The Joy of Six 1569

Matt Gallagher reports that "the UK quietly sent one of its most senior security officials to a Trump administration summit which proposed to turn global counter-terrorism infrastructure against the political left."

"The values that translate to a modern Liberal success in terms of voting demographics are not simply responsible economics, but a commitment to individualism, social justice and equality; values that when communicated clearly can drive the support of those they affect most, alongside the conscientious urban populations, all of whom now flock to the Greens for these same reasons." Rose Runswick argues that the Liberal Democrats should stand for more than "business".

Josiah Mortimer on the problems with the government announcement that domestic plug-in solar panels are now allowed in the UK.

Samir Jeraj says cuts to council spending, including on adventure playgrounds, are jeopardising Leicester's recovery from the riots of 2022: "Staff, supporters and the local community are campaigning against the cuts and there are city-wide elections next year, which could reverse decades of Labour domination in the city. Opposition parties ranging from the Conservatives to the Greens are opposing the cuts to the adventure playgrounds and they could become a symbolic issue in the campaign."

"The digital sources barely scratch the surface of what exists in big archives, in tiny archives, in people’s attics. So save yourself the bother, save the planet, save the erosion of your cognitive faculties and learn to do it properly." Sophie Michell sees no role for AI in family history.

"There are six publicly known positive DNA results that match the leopard (Panthera pardus), two from recent years: from Gloucestershire in 2022, from a hair snagged on a barbed-wire fence in the vicinity of a sheep kill; and from Cumbria in 2023, when DNA was found on a carcass – again, of a sheep." Rick Minter makes the case that there are big cats living in the British countryside.

Dickens was never a slog for the Victorians: Are we reading him the wrong way?

That Guardian list of the 100 best novels of all time has given the anti-Dickens tendency fresh legs. They tried him at school and hated him. He was paid by the word – that's why his books are so long.

I will admit that my love of Dickens has probably been helped by the fact that I didn't study him much at school. There was a play based on the early chapters of Nicholas Nickleby when I was 12 (I read Wackford Squeers as it happens) and a passage from Hard Times three of four years later. That was all.

But if you had too much Dickens when you were too young, here's a thought: maybe the judgements you made when you were 15 shouldn't be allowed to last a lifetime?

I remember our O-level English teacher trying us with a Joseph Conrad short story, The Secret Sharer. None of us – not me, not Allison Pearson – could get anything from it. He had the sense to abandon the attempt and move on to something else.

So for years I remembered Conrad as a difficult writer. But when, in my forties and after the 7/7 bombings, I decided to read his The Secret Agent for its insights into terrorism, I found that I loved it.

No, Dickens wasn't paid by the word, but the great thick books we now consume weren't the way his original readers experienced him.

Dickens published his novels in 20 monthly instalments, with the last two appearing together. So the Victorians took 19 months to read, say, Bleak House and never experienced it as an intimidating peak they had to scale.

His later novels were carefully planned before he began to write, but that was not the case with the earlier ones. There's a chapter in Oliver Twist where Dickens pauses to try to make sense of its complicated plot - and fails. Martin Chuzzlewit wasn't selling well, so he sent its hero off to the United States to spark new interest. And in The Old Curiosity Shop, he soon changed the nature of one character and dropped another altogether when he realised he wasn't necessary.

And the books had illustrations; indeed, The Pickwick Papers was written to fit existing engravings. After that, Dickens was careful in his choice of artists and always worked closely with them. To him, the illustrations were an important part of the book, but today his novels are often published without them, either to save money or out of a strange disapproval of pictures in a novel for adults.

That disapproval is even stranger in the case of Thackeray's wonderful Vanity Fair, which he illustrated himself. Sometimes the text tells you one thing and the illustration says another, and you instinctively believe the picture rather than the words. So leaving out those pictures fundamentally changes how you experience the book.

So, go on you antis: give Dickens another try.

The Joy of Six 1461

"The government continues to frame the cost-of-living crisis as a problem that can be solved largely through domestic policy choices. Announcements focus on price caps, fare freezes and measures like free school meals and breakfast clubs to ease pressure on family budgets. But these treat the symptoms, not causes." We need to recognise that geopolitics is driving the cost-of-living crisis, argues Anna McShane.

Harriet Walter on the effect of the government's misbegotten treatment of Palestine Action: "By accusing them of being part of a terrorist organisation rather than a protest movement, the government ensures that these people who broke machinery in factories or sprayed paint on aeroplanes or helped to plan these actions can be seen not as ordinary people who are innocent until found guilty of ordinary crimes such as criminal damage or violent disorder, but as outside forces that are deeply threatening to social order and our ways of life."

Chaminda Jayanetti says falling school rolls are not just a problem for London.

"His fabulously wry first wife, Eileen, described his landmark 1941 essay ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ as ‘a little book explaining how to be a Socialist, though Tory’. Even in his most revolutionary moods, Orwell was very specific about what should stay and what should go. Small wonder that he found fault with every version of socialism except his own." Dorian Lynskey reviews two recent books on George Orwell.

"She became a byword for the brutal and controlling ways of the ‘Hollywood factory’ and its tendency to swallow up child stars. You’ve probably heard that MGM encouraged Garland’s use of drugs – ‘pep pills’ to get her to work and suppress her appetite, downers to help her sleep – only to criticise her for being unreliable when she became an addict who sometimes couldn’t show up for work. Eventually, the studio dropped her. She wasn’t yet thirty." Bee Wilson on Judy Garland.

Peter Adams has good news. The Devon Heritage Orchard at RHS Garden Rosemoor is preserving traditional apple varieties, some of which were on the point of disappearing.

The Joy of Six 1420

"'They are treated with the most appalling hostility at the border with officials laughing at them, and shouting,' says Rivka Shaw, policy officer at Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit. Once in a hostel, 'the adults can tell they are children and they are treated differently – adults take their food or fight with the.'" Martha Gill describes the treatment of teenage asylum-seekers.

Christopher Ketcham argues that the powers the British and American governments are using to suppress demonstrations have their origin in the War on Terror: "The question now is whether the Trump administration will continue to expand the use of terrorism material support statutes to go after protest of all kinds – whether for Palestine, for racial justice, or for climate and the environment."

"Business is all about risks and some people will inevitably fail. But the problem is that too many aspiring business owners are floundering unnecessarily. The task for government, business groups and others is to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background, has the chance to realise their entrepreneurial potential." Ben Dellot explains why entrepreneurship is still the preserve of the privileged.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead reports on the Open Spaces Society's call on Emma Reynolds, the new environment secretary, to prioritise legislation for wider and fairer access to nature.

"Andy and Piper are real in a way characters in even upmarket horror films often aren’t: they have history, catchphrases, a spiky-yet-devoted relationship, and neither asks for special treatment because of their circumstances." Kim Newman was impressed by this summer's horror release Bring Her Back.

Jason Watts on the remarkable Anderton Boat Lift and his family's connections with it.

Photograph by Mike Peel.

Lisa Smart condemns arrest of campaigners against Palestine Action Ban

Speaking to Byline Times yesterday, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Lisa Smart condemned the arrest of campaigners against the government's designation of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. The people arrested are members of the group Lift the Ban.

Lisa said:

"The arrest of these campaigners under terror laws, following hundreds of arrests under the same powers last month, is deeply alarming. If charged, they could face up to 14 years in prison simply for expressing support for Palestine Action.

"The right to peaceful protest is a cornerstone of a liberal democracy – this sets a dangerous precedent and risks a chilling impact on free speech and legitimate protest." 

She also said the arrests were "exactly what we warned about when the Conservatives expanded terrorism powers in 2018" and that "this Labour government has adopted the Conservative playbook instead of defending people’s right to peaceful protest".

It's good to see Liberal Democrat speaking out so clearly on this, though it does make me wish we had voted against the designation of Palestine Action as terrorists in the first place.

And I sense the possibility of an infinite regress here. Will people who campaign against these new arrests be arrested in turn? And what of people who then speak up for them?

Lib Dems call for a review of the law after Palestine Action arrests

Lisa Smart, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesperson, has asked the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation to urgently examine the "troubling precedent" of the use of the Terrorism Act to arrest large numbers of people expressing support for Palestine Action.

In the letter to Jonathan Hall KC, she said: 

"While we recognise the serious nature of this group’s activities, including criminal offences, such as vandalism of military equipment and RAF aircraft, aggravated burglary and violent disorder, and some cases awaiting the conclusion of trials, we are deeply concerned about the use of terrorism powers against peaceful protesters in this context."

Meanwhile, reports BBC News, Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has written to the home secretary and Metropolitan Police commissioner Mark Rowley.

Her letter said

"We are concerned that some recent responses may not strike the right balance between security and fundamental rights. Heavy-handed policing or blanket approaches risk creating a chilling effect, deterring citizens from exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly through fear of possible consequences."

Yesterday, I wrote a post suggesting the government's proscribing of Palestine Action has been counterproductive. 

I could have added that if people come to believe that government throws about the label "terrorist" to freely, they will be less likely to believe it when it warn us of groups that certainly are terrorists.

The government's own goal over Palestine Action

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Until the government proscribed it as a terrorist organisation, I had not much heard of Palestine Action. Now its name is everywhere.

One reason for this is that, though its actions may fall within the expanded definition of terrorism in the 2000 Act, they are not what the average voter recognises as terrorism. So people who would never dream of carrying a placard saying "Provisional IRA" do not feel the same distaste towards Palestine Action.

More deeply, the British people are shocked by the razing and starving of Gaza, yet no one in government has acknowledged that shock, let alone given it a voice. And it's the name of Palestine Action, rather than the organisation itself, that has become a rallying point for those who want to fill this political vacuum.

Because Palestine Action has been decreed a terrorist organisation, the police have no discretion in policing demonstrations where its name is used on placards. They must arrest the people with those placards, thus giving Palestine Action more publicity.

So unless it wants to fill our prisons with pensioners with a conscience, while letting real criminals roam free, the government is going to have to back down. When it does, it will still be able to prosecute Palestine Action under conventional laws, of which it has plenty to choose from.

We would then stop seeing placards with "Palestine Action" on them, but there would still be demonstrations against the Netanyahu government's murderous assault on the people of Gaza.

The Joy of Six 1393

Britain's right-wing newspapers are offering uncritical support for Trump’s immigration policies, even though they infringe on civil liberties and the rule of law. So, asks Raymond Snoddy, are the Sun, Times, Mail and Express preparing to back Reform?

Nick Kemp argues that the government's English Devolution Bill undermines local government: "This Bill doesn’t restore power to local councils; it strips it away. Far from being a revival of local self-determination, it represents something more troubling: the franchising of central government, dressed up as devolution."

Jackson Lears looks at what the War on Terror has done to American society: "The hysteria provoked by the attacks on the World Trade Center created an opportunity for Cheney and his ideological comrades to engineer what amounted to a coup d'état. In collaboration with the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, they fashioned a Washington foreign policy consensus committed to armed intervention abroad, overt or covert, anywhere US intelligence agencies decided that American interests were somehow at stake."

Yorkshire’s uplands are ecological deserts, drained and burned by big landowners. David Robson says it's time to demand restoration over destruction.

Ellen Peirsen-Hagger on the uneven economics of publishing: "A 2022 Society of Authors report found the median income of full-time authors was £7,000 a year, which, when adjusted for inflation, is a shocking 60.2 per cent drop on 2006 rates. The report also found that women and authors of colour earn less than their counterparts. What’s more, the top 10 per cent of writers were found to earn 47 per cent of all author income."

Sexy Beast was the last good British gangster film, insists Andrew Nette, who goes on to name 10 more.

The Joy of Six 1392

"The general intention of the Act’s drafters is clear: they wanted those who supported terrorist groups to be given long jail terms; they wanted those who campaigned against proscription to remain free. But this is another line that the police are now crossing. Among those arrested in London on 19 July were protesters carrying placards which read ‘Ban Starmer not Palestine Action’, although saying that Palestine Action should not be banned is the one speech act the Act expressly permits." David Renton on the challenge to the banning of Palestine Action.

Liberal Democrat Women responded to the Women and Equalities Committee consultation on misogyny and the manosphere.

"To encourage young people to flourish as learners, we need to help them value non-formal and informal learning contexts. Hobbies are great for this. Hobbies are serious leisure activities which young people find interesting and fulfilling. They are serious because hobbies require perseverance to gain experience, a skillset and a knowledge base." Ioannis Costas Batlle reminds us that learning doesn't just take place in the classroom.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has admitted it has no evidence to show the Hundred as attracted new fans to other forms of cricket, reports Simon Burnton.

Roads.org.uk argues that Britain's first motorway is unclassified, tolled and links a small Dorset village to a chain ferry.

Graham McCann remembers a forgotten comedian: "Paul Squire was a comedian who shot to fame in 1980 with the ITV talent show Search For A Star and a spot in that year's Royal Variety Performance. He was promptly hailed as 'television's newest superstar', handed his own series by ITV in 1981, starred in another show for the BBC in 1983, and then, little more than one year later, he found himself ostracised by television so completely that he spent the rest of his career playing working men's clubs and the cruise ships."

The Joy of Six 1389

John McEvoy reveals that the government was advised Palestine Action is "highly unlikely" to advocate violence and that officials struggled to produce evidence the group posed a national security threat.

"The might of the MATs give them a power within the DfE that smaller schools do not have, highlighted here in a 2019 Schools Week article reporting that an academy leader boasted that he 'flicked away safeguarding concerns' raised by a whistleblower." Pam Jarvis explores the dark side of multi-academy trusts.

"Just in case anyone reading this doesn’t have an inkling of the relevant law, this is horseshit of the highest order. It is absolutely untrue that council tenants can be evicted in order to house asylum seekers. It is not a 'complex issue with legal and ethical considerations', it is a non-existent issue because it cannot legally happen." Giles Peaker is furious about what people may now see if they use Google to research something in the news.

Jennifer Quellette talks to two researchers whose work suggests that people who believe conspiracy theories don't realise that they are in a small minority.

"Officials would want to avoid the fate of Dunwich, where erosion led to skeletons sticking out of the dunes after plots were washed away by the sea in the 1920s. There are similar macabre tales relating to Eccles-on-Sea, which featured in the Domesday book of 1086 and was swallowed by the sea over a number of centuries. The church tower finally collapsed in a winter storm in 1895." Owen Sennitt on the debate over what to do with the graveyard at Happisburgh in Norfolk, which will be lost to coastal erosion.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine finds that the new box set chronicling the birth of Nick Drake's debut album Five Leaves Left offers some quiet revelations: "Hearing Drake speak his aural aspirations for songs – notably, he wants Made to Love Magic to sound 'celestial' – helps reframe the refined baroque arrangements of the finished album, underscoring the intentionality of the sumptuous, sighing strings."

Reform UK councillor was 'pen pal' of top Al Qaeda terrorist who masterminded 9/11

The judges were grateful that, on such a hot day, there was no need to hold a lengthy meeting. By universal acclamation, Nottinghamshire Live wins our Headline of the Day Award.

I'm reminded of an old Julian Clary joke:

"I joined Amnesty International and wrote to General Pinochet. He wrote back and now we're pen friends."

Bargain Hunt expert charged with terror offences

Well that woke the judges up! Thanks to BBC News, we have our Headline of the Day.

Robb Heady: History's unluckiest hijacker

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When it comes to American mysteries, second only to 'who shot JFK?'* comes "Did D.B. Cooper get away with it?"

In November 1971, during the 'golden age of hijacking', D.B. Cooper** hijacked an internal US flight and demanded $300,000 and two parachutes. He got them, leapt from the plane at altitude and was never seen again.

Nine years later, some of the money he had been given was found buried in the banks of the Columbia River in Washington State.  This may suggest that the rest of the money and Cooper's body lie somewhere nearby, but there are good reasons why the mystery refuses to die.

The first is the Cooper demeanour throughout the hijack. He remained perfectly cool and in command, suggesting to many that he had a background in special forces. For them, even the knowledge that it was possible to jump from the rear steps of a Boeing 727 in flight suggests he had been involved in operations in Vietnam.

The second is that Cooper inspired a dozen copycat hijackings, and the perpetrator of every one survived the parachute jump.

One of the copycats was Robb Heady:

On June 2, 1972, Robb Heady, a 22-year-old former Army paratrooper and Vietnam War veteran, hijacked United Airlines Flight 239 from Reno to San Francisco. Carrying his own parachute and using a .357 revolver, he demanded $200,000 in ransom money. Because the hijacking occurred at night while banks were closed, FBI agents were forced to secure the ransom money from two local casinos in Reno. 

Once he had received the ransom, Heady directed the pilots on a very specific flight path. However, the pilot intentionally altered the flight path by half a degree, causing Heady to miss his drop zone. Heady was captured the next morning. 

The money bag containing Heady's ransom was jerked from his grasp when he pulled the ripcord and was recovered by FBI agents two days later. In September 1972 Heady pled guilty to aircraft piracy and was sentenced to serve 30 years in federal prison

What that Wikipedia account omits is how Heady was recaptured. The FBI worked out from the flight path he had demanded where he had intended to land and searched the area. There they found a car parked in a remote area that was of particular interest to them, so they kept it under observation.

Sure enough, a man eventually arrived at the car, retrieved the keys from beneath a nearby rock and let himself in. The man was Robb Heady.

And what had drawn the interest of the FBI to the car? A 'Member of the U.S. Parachute Association' bumper sticker.

Which makes him history's unluckiest - or most careless - hijacker.

* If, like me, you wonder why more has not been made of Lee Harvey's time in the USSR and visit to Cuba, read the guest post by Jack White.

** The hijacker actually gave his name as Dan Cooper, but for some reason this faulty newspaper transcription stuck.

"Take this plane to Cuba": The golden age of hijacking

I remember the phrase "Take this plane to Cuba" from my primary school years in the late Sixties and early Seventies. You would, as I recall, hear it as a punchline in comedy sketches or see it as a caption on newspaper cartoons.

To understand why the phrase was so widely known, you can read a 2016 article on Vox by Libby Nelson:

The hijacking of EgyptAir Flight 181 on Tuesday morning, when a man claimed to be wearing a suicide vest and demanded to be taken to Cyprus, was surely terrifying for the 64 people on board. But after it came to a conclusion on a Cyprus runway with the arrest of the hijacker, the safe release of the passengers, and no bloodshed, what was most striking was how retro the whole drama seemed.

Before 9/11, this is what hijackings were like: Individuals driven by personal gain or idiosyncratic requests diverted planes to places they weren't supposed to go. These hijackings ended with inconvenience, not with mass tragedy.

And this type of hijacking happened with stunning frequency in the United States. Between 1968 and 1972, more than 130 American airplanes were hijacked. Sometimes there was more than one hijacking on the same day. In a 2013 book, The Skies Belong to Us, Brendan I. Koerner, a contributing editor at Wired magazine, dubbed the period the "golden age of hijacking."

The hijackers, or "skyjackers," wanted flights to communist Cuba, or millions of dollars in ransom, or maybe just an outlet for their rage and frustration. And for years, airlines largely gave in, fearing that customers would find metal detectors at the airport more off-putting than the possibility of a midair diversion.

That site also has the video of a (not terribly funny) Monty Python sketch that I have posted above.

Or, as I first did, you can listen to the podcast American History Hit's episode on D.B. Cooper & the 70s Hijacking Craze.

L.P Hartley was right: the past is a foreign country.

GUEST POST Martyn’s Law and its unintended ecclesiastical consequences

The protect duty proposed under Martyn's Law will place a heavy burden on churches and other religious buildings, argues Augustus Carp.

With the world being the complicated place that it is, we shouldn’t be surprised if good intentions sometimes have bad consequences. Such is the case with an apparently unobjectionable piece of legislation before the House of Lords at the moment, which is causing conniptions and consternation amongst the archdeacons of the Church of England, as well as those responsible for buildings for other religious faiths.

One of the consequences of the Manchester bombing in 2017 was that Figen Murray, whose son Martyn was killed in the explosion, steered some legislation before Parliament to make the owners of premises responsible for the security of their sites, in order to deter terrorist outrages.

The eponymous Martyn’s Law seeks to impose a 'protect duty' on anyone operating premises that can accommodate over 100 people. Although probably not intentional, the legislation catches a lot of churches, chapels, mosques, synagogues and gurdwaras.

The legislation is intended to have minimal costs, maximum benefits and general acceptance, but it’s not turning out like that. It’s clear that the drafters of the legislation have little, or no, idea about the way religious buildings work. The consultation document supporting the legislation says:

For most organisations in scope of a Protect Duty, we propose that compliance would be demonstrated by providing assurance that the threat and risk impacts had been considered, and appropriate mitigations had been considered and taken forward … For organisations at the lower end of criteria thresholds, this would entail simple low – or no – cost preparedness measures such as ensuring that:

• Staff are trained and aware of the nature of threats, likely attack methodologies and how to respond;
• Staff are trained to identify the signs of hostile reconnaissance and take appropriate action; and
• There are plans in place for an organisation’s response to different attack types, which are regularly trained and exercised.

That means training a changing cohort of volunteers to an appropriate standard – which will come at a cost. Proper risk assessments will have to be carried out, and standards agreed for security. What happens if someone attending 6.30 Evensong refuses to be searched? It’s a problem, particularly as the right to attend Church of England services is enshrined in law.

Unfortunately, the legislation is aimed at premises, rather than activities. For the best of reasons, if this legislation is passed unamended, a new industry will be established, to go alongside the existing CRB vetting procedures, where the costs and time involved vastly outweigh the benefits for most voluntary organisations. It will be consultants, training organisations and insurers who will define what is optimal for each establishment, and price things accordingly.

Churchyards are not excluded – so it might be easier for churches to close them to the public, particularly in urban areas. Similarly, closing places of worship other than at times of services will be the cost-effective way forward for most rural churches, which until now have often been left unattended.

Going beyond ordinary health and safety legislation, the introduction of the protect duty places the responsibility and the potential fault on those who might be victims – the clergy and volunteers who run the churches – rather than on the terrorists who might perpetrate an outrage. 

In Britain today, some religious people take risks simply by exercising their faith in public. There are bad actors in the world who would like people to cease exercising their faith in public, indeed to stop exercising it at all. However, terrorising people into private spaces, and all for reasons of public safety, risks colluding with that desire to drive religion, quite literally, out of the public square.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of an occasional contributor to this blog. According to his autobiography, he is the Churchwarden of St James-the-Least-of-All, Kennington Oval.

Liberal Democrats call for immediate ceasefire in Israel and Gaza

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Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has called for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in Israel and Gaza.

In a statement he said:

Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7th shocked the world. We condemned them and the taking of hostages, unequivocally. Hamas cannot, for the security of Israelis nor the future of Palestinians, be allowed to continue in charge of Gaza. 

Right now we have a disaster. When I met with NGOs working on the ground in Gaza, they told me just how devastating a humanitarian catastrophe we are facing.

Thousands of innocent civilians have already been killed, including thousands of children. I met the Palestinian Ambassador just days ago - tragically he had lost family members. I passed on my condolences on behalf of the Liberal Democrats to all Palestinians. 

And the humanitarian crisis just seems to get worse. Essential supplies like water, food, medicine and fuel still remain in very short supply or totally cut off from Gaza. And over 200 people are still held hostage, including children. And the risk of regional escalation grows by the day, underlined by the fact that the UK withdrew diplomatic staff from Lebanon earlier this week. 

More than a month since Hamas’ atrocities, it is increasingly clear that a military solution to eliminate Hamas is not possible. Nor is it tenable for Israel to reoccupy Gaza. 

You can read the full statement on the party website.

The Joy of Six 1128

"With every echoing step, British parliamentarians are reminded by these weighty premises of their own importance. It is rather rare, however, that one of them makes their way from the halls of parliament into the underworld of the old palace, which was once built on a swampy island in the Thames. Here, in the low-ceilinged, labyrinthine catacombs, the foundation of Britannia’s democracy is literally rotting away, largely out of sight and out of mind. Most of the structure is contaminated by asbestos, while thick tangles of cables hang chaotically from the ceiling and pipes suddenly come to an end, seemingly in the middle of nowhere." Jörg Schindler sees Britain facing a perfect storm of struggle, with millions sliding into poverty and little to suggest that improvement will come anytime soon.

David Gauke has little time for Dominic Raab's defence against bullying charges.

Elon Musk's attempt to monetise the Twitter blue tick is a master class in business failure, argues Alex Kirshner.

Richard Vinen reviews Rory Carroll's Killing Thatcher: "There was a curious sense in which the IRA did kill Thatcher at Brighton. Magee and his comrades described the high-security units in which they were imprisoned as 'submarines', because they were so cut off from contact with the outside world. Thatcher’s own security team put her in a submarine of sorts, and it was one that dived ever deeper after Brighton. Isolation from ordinary life was one of the things that accounted for the erosion of her political instincts in the late 1980s and, eventually, her fall. 

"How did she do it? That’s the question that inevitably comes to mind when watching such moments of feminist audacity in a film written and directed by a woman working within the mainstream British film industry of 1957." Melanie Williams celebrates the achievements of the film director Muriel Box.

Joel Morris sees the culture war invade tributes to dead comedians.

Sir John Farr remembered

When we moved to Market Harborough in 1973 its Conservative MP was John Farr, who was to be knighted 11 years later. 

He once toured my school without speaking to a single student (or pupil as we may still have been then).

Sir John died in 1997 and was remembered like this in Chris Mullin's diary, later published as A Walk-On Part:

John Farr, a ruddy-faced knight of the Shires with whom I formed an unlikely alliance over the Birmingham Six, has died. He dropped dead while out grouse shooting, which I am sure he would regard as a good way to go.

I once asked whether his stand on the Birmingham bombings had caused problems with his Conservative colleagues. "Only from the lawyers - and they are all arseholes," he replied.

In which Karl Marx takes my side against Jeremy Corbyn

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During the 2017 general election campaign I blogged about Jeremy Corbyn's cordial relations with the Provisional IRA.

Though they had not been the trump card that the Conservatives expected - it was all too long ago for most voters attracted by him - I still found them hard to forgive.

I quoted an earlier post where I wrote of the Provisionals' bombing campaign:

I was working in London at the time shoppers and workers were being killed by it. 

The very least I expect from the party of the workers is that it condemns those who murder them. 

Rather to my surprise, I have discovered that Karl Marx agrees with me.

Last night I came across the Clerkenwell Outrage of 1867 - an explosion caused by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (or Fenians) in an attempt to spring one of their leaders from Clerkenwell Prison.

It failed in its objective, but caused the deaths of 12 people, and injured 120, in the neighbouring houses.

One of the men behind it, Michael Barrett, became the last man to be publicly hanged in England, despite his defence that he had been in Glasgow at the time of the explosion.

Well, we English weren't very good at convicting the right people for Provisional IRA outrages in the 1970s, so who knows?

But what interested me was the reaction of Karl Marx. He is widely quoted across the interent, though I can't find where he wrote is, as arguing:

The London masses, who have shown great sympathy towards Ireland, will be made wild and driven into the arms of a reactionary government. One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour of Fenian emissaries.

Quite.

Six of the Best 823

"We need to reinstate the need for more leisure time as a political ideal and work on the sound evidence of its benefits rather than dismissing it as unaffordable." Darren Martin makes the case for a shorter working week.

Anne Applebaum on the murder of journalists across the globe: "The murders are the consequence of the clash between a 21st century technological revolution, which has made it possible to obtain and spread information in new ways, and a 21st century offshore banking revolution, which has made it possible to steal money in new ways, to hide it in new ways and to use it to maintain power."

Human Rights Watch is concerned about the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill: "The draft law punishes a single click on terrorist content online with up to 15 years in prison."

"On November 9, 1918, extra editions of newspapers flood the center of Berlin. One of them, from the socialist Vorwärts, falls into the hands of Käthe Kollwitz as she is strolling in the Tiergarten. 'The Kaiser has abdicated!' says the banner headline." Daniel Schönpflug looks at the artist and at Germany in defeat.

Curved or straight, the banana is at risk of dying. Matt Reynolds examines the race to reinvent it before it's too late.

Icy Sedgwick takes us along the old corpse roads.