Four things you didn’t see by today

On 28th March I predicted that, before today,  you would not see a female High Court Judge, an apology from the Irish News re Winkie Rea , disclosure in the Kingsmills case and a Willie march in Dublin.

Four out of four isn’t bad.

I’m sure Dec will fulfil his promise to the Assembly soon, though , given the apparent separation of powers , so loved by constitutional lawyers and almost entirely absent here, I’m not sure why he had to make that promise and where that takes us. Look out for ‘the people’ [that is the assembly]  taking over the disciplining of lawyers and their appointments to the Bench. Will this break the stranglehold of the big flagship grammar schools? Don’t hold your breath!

Poor old Willie is battling two states, not one. If he thinks that the Republic is likely to disclose more than his beloved Queen, he is living in a dream world.

Re Winkie, the fight is not yet over.

The Police Ombudsman..progress report I

Over a month has passed since I lodged my detailed complaint and set out my allegations regarding the state agents who murdered my parents.

So far, all I’ve had is an acknowledgement.

Perhaps they are very busy, perhaps there is a fluttering in the coop. Who knows?

At least one suspect was so concerned with my blog on the matter, also published a month ago , that just yesterday he contacted me , threatening legal action.

Let’s see…..

Touts are everywhere

Way back, when the occupying power, as James Galway describes it, decided to recruit pro- agreement people and place them in law , administration, business and other key places, they must also have thought about journalists and politicians .

Our local journalists are keen to write articles about  who might have been a tout, loyalist or republican but how many of them are state agents? Imagine the access they have to the inner workings of the terrorists. See Kim Philby’s career. When the SIS ‘ditched’ him , they sent him to Beirut under cover as a journalist for the Observer and the Economist. So, shall we have an article , outing journalists or is that beyond the Pale?

Politicians. Most of Sinn Fein/IRA lost the opportunity for education by being banged up. The loyalists, on the other hand availed of third level education. A favourite fishing ground for Box and SIS is Oxbridge. Who went there?…No! Surely not!

Let’s think who else would be useful. A lawyer! They have access to all sorts of information. Perhaps someone transgressed and men came at dead of night and said, “well Paddy/ William, no more will be heard of this little problem but we’d like some information from you, from time to time”. Such information, about their clients, from a barrister or solicitor, would be priceless. What would be the reward? Judicial office?

Then there is that mass of mostly dead wood who inhabit  all sorts of NGOs. Check out their bios and you will find that they are re-cycled at an alarming rate. What they have in common is “sit down you’re rocking the boat”. For this view the NIO and the OFMDFM rewards them handsomely. Frank Cushnahan comes to mind for a reason that I can’t quite put my finger on. Many rose without a trace  from the University of Ulster. Sport NI is just the tip of the toxic iceberg.

So, come on you journos, let’s be having you!

Apex credit management

This entity is appointed by HMRC, you and me, to pursue debts.

The VAT bit of HMRC has asserted , for several years, that I owe them £2773.78.

Despite many requests by my accountant,  and by me , HMRC cannot demonstrate how this sum is due, in fact they refuse to provide any calculation.

They passed it to this organisation who has  rung me many times. I have tried to use humour in my dealings with them, suggesting that if I had taken my car to the garage, the owner would have given me a detailed bill.

All to no avail. I was rung, late the other evening , by a young man who raised his voice and suggested that it was I who  should prove that I didn’t owe the money.

He got both barrels and a request that they do not ring me again.

What harm must these ghastly people wreak on older and more vulnerable citizens?

James Carrick Annette Sefton, an appreciation

James was born on 25 February 1925, the second  son of William and Cissie Sefton.

He left school at fourteen and was , like many of his contemporaries, apprenticed in Harland and Wolff.

Despite being good at maths he was in love with literature and history. He read three books each week, borrowed from Shankill Road public library.

When I was eight, he took me there and signed me up. We went to the childrens’ section. “Here is a book you might like”. It was a Tale of Two Cities. I remember taking it home and reading the opening lines. How inspirational is that for any boy?

James wanted to be a teacher but his circumstances did not permit.

He was always smart  and well turned out and eventually found his way into the RUC.

Not your usual officer, he completed a crossword every day and counted Paddy Devlin amongst his friends. That friendship may not be surprising in that James was a socialist and Paddy was born a few streets away.

Never an unthinking loyalist, he used to take amusement in observing that the Orangemen were having their ‘ annual’ church visit,

He married my mother , Ellen, a beauty and rich , and a year older than him in 1949. That must have made his friends jealous.

They were in love right to the end.

They represented all that was good about Northern Ireland in those years that many observers  have rubbished. They had honeymooned in Dublin [ where I was made]  and visited the Republic regularly.

James had a dry sense of humour that could convey a concept. I remember reading out my letter of offer of a place to read law at QUB, at the breakfast table.

His reply was “anyone who gets a university place and fails should be shot” That got my attention and is probably explained by  his wish to have been a teacher.

When I explained that I was prosecuting my first historic sex abuse trial, he remarked that “those people steal childrens’ childhoods”. It was the first time I really understood abuse.

James served uncomplainingly in B division for many years.

The rector of St Matthew’s, with whom he loved to debate , said of him and my mother; “they were ordinary decent caring people…[James] was not the sort of man to talk about politics, he was a tolerant sort of individual who didn’t hold any unyielding views”

I still hold the memory of him going out on night duty , after the Anglo Irish Agreement, when he was more likely to be attacked by loyalists.

I never told him how much I loved him.

I know that I am not alone in my loss and that many people suffered more than I did.

But he was my Dad, the bravest man I ever knew and I’m only half the man he was.

Project Eagle, decisions, decisions

Image if you owned the local Kwikemart and employed X as your manager.

One day you discover that X has diverted to an account, of which he is the sole beneficiary, the week’s takings.

Would you:

[a] retrieve the money

[b] request that he leave

[c] report the matter to the National Union of Small Shopkeepers

[d] other

Bear in mind though that it’s a tough call and you might want to consult a lawyer.

The man on the Turf Lodge omnibus must wonder what service merits a fee of £7 million to begin with.

Cameron and platitudes

Here is a question for the relatives and loved ones of the British citizens, butchered on a  Tunisian beach.

How likely is it that Cameron will do anything material in response?

The British government negotiates with , appeases, protects, gives letters of comfort and Royal Pardons to murdering terrorists within its borders. Gerry Kelly , who blew up the Old Bailey, got a Royal pardon.

PIRA terrorists, responsible for thousands of deaths and injury were supplied by Islamic terrorists, yet these  internal terrorists are in power in part of the United Kingdom and Cameron refuses to help compensate their victims.

So don’t imagine Dave is doing anything more that spouting platitudes.

Sorry.

Doug Beattie and leg humping

Soldier , author of “An ordinary Soldier” and “Task Force Helmand”, holder of the MC, UUP councillor and sometime talking head, said:

“they won’t go away, they can’t be reasoned with it’ll only get worse. IS must be defeated militarily and politically.” This in response to an article in the Independent which attempted to set out the nuances of the situation.

I responded to him “calm down dear, let’s treat them like PIRA, all will be well then.”

Unable to see the subtlety of the remark [and the reference to Cameron] he suggested that I was being patronising.

I explained that my remark was made as a result of my experience of HMG and PIRA.

He responded “You’re kinda foolish aren’t you-you’d best jog on and hump someone else’s leg”.

I suppose this must be NCO speak for something.

The point is that on Sunday, lots of talking heads, more able than our second favourite local squaddie, offered pat solutions to IS and lots of jingoism.

Nothing is ever as it seems, who knows how many IS fighters received assistance from the CIA or MI6? How often has IS been used by the West against other foes?How many agents does the West have in IS and how many participate in attacks? What negotiations are going on with IS as we speak? Remember that the British Government talked tough about the IRA for thirty years , all the while negotiating with it. Remember how Major’s stomach would be turned by such a prospect?

As Lord Castlereagh said of diplomacy ” a lie is not a lie where the truth is not expected”.

IS is embedded in many countries and reflects discontent with those particular regimes, a certain view of Islam and no doubt hatred of the West.

Not one commentator I heard on Sunday wanted to open up the wider picture. Apart from the embedded hatred of the West, accrued after the  perfidious treatment meted out by Britain and France after the Great War and subsequent US foreign policy in the Middle East, nobody wanted to mention the thousands of Muslim women and children, killed by the West since 9/11 .

That might provide an explanation [though not an excuse] for both massacres in the last year in Tunisia.

The lets ‘go napalm their village” approach has failed over and over. The British Army’s performance in Iraq and Afghanistan was pitiful. There are no bad privates only bad generals and the British press, disgracefully, have failed to hold successive generals to account.

I’m sure Doug was a good  and brave company commander and I’m sure his views are about just as worthy as Richard Dannatt. Both are wrong in their simplistic thinking .

Perfidious Albion

Those who are perplexed by British foreign policy would do well to consider the treatment of the Bolsheviks.

In 1918 the British Government, with the support of that great professional warmonger, Churchill, ordered the Marines to attack the Bolsheviks and support the White Russians [ for them read Tories] . The Brits got their asses whipped.

Guess which army beat Adolf in 1945?

Cameron, the International Toad

Once again, British  [and other] citizens have been killed by Islamic terrorists.

Leaving aside the valid  counter argument that we have killed an awful lot of Muslims in the last fifteen years, let’s look at what happens next.

Wheel out the platitudes!

“I say Rupert , old man, dust off that ‘they won’t succeed’ speech, for Dave”

“the 1972 version?”

“Yes, obviously, with the names changed, again.”

Puffed up Toad of Toad Hall was big on talk when it came to the weasels but he had to be rescued by Badger , Mole and Rat.

Let me translate Dave’s words for you.

“we will defeat the terrorists”= “we are currently in talks with them , offering all sorts of incentives, if only they would stop”

“these terrorists will not succeed”= “my officials will invite them to Chequers”

“there is no place for these Islamist extremists in the modern world”= “OTR letter, Royal Pardon, Abdul?”

Anybody who has had dealings with the Cameron Government over the last five years knows what a liar he is. For example ,he promised that Sir Kim Darroch would negotiate on behalf of the Libyan victims but Sir Kim, properly, told me that that was not the brief that he had been given.

The fact is that the British Foreign Office is a mealy mouthed pathetic excuse for an organisation which fails to represent British Interests. On this Armed Forces Day I’m sure that most veterans would not disagree.

Dave/Toad will do nothing much, except bluster.  He will rely on stronger friends to wield the cudgels on the weasels.