What’s in a name: royalty a very English affair

What’s in a name? Quite a lot.

British Air Force man Derek Neilson, who was fined £5 for throwing a tyre lever through a shop window stocked with British Coronation emblems. Following his court appearance he was locked up overnight at army barracks in Edinburgh for refusing to stand up during the playing of “God Save the Queen.” And his tie emblazoned with Elizabeth I, was confiscated.

Neilson was the extreme end of protest across Scotland from Benbecula to Auchtermuchty in the early 1950s over the naming of the queen. Reminiscent of the women’s suffrage movement protests, poster campaigns, petitions signed, windows were smashed and a pillar box in Edinburgh bearing the insignia, E.R. II, was blown up.

Back in 1901 similar protests had taken place in Scotland when Edward VII was named since there had been no Scottish kings called Edward, only English, how could he be Edward VI of the United Kingdom? Didn’t do any good then. Scots were told to just swallow it.

Then in 1953 a petition lodged with the Court of Session by the Scottish Covenant Association to veto the imposition of Elizabeth II as the queen’s title on grounds the United Kingdom of Great Britain that came into being in 1707 had no queen called Elizabeth since that time and as she was said to be queen of the Union she could not possibly be called Elizabeth II.

Dr. John MacCormick

The petition was rejected on grounds it was up to her what she called herself. This was challenged by Dr John M. MacCormick, chairman of the Scottish Covenant Association on grounds that the numeral was not a description of her Crown but of her, a person. He referred to an Act of Parliament on the subject –

Nowhere in the Act of 1953 has any authority been given to Her Majesty or her Ministers to adopt in her personal name a numeral which is contrary to the provisions of the Act of Union.

That it is well understood in England the numeral is to convey her as Elizabeth of England . . .

It cut no ice. Scotland was then fairly solidly unionist. At least those in senior roles in Scotland were solidly unionist and pleased themselves about constitutional matters irrespective of popular opinion.

Names do matter. And names do change. Place names tend to be changed to underline domination. The British Empire was famous for doing that but it’s a common practice among powers replacing traditional native names with ones honouring political, military or royal figures. Think of Volgograd becoming Stalingrad in honour of the Soviet leader or Maryburgh that became Gordonsburgh then Duncansburgh and finally, Fort William, in Scotland. The William being the bloody butcher Duke of Cumberland, himself. I hope in a future independent Scotland someone with a morsel of decency will arrange a competition to rename the place. There are 26 towns called Independence in the US alone and that has a certain ring about it.

Names matter or else place names wouldn’t be altered. Names mattered a great deal in 1953 when Princess Elizabeth came to the throne. Which ordinal number should be added to the new queen’s name, I or II, was debated in Westminster. It used to be that a description was good enough to differentiate monarchs of the same name – descriptive term like Alfred the Wimp, Margaret the Cow or such. Then they began to number them, like farm stock.

It is not compulsory for a monarch to be known by his or her given first name. Usually with royal types they have several to choose from. Queen Elizabeth’s own father chose to be George VI even though George was the last of his many names and he was Albert or Bertie before his coronation. Elizabeth might have chosen to be Queen Alexandra or Queen Mary (both her names.) Mary would was been an interesting choice, and legitimate since she was becoming the monarch of a union formed only since 1707. If it is, as was stated then, the UK was a successor state to England then equally the UK is a successor state to Scotland. But that was/is assuming the UK is an equal union and nobody but a dissembler would say it has ever been that. It was most definitely not regarded this way in London, where it mattered.

In the event Elizabeth Windsor – now there’s another example of changing identities for the House of Windsor and other similar wings of the family took their name from royal castles when their own names became too embarrassingly German during war with Germany.  So Saxe Coburg Gotha was dispensed with in favour of Windsor. It could so easily have been the House of Balmoral. But wasn’t. It’s an English/Scottish thing. Again.

As I was saying, in the event Princess Elizabeth and parliament decided she should present herself as a successor to Elizabeth Tudor of England – which she isn’t. Okay, let’s stop there for a minute. Elizabeth of England had no children. The English line of Tudors therefore died out with her. However, in that way that royals are inter-bred she is kind of related, wait for it, through the Scottish House of Stuart. So, no direct link with Elizabeth of the rotten teeth. Cut to the chase, Lena. The Tudors line ran dry. The Stuarts in the form of Mary Queen of Scot’s son, James VI, took up the English as well as the Scottish throne – Scotland and England were separate nations in 1603. A bit of cut and pasting heads and the Stuarts were replaced by the German cousins, the Hanovers – and hey presto we have the Saxe Coburg and Gotha dynasty that was renamed, Windsor. Hope that’s clear.

It won’t have escaped the notice of those of you paying attention that James VI is never referred to by the big 6 in England but the wee I since England had never had a King James previously. Sounding familiar? Rules are there to be broken, as they say in Westminster. Talking of Westminster the debates over the royal name chuntered on.

3 March 1953 –

After the passage of all this various legislation through the Parliaments of the Commonwealth the Queen will be as much the Queen of India and of Ceylon as she is of England or of the United Kingdom,” said Gordon Walker, Labour MP.

His conflation of England with the UK did not go unnoticed. Walker, continued

I think one is still entitled to talk about the “Queen’s English” and the “Queen of England.”

Labour MP, John Rankin, representing Glasgow, wanted to know who advised the choice of title pointing out it was incorrect in reference to Ireland and equally wrong in its reference to Scotland,

We in Scotland have always recognised the English as a very kindly and generous people” to which M. McGovern of Glasgow Shettleston piped up, “Who circulated that?”

Rankin ignored the comment. Referring to the man who was the accepted authority on all things coronation, Lawrence Tanner, Keeper of Muniments and Library, Westminster Abbey, who described the new queen as Queen Elizabeth II the sixth Queen Regnant of England. Rankin said this was

phrase that gives offence to many people in Scotland … where does Scotland come in? Does it mean that she is not Queen Elizabeth II of Scotland? If so then what is the position of Scotland in regard the proposed style and title?

The right honourable Gentleman the Prime Minister, dealing with the Coronation Oath, in a statement to the House on 25^th February, said that the change to which he was referring was introduced “as a result of the act of Union with Scotland. Then he went on to point out that in the Oath Scottish religion was preserved as a right guaranteed under the Act of Union. But the right hon. Gentleman did not tell the whole story. There were more than Scottish religious rights defended as the result of the Act of Union. As a result of that Act, Scotland and England ceased to be independent countries. The Act of Union was not a merging of Scot-land into England. We are not a satellite of England. I am no Nationalist – I want to make that perfectly clear – but the Act of Union did away with England and Scotland as independent units. It substituted a new name, a new flag and a new Great Seal.

These are the things which have been consistently ignored, not merely in the attitude of England – and I forgive them for that – but time and again in this House. People look on us as taking a rather narrow attitude, but our attitude is defended by a treaty which established that Act of Union between two equals, not between one who was dependent and another who was a great Power.

Welsh member, Cledwyn Hughes, for Anglesey, reminded him there were three great nations in the Union.

It became clear that little consultation had taken place with any of the three other members of the Union and all consideration of the event was based solely on what suited England and conformed to English history and heritage or a cobbled-up version of that.  

A.C. Manuel, MP for Central Ayrshire –

At election time, the Prime Minister always likes to go to Scotland …to parade at huge meetings in big football stadiums…give pledges…he doesn’t appear to have consulted on this.

The second reading of the Bill took place on 11 March. Viscount Swinton prattled on about how inclusive the monarchy was and how it was based on what was contained in Bagehot’s English Constitution. The tunnel vision was and still is, stark.

There was ridicule over Scots getting hot under the collar about the royal title from people who openly admitted they knew little about Scottish history.

“Lawlessness and violence” that greeted the appearance of pillar boxes bearing ER II in Scotland was condemned. Representing the Scottish National Party’s view was Lord Saltoun though he was not a member. He explained that people in Scotland were angry at the country continued in being sidelined and not taken as an equal partner in the Union. He suggested that when Prince Charles (then a baby) came to reign he could choose a Scottish title such as David III or Robert IV, to demonstrate the UK was an equal union.   

On the 15^th April Commons debate on Royal Style and Title, Lieut.-Colonel Elliot asked the Prime Minister whether,

. . . in advising the Sovereign to assume the title of Elizabeth II, he took into consideration the desirability of adopting the principle of using whichever numeral in the English or Scottish lines of Kings and Queens happens to be the higher.”

Notice what he did there? The principle he referred to had never taken Scottish monarchs into account – didn’t happen with James VI then I (by which he is universally known) and with Edward VII it was never contemplated he would be known as Edward I of the UK. Westminster’s love of tradition was/is its love of English tradition. It can’t handle unions because of something it calls the importance of its sovereignty. England doesn’t do compromise. Don’t mention the EU and Brexit.

The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was quick to share out responsibility for this obvious stitch up, with the Accession Council. The Accession Council is a group comprising privy counsellors, members of the Lords, the Lord Mayor of London, aldermen of the City of London, high commissioners of Commonwealth realms and assorted civil servants – top heavy with south east England interests. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland – less so. This was their speel back in the day –

WE, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm, being here assisted with these His late Majesty’s Privy Council, with representatives of other Members of the Commonwealth, with other Principal Gentlemen of Quality, with the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of London, do now hereby with one voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of all Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, to whom Her lieges do acknowledge all Faith and constant Obedience with hearty and humble Affection, beseeching God by whom Kings and Queens do reign, to bless the Royal Princess Elizabeth the Second with long and happy Years to reign over us.

There was unease among many Scots at having a right royal rug pulled out from under them. Churchill (despised by much of Scotland for very good reasons and the feeling probably mutual) toyed with Scots when he suggested that a future monarch might choose a regnal number that represented past Scottish monarchs, such as a Robert.  

. . . thereby emphasising that our Royal Family traces its descent through the English royal line from William the Conqueror and beyond, and through the Scottish Royal line from Robert the Bruce and Malcolm Canmore and still further back.

Still further back! All those references to tracing monarchs back to 1066 England and all that is just an arbitrary stab into the past. It is meaningless gibberish in terms of tradition. Why not go back to the 10^th  or the 9^th century? Why the reference to the Norman Conquest? Why not a reference to the great Kenneth MacAlpin? We know why – a) it was likely Churchill, schooled in ancient and European histories knew next to nothing about Scotland and b) MacAlpin wasn’t English. Of course neither was William the Conqueror but back then people arriving in boats from France were able to settle in England, especially when equipped with a mighty bow and plenty of arrows. It’s pretty hilarious that accepted English constitutional rigmarolling stems from a French takeover of the land previously run by Denmark, Norway and rump England? Plenty shared sovereignty back then.

Churchill was pressed to to formalise his remark about considering Scottish monarchs in the future but he declined to have any such policy written down because it was all just so much hot air. He was at it. What about the difficulties in issuing Scottish currency given this was the first Elizabeth of Scotland? he was asked. Nothing.

As usual Wales was omitted from the conversation. A Welsh MP, Gower, piped up,

. . . what course will be followed if a future British monarch should bear the name Llewellyn?”

The PM prevaricated. As he did on many concerns of the union of equals.

Sir William Darling, MP for South Edinburgh, handed into the Commons police what looked like a bomb but was a machine gun cartridge sent to him by someone from Glasgow in response to a speech he made in support of the title Queen Elizabeth II. A Darling doesn’t change its spots.

Nobody listened to Scottish or Welsh objections over the monarch’s title but irritation over the high-handed behaviour of the Westminster clique has never faded which might help explain the greater support for republicanism in Scotland and Wales than in England. Will Charlie do a Robert? We’ll soon know. Oh, and the Queen got to keep her choice of title but the ER II post boxes got the heave-ho out of Scotland to be replaced by ones bearing the Scottish Crown. They tried it on again with an ER II post box in Dunoon in 2018. Still at it.

Let us end with a song, once very popular in Scottish folksong circles.

The Scottish Breakaway (Coronation Coronach)

_{Chorus:
Nae Liz the Twa, nae Lilibet the One
Nae Liz will ever dae
We’ll mak’ oor land Republican
In a Scottish breakaway}

_{Noo Scotland hasnae got a King
And she hasnae got a Queen
How can ye hae the Second Liz
When the First yin’s never been}

_{Her man he’s cried the Duke o’ Edinburgh
He’s wan o’ the kiltie Greeks
Och dinnae blaw ma kilt awa’
For it’s Lizzie wears the breeks}

_{He’s a handsome man and he looks like Don Juan
He’s beloved by the weaker sex
But it disnae really matter at a’
‘Cause it’s Lizzie that signs the cheques}

_{Noo her sister Meg’s got a bonny pair o’ legs
But she didnae want a German or a Greek
Poor aul’ Peter was her choice but he didnae suit the boys
So they sellt him up the creek}

_{But Meg was fly an’ she beat them by an’ by
Wi’ Tony hyphenated Armstrong
Behind the pomp and play the question o’ the day
Wis, Who did Suzie Wong}

_{Sae here’s tae the lion, the bonnie rampant lion,
An’ a lang streitch tae his paw
Gie a Hampden roar an’ it’s oot the door
Ta-ta tae Chairlie’s maw}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillar_Box_War

Flagopolis and the British Radge

Look, look, look – here’s a flag. This is who you are. Look. Closer. Can’t see it? Here, I’ve got more. How many flags will it take you to recognise yourself in it?  Look. Just bloody look. We’re British. A proud sovereign nation. Look what the union has done for you. See this bit of blue under the cross of St George – that’s you Scotland. This is what 300 years of union has given you, a place behind England on a flag. 

Nothing expresses the shoogly peg that’s only just haudin’ up the union than the appointment of a minister for the union in London – a minister plus a union unit, which carelessly lost its first two chairs in double quick time. Perhaps they discovered there really is no case for retention of the union after all.

No such thing as a cooling off period back in 1707. Once the ink was dry on the agreement that was it. A nation sold out in a scandal that makes 2020’s PPE under-the-counter deals appear the embodiment of integrity. Nor was there democracy but that’s another story. Since then there have been reasons/excuses after reasons/excuses as to why Scotland should not be able to pick the lock on the shackles that fetter this outdated and shady merger.

Now is not the time. Now is never the time.

Brexit was to have been the deal breaker. But then there was, um, Brexit shambles – Brexit where sovereignty was everything (except for readers in Scotland.) England was largely in favour of Brexit, Scotland was largely against Brexit for the disastrous impact it would have on our largest trading market. On that 50:50 basis England always wins because – well, England always wins. England sneezes and Scotland gets covered in snot.

Brexit arrived with promise of more powers for Scotland and better trade deals – the best trade deals in the whole wide world, nay, the whole wide universe. It would be FANTASTIC! Win, win, win. Or, in the real world  – the removal of powers from Scotland’s parliament and as for trade – well, is this what success looks like?

Scotland’s fish exports down nearly 90%; salmon down 98%; whisky down 40%

Scotland has lost £5.4bn of potential EU funding to recover from Covid-19 while being denied the ability to borrow money to maintain services and plan for the future, unlike Westminster where chancellor Sunak has borrowed, borrowed, borrowed to cover the bare essentials.

With 8.4% of the UK population Scotland outdoes itself in natural wealth for we contribute (or did) 34% of the UK’s natural wealth – renewable power, water, timber, fish, oil and gas and the like. Between 64% – 70% of the UK’s fish and seafood were landed are Scotland.

Make that was – pre-Brexit. Post-Brexit Scotland has been devastated by us being dragged along in England’s wake.

Scotland is home to 40% of the UK’s offshore wind and tidal power, industries which are the future. That’s Scotland that unionists try to tell us is too wee economically to succeed.

Scotland’s whisky exports make up a whopping 21% of the UK’s food and drink exports worth £5bn to the UK annually. That’s a straight £5bn that should come back into the economy of Scotland to fight child poverty and deprivation but is diverted to Sunak’s money chest instead.

Remember Westminster’s promise that Brexit trade would be FANTASTIC for Scotland? Unlike the rest of the UK, Scotland exports a huge amount of its products and services across the world – 100% more than the rest of the UK. Unlike the rest of the UK Scotland exports more goods than we import providing Scotland (2018 figs) with a surplus in international trade in goods in the region of £5bn. The rest of the UK’s deficit stands at £135bn. Put that in your pipe Andra Neil.

Now is not the time for an independence referendum. Now will never be the time. There is no appetite for a referendum in Scotland spouts every other Britnat MP from somewhere south of Hadrian’s Wall and a number from north of the wall who echo whatever is said by their Westminster superiors. Concentrate on your terrible education system, is the cry of the south. Most of those shouting most loudly to condemn Scottish schools know nothing about Scotland’s education system. Here goes.

Scotland’s population is the most highly educated in Europe with 47% having a college, university or vocational qualification. Don’t hear Keir Starmer repeating that stat. I’ll spell it out for him – that’s 5% more than in the rest of the UK. Your bit.

Pre-England’s Brexit Scotland’s GDP was £32,800 per head – £900 higher than the average throughout the UK at £31,900.

Scotland’s potential wealth as an independent nation is obvious. David Phillips of the Institute for Fiscal Studies acknowledges Scotland’s wealth enables her to succeed as an independent state – read behind the headline https://www.ft.com/content/ff6c0f6b-2d65-4a4e-bbba-878e2260cf3e

In addition to her natural resources there are Scotland’s newer and growing sectors including IT, biotech and space. Then there is tourism; Scotland is a magnate for visitors because not only are we smart and talented but we’re richt bonnie, too.

In September 2020 Boris Johnson said in the House of Commons:

“…this House acts to preserve one of the crucial British achievements of the last three centuries: namely our ability to trade freely across the whole of these islands …unfettered access to the rest of the UK” which is a fairly comprehensive definition of insularity further illustrated by his boast that producers can “move Cornish pasties to Scotland, Scottish Beef to Wales…” – is this really a positive case for the union?

Selling to johnnie foreigner is still an ambition. Apparently. It seems an age away since all that talk about Canada-style trade agreements. Is Canada still a thing?

Unable to construct any case of persuasion through reality or reason that the union should be preserved Johnson’s Tories have decided to blitz Scots (and others) with the jack, the union flag. The flag of the empire. It worked once so why not again seems to be the argument.

Look, look, look – here’s a flag. This is who you are. Look. Closer. Can’t see it? Here, I’ve got more. How many flags will it take you to recognise yourself in it?  Look. Just bloody look. We’re British. A proud sovereign nation. Look what the union has done for you. See this bit of blue under the cross of St George – that’s you Scotland. This is what 300 years of union has given you, a place behind England on a flag. 

Boris Johnson rolls over in bed, farts and belches simultaneously, reluctantly removes his hand from beneath the duvet and reaches for the phone. “Govie (Henry Dundas reincarnated), Murray Ross, Alastair Jack – this isn’t working. Dominick – where’s Dominick Raab, the johnnie in charge of foreigners? He must know how to deal with these uppity Scots. Do any of you have Gordon Brown’s number? No wait, that man’s never the answer. Just get me another flag.”

Flagopolis is coming to a UK government building near you. Aberdeen Council Chambers (oh, it already is) and BBC Scotland (sic) at Pacific Quay in Glasgow and other such Westminster mouthpieces will hoist a jack and in direct competition with the Scottish government’s baby boxes Westminster will provide each new born with its very own union jack. Scots will have flags rammed down their throats in a display of how much the UK government cares for its northern outlier. There will be no point in resisting for increasing London’s trade links with China is dependent on flagopolis Britain.

The jack, its name is (probably) a corruption of jacques, Norman French for jacket – the tunic carrying the symbol of whichever authority was being followed, such as the Knights Templars’ red cross from the period of the second Crusade.  Anyone who has seen the Netflix Turkish series, Insurrection Ertugrul, will know how bloodthirsty and terrifying those adventurers were. And ugly.

In 1606 following the union of the crowns the red cross of St George was superimposed on the white diagonal of St Andrew on its blue field. The English flag as we’ve seen derives from the 12^th century and the Scottish saltire from 832AD, making it the oldest continuously used flag in the world which is neither here nor there but interesting.  The diagonal cross of St Andrew is said to have been his decision to distinguish the cross on which he was crucified from that of Christ.

Although English kings controlled Ireland from the 12^th century Ireland was not included in the flag flown in England until James VI introduced the Hibernian harp onto his royal standard in 1603. Under the tyrant Cromwell Scotland and Ireland were forced to submit to adopt a different union flag that included the George cross, the saltire and Irish harp with Cromwell’s family badge of a silver lion rampant in its centre.

In 1707 the Scottish and English parliaments were joined, or rather the Scottish parliament ceased and a token representation of Scots was permitted to sit in England’s parliament. Various versions of a union jack were put to a committee comprising the queen, Anne, and her privy council. A design from Scotland had the cross of St Andrew superimposed on England’s St George cross. A far bonnier flag, I think you’ll agree, than the brash and hideous version we have today. However it was decided it was more appropriate that England’s cross dominated the union which in truth was more realistic of the state of this union.  

Scottish post-union flag

With the Act of Union of 1800 (so many unions so little sense of union) – this was when the union parliament ( with me?) of England and Scotland (the Kingdom of Great Britain) united with the parliament of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland – hence the UK came into being. This union necessitated a different jack. A red saltire representing St Patrick of Ireland was added and an already busy-looking flag got a whole lot busier. As for Wales, nobody seemed to care that it was omitted altogether.

The union jack has flown across the whole British Empire to stamp Britain’s authority over its colonies and protectorates and leave them in no doubt who was in charge. When India succeeded in freeing itself from the British Raj in the 1940s it replaced the union jack, that symbol of its oppression, with a tricolour displaying the Ashokan wheel to mark the country’s emergence as a democratic and secular nation of different peoples.

India’s flag reflected the country’s battle in shaking off the shackles of a foreign power. Empires don’t usually relinquish power and authority over their subjugated peoples without a fight. The British crown and governments were strongly against Indian independence and fought tooth, nail and dirty to prevent it. Britain used carrot and stick tactics. Well, mainly stick. It dropped forcing India to pay for the British garrison on Indian soil that had been used to impose British control. It used starvation and violence. It used ridicule and racist slurs against the people. Churchill, a man who didn’t mince his racist words, was freely abusive. He derided India’s leaders, men such as Gandhi, for having the temerity to believe they were as good as the average white man.

The India Defence League might be comparable to the Better Together movement that was such a feature of the 2014 Scottish independence campaign. Better Together, a coalition of unionist forces, was intent on preventing Scottish independence while the IDL was similarly a group of British politicians; councillors, MPs and peers along with the usual suspects from the military and law hellbent on stopping Indian independence and retain British control of its milch cow. Churchill was an active member, so, too, was author Rudyard Kipling, he of The Jungle Book and The White Man’s Burden – an overtly racist piece of writing which encouraged ‘superior’ civilisations such as the UK and US to bring ‘inferior ‘peoples out of their darkness towards the light of civilisation. His contention was that imperialism was positive for lesser folk who weren’t capable of governing themselves – thus this burdensome responsibility fell on the shoulders of white people, like him. It is pure evil filth. What Kipling, Churchill and the rest of that unholy alliance fail to mention is that empires exist, not to ‘civilise’ but to exploit and rob through brutality and terror.

Then as now the British press played their own dishonourable part in disseminating jingoistic nonsense aimed at preserving the Empire or in our own case, the UK. It won’t surprise you to know that the owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Rothermere, ensured his own propaganda broadsheet kept up the rant against Indian independence. And so highly did he regard his own bigoted beliefs he issued them as pamphlets, sold at a penny a time. His essential message was India never had it so good once Britain took it over and anything that was good in India came as result of Britain. India’s weakness came from its own feeble native people. Any of that sound familiar in relation to Scotland’s independence struggle? It should.  

Rothermere assured gullible and equally bigoted Britishers that it was the British India Defence League that represented the people of India not their own Gandhi and the Indian Congress. Better Together, or was it Rothermere? stressed the dangers of independence on grounds its people didn’t want independence/were too stupid to govern themselves/the economy couldn’t sustain it/the country would go to rack and ruin.  Sound familiar? It should.

Churchill was in denial about the support for independence in India. Sound familiar? He was warned that India could not be retained by force. Sound familiar? There were cheers in the Commons when in 1942 Churchill raised the possibility of bombing pro-independence rioters in India.

The truth that could not be told was independence would lose the British government valuable resources and income. Empire building is never altruistic. Empires come about through force – they are imposed; actual violence or threatened. Before the British government took over running India, the British East India Company didn’t take any chances when ransacking India’s industries so maintained an army of 260,000 men to impress its intent.  

When the marquess of Salisbury, secretary of state for India, said “India is to be bled” he spoke for politicians, Queen Victoria and thousands of British industrialists. Westminster would take and hold India as long as India proved a major source of revenue. And when Indians sick of this foreign tyrant demanded independence Britons were astonished at her ingratitude.

Britain’s desperate attempts to keep hold of India against the wishes of the majority of India’s population was a masterclass in racism and vindictiveness.  Winston (I hate Indians) Churchill was not alone in Westminster to hold these views but then you don’t have to listen very long to voices from the green and red benches today to hear xenophobic and racist slurs. Scottish MPs in the Commons are frequent targets for jeers and accusations of being “subsidy junkies.” An English Tory MP, Lucy Frazer, targeted the Scottish people for a particularly nasty attack when she encouraged her follow Conservatives to laugh at previous generations of Scots sent into exile and sold as slaves to the colonies. Racist filth like this has been a feature of Westminster politics for its whole existence. In the 1930s and 1940s MPs spoke about Indians who dared question the right of London to govern their nation as “a beastly people” “breeding like rabbits” – and of their leader, the pacifist Gandhi, that he should be trampled into the dirt.

In 2003 – 2003 mark you – historian Niall Ferguson in his book Empire was still peddling myths of the 1930s about the positive contribution of British rule to the lives of Indians. These same Indians whose native manufacturing and shipping industries were devastated to enable fortunes for British companies.

Scotland’s growing ambition to return to an independent state has made her a target for attack from government in London and British Radge mouthpieces around the four nations of the UK. In contrast to India and Ireland whose struggles for freedom involved violence Scotland’s independence movements have not turned to armed assaults against British rule. Both India and Ireland indulged in and were subjected to terrible violence and brutality, and in the case of India to enforced starvation that remains an indelible stain on the troubled record of the British Empire. When challenged the UK state will defend itself through its armed wings as well as using deceit and fabrications to undermine those who dare question its oppressive rule.

Westminster has not moved on from that day in 1928 when Tory Home Secretary, Joynson-Hicks, said, “we conquered India by the sword and by the sword we shall hold it.” And by god they did for far too long. Scotland is in for a helluva dirty fight for her right to exist as a sovereign nation, preferably within an economic bloc that values her voice as an equal partner – a society that values the collective voice of a nation in which justice and fairness are prized and where privilege is abolished. That is an ambition worth fighting for and fight it will be because the British Radge will try every dirty trick in the book to scupper our ambition and stuff its jack down our throats in its attempt to keep our country subjugated, as it has done for 300 years.

“I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above” :Flying Scotsmen

 

 

 

Bertram Dickson

Britain’s first military pilot and the first British winner of an aviation competition was Scotsman Bertram Dickson. He was also involved in the first collision of an aircraft; an incident which led to his early death.

Bertram Dickson was born in 1873 in Edinburgh and died and was buried at Achanalt* in the Highlands in 1913.

 

The plaque on his memorial stone states:

 

THIS STONE
MARKS
THE LAST RESTING PLACE
OF
BERTRAM DICKSON
CAPTAIN
HIS MAJESTY’S
ROYAL REGIMENT OF ARTILLERY
–
SOLDIER – AVIATOR – EXPLORER
BORN EDINBURGH 21.12.1873.
DIED AT LOCHROSQUE CASTLE 28.9.1913
–
No danger found him hesitant
No suffering found him feeble.

Edinburgh-born Bertram Dickson’s heroic feats were instrumental in the formation of the Royal Flying Corps, forerunner to the Royal Air Force.

Thomas Holdich

 Before that in 1892 the young Bertram accompanied the geographer Thomas Holdich, one-time president of the Royal Geographical Society and definer of national borders, to Chile and Argentina to establish the frontier between the two countries along the Andes.

Creating a frontier in the Andes

He underwent training at the Royal Military Academy and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in November 1894. By the turn of the century he was a captain and soon seconded to the Foreign Office undertaking duties in many parts of the world including British East Africa and Somaliland. His role as military attaché and vice consul found him in Turkey, in the troubled Ottoman Armenian city of Van but his enthusiasm for the embryonic pursuit of flight led to his enrolment at the Farman flying school in France in 1910 where he took the Aero-Club de France’s eighty-first pilot licence. Later that year he won £400 prize money for flying the greatest aggregate distance at the Lanark Aviation Club meeting and 18,000 French francs in prize money at the Aero Club de France at Tours.

Aero meeting at Lanark

Aero meeting at Lanark with Dickson

Bertram was in his element as one of an elite body of early pilots who drew vast crowds as they took to the air carrying out daring manoeuvres in tiny open aircraft. He took up a post with  British & Colonial Aircraft Company which manufactured the Bristol Boxkite. This company went on to develop the Bristol Fighter plane for the Royal Flying Corps and later what became the Royal Air Force but by then Bertram Dickson was dead.

In September 1910 he took part in army manoeuvres over Salisbury Plain, on board one of two Bristol Boxkites and those trials convinced him of the potential of aircraft for reconnaissance in war and the importance that control of the skies would become in the future.

Bertram Dickson

Bertram Dickson

 

A month later Dickson was in Milan where he added that other, unfortunate, first – the first mid-air crash between two aeroplanes when his bi-plane collided with an Antoinette monoplane piloted by René Thomas** of France. Both men were injured but Dickson came off worst. As a consequence of his injuries that day he died, at Lochrosque House, near Achnasheen on 28 September 1913. He was buried nearby at Achanalt in Cnoc na Bhain graveyard.

Cnoc na Bhain

Achanalt near Achnasheen on the side of Strath Bran lies the Cnoc na Bhain graveyard.

It is said he died in Lochrosque Castle but appears to have an exaggerated claim for a lodge. At any rate he was there as guest of Sir Arthur Bignold, then a former Unionist MP for Wick – an Englishman who took a liking to the Highlands and decided to buy a bit of it- around 30,000 acres.

Bignold was doubtless an enthusiastic and staunch Tory which makes the following episode all the more incredible.

In September 1914 Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, happened to be passing through Ross and Cromarty on his way to inspect the fleet anchored in Loch Ewe when he spotted a light shining on the roof of Lochrosque Lodge. Taking his professional role ultra-seriously, or perhaps drink was involved, he became highly suspicious and doubtless laying the foundations for John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps the twitchy Winston Churchill assumed Bignold was a German spy signalling to his kameraden from Berlin. At any rate Churchill aided and abetted by a loyal protection officer burst into the house, made their way onto the roof and disabled the light – to the annoyance and probably astonishment of Bignold and his household.

René Thomas

* *Rene Thomas became a motor racing champion as well as pioneer aviator. He won the Indianapolis 500 in 1914 but by then Bertram was dead and buried. Thomas died an old man in 1975.

The Royal Flying Corps was the air arm of the British Army before and during First World War. It merged with the Royal Naval Air Service in 1918 to form the Royal Air Force.

As a footnote for no other reason other than I came across his name while researching Bertram another of many young pioneering Scots pilots Reginald Archibald Cammell from Inverness died a couple of years before Bertram, in 1911.  

Reginald Cammell

Cammell was killed at Hendon in England while trialling a Valkyrie monoplane. He had won his brevet (a military commission conferred for outstanding service) on a Bristol bi-plane at the Salisbury Plain school at the end of 1910 but his first flight in the Bleriot monoplane would be his last. Before taking off there had been trouble with the engine and it was suspected engineers passed it as okay despite continuing problems. At the inquest into the crash the coroner found death by misadventure.

 

His final flight began well with him completing a circuit of the airfield and rising to 100 feet but when he attempted a spiral turn something went wrong – some say he lost control and others that the engine seized; whatever the cause the plane crashed. Cammell was thrown clear and survived a short time but was dead before arriving at hospital. Only 25 years old he was described as one of the cleverest pilots of the British Air Battalion.

Cammell’s memorial stone

Cammell was buried in England with full military honours.

The important role of aircraft in war developed apace since those first faltering days not only in reconnaissance but in devastating bombing of populations. In this light the exploitation of the skies by men and women in machines has been a mixed blessing but none of that detracts from the courage of the first airmen and airwomen. 

* Achanalt for many of us is a stop on the railway running between Inverness and Kyle of Lochalsh. It was once part of the Dingwall and Skye Railway operated by Highland Railway; one of many small British lines. During the First World War this line was a vital link between the south and Scapa Flow where the British Navy had a base, serviced from Scrabster near Thurso. Each day the Jellicoe Express ran between London and Thurso – a journey of around 22 hours.

Achanalt halt

 

I am obliged to Ruadh Watson for pointing me in the direction of another impressive early airman, from Dundee – here’s the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Watson

BBC: Myth or Magic part 2 – In Wonderland they Lie

Second part of a sideways glance at the BBC prompted by Tom Mills’ book The BBC: Myth of a Public Service.

In a Wonderland they lie

In part one I mentioned how proactive the BBC was in attacking striking workers during the 1926 General Strike so it is not surprising it provided the government with a vehicle for propaganda during the Second World War. Now there is nothing unexpected about that for no country would allow any publicly financed medium become something of a fifth column – issuing news and briefings critical of the constitutional authority. Mind you before that war the BBC could be found in the camp of appeasers along with major British newspapers such as the Daily Mail, Sunday Dispatch and London Evening News owned by Lord Rothermere and The Times and The Observer owned by Lord Astor all of which were relaxed over developments in Germany during the 1930s when many from Britain’s upper middle class and aristocracy were sympathetic to Hitler’s Nazis – the very classes at the helm at the BBC. According to Mills, ‘speakers hostile to fascism were barred from broadcasting’ on the BBC which drew a rebuke from Churchill that he,  an anti-appeaser, was one.  

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing

 The BBC’s own interpretation of its conduct in the war on its website is a polished piece of guarded-speak which emphasises the integrity of BBC management and reaffirms the BBC as ‘a trusted news source’ and how the BBC resisted becoming simply a tool of government. It would, it insisted at the time, broadcast ‘the truth’ but omit anything that might ‘endanger the civilian population or jeopardise operations.’ To this end it admits heavily censoring news to omit mentions of high casualties among the Allies. There was not a single reference in the BBC website I consulted to its propaganda operations later made famous by George Orwell.

BBC chooses whose opinions may be heard in 1933

Orwell was one of many recruited by the government to work within its vast Ministry of Information, as Talks Producer at the BBC. You can see how smudged that line is between both institutions. For the Ministry of Information you could read Ministry of Misinformation. Other famous writers similarly employed included J. B Priestly and Graham Greene (whose brother Hugh Greene worked for the BBC’s German service and later he became Director General of the BBC)

The brilliant cartoonist David Low refused to be used as a propagandist for the government/BBC and the writer C. S. Lewis also refused to participate in disseminating lies.

Even the once enthusiastic Orwell later changed his mind on the integrity of outright propaganda, ‘all propaganda is lies, even when one is telling the truth.’ His prescient novel, 1984, was written while his experience of working for the government/BBC was fresh in his mind and the novel’s Ministry of Information became the terrifying Ministry of Truth.

 The acknowledged importance of the BBC’s output during WW2 both for home and overseas audiences demonstrates the potency of its influence over the public’s perceptions of truth.

The Party’s go-to tactic for maintaining power is to shift blame to a designated scapegoat, toward which all of its constituents’ hatred and violence may be directed

Broadcasters enjoy a privileged role in life able to construct narratives in tune with their own opinions aimed at persuading their audience of the legitimacy of their interpretation of events. The BBC is not a place to hear radically divergent views instead it promotes that small c conservatism that is in tune with all of the major institutions in the UK. Like some well-oiled machine of state government, the City of London, the courts, military, royalty and the BBC reinforce one another and operate to maintain the status quo where the top brass in all of these institutions remain in charge.

The power of the BBC to censor its airwaves

We have seen how the BBC sought to sway opinion against workers during the General Strike how it was in tune with the reactionary press during the 1930s in relation to Germany and its willingness to broadcast a catalogue of myths and lies during the war and that aspect of its character was no less slanted post-war.

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

During the Suez crisis of 1956 Britain found itself divided between those who defended the Empire and Britain’s military presence at the Suez canal and its control over this vital trade route and supporters of Egypt, a nation desperate to shake off its shackles as a colony and assert its independence. Britain’s rightwing were seething with racist venom against uppity and ungrateful Egyptians their xenophobia evident in many references to ‘our boys’ versus ‘wogs’ and ‘gyppos’ .

The Director General of the BBC dined at Number 10 Downing Street with the Prime Minister on the evening of 26 July 1956 when news broke of Egypt’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company.  As Tony Shaw in his book, Eden, Suez and the Mass Media: Propaganda and Persuasion during the Suez Crisis, explains the chairman of the BBC’s Board of Governors, and a former under-security at the Foreign Office (and share holder in the Suez Canal Company) nipped down to Downing street to discuss how the BBC should handle the crisis. A nervous government was said to have threatened to take over the BBC entirely but that appears was an exaggerated claim however it was made clear to the broadcaster that its handling of Suez should be on a war footing with all that involved including censorship. And, as Shaw points out, the DG of the BBC and his chief assistant were trusted with highly secret information in the run-up to military action.

The chairman of the Independent Television Authority, Sir Kenneth Clark, was also approached and asked to ‘slant the news about Suez’ but he refused to co-operate with the government on grounds of the need to retain impartiality.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Despite much hand wringing at the BBC the corporation complied with the government and broadcast carefully constructed reports and interviews or simply relayed official statements. It repulsed any attempt for outright government control over its output but did undertake close liaison with the Ministry of Defence and departments of the military.

Meanwhile in Cyprus an ostensibly independent radio station known as Sharqal-Adna but run by British Intelligence and ‘known’ to BBC management transmitted pro-British propaganda as did the BBC’s Arabic Service. Reminiscent of the Iraq wars enemy casualties were not counted or reported realistically and there were no first hand reports of bombings or the impact of British actions on civilians. Shaw noted  that BBC

‘bulletins on the whole bore such a close resemblance to so much of the officially released information on the invasion [it] suggests that the government’s machinery of liaison paid dividends.’

The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one’s neck. The Hate had started…

Big events such as the General Strike, WW2 and Suez highlight the hugely influential function of the BBC. One that is more memorable for readers will be Hillsborough. It wasn’t only The Sun that chose to become a mouthpiece for the official police version of events.  

BBC Radio 2 reported: “Unconfirmed reports that a door was broken down at the end that was holding Liverpool supporters.”

Mills tells us that Graham Kelly, Chief Executive of the English Football Association, who was interviewed on Radio 2 implied that the police had not ordered the gates to be opened. This was as was later became apparent not true but repeated by another reporter

“…at ten to three there was a surge of fans at the Leppings lane end of the ground… the surge composed of about 500 Liverpool fans and the police say that a gate was forced and that led to a crush in the terracing area – well under capacity I’m told, there was still plenty of room inside that area…”

Such shameful distortions of the truth continued to be broadcast on the BBC – Radio 4 news at 6pm still insisted that fans without tickets pushed their way into the football ground causing the disaster –

“It’s clear that many hundreds of Liverpool fans travelled to Hillsborough even though they didn’t have tickets for the game. Shortly before the match started it appears that these fans were able to get into the ground through a gate at the Leppings Lane end.”

Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing

The BBC went further in its reporting of the so-called Battle of Orgreave in June 1984 when striking miners were battered by police. The corporation went out of its way to edit film in such a way it altered the sequence of events and broadcast film that was deliberately constructed to lie to viewers in something straight out of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.  

Mills: the BBC was ‘blatantly biased in their output to the extent it ‘chopped up and re-sequenced’ film of the picket attack to ‘make it appear miners provoked the police.’

With no hint of impartiality BBC reporters referred to miners as ‘law-breakers’. When confronted by their biased reporting the BBC immediately issued denials – as it invariably does when caught out.

“no evidence of any deliberate attempt to mislead viewers”

“marginal imbalance”

not “wholly impartial”

What did happen at Orgreave, and unreported on the BBC, was that the police launched an unprovoked attack on striking men who retaliated with missiles.

It took the BBC 7 years to own up to this deliberate manipulation of events

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/22/orgreave-truth-police-miners-strike

The BBC is almost unique in this country in its ability to mould public opinion. We found out in part 1 that the ‘impartial’ BBC is not keen on CND and peace campaigners in general but allows itself to be used as a bugle boy for British military campaigns. At the time of the Iraq war it was so openly jingoistic it allocated only 2% output to the views of people opposed to this war.  

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/08/mehdi-hasan-bbc-wing-bias-corporation

The BBC is very good at lots of things including marginalising groups it disapproves of such as the peace movement. At the same time it is supremely capable of enhancing organisations and views that fit in with the ethos of the men and women who wield influence at the BBC.

Banking and big business command great respect within the organisation, including the rural business of farming. We know this because the BBC has rather a lot of business slots as stand-alone programmes –

BBC In Business; Business Daily, The Bottom Line, Global Business, The World of Business, World Business Report, Talking Business, BBC Business Live, Business Matters, Dragon’s Den, Wake Up to Money, Inside Business with more of a similar hue dished up in Scotland, hourly on the lamentable Good Morning Scotland

– and teams of employees who feed economic and business data into news and current affairs programmes. By contrast it has no designated slots to reflect on green issues, or anti-business views or workers’ issues that might be at the heart of trades unions or indeed peace campaigning. The only perspective that interests the BBC are those of employers and a peek at the make-up of who’s who in the BBC which will be covered in a separate blog shows this is only to be expected. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours is surely carved over the front door at the BBC. This preoccupation the BBC has for finance and business is explored by Mills.

Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely

The Business and  Economics Unit at the BBC was set up in 1989 and I checked the BBC Website to see what this unit had to say for itself. The underlining emphasis is mine.

“The Business and Economics Unit is at the heart of BBC News. We produce output for all BBC platforms and offer editorial guidance to the full range of BBC programmes. We have a truly global presence including teams based in Singapore, New York, Johannesburg and Mumbai.

The Economics Editor holds one of the most senior roles in BBC News, leading the BBC’s coverage across all platforms, domestic and international…Reporting to the Editor, Business and Economics Unit, the Economics Editor will be a regular contributor to the main TV and radio news bulletins and programmes, as well as to BBC News Online. Much of the role will focus on providing material for the Six and Ten O’clock News, the 1800 Radio 4 news bulletin and the Today Programme…  a primary contact for senior figures in Government and the Business/Economics community.”

We can take from this that the BBC regards the promotion of trade and commerce as one of its prime functions.

The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering – a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons

According to Mills the BBC fell for the charms of the economic and business sectors with the flourishing of New Labour that neo-liberal progeny of Thatcherism. As a consequence obscene amounts of money were spent on creating a more pro-business BBC but in the end much of what is reported is little more than recitation of press statements issued by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Bank of England, City analysts, CBI, Office of Economic Development, IMF and their ilk who are also given air time to express their ‘expert’ opinions live.

Just who are the Institute for Fiscal Studies and why does the BBC assign them so much air time? I’ll look at think-tanks and pressure groups and the people who influence our opinions in the next part.

Quotes from:

Tom Mills: The BBC: Myth of a Public Service

Lewis Carroll; Alice in Wonderland

George Orwell; 1984

Tony Shaw; Eden, Suez and the Mass Media: Propaganda and Persuasion during the Suez Crisis