The Day Two Countries Were Born

Today marks the most significant date in modern British history. It is the day that the United Kingdom as we now know it was born. The previous entity, also called the United Kingdom, began to disintegrate. And the seeds of a new country were planted. It would take another six years before it happened. But it was coming. After centuries of growing closer, Britain and Ireland were about to go their separate ways.

It began with the strangest sight. Just before midday on April 24th 1916, members of the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood seized key sites around Dublin, and a scattering of other locations across Ireland. The uprising was underway.

Quite what those men and women that set out on that April day thought they would achieve is still not clear. Their claims were garbled, their aims unclear, and their appeals to history and faith were at best histrionic, and at worst plain wrong. Most people were utterly bemused by the Uprising.

Perhaps what they aimed to achieve was best set out by the strange flag they hoisted above their positions. The green symbolised the ideal of a republic, and was associated with the futile struggle to overthrow Britain and create a republic in the 1790s. White represented peace on the island. And lastly, orange. The orange symbolised the different views held by the Unionists, mainly Protestants, primarily in the north-east, who were opposed to leaving Britain. The orange was designed to show that Irishness was not about religion, nor anout politics, it was about nationhood. The Orangemen would have nothing to fear in the new Irish Republic,

Their declaration was met with incredulity. There were even army officers buying stamps in the General Post Office as Patrick Pearse was reading the proclamation outside. The authorities were caught completely unprepared. Only blind luck prevented the centre of administration, Dublin Castle, from falling into rebel hands.

But this was no ordinary country. This was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, ruler of a quarter of the globe. The mightiest instrument of war then yet seen was the Royal Navy. Britain's army was in the process of being expanded and trained to a level never seen before. Yes, Britain was engaged in fighting a world war, but there was no way it would allow a rebellion in the United Kingdom's second city to go unheeded. Against Britain's military might, the rebels stood no chance.

A few days later, it was all over. Dublin lay in ruins. The rebels surrendered. As they matched into captivity, they were booed and hissed the people of Dublin. Britain had already granted Ireland Home Rule. All they had to do was see out the Great War, and the Government of Ireland Act would guarantee Ireland her autonomy within the United Kingdom. All these men and women had done was bring carnage to the streets of Dublin.

And then Britain blinked. The leaders of the rising were tried and executed by the army. This is almost understanable. Britain was at war, and it wasn't clear she would win. These men were guilty of treason, and treason at a time of war. They needed to send out a message.

Britain sent out a message all right, but not the one intended. The summary executions shocked Irish public opinion. Support for the Union with Britain collapsed, and support swung behind Sinn Fein, the political party dedicated to an infependent Ireland. Armed insurrection would follow electoral landslide. After that, freedom. All that was in the future. But the rebels of 1916 made it all possible. The barbaric treatment of the leaders persuaded many in Ireland that they wanted nothing more to do with Britain.

But in a cruel twist of fate, the British were not barbaric enough to achieve total victory. One of the junior leaders of the Easter Rising was spared the firing squad because of his American citizenship. The future architect of the Irish War of Independence, and subsequent transformation from Dominion into republic, was sifted from the condemned. Eamon de Valera lived to fight another day. 

Why is this important? A century of difficult Anglo-Irish relations followed, thanks in part to the toxic legacy of Partition in Ireland, in the form of the Troubles. The call to arms made on Easter Monday 1916 led to terrible violence, both in the name of the Republic and of the Crown. 

And yet, despite the mistrust and violence, millions of people in Britain and Ireland are still linked. I am one of those. I was born in Hertfordshire, and have the southern English accent to prove it. But my full name is pretty Irish, and with good reason; three of my grandparents were born in the Irish Free State, while one (I'm pretty sure) was born into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, months before it was dissolved. Like millions, I have a dual heritage. The Easter Rising is the moment it became dual.

At last, a brighter future seems to lie ahead. Anglo-Irish relations are better than never before. It is time to revisit what those brave men and women did, on that Easter Monday, 1916. For whatever they set out to create, they ended up creating us instead.

Dublin during the Easter Rising, 1916

Æthelred II- not as Unready as you'd think...

Then it happened that king Æthelred passed away before the ships arrived. He ended his days on St George's day, after a life of much hardship and many difficulties.

Æthelred II has not had a good press from historians. His nickname, 'the Unready,' sums up the way he has been presented. During his long reign (978-1016) the country was battered by assault from wave after wave of Viking attack. Years of misery were compounded by the failure of Æthelred and his government to solve the problem. Their military defences were inadequate, and the strategy of paying the Vikings to go away only made matters worse. When he died in 1016, the relatively young Kingdom of the Angles and Saxons was breaking apart, as a final huge Viking onslaught caused the country to splinter again. London was under siege. Prominent chuchmen were declaring that the Apocalypse was upon them.

But this is not the whole picture. Æthelred's epithet appears to come from the Old English for 'poorly advised' and is a pun on his name, which means 'well advised.' Hardly a ringing endorsement, but it does shed a new light on matters. Human beings have always been political animals, and there is just enough evidence to suggest that Æthelred's problems were made worse by the political machinations of those around him. Even today, leaders are hampered when their subordinates offer conflicting advice. The political inertia in France in 1940 brought the country down with it. Æthelred may not have been able to sort out his advisers. But that doesn't mean he is solely to blame for the Viking victories.

The reign of Æthelred also suffers from hindsight. The main account of the events, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was written after his death. It is hard when you know the ending to avoid seeing everything as leading up to it. Paying the Vikings had worked in the past, including for the benchmark of all Old English kings, Alfred of Wessex; no one has ever said that he was soft on the Vikings.

The Chronicle also tells us that in early 1016 the Anglo-Saxon army refused to fight the Vikings unless Æthelred himself led them into battle. Clearly, by this stage Æthelred was too unwell to do so, but it does beg the question: if Æthelred was so useless, why would the soldiers not take to the field without him? And his apparent lack of skill as king did not reduce loyalty to the royal family; his son, Edmund Ironside, was able to call on the support of the West Saxon militia no fewer than five times between April and October 1016. Edmund managed to lift the siege of London, and held the Vikings under Cnut to a bloody draw. Only his premature death in November 1016 prevented a partition of the country.

More importantly, Æthelred's search for allies led him to marry the daughter of the Duke of Normandy. His children spent Cnut's reign in exile there. One of them returned as King later in the 1000s. His name was Edward the Confessor. Æthelred's Norman alliance would have profound impacts on the whole history of these islands.

Today marks a thousand years since Æthelred II died. The Anglo-Saxons were such a long time ago that they barely seem part of our history, more like something out of a fantasy story. But they were not so different to you or I. The past may be a foreign country, but it is not an alien one.

King Æthelred II, as shown in a copy of the Abingdon Chronicle, c. 1200

Have pity on the Republican party, it's been all downhill from 1865...

It must be hard being a leader of the Republican Party.

Not just because of the crisis currently engulfing the party. The chaotic 2016 primary race has forced all the centrist and moderate candidates out of the contest, with the solitary exception of John Kasich. Instead, the race is between the lesser of two evils,  agent of political chaos Donald Trump and firebrand conservative Ted Cruz.

And not because the party is facing an existential crisis, as the decline of the moderate and pragmatic members is leading to more and more hardline politicians being elected. As the chance of compromise on any issue recedes into the distance, so the party looks less and less electable.

No, I think it must be hard when they look at the current bunch of clowns that are threatening to bring the entire party down with them, and then they look back to the first politician they got into the White House. The man who led the Union to victory in the American Civil War. A man who, even today, has a reputation for wisdom and eloquence. So much so that he has a whole host of things attributed to him on the internet that he clearly never said. Who gave one of the most perfect summaries of what it means to live in a liberal democracy And finally, the man who freed the slaves.

How depressing must it be to look at Abraham Lincoln, then look at the current state of the party, and realise that, despite all your best efforts, you will never top ending slavery and keeping the country together? It is hard to claim that Trump's wall is more inspiring than the Emancipation Proclamation, or that Ted Cruz will give the next Gettysburg Address.

Your high point was over a century and a half ago, and it's been downhill all the way. What a thing to comprehend.

But then, maybe Honest Abe does have a link to the Donald. Trump is very fond of finding stuff on the internet and repeating it as true. And we all know that Lincoln had some wise words about that...

The Wit and Wisdom of... Yuri Gagarin

Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!

Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, speaking after the first ever manned space flight, 12th April 1961

A Taxing Matter

So, there you have it. A rich man has more money than we do. That is essentially what we now know that David Cameron has released his tax returns. Joining him were Nicola Sturgeon, George Osborne, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. The release of the so-called Panama Papers last week has brought a new level of transparency to British politics. Never again will potential occupants of Downing Street be able to get away wih not sharing their finances with us.

But has it really? As a man of the left, I am delighted that any crack has appeared in the wall of silence presented to us by the super-rich over how their money is squirreled away. And hopefully some good will come of it.

But, I can't help but think that we've not got a satisfactory outcome. We already knew that Dave was very rich. That is blatant every time he speaks. The fact that Gideon Osborne is the heir to a fortune from a wallpaper company is also not a surprise. Seeing some actual numbers changes virtually nothing.

The main issue is how thousands are genuinely breaking the law, or flying very close to the line, every single day. They do this in the shadowy world of tax havens. Britain is deeply complicit in this, as we are responsible for many of them: Bermuda, the Virgin Islands, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, the Cayman Islands. All are British territories; although Britain does not intervene in the everyday affairs of these olaces, we do have a responsibility for ensuring 'good governance.'

And yet we do nothing. For years we have allowed this problem to fester. Jeremy Corbyn briefly hit on the right note, when he called for Britain to impose direct rule on these places, unless they sorted out their suspicious financial affairs. But it all got lost in the charge to see David Cameron's bank account.

Cameron and co would be mad if they'd even come close to doing wrong whilst in government. Added to their posh-boy image, it would have proved fatal to their careers. Anyway, it barely matters for Cameron. He will never face the country for re-election. This may have hastened his departure. But he is already going, and so can weather pressures PM's hoping to continue might flounder in.

I'm sorry, those of you pleased with the way it all played out. We got the wrong target. The real beneficiaries are smiling to themselves. Possibly in the sun somewhere...

Nuclear Trump

Since 1945, the world has lived in the shadow of nuclear weapons. And we have been incredibly lucky. After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have never been used in warfare.

But we have come close. In 1962, the world teetered on the edge of the apocalypse, as John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev threatened to take the human race with them in their showdown over Cuba. We were very lucky to see out 1983, when a NATO test of its nuclear response systems was seen by the USSR as cover for an attack. For months, fear and mistrust nearly killed us all. And in 1995, the test launch of a Norwegian rocket was mistaken for an incoming missile by Russian radar. Boris Yeltsin, the Russian President, activated the Russian computer that would send out the signal to fire. Had the missile not landed very shortly, you probably would not be reading this today.

It seems obvious that a world with too many nuclear weapons is unsafe. Without any at all, now that's a different question for another time. But for half a century, there have been moves to limit the spread and number of atomic bombs. The near miss over Cuba led to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the first attempt to set a limit on nuclear weapon use. Since then, despite many false starts, delays and dead ends, the number of nuclear weapons has decreased dramatically. Only a handful of countries have them, and those that try to add them to their inventory are given incentives to come in from the cold, such as Iran. Those that defy this trend, like North Korea, end up as international pariahs.

This idea, that to reduce and eventually abolish nuclear weapons, is so ingrained into geo-politics that it seemed obvious. And then enter Donald Trump.

Trump is not an abolitionist. He isn't even a reductionist. Instead, the Donald wants to allow countries to develop their own nuclear stockpiles, to reduce the need for America to protect them.

To that end, he wants to see a nuclear Japan and South Korea, to stand up to North Korea and China. He has also spoken recently about supporting a Saudi Arabian atomic weapons programme.

But Trump went further. He has suggested that the use of nuclear weapons should be normalised. For example, when asked recently whether he would use them in a conflict in Europe, Trump responded with a yes, adding the justification 'it's a big place.'

That is terrifying. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been no realistic chance of a nuclear war in Europe, or really anywhere in the world. And here is a candidate for the US Presidency, suggesting he wants to encourage states to arm themselves, and even advocating the use of nuclear weapons in conflicts.

I still don't think that the Donald will even be the Republican Party nominee, let alone the President. But if he does get anywhere near the White House, there is a good advert from the last nuclear nutter to run for President that they should dust down and reuse:

These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark