bit dear to buy a range of blades to see if any of them fit.

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banjoagbeanjoe - March 3, 2021

File under It woudn’t happen under full communism.

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7. sonofstan - March 3, 2021

Presumably like the Da, he just needed to ‘look into his heart’ to see what was good for people.

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8. Paul Culloty - March 3, 2021

Interesting High Court action being taken by Patrick Costello concerning the constitutionality of CETA – that said, I can’t see how the ICS would involve a referendum-trigggering transfer of sovereignty when the International Criminal Court did not, but the case precedent will be intriguing:

https://twitter.com/aoifegracemoore/status/1367058933471404033

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9. crocodileshoes - March 3, 2021

“Who I feel let down by is the government. They seem to have this tunnel vision of getting us all back in school and claiming it’s for our mental health. But for many teenagers, like myself, this doesn’t ring true. It feels like they just want to shove us in school so they can get the workforce back and I’ve found it unbearable to watch our mental health being weaponised to force the economy back and running. Schools are not safe. No one has learned from last year and it feels awfully like history will repeat itself.”
Very interesting comment from 17-year-old Jasmine Kelly in today’s Indio.

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 3, 2021

Well said that young woman!

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10. Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 3, 2021

Fidesz has resigned from the EPP. I don’t know whether they jumped before they were pushed.

But as votewatch.eu notes this is big in European politics.

Votewatch comments:

“Importantly, the decision by Orban to end the prolonged EPP-Fidesz telenovela indicates that the current Hungarian government assesses that it will be better off juggling with a variety of competing influences in the area, rather than remaining under the direct “protection” of Merkel’s CDU/CSU and their close allies (or at least this is the signal that Orban wants to send). As in a poker game, Orban decides to increase the bet and go “all in”. If that bet turns out to be correct, this means that EU countries with important business interests in Hungary and the area, like Germany, France, but also other “richer” countries like Austria or the Netherlands, risk losing ground to non-EU players from both West and East whose interests are not always aligned with theirs in the region: the US and the UK on the one hand, Russia, China and, more recently, Turkey, on the other.”

https://www.votewatch.eu/blog/impact-of-epp-fidesz-divorce-to-be-bigger-than-expected/

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Fergal - March 3, 2021

The uk is doing fantastically well with their vaccinations… fair play and well done…
What’s happening with the EU?
Is it important that the uk is going to wait three months apparently and not the manufacturer’s three weeks differential to administer the second dose?
Sounds like an anti-uk line from the EU? Or is it?
Anybody know?

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Liberius - March 3, 2021

The European Union drug regulator does not see enough evidence yet to recommend changes to the dosage regime for COVID-19 vaccines, despite pressure from EU states after positive data on the level of protection of a single shot…

…Asked whether tweaks were being considered, the EU regulator said late on Tuesday: “If and when new evidence for changes to dosing schedules becomes available, this will be assessed by EMA’s scientific committees.”

An EU official told Reuters that dosing changes were not expected at the moment as more evidence was needed.

Deviating from approved dosing schedules before getting sufficient evidence “might result in a risk of loss of effectiveness” of the vaccines, EMA said in its emailed statement on Tuesday…

I see no reason why the EMA & the member state’s relevant vaccine authorities shouldn’t be followed in their cautious approach in absence of evidence, remember much of the push against this will be coming from politicians in the pockets of the business sector keen on an ultra-fast (and unsafe) return to “normal” trading.

Additionally, all the praise for the UK ignores the sheer scale of deaths still happening there, in the two weeks from the 8th of Feb to 21st of Feb the UK had 7782 deaths from covid-19, the highest in the whole of Europe. See ECDC dashboard at link below.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-dosage/eu-regulator-not-budging-on-vaccine-dosage-as-states-scramble-for-shots-idUSKBN2AV1IB

https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/COVID-19.html#global-overview-tab

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WorldbyStorm - March 3, 2021

That’s a very good point re the scale of what is happening there Liberius. It is incredible.

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sonofstan - March 4, 2021

” in the two weeks from the 8th of Feb to 21st of Feb the UK had 7782 deaths from covid-19, the highest in the whole of Europe”

Coming down rapidly since then though, thankfully.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 4, 2021

Thanks Liberius.

Unfortunately the interests of the Tory press and Irish capital coincide so all we’ll hear is about the vaccination rates rather than the deaths and disability.

There does seem to be some evidence that the single-dose AZ is reasonably protective and the resistance to severe disease increases after the first dose. I’d be happy to get even one dose of AZ ATM.

But conversely, with a large population of half-vaccinated people the British goverment may be supplying an ideal environment for the Brazilian Variant (is it P1, I can’t remember), which has been detected in Britain to further evolve immune escape for the AZ and probably Biontech and Moderna vaccines.

They’ve already gifted the world with the spreading of B117.

It’s worth saying once again, without collective purchasing of vaccines the RoI would have had to engage in a bidding war for the vaccines with the likes of the UK and Israel. You can imagine how that would have gone.

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CL - March 4, 2021

” Ireland is beginning to see strong early evidence that its COVID-19 vaccine rollout is protecting healthcare workers and care home residents from catching the disease, health officials said on Thursday….
The government has said if vaccines arrive on schedule, 55% to 60% of people will be fully vaccinated by the end of June.”
reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-ireland-vaccine/ireland-sees-strong-early-evidence-that-vaccines-are-working-idUSL1N2KV2PY

” “When it comes to vaccines our targets are based on two things that are not under our control. One is the vaccine being approved by the European Medicines authority….and secondly the vaccines actually arriving from abroad where they’re made.” – Varadkar.

” Meanwhile, several Fianna Fáil TDs have strongly criticised the pace of the country’s vaccination programme.
A number of deputies shared their anger at last night’s parliamentary party meeting that many over 85s still don’t know when they will get their jab.”
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40237532.html

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 4, 2021

I’ll leave this here because I couldn’t find Joe’s original comment. One of the reasons that there’s a lot of AZ vaccine in storage is that when you have a two dose regime, you have to keep one is storage until the booster.

If you think about it the percentage in storage for a second dose will be large at the start of the introduction of a vaccine en masse (and we’ve only been getting AZ for about 4 weeks) and then as more second doses are given it will decrease.

The figures are easy to see here in Berlin where about 85% of the received Biontech vaccine have been injected, whereas the AZ is about 40%. So only 10% of vaccine lying around is due to reluctance.

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11. roddy - March 3, 2021

Roddy (early 60s) gets his covid jab next week.Will be able to tell rest of CLR if any side effects!

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WorldbyStorm - March 3, 2021

Please do! But I’m sure it will go well.

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GearóidGaillimh - March 3, 2021

Glad to hear, my mother who’s the same age group and an immunocompromised cancer survivor is still waiting, hope it happens soon in the south

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 4, 2021

Mazel tov Roddy!

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sonofstan - March 4, 2021

Just got my letter too – the excitement!

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 4, 2021

And congrats to you as well SoS. What sort of notice of your appointment did you get?

We can only dream ATM…

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CL - March 4, 2021

” And in Detroit, factory workers can get vaccinated starting this week, regardless of age…..

But….” The U.S. is averaging close to 2,000 deaths and 66,000 cases per day.”
https://apnews.com/article/states-rapidly-expanding-vaccine-access-696b0cdc707eab3c5d706f1dd21799fa

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sonofstan - March 4, 2021

It’s a letter telling me to go on the NHS site to book – haven’t had time yet, so not sure of the notice.

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sonofstan - March 4, 2021

Update -this day week, took all of 2 minutes to book.

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Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 4, 2021

@Roddy: Try to get the Bill Gates nano-chip running Windows 8.1 in your jab. The Windows XP version is shite and you’ll keep turning blue and have to be rebooted.

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roddy - March 4, 2021

Am more concerned it would turn me into a West Brit or something! .Some Q type figure in MI5/MI6 developing a special version reserved for Republican areas ahead of the looming border poll!

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sonofstan - March 4, 2021

Think I’ll get the ‘make them Tories’ version developed for the former Red Wall?

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roddy - March 4, 2021

Any Maoists on here should stick to zoom when dealing with Chinese comrades.Just heard what the Chinese airport covid test for arrivals entails and it could best be described as “eye watering”!

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12. tomasoflatharta - March 3, 2021

According to an RTÉ Investigates documentary, scheduled for a one and half hour broadcast on March 3 2021, Dr De Valera Jr repeatedly facilitated illegal adoptions. This is not a new story.

Mike Milotte’s book “Banished Babies” was first published in 1997. A new and updated version appeared in 2012.

I picked the book from my shelves, and re-read the chapter about St. Rita’s Nursing Home, run by Mrs Mary Keating.

Milotte explores a 1965 cover-up prosecution of Mrs Mary Keating, who was supported by many powerful men : Declan Costello (son of ex Fine Gael Taoiseach John A Costello) was Mrs Keating’s lawyer. Declan Costello, a Fine Gael TD, was Attorney General in the 1973-77 Fine Gael-Labour Coalition Government. In 1992 the High Court Judge Declan Costello ordered the internment in Ireland of a pregnant raped suicidal 14 year old girl, in that way preventing her from getting an abortion in England or some other country. This was the infamous “X Case”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_v._X?wprov=sfti1

Joe Doyle was another strong supporter of Mary Keating – in 1965 Doyle was the sacristan at Donnybrook Church, where “Mrs Keating had her falsely registered babies baptised”. Doyle was in later years a Fine Gael Constituency TD colleague of Garret FitzGerald in Dublin South-East between 1982 and 1992. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Doyle?wprov=sfti1 Then Fianna Fáil Agriculture Minister Charles Haughey is reported saying “sure half the children born in St. Rita’s were fathered by members of the Dáil”. Haughey was Taoiseach of Ireland and the Fianna Fáil leader between 1979 and 1991. All these politicians – Doyle, Costello and Haughey – backed the 1983 constitutional Irish ban on abortion. Another supporter of Mrs Keating was the ex Rugby Star, the Consultant Karl Mullen – 30 years later he recalled, inaccurately, that the St Rita’s was prosecuted “for selling babies to America”. Mike Milotte accurately observes that although Mrs Keating was not charged with “selling babies to America”, many suspected “that was precisely what she was up to”. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/irelands-banished-babies-illegal-adoptions-and-dr-eamon-de-valera-junior/

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13. tomasoflatharta - March 4, 2021

Dr Éamon De Valera Junior and Illegal Irish Adoptions :

An update after watching the RTÉ Investigates documentary, broadcast on Wednesday March 3 2021. I think everyone should zone in on the 1965 Mary Keating court case. A large cast of high-ranking politicians and Catholic Church bosses were terrified Keating would spill the beans and bring them all down. It would be a mistake to suggest Éamon De Valera Junior acted alone. I believe Éamonn Ó Cuív TD (FF Galway West) may have information which would assist up to 10,000 people in Ireland who have false birth certificates. In 1965 Mary Keating’s blackmail worked. Many politicians and bishops involved in the babies for sale “adoption” racket went on to infamously promote the 1983 Anti-Abortion amendment. The money trail is extremely important. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/irelands-banished-babies-illegal-adoptions-and-dr-eamon-de-valera-junior/

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14. Bagatelle's Unscheduled Teratoma - March 4, 2021

Lad(d)ies: apparently the UKer royalty are getting their retaliatory strikes in preemptively.

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15. Alibaba - March 4, 2021

‘ Japan’s ruling party has tried to address gender equality by inviting more of its female members to key meetings – as long as they do not talk. The move by the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) comes after the sexism row that forced one of its former prime ministers, Yoshiro Mori, to resign as head of Tokyo’s Olympic organising committee.

The LDP, which has governed Japan almost unchallenged since 1955, proposed allowing groups of about five women to attend meetings of its 12-member board, 10 of whom are men, on condition they remained silent  observers.’

So remarked the The Guardian Weekly, 26 Feb 2021.

This peculiar logic reminds me –  Women work harder than men. Men get paid more. That evens it up.

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16. Klassenkampf Treehugger - March 4, 2021

Can’t find the relevant post but the podcast with Brian Hanley was very interesting. Thanks to him, WBS & IEL.

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17. Paul Culloty - March 4, 2021

Michael McDowell is in his semi-regular cycle of belief that there is a gap in the market for a new right-wing party – Renua Nua?

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Bagatelle's Unglamoured Tickles - March 4, 2021

Progressively Renuaed Democrats?

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18. roddy - March 4, 2021

Apparently the pile on against Sturgeon is not working 7500 new members for SNP since yesterday.

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19. roddy - March 4, 2021

ITV news poll tonight has UI at 43%.Scotland was at 39% indy at start of last referendum campaign.A vote in the next say 7 years with everything laid out as to what a UI would entail is winnable on these figures.Roddy previously said he would never live to see it but is now considering a massive change in lifestyle to hang in as long as possible and spend his dotage in the promised land!

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rockroots - March 4, 2021

Well, you’ll have a good head-start over the rest of us thanks to your UK vaccination! 🙂

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roddy - March 4, 2021

Would’nt that be the ultimate irony .That the Brits inadvertantly kept enough of us alive to stab them in the back!

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sonofstan - March 5, 2021

Serious question, Roddy: would nationalists in NI be worried about swapping the NHS, with all its faults, for the two-tier system that prevails in the rest of Ireland?

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roddy - March 5, 2021

An all Ireland health service ,free at the point of delivery would be SF policy ,so I assume that would be set out as part of what a UI would look like.

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WorldbyStorm - March 5, 2021

Yeah, SF has been very prominent in supporting the NHS in the North, difficult to see why or how they’d roll back from that in the context of a UI.

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rockroots - March 5, 2021

I would love to think that a potential united Ireland would be much better than the sum of its parts, but things like this would surely get a massive push-back from vested interests down here and possibly end up as bargaining chips in the bigger picture.

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sonofstan - March 5, 2021

@Rockroots and Roddy.

The medical profession in the Republic could end up being the stumbling block to a United Ireland if giving up their privilege is the price.

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Bodb - March 5, 2021

A UK style NHS was only possible in that country because of the unusual constitutional structure. There is no fundamental constitutional right to private property that cannot be overturned by parliamentary statute. Existing hospitals could be nationalised in the 1940’s against their will. Arrangements with doctors were contractual and by agreement. Ireland could emulate an NHS and the HSE resembles it a lot more than it did 40 years ago because of changes in both.

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20. sonofstan - March 4, 2021

‘Human rights’ lawyer Starmer. Try to imagine a situation where T.May comes out of a situation looking more humane than you.

https://novaramedia.com/2021/03/02/keir-starmer-is-a-long-time-servant-of-the-british-security-state/

I’m not a conspiracy theorist but honestly, if there was a deep state here, and they wanted to destroy the Labour party….

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EWI - March 5, 2021

I’m not a conspiracy theorist but honestly, if there was a deep state here, and they wanted to destroy the Labour party….

The British secret services aren’t made up of James Bond types, and their operations aren’t high-concept show-downs with Blofeld and laser sharks. The stock-in-trade is influence. dirty deeds and wads of cash under the table.

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sonofstan - March 5, 2021

I was joking 🙂

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sonofstan - March 5, 2021

I think the British state can always rely on the Labour Party to neutralise itself without any help.

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EWI - March 5, 2021

I was joking 🙂

I’m not. It’s not usually so direct as literally handing over a bag of cash, but ‘friends’ creating or offering NGO jobs and other positions to safeguard and promote certain political tendencies.

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EWI - March 5, 2021

‘etc.’

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sonofstan - March 5, 2021

I dont think we’re disagreeing. My point is that the British state, which does have a secret arm, doesn’t need to do cloak and dagger stuff with domestic politics that much. The likes of Starmer are so easily neutralised, assuming they ever had any ideas in the first place, that they don’t need to.

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21. crocodileshoes - March 4, 2021

Both the main Irish tv evening news bulletins (RTÉ and Virgin) include a clip from the Oprah interview with Meghan Markle. Isn’t this just a free trailer for something that’s going to be shown on another channel? In RTE’s case, is this stuff paid for, by us? I’m not even going to bother asking what the hell any of it has to do with the Irish news.

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EWI - March 5, 2021

I’m not even going to bother asking what the hell any of it has to do with the Irish news.

https://about.rte.ie/inside-rte/rte-executive-board/john-williams/
https://about.rte.ie/inside-rte/rte-executive-board/dee-forbes/

Question answered? You put in leadership at your national broadcaster whose instinct is to look to another media market for everything to cover.

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22. tomasoflatharta - March 5, 2021

[Guest post by Des Derwin]

I have written a long critical essay on Andreas Malm’s new ecosocialist book ‘How To Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire ’ (Verso, 2021).

It was written quite independently of Alan Thornett’s review on the Global Ecosocialist Network website, and before I had read it. It concurs with his review in almost every aspect, though his response is expressed more forcefully and briefly than mine. The exception is Alan’s enthusiasm for James Hansen’s fee and dividend proposal, which strikes me, at first glance, as less realistic than the ‘Just Transition’ demand. The paper is here: https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/02/18/bombing-will-not-go-softly-on-andreas-malms-how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline/

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23. CL - March 5, 2021

Feb 5,
” France and Germany have limited the use of this vaccine to under-65s, with French President Emmanuel Macron claiming it was “quasi-ineffective” for this age group.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55946669

Mar 4,
” Germany’s vaccination committee has reversed its guidance not to administer the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab to over-65s in light of new studies proving the vaccine’s efficacy, promising to unblock a bottleneck in the country’s immunisation campaign….
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the heads of the country’s 16 federal states had called on the standing commission to “urgently” adjust its guidance at the end of a summit on Wednesday night.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/04/germany-vaccine-body-says-over-65s-should-get-astrazeneca-jab
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/04/germany-vaccine-body-says-over-65s-should-get-astrazeneca-jab

” Already facing a daunting Covid vaccination challenge, French and German authorities are fighting to convince more people that a jab from the pharma giant AstraZeneca is just as effective as others.
Stocks of the vaccines from the British-Swedish firm are going unused in both countries, depriving officials of a crucial tool to help end a pandemic that has been a social and economic calamity on a scale not seen since World War II.”
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210301-france-germany-struggle-to-sell-astrazeneca-vaccine-safety

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CL - March 5, 2021

” Speaking in Galway this evening, Micheál Martin said that following queries from the Government, Germany had made it clear it would be using all the supplies of vaccines that it had….

The Taoiseach said we did not have control over this, but that Europe was making additional efforts to increase supply and remove bottlenecks around production.”
https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0305/1201187-ireland-vaccine-latest/

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24. Bagatelle's Untempted Tarn - March 5, 2021

Does anyone here have connections in RTÉ? I am trying to get a hold of an interview Pat Kenny odid n his radio show with a relative of mine in the early 80s. A Mr X. who MI6 had tried (and failed) to assassinate in east Africa. Was Kenny’s radio show archived and if so who would be the right contact?

Michael Caine played him in the Wilby Conspiracy and his real name and occupation were used. Between a stint Aden (check the records, his name shows up getting a citation for being one of the last civilians in the place before the British left) and east Africa he was robbing guns with Mac Stíofáin from UK barracks and running them north into the border campaign.

I’m getting zero responses from RTÉ and Pat Kenny’s team, at the moment.

I’m working on a narrative to wrap the genealogy my father has done that links our family (culchie & jackeen branches) to every Norman, English, British invasion of the country and participation in every 20th century attempt to free Ireland from that occupation. Cheers in advance for any help.

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rockroots - March 5, 2021

RTE archives are recruiting a number of positions at the moment – it may be that they’re a little short-staffed temporarily. From what I understand, their records can be patchy. Certainly, a lot of TV stuff from the ’60s and ’70s was junked, and they tended not to archive live TV well into the ’90s. I don’t know much about their radio archives. The only person I knew there has moved on, but there’s an online address that might at least point you in the right direction: archivesales@rte.ie

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Bagatelle's Unanticipated Thriller - March 5, 2021

Thanks rockroots, I’ll give that email a lash.

A project inspired by pandemic lockdown might require a physical trip once the lockdown ends. The irony of available time facilitating the commencement and frustrating the progress 🙂

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25. CL - March 5, 2021

“Northern Ireland is now officially still in the customs territory of the UK and still an integral part of the UK internal market. Consequently, the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol that regulates this state of affairs is no ordinary international arrangement.
What the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland does – as an international agreement on, amongst other things, the movement of goods across the Irish Sea – is very unusual for several reasons….

it is an international agreement that affects the internal boundary of one party.

the EU taking legal action will only confirm to Leavers and Unionists that the EU has unrealistic expectations about what it can demand to happen across an internal UK boundary.”
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2021/03/04/ireland-northern-ireland-protocol-the-eu-must-play-the-long-game/#comments

” there is no question that UK is not yet ready to implement the border checks set out in the Protocol, to the timescale agreed….
Under the rules that would have taken effect on 1 April, that operator alone would have had to make over 360,000 customs declarations per week….
because the EU would have agreed an extension of the grace period, the move to do so unilaterally by the UK without reference to either Brussels or Dublin is being interpreted as an aggressive, deliberately hostile move.”
http://eureferendum.com/

” Unionism is crashing backwards. Aside from Sammy Wilson’s guerilla war, it is placing its hopes on Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister’s appeal to the courts to uphold the 1800 Act of Union…

the DUP has decided chaos is the best plan….
Unionism is in a panic because it no longer dominates.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/susan-mckay-dup-believes-chaos-is-best-plan-1.4501467

” People in the Republic talking up a united Ireland as inevitable due to Brexit are provoking the unionist backlash over the Northern Ireland protocol ”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/united-ireland-rhetoric-provoking-unionist-backlash-over-ni-protocol-former-diplomat-1.4501397

“For the conquest is never perfect till the war be at an end, and the war is not at an end till there be peace and unity; and there can never be unity and concord in any one kingdom but where there is but one King, one allegiance, and one law ” – Sir John Davies, 1612.

The longue durée…..

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CL - March 6, 2021

” The Northern Ireland Protocol is threatening to become a chronic condition, and flare ups are now occurring with worrying regularity….
But how did things once again spiral out of control?…
While member states acknowledged the Commission had made a dreadful mistake with Article 16, they believed the UK was instrumentalising the crisis to unpick the Protocol…..
On Friday 26 February, the DUP Agriculture Minister Gordon Lyons instructed his officials to stop work on permanent BCPs at Belfast and Larne ports, and ordered a halt to recruiting new staff…
Then on Wednesday Brandon Lewis announced that the UK would extend one of the grace periods unilaterally, the one covering export health certificates….
“Why did you sign something, if you set out a couple of months afterwards to destroy it?” asks one diplomat from a large member state…..
A diplomat from one member state hinted that if the UK cannot be trusted to operate the Protocol as both sides agreed, then the single market will have to be protected somewhere….
Another diplomat acknowledges that mutterings are heard occasionally about checks having to be carried out on goods arriving from Ireland to the continent if the UK does not uphold the Protocol, but for the moment they are just that.
“Member states are very serious about the internal market,” says the diplomat, “and if there’s a loophole in Northern Ireland which is too big, then of course something might happen on the Irish crossing between Rosslare and Cherbourg ”
https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2021/0305/1201287-ni-protocol-analysis/

” Yesterday was day three of “dump the protocol”. Day one was supermarkets, day two parcels and now the government is modifying its guidance on plant exports, to cover moving agricultural and forestry machinery and growing media from GB to NI.”
http://eureferendum.com/

Post Brexit, to protect the single market there has to be a commercial and regulatory border between the UK and the EU.

The British government is refusing to implement the protocol. It is refusing to allow the border between the UK and the EU to be a border internal to the UK.

If the existing political border between NI and ROI is ruled out, then the only remaining alternative, if the single market is to be protected, is to have the border between ROI and the EU.

This would draw the ROI away from the EU, but bring it closer to NI and to the UK as a whole. It could be seen as a move towards Irish unity, a move not involving NI breaking the connection with Britain, but one that strengthens the links between the ROI and the UK.

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26. CL - March 5, 2021

” The Irish economy grew by 3.4 per cent in 2020, despite one of the toughest pandemic related lockdowns in Europe, on the back of record growth in the export sector….
Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said that the outturn was “remarkable”, given international comparisons, and original economic expectations when the pandemic first hit in March 2020.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/irish-economy-shrugs-off-toughest-restrictions-in-eu-to-post-2020-growth-1.4502182

” Over 60pc of the youngest women in the workforce are unemployed due to the impact of the Covid-19 crisis.
The latest official estimate of the unemployment rate for women aged between 15 and 24, that includes those on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), reached 61pc last month….
It is higher than the rate for men in this age group, which stands at 52.8pc….
Overall, one in every four people is out of work.”
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/over-60pc-of-women-aged-under-25-in-workforce-are-unemployed-40156470.html

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27. crocodileshoes - March 5, 2021

Balance of opinion in the UK papers, where front line workers are being offered a 1% pay rise, is that it’s scandalous. Same in Ireland. In the UK, though, it’s scandalous because it’s so little. In Ireland (where it’s not really a raise at all, just another stage in the interminable restoration of 12-year-old cuts … but let’s not go there) it’s scandalous because (hi, Brenda Power) people with permanent jobs and pensions never deserve pay rises. Ever.

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28. Paul Culloty - March 5, 2021

Deutschland 89 has returned tonight, and after the decent, but somewhat lugubrious, sophomore instalment that was 86, it’s a welcome return to the quick-paced action of the original series. Without giving any spoilers, one crucial section where Martin is at a pub with his friends strains credulity, but the attention to period detail is as meticulous as ever.

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29. Tomboktu - March 6, 2021

I cleared circa 16 kg of roots of mainly couch/twitch grass (with a wee bit of nettle and dandelion to add, a dash of variety) from the middle bed (1.2m x 3.6m). Muscles in the shoulders and hips are in shock.

I’ll be seeing roots in my dreams for weeks to come.

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30. Paul Culloty - March 6, 2021

Eamon Ryan appears set against Hazel Chu running in the Seanad elections, as Government councillors are already committed to FF and FG candidates. Elsewhere, Labour are running two candidates, Billy Lawless seeks a return to the upper house, and Ian Marshall has the backing of SF and the Soc Dems:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/division-in-green-party-over-hazel-chu-s-wish-to-run-in-seanad-byelection-1.4502522

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31. sonofstan - March 6, 2021

A lot of confected outrage here about Roy Greenslade’s never particularly covert support for SF/IRA during the troubles. It’s weird to see all the clichés we remember about ‘senseless violence’ and ‘mindless thugs’ trotted out again. No one wants to ask why an Englishman with no Irish connections at all would support the campaign, as if there could be no rational explanation. I never did, but I’ve little difficulty understanding why others would, but the kind of journalism that just goes ‘this is terrible and you should think it’s terrible because IT’S TERRIBLE!’ gets no one anywhere.

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WorldbyStorm - March 6, 2021

Agree completely. And again, he’s someone who supports the peace process, the GFA/BA. Confected is exactly the right word for it.

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32. Starkadder - March 6, 2021

A group called the People’s Convention, whose spokesman is
Diarmaid Ó Cadhla, is organising a controversial anti-lockdown protest in Cork city today.

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0306/1201276-cork-covid-protest/

Ó Cadhla was previously involved in a protest against British street names in Cork.

https://www.thejournal.ie/cork-street-names-campaign-3243784-Feb2017/

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Jim Monaghan - March 6, 2021

I looked up O’Cadhla. Has he links with Republican Sinn fein? Here is his personal site. https://www.thefuture.ie/

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Enzo - March 6, 2021

He was CPI (ML) back in the day. Never seen him linked with any republican groups.

The only time you see him involved with republicanism is when he sets up shop at the plot with his crackpot leaflets on Easter Sunday.

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WorldbyStorm - March 6, 2021

No, CPI (ML), bloody hell. As a former Cllr their most successful political alumni?

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Daniel Rayner O'Connor - March 7, 2021

For some reason, he is offering himself as an authority on Republican history. Someone should tell him that there was no flying Column of the Cork Brigade. There were Flying Columns in the First, Second and Third Cork Brigade (The one for the Third Brigade was Tom Barry’s). There were plans for one Column to cover the First Southern Division (to which all Cork Brigades belonged, but the Truce put a stop to it. The Cork Brigade had been divided into three in 1918.

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CL - March 6, 2021

” The protest in Cork city ended earlier today without incident. It was attended by a crowd estimated at between 400 and 500 people….
Spokesman Diarmaid Ó Cadhla of the organising group, The People’s Convention, told the crowd the rally was a peaceful and law-abiding assembly. …
The rally ended with a rendition of the Our Father prayer in Irish, followed by the National Anthem. ”
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0306/1201276-cork-covid-protest/

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Jim Monaghan - March 6, 2021

Speaker at two RSF events. “Sieze the Opportunity!
Presentation by Diarmaid Ó Cadhla to ‘Ruairí Ó Brádaigh Autumn School’ hosted by Republican Sinn Féin, 20th to 22nd September …
September 25, 2019

England’s Difficulty
Presentation by Diarmaid Ó Cadhla to ‘The Way Forward Seminar’ hosted by Republican Sinn Féin on 27th July 2019. I …
July 28, 2019”
Add in the anti-flouride and anti HPV vaccine stuff.

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Alibaba - March 8, 2021

See what happened at the Cork anti-lockdown protest:

‘Those at the event heard repeated claims that the lockdown was unnecessary and that there was little evidence that its benefits outweighed its disadvantages.’

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-40239737.html

Events — events!  And at Shannon:

There were nine US military flights overnight without Covid checks:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40239515.htm

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33. Tomboktu - March 6, 2021

My 80-something aunt is being asked this month by the UK government whether she is straight or heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual, or another sexual orientation.

Even I wouldn’t ask her that.

(And I wonder how many young adults will have their answer decided for then by their parent.)

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Michael Carley - March 6, 2021

Got the census notification last week including how to submit a separate personal return confidentially.

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34. crocodileshoes - March 6, 2021

Anyone here a subscriber to The Currency? I would have thought if it as a business- centred site and not really for me, but it seems to have done great work in the Davys investigation- and it’s not as if there’s a surfeit of good investigative journalism around.

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Pangurbán - March 6, 2021

Niamh Brennan was on RTÉ this morning describing the actions as egregious and stating that senior staff couldn’t be trusted not to give exemption from procedures. Sailing close to the legal wind I would have thought. I hope she has good legal advice

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35. CL - March 6, 2021

” The Senate passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package Saturday, capping off a marathon overnight session after Democrats resolved internal clashes that threatened to derail President Joe Biden’s top legislative priority.

The far-reaching legislation includes $1,400 stimulus checks, $300-per-week jobless benefits through the summer, a child allowance of up to $3,600 for one year, $350 billion for state aid, $34 billion to expand Affordable Care Act subsidies and $14 billion for vaccine distribution….

The absence of Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, due to a family emergency prevented Vice President Kamala Harris from having to break a tie in the 50-50 chamber, which she had to do to allow the Senate to begin debate on the bill.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-passes-1-9-trillion-covid-relief-bill-including-1-n1259795

” Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief package … would overwhelmingly help low earners and the middle class, with little direct aid for the high earners who have largely kept their jobs and padded their savings over the past year….
Researchers predict it could become one of the most effective laws to fight poverty in a generation….
“Focusing on marginalized workers,” said Janelle Jones, the chief economist at the Labor Department, “is really the way to make sure we are lifting all boats.”…
The Tax Policy Center in Washington estimates that the direct payments and expanded tax credits in the bill would, by themselves, increase after-tax income this year by more than 20 percent for an average household in the lowest quintile of income earners in the United States…..
“It is as far away as you can get from regressive, supply-side economics,” said Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, a longtime champion of an expanded child tax credit to fight poverty. “This is progressive economics that puts money in the hands of working people who will spend that money.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/business/biden-economy.html?

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EWI - March 8, 2021

Ed Moloney, a journalist who worked at the time in Belfast, backs up claims about the alleged IRA plot to kill Liam Clarke. Many serious questions arise. Let’s be clear about the basic issue : nothing justifies an apparently serious threat to kill a journalist, merely because he was politically hostile to Sinn Féin.

What, exactly, is this ‘basic issue’ supposed to be here? The first paragraph segues into the second with an unclear explanation as to what inference we the readers are supposed to be drawing.

Felon-setting hasn’t gone away, it appears, and curious that Clarke’s own membership of the Stickies is being ellided.

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

And doesn’t it seem deeply implausible that RG would be directly or indirectly involved in any such plot? Whatever about his own views or support or links with SF etc, it would make no sense whatsoever for him to be connected from a security point of view and not least because any such threats – reprehensible and unjustified as they were – would have been over the content of work produced by the journalist in question, not over RG’s connection with him. It’s not as if only with RG in the picture would others see that journalist – wrongly – as a problem. As to his former political involvement I have a feeling that around the time I got Broadening the Battlefield someone in the party told me he’d been close to us. So it wasn’t exactly a secret. BTW, an interesting book and almost prescient in terms of describing how SF had to make a choice between armed struggle and political activism, though I think the author seems to think the latter was impossible for SF to shift to.

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36. tomasoflatharta - March 7, 2021

This week former journalist and media academic Roy Greenslade announced that he secretly supported Sinn Féin and the IRA’s armed campaign from 1972 onwards. Greenslade was, in 1988, the Sunday Times line-manager of a journalist, Liam Clarke, who seems to have been an IRA assassination target. The disturbing Greenslade CV includes active participation in a well-documented British Secret State plot to frame the leftwing leader on the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) Arthur Scargill. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/03/06/roy-greenslade-destroyed-communities-and-a-powerful-man-who-said-sorry/

Ed Moloney, a journalist who worked at the time in Belfast, backs up claims about the alleged IRA plot to kill Liam Clarke. Many serious questions arise. Let’s be clear about the basic issue : nothing justifies an apparently serious threat to kill a journalist, merely because he was politically hostile to Sinn Féin. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/03/07/roy-greenslade-and-an-alleged-ira-plot-to-kill-journalist-liam-clarke/

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37. yourcousin - March 7, 2021
CL - March 7, 2021

” “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. It is supported by Southern segregationists who are trying to keep us from achieving our civil rights and our right of equal job opportunity. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.”
– Martin Luther King, Jnr., 1961.

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38. roddy - March 7, 2021

I see Leo wants Mary Lou to give him a list of her “agents” in the media.

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Daniel Rayner O'Connor - March 7, 2021

She should ask him for a list of his agents in exchange He would spend tis time writing it more usefully than anything else he does.

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sonofstan - March 7, 2021

I guess she doesn’t need his list?

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39. tomasoflatharta - March 8, 2021

https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/03/08/roy-greenslade-agent-of-influence-tpq-anthony-mcintyre-explores-a-strange-story/

Anthony McIntyre offers a useful review of the Roy Greenslade story. At this stage I agree that the retired Professor is probably telling the truth, denying any role in an alleged IRA plot to kill the journalist Liam Clarke in 1988. We should all accept that denial unless any new facts are brought forward casting doubt on the former journalist’s statement.
…….
Mainstream media organs are concentrating on Greenslade’s newly-revealed (and concealed) long-term support, since 1972, for Sinn Féin and the IRA. They pay little or no attention to Greenslade’s active participation in a British Covert State frame-up of Arthur Scargill and the British National Union of Miners (NUM) in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Smearing opponents (anti-journalism) seems to be a continuous Greenslade practice. His 2014 attack on a rape victim, Máiria Cahill, is an ugly example. https://pressgazette.co.uk/roy-greenslade-ira-northern-ireland-coverage-scrutinised-rusbridger-speaks-out/. At that time Greenslade lectured and wrote on the subject of “ethics” in journalism – an example of brazen black humour, an anti-journalist passing judgement on journalists.

The method is embedded in the British Ruling Class armoury. It continues today, most prominently in the revolting “anti-semitism” campaign against former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Everybody active on the left should resist anti-journalism.

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

But none of this is new. Greenslade admitted in 2008 that he was supportive of SF throughout his career, had written for AP/RN under a pseudonym, etc, etc, he appeared at SF organised conferences on H-Blocks and said as much. I’m genuinely unable to understand why this is seemingly such a revelation.

As to the idea this is somehow unique to the British Ruling Class (which given his long term covert support for PIRA seems an unlikely complaint to make against him), I think that’s a stretch. The Maria Cahill piece was clearly wrong, but it wasn’t British Ruling Class people alone or exclusively who were criticising her. Anything but. Smearing opponents is carried out by lots of people in all contexts, journalists, whoever. Of course it’s not right but it happens and there’s no great surprise in it.

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

BTW none of the above should be read as a particular defence of RG. I always liked what I heard him say about journalism and so on, but the whole thing or at least the way it has been brought up smacks of épater la bourgeoisie to some extent. Unnecessary and taken as read that he supported such acts.

But. Then again – and this might be my historians hat on – perhaps it is useful to know that some within Britain who were English did support not merely SF and the IRA and its actions, even those very actions. Certainly attitudes towards the North and the conflict in Britain were a lot more mixed than is sometimes presented on the part of English (and British) people and there’s no harm in getting a sense of that complexity.

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tomasoflatharta - March 8, 2021

Thanks WBS. The civilised tone is appreciated and noted. Two Roy Greenslade news items are new – in the words of Anthony McIntyre, the retired professor outed himself. 1. RG’s own statement that since 1972 he endorsed Sinn Féin and the IRA’s armed campaign. 2. The alleged IRA attempt to kill a journalist, Liam Clarke, when Greenslade was his line-manager. People can make up their own minds on other contested issues. I am not sure what you mean when you refer to “the idea this is unique to the British ruling class”. If you are talking about sustained smear campaigns directed at political opponents, I do not see any written implication in the post that this practice is “unique” to the British ruling class. Far from it! I do not think many readers have read Séumas Milne’s excellent book about the British state (Thatcher/Robert Maxwell/MI5) smear operation directed against Arthur Scargill and the NUM. Mr Greenslade was a leading activist in this dirty operation. I think a considered review of this material, and a political assessment of the similar current “anti-semitism” smear campaign directed at Jeremy Corbyn (and now extended to attacks on the film-maker Ken Loach) would be very useful.

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

I’m not hugely convinced that there’s anything very novel here. He had already stated he supported SF and the IRA throughout the period up to and including writing for AP/RN surely that indicates that, he supported the armed struggle. It’d be one thing if he wrote critically for AP/RN under his own name but quite another to be writing for them under a pseudonym. So surely that isn’t news – the only refinement is that he’s stated clearly that he supported the armed struggle and the bombing campaign specifically, but that surely was entirely implicit to his actions to this point (whatever his words were or rather weren’t in terms of clarity). I knew many people and I am sure you did too in the 1980s who supported SF and the direct implication was that they supported the armed struggle in its various facets – some might be a bit coy about that, but if I had known someone who I discovered was an AP/RN contributor on a regular basis, someone who had their own column, I think the conclusion would have to be that this was someone very much trusted by the Republican Movement and someone who agreed with the political and military strategy of same, or at least didn’t demur from it. Compare and contrast say with the SWM during that period, or other groups that gave critical but unconditional support. That’s one thing, but to be actually within SF in a functional if not overt sense… that’s quite another.

Secondly and I’m not trying to catch you in a contradiction here, it seems to me that by direct mention of the “British Ruling Class armoury” isn’t that sort of implicitly suggesting that it is something somewhat specific to them, and for all RG’s faults he’s not really fitted out to be BRC, is he? Someone who was an SF/PIRA supporter since 1972 makes for an unlikely candidate for that charge. To me the problem with that line is that it seems to try to link RG in to the British Ruling Class. Now for many in his position that would be correct but unless one is implicitly suggesting that the Republican Movement is of a piece with the BRC or part of it the connection doesn’t seem to be there.

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roddy - March 8, 2021

Anthony McIntyre has no credibility whatsoever.From sponsering the “get Adams” Boston tapes to being Tom McFeely’s right hand man when he was building sub standard housing. As for Cahill,perhaps someone will ask the sisters of murdered man Robert McCartney why they wrote to every Dail member to tell them that Cahill was not suitable to be a senator.

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40. sonofstan - March 8, 2021

“. They pay little or no attention to Greenslade’s active participation in a British Covert State frame-up of Arthur Scargill and the British National Union of Miners (NUM) in the 1980’s and 1990’s”

Have you a link for this?
Not doubting it, just want to follow it up

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sonofstan - March 8, 2021

The Guardian being all sanctimonious about this given their role in smearing Corbyn needs calling out.

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

This is Greenslades account from 2002. The events where he was involved appear to have taken place in 1990.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/may/27/mondaymediasection.politicsandthemedia

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EWI - March 8, 2021

I don’t see any ‘active participation’, in fact the opposite, but I see TÓF again throwing dark mutterings about Greenslade which have no basis in evidence.

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sonofstan - March 8, 2021

All that completely passed me by. Thanks.

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

Frankly me too. I had no idea about any of this until today. I think by 1990 Scargill was clearly not a significant political figure in the UK, the Miner’s Strike was six years earlier and long defeated unfortunately. There’s something loathsome about going after him but to argue that RG’s involvement was quite as central, or indeed that it was definitively some sort of state sponsored frame up seems to be more assertion than fact. It could have been, but equally it looks like at least one individual pushing it was doing so out of some deep-rooted antipathy to Scargill that was not particularly political in nature. RG doesn’t come out of this looking particularly well but I actually think that’s a more problematic for him than if he was actually simply a state sponsored actor. In all this he seems to have been a bit detached from the import of what he was doing or saying – as with supporting bombing campaigns on civilian targets in Britain which had faulty and sometimes no warnings, or kind of going along with his journalists on an attack that was gratuitous on AS. One has to wonder what possessed him to even mention all this in recent times. Better by far to have been quiet and reflect on the mistakes made and how to avoid them in future.

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tomasoflatharta - March 8, 2021

Very simple – read Séumas Milne’s “The Enemy Within”. Here are some reactions : ““Roy Greenslade played an ignominious role as a crass propagandist during the 1990s campaign against the British mining union and its leader, Arthur Scargill. In his latest book, Tell Me No More Lies, John Pilger reproduces a long investigative-journalism piece by Seumas Milne about this sordid affair, and in the preface to that article states:

“… With the exception of the Guardian, Milne’s paper, critical facts were suppressed or misrepresented and a malevolence or ‘savagery’, as Milne describes it, was directed against Scargill by tabloid and broadsheet commentators and editorial writers alike. Roy Greenslade was the Daily Mirror editor who ran the anti-Scargill campaign. He called it a ‘genuine piece of investigative journalism’ which he published ‘more in sorrow than in anger’. When Maxwell bragged on television about his paper’s ‘story of the decade’, Greenslade was at his side. It was almost ten years before Greenslade apologised to Scargill. He is now, remarkably, the Guardian ‘s commentator on the tabloid press and professor of journalism at City University.”
—John Pilger, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs, Jonathan Cape 2004, p. 285.
“On 27 May Roy Greenslade penned a piece for the Media Guardian. In it he admitted that a major smear campaign run against miners’ leader Arthur Scargill was a pack of lies.”
— Barry White, The Scargill Smears – It was all lies, admits Roy Greenslade, Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (CPBF), August 4, 2002.” Here is the link
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Roy_Greenslade

Stay well clear of Roy Greenslade is my advice. I cannot understand why he effectively decided to out himself last week. Perhaps things will become clearer in the days and weeks to come.

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tomasoflatharta - March 8, 2021

There are links here to “The Enemy Within” book – my absolute final word here. Let the heavens fall. https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2021/03/06/roy-greenslade-destroyed-communities-and-a-powerful-man-who-said-sorry/

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

Don’t think I’ll have any problem staying well clear of RG! But is it entirely fair to say he destroyed communities given he wasn’t involved in dissing AS during the Miners Strike. That surely is eliding the events of that Strike and the events of 1990-1991 which he was involved in. By that stage the communities were already wrecked through Thatcherism, the defeat of the Strike and so on and Scargills political power had been near enough destroyed. One could accuse him of kicking a man when he was down and the apology was pretty damned belated but it was at least made which as we know is more than some have found in themselves when they’ve done as bad or worse.

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tomasoflatharta - March 8, 2021

Let’s wait and see what happens next.

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41. NFB - March 8, 2021

Coming out of today’s many, many headlines, I wonder how much of a boost British republicanism will get once Charles becomes King? Or Commonwealth secession elsewhere? Is there any chance that it could become a serious conversation? So many British people seem to just completely accept the monarchy as the only game in town when it comes to an executive function, and William seems generally OK, so the window to really batter the institution seems to lie in however long Charles wears the crowd.

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rockroots - March 8, 2021

I think it’ll be a slow cumulative thing. Barbados transitioning to a republic is not insignificant. Australia and New Zealand each have significant republican movements (and not, interestingly, limited to the political left), where the focus is on change post-QE2. With post-colonial revisionism, you could see how there could be a snowball effect of the commonwealth ‘realms’ turning their backs on such an outmoded institution, with a knock-on effect within whatever remains of the UK by then. The class system is so deeply entrenched in England that the monarchy will be around for quite some time, but I’d love to think there’s potential for real democracy there some day. And the public dysfunction of the royals is very entertaining from that point of view.

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

True (by the way anyone seen The Crown, that is no soft-soap of the British monarchy. Anything but). How does Scotland fit in here if it goes independent. I haven’t checked recently so what is the SNP’s vision of the place of the monarchy in that context? Didn’t they talk about a dual monarchy?

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sonofstan - March 8, 2021

The idea that most Brits are mad royalists is suspect: I know my sample population would be skewed republican, but I’ve rarely met anyone here who has any time for the whole thing – apart from a pair of cub journalists for Leeds local radio who collared me when the Harry/Meghan thing broke to vox pop me and were a little taken aback by the rant they got.
Against that, I’ve known plenty who detest the whole lot of them.

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sonofstan - March 8, 2021

This might have legs though: the accusation of racism will be hard to shake.

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

I was just thinking seeing the Guardian coverage of that, that we know who it isn’t, but not who it is! That’ll run and run.

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CL - March 8, 2021

“The saddest thing is that Wallis and Edward, despite being banished, were dutiful and patriotic to the end,” wrote Anna Pasternak in The Telegraph.
Before WWII, Edward and Wallis Simpson were suspected of being Nazi-sympathizers and visited Adolf Hitler in 1937.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/u-k-press-has-hysterical-reaction-to-oprah-winfreys-interview-with-meghan-markle-and-prince-harry

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CL - March 8, 2021

‘ Buckingham Palace has said it is disappointed that footage from 1933 showing the Queen performing a Nazi salute has been released.’
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33578174

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banjoagbeanjoe - March 9, 2021

“The idea that most Brits are mad royalists is suspect …”

Well I’m listening to Joe Duffy at the moment and I can confirm that most Irish are mad royalists. Mad.

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EWI - March 9, 2021

Well I’m listening to Joe Duffy at the moment and I can confirm that most Irish are mad royalists. Mad.

We also paid rapt attention to the doings of Trump, yet the Irish public are not MAGA-heads. We are a small fish swimming in an Anglosphere media market ocean.

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42. CL - March 8, 2021

-Delivery drivers are dying of exhaustion in South Korea.

” Lee’s death — the 17th such fatality reported in the country during the global COVID-19 pandemic — highlights global issues with the delivery economy and the punishing hours that couriers work to handle an overwhelming surge in package deliveries.
Most of the 17 workers died of over-exhaustion, but one worker died by suicide after leaving a note about the difficulties of work …
The bulk of the country’s 54,000 delivery workers are hired as sub-contractors and classified as self-employed, which means they’re often denied the basic benefits that regular, fully-contracted employees would be entitled to, such as caps on weekly working hours.
This loophole, unions say, has resulted in these couriers being made to work long, unsustainable, and punishing shifts without earning minimum wage nor being paid for working overtime.”
https://www.insider.com/south-korean-parcel-deliveryman-dies-from-overwork#:~:text=Most%20of%20the%2017%20workers,a%20promising%20%2450%20billion%20valuation.

” Bom Kim, the founder of Coupang, South Korea’s answer to Amazon, is expecting his company to soar past a $50bn valuation when it lists in New York this week.
But back in Seoul, far away from the glitz of the initial public offering, the ecommerce company, which is backed by the likes of SoftBank, Sequoia and BlackRock, is facing political pressure and police inquiries over a series of injuries and deaths among its workers….

“Although there are certainly problems with the workload, and labour intensity in the industry, investors are not paying much attention to labour issues yet,” said Yoo Seung-woo, an analyst at SK Securities….
Korean labour activists have drawn some parallels between Coupang and Amazon, but say that Coupang’s operations are much less automated than those of the Seattle ecommerce group, and much more reliant on manual workers. They added that Coupang’s biggest innovation was using data and artificial intelligence to find ways to squeeze those workers.”
https://www.ft.com/content/a90749a2-5f5d-4789-8215-fd4168a50813

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43. Paul Culloty - March 8, 2021

24% of Mélenchon supporters would vote for Le Pen in a likely runoff against Macron, with 52% staying at home:

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WorldbyStorm - March 8, 2021

Interesting. What are your first impressions of that PC?

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CL - March 9, 2021

” France’s electoral system has helped to shut the Le Pens out of power. Leftwing voters could always be relied upon to reject the extreme right in a presidential run-off, even if that meant supporting a centre-right candidate such as Mr Macron or Chirac.
This time might be different. Ms Le Pen has tapped into the anger of France’s anti-establishment gilets jaunes protesters, many of whom share her views on everything from the dangers of mass immigration to the dominance of Paris over the rest of France…..
Above all, she has profited politically from Mr Macron’s success in crushing the traditional parties of left and right, and portraying elections henceforth as Manichean struggles between progressives and nationalists — a restructuring of politics that she says changes everything.
Ms Le Pen has already won support from some on the left, including from the far-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon….
“We no longer have a left-right split but one between nationalists and globalists,” she said
Ms Le Pen has successfully “detoxified” her party since taking over from her father nine years ago at the helm of what was then the Front National. She has distanced herself from him and his notorious anti-Semitism, and even courts Jewish voters with the promise of action against Islamist militants.”
https://www.ft.com/content/6d8b9c7a-412c-11ea-a047-eae9bd51ceba

” French President Emmanuel Macron was criticised for comments he made about Marshal Philippe Pétain, France’s Nazi collaborationist wartime leader during the German Occupation, suggesting that one must separate his heroism during World War I from his acts during World War II….
Regarding his comments on Pétain and Maurras, Macron suggested that their antisemitic views and acts should be separated from their importance. In the case of Pétain, he said that besides his acts during WWII, he played an important role during WWI during the Battle of Verdun in 1916. Nevertheless, Macron noted Pétain’s antisemitism.
On Murras, well-known for his antisemitism, Macron said “rather than be outraged, we need to understand. I fight all the antisemitic ideas of Maurras, but I find it absurd to say that Maurras must no longer exist.”
https://eurojewcong.org/news/communities-news/france/macron-criticized-over-comments-on-antisemitic-figure-philippe-petain/

” French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to gain ground on far-right leader Marine Le Pen ahead of a possible duel in 2022 elections by seizing votes on the right, with a tough-talking interior minister and a bill cracking down on radical Islamists.”
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210215-macron-le-pen-in-battle-for-support-of-right

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44. oliverbohs - March 8, 2021

Markle’s distress at the lack of any multicultural credentials in the British royal family will be objectified then monaterised to her benefit, so that her husband can graduate from dressing up as a Nazi at parties in his youth to attending the Eyes Wide Shut parties nowadays

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45. Tomboktu - March 9, 2021

Question: How important was De Rossa’s Euro election poster in making the Pigeon House chimneys iconic?

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