'If Liberty Means Anything!'

EDITORIAL STATEMENT: A STATUE of George Orwell stands outside Broadcasting House, the headquarters of the BBC, in London. The wall behind the statue is inscribed with Orwell's words 'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'. Although the statue was not unveiled until 7 November 2017, the Northern Voices blog, and before that the magazine of the same name, was established to be a concrete manifestation of that same sentiment. We do not have an alignment with any political party and have a scepticism about the activities of many politicians. It will be apparent to readers that our contributors have left of centre allegiances. This covers a spectrum of libertarians, trades unionists and democratic socialists. We believe that everyone has the right to have a different viewpoint from ourselves and from others, irrespective of who they are, and no one should be prevented from expressing that viewpoint, even if we or others disagree with it. This does not place upon us any obligation to publish material which is abusive, unsubstantiated or merely an assertion. However often an assertion is repeated, it does not make it true. In commenting on the views of others we avoid overused terms like, racist, sexist, homo-phobic, trans-phobic, islamo-phobic, anti-semitic, fascist, nazi etc, and object to their use in contexts where they are little more than abuse intended to intimidate others into remaining silent and so stifle debate on contentious issues. If anyone reading this blog objects to what one of our contributors has to say then we encourage them to write a comment. Unless they can provide some evidence more substantial than their own opinion about the nature of the content, it is unlikely that it will be taken down or altered.

The Fat Lady Still Isn’t Singing

  by Les May

IN the period between 2* July and 12 August there were 30,041 new infections reported by the government. The average number of infections per day was 733. If the number of new infections was more or less stable we would expect there to be an equal number of days with above the average number of infections in the first half of this period and in the second half of this period. In fact there were just three days with above the average number of infections in the first half 3 July to 22 July. In the second half 24 July to 12 August there were 17 days. The middle day of the period, 23 July, there were above the average number of new infections. The total number of Covid19 deaths in this period was 2395. This figure is almost 8% of the number of new infections reported.*

If the average number of new infections remained at 733 per day, by Christmas we can expect there to be about 96,000 new infections reported in total which may translate into another 7,200 deaths.

The figures above are predicated on an unchanging rate of new infection. But if one compares new infections figures between the first (3 to 22 July) and the second half (24 July to 12 August) it is clear that the average daily rate has changed from 631 to 833. In other words the daily number of new Covid19 infections is rising again.

It is the rate at which the numbers are rising which is important not the actual numbers. So long as the rate of change is in the so called ‘linear phase’ this can be classed as (very) unfortunate; if it enters the so called ‘exponential phase’ this will be a disaster because we will have a rerun of what we experienced in late March and April, and we can kiss goodbye to Christmas.

If we are going to learn to live with the virus and not just watch others die with the virus we need to change what we are doing and become more proactive. Getting rid of the virus, before it gets rid of us, isn’t ‘Boris’s problem’, it’s our problem too.

Doing whatever is necessary to halt Covid19 infections would have another beneficial effect. The methods which are effective in reducing the likelihood of becoming infected against Covid19 are the ones which are effective in reducing the likelihood of becoming infected with Influenza. And we may just need them.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spotlights/2019-2020/cdc-prepare-swhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_fluine-flu.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

*My choice of start date was not arbitrary, it was the first day of the government’s updated method of reporting new infections and close to the day on which most meeting places were reopened.

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Hokey Cokey on Corbyn Friend's Facebook Page

Curious Corbynite Dance as Site Censor's Stefan Cholewka

  I put my right hand in, 

I put my right hand out,

In out, in out. 

 

shake it all about.

THE Hokey Cokey* is a famous traditional campfire song which has recently been adopted as method of punishment by the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page to confuse readers as to its method of administration of the site.  It follows critical allusions about the self-confessed fraud, the now Rochdale councillor Faisal Rana, who breached electoral law when he obtained and used postal votes illegally.  It was widely reported at the time that he had accepted a police caution, but the Rochdale Labour Party continued to back him, as do other useful idiots.  

Recently Stefan Cholewka, Secretary of Rochdale Trade Union Council, in a personal capacity posted some links critical of Cllr. Rana's historic conduct on the Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page.  Owing to this act Sam O'Brien, a local trade union activist, then threaten to withdraw from membership of the Facebook page if Stefan's comments remained up.  

One of the Facebook administrators then obediently removed Stefan's comments, but also seemingly someone blocked Stefan from both access and posting on the site.  Then suddenly, earlier this week, he was readmitted and began posting items.  Yet within 24-hours of his readmission to the Facebook page he reported that he was out again.

'In out, in out. 

 

shake it all about.'

 

This seems to be the politics of the famous Hokey Cokey music hall dance and suggests to us that the fall of the Red Wall in the North of England may not be temporary event, as it points to a continuing degeneration in the psychology of those elements like Sam O'Brien, who seemed to think that they have the 'key to the universe'.  It is the mentality of what the French call the idée fixe, which among some elements of the Anglo-Saxon left seems to be evolving into monomania.

If they do not get a grip sites like Rochdale's Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page will become impoverished: mere megaphones bleating like of sheep. 

* The Hokey Cokey (United Kingdom and the Caribbean) or Hokey Pokey (United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland and Israel)^[1] is a famous, popular campfire song and participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure. It is well known in English-speaking countries. It originates in a British folk dance, with variants attested as early as 1826. The song and accompanying dance peaked in popularity as a music hall song and novelty dance in the mid-1940s in the UK. The song became a chart hit twice in the 1980s. The first UK hit was by The Snowmen, which peaked at UK No. 18 in 1981.

'Country house tea rooms' & technology!

IN July Jeffery Green in a comment on this Blog said:  'Yes the NT is a somewhat stuffy and middle-class group, which recently found that there was much public interest in the kitchens and servant quarters of the grand houses that it owns.  I think so much is due to that arch-snob Lees-Milne who negotiated with the financially straightened owners - in Pulborough's Petworth House NT enabling the family to stay in the front portion of the grand house whilst the NT kept up the deer park and permitted visitors to the rear.  They finally allow access to the kitchens. 

'But they did purchase that Chartist cottage near Bromsgrove and the workhouse at Southwell so slowly the NT became slightly socially aware.'

 This month Jonathan Aylen, from Salford in Greater Manchester, wrote in a letter in the FT last Saturday that  'There ought to be a landscape dominated by cooling towers somewhere in Europe.  Perhaps the National Trust should be planning to acquire Ratchiffe-on-Soar power station south of Nottingham when it closes?'

Mr. Aylen observes:  'Large swaiths of carbon intensive technology technology are about to become obsolete and dissapear with little record.  In the same vein, Britain was the first to use but is now the first to dismantle civil nuclear power stations.'

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Who Will ‘Call Out’ Economic Inequality?

by Les May

LAST Friday a US doctor interviewed for the PBS (Channel 91) documentary ‘The Virus: What went wrong?’ said that 40 to 50% of American families were ‘just managing’. In the 1990s the British economist and journalist Will Hutton said ‘We live in a 30:30:40 society.  Thirty percent of people have made it; thirty percent think they will make it and forty percent know they will never make it.’  Two weeks ago an Indian economist speaking on the AlJazeera programme ‘Inside Story’ (Channel 235) said that if less than 1000 of its most wealthy citizens were made to pay a 4% wealth tax, India could double its spending on health care.

In his August 7 2020 article for The Atlantic US journalist Kurt Andersen writes ‘In 2006 the annual revenues of Goldman Sachs were greater than the annual economic output of two-thirds of the countries on Earth—a treasure chest from which the firm was disbursing the equivalent of $69 million to its CEO and an average of $800,000 each to everybody else at the place… In 40 years, the share of wealth owned by our richest 1 percent has doubled, the collective net worth of the bottom half has dropped to almost zero, the median weekly pay for a full-time worker has increased by just 0.1 percent a year, only the incomes of the top 10 percent have grown in sync with the economy, and so on. Americans’ boats stopped rising together; most of our boats stopped rising at all. Economic inequality has reverted to the levels of a century ago and earlier, and so has economic insecurity, while economic immobility is almost certainly worse than it’s ever been.’

Full text at: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/i-was-useful-idiot-capitalism/615031/

Examine it closely and Boris Johnson’s ‘Levelling Up’ agenda is just a re-run of Margaret Thatcher’s ‘Trickle Down Economics’; invest in infrastructure to boost productivity in the North to London levels; the rich will get even richer and a bit of that wealth will trickle down. There will be no change in the relative levels of income; it will still be a world of zero hours contracts, food banks, two jobs and insecure tenancies for those at the bottom of the heap.

Who cares? Certainly not the young, or at least not the privileged young, that 30% who will ‘make it’ or the 30% who think they will. They are far too busy demanding the removal of statues, patronising those they see as ‘oppressed’ by demanding ‘safe spaces’ for them, and ‘no platforming’ speakers because they lack the ability or willingness to engage in rational debate with anyone they disagree with.

Speaking at the Oxford Union in 2017 Bernie Sanders said:   'There is an area which is not nearly so sexy as dealing with race, as dealing with gender, as dealing with homophobia and that is the economic struggle and in that struggle we are not only not making progress, we are losing ground'.  As if to emphasise his point the applause came when he made reference to ‘gay’ marriage in the UK.

But as Sanders told his Oxford audience the economic issues ‘wrap around’ all the social issues.  If you are on a zero hours contract, living in a lousy house for a rent which takes a third of your income, are always one pay packet away from being penniless, working but having to use a food bank, it’s not because you are black/white, male/female, gay/straight, cis/trans, it’s because the people who run the system want it that way. They and their even richer friends benefit from running the political system along neo-liberal lines.  And you will find some of the beneficiaries in all the categories listed above.  Which is why ‘racist’ Trump has his Black and Hispanic supporters, and ‘racist’ Boris has his Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel.  Some of them are doing very nicely thank you!

If the young don’t care, what about ‘The Left’.  How about Labour?  You’ll remember in February three Labour leadership hopefuls declared themselves Zionists and one, Lisa Nandy, said if she became leader she would press for the IHRA definition of anti-semitism to be accepted by the Labour party. This is some of what the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has to say about that definition;

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is increasingly being adopted or considered by western governments, is worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former.

This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.

Full text at: https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/first-ever-40-jewish-groups-worldwide-oppose-equating-antisemitism-with-criticism-of-israel/#english

Same month, same cast; Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Emily Thornberry all pledged support to the 12 demands of the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights. To which one senior Shadow Cabinet member representing a northern constituency is reported to have said ‘My constituents don’t give a flying fuck about transsexual issues’.

Text at: https://twitter.com/Labour_Trans/status/1226939313264394241

Their priorities seem to be different from mine, but I suppose being on £80k or so blunts the judgement when it comes to thinking about poverty. Increasingly ‘wealth creation’ for some is generating the makings of poverty for others. We see this especially in the privately rented housing market where a new ‘rentier’ class has emerged funded by rents which require a significant proportion of tenant income.

But ‘The Left’ isn’t just the Labour party and here we have yet another problem. There are those who like me think that our society is structured along economic lines, more wealth equals more privilege, and that our priority should be to tackle the vast inequalities between the richest and the poorest in our society. And there are those who want to view our society as structured along racial lines and insist that getting rid of what they define as racism is far more important than pursuit of a more economically equitable society.

Terms like ‘structural racism’ are dragooned into explanations for everything that is wrong with our society; they are sufficiently vague that they can be made to mean exactly what the speaker wants them to mean at the time.

Structural inequality is measurable; income ratios, wealth ratios, rates of direct tax, infant mortality, years without disability, differential morbidity and mortality, are all good measures. And if we can measure it, we can measure how successful we are at reducing it. Eliminating the inequalities of wealth in our world would do far more to help what some people like to see as ‘oppressed’ groups than any amount of rolling statues into the local dock or ‘calling out’ someone as a ‘racist’.

Postscript. I write this as someone who in Will Hutton’s terms has ‘made it’. That doesn’t mean I’m rich. It just means that I have always had a regular income, decent working conditions, a place to live I wasn’t going to be kicked out of at my landlord’s whim, a warm bed, four meals a day, a pension in my old age...

WHO'S AFRAID OF SAM O'BRIEN?

Editorial comment:  This month it was brought to our attention that two live links had been taken down on the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page.  The links were to items on the NV Blog that had been put up as comments by Stefan Cholewka and led to posts critical of the establishment politics in Rochdale.  Since they were removed a local Rochdale activist, Sam O'Brien, has admitted that he threatened to withdraw from membership of the Facebook site, if the links were not removed.  

There are eleven administrators on the site and two have told NV that they were not consulted.  At this time we have not been able to contact the other administrators and it may be that they have not been consulted either, but Sam O'Brien has been kind enough to offer his thoughtful observations below.  We leave it our readership to judge the profound wisdom of his case.  We understand that any one of the administrators could remove content on the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page.

*************

Can this really be the language of the Enlightenment?

Editor's explanation:  Below is a recent e-mail from Sam 

O'Brien, a Rochdale trade unionist who prides himself on 

being an ardent 'anti-racist'.  Northern Voices does not 

believe in providing 'trigger warnings' on content 

as generally we anticipate our readers will have 

stern constitutions and to be intellectually robust.  

Yet some may easily find Mr. O'Brien's style 

surprising and even curious. 

Hello Brian,

'I didn't object. I said it was racist bollocks. I feel I am probably wasting my time but I will ty [sic] to spell it out to you. 

'You say in your article that Rochdale has been overrepresented by Muslim councillors and that has not been healthy for the democracy and moral status of the town. That is racist. Saying that there are too many Muslim councillors and that damages the democracy and morality of the town is racist bollocks. Complete and utter racist bollocks. Its the sort of racist bollocks that the BNP used to come out with, It is what the EDL say. Can you not hear yourself and how fucking offensive you are being?

'You go on to say that you are worried that the problems of the Indian sub-continent are becoming too much of an issue in the politics of the town. So the way Rochdale's councillor's vote is not influenced by whether they are left right or centre but by what is going on in Kashmir and Bangladesh. Racist crap. Again straight from the leaflets of the BNP to the pages of Northern Voices. 

'You implicitly blame all Muslims in Rochdale for propping up paedophile MP Cyril Smith. Racist bullshit. Was it not the white politicians who covered for him? Was it not the Met who disappeared the files on his abuse? The white chief executive who was willfully ignorant of the abuse? No somehow in your bizarre racist conspiracy theory world it was Muslims who were to blame. Shameful and disgraceful to publish this disgusting crap.

'I would love to know who it is on the admin team of the Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook Page who thinks this is ok?

'If Stefan is standing by this racist bullshit he should consider his position within the trade union movement. 

'If this appears again on the Friends of Jeremy Corbyn page I will be leaving it.'

Sam

 

 NV Editor's Footnote [10th, August 2020]:   We would suggest that the decision of Rochdale's Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page administer who took down the contents of Stefan Cholewka comments without apparent debate, following Sam O'Brien's threat has behaved in a cowardly manner and by so doing has effectively brought the site into disrepute.  This is apparently being compounded by the fact that since then Stefan has been unable to post comments on the site.  Shortly we hope to be able to make a fuller statement on this matter explaining our own approach.

Editorial update [12/08/20]:

YESTERDAY a source close to the Rochdale Friends of Jeremy Corbyn Facebook page told us that comments by Stefan Cholewka have now been enabled again on the site.  This is clearly to be welcomed.

Meanwhile, Sam O'Brien has e-mailed us to say that 'All my comments are in a personal capacity' and not in any way related to any of his political or trade union affiliations. 

 

****************************

Cllr. ‘Two Votes’ Rana Plays The Race Card Again!

by Les May

A FEW days after the original piece appeared on Northern Voices I received an e-mail which read:  'Enjoyed reading the article :   "Two Votes Rana Plays the Race Card’, which nicely highlights what I would call the ‘acceptable face of racism’ ie no one would ever get away with calling for more whites or ethnic majority councillors / MPs or blaming ethnic minority councillors / MPs for bad decisions affecting ‘whites’.'

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2020/07/two-votes-rana-plays-race-card.html

As I think that words like ‘racism’, ‘fascism’, ‘nazi’ are overused to the point of being debased and losing contact with their original meaning, I had mentally filed Faisal Rana’s original complaint under ‘whingeing’ not ‘racism’. Nonetheless I find it difficult to disagree with the e-mail writer. If one of the ‘non-BAME’ Labour councillors had written in this spirit s/he would have found themselves suspended from the party and subject to a disciplinary inquiry.

After a writer on NV pointed out that there is a balance amongst our councillors ‘Two Votes’ has amended his blog part of which now reads; ‘But overcoming all the barriers to fair representation in my authority has not come about by accident. It has taken a lot of hard work and it has been left almost entirely to BAME themselves.’

This is more nonsense which again lays him open to a charge of racism if anyone wants to make it. The Labour party has people of all skin colours/race/ethnicity, call it what you will, amongst its members and supporters, so don’t disparage their efforts. One of the reasons my ward has an ‘Asian’ councillor is that I, and people like me, voted for him.

It’s not the BNP, EDL or some other unsavoury group who are trying to inject a racial theme into Rochdale politics, it’s Faisal Rana, and it appears to me that he is doing it to advance his political career. We may all come to regret it if he succeeds.

Curious History of 'Ethnic' Politics in Rochdale

Editorial comment:  
Below are the contents of a post on the personal Blog
of the very notorious Rochdale Councillor Faisal Rana.
He is notorious because he managed to get a police
caution for voting twice at the local elections in 2018.
 As the Labour member for Spotland and Falinge he
insisted he ‘didn’t realise’ that casting votes in two
wards in the same council borough was an offence. 

In a tweet on July 22 Cllr Rana says:  

'Too few Black Asian Minority Ethnic [BAME]
councillors leads to bad decisions.'  

Yet some would say Rochdale has tended to be 

over-represented by Muslim councillors, and it is worth 

examining if this has been in historic terms healthy for

democracy and the moral status of the town.  

I say this because since the early 1970s I have had a close 

personal and political relationship with the Kashmir community 
in this town, and even accompanied a party of supporters of 
Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front supporters when in 1992 
they went to the House of Commons to appeal to get the support 
of Paddy  Ashdown, the then Lib Dem leader, in their conflict on

the Indian sub-continent between the Jammu and Kashmir 
Liberation Front (JKLF), and the India government.  
Worries have been voiced in Rochdale about the problems 
of the Indian sub-continent becoming too much of an issue 
in the town's politics.

Cllr Faisal Rana@FaisalRana48·Jul 22
Cllr Rana tweets: 'Too few BAME councillors leads to bad decisions.'

Cllr Rana continues as follows:
'BAME councillors are hugely under-represented on councils'

A REPORT just out that BAME councillors are hugely under-represented on councils across the UK was depressing, if not predictable.
'Sky News reported that only seven percent of all UK councillors are from a minority ethnic background, which is half the percentage BAME people make up of the country's overall population (14 per cent). The report, by Professor Maria Sobolewska and Dr Neema Begum from the University of Manchester, highlighted for the first time the scale of under-representation in councils.
'They said under-representation on councils - where decisions are made on where money is spent - "creates a potential for perpetuating and reinforcing racial inequality and disadvantage."
'To those like me working in local government, it does not come as a surprise. All too often, an ingrained if unspoken prejudice exists in many Labour Party branches that BAME candidates cannot win in predominantly white seats. The selection process and selection meetings are poorly run and often loaded against minority ethnic minority candidates. How many branches, even today, meet on licenced premises discouraging many mumslim [sic] members from taking part? Even when a BAME member is selected as a candidate, it is likely to be in a seat that the party has little or no chance in winning.'

********************************

ROCHDALE'S HISTORY OF ETHNIC POLITICS

by Brian Bamford

RACIAL participation in the politics of Rochdale stems from the 1970s, when the then Rochdale MP Cyril Smith established a close relationship with the Muslim community.  This was later well documented in the book 'Cyril Smith: Smile for the Camera' by the now disgraced former Rochdale MP, Simon Danzcuk.*  For more than 20 years 1972 during the period Smith was in office as the local MP, the Asian community there continually supported the Liberals and the Liberal Democrats.  Only later after Liz Lynne, who succeeded Smith as the Rochdale MP, lost the seat to Labour in 1997 did the Muslims in the town begin to transfer their affections to the Labour Party.  After the now disgraced MP Simon Danzcuk, became the Rochdale MP in 2010 the links between the the local Asians and the party accelerated, and the Labour Councillor Faisal Rana has now been able to boast in a post on his Blog entitled:  'How Labour In Rochdale Is Becoming A More Inclusive Party.'
 

Councillor Rana writes:  'To those like me working in local government, it does not come as a surprise. All too often, an ingrained if unspoken prejudice exists in many Labour Party branches that BAME candidates cannot win in predominantly white seats. The selection process and selection meetings are poorly run and often loaded against minority ethnic minority candidates. How many branches, even today, meet on licenced premises discouraging many mumslim [sic] members from taking part? Even when a BAME member is selected as a candidate, it is likely to be in a seat that the party has little or no chance in winning.'

At present according to Carl Faulkner 'Rochdale Council has 12 ‘Asian’ councillors – that equates to 20% and is way over the Rochdale Asian population %.'

After he was elected Councillor Rana was cautioned for electoral fraud by the police for voting twice in the local elections.  Yet, he still retained his seat and has since been promoted.  When I spoke to another Rochdale Muslim councillor about the shame that Rana was bringing upon the Labour Party by his conduct I was told that he (Rana) has too much influence over the leader of the Rochdale Labour Party Alan Brett.

Despite what Cllr Rana and the community of scholars might say  'Ethnic identity politics' doesn't have a very noble tradition in Rochdale.

****************

*  In his book about Cyril Smith, Smile for the Camera, co-written with a fellow Labour activist, Matthew Baker, Simon Danczuk details Smith's close relationship with the Muslim community in Rochdale, including the encouragement of electoral fraud amongst them, apparently. According to Danczuk, Cyril Smith "transformed politics in the Asian community and became a powerful voice," as they switched from Labour to Liberal en bloc, and Smith prevented people being deported as illegal immigrants and supported the building of the first mosque in the Lancashire town. Danczuk continues: "It was in this community that Cyril unquestionably had the biggest influence."

The Authoritarian Road To Alternative Politics?

by Les May

SINCE the election of Donald Trump we have become used to hearing the term ‘Alt-Right’ to describe an unpleasant strand of the US political landscape.  But before we start feeling smug about this perhaps we should ask ourselves whether there is emerging in UK politics an ‘Alt-Left’ strand which shares the same authoritarian outlook as the ‘Alt-Right’.

Traditional right wing politics is characterised by a conservative approach to economic and social matters, nationalism and opposition to abortion, same sex partnerships, premarital sex etc.  The ‘Alt Right’ differs from traditional right wing politics by these being secondary to being overtly racist in outlook and a readiness to resort to violence against those who oppose it.

Traditional left wing politics emphasises the importance of economic and social justice, income redistribution, internationalism, and a more liberal attitude to sexual and social mores.  The ‘Alt-Left’ differs from this mainstream because it makes tackling the great inequalities of income and wealth that plague the UK subserviant to ‘race’, and readily resorts to accusations of racism against those who do not share this view and are willing to oppose it.

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National Trust 'Somewhat Stuffy & Middle-Class'

 by
JEFFERY GREEN

"Yes the NT [National Trust] is a somewhat stuffy and middle-class group, which recently found that there was much public interest in the kitchens and servant quarters of the grand houses that it owns.  I think so much is due to that arch-snob Lees-Milne* who negotiated with the financially straightened owners - in Pulborough's Petworth House NT enabling the family to stay in the front portion of the grand house whilst the NT kept up the deer park and permitted visitors to the rear.  They finally allow access to the kitchens.  But they did purchase that Chartist cottage near Bromsgrove and the workhouse at Southwell so slowly the NT became slightly socially aware. 

"Apart from the tracts of land, these grand houses suggest to me the creation of a history that would, say in the case of France, be as valid as one based on the Loire chateaux."

 *  (George) James Henry Lees-Milne (6 August 1908 – 28 December 1997) was an English writer and expert on country houses, who worked for the National Trust from 1936 to 1973. He was an architectural historian, novelist and biographer. His extensive diaries remain in print.

                                                                                                  

**************************

Forget Slavery – Have a Scone!

by  Christopher Draper

THE downfall of Edward Colston sent shock waves through the massed ranks of NATIONAL TRUST top brass.  Founded in 1895 primarily to protect threatened landscapes, over succeeding decades NT has increasingly focussed on acquiring, conserving and celebrating the legacy of the genocidal colonial adventurers, aristocratic land grabbers and grubby financiers that created Britain’s despicable slave trade. These blood money palaces, stately homes and grand gardens were designed to flaunt their patron’s social standing and aesthetic good taste and camouflage the barbaric reality.  It was myth-making on a grand scale and it’s a tradition the NATIONAL TRUST has assiduously maintained and enhanced.

Rattling the Tea Cups

Suddenly the hierarchy feel exposed and vulnerable – Colston’s statue was pulled down on the 7^th June 2020 and within four days NT bosses had spirited away and hidden the “Kneeling Slave” statue that formerly greeted visitors to Dunham Massey Hall, Altrincham.  Visitors had long questioned the Trust’s failure to explain and justify the prominent exhibition of this racially demeaning icon and in response NT bosses defended the racist imagery with an outrageous lie…

Whitewash

NT management refuse to admit any failure of moral or historical judgement and instead claim they belatedly acted solely out of concern for visitors’ emotions;

“The statue has caused upset and distress because of the way it depicts a black person and because of its prominence at the front of the house”

Typical NT weasel words, in truth it acted to pre-empt the embarrassment of a public toppling in a Black-Lives-Matter related incident.  This is evident from NT’s application to the planning authorities for retroactive “listed structure” consent for the statue’s removal.  A spokesman for Trafford Council confirms that,

“The NATIONAL TRUST have written to the council’s planning service to advise that the statue was removed in order to preserve the structure”!

NT continue to claim,

“We don’t want to censor or deny the way colonial histories are woven into the fabric of our buildings…”

But this is precisely the reverse of the truth…

The BIG LIE!

In response to visitors’ critical enquiries, a decade ago NT erected an “interpretive” plaque alongside the Dunham Massey statue,

“This sundial is in the style of one commissioned by King William III. It represents Africa, one of four continents known at the time.  The figure depicts a Moor, not a slave…”!

No-one, apart from the NATIONAL TRUST, has ever made such an absurdly dishonest claim. Academics routinely refer to this and similar statues as “Kneeling Slaves”, sometimes as “Blackamoors”, never a Moor and always acknowledging the servile pose and colonial context.  A 1725 inventory details the figure as, “A negro Slave kneeling on one knee and bearing a Sun Dyall on his head” (sic).   The slave’s bent, kneeling posture bearing the full weight of a stone sundial for the benefit of aristocratic observers (and latterly modern visitors) offends everyone but the NATIONAL TRUST for as Madge Dresser emphasises, “The Blackamoor’s humanity is subsumed by his utilitarian function”.

The NT is structurally and philosophically wedded to a White Supremacist version of history.  It polishes, maintains and reproduces the reactionary views of a politico-cultural elite and denies the life histories of the exploited.  Despite being a mass membership organisation the NT is essentially a rich, powerful corporation that makes only occasional, spasmodic efforts to portray the lives of the lower orders.  The organisation eschews vital historical analysis preferring to retail romanticism, infotainment, refreshments and pseudo-historical nick-knackery – enter through the car-park and exit through the gift shop.

I’ll tackle more aspects of NT racism, greenwash and assorted flummery in future posts but focus here on the iconography of the “Kneeling Slave” and there’s another one on the other side of the Pennines…

A Telling Alternative

Wentworth Castle near Barnsley was built by a notorious slave trading family whose “Blackamoor” statue is now housed in the conservatory, which, along with extensive parklands is administered by the NATIONAL TRUST.  It’s a similar “Kneeling Slave” bearing a stone sundial, although it’s slightly earlier c.1720 rather than Dunham’s c.1735, it’s in much better condition.  This is not simply because it’s now kept indoors but because it was sensitively restored in 2011 by conservators who took great care to create a realistic black skin tone. When installed in the conservatory further scrupulous work was undertaken to research the context and historical significance of the figure most notably by Patrick Eyres.  Eyres subsequently led public walks around the grounds explaining the politico-historical context of the house and gardens and the particular significance of the “Blackamoor”.  These researches culminated in publication of his (highly recommended) book “Blackamoors in the Georgian Garden” (New Arcadian Press) and the erection of accurate and insightful interpretive signage at Wentworth, eg;

“Sir Thomas Wentworth helped to negotiate the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This international treaty confirmed Britain as the most important commercial power in Europe. It included a lucrative monopoly over the Atlantic slave trade. Wentworth represented this in his house and gardens, including a statue of a kneeling African man supporting a sundial that now stands in the conservatory. Like many of his contemporaries, Wentworth made a great deal of money from the sale and labour of enslaved Africans. This human misery helped pay for the house and gardens he built.”

Exception Proves the Rule

Wentworth’s enlightened admissions contrast sharply with Dunham Massey’s denial and the explanation isn’t hard to find for NT only gained control of Wentworth Castle Gardens a year ago.  Wentworth’s admirable research and restoration had already been completed by volunteers who formed a community “Heritage Trust” that administered the gardens for two decades until shortage of funds forced them to hand over to NT in 2019.  The community trust recognised the Blackamoor as an icon of colonial exploitation that if exhibited unexplained would embody and perpetuate a racist world-view but when sensitively restored and contextualised offered enormous potential for critical re-evaluation of imperial history.  It’s imperative that the local trust’s interpretation endures and that visitors monitor the possible “re-interpretation” of the “Kneeling Slave” under NT stewardship.

“Not Another One!”

“Kneeling Slaves” were the eighteenth century’s best selling lead garden statues after William III, who owned both house and plantation slaves, commissioned a couple from Van Nost in 1701 for his Hampton Court Garden.  Supply and demand collapsed with the demise of the last London manufacturer, John Cheere in 1787, the year the Committee for the Abolition of the African Slave Trade was formed. Rather than boast of personal involvement in the slave trade, stately home owners grew embarrassed by the origins of their wealth and “Blackamoors” disappeared from grand gardens to be sold on, hidden away or melted down. Now only eight “Kneeling Slaves” continue to occupy their original garden, including our two NT examples but if the celebrated “Brenda of Bristol” were to visit her local NT property, she might well utter her famous catchphrase, “Oh no, not another one!”

Unbelievably a bedroom on show at the NATIONAL TRUST’s Dyrham Park “boasts” not just one but two “Kneeling Slaves”!  As house rather than garden slave, they’re borne down by the weight of huge exotic seashells rather than stone sundials but the pose is identical and leaving absolutely no scope for denial their servility is emphasised by their shackling with slave collar and chains.

Wilful Ignorance or Worse?

Wentworth’s sensitive restoration, display and interpretation exemplifies how these figures can be properly exhibited but distortion, denial and obfuscation more typically characterises NT’s approach.  Although NT received a copy of Eyres’ research it continued to exhibit the Dunham and Dyrham “Blackamoors” in the de-contextualised aesthetic fashion favoured by their original aristocratic owners.  In February 2018 a visitor was so shocked by Dyrham’s “Blackamoors” display that they complained on TRIPADVISOR;

“I was deeply disturbed during my visit to Dyrham Hall when I witnessed chained depictions of enslaved human beings in subservient positions casually being displayed as ornamental features…there was no explanation of these artefacts in the room or in the interpretation leaflets (there was only information about paintings and pottery)…”

Another post registered “revulsion” at the racist display.  Six months later Dyrham Park’s “Public Relations Manager” responded by insisting there are,“information leaflets on display next to the stands which put them into context”. However, no leaflets or info boards are apparent in extant photographs and although NT did recently supply me with an undated copy of a leaflet contextualising the “Blackamoor Stands” its value is academic as NT have now removed both Dyrham’s “Chained Slaves” from public view.

As I write, visitors can still gain sight of Wentworth’s “Blackamoor” through the windows of a locked conservatory but the Dunham and Dyrham “slaves” have been hidden away and their images removed from the NT website.  In future posts I’ll explain further how black lives don’t matter much to NT, and neither do white working class lives, nor internal democracy but in the meantime Northern Voices would appreciate readers’ feedback on your opinions and experiences of the NATIONAL TRUST.

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