A PARCEL of ROGUES! by Christopher Draper

YOU CAN tell what God thinks of money when you look at the sort of people he gives it to - he has a similar opinion of Britain’s Honours System and its recipients…

1) Jimmy Savile – Officer of the Order of British Empire (OBE) 1972, Knighthood 1990 – from the 1950’s many people complained of Savile’s vile sexual abuse of victims aged from 5 to 75 (including corpses) but his money and social connections protected him until his death in 2011. Feeling increasingly threatened by gossip, in 1990 Savile confided to journalist Lynn Banks, “It was a gi-normous relief when I got the knighthood because it got me off the hook.”

2) Benito Mussolini – Knighthood 1923 – Funded from 1917 by Britain’s MI5, in 1919 Mussolini founded the Italian Fascist Party. Backed by blackshirted thugs, from 1922 Mussolini headed Italy’s terror regime. His dictatorship received the British seal of approval in 1923 with an Official Visit from King George Fifth who rewarded Il Duce with a Knighthood.

3) Harvey Weinstein – Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) 2004 – currently serving 23 years imprisonment for numerous sexual assaults including rape.

4) Robert Mugabe – Knighthood 1994 – anti-colonial guerrilla leader turned murderous, homophobic dictator, responsible for genocide of 20,000 residents of Matabele land in the early 1980’s.

5) Jean Else – Dame 2001 – “Labour Luvvie” honoured as “Super Head” of Manchester’s “Whalley Range High School”. In 2004 Dame Jean Else was suspended and subsequently found guilty of making unauthorised payments and nepotism, which included promoting her twin sister from part-time clerical assistant to deputy head! Sacked and banned by the General Teaching Council.

6) Anthony Blunt – Knighthood – spied for Stalin from 1935-51. Although the authorities were tipped off as early as 1950 and Blunt confessed in 1964, as a pillar of the establishment – distantly related to the Queen, educated at Marlborough Public School and Trinity College, Cambridge, member of the British Secret Service and “Surveyor of the King/Queen’s Pictures” Blunt was honoured and the truth concealed.

7) Vidkun Quisling – CBE 1929 – founder of the Norwegian Fascist Party and Nazi collaborator honoured by George V for his murky role in “representing British interests” in the 1920’s as a rabid anti-communist member of the Norwegian Legation in Moscow.

8) Fred Goodwin – Knighthood 2004 – as CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland, Goodwin was honoured “for services to the banking industry”. He had no banking qualifications, gambled on a reckless policy of acquisitions and expansion and four years later RBS spectacularly collapsed forcing an unprecedented government bailout. While ordinary citizens continue to bear the costs Goodwin ensured that he walked away with an RBS lifetime pension of £703,000 a year.

9) Nicolae Caeusescu – Knighthood 1978 – Following the 1978 honours ceremony at Buckingham Palace the Queen gave the Romanian dictator “a rifle with a telescopic sight, his wife, Elena, received a gold and diamond brooch”. After the pair were executed in 1989 by firing squad during a popular uprising the Queen sent back the “Star of the Socialist Republic of Romania – First Class” awarded to her by Caeusescu but pleaded in vain for return of the Knight’s regalia she’d given him, “a purple mantle with a silver star and collar with gold roses and sapphires. The collar is estimated to be worth £15,000.”

10) Rolf Harris – Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) 1968, OBE 1977, CBE 2009 – Broadcaster initially famous for singing about “Two Little Boys” and tying down kangaroos, later infamous for sexually assaulting little girls including his daughter’s thirteen year old friend. In 2005 the Queen sat for Harris at Buckingham Palace whilst he painted her official 80th birthday portrait and in 2012 he performed outside the Palace for her Jubilee Concert. Two year later he was found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault and sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison.

Britain’s Honours System is a tawdry confection, impressing naught but fools and narcissists. The above list of crooks, conmen, killers and paedophiles is merely the tip of the dung heap. Next on Northern Voices I’ll identify ten “Honourable Hypocrites” who broadcast their anti-establishment credentials whilst brown-nosing their way onto the Honours List.

CD 2020

Was General Franco a Fascist? by Brian Bamford

JOE Bailey sends NV a quote from Paul Preston, historian: “If people are looking for a quick and easy insult to those on the right, then fascist, is your go-to term,” he says. “If you’re asking an academic political theorist what constitutes a fascist then you’d have to say Franco isn’t.”

Derek Pattison had asked the question 'Was Franco a Fascist?' and he drew attention to some similarities and differences: 'Franco did use forced labour, concentration camps, and mass executions and terror was a deliberate strategy used to pursue his goal of overthrowing the republican government and winning the war. He then established a military dictatorship, but I don't think he'd much time for fascism, the Falange or its leader, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera.'

The historian, Sir Paul Preston, is an interesting personality to turn to for an answer to this question 'Was Franco a Fascist?'. The then Prof. Preston answer to the interviewer Rob Attar, was:

'If people are looking for a quick and easy insult to those on the right, then fascist, is your go-to term,” he says. “If you’re asking an academic political theorist what constitutes a fascist then you’d have to say Franco isn’t.'

And then Preston continued:

'But that’s not intended to let the Spanish dictator off the hook. “I caused quite a stir in Spain a few years ago when asked this question,” Preston recalled, “and I said Franco wasn’t a fascist … he was something much worse.

'What I meant by that is that the only absolutely indisputable fascist leader is Mussolini and the only indisputably fascist regime is Mussolini’s regime. And, there are so many ways in which Franco is different.'

'How, then, was Franco “much worse”? Preston argues that Franco was a “deeply conservative” man who, having previously served with the Spanish Army in North Africa, “had the mental furniture of a Spanish colonial officer”. This had seemingly imbued him with a shocking disregard for human life.'

Derek Pattison was questioning Stuart Christie's assumption that Franco was a 'Fascist' and I believe Derek is right to say General Franco didn't have much time for the Falange (the Spanish Fascist Party). In 1963, my boss pointed to a house where a local Fascist lived in Denia, Alicante, and told me that he'd been imprisoned for a time under Franco. What Sir Paul Preston now calls 'the mental furniture of a Spanish colonial office', Sr. Juan Paris, my boss, saw Franco as a solid army man who couldn't be swayed by the dodgy nature of party politicians. Later on in 1975, after Franco had died* my boss told me that he then regarded democracy as the best thing for Spain.

Juan was probably the best boss I've ever had and he looked after me and my family as best he could, but when I think on this, I'm put in mind of what Ignazio Silone said in 'School for Dictators' where he wrote on Fascist Italy about how folk flock to those in power and this was his advice:

'Don't be in such a hurry, I beg you. The poets and the monsignori, the generals, the ladies and their escorts will all come to you after you are in power. With some exceptions, they flock to success like flies to honey, or if you prefer, like rats to cheese. Democratic when there is a democratic government, they are naturally fascists under a fascist dictatorship and Communists under the hammer and sickle. The behaviour of the priests might surprise us, if the pagans hadn't already advised us that the winning cause has always pleased the gods. Christian theology later corroberated this interlectually, explaining that all authority comes from God. And as for the ladies, it's well known that Venus has always felt a particular attraction for Mars, the God of strength.'

This quote is probably a good explanation of the evolution of Franco's Spanish dictatorship, which was an authoritatian, regime rather than totalitarian as in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia.

Sir Paul Preston himself also represents a good example how to get on in academia, he doesn't yet seem to have commented on the death of Stuart Christie, which is a little strange given that he was very keen to court Stuart, particularly in the early days, and Stuart told me he helped to get some anarchist publications into print in English. One of Preston's students 'Neil' told me that Preston made much of his association with Stuart in academic circles. When I once, some years ago, mentioned to Stuart about Prof. Preston's association with the International Brigade Memorial Trust, he told me that 'it was his bread and butter'..

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* Officially, Franco died a few minutes after midnight on 20 November 1975 from heart failure, at the age of 82 – on the same date as the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange, in 1936. Historian Ricardo de la Cierva claimed that he had been told around 6 pm on 19 November that Franco had already died.[171] Juan Carlos was proclaimed King two days later.

Corbyn, Donald Trump & Power in a Democracy

by Brian Bamford

IN the context of the forthcoming Presidential election in the USA it may be worth considering what Bertrand Russell has said in his essay 'Forms of Power'.

Russell writes 'Power may be defined as the production of intended effects', he determines different types of power:  'traditional' which gains respect due to custom; 'revolutionary' which depends upon a large group united by a creed, programme, or sentiment, such as Protestantism Communism, or desire for national independence; and 'naked power' which he sees as psychological and results from the power-loving impulses of individuals or groups, and wins from its subjects only submission through fear, not active co-operation. 

Russell goes on to distinguish differing categories of power such as 'hereditary power';  'Heredity power has given rise to our notion of a “gentleman”.'  Of this type of power Russell argues:  'This is a somewhat degenerate form of a conception which has a long history, from magic properties of chiefs, through the divinity of kings, to knightly chivalry and the blue-blooded aristocrat....  Where power is aristocratic rather than monarchical, the best manners include courteous behaviour towards equals as an addition to bland self-assertion in dealing with inferiors.'

In the U.S. case of Donald Trump; political power, in a democracy, tends to belong to men (and women) of a type which differs considerably from the aristocratic hereditary type.  As Russell says:  A politician like say for example Trump, 'if he is to succeed, must be able to win the confidence of his machine, and then to arose some degree of enthusiasm in a majority of the electorate.'

Clearly the qualities needed for these two stages on the road to power are by no means the same, and, as Russell states: 

'Candidates for the Presidency in the United States are not infrequently men (and perhaps soon women) who cannot stir the imagination of the general public, though they possess the art of ingratiating themselves with party managers.  Such men (and perhaps soon women) are, as a rule, defeated, but the party managers do not foresee this defeat.  Sometimes, however, the machine is able to secure the victory of a man (or even perhaps in this case a woman) without “magnetism”; in such cases, it dominates him (or her) after his election, and never achieves real power.'

Of course, as Russell observes, it is sometimes possible for a man (or perhaps, in the case a woman) 'to create his own machine;  Napoleon III, Mussolini, and Hitler are examples of this'.

In Donald Trump's current case it seems to me that if he is successful in gaining the presidency that though he presently doesn't yet fully control the machine that in the course of time he will seize control, in Hillary Clinton's case I think she is a good example of a machine woman. 

The astute reader will be aware of the curious UK situation of Jeremy Corbyn in this respect is in control of the party machine in so far as he helped to create the Momentum machine, but that he has been singularly unable to enthuse the other vital engine of the party and win over the parliamentary party.  However he proceeds from here, and I think Corbyn win be re-elected as leader of the Labour Party,  it looks like that the Labour Party will go into the next election like an aeroplane operating on one engine.  Aeroplanes can still fly on one engine!

George Orwell's letter to a Northern lass

Can a Fascist have a case?

TO me there always seems to be a contrast between how Spaniards and Catalans view the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, and how others interpret it.  Particularly, I feel this at events in this country of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, where one often experiences a  romanticising of what Orwell once called the 'Spanish War'.  Somehow such occasions come over as museum pieces of a bygone age in terms on the Spain of today, and British anarchist meetings on this subject are often little better.  What seems to be going on here is that a historical narrative is being imposed that lacks a sociological or anthropological context. 
At the Paul Preston event on the 28th, April, at the Manchester People's History Museum (see earlier posting below), I questioned the claim that life in Spain had been unbearable in the 1960s and 1970s under General Franco, because I was living and working as an electrician for Casa Such in Denia and delivering bottles of Butano gas to the villages of Cabo San Antonio in Alicante.  It was not easy being a family living on a weekly wage of 750 pesetas but I would not say it was unbearable.  For the ordinary Spaniard in the 1960s, life and material conditions were tolerable in 1963 and getting better, the only thing is that for political opponents of the Spanish regime one would read in the foreign press of arrests and executions being carried out.  Both Professor Paul Preston and his colleague Helen Graham at the Manchester People's History Museum, in answer to my query, accepted that life in Spain in the 1960s and 70s, was vastly better than in the 1940s and 1950s but claimed that a shadow of fear was still hanging over the Spaniards.

Their argument however remains, that Franco was a monster like the other regimes committed to Fascism in the 1930s, Hitler and Mussolini.  Paul Preston is anxious that Franco mustn't be let off by the historians, and he feels that he has had too good a press as a benevolent dictator.

Yet, it is as well to note that the Spaniards and Catalans don't always welcome commemoration dedicated to the International Brigades; Colm Tóibín in his book 'Homage to Barcelona' (1990) writes:  'In October 1988 a statute of David and Goliath was unveiled in the outskirts of the city (Barcelona) to commemorate the International Brigades who fought on the Republican side in the Civil War, on the fiftieth anniversary of their departure from Spain.'  Both the Catalan Government and the local authorities were not keen to host the event.  In the end the socialist Mayor of Barcelona, Pasqual Maragall, spoke in Catalan and French and then in English, he talked of the need for reconciliation in his country and of the need not to humiliate the other side:  'They too had their ideals,' he said in English.  The novelist Colm Tóibín writes that there was a stunned silence among the foreign veterans.

Do Fascists have ideals? 

On August 1st, 1937, George Orwell wrote to Amy Charlesworth, from Flixton, near Manchester, answering her query about the Spanish rebels and the Fascists.  I will quote his reply at length because it offers a clear insight into why some Spaniards may have supported the rebels:
'You asked about the situation in Spain, and whether the rebels had not a case.  I should not say that the rebels had no case, unless you believe that it is always wrong to rebel against a legally-established government, which in practice nobody does.  Roughly speaking I should say that the rebels stand for two things that are more or less contradictory - for of course Franco's side, like the Government side, consists of various parties who frequently quarrel bitterly among themselves.  They stand on the one hand for an earlier form of society, feudalism, the Roman Catholic Church and so forth, and on the other hand for Fascism, which means an immensely regimented and centralised form of government, with certain features in common with Socialism, in that it means suppression of a good deal of private property and private enterprise, but always ultimately in the interest of bigger capitalists, and therefore completely unsocialistic.  I am wholeheartedly against both these ideas, but it is fair to say that a case can be made out for both of them  Some Catholic writers such as Chesterton, Christopher Dawson etc., can make out a very appealing though not logically convincing case for a more primitive form of society.  I would not say that there is any case for Fascism itself, but I do think there is a case for many individual Fascists....  Roughly speaking I would say the Fascism has appeal for certain simple and decent people who genuinely want to see justice done to the working class and do not grasp that they are being used as tools by the big capitalists.  It would be absurd to imagine that every man on Franco's side is a demon...'

I got my first job in Spain by applying to the local office of the Falangist (Fascist) sindicato in June 1963, a Senor Paris was the functionary and he directed me to the Casa Such on the Calle Real (main Street) in Denia.  By the 1960s, according Gerald Brennan in his book 'The Face of Spain', the supporters of the right-wing in Spain had begun to moderate their behaviour simply because economic conditions had improved and there were by that time opportunities for successful speculation in real estate especially on the Costa's and in the tourist areas.

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