Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Britain’ Category

Radio Free Eireann interview with Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney: The Death of Dolours Price | Boston College Subpoena News

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http://bostoncollegesubpoena.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/radio-free-eireann-interview-with-anthony-mcintyre-and-ed-moloney-the-death-of-dolours-price/ Level headed tributes to Dolours Price as the British State bars her sister Marian from leaving prison to mourn.

Red Rants : Behind the Iron Curtain (crisis and the SWP)

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Written by tomasoflatharta

Jan 22, 2013 at 12:52 pm

Which State Has Invaded Nine out of Ten Countries on Earth?

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Or what quality does this select band of states share?

Andorra, Belarus, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mali, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Mongolia, Paraguay, Sao Tome and Principe, Sweden, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Vatican City?

Here is a link to the unsurprising answer :

British have invaded nine out of ten countries so look out Luxembourg

And Union Jack wavers wonder why they provoke ridicule :

Germans Laugh at British Absurdity

Not seen much on British TV because this

piece was deemed a potentially anti-monarchy satire and so was not promoted too much in the UK.

Update :

The Journal.ie writer did not mention regarding  the brilliant sketch “Dinner  For One”: Freddy Frinton was an anti-fascist who blocked the screening  of his sketch in Germany for 30 years.

Dinner For One

And finally, Hitler comments on the Union Jack fluttering in Belfast :

Hitler reacts to the flag coming down from Belfast City Hall and gives the orders for a full scale riot!

British Trotskyism Until 1949 on Mastermind

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We wonder is this a spoof? How many questions did you get right? Happy Christmas and give the 2013 New Year a fab welcome!

Update, Stephen’s Day, December 26 2012 :

Definitely this is genuine, not a spoof :

Mastermind – First Round Heat 21/24

Practically a photo finishThe BBC’s inscrutable campaign to sabotage the original Mastermind show continues. For at exactly the same time that the show began tonight on BBC2, a version of Celebrity Mastermind, featuring David Tennant, and Screamin’ Davina hosted by John Humphrys made up a small segment of the Comic Relief Extravaganza. Coincidence ? I should cocoa.If you missed the original and best, then its a shame, since it was a great episode tonight, and the tension for me was heightened by the fact that I know two of tonight’s contenders. Howard Pizzey took part in the 2007 series of blessed memory, and achieved the unenviable feat of scoring a massive 29 in the first round, but still not getting to the semi finals. Howard had no luck whatsoever last year, so my fingers were resolutely crossed for him.

I also know David Porch, in as much as David is a ‘face’ in the pub quiz circuit between Cardiff and Bridgend. We’ve played against each other in many quizzes. Eagle eyed viewers might also have spotted David playing for one of the teams in Battle of the Brains a couple of weeks ago. David , who is new to Mastermind,was answering questions on the films of Sidney Poitier. It was a virtuoso performance too, and these questions were no picnic. 14 and 1 pass sounded like a pretty good score to me.

Paul Moorhouse is not someone I know personally, but he is not unknown in Mastermind circles. This was, I believe his third Mastermind performance, having made the semi finals in both 2000 in the Radio 4 Mastermind competition, and the 2004 series. It seemed to me that he had some very long questions on his subject of British Trotskyism, so 12 points and no passes was not by any means a bad return. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by tomasoflatharta

Dec 24, 2012 at 3:11 pm

Pat Finucane – A De Silva British State Whitewash?

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Read this – and see that the British State is very unlikely to hold a Public Inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane

The Broken Elbow's avatarThe Broken Elbow

Corrected 14.40 EST

Correction – December 27th 2012 – The Force Research Unit member we identified as Peter Charles Jones from the two photos taken of the unit was in fact a soldier called Kevin Dodds. He was/is a friend of another well known special forces soldier, Charles Pettifer, a former member of the SAS who married Tiggy Legge Bourke, friend of the late Lady Diana Spencer and nanny to her two sons. Dodds and Pettifer, according to our sources, went into business together after military service and set up a risk assessment company (business-speak for private detectives). However as you can see here, Pettifer has since moved up in the world, literally.

Meanwhile the former SAS soldier turned thriller writer known as Andy McNab was obviously indulging in some sly humour at the expense of the former FRU member when he wrote the novel described below (cue tipsy laughter…

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British State Helped UDA to kill Pat Finucane – but Prevented this Loyalist Killing Machine from Bumping Off Gerry Adams

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The British State facilitated the murder of Pat Finucane – and prevented the UDA from killing Gerry Adams – all done to help the Six County Peace Process.

The Broken Elbow's avatarThe Broken Elbow

UPDATED DECEMBER 7th

It remains to be seen just which UDA plot to kill the Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams it was that leading UK barrister Sir Desmond de Silva was referring to when he sent a message to the Louth TD this week warning him that details of the plot would be revealed in his 500-page report into the UDA’s killing of Belfast solicitor, Pat Finucane which is due to be published in the coming days.

De Silva’s private, and remarkably speedy inquiry into the Finucane murder was the response of British prime minister David Cameron to nearly two decades of calls for a full, sworn public inquiry into a scandal that nearly everyone knows, especially the British government, enmeshes MI5, British military intelligence and the RUC Special Branch in a series of murders carried out mostly in Belfast in the 1980’s by Loyalists, acting as a classic counter…

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London conference: New parties of the left

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On Saturday 29th September the British group Socialist Resistance organised a very interesting day of discussion in London on the new European, broad, pluralistic, left parties. It was a kind of update of their seminal conference on the same theme held in London in 2000. Minus one or two of the organisations that have since died or shrunk. As is common on the British left there was no cognisance of Ireland or the ULA in the published programme for the day.

It was also a kind of  ‘film of the book’ of the uneven but instructive  New Parties of the Left: Experiences from Europe (Resistance Books 2011).

 

Both Tomás and I were at the 2000 meeting but as it was a busy weekend I unfortunately could not travel to this meeting. Never mind, technology has since allowed us to attend meetings without actually going to them and many of the speeches were recorded and put up on the Socialist Resistance website. The actual line up seems to have departed slightly from the advertised billing.

 

Below is the line up for the day and then the filmed speeches in the rough chronological order in which I think they were delivered.

Des Derwin

New parties of the left

A day of debate organised by London Socialist Resistance

Saturday 29 September, 10:30am – 5pm

With Stathis Kouvelakis (Syriza), Kate Hudson (Respect), Adam Hanieh (author and activist), Sandra Demarcq (NPA – France), Andrew Burgin (CoR), Alan Thornett (Socialist Resistance), Michael Voss (Red Green Alliance – Enheidlisten, Denmark), and Phillipe Nadouce (Front de Gauche).

At ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1

stathis-kouvelakis-on-greece-6376827

kate-hudson-on-new-left-parties-6376775

denmark-s-red-green-alliance-6376835

the-radicalisation-in-the-arab-world-6376840

the-need-for-broad-parties-of-the-left-6376878

 

 

Topless Royals

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Written by tomasoflatharta

Sep 20, 2012 at 8:38 am

Book Launch – Ireland in the World Order, written by Maurice Coakley – Thursday September 20, 7.00pm, Teachers’ Club 36 Parnell Square West, Dublin 1

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Invitation to a Dublin launch of a new book :

Ireland in the World Order, written by Maurice Coakley

Maurice Coakley focuses on key elements that contributed to Ireland’s development, examining its bloody and violent incorporation into the British state, its refusal to embrace the Protestant Reformation and failure to industrialise in the 19th century. Coakley considers the crucial question of why Ireland’s national identity has come to rest on a mass movement for independence.

Andy Storey will launch the book

Details :

Thursday September 20, 7.00pm, in the

Teachers’ Club 36 Parnell Square West, Dublin 1

Feel free to bring a friend

Ireland in the World Order examines Ireland’s development from the medieval to the modern era, comparing its unique trajectory with that of England, Scotland and Wales.

Maurice Coakley focuses on key elements that contributed to Ireland’s development, examining its bloody and violent incorporation into the British state, its refusal to embrace the Protestant Reformation and failure to industrialise in the 19th century. Coakley considers the crucial question of why Ireland’s national identity has come to rest on a mass movement for independence.

Cutting through many of the myths – imperialist and nationalist – which have obscured the real reasons for Ireland’s course of development, Ireland in the World Order provides a new perspective for students and academics of Irish history.

About The Author

Maurice Coakley lectures in the Journalism and Media Studies faculty of Griffith College, Dublin.

More information at this link :

Ireland in the World Order – by Maurice Coakley

Bernadette McAliskey Interview – Not Much Has Changed in Northern Ireland

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Written by tomasoflatharta

Aug 28, 2012 at 7:46 am