There isn't really any undramatic way to start this, but I'll try. Yesterday I got mugged on the way to a friend's house. Sounds dramatic. At the time, I was shocked. Now, it looks pretty hilarious really. To help all those planning a robbery, I've put together a handy checklist based on my experience:
DO
Make sure you're nice and polite to the victim; if you're going to take things from him or her, at least have a chat about the day.
Ensure the victim isn't a penniless student. Otherwise you might be disappointed when you open the wallet.
Remember to pretty much hand the victim one of your weapons while you help him look for his wallet. Which you've just taken.
Check the age of any MP3 player you're about to steal. Ensure it isn't four years old, and that more than two buttons work.
Offer to return the MP3 player you've just taken. Even if your accomplice stops you, its a nice thought.
Return the wallet with all the cards in it, without even looking at them. Otherwise that'd just be bang out of order.
DO NOT
Use what appears to be a butter knife as a threatening weapon. Even the merest thought it might be a kitchen utensil can immediately help the victim to feel much better.
Or, for that matter, a piece of fence panel. This also looks silly.
Use each other's names. This is just daft.
Empty the meagre contents of the wallet onto the floor. If said victim is a penniless student, this won't help matters at all.
Monday, 27 February 2012
What If... The Army Had Never Gone to Northern Ireland?
Today marked the start of a new phase of the Leveson Inquiry. It's still an odd image, that of the Metropolitan Police having their good name dragged in the mud; for a long time we had viewed them as the most professional police force anywhere in the world.
One person who agreed with this was the former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. In the summer of 1969, years of simmering tension in Northern Ireland between the ruling Unionist community and the vociferous Nationalist minority boiled over into civil disorder. Confronted with riots on the streets, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Chichester-Clark, asked Westminster to send in the army to restore order. James Callaghan, the Home Secretary, was all for the move. But Wilson wasn't so sure. Upon hearing Army estimates that the troops might have to stay for months, Wilson mused it would probably be years before any army operation would be over. So he gave new orders to Callaghan; he was to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) with officers from the Met, and the RUC was to be disarmed.
History has thought long and hard about this issue. It has been argued that using the army would have lanced the boil of terrorism, which caused so much of a petty nuisance to the British people over the years. However, others also claim that troops used to counter-insurgency in more distant parts of the world would have reacted badly to the presence of the media spotlight, and that the problems would have been much worse. What we do know is that the initially warm response to the Met from both nationalists and unionists soon faded, as the RUC failed to make much headway in reforming itself and Chichester-Clark refused to budge on political reform.
The crunch point came on January 30th 1972, when an RUC patrol fired on a civil rights march in Derry, leading to the deaths of thirteen marchers. The new UK Prime Minister, Edward Heath, angrily called in Chichester-Clark and abolished the Stormont parliament. All the police forces in the mainland of the UK diverted their reserves over to Ulster, and the army once again was put on standby.
But the crisis never came. The presence of a pan-UK unarmed police force keeping law and order, plus the assumption of direct control from Westminster of Northern Irish affairs, pulled the rug from under the struggling IRA, which folded soon afterwards. The Ulster Unionist Party, realising it could not afford to block political reforms any longer, elected Brian Faulkner as leader, a moderate. He was able to compose a deal with Heath and the leader of the nationalist SDLP, Gerry Fitt, which set up an elected assembly, with a First Minister and a deputy First Minister drawn from the largest of the two unionist and nationalist parties respectively The first elections to the 'Sunningdale Assembly' took place in 1974, and were a landslide victory for Faulkner, Fitt and the moderates. After a further series of violent spates in the late 1970s, especially in South Armagh, life in Northern Ireland pretty much returned to normal. In 1980, the UK police force which had helped to stabilise the streets withdrew, widely considered the best police service anywhere in the world (well, here at least!); it was replaced by the unfortunately named Northern Irish Police Service (NIPS).
And this is how the province has been ever since. Long periods of joint UUP-SDLP rule set in, and as these were allied to the two main Westminster parties (Conservatives and Labour respectively) the elections to the Assembly came largely to be seen as a from of advanced local government. The normalisation of politics in the province also allowed politicians from the area to take key government roles at Westminster: Josias Cunningham proved a safe pair of hands as Mrs Thatcher's Agriculture Minister, using his farming expertise to curtail a little known but dangerous practice whereby farmers fed meat to their cows, while Joe Hendron of the SDLP helped Tony Blair to implement devolution in both Scotland and Wales. The 1990 elections did produce a slight blip, when the deep unpopularity of the Conservative government at Westminster led to the election by a knife's edge of the strident Ian Paisley as First Minister; in 1994, he was quickly removed from office.
But these decades of two party rule created a bubbling resentment amongst voters, until in 2006 the UUP and SDLP were overtaken by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein as the largest parties in the Assembly. Initial fears that the province would slide back into chaos were defied as the DUP's Peter Robinson proved more than able to work with the former terrorist Martin McGuinness; such is the legacy of healed wounds.
P.S. Prime Ministers/First Ministers of Northern Ireland, 1969-2012
1969-1972- James Chichester-Clark (UUP)
1974-1977- Brian Faulkner (UUP)
1977-1990- James Molyneaux (UUP)
1990-1994- Iain Paisley (DUP)
1994-2006- David Trimble (UUP)
2006-2012- Peter Robinson (DUP)
P.P.S. deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland, 1974-2012
1974-1980- Gerry Fitt (SDLP)
1980-1998- John Hume (SDLP)
1998-2006- Mark Durkan (SDLP)
2006-2012- Martin McGuinness (Sinn Fein)
One person who agreed with this was the former Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. In the summer of 1969, years of simmering tension in Northern Ireland between the ruling Unionist community and the vociferous Nationalist minority boiled over into civil disorder. Confronted with riots on the streets, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Chichester-Clark, asked Westminster to send in the army to restore order. James Callaghan, the Home Secretary, was all for the move. But Wilson wasn't so sure. Upon hearing Army estimates that the troops might have to stay for months, Wilson mused it would probably be years before any army operation would be over. So he gave new orders to Callaghan; he was to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) with officers from the Met, and the RUC was to be disarmed.
History has thought long and hard about this issue. It has been argued that using the army would have lanced the boil of terrorism, which caused so much of a petty nuisance to the British people over the years. However, others also claim that troops used to counter-insurgency in more distant parts of the world would have reacted badly to the presence of the media spotlight, and that the problems would have been much worse. What we do know is that the initially warm response to the Met from both nationalists and unionists soon faded, as the RUC failed to make much headway in reforming itself and Chichester-Clark refused to budge on political reform.
The crunch point came on January 30th 1972, when an RUC patrol fired on a civil rights march in Derry, leading to the deaths of thirteen marchers. The new UK Prime Minister, Edward Heath, angrily called in Chichester-Clark and abolished the Stormont parliament. All the police forces in the mainland of the UK diverted their reserves over to Ulster, and the army once again was put on standby.
But the crisis never came. The presence of a pan-UK unarmed police force keeping law and order, plus the assumption of direct control from Westminster of Northern Irish affairs, pulled the rug from under the struggling IRA, which folded soon afterwards. The Ulster Unionist Party, realising it could not afford to block political reforms any longer, elected Brian Faulkner as leader, a moderate. He was able to compose a deal with Heath and the leader of the nationalist SDLP, Gerry Fitt, which set up an elected assembly, with a First Minister and a deputy First Minister drawn from the largest of the two unionist and nationalist parties respectively The first elections to the 'Sunningdale Assembly' took place in 1974, and were a landslide victory for Faulkner, Fitt and the moderates. After a further series of violent spates in the late 1970s, especially in South Armagh, life in Northern Ireland pretty much returned to normal. In 1980, the UK police force which had helped to stabilise the streets withdrew, widely considered the best police service anywhere in the world (well, here at least!); it was replaced by the unfortunately named Northern Irish Police Service (NIPS).
And this is how the province has been ever since. Long periods of joint UUP-SDLP rule set in, and as these were allied to the two main Westminster parties (Conservatives and Labour respectively) the elections to the Assembly came largely to be seen as a from of advanced local government. The normalisation of politics in the province also allowed politicians from the area to take key government roles at Westminster: Josias Cunningham proved a safe pair of hands as Mrs Thatcher's Agriculture Minister, using his farming expertise to curtail a little known but dangerous practice whereby farmers fed meat to their cows, while Joe Hendron of the SDLP helped Tony Blair to implement devolution in both Scotland and Wales. The 1990 elections did produce a slight blip, when the deep unpopularity of the Conservative government at Westminster led to the election by a knife's edge of the strident Ian Paisley as First Minister; in 1994, he was quickly removed from office.
But these decades of two party rule created a bubbling resentment amongst voters, until in 2006 the UUP and SDLP were overtaken by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein as the largest parties in the Assembly. Initial fears that the province would slide back into chaos were defied as the DUP's Peter Robinson proved more than able to work with the former terrorist Martin McGuinness; such is the legacy of healed wounds.
P.S. Prime Ministers/First Ministers of Northern Ireland, 1969-2012
1969-1972- James Chichester-Clark (UUP)
1974-1977- Brian Faulkner (UUP)
1977-1990- James Molyneaux (UUP)
1990-1994- Iain Paisley (DUP)
1994-2006- David Trimble (UUP)
2006-2012- Peter Robinson (DUP)
P.P.S. deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland, 1974-2012
1974-1980- Gerry Fitt (SDLP)
1980-1998- John Hume (SDLP)
1998-2006- Mark Durkan (SDLP)
2006-2012- Martin McGuinness (Sinn Fein)
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
In case you were wondering...
I haven't abandoned the counterfactual history! Its just that the more real type keeps trying to take over my life in the form of my degree... So watch this space, there's plenty of stuff in the pipeline!
The Wit and Wisdom of... Robert Baden Powell
The secret of sound education is to get each pupil to learn for himself, instead of instructing him by driving knowledge into him on a stereotyped system
Robert Baden Powell, Chief Scout of the World, 1912
Robert Baden Powell, Chief Scout of the World, 1912
Monday, 20 February 2012
The Wit and Wisdom of... Robert Carr
Rereading my undergrad dissertation notes, and I came across this gem from an interview with Robert Carr, the Tory Secretary of State for Employment in the early 1970s, given years later about the Industrial Relations Act:
I had to have a brief in order to understand the purpose of the clause I was talking about. So it was complex to me, one of its main authors. What it seemed like to other people I dread to think.
Thank God government legislation has come a long way since then...
I had to have a brief in order to understand the purpose of the clause I was talking about. So it was complex to me, one of its main authors. What it seemed like to other people I dread to think.
Thank God government legislation has come a long way since then...
The Wit and Wisdom of... Edward Heath
"If we are to put Britain back on her feet we must change our whole attitude to work and its rewards."
Edward Heath, in the Preface to Fair Deal at Work, the 1968 tract on trade union reform, written by Robert Carr, who has died this weekend.
Edward Heath, in the Preface to Fair Deal at Work, the 1968 tract on trade union reform, written by Robert Carr, who has died this weekend.
Sunday, 19 February 2012
How to Use a Library
Imagine the scene: A University Library, somewhere in the North of England.
Generic Undergrad: Hi there mate, can you help me find a book I'm looking for, I'm really stuck?
Conscientious Assitant: Sure thing, do you have any details for it?
Generic Undergrad: Yes, it's at shelfmark AL35, on the second floor, by (Some philosopher), called (Some philosophical work), translated in 1905, and its not on loan.
Conscientious Assitant: Right... what do you need me for?
Generic Undergrad: Well, I need help looking at the books on the shelves.
(Mind slips into contemplating the fate of humanity, the British education and system and how people who previously got Mummy and Daddy to do everything for them will cope once they arrive in the real world...)
Generic Undergrad: Hi there mate, can you help me find a book I'm looking for, I'm really stuck?
Conscientious Assitant: Sure thing, do you have any details for it?
Generic Undergrad: Yes, it's at shelfmark AL35, on the second floor, by (Some philosopher), called (Some philosophical work), translated in 1905, and its not on loan.
Conscientious Assitant: Right... what do you need me for?
Generic Undergrad: Well, I need help looking at the books on the shelves.
(Mind slips into contemplating the fate of humanity, the British education and system and how people who previously got Mummy and Daddy to do everything for them will cope once they arrive in the real world...)
Monday, 13 February 2012
The Trouble with Health...
So this morning I was proving just how cool I am, and was listening to the Today programme on my walk to campus, but with poor signal. Before my radio tuned out, I heard someone pose this question about the Health and Social Care Bill, which is currently trawling its way through Parliament amid enormous difficulty.
"Can anyone else recall a piece of government legislation which was so badly thought through, was changed so much to get it through Parliament, proved massively unpopular, and then, looking to the future, caused so much organisational chaos?
Now as I said, I missed the rest of the bulletin. But, unless there's something else which fits the bill, my seminar today was on the Poll Tax of 1381. A parallel with the 1990 Poll Tax, perhaps?
"Can anyone else recall a piece of government legislation which was so badly thought through, was changed so much to get it through Parliament, proved massively unpopular, and then, looking to the future, caused so much organisational chaos?
Now as I said, I missed the rest of the bulletin. But, unless there's something else which fits the bill, my seminar today was on the Poll Tax of 1381. A parallel with the 1990 Poll Tax, perhaps?
Friday, 10 February 2012
The Wit and Wisdom of... Reggie Maudling
"If they had been sent in, should they have gone in with their rifles loaded or unloaded?"
Reginald Maudling, Home Secretary, in answer to calls for the use of the army against strikers at Saltley Gate, February 10th 1972.
Reginald Maudling, Home Secretary, in answer to calls for the use of the army against strikers at Saltley Gate, February 10th 1972.
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