Image © Alegri, Romania.

In the years since the collapse of the Celtic Tiger economy there has been a significant increase in Irish migration to Britain. However, little is known about the experiences of these ‘post-Celtic tiger’, ‘post-Peace Agreement’ migrants.  How might their experiences differ from earlier waves of Irish migrants to Britain?  There is some anecdotal evidence that more Irish people are arriving in Britain to take up professional occupations.

In an attempt to gain a deeper insight into the experiences of migrants who have arrived since 2008 a study is to be carried out by the Social Policy Research Centre, at Middlesex University, in partnership with the Federation of the Irish Societies. This study will focus on teachers. Irish teachers in Britain are an under-researched group but there is some anecdotal evidence that their numbers are increasing (Irish Post newspaper, 26.02.13).

Through an on-line survey, in-depth interviews and a focus group this project aims:

To examine the needs, attitudes and experiences of this group – in particular their sense of Irishness, connections to Ireland, involvement in Irish networks and/ or organisations in Britain including cultural engagement, their migration trajectories, career aspiration, family strategies and future plans for settlement or return

The findings of the study will be published in a report and other academic papers and will be used to inform the policy initiatives and funding applications of the Federation of Irish Societies.

The project has been given ethical approval by the Middlesex University Ethics Committee.  All participants will be anonymized and all materials will be stored on a password protected computer to safeguard confidentiality. In order to gain further information about this study Professor Ryan kindly agreed to answer a few questions about the forthcoming study.

LC: Negative Stereotypes linked to the Irish nestle deep in the UK – linked to intellectual impairment, hygiene, alcohol and violence. Do you think your study will find that embedded stereotype`s about the Irish, make teaching in Britain difficult – especially, outside the RC education strata?

Prof Ryan: This is one of the things we are keen to find out. In the post-peace agreement era, there is perhaps an assumption that being Irish has become somewhat ‘cool’ in British society (the popularity of Irish pubs, Irish singers and bands – from the Script to U2, Irish actors like Colin Farrell, writers like Marian Keyes and fashion designers like Paul Costello and Philip Tracey). However, 100s of years of anti-Irish stereotyping just does not disappear over night. My research on earlier migrants, such as the work I did on Irish nurses who came to Britain in the period after World War II showed how endemic anti-Irish sentiments are in British society. In this new research we are keen to see if recently arrived migrants, including highly educated professionals like teachers still experience these anti-Irish stereotypes and how they react to these, often unanticipated, experiences.

LC: Hornsby-Smith and Dale (1988) found that the Irish occupied stereotypically blue collar male/female employment roles with social mobility difficult to achieve. The premise of your study appears to take for granted that the Irish are entering professional roles. What evidence (other than the Irish Post article) is there for this?

Prof Ryan: Since the late 1980s and early 1990s the number of Irish graduates coming from Ireland to Britain has increased enormously. We know from sources like the Labour Force Survey that Irish migrants are amongst the most highly educated groups arriving in Britain. There are 37,000 Irish born graduates in Britain (LFS, 2012). The Irish are increasingly well represented in professional jobs and as the work of researchers like Breda Gray has shown, while the generation of Irish migrants coming to Britain since the 1980s has some similarity with previous waves, they also have a more middle class identity.

LC: Clearly, the Celtic Tiger economy encouraged increases in spending on HE and training in Ireland – which it now appears the UK will benefit from (though the host nation may not view it this way). Will your study attempt to measure the impact of this `brain drain` on the Irish economy?

Prof Ryan: This may be a finding we can explore in the study but the main focus will be on the experiences of Irish migrant teachers in this country.

LC: Is there any danger that by focussing on a skilled professional group, as your study does, that we lose sight of problems that are current. In particular problems linked to the ageing population and the lack of provision in this area. Furthermore, there is the widespread discrimination experienced by Irish Travellers, documented but ignored.  Should we not first concentrate on getting this sorted out and then focus on this new professional cohort?

Prof Ryan: This study is not in anyway intended to deny the problems that some groups of Irish people in Britain still experience. There has been a lot of research on older Irish people – including a study we did hear at Middlesex University entitled the Forgotten Irish, led by my colleague Mary Tilki and focusing on that 1950s-1970s generation of migrants. There has also been a lot of work on Irish travellers, including some recent work by my PhD student Tracy Mullen. But the Irish population in Britain is diverse with many different experiences and expectations, and it would be misleading to assume they are all defined by their problems and difficulties. It is important to also consider the ways in which the Irish have been successful.

LC: Have you found UK and Irish Teaching Unions helpful thus far in accessing respondents to this study? Who will surely be the key to communicating with Irish teachers.

Prof Ryan: So far we have not approached the unions – that will be our next step.

LC: How high are expectation levels among Irish teachers coming to Britain? Given cuts in public expenditure in the UK, where employment conditions within the profession are gradually becoming eroded – for example the prevalence of zero-hours contract etc? Problems combined to house and rent prices especially in London etc.

Prof Ryan: One of the reasons we are doing this research is precisely to find out about Irish teachers working conditions, in the questionnaire we have several questions on employment and contractual status, as well as career aspirations and future settlement or return migration plans.

The research project will be managed by Prof Louise Ryan working along with her colleague, Edina Kurdi.  For further information about this study please go to http://sprc.info/irishteacherstudy/

Image © Terence wiki

Nora Connolly

I first saw this movie in 2006 and recall people leaving the cinema in tears. A powerful film directed by a master of the craft, Ken Loach. The last fifteen minutes deeply moving, as Teddy O’Donovan (Padraic Delaney) fails to persuade his brother and former brother-in-arms Damien (Cillian Murphy) to join the ranks of the pro-Treaty forces and give up his anti-Treaty comrades. Teddy O`Donovan orders Damien`s execution, granting the condemned man time to write a letter to Sinead (Orla Fitzgerald). In the early hours Damien meets his death, Teddy O`Donovan dressed in his Free State uniform, commands the firing squad to kill his brother. A scene of betrayal realistically portrayed. We then see Teddy go to Sinead with the letter; Sinead breaks down (a beautiful performance by Fitzgerald) and orders O`Donovan off her land. Sinead becomes a metaphor for Ireland, the Cathleen ni Houlihan of the film (TWTSTB has more in common with O`Casey than Yeats). It deserved its critical acclaim but as a piece of history it`s flawed.

TWTSTB deals with the Anglo-Irish War (1919-21) and the subsequent Civil War (1922-23) which saw friends, families and comrades violently split over the issue of the Treaty. The starting point for the film is 1920, when the `Black and Tans` are sent to Ireland to quell rebellion, the `Tan’s (mercenaries, resembling the German Freikorps) associated with violence and barbarism, dispensing `justice` in an arbitrary manner. The film begins with a demonstration of this, as the `Black and Tans` descend after a game of hurling. They line the players up, including Damien and Teddy O`Donovan. This takes place on the property of Sinead and her family. One of those interrogated responds only in Irish, resulting in his torture and murder. The subsequent distress brilliantly portrayed by the cast, magnificently directed by Loach.

We then discover that Damien is about to leave Ireland to practice as a Doctor in England, he never leaves. He changes his mind after witnessing an attack on Dan (Liam Cunningham). Dan is a railway worker, a trade unionist and supporter of James Connolly. Dan stops a group of soldiers boarding his train, for which he receives a beating. Damien outraged by these events is seen taking an oath; he becomes a member of the Irish Republican Army (formerly Volunteers/IRB). He joins a flying column and takes to the hills.

The film does not explain how the Anglo-Irish War begins. A contextual understanding vital, if one is to gain a complete picture of events depicted. The campaign of violence against the RIC ignored. The war starts with the killing of Constables McDonnell and O`Connell, neither members of an invading army. They were gunned down in Soloheadbeg, January 1919. McDonnell and O`Connell had no association with `political prosecutions`. One could cite Sergeant Brady killed while on patrol leaving a large family and a broken hearted wife, collapsing during his funeral, “sobbing violently and calling out again and again murder by the roadside.” As RF Foster outlines, assassinations of this type continued throughout the war, with 400 Constables killed by 1921. The Anglo-Irish War, a precursor to Civil War, as Irish men gunned down compatriots.  TWTSTB does feature an attack on a Police Barracks – the Constables described as “traitors”, however their deaths are not recorded or even mentioned; such an inclusion would not fit the heroic nationalist narrative outlined.

During the film the flying column is captured by the Army and the leader, Teddy O`Donovan tortured for information. They escape but not before Damien brazenly informs his captors that he is a “democrat”, referring to the SF election victory in 1918. However, as Kee states, “the question of taking offensive action against Police and Soldiers in Ireland to establish an Irish Republic had never been before the Irish people and if it had been at the General Election of 1918 it would have been decisively rejected.” The tradition that Damien followed required no political mandate but this is left unsaid. To announce the obvious, would perhaps subvert the bogus notion that O`Donovan is a Socialist revolutionary rather than a Nationalist one.

It is during this brief period of captivity that Damien makes contact with Dan the railway worker and James Connolly supporter. The film then completely overplays the significance of Connolly within the context of the Anglo-Irish War/Civil War. Loach transforms a Nationalist uprising into a Socialist revolution – but this does not stand up to genuine scrutiny. The anti-Treaty people were a disparate group with some socialist representation – Liam Mellows the most notable. But those who rejected the Treaty did not do so because it betrayed a Marxist agenda.  The film makes reference to the 1918 Democratic Programme as a justification for this. But this was hardly Marxist and only “vaguely socialist” providing a sop to the memory of James Connolly who was executed in 1916.  Constance Markievicz a supporter of Connolly was made Minister of Labour, in 1918 “a post significantly relegated outside Cabinet in the second Dail”. This hardly constitutes a Socialist rationale for this Nationalist war. De Valera, Michael Collins and Arthur Griffiths were not Socialists. The main reasons for rejecting the Treaty are outlined in the movie during a didactic scene. The protagonists view a news-reel in a cinema which outlines the negatives associated with the Treaty– Socialism doesn’t feature.

In one scene Dan (Liam Cunningham) critiques the IRA, announcing they are backing the landlords – which was true. But Dan is himself in the IRA (otherwise he would not be on active service with a flying column). Dan is not speaking as a representative of Labour or the Citizen`s Army but as a nationalist in a debate about the administration of Republican courts. But somehow the viewer is made to believe they are witnessing the betrayal of a Socialist revolution in Ireland, the rejection of the treaty equated with socialism.

As Foster explains there was a significant increase in Labour organisations during this time. For example the huge growth in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union modelled on the IWW (thanks to Connolly and Larkin). The forward march of Irish Labour was also evident most notably during the 1922 election. With the Labour Party gaining 21% of the vote “more votes than the anti-Treatyites”. Foster makes clear that both the pro and anti-Treaty Republicans were hostile to Labour and the left. Foster cites Peadar O’Donnell who recalled how the IRA patrolled estates to “enforce decrees for rent, arrest and even order out of the country leaders of local land agitations.” One hardly imagines that James Connolly would have reconciled himself to this, had he lived post 1916. The IRA not only protected the landlord`s economic position but according to Foster utilised its membership for the purpose of strike breaking. This reality does not sit easily within the narrative outlined in TWTSTB. In 1922 communists were running for seats in rural Ireland promoting an economic agenda ignoring the nationalist question. The left were considered a threat to the nascent nation; socialism was stamped out.

This film at least attempt`s an analysis from the left and clearly it is not a documentary but a dramatisation of events. However, while it set out to critique nationalism it actually makes heroes out of those who oppressed Irish Labour, an ironic and unforgivable twist to a dramatic tale.

Image © NordNordWest

Red Lester

This film looks at the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of David Carr, an unemployed man from Liverpool. A member of the Communist Party, he is inspired to join the fight against Franco’s attempt to overthrow the elected government of Spain. The story follows his initial involvement with POUM, the Spanish Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification, his decision to join the Communist Party approved International Brigade, his political disillusionment with them and his return to his comrades in the POUM unit, only to witness their enforced disbandment.

We see the war through David’s eyes and Loach’s sympathies are clearly with POUM and the anarchists. Reviews have been written which disagree strongly with the images of POUM and the Communist Party portrayed; others agree and unsurprisingly these opinions divide politically between ex members of the International Brigade and ex members of POUM. Other reviews point out the film’s resemblance to George Orwell’s book ‘Homage to Catalonia’, although the main character, rather than an Old Etonian, is an unemployed docker. 

The film’s central and most telling sequence takes place when the inhabitants of a recently liberated village meet in the house of the priest they have just executed and discuss how the village land should be managed. Many of the parts were played by non-professionals, who lived in the village where the film was shot. Loach gets convincing performances from all, and anyone who has ever been to a political meeting will be able to identify with someone in that room. The argument here is about collectivisation of land. Some wish to allow people to keep their small plots but the passionate opinion of others is that complete collectivisation is the only way. It falls to David to point out that if the war is not won this will not be an issue as they will all be dead. This scene encapsulates the divisions within the anti-Franco forces which weakened the resistance to his rebellion. Later in the film, the event that completes David’s disillusionment with the Communist Party is when, as a member of the International Brigade, he is ordered to defend the Communist headquarters in Barcelona from other leftists. In a short exchange with another Englishman on the opposing side, it becomes clear that both have lost sight of why they are there.

The film depicts in a series of scenes the problems facing the POUM militia. They have no military experience and do not take easily to attempts at enforcing military style discipline. They cannot obtain weapons unless they agree to be integrated into the national military force and so are reduced to using old weapons, one of which causes an injury to David. Their main asset is their passionate commitment to the cause. Initially, women were able to fight alongside their male comrades, but as integration was gradually forced upon them, women were allowed only their traditional roles of nursing and cooking.

The film is dramatically involving and the cinematography captures the Spanish light and landscape. The leading actors, Ian Hart and Rosana Pastor are convincing. My only criticism would be that sometimes it felt as if the need to portray the political views of the characters detracted from their depiction as rounded characters. However, there are so few films with any type of overtly political subject matter that it is possible to overlook this tendency. It is worth noting that another actress in the film, Iciar Bollain has gone on to direct the recent film Even the Rain, which explores attitudes to the exploitation of native peoples. This is well worth seeking out if you haven’t seen it.

The story is framed by sequences set in the present day. The film begins with David’s granddaughter discovering him unconscious at home and his subsequent death en route to hospital. After his death she discovers letters, news cuttings and a handful of earth and these allow the movement of the plot from episode to episode, revealing his changing attitude to the Communist Party. We also see that he is not entirely truthful; while assuring his girlfriend in Liverpool that no Spanish woman matches up to her, we see him become attached to Blanca and sleep with her. This device also shows the passing of political ideals from one generation to another. At the end of the film, his granddaughter throws the Spanish earth onto his coffin and gives the clenched fist salute. She also gives validation to the ultimately defeated militia in Spain. Quoting the poem ‘The Day Is Coming’ by William Morris found in David’s papers she recites:

‘Join in the battle wherein no man can fail,

For whoso fadeth and dieth, yet his deed shall still prevail’.

Image © Alexander Kachkaev

Robin Richardson

Review of The British Dream: successes and failures of post-war immigration by David Goodhart, Atlantic Books 2013, 381 pp, £20

David Goodhart hopes there will be a Labour government, or a Labour-led coalition, from 2015 onwards. He himself belongs, he says, to the ‘political tribe of north London liberals’ and is ‘a journalist of leftish sympathies’. His subject-matter in this book is immigration policy, and the extent to which Britain can be a multicultural One Nation. It is possible to imagine Britain, he mentions, ‘little by little becoming a less civil, ever more unequal and ethnically divided country – as harsh and violent as the United States’. In such a Britain the welfare state will have largely withered away, for white British people will be increasingly unwilling to pay taxes to support people who belong to (one of Goodhart’s favourite (phrases) ‘visible minorities’. He sees his book as a wake-up call to prevent such a dystopia.

The book is addressed to Labour and Lib Dem opinion leaders; to senior managers and civil servants who work with and advise elected politicians in the delivery of public services; and to activists and campaigners in the voluntary sector. It is a work of polemical journalism and reportage, not of scholarship, and has strengths and weaknesses accordingly. The strengths are that there are many anecdotes and striking phrases, and there’s relatively little jargon. The weaknesses are that over-simplification is commoner than thoughtful and tentative nuance, and that too many facts and quotations are left unreferenced and therefore uncheckable.

Although aimed essentially at the centre left of the political spectrum, where it has been well received by, for example, Jon Cruddas in the New Statesman, and where it chimes well with Labour’s One Nation rhetoric, the book is likely to be read also, and with an even warmer welcome, on the centre right. Its influence could be substantial.  It could also, alas, be deeply pernicious, for some of its good ideas are poorly and unhelpfully expressed and there are several ideas that are not good at all, but highly dubious. It is the ill-expressed and dubious ideas which are most likely to be attended to in the months and years ahead.

The book starts with a lengthy list of acknowledgements – well over 200 individuals are named as having helped the author in his travels and conversations. Presumably some of these friends and contacts read and commented on drafts of parts of the book, and maybe some of them even read and reviewed the manuscript as a whole. There is no reference, however, to such assistance, and there are signs that the manuscript was not in fact checked by people who could have helped remove errors and inconsistencies, and could have challenged the more dubious claims and generalisations. For example, anyone with a reasonable degree of knowledge of the book’s subject-matter would have pointed out that Trevor Phillips was once chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, not of something called the Equalities Commission; that the Border Agency is the correct name of what Goodhart calls the Borders Agency; that the Racial and Religious Hatred Act is the correct title of a relevant piece of legislation in 2006; and that the word Islamophobia was not coined by the Runnymede Trust. If someone had read the text as a whole they would have pointed out inconsistencies such as the claim in one chapter that school students of Bangladeshi heritage are failing to make progress in the education system but the mention in another that such students now have achievements higher than the national average for all students.

Factual errors and inconsistencies such as these are serious in that they raise doubts about the book’s general soundness and reliability. Pointing them out, however, risks seeming or being merely pedantic and petty. It is the book’s essential arguments, and unresolved contradictions within them, that need close consideration, not its incidental details.

The book’s valuable features include its insistence that issues of race and immigration should be rationally not emotively discussed, and that discussions must centrally include narratives, understandings and dreams about national identity and national history, and concepts of imagined community and emotional citizenship, as distinct from citizenship that is merely formal or legal. Within this context Goodhart refers from time to time to Danny Boyle’s pageant at the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games as an iconic and vivid illustration of what the concept of One Nation can mean in practice. ‘When a country is changing very fast,’ he says, ‘it needs stories to reassure and guide it’, stories which are ‘about connecting majority to minority and old to new’.

The book’s pernicious features include its caricatures of multiculturalism, and of thinkers such as Bhikhu Parekh and Tariq Modood who have devoted their careers to thinking in depth about how multicultural societies such as Britain have developed, and how they are likely to shape out in the future; its very sketchy depictions, at best, of the importance of law and legislation; its embracing, in effect, of a Daily Express view of British Islam and British Muslims; its cavalier endorsement of the view that ‘humans are group-based primates who favour their own and extend trust to outsiders with caution’; its insufficient attention to the global and international context and to relevant issues of gender and social class; and its disinclination to consider the continuing influence of racisms in their  various forms (behavioural/attitudinal; colour/cultural; personal/institutional; crude/subtle; street/dinner-table).

Goodhart ends his book with an imagined history – ‘a British dream’ – of the next 20 years. The details in this are deliberately and provocatively far-fetched but are nevertheless challenging and engaging as symbols, and as triggers for reflection and deliberation. They include the provision of a DVD of Danny Boyle’s ceremony for all new citizens; the creation of a new immigration and integration department in central government which will be the first choice for fast stream graduates entering the civil service; re-definitions of immigration statistics to enable the higher education sector to  expand very considerably with hundreds of thousands of foreign students each year; the creation (paid for by scrapping Trident modernisation) of a six-month compulsory citizenship service programme to be completed by all young people between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five; the introduction of a living wage for all; and the election of a prime minister who is both Tory and black.

The dream, yes, of a member of ‘the political tribe of north London liberals’. For some of the rest of us, though, particularly in view of the discussion by which it has been introduced, it has the elements of a nightmare.

__________________________

Robin Richardson manages the Insted website on equality and diversity. Other recent critiques of Goodhart’s book include a review by David Edgar; a review by Ian Birrell; Goodhart, Bad Analysis by Jenny Bourne; and Mass migration is a symptom, not a cause, of crisis by Bernard Keenan.

Image© IndependentThinkerUK

Nigel Farage is the most dangerous man in British politics. Why?  He leads a party with no MPs and his party’s most well known policy, a referendum to leave the EU, is so popular among Conservative MP’s that should they win the 2015 election they’re offering their own version of it.  On TV he often comes across as a charming pub bore, the sort of chap who begins an argument midway through the second round saying “look, I’m saying what we’re all thinking here”. Yet as they manage to gain a quarter of all votes cast in this month’s local elections they are turning into a fourth force in UK politics and a real political headache. Even before the May election their influence on UK politics, outside of a vehicle of protest against the EU, had been growing steadily; at both the Eastliegh and South Shields by-elections they came second and since the start of 2013 have been absorbing defections of councillors from the Tories at the rate of one a week 

The left often misread the UKIP threat either tactically reasoning that it hurts the Tories or as a band of cranks plugging an esoteric Europhobic obsession on the fringes of British politics. This view however pretends that it is 1997 and Euroskepticism is still some sort of crank project being run by the heir to the marmite fortune. The 2010 Eurozone crisis has allowed UKIPers to claim near messianic prescience or at the very least give credence to their “we were right all along” claims.  The other perception of UKIP, and one shared by the Prime Minister, is that UKIP are a bunch of slightly loopy fanatics. Some of their leaders have made some appalling statement; Lord Pearson the former party leader saying, “Muslims are breeding ten times faster than us,” he said. “I don’t know at what point they reach such a number we are no longer able to resist the rest of their demands”. And one candidate for council has written that the Second World War was a “Zionists conspiracy”. But at the same time the party isn’t simply some unreconstructed manifestation of the National Front, it is much more complex than that and often left wing arguments attacking UKIP as racist tend towards generalisations, which in turn allow UKIP supporters to respond angrily by pointing to examples of diversity and internal policies that prevent former BNP members from joining.

UKIP profess to be libertarian in their outlook favouring a small state and push ever downwards to local governance; it has been rumoured that Nigel Farage has professed to wanting a minimal or nonexistent  welfare state and open immigration – the libertarian dream. They are ostensibly non-racist in their opposition to the EU, just anti-statist and Farage’s deputy Paul Nutall often extols the virtues of close trade ties with Brazil and Australia. But here’s the catch. That is not how they are currently raking up opinion poll leads and scaring the Tories in by-elections.

That is done by pushing a nihilistic, nimbyist anti-poltical screed at a weary electorate, who are fearful in an uncertain economic climate. Diane James their candidate in the Eastleigh by-election proudly told an interviewer that she had gone to door to door in Eastleigh with a simple message: “enough is enough.” Focus groups of UKIP’s supporters reveal that the only thing that many of them like about Britain at the moment is “the past”.  Their recent popularity has seen them surf a wave of small –c conservative resentment; sometimes explicitly and sometimes subtly grabbing at fragments of anger and discontent and then calling it policy. After all what libertarian party would propose banning the Burka or circulate wildly homophobic propaganda leaflets as part of an election campaign. A desire to harvest populist anger explains the crazy candidates and supporters in the County Council elections;  three BNP members, two homophobes and an electoral  fraudster in a pear tree. Before the Conservative Party went on the attack Farage pre-emptively said that the party couldn’t vet all candidates for Council and that some would fall through the cracks.  But part of UKIP’s claim to authenticity is that they aren’t real politicians, they are common people saying ‘what we are all thinking’ – and many on the right who are fed up with David Cameron, in particular the right wing press have been giving them an easy ride as a consequence.

Whilst not being the National Front they fit into their political tradition. The National Front went from an obscure backstreet organisation in the 1960s to an electoral force in the late 1970s because they explained the runaway inflation, industrial strife and social change of the era through the prism of race. Dominic Sandbrook in his book Seasons in the Sun cites a 1976 television play made (and later suppressed) by the BBC  about the National Front where the lead character emotionally confesses his reason for supporting them as being a longing for “the England I remember as a younger man.”  That is what UKIP are basically offering people; a return to the half remembered world of 1957, when the English Channel, a stiff British upper lip and a twitched lace curtain kept the world at bay. A world in which all evils can in one way or another be traced back to the EU.

The problem is that world doesn’t exist. It can’t exist. The rise of China, the sovereign debt crisis and dwindling natural resources means that Britain need every competitive advantage it can get including EU membership.  All politicians to some extent benefit from discontent but UKIP are different. They duck hard choices by having a set of manifesto and spending commitments that are contradictory nonsense – such as raising benefits for everyone whilst at the same time having sweeping tax cuts. They are a receptacle for anger not an agglomeration of ideas about government or an ideological platform. This is why thinking about them as lost Tory voters is a bit of a waste of time. The Tories can’t be a governing party and offer UKIP supporters what they want; in fact they offered a UKIP-lite platform to the electorate in 2001 and were annihilated. But that doesn’t matter. The point is if you are voting UKIP you are, to paraphrase the anchor from the 1976 film Network, ‘as mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore.’

Image© John Addison, Print, Government Office, East India Co St Helena

At the recent memorial service to mark the twentieth anniversary of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, the Prime Minister spoke of Stephen’s death as having brought ‘monumental change’ to British society.  Those of us concerned about the implications for equality and multiculturalism in the proposed new history curriculum found the irony of this comment hard to take.

One of the recommendations of the 1999 Macpherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence case was a ‘National Curriculum aimed at valuing cultural diversity and preventing racism, in order better to reflect the needs of a diverse society’. Yet although there are good grounds for thinking that this aim has been taken seriously in the education system up to now, we need to be clear about what a stark reversal the new draft national curriculum for history represents.  If it comes into force, it is very likely to set the recommendations of the Macpherson Report back by at least a generation. 

In fact it is hard to see how the Department for Education can possibly have taken into account the bare minimum of its legal obligations with regard to equality when devising the history curriculum.  Clarification on this is sought by a Freedom of Information enquiry, so far unsuccessful but awaiting internal review.

There can be few areas of government policy with the potential both for advancing and for hindering the cause of equality than education, and there can be few academic subjects with greater potency in this area than history.  History has been hijacked in undemocratic states to incite discrimination.  In contrast in Britain today it arguably helps empower minority groups and dispels prejudice.

One current GCSE pupil who is a refugee from Afghanistan and recently attended the Black and Asian Studies Association’s meeting on the new history curriculum remembered how he had been left with negative stereotypes of other races from his history lessons in Afghanistan, but how his history lessons in a multicultural London school had now challenged those and dispelled these.  Another participant at the meeting, a history teacher of Ghanaian origin, described how she had been inspired partly by the study of African civilisations in a British school in the 1990s to study and ultimately to teach the subject herself.  Sadly this situation is unlikely to persist for much longer if the government’s proposals are put into effect.

By marginalising and misrepresenting the role of non-white ethnic groups in British history the new curriculum is very likely to alienate and disengage children and young people, especially those of Black and Asian origin, and may encourage a sense of superiority in white British pupils.  Black and Asian people are excluded completely from the primary history curriculum and, apart from the token inclusions of Seacole and Equiano, they only feature as slaves in the secondary curriculum until the arrival of ‘the Windrush generation’. British Asians only appear as refugees from East Africa.  This obscures the long and important history of people of African and Asian origin in Britain and creates a false sense that ethnic diversity is something new.  It might mislead people into harking back to some fictional bygone age of an ethnically pure Britain, with the potential for drawing conclusions that people are in some sense ‘other’ if not white.

The Egyptians have been removed from the primary curriculum and there is no requirement to study any other African or Asian civilisations.  Given the enormous volume of obligatory content, it is very unlikely that anything unspecified will be covered.  This will deprive Britain’s current diverse mix of non white students from the empowering opportunity to ‘see themselves’ in their history curriculum and deprive their white classmates of a chance for developing respect and cross-cultural understanding.

There are no mentions of Muslims and Islam in the curriculum, an issue raised recently by the Muslim Council of Britain. This runs the risk of alienating the 10% of British schoolchildren who are Muslims and is a tragically lost opportunity to build bridges between communities by increasing awareness of the Muslim contribution to multicultural Britain.

Doreen Lawrence, mother of Stephen, and prominent campaigner for equal opportunities, commented on the draft history curriculum as follows:

“I hated history at school, because it had nothing to do with me. We were taught about empire but not about slavery, what our grandparents and great grandparents went through. I wanted the Macpherson report to ensure that we opened up history lessons so all the kids in the class knew where they were from. If kids just hear that these people are over here taking our jobs, they will believe it. If they hear that in the past Britain has exploited every single aspect of the places where these children come from, then perhaps they will see things differently. Black boys in particular have a sense that their self-worth is not much; we need to change that. All children should have an understanding of the forces that created the country we all live in today.”

The cause of gender equality fares no better than racial equality in the draft history curriculum.  In particular there are no women at all mentioned in the Key Stage 2 syllabus except for two Tudor Queens.  In Key Stage 3, four of the five token women mentioned (Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, George Eliot and Annie Besant) are patronisingly grouped under one amongst a sea of bullet points headed ‘the changing role of women’.

Equality of religious groups is also a concern.  No consideration is given to the wrongs done to Catholics, particularly in Ireland, in a curriculum designed, in the current Education Secretary’s words, ‘to celebrate the distinguished role of these islands in the history of the world’.  The Dutch invasion of 1688 which deposed Catholic James II is referred to by the biased and archaic term, the Glorious Revolution.  Its results were hardly glorious for British Catholics.

If the Prime Minister allows the changes to the history curriculum to go ahead, it is a bleak reflection of the hollowness of his rhetoric and his need to pander to the unease clearly felt by some within his party about multiculturalism and equality.  History curricula reflect what matters to those who write them and this curriculum sends a stark message about what matters to this government: the “achievements” of white Protestant male elites.

Image© Andy Mitchel

I am indebted to the British Welfare state; the very one that Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, the safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major`s government, was there to break the fall…J.K. Rowling… Cited in `the trouble with billionaires`

This book is a fusion of rigorous academic analysis and sharp, witty journalism. The humour a necessary antidote, given the unconscionable economic detail outlined. Facts linked to the rapacious appetite of the super elite, gorging on tax avoidance. Aided and abetted by supine legislators in the UK and USA. Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks explain how the political right, adroitly undermined the post-war consensus of Beveridge and Keynes in the UK, the same result achieved in the USA with the gradual destruction of the New Deal consensus. Criticism articulated by Frederick Von Hayek who feared that benevolent government intervention would lead us down the road to serfdom. A ridiculous idea, predicated on the notion that social security; full employment, legal aid, economic growth and an NHS somehow reduced liberty. As this book points out, when Hayek required assistance from the social security system, he was not shy about utilising its collective provisions. It is indeed a strange sort of serfdom, which provides a hospital bed for the sick, a bizarre understanding of liberty that disregards the need of a safety net, when boom turns to inevitable bust. All those tens of thousands of post-war Higher Education students benefitting from free education in the UK or through the GI Bill in the States – hardly resemble serfs. But their counterparts today do; a bizarre twist on the Hayek model. The exchange of correspondence between Hayek and Charles Koch outlined in the text, makes for illuminating revisionist reading.

This book systematically undermines the economic orthodoxy that has dominated UK politics since 1979; a taken for granted assumption that high taxation is bad while low taxation is good – the opposite we discover is true. This issue painstakingly unravelled by a set of easily understood graphs (Thaddeus Hwong acknowledged). The diagrams combined to jargon free commentary. A host of variables are examined `poverty, gender equality, economic security, health, social well-being, environmental sustainability and income equality`. McQuaig/Brooks systematically unravel the misnomer of the free-market; they explain how the legal system protects the rich through stringent regulation (copyright laws in the case of super wealthy actors and artists). It seems the mega wealthy seek protection from the state when it coincides with their economic purpose but cry foul when society wishes to progressively tax their income. The text is particularly strong on visual imagery which helps convey a complex issue. And enhances the general readers understanding of the astonishing wealth involved, nestling in the hands of this miniscule group.

The book can be read and digested very quickly, which is remarkable given the depth of detail covered. So, while it`s pitched perfectly, it is paradoxically, difficult to read. This is because the injustice outlined is likely to induce much anger in the average tax payer, while frequently halting the reader in their tracks. This book forces you to question the details outlined, exclaiming surely this cannot be true? For example the Sunday Times Rich List illustrates that the combined wealth of a mere thousand `totals £414 billion an amount greater than a third of the UK GDP…David Cameron announced plans in early 2012 to send more their way by cutting the top marginal tax rate by 5%. This provides an average saving of £14,000 a week for 40,000 millionaires.` This is the same government making savage cuts to services and jobs despite the `IMF in October 2012 pointing out that austerity can be self defeating, causing sharp contractions in an economy.` The book outlines the damage this (self regulated) plutocracy is doing to our democracy. And if that doesn’t worry you, perhaps discovering the devastation inflicted on the world’s ecology will?

McQuaig/Brooks cleverly place the achievements of the super rich within the context of collective human endeavour, no super rich man or woman is an island. They have all made their money through innovations and discoveries involving others, or by virtue of government spending. As Martin Rosenberg states, `my wealth is not only a product of my own hard work. It also resulted from a strong economy and lots of public investment, both in others and in me. I received a good education, and used free libraries and museums paid for by others. `   

Whilst I was seeing red, reading this book, it is important to point out; it is not a Bolshevik manifesto for our times. The writers are merely demanding a more regulated capitalist system, founded on an equitable system of taxation. McQuaig/Brooks are not calling for revolution, merely a return to the ethos identified during `the Golden Age of Capitalism`, 1940-1980. The authors also appear to be influenced by the ideas associated with North-America during the Progressive Era, (although not stated). A broad based movement encompassing diverse figures, such as the writers Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair. And Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks sit easily in this company. The authors provide a detailed set of alternative policy measures at the end of the text. Calling for `progressive taxation, the closing of loop holes and removal of tax relief and allowances, support international efforts to clamp down on tax havens, support the international implementation of a financial transaction tax, repeal inheritance tax and set up educational trusts with money generated from a progressive inheritance tax`. This is not a socialist tract but the trouble with billionaires is the ragged trousered philanthropist for the modern age; Robert Noonan`s book helped shape a social democratic future. A legacy stolen and McQuaig/Brooks are demanding its return and providing the intellectual arguments to do so.

So, this is in a way a revolutionary book – appearing radical, given the decline in progressive measure since 1980, especially in relation to taxation policy. Though the demand for progressive taxation is perfectly in line with the precepts of Adam Smith, the doyen of the free-market, whose right wing supporters conveniently forget he supported progressive income tax, while Karl Marx did not. This is not a rant against the super rich; many wealthy people are commended and praised. For example when David Cameron undermined the French democratic process by provocatively inviting the French super rich to Britain after the election of Francois Hollande, some mooted they might leave France given the proposed introduction of a 75% top rate of tax. Those who threatened to depart were soundly criticised by Eduard de Rothschild, illustrating that the wealthy also have a social conscience. McQuaig/Brooks also remind us that multi-billionaire Warren E Buffet supported Obama`s effort to raise taxes and place Buffet`s tax status on a level playing field with his secretary. Other super rich people are also positively cited, namely Martin Rosenberg, JK Rowling (her comment at the top of the page illustrating her integrity and genuine sense of patriotism) and John C Boyle.

There is even praise for a wealthy banker, Marriner Eccles from Utah an advocate of embryonic Keynesianism, who stunned US Senate Finance Committee in 1933 with his far sighted proposals. The committee gripped by economic inertia, a hallmark of Herbert Hoover`s administration. Eccles (resembling a hero from a Frank Capra movie) eventually linked up with Lauchlin Currie a researcher who illustrated that governments could, during an economic downturn, `prime the pump`. Yes, austerity is not the only alternative available that much we all now know.

The trouble with billionaires is a manifesto for our times. If you can`t afford to purchase a copy then order it from your library (while you still have one). The preservation of our environment and democracy depend on progressives winning this argument. We are experiencing a dreadful recession and it`s clear that opportunists will encourage the less informed to search for blameless scapegoats. Recession, equates with scarcity, and scarcity induces panic. But as McQuaig/Brooks demonstrate there is no scarcity and we must utilise the democratic process to encourage fair and progressive taxation. And while doing so recall the words of Shelley, who reminded us long ago that we are many, they are very few.

The trouble with billionaires: How the Super-Rich Hijacked the World (and how We can Take it Back) Oneworld Publications available in the UK May 2.

Image©Gingerblokey

Margaret Thatcher’s death has resulted in many a hagiography, some national reflection and an almighty attack of political amnesia. Her pursuit of an agenda of ideological radicalism which either, saved or savaged Britain (depending on your viewpoint) created an ‘ism’ but was not done in vacuum.

Margaret Thatcher had long nursed radical ideologies but contrary to the right wing narrative of ideological triumphalism in her ascendency to power, her first election victory in May 1979 was on a very pragmatic and cautious ideological platform. The Conservative manifesto was, as the historian Andy McSmith notes, only little more radical than their 1970 manifesto and Margaret Thatcher had agreed to follow the generous recommendations of the Clegg Commission on Public Sector pay which had been set up after the winter of discontent – hardly the stuff of union smashing Tory fantasies.  Ken Clarke reflected that the election focused on bread and butter issues such as prices, inflation and the state of the national finances – many of the same concerns had encouraged the electorate five years earlier to replace Edward Heath with Harold Wilson. Nigel Lawson remembered she was preoccupied with “not frightening the electorate” and in the late 1970s she went out of her way to distance herself in public from more radical policies on spending cuts and privatisation and in office was even prepared to give in to the miners, delaying pit closures. It was two years from her election until the first full monetarist budget in 1981 and many of the largest privatisations and assaults on the unions took place later. The ideological zealotary, which she had always had, emerged openly in 1981 as the infighting on the left meant that it was unlikely that there would be any meaningful opposition to the Thatcherite agenda. 

The year 1981 is often remembered as being the nadir for the left politically; in January the ‘gang of four’ split to form the SDP, in February Tony Benn decided to challenge Denis Healy for the deputy leadership of the Labour party in a protracted six month contest and Militant completed their takeover of local Labour parties.  The political opposition to Thatcher spent their time looking inwards leaving the ideological terrain open, allowing Thatcher, as Hugo Young put it -  to “educate” the electorate about unemployment. Some trade unionists even reflected that by viscerally opposing everything that she did their opposition became lost in a wall of anti-Thatcher noise. When the Labour party had to actually face Thatcher in the 1983 election it was with a manifesto that was largely inspired by Tony Benn’s policies and the result was a disaster. The claim is often made that the 1983 election was won due to the Falkland’s factor, however as the historian Richard Vinen points out there is little evidence to show that the Falklands war had a significant impact on peoples choices and that issues relating to the economy were in fact more important in voters minds. To put it another way; the Falklands may explain the fact of Thatcher’s victory, but after the domestic disasters of 1980-82 the scale of the 1983 victory – a majority of 144 – can only be explained by a lack of electable alternatives. Equally many on the left blame the ‘treachery of the SDP’ breaking away from Labour to form another political party on the centre left splitting the electoral opposition to Thatcher and thus allowing her to achieve landslides on a declining vote share.  Again, this misses the point the SDP felt the need to split away precisely because the Bennites and union leaders had control of the party, encumbering it with polices that were un-electable and denouncing all opponents as traitors. For example as the British public had endorsed staying in the European Community (EC) in the 1975 on Community Membership, it took some considerable chutzpah, and was wildly undemocratic, for the 1983 Labour manifesto to commit to unilateral withdrawal from the EC without a referendum– something not even UKIP have dared to propose.

The destructive weakness of the left meant that many of the polices of Thatcherite electoral victories went unchallenged; the broken promise to tackle unemployment in the 1979 election campaign and the massive hike in indirect taxation in 1979-81 faced more effective opposition from inside the Tory party. It is also fallacious to assume that the electorate were duped or deceived into voting for Thatcher; double standards and lies projected by a supine media characterised Thatcherite campaigns but would never have been that effective had Labour not asked voters to endorse a manifesto which Gerard Kaufman called the “longest suicide note in history”. People probably should not be too coy about reasoned critique of her economic and social legacy but the occasion of her death has provoked an odd, near nostalgic hatred.  It is however the sort of hatred that blinded the left allowing Thatcher to conquer the ideological mainstream and splenetic venting at her funeral looks suspiciously like a rerun of a bad, and rather unfunny, 1980s sitcom.

Image© Derek Harper

You will eat by and by, in the glorious land in the sky, way up high, work and pray and live on hay, you`ll get pie in the sky when you die…

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of the publication of EP Thompson`s The Making of The English Working Class, which Phillip Dodd recently described as a formidable account of class development. This is rather ironic, given that in 2013 we are witnessing the pauperisation of this very same, once proud class. Last Saturday, the Guardian ran an excellent piece on `The human cost of recession` by Chris Menon and Sophie Robinson-Tillett. The article dealt with the seemingly paradoxical situation of comparatively low UK unemployment levels coinciding with a drastic drop in the standard of living for many in work. People it seems are in employment, though frequently engaged on temporary contracts, usually part-time with sporadic adjustments in hours. Workers are increasingly denied a contract of employment. If an individual is paid an income which barely meets their needs, what are they expected to do if they are denied further support?

We have arrived at a low point in Britain today. Where it`s considered almost radical for a worker to have a contract of employment and revolutionary to expect it aligned to a living wage. We are witnessing a situation, where working people are becoming dependent on charity for a nutritious meal. The pauperisation of the British working class is running full steam ahead. The executive chairman of the food charity the Trussell Trust, Chris Mould, was reported in the Guardian last week saying, `People are often surprised that less than 5% of food-bank clients are homeless but many of the 300,000 people we`re helping are low-income working families`.

I lost a little bit of faith last year in the trade union movement`s capacity to provide practical help for those workers forced to take up zero-hour contracts. There are of course other organisations providing help for workers in crisis. In particular religious based groups (such as the cited Trussell Trust), doing much to alleviate problems the low waged face, such as hunger. After all Liberation Theology appears to be back in fashion, and so it seems in the UK the Social Gospel is too. The Trussell Trust are a Christian based non-party political organisation, serving all religious denominations (and none believers). Very importantly when dispensing charity and free food, they operate a non-judgemental approach. They believe `everyone has the right to have food on their plate, dignity, skills, a chance to work and hope for the future`. Recent research highlighted by the Trust suggests that the economic downturn is placing a massive strain on many working people in Britain. This situation exacerbated when linked to job losses and benefit cuts combined with severe hikes in food prices resulting in, `people spending more on food, but eating less and turning to foodbanks as they struggle to feed themselves and their families`. The same research highlights that slightly less than 5 million people in Britain are currently in food poverty. This means that 10% of this huge cohort’s household weekly income goes on food. This dire situation is projected to get worse by 2017 when `household food bills will rocket by £357`.

The Trust provides further information about the depth of this problem, elsewhere on their website. For example they point out that, `foodbanks fed 128,697 people nationwide in the last financial year, compared to 61,468 in 2010-11 an increase of 109%`. Again, the explanation for this situation is connected to an assortment of problems linked to the economy, such as rising food and fuel prices. In the midst of `static incomes high unemployment and changes to benefits`. Further research cited, suggests a staggering 1 in 5 mothers in Britain go `without meals to feed their children`. One example linked to this research, highlighted a women living on £38 per week, whose situation is so perilous that her family appeared to be surviving on the food box dispensed by this charity.

The Conservatives, have always been great supporters of charity and it is no surprise to discover that the Prime Minister has spoken positively (as he should) about the work of this outstanding charity. During Easter he met with the Trussell Trust Executive Christ Mould, who was commended for the work of foodbanks, `Chris says: The Prime Minister`s acknowledgment of foodbanks is a testament to the incredible work of all those across the UK who have stepped up and launched foodbanks in their towns to stop people going hungry. It`s a big well done to everyone involved`.

Well done indeed. The Trussell Trust deserves to be commended for their work, the organisation appears completely dedicated to helping the UK poor. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that people in Britain find themselves in economic difficulty and reliant on charitable food boxes because of economic policies followed by government. A point, the Trust indirectly makes when highlighting that distribution from foodbanks have increased by 109%. This is clearly connected to government policies and a change in government – the years cited give a big hint as to why this has happened. It is also worth pointing out that in the midst of grinding austerity there is massive wealth. Take the years 2011/12, according to the Office for National Statistics an incredible £13 Billion was paid out in bonuses in the City. Yet it was during this time that a huge increase in those using foodbanks took place. Billions are paid out to Bankers who caused the economic crisis in the first place, there is clearly a massive disparity here and a severe lack of justice. The poor get a bag of food while the rich sacks of money.

People do not find themselves, especially in such large numbers, dependent on charity by accident. It is structural and clearly linked to policies implemented and followed by government. A range of cuts in benefits or restrictions in welfare combined with economic policies, which encourage unemployment or casualisation such as zero-hour contracts. This is the result of a policy framework that the Coalition government designed. No matter how kindly dispensed, charity remains charity. It is distributed at the discretion of the benefactor, not as a right. And we need to dramatically move away from the notion that charity is a panacea. The poor are in desperate need of the Trussell Trust food boxes and I praise their work and promotion of excellent research. But we need to put that research to good use and point out that the hungry require political and economic change and that will not be found at the bottom of free bag of food.

Image© illustrated London News, December 22, 1849

 It’s so lonely round the fields of Athenry…

Robert Kee focuses on the emotive issue of the Irish Potato Famine from 1845 to 1849. Explaining why the population in the West and South West depended on this food for nutrition, outlining the organisation of land and tenancy arrangement`s. Other crops abundantly produced sold to pay rent, encapsulated by the following contemporaneous observation reported in Hansard, `not a bit of bread have I eaten since I was born, nor a bit of butter. We sell all the corn and the butter to give to the landlords [for rent] yet I have the largest farm in the district and am as well off as any man in the county`. The population which increased to eight million was linked to the peculiar organisation of land tenure in Ireland, `land was divided into smaller and smaller plots – the number of those depending on the potato grew larger and larger`. In Kee`s written history he demonstrates an in-depth understanding of issues i.e. the impact on agriculture post Napoleonic Wars such an analysis not always possible in a fifty minute television overview.

When the potato blight hit Ireland in September 1845, the country was full of food which was required for export. The threat of eviction a real one, forcing tenants to pay rent in extremis, in order to avoid the double indignity of starvation by the roadside. Once the tenant removed (the picture of Bridget O`Donnell illustrates) the home vandalised by landlords (not all behaved this way as Kee points out). Tens of thousands dying in this manner, a human tragedy which Kee reminds us, took place in a region of Britain; Connemara as British as Yorkshire.

All of this played directly into the hands of Irish nationalists and subsequently shaped an orthodox historical perspective and nationalist narrative. However, RF Foster convincingly argues that it would have been impossible for the government to stop the exportation of food from Ireland. And even if governmental powers had been available, the resistance from the Irish farming class would have blocked it. Furthermore he argues from 1847 `Ireland was importing five times as much grain as she was exporting`. On the other hand, Kee reports a cargo of food leaving Cork in 1848 suggesting an extraordinary amount of food was leaving this impoverished land. He portrays a country where great wealth and banquets existed, in the midst of mass starvation.

Kee highlights that the government, within the confines of political economy, did act. He outlines the role initially played by `conscientious` Prime Minister Robert Peel, setting up an inquiry and crucially organising food stuffs imported from America and stored in depots in Ireland. A Relief Commission was formed to co-ordinate with the Irish Landowners. Public Works programmes, organised to provide wages for people in order to buy food. The Repeal of the Corn Laws is soundly critiqued by Kee, explaining the irrelevance of this measure, `a third of the Irish Population couldn’t afford bread at any price`.  But Foster counters this view by highlighting that Peel`s policies in Ireland were `more effective than sometimes allowed`. He also makes a comparison with Belgium, who in 1867, dealt with a famine in much the same way as the British government. Foster does agree that British policy differed as it `fluctuated` resulting in a fatal `time-lag`. Perhaps the Belgian government benefitted from British mistakes helping them later to finesse policy.

The rationale of political economy, held back the distribution of food stuffs stored in Cork, while outside Kee informs us people were starving, eventually the authorities, after lengthy delay, releasing food in 1846. Kee describes the efforts of the starving to commandeer food sent for export, as desperate people `with bones protruding through their skins` took the decision to attack food conveys. This is a bleak picture, which gets worse at the mention of Charles Trevelyan, the civil-servant responsible for famine relief in Ireland. With a commitment to political economy, akin to his Malthusian explanation for the famine in Ireland. This logic unfettered when matched to his justification to export food from a starving country. Trevelyan is damned with faint praise by Kee as `a cultivated man`. The Mandarin appearing to exhaust himself conjuring up endless ways to deny the starving food, in order to protect the sanctity of political economy. He is portrayed almost as a Victorian villain (knighted in 1848). He died aged eighty-five no doubt in his own comfortable bed.

Kee describes the closing down of depots but also points out that by August 1846 the Public Works were having an impact. However, only 140,000 people were involved, while two million dependent on the potato. The Workhouses took a further 100,000 but that hardly benefited those locked outside, doing the minimum for those inside.

The government, Kee explains, handed responsibility for this issue over to the Landlords, a perilous decision. And when Lord John Russell became Prime Minister in 1846 it looked like a good potato crop was on the way, a forecast that allowed Trevelyan to close down the public works programme. Doing so whilst rejecting a shipment of maize bound for the starving. Such was his fear of `having this country on you for an indefinite number of years`. When the crop failed Trevelyan reintroduced the Public Works Programme but omitted the Treasury from financial responsibility placing matters in the hands of `the Landlords and the local rates`. Wages were kept low, often not paid, highlighted by various Inquests at the time as a cause of death.

Kee tells countless stories of starvation – burials for those wearing rags stripped before they were planted in the ground, in order to clothe others. We hear of the impact of `Road Fever` of hundreds of corpses lining the roads and of cannibalism – mothers eating their own children – Swift`s nightmare incarnate – minus the satire of his modest proposal. Those not buried providing food for the dogs. Such carnage prompted charitable action in the form of soup kitchens, with Queen Victoria sending a substantial cash donation.

Eventually the government introduced `revolutionary change` and began to distribute free food. Public Works abandoned but food was slow in arriving, delay resulting in more deaths, aggravated by the ending of the works programme.  By 1847 three-million were receiving direct relief but at the hint of another good harvest, `Trevelyan reacted by easing all government relief in the Soup Kitchen Act in August 1847`. At this point we are told the role of central government ceased and the issue placed on the local rates as `Ireland now had to be left to what Trevelyan called the operation of natural causes`. Emigration well underway prior to the famine now rapidly accelerated.

However, is it right to judge Trevelyan by today`s social democratic standard? Should we not instead view his actions within the context of the time, based on the alternatives available? As Foster explains Trevelyan `simply epitomised the Whig view of economic theory, as did Wood (Chancellor of Exchequer) and Lord John Russell`.

In the 1840s the Irish population stood, according to Foster, at 8,200,000 and by 1911 it was reduced to 4,400,000. He offers various contentious estimates on those who died from disease alone. These figures range from 775,000 to 1,000,000 to 1,500,000. This famine took place when few policy alternatives were available (unlike today). And as AN Wilson points out the government provided £7 million pounds for famine relief in 1847, a huge though inadequate sum. However, a few years later, Wilson explains, the government was able to find £70 million to help finance the Crimean War. Strange and depressing, how governments find money to take life. And that is as true today, as it was in the middle of the nineteenth century.