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    The Death Spiral Of Trust In Capitalism

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    In the US, UK and Ireland Trump, Johnson – and throttled SMEs – threaten a revolution By Gary McCarthy Ireland’s consumption collapsed by 20% in the first half of 2020 – the worst in Europe except Spain and the UK. The economy is on its knees and SMEs have only drawn on €180 million of state funding’ All that was missing from the Truman balcony of the White House was the horse. The mad emperor was back. Only a few days previously a seemingly healthy President Trump had hosted a Supreme Court nomination ceremony for Judge Amy Coney Barrett (not a horse) in the gardens below. Historians with a fondness for the Game of Thrones fantasy series may in years to come refer to this Rose Garden event as the ‘Red Wedding’ viral massacre of the Republican leadership. The Covid-19 super-spreading ceremony resulted in the hospitalisation of Trump, the infection of 34 people across the Trump White House staff and the quarantine of most of the top brass in the US military. Trump instructed the nation to face the Covid-19 virus without fear and witness the “immunity” of their “favourite President”. There was no mention of the now 225,000 deaths caused by the virus, the millions of jobs lost and levels of social unrest not seen since the Vietnam War era. The world’s foremost capitalist empire is burning literally and politically but the Washington DC insanity continues. Trump wanted a Supreme Court appointment secured before a fiscal support package for the nation’s struggling economy. The traditional Republican and big business voices of ‘responsible capitalism’ and economic liberty for the individual are curiously quiet and in effect enabling an administration swamped by its own corruption, lies and incompetence. US capitalism has reached a crisis where the pandemic is revealing truths which cannot be spun through the Fox News fear factory. The deaths of more than 225,000 people, 25% of the global total, is already adding to the decades-long erosion of trust in US institutions. However, the emergence of a K-shaped economic recovery which destroys the livelihoods of the asset poor and accelerates the wealth build of the asset-own- ing top 1% of the population might be the tip- ping point for trust in capitalism itself. Income inequality fueled by strong financial markets of recent years has been as pronounced as it was in the 1930s. That’s probably not a great decade with which to resonate. Worryingly, the situation has worsened with the global pandemic. According to the Guardian, ten of the richest people in the world boosted their already vast wealth by more than $400bn in the first nine months of the coronavirus pandemic b as their businesses were boosted by lockdowns and financial crises across the globe. In a related report, the campaign group Americans for Tax Fairness estimated the collective wealth of America’s 651 billionaires has risen by $1.1tn over the same period. Meanwhile, only 9 million of the 22 million US jobs lost in pandemic shutdown had returned by November 2020. Vast swathes of the US retail, travel and hospitality landscape remain in deep freeze. Yes, there is recovery in the broader US economy but there is a real danger of capital- ism evolving into K-shaped ‘Kapitalism’ with a subsequent extreme social and political back- lash. The Trump report card will be brutal and lay bare an exercise in mass delusion. Twenty years of successful capitalism and economic growth has been based on three key drivers: technology, trade, and population/immigration growth. The final one might surprise but the US has added an additional 100 million people to its current population of 330 million in less than 40 years. The current stewards of right-wing capitalism in the Republican party have misty-eyed economic memories of the Reagan years but they depend on facilitating immigration. Trump of course has curtailed it. Instead, the Trump economic focus is on “clean coal” and automobile factories. Technology, science and climate change are mistrusted. Trade wars and ripped-up international treaties are apparently putting America first but the US monthly trade deficit has just hit a 14-year high. US farmers must be thrilled. Furthermore, the first and second generation immigrant founders of much of the US technology sector are warning of similar unplanned damage being inflicted on the economy if the world’s best minds and ideas can no longer find a home in the United States. However, the US is not the only capitalist champion trying to convince its citizens to em- bark on a nostalgic economic journey. Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party don’t even have the benefit of a world-beating technology sector. The recent Covid-19 testing fiasco involving an Excel spread sheet error is a stark reminder of how badly the UK has fallen behind in global technology leadership. The UK has chosen Brexit to “take back control” of trade and immigration on an Elgar sound track of ‘Rule Britannia!’. Sadly, dreams of empire have spawned epic levels of delusion and in- competence. The mad emperor Boris has not yet managed to appoint a horse to sit in Cabinet but there are no shortage of donkeys in his current administration. The risky and complex departure from the largest trading bloc in the world is in the hands of serial incompetents like Gove, Patel, Williamson and Hancock. Meanwhile, the rest of the world watches aghast as the Brexit clown car hurtles towards economic chaos whose enormity remains unclear. They are not just watching, they are selling UK assets too. The once proud benchmark of UK capitalism, the FTSE 100 index of Britain’s finest, is now boasting a total value which doesn’t even match the value of one technology company, Apple Inc. The Great British Pound now trades with a volatility which would typically be associated with emerging market currencies but the delusion of future trade success continues. Ireland would be tempted to laugh but not this time. The damage of Brexit will have a big economic impact here and the timing is particularly poor as the

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    Mother and Baby Homes: A Crime against Humanity.

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    By Christopher Stanley. [i] “Ireland was a cold harsh environment for many, probably the majority, of its residents during the earlier half of the period under remit. It was especially cold and harsh for women”. (page 1) The Irish government may have hoped in vain that the publication of The Report of the Mother and Homes Commission of Investigation would provide a moment of catharsis and suture to what Caelainn Hogan calls The Republic of Shame for the people of Ireland. It did not. [ii] Criticism of the work of the Commission; and of its Report and Recommendations has been fierce from victims/survivors. In addition it is the tone of the prose of the Report which also angers: “Responsibility for that harsh treatment rests mainly with the fathers of their children and their own immediate families. It was supported by, contributed to, and condoned by, the institutions of the State and the Churches. However, it must be acknowledged that the institutions under investigation provided a refuge – a harsh refuge in some cases – when the families provided no refuge at all”. (page 1) As the Taoiseach stated on the day following the publication of the Report “the shame was not theirs; it was ours”. Therefore, everyone is to blame, and no-one is to blame – because there is no evidence in spite of the testimony of survivors. This statement only serves to demonstrate the continued and entrenched lack of respect for the dignity and rights of victims/survivors of a system of coercion, control and abuse administered by the church and funded by the state over decades of of systemic human rights abuses. As Colm Toíbín noted in The Sunday Times (17 January 2021): “The problem with these apologies is that we cannot be sure that those who offer them really mean them. In his apology, the prime minister, Micheál Martin, said that the report presented ‘all of Irish society with profound questions’ and ‘we did this to ourselves…All of society was complicit in it””. Toíbín reads this as letting the church “off the hook”. Not that the church co-operated with the Commission to any great, extent noting that its archives are private. The Commission was “perplexed and confused” by this deliberate block by the church. As Emer O’Toole noted in The Independent (14 January 2021): “Tuesday’s report does not close a dark chapter in Irish history. Rather, it opens a book filled with fragments and missing pages, with many vital details redacted and a narrative voice that comes to feel less trustworthy the more you read. This story is still being written, and we must support survivors as they continue their fight for justice.” She continued: “The investigation was conducted in secret, in a manner completely incompatible with international best practice for inquiries into human rights violations. Those affected had no access to evidence or their own records; they could not testify publicly or suggest modes of enquiry. Despite government assurances that survivors have the legal right to access their records, the commission of investigation is still denying any requests for information. In short, survivors and adopted people continue to be treated appallingly.” [iii] For example, one of those fragments referred to by O’Toole is that within the Report there is only one mention/example/testimony of the medical procedure of symphysiotomy, an outdated surgical procedure in which the cartilage of the pubic symphysis is divided to widen the pelvis allowing childbirth when there is a ‘mechanical’ problem. As the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe noted following his visit to Ireland (22 to 25 November 2016): “184.  It is estimated that 1,500 women underwent symphysiotomy in Ireland mostly between the 1940’s and the 1980’s. Symphysiotomy is a surgical procedure that involves sundering the mother’s pelvis to enable difficult childbirth. This procedure was not performed in other European countries during the same time period, as caesarean section was the procedure generally used in cases of difficult births.” The United Nations Human Rights Committee noted (19 August 2014) also noted: “The Committee expresses concern that symphysiotomy, a childbirth operation which severs one of the main pelvic joints and unhinges the pelvis, was introduced into clinical practice and performed on approximately 1,500 girls and women in public and private hospitals between 1944 and 1987 without their free and informed consent … The State party should initiate a prompt, independent and thorough investigation into cases of symphysiotomy, prosecute and punish the perpetrators, including medical personnel.” This is just one significant example of absence/silence within the Report but it is indicative and illustrates the human rights deficit criticism which plagued the work of the Commission throughout the duration of its work. But the Commission was not mandated to conduct a human rights investigation: “Prior to the establishment of this Commission, the Irish Human Rights Commission (now the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission) told the Government that ‘it is critically important that any such investigation should take place within a human rights and equality framework and in particular that it conforms with the State’s human rights obligations under the Constitution and under international human rights law’. The Irish Government did not opt for that approach in its mandate to the Commission.”(36.2) The Commission states: “36.80. There are no clear absolute rights.” Article 3 ECHR (the prohibition against torture, inhuman and degrdaing treatment) is an absolute right. [iv] The Irish government has therefore failed to discharge its positive investigatory obligations as demanded under the ECHR following a human rights violation, specifically regarding the right to life (Article 2), the prevention of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3) and the right to private life (Article 8). This is why there have been calls for a human rights’ compliant investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. Taken together with demands that the Garda investigate the criminality and culpability of both individuals and organisations both religious and state. This should include those employed within the medical profession and social services and those charged with their governance and

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    THE ACCUSED AND THE ACCUSERS: CLOSED SESSION

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    By Christopher Stanley Litigation Consultant KRW LAW LLP Belfast. Last year I wrote piece for Village called The Accused and the Accusers: If Not Now, When? There,I offered an analysis of the proceedings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry (IICSA) in relation to its investigation into the allegations of child sexual abuse against former British Labour MP Greville Janner (Lord Janner of Braunstone QC). (Braunstone is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, giving a population of “two sokemen and four villeins”). Child sexual abuse whether within a public (institutional/official) or private (familial/domestic) setting occurs behind closed doors. Part of the power/violence of the abuser is the assumption of or enforcement of silence upon the abused. The abused is made mute even though their abuse may be known by many who either decide not to intervene or are themselves objects/subjects of abuse. It is ironic therefore that on the 12 October 2020 IICSA commenced its ‘public’ hearings under the title “Institutional responses to allegations of child sexual abuse involving the late Lord Janner of Braunstone QC”. Public hearings about silenced acts in private spaces from muted voices. These hearings were subject to a Restriction Order under Section 19 of the Inquiries Act 2005. Restriction Orders and Notices were controversial additions to the Inquiries Act 2005 as they have the effect of running counter to the principles of transparency and openness in the administration of justice and due process. A Restriction Order denies the public access to the hearing (in whole or in part), it denies the public access to the oral and written evidence (in whole or in part) and it restricts an inquiry from publishing a complete report of Conclusion and Recommendations (in whole or in part). It excludes the public gaze. It can also appear to exclude or silence the victims if an investigation is examining a matter such as systemic institutional abuse where the testimony of the victims is core to testing the allegations. The IICSA accepted the need for anonymity of victims: “As a matter of law in this country, a complainant who makes an allegation of sexual abuse is entitled to lifelong anonymity. The right to anonymity is enshrined in section 1(1) of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992. This prevents any matter being published, which includes, for these purposes, references in a speech or in writing, about the complainant which might enable the public to identify them as being someone against whom a sexual offence has been said to have been committed.” Open Session 12 October 2020 page 20 A distinction needs to be made for the sake of clarity. When identifying witnesses there are those witnesses who are the victims of Janner’s alleged sexual abuse. They are identified by the IICSA as the Complainant Core Participants. These witnesses speak through their witness statements and through their legal representatives. They may waive their anonymity. Then there are those witnesses who represent institutions, police officers, prosecutors, politicians. They cannot waive their anonymity but give their oral evidence either in Open or Closed session. Evidence of several witnesses is read into the Record of the Hearings. The ‘institutional witnesses’ are identified by their Name in the Timetable of the Hearings but become Witness 1 in the Open Summary of the Closed Session. For example, Matthew Baggott 26 October 2020 of the IICSA hearing becomes Witness 2 in the Open Summary of the Closed Session of 26 October 2020. I refer you to the Timetable for Week 1 Closed Session (1). There were 17 morning and afternoon sessions timetabled. 13 were Closed Session. The Witnesses being heard were either from members of the police service or from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The Timetable for Week 2 commenced hearing evidence from more police officers or prosecutors Closed Session (2).The Timetable for Week 3 Closed Session (3) heard evidence from the police and members of the Labour Party including former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Janner (dead) cannot be a witness save through the venting anger of his family. No victims’ voices are heard save by way of their witness statements and the voices of their legal representatives. Some victims may not want to speak or accept they can be spoken for, but some may want to be heard in their own voice either as themselves or as their ciphered selves. The List of Core Participants identified in the IICSA include 28 ciphered persons in the Janner Investigation. These are victims or as IISCA identifies them the Complainant Core Participants. They are Janner’s Accusers. “6. In summary, I have concluded that, by reason of the allegations they have made, all the complainant core participants have (and, for the avoidance of doubt, continue to have) a significant interest in the matters under investigation.” “10. Messrs Janner and Butler are wrong to say that only three of the complainant core participants had made allegations of abuse against Lord Janner at the time that the Inquiry was established. On the Inquiry’s present understanding of the evidence, 19 of the 33 complainant core participants had made such allegations to the Police by the time that the Inquiry was established in March 2015.” Determination 27 October 2017 But the only ‘live’ voices in these virtual hearings were from the Corridors of Power (Westminster) which Janner stalked, or those institutions charged with investigating the allegations against him (the Labour Party, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), and Local Authorities). The Chair of IICSA must have been relieved that there were hearings at given the resistance and protestations of the family of Greville Janner which I examined in my earlier piece. In a spirit of transparency IISCA has published certain documents referenced or relied upon in its investigation. For example, “Charges brought against Lord Janner in 2015” including: “6. INDECENT ASSAULT on a Male Person contrary to section 15 (1) of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 (multiple incidents – forced JA-A27 to perform oral sex on him) Between 21 November 1972 and 22 December 1975”

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    Let Theresa May, Who Has Not Sinned, Cast the First Stone: the 32-year cover-up of the Finucane assassination, its link to Kincora and the hypocrisy of the former prime minister.

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    By Joseph de Burca. This week marks the 32nd anniversary of the assassination of the Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane. In 1989 he was shot dead by UDA killers controlled by MI5 in front of his young family at his home. The British government continues to resist a judicial inquiry into the murder despite castigation from its own Supreme Court and human rights groups across the globe. No-one in the Tory party is putting Boris Johnson under any pressure to resolve the matter. LET THERESA MAY, WHO BELIEVES SHE HAS NOT SINNED, CAST THE FIRST STONE Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, however, has accused him of abandoning Britain’s “position of global moral leadership”. Johnson, she said, has failed to honour British values by threatening to break international law during Brexit trade negotiations. Another criticism was that he had backed away from Britain’s foreign aid targets. These two developments had not “raised our credibility in the eyes of the world”, she argued. She then proceeded to lecture him to live up to “our values”. And just what does she think the image of UDA assassins acting on the orders of MI5 to murder an Irish lawyer followed by a 32-year cover-up is doing for “Britain’s credibility in the eyes of the world”? Peter Cory, the Canadian judge who looked at the issue discovered that the murder had been discussed at “Cabinet level”. Sadly, May’s ‘values’ never included an attempt to bring the long-running cover-up that has swirled around the assassination of Finucane to a halt. In her attack on Johnson, May diverted to describe the election of the “decent” Joe Biden as US president as a “golden opportunity” for Britain to become a force for good in the world again. Would an inquiry and the resolution of the scandal surrounding the Finucane assassination not also provide a “golden opportunity” for Britain to show that it can become a “force for good in the world again”? WHAT THERESA MAY DID (AND DIDN’T DO) WHEN SHE WAS IN CHARGE OF MI5. There is a more to May’s hypocrisy than meets the eye: she was the Home Secretary who thwarted earlier demands for a judicial inquiry. MI5 is part of the Home Office and reported to her. At the time she was covering up for MI5, David Cameron was prime minister. He met with the Finucane family at 10 Downing Street where he told them that he could not order a public inquiry. When Finucane’s brother Martin asked him why, he turned to Mrs Finucane and said: “Look, the last administration couldn’t deliver an inquiry in your husband’s case and neither can we”. According to Cameron, this was because “there are people all around this place, [10 Downing Street], who won’t let it happen”. As he was saying this, he raised a finger and made a circular motion in the air. Cameron has not – and probably never will – expose the figures around him in Downing Street who were able to dictate what he could and could not do. Theresa May must know who the culprits are. (They are presumably high-ranking civil servants who have seen the files and know precisely who ordered the murder of Finucane. The list of suspects includes Margaret Thatcher whom May admires.) It clearly does not bother May that State officials have been – and continue to be – complicit in the perversion of justice. One of the officials suspected of complicity in the murder in 1989 – long-since retired – is still alive. So too is Patrick Walker the director-general of MI5 at the time. THE DAUGHTER OF A MAN OF THE CLOTH. May likes to project the image of a deeply religious woman with a moral compass handed to her by her father, a man of the cloth who also understood right from wrong and was possessed of the right ‘values’. Yet, if this was so, why did Team May scrub details of his life from Wikipedia? The mainstream media ignored this act of censorship. There are few comments about the development anywhere but it is addressed in this intriguing article: https://vocal.media/theSwamp/theresa-may-s-father As prime minister May was never bothered by British sales of weapons to an array of foreign powers. How does she feel about the tens of thousands of people who have died as a result? Clearly, slaughtering children in the Yemen is acceptable in her eyes if it generates income for the economy of the UK. Mark Curtis and his colleagues at Declassified UK have covered this scandal in great detail. Interested readers should consult: http://markcurtis.info/category/yemen/ SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN Privately, May has always been disdainful of Johnson’s prodigious sexploits. Yet, Johnson’s sexual partners have always been adults who have been willing – no doubt eager – to sleep with him. This highlights another dimension to May’s hypocrisy: she is critical of consensual sex between adults while covering-up VIP sex abuse involving children. She helped to cover-up the Kincora scandal by assigning the latest investigation of it to the extraordinarily dim-witted and gullible Judge Anthony Hart who made an unholy mess of it. Hart even managed to contradict himself in the body of his own report, a first by any low standard. Unlike George Terry, the former Chief Constable of Sussex, who had reported on Kincora decades earlier, Hart was not corrupt, merely a fool who would have been out of his depth in a puddle. By giving it to this dolt, May was able to separate it from the ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) which was meant to investigate VIP sex abuse involving, inter alia, MPs. Assigning the probe into Kincora to Hart made no sense as it was part of an Anglo-Irish vice ring with connections to Westminster MPs. However, the existence of Hart’s impotent inquiry gave the dreadful IICSA grounds for ignoring Kincora and the abuse perpetrated by English VIPs of Kincora boys such as Enoch Powell MP, James Molyneaux MP, Knox Cunningham MP and others. Not a peep out

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    Nobody Won: debunking the myth the Provisionals were brought to their knees by British spies. Margaret Urwin reviews ‘The Intelligence War Against the IRA’ by Thomas Leahy.

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    By Margaret Urwin. In ‘The Intelligence War against the IRA’, Thomas Leahy, Senior Lecturer in Politics in Cardiff University, challenges the growing dominant narrative that the IRA was brought to the negotiating table in the 1990s because they had been ‘brought to their knees’ by British intelligence. Since the outing of State agents, Stakeknife and Denis Donaldson in particular, in the early 2000s, many academics, historians and commentators have concluded that the IRA campaign ended in defeat because it was fatally compromised by agents and informers. Existing books and articles, while not studying the intelligence war in any significant detail, yet conclude that British intelligence was vital in forcing the IRA into peace. Leahy meticulously, painstakingly and, indeed, convincingly, debunks that conclusion.  Leahy meticulously, painstakingly and, indeed, convincingly, debunks that conclusion.  The book is the first to evaluate fully the impact of British intelligence agents, SAS and other operations against the Provisional IRA. From the wealth of material examined in Irish and UK archives, interviews and memoirs, Leahy argues that British intelligence did not force the IRA into surrender and that political factors were crucial in delivering peace. He suggests that, in fact, particular intelligence operations may have, rather, increased IRA support in its heartlands because of anger against the British State. It is one of the first studies of the conflict that researches what happened by region. It examines British intelligence and security strategy impact on IRA urban units in Belfast and Derry but also rural units in south Armagh, north and mid-Armagh, Fermanagh, south Derry, north Down, south Down and Tyrone. The IRA campaign in England is also considered in detail. Leahy concludes that a previous major focus on the IRA in Belfast has overlooked crucial aspects of the overall picture of what happened and why during the conflict and the regional factors affecting it. A range of republicans (both pro-peace-process and dissentient) have been interviewed, as well as British security personnel; also memoirs from all sides of the conflict including self-confessed IRA informers and intelligence handlers have been accessed. Of particular value is the extensive use of the relatively new sources of personal papers of Brendan Duddy (intermediary between the IRA and the British at critical times during the course of the conflict), Ruairi Ó Brádaigh and Daithí Ó Conaill, which provide crucial behind-the-scenes insights. Both British and Irish Government policy towards republicans is reviewed. Leahy suggests that, from 1969 to 1972; 1973-74 and 1976-90, the British State sought to contain IRA violence at ‘an acceptable level’. Evidence is provided to show that that this policy failed. After the breakdown of the 1975 ceasefire, from 1976, in particular, policies were enacted to marginalise the IRA, e.g., the abolition of ‘Special Category Status’ and the introduction of ‘criminalisation and Ulsterisation’. The intention was ‘to isolate republicans from political settlements whilst eroding the IRA’s armed capacity to a point where they no longer had any influence on Northern Irish politics’. After Roy Mason was appointed as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he told Prime Minister Callaghan in January 1977 that there was no intention of engaging in further talks with Sinn Féin and he ended all contact with intermediary Brendan Duddy. As part of the strategy of marginalising republicans, from my own research I am aware that, also in 1977, the British made vigorous efforts to prove a link between Sinn Féin and the IRA  so that Sinn Féin, which had been a legal organisation since May 1974, could be re-proscribed. A lengthy intelligence operation involving surveillance, searches of Sinn Féin offices, seizures of documents and interviews with suspects were carried out for more than a year. However, when the investigation was complete and a report produced in October 1978, the result showed the evidence did not support the view that the IRA and Sinn Féin were inextricably linked and so Sinn Féin could not be re-proscribed. The book presents original evidence suggesting that republican leaders were seeking talks towards a political settlement in the early 1980s, as Sinn Féin’s electoral mandate was increasing. This was, however, ignored as the British Government tried to negotiate a ‘moderate’ peace settlement with the SDLP and the UUP. The book presents original evidence suggesting that republican leaders were seeking talks towards a political settlement in the early 1980s, as Sinn Féin’s electoral mandate was increasing. This was, however, ignored as the British Government tried to negotiate a ‘moderate’ peace settlement with the SDLP and the UUP. This initiative failed due to persistent IRA activity, Sinn Féin’s electoral mandate in Northern Ireland and, by 1990, both the Irish Government and the SDLP were anxious to include Sinn Féin in peace talks. The importance of the rural IRA to the overall campaign is emphasised. South Armagh, in particular, was the strongest unit and, with significant support from the local community, was almost impenetrable. The community had been incensed by the building of watch-towers and constant helicopter flights.  Its position of strength enabled it to carry out operations in England in the late 1980s and 1990s. If the IRA was heavily infiltrated it would not have been possible to carry out a litany of spectacular bombings in England – Brighton (1985); the Royal Marine School of Music (1989); a booby-trap bomb under a car killing Ian Gow MP (1990); the firing of mortars into the back garden of 10 Downing Street (1991); the bombing of the Baltic Exchange (1992) and the NatWest Tower at Bishopsgate (1993); the firing of mortars onto runways at Heathrow Airport (1994) and, after the breakdown of the ceasefire in 1996, the Docklands and Manchester City bombings. Leahy agrees with Jonathan Powell that talking to all sides involved in the conflict was necessary in order to deliver peace. Sinn Féin’s electoral support was too sizeable to be ignored in a political settlement. He suggests that, ultimately, it was the political mandate and persistent conflict that led all sides to negotiate and to accept a peace settlement. Nobody ‘won’. It

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    Paudge Brennan, the forgotten man of the Arms Crisis

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    A note from the editor:  This article is about the late Paudge Brennan, the Fianna Fáil Minister who resigned a little over 50 years ago after the eruption of the Arms Crisis. It is written by his son, Sean. Not surprisingly, it is partisan. It does, nevertheless, yield an insight into a perspective on Irish politics that has been shielded by the mainstream media, especially The Irish Times  and RTE.   Not a word of it has been changed. Introduction Shortly before Neil Blaney died, he went for a meal with some very close friends.  Blaney reminisced about his political career. When it came to the period of the Arms Crises 1970 Blaney told the others that as far as he was concerned the unsung heroes of that period were “Kevin and Paudge”. He was of course referring to his two closest political friends and colleagues, Kevin Boland and Paudge Brennan. Paudge Brennan was my father. When the events of the 1970 Arms Crises are discussed, the name Paudge Brennan is rarely mentioned. However, Paudge’s political career was hugely influenced by these events. Shortly after Neil Blaney was sacked on 6 May 1970, Paudge tendered his resignation as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government. At the time, the media generally reported that my father resigned out of loyalty to Neil Blaney. This was not the case. While my father was always a very loyal colleague and friend, he did not resign out of loyalty to Blaney or Haughey but rather out of loyalty to his own principles and high personal standards. He did not wish to be part of a set-up which was riddled with deception, lies, treachery and betrayal. He knew that Jack Lynch’s actions in sacking Blaney and Haughey for their involvement in the government-approved plan to import arms was  treacherous and dishonest and motivated by the then Taoiseach’s desire to preserve his own position at all costs. It was a huge act of betrayal by Lynch of his cabinet colleagues.     Because of Paudge Brennan’s very close relationship with Neil Blaney and Kevin Boland, who were key players in the events leading up to the ministerial sackings, I believe that he was very much aware of the arms importation plan. He would also have been aware of the pivotal role played by the Minister for Defence, Jim Gibbons, in the events surrounding the arms importation plan.  My father also believed that Lynch was aware of the plan to bring in the arms but then, when the plan was in danger of being uncovered, Lynch denied all knowledge of it in order to preserve his own position – and betrayed his ministerial colleagues, Blaney, Haughey and Micheál O’Moráin.   Paudge Brennan did not want to be part of that deceit. Not only did he sacrifice his position as Parliamentary Secretary but due to the fact that there were now four ministerial vacancies and only six Parliamentary Secretaries of which he was one of the most senior, there was a very strong probability that he would have been appointed a minister in May 1970. After Fianna Fáil won the 1969 General Election there was much speculation by political commentators that Paudge Brennan was going to be appointed the Minister for Defence. This did not happen, however – and Jim Gibbons got this job. If Paudge Brennan had been appointed the Minister for Defence in 1969, then history would have been very different and there might not have been an arms trial. Lynch would not have been able to manipulate my father into colluding with him in telling lies and covering up Lynch’s role in the arms plan.  My father was far too honourable to behave in such a deceitful manner. TOM BRENNAN Paudge Brennan’s father, Tom Brennan, was the Commandant of the 4th Battalion of the North Wexford Brigade of the IRA during the War of Independence.  He took the anti-treaty side in the civil war. When my father was a baby his mother brought him by pony and trap to Enniscorthy so that his father, who was in prison, could see his young son. However, the prison guard on duty refused to allow my grandmother and my father in to see my grandfather. Tom Brennan was interned in Tintown Prison Camp at the Curragh.  During his time there he went on a three- week hunger and thirst strike. One of his fellow internees in Tintown was Niall Blaney whose son Neil became a great friend and political colleague of Tom’s son Paudge  many year’s later. Paudge was one of 10 children and grew up in the village of Carnew in south County Wicklow. The village population consisted mainly of pro-Free State supporters, with the result that my father, being a son of a Republican, would have been an outsider in political terms. However, he was well able to stand his ground and look after himself and was hugely proud of and loyal to his father. My grandfather Tom Brennan was asked to stand for Fianna Fáil in the 1927 General Election in the constituency of Wicklow. As he was originally from Wexford, he felt that he was in some way a blow-in in Wicklow and he was therefore not comfortable standing for election in that constituency. By 1943, however, he agreed to be a candidate for Fianna Fáil in Wicklow in that year’s General Election. Kevin Boland’s first time in Carnew was when he accompanied his father Gerry Boland to Carnew to persuade Tom Brennan to stand for Fianna Fáil in the 1943 General Election. While Tom failed to get elected in 1943, he was elected in the general election in 1944. My father was a very good footballer and played corner forward for Wickow for many years during the 1940s and 1950s. Wicklow had some very good players during that period. My father took over the family’s successful building-contracting business when his father was elected a TD in 1944. The contracting business specialised in

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    Just declassified UK memo on John Hume reveals interest of PM John Major’s top civil servants in “possible press stories regarding John Hume’s private life”.

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    By David Burke. A memo has just been released from Britain’s National Archives. It concerns discussions at the apex of the British government about salacious rumours relating to John Hume’s private life. It was sent to Sir Robin Butler, Cabinet Secretary to John Major’s government, and also to Major’s private secretary, Sir Alex Allan. Allan is not as well-known as Butler (although he once surfboarded to work on the Thames). He was later appointed Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). The JIC overseas the activities of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, which indicates Allan had plenty of experience in the murky world of intelligence before he became the head of the organisation which ran the whole show. The John Hume ‘private life’ memo Major, Butler and Allan are all still alive. It will be fascinating to hear any context they can add to the memo which is reproduced in full below: Recalling our conversation the other day about possible press stories regarding John Hume’s private life, you and Alex Allan to whom I am copying this letter may like to know of something John Hume said to me today (13 January [1997]) unprompted. In the course of the conversation on his discussions with Adams, John Hume mentioned that on at least two occasions over recent months he had been told of stories circulating among journalists to his discredit regarding his private life, specifically in terms of his conducting an affair or affairs in London and elsewhere. He said that following the article by Bruce Anderson a few weeks ago which did not name him but clearly pointed in that way, he had spoken directly to the Political Editor of the News of the World. He had been told that stories were indeed circulating, but that the News of the World had no evidence to support them and did not intend to print anything in consequence. For his part, John Hume said that he and his wife Pat would both dismiss such stories out of hand, and if anything appeared in print he would expect to become the richer in consequence. He said that the extreme form of the stories were that the IRA were blackmailing him: he said that that was the most absurd nonsense and anyway recent disputes, very public, with Sinn Fein on electoral matters gave it the obvious lie. Who is Bruce Anderson? Who is Bruce Anderson, the journalist who had so annoyed John Hume? Originally from Orkney, Anderson was apparently once a Marxist and even joined the People’s Democracy movement in Northern Ireland where he participated in civil rights activities including the march that was attacked by Loyalists at Burntollet bridge in 1969. In a bizarre twist, he later became the editor of the right-wing pro-Tory Spectator. Later again, he worked for Sir Tony O’Reilly’s UK Independent newspaper between 2003 and 2010. While at the Independent he wrote an article which would have shocked his former civil rights activist comrades in Ireland. It was entitled  “We not only have a right to use torture. We have a duty” (The Independent, 16 February 2010.) In that article he wrote that: When our intelligence services were invited to share the harvest reaped by the Pakistanis, there appears to have been no hesitation. Nor should there have been. We needed the information. Perhaps we should have offered the Pakistanis some advice on interrogation techniques which do not involve knife-work on suspects’ genitals. It may be that we have indeed done so, in private. But Pakistan is a sovereign state and an embattled ally; a far more attractive state and a far less dubious ally than Russia was in the Second World War. We should be grateful for the Pakistanis’ efforts on our behalf. Equally, what must Anderson’s former Marxist comrades make of his 29 December 2010 article in The Telegraph, where he propounded that: For decades, it has been apparent that the misuse of the welfare state has created an ill-fare state. As a result, work-shyness is cascading down the generations. There are at least a million people who believe that they have a hereditary right to subsidised unemployment. Nor are they all inactive. In plenty of cases, the devil finds work for idle hands. The ill-fare state is a recruiting office for the criminal underclass. Anderson defends MI5 and describes Patrick Finucane as ‘a senior Provo’. Anderson has defended the activities of MI5 (attached to the Home Office) in Northern Ireland and is one of a small number of commentators who has claimed that the solicitor Patrick Finucane, who was murdered by British agents in the UDA, was ‘a senior Provo’. (See Thatcher’s Murder Machine, the British State assassination of Patrick Finucane.) Clearly, Anderson has sources inside MI5 who talk to him. This is a most curious set of affairs as MI5 normally distrusts former Marxists, especially those who were involved with an organisation as radical as NI’s Peoples Democracy. Defending MI5 dirty tricks, Anderson wrote in the Independent that: According to Sean O’Callaghan, himself for many years a years a highly placed informer within the IRA, Pat Finucane was one of the guilty. Finucane, he claimed, was a senior Provo who used his privileges as a lawyer to liaise between the IRA and its operatives in custody. He was only innocent in the sense that no case had been proved against him in a court of law. It is also possible that the agents who may have been complicit in Finucane’s death were the same ones who intervened to foil the assassination attempt on Gerry Adams. The security services’ willingness to save Adams’ life does not suggest that they were out of control. There were problems. Back in the late Eighties, difficulties arose with intelligence co-ordination in Ulster because too many organisations were involved. The RUC Special Branch, the mainland Special Branch, the Army, MI5 and – for a time – MI6 were all operating. This inevitably led to departmental rivalries and conflicts of modus operandi. Policemen are

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