"The strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept”Thucydides “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished who kill not in large companies, and to the sound of trumpets; it is the rule.”Voltaire Criminality in our world is treated with pretty arbitrary standards. … Continue reading On Criminality
Month: Apr 2021
How Sir Martin Gilbert Fudged the Facts to Protect his Hero
I. Sir Martin Gilbert was Churchill’s official biographer, and evidently enamoured of his subject: ‘I never felt that he [Churchill] was going to spring an unpleasant surprise on me. I might find that he was adopting views with which I disagreed. But I always knew that there would be nothing to cause me to think: … Continue reading How Sir Martin Gilbert Fudged the Facts to Protect his Hero
Churchill’s Prejudices
Many people today are aware of Winston Churchill’s low opinion of Africans, Indians and Arabs. Somewhat less known are his negative opinions of a number of Jews. In 1920 an article by Churchill appeared in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, titled ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism’. In it he expressed his belief that patriotic ‘national Jews’ could be … Continue reading Churchill’s Prejudices
A Regius Professor at Oxford Considers African History
Hugh Trevor-Roper was Regius Professor of History at Oxford 1957-1980, and Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge 1980-1987. In a 1965 book, The Rise of Christian Europe, Trevor-Roper observed that ‘[u]ndergraduates, seduced, as always, by the changing breath of journalistic fashion’ wanted to be ‘taught the history of Africa’. Of course, those foolish, trendy undergraduates had made … Continue reading A Regius Professor at Oxford Considers African History
The Conservatives’ New Policing Bill
The government is engaged in an active attack on our civil liberties by curtailing the right to protest—it's important to emphasise that this is being done for reasons unrelated to the pandemic, the legal changes are intended to be permanent. The police crackdown bill includes provisions to make it an offence to cause a ‘public … Continue reading The Conservatives’ New Policing Bill
Britain’s Contribution to the Defeat of Nazi Germany
The first in a series responding to Andrew Roberts' and Zewditu Gebreyohanes' paper, ‘The Racial Consequences of Mr Churchill: A Review' Roberts and Gebreyohanes make several claims about the British contribution during the Second World War in their paper. They write that Britain ‘played a central role’ in the defeat of the Nazis (p21), that … Continue reading Britain’s Contribution to the Defeat of Nazi Germany
Historical Fact and Fiction
I’m tired of the way historical fact is continually sacrificed in Britain on the altar of national mythology. A recent example of such distortion comes from Andrew Roberts and Zewditu Gebreyohanes, who have written a paper that can be found online entitled '"The Racial Consequences of Mr Churchill": A Review'. They attempt to refute various … Continue reading Historical Fact and Fiction
How the BBC Reports Foreign Policy (2/3/21)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-56242610 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56253360 Today the BBC offers an interesting example of how foreign policy is reported. The headlines are 'Yemen conflict: UK cuts aid citing financial pressure from Covid’ and 'Yemen conflict: UK defends Yemeni aid cuts amid criticism from MPs’. There is no reason to doubt UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ view that the British … Continue reading How the BBC Reports Foreign Policy (2/3/21)
Notes in the Margins of the Days 