I read today about how Nick Griffin the leader of The British National Party was forced to abandon a news and press conference being held outside Parliament on College Green as protesters disrupted the event and at one point, as Mr Griffin was being led away, he was attacked by one of the protesters throwing an egg at him.
Now I do not think it matters if you like or dislike Mr Griffin as a person, it does not matter if you like or dislike the policies he puts forward and supports and it does not matter if you support or not The British National Party, for Mr Griffin to be forced to abandon a press conference in this way by a group of protesters is fundamentally wrong if not possibly even unlawful.
The British National Party is a recognised political party within the British political system. The BNP puts forward candidates to stand as councillors in local elections as it puts forward candidates to stand as prospective Members of Parliament and it also puts forward candidates to stand as prospective Members of the European Parliament. The BNP does all these things legally and lawfully, there may be some faction of the population who do not like it but it is legal and lawful.
In the recent elections to elect members to 'represent us' within the European Parliament The British National Party won two seats, Nick Griffin himself was elected for the North West region and Andrew Brons for Yorkshire and Humber regions. Both Mr Griffin and Mr Brons were elected under the laid down procedures, they won their seats as a direct result of a democratic, free, legal and lawful election. Enough people within these two regions freely and voluntarily attended their nominated Polling Station, they were allowed to vote by legally being on the electoral roll and they freely choose from all the options open to them on the voting paper to place a cross against the BNP candidate.
Both Griffin and Brons were Democratically and Lawfully elected to serve as Members of the European Parliament.
Now of course there is also a case to say that in this country individuals and groups are 'generally' allowed to make public protest providing of course that any public protest is carried out within the terms of the law, it is lawful and it is peaceful. Peaceful of course does not have to mean silent and any protesters may be within reason as vocal as they wish, providing being vocal does not contravene the Terrorism Act, generally peaceful protest is understood to be non violent.
The group that attended and forcibly disrupted the press conference being given by Nick Griffin today have called themselves Unite Against Fascism and if many of the newspaper reports are anything to go by this group are supported by many MP's from the mainstream parties including the Tory leader David Cameron. Of course it is the right of Unite Against Fascism to attend and 'peaceful' protest against Mr Griffin as an individual, as leader of the BNP, the BNP as a political party or in fact anything else they wish to protest about. What they can not do is to physically assault Mr Griffin or anyone else which is what they did do. A tourist it is reported was innocently caught up in the melee, suffered injury and had to be treated in an ambulance.
Mr Weyman Bennett who is the national secretary of Unite Against Fascism is reported as saying " The majority of the people did not vote for the BNP, they did not vote at all". Well Mr Bennett the very sad news for you is that in fact sufficient people did in fact vote for the BNP in both the North West and Yorkshire and Humber regions to return two BNP candidates as MEPs and if you like it or not that was done democratically and legally. I might hope that the innocent tourist caught up in this is able to obtain the address of Mr Bennett so he or she may consider taking legal action to sue him for any injury received.
If anyone acted unlawfully today it was Unite Against Fascism.
Mr Bennett is in my opinion a fool. He and his unruly mob of protesters had the opportunity today to make their points in front of the nations press, they had the opportunity to ask Mr Griffin some very searching and difficult questions that may have allowed them as a group to score some political points against Mr Griffin and the BNP. They had the element of surprise on their side but what did we the watching public see ? an unruly mob of yobs pushing shouting and throwing eggs.
In the eyes of the media Mr Bennett, and perhaps with some of the public, I would say Mr Griffin and the BNP hold the morale high ground over this and they know you are coming next time so you have even lost the element of surprise.
I would also ask Mr Bennett, do you think that the actions of your group will stop the BNP giving news or press conferences, no, of course not, all that will happen now is that they will give their news and press conferences to the media behind closed doors and the media will publish and report the results so you have gained nothing at all. Even the Prime Minister gives his daily and weekly press conference behind closed doors before an invited group of media, so you may even have given Mr Griffin and his party some credibility, however small.
Yes Mr Bennett in my opinion your are indeed a fool.
Tuesday 9 June 2009
Sunday 7 June 2009
Sixty Five Years On.
I don't suppose that I could have let this week pass without some comment, however small, about the 65th Anniversary of the D Day Landings in Normandy on the 6th June 1944. Much has already been told over the years about the events of that day from both sides of the conflict, books have been written, films made and stories told.
Despite the undoubted and equal heroism of both the attackers and the defenders and the gains and losses of that and the following days weeks and months there is another side to those events that seem, for whatever reason, get omitted.
Amid the flag waving cheering laughing happy crowds of French civilians that we usually see in the newsreels or we are told about that eventually greeted the so called liberators it would appear that not all was as we are led to believe. Far from being universally welcomed many troops that eventually made it off the beaches and moved inland over the following days moving from village to village and town to town, were met with open hostility. The reason for this is that many of the towns and villages in Normandy in general and in the vicinity of the landings in particular had been very heavily bombed and in some cases literally obliterated.
During the 6th June alone it is estimated that about 3,000 French civilians were killed as a result of the beach assaults or airborne landings either perhaps by the many sea and air bombardments prior to the landings or by sheltering in buildings within the immediate areas along the beaches or just by stray and accidental gunfire and explosives. In the period from mid June to about early September is also estimated that something like another 20,000 French civilians were killed, again for no other real reason than simply just being in the way. Toward the end of the Normandy campaign when the Germans were trapped in what has come to be known as the 'Falaise Pocket' so heavy was the allies shelling that barely a building was left standing.
It is not that this destruction and loss of life is not known about rather it just seems to be swept aside when the story of D Day is re-told.
A recently published book on the subject of the liberation, The Bitter Road to Freedom by W Hitchcock, cites a memory by [ex] Corporal L Roker who served with the Highland Light Infantry, Roker remembers, "It was rather a shock to find we were not welcomed ecstatically as liberators by the local people as we had been told we should be............they saw us as the bringers of death and destruction" and Ivor Astley of the 43rd Wessex Division remembers the locals being sullen and silent........."If we expected to be welcomed we certainly failed to find it".
There are villages in Normandy that until very recently have deliberately shunned and refused to go along with any celebrations associated with the 6th June because the memories were difficult. But in general, France has by and large gone along with the accepted version of the landings and their aftermath, that of a joyful liberation for which the country is eternally grateful.
For many from all sides of the conflict this year will be the last time they return to visit the beaches the towns and villages and of course the cemeteries to say hello again to friends lost so long ago. Many of those who survive and who were there on that day in history are now well into their eighties and time is against them. They will go home and hang up their smart blazers they will put away their medals and they will sit and reflect about the time sixty five years ago when they were part of the largest amphibious landings in military history.
Despite the undoubted and equal heroism of both the attackers and the defenders and the gains and losses of that and the following days weeks and months there is another side to those events that seem, for whatever reason, get omitted.
Amid the flag waving cheering laughing happy crowds of French civilians that we usually see in the newsreels or we are told about that eventually greeted the so called liberators it would appear that not all was as we are led to believe. Far from being universally welcomed many troops that eventually made it off the beaches and moved inland over the following days moving from village to village and town to town, were met with open hostility. The reason for this is that many of the towns and villages in Normandy in general and in the vicinity of the landings in particular had been very heavily bombed and in some cases literally obliterated.
During the 6th June alone it is estimated that about 3,000 French civilians were killed as a result of the beach assaults or airborne landings either perhaps by the many sea and air bombardments prior to the landings or by sheltering in buildings within the immediate areas along the beaches or just by stray and accidental gunfire and explosives. In the period from mid June to about early September is also estimated that something like another 20,000 French civilians were killed, again for no other real reason than simply just being in the way. Toward the end of the Normandy campaign when the Germans were trapped in what has come to be known as the 'Falaise Pocket' so heavy was the allies shelling that barely a building was left standing.
It is not that this destruction and loss of life is not known about rather it just seems to be swept aside when the story of D Day is re-told.
A recently published book on the subject of the liberation, The Bitter Road to Freedom by W Hitchcock, cites a memory by [ex] Corporal L Roker who served with the Highland Light Infantry, Roker remembers, "It was rather a shock to find we were not welcomed ecstatically as liberators by the local people as we had been told we should be............they saw us as the bringers of death and destruction" and Ivor Astley of the 43rd Wessex Division remembers the locals being sullen and silent........."If we expected to be welcomed we certainly failed to find it".
There are villages in Normandy that until very recently have deliberately shunned and refused to go along with any celebrations associated with the 6th June because the memories were difficult. But in general, France has by and large gone along with the accepted version of the landings and their aftermath, that of a joyful liberation for which the country is eternally grateful.
For many from all sides of the conflict this year will be the last time they return to visit the beaches the towns and villages and of course the cemeteries to say hello again to friends lost so long ago. Many of those who survive and who were there on that day in history are now well into their eighties and time is against them. They will go home and hang up their smart blazers they will put away their medals and they will sit and reflect about the time sixty five years ago when they were part of the largest amphibious landings in military history.
Monday 1 June 2009
Titanic to Concorde
I read the other day about the death at the age of 97 of Elizabeth Gladys Millvina Dean. Millvina as she preferred to be known was the last living survivor from the sinking of the RMS Titanic which occurred during the night of 14 /15th April 1912.
The Dean family, consisting of parents Bertram and Georgette and elder brother Bertram had boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton and were en route for what they thought of as a 'Better Life' in Wichita Kansas where Bertram Dean had family and he had planned to open a tobacco shop.
Millvina was only eight or nine weeks old at the time of the sinking and as she explained many times in interviews that she was too small to be fitted into a life jacket and so was placed in a sack and lowered over the side of the ship into a waiting life boat with her mother and brother. Her father remained on board and he did not survive, if his body was one of those later recovered then it was never identified. Though Georgette Dean's first plans after rescue were to continue to America to fulfill her husbands dream the family returned to England in May 1912.
Despite the ordeal of the sinking the Dean family went on to live a long and happy life. Georgette died in 1975 aged 96 and Bertram died on the 14th April 1992 80 years to the day of the sinking aged 81.
I remember my [paternal] Grandmother often talking about the RMS Titanic whenever she could gain an audience of one or more. She was born on the 4th December 1886 and was 26 years old and married at the time of the sinking. She and my Grandfather, [a Norwegian] merchant seaman, Conrad Theodore Olsen, lived in Liverpool the home port of RMS Titanic.
The story according to Grandma was that Grandfather had just paid off from a ship in Glasgow and returned home Liverpool. After a day or so at home a friend of Grandfather called at the house at 6 Horatio Street to ask if he wanted to sign up for a trip to America, the local White Star Line agency office in Liverpool was trying to make up a shortage of merchant seaman for a ship laying at Southampton. Grandfather declined the offer apparently because he wished to stay a little longer at home before looking for the next job which he hoped might be out of Liverpool. His friend and some others took the job and according to Grandma the ship was the RMS Titanic, so it appears according to Grandma's tale, that the wish of Grandfather to stay a little longer at home saved him from going down with the Titanic.
Now if this story, which was recounted on what seems alomst like a weekly basis, is true or not I don't know. I never knew my Grandfather he died or otherwise went missing long before my father, who like Grandfather was a merchant seaman and also named Conrad Theodore, met and married my mother. In fact Grandfather is a slight mystery because at some point Grandma changed the family name from Olsen back to her maiden name.
I remember in 1969, sitting with Grandma, who was then aged 83, and watching on television Neil Armstrong stepping with one small step for man onto the surface of the moon. I asked Grandma what she thought of it all, there was a slight pause and she replied that she was 17 years old when 'those two Americans' [the Wright brothers] managed to fly their heavier than air machine and now here she was watching television, that had not even been invented in the accepted form we know it, until she was 39 years old, watching man land on the moon.
She had now seen the full history of aviation in her lifetime, from the Wright brothers in 1903 to Armstrong landing on the moon in 1969. In fact by the time of her death in the early part of 1979 aged 93 Concorde had been flying commercial daily flights at faster than the speed of sound for three years.
Millvina it occurs to me also had been old enough to see the whole vista of aviation unfolding on the world, though powered flight had advanced by the time she was born in 1912 she certainly lived to see space travel and beyond Concorde flying faster than the speed of sound. They are now a lost generation, Millvina and my Grandma, they saw and experienced so much in one lifetime much more than any of us alive today will ever hope to experience but the one thing they both have in common is the RMS Titanic.
The Dean family, consisting of parents Bertram and Georgette and elder brother Bertram had boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton and were en route for what they thought of as a 'Better Life' in Wichita Kansas where Bertram Dean had family and he had planned to open a tobacco shop.
Millvina was only eight or nine weeks old at the time of the sinking and as she explained many times in interviews that she was too small to be fitted into a life jacket and so was placed in a sack and lowered over the side of the ship into a waiting life boat with her mother and brother. Her father remained on board and he did not survive, if his body was one of those later recovered then it was never identified. Though Georgette Dean's first plans after rescue were to continue to America to fulfill her husbands dream the family returned to England in May 1912.
Despite the ordeal of the sinking the Dean family went on to live a long and happy life. Georgette died in 1975 aged 96 and Bertram died on the 14th April 1992 80 years to the day of the sinking aged 81.
I remember my [paternal] Grandmother often talking about the RMS Titanic whenever she could gain an audience of one or more. She was born on the 4th December 1886 and was 26 years old and married at the time of the sinking. She and my Grandfather, [a Norwegian] merchant seaman, Conrad Theodore Olsen, lived in Liverpool the home port of RMS Titanic.
The story according to Grandma was that Grandfather had just paid off from a ship in Glasgow and returned home Liverpool. After a day or so at home a friend of Grandfather called at the house at 6 Horatio Street to ask if he wanted to sign up for a trip to America, the local White Star Line agency office in Liverpool was trying to make up a shortage of merchant seaman for a ship laying at Southampton. Grandfather declined the offer apparently because he wished to stay a little longer at home before looking for the next job which he hoped might be out of Liverpool. His friend and some others took the job and according to Grandma the ship was the RMS Titanic, so it appears according to Grandma's tale, that the wish of Grandfather to stay a little longer at home saved him from going down with the Titanic.
Now if this story, which was recounted on what seems alomst like a weekly basis, is true or not I don't know. I never knew my Grandfather he died or otherwise went missing long before my father, who like Grandfather was a merchant seaman and also named Conrad Theodore, met and married my mother. In fact Grandfather is a slight mystery because at some point Grandma changed the family name from Olsen back to her maiden name.
I remember in 1969, sitting with Grandma, who was then aged 83, and watching on television Neil Armstrong stepping with one small step for man onto the surface of the moon. I asked Grandma what she thought of it all, there was a slight pause and she replied that she was 17 years old when 'those two Americans' [the Wright brothers] managed to fly their heavier than air machine and now here she was watching television, that had not even been invented in the accepted form we know it, until she was 39 years old, watching man land on the moon.
She had now seen the full history of aviation in her lifetime, from the Wright brothers in 1903 to Armstrong landing on the moon in 1969. In fact by the time of her death in the early part of 1979 aged 93 Concorde had been flying commercial daily flights at faster than the speed of sound for three years.
Millvina it occurs to me also had been old enough to see the whole vista of aviation unfolding on the world, though powered flight had advanced by the time she was born in 1912 she certainly lived to see space travel and beyond Concorde flying faster than the speed of sound. They are now a lost generation, Millvina and my Grandma, they saw and experienced so much in one lifetime much more than any of us alive today will ever hope to experience but the one thing they both have in common is the RMS Titanic.
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