The New York Times: & the “So-Called Troubles”

The stance and political viewpoint of the New York Times (NYT); the alleged ‘Paper of Record’ in the area of the relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (GB&NI) can be encapsulated in a short extract from a puff-piece written in the NYT which purports to describe Irish attitudes towards Brexit, the British, and the once-claimed and much-fabled Six Counties of Ulster:-

“The Good Friday agreement ended 30-odd years of fighting in Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, between predominantly Catholic communities that favoured joining the Republic of Ireland and largely Protestant loyalists of the British crown, backed by British troops. During the so-called Troubles at least 3,500 were killed and relations between Dublin and London were deeply strained ”

  • The direct quotes ‘During the so-called Troubles, at least 3,500 were killed and relations between Dublin and London were deeply strained.’ as well as ‘30-odd years of fighting between predominantly Catholic communities and largely Protestant loyalists of the British crown, backed by British troops.’ is, putting it mildly, an abortion of the truth. The terrorism onslaught, committed and commenced by a murderous collection of IRA thugs and criminals, which targeted members of the British Armed Forces, sent specifically to Northern Ireland to protect the Catholic communities from a sectarian mob of Protestant gangs. The IRA targeted British soldiers, as well as both Protestant and Catholic communities indiscriminately, and killed and injured hundreds on the Mainland with their bombing sprees.


  • For literally decades, the NYT applauded and spoke warmly of the IRA/SinnFein crowd as ‘freedom fighters’, giving ever-more broadly applauding commentaries and headlines, such as I.R.A. Hero Wed, this same day as three British soldiers were murdered in Crossmaglen.


  • Such warm words, along with the collection of literally millions of dollars from Irish-American ‘Plastic Paddies’ by Noraid, most of which went towards the purchase and smuggling of Armalite rifles and Semtex, which would target The Royal Ulster Constabulary, British soldiers or Members of the British Judiciary. These collections, incidentally, which were given the quiet approval of the American (‘I did not have sex with that woman) ’: otherwise known as President Bill Clinton.


  • The New York Times, along with many other Left-leaning and liberal-minded newspapers in America, continued with this attitude of applauding ‘Terrorists’, who of course were always known as ‘Freedom Fighters’, until America was suddenly given a taste of what they had been applauding and funding for decades: when the Twin Towers were brought down by two jet aircraft being flown into them: when the Pentagon suffered a similar attack, and when the passengers of Flight 93 fought back and crashed their jet into a Pennysylvania field. President George Bush’s  warning-cum-declaration in the wake of the attack: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” made one hell of a difference. Suddenly, the masked, gun-toting bombers of the ‘Freedom-fighting’ IRA were transformed into what we here in Great Britain had known all along: which simply stated was that SinnFein/IRA is, was, and always had been: a bunch of terrorists.


  • But still, the warm words and slogans litter the newspaper which is the NYT. Known throughout the English-speaking world for its left-leaning journalistic principles. When a bunch of thugs is given the get-out-of-jail-free slogans such as ‘IRA Hero’: when my own brother, on patrol in a Republican ghetto of Belfast, was faced with the soldier in front of him being gunned down by an Armalite-wielding thug, and actions such as that were nodded away without so much as ‘We feel your pain!”


Mayor De Blasio, Gov. Cuomo: & the Deep Red A.O.C.

In normal times, I would be laughing my head off to read of the total frustration experienced by New York’s Mayor De Blasio, along with his cohort-in-crime Governor Cuomo, when they heard of the demolition of their Amazon’s new office paradise dream; planned to be built in Long Island City, Queens; in New York City. After a year’s long negotiation, and a Amazon-type search for the best  location for their office complex (the best including how much of a tax-break the City or State was willing to concede or forego in order to get the online shipping-shopping giant to locate to their specific vicinity), it was announced that New York City had triumphed, and 25,000 jobs would be heading towards that Queens suburb. Although some of the celebratory speeches were given through thinned lips, Amazon being one of the Left’s favourite targets (Amazon long being accused of near-sweated labour regimes in its warehouses, minimum wage structures, etc.): all in, it was felt, by De Blasio and Cuomo, that it was a good deal for all, with a massive new tax contributor to both City and State, along with lots of jobs.

They celebrated too soon, as the American Mid-Term Elections threw out a couple of Left-wing outriders, both of whom came equipped with very Left-wing views, and the mouthiest of these was a young activist named Alexandria Occasio-Cortez (AOC). She had come out of nowhere, barnstorming the Federal elections, whipping up left-wing sentiments and ideals, and making the usual hard-left promises which sound absolutely marvellous to the unsophisticated young voters, but which prove to be totally ruinous in real life. The news about Amazon spurred this young Congresswoman to initiate a programme of persuading local political entities to fast track opposition to the Amazon deal. She pushed ex-Mayor Bloomberg to state his opposition to the deal, and got a hardline Democrat, Michael Gianaris, who is on the Public Authorities Control Board which approves such tax arrangements and spending, to drop the hammer on Amazon.

Ocasio-Cortez hailed the Washington Post report on Friday as a victory of the citizen over the corporation, when she tweeted a link to the Post article and added:


Ocasio-Cortez also cheered the news that Amazon pulled out of a deal that promised 25,000 high-paying jobs for her constituents and at least $25 billion in additional tax revenue over ten years.

“Anything is possible,” she tweeted.“Today was a day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world.”

She stated:- So I firmly believe that if we want to take that $3 billion dollars that we were willing to give to Amazon and invest it in our local community, we can do that. We can make those jobs. We can make 25,000 jobs. But we don’t have to give away and allow our subway system to crumble so that Amazon essentially owns a part of New York City. We can create 25,000 jobs with Mom-and-Pops; we can create 25,000 jobs with companies that are willing to come to the table, but we should not be giving away our infrastructure, our subway system, our schools, our teachers’ salaries, our firefighters’ budgets, to a company that has not shown good faith to New Yorkers.

Except that is not at all how the deal was structured. There was no giveaway. The $3 billion was a tax cut, was New York allowing Amazon to keep its own money. In other words, if Amazon owed $23 billion in taxes, the company would only pay $20 billion. But maybe AOC didn’t get that, maybe AOC doesn’t understand anything beyond the headlines: maybe AOC is just another Chavez, talking big, and sending his whole country into ruinous 1,000,000 % inflation in his socialistic nightmares!

Amazon meanwhile took the hint, cancelled their 25,000 jobs idea in New York, and went instead to Northern Virginia.



Sir Philip Green…..Speak up, or take the cash?

Most of us here in GB&NI who are observant, apathetic or even just plain bored, will be aware, abundantly aware, if the six-odd pages of today’s Telegraph are anything to go by: of the accusations and machinations of the charges and counter-charges of sexual abuse and bullying behaviour allegedly attributed to Sir Philip Green.

As I have no personal knowledge of Sir Philip’s habits or manner of conducting himself during business hours, I must obviously be guided by what has been published about this businessman. According to the large and detailed, but still legally anonymised, set of accusations against this man, he almost routinely attempts to dominate the staff around him, and also to denigrate any who either oppose him in any way at all; as well as indulging in behaviour which might go without murmur in past decades, but is very much frowned upon in these more litigious days.

Whether he is guilty of these accusations is for the courts to decide, and that is my singular point. All of these employees took great exception to being either allegedly manhandled, groped; or subjected to verbal abuse of the worst kind. They complained through the HR (Human Resources) department (which is, of course, the fancy new title for Personnel). Their complaints were taken seriously, and in the case of the five persons who form the basis of the Telegraph’s campaign against Sir Philip, seriously enough to warrant a pay-out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. They were also required to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA), legally drawn-up and of course; legally binding. The Telegraph’s campaign is based on the inability of these five people to break those agreements, and then speak out against Sir Philip Green within (presumably) the columns of the Telegraph.

But there is another side to this toxic story. As far as I am aware, if these people felt strongly enough about Sir Philip’s actions or words, they could have gone to the police. If the actions, and allegations were of such a serious nature, they could have gone to their local Police Stations, and levelled those accusations against their employer, and Sir Philip would have had to answer, through the courts, if such actions, alleged or proven, were found to be criminal. They could have gone to the Police, but instead they allowed themselves to be bought off; with sums which, to the average Briton, may sound stratospheric, but, in the worlds  of such as Sir Philip Green, are mere chump change. And that, folks, is the story in a nutshell, which the Telegraph is attempting to make into such a ‘big thing’.

These people may have feared for their jobs, but instead of having the moral courage to stand their ground, and force their employer to brought up on charges; they chickened out, took the money; and stayed Schtum. Instead of having the courage to stand with their convictions and principles, they buckled, accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds to settle their grievances, and signed up to the NDA placed in front of them. They all knew exactly what was placed in front of them; they all had legal advisers; in other words, no-one forced them to sign anything! The Telegraph, acting in the alleged cause of ‘fearless’ journalism, got hold of the story, and, as they tell it; advised Green that they had got hold of these five people who were legally silenced: and stated that they were running with the story, incomplete though it naturally was.

Sir Philip Green’s solicitors, a truly litigious bunch named Schillings, slammed an Injunction in the High Court, attempting to silence the Telegraph. After a long and vicious fight, done through letters, emails and legal exchanges, the High Court accepted the withdrawal of Sir Philip’s Injunction; but the Court also stated that the NDA’s were still valid, and if any of the five spoke out, removing anonymity, Sir Philip’s lawyers would and could proceed to demand all the cash back again, citing plain breach of contract, as well as other legal threats.

Now I have, in years long gone, come up against similar bullies, because that is what Sir Philip Green sounds like, although I again state that i have no personal knowledge of this particular man. But there is a type, and I have met them before. I was commissioning a large commercial project many years ago, and, for some reason, impressed the man, the managing director at the top of the developer’s team. He met me, and offered me a job on his management team, at three times the salary I was pulling down at that time. He stated that I could name my own terms, he wanted me because he could tell that I knew not only my job, but many other facets of engineering. I turned him down flat. He asked me ‘why’; presumably unused to being turned down for anything? I replied that he and I would last for approximately two minutes: he wanted someone who, when told ‘Jump’: asks “How High”! I would have turned around, and told him to “get stuffed’. I had watched him in action at Site Meetings, and if he had spoken to me in the manner he spoke to his underlings, he would have ended up in the casualty department of the nearest hospital.

But back to the Telegraph, and its attempted character assassination of Sir Philip. It is attempting to make a story out of rumour and hypothesis, and urging the people who were enriched by those NDAs to spurn the cash, and speak out. The only questions, truly, are ‘why did they take the cash in the first place?’ as well as ‘If Sir Philip’s actions and words were so terribly, terribly wrong, why not go to the police, instead of signing on the dotted line: and then attempt to be heard any way?’


Its an old semi-legal term, but still applies today: ‘You canna’ have your cake, and eat it as well: chummy!’

Hide the family portraits: Prejudice, not Pride

Our very history is written in stone, masonry, bricks and mortar; as well as money. From the fortified castles of the descendants of the Norman conquerors, onwards to the Plantagenets, Lancaster and York, through the divergence and Reformation turmoil of the Tudors,  the Stuarts; and the Hanovers, giving rise finally to the Windsors, the House which rules, in the typical British understated manner as a Constitutional Monarch, over the complicated slices of real-estate and people which travel under the acronym of GB&NI: Great Britain & Northern Ireland

To place this story in perspective, we must look at the principal protagonists, the beginnings of the families who built Industrial Britain, and also their homes and estates. The first Elizabethan Age was funded mainly through legitimised piracy, with freebooters such as Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins and Raleigh. As the ages progressed, trade was established on a more regular footing, but the Home Nations were still based largely on agriculture

From the very birth of the Industrial Revolution, there have only been two driving forces behind the vast spread of industrial processes, inventions, ideas and the literal revolution which altered Great Britain & Northern Ireland (GB&NI) from a small trading, mainly arable and agricultural Nation-State: into the Behemoth which was Georgian and Victorian Britain.

The first force? PROFIT: Making money! Very, very few ideas, inventions or processes were developed on an altruistic basis. 99% of the ideology, the demands of the first engineers which powered that Revolution were made or born on the basis that, by use of this new technology; or that improved process, things could be made cheaper, better, more accessible to the masses. It was profit, or the possibility of profit, which gave the impetus which drove mine owners to employ the engines of Newcomen and James Watt, so as to pump away the water which threatened production; and to raise ever more coal to the surface, and, naturally to selling that coal for both heating and the burgeoning industrial factories. The owners of the mines made ever more profit, and the industries which had sprung from the minds of Arkwright, of Trevithick and of Corliss spread their tentacles of work, of ever-more efficiency; but mainly of profit into every corner of GB&NI.

With the profits came the second of those primeval forces; the idea of dynasty, of establishing a Family whose wealth and prestige, made possible solely by hard work, invention and commercial inspiration, would last for generations. The original castles and stately homes of the old aristocracy were now joined by the new aristocracy, made of families brought new to wealth and power, and sufficiently astute to invest in new houses, new mansions  and huge estates and land holdings; which advertised the fact that the new owners, the new families, were here, and here to stay. The huge industries created by this ‘new’ aristocracy made money on a scale unheard of, and the families grew, and prospered. From bridges to ships, from canals to armaments to cotton weaving, the new leaders of the noisy, dirty revolution which brought work to millions married, brought children into their worlds, hoping that their new dynasties would prove as long, if not longer, than the ‘old’ aristocratic families.

The driving term, the word which outlasts all others is Family. The idea that a man and woman’s joint wealth, position and estate can and will outlast them both has been the driving force behind just about all Emperors, Kings and Queens and even the humblest of citizens can hope to establish a tiny sense of immortality, with a strong son or a daughter to carry on their name, to establish themselves either in a new continent, or further down the street in which they were themselves born. Family, the basic urge to procreate brought into civilisation, where children could live in a home together with a father and mother, and sometimes to learn, to listen to the words of their parents, and sometimes even to understand and accept that those parents sometimes knew better.

A typical example of the ‘New Wealthy’ was Sir Richard Arkwright. The Arkwrights are notable because the scale of the fortune amassed by Sir Richard Arkwright (1732-92), kt. and his son was so great that it not only founded four landed dynasties but ensured the cash wealth of his numerous descendants into the third and even the fourth generation. Three branches of the family which were founded by sons of Richard Arkwright (1755-1843), all of whom were set up in landed estates by their father. The family fortune, held in Richard’s own seat at Willersley Castle in Derbyshire, which passed to his third son, Peter Arkwright (1784-1866), and the other properties owned by Peter’s descendants.  At his death, each of his surviving sons received a large cash legacy as well as the estate on which they were established, and four of them – Robert, John, Peter and Joseph – passed on their property to their descendants. Peter Arkwright (1784-1866), the third son, who was a partner in the Arkwright bank, inherited the core Willersley Castle estate, and also much of his father’s remaining cotton-spinning interests.

But as the ages passed, so did the virility, wealth and power of those ‘New’ Aristocrats, and a further decline was brought about by the imposition of ‘death duties’ upon estates great and small, where estates held together for centuries were sold off piecemeal to cover the costs of the grasping taxman. As well as that, it was discovered that the vast palaces, the mansions of many rooms, were hard to heat, hard to repair and keep watertight, and so was born the idea of the National Trust. Three people, all of whom had well-developed social consciences, decided that a single charity be set up, devoted to heritage preservation; to preserve and protect both buildings and gardens, and to allow them to be visited by all who desired. Robert Hunter, one of the original people behind the idea of preservation, gave a speech at the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, in Birmingham, in which he talked about the formation of a society to protect land.

He said, The central idea is that of a Land Company, formed not for the promotion of thrift or the spread of political principles, and not primarily for profit, but with a view to the protection of the public interest in open spaces in the country. The functions should include, the acquisition and holding of properties to which common rights are attached; the acquisition of manors … and the maintenance and management of gardens in towns as such, and the maintenance and management of any buildings connected with them as places of resort for recreation and instruction.

O n 12th January 1895, Hill, Hunter and Rawnsley founded The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty in England and Wales to set aside the best and most beautiful parts of Britain for the public and posterity, and to provide sitting rooms for the poor in the countryside. It is a registered company under the Companies Act. The Trust went from strength to strength, occasionally making bad investments, but mainly good. The Trust’s history can be viewed in these links, and, in this writer’s opinion, over the decades it has been active; has performed a useful and worthwhile purpose.

But strained times have come to the National Trust, care of certain of those who have been appointed to run this vast operation, so dependent as it is on the goodwill of the thousands of volunteers who give of their time, so that the Trust’s properties be maintained, and shown to the paying public.

Consider Cragside the former home of Lord Armstrong, the armaments industry magnate, was acquired by the Trust in 1977, and has been open to the public since 1979. It was the first private residence in the world to be lit by electric light, and it still features many of the ideas and inventions which helped build the Armstrong’s huge fortune. The Trust decided to give over £100,000.00 for an exhibition. Visitors to Cragside over the past few weeks were disappointed to find that a large proportion of the significant art collection at the Northumberland property and former home of Lord William Armstrong had been hidden behind white sheets while sculptures of men had bags placed over their heads. The Great Cragside Cover-up, which ended on a Sunday, was intended to shine a spotlight on the life of the Victorian engineer and industrialist’s wife, Lady Margaret Armstrong, as well as other women who lived at the country house, was one of a number of events at National Trust properties marking 100 years of women’s suffrage in Britain.

Consider also the reign of Dame Helen Ghosh, a typical QUANGO Queen Bee, who stated that the National Trust’s biggest threat was from ‘Climate Change’, stating that wind-turbines were rather beautiful things; but also ordered all volunteers at a ‘stately home’ to wear ‘Homosexual-friendly’ multi-coloured ‘Gay Pride’ lanyard tags which supported the LesbianGayBisexualTransgarbage which Dame Ghosh also has the hots for. Under Dame Helen in particular, the laudable original aims appear to have been abandoned. Forget beautiful buildings and landscapes; what now matters is imposing modern political claptrap on our greatest country houses. It is symptomatic of an organisation that no longer cares for history. But fortunately, Dame Helen got the hint, and walked away to another spell of ‘easy life’, picking up yet another huge salary as the titular head of an Oxford College.

We now have yet another weirdie poking her nose up out of the uncut grass, as we read that Rachel Lennon, public programmes curator for the National Trust, and also incidentally the face behind the Great Cragside Cover Up, has mourned the  emphasising the importance of families in stately homes as it “privileges heterosexual lives”.The past exclusion and misrepresentation of LGBTQ+ lives is a reality inherited by today’s historians and curators, as well as audiences” she stated. Seems as though this person, as I hesitate to identify her as a woman because she seems to prefer the homosexual side of life, wants to wipe out all reference to the ‘Family’ ideal, as represented in the homes and lives of both the Old and the New Aristocracies, where Father, Mother and Children are remembered and indeed defined as the Ideal of a Life to be remembered and emulated. Seems as though our Rachel yearns for the Lesbian and Homosexual lifestyles of the past three centuries to be made much more prominent in the National Trusts exhibits and projects.

There is, in my own opinion, a slight problem with the granting of our Rachel’s premise, for the advancement of homosexual attitudes and lifestyles in the past, as indicated within the Trust’s properties: and it is this. By the very nature of the homosexual persuasion, any sexual activity between consenting adults is, by their very nature, barren. Lesbians or Homosexuals, they cannot have children together, it is a simple, biological fact. And if there is no possibility of children, a dynasty, a single descendant cannot become reality. True, these days we have the simpering photos of two men clutching an uncomprehending child, born of a surrogate from sperm donated by one of those men: or a similar photograph of two lesbians holding a child which is the product of a similar implantation process with sperm from an outside donor. But, it must be stressed, these are artificial conception and birth processes: and not the product of an act of love between a man and his wife, or indeed between a man and his female partner.

Rachel doesn’t seem to understand that the vast, the overwhelming proportion of the inhabitants of the British Isles are heterosexual. Whilst we know and accept that the homosexual lifestyle is present, their values are not our values: and we just do not understand why these people insist on shoving their ideals and values down our throats!