Lord Bonkers' Diary: Dodd's Army, they called it

I have done some research and this story checks out. There is no mention of the scheme in the official histories!

Saturday

Defence cuts have hit hard in recent years, but I remember the Sixties (the Nineteen Sixties let me hastily add!) when, if the balloon had gone up, repelling the invader will have been left in the hands of a comedian and his small companions. Dodd’s Army, they called it – even at the time I wondered if it would be enough.

Of course, if you look in the official histories you will find no mention of this scheme.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Staring back at Theresa May
• Donald Trump was born in Stornoway
• Jeremy Corbyn was recruited by the Conservatives at prep school
• Hand-in-hand with Hitler
• A warning to Labour after Stoke

When Ray Wilkins was Butch Wilkins and a genius

 Here is Richard Williams as quoted on this blog back in 2009:

Ray Wilkins was 18 years old when Eddie McCreadie gave him the captaincy of Chelsea back in 1975, with the team newly relegated to the old Second Division. The fresh-faced teenager was succeeding Ron "Chopper" Harris, the most gnarled of veterans. 

To outsiders it seemed as though McCreadie was taking an outrageous chance. But Wilkins's precocious calmness and football intelligence made him a superb captain of a side that mixed a few old stagers – Peter Bonetti, David Webb, Charlie Cooke, Ian Hutchinson – with a lot of much younger players, and two years later they were back in the top flight. 

I saw Wilkins in one of his early first‑team appearances, before McCreadie made him captain, and what I saw persuaded me that it was worth making a special effort to watch him regularly. With no allegiance – prior or subsequent – to Chelsea I bought a Stamford Bridge season ticket for those two seasons in the Second Division and got value for my money (£50, all told, for a good seat in the then‑new West Stand) from his performances alone ...

In his Chelsea years Wilkins showed himself to be as good a manipulator of the ball as any English footballer I can remember, including Hoddle, Paul Gascoigne and Wayne Rooney.

The video above will give you an idea of what he means. And he had hair.

It was a great shame that Chelsea were unable to keep Wilkins. Instead he was sold to Manchester United and did the fetching and carrying for Bryan Robson.

Harborough Ukip tells candidates they can "make money by doing nothing"

From the Leicester Mercury:

A senior Ukip official has told potential candidates they "can make money by doing nothing" if they get elected to Leicestershire County Council. 

Harborough Ukip chairman Richard Billington told colleagues if 'by chance' they win a seat at County Hall on May 4 they can avoid going to meetings and collect their expenses "until they are asked to leave". 

He said: "If the half-wits in the Lords can make money by doing nothing, so can we! It's a strange thing democracy!" 

Mr Billington made the comments in an email sent earlier this month regarding a meeting with Ukip's national chairman Paul Oakden.

According to the Mercury, Mr Billington, who will be the party's candidate in the Foxton and West Harborough ward in May, told recipients of the email that it was forbidden to put its contents on line.

It is a good thing that the Mercury has been sent a copy, because a lot of the other things Mr Billington has to say make entertaining reading:

But even in Ukip, his attitude must stand out as unacceptable. I trust Mr Billington will be thrown out of the party.

Later on Twitter...

UKIP Leicestershire distance themselves from candidates email. Comments "unacceptable " He's now a former candidate. pic.twitter.com/O2ESq4hnRw

— Tony Roe (@tonyroe) March 17, 2017

Lord Bonkers' Diary: A warning to Labour after Stoke

See? Razor-sharp analysis. The old boy is not such a buffer as some suppose. 

Friday

Home from Stoke-on-Trent where I have been helping in the by-election. I have nothing against the good people of Copeland, but a chap doesn’t want to glow in the dark, what?

Besides, I had promised Cook I would buy a replacement pie dish for the Wedgwood one that good broken on the night we celebrated Sarah Olney’s victory in the Richmond Park by-election.

I am afraid that Ukip’s candidate was something of a dud: no one believed his claims to have been the first Briton in space (as every schoolboy used to know, it was Raymond Baxter). Let me, however, give the Labour Party the benefit of my long experience.

I recall we Liberal Democrats got terribly excited when we held Eastleigh after poor Huhne was dragged off to Dartmoor. Yet, as I pointed out at the time, the Tories and Ukippers helpfully split the reactionary vote between them. Not only that: the Tory candidate was so bad that she was sent off to Patagonia halfway through the campaign.

I was saddened, but not surprised, when we lost the seat at the following general election. The parallels with the result in Stoke-on-Trent are all too clear.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Staring back at Theresa May
• Donald Trump was born in Stornoway
• Jeremy Corbyn was recruited by the Conservatives at prep school
• Hand-in-hand with Hitler

Troubled Walberswick Parish Council appoints World Bank’s former Afghanistan country director

Coastal Scene ("Latest news and sport from the Suffolk coast") wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The last day of the Clayton West branch

The Clayton West branch, which left the Sheffield to Penistone line east of Shepley, closed to passengers on 22 January 1983,

It was the coal traffic from Park Mill colliery that kept services running when Dr Beeching had done for so many other lines.

I must have taken this photograph in Huddersfield station that day.

You can read the history of the branch on the Disused Stations page for Clayton West.

That page has a photograph of a train at Clayton West the same day.

If I am in it, I am one of people in the middle distance walking along the track towards the signal box. We did not worry about things like that in those days.

Six of the Best 675

Mark Pack gives us four things to note about the record electoral fine levied against the Conservative Party: "The Conservative Party repeatedly refused to cooperate fully with the Electoral Commission investigation, requiring the Commission to go to court to get access to relevant evidence."

You've heard of climate-change deniers. Now, reports Emily Atkin, there are air-pollution deniers too.

"The capitalist class seeks to avoid responsibility for the many problems it causes, so it frames pain and suffering as somehow natural and inevitable." Susan Rosentahl offers a marxist theory of mental illness.

Sam Knight tells us what will happen when the Queen dies: "BBC 1, 2 and 4 will be interrupted and revert silently to their respective idents – an exercise class in a village hall, a swan waiting on a pond – before coming together for the news."

Bob Mankoff is retiring as cartoon editor of the New Yorker after 20 years. He discusses some of his favourites with Jennifer Schuessler.

Philip Butler celebrates the modernist architecture of Dudley Zoo.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Hand-in-hand with Hitler

Here the old brute demonstrates the advantages of a long life in public service and a good memory.

Thursday

When I saw Theresa May holding hands with Trump (of whose genesis I was writing only the other day) I was filled with foreboding.

For I am old enough to remember 1938 and Neville Chamberlain flying off to Munich to meet Hitler. During a lull in the talks, the pair of them were photographed strolling hand-in-hand through a meadow in the Bavarian Alps.

When Chamberlain came back to London in triumph, that picture appeared on the front page of all the papers; but things turned sour and it was to haunt him for the brief years that were left to him.

Why was there no one at Mrs May’s elbow to remind her of this?

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Staring back at Theresa May
• Donald Trump was born in Stornoway
• Jeremy Corbyn was recruited by the Conservatives at prep school

On board the Conservatives' Battlebus2015

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With Conservative expense returns for the last general election under scrutiny in more than 20 constituencies, an old post on Conservative Home makes interesting reading:

After the jollity of the first evening, the Battlebus departed from its base in Glastonbury, which we made our HQ for the six days or so. We travelled across the South West of England from Torbay in the south to Cheltenham in the north of the region, visiting five constituencies along the way. 

The days were long: 7.25 start, and arriving back at the hotel past midnight, sleep was short. I even dreamt about doorstep conversations (that’s conversations on the doorstep not with them). The work was tough with a lot of walking, and one had to stay switched on, because we knew how important these conversations were. 

Along with other activists I am still recovering, and turned to lozenges to sooth the throat after having numerous conversations a day. The miles of walking with heavy satchels full of leaflets took its toll on our wallets too, because the bill for sticky plasters and remedies for back pain was totting up. 

Regardless of the toil, the relationships that were formed during those six days or so between the activists on the battle bus were intense. Spending 18 hours a day with each other for six days and for some 24 hours, because we shared a twin room back at the hotel, we formed strong long lasting friendships.

And who paid for these larks?

The Eventbrite page for Battlebus 2015 tells us:

Following the fantastic success of our campaign days in the past year, Roadtrip2015 is delighted to invite you to join us in the final weeks of the General Election campaign, for this once in a lifetime opportunity, as we take Battlebus2015 all over the country for our brilliant candidates, hoping to hold current seats and win new ones! 

We will be running two buses for ten action packed days where we will based in Tamworth and Taunton/Glastonbury, travelling from here to seats all over the country. You can join us for the full ten days, or the first or last 5 days ...

We ask for a payment of just £50 (£25 for students) which will be small contribution towards the hotel costs. We will meet ALL the remaining hotel costs and ALL the food costs and provide FREE transport to the Battlebus2015 hotel from London.

John Finnemore, Herr Pachelbel and his celebrated Canon

The drone footage of Crowland Abbey I posted yesterday was accompanied by a familiar tune: Pachelbel's Canon.

It put me in mind of this sketch from John Finnemore...



and its follow up...

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Jeremy Corbyn was recruited by the Conservatives at prep school

When I first read this entry I was inclined not to believe a word of it. 

After Jeremy Corbyn'a performance at prime minister's questions today, I am forced to admit that, as so often, the old boy is right.

Wednesday

The Conservative Party, like the KGB, is always scouting for talent at Oxbridge and our leading public schools. What is not widely known, is that they sometimes recruit at an even tenderer age.

Years ago a drunken Tory confessed to me that his party has talent spotters at prep schools. What they look for goodness only knows – a winning way with the ablative plural, perhaps, or particularly clean knees.

The children they recruit there are put into the deepest cover, becoming schoolboy and student Socialists before joining left-wing groupuscules and eventually finding their way into the Labour Party. Some are elected to Westminster, where they advocate ridiculous policies guaranteed to boost the Conservative vote.

Such deep-cover agents are not unusual – I expect my readers could name a few themselves – but to the best of my knowledge Jeremy Corbyn is the first Conservative to lead the Labour Party. It’s Terribly Clever, but is it cricket?

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Staring back at Theresa May
• Donald Trump was born in Stornoway

A drone flight over Crowland Abbey

A drone flight over this little-known Lincolnshire parish church and monastic ruin.

I visited Crowland Abbey and the town's unique bridge back in 2009 - note the comment on Lincolnshire history from Simon Titley on the first post.

And the tune accompanying the video puts me in mind of a comedy sketch I shall share with you presently.

Conservative MP interviewed under caution over election spending

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The Guardian reports that Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP who defeated Nigel Farage in Thanet South in 2015, was interviewed under caution for six hours by the police today.

It was the part of the inquiry into whether the party overspent in the constituency at the last general election.

The report goes on to quote an email from Karl McCartney, another Tory MP under investigation, who is helping his similarly place colleagues.

In that email ("seen by Sky News") McCartney writes that his colleagues:

“feel completely cast adrift by CCHQ/whips/the parliamentary party and left to fend for themselves”. 

He added: “At what stage do you think you [the party] might inform us that another media s***storm is coming? We didn’t create this mess, the clever dicks at CCHQ did, and I don’t see their professional reputations being trashed in the media much.” 

“The initial cock-ups, ‘strategy’ and ineptitude with regard to this issue that has so negatively impacted our: lives, standing in our communities, standing amongst colleagues, families and our regard for particular parts of the party centrally, and were all of CCHQ’s making … need to stop. 

“We are the ones who are now [and since the beginning as individuals have been] in the media spotlight and it might have been a little more reassuring and collegiate if the powers that be in our party perhaps tried to be a little bit more supportive and less interested in covering their own backsides.” 

A Conservative source said the party did not hold a copy of the Electoral Commission report as McCartney alleged.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Donald Trump was born in Stornoway

When I suggested to Lord Bonkers that this entry deserves the annotation 'Huge if true', he snorted "What d'you mean 'if''?"

I also mentioned that some of the attitudes displayed here are a little unfortunate, but he was equally dismissive.

Tuesday

It was the autumn of 1945 and I was relaxing at the Hall after being released from my war work (still hush hush, I am afraid) when there came a telephone call from Whitehall. It transpired that a strange orange hairy creature was haunting the Outer Hebrides and ravishing the local womenfolk. “That’s a Scotsman,” I replied shortly and replaced the receiver. However, they called back and when it became apparent that there was More To It, I undertook to travel to Lewis and Harris to investigate.

Upon reaching Stornoway I quickly deduced that the creature in question was an escaped orangutan. I also discovered that it had fathered a child with a local woman – an orange, wizened little thing with a strange shock of hair. The local church, which I found Rather Hard Work (all those elders) was taking a dim view. I did begin arrangements for the orangutan to be shipped to a zoo on the mainland, but the general view on the Long Island was that it was doing good work weaving tweed and should be allowed to stay.

As to the woman, I helped her travel to New York. I later heard she had married a tycoon with the unfortunate name of ‘Trump’, who adopted her child. I thought that would be the last of it, but by now you will all know what happened next.

I was dining with an American lawyer the other evening. He told me that there is no constitutional necessity for the President of the United States to be human on both sides, but if word gets out that he was born in the Outer Hebrides then it will cause An Awful Fuss.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary...

• Staring back at Theresa May

Louth to Mablethorpe in the 1960s

Read more about this long-vanished line on the Disused Stations page for Mablethorpe.

How British deference to the Royal Family protected child abusers

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Back in 2003 I wrote a column for Clinical Psychology Forum under the name Professor Strange arguing that the practice of sending British children abroad was centuries old and had frequently been controversial.

Despite that controversy, it had lasted until around 1970.

Media coverage of the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse has brought to the fore one reason: the patronage of the Royal Family.

Take this report from ABC News in Australia:

In 1956 a fact-finding mission was sent to Australia to evaluate how child migrants were being treated. 

Soon afterwards the three inspectors published the Ross Report, which placed both Fairbridge schools on a blacklist, prohibiting children from being sent there. 

This outraged the Fairbridge Society's British Secretary WR Vaughan, who used all the establishment clout he could muster to reverse the ban. 

He went straight to Australia House in London and told the migration officer there he had 16 children waiting to sail and that he wanted the situation resolved within days. 

Then he marched down to the Commonwealth Relations Office where he declared there would be a "first class row" if the blacklist was not lifted. 

Senior civil servants knew exactly what this threat meant. The Fairbridge Society's president was the Queen's uncle — the former Governor General of Australia — the Duke of Gloucester. 

A departmental memo warned the Duke's "intervention would be sought" if the standstill continued. 

Within days the blacklist was lifted and the British Government allowed children to be sent to the Fairbridge farms in NSW and WA. They even helped subsidise the journeys.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Staring back at Theresa May

The new Liberator has arrived, which means it is time to spend another week with Lord Bonkers. Right from the off, he takes us to the heart of the debate on Europe.

Monday

I was resting my eyes in the Lords; when I opened them, there was the prime minister In Our House. What immortal rind! And she was staring at me. I wasn’t having that so I stared right back. When that didn’t work I went through my full gamut of faces: the lovesick Frisian; the angry walrus; Roy Jenkins on the lavatory.

That, I thought, had done the trick when she hurried out, but her place was taken by a Cabinet colleague. It was clear that a more organised approach was needed, so I took a party of Liberal Democrat peers (you may have noticed we are not exactly short of them) off to the tearoom for a spot of training in Hard Stares and pulling the aforementioned faces (though the Jenkins is not one for novices).

I am proud to announce that, after I had left for home, one of my pupils made a junior minister cry.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

It was 40 years ago today: The Centenary Test

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In one corner of the Hilton, Don Bradman broke bread with England's Bodyline attack. In another, 84-year-old Percy Fender, when reminded that in 1930 he had doubted Bradman's ability to succeed in the lushness of England, ruefully replied: "An indiscretion of youth." 

On the concourses of the MCG, scoreboard nameplates of old greats hung, exuding history. On match morning, 18 past captains were paraded on the ground, Ian Chappell in a green safari suit. Well, it was the '70s.

40 years ago tonight, the Centenary Test began in Melbourne. Australia and England came together for a one-off game to mark the 100th anniversary of the first Ashes test.

It was a great occasion and the cricket lived up to it. Australia won by 45 runs, just as they had done a century before.

But for a long time it looked as though they were going to make the 463 runs needed to win in the last innings.

Derek Randall scored a wonderful 174, interspersing his clowning with ravishing strokes. I remember, listening in the small hours, hearing John Arlott quoting Shakespeare:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here.

But though Mike Brearley, Dennis Amiss, Tony Greig and Alan Knott all passed 40, no one was able to give him enough support for England to win. The scorecard is on Cricinfo.

Randall won Man of the Match, but an account of the test by Greg Baum suggests Dennis Lillee's performance in defying illness and injury to take 11 wickets in the match was greater:

[Rodney] Marsh protests to this day that though Randall made the match, Lillee won it.

Lillee did not tour England in the summer of 1977 and England, by then captained by Brearley because Greig's involvement with Kerry Packer had been revealed, won back the Ashes.

And Derek Randall never quite had the career that that innings in Melbourne promised. A few years later Matthew Engel was to suggest that there were three rules for new selectors:

Don't have more than two glasses of port after dinner, don't interrupt the Chairman of Selectors and if in doubt drop Randall.

Six of the Best 674

"Every good brand needs a theme and an aesthetic, and President Donald Trump has spent decades cultivating both. The theme is success, wealth, winning, and the aesthetic is bright, brassy, loud—or, depending whom you ask, gaudy and fake." Peter York says that style is 'dictator chic'.

"Yangon’s old British buildings have the look of Gothic ruins gone astray in a tropical forest that cannot accommodate their scale." Lawrence Osborne retraces George Orwell's footsteps in Myanmar.

Simon Usborne on why unexploded bombs keep turning up on London building sites.

Mark Redfern meets Neil Hannon. Well, it's only a questionnaire really, but there are lots of video clips.

Peter Houseman was a member of the Chelsea teams that won the FA Cup in 1970 and the European Cup Winners' Cup the following year. He died in a car crash in 1977. John Hollins remembers him on the Chelsea FC site.

From writing papers to urinating on other people’s work, cats have a rich history of scholarly work, finds Glen Wright.

GCHQ warns British political parties of danger of Russian hacking

The National Cyber Security Centre (part of GCHQ) has written to the leaders of Britain's political parties warning them about the threat of Russian hacking at the next general election.

And Sky News has the text of the letter, which comes from Ciaran Martin, the centre's chief executive:

"You will be aware of the coverage of events in the United States, Germany and elsewhere reminding us of the potential for hostile action against the UK political system ... 

"This is not just about the network security of political parties' own systems. 

"Attacks against our democratic processes go beyond this and can include attacks on parliament, constituency offices, think tanks and pressure groups and individuals' email accounts."

And, the report goes on to say, the Sunday Times quotes a GCHQ source as saying it regards protecting the British political system from foreign hackers as "priority work".

Later. Lord Bonkers tells me he "caught two fellows with snow on their boots going through the Shuttleworths" at a remote rural committee room during the Ripon by-election of 1973.