Writing in the Sunday Times today, Michael Portillo forecasts that David Cameron will be Prime Minister “whatever the Maths.”  In other words, even if there is a hung Parliament which gives Labour a larger number of seats, Labour will not be allowed to be the Party of Government.

If the Conservatives are the largest party in Parliament, then there is no doubt that David Cameron will form the next Government.  The scenario that I have trouble with is where Labour has the largest number of seats in a hung parliament but where that number is still significantly ahead of the Conservatives. 

Portillo says

“If Labour fails to secure a majority — even if it wins more seats than the Conservatives — it ought to be booted out and in all likelihood would be.”

Portillo’s argument centres on the attitude of the minority parties, particularly the Liberal Democrats.  He says

“It would be especially difficult for the Liberal Democrats to support Labour if it had lost to the Tories in terms of the popular vote — the number of actual votes cast — which seems all but certain.”

Thre is little doubt that Clegg would not support Labour if the Conservatives were the largest party in Parliament.  Clegg partly declared his position on this scenario more than 18 months ago.  Clegg would support the setting of a budget but reserve the right to oppose public non-financial measures taken by the Government.  In the first year of the new parliament (at least), Cameron would effectively have a free hand to govern.

What is Clegg’s position if Labour is the largest party?  

The Conservatives only need a (uniform) swing of 1.5% against Labour to become the largest party in terms of the number of votes cast.  However, because the Conservatives pile up their supporters in the safe seats, they would need a (uniform) swing of 4.4% to become the party in Parliament with the largest number of seats (source: UK polling report swing calculator).   

Speaking to the BBC on the Andrew Marr show, Nick Clegg recently said

“Whichever party has the strongest mandate from the British people, it seems to me obvious in a democracy they have the first right to seek to try and govern, either on their own or with others “ 

What does “strongest mandate” mean – the largest number of MPs or the largest number of votes cast?  Unfortunately, the point was not properly “nailed” in that interview. 

If it means the largest number of votes cast, then on a 1.5% uniform swing, the Conservatives could end up with just 234 seats compared with Labour’s 324.  Labour would only be 2 seats short of an overall majority in Parliament.  In practice, with Sinn Fein winning 5 seats and not sitting in parliament, they would effectively have an overall majority. 

Let us now suppose that there is a uniform swing against Labour of 4.39%.  In that scenario, the Conservatives are just short of being the largest party in Parliament.  Labour would be the largest party in Parliament with 282 seats but with only 31.8% of the votes cast.  The Conservatives would have 37.66% of the vote and 281 seats.  Labour would be 44 seats short of an overall majority.  There is no way that Labour could effectively govern without the support of the Lib Dems.  The Conservatives might be able to form a Government with the forbearance of the Lib Dems but it would be highly unstable.  It would not be possible for the Conservatives to legislate the most controversial aspects of their manifesto.  A further General Election (perhaps within 2 years) would seem likely.

In between the two extremes of Labour having the largest number of seats in a hung parliament, there is a grey area where the smaller minority parties could make the difference.   In such a scenario, MPs from the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP and the DUP could extract concessions from Labour to keep them in power.  For example, they could agree not to alter the Barnett formula.  Such a strategy would not be without considerable risk for Labour in the medium and longer term. 

In the end, the onus is on the Prime Minister to offer his resignation to the Queen.  If Labour is still the largest parliamentary party, they would be within their rights to review the possibility of continuing in Government.  There is already some historical precedent.

In February 1974, Labour won the largest number of seats (301 against 297 for the Conservatives) but fell short of an overall majority by 19 seats.  The outgoing Prime Minister, Ted Heath, did not resign immediately.  He only did so after attempting to form a coalition Government with the Liberals, led by Jeremy Thorpe.  In theory Ted Heath could have tried to form a coalition with the Ulster Unionists (then 11 MPs) but the price would have been the dismantling of Sunningdale.  Harold Wilson became prime minister for the second time but his Government did not have the stability that it needed.  After some of its bills were voted down in the Commons, Wilson called another general election later that year.  Labour won the October 1974 election with a slim overall majority.  They held power until May 1979.

In theory, even if Labour is the largest party in a hung Parliament, they could continue in Government so long as they are not too far short of an overall majority.  It is hard to say what the “tipping” point would be here. Labour could probably just about continue in power 20 short of an overall majority with the sort of deal that I have suggested. Labour would be in this position with a uniform swing against them of about 2.7%. The likelihood?

In their worst opinion poll this year (November 15), the Conservative lead was only 6%.  (Con 37%, Lab 31%, L.Dem 17%) Even on those figures, the Conservatives would still (just) be the largest party in Parliament. 

The bookies will not take your bet on David Cameron becoming Prime Minister.  However, the events of 1974 demonstrate how difficult it is for the party in power to govern efficiently and securely without a sufficient number of MPs.  It also is a reminder to all of us in the Conservative Party and the UUP that the votes cast for the Northern Ireland Parliamentary seats will play a crucial part in determining the strength of the next UK Government.

British Logic’s articles, blogs and updates are composed by two British Nationals living in two different regions of the UK. Henceforth, they shall be known as UlsterBrit and EnglishBrit. Paragraphs and sentences will be labeled with the name of the respective bloggers name who composed them.

School Kids One Step Ahead of Schools Parental Controls.

[UlsterBrit] Yet again it seems that hooded, chav-tastic kids are giving a two fingered affront to the essence of authoity. This time by deliberatly bypassing complex software, in order to obtain access to sites such as Bebo, Facebook and YouTube. Such “non-educational” sites are banned by schools, as pupils think it betters their learning by spending the duration of their class times on these primative and… somewhat repetative sites. I signed up to the respective social networking services to see what the hype is about – only to be disappointed by the sheer BOREDOM. I found myself looking down at the bottom right of my monitor screen, trying to predict when 1854 turned to 1855. Turns out it was only 17 seconds. That means watching a clock rotate it’s hands is more entertaining. It’s pretty much the same as facebook etc. It does the same thing over and over again!

I mean, what is the point in submitting messages to someones page, and they are only a few feet away from you in the same class. In some cases, sitting beside them. Why not use the old age and covert tactics of scrawling on a piece of torn paper from your jotter and passing it round the class until it reached it’s destination? Incase someone reads it? Well don’t they read it anyway, along with the whole world on the internet? It baffles me. I cannot see any logical reason as to why pupils do this. A wasted generation of youth… the birth of the “Chimp” generation I guess.

[EnglishBrit] With technological aptitude increasing in people of all ages, the requirement for an advancement in school security systems emanates. The term “proxy server” sounds like a piece of esoteric phraseology only a handful of people would be comfortable with defining or indeed expressing a familiarity with. However, when one secondary school class was questioned regarding their knowledge of them, every single hand went up. As schools employ increasingly sophisticated software to stop them accessing ‘non-educational’ websites, the proxies offer a quick, easy way to bypass those restrictions. Proxy servers are like secret passages that enable you to type your URL into their website and consequently circumnavigate the indubitably irksome (for them anyway), yet purposeful monitoring devices.

These social factotums are undoubtedly endeavouring to acquire access to their web-based social networking sites, which I myself have delved into only to reach the zenith of ennui due to the sheer monotony of the activities in which one can so hopelessly engage. I cease to apprehend the stated elation one would apparently derive from staring at others photos in which they are usually inebriated, intoxicated, soused, smashed, sottish, sow-drunk or hammered. Conforming to this perfunctory chore in my personal, free time would be dreary enough, so I genuinely arrive at a state of perplexity at the desperation of these ignorant, misanthropic stereotypes to access such sites as fatuous Facebook and the bathetically named Bebo. What makes them so desperate to acquire access to these uniform resource locators?

[UlsterBrit] I would make the write on slates again lol. Good day.

Below is the text of a letter I’ll be sending to the BBC, ITV, Sky, and possibly Ofcom, the Electoral Commission, the SNP and Plaid Cymru over the next few days!

Dear Sirs,

I note with some dismay the plans to hold three debates between the leaders of the three largest UK political parties at the forthcoming general election: one each on the BBC, ITV and Sky. My concern is not about the fact that this format could be seen as unduly favouring the main parties, or that it changes the nature of the contest into a battle between presidential-type candidates for the top job. What I am mainly disturbed about is the way these debates are in danger of seriously misrepresenting the key issues at the election and, more particularly, failing to make clear who those issues affect.

These clashes are being billed as ‘UK’ debates: the UK party leaders discussing issues affecting the whole of the UK, for which the new UK government and parliament will be responsible. Reflecting the debates’ supposedly UK-wide character, the participation of the leaders of the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru has been excluded; and separate debates have been proposed to focus on the key election issues for each of the devolved nations.

However, this way of dividing up the debate is based on a distortion of the facts. The truth of the matter is that it is not Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that should have their own separate debates but England. This is because it is only for England (and occasionally Wales, too) that many of the key election issues are of any relevance at all: education, health, crime and justice (including Wales), planning, housing, the environment and rural affairs, communities and local government, culture and sport, much of transport policy, etc.

Do the BBC, ITV and Sky need reminding that, because of devolution, the UK government’s responsibilities in these areas are limited to England? Given this fact, any debates on these topics should be billed as England-specific and preferably be broadcast only in England. Of what relevance to people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would a debate on NHS funding and reform be when the NHS in question is the English NHS? The same applies to the other policy areas mentioned above.

Admittedly, the votes of people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will still have a material effect on the eventual government’s policies for health, education and communities in England, as those votes will determine the colour of the UK government. But that is not what the election should be about in those countries: the voting choices of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish people should be determined by what the prospective MPs for those countries are proposing to do for them, not what the UK party leaders are proposing to do for England. If, however, debates purporting to be about UK matters (which are in reality English matters) are broadcast in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – and if the party leaders are allowed to get away with falsely presenting those issues as relating to the whole of the UK – then the broadcasters would be guilty of a serious act of misrepresentation that is almost tantamount to electoral fraud and gerrymandering:

• presenting a false prospectus to the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
• encouraging them to waste their votes on policies that do not affect them
• and allowing policies affecting English people only to be in part decided upon by voters living outside England.

The proposal to hold separate debates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seems in part to be an implicit recognition of the fact that the ‘UK’ debates are in many respects England-only debates. But will they be presented explicitly as such? All the signs are that the debates will indiscriminately mix up genuinely UK-wide matters (reserved responsibilities of the UK government, such as defence, foreign affairs and macro-economics) and English matters (i.e. all those policy areas for which responsibility in the other countries of the UK has been transferred to the devolved administrations). In the news report on the BBC website about the agreement to hold the debates, it was stated that: “The format will be the same for each [debate], although about half of each debate will be themed”. Does this mean that about half of each debate will be devoted to specific topics for which it will be made clear which countries they affect?

This is a really critical question. Given the importance that is being attached to these debates as events that could play a substantial part in deciding the outcome of the election, if a themed debate on health or education is not clearly indicated as relating to England only, then the broadcaster in question will be guilty of grossly misleading the electorate: the election result could end up being shaped by the misapprehension of many Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish voters that the parties’ policies on those issues actually affect them – which they don’t, at least not in any direct way as would be implied by the misrepresentation. If the themed parts of the debates are accurately characterised in respect of the countries affected by the topics discussed, then there is no reason why these debates should not be broadcast across the UK, even though it would have to be explained that large parts of them were largely irrelevant to viewers outside England.

Instead of this, however, one has the distinct impression that the exclusion of the leaders of the SNP and Plaid Cymru is designed to avoid having to make clear to viewers that large parts of the debates relate to England only. This is because if Alex Salmond and Ieuan Wyn Jones took part, they would doubtless refuse to discuss many of the key, England-specific, issues on the basis of the democratic principle that they are elected by the people of Scotland and Wales to make decisions that affect them, not decisions affecting only the people of England. So, rather than allowing the nationalists to shatter the other parties’ deceit that the UK election is about only UK-wide matters, it is deemed more appropriate to suppress the national consciousness of the English people by removing the nationalists from the picture altogether. The ‘nation-specific’ perspectives of Scotland and Wales can then be sidelined in separate broadcasts; whereas, on the contrary, those perspectives in fact provide an absolutely vital input to the UK debates – the true perception that many ‘UK’ issues are also in fact nation-specific: to England, that is.

In reality, the way these debates ought to be structured to take account of the facts of government post-devolution is diametrically opposed to the structure that has been proposed: instead of ‘UK’ debates that are in reality part-UK and part-English being broadcast to the whole of the UK but excluding the SNP and Plaid Cymru, there should be, on the one hand, genuine UK debates (dealing with reserved matters) in which the leaders of the SNP and Plaid should naturally participate and, on the other hand, England-specific debates (broadcast in England only) from which the leaders of the nationalist parties could justifiably be absent, as they’d have nothing to contribute.

If the UK debates genuinely dealt with UK-wide matters only and were broadcast across the UK, then it would be entirely inappropriate to exclude the leaders of governing parties in Scotland and Wales. The Scottish and Welsh perspectives should surely be represented if the UK is a genuine union of democratically, if not demographically, equal nations. The Scottish and Welsh point of view on reserved matters would be useful to voters in England not just because of the corrective it would supply to the established parties’ misrepresentation of English matters as UK-wide matters but because it would make possible a more honest and comprehensive discussion about the facts of public expenditure across the UK, including the Barnett differentials, and the different priorities for spending and cuts in the different countries of the UK.

For example, in the article referred to above, Gordon Brown is quoted as saying, in one breath, that the debates will provide an opportunity to: “discuss the big choices the country [the UK and England] faces. Choices like whether we lock in the recovery or whether we choke it off [UK-wide]; whether we protect the NHS [in England], schools [in England] and police [in England and Wales] or whether we put them at risk to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy few [across the UK]“. The participation of the nationalists would prevent Gordon Brown and the other leaders from getting away with what is a distortion of the facts here: some areas of public expenditure, including England-specific items like the NHS, may be safeguarded; but this will be in the context of overall cuts, which will also result in cuts to the Scottish and Welsh block grants. So the party leaders will try to reassure voters that the NHS is safe in their hands; but spending in Scotland and Wales – including potentially on the NHS in those countries – will have to be reduced.

It is vital that voters in Scotland and Wales are made aware of these facts. And it is equally crucial that voters in England understand that the parties are talking only about England when they refer to spending in devolved areas of government; and that policies and public spending outside of England are subject to different political priorities and fiscal imperatives. Being made aware of the different policies on and funding of the NHS or education in Scotland and Wales would enable English voters to make a more informed choice about health and education in England. There certainly might be more public demand for a needs-based funding system to replace the Barnett Formula, so that the impact of overall UK spending cuts on the poorer parts of England could be mitigated, and the favouritism of the present system towards Scotland could be balanced out. Now that would be a proper UK-wide debate, in which the impact of the UK government’s fiscal and spending policies on each of the countries of the UK could be clearly set out and argued over.

In addition, it is quite possible that the SNP and Plaid Cymru could hold the balance of power in the not unlikely event of a hung parliament after the election. Therefore, it is vitally important to English and non-English voters alike that the leaders of those parties should be interrogated about their willingness to support a minority Tory or Labour government. What concessions for their own countries and parties would they demand as a price of their co-operation? And, more crucially, would the SNP or Plaid support the party of government on English bills as well as UK-wide ones? But of course, this is another dimension the main parties wish to keep under wraps: the fact that they may be reliant on the support of Scottish and Welsh MPs (their own as well as those of the nationalist parties) to pass legislation affecting only or mainly England. Just as the same parties need the support of Scottish and Welsh voters to have a chance of implementing their policies for England only as the party of UK government.

And this is the fundamental injustice that the so-called UK leaders’ debates are in danger of perpetuating: that the governance of England is decided on by all the people of the UK, even those not living in England. Organising and presenting so-called UK debates that fail to differentiate between matters affecting the whole of the UK and those relating to England only is tantamount to conspiring to defraud the English public of a fair and free election: one in which the facts are offered to them without bias or distortion; and in which the choices they, and only they, make determine the government policies that are applied to them alone.

A failure of this magnitude on the part of the broadcasters would, in short, be an infringement of English people’s human rights (including the right to free and fair elections), and a transgression against the Broadcasting Code: the duty to ensure impartial and accurate presentation of the news.

Will the BBC, ITV and Sky carry out their duty to make clear to the different UK nations which of the parties’ policies apply to them and which do not? Or will they conspire with the parties to falsify the true terms of the debate?

Dumped car

Self centeredness is the death of personality, and the owner of this car is all me with no thought for the workers who use this parking spot during the working week, selfishness personified.

Evidence has emerged that the British Army used waterboarding to interrogate Northern Ireland prisoners during troubled times back in the 1970s.

The torture technique was allegedly used in at least one interrogation of a prisoner who was accused of killing a British soldier in 1973, a Tuesday report published in the Guardian said.

The prisoner named Liam Holden was later convicted of murder, largely based on an unsigned confession.

At the time the jury ignored his claim that the confession was forced under severe duress by British soldiers who had held him down, placed a towel over his face and poured water over his nose and mouth.

After 17 years in jail, the Criminal Cases Review Commission is now reviewing Holden’s case because of doubts about the “admissibility and reliability” of his confession.

Waterboarding, which simulates drowning, is considered torture by agencies worldwide.

Central Intelligence Agency agents are known to have used it in interrogating the so-called ‘war on terror‘ suspects.

AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

The Cavehill

Happy Christmas to everyone! A picture of the Cavehill in Belfast which I took this morning, whilst out for a walk, which is a constant reminder to me and my muscles and to the fact that I have McArdle’s disease, as I live on the lower residential slopes, one way or another I can’t avoid walking up or down the slopes of the Cavehill.

I’m working tomorrow, Christmas day! as life goes on for all those that have the misfortune of being ill over the holidays and are unable to go home from hospital.

A Happy Christmas to everyone and a Blessed New Year to all.

Now, what’s the proper reaction to a political announcement squeezed out on Christmas Eve?

Precisely!

Let’s go back a bit. Just over twenty seven months, in fact. We find this:

Boris Johnson has vowed that his first act as Mayor of London will be to scrap bendy buses and replace them with a modern-day Routemaster.

For the record, that was 12th September 2007: say, seven months before Blasted Boris entered the Great Testicle to be en-stooled. In the meanwhile, from time to time, the expectant public have managed to suppress the odd yawn when this non-event was up-dated. Now, finally, we have a manufacturer, Wrightbus, and an unoriginal specification:

Due to be introduced into service in 2011, the bus will have an open platform at one of its three entrances, with the platform able to be closed off at certain times, such as at night.

There will be two staircases and the bus will incorporate the latest hybrid technology to make it 40% more fuel efficient than conventional diesel buses and 15% more fuel efficient than current London hybrid buses.

That interprets as:

• barely in time for the next Mayoral election;
• a conventional double-decker which may, from time to time, be a two-person operation (and that’s when, and only when, – apart from the initial photo-op – the “hop-on, hop-off” arrangement would be permitted);
• less efficient than the derided articulated bus;
• occupying twelve metres length of road space (which, in itself, limits the routes on which it might be used);
• probably not many seats on the lower deck; and
• probably only a couple of buses for “evaluation” in the initial order.

It seems likely we are looking at is a slight up-dating and re-panelling of the Scania model that is operated by the Kowloon Motor Bus Company. So here it is:

The coded message is in the footnote to the (remarkably unenthused) barely-adjusted press release, as relayed by the professional website,  busandcoach.com:

The Capoco conception, joint winner of the initial design competition which may bear little resemblance to the final product due to hit London streets in 2011.

In other words, no more coverage for Boris’s well-cut flannel.

What a Christmas present to be sent by a kind reader…..
March the 9th 1973 a poll took place on the future of Northern Ireland.
The Ballot below shows the choices.
591,280 people voted to stay part of the UK.
6,463 voted in favour of a United Ireland….
The donor writes…
Nationalists were encouraged to boycott the poll, I can remember the graffiti for years after, ‘NO VOTE’ painted everywhere from derelict houses to trees…..
The images include the voting slip itself, the return envelope and declaration of identity which was a farcical document in the days of ‘vote early and vote often’.
The Nationalist Eddie McAteer once commented on the number of deceased Catholics who had managed to vote because their names were still on the election register;
‘The fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead!’

Note: As a year end review, for every place I traveled to this year, I’m posting what I loved most about it.

Belfast: My friends Abby and Craig

Yes, there are a lot of cool things in Belfast, but the coolest are my friends Abby and Craig. They’re my favorite thing about Belfast.

Thanks to the outstanding work of our staff in Northern Ireland, PPI – NI was all over the media and the web this year. The team’s taken the lead in a new approach to highlighting our work, using video whenever possible to tell the story of PeacePlayers. While the PPI – NI team recovers from Jingle Ball, we wanted to take a minute to highlight their success, and look back at the year in Northern Ireland in video.

PPI – Northern Ireland’s first hit this year was a big one, as the program was covered the a Today Show online exlcusive on St. Patrick’s Day. The video, which aired shortly after an unexpected burst of sectarian violence, includes PPI – NI’s new Managing Director, Gareth Harper, and does a great job of putting the work of PPI – NI in context.

Click on the picture to watch the video. It'll open in a new window.

That was followed in the summer with a peace by Good Morning Ulster, BBC Radio Ulster’s flagship morning program, which took a look at the program’s Diversion Through Sport Initaitive.

Will Maloney, who blog readers willl be familiar with as the square-jawed co-anchor alongside Joanne Petticrew in PPI – NI News at 5 (more on that in a minute), followed that with a video of his own, showing PPI – NI through the eyes of its participants:

Finally, it was time for everyone to meet the team:

But PPI – NI wasn’t done. In November, PPI – NI staff and participants took part in an event called “Up Against the Wall,” which rallied Belfast’s young people to stand up against the “Peace Walls” that continue to divide the city, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The event, in two parts:

Part 1: Setting the Stage

Part 2: Taking Action

And finally, the team brought it home with PPI – NI News at 5, having a little fun while showing off the change that PPI is helping to create in Belfast. Make sure you stick around for Darryl’s forecast and Ellen’s update from the field.

Below is an email I wrote to the BBC’s Newswatch programme on the proposed party leaders’ debates at the forthcoming election:

I am writing to comment on the proposed televised party leaders’ debates at the general election. Currently, the plans are that there will be three ‘national’ (i.e. UK-wide) debates on Sky, ITV and the BBC, and separate debates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What about a separate debate for England?

In fact, the ‘UK’ debates will be largely about matters exclusively affecting England, or England and Wales in some instances. This is of course because of devolution, meaning the UK government’s responsibilities in education, health, communities and local government, housing, planning, much of transport, much of environmental policy, etc. relate to England only; and UK-government policies on justice and policing relate to England and Wales only. For these reasons, any national / UK debates should be limited to genuinely reserved UK-government areas of responsibility, such as defence, immigration, security, benefits and pensions, and foreign policy. It would be wholly misleading to air national-UK debates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland dealing with devolved matters, which are irrelevant to the election in those countries. For the same reason, it would be tantamount to misleading the public if the separate debates in those countries dealt with devolved matters, as the MPs from those countries will not have responsibility for those matters as they affect their constituents: they are dealt with by the devolved parliaments / assemblies.

So by all means have separate debates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – but restrict them to what MPs from those countries can actually do for their constituents: reserved UK matters. And by all means have national-UK debates – but restrict them to genuinely national-UK matters: reserved matters. Which means that the debates relating to devolved matters in England – currently dealt with by the UK parliament – should be billed as English, not UK, debates, and should be broadcast in England only. Otherwise, the public in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland could be misled into thinking the discussions on education, health, local government, policing, etc. relate to them – which they usually won’t. And the public in England could be misled into thinking the discussions on the same policy areas relate to the whole of the UK – which they don’t.

So we need: national-UK debates on genuinely national-UK matters; and separate debates in each of the UK countries on the matters that the UK parliament deals with on behalf of voters in those countries. So no discussion on devolved matters in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland.

This comment relates to a complaint I have made on several occasions to the BBC about English matters being misleadingly presented as if they were UK-wide; and to an email reply received from Paul Hunter of BBC Complaints on 25 October 2009.

Simon Heffer of the Daily Telegraph has written an article to celebrate the forthcoming 200^th anniversary of the birth of William Gladstone, four times elected the prime minister of the United Kingdom and perhaps rightly credited as the greatest prime minister of the Victorian era.

A small part of his article focuses on his vision relating to Ireland.   Heffer says this about Gladstone’s attempt to introduce Home Rule to Ireland. 

“Had home rule been granted at either attempt by him, in 1886 or 1893, there would have been unrest: but would an independent Ireland under the Crown have caused Britain such trouble over the following 120 years as was otherwise the case? Of course it would not.”

This, of course, is one of the biggest “what ifs” in Irish History and since we are near to Christmas, it is time to have a bit of fun.  At the end of this post, historians (amateur and professional alike) are asked two questions about what would have become of Ireland if one of those bills had passed into law.

We have the following clues

(1)  The Orange Order.  It had already been established since 1795 and was vehemently opposed to Home Rule. 

(2)  There was a small Irish Unionist Party, founded in 1891, originally led by Colonel Edward James Saunderson.  The forerunner to the Ulster Unionist Party (the Ulster Unionist Council) did not exist until 1905.  Further strengthening of Unionism later took place in 1912 with the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the signing of the Ulster Covenant. 

(3)  Sinn Fein was formed under Arthur Griffith in 1905

(4)  The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was in existence at the time of the passing of the two bills.

At the time of the passing of the second Home Rule Bill in 1893, there was much anticipation in Ireland.  Writing for the BBC, Dr James McConnel of the Ulster University said.

“As one English journalist visiting Ireland in 1893 (the year of the second Home Rule Bill) recorded: ’self-government was the only topic of conversation in hotels, railway carriages, tramcars, and on the steps of the temples, at the corners of the streets, in the music halls.’

Simon Heffer might be regarded as being slightly inaccurate when he says “an Independent Ireland under the Crown.”  Home rule would have been a form of devolution.  Reserved matters would have included Defence and Foreign policy.  The Royal Irish Constabulary was to be devolved at a later stage (echos of today’s position in Northern Ireland)

The following questions are posed:

(a)   Is Simon Heffer’s conclusion correct? 

(b)  Would Ireland or any part of it have drifted towards being a Republic if one of the two Home Rule bills passed into law?

(c)   Would partition have taken place through another route?

The ending of the various legislative sessions means it’s been a quiet week or so on the news front.  But there have been a few interesting stories:

• Lord Elis-Thomas, Presiding Officer of the National Assembly for Wales, has joined the chorus of voices calling for abolition of the office of Secretary of State for Wales. Given Lord Elis-Thomas’s key role in helping get the Government of Wales Act 2006 through Parliament (and the vital functions that the Act confers on the Secretary of State), this  is a significant change in view.   Lord Elis-Thomas also restates his opposition to the idea of the UK Prime Minister answering questions in the National Assembly, which has of course been proposed by David Cameron as a way of emphasising his ‘accountability’ if he were to become PM, at Holyrood as well as in Cardiff Bay.
• Jim Murphy has tried to show that the Secretary of State for Scotland’s post is not superfluous, though, by giving an end-of-term interview to the Herald, warning of the financial austerity that is looming for the Scottish Government.  (See also this piece.) Peter Hain has also talked about the looming austerity, but sought to put the blame on the Tories at UK level rather than the devolved government.
• Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, has pointed out that the Bank of England would have no reason to pay attention to Scottish concerns about interest rates, if an independent Scotland were to retain the pound sterling as its currency (as is currently SNP policy).  It’s questionable how much influence Scottish concerns presently have, but even that would vanish if an independent Scotland were to choose to use what would be a foreign country’s currency.

And there is still no progress on the devolution of policing and justice to Northern Ireland, despite continued pressure from the UK and Irish Governments as well as Martin McGuinness.  The only nominee for the post of Justice Minister remains the SDLP’s Margaret Ritchie.

First of all I have to raise up my hand and admit that I haven’t actually read The Faith Instinct by Nicholas Wade.  I’ve merely read a review in The Economist.  However, this paragraph in the review got me thinking:

“Mr Wade is convinced that a Darwinian approach offers the key to understanding religion.  In other words, he sides with those who think man’s propensity for religion has some adaptive function.  According to his view, faith would not have persisted over thousands of generations if it had not helped the human race to survive.”

In other, other, words, Wade is of the view that group evolution is going on as well as at the level of the individual.  This is very ironic as the groups he refers to tend to deny evolution goes on at any level. 

But let’s return to the idea and ask ourselves what contribution religions – religious based groups – might play in terms of selection.  Surely the implication is that religions, if they do indeed have a role to play in selection, are designed to compete with each other – are designed to outdo each other.  In short, religions may, indeed, be designed to destroy each other.  Because that, surely, is the basis of selection i.e. survival of the fittest.  That’s quite a compelling idea.

There might be some basis of truth in Wade’s argument.  At a biological level it is not hard to see parallels with human religious groups.  Ants have a Presbyterian approach to social order.  Ditto communities of bees or shoals of fish.  There is an inherent advantage to social order in terms of competing with the environment and other preditors in claiming scarce resources. 

But let me now change direction slightly and focus on the local manifestation of religion where religions have become intwined with politics.  Here we have a supra-manifestation of religion that is ingrained not just in our society’s weekend church attendance – but also in terms of our social fabric.  We have a legislative assembly that insists that its members declare themselves as one religion or the other: Catholic/Irish Nationalist or Protestant/British Nationalist.  Our media systematically reminds us of our socially divided structure.  The names of our children marks them as being from one tribe or another.  Our political leaders are steeped in one culture or another.  And the dominant political debate is about one ’side’ gaining high ground over the other based on pseudo-moralistic posturing. 

However, here’s the good news for Christmas.  I’m not sure Wade is right.  Because, as I’ve said before, I don’t believe that people are born sectarian.  Rather people are artificially pushed into groups and sometimes they just don’t appreciate being pushed.  Sometimes the innate basis of selection kicks in i.e. basic human intelligence allows people to define themselves in ways that the groups cannot articulate.

That’s why, increasingly, ours is a peacful society.  That’s why people tend to get on with each other because mutual respect, at a basic, atavistic, genetic level prevails.  People are able to define themselves on the basis of their mutual humanity rather than on the basis of the perverted social ‘norms’ of religion.

This last year this island started the process of ridding itself of at least some of the shackles of religion.  The state-sponsored paedophilia of the Republic of Ireland has shaken Catholic Irish society to the bones and has caused people to question the very basis of their adherence to absurb religious ‘teaching’ and authority.  There are calls for greater secularisation of the Irish state and perhaps some of these calls might start ringing in the ears of our so-called political leaders here in Northern Ireland (who are, frankly, little more than Church elders). 

Wade is wrong, in my view.  I’m with Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker.  Faith is a useless by-product of human imperfection.  But ethics, altruism and decency – these are the wonderful by-products of our intelligence.

Sommeri 6 am

The European tour ended at 6 am in Sommeri, somewhere east of just about everywhere. Walking home with Marc, trundling The Bag by my side, we passed a gravestone which, as Marc’s girlfriend pointed out, probably marked the final resting place of the last person to try to make this walk from venue to B&B on a freezing cold December morning.

I’d just played the final concert of 38 concerts. 38 concerts in 60 days. Then I flew back to Australia with 60 kilos of luggage – one for every day I’d been away. Like picking up a jar of marmalade every place I visited.

Bloody nice marmalade.

Just now I opened my guitar case and caught what I fancied was a blast of London studio air. Hadn’t opened it since producing a song for a friend there, sandwiched between Concert #38 and flying back.

It was 39 degrees centigrade yesterday in Melbourne. The tarmac on the road was sticky, and getting off the train I looked around to see where the shot came from, before realizing that I had stepped on a molten bubble in the pavement and it exploded beneath my feet.

Today a cold wind is blowing through the open windows, it’s in the low twenties and sheet rain is falling. It’s more like being in a car wash than a rain shower. I am thinking about that 6 am morning, walking home from the last show of the tour, and listening to a Robert Forster interview on ABC radio.

I heard the first part of it yesterday afternoon, whilst on my way to the car pound.

Around these parts it’s $300 if you get your car towed.

That’s a bill of $300 for looking up old Rolling Stones videos on youtube and trying to find the John Lennon interview with Bob Harris from 1974 I saw at a friend’s house in Italy.
x
There’s no extra charge for looking at pictures of vintage J-45 guitars – that comes when you try to buy one.

The tour that started in a bar in Copenhagen at the start of October is over. From Denmark’s cobbled streets, rattling the bones of my bags and guitars, I took the bus to Berlin. Flew to London and engaged in practices of the UK kind for thirty days and thirty nights. Travelling with Rad, who’s got the road sewn into the lining of his Iowa jeans.

We headed up to Scotland, practised bad Scottish accents and had a wonderful time with friends and shows, flew to Belfast and picked up The Insignia (or was it The Enigma?) – a sports car to rattle cages and set this driver’s heart a-flutter with its digital radio cranked up loud. Smelt like success. Drove that thing to Dublin and back three times and didn’t feel a thing.

The book was launched in Belfast on a wonderful Friday evening in the Black Box. Rad playing jazz piano, poetry everywhere, speeches and sister Ali joining me in the reading. We’ll be doing more of this in February – watch this space.

Before this, the album was launched in London at the Half Moon, another atmspheric evening (and only the second time Rad and I have played ‘Letter From T’).

In Italy a few days later the onstage conversation turned into band – with bass, drums and female vocals, all talking Italian. I settled back into the world of driving fast and eating lunch. Three weekends later I took a train from Milano Centrale north to Switzerland, which led me via late nights and laughs to that lonesome road, hauling gear at 6 am.

The last concert of the tour was recorded – that is one I’ll be listening to. You have sent videos too – will be in touch.

I’ll try to put them online, and any photos I can find, too. The ones of the J-45 you’ll have to look up yourselves.

Until we meet again,

Happy Christmas and let’s have an amazing 2010.

See you next time …

Andy

Evidence casts doubt on guilt of man sentenced to hang for killing soldier – Guardian newspaper

Evidence that the British army subjected prisoners in Northern Ireland to waterboarding during interrogations in the 1970s is emerging after one of the alleged victims launched an appeal against his conviction for murder.

Liam Holden became the last person in the United Kingdom to be sentenced to hang after being convicted in 1973 of the murder of a soldier, largely on the basis of an unsigned confession. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and he spent 17 years behind bars.

The jury did not believe Holden’s insistence that he made the confession only because he had been held down by members of the Parachute Regiment, whom he says placed a towel over his face before pouring water from a bucket over his nose and mouth, giving him the impression that he was drowning.

But now the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) has referred Holden’s case to the court of appeal in Belfast after unearthing new evidence, and because of doubts about “the admissibility and reliability” of his confession. The commission says it believes “there is a real possibility” his conviction will be quashed. After a preliminary hearing earlier this month, Holden’s appeal was adjourned to the new year.

However, the account that Holden gave at his trial is remarkably similar to those that have emerged since the CIA began using waterboarding techniques while interrogating al-Qaida suspects during the so-called war on terror.

Lawyers who have taken up his case have identified a second man who gave a similar account of being waterboarded after being arrested by detectives of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and questioned about the murder of a police constable. In a statement to a doctor in April 1978, this man said officers had put a towel over his face and poured water over his nose and mouth, and that “this was frightening and was repeated on a number of occasions”. He was eventually released without charge. The CCRC also has a statement taken from a third man who says he was waterboarded by the British army in the early 70s.

All of the allegations of waterboarding come from a period after March 1972, when the then prime minister, Ted Heath, banned five other notorious torture methods which were subsequently condemned by the European court of human rights as being inhuman and degrading.

Holden, a Roman Catholic, was 19 and a chef when he was detained during a raid by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment on his parents’ home in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in October 1972. Apparently acting on a tipoff from an informer, the soldiers accused Holden of being the sniper who, a month earlier, had shot dead Private Frank Bell of the regiment’s 2nd Battalion. Bell had just turned 18 and had joined the regiment six weeks earlier. He was the 100th British soldier to die in Northern Ireland that year.

When Holden came to trial in April 1973 he told the jury he had been playing cards with his brother and two friends in a public place at the time Bell was shot. He said that after being arrested in his bed the soldiers had taken him to their base on Black Mountain, west of Belfast, where he was beaten, burned with a cigarette lighter, hooded and threatened with execution.

Holden also gave a detailed account of being waterboarded, although he did not use that term. In a court report published the following day, the Belfast Telegraph said the defendant told the jury that he had been pushed into a cubicle where he was held down by six men, that a towel was placed over his head, and that water was then poured slowly over his face from a bucket. “It nearly put me unconscious,” Holden was quoted as saying. “It nearly drowned me and stopped me from breathing. This went on for a minute.” A short while later he was subjected to the same treatment again, he said.

A sergeant from the Parachute Regiment and a British army captain told the court that Holden had confessed to the shooting during an “interview”. The unnamed sergeant said Holden had wanted to confess to the murder because “he wanted to get it off his chest”, while the officer said the teenager had told him that he had left the IRA a short while later because he felt such remorse.

The jury took less than 75 minutes to convict Holden of capital murder, and the judge, Sir Robert Lowry, told him: “The sentence of the court is that you will suffer death in the manner authorised by law.” The then Northern Ireland secretary, William Whitelaw, commuted the sentence the following month, and the death penalty was abolished in Northern Ireland shortly afterwards. Holden did not appeal, however, with relatives saying at the time that he believed his trial had been “rigged” and a “farce”.

He was eventually released from prison in 1989.

Holden’s solicitor, Patricia Coyle, said: “At trial Mr Holden gave compelling evidence that the alleged confession was obtained by the army using water torture. He spent 17 years in jail. He is looking forward to the court hearing his appeal.”

The new evidence that the CCRC has submitted to the court of appeal is being kept secret. The CCRC is unwilling to discuss this material, other than to say that it has not yet been disclosed at the request of the public body from which it was obtained. Holden’s lawyers are now asking for it to be disclosed.

The Ministry of Defence said it was unable to confirm whether British service personnel had received instruction in waterboarding techniques as part of their counterinterrogation training at that time, and it would not disclose whether personnel currently receive such instruction “for reasons of operational security”.

There is evidence that such instruction has been given, however. In 2005 Rod Richard, the former Welsh Office minister, told a Welsh newspaper that he had been waterboarded during his counterinterrogation training as a Royal Marines officer in the late 60s.

The Guardian has spoken to a former Royal Marines officer who says that he and his fellow officers and their men were all waterboarded at the end of their escape and evasion training at Lympstone, Devon, in the late 60s and early 70s. “You were tied to a chair and they would tip you over on your back, put a towel over your face and pour water over you. I can’t recall what we called it – not waterboarding – but it produced a drowning sensation and it was pretty unpleasant.”

Seven months before Holden was detained by British soldiers, the Heath government had publicly repudiated and banned five “interrogation techniques”. RUC officers had learned the techniques – hooding, sleep deprivation, starvation and the use of stress positions and noise – from British military intelligence officers, but Heath assured the Commons that they “will not be used in future as an aid to interrogation”.

There were subsequently unconfirmed allegations that the British army had experimented with other methods of torture, including electric shocks, and the use of drugs. Towards the end of the decade, Amnesty International was reporting that terrorism suspects were again being mistreated, this time by RUC detectives, “with sufficient frequency to warrant the establishment of a public inquiry”.

A number of Republican former prisoners have told the Guardian that waterboarding was used as a form of punishment, as well as a means of extracting confessions.

OK, enough from me in the whining “but this time I really am going to post more often” tone that you’ve all come to loathe, and that I hate myself for later when I break it. Let’s just take it slow and see what happens, ‘kay?

The last number of weeks have been incredibly busy, I’ve hardly had a second to think about anything except for work and family.

Work, by the way, is now officially my ebay business. I left my job as engineering controller for a telecoms company about three weeks ago. It has felt a little like taking a running jump off a cliff and not really knowing if there’s water or solid ground below you for you to land on. I’m absolutely terrified by the fact that it’s not a hobby or an evening’s pastime now- I have to make it work. Signs so far are encouraging though. I’ve just achieved Powerseller status and also gained a Top Rated Seller badge- this was an amazing amount of hard work on my part, and maintaining that badge will be even harder. The standards required are incredibly high and it only takes a couple of assholes for you to lose it. We shall see…however, all is going (touching a whole great chuffin’ FOREST) pretty well on that front.

Me and Robbie have been home alone in the mornings since I left work and it’s been fairly harmonious. I have targetted myself on getting ten listings done per day. He’s quite happy to play in the background while I photograph the clothes and take measurements, and there’s lots of time left for snuggles in between. He is the most gorgeous child (not that I am biased at all) and very easy to live with.

So, that’s my mornings at the moment. Me and Robbie go and collect Ricky at 1.30pm and then we do something fun in the afternoon. It doesn’t have to cost any money- in fact 9 times out of 10 it doesn’t- we go to the park, for a walk or to the museum. I’ve had some really memorable afternoons with them already.

One afternoon in particular (I will curse myself for the rest of my life for forgetting my camera) it was an incredibly still and perfect, clear winter afternoon. I had made a chicken pie the day before and left my Dad in some of the spoils, before taking them to one of the many beaches near his house, at Kilclief Bay on this beach. We spotted seals on the rocks and in the water, examined the rock pools, and, despite the cold temperatures (though it was pretty mild), the kids waddled in the completely flat calm sea in their wellies. Of course, they both ended up totally drenched. It was truly one of those Calvin Klein-ad, perfect, afternoons, and it made me realise that there is NO comparison and that everything I am doing is for the right reasons at the moment. I will never get this chance again, and I don’t ever want to be able to look back at my life and think “what was I doing?” when I think of their childhoods, and my lack of involvement in it.

As you know, Robbie is now 2 1/2, so I’ve already missed years of that time. I’m not taking anything away from mothers who work- I did it myself and never thought anything would change that- I was very settled in my job (until June this year) and had no plans to leave. A variety of circumstances changed that. I think maybe dealing with cancer HAS changed me, and HAS changed my outlook on life and my priorities therein. So whilst all of this has and continues to scare the living shit out of me, the cancer has taught me- in no uncertain terms- to feckin’ well grow a set and live out my life as if every day was my last. I don’t spend nearly so much time these days worrying about what other people think, that’s for sure. Though I do still spend some time worrying about that. Old habits die hard.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve become a domestic Goddess since leaving work- that’s not going to happen, I don’t have it in me. However, I am definitely making slow inroads in terms of the house, and the kids have been helping me cook every day, which is both fun and frustrating at the same time. I’m fairly competent in the kitchen and a bit of a Prima Donna, so I am having to learn new levels of patience with them. Their enthusiasm is wonderful, though, and Robbie loves to clean too, so his job is hoovering the living room every day, ha ha! He actually manages to do a fairly good job, mainly because I let him have at it the whole time I am cleaning the kitchen… Maybe Robbie will be a domestic God. There are too few of those in the world.

I never saw myself as being much good at the stay-at-home and keep house and kids kind of thing, but it’s just “right” for now. Maybe I won’t be good at it. Certainly, doing this is MUCH harder work than my job was. I feel good that I am still bringing some money in whilst I do this.

The whole thing is a massive life change, and while it’s really, really scary, it’s also exhilarating. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. That said, I’m grabbing it with both hands.

I suppose some people would say that being brought up and living through “The Troubles” was bound to profoundly impact on any person.  For many that is true but for me personally, although havoc and chaos surrounded me, I guess doing normal things just took up most of my time.  By the time the civil right’s marches had started around 1969, I had turned 11 years of age and my days were taken up with the things that normal kids that age do.  Apart from the normal school activity, like measuring rain fall in those silly test-tubes, studying the shape of leaves on a nature trail and building a sun-dial that would never be used again, we also got to do what I would call fun stuff.

That included a small branch of a tree, some fishing line, a hook and worms and a trip to the Layde river.  The hardest thing about that was trying to avoid the gamekeeper, who protected his patch with a venom.  We quickly learned to set up lookouts and to disappear into specially built huts we had made over the months.  It used to be great fun watching him scout for us.  He knew we were there, but better still, we knew exactly where he was.  Then we had the tree swing across the river and many a plunge was taken into that, some intended but most not. We even managed to make a boat, well something that served as a boat, from branches twine, barrels and tyres.  Somehow it worked and managed to hold about ten of us without any major mishaps, except for the odd boy who got tipped over for one reason or another.

Our next favourite hobby, and this is really going to upset any golfers reading this, was to take a trip to the Ballycastle beach.  A beautiful links golf course ran along the side of the beach, peppered by tall grass, sand dunes and the odd water trap.  We used to lie in wait for any drive or iron shot that missed the fairway and when that happened, we all started crawling towards the ball through the tall grass.  If the ball was found before the annoyed golfer arrived, it was pocketed and eventually sold back to someone at the club house.  Needless to say the annoyed golfer only became even more annoyed as he declared his lost ball penalty and cursed the heavens.  Being a golfer myself these days, I now fully understand how high his frustration may have been.

One rather funny incident comes to mind, as on one of our usual money-making trips to the golf course, we came across a courting couple, who for whatever reason  had decided to set up their love nest at the bottom of one of the rolling hills on the actual golf course itself.  I would have been aged 10 or 11 at the time, so the sight of a couple kissing, and especially in public, was quite a novelty.  For us, it was a novelty and an opportunity not to be missed.  With quite an amount of guile for ones so young we made our way to the top of that hill and peered down at them, some out of curiosity and others out of some bewilderment.  Although they were still clothed, there was quite a bit of fumbling going on and I recall that caused quite a bit of concealed sniggering and laughing.  One of our gang managed to convince us that the girl would definitely be pregnant by now and ignorance caused us all to agree.

Anyway, boredom soon set in as they continued and somehow it was decided that this could be an opportunity for some “fun.”  The balls we had gathered up soon became used for something else.  Slowly the first ball was set free tumbling down the hill and rolled in between the couple.  They didn’t seem to notice that so another was sent towards the target.  A couple missed the target but eventually one of the balls got their attention.  The man jumped up, rubbing the side of his head and shouted something that ended in “off.”  He looked all around and his girlfriend then stood up and watched her boyfriend slowly climb the hill.  As she adjusted her clothing, his rather long legs clambered up the hill and we retreated into the long grass, scattering in many directions.  Just as he reached the very top of the hill, a golf ball nearly took the top of his head off.  He fell backwards down the hill and we did hear but not see his girlfriend shriek.  As we lay in hiding trying not to laugh, for fear of giving away our places of concealment, three golfers arrived on the fairway, the man and his girlfriend arrived at the top of the hill and a huge shouting match shouted.

It lasted for what seemed ages and at one stage fists were seen but not used and then the couple walked off, cursing and swearing towards the beach, and the golfers proceeded on with their game, also cursing and swearing.  We waited until they had passed and then collected up the balls and made our way back to the club house to use our sale’s techniques.  We learned a lot that day, and if you are that couple and happen to ever chance across this blog, may I offer my apologies for interrupting your enjoyment.  To all the golfers at Ballycastle, again my apologies and may your aim always be straight and true.

So although the battle lines were being created across Northern Ireland, fishing, golfing and courting continued on as normal in my wee world.

This Poster was sent in by a kind reader , who writes …..

It is about as early as you will find from modern day Sinn Féin. It’s from one of the initiatives I think it’s 1982 but it’s definitely the Jim Prior organised one for a Stormont Assembley/Forum which SF fought on an abstenion policy. I think the SDLP ended up the same too.
The candidate is Benny (Benedict) Mcelwee from Bellaghy, the brother of Hunger Striker, Thomas and cousin of Francis Hughes. Second on the paper is Danny Morrison of Ballot box and Armalite fame.

It was for the mid-ulster constituency and this one was the South Derry version. Up until this election, most full on Republicans had stood on a H-Blocks ticket and for the short lived Irish Independence Party so it’s as early a PSF poster as you’ll find.
Ironic indeed the ‘Smash Stormont’ legend at the top, I think the DUP ran with ‘Smash Sinn Féin’ in the same campaign.