Colin H Baker

Why i think the media has given the Conservative party an unfair reprieve in recent years.

An Introduction to some of my views on Anti-Semitism in general and the Conservative party since its birth in 1834.

There’s been a lot said and written by our media, mainstream and social about racism and anti-semitism over the last dozen years, and mainly the last four years. After the very close general election result in 2017 with Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour leader who came within a few percentages points to beat Theresa Mays Conservatives, who in the run up to the election had a huge lead of 21 points in the polls. Yes one could say there was a mini earthquake right across the media and country. It even discombobulated me personally, no way could i see our mainly right wing media, and the most powerful people who really control this country, ever let a left wing socialist like Corbyn ever get close again to winning another General Election. And along with the many Blairite’s still in and around the periphery of the Labour party. Yes the rest is History.

And having lived and seen racism and anti-semtism close up, its rises and falls all of my life since my early teens in the 1950s, to this day in the UK, and have always stood up and been counted against them when possible, sometimes one succeeds, but with most racists it’s a losing battle. It becomes ingrained in there whole thinking and attitudes if not their psyche, and you find yourself talking to a blank wall. They also have many tricks to try to confuse one, or divert ones original thoughts, especially the more clever ones who seem to get some strange joy from it.

So with my life’s experiences and knowledge of the subject, and what i have seen over recent years, i set my self a task which i knew would be very difficult and very time consuming, something i always find i’m fighting or rushing, ageing does that to people. I always knew that the media and it’s disciples ignored conveniently how much anti-semitism there was in the Conservative party’s history past and present, so they could spend all their time and energy labeling Corbyn and the left of the Labour party which included myself who has always been to the left in politics anti-semites, which personally i found insulting to the extreme. I have always known that anti-semitism was everywhere in the UK in political party’s in degrees and in the everyday conversations by non political people, i also put a figure on it which was between five to seven percent and why most of my time on social media i did my best to not even talk about it until recently, because i always thought rightly or wrongly nobody wins and everyone loses. And as someone who always tried to be as honest as i can without hurting people, and a lover of facts and detest fake propaganda and liars and cheats, i owe it to myself, if to nobody else to speak or write as i feel over this subject, knowing i could be attacked from all quarters. but to at least have it on record. So i will get on with my blog which could take a few weeks knowing me and my life.

The very long blog will follow below this original comment, and i will be doing it in parts, one, two, three etc, because of its length. And forgive any typos etc , because most of my life i was an engineer and not a secretary with a typewriter in a office somewhere.

RACISM & ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY 1830-2021. ———————————————————————————- PART ONE. ————

The Conservative Party was said to have been founded by Robert Peel in the 1930s, when Jews could not open a shop in the City of London or become a barrister, graduate from University and become a member of parliament unless baptised. In 1930 Robert Peel ( prime minister 1834/5 1841/46 ) was recorded to have spoken in parliament in opposition to the emancipation of the Jews. Peel thought Jews were regarded as foreigners (Aliens) because they wouldn’t combine or unite with us in their customs and habits. So one could openly say that Anti-Semitism in the Conservative Party began then.

And a law was in place until 1850, stating that no member of the Jewish religion along with some Christians, could be elected to parliament because they refused to swear the Oath of Adjuration, a very strong Christian worded Oath below……… ( I swear on the Holy Book that i will leave the realm of England and never return without the express permission of my Lord the King or his heirs. I will hasten by the direct road to the port allotted to me and not leave the Kings highway under pain of arrest or execution. I will not stay at one place more than one night and will seek diligently for a passage across the sea as soon as i arrive, delaying only one tide if possible, if i cannot secure such passage, i will walk into the sea up to my knees everyday as a token of my desire to cross. And if i fail in all this, then peril shall be my lot ).

This then brings me to Benjamin Disraeli who was baptised at the age of 12 in 1817, because his father Isaac D`israeli had a quarrel with his Synagogue in 1813, which led to the decision in 1817 to have his children baptised as Christians. Without this Benjamin’s political career could never have taken the form it did. Which i will come back to later, and a certain discussion i had recently in a mainly right wing thread on facebook, that if nothing else, i found very interesting and informative, but i digress so back to my main point. Which takes us back to 1858 and the Jews Relief Act, that was brought in by the whigs also know as the Liberals, yes a dirty word in many right wing commentaries today along with the word Woke, which could be a very large blog on it’s own. But in 1858 the Jews Relief Act became law, even though there was a few dozen Conservatives who actually voted against and gave many Anti-Semitic comments in the process in parliament, far too many to write here, but one can find them quite easily if one tries. I will mention one for the record, George Bank’s one, he expressed his horror at the possibility of seeing a Jew Premier in parliament… I still feel i’m walking on eggshells when discussing this subject, as in a few cases which has happened on social media to me personally and i’m sure i am not alone, i have been verbally attacked and called Anti-Semitic by some Jews because i have defended Muslims in some threads, and i have been called Islamaphobic by Muslims because i have defended Jews in other threads, so it’s always been a uncomfortable subject online. And why i have kept well clear of it for many years until recently, especially when i’ve seen the debates corrupted deliberately on mainstream and social media. And if people on here don’t know me by now when it comes to racism, they never will, i treat everyone in the main as individuals, not what race they are or what religion they follow, life has taught me that there is good and bad in all walks of the life.

So back to Benjamin Disraeli, and first the written conversation i had on that right leaning facebook post i mentioned earlier, when i made a comment about a blog for my website which i’m doing right now about Anti-Semitism in the Conservative party, after seeing time after time right wing commentators and especially journalists putting all the blame as usual on the left of politics, which i know is complete nonsense, having seen it all my life in all walks of life since i was a young lad. So i did my own journalistic investigations to make sure i didn’t dream everything i saw with my own eyes as i grew up in the UK, and why i reacted as i did when i use to see it and by calling it out when i could. After mentioning about doing a blog on Conservative Racism and Anti-Semitism, the normal silence followed, until a semi question was put to me, ” Didn’t the Conservatives have the first Jewish prime minister in Benjamin Disraeli over a 150 years ago ” and of course my answer was yes, and look how he was treated by fellow Conservatives. I was then told my attempt to find Anti-Semitism in the Conservative Party, is a kind of projection which is partly true, along with proving my reasoning to begin writing about it in the first place, which includes my life’s experiences, while seeing it first hand. And yes i have questioned myself, what on earth was i up to, mentioning my blog especially in a right leaning echo chamber, thinking you are asking for trouble Baker. Then like most times, i stopped and realised i have always stood alone against the crowd, knowing it’s one of the best self examinations one can give oneself. The only downfall as one ages is that time waits for no man, and this will only lengthen this blog and it’s finishing. Even though it is also an education in itself, and one can still learn new things you never thought of, just by double checking it out.

Another comment on those threads, was something i had to check out because i couldn’t agree with it, with what iv’e read previously, while thinking it wasn’t that simple as he commented. Which was ” The irony is that Benjamin Disraeli perceived himself as a Anglican and not Jewish. His parents might be as best described as self hating Jews”. This all goes back to Benjamin Disraeli’s baptism by his parents over his fathers disagreement with the Synagogue, which unless one could of been in his head at the time, there could be many reasons, anything from a simple tiff putting it mildly or because he might have felt it would help his son in his political future, or in just plain general life. So on this i will keep a open mind, even though being baptised didn’t really give him a easy life, in my view.

Even though Benjamin Disraeli was baptised and why i said he never had a easy life, was because Benjamin Disraeli suffered prejudice from some conservatives throughout his political life. He was called many things, from ” that hellish Jew” and ” he bares the mark of the Jew strongly bout him, he is evidently clever but superlatively vulgar”. And was also considered Un English because he held certain beliefs. Historian David Cesarani, who specialised in Jewish history and the Holocaust. And being a well respected recorder of Jewish history, one could say he knew his stuff. He also did the biography of Disraeli in 2014 and accused Disraeli of playing a large part in the construction of Anti-Semitism discourse, and almost single handed invented the Lexicon (language in short) of modern racial Anti-Semitism. Jonathon Freedland a Jewish journalist for the Guardian and a author himself under a pseudonym “Sam Bourne” revised David Cesarani’s Benjamin Disraeli’s biography, and was quoted saying ” Disraeli clearly internalised the anti Jewish sentiment in which his society was drenched, as can be seen in Disraeli’s novels, which contain Anti-Semitic stereotypes, and Disraeli is complicit in promoting grossly anti Jewish Tropes (a recurrent theme or a idea or device that repeatedly appears. This especially makes me think how history has repeated itself over the last four to five years and what encouraged me to write this blog, tropes were and are everywhere in our right wing media outlets.

And under the leadership of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (1885-1902) the Conservative Party was partly responsible for the organised Anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom. When the pro facist para military group, the British Brothers League (BBL) which was founded in 1901 by members of the Conservative Party, including Howard Vincent MP and the notorious William Evans-Gordon MP drew its membership from sections of the Conservative Party. The BBL was the largest and best organised Anti-Alien group of its time. It was led by the Conservatives and also dominated by them. Its whole agenda was to put pressure on the government to stop the arrival of poor Jews into Britain, it was successful in that its pressure was instrumental in persuading parliament to pass the 1905 Aliens Act. William Evans-Gordon was elected to parliament on an anti-alien platform and began campaigning for changes to the governments immigration policies. In the first year of being elected Evans-Gordon and other Conservative MPs obscured their Anti-Semitism in their cause that might have been considered a reasonable immigration policy, today we call that playing politics with words, within their conversations ” immigrant” and “alien” often meant ” Jew”.

With four Conservative MPs in support at its inaugural meeting, the British Brothers League was founded on the 9th May 1901. And a month later at another meeting another group was formed called the Londoners League with the aim to pressure the government also. The Londoners League worked with the BBL at a lower level and had a number of Conservative MPs and Councillors as speakers. The BBL stirred up popular racism against Jewish immigrants, who had moved to the City to find refuge because they had been displaced in their countries by pograms (massacre by nationalists) which happened to the Jews here in 1903 with the help of the police and fascists.

By then Arthur Balfour became leader (1902-1911) and under him Evans-Gordon as Chairman began to set up a Royal Commission on Alien Immigrants, and as a key member submitted reports to the commission. The Royal Commission was a parliamentary platform against Jewish migrants, and concerned itself almost entirely with Jews. In 1903 the antisemitic Immigration Reform Association was established, with Richard Hely- Hutchinson (Earl of Donoughmore) as president, and thought to be a respectable group within the anti-alien network. They assisted the BBL to put even more pressure on the government. And with a Harry F Smith a Conservative agent, the Immigration Reform Association organised a major demonstration in Novemeber 1903 with the BBL providing a procession. In 1903 Evans-Gordon wrote the Alien Immigrant with the aim to influence public opinion on immigration. In this, he addressed the so called “Jewish question” Asserting that ” the settlement of large aggregations of Hebrews in a Christian land has never been successful”.

The Royal Commission reported its findings on Alien Immigration in August 1903, which would inform the Aliens Act of 1905, recommending tough and restrictive laws against alien entry into Britain. The then Conservative Home Secretary Aretas Akers-Douglas in 1904 brought a bill to parliament that would ‘make provision with respect to the Immigration of Aliens, and other matters incidental thereto’. Within the bill, ‘alien’ was an implicit reference to “the Jew”. William Evans-Gordon was a primary author of the 1904 Immigration bill. In 1905, the revised bill passed into law. Evans-Gordon’s speeches were ‘the primary catalyst for the final passage of the Act’. He became known as the “father of the AliensBill”. The 1905 Alien Act, while not mentioning the Jews outright, appealed to racial predudice against the Jews and was designed to stop the arrival of Eastern European Jews into Britain. And yes the BBL and Evans-Gordon had succeeded.

In 1908 in a by-election, standing against Winston Churchill a Liberal at the time, yes he was known to play musical chairs in parliament, the Conservative candidate a William Joynson-Hicks was elected to parliament as MP for Manchester North West. During his election campaign he took a stance against the Jews, which carried on throughout his political career, saying he will not pander for the Jewish vote. He would treat those who were Englishmen as Englishmen, but as to those who put their Jewish or foreign nationality before their English nationality, let them vote for Mr Churchill. Over his political career Joynson-Hicks became embedded at the heart of Toryism,

And between (1911-1921) the Conservative leader was Andrew Bonar-Law a Canadian from New Brunswick later prime minister of the United Kingdom for one year between 1922/23, the first British prime minister to be born outside the British Isles. And under him a lot happened including World War 1. Another was the National League for Clean Government became a political movement in response to the Marconi scandal in short the Liberal government accused of insider trading with it, which i think was sorted outside court as things are mostly even today. And it directed antisemitism towards the Jewish plutocracy, which it believed was conspiring to subvert British politics. A number of its members and supporters were antisemites, including Conservative MP Rowland Hunt. At a meeting of the group in 1913, Hunt spoke about the thinly disguised reference to Jewish financiers controlling Britain saying ” We are really in danger of being ruled by alien votes and foreign gold.. The aliens and foreign plutocrats are driving out British blood “. Yes where have we heard that recently by so called nationalists i will leave that to you. Personally the echoes from those past days and today are deafening.

During World War 1, Joynson-Hicks associated himself with the ultra nationalistic British Empire (formally called the Anti-German Union) in a anti-semitic campaign, in which Jewishness and German origin were conflated, the Union demanded the internment and repatriation of ” enemy aliens”, many of whom were Jews. After the War, Joynson-Hicks became an important member of the Die Hards, who were united by their national chauvinism, verging on xenophobia, and anti- Bolshevism with many Conservative MPs like Charles Yate, Ronald McNeil and Henry Page-Croft alongside Dukes and other peers of the realm, believing the conspiracy theory of a Jewish world to subvert Britain and its Empire. Jew baiting was part of their agenda with Joynson-Hicks leading the Die Hards involvement where matters of Jews were concerned. Examples were many like hunting for aliens, which led to many Russian Jews being expelled from Britain, and the ousting of Edwin Montagu, a radical Liberal and practicing Jew as Secretary of State for India. Joynson-Hicks also questioned the trustworthiness of Anglo-Jewish MPs and civil servants. He spoke out against Sir Herbert Samuel when he was appointed High Commissioner for Palestine. And he carried on his extra-parliamentary antisemitic agitation. he was involved in groups of a comprehensive cross section of anti Jews, such as G.K.Chesterton, Lord Sydenham, Sir Charles Yate and the Duke of Northumberland Henry Percy and several other anti-Zionist MPs who produced the publication ‘ The Conspiracy Against the British Empire’ a boiled down version of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. Joynson-Hicks was also in favour of self government by the majority in Palestine, which was perhaps a result of his antisemitism. He also was recorded saying that the Jewish immigrants to Palestine ‘were the sweepings of the ghettos of Central Europe.

This brings me to the end of part one, which while writing this so far has been very educational and very frightening seeing nasty people like William Joynson-Hicks and William Evans-Gordon who could be placed in certain parts of British society. Yes sadly history has a habit of repeating itself. Just in a different context. To be continued………………

RACISM & ANTISEMITISM IN THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY 1830-2021 ——————————————————————————— PART TWO. ————-

Now with the 1st World War over, and the country and its people’s slowly getting back to as normal as they can. And with politics on the back burner for a few years, and with David Lloyd George still Liberal prime minister, one could be forgiven to think politics would of got better and cleaner and a war bringing us closer together…… Think again. Who pops up, a future Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan(1957-63) when at the age of twenty five in 1919, wrote to a friend during the Paris Peace Talks stating that the prime minister Lloyd George was not popular, except with the International Jew. But Lloyd George managed to stay prime minister until 1922, and by then the Conservative Party had a new leader if only for one year, Austin Chamberlain(1921-1922) who wrote to his sister describing a former leader and prime minister Benjamin Disraeli(1868- 1874-80) as a English patriot but not a Englishman. And during Chamberlain’s leadership the Jewish Chronicle described the Notorious Joynson-Hicks as `the most avowed(self confessed), my words nobody else’s and determined anti-semite in the house.

In 1922 the Conservatives got into power and Bonar Law replaced Lloyd George as prime minister, yes now the first prime minister to be born outside the British Isles(Canada). And like present day the Conservatives could change leaders like the Seasons. Bonar Law was only prime minister for less than a year, before Charles Crook Conservative MP for East Ham North, brought a motion to the House of Commons that strict control shall be maintained over alien immigration, he was strongly supported by Conservative MPs Joseph Nall MP for Manchester and Herbert Nield MP for Ealing, in whose opinion was that Stepney had been positively ruined by the incursion of these aliens, evidenced by the presence of adds and notices in Yiddish. And during the 1922 general election the sitting MP for Putney and a Jewish businessman Samuel Samuel was opposed by an Independent Candidate, Prescott Decre, and Samuel saw this to be nothing more than anti- semitic.

So with the departure of Bonar Law in 1923, Stanley Baldwin had three terms as he dominated politics between the Wars. He had a strong friendship with the anti-semite Joynson-Hicks, and could be seen together throughout their political careers. Joynson-Hicks was instrumental in the destruction of the coalition, which opened the door to Bonar Law and Baldwin. Baldwin promoted Joynson-Hicks to Home Secretary, which makes me think about our present Home Secretary Priti Patel, so many similarities in my view. According to David Cesarani, Baldwin and Joynson-Hicks shared a discourse about England and Englishness, that included a definition of Englishness based around a common language, heritage and racial character, and on the other side of the coin, a dislike of other races, seen as less illustrious….. other than alien.

In the 1924 general election, we saw a really dirty campaign, starting from a letter(Zinoviev) which was forged and alleged to be written by the Jewish head of the Communist International in Moscow. Published by the Daily Mail to turn the electorate against the Labour Party, which automatically takes me back to the many fake pictures of Jeremy Corbyn, yes eventually the truth comes to the top even when people don’t like to see it, or admit it. Sadly far too many, this does not say there is no racism and anti- semitism in the Labour Party, as i’ve said before it’s in every party and in all walks of life in degrees. And the Conservative campaign,( as if we today don’t know how dirty they can be) had a stream of anti- Jewsish, anti-alienism underlying it. Anti-Jewish feeling was mobilised under the guise of anti- Zionism and anti- Bolshevism by prominent figures. During the campaign Baldwin and other Conservatives used the threat of aliens as one of their platforms. Baldwin gave Joynson-Hicks and other Conservative extremists who had been engaged in xenophobic campaigning for decades a free hand. He said ” We cannot afford the luxury of academic socialists or revolutionary agitation…. I think it’s high time somebody said to Russia ” Hands off England”… I want to examine the Laws and regulations as to entry of Aliens into this country, for in these days no alien should be substituted for one of our own people when we have not enough work at home to go round”. Now more bells start to ring (Brexit).Now Baldwin’s allies had carte’ blanche to exploit prejudices against foreigners, aliens and agitators. For Joynson-Hicks the concept of alien and communism all brought him into conflict with the Jews.

Baldwin made Joynson-Hicks Home Secretary in late 1924 and was until 1929. David Cesarani ascribes this sudden and unexpected political ascent, which in the view of many at the time and since, was undeserved in terms and talent. Joynson-Hicks appointment saw him in regular conflict with British Jews and he bacame known as “Mussolini Minor” and as expected his anti-semitism caused him no harm during his time as Home Secretary. And he was emboldened in his anti-semitism, because like our present one, he had general support of the Conservative Party.

But one thing for sure at this time, the Conservative Party contained a very noisy element of anti-semites. Anti-Jewish currents were evident at the centre of politics, even at the cabinet table. Chaim Weizmann first and former president of Israel has been reported to have commented in a letter to a friend after the 1924 elections, ” There is a new government .. the cabinet contains two or three reactionaries, anti-Zionists and even anti-semites. Within the government ranks, there was no dissent against Joynson-Hicks activity… least of all from Baldwin. David Cesarani said “Baldwin chose the right wing Joynson-Hicks for his government because he considered him a desirable representative of elemental Toryism, a representative figure who would enhance, rather than detract from, first, his electoral team and second his government”.

At the start of his Home Secretary career Joynson-Hicks was visited by the right wing organisation The National Citizens Union. Joynson-Hicks told the group he would not allow a mass arrival of immigrants to Britain and that he wouldn’t hesitate to use his power to deport aliens. Under Joynson-Hicks, the Home Office became the bane of the Jewish community, and the situation of Jewish aliens had deteriorated seriously. Jews who had not become British citizens were deported for misdemeanors but, when they applied for citizenship, were met with long, unnecessary delays which kept them in the precarious position of alien.

A group from the Board of Deputies of British Jews visited Joynson-Hicks at the Home Office in February 1925 to ask for an improvement to the regulations concerning aliens, the establishment of immigration boards to judge cases of aliens forbidden to land by immigration officers, some modification of the Home Secretary’s power of deportation and to end the delays in naturalisation. Joynson-Hicks dismissed their requests. In November 1925, during parliamentary debates about renewal of the Aliens Act, Joynson-Hicks was confronted by LabourMP John Scurr and Jewish Conservative MP Samuel Finburgh, Scurr said that the Alien Act was being used against one section of the community, and particularly against the poorer members of the Jewish community. Samuel Finburgh highlighted that Jews who had been trying to get naturalised had every obstruction put in their way. Joynson-Hicks challenged Finburgh to give him one single example of when the Home Office had shown anti-Jewish bias, even though Cesarani pointed out Joynson-Hicks had entered and accepted a Home Office already discriminating against Jews in the applications for citizenship.

Joynson-Hicks blatant biased views of Jews or as he said aliens, were really revealed when he went on to give the following example of the `chief test` which he would apply before granting citizenship:

THE CHIEF TEST The chief test… is whether the applicant has, so far as can be judged, become an Englishman at heart and has completely Identified himself with English interests. I will give you an example. If two brothers came to this country and one of them settles in a district where only aliens live, and continues to speak his native language, marries a woman from his own country, sends his child to a school where only foreign children are kept, keep his account in a foreign bank, employs only foreign labour, while the other marries an Englishwoman, sends his children to a English school, speaks English, employs British labour, keeps his bank account in a British bank, it is the second brother and not the first who will stand to get naturalisation.

The anti-alien legislation as described and used by Joynson-Hicks in this way was antisemitic. In the 1930s, the Conservative Home Secretary refused to meet a delegation from organisations combating antisemitism.

Now reaching halfway of the existence of the Conservative Party. The darker days have arrived. Yes the years of the rise of Adolf Hitler and his fascism, racism and anti-semitism embraced, and at the time with the backing and encouragement, from some of the Conservative Party and parts of our right wing media outlets and its owners. Like the Daily Mail then owned by Lord Rothermere, who at the time got very close to Hitler and was part of his propaganda machine, and yes in some quarters he was seen to have changed his views and saw his mistakes. I am not one of them, because of his actions so much evil was done that one can’t turn back the clock, rightly or wrongly i will stand by it. Then there was the Observer owned by Viscount Waldorf Astor, which i will come to later and his wife Viscountess Nancy Astor.

But before that, we cannot forget Winston Churchill which already a lot has been said of him, for and against, over racism and anti-semitism. So this is my view of parts of history that i find hard to ignore. Yes there are many books about Winston Churchill’s early life, but i just want to mention parts of it, that really shows his character, before he became a hero in many eyes in the second world war and the victory against Hitler and his fascist followers, along with Mussolini and his fascist followers.

In the 1924 general election Winston Churchill joined the ranks of the Conservatives, after being a Liberal. Churchill was a Zionist and held both positive and anti-semitic views of Jews. But on that he was far from being alone. Some of his views while positive were based on anti-semitic stereotypes for example he once commented. ” Some people like Jews and some don’t. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are beyond question the most formidable race which has ever appeared in the World”. Personally i would question him on that conclusion.

In 1914 and again in 1920 Churchill had been accused of Jew baiting. After World War 1, Churchill believed communism to be under the control of `International Jewry` which was a world conspiracy dedicated to the overthrow of civilisation and the reconstruction of society. He expressed this in a 1920 Illustrated Sunday Herald article titled “Zionism versus Bolshevism”. A struggle for the soul of the Jewish people, which put good, Zionist Jews against the evil of Jewish controlled Bolshevism. In the article he sited favourably Nesta Helen Webster, the right wing, antisemitic conspiracy theorist. And it was tainted with imagery from the antisemitic fabricated text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Jewish Chronicle castigated Churchill for it.

Churchill also told Lloyd George that the Jews were ” the main instigators of the ruin of the Empire”, and that ” they played a leading part of Bolshevic atrocities, and that the presence of Jews in radical groups was due” ( as Gisela C Lebzeiter a author, historian, and a expert on British fascism and anti-semitism summed up Churchills view) ” to inherent inclinations rooted in Jewish character and religion” and that a government should not have to many Jews in it. He said “Britain need beware the International Soviet of the Russian and Polish Jew”. and that he had found evidence of a very powerful` Jewish lobby in the country. Churchill’s anti-semitism was shared by his wife, Clementine, who wrote to him in 1931 that she could understand American anti-Semitic prejudice. It was suggested that Churchill learned to keep his antisemitism quiet for political advantage, as if racism is not used today in the same way.

Then if this was not enough in 1934 the infamous Oswald Mosley founded the January Club, a social dining club to attract Establishment support for his British Union of Fascists movement, which had increasing levels of antisemitism. Many Conservative MPs and peers became members.

In the 1930s the Conservative government responded showing a lack of concern to Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews, looking on the Nazi actions as an internal affair of a foreign country, even after the Nuremberg Laws were enacted in September 1935. And also in the early 1930s the Cliveden Set became into being, which was an upper class group of political influential people who were ‘ in favour of friendly relations with Nazi Germany’. Prominent members included the Conservative MP Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor), her husband Waldorf Astor (Viscount Astor) and Edward Wood (Lord Halifax). In 1936, Waldorf Astor attended the Nuremberg rally at Hitlers invitation. The Set wrote to prime minister Baldwin in support of Hitlers invasion of the Rhineland (a area of Western Germany along the River Rhine).

Nancy Astor was “brutally antisemitic and very suspicious of Jews”, believing in the ‘anti-Semitic fantasy of Jewish power’. She discouraged her husband from employing Jews in his newspaper, the Observer and suspected Jews were behind what she saw as anti German propaganda in New York newspapers. Nancy Astor would mimic Jewish businessmen. And would make frequent outbursts against Jews. Yes there is so much more that could be said about Nancy Astor and her hatred of Jews, but that’s a very large blog in itself too. And to think Winston Churchill gave her a huge endorsement as she stood for election. No things never change the same could have been done yesterday and not back then in the 1930s. This is the end of part two and the first hundred years of the Conservative Party. To be continued…………….. the next 90 years.

RACISM & ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY 1830-2021———————————————————————————–PART THREE————————————

In the run up to World War II, under the premiership of Neville Chamberlain (1937-1940). Had within the ranks of the Conservative Party and its friends in the press (especially the pro Nazi Daily Mail) a ill diagnosed mix of snobbery and anti-semitism. And according to Richard B Cockett who said ” It’s in the pages of the British periodical publication `Truth`” which was founded by the Liberal MP Henry Labouchere in 1877, and ceased in 1957. ” Chamberlain had a dislike for the Jews, and whose political sympathies and prejudices can be found”.

The newspaper `Truth` had a reputation of the fearless exposer of bogus companies and often scandals of fraud. And they opened itself up to many libel cases, which in general it fought them off. And like most post World War II media outlets up to present day, the Liberal thinking newspaper under various editors, went through political changes while having years of Conservatism, before going back to it’s Liberal views. But these years of Conservatism, couldn’t have been more corrupt and eventful, without the orchestration by a certain Major George Joseph Ball. A right wing bordering the far right Svengali/Spy/ Unsavoury character, who wielded so much unrestrained power from the dark shadows of the secret services and the Conservative Party.

The next part should be classified with a health warning. Just after thinking the likes of William Evans-Gordon and Joynson-Hicks were bad enough and even open with their views we come across someone who was far superior when it comes to the dark sides of many things and who must have had a skin thicker than a Elephant, and with no conscience at all. But his ability to change the truth and even reality was unquestionable. Welcome to Joseph Ball and the name i will call him in future, unless forced by circumstances.

And after investigating Joseph Balls the best i could, because he was not the most easiest person to check out, because of all the secrecy around him, being part of the secret services, and a lot of what i write about him is with the assistance of more persistent investigative journalists than i, and recorders of history who spent years investigating him. And i will try to do them justice, and will try to say when i use my own opinions of what i have read and seen about him and what surrounded him. And i will mention straight away ” Christopher Andrew” the author of ” Defence of the Realm; The Authorised History of MI5 (2009), which i have had in my possession for years. And someone who did a lot of homework for his book.

Joseph Ball (1885-1961). The more i learned about him while writing this very large blog, as i will call it. And his connection to anti-semitism with the Conservative Party. The more i think of George Orwell, who happened to live at the same time as Ball. Being someone who really believes in connections throughout the ages, i can’t but help make the connection of Orwell’s writings and quotes and Joseph Ball’s life’s actions and it’s consequences. This is just one and there may be more later if i feel the need to do it. “Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past” (George Orwell). Joseph Ball was educated at King’s College London, and after leaving college he worked as a civilian official at Scotland Yard. Where he was called to the Bar after passing top and with honours the bars final exams, to become a Barrister. And at the age of 29 he married Gladys Emily Penhorwood, a school teacher and daughter of John Burch Penhorwood.

Then in the early years of the First World War, Joseph Ball joined the Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 5 (MI5). And according to Christopher Andrew ” Ball had joined MI5 in July 1915 after a decade at Scotland Yard, dealing with Alien’s”, and while using his Barrister skills, “spent much of the war questioning prisoners, internees, suspects and aliens”. And this is my opinion reminding people that the word alien also meant Jews to many Conservative MPs ect.

In 1916, MI5 set up the Ministry of Munitions Intelligence Agency (PMS2) to spy on the British Socialist Movement. And Major William Melville Lee was appointed head of it,and Ball became one of his agents. The judge disagreed with the objections to the use of secret agents, saying ” Without them it would be impossible to detect crimes of this kind” but he did admit ” that if the jury didn’t believe the evidence then the case to a large extent fails”. This is understandable until agents corrupt and set up innocent people, which has become the norm under this agency, and again that’s my opinion, especially since Ball became part of it.

Two of Ball’s compatriots in the PMS2, Herbert Booth and Alex Gordon were used to set up three members of the Socialist Labour Party, Alice Wheeldon and her daughter Winnie Mason and son in law Alfred Mason. Even though the Socialist Labour Party was a very small group of mainly anti war supporters and suffragette’s. And to try to put it all into context, Alex Gordon whose real name was William Rickard, and a Dr. Nicholas Hiley said of him ” he was a unbalanced fantasist, convicted blackmailer and very unreliable. And was twice declared criminally insane and was released from Broadmoor, before becoming part of the PMS2. Which only proved what a detestable group it was. And they didn’t have many scruples when it came to employing people to work in their dirty works brigade. Which sadly still exists today. And even parts of the Labour Party now use a dirty tricks department, having learned how it succeeds, who ever is in power. Assisted by large parts of our mainstream media sadly. The Jury did believe the testimony of Booth and only after less than half an hour’s deliberation, found the three guilty of conspiracy to murder. Three days later after the conviction the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, published an open letter to the Home Secretary which included the following ” We demand that the police spies, on whose evidence the Wheeldon Family is being tried, to be put in the Witness Box, believing that in the event of this being done fresh evidence will be forthcoming, which will put a different complexion on the case”.

The deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Basil Thomson was also unconvinced of the guilt of Alice Wheeldon and her family, Thomson later said that he had ” an uneasy feeling that he himself might have acted as what the French call an agent provocateur an inciting agent, by putting the idea into the woman’s head, or if the idea was already there, by offering to act as the dart thrower”. This controversial case resulted in the PMS2 being `reabsorbed` by the MI5 in 1917. Vernon Kell the head of the MI5 however made it clear that he did not want back officers who had been ” concerned with Labour unrest and strikes”. However, Ball remained in MI5.

Joseph Ball’s wife Gladys died in 1918, and he remarried her half sister Mary Caroline Penhorwood in 1919, with whom he had two sons and one daughter. And according to Edward.H.Cookridge ( 1908-1997) whose real name was Edward Spiro a correspondent that became a famous author under many pseudonyms and who wrote “The Third Man along with many books about George Blake and his kind, said that “Ball also had a homosexual relationship with the Guy Burgess, who later became a spy for the Soviet Union, and part of the group that included Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and James Klugman”, and as i often say today ” You couldn’t invent it, if you tried”.

Joseph Ball continued to work for the MI5 as well as the Conservative Party, which even today i find personally corrupt, in a so called Western democratic country as the United Kingdom. While we still critisise countries like Russia and China for doing the same in their one party systems. Corruption and Hypocrisy has no borders. It is claimed that Joseph Ball played an important role in bringing down Ramsey Macdonald and the Labour government, by being part and involved in what is now known as the Forged Zinoviev Letter.

On 10th October 1924, MI5 received a copy of a letter, dated 15th September, sent by Grigory Zinoviev, chairman of the Comintern (The Communist International also known as the Third International, and organisation founded in 1919 by Lenin that advocated World Communism, controlled by the Soviet Union, and under Stalin he used it to control his own people. It ceased operations in 1943, i would say the Soviet Union had plenty on their plate then with Nazi Germany. The letter was sent to Arthur McManus, the British representative on the committee. In the letter British Communists were asked to take all possible action to ensure the ratification of the Anglo-Soviet Treaties. It then went on to advocate preparation for military insurrection in working class areas of Britain and for subverting the allegiance in the Army and Navy.

Hugh Sinclair, head of MI6, provided ” five very good reasons” why he believed the letter was genuine. However, one of these reasons, that the letter came ” direct from an agent in Moscow for a long time in our service , and proved reliability” was incorrect. Vernon Kell, the head of MI5 and Sir Basil Thomson the head of Special Branch, were also convinced that the letter was genuine. Desmond Morton, who worked for MI6, told Sir Eyre Crowe, at the Foreign Office, that and agent, Jim Finney, who worked for George Makgill the head of the Industrial Intelligence Bureau (IIB), had penetrated Comintern and the Communist Party of Great Britain. Morton told Crowe that Finney ” had reported that a recent meeting of the Party Central Committee had a letter from Moscow whose instructions corresponded to those in the Zinoviev letter”. However, Christopher Andrew, who examined all the files concerning the matter, claims that Finney’s report of the meeting does not include this information. Kell showed the letter to Ramsey Macdonald, the Labour prime minister, it was agreed that the letter should be kept secret.

Thomas Marlowe, who worked for the press baron, Alfred Harmsworth ( Lord Rothermere), had a good relationship with Reginald Hall the Conservative MP for Liverpool West Derby, who in World War I, was director of Naval Intelligence Division of the Royal Navy (NID) and he leaked the letter to Marlowe, in an effort to bring down the Labour government. The newspaper ( Daily Mail) now contacted the Foreign Office and asked if the letter was a forgery, without reference to Macdonald, a senior official told Marlowe it was genuine. The newspaper also received a copy of the letter of protest sent by the British government to the Russian Ambassador, denouncing it as a ” flagrant breach of undertakings given by the Soviet Government in the course of negotiations for Anglo-Soviet Treaties”. It was decided not to use this information until closer to the elections.

The Daily Mail published the Zinoviev letter on the 25th October 1924, just four days before the General Election. Under the headline ” Civil War Plot by Socialists Masters” and to this day our press are still masters of the right wing propaganda headlines, that people keep falling for, while spreading them now on social media. Ask yourself who are the fools, you might not like the answer. It argued “Moscow issues orders to the British Communists… the British Communists in turn give orders to the Socialist Government, which it tamely and humbly obeys…Now we can see why Mr Macdonald has done obeisance ( bowing/curtsy to) throughout the campaign to the Red Flag with its associations of murder and crime. He is a stalking horse for the Reds as Kerensky was…. Everything is to be made ready for a great outbreak of the abominable class war which is civil war of the most savage kind”. Dora Russell, whose husband, Bertrand Russell was standing for the Labour Party in Chelsea, commented “The Daily Mail carried the story of the Zinoviev letter. The whole thing timed to catch the Sunday papers and with polling day following hard on the weekend there was no chance of an effective rebuttal, unless some word came from Macdonald himself, who was in his constituency in Wales. Without hesitation i went on the platform and denounced the whole thing as a forgery, deliberately planted on, or by, the Foreign Office to discredit the Prime Minister”. You could be forgiven to say, what has this got to do with racism or anti-semitism… to me it’s quite simple it’s about connections and trust and honesty or as in this case the dishonesty and corruption of the truth in the highest levels in our secret services (who are there to protect us all) and hand in hand with the Conservative Party where anti- semitism was rife in the party.

After the election it was claimed that two MI5 agents, Sidney Reilly and Arthur Gregory had forged the letter. Later it became clear that Major George Joseph Ball himself as head of B branch who passed the letter onto Conservative Central Office on the 22nd October, 1924. And once again Christopher Andrew, MI5’s official historian, points out ” Ball’s subsequent lack of scruples in using intelligence for party political advantage while in Central Office in the late 1920’s strongly suggests… that he is willing to do so during the election campaign of October 1924″.

Major Ball was highly regarded at MI5 and earned himself a string of commendations from his superiors, who wrote of him that he was “an officer of marked ability, capable and willing to assume responsibility” his work was so valued he was given a huge pay rise in hoping to retain his services. Which to me says a lot about the then MI5 as much as it says about him and his mercenary attitude towards the truth and decency, and as Christopher Andrew said his lack of scruples.

Robert Blake, Ball’s biographer, has pointed out ” Ball moved for most of his life in the shadow of events and was deeply averse to publicity of any sort. He gave very little away, and the formal accounts of his career, whether written by himself or others, are curt and uninformative. He was, however, a quintessential eminence grise ( powerful decision maker or advisor behind the scenes) and his influence on affairs cannot be measured by the brevity of the printed references to him”.

Christopher Andrew, pointed out that the Conservative Party were grateful that Major Ball via the Zinoviev Letter, ” had made disreputable use of secret intelligence for political advantage ” Ball was rewarded in March 1927 when he was appointed as Deputy of Publicity at the Conservative Central Office, where he pioneered the idea of spin-doctoring on a exorbitant salary of £1400. which proves crime does pay.

It’s not difficult to understand why many traitors and double agents originated from the civil service and from the Conservative Party, and the culture around it for close to a hundred years and probably a lot more. It bred liars, cheats, con men and very untrustworthy individuals, with a corrupt right wing press to cover their tracks. And a breeding camp where the likes of Oswald Mosley and his blackshirts felt at home. And just add the likes of Major George Joseph Ball into the mixing pot, you end up with the most criminal and corrupt party this country has ever had.

In 1930 Major Ball was promoted to the post of Director of the Conservative Research Department and his ” election strategy made a major contribution to the enormous size of the National Government’s majority” in the 1931 General Election. Over the next 15 years he developed the strategy of using dirty tricks and black propaganda. This included operating secret agents in the Labour Party and the Liberal Party’s. One historian has claimed that Ball was Britain’s first spin doctor. Ball worked under Neville Chamberlain, the chairman of the Conservative Party. The two men became very close friends and Ball is said to have taught Chamberlain the art of fly fishing.

This takes me back to where my investigation led me to Joseph Ball and his kind in the first place. Looking for information how and when the Conservative Party got their hands on the once Liberal Periodical Magazine come newspaper, the `Truth`. With the help of wealthy businessman George Lawson Johnson ( Lord Pavenham) there is some names that makes one mind wander if you let it. Johnson was the heir to the Boveril empire and chairman of the fund raising arm of the Conservative Party’s National Publicity Bureau. In 1937 Ball secretly purchased the Truth journal. Henry Newnham was appointed editor and A K Chesterton and Colin Brooks, both members of the British Union of Fascists, were recruited to write articles for the magazine. This connected without a doubt Joseph Ball’s connection to Fascism along with anti-semitism in the Conservative Party, and of course the right wing press. The main objective of the journal was to attack any Conservative MPs who critisised Chamberlain’s government. When Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert Acland-Troyte MP for Tiverton, complained about the government’s agricultural policy, the magazine accused him of having ” blimp blood in his veins” and of having been ” overtaken by a rhetorical billious attack”.

But the main purpose of `The Truth` was to attack those MP’s who opposed appeasement. This included Anthony Eden the Foreign Secretary. In 1937 Chamberlain announced he was sending his friend and fellow appeaser, Lord Halifax, to meet Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goring in Germany. Eden was furious when he heard about this, and felt undermined as Foreign Secretary. It’s been recorded that one historian that hasn’t been named commented ” Eden and Chamberlain seemed to be like two horses harnessed to a cart, both pulling in different directions”.

Lord Halifax recorded in his diary how he told Hitler, ” Although there was much in the Nazi system that profoundly offended British opinion, i was not blind to what Hitler has done for Germany, and the achievement from his point of view of keeping Communism out of his country”. Hitler banned the Communist Party in Germany and placed its leaders in Concentration Camps. Halifax told Hitler ” On all these matters (Danzig,Austria, Czechoslovakia)…. the British government… were not necessarily concerned to stand for the status quo as today.. if reasonable settlements could be reached with… those primarily concerned we certainly had no desire to block”. Halifax later explained that Hitler told him that Czechoslovakia ” only needed to treat the Germans living within its borders well and they would be entirely happy”. Goring informed Halifax that Germany did not intend to fight to gain colonies. Von Blomberg said that Anglo-German relations were more important than the `colonial question` but Germany were interested in taking territory in Central Europe.

John C Davidson, Conservative MP for Hemel Hempstead, recruited Joseph Ball to help him run a little intelligence service between them. As Davidson pointed out..” we had agents (ran by Ball) in certain key centers and we also had agents actually in the Labour Party Headquarters, with the result that we got their reports on political feeling in the country as well as our own. We also got advance `pulls` of their literature. This we arranged with Odhams Press, who did most of Labour party printing, with the result that we frequently received copies of their leaflets and pamphlets before they reached Transport House, (Labour HQ). This was of enormous value to us because we were able to study the Labour Party policy in advance, and in the case of leaflets we could produce a reply to appear simultaneously with their production”.

Robert Bernays Liberal MP, described Ball as ” a hard and humourless man” and by other MP’s as ” a burly slightly sinister figure ” or as “a tubby man with a dark twinkling eye, persistent but elusive”. Ball also co-ordinated the secret selling of honours to Conservative supporters and paid off their intermediary, Maundy Gregory when he was arrested and charged with illegally selling honours, which was par for the course in the Conservative Party, and he pleaded guilty, thereby preventing a trial, which could of brought down the government.

One could not write about racism and anti-semitism in the 1930s, without mentioning Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts. Which i mentioned earlier, and how he fitted in so easy under the cloaks of the Conservative Party and parts of our press, especially the right wing baron owners. And the irony of it all to me, is how Joseph Ball found Mosley more an irritant than a enemy. Because it took away support from the Conservative Party, he was also concerned by Harold Harmsworth’s (Lord Rothermere) membership of the British Union of Fascists,and as the owner of the Daily Mail who always championed the Tories. It was Lord Rothermere who wrote the `Hurrah for the Blackshirts` in 1934. In which he praised Mosley for his ” sound common sense, Conservative doctrine”.

Oswald Mosley formed the `British Union of Fascists` (BUF) in 1932. Mosley told his members ” We ask them who join us… to be prepared to sacrifice all, but to do so for no small or unworthy ends. We ask them to dedicate their lives to building in the country a movement of the modern age…. in return we can only offer them the deep belief that they are fighting that a great land may live”. And within a few months of its forming, a large number of well known people joined such as Charles Bentick Budd, Harold Harmsworth (Lord Rothermere), Major General John Fuller, Wing Commander Louis Greig, A K Chesterton, David Bertram, Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford (Lord Redesdale), Diana Mitford, Patrick Boyle (8th Earl of Glasgow), Malcolm Campbell and Tony Moran. Mosley refused to publish the names and the numbers of members, but the press estimated a maximum number of 35,000.

Mosley was also an outspoken anti-semite and his dislike of the Jews was appealing to those who had previously voted for the Conservative Party. One of the reasons for this was the anti-semitic speeches made by Tory MPs. One being a Edward Doran who asked the Home Secretary to prevent ” any alien Jews entering the country from Germany”. When he refused this request Doran suggested that there would be ” hundreds of thousands of Jews…. scurrying.. to this country” and demanded that ” undesirable aliens ” already in the country to be given notice to quit. Crawford Greene Tory MP for Worcester agreed with Doran about Jews causing trouble at British Union of Fascists meetings. Greene argued that 90% of those accused of attacking fascists rejoiced in ” such fine old British names such as Ziff, Kerstein and Minsky”. Frederick Macquisten, the MP for Argyllshire added that those arrested included ” Feigenbaum, Goldstein and Rigotsky and other highland names”, Arthur Bateman, Tory MP for Camberwell North claimed that ” we have lost our City of London to the Jews” and demanded that ” before long we shall have to declare war on them as they have done in Germany”.

After researching Lord Rothermere, and his propaganda machine the Daily Mail over the years up to World War II, i could only come to one conclusion, which made him and his newspaper, the best propagandists of his time. And the bells in my head, couldn’t avoid the connections one saw in the early Brexit campaign recently, maybe the leaders of brexit learned from Rothermere’s history and how it succeeded at the time. How you attack and blame the opposition louder enough, to give themselves justification to cover their own corruption of the truth. A perfect example of this came from the article Lord Rothermere wrote `Hurrah for the Blackshirts` where he added ” Timid alarmists all this week have been whimpering that the rapid growth in numbers of the British Blackshirts is preparing the way for a system of rulership by means of steel whips and concentration camps. Very few of these panic mongers have a personal knowledge of the countries that are already under Blackshirt government. The notion that a permanent reign of terror exists, there has been evolved power. As a purely British organisation, the Blackshirts will respect those principles of tolerance which are traditional in British politics. They have no prejudice either or class or race”. Yes feel free to pinch yourself. ” Their recruits are drawn from all social grades and every party. Young men may join the British Union of Fascists by writing to the Headquarters, Kings Road, Chelsea, London S,W.”

Even though Joseph Ball found Mosley irritating he still had support of the Daily Telegraph, but thought it more important to persuade the `Daily Express and the Daily Mail` to praise the activities of right wing dictators. Ball wrote to Stanley Baldwin ” that although ‘The Times and Daily Telegraph’ are admirable papers and give us full support, their circulations are so small… that the influence among the masses is almost negligible”. Another part of his strategy was to convince Lord Rothermere (Daily Mail) and Lord Beaverbrook (Daily Express & Evening Standard) to give its full support to the Conservative Party and to reduce the good publicity it had been giving Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. Ball also persuaded industrialists to give the Conservatives financial support from the British Union of Fascists. And as Tim Bouverie the author of ‘Appeasing Hitler:Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War ‘(2020) argued that it was not difficult for Ball to manipulate the media as it was inherently a supporter of the Conservative Party and the ” most influential elements of that industry” did not need ” to be pressured into taking the governments line”. He quotes the BBC Director General, John Reith, as saying ” assuming that the BBC is for the people, and the Government is for the people, it follows that the BBC must be for the Government” and Bouverie added rightly or wrongly it also applied to a number of newspapers.

Reith and the BBC willingly gave its support to Neville Chamberlain. It was told by Ball that Chamberlain did not want the BBC to give an opportunity of his opponents to give “independent expressions of opinion”. Winston Churchill was effectively banned from the BBC during Chamberlain’s first two years at Number Ten. Churchill commented at the time “if we could get access to the broadcast some progress could be made. All this is very carefully sewn up over here”.

Reith had been a supporter of Adolf Hitler since he took power by force in 1933. In his diary he wrote about the problems of radio broadcasting in Nazi Germany. Reith’s daughter, Marista Leishman, in her book, My Father: Reith of the BBC (2008), claims Reith was reluctant to acknowledge the truth about Nazis, actually arguing in their favour with another contact in November 1933. Leishman claims her father told Guglielmo Marconi in 1935 that he admired Hitler for his “magnificent efficiency” John Reith made no apology for announcing that he really admired the drastic action taken by Hitler. At home he liked to draw Marista’s attention to the way in which some of her relatives looked Jewish with the implication that she did too, as though that were a black mark. I began to think that, in many ways, my father must be a rather terrible person.

Adolf Hitler appointed Joachim Von Ribbentrop, `an ex businessman who became Hitlers best diplomat, or should i say the most competent`, first as the ambassador to London in August 1936. The UK had Major Ball and Germany had Von Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop’s main objective was to persuade the British government not to get involved in Germany’s territorial disputes and to work together against the communist government in the Soviet Union. Ribbentrop upset the British government by posting SS guards outside the German Embassy and flew the swastika flags on official cars. But the Director General of the BBC, John Reith got on well with him, and according to Reith’s own diary he told Ribbentrop to assure Hitler “the BBC was not anti-Nazi” and that if they were to send his German opposite number over for a visit, he would fly the swastika from the top of Broadcasting House.

Labour Party MP’s became really concerned by what they thought was the BBC’s pro-Nazi stance. Hastings Lees-Smith British Liberal turned Labour politician, and leader of the opposition for a very short time between May 1940 to his death in December 1941, he argued in the House of Commons: ” The BBC is an autocracy which has outgrown the original autocrat… it has become despotism in decay… the nearest thing in this country to Nazi government that can be shown. if i talk to any employee of the Corporation, i am made to feel like a conspirator”. What not many people knew was how in 1938 Lees-Smith gave 40 German Jews British passports so they could escape to England, and he was a staunch supporter of Churchill.

And in 1937 Joseph Ball started to court the Fascist Italians under Benito Mussolini. Yes he never did things by half. He developed a relationship with a British barrister and legal counsellor at the Italian Embassy a Adrian Dingli. Who he met in the Carlton Club` where the British Empire’s movers and shakers met and was testament to his Britishness. With Neville Chamberlain believing with the British economy and Military defences weak, and to avoid war the best bet was appeasement with the Nazi- fascist regimes. Even with his Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden warning him that this could lead to war. Nevertheless Chamberlain was determined to reach an accommodation with Benito Mussolini.

This began the cloak and dagger shutting out of one of the most important offices in government the Foreign Secretary Eden, which one would of thought was close to treason. But having seen how this Conservative Party has been led by its nose by some unsavoury characters since the 1830s, i have come to the conclusion nothing is beyond them: And on the 10th January 1937, Ball told Adrian Dingli that Prime minister Neville Chamberlain ” Wished to know whether Dino Grandi (lawyer & politician in the National Fascist Party) would obtain permission from Rome to start `Talks in London with the pm" . David Faber (1992-2001), now historian and author of ‘ Speaking for England & Munich 1938 Appeasement in World War II’ argued; ” Grandi was in Rome at the time, and Ball knew that any message sent ‘en clair’ by telegram would be deciphered by British Intelligence and passed to the Foreign Office, and thus to Eden. Incredibly, it necessitated a series of guarded telephone calls between London and Rome to convey the gist of Chamberlain’s message without the information reaching the ears of his own Foreign Secretary”.

A meeting was arranged between Chamberlain and Dino Grandi on 17th January only to be cancelled, after the Deputy Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs discovered what was going on. Ball and Dingli now created an unofficial diplomatic channel which allowed Chamberlain to communicate with the Italian Government, behind the backs of the Foreign Office and vice versa. It was a deliberate attempt to circumvent Eden, who was adamant that no further concessions should be made to Italy unless and until she verifiably withdrew her support for General Francisco Franco and abandoned her claim for Abyssinia. This policy was almost entirely to the Italians ‘advantage`. This unofficial diplomatic channel was welcomed by Mussolini as he could see how it would cause conflict within the British government, and as Grandi pointed out, it provided an opportunity to ” drive a wedge into the incipient split between Eden and Chamberlain and to enlarge it more if possible”.

And when in January the BBC announced that ” no efforts to improve Anglo-Italian relations were at all contemplated” and this upset Grandi, so Chamberlain told Ball to arrange for the story to be refuted. Under pressure from Ball, the following evening the BBC declared that the story had been inaccurate. Ball told newspaper editors that ” Chamberlain had spoken firmly to Eden, told him to toe the line, and instructed him to unearth the original source of the story”. Eden wrote to Chamberlain on the 8th February 1938, that this diplomacy “recreates in Mussolini’s mind the impression that he can divide us and he will be the less ready to pay attention to what i have to say to Grandi… Rome was already giving out the impression from that interview that we are courting her, with the purpose, no doubt, or showing Berlin how worth courting she is… This was exactly the hand which Mussolini always likes to play and plays with so much skill when he gets the chance. I do not think we should let him”.

Major Ball continued to work on persuading the media to report favourably on Chamberlain’s appeasement policy. While undermining those who oppose the policy. Ball told Count Dino Grandi his publicity campaign was running at ” full blast”. An article in the Daily Mail especially upset the Foreign Secretary Eden which wrote ” I am able to state authoritatively that the British Government is eager to press forward new negotiations with Italy with least possible delay. Count Grandi, the Italian Ambassador, is to see Mr Eden at the Foreign Office today. It is felt in political quarters that already there has been far too much delay in seeking a solution of the differences between Britain and Italy” it added that full legal recognition of Abyssinia would be conceded ” as part of a general settlement”. Eden was furious when he read the article as it had ” all the hallmarks of authoritative inspiration”. Eden asked about this but Chamberlain ” flatly denied any responsibility.. a barefaced lie”. It was a civil servant ‘Oliver Harvey’ in the Foreign Office that found the truth, when he found out it was Joseph Ball who spread the fake story from Conservative Head Office and not Number Ten. and by whose authority i wonder. Yes the story was authorised by Chamberlain. And even with this knowledge Joseph Ball carried on his manipulation of the truth, and persuaded the Sunday Times to run an article denying a disagreement over foreign policy.

Chamberlain could no longer trust Eden, and he asked Ball to tap Eden and his supporters telephones. Sadly this became the first resort rather than the last resort under the Conservatives. Ball with the support of MI5 gathered information and financial arrangements on contacts of Eden and other appeasement MP’s. Ball spread all kinds of rumours of Eden with his newspaper friends. Nothing was beyond him.

In February, 1938 Adolf Hitler sacked the moderate Konstantin Von Neurath as Foreign Minister, and replaced him with the hard line Joachin Von Ribbentrop. Eden argued that this move made it even more difficult to get agreement with Hitler. He also opposed further negotiations with Mussolini. At a cabinet meeting Chamberlain made it clear that he is unwilling to back down over the issue. So Anthony Eden resigned on the 20th February 1938. He told the House of Commons the next day, ” I do not believe that we can make progress in European appeasement if we allow the impression to gain currency abroad that we yield to constant pressure. I am certain in my own mind that progress depends above all on the temper of the nation, and that temper must find expression in a firm spirit. This spirit i am confident is there. Not to give voice it is i believe fair neither to this country or the world”. Ball now attempted to undermine Eden by suggesting he was homosexual and that while he was at University he had attempted to seduce Eddie Gathorne- Hardy. Ball also pointed out that his close friends were bachelors or bi-sexuals. Ball then began a smear campaign against those members of the Conservative Party who opposed appeasement. Ball told sympathetic journalists that they were either gay or bi-sexual and gave them a derisory term ” the Glamour boys”. Ball told the journalist Charles Graves, that these MP’s that included Eden, Harold Nicolson, Ronald Cartland, Robert Boothby, Jack Macnamara and Jim Thomas, and “they are viewed with some suspicion by the party heads” and were providing a “smokescreen” for Winston Churchill.

Even though with all the manipulation and back stairs fake propaganda by Ball, and the right wing press support of Chamberlain. Most opinion supported Eden with the backing of the Labour and Liberal Party who put him way ahead. Fully 71% thought Eden was right to resign, while only 19% thought he should of stayed, and when asked whether they favoured Chamberlains foreign policy only 26% said they did,while 58% did not. and 21 Tory MP’s including the likes of Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan abstained in Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement vote.

Major Ball was Chamberlain’s go between with the secret services and conducted highly secret negotiations for the ‘appeasement’ of Adolf Hitler. Arthur Charles Wellesley, 5th Duke of Wellington, who held right wing opinions was also associated with Ball, and was sympathetic to the Nazi party, and the President of the Nordic League, which was a leading anti-semitic organisation and a member of the secret society called the Right Club. Ball after secretly buying the periodic magazine ‘The Truth’, began to use it to attack politicians and newspapers who were complaining about how Adolf Hitler was imprisoning members of the German Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the German Communist Party (KPD), arguing that German domestic affairs are her own business.

‘The Truth’ also poured scorn on the number of stories of atrocities against Jews in Nazi Germany. And claimed that anti-semitism had ” weakened of late”. The following month the journal suggested that if anti-semitism ever assumed an uglier aspect in Britain, it would be “the Jews” own fault, because although there were just 350,000 Jews in Britain at the time “this is difficult to credit when one walks through the West End on a Saturday night” it then added, without offering a shred of evidence that it was ” no exaggeration to say that of every ten swindles that come under the notice of ‘Truth’, and unduly high proportion are operated by Jews”.

Ball gained support from the right wing Conservative Party MPs in the House of Commons. Lieutenant Colonel Lambert Ward, who claimed he visited Germany every year denied that thousands were being driven into ” hastily constructed prisons and concentration camps”. Ward also said that in his judgement that Germany would never invade Czechoslovakia, but if they did, a third of the Czech Army would desert and join the German Army. He also argued that the British people would not want to go to war to defend the territorial rights of Czechoslovakia.

In 1939 Major Ball launched another smear campaign but this time against Winston Churchill in an effort to get him de-selected in Epping. Churchill defended his views on appeasement at a meeting in the town: ” What is the value of our parliamentary institutions, and how can our parliamentary doctrines survive, if constituencies tried to return only tame, docile, and subservient members who tried to stamp out every form of independent judgement ? I have been out of office for ten years, but i am more contented with the work i have done in these last five years as an independent Conservative than of any other part of my public life”.

Major Ball was also close to the right wing politician, Archibald Ramsey who was one of the leading anti-Semites in the Conservative Party and became convinced that ” Atheism, Agnosticism, Communism and Judaism were all wrapped up in one single conspiracy theory”. Ramsey became convinced by 1938 that the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Popular Front Government ” were part and parcel of the same plan, secretly operated and controlled by World Jewry”. And now we reach the 3rd September 1939 at 11 am. And Neville Chamberlain’s BBC’s radio broadcast to the country. ” I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at War with Germany. You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed”.

And this brings the end of Part Three, longer than i expected when i started it, because there was history i could not leave out, that showed how corrupt a government can be, and can be corrupted by, evil and corrupted government and political party advisers, who are allowed to have free reign in the highest departments and our secret services and with the complete backing of a corrupt media, press and the BBC. Sadly we still sit back and allow history to keep repeating itself, even to this present day.

RACISM & ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY 1830-2021 —————————————————-PART FOUR—————-

And now being at war with Germany, you would be forgiven to think that the only thing on people’s minds would be, how can we now do our best to defeat the foe as quick and as painless we can, from the prime minister down to the beggar on the streets. But people forget the likes of Joseph Ball and his friend Archibald Ramsey. When only on the second day of the Second World War on the 4th September 1939, Ramsay sat in the library of the House of Commons, and even on House of Commons notepaper, wrote a parody of Land of Hope and Glory, which had the following lines. Land of dope and Jewry Land that was once free All the Jew boys praise thee While they plunder thee Land of Jewish finance Fooled by Jewish lies In press and books and movies While our birthright dies. Yes Ramsay was only in his fourth month of launching the anti-semitic right wing group the ‘Right Club’. “Whose main objective was to oppose the activities of organised Jewry”. And whose logo which was seen on its badge, an Eagle killing a Snake with the initials P..J (short for ‘Perish Judah’). And as i’ve said before, everything has a connection, and i’ts not a coincidence that one of its members was the well known anti-semite William Joyce (aka Lord Haw Haw). And one of its first chairman was Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington). The Right Club held closed meetings in the House of Commons, and Ramsay distributed copies of the then anti-semitic Conservative periodical ‘The Truth’ owned by Joseph Ball. And eight days later on the 12th September, Hugh Grosvenor (Duke of Westminster) read out an anti-semitic anti-war statement at one of the Right Club’s meetings. The statement said that the war was ” part of a Jewish and Masonic plot to destroy Christian civilisation”. It was circulated to a number of member of the Cabinet Ministers, that included Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain. The next day, after several ministers complained to Churchill about Hugh Grosvenor’s ‘indiscretion’, Churchill wrote a note to the Duke, but did not address the anti-semitic elements of the speech, rather, Churchill’s concern was about the Duke’s opposition to the war.

The Right Club spent the start of the Second World War spreading propaganda including distributing leaflets and adhesive labels containing slogans. Later Ramsay explained that he wanted “to maintain the atmosphere in which the ‘phoney war’. as it was called, might be converted into a honourable peace”. In addition to Ramsay’s Land of dope and Jewry rhyme, slogans included ” This is a Jew’s War” and “War destroys workers”. Some of the leaflets asserted ” the stark truth is that this war was plotted and engineered by the Jews for world-power and vengeance”. And in my opinion, one could say this agenda using propaganda for blaming others while spreading hate and mistrust of others has continued and always been successful to this present day, by the right and left and center, and by people who should of known better, having been hurt by it themselves through history.

And on the 20th March 1940, Ramsay asked a question about a German propaganda radio station that was set up, and which gave its precise wavelength (doesn’t take many grey cells to know which one it was and who spoke on it) and which was suspected by both its allies and opponents as a subtle way of advertising it. And on the 9th May 1940, Ramsay asked for an assurance from the Home Secretary ” that he refuses to be stampeded… by a ramp in our Jewish-ridden press”. This was now followed by anti-semitic attacks on the Jewish Secretary of State for War Leslie Hore-Belisha, which led to the prime minister Chamberlain removing him from office. A week later Ramsay distributed copies of the ‘Truth’ in the Commons which made allegations about Hore-Belisha’s financial activities. And Ramsay also put down a motion which cited the regretful reactions of many newspapers to Hore-Belisha’s sacking as evidence of Jewish control of the press. Hore-Belisha was blocked from taking office as minister of information because of anti-semitic pressure led by the Foreign Secretary, Edward Wood.

If you ever needed to know that in politics you can never trust your so called friends. Henry ‘Chips’ Channon, ‘ a supposedly great friend of Leslie Hore-Belisha’ referred to Hore-Belisha as ” the Jew boy” but fond of him’. Then added by describing him as ‘an olly man, half Jew, an opportunist, with the Semitic flair for publicity’. And one didn’t need to be reminded that anti-semitism was rife ‘in the corridors of power’.

After the British forces failed to stop the German occupation of Norway, in April 1940, Chamberlain lost the support of many members of the Conservative Party, and on the 10th of May Chamberlain lost a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, then duly gave his resignation as prime minister, and Winston Churchill was elected to be prime minister of a war coalition government. Churchill was honoured with the Knight of the Garter by Queen Elizabeth II, on the 24th April 1953, after turning it down from King George VI, who asked Churchill to be prime minister and form a government in May 1940 after Chamberlain’s resignation. And he formed a coalition government of Labour ,Liberal and Conservatives.

After the Second World War, and in the first proper General Election since 1935. It was expected to see Winston Churchill and the Conservatives to become the government. Only to see Labour under Clement Attlee win by a landslide, with 47.7% of the Vote, and with a 146 majority. One could say the last time the electorate did the right thing to bring the country together, well that’s my view anyway,and i think of most historians. Even with headlines they still use today in our mainstream press, but this time by the Daily Express, in the 1947 General Election, ” Gestapo in Britain if Socialists Win”. And lets not forget how the Daily Express and the Daily Mail supported Hitler and the Nazi Party in the run up to the Second World War… No you couldn’t invent it. And it was well known that in the main the Jewish people supported the Liberal and Labour parties. And you didn’t need to be Einstein to know why.

And one thing the Second World War did not change, and that was anti-semitism, still being part of Conservative Party Members thoughts and actions. In August 1945 the Jewish Chronicle reported that many local Conservative associations had stopped selecting Jewish candidates. And during the election campaign that year the Conservative candidate Wavell Wakefield said that ” Jewish refugees should be repatriated to solve London’s housing crisis”, along with professor Harold Lanski a political theorist of the LSE, and chair of Labour’s NEC, having had to put up with anti-semitic remarks by Conservatives, the local Hampstead Conservative group began agitation against Jewish immigration. Also an anti-semitic petition was drawn up by residents of Hampstead called the ‘Fighting Fund for Freedom’, requesting that aliens of Hampstead should be repatriated to assure men and women of the forces, should have accommodation upon their return from the war. And once again it’s like seeing history repeating itself, just that today it’s all immigrants because of brexit, how often does one see or read on social media especially the use of the armed forces as an excuse. Hampstead’s Conservative MP, Charles Challen, promised to give the petition ‘his unstinting support’ and he asked many questions in the House of Commons on behalf of the petitioners over the following months. When the petition was finished, Conservative J. A Hughes passed it to Challen who ‘rather than repudiate the sponsors for their antisemitism’ delivered it to Parliament.

Geoffrey Alderman, historian that specialized in 19th/20th centuries of Jewish community in England, and a author and co author of many books. And a student of one of my all time favourite historians A J P Taylor. Said of the period just after the end of World War II, and until the middle 1980s “Anti-Jewish prejudice was rampant in some Conservative associations in rural areas”, and that,” it was not confined to the countryside”, I would of added, ‘way before World War II too’. In 1946, Charles Challen led a protest against construction to a former Congregationalist Church into a Synagogue, a thinly veiled anti-semitic attack. In October 1948, Douglas Peroni ( Former Treasurer of the Hampstead Branch of the BUF, and chair of the Fascist Hampstead Literary Society), established an active fascist group within the local Hampstead Parliament. He was also the leader of the Hampstead Branch of Oswald Mosley’s Union movement.

Andrew Fountaine was selected as prospective parliamentary candidate, by the Chorley Conservative Association in 1948/49 and at the Llandudno Conservative Party Conference the same year, gave an anti-semitic speech. The Conservative Standing Advisory Committee disavowed him (Failing to gain approval). But come the 1950 General Election, there was no London-Sponsored replacement for Fountaine, and the Chorley Conservative Association did not try to fine a replacement either, so he ran as a locally nominated Conservative candidate, later he left the Conservatives.

In 1954, yes when i was becoming very aware of all racism, when my mother started to tell me about her six years in India up to the Second World War, as a Army wife. And how racist the British Army were to the Indian people, I also learned at that time how class ridden the Indian nation was, the untouchables etc. And it was this year, the anti-semitic far right ginger group (vocal group inside a organisation), ‘The League of Empire Loyalists’ was founded, led by Arthur K Chesterton, a former leading figure in the British Union of Fascists, and who served under Oswald Mosley ( i refuse to call him Sir, he never earned it like many others i refuse to call by their titles). The group was composed of right wing Conservatives, mainly retired military men and a few pre-war Fascists, and the likes of Conservatives Edward Martell and Andrew Fountaine.

It was the following year that Winston Churchill resigned his premiership after years of bad health due to a stroke which he tried to hide, and then was succeeded by Anthony Eden if only for a brief period from April 1955 to January 1957. And will always be remembered for his bad handling of tensions in the Middle East, culminating to the British invasion and its retreat from Egypt. Known to this day as ‘The Suez Affair’. Even though he was the youngest Foreign Secretary in his political career, and as i’ve written earlier was involved deeply in the run up of World War II, standing against the appeasers of Hitler and Mussolini. Two months after ordering an end to the Suez operation, he resigned on grounds of ill health as well. And was widely suspected of having misled the House of Commons, over a degree of collusion with France and Israel. But in his term Keith Joseph was elected as an MP, who then faced challenges from antisemitic forces within the Conservative Party. Which at the time still had a ‘reputation for unwelcoming Jews’. One of the people who interviewed him ‘for inclusion on the party’s candidates list’ commented, ” as a Jew, i suppose he is not every constituency’s man and, therefore, his placing would need care” and, indeed Joseph faced ‘ local mutterings against picking a Jew to represent the party’. Within the parliamentary party, Joseph was considered ‘ something of an outsider’ and ‘ lamentably exotic’.

And after Anthony Eden resigned the premiership, he was replaced by Harold Macmillan (1957-1963). The prime minister i took more notice than from the age of thirteen. I will never forget him standing as a one nation Tory, or to me at the time a ‘one nation government’. And with his ” Wind of Change” speeches. Especially when it came to South Africa and its Apartheid governments, and lets not forget Rhodesia as it was called back then.

Maybe back then i saw the world with a little naivety. But i learned very quickly, about politics and racism, and i never let it go to this day. But i have to admit i never saw anti-semitism when i saw Harold Macmillan, maybe i was looking through rose tinted glasses in my early teenage years. And because of my investigations i have seen many things that not only moved me, but shocked me to the core. Even though i knew racism and anti-semitism was common in the Conservative Party. But the shocking part was to see how deep it was with its openly viciousness and wickedness by a lot of its leaders, and the very vocal powerful people in the party, encouraged by parts of our mainstream media.

In Finchley (Thatchers Territory 1959-1992) in 1957 while having a large Jewish community there. Their Golf Club who was under the control of prominent Conservatives, barred Jews from joining. This according to Geoffrey Alderman, was the most blatant example of ‘ anti-Jewish prejudice…. Rampant in some Conservative associations’ in post war Britain, it resulted in an angry wave of ‘Jewish anti-Tory’ protest in the area. Harold Macmillan’s diaries were splattered with abuse of other public figures, often tinged with anti-semitism. Gerald Kaufman was someone Macmillan referred to antisemitically in his diaries. Macmillan ‘often made snide jokes about Jews and Jewish politicians’. On another occasion, he called Leslie Hore-Belisha ” Horeb Elisha”. Thereby highlighting his Jewish ancestry by referencing Mount Horeb and the prophet Elisha.

I had now reached working age, at the end of Macmillan’s premiership. And became very political and worldly wise one could say. But most of my memories of his leadership were mainly about his speeches about Apartheid in South Africa ” The Winds of Change”. ‘And we never had so good’ speech, compared to today he sure was right. Mind you i think that was more down to the beginning of the ‘Sixties’, flower power, great music and musicians, oh and free love as it was called. The whole country seem to become far more friendly and happy, and apart from the Vietnam War most of us enjoyed life etc. While in the 1960s, Alec Douglas Home took over from Harold Macmillan until the next General Election. Where Harold Wilson and Labour took power from 1964 to 1970, winning two elections, and who became a T.V personality in the 1960s scene. And Edward Heath became the Conservative Party’s leader (1965-1975), and won the General Election in 1970, until they lost in 1974. And it was in 1971 the Foreign Office under Alec Douglas Home, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office launched a secret investigation to ‘Evaluate Zionist influence in the U.S and Europe’. The findings echoed anti-semitic notions of Jewish financial power, duel loyalty and undue political influence. The report was concerned with power and influence of ‘Jewry Money’ and the ‘Jewish Lobby’ and ‘appeared to treat the people and organisations involved in British Zionism, not as British citizens exercising their democratic rights, but as agents of foreign pressure on the government’, ‘reflected a belief that Diaspora Jewish interests were separate from, and even hostile to, those of the countries in which they lived’.

The Labour MP Gerald Kaufman was critical of the arms delivery embargo the Conservative government imposed on Israel during the 1973 attack by Egypt on Israel. Foreign Secretary Douglas -Home told Kaufman that his (Kaufman’s) ‘loyalty appeared to be to Israel and not Britain’. To Kaufman, ‘it was a clear anti- Jewish insinuation’. On another occasion, Charles Taylor told Kaufman to ‘Get back to Tel Aviv’.

Edward Heath (1965-1975) was never seen to be anti-semitic himself, even though a few around him was. Heath will always be remembered as prime minister from 1970 to 1975 for introducing decimalisation (1971) even though it was Harold Wilson who was mainly responsible for that. And taking the UK into the Common Market as it was called then, and along with with two miners strikes 1972 and 1974 which ended up with Heath putting the UK on the famous three day week, which i worked through, and yes working seven days a week. Which personally i remember a lot different, than the propaganda mainly what the right wing recorded in our press and other media, even though it only lasted three months, productivity was the best for many years, and the country seemed to manage very well.

But it was only a matter of time, to see the end of Edward Heath as prime minister and the leader of the Conservative Party. Heath decided to call a General Election in February which ended up in a hung parliament, and Heath resigned on March 4th, but stayed on as Conservative leader until February 1975 after losing the second successive election, after Margaret Thatcher challenged Heath for the leadership, and she narrowly out polled him in the first round. So he chose to resign rather than contesting the second round, and went back to the back benches. He would then become a strong critic of Thatcherism and Margaret Thatcher herself. He died at the age of 89 in 2005. You could say he was the last one nation Tory in the Disraeli tradition, who rejected right wing capitalism.

Harold Wilson became prime minister again in 1974 until 1976, when in March he suddenly resigned as prime minister, and was replaced by James Callaghan until May 4th 1979 General Election when Margaret Thatcher became the first Woman prime minister of the UK.

Now with Margaret Thatcher as prime minister (1979-1990). It didn’t take her long to make a name and a reputation for herself, even names that most people would not rather be called. Such as ‘uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive’ which was reported in the Sunday Times that it was alleged that her Majesty the Queen had those criticism of her, because Thatcher often ridiculed the Commonwealth, which the Queen held in high esteem. But one thing she can’t be called and that is a ‘easy touch’ or uncertain of herself. She knew where she was going and nothing was going to stop her, she did things that any other government over a period of a hundred years would of been kicked out of power, especially any Labour government… But within one year, unemployment increased from 1.5 million to 2 million. And in the 1981 budget she with the help of Geoffrey Howe as Chancellor increased taxes in the middle of a recession. And unemployment increased to 2.5 million in the first half of the year then above 3 million by Christmas. Two million manufacturing jobs were lost in the recession between 1979-1981. But when new leaders and governments come into power, it’s easy to digress from one’s main topic, so i will try to get back to my main theme. Which takes me to one of Margaret Thatchers blue eyed boys, yes i’m trying to be polite. In 1981, Alan Clark (Minister of State for Trade,1986-89; Minister for Defence Procurement,1986-92) , told Frank Johnson that he, Clark, was a Nazi. He wrote in his diary: ‘I really believe it [i.e, Nazism] to be the ideal system, and that it was a disaster for the Anglo- Saxon races and for the world that it was extinguished. On 31st March 1982, Clark made the following diary entry: ‘ Today i asked an offensive question about Jews. It is always thought to be rude to refer to ‘Jews’, isn’t it?. I remember that slightly triste (sad) occasion, watched from the gallery, of my father being inaugurated into the Lords and my rage at Sidney Bernstein, who was being ennobled on the same afternoon and would not take the Christian Oath. As loudly as i could i muttered and mumbled about ‘Jews’ in order to discomfort his relations who were also clustered in the gallery. I had hung it around the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Israel… it is always fun to see how far you can go with taboo subjects …..

On an August 1983 parliamentary trip to Berlin, Neil Hamilton the now Ukip leader but then a Conservative MP made a Nazi salute ‘with two fingers to his nose to give the impression of a toothbrush moustache’ when outside the Reichstag. The salute was reported on the 30th , January 1984 in a BBC Panorama programme, “Maggie’s Militant Tendency”. Hamilton sued the BBC for libel, claiming that he had no recollection of making the salute. The BBC pulled out of the case and Hamilton was awarded £20,000 in damages. However, after the case collapsed, Hamilton admitted in a Sunday Times article to having made the Nazi salute, he hasn’t changed much then.

On the 26th December 1986, while minister of State for Trade, Alan Clark described in his diary the colour of someone’s Gold Rolls Royce as ‘Jewish racing Yellow’ adding that apparently that is what ‘the colour is termed in the Mess at Knightsbridge’. Margaret Thatcher had a number of Jews in her cabinet, all of whom experienced anti-semitism from her colleagues. Two Jewish cabinet ministers did resign in that period, which may have been for that reason. Harold Macmillan commented that the Conservative cabinet ‘was more old Estonian than old Etonian’ which was a none too subtle way of putting Three ministers Michael Howard, Nigel Lawson and Leon Brittan in their place. Brittan resigned as Trade and Industry Secretary over the Westland affair, in 1986 and after a very vocal disagreement with Michael Heseltine if memory serves me well. But Jonathan Aitken a fellow Conservative MP, who was convicted for perjury and got a 18 months prison sentence but did 7 months, wrote of Brittan’s resignation: ‘ Soon after a poisonous meeting of Tory backbenchers at the 1922 Committee he fell on his sword. It was a combination of a witch and a search for a scapegoat- tainted by an undercurrent of anti-Semitism…. I believed what should of been obvious to anyone else, that he was being used as a lightning conductor to deflect the fire from the prime minister (Margaret Thatcher)’. After Brittan had left the cabinet, John Stokes Conservative MP commented that the ‘replacement’ should be at least be a “proper red-faced, red blooded Englishman”. The Jewish Board of Deputies sensed an antisemitic slur in the words, as did Brittan’s non Jewish wife Diana Brittan. Other anti-semitic comments were made about Brittan by his fellow Conservatives: ‘But these came from members who would make slighting remarks about almost anyone with a background different from their own’, Conservative MPs commented. Also Edwina Currie was called a pushy Jewess and received many anti-semitic comments from so called red blooded Englishmen on the Tory backbenches.

Now we have arrived after 11 years of Thatcherism, which included selling off the UKs Silver as it was called back then, selling off most of our utilities at bargain prices, and i’m sure she knew as i did that most will end up in the pockets of a few. knowing that the public would sell for a quick profit without thinking how prices would rise in the new utilities and that they would pay for it later. And it’s hard not to forget the Falklands War which i also thought at the time was a political move to save her bacon, and how she never or didn’t want to learn from how David Owen approached it with the same situation years earlier. Then she was a huge part of something good in my eyes back then, the end of the Cold War and how she and even Ronald Reagan managed to collaborate with the Soviet leader Michail Gorbachev who i have put on record that he was and will always be my man of the Century. Then she sold off council housing at basement prices, which made her in general very popular,and yes a brilliant policy if she invested the money back into building more, but sadly that was the beginning of the end for council housing yes even with New Labour under Tony Blair. A government who became a Tory mark two after 2002 and as Margaret Thatcher said New Labour was her best achievement. Then like every leader they take one step too far. And in her case it was the Poll Tax. That was the beginning of her end as leader and prime minister and the knives came out as only the Conservatives could until the Blairites showed how they could do it too. And the rest is history as John Major became leader and prime minister until 1997. Personally i had a sort of respect for John Major as prime minister, even though he was mocked for being a little grey as a character. Even though it was John Major who got rid of the dreaded Poll Tax, and took a leading role with George Bush Snr, in the first Gulf War, and secured a number of opt-outs regarding social policy and membership of the single currency in the Maastricht Treaty, he couldn’t please many of his colleagues, the famous early right wing brexiteers. And under him we had the longest period of economic growth, and was responsible for the beginning of the Northern Ireland Peace Process, but the same in fighting that saw the end of Thatcher, made sure that as i said at the time, Mickey Mouse would of beaten the Tories in the 1997 General Election. As it was New Labour under the leadership of Tony Blair won by a landslide.

In 1997 after Major losing the General Election he stayed on as Conservative leader for seven weeks so they could hold a new leadership election in which William Hague won, and during the leadership election, the Shadow Foreign Secretary Ann Widdecombe spoke against Michael Howard under whom she had served when he was Home Secretary. She remarked in the House of Commons that there is ‘something about the night’ about Howard, who is of Romanian Jewish descent. This remark was considered by some anti-semitic.

In 2000, four Oxford University Conservative Association members were expelled for making Nazi salutes, which wasn’t rare in right wing circles, for most of my life anyway. The New Statesman reported that a member of the OUCA committee at the University’s 2001 Freshers’ Fair greeted new students by saying, “Welcome to OUCA- the biggest political group for young people since the Hitler Youth”. Another prominent member was dismissed from the Oxford University Student Union’s executive for ‘marching up and down doing a Nazi salute’. A few months before the 2001 General Election in which he first entered Parliament as a Tory Mp, Boris Johnson, then editor of ‘The Spectator’, published an article by Taki Theodoracopulos who wrote about the Jewish world conspiracy and declared himself to be a ‘soi-disant anti-semite’. Johnson didn’t sack him despite protest by the magazine’s owner, Conrad Black.

William Hague had a short tenure as leader, and was replaced by Michael Howard (2002- 2005). And in October 2004, a Conservative frontbencher said ” The trouble is that the Conservative Party is being run by Michael Howard, Maurice Saatchi and Oliver Letwin and none of them really knows what it is to be English”.

And under David Cameron’s Conservative leaderships ( 2005-2016) in 2009, prominent Jewish community leaders, including chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, Rafel Pankowski of the Holocaust campaign group ‘Never Again’, Rabbi Barry Marcus of the London Synagogue, the Parisian European Jewish Congress and others expressed concern over Conservative Party membership of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, to which the Conservative MEPs belonged. The chair of the group was Michel Kaminski of Poland’s Law and Justice Party, who was in the words of a New Statesman writer, ‘widely seen on the Continent as anti-semitic’. Kaminski is a former member of the neo-Nazi National Revival of Poland party. Another leading ECR activist, Dr. Roberts Zile of Latvia’s National Alliance party, caused concern due to his party’s alleged role in commemorative events for Latvian Waffen SS units. The Conservative Party’s ‘alliances with far right, anti-semitic political parties on the continent’ had become a concern for US politicians also.

In 2012, Conservative MP Aidan Burley was sacked from his role as a ministerial aide because he organised a Nazi-themed do in 2011. Burley supplied a uniform and insignia to the groom, who was fined £1,500 by a French court for wearing the costume and ordered to pay 1000 Euros to an organisation representing families of those who had been sent to their death camps during WWII. A Conservative Party report on Burley’s behaviour, authored by Conservative peer Lord Gold, realeased in 2014 said Burley was not racist or antisemitic bu he acted in a ‘stupid and offensive way’. The Mail on Sunday accused Burley of providing misleading information to the inquiry. Prime minister David Cameron and the Conservative leadership stood in support of Burley.

David Cameron found himself in trouble with the newly released guidelines from the Football Association, and contrary to the Crown Prosecution Service’s and the Met police’s use and defence of the Public Order Act 1986, when Cameron defended the Tottenham fans use of the words Yid and Yiddos. Journalist Stefan Fatsis wrote that Cameron was giving and excuse for people to ‘propagate racial and ethnic slurs and stereotypes’ and Cameron was criticised by lawyer Peter Herbert for condoning and legitimising anti-Semitism. The next year, the Met stated that Tottenham fans would not be arrested for chanting the words, unless a complaint was received.

In the same year 2013, Jacob Rees-Mogg Conservative MP for North East Somerset, was guest of honour and gave a central speech at a dinner of the racist Traditional Britain Group (TGB). The Antisemitism Policy Trust highlighted Rees-Mogg’s attendance at this party in their Antisemitism and the Conservative Party dossier. Before the dinner, the anti-fascist magazine ‘Searchlight’ contacted Rees-Mogg ‘ to try to dissuade him from speaking, but to no avail’. The TGB vice president Gregory Lauder-Frost sat next to Rees-Mogg at dinner, former political secretary of the Conservative Monday Club which was banned by Iain Duncan Smith in 2001 because of its views on race. And speaking to a undercover Hope Not Hate researcher in 2017 about Vanessa Feltz, Lauder-Frost said ” She’s a fat Jewish s** g, she’s revolting, revolving. She lives with a negro. She’s horrible”. In May 2014, Conservative MP Patrick Mercer was recorded by journalist Daniel Foggo saying, during the course of an anecdote, that an Israel soldier looked like a “bloody Jew”. Mercer stepped down as an MP after an investigation and report by the House of Commons standards committee into his links to lobbying and paid advocacy. (where have we seen this recently). In October 2014, Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said, in a speech in the House of Commons, that ” The political system of the World’s superpower an dour great ally the United States is very susceptible to well- funded powerful lobbying groups and the power of the Jewish lobby in America”. Following condemnation by Organisations, Bridgen stood by his remarks.

Conservative attacks on the Labour leader Ed Miliband in 2014 and 2015, have been criticised as coded antisemitism. Francis Beckett (author, journalist, broadcaster and contemporary historian) claimed that some attacks on Ed Miliband and his father, the academic Ralph Miliband, were antisemitic. Beckett concluded that ‘ we have been conned into believing that anti-semitism is now a disease of the left. In reality, it is still found mostly in racism’s historic home: on the right’. Which comforts me in a way, because this was one reason i started this time consuming journey in the first place. I have always detested one sided blind bias journalism, especially on our tv and radio stations when presenters call themselves journalists, along with their hypocrisy. And i will always call them the enemy within until they prove me wrong. In April 2015, a Conservative local council candidate was suspended for saying she could never support ” the Jew ” Ed Miliband.

In January 2017, the then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson met Steve Bannon, who was Donald Trump’s chief strategist. Johnson was accused by the Jewish Labour movement chair, of hypocrisy for meeting him, someone who, according to the JLM chair, ‘enabled right wing antisemitism to seep into the mainstream’ while criticising Labour’s approach to antisemitism. Which i have to admit i found very strange at the time, never personally seen it in the party circles i was part of. Even though support for the Palestinian people was huge throughout the party and as it was in large parts of the world. And in 2017 a Birmingham Conservative council candidate left the party after abusive tweets from 2013 and 2014 came to light; they included the mentioning of ‘foreign Jew agents’.

In February 2018, prime minister Theresa May’s (2016-2019) former aide, Nick Timothy, co-wrote a story for the Daily Telegraph which described Jewish philanthropist George Soros’s funding of the anti-brexit campaign a ‘secret plot’. This was criticised as antisemitic by journalists Hugo Rifkind and Dan Hodges, as well as Alastair Campbell and American-British author Bonnie Greer. In response, Nick Timothy tweeted ‘ Throughout my career i’ve campaigned against antisemitism, helped secure more funding for security at Synagogues and Jewish schools’.

In April 2018, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was criticised by opposition politicians and campaign groups for congratulating Victor Orban on his re-election as prime minister of Hungary. Mainly because of concerns in his campaign of ‘anti-semitic undertones’. Later a number of Jewish organisations called on the Conservative government to confront European political parties that had fueled antisemitism, particularly those the Conservatives were affiliated in the European Conservatives and reformists group with, like Latvia’s National Alliance, Poland’s Law and Justice Party and Hungary’s Fidesz Party, with it’s leader Orban. The organisations asked the Conservatives to withdraw their membership until it’s free of all racism, including anti-semitism. British Jewish leaders condemned the Conservatives because, in a vote to remove Hungary’s voting rights at the European Council, they defended Hungary’s far right Orban government despite its ‘vivid antisemitism’. According to ‘The Jewish Chronicle’ the vote ‘was truly shameful and a dark day for the party led by Mrs May’. Orban later wrote to the Conservative party thanking them for Their support in the vote. The Conservatives were the only governing conservative party in Western Europe to vote against the move. Hungary was accused of corruption, violating press freedoms, undermining judicial independence, and waging an antisemitic campaign against a leading Jewish businessman, George Soros. David Hirsh accused the Conservatives of ‘cosying up to an antisemitic and racist strong man regime”, pandering to Jew-hate. The Labour chair Ian Lavery called on Theresa May to ‘explain and apologise for her party’s behaviour’. After the vote many high profile Conservatives including Michael Gove refused to condemn the vote, and according to ‘ The Jewish Chronicle’ was even worse than the vote itself, ‘ it is vital that antisemtism is called out wherever it is found. The Jewish Chronicle said that this was occurring at the same time that the Conservatives were criticising Jeremy Corbyn over antisemitism in the Labour party.

The Conservatives were condemned for appointing Roger Scruton as chair of a new Housing and Architecture Committee on November 2018 because, in the words of Labour MP Luciana Berger, he ” peddled antisemitic conspiracy theories” regarding Soros and Wes Streeting expressed concerns over Scruton’s links with Orban, the government defended Scruton, but was sacked as a government adviser in April 2019 after a ‘New Statesman’ interview in which he repeated comments similar to those previously made. Dawn Butler, shadow women and equalities minister, said Scruton’s language was that of “White Suprematists” and that he should of been sacked when he had made his comments previously.

The Conservative MP Suella Braverman came under fire in 2019 for saying her party was ‘engaged against Cultural Marxism’ (a far right anti-semitic conspiracy theory), supposedly led by Jeremy Corbyn, yes just try to think about that if you possibly can, and make your own minds up. The phrase is interpreted by commentators as a theory pushed by far right voices that Western culture has supposedly been undermined by mostly Jewish students of the Frankfurt School. When asked by journalist Dawn Foster why she was ” pushing a far right term used by Anders Breivik”, Braverman said she was ” only trying to prevent further attacks on ‘British genius”.

In the Spring of 2019, when on a parliamentary candidate short list for Hackney North & Stoke Newington and Hackney South & Shoreditch, Councillor Ben Seifert was told by a party member not to run because he is Jewish and ” you can have too many Jews”. Seifert left the Conservative party in September 2019. In March 2019, Rees-Mogg retweeted a speech by the leader of the far right German political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD). The AfD marched with neo Nazis the year before and had been condemned by members of the German Jewish community as ‘racist and antisemitic’, ‘no party for Jews’ and a ‘danger to Jewish life in Germany’. Following criticism, Rees-Mogg defended his decision to promote the AfD leaders speech.

One could just think that all this racism and anti-semitism was in England, wrong again, the anti-semitic conspiracy theory ‘Cultural Marxism’ was evident in the Conservative party during 2018 in Scotland, in July, the Chairperson for the youth wing of the Scottish Conservatives, ‘Conservatives Future Scotland’ was accused of antisemitism after using the phrase. Ross Greer Scottish Green Party MSP, wrote to Ruth Davidson Scottish Conservative leader, asking her to treat the issue seriously because, according to him, the ‘conspiracy theory was quite literally created by the Nazis to demonise Jews as the enemy within’. The idea of ‘Cultural Marxism’ emerged again at the Conservative Party Conference in October. Copies of a booklet called ‘Moralitis: A Cultural Virus’. by Robert Oulds and Niall McCrae, were available at a Bruges Group meeting. The booklet espoused right wing conspiracy theories and anti-semitic origins. Two Jewish organisations, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, called for an investigation into the racist booklet, while that was going on, in a Plymouth University Conservative Party, some society members were pictured, according to the Daily Mirror, wearing clothing with homemade slogans on them, such as ‘Jude’ with a Star of David, and wearing a Hitler- style moustache. Plymouth’s Student Union suspended the society pending an investigation; Conservative Campaign Headquarters launched an investigation and said it would suspend any party members involved.

Now we reach what historians could call ‘A Harvest 2019’ , where we saw a man who wore coats of many colours Boris Johnson, who became prime minister in July. And who was known for many things including being a racist, a liar, a cheat, a clown and unprincipled but above all Slippery, nothing ever seems to stick to him. And because he chose the right envelope when it came to Brexit, he could use everything that he was well know for, with no incriminations, all his Christmases came at once. Yes with a lot of help from the media, mainstream and social, who never even realised until it was too late, how they helped along with extra help from the Blairite wing of the Labour party.

In the third week of the 2019 General Election, a number of Conservative politicians, including Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Rebecca Smith, the Conservative candidate for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, attended the unveiling of a statue of former Conservative MP and first woman elected to the House of Commons Nancy Astor, with May unveiling the statue. This was controversial as Astor is considered by some historians and campaigners to have been antisemitic. During a parliamentary debate on Brexit on the 3rd September 2019, Jacob Rees-Mogg yes he seems to appear like a itch you can’t scratch, he called two Jewish Conservative MPs including Oliver Letwin, members of the illuminati, which according to Michael Berkowitz, professor of Modern Jewish History, who commented on the incident, is one of the “most poisonous antisemitic canards (unfounded rumours) in all history…. frequently used as justification for violence”. Antony Lerman (writer who specialises in the study of antisemitism, and the Israel- Palestinian conflict) suggested that this is ‘dog-whistle antisemitism and at the same time a chase for votes to shamelessly exploit Jewish fears’. Early the next month, Rees-Mogg was criticised for referring to Jewish financier George Soros as ” the remoaner funder-in-chief”. This was seen by a perpetuation of an antisemitic conspiracy theory and was condemned by Lord Alf Dubs, who called Rees-Mogg to be sacked as a comment ” straight from the far right’s antisemitic playbook”.

In October 2019, Crispen Blunt MP accused the Chief Rabbi of Manchester of demanding ‘special status’ for British Jews. Blunt was later rebuked by the Jewish Leadership Council, which stated he should ‘clarify if he supports the concept of freedom of religion, a cornerstone of Liberal democracy’. In December 2019, the Conservative MP for Hastings and Rye, Sally-Ann Hart, was under investigation by the Conservative Party for antisemitism and Islamophobia at once, Hart ‘liked’ a Nazi phrase on Facebook and ‘shared’ an antisemitic slur. And in the same month Lee Anderson MP for Ashfield was reported to be under investigation by the Conservative party for antisemitism.

As i finally reach the last lap of this very long blog, having travelled one hundred and ninety years, through racist skeletons of the Conservative party, and a education i never quite expected when i started it, not to mention the lost months i spent crossing the T’s, and dotting the I’s, researching and cross referencing to make sure i don’t slander anyone. And in February 2020, i heard John Bercow, the Jewish former speaker of the House of the Commons and Conservative MP, say something that was one of the reasons i had to write this blog, I saw so much corruption of the truth as i knew it, and i saw many Jews who i use to trust with the truth, who were shut out of debates on radio and tv because they disagreed with the bulk of the mainstream reporting of the Labour party and by people who had their own agendas. So hearing John Bercow claiming he had experienced ‘subtle’ antisemtism from members of his own party, and had never experienced any antisemitism from Labour Mps. Justified to me personally i was right to do this piece, because i never saw any of it in my left wing circles either, but i’m not that naive to think that it didn’t exist, as i’ve said all my life it’s been in all walks of life in degrees. sadly ‘hate’ a word i detest using to this day if i can avoid it, along with racism and antisemitism and xenophobia, will still be here when i’m long gone, no law will end it, sadly grown ups pass it down to the young, and the merry go round, carries on with the help of a very easily corrupted media, mainstream and social, and yes also institutions.

But to finish on a light note John Bercow went on to join the Labour Party.

YOURS AS HONEST AS I CAN BE . COLIN H BAKER. 2021.

A rare landscape,even though i love them, finally framed but a phone pic has lost some of its colours.

The Heart of any Country is its Transportation. and the Health of his Peoples.

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Two subjects have always confused the Tory party and their close friends in the right wing media, and that is first the NHS, something that has always bugged them because it was brought in by socialists just after the second world war, and survived every test to this day, after the many attempts to corrupt and run it down by every Tory government since Macmillan, our workforce have never been more healthy because of our beloved NHS.

And secondly a country’s transportation, especially it’s Railways, if the NHS is the heart of a country the railways has to be the blood vessels it’s veins and capillaries allowing the blood to be pumped to every part. One only has to mention Jeremy Corbyn, mentioning taking certain services back into the public arena, and the Tories and their media buddies heart rates go into overdrive and start yelling those lefty socialists, yes good days for beta blockers but maybe not for their doctors. But the one service that really confuses them is the Railways, at the last count over 80% of people in the UK, would like to see them under government control, keeping train commuting fares far less, than our greed ridden train services here in the UK. And if this is socialism then 90% of the planet must be socialist, because even right wing countries around the world keep their trains under government control.

Even the Tories know that a cheap run railway system helps everyone even the capitalists, cheap transport gives all companies more profits who then pay more tax etc, and people save money who then spend it in the shops etc it’s a no brainer. A Magic Roundabout called Socialism, yes that dirty word…………………… ……… Colin Baker 2017

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Religious Education At School.

Here we go again, i’m about to upset a lot of people. I have heard a lot of people in the media, and in the phone in shows. And even socialist thinkers on social media like myself, and government ministers. Saying we should stop teaching religion in schools, and stopping faith schools.

So as someone who has never really conformed, i want it on record, that i think it’s madness and would be hypocritical. Having lived at a time, when from the age of five up to eleven, being taught to be a Christian in the classroom. Then from the age of eleven to fifteen, we would sing hymns and say prayers at assembly before the school day started. Then we would take turns reading the days lesson while standing on stage in front of a lectern, in front of the whole school.

The reason why i became a non conformist, was because my religious teacher in those years after the age of eleven, a Mr Harvey said to us “feel free to question anything you don’t understand” and like a good student i obliged. Nothing seem to fit in my head about a God above, or as i use to say a man in the sky. But the stories told in the bible, did stir a part of me, which made me think what great lessons it teaches us to be better people. And along with a mother who encouraged me and my siblings to be nicer people. Even if you slip sometimes.

But even though i ended up not believing in a God, i never forgot those lessons my mother and the bible taught me. So i looked far deeper and found my own beliefs. You could say i failed my religious education lessons, though i came top of the class twice in the exams out of five. So you would probably think i would want this religion teaching in schools stopped. If you do, you couldn’t be so wrong, it never harmed me once, or the fellow students i went to school with, there was never any pressure like say English and Maths. It also taught me to think for myself, and to not be brainwashed. And being a non believer, i made a positive decision to not baptise my two children, but to let them grow up to believe what they find to be right for themselves. And i never once told them to not have religious studies that might guide them on the right path. It’s their own choice. And to end religious teachings in school, for political reasons especially, can only be a bad move for our future children. They don’t have to end up believers, but the life lessons they will learn are precious,and never forget Jesus or Mohammed or even Buddha were socialists wink. Colin Baker 2008.

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A Thank You, from 2010………..

This is to say thanks, to my friends who said i should run for parliament, and i will always have their votes. But i’m afraid i’m a wee bit old for that. Now my Editor in Chief, Elizabeth has encouraged me to be a commentator or write a book, which i’m seriously thinking of, when time allows. But for now all i can say is thank you for your kind words and encouragement. Just remember a few things when watching the news or politicians on television, words my mother told me at a very young age ” Never believe anything you hear and only half what you see ” Words that have guided me through life, and always look beneath the surface, and when you think you can’t change anything, and you feel small, remember from small acorns Oak trees grow. And when you come to vote remember one more thing, it should never be for what they can do for me, it should be what will they do for the future of my children, and their children, or in many cases the future generations.

I know it’s difficult to choose between the three main party’s, who have become clone like, and a shortage of politicians who have the courage to stand up and be counted, especially against their own party. In fear of being demoted or even expelled as with the case of George Galloway, whether one agrees with his views or not. One has to admire his courage of his convictions and history is proving him right each and every day now. This country right now needs more people like George Galloway and the Tony Benn’s of the world, along with more independent thinking people, before we carry on sleep walking into a country run by clones and robots. Colin Baker 2010.

My Favourite Paintings……………